Chapter 1

She disrobed teasingly, her eyes never leaving me and her laughter soft as she opened the fly of the faded blue jeans and hooked her thumbs in the beltless waist band. She skinned the jeans halfway down her hips, revealing white briefs, and then she stopped. "Not you?" she asked in a tone that was amused, yet taunted.

"Just keep on doing what you're doing, honey," I breathed.

"But I want to see you naked, too."

I peeled out of my shirt. And she gurgled and moved the jeans on down the long brown smoothness of her legs. Bending, she shook one bare foot out of the jeans and stopped again.

"Keep going!" I said.

She stepped out of the jeans to stand tall in the white briefs and the wildly decorated pullover shirt, her abundant breasts lifting and falling tauntingly.

I moved toward her. I wanted to sink my teeth into those magnificent breasts, feel the sleekness of her loins. But she danced from me and said softly, "No, not yet, Matthew. First, we both must be naked."

She whisked the bright-colored shirt over her head. She was braless. Her breasts were large, firm, finger-tingling projections. Pitching the shirt aside, her free hand whipped the long braided strand of hair over the front of her right shoulder. She took the briefs from her hips, stepped out of them, and she was nude.

I danced on one foot and then the other as I got out of my shorts. But she was gone from me when I stood erect again. I saw her running toward the stream, her flawless legs and buttocks flashing in the sunlight. She ran out onto the finger of land that stuck out into the clear water and then it almost was as if she was posing for a photographer as she stood and looked back at me.

I felt a bit awkward for a moment. The indication of my desire for her was so obvious. But she was not laughing now. She seemed almost a statue as she stood on the point of land. Her eyes devoured. And I was so caught up in her golden beauty that I forget about how I must look to her. She was truly golden, this blonde nymph who had been haunting me for what seemed all of my life. Golden and sparkling and so alive as she stood half profiled to me, the long strand of hair hiding the brown tip of her breast.

She beckoned and stepped into the rushing stream and waded toward the waterfall. The water foamed around her thighs as she pushed determinedly forward, taking long steps slowly. She eased deeper. The water was at her flat belly now, slapping and roiling and fondling her.

I plunged into the stream, felt the main current sweep me away from her. I got my feet under me and stood hip deep in the water. She was laughing at me again. She had found a flat rock near the waterfall and had climbed out of it. Now she seemed to tower over me, facing me, all of her golden womanhood-wet and slick-looking and darkened slightly-exposed for me to devour.

I ploughed toward her, my eyes rooted on her triangle. She waited patiently, the triangle offered to my mouth. But when I reached her, she bent down and took my hands and pulled me up on the rock with her. We melted into each other's arms, our mouths fused and our bodies grinding. But as I attempted to insert myself, she said, "No," and stepped down into the water. I went after her.

"In the waterfall," she shouted against the roar.

We waded hand-in-hand to the fall. Spume wet her hair and clung to her cheeks. She was excited. Her eyes sparkled and her white teeth flashed in the sunlight. We put our faces into the fall. There was power in there, too much force for us. We withdrew and she was laughing and wet and so desirable that I knew that if I did not have her in the next few seconds I would bend and trigger my own orgasm.

I felt her hand find me under the water. The fingers danced and delighted. She clutched and we moved into each other. Her breasts-the brown tips large and tilted now-found my chest, and then our mouths were breathing life into each other as her golden thighs spread and....

I came awake.

I shot up into a sitting position on the bed and for several seconds I did not believe. I was in a familiar bedroom. There was no waterfall, no rushing stream, no eager fingers on my hardness. I was alone, and I was wet, all right. But the wetness was from perspiration, and all I had in the way of company was my own reflection in the mirror opposite the foot end of my bed.

I groaned and rolled from the bed to pound to a window. Outside, it was raining. It was just a drizzle, but the day was gray and there was a stubborn bleakness in the sky. The bleak gray matched my sour mood. It was to be a bad day for a funeral. That much I knew, and I hadn't even had a cup of bad coffee. All I'd had was a dream and an erection.

