I'm having a very long weekend as I write this. The air conditioning in our office building broke down yesterday (Thursday, July 2), and when the temperature in our office suite got to 83F by 2 p.m., Kelsey got permission from the home office to shut down for the rest of the day and tomorrow as well, if necessary.

Once Kelsey got the word that the a/c wouldn't be working again until sometime over the weekend, we were told today would be a paid holiday as well. Sweet...with July 4 being on the weekend, we weren't expecting any time off at all!

So, here I am at home with an extra day off and nothing to do but write, something I've had little time to do since the economy went in the shithole last fall, and it's turned into a very emotional day.

My emotions are heightened because I'm infatuated with a guy. A guy who is sensitive to music and is very emotional himself. My father is a musician and schooled me in a lot of music, so it's fairly rare that I run into someone my age who introduces me to music that really hits me hard. My father got most of that out of the way in my childhood and teen years.

More on Rolly later except to say that he has been sending me links to music I didn't know existed, and giving me CD's full of MP3's and some of it has made me very emotional. In particular one piece named "Tam Lin."

Of course, it adds to the impact of a piece to know something about it and about the performer, and it's been that way with my discovery, through Rolly, of the song named "Tam Lin" as performed by Fairport Convention and sung by it's lead singer of that time, Sandy Denny.

Denny had a voice that was both clear and strong and a tad husky. A beautiful voice that compares with those of the best female singers. Denny's story will come later, for as powerful as the song "Tam Lin" is, knowing something of Ms. Denny makes it all the more powerful.

As you might guess, I'm a lover of language, and above all it is the poetry of "Tam Lin" that holds me in a fearsome grip till the very last line.

It's funny that a story about elves and fairies and hell should affect me so much, for I'm really a very empirical girl. I'm a far cry from the goofy and giddy earth mamas who really believe that the rock we call earth is a goddess, or think that, through wicca, they can influence their fate or the fate of others.

On any given evening, I'm far more likely to be watching The Science Channel than watering herbs or doing macrame.

The ballad we call "Tam Lin" is a traditional celtic song that most experts seem to trace to the English/Scottish border. If that seems a bit vague, just remember that in the past, before surveying and exact records keeping, where a border was could be more of a military reality than a geographical one. In other words, if the English held a valley, it was theirs. If the Scots took it back, it changed hands and became Scottish.

So, let's set that matter aside and delve into the story, which, in the gorgeous language of one of the more accessible translations begins this way:

I forbid you maidens all that wear gold in your hair
To travel to Carterhaugh for young Tam Lin is there
None that go by Carterhaugh but they leave him a pledge
Either their mantles of green or else their maidenhead

The story is a love story about the love of a beautiful girl, Janet, for a handsome elfin lord named Tam Lin. That first lyric, while it's unsaid, is presumably Janet's lordly father forbidding the maidens of his court to go by Carterhaugh (which may be gaelic for Carter Hall although today it's the name of a forest in the border country). Apparently, Tam Lin was in the habit of taking either a girl's coat or her virginity. (What he did with all the coats, I can't imagine.)

Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she

Janet is apparently one of those rebellious teens. Tell her not to do something and she must give it a try. Or maybe it's the seemingly eternal fascination with bad boys. Who knows?

"Kirtle" is a term for a long dress, which Janet apparently hiked up in order to ride her horse to Carterhaugh. Now I know the exact moment when this tune hooked me. It was as soon as I heard the words "as fast as go can she." What a beautiful expression! A combination of words violating almost all of the syntax I know, and yet immediately understandable, much like Yodaspeak. An expression so wonderful that I've named this piece after it.

She'd not pulled a double rose, a rose but only two
When up there came young Tam Lin, says "Lady, pull no more"
"And why come you to Carterhaugh without command from me?"
"I'll come and go", young Janet said, "and ask no leave of thee"

It may not seem that the first two lines of that quatrain rhyme, but they don't rhyme given our 21st Century pronunciation. A millennium ago, they might well have been a rhyme, or at least a near rhyme. So, Janet is caught in the act of taking two roses when Tam Lin arrives on the scene and asks what business she has being there, whereupon she expresses a right to do as she pleases without begging his permission. (I've done a little reading and there is a back story in which Janet's father owned Carterhaugh and had given it to her. Of course, Tam Lin's claim to ownership may be magical rather than legal.)

Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to her father as fast as go can she
Well, up then spoke her father dear and he spoke meek and mild
"Oh, and alas, Janet," he said, "I think you go with child"

It's not clear how her father knows this. Perhaps she returned from Carterhaugh with her mantle and so he must have claimed her maidenhead.

"Well, if that be so," Janet said, "myself shall bear the blame
There's not a knight in all your hall shall get the baby's name”
For if my love were an earthly knight as he is an elfin grey
I'd not change my own true love for any knight you have"

Here Janet disavows any possibility of letting one of her father's knights be the nominal (if not actual) father of the baby. And why? Because she's fallen in love with the handsome Tam Lin.

Janet tied her kirtle green a bit above her knee
And she's gone to Carterhaugh as fast as go can she
"Oh, tell to me, Tam Lin," she said, "why came you here to dwell?"
"The Queen of Faeries caught me when from my horse I fell
And at the end of seven years she pays a tithe to Hell
I so fair and full of flesh and feared it be myself

And so we discover that Tam Lin was once a mortal who fell from his horse and was caught by the Queen of Faeries, and he fears that he will be given (sacrificed?) to the devil in exchange for what? It isn't clear, but I'm guessing it is seven more years on earth as the Queen of Faeries. At this point, Tam Lin proposes a way he can remain on earth and become mortal:

But tonight is Hallowe'en and the faerie folk ride
Those that would their true love win at Miles Cross they must buy
First let past the horses black and then let past the brown
Quickly run to the white steed and pull the rider down
For I'll ride on the white steed, the nearest to the town
For I was an earthly knight, they give me that renown

The plan seems to be to take advantage of the magic of Halloween by having Janet pull Tam Lin from his horse and claim him in much the way he was claimed by the Queen of Faeries.

Oh, they will turn me in your arms to a newt or a snake
But hold me tight and fear not, I am your baby's father
And they will turn me in your arms into a lion bold
But hold me tight and fear not and you will love your child
And they will turn me in your arms into a naked knight
But cloak me in your mantle and keep me out of sight"

So, even though the magic of Halloween will have him changing shape several times and in various ways, she is to cling to him and hide him and eventually she will win him as a mortal from the Queen of Faeries.

In the middle of the night she heard the bridle ring
She heeded what he did say and young Tam Lin did win
Then up spoke the Faerie Queen, an angry queen was she
”Woe betide her ill-fought face, an I'll death may she die”
"Oh, had I known, Tam Lin," she said, "what this night I did see
I'd have looked him in the eyes and turned him to a tree”

The syntax of that last paragraph seems muddled. It may have been clearer to someone 800 years ago, but it seems fair to say that the Queen of Faeries, having lost Tam Lin to a mortal, is pretty pissed, and had she known he would (to her mind) betray her in this way, she wouldn't have saved him but would instead have turned him into a tree.

Now, by this time I hope you think this ballad is as wonderful as I do, so now on to the story if its star-crossed singer, Sandy Denny.

Born in London, England, in 1947 as Alexandra Elene MacLean Denny, she had a Scottish grandmother who sang folk songs, which may have contributed to Sandy's interest in folk music.

At first tending toward a career in nursing, at age 18 she instead attended the Kinston College of Art, where she became involved in a folk music club. She was discovered by a member of The Strawbs and recorded one album with them which included an early version of the song "Who Knows Where The Time Goes." It's said that during this period she hung out with the likes of Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton.

Eventually, she was hired by Fairport Convention, which had lost its lead singer, and it's said that "she was like a clean glass in a sink of dirty dishes" compared to the other singers who wanted the job. There was no doubt she was the one they wanted. The ultimate result is an album regarded as the classic folk rock album, Liege and Lief, which is also the album containing the aforementioned "Tam Lin."

Wanting to go her own way and develop her own songwriting abilities, she formed and led a band named Fotheringay along with her eventual husband and father of her one child. But Fotheringay lasted only briefly, and then she was on to a solo career which included guest appearances with other bands, including The Who and Led Zeppelin (she is, in fact, the only non-Zep singer ever to appear in any Zep recording).

She rejoined Fairport Convention, recorded one more album, and did one more brief tour with them.

Her own psychology seemed to have been an impediment to her success, for she was undecided to continue in the traditional folk vein, where she had gained a following, or move out into a more mass market to compete with the folk-pop likes of Judy Collins, Joan Baez, and Joni Mitchell.

She is also said to been very self-deprecating regarding her appearance, and when one reviews photos of her, she sometimes seems like a Janis Joplin-style plain jane with straw for hair and sometimes just quietly pretty. She certainly was no Shania Twain. Unfortunately, in the world of popular vocal music, a woman's appearance is at least as important as her vocal abilities.

It matters little because she died at a time which should have been toward the beginning of her career. She fell down the stairs of her parents home and while she didn't die immediately, some blame this fall for her collapse a month later at a friend's house and her death in a hospital four days after that.

Apparently no conclusive autopsy was performed because the exact cause of her death is a matter of some controversy, with some blaming it on a brain hemorrhage related to the fall and some on a brain tumor, for she had been experiencing headaches and dizzy spells. Others attribute her death to substance abuse, though I'm not clear on what substances she supposedly had been abusing other than alcohol and tobacco. I can't find any references to the likes of heroin or cocaine.

It's too bad she's gone, not just because of what she might have done, but because I really would have done almost anything to hear her sing "Tam Lin" live.

You've heard me talk about her performance of "Tam Lin" enough. Time for you to listen and hopefully be as mesmerized as I am:

Okay, if you read my most recent post about Phil and Elize, you may be wondering if the "something wonderful" mentioned at the end of that story has made itself known yet.

The answer is "no" and I have to admit it may never become known. Why? Because it's not really clear anything will ever happen. I'm a very level-headed and empirical kind of girl, and I don't believe in a spirit world. I know that Phil and Zazie suspect that the occasional appearances of the dead Clair in Elize's body are a kind of delusion on Elize's part.

Phil used to have a way of telling the two girls apart by how they kissed, and at first it seemed to him that when Clair appeared and kissed him as Clair always had, that was evidence it was really her. As time has gone by, he told me, it occurred to him that, as close as they were, they may have discussed kissing styles. Also, as a mildly incestuous pair of horny girls, they had kissed each other many a time. Perhaps, this knowledge wasn't even openly discussed between them.

Elize is the kindest of women. Not a mean bone in her body, and to toy with Phil by faking Clair just isn't possible. In short, nobody who knows her believes that Elize would torture Phil, and my own experience with the manifestation of Clair seemed quite real in the sense that Elize seemed quite overwhelmed by it, embarrassed, and almost violated by it, and also had no idea what Clair had said until I revealed it. She behaved much in the way I know epileptics often behave after a seizure.

My ex-boyfriend Eric had a job once where he was shared a small office with a female coworker who, unbeknownst to him, was epileptic. Well, one day they are working side-by-side at their respective terminals and she goes stiff as a board, feet straight out, arms straight down at her sides, fists clenched, and her chair was sliding out from under her rapidly, so he grabbed her. I mean, he knows what epilepsy is and recognized it right away as an epileptic seizure.

Well, as happens with epileptics, the seizure lasted just a few 10's of seconds, he said it was perhaps 30 or 40. But as she slowly regained awareness, it didn't all come back at once. She pushed him away and looked around, obviously not recognizing him or the room at all. He got up and approached her, trying to explain that she'd had an epileptic seizure, but she just backpedaled away from him screaming, so he stopped moving toward her.

The screaming brought other workers from down the hall, many of them looking at him with eyes of accusation. Luckily, their supervisor, who was aware of her condition, arrived and explained what had happened to the others, saying that since she hadn't had a seizure in years he didn't think it necessary to mention it to anyone.

Gradually, who she was, where she was, and the fact of her disease came back to her, and with it came embarrassment and profuse apologies. He asked her why she hadn't told him or prepared him in any way, and she said it was her perception that once people knew, they treated her as different..."not normal." And it was true, from that day forward she was not just another employee.

That was somewhat the way it was with Elize after Clair's appearance out on the dock. Which is why I believe that Clair wasn't putting it on. Either that or she's an Academy Award-worthy actress.

But, anyway, no news on that front. I have met with Phil and Elize several times socially since that incident and I've learned that, irony of ironies, she has become pregnant just at the time that cancer is trying to kill her. And that her cancer specialist advised her to consider abortion because of the effect the chemotherapy he was advising might have on the fetus.

It seems that chemotherapy's harm to the fetus happens mostly in the first trimester. But Elize refused chemotherapy because, as she put it, "I can't try to buy my own life by killing my baby," and so she's putting off the chemotherapy for a while. I could tell that Phil, desperate not to lose Elize, would have preferred she go on chemo, but at the same time, he respected her wishes enough to bite his lip and say nothing.

And so, you are caught up on their little story.

On to better and brighter things: I have met a guy named "Rolly." That's not his real first name, but it's what everyone calls him and it's based on his last name.

He's a musician. I know what a lot of people think about chicks dating musicians: as a friend once said, "Girls dating musicians is like guys dating strippers." I'll let you make of that what you will, but Rolly isn't a typical musician. He's actually working toward a degree in software programming, and he simply works as a musician as a way to make a little extra income. He has a scholarship that pays for most of his course fees and books. He just needs a bit extra to have some kind of life outside of school.

Portland has a lot of outdoor concerts in the summer and it was at a concert on Pioneer Square that I first saw him. I wasn't even planning on going to the concert. I had been shopping for shoes when, as I exited Macy's, I heard the music. The band was playing a kind of music that walked the line between rock and jazz without being a hackneyed kind of "fusion." There he was on electric guitar, playing like crazy. I wished I had my father with me because dad loves discovering young talent.

Fortunately for me, given the sort of music they played, neither pop nor dance music, the crowd was sparse enough that I could sit down fairly close to the bandstand. There was a particular moment when I opened my eyes (for I'd been grooving with my eyes closed), and I found him staring right at me as he played, though he quickly looked away.

He kept looking back at me from time to time, so I knew either he thought I was a freak or he was infatuated with me.

I needed to find out which.

So, I stayed until their set was done. Most of the crowd left, but musicians always attract girls. I expected that. He talked with them politely and said something that made them go. Probably just said he had to finish packing up and help his buddies load their truck. But as soon as the girls were out of site he came over, for I was still sitting there on the ground, and he asked, "How did you like the concert?" I told him they sounded great.

He held out his hand and said, "Need help getting up?" "Why would I want to get up?" "Because if you don't you can't join me and the boys for a beer over at Bridgeport." (This is a brewhouse pub very near my apartment.) In my head, I was jumping for joy.

And so I helped a bit with the last of the gear (what I couldn't lift, I dragged), and when all was in, I hopped in back between their drums and PA system and across from my handsome new friend. He introduced himself by his real name, but quickly added that everyone called him Rolly. I introduced myself and then he introduced his three friends who all seemed like nice guys. Music nerds to be sure, but nice.

When I say music nerds, I refer to a certain kind of guy who is totally into his instrument and hardly thinks of anything else. These guys get really good but their music lacks the passion of the other kind of musician. The best musicians are passionate people. The instrument is just that, an instrument. A means to an end. A way to let something in their soul out into the into the world. Real musicianship is more akin to a compulsion or obsession than a fascination.

It turned out that Rolly's studies were in the direction of writing software useful for musicians, and perhaps even toward the invention of totally new instruments. Instruments musicians as recent as a few years ago couldn't even have imagined.

As good as my dad is on his instruments (for he plays several), it's the music he loves, not the instruments themselves. He says the music in him is bursting to get out, but it can't get out until he picks up his sax or sits down at a piano or drum set. Daddy is a passionate man, full of love, full of lust, full of fight. He's spent the occasional night in jail after a bar fight. The fights were mostly defending another band member, for he's a rather easygoing guy, but my mom talked to him after he broke his hand (I was 9 or 10 at the time), and after that, the fights were few and far between. You see, it took three months before he could even start practicing and it was more than nine months before he could take on an easy gig. She had to go out and find a second job waiting on tables, serving alcohol, and getting her butt patted. She preferred her regular gig as a mom and a teacher and a librarian, and didn't like it when the students and their parents saw her serving alcohol.

But that period when he was a stay-at-home parent was when we really got to know each other. At first, to while away the time he would sit me down at the piano and try to teach me to play. It was hopeless. I'm not, and never will be, a musician. The only art of any sort I do passably well is writing, and writing involves listening and observing, and so he soon realized that what I really wanted from him was just to hear him talk.

He told me many a story, which I loved to hear, but even better was what I overheard when, as we often did, we visited his musician friends. He and his buddies would start talking and soon almost forget I was there. If you think that's terrible, think again: that was the best part for me! Now and then he'd look to see if I was bored and realize that I was enraptured. I was fascinated not just by the details of what I heard but by the unique way musicians express themselves. Jazz musicians, I mean. They are a breed apart. And even though my father is as caucasian as they come, as a jazz man he can rap with the best of them. They have a lingo, patois, and cadence all their own.

My mom would have flipped had she known the stories I overheard, the language that was used. But I wouldn't be the person or writer I am today had I not spent those months largely with my father overhearing men talk freely about music, musicians, abusable substances, and easy women.

While I can't play a lick of music, my father—a walking encyclopedia of jazz, rock, and pop—has imparted much of his knowledge to me. Most of what my friends are discovering about music daily, such as a certain friend's finding out that Jimi Hendrix' "All Along The Watchtower" is actually a Bob Dylan song, I already knew. And I knew it years ago when I was a child. I remember clearly riding in the car with my father when he was doing a little radio channel surfing and happened upon the song. I asked him to let it play because I liked it. "You know who wrote that, don't you?" he asked (knowing full well I would not). "Jimi Hendrix" I replied with certainty. He smiled and said, "No...Bob Dylan. Know who he is?" I said no, and so for the next half hour or so I learned all about Bob Dylan and all the songs I knew and liked that Dylan had composed.

And that sort of thing continues to this day. Even on the phone with him just to say "Hi" I'll learn a bit more from him.

I digress.

