by Jeff Strand
“But what can I do?”
“You can say no,” Laura told him. “And if they really are your friends, they’ll respect that answer.”
Flip’s face lit up. “Thanks, Seth and Laura! I’m going to tell them ‘no’ right this very minute!” He gave us a thumbs-up sign and ran down the sidewalk. Unfortunately, he collided with a lower-class youth wearing gang colors, who knifed him to settle a grudge against those who practiced oppression.
“Oh no!” exclaimed Laura. “Our good friend Flip the fast food restaurant employee is dead!”
“I feel a song coming on,” I said.
“Then let’s sing together!” Laura decided.
Everybody dies, it’s Mother Nature’s Way.
‘Cause if we didn’t die, Earth wouldn’t be okay.
The world’s filled with people, and people need to eat.
But we’ve got too many people, and not quite enough meat.
[Refrain]
Overpopulated. We’re overpopulated.
Our land is overpopulated, and that’s not good at all.
[This is the end of the refrain.]
Each person who’s alive eats food most every day.
But people who are dead don’t eat much food, I’d say.
When we want to dine, it’s no fun to compete.
That’s why people croaking is such a special treat.
[Repeat refrain]
We’ll have eight billion people on our planet come next May.
Unless we see to it that a whole bunch pass away.
So when somebody’s murdered, it’s really kind of neat.
‘Cause that’s one food-eating soul we can delete.
[Repeat refrain a few more times until the song fades out.]
“I feel better now,” said Laura, stepping over the blood on the sidewalk.
“So do I. In fact, I feel great. I feel better than if I’d counted from one to hundred without a mistake.”
“I love you, Seth,” Laura said, her eyes twinkling.
“I’m glad you do,” I told her. “Because love is a good thing.”
And truly, it is.
Chapter Twenty-Eight, Version B
“Love, Virgin Style”
“Oh, wow,” I said, peeking in the bathroom. “They gave us free shampoo! And pre-wrapped soap!”
Laura came up behind me and wound her arms around my waist. “I’m glad you approve of the room.”
“Look how mold-free that shower curtain is.”
“It’s very nice. What do you think of the bed?”
I was trying not to think of the bed. “It looks comfy.”
“It looks verrrrrry comfy,” said Laura, purring like a cat. “Shall we find out for sure?”
I wanted nothing more than to find out for sure, but I was also having a serious degree of anxiety. I’d been perspiring heavily at Laugh Attack, and I was certainly sweating now. Had I put on enough deodorant this morning? Did I have B.O.? You can’t make love to somebody properly if you reek! And why did I have to pick today to wear the boxer shorts with the holes and ketchup stains? Had that big zit on my chest gone away?
“Is it okay if I take a shower first?” I asked.
“Of course,” Laura replied. “Would you like me to join you?”
Actually, I didn’t. I intended to do some serious cleaning of body parts that I didn’t much want her to see me rubbing. But I couldn’t say “Sorry, Laura, but I’m not positive there aren’t any lingering remnants of that last bowel movement.” How was I going to get out of this?
“No, that’s okay,” I said.
Hey, you don’t always need a creative solution to this kind of thing.
“I’ll be waiting,” Laura said. “Don’t dawdle.”
“I assure you there’ll be no dawdling,” I told her, stepping into the bathroom and shutting the door. I stared at my reflection in the mirror as I undressed. Good God, was I really this skinny? Were my knees really that lopsided? And, jeez, I always remembered having at least another half inch!
After a very frustrating thirty seconds trying to figure out how to get the shower to work, I waited for the water to heat up and did breathing exercises. Everything was going to be okay. People had sex with each other all the time. It was no big deal, and there was no reason to be freaking out. Laura wasn’t going to be expecting a gold medal performance.
But what if I only earned a booby prize?
I stepped in the shower and yelped as the scalding water burned the hell out of my chest. I burned the hell out of my back bending over to adjust the temperature. Once it was tolerable, I unwrapped the soap and promptly dropped it. This was scary. Sexual activity was not a good time to be losing one’s motor skills.
I gave myself a thorough scrubbing, then shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. I dried myself, wrapped a towel around my waist, and then glanced at the mirror again. I certainly looked better now that it was all fogged up.
This was it. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the room.
“Hi there, handsome,” said Laura. She was seated on the edge of the bed, hair draped over her shoulders. Her clothing consisted of exactly one black bra and one black pair of panties. I thought my tongue was going to drop to the floor and splatter saliva all over my toes.
“You look...” Beautiful? Sexy? Good enough to devour with an almost supernatural passion? “...gorley.”
“I look what?”
“Sorry. I think I was trying to say ‘gorgeous’ and ‘lovely’ at the same time.”
“Ah.”
“Really, you look incredible. That bra goes perfectly with those panties.”
“I think they’d look even better flung across the room.” She lay on her back and stretched out her arms. “Come and get me, you huge slice of masculinity.”
I strode toward her like a man with a purpose. After two steps, the towel slipped off. I hadn’t meant to be quite so naked quite so soon, but I figured covering myself up again at this point would be weird. I wasn’t even remotely erect, which I thought was odd considering that there was a mostly-naked woman writhing in the bed in front of me.