All I had eyes for was the new widow. I felt totally bastard, but I couldn't help myself. She stood across the grave from me. Lieutenant Crowder held her elbow. She stood there, straight and beautiful and dry-eyed. That dry-eyed business was bad. She should have been crying. It was her husband they were lowering into the wet ground. Detective Sergeant Fletcher Amos Ayers. Thirty-three and dead. Killed in the line of duty. And the widow should have been crying. Perhaps even jumping into the grave with him. She had loved him that much.

But Cora stood tall, unflinching, her pale face a mask. And all I could do was stare at her while my blood ran fast. Fletch had been my friend, my best friend. And the widow was my friend, perhaps my second best friend. Fletch had been cut down by a hopped-up punk kid, his throat opened by the jagged edge of a broken wine bottle. But the widow remained alive, a breathing person. Oh, she was shredded too, all right. She had been ripped inside. But she still breathed. And she still was vibrant. She still was the most beautiful woman to ever come down the road. She still was the woman in all my dreams.

Briefly, I relived the dream of that morning: the rushing stream, the waterfall, the golden body, naked and flawless, standing on a point of land and then on a flat rock, arms outstretched, fingers curled slightly as she waited for me. And it was as if her hand was on me now. I stirred as my groin tightened. I felt on edge, taut. I imagined the softness of her lips against my mouth, the nibbling of her white teeth, the warmth of her body against mine, the quiver of her muscles, the length of her wriggling and heating, the dress coming up her long legs as my hands stretched out the firmness of her buttocks and then moved in under the nylon of her panties. I almost could feel my fingers sinking into the smoothness of her hips, dipping down to find the warmth of her womanhood as she spread to receive me. Now it was as if I was entering her and she was settling on me with a low moan coming from her throat, settling and taking all of me as if we each had finally found naturalness. We were fitted, mated, and we belonged. Only we did not. She had belonged to Fletch, and I was a friend, only a friend. There could never be anything between us. Yet she was beautiful, and desirable, and I wanted her. Except that now she stood across a grave from me, and soon she would be forced to turn from that grave and go home alone to the small, mortgaged bungalow, she would be forced to walk through the rain drizzle and get into a car and return to the house she had known with Fletch and face that house alone.

Alone. I was used to the loneliness. I was a bachelor. But Cora? She had known the special warmth of sharing a kitchen, bath and bed with someone she loved.

I stared at her. Why didn't she explode? Shrill. Burst into tears. Wail. Moan. Collapse.

Not Cora Ayers. She was like a ticking, unexploded bomb. She might go off in time. But the moment was not that time.

And I wanted her. God, I wanted her. Standing there in the slow June rain of a Monday afternoon, watching her, knowing that her husband-my friend-was going six feet down, never to rise again, I wanted the tall, blonde Cora. I wanted her in my arms. I wanted to feel the pulsing heat of her body against my own. I wanted to know the probe of her mature breasts against my chest, the flatness of her abdomen against my middle, the thrust of her thighs against my legs, the bulge of her womanhood against my groin. I wanted to feel her arms pulling across the back of my shoulders, know the moistness of her mouth, experience the quiver of her muscles rippling down my body, hear the low murmur as I entered her.

I wanted all of that as my friend-Cora's husband was being lowered to his final resting.

Which is why I felt like a total bastard.

Lieutenant Crowder beckoned and I went around the foot of the grave. Cora moved in against me as if she belonged there. An arm crossed my shoulders, she squeezed, and for just an instant I was conscious of woman breasts against my chest. And she stepped back and said, "It's done, Matt."

"Yeah."

What else could I say?

Up close, her patrician face looked used. There were lines that didn't belong and tiny tics jumped in her cheeks. Her eyes, gray-green and deep, did not gleam this day. They were dead, hollow, like two jelly fish washed up on a beach.

She said, "I want to leave."

Crowder nodded. "You go with her, Sergeant."

He didn't continue, but I knew what he meant. I was one of his boys, a night trick cop, like Fletch Ayers had been. If I checked in this night, okay. If I didn't, okay. For the present, I was to take care of the widow. At the precinct station my name might even go up on the duty roster opposite widow comforter.