And so I'm sitting in the brewpub with Rolly and his buddies, who are floored by how much I know about music. In passing, I mentioned that folk-rock had never grabbed me much. The other guys agreed with me, but Rolly asked. "Have you ever heard of Fairport Convention?" I said the name was familiar but that I had never heard anything by them. He pulled out his MP3 player and played their version of "Tam Lin" and I was hooked. Not just by the music but by the language.

He could tell how it affected me and said, "Never say you don't like folk rock again. And, in fact, if you think about it, there's a huge folk influence in Led Zeppelin," an assertion he justified in fascinating detail.

(I was thinking: finally, a friend who could teach me more about music than I already knew!)

Well, I've been seeing Rolly quite a bit and attending his performances when I can. Our friendship has been growing steadily. I've said before that while I may have sex more frequently with chicks, and while that may make it seem that I have strong lesbo tendencies, in fact it's just that sex with chicks is easier. I can fuck a girl and it doesn't necessarily "mean" anything. It doesn't mean she owns me and it doesn't mean I'm a whore. See what I mean?

But I am ready to be someone's whore, which is a feeling I haven't had since my last big romantic love relationship with my ex-boyfriend, Eric.

After one of his gigs, we stopped at a 24-hour convenience store and got a bottle of screwtop wine and some chips. We went to the park my apartment overlooks which has tall grass, gravel paths, and the occasional bench. We sat on the bench eating, drinking, talking, and finally...making out. I was wearing a short summer dress and soon his hand was well up my thigh teasing my clit.

"Fuck it!" I said, standing up and pulling my panties down. I stepped out of them, leaving them on the gravel, sat back down, and started kissing him harder than ever. Soon he had two fingers in me and was kissing more passionately than ever. I went down onto my back and opened my legs for him. He took the cue, but instead of going straight for the gold, teased me by kissing his way up my inner thigh to my crotch.

When at long last his tongue found my pussy, he used his stiff tongue to massage my clit with a quick flitting motion of his tongue. He looked at me when I laughed, for his adeptness with his tongue had me thinking that he played the wrong instrument. He was made to play the trumpet, not the guitar. I reassured him that I was laughing out of pleasure, not at him, and he went back to work.

It was then that I noticed a bunch of what looked like college guys, their arms resting on the railing of a third floor balcony above us, not fifty feet away. How long they'd been watching I don't know, but when they noticed me looking back at them, several of them gave me the good old thumbs up, and I heard one of them say "Hey, guys, come watch this."

"Fuck me," I demanded, perhaps urged on by knowing we had an audience. I sat up, quickly slipped out of the dress's shoulder straps, and let the dress go to my waist. I wasn't wearing a bra: when you're an A-cupper like me, there are basically only three times you really need a bra: 1) when jogging or playing sports, 2) when you want to look like you've got more boobage than you actually have, and 3) when nipples are an issue, by which I mean when you might be showing more nipple than you want to (or should) or when you're wearing something likely to overstimulate them. Certain fabrics are very good at chafing nipples in a way that either hurts or makes them unpleasantly perky.

At any rate, dropping the top of my dress left me bare-chested and clad only at waist level. My legs were in the full open position, with my legs one over the back of the bench and one on the gravel below.

Now, don't imagine that because it was the dead of night (in fact, around 3 a.m.) that we were in any way hidden. I've already told you we had an audience, and that was because our bench was right next to and below one of the lights that lit the path every 20 or 30 feet.

I'm an exhibitionist. If you view my members area, you'll note that I've posed for porn. If you read all of my stories, you might have run across other instances of finding performing in front of others exciting. For example, there was a nerdy boy I liked in high school who was always being dumped on by the other kids in our class, so when we went to the local makeout spot after the Prom, I let him fuck me in the ass right in front of our classmates. While I wasn't in the "in crowd" in high school, it was more by choice than anything else. I was one of those "hot alt chicks" (a bit goth at the time). So, the fact that he nailed my ass in front of enough others that soon everyone knew about it really raised his cred immeasuably. Then there was the time when I was visiting Bremen, Germany, with Eric, that I wandered into a dyke dancer bar and danced for them for a while before doing a lesbo chick right up there on the stage in front of the all-girl audience.

Anyway, wanting to give the boys above even more to talk about, I had Rolly stand in front of me, whereupon I gave his 10-incher a lengthy and luxurious sucking that ended with me jacking him off into my mouth and all over my face. I then licked his cum off my hand and when my hand was clean, I scraped the jizz off my cheeks and licked it off my fingers as you would after eating a chicken dinner with your bare hands.

It was only when the boys above us erupted into hoots, hollers, and applause that Rolly realized we were being watched. Even if I couldn't see his face (which I could), I would have known that he was turning red. He quickly pulled his pants up and at first seemed angry, saying "Why didn't you tell me?" "This was more fun," I replied in the most devilish voice and expression I could muster. His expression turned from anger to consternation to amusement, whereupon he laughed. "You whore," he said, but in a tone of voice intended to show appreciation rather than accusation. "At your service," I said.

As we were all gathered up and ready to go, me with my panties in my fist, the boys on the balcony started chanting "Encore! Encore!" We had to go, but I did turn my back to the boys, bend over, haul my dress up over my ass, and spread my ass cheeks for them.

It was only then that it occured to me that some of them had to be neighbors, and that I'd probably run into them on the street or in the neighborhood Safeway store. That gave me a thrill of pleasure.

Rolly spent the night with me, fucking me silly come morning and taking me to a nearby diner-style joint where he bought me my breakfast of bisquits and gravy washed down with a cup of strong Portland java.

It sure is nice to have a boyfriend again. At least for now and for as long as it lasts. But daddy has warned me against falling in love with musicians. "Look at your mom," he'll say half jokingly. For her, at least in the early years, being married to a musician was not the best, with him being away quite a bit, with the fact that musicians are chick magnets, and with the fact that musicians don't live on the same schedule as "real people." They tend to go to bed when the rest of the population is getting up. Being responsible isn't their forte. And when it comes to getting hooked on drugs, musicians are at the top of the list!

Luckily, daddy never fell into the drug trap, and that's explained in another story. He was handed a syringe full of heroin and told he should give it a try. To his credit, that was a watershed moment, when he handed the needle back and decided to come home to be with his family and not to be a musician dependent upon touring for a living. Oh, he's done the occasional tour, frequently as a favor, filling in for another musician who had to drop out of a tour, or simply doing a short tour as a favor for a friend. But no more 6- or 9-month tours. A week or two at most, and when he tours, he always calls mom. Sometimes he even calls me. It makes me feel all warm inside, like when he used to peek into my room to make sure I was still there before he himself went off to bed. Understand, sometimes that was at midnight and sometimes it was at 4 or 5 a.m., because while he wasn't touring, he was still a musician.

The problem for me is, love stories like that just don't seem to be happening anymore.

But if it happens to me, it might be with Rolly. And I do have to remind myself that music isn't his way of life and that eventually it won't even be his primary source of income. He is a student working toward a degree.

ME wedded to a programmer? We'll see. ME in a white wedding dress? Behind a veil? Holding a bouquet? Some five year old cutie flinging white rose petals for me to tread on as I walk up the aisle?

Holy shit!

We'll see about that.

(Apologies to Ray Bradbury for punning on one of his titles.)

Phil, the protagonist of my story Moonlight And Elize, had arranged to meet me for dinner in a local sports bar. Ironic, since I don't think either one of us are all that terribly interested in sports, with the exception of following the Portland Trailblazers, my new hometown basketball team. When your city is up for a championship, all of a sudden the sport becomes more interesting. It was that way with any of Cleveland's teams and now Portland's basketball team had had a strong enough season to end up in the playoffs, though eventually they lost.

I arrived first, ordering one of the many microbrews available there, and for which Portland is so justifiably famous. I watched TV where the sports commentators were boringly talking about the game to come and were interviewing players, which never have much of anything profound to say. Finally, I saw Phil walk in the door and look around. I stood up and waved my arms and at last he smiled at me and held up a finger indicating to wait a minute. He then zipped over to the bar and bought a dark brew.

When he sat down he said, "Elize is parking the car. I knew we were a little late and she doesn't know what you look like, so she volunteered. I said, "Good luck: parking isn't that easy around here." "She'll be using Safeway's parking, I think."

We did small talk about the weather (uncommonly warm) and the hysteria over the Trailblazers. Then Elize entered the bar. I realized this not just by how his own face lit up but because most of the people in the bar turned their heads. I don't know if you've ever seen a real fashion model. Six feet tall, slender but curvy.

As she sat down, I realized that as beautiful as she was, she was no longer working as a fashion model. She looked to be about 30 years old and her hands where stained by the oil paint she used for her creations, which were abstract paintings or mixed media pieces involving paint, photos, and clippings.

She was gracious and shook my hand before sitting down and putting her hand on top of Phil's. We engaged in small talk about Portland for a few minutes when a cute little college girl waitress came by and took our orders. The lust among the three of us was palpable, telling me that Elize was just as bi as I was. But then I remembered that she and her sisters used to do three-ways with Phil before he moved in with them.

That was before Elize's identical twin sister, Clair, was killed on her way to a store one horrific evening. (I strongly urge you to find and read that story before reading this one. It will make this one mean more.)

We ate and chatted some more and they invited me over to their place after dinner. I accepted their invitation and accompanied them the 20 block or so to their studio home. Now, don't confuse this with what's frequently called a "studio apartment." A studio apartment is usually a tiny one-room apartment. By contrast, they lived in a true artist studio. It was spacious with those industrial windows that consist of a number of rectangular panels instead of a large expanse of glass. The panels had obviously been broken and replaced from time to time because while all of them had a pattern molded on one face so that light could come in but people outside couldn't look through the glass into the studio.

The ceiling had several large skylights that could be opened as vents and allowed direct sunlight down in the studio. There were also slidable canvas sheets that could be moved so as to block the light.

A good fifteen to twenty paintings hung on the brick walls and an equal number of artworks in various stages of completion were on easels or tabletops. The smell of oil paint, turpentine, and other chemicals she used permeated the air and gave the place a decidedly industrial smell.

The living space was upstairs. We walked down a hall and I ended up in a space that obviously functioned as a living room as well as a work area for Phil's photography activities. One wall had the same sort of industrial window as downstairs. It ran the full width of the wall and faced north, so that it never got direct sunlight even in full daylight. In a niche around a corner and sheltered from the window light was Phil's computer setup. He explained that it was easier to work on photos when the monitor was in a fairly dark place. Lighting was propped up against one corner and a shelf butted up into another corner was full of various cameras, lenses, and accessories, as well as many, many CD's or DVD's, presumably full of his photos.

Out at one end of the long window was a small bar with an array of distilled beverages on a table behind it: gin, vodka, whiskies of various sorts, liqueurs, etc. I was told that in the small refrigerator was an ample supply of beer and soft drinks. It was rather warm so I decided to go for a gin & tonic. They both followed suit.

We talked about my father and his career in jazz for quite a while. I looked through their extensive vinyl collection and found a couple recordings he was on, which we listened to with a minimum of chit chat, other than praise for this or that solo, including dad's.

Elize is one of the best conversationalists I've ever met. She could hold an intelligent conversation on just about any topic, reminding me of a philosophy prof I knew when I was at university, who would show up where the students hung out and who was always welcomed into their conversations. He had a way of defeating your arguments without generating any rancor. The girls loved him and many of us, though I was not one, had gone to bed with him. I should add...after graduating. He was smart enough not to boink enrolled students, which would have got him fired.

Time flew by and I said out of politeness that perhaps I should go. Elize seemed a little distraught and said, "But I was hoping we could fuck!" That so blunt and honest that I had to laugh. I smiled and shook my head as I replied, "I would love to."

She led the way back to their bedroom, which was neat and tidy but had the air of a student dwelling with lots of comfort-inducing inexpensive and homemade furnishings.

When Elize and Phil started undressing, so did I. At first I felt a little out of it because they got right down to kissing, but soon Elize turned my way and kissed my lips for a while, slowly working her way down to my nipples, my tummy and then my pussy where she sucked rhythmically on my clitoris.

I let my hand wander toward Phil's cock, but he saw it coming and shook his head to tell me that he would not be on my menu. I have pieced together that out of loyalty to the one remaining twin, he will assure her that he's hers and hers alone forever and will never have to suffer even a little doubt about his loyalty to her.

Soon Elize and I were in the 69 position. Phil was soon looming over my face and I saw him wet his dick with spit. The next thing I knew, he was fucking her hard in the ass. His balls were literally swinging so close to me that now and then they literally scuffed my nose.

He came in her ass and, after waiting for the last pulse, slowly pulled his cock out into his hand, presumably to keep it from dropping onto my forehead. Even so, as I licked away, I could see his creamy cum drooling down her butt and thigh. Eventually, it found its way to my cheek, and just as I reached orgasm.

Elize rolled off me onto her back and now it was Phil face fucking her until she came to a sudden and violent orgasm that forced her to push his head away so she could roll over onto her side into a quivering and quaking fetal position.

By this time I really had to go home to get some rest, for the following day was a work day. They saw me to the door where we hugged and kissed and I walked home enjoying the atmospherics of the late evening air and the clear sky strewn, as it was, with stars. It was the most enjoyable evening I'd had in a long time and I wanted to savor it.

Several days went by and I had almost forgotten that they had said they'd take me deep into the Cascades to the lakeside cabin home of their mutual friend, Zazie. (You'll find references to Zazie and her cabin in the story Moonlight And Elize, which I'm hoping you've read, because this story will make more sense if you have.

So it happened that two Saturdays later, on a sunny but chilly morning, I was picked up and the three of us drove out Highway 26, turning off the highway in a town with the picturesque name of Zigzag and driving another 20 or 30 minutes on winding gravel and dirt roads. (By the way, several people have expressed doubt that there really is a town named Zigzag. All I say is load Google Earth into your computer and take a look at it. It's certainly not very large, but it's there.)

You come around the corner of a road cut out of basalt and there it is on the far side of a gorgeous mountain lake. While it was certainly a cabin, it was not a one-room shack. It had maybe a dozen rooms and was as large as the largest of those old-fashioned houses one sees in the old pre-WWII neighborhoods of most American cities and towns.

Zazie, a 30-ish woman holding a baby came out to greet us, followed by a boy toddler and a girl of about six. Apparently, she was a school buddy of the twins. She gave a one-arm hug to Elize first, then Phil, and then me. It was so firm and affectionate that I knew that any friend of theirs was a friend of hers.

Inside I saw photos of her rather chubby and jolly looking husband who, it turned out, traveled quite a bit. Elize pointed to a group of photos on the wall saying, "Phil shot those." They were pictures of the lake and, I assume, the general environs, for they were all mountain scenes full of douglas firs, water, and rocks, frequently with Mt. Hood towering in the background.

It was by then lunchtime, and Zazie was prepared with a picnic lunch. We took a trail off to one side of the cabin that, after a few minutes of walking, took us to a shaded flat rock in an open space where the sun beat down on us. That was good for there was still a bit of a chill in the air.

Now, the story Phil told me about Clair inhabiting Elize's body and coming out at times was a bit farfetched and I wasn't sure I believed it till Elize wandered off to play with Zazie's two older ones close to the water's edge. While they were picking up rocks and throwing them into the lake, Zazie turned to Phil and asked, "Has Clair come out recently?" "A few weeks ago." "Less and less as time goes by, then," said Zazie. "Yes, and I don't know what it means." Zazie said, "I think it's probably good."

Phil turned to me and said, "Zazie thinks that the appearances of Clair may mean that Elize hasn't fully accepted her death. That it's maybe a somewhat schizophrenic way of keeping her sister around." "What do you think? I asked. "I don't know." He looked down at her lovingly and repeated "I don't know."

But you told me that you had trained them to kiss you slightly differently in order to tell them apart. He shrugged, "Maybe they were fooling me. Maybe they discovered that knowledge and shared it." "In that case, it'd be a cruel trick for Elize to be playing on you," I said. "No," he replied, "of one thing I'm sure: when she's Clair she really believes she's Clair. It may have started as a joke, but it's become very real to her."

Zazie agreed. "When she's Clair, she's completely Clair. For example, she doesn't remember the time Elize spent here after Clair's death. She experiences lost time...they both do actually, though Elize experiences less than Clair, who is dormant for weeks at a time. I've seen it. It's 100% sincere and isn't a joke."

Lunch over, we went back to the cabin and all took a snooze, for the kids all took an afternoon nap. That was fine with me for I had gotten up early for the excursion and was a bit exhausted anyway. Or perhaps it was a tummy full of Zazie's egg salad on heavy homemade bread, served with olives, home-packed pickles, and iced tea. Most likely it was a combination of both.

Zazie has several guest bedrooms. She gave me one with a great view of Mt. Hood and the lake which I looked out at for a while thinking that this was pretty close to being in Heaven. At some point, I fell into a deep dreamless sleep for about 2 hours.

I awoke to a knock on the door. "Come in," I said, and Elize stuck her head in the door, smiled, and said, "Zazie proposed a little hike. Wanna come along?" "Sure."

And so we met at the front door, Zazie with a day pack, her six year old holding the toddler by the hand. Phil was standing behind Elize, his arms wrapped around her over her breasts.

I suddenly realized I was the only one there without someone. Elize must have read my face because she broke out of Phil's grip and took me by the hand. Pulling me close, she then put her arm around my shoulder, and that is how we walked for a good 45 minutes or so, until we came to a narrow trail that went up a little side valley with a little creek running along the bottom.

Eventually we came to a waterfall that rolled over a lip about 20 feet above us. That was cooler, but cooler still was the fact that there was a hollow behind the waterfall such that the trail allowed us to walk behind it!

The waterfall behind us, we climbed for a few minutes until we came to another lake. Not as large as the lake Zazie's cabin was on, but just as beautiful and clear. It was nestled in a cauldron of sorts and offered no mountain views, just a vast dome of cloudless azure. The sun was behind us and obviously would be going below the rim in an hour or so.

Zazie and Elize sat down and I sat down with them. The six year girl wanted to play and the two year old wanted to follow and so Phil took the two kids by hand and frolicked with them on a patch of grass a few yards down.

It was then that I saw something. Its coat, similar to the coat of a palomino horse I knew from my aunt's horse ranch in Washington State, was not on a horse. I elbowed Zazie and pointed, asking "Do you see it." "See what?" she asked and then followed the line of my finger.

