Promises

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is entirely coincidental. All characters involved in sexual situations are at least eighteen years old.

As always, any political, social or religious views in this story are those of the characters and their circumstances, and don’t necessarily reflect those of the author.

Author’s note: I haven’t ever published a story in installments before, but Promises is a long one (about 145,000 words — almost double the first Harry Potter book) so it seemed only fair to divide it into manageable chunks. All twelve parts are fully written, edited and waiting in the bullpen, so if you’re starting out before all of them are released, rest assured there won’t be any months-long gaps between.

Because I didn’t write Promises with installments in mind, the erotic encounters aren’t spread evenly among them. Some have tons of sex, but one or two don’t have any at all. Kind of like real life.

As happens far too frequently with me, this tale started with what I thought would be a clever hook for a short story, but then I fell in love with the characters and wanted to spend more time with them. Hopefully, you’ll want to do the same.

MB

*****

PART ONE — The First Promise is Made to a Most Unusual Girl

My feet pound out a simple rhythm on the frozen pavement while my mind chips away at a complex engineering problem. The frigid wind is bracing, but I’ve still worked up a light sweat by the time I round the corner at the far end of my run. Three miles down, three to go under the dull, steel gray skies of a mid-February Friday morning.

Winters in Minneapolis are cold, cloudy, depressing affairs, and despite my ancestry and life-long experience with this kind of climate, I’m starting to long for a place where the temperature never dips below freezing, much less to the current two degrees below zero. Fahrenheit.

I’m trying to stick to a seven-minute-mile pace while doing calculus in my head and listening to the local classic rock station, so my mind is fully occupied, yet the DJ suddenly manages to catch my undivided attention. Believe it or not, he’s just called out my full name, right over the air. This isn’t something that happens to me every day, (or ever, that I can recall) and the complex equation I was working out evaporates into the frosty air as the morning jock goes on.

“You’ve got 103 seconds to call in, starting right now!” he informs me. The DJ rattles off the special contest line’s number, which I memorize.

I would normally be listening to one of my playlists, but this is the morning of the big contest drawing on Classic Rock KIRA 103. They’d been yakking about it for weeks, so I’d gone ahead and entered, though still mostly on a lark. As someone with a good intuitive grasp of statistics, I’d known my chances of winning were miniscule, but despite the odds, I’d tuned to 103.1 megahertz this morning anyway. Someone has to win, right? Well now I guess it’s going to be me.

My hand automatically goes for my left front pocket, but the pants I’m wearing don’t even have pockets. “Damn,” I curse under my breath. Why did I go out of my way to listen to the drawing if I wasn’t going to bring my phone? Sometimes I can be a real idiot.

I stop and scan for a payphone. Yeah right, this is the twenty-first century. If I’ve seen one of those things in the last few years, I’ve completely forgotten about it.

I’m in an upscale residential area and there are no businesses that I could sprint to in the minute and a half I’ve got left. I can also forget about running up to a house and asking to use a phone. With my appearance, it’s unlikely the average resident would open their door to me. That leaves people on the street. Maybe someone’s got a phone they’d let me use.

Naturally, the sidewalks are nearly empty. There’s a clump of kids a block ahead of me, waiting at a school bus stop, but other than that, the only person in sight is a little girl. She’s maybe a fourth or fifth grader and she’s just come out of the big house I was approaching, apparently on her way to join the other kids. I mentally write her off, but then notice that she’s looking down and fiddling with what appears to be a phone. Jackpot! I run toward her, pulling my left bud out of my ear.

Unfortunately, with my mental clock counting down the seconds until I lose out on a totally sweet prize, I don’t take my usual painstaking care in analyzing the situation for appropriateness.

Her parent’s front yard is terraced, with a brick retaining wall of about table height, right up against the sidewalk. She reaches the edge of it, where the morning paper is practically teetering on the edge, at almost the same instant I arrive at the bottom. I note that we’re almost at eye level with each other this way.

“Hey, I need your phone,” I blurt out.

She looks up and, as I would have expected if I’d given it even a fraction of the consideration I should have, her eyes get huge with fear. But this isn’t just the shock of a sudden surprise; I can see in her expression that she honestly believes I’m about to do something truly monstrous to her. Worse, her eyes have the look of someone who has experienced that kind of horror before.

