A Tale of Southern Comfort

1

Jack Ballard focussed on the wall mirror; saw his lean, muscled, torso with the tattoos inked on his hairy chest, others on his strong biceps. His stomach was taut; the muscles defined; his skimpy swim pants bulged; barely covered his prick and balls. He liked what he saw; knew that the women he claimed had never complained; he a guy gone fifty. Money talked or bought him what he wanted; his share in a cartel traded in what came over the border, across the Rio Grande…people or substances.

He dealt in cash; never, or rarely left a trail, and he soon wiped that out if he got the slightest hint that the Border Force or the police were on his tail. He ran a successful haulage company; very few trusted employees were in on an act that his cartel had set up. He had some stash houses across the state; drove the migrants in small numbers, always, to them, before they were sent on their way. Registering with the authorities was up to them.

It was difficult to keep on doing this.

The tide of folks coming in, small numbers with his help, never ending. He really didn’t want to push his luck and his wife, Autry, feared that the longer he continued the greater the risk of discovery.

‘I can’t do without you, babe,’ she’d often tell him when they were in the sack, or whenever the mood overwhelmed them. She knew that he strayed; he knew that she took to some of the younger female migrants that worked as housekeepers for them; those who were legit; their folks settled in town.

‘I peg some of them too,’ he groaned as the barbells were put down on their stand. He grabbed a towel and dried off his sweat-slicked skin. Pumping iron and work on the treadmill kept him in shape; he did that in the small sweat box of a home gym that he’d created at the back of the cavernous garage that housed their cars.

The door opened just as he tugged on the cord and the aircon burst into life above his head.

‘Hi, hon…I’m goin’ into town,’ Autry smiled, gazing at her man and brushing her fingers over his skin. ‘You be careful Carla doesn’t see you like that…she’s just arrived…and I’ve got to scoot.’

She leant in to kiss him; kept from having his sweaty skin mark her blouse. A single finger of one hand touched the tip of her breasts.

‘You look so darn hot, woman…’

‘All for you…all for you, darlin’,’ she said in her soft Texan voice. ‘But I like to dress up…you know I do.’

They stepped out into the sunshine, and he watched her settle in the small Mercedes coupé that had been an anniversary present two years ago. The woman in her soft yellow top, with its plunging neckline, and leather skirt revealing slender legs, would turn heads as she drove past, her hair on the breeze; her large statement sunglasses a touch of chic.

He waved; suppressed a sigh.

Yeah, why go on much longer with the cartel. There were people who’d buy in, or take it off him outright, and he’d ease Autry’s fears. He’d work on at his legit interests. She’d go on meeting friends and do whatever women did to keep their minds off what had eluded them also.

They had no kids; Autry was still young enough and they fucked so regularly you’d thinks something would happen; but no.

The house was quiet; he strode soundlessly over the polished floors to the bedroom suite, a cavernous space with pictures and modern painted furniture; wispy drapes on the wide window that let in the light but not prying eyes.

He and Autry had fun together; never could say when the urge would claim them, but it made his life fly.

 

2

‘Ai! Lo siento señor! I am sorry…’ The maid had gasped in surprise and averted her gaze from him.

He stood butt naked on the tiled floor of the shower room and looked her way, his greying hair slicked back, and he knew that his dick swayed with every move that he made. He gripped the towel in one clenched fist and covered his groin. He’d felt his prick going hard on seeing her; how the maid filled her work-dress; the silken smoothness of her skin; the wonderful richness of her black hair..

‘I thought you were working somewhere else in the house…Carla.’

‘No…the señora keeps things clean. There’s not much for me to do…’ She spoke on taking a faltering step away from him. In her embarrassment, Carla fiddled with the zip fastening of her sky-blue work dress, the fabric taut against her large breasts; her hips shaped by it, the hem above her knees. ‘I…I go…hago otra cosas.’