Trying not to sound excited, she called to Phil, saying "Please bring the kids up here by me." He looked puzzled, but by now Elize was pointing excitedly across the lake to a gorgeous cougar which was starting to walk around the lake, which would eventually bring it to us.

The kids safely back with us, Phil stood up, his arms raised and bellowed as he shuffled slowly toward the cougar.

Elize, pleaded with him to stop, but he succeeded in driving the cougar back into the woods.

Zazie explained that Phil had been mimicking a bear, and that cougars avoid bears. The cat may have been trying to figure out what we were and if we, especially the children, were potential prey. However, she added, cougars attack grown up humans, too, and that the Pacific Northwest is where that happens with the greatest frequency.

Elize wondered if that simply might be because the Pacific Northwest is so wild. But Phil explained that the cougar has the largest range of any living mammal and that it's native to virtually everywhere on both the North and South American continents. That included a lot of other areas that were fairly wild, but it seemingly happened mostly in the Pacific Northwest. We speculated for a few minutes, but Zazie's idea that perhaps the local breed simply had more aggressiveness in its genes seemed to gain the widest acceptance.

Zazie instructed us all to find club sticks, and after a couple minutes we started back, Zazie in the lead, her kids holding my hand and Elize's and Phil pulling up the rear, frequently looking over his shoulder.

"I find it hard to imagine that cougar would attack grown-up humans," I said. "Aren't we too big?" Phil laughed and said, "You weigh about as much as a smallish doe. Cougars can bring down bucks. They've been known to kill Elk. Have you ever seen an Elk?" I said I hadn't, but that I'd seen a moose close up, and it was huge. "Well," he replied, "an elk is just a notch down from a moose. Much bigger than a deer. A moose weighs in at about 1200 lb. give or take a few hundred, an elk about 700, give or take."

I laughed. "The last time I was on a scale I was about 115 lb." "Well," said Zazie, "you weigh about as much as a doe. We have mule deer, blacktails and whitetails around here, but they're all about the same size."

Elize asked an obvious question: "So, if cougars are afraid of bears, are there bears around here?" Phil and Zazie laughed, but it was Zazie who answered. "Honey, I live in a cabin on a lake, but this isn't a city park. Just about everything that lived here before humans settled still lives here: bears, cougars, deer, elk. I'm not so sure about wolverines, but in town I heard someone talking about seeing one."

Elize suddenly looked around cautiously, and she did so all the way back to the cabin.

On the way back, clouds had rolled in, blocking the sun, and we trotted the last couple hundred feet because it was starting to sprinkle. Zazie got about making dinner and I pitched in by putting together a salad and helping her older daughter set the table.

In about an hour we were eating home fried lightly breaded chicken with whole wheat fettucine tossed with her delicious secret recipe of olive oil, crushed fresh garlic, and Italian spices, topped with grated romano cheese. Plus, of course, my garden salad topped with my own balsamic vinegar dressing.

Zazie has such patience. I can't even imagine taking care of one child, much less three. Breast feeding one, hand feeding the little boy, and dealing with the 5 year old's pickiness, which had her eating hot dogs and beans rather than the adult fare.

Dessert consisted of the kind of dark, chewy and gooey brownies my mother made so well. They, along with Zazie's strong coffee, gave me a very comfy feeling. I helped with the dishes. While doing so, Elize came over to Zazie and asked if she might go to bed because she was exhausted from all of the hiking.

She was told that of course to go to the room she always used when she and Phil visited. And off she went, along with Phil.

I chuckled and said, "She looks strong enough to deal with a couple hours of walking. Maybe she had a long night last night," remembering out own little sexcapade.

Zazie waited uncomfortably long before saying anything. When she did, it was, "Elize is dying." When I looked at her in shock, Zazie added, "Cancer. That's why she is weak."

When Phil returned, he came up to Zazie and said simply "She's exhausted." "I know," said Zazie. Phil looked at me and started to say something, but Zazie interrupted with, "I told Jill that she has cancer. Nothing else."

Phil said, "It's all through her internal organs. It's metastasized to the point where it's inoperable."

"How long does she have?" I asked.

"Maybe six months. Maybe six weeks. Maybe six days."

"And maybe 60 years," said Zazie directly to Phil. "Cancer is a funny thing. Sometimes it simply goes into a spontaneous remission and stops spreading and growing, and sometimes, it mysteriously disappears as the body's defenses figure out a way to identify it and defeat it."

She looked at me as she said, "You see, as with the common cold and the flu and HIV, its lethal skill is in not being seen by your immune system until it's too late...or not at all. Sometimes the body's defenses 'see' it and kill it. Mostly not."

There was a long silence as we finished the dishes. It went quickly with Phil helping to dry.

We watched a kids movie until it was time for them to be put to bed. Then we watched Un homme et une femme, the classic love story from the 1970's about a widowered French race car driver's delicate romance with a widowed woman working in the film industry. Each one with a young child and each with complicated feelings about falling in love again. It also has one of the best soundtracks you'll ever hear, too. We were all in tears at the end, including Phil, though I think perhaps the movie gave him permission to cry. Men are funny about crying. It's one more reason I'm glad I'm female.

Zazie, who had to get up early for her kids went off to bed, leaving Phil and me to talk. We did not talk about Elize because I sensed Phil didn't want to. Instead, we talked about movies and photography and music.

Presently, Elize appeared seeming quite rested. They invited me to take a walk down to the lake in the moonlight, for the rain had stopped as suddenly as it had started and the air was as clear as glass. You could see to the edge of the universe, it seemed. Life in the mountains means getting used to sudden and spectacular changes in weather.

After we all grabbed jackets, we walked out the front door and down to the lake where there is a pier (the one that figures prominently in my Moonlight and Elize story!). Phil had the foresight to grab three folding chairs since the wooden pier was too wet for sitting.

He arranged the chairs facing across the lake where the moon was just rising over Mt. Hood, putting it into stark silhouette. As happens when you are in comfortable company, we sat there just taking in the fresh night air and the beauty of the vista before us.

Elize had started some coffee just as we headed out, and once she and I were in our chairs, Phil volunteered to run back and bring it out to us.

Elize and I were staring out at the lake and the mountain when her hands tightened on the arms of the chair as if in a death grip. She looked around, at me, back at the house, at which point she relaxed. In retrospect, she knew where she was.

It was Clair.

"Where is Phil?" she asked. "Getting coffee for you...Elize...and me."

Tears rolled down her cheeks and she said something to me that gave me chills.

And then she was Elize again. She wiped the tears off her cheeks and looked at me, embarrassed much in the way I had seen an epileptic girl I knew in high school, after a seizure, embarrassed at being momentarily out of control of herself. Not knowing what had happened. I suddenly realized that when this happened, Elize felt violated to some degree. Well, I got that wrong in my Moonlight And Elize story, I suppose. How was I to know?

Phil arrived with the coffee and knew immediately that Clair had made her presence known. Kneeling down in front of her, he comforted her and calmed her down.

When the moment seemed right I said, "Clair had a message for you. The both of you.

I'll never forget what she said as long as I live.

"She said to tell the both of you that she knows she has to go. For good. For the good of both of you. That she's sorry, but that she has a gift for you."

"What does that mean, I wonder?" said Phil.

Did she say what it is, this gift?" asked Elize.

"She just said..." (and at this point I broke out in goosebumps) "that it would be 'something wonderful.'"

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Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Getting Caught Up On Several Things

Over Spring Break I got a missive from my younger brother. So without further ado, here goes:

* * * * *

Hey, sis, howzitgoin'? Well, you were right: Como is one of the most gorgeous places I've ever seen. Right up there with Lake Tahoe or Jackson Hole. Little Franca is so cute and alert. Belinda lets me hold her a lot. I never thought about babies much before but they are really lots of fun, though when I'm taking care of her I have to change her diapers, too. Yuck!

Anyway, this isn't the Belinda I met on the bus when you guys were traveling west. She's so grown-up and assertive and confident. She bosses people around. Not in a bossy way, though. It's kind of hard to explain. I guess it's 'cause everyone respects her so much. And her servants just about worship her. You'd think she'd been the mistress of the house forever, and not just about a year.

She sat me down and showed me what she inherited when Franco's family was killed in that big car wreck. Everything from a shipbuilding company to an aerospace company to a bank. Plus tons of small businesses as well: restaurants, shops, waste removal. Because of the intruder incident a few months ago, she now has a small army of guards around. She didn't hire them. She bought a security company and placed Pietro, her original bodyguard in charge. He hand-picked the men and at any given time there are about a dozen guards around the house.

She surprised me by asking my opinion on various things. I checked her math (not really necessary because she's absolutely brilliant) but she also wanted my thoughts on various businesses, too. Businesses that aren't doing as well as they probably should. Businesses she's thinking of buying.

She's seemingly very good at running these businesses, but I also know she is something of a fish out of water. This isn't the life she envisioned for herself. I'm sure she saw herself doing theoretical math on a very high plane and, frankly, aside from the aerospace company she owns, most of her businesses involve arithmetic, nothing terribly challenging. She is on the phone with the aerospace company daily, and she took me there once. I even saw areas of the company that are under heavy security. There's some pretty wild shit going on there. Europe is rapidly catching up with the United States in aerospace.

You know, I think North America should have a North American Union along the lines of the European Union which has worked so well for Europe.

She has been spending an hour or two every day with a friend of Franco's who is in the financial industries. He explains the policies and restrictions affecting banks in Italy and Europe and helps her make key decisions. He's apparently quite good at what he does.

I don't like him. I think he has an agenda and for all of her brilliance, I wonder how worldly wise she is. Whenever he's around, I get the feeling he's sizing me up as competition, and she seems blind to it. She treats me with great affection. Don't misunderstand. But I think he sees me as the enemy. I checked him out: he's a wealthy guy, but not among the super rich like Belinda. I have to wonder if he wants to marry into her money.

Anyway, the times I spend with Belinda, exploring the gorgeous hills and mountains, not to mention Como and the smaller towns in the area, are great. I wouldn't mind living here. I only have a few more days before I go to school and I'll miss Belinda and Franca so much.

* * * * *

My baby brother. What a gem. In so many ways the image of our father. Bright, kind, considerate, and so mature for his age. When he first met Belinda on our bus trip from Cleveland to Portland, he was obviously totally smitten with her. And why not? She has to be one of the most beautiful women on earth. Well, of those I've seen, anyway. And that includes in magazines and movies.

But now, reading between the lines, his adolescent lust has evolved into a genuine appreciation of her best personality traits, for despite her beauty, and the devastating loss she suffered after a less than perfect childhood, she has turned out very well despite it all.

Kelsey and I continue to have to make adjustments, trying to avoid laying anyone else off, but it also means that those of us who remain are working long hours. When we have a period where there is too much for the current staffing to handle, we hire temps for a few days at a time.

Have you read my post Moonlight and Elize? If so, you'll know that back in Cleveland I met a photographer from Portland with a wild tale to tell of his meeting and falling in love with and moving in with a pair of gorgeous identical twins. (I suggest you find and read that story to increase your appreciation of what follows. After I settled in here in Portland I called him and said we should get together for coffee or drinks sometime.

I never followed up but recently he called me and invited me to his place which turned out to be not so far away, for he was still living with the one remaining twin in the warehouse-style studio that had once belonged to her and her sister.

I was eager to see if this woman is really as stunning as he had described her. I was also hoping to discover if there was any indication that his wild story about two women in one body had any truth to it. (You see: if you haven't read that story, you're already a little lost, aren't you?)

So...I guess I'll tell you what happened next time, giving you a period of time to read Moonlight and Elize.

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Sunday, March 29, 2009
Infidelities, Secrets, Dead Babies

So, to recap, I had come home from work expecting Mandy to be waiting for me, which she was. But someone else I was not expecting got up off the couch as I walked in the door.

"Mom...what are you doing here? What's wrong?"

As she walked over to give me a hug, she said, "Nothing, baby. I just thought I'd surprise you with a visit."

I looked around half expecting to see my father, but no.

Well, it was a surprise but I didn't really believe her for several reasons. I couldn't recall mom ever traveling overnight without my father. Not that she's agoraphobic or anything. She's just a homebody without my wanderlust. Secondly, I know how rude she thinks it is for someone to drop in on someone else unannounced. And finally, my folks aren't exactly rolling in dough and last-minute flights generally don't come cheap.

If she was here, she was here for a reason. I was certain of that.

As I hung up my coat she said, "Mandy here has been so nice. We've been having coffee and she tells me she just moved in a few weeks ago. You never mentioned anything."

I laughed. "I would have mentioned it eventually. It didn't seem important enough to include in my e-mails. If I had moved, I certainly would have said something, but Mandy has been a friend for a while and so she just kind of materialized into the apartment. To me it was no big deal."

Mom was just making conversation, probably just to fill time. Her real reason for being here would come out when she was ready.

Mandy took this as a cue to say, "Well, remember, I'm spending the night at Darien's place, so why not let your mom use my room." (This was purely Mandy sensing that mom and I had something to talk about and politely giving us some space in which to do so. There really had been no such plan and thus nothing to remember.) Within a few minutes, Mandy was gone.

Being the mother she is, Mom went to the kitchen, asking, "What do you have for dinner?" I said that I had no idea, but that there was plenty of stuff to work with. Within minutes she was doing what she did almost every day at home: looking in the fridge and cobbling together a meal.

The meal turned out to be so reminiscent of growing up in Cleveland: potato pancakes with sour cream and applesauce served up with a platter of breakfast sausages. Delicious. Not too healthy, but delicious nonetheless like so many unhealthy things.

I asked her if she wanted me to take a day off from work, and of course she demured and didn't want me to do that just for her. That was expected. I told her it was no trouble. I called Kelsey and explained the situation. Kelsey gave me the day off without batting an eye.

Dinner out of the way, we took a walk around the area ending up at a downtown movie theater where we watched Coraline, that weird & wonderful 3D movie.

Back at home, we watched TV and talked about life in general. My father's work as well as his slowly-failing health. Cliff, my brother, and his life at school. Aunts, uncles, cousins, family friends. I heard some amusing stories and told a few myself.

We watched the evening news I put clean linens on Mandy's bed and set mom up for the night. We agreed that the next day we'd rent a car and go for a ride.

It took a while to get to sleep as I wondered what had brought mom out of her shell and got her to board a plane for Portland for a surprise visit.

So, after breakfast the next day we found a rental agency and she rented a car. I wanted her to see the beauty of the Columbia River Gorge, Mt. Hood, and the Cascades, cerainly one of my reasons for moving to Portland. I planned a trip out the gorge and around Mt. Hood on the Hood River Highway and back on SR 26. It was an uncharacteristically nice and clear day.

We drove out the gorge and she marveled at the sights. There's so much more to see out the window most of the time in Oregon. In Ohio it's almost always trees or flat farmland if you're not in an urban area.

We grabbed a quick lunch in Hood River, which is a windsurfer mecca. So, after lunch we found a place to watch the surfers for 20 or 30 minutes and then I headed south on the Hood River Highway where the air, was clear enough and the clouds high enough, to see Mt. Hood against them.

The excursion complete, she still hadn't broached her real reason for the visit. I decided we should go to the local Chinese restaurant, because she likes Chinese food at least as much as I do.

After dinner, we took a walk in a different direction from the night before, ending up walking along the Willamette River and then back home through downtown, with a stop at the famous Powell's Books along the way. My mom is a teacher and librarian and loves books so, naturally, she bought a few.

At home, she showed me her purchases and then I got up to turn on the TV.

"Wait," she said, adding "come sit down" while patting next to her on the couch.

"Here it comes," I thought.

"There's something I've never told you." At this point I knew what it was, and if you've read all of my stories, you know what it is. It was something my father told me she never ever talked about, even with him.

Her eyes dropped to her lap. "Something very bad happened before you were born that I've had to live with and haven't wanted to talk about. But not talking about it hasn't been good."

I was torn as to whether to blurt out the secret to save her the pain of doing so, but I decided to wait, knowing that the act of releasing the secret would probably release her from its grasp.

I got so much more than I bargained for.

I could tell from the change in pitch of her voice that she was holding herself back from crying as she said, "I lost a baby. My first baby. Before you were born."

"A stillbirth?" (I actually knew better, but I was asking the questions anyone might ask who didn't already know the facts.)

"No, a crib death."

I told her, "I can't even imagine what it was like. I can't imagine the pain you must have felt. But it wasn't your fault."

She was quiet for a long time. Then she said..."There's more. You think I feel guilty about losing my child? As though I blame myself. No, not really. What I blame myself for is that she wasn't your father's daughter. She was the product of an affair."

My head swam. Okay, I thought I knew everything. Obviously, I did not.

She continued. "This happened early in our marriage when your father was touring so much. Like so many girls, I ignored the obvious and assumed that once he saw the wonderful life I was going to make for him, he would want to stay home all the time."

I had noticed this phenomenon myself: girls thinking that their "magic vagina" could make their partner change but...men don't change. Not unless they change themselves.

"My resentment built up and I finally gave in to my urge for revenge by having a relationship with one of your father's musician friends." I started wondering who this might be, but she knew what I was thinking and said, "No one will ever know who it was. Your father doesn't want to know, either. That's one secret I'll take to my grave. The man now has a wife and family and doesn't need anyone revisiting what he knows was a mistake, too."

"Dad knows?"

"I confessed right away on his return from the tour he had been on at the time. I was prepared to hear that he wanted to divorce me, but instead, after a few emotionally cold days, he forgave me, and headed out on tour again, but this time he phoned me at least twice a day.

"When my baby was born, your father treated her as his own. I can't tell you how much my love for him grew to see him basically adopt another man's child as his own. At first, I couldn't believe that his trust in me had returned, but it had. Since that one last commitment of his, he has never really toured. He's gone away to play occasional gigs, but only for a few days at a time, not for weeks or months on end.

I said "I thought he quit because he was afraid he'd end up a drug addict if he kept touring."

"There was that, too. He was offered heroin and felt tempted. But then he thought of me and the baby and came right home. When the rest of the musicians got up the next morning, they were missing their piano player.

"Anyway, a morning came when little Jill seemed to be sleeping way too long. I went into her room to check on her and I knew from her color, which was oh so pale and not pink at all, that she was dead. I picked her cold little body up and screamed."

I hugged mom close again, for by this time the mere memory of the event had her convulsing in agony. No wonder she had buried these feelings and her guilt so deep inside that she couldn't talk about it for nearly 25 years.