Truly, I’m not in the habit of scaring the bejesus out of innocent children, but I’ve quite obviously done that now. This time, I go to my training for the correct response under these unhappy circumstances. I put an apologetic expression onto my face.

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry,” I say, making my voice as calm and friendly as possible. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just have a really big emergency and I need to make a quick phone call. May I please borrow your phone for just a minute?”

She’s wearing jeans, light boots, and a long winter coat in a mature style that says to me that her clothes are chosen by her mom, not her peers. She has a thick wool scarf wrapped around the bottom of her face.

There’s a long silence as I wait for her response. I’m already calculating whether it would be smarter to continue my run and be well down the block before she regains her voice and starts screaming bloody murder, or if I should stay to explain my thoughtless actions to her parents when they inevitably race out to rescue their beloved daughter from a monster.

I’m waiting for the scream, but instead I watch something truly fascinating. A change is coming over her. I can’t see much of her face, but the parts I can see begin to calm down and relax. But it’s more than that. Her expression becomes that of someone more confident, wiser, and… well… older. Her eyes meet mine and I can see that she no longer fears me. I’ve never seen anything like this, and it’s weird.

“What kind of emergency?” she asks directly in a high-pitched little voice.

I’m the unsure one now. Watching her for the last ten seconds has been one of the more surreal experiences of my life. “Uh, a radio station just called my name to win a contest.”

“A Mexican beach vacation for two?”

“How did you know that?”

She points at her ear, fully covered by a Minnesota Vikings stocking cap. I hadn’t noticed the thin cord coming out from underneath, ending at her phone. Like me, she’s got her ear buds in. This kid obviously listens to her mom’s music too.

“It’s the ‘Get Naked with KIRA’ contest,” she says. The phrase “get naked” sounds very wrong coming from the mouth of a child.

“Uh, yeah, and I’ve got less than a minute before it goes to the next person they draw.”

“You married?”

“Huh? What does that have to do with anything?”

“Tick, tock, tick, tock.”

Good lord! She’s got to be the most self-assured child I’ve ever met. “No, I’m not married, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Living with anyone?”

Inappropriate much? I really don’t like her questioning, but she’s the one with the phone.

“No,” I answer. Not technically anyway.

“Then since it’s a trip for two, you’re taking me if I let you use my phone.”

This has gone from strange to completely absurd. “Sorry, kid, but there’s no way I’m taking someone’s child with me to a nude beach in Mexico.”

“Hey, I’m legal,” she says indignantly, pulling down her scarf so I can see the rest of her face. When I look closely, I can see that, incredibly, and despite her diminutive stature and child-like voice, she may be of high school age. There’s something else about her face that bugs me, though, like I should know her from somewhere. She’s not someone I’ve ever met before, but I’m almost certain I’ve seen her face. For the purposes of the conversation I’m having with her, though, that’s neither here nor there. The issue is her age. She may be older than I’d first figured, but is she that old?

She shrugs at my momentary indecision and begins to slip the phone into her coat pocket. I watch as my chance at a much-desired break from the winter doldrums begins to slip away. Probably as she intends, I’m forced to go for broke.

“Wait! Okay, I’ll take you with me.” My girlfriend’s not going to like this, but I can deal with that later.

“Promise me,” she says simply, her bright, clear eyes boring into mine.

I’m out of time, so I do as she asks. “I promise that as long as you’re at least eighteen, I’ll take you with me if I go. But only if your parents don’t object.” I add the last caveat because the last thing I want is to get into a hassle with the parents of a barely legal high school student.

“Fair enough.” She whips the phone out of her pocket and pulls the audio cord out of the jack. “Number?” she asks, quickly and efficiently.

She enters it as fast as I can recite it, her thumb a blur. I expect her to hand the phone to me, but instead she holds it to her own ear. I’m close enough to her that I recognize the distinctive tones of KIRA’s “Roger in the Morning,” though I can’t quite make out his words.