‘You can do that with me,’ he said closing the space between them. He heard her gasp as the towel fell to the floor and he reached out to her. ‘Life for you can get easier…’

‘It is already señor…thanks to you and Autry…I,’ she faltered, ‘I mean the señora…’

His eyes narrowed as he took in how she’d spoken of Autry. There were hours enough in the day, when he was at work, for the two of them to be close. Autry made no secret of liking some of the young women that took on the roles of maid in their sprawling home that was way too big for them but he had bought as an investment.

‘What you do for Autry…the señora…you can also do for me!’

‘No!’ she cried out as he held her to him; took her hand and put it to his prick. ‘Ai…ai!’ she groaned on looking down at it; felt the veins under that taut skin. It felt so hard; was so frighteningly long and thick now.

‘How much…I’ll make it up to you?’ He spoke as his fingers pulled on the fastening of the zip; drew it down slowly as she held his stare; her dark eyes widened in fear. ‘I want you…will not force you…and I will pay. You have broken into my privacy…I have no secrets from you now…except this.’

He felt her hands in his hair as he bent to kiss the swell of her breasts; pressed his lips to the fabric and tugged on her nipples. She shivered. ‘Five hundred…if we fuck!’

Her dress fell to the floor; he tugged away her brassiere and buried his face to her breasts; swept his hands over her back and gripped her buttocks and pulled her hard against him.

On an exultant laugh, he lifted her up. ‘Okay…other times are at a hundred!’

‘Si…bueno, I do it,’ she answered in a small voice. She felt him pull her thong to one side; felt his fingers enter her; the exploratory caresses making her shiver. ‘Si…si!’

Carla met te first of his kisses to her parted lips. Shuddered on feeling his prick press against her leg.

‘I thought you would…’ he exulted.

Carla looked down at what he would bring to her; was soon lifted up and held high; marvelled at the strength of his arms. Her legs came up around him as her employer lowered her onto him; plumbed her body in slow rocking and easing motions; stretched her as they began a slow dance.

‘Me rompes…me rompes!’ she gasped hotly against his mouth, before she met deep open-mouthed kisses; felt him suck suggestively on her flickering tongue; felt him climb higher and higher as they shuffled towards the bed; his fingers digging into her butt cheeks; scratched the base of her spine. She jerked away from those touches; heard him groan in delight as she pulled on him. The man was an animal in his ways; she feared for what could so easily happen.

He gave her no respite. ‘You area beautifully made young woman…una bellaza, Carla.’

‘Ai…hombre…hombre! You fill me!’

She gasped as he leant on the unmade bed, and she was pushed from him; tugged on his hair as his fingers and tongue worked their magic before he knelt between her thighs; leant over her and slowly entered then withdrew; licked and kissed the warm skin of her thighs; flicked his tongue into her before that rod slammed into her once more.

She screamed in abject pleasure as he fucked her with his fingers, tongue and that prick; felt that her breasts would be torn from her body as his hands closed over them and pulled them to his hungry lips. The man was so strong; she had glimpsed him at work with the bar bells one excruciatingly hot day and the door to his gym had been left open. The man was like a bull; tattooed, strong and lustful; frighteningly well-made and he knew how to use it.

‘Whatever Autry gets…I get too…and then some!’ he gasped as Carla tugged on his plunging prick; dug her fingertips into his flesh to keep him to her. ‘Understand?’

‘Si…love me…don’t stop!’ she cried out as climax followed climax; this wild man finding her; the tumbling rushes like an overwhelming flood. She wrapped her legs about his heaving body and screamed out in abject pleasure as she climaxed; felt his hips crash against her. He tensed, then plugged her as she felt the tingling rushes explode within her in quickening streams.

The breath was knocked out of her as he slumped down; crushed her into the bed, his breaths hot on her skin. He buried his face between her aching breasts. She stroked his hair wonderingly as he lay upon her and gathered his breath.

‘You know how it goes, Carla…you sure do.’