The funeral parlor boys and the minister moved in but I shook my head at them and took Cora to my dented heap. I put her in the front seat and jogged around to pile in beside her. I lit a pair of butts and put one in her fingers. She accepted it without looking at me. I cranked up and we rolled out of the cemetery.

She smelled good. There was an apple fragrance mixed with the dampness. I slid an oblique glance at her and knew fresh desire. She sat straight in the seat, staring straight ahead, but now I could see the profiled contour of her high chest pushing against the black coat, the sharp lines of her face, the long smoothness of her neck, the curved flow of her legs. She had crossed those legs and opened the black coat. The skirt line of the simple black dress was a sharp edge across her thighs just inches above her knees. And then the legs swept down to arch through a sleek curve of ankle and become thought-provoking feet.

It was crazy thinking but I found myself wondering in that moment if I had ever seen those feet bared. Of course I had-there had been too many Sunday afternoons watching professional football on television in the Ayers house, too many Saturday afternoons at the lake beach, not to have-but right then, driving away from the cemetery, I could not remember ever having seen Cora Ayers barefooted.

"I don't want to go home, Matt," she said, shattering my thoughts. "I don't care where you take me, but don't take me home. I don't want to see any more people, and the house will be bulging."

"You want to go someplace and cry?"

"Maybe that's it," she nodded.

"You've got to cut loose sooner or later."

"I know."

"You can cut now. I'll drive into next week if necessary."

"No." She shook her head. "I don't feel like crying right now."

"You've got a big explosion stored up inside you,-honey."

"I know," she nodded. "Take me to your apartment, okay? There won't be anybody there, will there?"

"Just you'n me."

"I think I'd like that. It will be quiet."

"You can have the place alone, if you want. Except the Lieutenant will have my butt for leaving you."

"Why?" She sounded genuinely curious.

I nipped a hand. "Well, he figures you need to be with somebody."

"How do you know that?"

"I know Crowder."

"All right then, you stay with me."

"I've got duty at six p.m. A trick begins."

"The Lieutenant won't care if you don't check in. You just got through saying ... Oh."

"Oh, what?"

"I'm sorry, Matt."

"Sorry? For God's sake, doll, what-"

"You can take me home. With everything that's happened, and so fast ... well, I forget that people have other things to do, other-"

"Baby, if you give me one more ounce of that crap, I'll shine your teeth."

"Matt!"

"Excuse the French, but that's the way it stands. Fletch was my friend, you are my friend, and-"

"Matt, please...."

"No more crap?"

"No." She sounded humbled.

"I'll take you to my place. Maybe you can sleep for a few hours. I'm not much of a cook but I've got a couple of steaks in the refrig, and there's beer and-"

"It sounds fine, Matt," she interrupted softly. I gave her another glance. She was staring down the road again without seeing anything. And the edge of the black skirt had skidded up the crossed nylon, exposing more rich-looking thigh. I wanted to put my palm on that thigh, sink my fingers into the warm crevice fashioned by the crossed legs, allow those fingers to explore down in under her knees, travel up the underside of her legs to find her juncture. I wanted to feel the warm dampness of the nylon panties taut on her, covering, protecting, molding her.

I wanted to insert and wriggle my fingers in under the edge of the white panties and allow my fingers to dance in her golden hairs. Those hairs had to be golden. She had to be a true blonde. I had never seen her in nudity, not even by accident, never seen the triangle of her womanhood except out-lined in the flowered bikini she had worn on our Saturday afternoon lake jaunts, but I knew those tightly curled little hairs were golden in color. Golden girl. Golden joy. That was Cora Ayers.

"Matt?"

I jerked and my fingers worked reflexively against the steering wheel. I had a hard-on and I felt flushed. If I looked at her now and found her staring down on my erect tool....

Thank God, my coat kept her from seeing the erection.

"Matthew Law," she murmured.

I frowned, felt myself softening a little. She shifted on the seat, uncrossed the legs. But the skirt still rode high and she didn't seem to notice. She reached out with long, delicate fingers and patted the back of my hand. "Matthew," she said. "My friend." A tight little smile curled in the corners of her faintly painted lips.

