by Selena Kitt
Eric looked up at me, a bit nervously now. "You shouldn't be carrying this thing around. You want me to put it in the safe?"
"I'm giving it to you," I said. "I mean, I'm splitting it with you. Same deal as always. A third for each of us."
He put the record down and looked at me. He didn't think much of my business sense, but even this was hard to accept. He knew damned well I didn't have to cut him in on anything. There was nothing in our agreement to keep me from selling the record myself and keeping it all. I didn't owe him a thing.
"I know four collectors who'll be willing to bid against each other for this. Plus there are the reissue rights. I haven't contacted any record labels yet about that. I'll leave that all to you, and in return we split it three ways, just like we've always done. Partners, right?"
All that stuff was just busy work designed to make Eric feel like he was doing something to earn his money. He knew as well as I did that I was just giving him several thousand dollars.
Ellen knew it too.
There was a moment when we all three stood there, Eric and I looking at each other, and Ellen looking at the both of us, each of us calculating the terms of the deal in our heads.
"Who is this guy, Robert Johnson?" Eric asked.
I couldn't believe he didn't know. I thought everyone knew.
Ellen spoke up. "He's a great legendary blues guy. Maybe the greatest ever, but no one knows much about him but legends. He's the one who supposedly made a deal with the devil at a crossroads one night—his soul in return for the ability to play the guitar like no one else."
Eric smiled. He understood deals.
"He made twenty-nine recordings in the thirties, and that's all," I said. "There've always been rumors that he made one or two more that were lost, but no one could ever track them down. Not until now."
"And this is it?" Eric's eyes got that gleam in them. "Jesus!"
Ellen didn't tell him the rest of the story—how Johnson died. A hard-core womanizer, he was murdered one night by a jealous husband who put poison in his whiskey. Strychnine, that was the rumor. He died in agony, and they said it was because he could see the devil standing at the foot of his bed, waiting to collect.
Eric laughed. He picked up the record and shook his head and laughed again. "I'll be damned," he said. "I'll be goddamned. And you're splitting it? Jesus. Let me go get a Mylar bag for this. You shouldn't be carrying it around like this."
When he left, Ellen gave me a look that asked me if I knew what I was doing, and for the first time since that night I looked back at her and met her eyes. I wasn't being decent-James anymore. I looked at her in a way that told her what I expected in return.
Eric walked back into the room and his smile had taken on that predatory edge again.
"Come on, you two. Let's close up early. I want to put this in the safe at home, and then we're going out. We're going to celebrate. Ten thousand dollars! Goddamn!"
We all went home and changed, and I broke out the suit I hadn't worn in almost a year. We met at La Tour, a beautiful and expensive French restaurant on the Near North Side where we were lucky to get reservations. Ellen was gorgeous in her little black dress and for the first time in as long as I could remember, there was no friction between them. It was as if something important had been decided to both of their satisfaction, and the mood was expansive, even joyous. Eric fought me for the check, but considering what I'd just given him, I had no scruples about letting him pay.
We had coffee. We had brandy and cigars, and when I finally rose to say goodnight, Eric stopped me.
"You can't go now," he said "You're coming over to our place. Don't you want to hear it?"
"You're going to play it? Tonight"
He nodded. "Why not. I'm dying to hear it. Besides, it's too early for us to break up. This is a very special night."
I sat up. Ellen was looking at me expectantly, but there was something else in her eyes too, a kind of openly seductive look that surprised me. I'd never seen anything like that.
"This is probably the biggest find you'll ever make," Eric went on, and he was right. He picked up his wine glass and said, "To us!"
We all drank to that.
I should have known something was up. Ellen took both our arms as we walked to the car, holding us close, and when we got to their apartment and Eric went off to get drinks, she told me where to sit. She sat down on the sofa, right across from me, knees together, looking at me with that knowing look, not saying a word.
"Are we ready?" Eric came back in and handed out the drinks, then put the record on.
He turned off the lights so that the only illumination was from the bridge lamp at the end of the sofa. The needle scratched in the groove, and sounds that hadn't been heard in eighty years filled the room.