When she got control again, she continued. "Dad rushed in and knew immediately what had happened. He called the emergency number, but of course it was too late. She had been dead for several hours. They pronounced her dead at the scene and I had to endure an investigation to make sure I hadn't killed her. An autopsy finally determined that she had died of a heart defect.

"Your father grieved along with me. He suffered, too, and perhaps more. You see, he not only grieved for his own loss but also for mine. He knew that much as he loved the little girl, his loss couldn't compare to mine because I had carried her within me for all those months before she was born. It took a year of convincing on his part, but finally we started trying to have another baby, and that is when you were born. We gave you the same name to signify that it was a kind of 'do over,' hoping it might help to erase the memory of the lost child.

"But of course, it did not. I will never forget my first baby. I feel the pain of her loss constantly, every day. Even today it keeps me awake at night."

"Of course you can't forget. Who could?"

"The worst part, aside from losing her, was knowing that every day she was alive, and as much as I loved her, I wished and hoped that something could happen to relieve me of the guilt I felt for how she had come to be. When little Jill died, that problem had been solved in a way, and that simply added up to still more guilt, because, crazy as it may sound, it felt like some demonic force had been listening and had answered my wishes and hopes, but not in a way I could ever have wanted, because I loved that baby to the depths of my soul. That is the guilt that has held me in its embrace for so long and which I need to exorcize."

I hugged her and said, "I love you, Mommy. I always will."

"I know you will," she said, hugging me back and planting a kiss on my forehead. "You're my baby."

She stuck around for a few more days, including the weekend, and we bonded still more. However, she sensed that, given that she was displacing Mandy more every day she stayed, she finally caught a plane back to Cleveland. I gave Mandy a $100 break on her rent for the month.

That night I got a call from Dad to say that Mom was safely back at home. He added that Cliff was taking Spring Break in Como with Belinda.

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Monday, March 2, 2009
Update On Belinda and
My Adventure With An Architect

I know, I know: it's been 2 months since I posted a story, but it's been a very complicated period of time.

* * * * *

Recent E-mail From Gina

We had some excitement here over the holidays, which showed how dangerous it can be to be rich in Italy. Italy is well-known for high-profile kidnap/ransom schemes aimed at wealthy celebrities and businessmen. Robberies and burglaries aren't uncommon, either. I'm starting to realize that Belinda's reliance on one guard and a dog isn't really sufficient. I think this incident is giving her pause as well.

It was a few days after Christmas and all of us were asleep. It was maybe 3 a.m. This includes Rickie and Jenn as well. A burglar broke into the house through the basement. Apparently he had some intelligence about the house and had gone to the main floor and grabbed a couple small but valuable antique figurines, he ran upstairs, charged into Belinda's bedroom and was snatching a jewelry box when Belinda woke up. She screamed and hit a panic button next to her bed. She clutched little Franca tightly and cringed in terror.

The guy wasn't there to do her harm, but simply to steal. He heard the main door swing open, which was Pietro and Bruno responding to the silent alarm. Apparently, he knew there was a way out through a spare bedroom from which he could drop one story onto the roof of a veranda, and from there down to the ground. I don't think he counted on there being a large German shepherd closing in on him at breakneck speed, so at the first bark, he ran in a panic for the spare bedroom.

While he had some intelligence on the house, enough to know where grabbable valuables might be found, his intelligence wasn't up-to-date enough to know that that spare bedroom was occupied by Rickie and Jenn, and of course Cathy, their guard dog who would view any intruder, especially a sudden one, as a threat that had to be dealt with.

He had closed the door behind him to buy him some time for getting away from the German shepherd. But...talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire! Bruno is trained for guard work. He will stop someone and hold them until Pietro gets there. Cathy has no such training and instinctively defends her pack/family, especially its children (after all, she's a bitch).

The sounds were horrific. Between Bruno barking at a door down the hall, Belinda, Rickie and Jenn screaming like banshees, and the hellish sounds made by Cathy and the man she was maiming as she tore at his face and hands to reach his throat, it was a nightmare. Finally, Pietro reached the door, Bruno joined Cathy, and it was all Pietro could do to save the man's life. Bruno released him instantly when commanded. Cathy was another story. Finally Rickie grabbed her collar and pulled her away from the poor guy, but she continued to bark and glare at him and then Rickie as if asking her for permission to finish the poor guy off.

The alarm had brought the polizia who arrived in about 10 minutes to find this poor guy huddled on the floor in the foetal position and bleeding on a valuable antique rug, his mangled hands pressed into the opposing armpits, probably to stem the bleeding from Cathy's bites. Adding to the din was his constant begging not to let the dogs kill him. Bruno sat there beside Pietro, whose pistol had never even so much as come out of its holster. Rickie restrained Cathy, who would have finished the guy off given half a chance. That's kind of funny since Rickie weighs no more than 120 lb. and Cathy weighs at least 140.

Once it seemed safe, which is when the clamor stopped and I heard Pietro talking in a level and unexcited voice, I put on a robe and wandered down the hall and so most of what I'm telling you was related to me by Belinda and Rickie. The polizia left by about 4:30 a.m. and while we might have gone back to bed, nobody felt like sleeping.

Instead, we all went to the kitchen and Maria made us an early breakfast of buttered baking powder rolls, German and Polish jams, scrambled eggs, OJ, and coffee. Maria told us a number of stories about burglaries that had happened in the past. Pietro was appalled and told Belinda that with the kind of money she has, not to mention the fact that her home is virtually a museum, she really needed a squad of defenders, not just one man and a dog. He added that he'd feel better about taking time off if he felt he wasn't leaving them totally undefended.

Obviously, Belinda, Franca in her arms, was giving the matter a lot of thought.

Belinda has matured so much over the last few months. She's taking more interest in her businesses every day, and especially the aerospace company, because their work is so math-intensive, and math is something she understands. After her initial visit where she helped them fix a faulty formula, she is called several times a week primarily for math consultation.

At the same time, she spends a couple hours a day in the kitchen with Maria learning how to cook. From the ground up, too. She knew how to use a microwave oven and boil water, but not much more. Last night, she helped Maria make ossu bucco.

And what a doting mother! She's absolutely in love with little Franca who, by the way, is growing like a weed. Her little brown eyes are looking around and her hair is growing in profusely enough for bows. If Belinda is bright, I'm betting this little doll is just as bright, if not brighter.

Now, as you know, one of her conglomerate's holdings is a bank, and as smart as Belinda is, the banking industry is alien to her. Most of us associate a bank with math, but to her a bank is all about arithmetic, which is too simple. Banks really are about lending, borrowing, investing, and marketing, all of which can be analyzed mathematically, but banks require experience, judgment, and even intuition which are not taught in a mathematics classroom.

She's determined to understand more, and she needs to make some crucial decisions. The recent financial crisis is affecting the entire world, you know. In many cases, it's worse in countries other than the United States. Her bank is having to deal with major defaults, investments going sour...all the same stuff that's affecting banking in the United States.

Franco had a friend, Benito, who has made a name for himself in the Italian investment industry. She's been having him come by regularly to help her understand what's going on, how banks operate, and so on. I think he's a bit smitten with her. I can see it in the way he looks at her. As you know, she sometimes lacks social skills and may be a bit blind to his feelings, I hope this isn't leading up to some sort of emotional shipwreck for either or both of them.

I miss Ray and with every call or text message it's clear he wants me back, too, so I'm going home in the next few days. I think this is the longest I've gone without getting some cock since before I met him. I've fooled around with Belinda a couple times, and it's pleasant, but it's not the same as getting some cock, as I'm sure you'll agree.

So, I'll be back with Ray in a few days and after some days or weeks of nonstop fucking, maybe I'll head on out to Oregon for a visit.

* * * * *

As for me, since Christmas, I've had to lay several more people off, which is depressing. Every day I wonder if I really want to keep this job if it means ruining people's lives. I recognize the business realities and what has to be done. I know if I didn't do it, someone else would, and maybe with less compassion...but it takes its toll.

On a lighter note, my friend Mandy got booted from her apartment (I know: "lighter note?"...bear with me), which was actually a condo the owners were renting out, when the owners had to give up the larger condo they had been living in. They could no longer afford the payments and let it go into foreclosure. Her lease wasn't up, but they gave her the incentive of $1500 to move out before the lease expired, and so for a while I helped her research a new place to live and would go with her (and sometimes instead of her) to look look new apartments over.

One day, after we had walked out of the umpteenth apartment, I said what had been in the back of my mind for several weeks: "Mandy, I've been thinking. How about you move in with me. I know what you are ready to pay, and while it's only a third of what I'm paying, it'll be more my apartment than yours and it'll be my rules. If that might work for you, do you want to talk about it?"

She leapt at the idea. We retired to a coffee shop and set down the basics of our little contract to her satisfaction and mine, and a week later most of her rather spare furnishings were either sold on Craigslist or put into my storage room (which I hardly used). My building's management were quite happy because they knew it made it less likely I'd be moving out. I'm not sure if you're aware of it, but when the economic shit hit the fan late last summer and fall, it was thought that the home and condo owners would flood back into apartment buildings, but that hasn't happened. More often, people are moving in with family. The apartment market has actually experienced a bit of a drop-off in most markets.

Anyway, it's been really nice having Mandy around. While we had problems when we first met two or three years ago, that's long passed. Back then, she was sexually inexperienced and I guess I was her first lesbian love. She had had a couple boyfriends, but making it with a girl was a new and different experience. Like me, she isn't so much bisexual as a sexual opportunist. We'll both take sex when we can get it.

And so, the evening of the day she moved in, when her last sock was in the sock drawer, and after we figured out where her toothbrush, cosmetics, etc., would go in the bathroom, we decided to head out for a drink and maybe some dinner.

The weather was a little foreboding, like it might rain at any instant, so we walked two and a half blocks to a local Martini bar. One of those places which is intentionally poorly-lit, most of the interior light coming from the area behind the bar. So, the bartender could barely be made out. We saw him mostly in silhouette and aside from a couple gays at the far end of the bar who were very involved with each other, it was just Mandy and me for the first drink.

And then in walked a guy dressed like a businessman in a well-fitting suit, collar open, no tie. He sat at the bar two seats to my right. I looked at his left wrist. He was wearing a Breitling watch that looked like it belonged in a museum.

Now, I don't fuck anyone for the money they have. However, there are guys who troll bars looking for chicks trying to look successful by wearing Rolex replicas or replicas of Tag Heuers, Breitlings, Cartiers and other expensive brands. Seiko? Not impressed. And, please, guys, if you want to pick up chicks leave the Timex and Swatch at home, no matter how cool you think they look. I wasn't sizing him up for wealth so much as for someone who might be bright and interesting to talk to. And maybe to fuck as well...of course.

Without staring or being obvious, I tried to get a good look at him. I thought he looked okay, but to be sure I excused myself and went to the restroom. On the way back, I was able to get my first good look at him. He was in good shape. I could see that. Even the rather generous cut of his suit pants couldn't hide the fact that he had very muscular thighs. He had a curly head of hair with gray just starting to come in, more on the sides than top.

While I'd been gone, he'd struck up a conversation with Mandy. Getting back into my seat, which was between them, that put me right into the conversation, which had been about good places to eat in the area. Now, Mandy had been visiting quite a bit, but without a doubt I know the area better than she, so she handed the question to me.

I inquired as to what kind of food he wanted. I guessed correctly that he wasn't too concerned with price. He wanted a good steak and Portland, while it has Ruth's Chris and Morton's among other established high-end chains, it has its own legendary steakhouse, The Ringside, so I suggested he try that.

He bought the next round of Martinis and the question turned to "What is a Martini, anyway?" The bartender stayed out of it. I'm sure it's a question that comes up all the time. The mystery is that there is no common ingredient. The classic Martini is made with lots of gin and relatively little vermouth. Sissies (I'm told) will substitute vodka for the gin. But today there are many martinis with none of those ingredients. What most of the non-traditional martinis seem to have in common is their method of production, shaking or stirring, and service in a standard martini glass.

In fact, traditional martinis are sometimes served in what's called an Old Fashioned glass, but the new style martinis are almost universally served in the traditional martini glass.

The barman's smile told me our discussion had got it about right.

At this point, our businessman acquaintance said he was heading over to try out The Ringside. He stood up and asked us if we'd mind joining him. I looked at Mandy and she seemed as enthusiastic as I felt, so speaking for both of us, I told him we'd be happy to.

Up till this point, we hadn't done any introductions, so while we waited for a taxi, I introduced Mandy and myself. He told us his name was Alexei. Mandy commented that that was a fairly unusual name for an American boy to be given. It turned out he was second generation. His parents were Russians who had emigrated to the U.S. after WWII. They had escaped Russia by hitching a ride on a steamer. They ended up living with relatives in Pennsylvania, which is where he grew up. He ended up with a Russian name although he was born in the United States.

He went to Northwestern University where he studied engineering and, later, architecture. He was in Portland to meet up with the principals of a local firm who were considering bringing him in as a partner. The local firm was considerably smaller than the firm he was with, but, Alexei said, they did more interesting projects and if they brought him in, he'd be the classic "big fish in a little pond."

At The Ringside, he invited us to order anything we wanted, which turned out to be 8 oz. filet mignons for Mandy and me. He ordered a Kobe steak, but at nearly $66, even with his invitation to order whatever we wanted, neither Mandy nor I felt we could go that far. Ours were still rather spendy at about half what his cost.

What couldn't easily be avoided was helping him drink a $275 bottle of Bordeaux. After all, he couldn't take it with him. I've had expensive wine before (I know two billionaires, after all), but this wine was absolute magic.

Get a little alcohol in Alexei and he gets talkative and funny. He was delightful and had Mandy and me in stitches more than once with yarns about his coworkers, about things that happened when he was a student, about the quirks and foibles of Russians, and so on. He was also quite well educated about many things. In particular, he knew his jazz. In fact, he had heard of my father. I thought he was just being nice but he actually named some of the combos I knew dad had been in.

We had a light dessert and some Spanish coffee and we asked him if he had any plans. He did not, so we invited him up to watch a video or TV for a couple hours, and he accepted.

As soon as we got into our apartment, Alexei took off his coat and suit jacket and, wow, is he ever built. Mandy, who has never showed much interest in men outside the socially acceptable age range, looked at him and quipped "Work out much?" By this time, I was starting to seriously think about fucking this guy. I could see that Mandy was getting interested, too.

At the same time, everyone was stuffed, so I put on a movie and made us all some coffee and we spent the next two hours enjoying the movie digesting dinner. The movie wasn't very good and so the merriment continued as we made wisecracks about it. As the movie was ending, I put my hand on his thigh and asked, "Ever done two girls at the same time?" He looked a Mandy who was smiling as broadly as I was.

He was a bit taken aback, but smiled and said, "Can't say that I have." Without a word I planted my lips on his. My eyes invited Mandy to join in, so he had me on one side and the gorgeous Mandy on the other.

I think I've said before that among the chicks in my circle, she's second only to Belinda in sheer goddess-like beauty. She's flawless. And don't let anyone tell you that a brunette has to take a back seat to a blonde. People can't take their eyes off Mandy wherever she goes, and she's so unconscious of it, which makes her all that more amazing. I wanted to get her clothes off as much as his.

On the one hand, as his shirt came off, Mandy and I could see that he wasn't 20 or even 30. But he was in remarkable condition for a guy who was, I'd guess, about 60. I don't know if you read my story In Praise Of Older Men, but I have had some very pleasant experiences with older men. They tend to be more appreciate of your making your body available to them, and they treat you (and I'm trying not to make this sound creepy) in a fatherly way. You just feel cared for in a way that doesn't happen with the younger man. At the same time, you can feel owned by a powerful younger man, which can be thrilling so, both older and younger men have their virtues.

I was still kissing him when I stopped due to his gasps and moans. I looked down to find her head busy in his lap. So I turned my attention to helping the two of them get their remaining garments off. Then I followed suit.

With Mandy on her knees between Alexei's legs, I couldn't ignore her gorgeous backside. I got behind her and let my finger slide into her, by now, well-lubricated pussy. And I used that wetness masturbate her with circular motions on her vulva, the pressure centered on her clit.

She broke off the oral sex and for the first time I got a good look at his cock. Not that terribly long...perhaps 7 inches, but it was thick. She got up and cuddled next to him, rubbing the hair on his chest as I took over the oral duties, giving him what I hoped was the blowjob of a lifetime.

His hands were busy, one of them in my hair and the other between Mandy's legs.

This is how it was for, I imagine, about five minutes. Like I said earlier, his cock was thick, and doing oral sex for any length of time with any but the smallest of cocks is a strain on the jaw. But with a thick one like his...well, my mouth needed a rest.

I broke it off and invited him to fuck Mandy, which he did. He pulled her body out so that her butt was half hanging off the couch. He pushed her legs open, slipped his dick into her, and started fucking.

I played with myself while watching them. Frankly, I was mostly appreciating Mandy's superb body and anticipating having fun with Alexei once he got her off. But I did note that, as I mentioned before is characteristic of older men, he was very attentive and caring in his fucking. Mandy and I had talked about intergenerational sex before, and at that time she seemed dubious about it, but I could see that her mind had been opened.

He gave her some slow lovin' for maybe ten minutes and then got busy finishing her off, and as he did so he looked at me clearly in anticipation of turning to me once he was done with her.

Mandy came and came hard, her eyes closed. Her orgasms were punctuated by a series of sharp screams.

When she relaxed, he looked at me as if to ask "And how do you want it?" I assumed the classic high doggy position on stiff arms, but as soon as he was in my pussy, I dropped to the medium doggy position on my elbows.

Damn, his cock felt good. As thick as it was, it was nearly like being fisted. After a little while of that particular kind of ecstasy, I asked him if he'd mind fucking my ass for a while, and like almost any man, he was more than happy to oblige. Now, I keep a bottle of lube in almost every room, so I told him where to find the one there in my living room. Soon, he and I were both lubed up.

Now, I've been fucked in the ass countless times and unlike a lot of girls, I can actually have an orgasm from anal sex, which is exactly what happened. At first I had to invite him not to be gentle. For me, it works best if my ass gets slammed, and he slammed me good and hard. And all the while he was over me, one arm on each side of me and his face next to one of my ears, and I'm not sure whether it was his cock in my butt or the sexy dirties he was whispering in my ear that contributed most to getting me off, but when I came I sent a series of squirts out behind me that left a wet streak behind me on the carpet.