“Hi, I’ve got Peter Malakhov here with me,” she says, evidently remembering my name from his announcement of it on the air. Wow, she really was listening! I also note that her voice, while still rather high pitched, suddenly sounds almost sultry and sexy. How did she manage that? I revise my estimate of her age upward again.

“Hi, I’ve got Peter Malakhov here with me,” I hear from my right earbud, almost exactly seven seconds after she’s said it into the phone. I belatedly remember that they’ve got a delay so they can use the dump button if someone uses a bad word. She’s on the air with Roger now. I mute my player.

“Who am I?” she says, obviously repeating a question from the other end of the phone connection. “Well, I’m Kira of course.” She gives me a conspiratorial wink. Cute. I hear a wispy burst of laughter from Roger and his faithful sidekick, Alice.

She listens for a little while longer, then looks me up and down rather thoroughly before she says, “Well, Peter’s six foot eleven…” A pause. “Yes, I said six foot eleven. He’s thirty years old and weighs about two-seventy. He’s got super thick, dark, curly hair, a really low, deep voice, a tough-guy beard, and he’s built like a very tall Greek god. Oh, and his butt looks really cute in the black running tights he’s wearing at the moment.”

I’m not sure about the “Greek god” or “cute butt” parts (and she’s made me two years older than I actually am) but the rest is amazingly accurate.

“What does he look like naked?” she repeats. I hope that question came from Alice, not Roger. “Well, a girl doesn’t kiss and tell.” She winks at me again. Another long moment. “Okay, here he is.” She hands me her phone.

“Hello?” I manage.

“Hello, Peter Malakhov,” Roger says.

I psych myself up to do a persona that I calculate is appropriate for the situation. “Hey Roger. Am I going to ‘get naked with KIRA’?”

“Sounds like you already have,” Alice quips. She and Roger belly laugh, almost convincingly. Then, before I even have the chance to ruin the moment for the radio audience by clarifying my relationship with the young lady, Roger jumps in.

“So what does Kira look like,” he asks.

I decide that saying she looks like a nine-year-old girl might be somewhat problematic, so I describe my actual girlfriend instead.

“She’s about five feet eleven, blonde, blue eyed, stacked, and totally gorgeous.” Again, all true (of my girlfriend anyway) but my tiny Vikings fan gives me the stink eye. Her eyes are brown, as is the long ponytail sticking out from under her cap. And as far as I can tell from the drape of her long coat, the “stacked” part certainly doesn’t apply to her either.

“Well we’re going to want to see pictures of you two at the beach, but you’re definitely going. You’re getting naked with KIRA!”

I’ve already calculated the correct response to that and now I whoop loud enough to be heard by the kids down at the end of the block, a few of whom turned to look. Little Miss Brown Eyes joins in as well.

“That’s right,” Alice says, with over-the-top enthusiasm, “you two are going to the Hidden Springs Beach Resort in Cozumel for a seven-day, all-inclusive vacation, airfare included. But the best part of this trip is that the beach at the resort is clothing optional. Peter, who is it that’s getting you naked on the beach in Mexico with your blond and stacked lady friend?”

I’ve listened to enough of their radio promotions over the years to know exactly how they’d like to end the on-air portion of this call. “Classic Rock KIRA 103!” I yell with gusto. Then we go off the air as the dulcet tones of Rod Stewart come on. Roger hands me off to his producer to tell me how to claim my prize.

The girl waits for a moment as I begin to give the station my info, but then she reaches inside her stocking cap and pulls out a very short pencil from behind her ear. She reaches down to snag the newspaper and tears off a corner of the front page. She quickly jots something down on it.

When I finally hang up and return her phone, she hands the scrap of news print to me. All it has is a phone number. “What’s your name for real?” I ask.

She looks at me like I haven’t been paying attention. “Kira.” Then she turns and heads right back for the front door of the house, newspaper in hand.

“Don’t you even want my number?” I call out to her.

She turns at the door. “Just remember your promise, Peter Malakhov,” she says, then slips inside and closes the door behind her.

I tuck the scrap of paper into the little nylon case that holds my Sony strapped to my arm, then switch to my normal play list. The plaintive sax intro to a Bob Seger live cut fills my ears and I begin to run for home, only now realizing that I’m thoroughly chilled from having stood still for so long in my lightweight running apparel.