‘It is better with you, señor…more real. You want to love me…señora uses me.’

He lifted his head from her skin and looked into Carla’s eyes. ‘Then keep that for me. What you do with señora is between you…do you understand me?’

Oh, she understood alright. She’d play the whore for him; the maid service agency she’d been registered with wouldn’t get a cent from what she earned taking this man to bed. His woman had her devilish needs and so she’d find a way to play one off against the other. She’d decided that with the right Yankee hombre she’d earn some money lying on her back and bringing him on. The señor had made it only too easy.

She showered with him and worked the señor’s length with her mouth. It would take a few more times with him inside her to have her body get used to what he brought.

‘Maid service has new meaning for us, doesn’t it?’ he smiled, glorying in the soft swell of her stomach; the tumble of her breasts as water cascaded over them and her long curly tresses slicked down on either side of her face. ‘I’ve never wanted to fuck the maid before now…’

‘And all of this is new for me, señor…’ she said in a small voice, wanting him to believe her. She’d learned of it in her early teens, back in Mexico. To have a man and woman want her had gone beyond all that had gone before.

Jack made her lean against the tiles of the walk-in shower and had her submit to other ways of it; his fingers working her clit; her yelps echoing in the small room as his soap slicked prick found her.

‘This way just once! Understand me?’ she yelled out as shudders of an alien experience coursed through her body; his strong hands clamped, their fingers entwined, as he gripped her breasts; the act bestial and demeaning, but soaring and pleasurable.

She hadn’t lived through the turmoil of getting into the country to now let every opportunity for progressing pass her by.

 

3

It’s mid-morning and Jack hears music over the sound system he’s had wired throughout the house.

Deciding to work from home after a way too early start, he’s returned, unknown to Autry. He walks slowly until he can look round the corner of the hallway and into the kitchen. The fronds of a potted palm hide him from view, but it enables him to take in the scene being played out.

Autry’s hands are on Carla’s naked butt cheeks; her maid’s uniform pulled up around her waist; Autry offering caresses to the hollows of Carla’s hips as they dance and kiss. Autry’s hair is wet and she’s in a short silk robe that’s open; it swirls as they dance; he knows that Carla’s hands are on her; he watches as kisses are offered to Autry’s breasts; sees Carla move so that she can finger his wife’s clit; watches how Autry’s eyes are closed, her head thrown back in rapture, gasps of rousing pleasure heard only too clearly.

‘Come back to the bedroom…come on! I’ll shower again,’ he hears Autry cry out; feels the sudden ache in his loins as he sees Autry step away from the maid; glories in those heavy pendulous breasts; the nipples hard and proud. How crazy and brazen for her to be like this with Carla.

‘No time…and I have to go to my other people,’ Carla explains. She’s seen to brush down her uniform skirt and then draw up the zip. ‘We are equal now…I love with you too.’

‘You understand me,’ he’s dismayed to hear Autry admit. Can she really have spoken of their childless marriage to someone who comes in three days a week to do household chores? Is this how she seeks comfort?

Jack steps away, leaves by the open patio window that allows in the midday breeze on what is a cooler day.

He’ll announce his arrival in a moment or two.

It’s been two months since their trysts began; little is said of it, but they have each known that Carla is in the other’s life as never before. The deal they have struck holds.

Autry reaches for his hand; she sits opposite to him as they lunch at a lakeside restaurant. The parasol set over their table rustles on the breeze.

‘We sure don’t do this so often, now…in the day I mean. You sure you can be away from work?’

His cell has kept on ringing, and he’s had to leave the table whenever it’s done so. Autry’s seen off two cocktails and he’s on a lite beer as he’s driving; taking no risks in drawing the cops’ attention to him and digging a little deeper into who he is.