When he was sure I was done, he pulled out and sat on the floor in front of the couch, his pecker quite hard.

I signaled to Mandy, who had recuperated, to get on his left side. I got on his right, and Mandy kissed him while I lubed my hand up and got to work on giving him a hand job. I could tell that he'd be coming soon, and so could Mandy, because she got down close to his cock with an open mouth, and when he finally squirted, she clamped her lips around his glans and drank his cum to the last drop.

But she didn't swallow, instead, she to the floor. I knew what that meant: I got onto my back and opened my mouth and she snowballed me.

Delicious!

We got dressed and drank a round of drinks and then we called a cab and sent Alexei on his way, for it was by then 1 a.m. and Mandy and I had to get to work the next day. Plus, he had a very important interview he needed to be rested up for.

At work the next day, I regaled Kelsey with the story of the architect Mandy and I had fucked, and boy was she jealous. In fact, she had gone to the bar in his very hotel hoping to meet someone, and here, had it not been for Mandy and me, she might very well have met him. As it was, she met no one except a nice bartender who did, at least, ask for her phone number. Maybe that will pan out.

It was hard to work that day with my mind constantly replaying the great fuck of the night before, and so I was looking forward to a quiet evening at home possibly with some lengthy masturbation.

When I got there, Mandy was there ahead of me, which is normal.

What wasn't normal was the other person who stood up from the couch when I walked in the door...

My jaw dropped. "Mom...what are you doing here? What's wrong?"

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Friday, January 23, 2009
My New Favorite Glass Dildo

PleasureMeNow.com Sent me a toy that looks fantastic and also makes me feel good on the inside. It's called the Curved Crystal Pink Flower Wand.

Mandy and I have been fooling around quite a bit lately because there's this guy across the way with a big telescope who thinks we don't know he watches my apartment. I try to give him quite a show whether I'm alone or have a guest over, so the poor guy gets an eyeful several times a week and must have a pretty severely worn out pecker by now.

I love glass toys because they look so cool and are so much fun to use because they feel good and because they can be shared safely in a way that the plastic ones cannot (with the exception of the very hard, glass-like polystyrene toys, which I don't recommend because they can begin to look used after a while).

A glass toy can be washed with hot water and soap because glass is totally nonabsorbent. If you want a little extra assurance that the toy is safe to share, you can follow the wash by rubbing it with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide. (Actually, I bypass all that by running the toy through the dishwasher on heated dry after every use. I trust that to sanitize my dishes, so why not my toys?)

Check this little beauty out:

Mandy quickly adopted this one as her favorite toy to borrow whenever she comes over to fuck. It's not too big to comfortably stick in the backdoor, which I'm helping Mandy to enjoy. Just a little lube and in it goes!

As I always reveal, PleasureMeNow.com gives me toys as gifts, but without any requirement that I give anything a good review, and I certainly receive no cash! Nor am I signed up to get a chunk of sales.

Now, talking about it has got me rather hot, so I think I'll go open the blinds show my telescopic buddy from across the way how well this toy can make me squirt!

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
What A Fantastic Day for America!
and...Will The Old School Democrats Please Stop!

My father, who went to an integrated Collinwood HS (Cleveland, OH) in the 1960's and became a jazz musician is blown away by the ascension of Barack Obama to the US Presidency. During my family's recent surprise visit, the election and its meaning were a frequent topic of conversation.

As a musician, he's naturally very liberal about matters regarding race. He's been the only white guy in the band more than once. Like most of us, black, white, olive-skinned, or brown, the idea that the next US President would be a black person not only never entered his mind, but if anyone had suggested it, he would have laughed at the thought. Not because he wouldn't have welcomed it, but because he would have thought the entire notion absurd.

In short he, like a lot of us, underestimated this wonderful country of ours.

A British friend of the family marveled at "...the consistent ability of the United States to reinvent itself whenever needed." Combine this with the normally ponderous nature of change in the U.S. and you have the American Paradox. America doesn't change easily, but when it does, it's a quantum leap. It's like the past never happened."

Unlike other countries where a confidence vote can be called at any time and the government can change virtually overnight, it's virtually impossible for a U.S. government to change except at election time. Bill Clinton was actually impeached (tried by Congress) but remained in office. A President might have to be caught robbing a bank or buggering a 12 year old to be removed from office. And even then, his party and its worldview would remain in The White House till the next election.

Now, you may know that I'm no friend of mainstream feminism, and that village idiot, Nancy Pelosi, is pissing me off again. Well, Nancy and her ilk, actually, but she is their figurehead.

Pelosi and other old school Democrats want to try Bush and/or members of his administration in Federal court. And this at a time when Obama needs bipartisan support to get control of the economy and institute some of his foreign policy changes.

Let's just rest on the fact that we Democrats are now in power, even Republicans see the need for unity, and let's get on with trying to piece our economy back together. Let's not waste energy on retribution and let's not turn current allies into actual enemies.

Why would they undermine the alliances Obama needs in order to succeed? I\ honestly don't get it. The Dems have long history of self-destructive behavior, and we only have a Democratic President, I feel, because, like Bill Clinton before him, Obama came out of left field.

I'm not with those who see George Bush as Satan incarnate. He was a dunce, but he was our dunce. After the 911 attack, it wasn't just George Bush's idea to strike back somehow somewhere. Not just George, but we, as a nation, didn't want to turn the cheek. We wanted the world to know that if someone hurts us, someone will hurt back. We hate George Bush for his choice of Iraq to take the brunt of our power? We'd be hating him more had he done nothing, which appears to have been the other primary option.

I'm sure Al Gore wakes up every morning thanking Fate that he was spared the Presidency during that time or we'd likely be hating him as much as we hate George Bush.

I've just watched Barack Obama become our President and I listened to his inspiring inaugural speech. I'm so proud I could burst. I do know that reality will set in and that he has a hard slog ahead of him. Pulling out of Iraq will not and cannot be a matter of simply pulling up stakes and leaving. That would endanger not just American troops, but Iraqis as well. And what may happen is that our troops will simply migrate to Afghanistan where the Taliban is rising once again to oppress, maim, and murder women for striving to have the rights and privileges enjoyed by men.

To reconstruct our economy, we need to do two seemingly contradictory things: we need to spend and we need to save. To be able to do this, the government will have to print more money, which will devalue the dollar further.

Oh, yes, Barack Obama has a tough job ahead of him. Let's stay behind him and watch his back.

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Monday, January 12, 2009
Jilly Jelly Girl

Christmas has come and gone, and while one of the reasons I might have given for the move from Cleveland to Portland was to escape Cleveland's severe winters, it turned out that Portland had an extended interval of severe weather which, while far from matching the worst lake effect snows of my Cleveland memories, paralyzed this city which can go years at a stretch with no snow in the lowlands. And the lowlands is where I live. Here in Portland 4" of snow closes schools and highways and means that companies like mine become severely short-staffed. By contrast, 4" of snow would be a mere inconvenience in Cleveland.

I don't live that far from the office, and it's easily reached by Portland's fabulous public transit system, so I didn't miss a minute of work. I even walk to or from work occasionally.

Before the storm, I did manage to select six employees to lay off. Our company is old-fashioned in the sense that it does favor seniority rather than getting rid of older, higher-paid employees first. This time, anyone who had been with the company three years or longer was safe, barring malfeasance of some sort, so most of our core staff of people who had transferred here from Ohio to help us start up the branch were safe. Even so, I found myself laying off people I had come to regard as friends.

I was glad to lay off one woman. She is an old-school feminist who looks in every transaction for a sexist crime against women, which she invariably seems to find. If you know me, you'll know how tiresome I find that shit. The statistics which show women trailing men in income and advancement are skewed by the many women who are not working to forward their careers. Who, in many cases, are only interested in their job as a way to meet potential mates or bedpartners.

They also reflect the fact that women are more likely to leave work to move with their partner when their partner relocates. Additionally, women are more likely to turn down promotions that involve lots of travel or moving to a different work site away from their work buddies. As a group, we cherish the social aspects of work and the bonds we form with coworkers far more than men do, and it costs us. I'm not immune. Much as I like Portland, it was coming here with Kelsey that made it bearable to leave my hometown and family behind. To move to a city with no real friends moving with me or waiting for me there would have been an opportunity I might easily turn down. I know how that sounds but women really are different from men.

Taking the woman I just referred to as an example, she rarely missed a break, even to help a client in a desperate or dire situation or a fellow worker in a tight spot, unless that person was a woman in a fix, of course. And not even always then. If someone (not a boss!) asked her for help, typically she'd point out that she was legally entitled to take a break.

She took time off for activities that seemed very optional, such as meeting with a tax professional, whereas I had no trouble finding one who'd make time for me in the evening or on a weekend. But mostly she just complained about the men in the office over trivial offenses (such as the older men referring to female coworkers as "girls") or over creative interpretations of what they intended by their words or deeds. Quite frankly, most of the other women wanted to smack her most of the time, not just me.

She, like so many traditional feminists, seemed to believe that the road to success was bitching and moaning. Trying harder and making herself more useful and valuable to the company and its customers never seemed to enter her mind.

Another thing I've discovered since I've taken on an administrative role is that women are more likely to view their employer as owing them. Owing them a job. Owing them healthcare. Even owing them childcare. That the first duty of a corporation, its officers, and even its employees is to the profitability of the company is a thought that seldom enters their minds.

It's not that we are stupid. It goes back to what we are taught and what we tell ourselves, and this misunderstanding not only makes us look stupid to our male peers, but holds us back from success at work.

I can tell you as a quasi-manager myself that neither Kelsey nor I ever took into account that this or that person, male or female, had a family to support financially, but if they let their family duties interfere excessively with work, we certainly had to take that into account. (And in case you're wondering, no we didn't apply that standard to people who had to deal with a real tragedy or crisis, such as a death or serious illness in the family. Our company does have a heart. It's just not a charity.)

All of that happened in late November, and while people decry the tendency of companies to do layoffs at such a seemingly inconsiderate time, it does conform with the business year of many companies while also allowing the affected employees to keep from getting too deeply into Christmas debt.

That this happened when it did gave us a few weeks before Christmas to adapt to working with a smaller staff. In fact, the new staffing level turned out to be just about right, for after the initial workload "hump" of the financial crisis, our workload dropped considerably as some of our customers cut back and others went out of business entirely.

I hinted in my prior post that I'd been undergoing some self-examination about my life, my current situation, and where I wanted to go in life. It was depressing. It's a depressing time of year for many people, and it was for me as well. I easily got my Christmas shopping done, for The Pearl District, where I live, is rife with small shops selling crafts and artistic goodies of various sorts. My brother was tough to buy for, as usual, so I ended up at an electronics store to buy him a copy of Left For Dead, the latest must-have video game, recommended by a nice male nerd in IT department.

I had decided not to go home for Christmas for several reasons. The cost of buying airfare at a late date is excessive, of course, which was one reason. A trip that might cost $400 round trip could easily be $1000 or more bought on short notice. Honestly, though, the main reason was that I was depressed and didn't want to go home where I feared I'd regress to the point of wanting to move back to Cleveland to be by my parents. I knew that that would not solve my core problem and so I resolved to avoid that temptation by not exposing myself to it.

Kelsey, Mandy, and my other local friends all had things to do on Christmas Eve, so I went to Jake's Grill, a top local restaurant well-known for its fine steaks, where I had a tenderloin for dinner, washed down with a California Cabernet. Dessert was a divine crème brulée accompanied by an excellent cup of the strong coffee that is ubiquitous here in this city which is as obsessed with java as Vegas is with money and sex. Good coffee is at its best when strong. Bad coffee is unpleasant no matter how dilute.

Afterward, I walked across the street and took the next trolley home. Soon, I was home watching a rented movie while nursing a glass of Canadian whisky on the rocks.

I was additionally depressed by not being able to reach my family on their land line, nor on any one of their individual cell phones, to wish them a Happy Christmas Eve. We had a long tradition of going out as a family for dinner on Christmas Eve and then coming home to drink champagne while opening up presents. It would be unlike them to go incommunicado on Christmas Eve because of the aforementioned activities and because it was an evening for calling friends and relatives to wish them a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

And then there was a knock on the door and a voice I knew well. It was a neighbor, an elderly lady I'd become friendly with. What did she want? I opened the door and she said, "Do you know these people?" She said it with such a smile that I knew something was up. I stuck my head out into the hall expecting to see Kelsey or possibly Mandy. Gina has a habit of showing up without notice and that she might bring our friend Belinda and her new baby Jenn wouldn't have been surprising at all. But it was far better... Instead, it was my entire family: daddy, mom, and Cliff, my brother stood there grinning ear-to-ear.

I expect that my tears didn't just run down my cheeks but shot out of my eyes in a spray as I hugged mom, Cliff, and finally my father. My neighbor excused herself and, after being thanked, retired to her apartment a smile still on her face.

I hadn't been able to reach them because they had been in transit, flying from Cleveland via Las Vegas. It turned out that they had arrived late that afternoon and had checked into a suite in the Governor Hotel, the very hotel that houses Jake's Grill, the restaurant where I'd had dinner. When I checked the timing, they'd been checking in as I'd been eating dinner.

They had agreed among themselves to maintain cell phone silence, hard as it was for my mom in particular. Not doing so might have allowed one of them to slip up and say something spoiling the surprise.

They had contacted Kelsey, who knew my plans for the evening, so they were fairly confident that they could pull the surprise off.

They had me get dressed for the weather and accompany them back to their suite. They also grabbed their presents to me, which by luck I still hadn't opened.

Dad, who you may or may not know is a jazz musician, had accepted a last-minute offer to work a big private New Years Eve party on the condition that he be flown out a week in advance and be given a sizable fee. The fee in no way covered the airfare or hotel bill but my folks thought it was worth the added expense to bring off the surprise and see my circumstances.

The suite was on the top floor and had a balcony overlooking the downtown area. The hotel had provided a fake Christmas tree about 5 feet and soon under it were a vast array of wrapped packages, from me to them and from them to me.

Knowing what a musician typically makes, I knew my folks had spent a lot of money to make this happen. We opened presents on Christmas Eve, as was our family tradition, drank some champagne, called friends and relatives, and chatted until well after midnight, and we all slept together in the room. It had two twin beds. Mom and dad shared one of the twins, I was given the other, and Cliff slept on the hide-a-bed couch.

I was happy as a clam. Depression? ...Gone!

They would be in town for a week, returning on New Years Day. After my long weekend with them, I would have to return to work. But as long as there were musicians around (and, believe me, there are plenty in Portland), my father would know people to hang with who would help entertain my family, day or night, anytime I couldn't be with them.

Christmas day, we had few choices since little was open other than movie theaters, chain drugstores on short hours, hotel restaurants, and of course movie theaters. Cliff pressed hard to see Quantum Of Solace, which we ended up seeing. Daniel Craig is hot, so I didn't put up much of a fight on that one, but on Sunday we saw The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button which is an absolutely amazing movie.

So, I had to work Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday. It was on Monday that I decided to walk home. While I normally take the trolley to work and back, and as much as I love my family, I'd grown used to my privacy and solitude, so I decided to walk home, a walk of about 40-45 minutes for some alone time.

Well, it was not to be.

First, I need to tell you that because of the normally relatively mild weather in Portland (the recent rough winter notwithstanding), and due to the generous and gentle nature of the city, Portland tends to attract more than its share of homeless and street people. It's not uncommon to have strange people calling out to you, approaching you, or begging for change.

So, it came as no surprise when I passed a bedraggled and dirty man laying in the recess of a delivery door between two stores. What did come as a surprise was that, after I passed, he mumbled a barely audible and trembly "Jilly Jelly Girl."

There are voices which are nondescript and voices which are absolutely unique. Also, there are pet names shared between just two people. Here I was confronted with a voice I knew muttering a pet name only one person ever used.

My family had spent the day exploring and shopping and, as it happened, were on their way to my place on the trolley when I called Cliff. We planned on having dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant that evening. I caught them just in time. I told them to get off at the next stop and gave my brother the simple directions to find me. I did not tell him why but I'm sure he knew from the tone of my voice that it was serious.

They came up to me and I looked daddy in the face and then looked down at the man in the doorway. Daddy's eyes followed mine. His brow furrowed and he tipped his head. He squatted at first, then got down on his knees and moved the man's hat and hair to expose his face.

It was my mom who gasped, "That's Gene. I thought he was..." "Dead," said daddy, finishing mom's sentence, and adding, "Everyone thought so. He simply disappeared one day. Death by misadventure seemed the logical explanation. He got into fights. We all imagined him with a slit throat and a sack full bricks tied to his ankles at the bottom of some river somewhere."

Mom said, "This is almost as bad."

Daddy stood up and looked at mom and finally me. He then said the obvious: "We're not going to leave him here." I said, "Well, let's take him to my place...for now anyway." Much as I had once loved this man, I also didn't want to share my apartment with a wino. At the same time, he was in peril of freezing to death if we left him there.

Daddy shook him awake and Gene recognized him. He said, "Hey (daddy's name), what are you doing here?" in classic jazzman's hipster brogue. My father was wiping a tear off his cheek as he replied, "Gene, we've been looking for you for years and here Jill finds you on the day she decides to walk home from work." Gene looked at me again with a wan smile, saying "Hey there Jilly Jelly Girl. You sure grew up!"

My family looked at each other. As I thought, they had never heard that nickname. It was between me and Gene.

The memories were coming back in a flood. Memories from a good fourteen or fifteen years earlier. I had such a crush on Gene when I was about eight years old. He was a talented trumpet player who seemed always to be down on his luck. This was partly due to a maintenance-level heroin habit and partly due to issues with authority. Even though daddy was a bandleader at the time, and his boss on occasion, he and Gene usually got on quite well.

If I had to liken Gene to someone, it'd have to be Chet Baker, the gorgeous young trumpet player who soared briefly based more on his naive singing stylings than virtuosic trumpet playing. Gene, while handsome himself, didn't look anything like Baker and, according to daddy, had far better chops. The comparison is more based on Chet Baker's rapid slide into addiction and obscurity. He eventually died, so it's said, by falling out of the window of his 2nd floor hotel room in Amsterdam. Coke and heroin were found both in his room and his blood (he was autopsied, of course).