“Oooh, I like what I see,” moaned Laura as I reached the bed. This improved my self-confidence a few dozen leagues. “I want to be naked, too. Help me.”
This is the part where I decided I was going to be a sexual beast and tear her panties right off with a passionate ripping sound. I grabbed them by the left leg-hole and gave a powerful yank.
For those of you who may be considering this type of panty-removal technique some time in the future, it should be pointed out that real-life panties don’t quite tear the way they do in the movies. All I really did was cause Laura to wince in pain. So, like a moron, I yanked again, hoping that the second try would rip them apart and make up for the first failed attempt.
“Ow!” said Laura. “Seth, you’re giving me a wedgie.”
I released my grip. “I guess this doesn’t work.”
“Slide them off...please...”
Well, as long as she said “please.”
She lifted her buttocks, and I slid the panties down her thighs, past the knees, past the ankles, and—success!—off the feet. I tried to fling them across the room by tossing them over my head, but they struck the ceiling fan and were batted back at Laura, hitting her in the face. I suspected that she didn’t find this particularly erotic.
She tossed them to the side, and stayed in her stretched-out position as I decided the next step should be to kiss a path from her feet to her mouth. I couldn’t really mess that up unless I lost my balance while crawling and fell on her. Which seemed like a definite possibility, but I’d just have to take the risk.
I kissed the bottom of her foot. She kicked me in the face.
“Oh my God!” she exclaimed, sitting up. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to do that—my feet are really ticklish!”
“It’s okay,” I said, pinching the end of my nose. “I’m fine.”
“Not too bad,” I insisted. “Just let me go back to the bathroom and clean up. You lie there. Don’t move.”
I hurried into the bathroom and turned on the faucet. The bleeding was only a small trickle, so I rinsed it away and held a towel against my nose for a couple of minutes until the flow stopped. Then I cleaned myself up and left the bathroom.
“Are you okay?” Laura asked.
“Peachy,” I said. “Let’s pick up where we left off.”
Laura returned to her stretched-out position, and I joined her on the bed. I kissed her shin, preparing my defensive move should she attempt any further foot-nose contact. She didn’t, so I moved up a couple of inches and kissed her knee. I’d never had my knee kissed, so I didn’t know if it was all that exciting, but it certainly couldn’t hurt. I kissed the knee of her other leg to make sure I was being equitable, then kissed her thigh.
Damn, my mouth was dry. I wondered if my lips were all cracked. Why didn’t I carry around ChapStick? What if my dry lips were uncomfortable against her flesh? What if I was scraping her? Weren’t these types of kisses supposed to be extremely moist? Or what if she were lying there, bored, trying to be subtle about checking the nightstand for a fashion magazine?
I forced those questions out of my mind and proceeded upward. As I kissed a winding trail up her thigh, I could see the tan line where she had been wearing a remarkably sparse bikini bottom. And, yes, I could see...hold on a moment while I grab my copy of How To Write SexScenes That Sizzle... I need some advice on how to describe this. Okay, I could see the glorious, neatly trimmed curls of her femininity.
And my thoughts as I gazed upon this wonder of wonders were “If I had that much trouble with just the panties, how the hell am I gonna get that bra off?”
I kissed around the warm, inviting mound of her womanhood, and kissed a slalom skier-type path up her stomach. She trembled. I was a bit cold myself, being naked right out of the shower and all.
She sat up slowly as I kissed up to her breasts. I really, really hoped she wasn’t going to make me try to undo the bra straps. I’d mess it up. I just knew it. I’d spend forty-five minutes working on that stupid bra strap while Laura flipped through the television stations with the remote control. If there was any mercy in the world, any at all, Laura Stricklen would not make me remove her bra myself.
She reached behind her back and unfastened the bra. It slid off the...one moment, let me check the book again...beautiful globes of her potential child-feeding apparatuses. Though small, they were the most visually appealing breasts I could imagine, and I’m not just saying that because of their proximity.
I figured I was permitted to touch them, so I reached out and stroked their undersides. I saw the nipples hardening. It was pretty cool. I wondered if I could get them to soften then harden again then soften then harden and so on, but this was strictly out of curiosity and not something I really intended to experiment with.
She grabbed my hands by the wrists and crushed them to her breasts, turning me from a suave lover to a lust-ridden groper. Hey, whatever worked. She leaned forward and kissed me with such passion I thought my lips were going to be squished flat over the entirety of my face. We kept this up for several minutes, as my thumbs stroked her nipples in the least boring demonstration of thumb twiddling I’d ever experienced.
Her hand slid down and caressed the...hold on...throbbing cannon of my manhood. The problem is that this cannon was still on the wimpy side. It was like the lower half of my body had said “Whoa! Too much stimulation! Shut ‘er down, fellas!” I tried to will myself to harden, but there’s nothing quite like worrying about getting hard to keep yourself nice and soft.
She caressed me then leaned back. “I want your mouth on me,” she purred.
“My mouth was on you until you pulled away,” said Mr. I Am So Clueless As To Be A Freak Of Nature.
She reclined all the way on her back and parted her legs. “Please...I want to feel your tongue...”
