by Amy Faye
"Where do you want me to cum?"
"Oh, fuck, Jeff—"
"Look at me. Look at me."
She did look at him, with eyes that were only halfway-seeing. She couldn't focus, and every time that he slammed another thrust home, bumping the very deepest parts of her womanhood, she lost it again a little bit more.
"Do you want me to knock you up?"
Her eyes rolled left and right as she tried to focus on him, but the pleasure continued to overwhelm her body's ability to control itself.
"You shouldn't."
"That sounds like 'yes,' Cathy. Do you want me to cum deep inside you?"
"Ohhhhh," she moaned, struggling to find the words, even as he could see her fighting to regain control of her body. "Um. No. Yes. Fuck."
She tried to curl herself up, her arms reaching up to wrap around Jeff's body, but his hand, pressing down on her throat, stopped her cold. All she accomplished in the end was forcing her own throat more closed. He could feel her tightening around his shaft, tighter and tighter. The way that she coiled around him.
He wanted to cum. Wanted to do it right then and there. But it meant an end to the sex, and he wasn't prepared to be finished, even if it was everything his body wanted and all he could think about.
"Jesus, you're tight," he finally gasped out, his rhythmic thrusts giving way to animalistic rutting, forcing his cock as hard and as deep inside her, running to an end that he knew he should avoid. "Where do you want me to cum?"
"Um. Fuck." He reached out to pinch one hardened nipple, the shock of pleasure going straight to her pussy, where she tightened down again. "Um. I don't know."
"If you don't tell me, I'm going to choose, Cathy." He knew what he would choose, if he could, and if she didn't tell him not to, then he would choose it every time.
"Fucking—"
"Tell me what you want, Cathy. I'm close. God, I'm close."
She didn't give an answer, though. Instead, she let out a moan that got louder as he thrust, warbling and full of need that had long-since overtaken her brain's rational ability to control itself.
"I'm going to cum inside you. Are you ready?"
"Fuck, Jeff. Jesus."
"Do you want me to knock you up?"
"Fuck," she repeated, lost in the world of pleasure that her body had constructed for her.
His own orgasm threatened to overtake him, held off only by the fact that he wanted this to last as long as he could make it, and by the thought that maybe, just maybe, she would—
"Tell me what you want, Cathy. Say it."
"I want your fucking cum in me," she cried out, her voice breaking under the strain of pleasure and of embarrassment.
He thrust home one last time and felt the orgasm, no longer held back by his will, rip through his body in kicks and spasms, his potent cum shooting into her belly. Into her womb.
The pleasure scorched the inside of his skull, too much to handle or even to imagine handling. He was just along for the ride, the need to cum in his woman fulfilled. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her up close to him, the two of them still connected where they came together.
He was tired. Too tired. He needed to lay down now, or he was going to lose his mind. He looked into her eyes and saw the same from his lover. Cathy smiled at him.
"I love you," he said softly.
"Shut up," she responded, a soft smile spreading across her face. "You have to say that. You're my brother."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cathy felt as if she was going to be sick. What had she just done? What had she just told him to do? There was no market for pregnant dancers.
Her body had rebelled against her mind, the raw need and physicality had taken over and every part of her had spoken in unison and cried out for what she knew, deep down, she wanted but couldn't have.
She wasn't mothering material. She was a dancer. She'd always been a dancer and she was always going to be a dancer. You couldn't be great at two things. You couldn't even be good at other things.
Some people could, of course. Some people were exceptions. Jeff seemed like he'd make a find father. He was a skilled lover; he always knew what she was thinking, in bed and out. He knew how to give her whatever she needed, regardless of what that might be.
When she was uncertain, he gave her direction. When she was stubborn, he gave her a gentle approval.
And of course, he was one of the twenty or so rookie prospects that scouts had pegged for great things in his forthcoming baseball career.
That was him, though. There were people out there who were great at everything, who were born great. Cathy wasn't born great. Not at dancing, not at anything. She had to work to get where she was. To amount to anything more than some nobody from Detroit.
There were things she wanted from life. She wasn't any different than any other woman. She wanted to be loved. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted a good fucking every now and then. She wanted to be respected both as a professional and as a woman.