Accident, suicide, or murder? We'll probably never know. I certainly wished nothing of the sort on Gene.

When I expressed interest in learning to play piano, daddy had pity on Gene, who needed the money and had developed a friendly and playful rapport with me during his many visits to our house. He seemed an ideal teacher. His heroin habit? Yeah, my folks weren't happy about it, but the lessons all took place in our family room with my mother (or more typically my father) nearby. Like I said he was a maintenance-level addict. He functioned just fine as long as he had enough smack in his system.

If you're wondering why I'd be getting piano lessons from a trumpeter, you should know that many wind instrumentalists learn enough piano to figure out harmonies and arrangements for the melodies they've written. A pianist or guitarist doesn't have that problem. They play an orchestral instrument.

As to my nickname, Gene, a playful person, noticed that I usually showed up for my lessons with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on a plate. He coined the nickname which existed just between us two in our private little world together.

I turned out to have no talent as a musician, but I kept going as long as gene was around because, in my eight year old way, I found him very attractive. I was pre-sexual, so it wasn't a case of "the hots." I'm sure most of you understand what I mean and found yourself strangely attracted to a grown-up for reasons you didn't understand (and certainly didn't analyze) at the time.

We were near a coffee shop. (In Portland, you're never far from one.) Mom sent Cliff to get a large cup of coffee with plenty of cream in it to cool it off a tad.

Daddy helped Gene to his feet. Apparently, at first he thought we were a fantasy or illusion of some sort, but he became embarrassed when the truth dawned on him. He tried to explain, saying that he'd been mugged, which wasn't a plausible excuse on this street, during daylight hours, with plenty of auto and foot traffic. Besides, he showed no sign of having been beaten up and every sign of being drunk out of his mind.

We got some coffee into Gene and he shut up, probably realizing that we weren't buying his lame story.

We walked him the 10 blocks or so to my building, which would have taken me 10 minutes to walk, but with him dragging along took 20.

A neighbor of mine, an older man, gave us disdainful looks as the elevator door opened and he saw us standing there with someone who was quite obviously a street person of some sort.

As soon as my door opened, my dad rushed him to my bathroom for a shower. He had me and my mother go out to find some fresh clothes for him, because the ones he'd been wearing would have been rejected by Goodwill for several valid reasons.

So, we ventured out into The Pearl District, which has numerous small high-end shops and finally found a shirt, pants, socks, jogging shoes, and warm jacket for which we paid dearly: a bit over $375. The clothes were nice sports clothes

This took nearly an hour of frantic rushing around. When we returned, Cliff was in my living room watching the local news and dad was still in the bathroom nursing Gene back to healthful sobriety by simply sitting on the toilet seat and talking to him.

I handed dad the clothing (minus the winter jacket) through the crack in the door. When they emerged about 20 minutes later, Gene had much sobered up and while seeming ashamed that we had found him that way also seemed sincerely glad to be among friends.

All of us except Cliff gave him lengthy hugs and told him in the most profuse terms how much we'd missed him. Cliff didn't really know him, for he was a toddler at the time Gene was giving me piano lessons.

Cliff elbowed me and pointed at his watch. I looked at mine. We should have been walking into the door of Sungari Pearl, the Chinese restaurant where we had dinner reservations just about then. I pointed this out to daddy who suggested we get going and invited Gene along. Gene, well-known as a lover of Chinese food, easily agreed, but noted that he had no funds. Mom told him not to worry.

In about 10 minutes we were at our table in the restaurant, which is only a 3 or 4 minute walk from my apartment building. Daddy, who is a responsible drinker, and who would normally be ordering some beer or a mixed drink in a Chinese restaurant, only ordered tea, and the rest of us took the hint, ordering tea as well, almost certainly to the disappointment of our waiter.

Without any prodding whatsoever, Gene's story came out in a voice that seemed somehow impaired. It was obviously hard for him to form some words.

He had indeed disappeared and it had been due to a bar fight he'd gotten into with the wrong person. A person who turned out to be connected to a bigtime drug trafficker. How big? One of the top Russian mafia bosses was this guy's father. When Gene heard that there was a contract out on his life, he headed for Europe where he made a living for a few years in Italian, French, and Spanish jazz clubs under an assumed name.

Sadly, every time it seemed he might be verging on local fame, he got paranoid and moved on. But try as he might, everywhere he went his reputation would catch up with him. And so, one night in Barcelona, he looked out in the audience and there was the guy he'd whipped in that fight. Along with him were two huge thugs. When the time came for a break between sets, he tried to pack up and quietly leave through the back door.

Unfortunately, two more thugs were waiting outside. They escorted him to a black Mercedes where, inside, was the very Russian mafia boss whose retribution he had feared. They were soon joined by the son and the other two thugs, and so, with a brute on either side of him, they were driven to a warehouse on the other side of town.

They walked him to a large space with a concrete floor where the father, who spoke passable English, as do many Russians, explained that he understood Gene had suckered his son and then had beaten him up. Gene admitted to us that this was probably true, though he was drunk at the time and his memories weren't clear. The man said that his son wanted a rematch.

Before he could reply, he felt a fist hit his stomach and he doubled over to the cold floor and rolled into a ball. For the next half hour, he was forced to stand up over and over again while the son bashed him about, holding nothing back. Gene didn't fight back feeling that his best shot at survival was not to make a good show of himself. He was right. They realized that it had become pathetic after a while.

When it reached that point the father said, to one of the thugs, "Finish him off," obviously meaning "Kill him" and turned to go. The last thing Gene remembered was the son stopping his father and whispering something in his ear. The father nodded and then...blackness.

When Gene woke up, he woke up with a shattered jaw and a mouth with several teeth floating around in it. Oh yes, and more pain than he'd ever known in his life.

He wandered out onto a street with some traffic on it, and collapsed. The next thing he knew he was in a hospital bed with some investigators from Cuerpo Nacional de Policia (Spain's FBI, basically) there asking questions, for his attack bore all the marks of a gangland attack. He studiously avoided answering their questions and they surely understood why: cooperating with them would only take the violence to the next, and fatal, level.

The reconstruction of his jaw took a total of four operations inside his mouth, each one more painful to recover from than the one before. While his face had been restored to its former beautiful external appearance, enough damage had been done to destroy him as a trumpet artist. He couldn't even talk properly much less control an instrument as unruly as a trumpet.

I looked at my mother at the end of this story and her eyes were filled with tears. Cliff was holding her hand.

Dad put his arm around Gene's shoulder and said, "Once a musician, always a musician."

We ate and were done just in time for daddy to suggest we move on to Jimmy Mak's, just a few blocks away, and so we went to one of the best jazz clubs in the country, where we spent the rest of the evening, except for Cliff, still under 21 and so unable to stay beyond 9:30, when the club changes from a restaurant to a jazz-oriented nightclub. He went back to my place to play Left For Dead on his XBox.

Gene told us to go ahead and order drinks. He admitted to being an alcoholic. He'd totally kicked heroin. "If that's so," said my mother, "you have the will power to stay away from alcohol." "Yes," he agreed. "I only drank to ease the pain of feeling useless.

At this, I burst into tears and said, "Gene, you're not useless. You were a fabulous piano teacher." He smiled and said, "I'm nowhere near having a piano and...are you a pianist? I seem to remember that you quit." "If I'm not a pianist, it's because you helped me see that. I'm a writer, not a musician. You were a fine piano teacher. A talented one. But not everyone is cut out to be a pianist." I'm afraid I blushed, for my family isn't really aware of this blog. Luckily, I did write a couple articles that got published by a travel magazine, so this claim didn't really seem outrageous or fabricated.

I was wiping the tears off my face when father said, "You're coming home with us. We have a piano. I'll whip you into shape and get you some lounge gigs when you're good enough for journeyman work. And soon, I'm sure, you'll have the chops to play in a jazz band. Are you still afraid of the Russians?"

Gene said he was past being afraid of the Russians and was fairly sure they didn't really think of him anymore. He thanked daddy and then shut up and enjoyed some good jazz. Afterward, he was taken back to the hotel with my parents. Cliff slept on my couch that night.

Several more days passed with Gene spending a lot of time with my parents, visiting musicians, going to shows. Gene stayed dry all that time, at least when he was with them. Cliff was exploring some of the local Internet cafés, comic stores, and other shops that appealed to a college sophomore with nerdish tendencies.

New Years Day came along, my father's work was done, and my folks were to pick Gene up at the cheap hotel where he'd been flopping. He should have been waiting out front. He was not. Daddy went inside and managed to get the manager to let him into the room to do a "welfare check." It's the kind of hotel where drunks stay and people are often coming by to make sure a friend or relative is well or at least alive. There was Gene, laying on his bed unconscious from alcohol. Daddy left a note for Gene telling him that there would be plane fare to Cleveland anytime he felt like coming. All he had to do was ask.

Then, he and mom and Cliff flew back to Ohio.

A few days later I got a call from daddy who told me that Gene had finally called and apologized for not being ready to go to the airport. He promised to get into alcohol treatment. I asked, "Do you think he will?" Daddy said, "I hope so, but it's up to him, not me or you." I said I hoped he'd take up piano again. "Well," said daddy, echoing my own words, "not everyone is cut out to be a pianist."

That put me into quite a funk until Kelsey invited me to dinner a day or two later. After dinner, we went back to my place and fucked each other silly all evening long. I sucked on her nipples until they turned into small pink marbles, and then she stuck her tongue so far up my asshole while fingering my cunt that I almost peed on my bed.

And you'd better believe I did her just as well. Got my fist all the way in for the first time ever and did her like a jackhammer.

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This Is As Good As It Gets

Cinema Erotique is just fantastic. If you know me at all, you know that I love seeing hot chicks, and especially when they look like pretty everyday girls and not those off-a-cookie cutter California porn girls, Las Vegas showgirls, or Maxim models. I was given a free pass to look around and I was stunned at what I saw.

Here is that pretty girl behind the counter at the coffee shop or serving tables at the local restaurant or running the check-out stand at your local Walgreen's. And what is she doing? She's masturbating alone or fooling around with another girl or, much less frequently, having sex with an attractive guy.

What I like about Cinema Erotique is that while the quality is high and obviously made with love, it's not that "made in someone's basement" stuff or that over-produced slick California schlock. It's made with love and is not formulaic in the least.

You'll find photo sets, quick videos a few minutes long, and feature videos which tend to be more like 15-20-30 minutes in length. Of course I haven't had time to view them all, but the several I have seen have been quite satisfying. (Come on, you know what I mean!)

In short, if you like me, my attitude toward life and sex, and the kind of "porn" I promote here, you'll love Cinema Erotique. Click on the link and take a look!

Friday, December 19, 2008
Echos Of Guyana And Hard Good-byes

As I said at the close of my last story, "...I opened my eyes to behold a beautiful little angel with what appeared to be a fearsome monster from Hell. And the funny thing was...I knew both of them. I knew both of them well."

They were the little Jenn along with Cathy, her companion and guard dog. I had first met them on my trip to Guyana. But what were they doing here in Italy, so far away from their lush jungle forest paradise? I replayed the trip in my mind and, no, Belinda had not been along on that trip.

How very strange!

Well, I didn't have too much time to think about it since as soon as Jenn realized I was awake, she had all the permission a six year old needs to jump all over me. I was delighted, of course. I hugged her spindly little body tight. It reminded me of Gina when she was that age.

Cathy, her dog, sat patiently by the bedside, for this Presa Canario bitch was anything but poorly trained. She had impeccable manners and recognized that beds were off-limits to dogs weighing in the neighborhood of, I'd guess, 120 lb. Here's what Cathy looks like. A mix of mastiff and the bull-baiting dogs of ancient times, a presa is actually bigger, tougher, and stronger than a pitbull. And Cathy had, in fact, killed a pitbull that was charging little Jenn on one occasion. And she didn't just fight it; she killed it summarily as a Jack Russell terrier might kill a rat or squirrel.

A Presa Canario

The wrestling over, I finally asked the obvious, "What are you doing here? I'm so happy to see you, but...what a surprise." She started using the bed as a trampoline, shouting, "We're here to see the little baby!"

Of course. This had to be one of Gina's little surprises. She loves facilitating meetings and reunions more than anyone else I know. And little girls are so fascinated with babies it borders on an obsession.

Jenn told me that she'd been sent to see if I could be ready for lunch soon (for it was that late) and I said to tell Belinda to give me a half hour to shower and get ready.

I hopped out of bed and saw that Cathy was awaiting some attention as well, so I rubbed her head and scratched her underjaw. She sniffed and licked me and wagged her tail, barked once, and then she and Jenn were off.

When I got to the dining room, Belinda, Gina, and Rickie (Jenn's mother, and a close friend of both Gina and my boss, Kelsey) were laughing hysterically. Jenn seemed a little puzzled. Apparently it was something grown-ups find amusing. Not for kids.

I gave Rickie a big hug and asked if her husband, Harry, was along as well, and she said with a sigh that bespoke as much relief as disappointment, "Nope," then clutching her darling daughter she said, "it's just us girls. This is a girl thing, I guess, and he is a busy man."

As I sat down, I asked, "So...what were you all laughing about? Can I be in on the joke?" This resulted in gales of laughter from all except Jenn, who just smiled.

Gina said, "In a way, you are the joke." More laughter.

Okay, by then I felt they were toying with me, so Belinda had pity on me, explaining through her own barely controllable laughter, "Pietro handed in his resignation this morning." "But why?" I asked. "Apparently he dishonored me last night after I went to bed."

I'm sure I turned a few shades of red. Not at any discovery, for Belinda and Gina knew or sensed that I wanted to fuck Pietro, but that he took it that seriously was just plain ridiculous.

Belinda continued, "He beat around the bush quite a bit so finally I said, 'You had sex with Jill after I went to bed, didn't you?' and he shook his head in shame. I said 'As long as whoever you are fooling around with is consenting and it's not interfering with your job, your life is yours.'"

Gina said, "But wait, Jill, you haven't heard the best part."

Belinda explained, "So I told him, 'If you helped Jill have a more memorable visit, I'm happy for her and for you.' And then I gave him a 10% raise."

I then realized that Gina and Belinda were looking at me and expecting me to tell them something. I was stupid for a moment or two until I realized what they wanted to know, so I said, "Oh yeah, it's every bit as big as we thought...and then some." More laughter.

I looked at little Jenn who was still a bit puzzled as to the grown-up things we were talking about. She did ask her mother, "What is sex?" though, and Rickie did her best to mesh it in with the theme of their visit. "It's how people make babies, dearie."

Of course, Jenn drew the obvious conclusion, "When is Jill going to have her baby? In nine months?" Her degree of excitement would be hard to describe adequately. She continued, "And will it be a boy or a girl?"

Gina looked at Rickie sympathetically. "You had to expect that coming out to see the baby would stimulate a lot of curiosity." Rickie laughed and said, "I think I just discovered the real reason why Harry opted out of the trip. Turning to her little daughter she explained, "You don't make a baby every time you have sex. Jill and Pietro had sex for fun."

I think Jenn couldn't imagine anything even more fun than a baby, so she looked perplexed. Gina thought she'd help by saying, "Sex feels good. Nature made it that way to help people want to make babies, but it still feels good when you are not."

Jenn was obviously still puzzled.

Being the wordsmith of the bunch, I jumped in with an analogy. "It's like eating. Sometimes you eat because you have to, because you're hungry. Sometimes, like when you go to a party, you eat because it's fun. Because instead of regular everyday food there's cake and candy." Now Jenn got it.

She went on the next logical question, "So, mommy, how do you get sex?" One of the weirdnesses of English is that we talk about something we do as though it's something we obtain and possess. Why do we say we "had sex" when in fact we could more accurately say we "did sex"?

I explained that sex is something you do and that the way we talk about it is a little confusing and strange.

This satisfied her enough for her to ask, "How do you do sex, then?"

Not that I would have said anything, for at this point it was her mother's prerogative to explain it the way she preferred. I do know that the key with kids is to just satisfy their basic curiosity and not get ahead of the game with technical explanations for which the child has no context. About the time Jenn found herself inexplicably drawn to boys, that would be a better time to provide the additional detail. So, when Rickie saw Maria coming in with a big tureen of soup, she took that as a cue to say, "Another discussion for another time, sweets. Lunch is here."

I think we were all happy to be spared the penis and vagina discussion, with all of the details that would go along with that and all the uncomfortable questions. Jenn was still years away from being in the "need to know" situation. For now, all she needed to know was that babies are the result of sex, but that sex can be just for fun, too, AND, of course, to let mommy or daddy know if anyone tries to touch her "bathing suit area." However, I think the mere presence of her imposing doggy nursemaid made that situation extremely unlikely. No mere human being would stand a ghost of a chance against Cathy.

(If you have read the Guyana series of stories, you also know that Cathy's other purpose is to sense when Jenn is in a low sugar crisis, for Jenn was born a type 1 diabetic, and this is why it is only rarely that she is far from Jenn's side, and when she's apart from Cathy Jenn is always with at least one of her parents, both of whom are prepared to deal with critical hypoglycemia, as are all of their servants.)

Over lunch I discovered that Rickie, Jenn, and Cathy had pretty much just arrived, so I asked the obvious question: "Have Pietro and Bruno met Cathy yet?" Belinda explained that Bruno had gone into town and was expected back soon, and that no, they hadn't met yet. The servants had been briefed, however, so that Pietro could keep Bruno restrained until the dogs were properly introduced, for Bruno would immediately sense a dangerous intruder and Cathy's instinct to protect little Jenn would surely be triggered.

The last thing we needed was a dogfight between two huge dogs.

Amazingly, when Pietro and Bruno entered the room, both dogs remained calm. Pietro raised one of his dark eyebrows and said, "My...that is some dog. A presa, is he not?" Little Jenn corrected him on gender, saying "She's a girl. Cathy is a girl." "Cathy, is it," Pietro said with a laugh, for he knew that Cathy is an unlikely name for a dog, unless a little girl is given the honor of naming her.

Looking at Rickie, who was so obviously Jenn's mom and ultimately Cathy's master, Pietro asked if he could bring Bruno over to meet Cathy and he received permission. Along the way, he explained that this was Bruno's territory and that it was Bruno who needed to know that this intruder was now one of the pack. Cathy also needed to know her place in the heirarchy of the pack.