Taking the calls allows him to admire his woman from afar; her cream slacks matched by a cotton, cold shoulder long-sleeved blouse which seems to be right on trend, going by the looks she’s given. He’d done that too; loves how she fills it is Autry sure brings him so much. Her hair’s braided and her necklace sways mesmerizingly. Jeez, she’s hot, no mistake, to his eyes and she knows how to wind his clock. Maybe him returning early, before Carla has gone on to her afternoon’s scheduled appointment, has made her dress up for him.

He smiles on sitting down again and asks it nonchalantly. ‘You and Carla still into each other?’

‘You two are, from what I hear her tell..’

‘I go where you go, darlin’, he answers, lounging back in the chair. ‘I’ve…I’ve got somethin’ to tell you…and don’t look so freakin’ scared, hon…’

‘Well, I am…each and every day I wake up and get to wonderin’ if somethin’…or someone…is going to take you from me.’

‘Never that…neither of those situations.’

Autry watches her man shift his chair and sit by her side. @the view sure is better from here,’ he leers at her, a smile teasing his lips. ‘I sure want to see all of you and soon…seein’ how you look so beautiful..’

She grips his hand to still its questing progress over her thigh. ‘I’ll help you with all of that later…’

‘Yeah…’

‘You were sayin’…goin’ to say?’ She entwines her fingers with his as she holds Jack’s hand.

‘I’m getting out…the people haulage business that the cartel’s into. It’s a sideline for me and I’m going’ back to being legit…back to transport and haulage. The risks aren’t worth the payback, or the pain and worry on you, darlin’…’

Autry trembles; grips his hand fiercely. He’s whispered it all out so that no one around them can hear what a man, with tattooed arms and wild beard and greying hair can be saying to a hot looking woman.

She meets his soft kiss as Jack leans in. ‘Jack..?’

‘I’m just letting you know that I’ve been thinking these last few weeks…ever since we took in Carla…and from other times. Maybe what I’m doin’ is holding you back…keeping you from letting me really find you, darlin’…plant that seed that makes what you want happen…a dream come true.’

‘Darlin’…darlin Jack,’ she whispers on a breaking voice; looking at his wonderingly. ‘You mean that…all of it? I want to make that happen for the two of us…’

‘So do I…so why are we still here talkin’ and not lovin’?’

 

4

‘You scare me sometimes,’ she whispered, ‘you’re so darned strong.’

His penis stood proud and almost reached his belly button; trembled as he moved to be near her. Their clothes lay scattered on the floor of the bedroom, and she’s played a game on him; laughed huskily in her denial of him as she moved out of his reach just to tease.

‘It’s all I have…and it never scared you before.’

‘No,’ she said before taking a deep breath as he brought her against him, pressed his lips to her throat then bent to breathe in the scent she’d gone and sprayed between her breasts. She squirmed as he took one in his mouth; drew his lips down to her hard nipple. ‘I…I sure hope you wear a condom when you’re into Carla…’

‘Sure I do,’ he replied trying to reassure her. Things had gone crazy two times; the darned rubber skins had burst, and he’d emptied his load into her. It had gotten to him; set him wondering how that could happen with the brand he’d used in all the other ruts with those who got hooked.

They soon take a few steps towards the bed; kiss hungrily and with increasing passion as hands start to roam and clamp enervated skins. Autry loves his gentler touch; knows he’s eager but wants to be pursued and aroused if she’s to take that length of meat, as she often refers to it.

‘Take your time, darlin’…’ she groans, fondling him and caressing his length in slow brushes and clamps of her hands. ‘Let me do this for you..’

She wanted it in her mouth, but he stops her; presses his mouth to her breasts and delights in them; suckles her nipples suggestively as if to remind her of what they spoke of at lunch…a kid doing that to her. His fingers slide over soft flesh; are gently caressing her folds and button. She’s heard to moan from the pleasure he arouses in her as two fingers are inserted.

‘You…you get this from Carla?’

‘No…shut up about her…and…fuck me! She gasps; one hand gripping his forearm and making him work her much harder and faster. She sucks on his flickering tongue; he responds; pushes her back on the bed.