Johnson's playing was primitive and haunted as usual, his voice a plaintive wail at the very top of his register. His slide work was dark and rough on the old lacquer disk, but sounded as modern as anything you might hear today, not a note wasted, as if he'd paid for every one with his own blood. The music carried me away and wrapped me in its own world, and the only light I saw was the light in Ellen's eyes, which were looking straight into mine across the gulf in time, across the steamy loneliness of that west Texas night in 1937.
The song ended abruptly, as so many early recordings did, and then there was just the hiss of the needle in the groove and Ellen's eyes locked on mine.
Eric got up and turned off the stereo and turntable, put the record back in its sleeve and came back and sat beside Ellen.
No one spoke. I didn't know what to say. The feelings of loneliness and hunger evoked from Johnson's voice and guitar were too much with me, and I hardly noticed when Eric put his arm around Ellen in a husbandly gesture. He sat like that for a while, then leaned over and took her in a deep, passionate kiss—not the kind of kiss you see in public.
I sat there in shock, trying not to stare at them. Ellen didn't seem to take part, but she made no special attempt to get away either. Her hand rested lightly on Eric's shoulder, her head was back, and in the silence of the record's ending, it was almost like I could hear their tongues against each other. It was a terribly awkward feeling.
Eric broke the kiss and pressed his lips to her throat while his hand went to her knee and began to slide up her leg. Ellen made no move to stop him.
"I think I'd better get going, then," I said.
"No, stay," Eric replied. "We're all friends here, and we're celebrating, right? This isn't anything you haven't seen before, is it? An old cocksman like you?"
I cleared my throat nervously. "Still, two's company and three's a crowd..."
"Stay!" He barked the word out impatiently, then caught himself and grinned at me. "Please."
I wasn't used to being ordered around, but he caught me by surprise. Besides, the sorry truth was that watching him with Ellen was arousing in a perverse and morbid kind of way. It hurt, but it was exciting too, and I was curious as to just what was going on.
He kissed her again, and then his head slid down so that he was kissing her neck. His hand went to her breast, and he began openly caressing it, crushing the fabric in his hand right before my eyes. I felt the vicarious sensation from when I had held that very same breast, and still Ellen sat there, one hand lazily on his shoulder, the other on the sofa at her side. She was looking straight at me again, peering over Eric's shoulder, as if to see how I was taking it.
"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Eric said. "Perfect body too. Want to see?"
"Eric..." Ellen objected, but he wasn't listening. The little black dress she wore had no buttons. It wrapped around her and was held closed by a black sash, and despite her protest she sat there unmoving as Eric untied it and pulled the top open, exposing her naked breasts. She wasn't wearing a bra.
"Listen, I've really got to go," I said.
Eric looked over his shoulder at me. "That would be such a shame, Jimmy. I thought this was going to be a celebration, a special nig
ht."
He turned back to her and started kissing her tits. "She's crazy about you, you know," he said. Ellen closed her eyes, whether in pleasure or embarrassment, I couldn't tell. "I could see it from the start, and I'm not especially good at reading people, so you must know it too. We're all partners now. I thought we might make a night of it."
"Okay, that's enough." I stood up but he didn't stop.
He reached his head down and caught one of her nipples between his lips and sucked on it, doing it nice and slow so I got a good view, then let it slip from his mouth. "Just the other day she called out your name while we were fucking, didn't you, darling? I caught her on it. I told her if she wanted to pretend I was you, that was fine with me. Anything that would bring a little enthusiasm back to our lovemaking was okay with me."
He looked up at me. "That's when I first thought of us having a three-way. Don't you think that's a good idea? That way we each get what we want. And this little celebration is the perfect opportunity."
I knew I should leave, but I didn't. I stood there, knowing I was being had, knowing I was being used in some sort of game, but powerless to leave. Eric lowered his mouth to her nipple again and Ellen arched in pleasure, a little hiss escaping her lips. I might have left then, but when I looked at her she was gazing back at me over his shoulder, and the look in her eye said I was the one she wanted. Eric might be kissing and fondling her, but Ellen's eyes said she wanted me to be doing it. She patted the seat next to her, showing where she wanted me to sit.