Other women had made their priority decisions. They didn't want to give up everything for greatness, and that wasn't the wrong choice. Just a different priority decision. But she'd made her priority call a long time ago and now it was too late to just change her mind.
If someone could have everything they ever wanted, then that would be one thing. Everyone would be a ballerina and an astronaut and a full-time mom, all at once. Reality was accepting that life was hard, and that making tough decisions was the meat of life. The main thing that you had to do in order to get anywhere at all.
Cathy knew it. She'd known it since she was seven years old. Make your choice and stick with them. She'd known it the instant that he told her he wanted to cum inside her. She wanted to believe that she had spoken without thinking, but she hadn't.
For an instant, with horrifying clarity, she'd known exactly what she wanted, and even though it flew in the face of everything else she believed, she'd asked for it. That was much scarier than losing control. That she was completely in control of herself when she'd thrown it all away.
Now the doubt began to creep back into her, began to poison her mind. When he'd given her tickets to Florida, tickets she'd never asked for and was working her way up to refusing…
She'd loved it. She was tired of always having to make the right choice. Of always having to accept hard realities and harsh truths.
Why couldn't she just have what she wanted this once?
Well, this had all proven one thing to her, as clear as anything had ever been. She could be who she was, who she'd always wanted to be, or she could accept Jeff. She could be his, or she could be herself.
It was a difficult decision to make, because every single part of her wanted both. If both was a choice, then she'd take that. But it wasn't. She was just toying with her own emotions, thinking about the possibility that she could have her cake and eat it, too.
Cathy laid her head back. The tub was large around her, and the water was still hot, though the heat was fading fast. She wondered idly how much of his—his—stuff was still inside her. His cum. How much it was trying to swim up to impregnate her.
She couldn't allow it. She'd have to buy some kind of pill. They had plenty of pharmacies around. It wouldn't be hard. She couldn't afford it, not really. But Jeff would understand, and he'd pay for it. He took responsibility for his actions. It was one of the things that made it so easy to trust him.
The feeling of revulsion, almost forcing her to gag, ran through her again. Could she do it, though? If she'd made—
Finishing the thought seemed impossible. If she'd gotten pregnant, from that, could she really punish the little tiny thing inside her for her own mistakes?
Would it forgive her for what she was considering? Would she be able to forgive herself? She slipped deeper into the water and felt it scalding the skin moving up her neck until only her face was outside the water.
She didn't want to think about it. Not even for an instant. She couldn't afford
to. She didn't get to make judgment decisions. She didn't have that luxury. She made decisions that were smart, that got her where she'd already decided to go.
Like a road map. You follow the map, you don't go off the trail because something seems like a good idea.
When the shock of physical unpleasantness rippled through her again, she was ready for it. She'd been through hard times before. She just needed to get her head back in the game, and she needed to look at the road-map and make sure she could still get back on track before she had missed her turn-off.
Chapter Thirty
There was time for thinking about work, and there was time for thinking about Cathy, and he was long past getting them mixed up. It should have been better with her here. No need to be distracted. After all, he'd be able to get to her that night. No matter what happened, he was less than twelve hours from a chance to get it figured out.
Which meant, in theory, that he didn't need to worry about it. But in practice it wasn't helping. There was a certain clarity that came from having everything controlled by someone else.
Having a coach, having the catcher calling the plays, gave him a sort of comfortable 'out' that should have made his life easy. But instead, he was ignoring them.
He heard their voices, of course. Saw their lips moving, knew the words they were saying. But he wasn't listening. He was thinking about Cathy.
Which was bullshit, because there wasn't even anything to worry about. She was fine. She wasn't mad at him, they'd had a great roll in the hay, and she'd settled in for a bath.
His chest burned with anticipation at a fight that he couldn't understand, but knew he couldn't avoid. She'd gotten something in her head, just like she had back in Detroit, and she was going to do the same thing she'd been doing for the past week.
She was going to pretend it didn't exist until it was too big for him to just tell her that it was fine and he'd deal with it. Because that was the smart thing to do, obviously.
He shrugged his shoulders and shifted the ball in his grip until his fingers felt the same comfortable positions on the seams, and then he took a step and threw.
His fingers felt the familiar tingle of blood rushing in, and the ball came off hard and fast. As hard and fast as anything he'd ever pitched. A real beauty.
The fact that it was almost a foot outside the strike zone notwithstanding, of course. Other than that, it was a real beauty.