‘I’m goin’ to feast on your pussy…eat you out!’

She grabs his hair and pulls him to her. ‘Then do it!’

She bucks her hips; writhes and clamps his head with her thighs; feels him lap at her crack; slip his tongue into her and move it in slow questing circles. She arches her back and shudders; meets his hooded stare and meets a rush of deep open-mouthed kisses as eh climaxes again; his fingers again in her; stretching her; opening her.

‘Jack…Jack…com…come on…please?’

He pushes her legs back; puts his hands under her knees and until she is open wide to his teasing prick that brushes her opening.

‘We’ve only just begun…to live…’ he croons before slamming into her. Their breaths are soon in time with the other’s; their focus on sharing.

‘Oh…oh Jack…Jeez…that’s wild!’ she gasps; wraps her arms about his shoulders; her legs caress his body as he eases his hold on them and plumbs her; rocks and sways; stretched her in every way in an unrelenting and furious rhythm. ‘You’ll fill me…break me…love me…all of it! Don’t…don’t stop!’

He has no intention of doing so. He seeks to reclaim his woman; plunders her breasts with his kisses; searches for his release as her cries fill the room.

‘It’s only like this with you…with you!’

‘I know! I love you…love only you!’ he calls out to her.

She thrashed her legs on the bed; tore her mouth from his kisses: struggled for breath as she felt the searing gushes of his semen expelled into her; his lust satisfied, if only for now.

He slumped down upon her; buried his face between her breasts and she stroked his hair; kept him to them; wrapped her legs about him and made sure that nothing would leak out of her body until he’d gone soft.

‘It can’t be like this with anyone else, my darlin’…’ she asserted; the image of him tamping that body of Carla’s rising up like a ghost.

‘It’s not.’

They fell asleep in each other’s arms.

5

‘Get back to me and don’t make it too long or I’ll talk to others,’ Jack said in a certain voice as he closed the call. Mack Thomson, one of his drivers and trusted employees in the trafficking ways of business wanted to take over the trade.

He sat back I his chair and thought it a through once more. Autry had nagged at him for weeks now and he’d finally decided on getting out. He’d made some money; the rest of the business he’d worked so hard on was not worth risking. The border wall might yet be closed and the flood of folks wanting to get in would dry up, or get a whole lot harder to bring in.

Mack knew the score, but he had made his own contacts south of the border and was ruthless enough to make it work. He took some pride in bringing the guy on.

He was in two minds whether to pick up the phone on his desk as its piercingly sharp ring filled his home office, but it fell silent. Autry would be answering. Calls were nearly always for her. His woman would wreck him if they loved each other out in the ways that they had; ever since she’d heard him speak of calling it a day with the people trafficking.

Carla fretted; she had done since her call and talk with Autry.

She lay in her bed, in the small bedroom allocated to her in the house that had been turned into apartments and that she shared with four other young women who worked in the maid service around town. She pressed her fingers to her belly.

She was late.

The sickness was being felt more often and had welled up in her two weeks ago for the first time. Her Mama had told her what the signs were when she was only thirteen and had started her bleeds; agonizing times that had scared her sometimes until they had lessened.

Now, those pains were replaced by other feelings and emotions. Good girls, Mama would say, didn’t go with men who took advantage and whom you weren’t married to. You’d recognise the signs of those types; hear it in their voices as they asked that they could see you naked before you let them in; had their ‘wicked ways’ with you. ‘Fucked you’ would have got the message home more quickly, but that word never crossed Mama’s lips.

So, by Mama’s standards, she sure had fallen for Jack’s wicked ways; all that he had brought and shared with her; what she’d loved about the wild man and how his glorious length of flesh had found her. What she found with Autry was nothing compared to the feelings of being carried up into the clouds and to fly; to feel that there would be no end to the pleasure.