That look from her just shocked me so much that I sat right back down in my chair. I knew what Eric was doing now. He might not know what happened between Ellen and me, but he knew about our feelings for each other, and he was going to use them in this perfect, three-way deal. He'd give me Ellen in return for the record; at the same time he'd shame me with my desire for another man's wife. He'd prove to Ellen that she was a slut, and prove to me she wasn't worth loving, all under the guise of an innocent little sexual threesome.
And what made it all so galling was that he was right. The more he caressed and fondled her, the more aroused I got. Her eyes never left my face, even as she arched her back and rolled her breasts against his sucking mouth, or opened her legs to let his hand inside. She was into it. She was getting aroused, showing me what she had to offer, how she could be good for me. I couldn't believe how much I wanted her.
The record was forgotten. That hell bound train had left the station, abandoning us three behind, and Eric caught Ellen in a deep and passionate kiss, his hand working under her short dress as her legs first parted, then closed hard on his hand, and even though he was kissing her, her eyes were on me, begging me to join them.
She broke the kiss and looked away, just as Eric got his hands under her knees and pressed her legs up against her chest, so that I got a perfect view of her swollen pussy pressed between her thighs, barely shaded by her transparent panties. Her eyes blazed, knowing I had seen, and it was as if after all these months of being together and our session in the backroom, she now at last wanted to show me all of herself, show me what she really wanted from me. I've seen my share of female genitals, but the sight of Ellen's pussy bulging against her sheer panties with Eric leaning over her struck me with terrific erotic force, more than even her sheer nakedness could have. Under her clothes she was naked for me, and she was waiting—had been waiting all this time.
He kept her legs pushed up against her breasts and her sex exposed as he kissed his way down her body, sliding down till he was kneeling on the floor. Ellen twisted her body as he sank down on her, finally throwing one bare leg over his back and grabbing his hair. She knew full well where he was going and what he was going to do, and she was eager for him to get on with it. Her dress was short, and Eric pushed it up over her stomach with both hands as he grabbed her ass and raised it off the sofa. The panties I had just glimpsed before were now fully on display as Ellen raised her hips and opened her thighs for Eric's mouth.
I sat there, horrified and aroused. It was all a show for my benefit. I knew that, and if I had any doubts I only had to look at Ellen, slumped back against the couch with the top of her dress open and her breasts exposed. Her face had taken on a lewd and wanton look, and her eyes were smoldering as she stared straight at me. She let me see all the lust and desire in her face as Eric pulled the crotch of her panties to the side and began to eat her and she responded by lifting her hips in a slow, obscene rhythm.
I suppose I should have been horrified seeing the woman I loved treated this way. I suppose I should have listened to my pride and stormed out, insulted. But that wasn't my reaction at all. The sight of Ellen in such a state of lust, being pleasured by another man, inflamed me.
I wanted her. It had been many years since I played the sexual athlete, but god, how I wanted her now! I wasn’t so prudish that seeing this slutty side of her put me off, nor was I gentleman enough that I wouldn't take advantage of the situation to get my prick inside her and give life to all those futile dreams and fantasies. But I didn't know if I could do it as part of a three-way. I didn't know if I could do it in front of Eric and let him use me to humiliate myself and degrade his wife.
In the end I didn't care. Ellen might be putting on a show for me, but her excitement was real. I could hear her moaning and see her fingers tighten in Eric's hair as she fucked her pussy against his face.
"Come on, James," Eric said over his shoulder to me. He kept his finger in her pussy, stirring it around and keeping her on the boil. "Or don't you think you can handle this young stuff anymore? She wants you, don't you, darling?"
"Yes," Ellen said. "Yes, I want him."
The way she said it and the way she looked at me told me we weren't the only ones being used here. Eric was using us, but I knew then that we were using him too. She wanted to fuck me. She wanted it in a way he hadn't imagined, not as some cheap roll in the hay, but as something more than that.