Cathy was tense and guarded at first, but allowed Bruno to sniff her butt. I think we were all waiting for a snarl or snap or some hint of an incident, but it didn't happen and, in fact, both dogs were allowed outdoors to play, and so we had a lot of fun watching them chase each other all around the nearby courtyard for all the world like a pair of puppies.

We decided to go into town and do some window shopping, which, no doubt, would quickly devolve into actual shopping. So, after a half hour or so of getting ready, we met at the carport and clambered into the big Mercedes stretch. Pietro was at the wheel, Bruno at his side. Little Franca, who had been swaddled up in blankets to the point where she resembled nothing other than a coccoon, was soon strapped into a special infant seat.

Now, Como is tiny by comparison with Italian shopping meccas like Milano or Roma, but due to the rather well-heeled nature of its inhabitants, what's there is generally not "low end." It's no backwater or hick town. So, soon we were in shops where handbags and shoes cost hundreds of dollars, dresses and coats thousands. Way out of my league. I live in Portland's Pearl District, with trendy little shops aplenty, but even there prices averaged only 20% of what I saw in Como.

Gina is well-heeled and generous, and insisted on buying a replacement for my own watch which was five or six years old and starting to need regular adjustment. She bought me a Swiss-made replacement for $1200, and it was far from the most expensive watch in the shop.

This was about the time of the international financial crisis, and Belinda was starting to have to stop to take calls on her cell phone. Her bank (the one she owned) was experiencing some difficulties and needing some infusions of cash to handle the problem of people pulling their funds out of it. Luckily, unlike many banks, most of its clients were businesses who understood that as uneasy as it felt, their money was still safer in the hands of bankers than under someone's pillow.

Even so, the managers she had hired to help her run the conglomerate were needing to consult with her more and more. She needed to sell off some of her less important holdings to prop up the bank.

As we walked from shop to shop, we generally had the narrow sidewalks to ourselves. People ahead of us would duck into shops or cross the street. Partly because we took up the entire sidewalk and partly due to the two rather savage-looking dogs who walked with us. Bruno was up front, and Cathy was by Jenn's side, as she normally was. People are used to german shepherds, but presas are another story. Looking something like a pitbull on growth hormone and steroids, a presa canario is a dog whose presence you can't ignore.

Eventually, we wanted some coffee, so we ended up at a bakery cafe. I have to tell you, I'm not unfamiliar with Italian pastries. Cleveland, where I grew up, has a thriving Little Italy with several bakeries, and my parents used to love to take me and my brother out so that they could have strong espresso and cakes. But those pastries were on an entirely different plane.

Pietro was waiting outside with the two dogs, who were not allowed inside. He tapped on the window to get our attention, and when he had Belinda's attention, he pointed downward to draw her attention to something. "It's Luigi," said Gina. (Luigi was the boy we met on a path in the woods near Belinda's villa.) Belinda waved for him to come in. Luigi yelled to someone else. It was, apparently, his mother. Belinda signaled for her to come in as well.

Like many less prosperous Italians, Luigi's mother was very conscious of class distinctions. It was almost humorous the way Belinda had to calm the woman down and get her to stop apologizing for Luigi, who had done nothing at all wrong. Belinda treated the two of them. Luigi had hot chocolate with orange zest and his mother had cappuccino. They shared a square of chocolate cake that was so rich that between the two of them they couldn't finish it.

Luigi's mother, whose name was Isabella, explained that her family had lived here on the lake for centuries and that, at one time, they had been wealthy vintners until a plague had hit the wine industry in the area, a disaster from which her family never recovered. At this time, she was making ends meet by helping a catering company at banquets and by doing sewing and mending. She had a hobby of jewelry-making and showed us some of the rings and wristlets she was wearing, which were actually very nice. Her problem, she said, was not having the best materials to work with and not being able to promote herself.

Knowing Gina's generosity, I was surprised when it was actually Rickie who offered some help, asking how much it would cost to make a couple wristlets like the ones Isabella was wearing out of gold instead of silver. Isabella offered to make them for $800 each, but Rickie told her not to undersell herself and offered her about $1500 each (I'm converting from euros to dollars here, so some rounding is going on.)

Isabella took on the assignment and accepted a down payment from Rickie. However, she had a banquet to go to and had to take Luigi home first. Belinda said that we would make sure Luigi got home, and so she was able to stay with us another half hour, during which she told us several stories about life in the area during the previous centuries, including losing her own father during World War II.

Finally she had to leave, and her leave-taking from Luigi was almost heartrending. Obviously, he was her reason for existence.

The topic turned back to food and Belinda said that she thought that running a place like this would be fun. (Understand, she knows almost nothing about cooking or baking or operating a business, even though she owns a conglomerate.) I don't know if she was noting that the owner at the cash register was obviously old and on her last legs or what, but Belinda seemed quite sincere and more than just a little interested.

Even so, when Franca woke up demanding to be fed, the old woman shuffled over to take a look, and with a kindly smile asked all the standard questions: boy or girl? what's her name? how old is she? and so on. Belinda asked some questions about the place: how long have you been in business? do you do all your own baking? etc.

I'm fairly sure Belinda will be back to establish more rapport with the owner and may, eventually, buy the little place to run as a kind of hobby business.

After 10 or 15 minutes, Franca was done feeding and simply looked around aimlessly, for at that age babies are still learning to differentiate things in their world. A long road of learning lay ahead for little Franca, but at least she would have one of the nicest and smartest mommies a baby could wish for.

Little Luigi was fascinated with Franca. Belinda even let the boy hold her for a few minutes, and the tenderness he showed the infant is hard to describe. An only child, he obviously pined for a sibling or two. My own brother is a treasure.

By this time, the coffee cups and plates were empty, so we bid the shop owner farewell and climbed back into the limo and, with Luigi up front with Pietro and Bruno, we drove Luigi home and then were delivered back to Belinda's villa.

Once again, Belinda and Gina retired before me and I wandered over to the servant's quarters. Some of the villa's staff actually live there, and it wasn't too hard to determine which door was Pietro's. He was the only one who wore military style boots, and there they were outside his door. Also, there was the distinctive sound of a dog's nails on wood approaching the door. Bruno was too well trained to bark. I heard some creaking of wood, which apparently was Pietro coming toward the door. When the door opened, Pietro smiled and invited me in.

It was definitely a guy's place. Austere and with photos of airplanes and racing cars. Not that inviting from a female's point of view, but at least it was neat.

He offered me some wine, which I accepted. It was inexpensive wine, but good. A good, sturdy everyday wine. He made a little platter of cheese and crackers and we watched TV for an hour or so before he made a move.

And so we kissed for a while as his hands found their way under my shirt and then under my skirt. When his fingers entered my pussy, I shivered and kissed him even harder, finding and massaging his massive cock through his trousers.

Eventually, I undid his belt and opened up his trousers and out sprang the object of my longing. I kissed his lips one last time and then went down on him, tasting and licking his tool until it seemed as hard as granite. And then, straddling him, I sat down on it, taking as far in as it would go.

I fucked him furiously for a few minutes until I feared he might come. This time, I wanted dessert, so I whispered in his ear that he could fuck my ass.

To my surprise, everything stopped. Was he looking at me as if I was a whore?

"What's wrong?" I asked. He was silent. "You've never fucked a chick in the behind?" "It never occurred to me," he said. "Well, give it a try; most guys enjoy it," I explained. "Normally, finding a girl who'll let you do it is regarded as a stroke of luck!"

Letting him slide out of my pussy, I guided his wet dick to my butt and helped it in. It hurt a bit at first because, as you know, he has a big one. But once I was all stretched out, he started thrusting, which I could actually feel through my vaginal wall and in chills that radiated throughout my body.

I was still straddling him, which prevented him from going in very deep, so I suggested we move to the floor. I went down onto my knees doggy style and he put his cock back in me. Now he could do me good.

And he did, pulling out in time to spurt all up my back and nearly into my hair. When he came, he let out a string of Italian epithets which I didn't understand, except for the mention of the Virgin Mary here and there.

Of course, I'd been masturbating at the same time and feeling his hot cum hit me was enough to push me over the edge, and so my own orgasm quickly followed.

When he had his wits about him again, he saw me still in the doggy position and realized why I hadn't changed position. He excused himself, running to his bathroom to retrieve a box of tissues, which he used to wipe off my back.

I spent the night in his bed, getting up in the early morning with him but leaving before he left. I kissed him quickly, ran back to the villa, and went up to my room, where I grabbed 2 or 3 more hours of sleep before little Jenn woke me up again.

I had a text from Kelsey asking if I were nearly ready to come home, and the very fact that she asked told me that she needed me, and so I had to tell Belinda and Gina that it was time for me to go. Gina arranged for one of Ray's jets to fly me home, so I was actually on my way home later in the day.

I hated to leave. It was such a beautiful day. Brisk, due to the season, but under a sky of blinding azure interspersed with the occasional cottony cloud. In mid-afternoon, little Luigi showed up and Jenn had a playmate. She and Luigi and Cathy could be seen chasing all around the backyard.

I had one last dinner with my friends. It was quiet, but that pleasant quiet of people whose lives fit together comfortably and for whom a silence is as great a gift as a kindness of word. It's because we were sad. I was sad to leave my friends and they were sad to see me go.

And when it was time, I said good-bye to Rickie, Jenn, Cathy, Marie, and, finally, to Belinda and the newest member of the gang, little Franca. Gina would accompany me to the airport.

Just as when we were in our preteen and early teen years when we might as well have been sisters, I held her in my arms and stroked her pixie hair. Upon arriving, we exited the car and I gave her a big hug and a kiss on her forehead and we said our farewells.

Pietro remained behind the wheel with Bruno at his side. He rolled down his window and offered a verbal good-bye and a handshake. Just as well. I'm not looking for a boyfriend and an overly fond farewell would have required some acting on my part.

Before taking off I phoned ahead to tell Kelsey when I'd be back to work. She told me we'd have to find five more employees to lay off. I also checked in with mom and dad to discover that all was well. They were glad that Cliff, my little brother, would home for the holidays and they asked if I would.

I said I'd try.

I'm trying to decide what to do with my own life. Do I want to settle down and get married? Would I ever want a baby? Do I even want to continue on in a job that has become a lot less fun now, what with having to fire people I've just learned to like? People I'd just hired...

"Last hired, first fired."

When I finally got home it was almost news time. I poured myself a tall glass of Canadian and soda and turned on the news. It was so depressing that I turned it off. I was about to go to bed when Mandy called to welcome me home.

She had hardly shut her mouth when I caught myself asking "Would you like to fuck me tonight?" She laughed and said "I thought you'd never ask!"

Shortly after midnight, we were naked in the shower kissing like it was the first time for both of us. After we dried off, she had me stand up next to my bed my back to the wall and one foot up on the bed. She got under me and licked my pussy and asshole, giving me an orgasm almost straight away.

I threw her down on the bed, returning the favor with passionate kisses and a furious hand job and G-spot massage that had her digging her nails into me so hard I was afraid she might draw blood. I had to cover her mouth to muffle her moans and screams as she climaxed, for she would have sounded like she was being murdered. I didn't need police knocking on the door, waking me up just after I'd got to sleep.

"Satisfaction murders desire." I heard that somewhere. And it certainly was true for us. All desire gone, we melted into each other's arms, and it was there I found myself the next morning. Ready to go to work and ruin people's holidays and possibly even their lives, at least for a period of time.

I was reminded of Robert J. Oppenheimer's regret at participating in the construction of the first atomic bomb: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I had the fragile excuse, "If I don't do it, someone else will," but at least in my case they would know, by my tears, that it truly did pain me to have to let them go.

Perhaps I was the right one to do the dirty work after all.

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New World Girls

New World Nudes seems to be a coalition of some sort between a bunch of "art porn" producers. They produce very high quality erotica with really, really hot models. The coalition includes the likes of Hegre, Gallery Carre, Argen-Teens, and New Nude City.

Here are some typical galleries. Just click on the sample photo to see it and other photos in very large size and from those galleries you can go on to the respective sites:

Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Belinda's Bambina
(The Trip West, Addendum III)

NOTE: This brings the curtain down on the The Trip West series. Any future stories involving Belinda will just be standalones or will belong to other series.

Kelsey gave me leave to go to Europe, and arranged for me to represent the company at a conference in Rome so that I'd get my airfare paid, which allowed me to go to Italy to be with Belinda when her baby was born in the weeks after the conference.

And the baby was born, a week or so early but still quite healthy. The most gorgeous black-haired baby girl. (Belinda's hair is naturally black and Franco's was dark brown.) She gave birth, symbolically for her, in the room she shared with her little girl's father, Franco. Her housekeeper functioned as a midwife, and apparently is quite experienced in that area. It was almost more emotional for the old woman, since she also delivered Franco, and had lived to see the miracle of a new life emerging to replace another.

They say pregnant women have a kind of glow about them and I must say, that was very true of Belinda. Gina saw more of it than I did, because she spent most of the last five months or so with Belinda. I was there only a few days when the baby was born.

Gina also saw the gloom of Belinda's grief over the premature death of her lover and husband-to-be gradually give way to anticipation over the impending birth. By the time I got there, most of the time she looked peaceful and contented, and was even able to enjoy humor on occasion.

One of the many miracles of Mother Nature's Plan (or God's Plan, if you're religious, which I'm not) is the incredible love of a mother for her baby from the first moment she sees it. Before then, unless she's distracted by drug addiction or is mentally damaged, she cares for it and sacrifices for it but does not yet love it. All of that is out of a sense of responsibility and anticipation. Not love.

I was there at the moment of birth, holding Belinda's hand while Gina wiped her brow. At times, I was afraid she'd break my fingers, the pain of her contractions being so intense. I've heard that first births take longer and are more trouble than subsequent births. In fact, I heard a friend say that when her mom delivered her baby brother, a fourth child, the doctor said that it was "almost like catching a football."

The baby was born while Belinda lay on a cushy chaise longue which had been covered with a plastic sheet and a cheap white sheet. Belinda sleeps on silk or satin, but there was no need to ruin a perfectly good sheet.

From the first contraction, which happened at about 7 p.m., shortly after dinner that rainy evening, to the actual delivery at something like 4:30 a.m., poor Belinda alternated between being calm and serene and lucid, and shrieking like a banshee from the pain.

When the baby finally emerged, which took about, I'd guess, two minutes, it looked (I kid you not) gray-blue with a hint of pink, plus a bunch of bloody spots all over it. Probably the blood was placental or was from tissue torn and/or ruptured along the birth canal. Babies aren't big, generally speaking, but they're bigger than a cock! And twice I've experienced blood after taking a large cock in a furious fuck session.

Frankly, I was worried that the limp little thing was stillborn! Belinda looked concerned, too.

Maria, who had placed the infant on Belinda's tummy, didn't seem worried. She used a forefinger to clear some stuff out of the baby's mouth. This animated the little girl and, almost immediately, her arms started moving and her tiny little legs thrusted, then she let out the most beautiful raspy baby cry you ever heard. Baby cries are surprisingly unlovely, they are designed to get mommy's attention, so a newborn sounds a lot more like a cicada than a canary.

At any rate, what I was getting at with my observation on motherly love was how the Belinda I had seen dealing with anticipating the birth changed almost in an instant to a mother totally in love with her offspring. She looked at that little baby like she was the most precious object in the cosmos. I could tell that in that instant she had dedicated her life to seeing this little girl of hers to adulthood.

I looked over at Gina, who was in tears, bawling uncontrollably. Maria went over and held tiny little Gina just as if Gina was her own child, and she wept, too. Remember: Maria had delivered Franco, the baby's father, so there's almost no way to describe her own feelings. Suddenly, I found tears running down my own cheeks.

Maria asked Belinda, "Do you have a name for the little bambina?" "Yes," she replied without taking her eyes off her new baby. "Her name is Franca." The feminine form of Franco. Etymologically, it means "free woman," which is the kind of women we are. So, a very fitting name indeed, and a fitting start to womanhood in the 21st century.

Then Maria got to work with cutting the umbilical cord, cleaning up the afterbirth, and so on. When she was done with that, she cleaned Belinda up and asked for the baby so that Belinda could go over to her bed, and Gina and I helped Belinda up into her bed and covered her with her bedcovers. Maria had by now swaddled Franca in a little pink blanket. She handed the little bundle to Belinda who looked at it the way only a new mother can look at her baby. She beamed at Gina and me while tears rolled down her cheeks.

Maria said, "Something good has come of a tragic situation." Wringing her hands, she begged her leave and told Belinda, "Get some rest, my darling." She looked at Gina and me, obviously to give us a hint.

Maria left and Belinda said, "She's right. I'm exhausted, but I know what you two want before you go to bed yourselves." With that, she offered to let me hold Franca, and I took the tiny little offering in my arms and admired her serene little sleepy face. Gina came by and I handed the baby to her. "She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," said Gina, and I agreed. With that, we went to bed until Noon.

Gina and I came into the dining room together and there was Belinda nursing Franca. She beamed when she saw us. "Sleep well?" she asked. Gina said, "I hardly slept at all." I agreed that I'd had trouble getting to sleep as well. And when I did, it seemed I relived the birth over and over again.

We ate a light brunch during which Belinda told us we were invited to go for a ride. We agreed, but were unsuccessful in learning where we'd be going.

We met Belinda at the carport, for it was raining. We got in back with Belinda and Franca. Maria was sitting in the front seat with the driver, a young man in a uniform and wearing a cap. Off we went. By this time, Gina and I had figured out not to ask where we were going. Was it intended to be a surprise?

Maybe a half hour went by during which the rain subsided and the sky became partly cloudy. A glass window separated the front, where Maria and the driver were, from the passenger compartment. We could see Maria talking to the driver, pointing and apparently telling him where to go.

Eventually, the car pulled off the road and Maria turned back with a look that said, "We're here." Belinda, wrapped in the black coat of a widow, waited for the driver to open the passenger door. I heard him ask her in accented English to be careful for we were parked very near to the road. She half got out, but sat back inside briefly as a large truck went by. Gina and I got out of the other side of the car, walking around the front to join Maria. When Belinda nodded, we (minus the driver) crossed the road and stood at a low railing. The view was gorgeous, with part of Como in sun and part in the shade of a cloud. You could see it was raining here and there.