"That's me, doll," I nodded. I didn't know what else to say.

"Tough, reckless, don't-give-a-damn Matthew Law. Detective. Penniless, sometimes lonely, sometimes not lonely, sometimes mean, sometimes kind. What would I do today without you, Matthew?"

"You're not that alone in this old world, honey," I said gruffly. "You gotta get that notion out of your craw pronto. There's lots of people round who are your friends. Fletch is gone, but that doesn't mean you go into hibernation. Hell, you'll even make new friends."

"Maybe I don't want new friends."

"Sure you do."

"Maybe I'm satisfied with an old friend. You, Matt. You're special," she said somberly. "You were Fletcher's friend, the only other man Fletcher ever really liked. Did you know that?"

"Fletch just didn't let too many people get too close to him, Cora. It was his nature."

"I know," she nodded. "You and me. We are the only people to ever get near him. We are the only ones who know what he was like inside. I wonder why he picked us."

"He could trust us, doll."

"Yes." She nodded again, thoughtfully. "That has to be it, of course. Fletcher could trust us. The both of us."

"And if he could hear us now," I said grimly, "he'd crack us both with those big knuckles of his."

"I suppose he would, yes."

"It's done. Finished, babe. That's the way Fletch would look at it if he was sitting here on the car seat and one of us was back there in the cemetery. He wouldn't like what had happened, he'd be torn up inside, but he would accept. And that's what we have to do. Accept."

She sat back on the seat and sighed. "The acceptance is going to be rough for me, Matt. I don't know if I'll ever really accept. Why, right this second I feel as if you found me standing downtown in a rainstorm and are taking me to my home where I'll go in the front door and there that big ape will be standing and grinning on my wet misery while far back in his eyes there will be that gleam. Do you know about that gleam, Matt? No, how could you? Fletcher had it, way back in his eyes. It was always there. For me. Only for me. It was desire. Want. Lust. My husband lusted for me, Matthew. He actually lusted. He fed on me, ravished me, played with me, teased me, fondled me, loved me, but that light never went out. No matter how tired Fletcher became, the light always remained. It gleamed. All I had to do was look deep into those eyes, and there was the light, the love, the desire. Matthew, that's what I'm going to miss! The light is gone."

"Easy, honey," I growled. "Keep control. You've been doin' fine up to now. Don't let the control slip away. Someday...."

But I chopped off the words. I was going to say, "Someday you may discover the light in another pair of eyes-if you'll just look around, if you'll just turn your lovely head and look over here at the goon who is tooling you along in a beat-up sedan," but I chopped off those words because who drives a widow home from a cemetery and tells her immediately that she is the only woman he has wanted to bed in the last four years? Who tells a new widow that you close your eyes to a black ceiling at night and get erections just thinking about her? Who tells a fresh widow that you've been topping big dolls, small dolls, wet dolls, dry dolls, fancy dolls the last four years and the only thing you can think about while you're riding those joyboxes is one triangle-a golden triangle that belongs to a golden girl?

I don't, man. I suffer. I think and perspire a little and suffer and keep my damn yap shut-and hope to hell I don't have an erection when we get to my place and I have to take off my coat. What do I do then? Excuse myself politely and go into the bath and stick my head in an ice bucket?

Or do I put the widow up in my place and drive across town and dive into bed with the plumber's wife? That juicy little sprite of a red-haired wench who always has a bare bottom, humps everything that enters her door, has a built-in semen-stopper in her mouth and an educated tongue that will make a man climb bedroom walls while she giggles and fondles and plays and twists her lithe body into a crazy pretzel pattern as she works her way down to the nitty-gritty of why a cop comes back for more.

I had myself in a lather.

And we were braked in front of the building where I had an apartment on the third deck. I didn't even remember stopping the heap. I shook myself and risked a look at Cora. She was frowning slightly. "I have a feeling, Matthew Law," she said softly, "that you have been far away from me."

I shook it off. "It's nothing, honey. Just thinking. Come on. Let's go up. You're going to have to make a dash for it through the rain. No basement garage in this leaning penthouse, no elevators to the third floor."

She smiled and reached out again and patted my arm, "Let's dash," she said.