I think about the situation as I get back up to temperature. Obviously, I can’t take the kid with me, even in the unlikely event that she’s actually legal. If I go, I’m taking my girlfriend. While, indeed, we aren’t technically living together, we’ve been exclusive for two months. I’m either going to have to buy out the other half of the vacation from “Kira,” have her (or more likely her parents) buy my half from me, or just give the whole thing to them. After all, without the use of her phone, I wouldn’t have won the silly contest in the first place.

The idea of not keeping my word to a pushy kid whose real name I don’t even know never occurs to me.

I live in a loft above my machine shop in an older, industrial part of town. I bought the building, aging CNC tools and all, for a song at a bankruptcy auction four years ago. It’s not zoned for residential, but I fixed up the space above the machinery as my own personal apartment anyway. What the city fathers don’t know won’t hurt them.

I unlock two big deadbolts and swing the heavy steel door outward. Stepping in and locking the door behind me, I hang my running gear on the hooks just inside the door and head over to the corner where I have my barbells, bench and squat rack. I clothe myself in a weight belt and get busy.

I push myself hard, concentrating on my form and trying to set a new personal best. I almost get a fourteenth rep on my third set of squats, but I come up just short. Unaided, there’s no way I’m going to get the bar back up onto the hooks. With no spotters, I might have been in trouble, but I’ve designed and fabricated alternate means to aid me on the last rep.

I bite down on the mouth switch I’m holding between my teeth, and a motor and cables begin to slowly lift the barbell. I don’t quit, though, still heaving with everything I’ve got left. I know this is the part of the lift that gives me the most results, going all out after I’m already exhausted. This is going to hurt later, but in a good way.

When my workout is finally completed, I hang up the weight belt, put on my steel toed boots, and tie on a thick, custom made shop apron that hangs clear to my ankles. Thirty seconds later I’ve totally put the workout and my vacation problems behind me as I suddenly envision an answer to the engineering problem I’d been contemplating during my run. Trying it out might take all day.

It does indeed take thirteen hours to tack together a good enough prototype to convince myself that the idea is going to work. From long habit, I’ve set an alarm to alert me when I need to get ready. I know myself well enough not to trust my usually accurate internal clock when I’m building something. The chime tells me I’ve now got precisely one hour before I need to meet my girlfriend at her favorite club. I put the boots back in their cubby, hang the apron on its hook, then trot up the stairs and into the shower.

The Time Zone is a trendy kind of place. The music is excruciatingly loud and modern, the crowd young and hip, the furnishings cold and sleek, the drinks watered-down and ludicrously over-priced. My mind is operating at maximum workload now, computing the correct responses and producing witty repartee for my acquaintances as I work my way through the crowd. I’m familiar with most of these people, though I’ve seen very few of them anywhere but here. I don’t really know who they are outside these walls and frankly, it hasn’t struck me that I should care. I just keep up my front as I make my way back to the table where I know my Destinee will be waiting for me.

She sees me from about twenty feet away and acknowledges my presence at about ten, rising to her feet and folding herself into my embrace. Heads turn as the most beautiful woman in the club kisses the tallest and most intimidating man. (I know I’m not the most handsome, but I seem to do okay). This is the payoff for all the time, money and effort that I’ve put in to make myself over into the kind of guy that can rule the roost at a place like this.

“I wanna dance,” Destinee says. I nod and offer her my arm.

The dance floor is an epileptic’s worst nightmare, with its brilliant, flashing strobes. I’m certain that the sheer volume of the pounding beat must interfere with the dancers’ cardiac functions as well. Real estate is at a premium since it’s a Friday night, but at my size, the crowd gives way and we take over a spot in the middle of the action.

Destinee is a good dancer, and this is where she looks her best. She really is a gorgeous woman. In fact, exactly the kind of woman I’ve dreamed of since my first stirrings of puberty. Her large, full breasts are only barely restrained by her bright yellow dress and appear ready to break containment at any moment. The men around us seem to be anticipating such an event and apparently want to be sure they don’t miss it. I suppose that most guys would get jealous, seeing so many men looking at their girlfriend’s chest with barely disguised lust, but for me, that’s the whole point.