Jack would take her; she’d sit on him and let Jack see her body and take his pleasure from all that she brought; what she made him feel as her muscles clamped on his prick and pulled on it; felt the glorious questing slide so deep in her body, then at the edge, before he pulled her down on him once more.

She’d leave him and feel a profound ache; in her thighs, in her breasts, in the haven slicked with her juices and all that he had lost when he’d found her.

There had been times when she’d leant forward, her hands gripping the hair on his tattooed chest and she catch her breath; would wonder what she had just gone through with the man; their actions seared into her memory; the product in a condom; the weight of its contents confounding her; the recalled pleasure arousing the hope that there would be a next time; that there would be no end to the pleasure they pursued, mindful of the risks.

He delighted in her; she’d sit on him, be impaled on him, and she’d rock and sway; feel her breasts follow a rhythm that only his hands and lips would still; how she yearned for his magic wand as he took her with him; had her know of the bliss; the searing rushes when they shared in their climaxes.

She was his young woman; not his whore. She knew he needed women; Autry must know of it too, but he came back; he always came back.

The man had shown her every consideration; had sheathed his penis in that rubber skin that her Mama was said was evil; her religion told her so. You didn’t interfere with God’s will. You planned for it to happen by not sharing; not giving your body to a man when it was your time to bleed.

Jack had taken her out of her once ordered world. Now, she found her own way. It had brought her, finally, to him.

Jack, the man with his beard; greying hair; strong and lean body; his many tattoo’s; his wonderful smile and capable hands; his wonderful rod of flesh that had found her.

What she’d done, in putting a pin hole in the condoms, through the packaging she’d found in a bedside table, had been her work. Her lover’s ways had seen two of them split while they fucked like dogs; a wonderfully crazy rampage on the bed and the floor and that she lustfully pursued. She had her plan all mapped out in her scheming mind.

That Autry wanted the solace that a child might bring, might yet be hers to give…to carry it. The rest would have to be spoken of.

She was way too young, still too poor, to bring up a child. She was not too young to know that scheming had its own rewards. Letting Autry take her body, pleasurable and different as it was, would draw her in to what could happen between them when her body told her that time had come.

Forgive me, she now thought on recalling the day that she had worked back to the day a condom split, and her man had consummated her wildest hopes; had filled her; made her a mother to be.

She dozed and dreamt…

 

6

She leant back on him; was puzzled by this way of it; she could not see him; she certainly felt him; his movements caressing and finding places that she had not known of with him; had her gasp out his name. She gushed; was so wet that the sounds of them fucking were to be heard in his office; the floor hard; the rug sliding with their movements; she did not care.

‘Yes, do that…’ she hears as her muscles tug on him; she rises and falls; straddles on him, her movements making her thighs ache. ‘She groans.’ You’re so deep in me…where will you stop?’

It’s as if she’s lost in paradise; their movements as one, she clenches on him to increase his pleasure, which she hears with the gasps of breaths and softened words of endearment; she knows that he’s completely inside her when she rests.

‘Keep me in you, but turn round…’ he asks, Jack’s voice hoarse; his hands on her hips; then, when she settles and bends to kiss him; reclaim her breasts. She purrs; loves what he does with them when his lips and tongue caress, lick, and suck upon them.

‘We…we finish woman!’

He calls out to her as she rises and settles on him; feels Jack push up and pull her down; she’s impaled on him; shrieks out in wanton abandon; she tries to prevent, to delay, her orgasm. It’s what he wants from her; to prolong her tugs and clamps on his prick until they can’t bear it any longer.

She moans in her pleasure; does so louder and louder; stifles her cries as she leans forward to kiss him, but Jack pushes her away; slams her down on him and she feels it burst; the tingling rushes that the condom fails to prevent; she eases from him, enough to feel the first leak of his semen on her skin. She knows that if she eases off him it will drench her thighs and his belly.

‘Cariña! You darling! I want this…let me go!’ he roars in deep satisfaction, and she nods; feels her body wracked; once…twice as she climaxes.