My place was warm and untidy. There was a faint smell of sweat and used socks in the air. I cursed under my breath and went around and pushed up windows.

The fresh air that flowed inside was damp, but it had a clean smell. I turned and looked at Cora.

She found a place on the edge of my couch. She hadn't bothered to remove her coat, but now the coat was wide open and hanging down on the outside of her legs while she sat straight, and almost a little schoolgirlish, I thought as the gray-green eyes took in my joint. I couldn't tell if she approved or disapproved of what she saw. Even though Fletcher and I had been friends for four years, and he had been up to my place plenty of times for a cold beer or just to jaw, it was the first time Cora had ever been inside my door, and now I wanted her to like what she was seeing. But there was no expression on her face, and none appeared as she continued to survey.

She twisted slightly to look over her shoulder and the movement forced one of her nyloned knees down. A gap appeared at her thighs and from my vantage I could see far up those thighs almost to where the nylon of her hose ended and the short area of bare skin began. I felt my balls tighten and my tool jump and I moved swiftly, tearing my eyes from her.

I took her coat, gathered newspapers and magazines from the couch. The simple black dress hugged her shapely body, clung to thighs and the ample roundness of her hips, swept up tight against the flatness of her belly, swelled over the thrust of her high breasts and became a sharp line high across her breast bone.

I turned from her, put the coat in a closet, fiddled an extra couple of seconds to let myself settle, and then she said from behind me, "In the car, Matt, you mentioned beer. I think I'd like one."

It was the break I needed. I hustled into the kitchenette and dug out two cold bottles. I played it slow, attempted to cool. I got glasses down from the cupboard and felt myself begin to loosen. I felt less a bastard and more like Matthew Law, friend. I returned to the front room and put a couple of records on my cheap stero.

She had loosened, too, I noticed. Somehow she looked almost relaxed. The lines and the tics were gone from her face muscles, and she seemed to sit easier. She had moved to my favorite overstuffed chair. Its cushioned seat dropped about a yard, but it was comfortable. And now Cora sat deep in that chair, her legs high and crossed again as she slumped slightly, holding the bottle of beer in one hand and the glass in the other. She put her head back, closed her eyes, took a long breath and sighed deeply. From where I sat I could see up the outside of her top leg, in under her skirt, all the way to the white of her panties.

"It's been a horrible day, Matt," she said finally, looking at me again.

I tore my eyes from her legs and concentrated on pouring beer into my glass. "Yeah," I admitted.

"But it's done."

"Done, uhuh."

"Except for you. Are you really going to go to the station? I got the distinct impression from Lieutenant Crowder you didn't have to."

"I'm going in, honey. I've got to have something to do."

"Yes," she nodded. "I understand. But I'm tiring fast now. I feel as if everything is draining out of me. I don't think I could move to go one more place today."

"I'll change the bed and you can grab some shuteye here," I said. "Then give me a call when you awaken. Crowder'll okay my cutting out early, I think. Maybe by then I'll be settled a little."

"All right," she said simply. "This beer is good, Matt. It's relaxing me fast. Can I have another one after while?"

"There's ten bottles left in the refrig," I said, trying on a real grin for the first time that afternoon. "You can line 'em up and guzzle to your heart's content, honey."

"She smiled back at me. "Thank you," she said. "And now tell me something else. Why all of a sudden do you call me 'honey'? I don't think you ever have until this afternoon."

I shuffled my feet, tried to hold the grin. "Just a slip of the tongue, I guess. I dunno. I call lots of women 'honey.' It's just an expression with me. I'm sorry. I'll watch it."

"No." She shook her blonde head. "I like it. Coming from you, it sounds natural. So don't quit, Matt. Please?"

I looked at her head on. I looked hard and deep into those gray-green eyes, and they stared back hard. "Okay," I said gruffly, "honey it is."

"I like it," she repeated in a soft voice. And then her eyes left mine and she lifted the glass to her lips and drank.

I finished my beer and left the couch. "I'll go change the bed for you."

"Are you leaving me already?" She sounded surprised.

I looked back at her over my shoulder. "I'll check in downtown. I won't be far away if you need anything."