After a few songs, Destinee leans forward, brushing those outsized boobs across my chest, and yells in my ear. “I’m thirsty.” I nod, knowing the routine. I kiss her lightly, then she heads for our table as I make my way to the bar.

Destinee is a Piña Colada kind of girl. When I approach, the bartender waves me past the line and around to the side where he already has one ready to go, along with a double shot of what everyone but the bartender and I think is Vodka. The Time Zone doesn’t, as a rule, allow people to run a tab, but they break that rule for me. Rumors have circulated that I might be connected to the Russian mafia (ludicrous), but drinking only “vodka” and occasionally using the still fluent language of my childhood does nothing to dispel that gossip.

As I approach our table, there’s already a guy perched on my chair, hitting on Destinee. She gives me a helpless look, but I know better. She needs to have guys want her.

I know just what to do in this circumstance. I painstakingly researched it and worked it out years ago, and I’ve done it dozens of times since.

I sit the drinks down on the table and put my hand on his shoulder, not too hard, but not just resting there either. My hands are almost freakishly large, even in proportion to my outsized frame, and I can feel his shock at how far my fingers extend down his chest while my thumb lands on his shoulder blade.

He turns, his face saying he already knows I’m a big guy, but his eyes go wide when he realizes just how big.

He’s not a regular (obviously, or he would have known better than to have hit on my girlfriend in the first place), but he’s a good-looking guy in a slightly rough-cut kind of way. At this point, most guys bow out with a nervous smile and quick apology. Unfortunately, this guy is hopped up on liquid courage and is willing to take his chances. I can understand that. Destinee really is that beautiful.

He shrugs out of my grip, then stands and faces me. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” he demands, the slur in his words telling me that my estimate of his inebriation is spot on.

“I’m her boyfriend,” I say calmly and reasonably. “I realize you probably didn’t know that when you sat down with her, so why don’t we just shake hands and-”

He thinks he’s catching me unawares by throwing a roundhouse punch in the middle of my monologue, but he’d telegraphed it from the moment he got to his feet. I slap his arm to the right just enough to make it miss, which has the added benefit of making him over-rotate and fall backwards against my chest. Before he can blink, my arms are wrapped tightly around his head and neck.

With the particular hold I have him in, I could snap his neck up high enough on his cervical spine to where he’d be dead before he hit the floor. I’m applying about half the force necessary to do exactly that, and he can feel it. Another inch or two, and his momma will be crying over his casket. I’ve never taken it that far and can’t imagine that I ever will. He doesn’t know that, though, so he doesn’t so much as twitch.

“Now friend, let’s be reasonable,” I rumble. “I’m here to enjoy the evening with my lady friend, not get in some kind of silly confrontation. What do you say we both just go about our business and forget this ever happened?”

It’s the most generous offer this clown has gotten in a long time, and he knows it. “Absolutely,” he squeaks.

I release him, and he turns to me in fear, still expecting me to deck him. Instead I hold a hand out. “No hard feelings?” I ask, a friendly look on my face.

He hesitantly takes my hand. “Uh, none at all.”

I glance over at the server. She gives me a knowing look. She’s seen this happen before. “Set my new friend up with a drink if you please,” I say. “On me.”

She nods as the guy lets go of my hand and backs away. “Uh, thanks, but I think I’m calling it a night,” he says.

“Suit yourself.” I turn back to the table. Normally it’s not a good idea to show your back in a situation like this, but I’m quite confident that this guy won’t be messing with us again.

I sit down and hand Destinee her Piña Colada. “Thank you,” she says.

At least the guy has warmed my seat for me.

We dance a few more times, mingle with some of the regulars, both as a couple and singly, and run up my tab with some more overpriced beverages. Finally, we’ve both done what we’ve come here for tonight, and she indicates that she’s ready to go. I nod and toss back the last of my distilled water (I’m not going to leave a half-full glass on the table, because I don’t want anyone to accidently discover that I don’t imbibe), then stand and offer her my arm. Heads turn to watch as we leave, guys and girls imagining trading places with one or the other of us. I suppress a sigh of relief as we leave the pounding music behind.