‘You are my comfort…help me to know that my life here will become better. I hope it will be the same for you…’ she kisses.

Their mouths claim each other’s lips as he withdraws from her, leaving her with an empty feeling. The torn condom is stripped from his flaccid length, and she hears him curse.

‘Goddamn it! That’s never happened to me before, woman. Look what you’ve made me do…I split the thing in fucking with you!’

She pressed her fingers to his lips; is not used to coarse language spoken out by him. ‘Be thankful that we loved so well…’

 

7

‘I’ll get it, hon’…finish your breakfast! Autry called out on a happy laugh as they heard the door chimes. Her low-heeled shoes clacked on the tiled floor, fell silent as she stepped on a rug, then clacked again.

Jack followed her progress; sipped reflectively on a glass of orange juice. He had a busy day ahead of him. Ballard Transport had won a new haulage and distribution contract and an intermediary, for him and Mack, was settling the deal on their share of the work for the cartel. Mack was breaking out on his own and he was pleased about that; it put distance between them. There was too much going on with the Border Force for his liking and he’d already cautioned Mack on it.

He gripped the glass a little tighter as he saw Carla and Autry enter the room. Carla looked pale, wan, and her eyes darted from him to Autry and back again. Her passionate vivacity had dimmed.

The differences between them were only too stark; Carla, again in her housemaid’s uniform that fitted her well, even a little tight he noticed; shaped her breasts and the waist fuller. Like his Autry, he’d always loved what she brought to the eye and his touch.

Autry was a woman to lust after and she played up to him in her chosen ways; that crossover, wrap around yellow blouse shaped her, drew the eye to her cleavage and the large bauble that hung on a chain upon the swell of her breasts. A wide leather belt was cinched tight at her waist; a black leather skirt showed of her slender legs.

His woman wound his clock; they both did, but something in Carla’s look now made him uneasy.

‘Can I get you some water?’ he asked as he drew near, concern for her to be heard in his voice.

Jack looked at Autry who stared back at him with stilled eyes. Their life together, his work for the cartel, it sharpened their instincts; they both knew what was coming next.

‘A missed day and you not feeling your best, Carla,’ Autry said icily, ‘I know what you’re going to tell us…’

Carla raised her head and proudly met that challenging stare, then cast a softer look at Jack. She couldn’t keep up the act.

‘No hay duda…I cannot hide it…I am pregnant, as you say in English,’ she told them, her voice trembling.

Autry closed the space between them. ‘And the father?’

Carla, to her credit Jack thought, met Autry’s angry stare. ‘You know who it is señora…’

Here gaze fell on Jack now, only on him.

‘Prove it!’ Autry shouted. ‘You’re not here all the time…don’t live in…so prove it! Until you do just get out…take your dirty lie with you!’

‘No, I won’t do that…’

Jack moved between them, felt but a moment’s touch of Carla’s hand to his arm.

‘No, she won’t do that, Autry. We sit down and talk this through. The three of us are involved, me more than you…and it’s been that way for a while…was never a secret that I kept from you, Autry darlin’…’

‘Don’t Autry darlin’ me!’

Jack remained impassive. ‘The two of you had your moments too…I seem to remember. We found something special…now it’s payback time.’

He saw Autry nod; heard a long sigh of agreement. Jack guided Carla to one of the rattan chairs, set around a table in the sun lounge, open to the kitchen where they had stood talking and taking in Carla’s news.

Autry tugged on his arm to make him look at her, not Carla. The young woman now gazed up at them, impassively. ‘You’re just goin’ to accept her word are you? It’s a trick to make you pay!’

Jack loosened her grip on his arm and walked to the large double door refrigerator set into a bank of wall units. He wanted to buy some time; filled their tumblers with juice, and water; soon took them, in his large hands, to the women who sat in silence.

‘Gracias…’ Carla smiled weakly as he held one glass out to her.