"I see. Well ... what about if I need to be fucked?"

The word jolted. I didn't believe my ears. I staggered. Then I stood frozen in the open doorway of the bedroom, not daring to turn and look on her.

"Matt?"

The summons seemed to come from far away. It was soft, commanded without being demanding, beckoned, almost seemed edged with a plea.

"Matt, look at me," she said.

I turned slowly, remained rooted. And she still sat deep in the chair, the legs still crossed and the knees high, the bottle still in one hand, the glass still in the other.

"I'm unwinding, Matt," she said softly. "I'm falling apart inside. And yet I'm like a volcano in there. I have to erupt. Somehow I have to explode. But I can't do it alone. The explosion won't come alone. I have to have something that will free it, free me."

"Baby...."

"I've shocked you," she said simply, somber. She nodded. "Fucked. It's what I said, Matt. I used the word. I know what it means. I know all of the so-called dirty words. But they aren't dirty to me. They weren't dirty to Fletcher. We used them continuously in our lovemaking, even sometimes when we weren't in bed. They had a special meaning for us. Can you understand that?"

My mind was reeling and my blood was churning. I wasn't sure I understood anything. I wasn't even sure I was standing in my bedroom doorway and across from me my Golden Girl was sitting loose and talking loose and telling me she wanted to go to bed with me. This was all a dream. So I would awaken. I would jerk erect and find myself sitting up in the middle of my mussed bed and I'd be blinking on the mirror across from the foot of the bed and then I'd notice the reflection of the stiffness bobbing back at me, and, once again, I'd sheepishly realize I had been dreaming about Cora Ayers, my friend's wife.

"Please try to understand," she said in the same soft voice.

"Honey ... you need sleep," I managed. "You aren't you ... right at the moment."

She put down the bottle and the glass and she stood.

"The hell I'm not," she said, the voice remaining even, just above a whisper. "This is the true me, Matthew Law. In this instant, I'm being the true Cora Ayers, woman who knows what is going on inside her body. Cora Ayers, woman who knows what makes the world go round. Cora Ayers, woman who has watched Matt Law sneak looks at her for four years, watched Matt Law simmer and broil and want, but never touch. Oh no, Matt Law never touched his friend's wife. Matt Law never would. And his friend's wife was appreciative-is appreciative-but now everything is different. There no longer is a friend. There no longer is a husband who liked to stalk the woman with a hard dick cleaving the air and that special gleam alive in his eyes. All of that is gone, Matthew Law. The friend, the husband, is gone. Now there is just you and the woman. A woman who needs-a woman who will go out on the street and get if Matt Law so much as moves an inch toward the door!"

She came to me. She stood close and she put her palms on my shoulders. I could smell her, the apple fragrance, the muskiness, the womanliness, and I was instantly hard, but she did not put her body against that hardness. She held off, stood just inches away, the gray-green eyes rounded slightly now and looking deep into me, searching, wondering, asking.

"Do you understand, Matt?" she whispered.

"No," I growled.

"I have to have you," she said. "I have to feel you sliding into my body, moving up, up, up, slowly, slowly, slowly. I have to have you going all the way up until you come out the top of my head. I can't help it, Matt. I'm on fire inside. And better that you give me what I need than someone from off the street. I want you. I've wanted you for four years, too. I'm not in love with you, never have been, probably never will be, but I've wanted you in those long years, and I want you this afternoon, now. It's physical. I feel as if we are two magnets finally about to become a union after all of these years of drawing together. I want you in me, Matt. I want you drowning in my juices. I want to feel you have an orgasm. I want-"

"Knock it off!" I raged.

The outburst surprised her. She lowered her hands, stepped back. The gray-green eyes widened, then slow ly became narrow, and the depths questioned as she cocked her blonde head slightly.

"The talk," I rasped. "You had the talk with Fletch, Cora. You can't have it with me. That was between you and-"

"Ahh," she interrupted softly, her head bobbing in acceptance. She stepped back into me, and this time she put her long body against mine and fitted her breasts and her abdomen while her fingertips went to my earlobes. "You're right, of course," she breathed. "The talk belonged to Fletcher and me, not to us, not standing here in this doorway. Matt, please take me over to the bed."