Destinee doesn’t really like my ride, despite it being nearly new, powerful, and expensive. It’s got a turbo-diesel Cummins and all the amenities; leather, chrome, and killer stereo, but it’s still just a pickup truck to her. She thinks I should drive a big Mercedes or BMW. The garage space at my shop is only big enough for one vehicle, though, and I don’t feel safe having another one sitting outside in my neighborhood, especially since I’m not supposed to be living there. I need a truck for the things I do, so I’ve held firm on that.

I hand her in and we pull away from the club. Our talk is light and inconsequential. She’s learned that while I’m polite and make all the right responses about her exciting day, working at the salon, it doesn’t actually interest me in any way. Similarly, I know better than to try and regale her with the news of the progress I made on my project this afternoon.

I am certain that my encounter with the Lilliputian woman on the street today would interest her, but not in a good way, and I haven’t yet figured out how to tell her about it. Meanwhile, we drive between the dark warehouses and small production facilities that are de rigueur in my neck of the woods. Turning into the small parking lot that my home shares with several other small cinderblock and galvanized steel buildings, I hit the remote and pull into the closed off section of my shop that serves as a garage. The heavy door thumps shut behind us.

Destinee used to say that where I live was kind of chic and cool, but recently her comments have been more likely to include words like “shabby” and “scary.” Still, she’s here with me tonight. She has her own apartment that she shares with a girlfriend, but I get her to myself a couple nights a week.

After the first time I brought Destinee home with me, I installed a separate spiral staircase that goes straight from the garage area up to my loft. She’d decided that having to make her way between my metal-working machines on the way to the front staircase was a bit intimidating. She evidently worried that they might suddenly come to life and jump out at her like in the Transformer movies that a previous boyfriend had insisted she watch with him. Designing, fabricating and installing the new stairs took me a full day, and like everything else about having Destinee as my girlfriend, it wasn’t cheap.

I do admire her amazing ass as I follow her up the stairs though. The girl has got some bodacious curves, and the way that thing moves under her short skirt would be every teenage boy’s midnight fantasy. As we hit the top of the stairs, I hit the switch that brings up the low, soft lighting I installed for times like this.

When I originally put my loft together, I’d hoped that I’d eventually be bringing women here, so I boned up on architecture and interior design, picking a style out of a magazine and following it slavishly. There are lots of warm woods and soft, colorful fabrics, and you’d never know you were up above a machine shop.

One wall is a bookshelf filled with the classics and modern best sellers. (The books I actually read are hidden in custom-built roll-out racks under the bed.) And what a bed it is. I splurged when I moved in, buying a custom-sized mattress. It’s as wide as a king, but a foot longer to accommodate my height. You don’t want to know what custom-sized, high thread count sheets cost.

There’s a small but stylish kitchenette in the corner, all stainless steel, hand-rubbed cherry, and granite, complete with a built-in espresso machine. “Can I get you anything?” I ask her. She shakes her head and, without a word, comes into my arms.

We kiss deeply for a while as I run my hands up and down her magnificent body. She’s a terrific kisser and I can quickly feel myself rising. She can feel it too and grinds her firm belly against me.

I slowly unzip the back of her dress, then slip a hand under the fabric and around her side, cupping a magnificently heavy breast. “Jesus, that’s good,” she whispers. Her nipple isn’t hard yet, but it perks up when I run the side of my thumb across it a few times. I gently pinch and pull, and Destinee moans. She pulls the back of my expensive designer shirt up out of my pants and slides her hands up underneath, firmly caressing my back and tracing my muscles. I feel the bite of her nails, but she’s careful not to press hard enough to leave lasting marks.

I use my other hand to slip her dress off her shoulders. Gravity does the rest and her garment pools on the thick carpet at our feet. She’s now wearing nothing but the gold necklace I bought her for her birthday and a tiny yellow G-string that matches her dress.

I skillfully remove her necklace, reaching over to place it in the antique crystal bowl on the dresser, then she slides down the front of me, onto her knees. Looking up and giving me a grin, she unzips my pants and pulls my hard cock out. I’m nearly quivering in anticipation, because Destinee is an acknowledged master in the oral arts.