In my mind I heard the lyrics from the old Roosevelt Sykes classic, "Driving Wheel", the joyous song of a woman with the right man, the man she was meant to be with. Love like a runaway freight train, like a driving wheel. Sex that's more than sex, on a level Eric couldn't imagine.
I got up and Ellen squealed with excitement and started sliding down the sofa, making room for me and pushing Eric along with her. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat down on the couch at her head. This time she didn't meet my eyes. She was lying on her side with her legs spread, her dress up and Eric's head working at her pussy. Ellen's fingers reached for my zipper and she pulled it down.
Her mouth was all liquid heat, sweet and deep, and the breath from her nostrils scorched my pubic hair as she sucked me, moaning in her throat. Somehow she got my belt and my pants open, and I raised my ass and between the both of us we managed to get my pants far enough down my legs so she could take my balls in her hand and hold them as she bobbed her head up and down on my cock. I looked down at her face, at that beautiful, angelic face, now slobbering over my hard cock, and I forgot about Eric. I forgot about everything. I put my head back against the sofa and just gave myself over to the workings of her mouth.
If I'd had any doubts as to how she felt about me, her mouth totally dispelled them. You can tell when a woman does it because you want her to, and when she does it because she wants it herself, because she's crazy for the feel of you in her mouth, and in this case, it was definitely the latter. She didn't just suck me, she loved me. She kissed me and licked me and shielded me with her hand, as if she didn't want Eric to see, and she gripped my balls in her fingertips as if they were hers now, massaging me, getting the cum ready for her greedy throat.
Seeing that innocent and exquisite face gorging on my cock, her nostrils flared, brows knitted in concentration, the saliva streaming out of the sides of her mouth, was almost more than I could take, and then glancing to the side, I saw Eric's face slaving between her thighs, her hand knotted so tightly in his hair that her knuckles were white. He had her top leg pus
hed up so he could really get in there, and the sight of her shoe hanging from her foot as he ate her was almost too erotic to bear.
"Oh god, Ellen! No! No!" I was almost ready to come and had to get her mouth off me.
Eric heard me and judged the time was right. "Come on, James. Fuck her. She's ready."
"Christ, Eric! I can't do this!" I pushed her away and stood up, feeling suddenly ridiculous with my pants around my thighs and my cock standing straight out.
He looked up at me, his lips smeared with her juice, his finger still in her pussy, pumping the first knuckle slowly in and out as if keeping her ready, as if she were a primed bitch ready for mounting.
"Don't be a jerk!" he said. "She wants it. She's dying for it, aren't you, baby?"
Ellen pushed him away and sat up, and Eric grabbed her panties and pulled them off her legs. They got stuck on one of her shoes, and she reached down and unhooked them, then threw them aside. She turned herself around and lay back down so that her head was near Eric, pointing away from me.
She didn't say anything, just stretched her arms out over her head, showing herself off to me. The dress was completely open now, showing off her naked body like a gem on a black velvet jeweler's tray. Right in the center, below her tight little stomach, was her neatly trimmed puff of pubic hair, just as I'd always pictured it, and below that, the bright pink of her labia.
But it was her eyes that did it. Her eyes that said she wanted me, that she didn't care about being on display, and she didn't care about Eric, or her pride. She'd thrown them all away for just this moment. She squeezed her legs together as if she couldn't stand it, stretched her body out and stared at me. I couldn't resist.
I stood at the foot of the sofa and shucked off my jacket, pulled off my tie and threw it on the floor, and started unbuttoning the cuffs of my shirt. Eric scooted over and grabbed my tie, picked it up and took it back to his end of the couch, where he wrapped it around Ellen's wrists, which were still thrust over her head.
It must have been some game that they played together or some sudden whim on Eric's part, but the tie around her wrists was the last piece I needed to turn me into a sexual animal. She was like a sacrifice now, an entirely willing sexual victim, and Eric squatted at the end of the sofa holding her down for me like an evil priest, offering his wife to me, waiting to see me take her.