I couldn't. My feet wouldn't move. I commanded my muscles, but they ignored me. All I could do was wrap my arms around her slim waist and draw her against me hard. My mouth found the faintly painted lips and they were warm and moist and opened immediately. Her tongue stabbed and she breathed fire into me, the lips spreading wide until we no longer were kissing but merely glued at the mouth, teeth clashing and tongues dueling.

She found her body against mine and I felt her right leg come up slightly. Then she fitted herself on me and settled. Her ankle found the back of my leg and became locked. She started a rotating movement that caught me up and I knew that I was penetrating her just a fraction, jamming the nylon panties back up into her.

I worked her dress up over the roundness of her hips and she reached down between us to stroke me. I clamped my hands against her buttocks. She opened my trousers deftly and her fingers snaked inside to find my stiffness. She freed me, moaned without removing her mouth from mine and began to work me into the edge of her panties.

I came....

I couldn't stop the flow. I groaned and lunged up ward with the sudden release. She lurched against the warm splatter and then she moaned again and suddenly spun from me.

She stopped halfway to the bed, lifted her skirt and yanked the panties down her legs. "Get naked!" she cried.

But there wasn't time. I was after her fast. She went back on the bed and lifted her nyloned legs and spread them wide. And there it was: the Golden Joybox!

To me, it sparkled. The hairs were a light color and curled tight and looked moist. The lips were full and turned out and moving. And down below, the roundness of her hips were taut and flawless. She stretched up from the bed, her arms coming forward between her lifted legs, her fingers reaching. She was straining, her face contorted in passion now.

"Matt, come in me!" she cried out. "Put it in deep!"

I was between those lifted legs in an instant and both of her palms were on me, stroking savoringly. She guided me and began to stuff. She didn't stop until there was no more room between our throbbing bodies. Her legs came down on my hips and her fingers became locked behind my head. She stared up at me.

"Deep, Matt," she whispered. "And fast..

"Yeah, baby."

"Sometimes I lose consciousness when I come, but don't be frightened. It only lasts for a few seconds."

She was fantastically tight. But active. Her lips worked rhythmically; and deep inside her, far up in the hot moist body, tiny muscles stroked and released and recaptured. I moved long and hard and sure, increasing the pace by the second, and gradually she seemed to open as if she was a flower head. The sensation drove me deeper I had to touch bottom again, but now there was no bottom. She was heat and vaccum, and I truly wondered if I might be going on up and out the top of her skull.

She moaned and writhed under me, her hips pumping frantically in their demand, her fingernails clawing the cloth of my trousers at my buttocks. Her head was back now, her eyes closed and her painted lips wide open. I shot my tongue deep into her mouth and she clawed up against me. The tongue seemed to trigger new, hidden fires inside her. And then the muscles inside her were back, clamping and freeing my hardness in a dance all their own.

"Hang on, baby!" I gasped.

"Yes, Matt, yes...."

She arched upward. Her nails dug in deep. And suddenly she was all tautness and straining muscle. And then I felt the spasms of her climax, and I rammed deep and let the flow pour into her. She lurched with the first splash and then she settled and clutched at me, holding and releasing, holding again, as if I might leave her.

No chance. She was everything I had thought she would be. More. I'd never had another woman like her. She was clawing, demanding, yet soft and giving. She flowed as if she were a oiled machine. She was mobile and hungry and-most important-she needed and wanted me.

We collapsed simultaneously. We remained locked, rolled up on our sides, and I wallowed in the warmth and smell of her. When I opened my eyes I found that she was unconscious. Slowly, I freed myself from her. I lifted her clamping leg and gently turned her until she was on her back. Her face rolled away from me. I stared down on the lift and fall of her breasts. The movement was even and deep and she almost looked as if she had fallen into a child's sleep.

I got up on an elbow and watched her. I wanted to see her come alive again. I wanted to be there when those eyes fluttered open. I wanted me to be the first thing she saw. She groaned and her muscles rippled slightly, but she remained close-eyed, the dress bunched against her flat stomach. I dropped a hand to the warmth of her thigh and stroked the skin and nylon gently.