‘De nada,’ he answered on meeting her baleful scare. ‘It was the night that the condom broke wasn’t it?’

She nodded. Autry gasped on hearing it. ‘You never said…we could have arranged for a termination!’

‘No, I never do that! A life is in me, so no!’ Carla stamped her feet to make the point; pushed away the tumble of her black hair.

Jack took in the feisty young woman once more. He’d bedded her; had fucked that fleshy body and gloried in those breasts that pushed out that workaday outfit of hers. He’d never seen her wear anything else; she’d fill a blouse so well, just as his Autry now did. Perhaps he’d know again her sweet heat; fuck both women. His Autry knew how he was wired; still loved him. Somehow they’d get through what had come down on them.

‘No, I never said.’ He spoke out on sitting down next to Carla, his look at Autry now persuading her to do the same but facing him.

‘Is it two against one, now?’ Autry challenged, but the look of her eyes on him fearful; her anger evident.

‘Now it’s the three of us in this together. I got Carla pregnant…you had your times with her. Carla has a problem that you and I may help her with.’

‘Señor Jack?’ Carla gasped.

The man seemed so calm; her plan was slowly unravelling. Impulsively, her hand brushed his arm; she felt the heat and strength in it; the coarseness of the hair. She met his look upon her. He seemed to be overjoyed to have made this happen; his precautions failing. It was crazy to think it, let alone see it in the blaze of his eyes upon her. His woman had not succeeded; she had over the few months that his had been his lover.

‘Just where are you goin’ with this Jack?’ Autry interrupted. ‘Tell me…do that now!’

‘If she agrees, Carla’s a surrogate…carries te child you want but can’t have. The father will be me…we are to become its parents. We pay her to carry the child…’ He looked at Carla. ‘Isn’t that how it could be?’

The tears streamed down her cheeks. ‘Si…si, you wonderful man.’

‘It’s a way out for us, Autry, darlin’…’

‘You’re crazy…no!’ Everything in her rebelled against the idea. Everything that Jack had said was only too true, only she’d been the one to want a child and to carry it; to have her man really find her and make it happen. Now, an accident during a wayward fuck with a Latino maid was being presented as the answer to her prayers.

Jack reached across and touched her knee; caressed te bare skin to be found there. She moved to push it away; saw the drift of his eyes over her as he did that.

‘I’ve never stopped wanting you…never will, darlin’…’ he told her in the only soft voice that he knew and to win her round to what he was saying. ‘I’m loving you both…so it has to be yes…you sayin’ yes to my idea…both of you.’

The women grabbed his outstretched hands; did not resist him as he pulled them to their feet. Carla hugged him fiercely; Autry did so slowly; was te first to meet his kisses; then Carla.

‘You crazy man…crazy man,’ Autry sobbed.

‘It’s not so crazy, darlin’…we break the chain…we’ll make it happen. You nurse one baby while we make our own…’

Jack felt Carla’s hand grip his shirt and she brazenly pressed her body against him and kissed his lips, unashamedly. She felt Autry’s hand on her arm; her grip fierce and unrelenting as Jack now kissed her, deeply and for longer.

‘I’ve got my southern comfort…found that in you…both of you. I’ll pay Carla for the hurt that will come with giving up her baby.’ He saw her nod. ‘And, Autry, darlin’, I promise I’ll never bed another woman again… only you. I want us to make your dream come true. Loving two women’s gonna kill me…wreck me, fun as it’s been.’

The women vied for his kisses; shivered as his large hands clamped on their breasts and they exchanged heated breaths of avowal for what he again sought of them.

Jack watched as the women kissed; saw the intensity of gaze that Autry gave Carla.

‘Help me with him, girl. Help me to make it real for me too?’

Jack told those he’d be meeting that he would be a little late. He would take both women to bed, now. It seemed the only answer to what he felt in his belly, the swell of his penis and that he had to let fly. His promise to Autry would be kept, but not now.