“I just love your pole, Peter,” she murmurs, wrapping two velvet-soft fists around it. “I wish I had three fists, so I could cover it all at once. I’ve been wet all day, just knowing I get to play with it tonight.” Then she slowly and gently twists each fist around me, working one higher and one lower until they meet in the middle. Even dry, she knows how to do this in a way that is frankly astounding. Then she begins to work on the dryness problem.

Destinee opens her mouth and takes me inside, just sucking and tonguing the head at first, but then taking me deeper. One downside of my size is that no woman will ever deep throat me, but she puts on a convincing show of trying. She begins to bob, banging me against the back of her throat and making the coughing and gagging noises that have evidently become popular in internet porn. A side benefit of this is the copious amounts of saliva that begin to coat me. She takes full advantage, running a fist up and down in long, wet strokes while her other hand caresses my balls. As always, it’s amazing.

Destinee’s aim is to make me come fast. The quicker she can make it happen, the better she feels she’s doing, so I just relax and enjoy, employing none of my slowing techniques. I remove my shirt and kick off my shoes as she lowers my pants and removes them with my socks. Her G-string is now the only thing either of us is wearing.

It’s probably no more than three or four minutes later when I feel myself teetering at the brink. Even now, I could easily pull myself back, but hey, this is just the first round.

“Oh Jesus, Destinee,” I moan. “You’re making me come!”

That’s her cue, and she reaches over to the low table next to the dresser and snags the hand towel I placed there earlier. Holding it open on the palm of her hand, she releases me from her mouth and strokes me firmly until I blow my load onto the towel. She gently caresses me as I shudder, milking every last drop into the puddle. When I’m finished, she drops the towel into the large bowl on the table, then takes me gently back into her mouth as I come down from my high.

Destinee was very upfront with me the first time we made love, saying that she never lets men come in her mouth. She intimated that there was something in her past that gives her bad associations with it. Frankly, I suspect that it has something to do with her stepfather, for whom she has open and rabid contempt, but I’ll probably never know for certain.

Sure, it would be cool if she let me come in her mouth, but in my experience, very few women actually enjoy a mouthful of cum, whether they spit or swallow. For Destinee, it’s one of the perks of being gorgeous that allows her to be picky about what she will and won’t do in the bedroom.

It’s not long until I’m recovered enough to move on. Destinee takes my hands and I pull her to her feet. By now, her kiss has only a hint of my flavor, which I can live with. I knead her full, round ass cheeks, then use my grip to lift her up to me. She wraps her legs around my waist and grinds her privates against my stomach. She’s more than ready for what’s coming next.

I walk us over to the bed (on which I pulled the covers down to the foot before I left for the club) and supporting her back with my hand, lower us down onto it with me on top. I support my weight on an elbow as we kiss for a while longer. I run my free hand up and down her nearly naked body. Then I begin my southward trek.

My lips leave hers and I kiss her chin, then nibble my way down her jaw until I can suck an earlobe into my mouth. (Destinee learned early on that I like this, and tonight, on the drive back from the club, she had surreptitiously slipped her earrings into her purse.) I’m sure that her passionate moan now is strictly for my benefit, but that’s quite all right.

I mix up my pattern a little as I move down, never wanting her to know exactly what’s coming next, but she knows that my next stop is going to be high on her chest.

Destinee’s breasts are amazingly buoyant, even when she’s on her back, and it didn’t take the discovery of the faint scars underneath them to tell me they’re not all her. When we’re alone, they’re a bit bigger than I’d prefer, but they get a lot of attention when we’re out, which, for my purposes, is more important. Her breasts are so big that they’re complete handfuls for me. I love them and make sure she knows it, licking, sucking, and even gently biting down on her nipples.

Eventually, though, it’s time to move on to the part of tonight’s activity that she really loves. I kiss my way down Destinee’s stomach, which is flat more due to her fanatical dieting than exercise. I lathe her navel for a long moment, making her squirm, but then show her some mercy and move down further.

This would be the moment that I would normally remove a girl’s remaining clothing, but Destinee doesn’t like to get completely naked. I’m imagining her stepfather again, but I’ve made my peace with her request.