Her juncture held me. It was all that I had anticipated. Blonde and jutting slightly and rounded and tight, the perfect joybox. I bent and kissed her belly muscles. Out of the corner of my eye, the golden hairs winked at me. They were damp, glistening. I moved my mouth down to them, inched my tongue down into the crevice. It was warm and moist down there, and the muscles still played little reflexive games of their own.

Cora stirred. Her fingers came into my hair and clamped. "More," she breathed. "Don't stop, Matthew. I like to have you kiss my legs."

I shifted position on the bed, stretched out beside her, my face moving against her thighs. Her muscles twitched with pleasure and she was unable to remain a still target for me now.

I felt her fingers dance along my thigh. She captured my hardness and turned her face into it. I heard her sigh deeply. "Don't you ever soften?" she whispered.

"Almost never," I told her truthfully. It was something about me, some body chemistry, that had fascinated me all of my life. Someday it had to end, of course, but in these years it was a strange and fascinating and tremendous power, and who was I to wonder too much about it-or to knock it?

Her tongue tweaked me and I pulled from her immediately. "No," I told her.

"Why not?"

I couldn't see her expression, but the puzzlement was in her voice. And I couldn't answer her question. I wasn't sure why I didn't want her mouth on me.

She kissed the heat in a tiny, darting motion. "Matt?" she questioned softly when I jerked away again.

"Just don't," I said, raining my mouth down her thigh.

"It's an appendage, Matt," she said softly. "Like an arm, a leg, a finger."

"I know."

"I want you to lick me."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

"Shut up and enjoy."

She turned up on her side and put a leg across my head. "All right," she said, softly condescending. "But do it slowly, Matt. I like it. It makes me all warm and wiggly inside."

She began to work me slowly as I rammed my head deeper into her juncture. She smelled all woman and good. I flicked my tongue against her and she lurched slightly. Then I settled and put my tongue inside her cunt and her hips began to work. Her movements quickened and she began to make tiny noises.

"Deeper...." she breathed a long time later. "Keep going! God, don't stop now!"

She lifted her upper leg and forgot me. Her hand came down and her fingers urged my tongue. She became lost in excitement. Suddenly she stiffened. I heard her gurgle. And then I felt her leg muscles tighten and she arched. She held the position for a long time, straining, and there was a rattle deep in her throat.

Suddenly she went flaccid. Her leg came down and she was unmoving. I worked my head out from under her thighs and got up on an elbow. She was unconscious once more.

Gently, I squared around on her and put my mouth against her loose lips. After several seconds, I felt those lips begin to come to life again. Her arms moved across my neck and she held me tight against her body.

Then it was as if she remembered. She reached down. "I forgot you," she said somberly. "In my own excitement I forgot-"

"It's okay, babe," I chuckled, clipping her chin gently with my knuckles. "Everything is okay."

"But-"

"I want to see all of you naked," I interrupted.

"All right," she agreed simply. She untangled from me and rolled from the bed to stand tall. Then she hesitated, and it was as if she had been hit with a sudden thought

"Babe?" I questioned.

She nodded as if to herself. "There's something that has to be done," she said. She sounded determined. "Disrobe."

We removed our clothing without taking our eyes from each other. Once she stopped and bent and kissed me. Then she was away from me again and standing totally naked. I moved toward her golden body, but she put up a hand.

"No. Not yet."

She picked up the black dress and lifted it over her head. She let the dress drop around her naked body. She fitted it against her breasts and her buttocks and then she went to the bed and lay flat on her back. She lifted and spread her knees, planted her bare feet.

"Now," she breathed. "Tear it from me. Rip it to shreds, Matt. I have to be rid of it and what it stands for."

The dress tore easily. And she cried out and lurched as if caught up in some special kind of passion as I ripped it from her body. And then it was wadded and I had pitched it under the bed and she had reached up and caught my hard penis and was manipulating it.

"Matt," she breathed, "I think we were made for each other."

I wondered.

I wondered about a dead friend in a grave. Had he just turned over?