Then I looked down and stepped back almost involuntarily because there was a sheer drop down to a pile of broken rubble. Probably rubble from some kind of demolition.

Belinda had been holding back. Maria had been holding her elbow and guided her to the edge. She looked down for a moment or two, closed her eyes, and stepped back, saying "Let's go." Suddenly, Gina and I knew where we were. This was no sightseeing excursion. We were where Franco's car had gone off the road landing upside down, killing him and one of his sisters instantly in the accident that wiped out his entire family.

"Let's go," said Belinda quietly.

The driver found a place to turn around, and when he did Belinda revealed what had become obvious, telling us that that was where Franco had died. She added that she hadn't had the courage to go there before but now that his child had been born, she brought the child to the scene as a kind of turning of the page and to get a modicum of closure.

When we got back, Franca started crying and Belinda took her upstairs to feed and bed her. Gina and I went to a room that functioned as a kind of family room and watched Italian afternoon TV, during which I also called Kelsey to tell her the good news. I forgot the time difference. It was 6:30 a.m. in Portland and, luckily, about time for Kelsey to get up anyway. She didn't complain, and probably wouldn't have minded at all if I'd called her in the middle of the night, for she's been awaiting the news.

Presently, Belinda arrived. No longer did she wear the black garb of an Italian widow. Now she wore a gorgeous red floral print shift. A shift probably because she was hesitant to wear anything very formfitting until her tummy got back into shape (and luckily, in case you're wondering: no stretch marks!). One could tell that she had graduated out of the grieving widow phase and entered a newer, healthier phase of her young life.

For the first time since the birth, she wasn't with Franca. "Franca's sleeping," she explained, looking a little sheepish, as though she had done something wrong. Gina laughed and said, "Babies sleep. They sleep a lot." Belinda smiled and joined us.

New moms are always unsure they are doing it right. This comes partly from real concern, I think, and partly from the fact that every other woman who's mothered (and quite a few who have not) feels it's her place to give advice.

Referring back to our little excursion of the afternoon, she said, "I'd never been there before. I mean, I've been past it many times without knowing it, but I asked Maria to take me to the exact spot, which is why she was up front with Pietro, the driver."

There was a long lull in the conversation. I looked at this lovely girl who'd had to do so much growing up in such a short time. And to think we thought of her has an annoying airhead for so long. There is so much to people you don't know, that you can't see. It's like daddy always says, "You never know what's in someone's heart until the chips are down." Belinda, it turns out, is "a real mensch," to borrow one of my own mother's favorite expressions. You use it for people who are good and can be depended on when the going gets rough.

I couldn't resist going over and giving her a huge hug. "You've been through so much. Too much." Gina came and made it a group hug.

Belinda composed herself and said, "I want to thank you two for being here for the birth. I can't imagine what it would have been like without you two by my side."

Maria brought coffee and we all sat together and watched more Italian afternoon TV. "Let's go out to dinner tonight," said Belinda, and Gina and I both agreed: that was a great idea. "Maria will be more than happy to care for Franca, and I've already started expressing milk for when I can't feed Franca myself."

And it was true about Maria, who was polite without fail, but clearly wanted to hold the baby as much as she could. I later learned she had lost a child about the time Franco was born. In many ways, she had co-mothered him, though Franco's mother was always described as a doting mom. That may have been so, but being the wife of a billionaire magnate carried the burden of social responsibilities with it.

That was about 3 p.m. Now, understand, most U.S. restaurants open for dinner at 5 p.m. and might even open at 3 or 4 p.m. for a happy hour. High end restaurants in the U.S. might open later, at 6 or 7 p.m., but in Italy, a really nice restaurant may not even open its doors until 8, or may not serve anything but antipasti until then.

We would be eating no earlier than mid-evening. So we had time to kill.

Seeing that we were tiring of TV, Belinda said, "Let's take a bit of a hike." That sounded great to Gina and me and Maria would care for the little bambina. We put on some clothes suitable for hiking and met Belinda at a back door (for her house has several).

Along with Belinda was a man in his late 20's. A handsome guy with the bearing of a soldier. She introduced him as Pietro, and I recognized him as the driver. He turned out to do double duty as a bodyguard, a precaution that Ray had insisted on, since kidnappings for ransom or political murder, while not as common as before, still happen from time to time in Italy. And heaven knows, Belinda could afford a small army if it came to it.

Pietro was special forces trained and could handle almost any situation that could be handled at all.

The pistol on his hip was undoubtedly very real. I can't say I have a lot of experience with guns, and in fact this may have been the first time I'd actually taken a hard look at a real one. Like most people, my experience with guns comes mostly from movies and TV shows. To look at a real one, it had a terrifyingly efficient and practical look to it.

Italians are not thought of as the top of the class when it comes to the design and manufacturing of hardware. In Europe, that distinction goes more to the Germans, the Swiss, and the Czechs. The exceptions are automobiles, with manufacturers like Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Alfa Romeo, and guns. This one was a Berreta, and a bigger one than you see James Bond using.

And then there was the dog. Pietro had a very large German Shepherd named Bruno. He had asked us to let the dog sniff us, explaining that once Bruno knew us to be a friend and knew our scent, he would protect any of us with his life if needed. If Pietro looked coldly efficient and quite capable of taking care of business, Bruno looked that and far more.

Pietro let Bruno trot on ahead. Bruno did not do the usual sniff and piss of a dog on a stroll. He knew that he was at work and that such doggy activities were outside the scope of his job. Consequently, he, like Pietro, was constantly scanning the surroundings, with the added benefit of a keen nose and ears.

Within minutes, there was an incident. Bruno froze in his tracks and barked. Pietro, hand on his holstered pistol, ran on ahead to investigate. A boy, maybe 10 years old, stepped out from behind a large rhododendron bush. Bruno was growling, and with a largish hostile-looking man running toward him, he bolted away from us down the trail. Bruno, whose predatory chase instinct had been triggered started to dash after the kid, but Pietro shouted out a sharp command and Bruno stopped in his tracks, letting Pietro catch up to the boy. When he did, he grabbed him by the collar and lifted him up so that he was standing on his toes.

Gina was close behind and soon got there, taking the boy away from Pietro as Belinda told Pietro in Italian that clearly the boy was no threat. Belinda, still experiencing some discomfort from giving birth, wasn't up to trotting, but even at her slow pace she was soon with the boy and between her and Pietro they determined that the boy was merely playing in the woods, exploring the forest that bordered his backyard. While the property is defined by a tall stone wall, that was no barrier to a little boy, especially when large climbable trees overhung it on both sides.

His name was Fancesco and he was invited to join us. Soon he calmed down and was acting as a bit of a guide, pointing out and naming trees, bushes, and mushrooms. He seemed to take a cotton to me and I found myself holding his little hand as we walked along. Luigi was his name and after about two hours of his delightful company, he told us he lived nearby, just down the hill. Belinda told him he was welcome on the property anytime whether to play or visit at the house, but to please enter through the front gate. He agreed.

I learned along the way that the trails we were walking were all on the family's property. There were frequent views of the lake below. By this time the weather had entirely cleared up and a few sailboats glided across the lake, but the sun was going behind the mountains, it was getting dark, and the temperature was dropping rapidly.

We headed back, had some of Maria's hot chocolate, and Gina and I took a nap. Of course, Belinda slept with little Franca at her side.

As arranged, we met at the car port at 8:30. Maria, clutching a sleeping Franca to her bosom, was there to see us off. Belinda was as gorgeous as ever, but no longer was she the gorgeous tease. Rather, she had a dignity and poise about her that was totally different from the girlish giddiness and seeming airheadedness of just a year earlier. We all said good-bye to little Franca when Pietro pulled up in the black stretch Mercedes.

Pietro drove us into town to a small restaurant which couldn't possibly seat more than 20, though when we arrived the sign said, in Italian, "Closed for Private Party. Open again tomorrow." We were the private party.

When we knocked on the door, we were let in by a slender man with a pencil mustache and a big smile. The kitchen was manned by his chubby wife and skinny daughter.

Gina noticed that Pietro was standing outside the door and suggested that he come inside, given how cold it had become. Belinda agreed that that was a good idea. Our host, who understood English well enough, went to the door and asked Pietro to come inside. Belinda motioned for him to come our way and asked him if he'd like to join us for dinner.

Now, Pietro, like most true military men, has an exaggerated sense of propriety as well as a sense of class and rank. He begged off several times before accepting, probably to make sure that the offer wasn't in some sense pro forma. Once he realized it was sincere, he accepted, though it took consuming a tall glass of Brunello di Montalcino to bring out his talkative side.

The menu featured an overabundance of game, so we let our host put together a meal based on that theme. It included pheasant, venison, and wild boar with antipasti, boiled potatoes, gnocchi, raw carrots, cooked beets, and a kind of crusty bread with huge air holes in it (served with our choice of olive oil or sweet butter).

We learned as we ate that Pietro had served in Iraq and had come under fire several times. We Americans often forget that Iraq was a coalition operation. Many Americans who know that the British helped seem ignorant of the fact that quite a few other countries pitched in as well, Italy included.

He had had to endure a year acting as a policeman, though trained as a commando. He and three army buddies were ambushed while on patrol one day. The others were killed before help could arrive and he himself had sustained a bullet wound to the upper arm. After recovering from that, he had been returned to Italy and put on a task force that put an end to several terrorist plots aimed at Italian metropolitan transport systems and the national railway.

He then became part of the squad detailed to protect the Italian Prime Minister. After a year of that, he decided to get out of the army and go into private security on a freelance basis. He worked for a client of Ray, Gina's boyfriend, and when Ray put out feelers for a bodyguard, the client suggested Pietro.

Ray had had Pietro professionally investigated, and he turned out to be a major Mr. Clean. I had no doubt that he would step in front of Belinda to stop a bullet if that was what he had to do.

I asked Belinda if this restaurant was among those owned by her conglomerate and she said that, no, as far as she knew it was not, adding that still, she discovered new holdings on an almost daily basis. The company was a many-layered onion, or perhaps more like a Chinese puzzle.

The host, who had been serving us at the time, overheard and stressed that it was a family-owned business and would stay as such. Belinda assured him that we were merely out for dinner and not out restaurant shopping. This got a good laugh out of everyone, including our host.

When Pietro excused himself to visit the men's room, I whispered to Belinda and Gina, "Did you notice his wad?" They laughed. Belinda said, "Italian men can have gigantic cocks, more in terms of girth than length. Especially Southern Italians and Sicilians." We giggled like teenage girls, and Belinda blushed and seemed a little ashamed. She added, "That's what I heard anyway," as if we'd care if she knew it firsthand.

Gina said, "That's okay, honey. It's good that you can talk about guys again." I just smiled, not knowing what I could possibly add, for that was absolutely my own sentiment as well.

This is when Pietro returned to the table and said, "What?" "Nothing," I told him. "Just girl talk." That seemed to satisfy him.

He shrugged and sat down. Dessert was espresso and small chocolate cakes with pistachio ice cream made right there in the restaurant.

We got home around 11 p.m. and decided to watch some more TV. Belinda invited Pietro to join us, which he did reluctantly. It turned out that he missed his dog, so he was allowed to go and get Bruno, who joined us, laying at his master's feet until Belinda arrived wearing a robe with her little Franca in her arms. Bruno got up to his feet and wagged his tail.

"Can Bruno smell the baby?" asked Pietro. "Certainly," said Belinda. A dog is a pack animal, and so it has to know who is part of the pack and who is not, and he does that through smell. They say that, for humans, smell is the sense most associated with memory. It must be even more so for scent-based creatures like dogs. From this time forward, any threat to little Franca would be taken as a threat to the interests of Bruno's pack. After a few interested sniffs, he returned to Pietro's feet.

Franca let out a few tiny little cries and Belinda proceeded to nurse her. This made Pietro a little uncomfortable, not so much I suppose at the threat of seeing his mistress's exposed breast (for Belinda was very covert about it). It was probably his sense of rank and propriety again. Seeing someone in his lower social station doing the same thing probably would not mean the same thing, but to see the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in Italy feeding her baby just like a common woman...that just didn't feel right to him.

Pietro probably knew little about Gina and less about me, so he didn't know that Gina and I both come from fairly common stock, or that Gina, while wealthy through her boyfriend, is not nearly as rich as Belinda. Nor that I am not wealthy at all. He thought we all were all practically royalty.

We girls got huge laughs out of a western where everyone, cowboys, Indians, ranchers, and lawmen all spoke in badly synced dubbed Italian. Pietro knew why were laughing, but it wasn't as funny to him.

Belinda decided to go to bed and Gina said she'd do the same. Our hostess invited Pietro and me to grab a drink or two from the bar if we wanted, and she and Gina went on upstairs to leave me alone with Pietro, I'm sure.

I didn't know quite how to approach it, but I was curious to get that wad of Pietro's out of his pants and into my mouth. I talked Pietro into some hot coffee with some rum and mint liqueur. There was a small espresso maker right there, and as I made the coffee I learned more about Pietro.

Prior to WWII his family had had a long tradition of military service to the glory of Italy, but after the embarrassment of The Great War and the betrayal of the country by Mussolini, who curried favor with that monster, Hitler, an entire generation left the military.

Pietro, his brother, and his cousin were among the first to reenter military service, and he served proudly. Despite his role, at one point, in the Italian equivalent of the U.S.'s Secret Service, protecting the Prime Minister, his proudest service was fighting against terrorist threats that, had they been carried out, would likely have killed hundreds of his countryman, not to mention tourists, of which there are many almost everywhere you go in Italy.

Pietro loves Americans, and had been to the U.S. twice, once purely as a tourist and once to take some military courses, which kept him in the country for nearly nine months. After that, he took three months with a friend and drove around. He'd seen many of the same place I had, which led to a lengthy discussion and two more cups of alcoholic coffee.

Along the way, I started talking about my family and about growing up in middle-class America. I told him about Gina (but not about her gig as an escort). That way, he came to discover that we were not all upper-crust. Of the three of us, only Belinda had been born to wealth.

Perhaps it was finding out that I wasn't of Belinda's caste. Perhaps it was the three strong drinks. Whatever the cause, while I was in the middle of a sentence, I found Pietro's lips on mine as he planted a firm open-mouthed kiss on my lips. My lips opened in response and we did some tongue wrestling for a little while.

Then he pulled back and seemed to be trying to regain his composure. "So sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have..." but this time I planted a firm kiss on his lips. At the same time, my hand went up his granite-hard leg until I could feel his swelling Johnson through his pants. I clutched it firmly in my hand and squeezed rhythmically. It grew and grew and grew.

This all happened on a vast couch of Cordovan leather. I pushed him onto his back, pulled down his fly and let his tool pop out. Belinda may have been right. This Roman cock was about as far around as my forearm and more than half as long. A good 9 inches, but it was the girth that impressed.

I practically had to unhinge my jaw to take him in. There was no way I'd be deep-throating that dick!

Standing up, I reached under my skirt and pulled my panties down with the intention of squatting down on his cock, but as soon as my drawers were off, he stood up, his prick standing at full attention. He grabbed me like a toy, turned me upside down, and started going to town on my pussy. So, for a while, there we were in a standing 69.

And all the while blood was rushing to my head, so I stopped sucking long enough to gasp, "Let's fuck!" After a couple final flicks of his talented tongue, he threw me down on the couch, turned me around so that I was on my back with my feet on the floor, and kneeled between my open thighs. Given the size of his member, I kind of expected a bit of a struggle to take him in, but between his spittle on my pussy and my own ample pussy juice, he was "in like Flynn."

And he fucked me hard! I felt almost as if I was riding one of those barroom bucking machines, and between his size and the violence of his thrusts, it actually hurt. Or...maybe I should say "It hurt so good!" because that just added to the excitement. One reason I can't be a mainstream feminist is that I love being taken and ravaged. I want to see the beastly side of a man.

Don't get me wrong: sex with chicks is terrific. It's gentle, low-risk, and you can count on a lot of cuddling and a minimum of game playing. I love it. But having sex with a big powerful man...now that's what I call truly being fucked. I'll take the nice, gentle guy as a friend. In fact, I prefer him as a friend to the big powerful guy, and precisely because he's safe and considerate of my feelings and fun to be around. A companion.

But, dreadful as it sounds, sometimes I just want to be used. I don't mind being a kind of kleenex or sperm repository. In fact, the degradation of that thought is actually part of the excitement.

One of the surprises in the world of sex is that many of those who take advantage of dominas are actually powerful businessmen who want a break from being in control. I'm very self-possessed and generally lead a highly controlled life. Being taken and ravaged is, in similar fashion, one way I have for letting go.

I was being fucked so hard that it didn't even occur to me to ask him for dessert (which means: fucking my ass). I came just before he did, I guess, and the sounds I was making in my orgasm probably triggered his.

His load was massive, for it spilled out of my pussy with his cock still deep inside me. He lay on top of me for a couple minutes gathering himself. Then he stood up and I realized that he'd never so much as pulled his trousers down, so there was a delightfully disgusting mess all round his zipper area.

I went to get some paper towels. I knew there were some on a shelf under the bar. I retrieved a roll, stood up, and he was gone.

Funny guy, though his departure saved me some possibly uncomfortable moments where I tried to figure out how to behave with him post-sex. Always an uncomfortable moment when you have sex with someone you're not particularly in love with. The so-called "afterglow" phase of after-sex is for lovers, not fuckers.

And so I went to bed and, pumped up as I was with post-orgasmic endorphins, experienced a most restful night's sleep full of pleasant dreams. And so I was almost sure I was dreaming when I opened my eyes to behold a beautiful little angel with what appeared to be a fearsome monster from Hell.

And the funny thing was...I knew both of them. I knew both of them well.

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Complete List Of Stories
In The Order They Were Written

I have been realizing that the blog has developed, shall we say, a navigation issue as it has grown. In order to make it easier to get around, I've created a chart listing the stories by name and in the order they were written. The day may come in the future when every story name here will directly link to that story, but for now, there are links which will take you to that page. When you go to each page, bear in mind that they are blog pages with the oldest story at the bottom and the newest one at the top. In other words, the reverse of the order they are listed here. For example, "The Story Of The Sad Girl" on Page 2 is the second story from the bottom of the page, not the second from the top. To go directly to a particular page click on the link on the story list page. Click HERE for a complete story list