I could have stuck out my tongue and put her hand on it, but even I wasn’t that clueless. So, it was time to perform oral sex for the first time. I really wished that I’d taken the time to practice on my hand. You know, when you put your thumb and index finger together and it sort of lets you simulate...well, I hadn’t done it, so it doesn’t matter.
I got into a crouching position, and ran my dry tongue up her inner thigh. I would have loved something to drink, but if there were too many delays getting my tongue to its final destination the passengers might switch airlines. As my tongue worked its way toward home base, I ran my fingers through her jungle of love. Actually, it was more like a garden of love. And if that’s more description than you feel you need, you should probably return to Version A of this chapter before it’s too late.
My tongue ran out of inner thigh, so I hovered over her moist center for a moment, and gave it a slow, powerful lick.
Then I gagged.
Okay, not being able to rip panties is one thing. Gagging into Laura’s femininity, well, that’s just plain unromantic.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Fine, fine,” I assured her. I tried to compensate for my reaction with a second lick, but my gag reflexes were going into overdrive.
She reached down and put her hand between my mouth and her anti-masculinity. “Seth, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
Oh no. I wasn’t giving up this easy. “I want to. Something just got caught in my throat, that’s all.”
“Really, it’s not a problem if you feel uncomfortable.”
I moved her hand away and licked again. This time I didn’t gag, but it took all of the gag-control power within my soul to keep from doing so. I licked some more. Laura moaned with pleasure. I ran my tongue in a slow circle. Laura shivered. I gagged. Laura sat up.
“I’m serious. If you don’t—”
I shoved her back down and continued licking. It took superhuman effort to withhold the gags for about a minute, but then I started to get the knack for it. Laura’s breathing, moaning, and squirming became (in order) heavier, louder, and more frantic.
Yep, once I got into it, I was actually enjoying this.
Of course, now my tongue was getting tired. I kept it up for a bit longer, then pulled my head away. Laura grabbed me by the ears and shoved my face back between her legs.
“Don’t stop now!” she ordered.
I continued licking, like a good slave boy.
10...9...8...
My tongue swirled around gracefully, much like Picasso’s hand must have done while painting his brilliant abstract art.
7...6...5...
My tongue moved like a roller coaster.
4...3...2...
My tongue felt like it was going to fall off.
1...
Laura let out a single gasp.
1/2...
“Oh...” she whispered. “Oh my...”
1/4...
Houston, we have lift-off!
To get the full effect, what you need to do now is take this book in both hands (those of you reading off a computer screen are excused from this exercise), shake it as hard as you can, and shriek at the top of your lungs. There’s just no denying that Laura was a loud one. I pulled my face away and enjoyed the show.
After she’d crested, Laura sat up, pulled me toward her, and kissed me. My lips were kind of tainted, but if she didn’t mind, I certainly didn’t.
“That was quite enjoyable,” she said. “You have my gratitude.”
As we kissed some more, she began to stroke my...checking the book again...thing. I was only at about 1/16th mast. She stroked more vigorously for a full thirty seconds, getting me to approximately 1/15th mast.
I wanted to look down and shout “Yo! Mr. Penis? It’s time to wake the hell up!” But I didn’t.
Laura adjusted her position, then pleasured me with her mouth. At least she had the good graces not to gag.
It probably felt pretty darn swell, but I couldn’t tell because I was numb. We were looking at total genital shutdown. My body was overcompensating for all the premature ejaculation terror.
Laura, to her credit, did not give up. Her mouth and hands did their duty with great enthusiasm. If she was frustrated, she didn’t show it.
And then, somewhere through the haze of numbness and anxiety, we got a response. Not a huge response, but it was encouraging. I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
It was working.
Ladies and gentlemen, Bedtime Theatre proudly presents...most of an erection!
[ Cue “Applause” sign. ]
While I admired my work of art, Laura turned toward the bed stand and took a condom out of the box we’d purchased from a jealous convenience store clerk on the way. She tore the foil wrapper as I realized with horror that my boner was deflating.
Mayday! Mayday!
When Laura returned her attention to what had once been a semi-mighty hard-on, I was too flexible to get the job done. She set the condom aside, and returned to her manual labor.
I was perking up, and in short order I was like solid steel again. (It’s my book. I can lie if I want to.) Laura picked up the condom and unrolled it over my shaft, which immediately began dwindling. Within moments I’d dwindled to the point where I was of no use in the planned activity, so she removed the condom, tossed it away, and then took another from the box and unwrapped it.
“Okay, this time you’ll put it on,” Laura suggested.
After some more mouth action, my lance was ready for battle. I tore the foil wrapper open with my teeth, which worked well until I suddenly realized that I had a condom between my lips.
Ugh. Spermicide.
Obviously, I was no longer ready for action. “Damn,” Laura said, this time revealing a bit of frustration. “Okay, here’s the plan. I’ll go down on you until you’re hard again. While I’m doing this, you get the condom ready. As soon as my mouth moves out of the way, you put the condom on while I get into position on my back. If we time it right, my legs will be open right as you’re completely protected, then I’ll help you with the insertion. Once you’re inside me, you should be okay. Got it?”