I begin to kiss and lick her through the silky fabric, and she begins to moan in earnest. She only gets louder when I use my teeth and lips to move the tiny scrap of cloth to the side and expose her prominent lips. As might be expected of a girl who works in a full-service salon, Destinee is waxed clean.

I don’t mess around now, plunging my tongue deep down into her folds. Destinee cries out at the sensation. I like it too. The fragrant bouquet is wonderful, but the best part about it is knowing the honest pleasure that Destinee gets when we do this. She’s not faking anything now, and I throw myself into the process wholeheartedly.

Destinee likes it when I suck a whole lip into my mouth, and I take turns doing that with each of her lips in turn, going back and forth between them. I even chew a little, which really gets her going. She’s getting very wet, and I periodically reach down to her taint to lap up the excess.

Finally it’s time to do her very favorite thing, so I move up fractionally and slurp her clit out of its hood and begin to tongue it. Destinee explodes.

I have to hold her hips down as she thrashes, but I’m up for the challenge, not letting up even when she begs. “No, no, no!” she shrieks as I work her clit unmercifully. The first time I did this for her, I took her protests seriously, then learned that in this case, no really does mean yes. Now it would take a bulldozer to pull me off her sensitive center. I’ve learned that too much is still not enough when it comes to Destinee’s clit.

As I work, I slide one, then two, long, thick fingers into her, pressing upwards and working her G-spot hard. Having those sensitive nerves stimulated in two places at once is more than enough to put her over the edge. Destinee comes hard for me. I don’t let up on her, though, going flat out as she comes, then comes, then comes some more.

I know that most women need a respite, but not her. I’ve never found the point at which she’s completely satisfied, but tonight I stop just before I cripple her.

I slide up and (after wiping my lips with the back of my hand) kiss her mouth. I don’t believe she actually likes the taste of herself, but she likes to kiss after coming, so she puts up with it. When she’s gotten herself back on an even keel, I reach over onto the nightstand for the condom that I unwrapped earlier and quickly roll it on. Destinee is barely conscious at this point, but she still takes me in her hand and guides me in.

We always start in missionary position, because that’s where she is when I get done eating her. I begin to push into her, just a little at a time.

“Oh Jesus, Peter, you’re so big,” she moans. That may well be true, but I have little trouble sliding in. As tall as she is, she’s unusually deep and can take most of my length too. Soon I find a rhythm, moving easily in and out while being careful to keep my weight off her.

This is when it always strikes me. Unbelievably, I’m actually making love with a beautiful woman. The sheer preposterousness of that nearly blows me away every time.

Twenty-two years ago, as a six-year-old, I found out that there was something profoundly and irrevocably different about me. You see, I don’t experience the world in the same way that other people do. I probably don’t even experience it in the same way that people with severe Autism or Asperger’s do either. In me, the native ability to intuitively understand facial, verbal and relational cues is almost completely absent. Whatever part of the brain it is that handles that kind of stuff, with me it just didn’t develop.

The vast majority of people unfortunate enough to be stuck with cognitive disabilities as severe as mine end up living their entire lives dependent on family or in an institution. But where nature cursed me in one way, it blessed me in another. I have an extremely high native intelligence. Like off-the-charts high, and I’ve been able to use it to compensate for my disabilities.

It took me time, an unfaltering desire to fit in, innumerable embarrassing experiences, and the heavy use of logic to figure out things that most people grasp intuitively. I spent years studying facial expressions until I could recognize them reliably and memorize what each of them meant. My journey to being able to decipher meanings from the nuances of speech was exceedingly long too, but I persisted until I could comfortably participate in conversations.

I was a decade late to the party, but my efforts to become, or at least to successfully mimic, a social being eventually led me to attempt relationships with women. These turned out to be another order of magnitude more difficult and, until now, none of my tries at a successful romantic relationship have gone well. There were many attempts, but only seventy-three women (I track these things) have agreed to a first date. Twenty-seven were willing to risk a second, and three (including Destinee) eventually agreed to become intimate with me. I was a virgin until a year ago, but all those women were crucial in my quest to understand the female mind. Each one served a purpose in advancing me toward my goal. That goal was to be able to get, and keep, a girlfriend like Destinee.