Jeff took a deep breath and tried not to think about it. That was always the trick. Don't think about it, don't worry about it, don't do anything but get ready for another pitch, and try to do it like you always do it.
Once your head starts getting involved in the procedure, that was when you started having trouble. There were plenty of smart pitchers. Plenty of pitchers who understood the game. Same for sluggers. You don't get great without understanding.
But that understanding has to be deep down. You have to have it so deep in your gut that you don't even think about it, because you might be the smartest pitcher in the world, but really, you're dumb.
Pitchers are like most people, only more-so. They want to succeed, and their emotions get caught up in it. You don't just plan on winning. You want it bad.
The minute you want something so bad you can taste it, the it gets into your head, and your brain becomes your worst enemy. Maybe you screwed up. You could be doing better, if only you were perfect. Just do better. Push it harder. Throw faster.
Maybe you've been screwing up for your entire career. Maybe you're just a big god damn idiot, up til now, but now that you really want it, you'll be smart.
Race car drivers, quarterbacks, tennis players—all of them talk about the same stuff. You get inside your own head when you start thinking too hard. Turn that shit off.
The ball slaps into his glove. It stings comfortably. The catcher will want to talk to him, if the pitches keep coming like that. That wasn't a five million dollar arm. That was a raw talent that needed so much refining that he'd never see the outside of triple-a ball.
Plenty of guys had a cannon. You had to have a cannon that could shoot the edge of the strike zone without missing too much. You had to have a precision cannon, and Jeff had one.
Or, he was supposed to have one. He turned the ball in his hand, watched the signs, nodded. Deep breath, brain off. Just do it the same way he'd done it a thousand times. He imagined Cathy for a minute, laying beneath him. Get it out of the way now. He held that image until it faded naturally.
He stepped again and threw. The sound of the ball in the catcher's mitt resonated through his head. That was perfect. The big son of a bitch with the ash bat dug his foot in, as if he'd only missed the swing because of trouble with his foot slipping.
Now he just had to find a way to do that a hundred more times, while his brain screamed that he was screwing everything up and if he'd just think about it for a minute he'd see that he's been screwing everything up for months, and the only way around it was to blow his chance at a major league career by letting himself get distracted.
He held the image of Cathy, the feeling of her smooth skin under his fingers, the sound of her voice when she couldn't hold it in any more.
A moment later he'd gotten his head clear again, and he threw. The ball slammed into the catcher's mitt, and Jeff let out a breath.
If he was careful, if he took his time, he could do it. No problem. All he had to do now was not screw it up. Because he hadn't been screwing everything up for the past six months.
He'd gotten this contract because he knew how to avoid screwing up the baseball part, and that was the part that he needed to focus on right now.
And if he was screwing things up with Cathy, well, that was par for the course. And he'd have to deal with it later.
Chapter Thirty-One
A knock at the door. Which was strange, to say the least. Who would knock? Cleaning service, maybe? Did they call out, like they did in the movies? Or did they just knock and come in? Or what?
The second knock dispelled any ideas she might have that it was just some hotel staff, and that she could safely ignore them as they went about their day, at only a mild inconvenience.
She'd either have to ignore it, or answer the door. A third knock, and now attention would be drawn to her door. Well, that was assuming of course that anyone was in the hall to hear it, of course.
She tried to assure herself that she might have been completely alone, and that she could let whoever it was knock all day. But something inside her just screamed that she had to answer the door, that she had to make sure that she didn't draw attention to herself.
She knew it was a bad idea even as she pulled the door open, but leaving it would have been worse. Right?
A woman stood in the door. She was tall, compared to Cathy, but she had straw-colored hair that wasn't particularly well-done, and a cheap suit on. The makeup on her face, though, said that she was at least trying. Her homeliness was more a lack of material to work with than a lack of effort.
"Hello, I'm Lana Rey from WJBK in Detroit." She held her hand out like she expected Cathy to take it, so she did.
"How can I help you?"
"I'm a reporter for WJBK, like I said, and I had a few questions."
"Okay, well, I don't know anything. I'm just down here on vacation, see."
"Oh, I'm sorry, my information must have been mistaken. Is this not you?"
She reached into her breast pocket and pulled out a cell phone, flipped it around the other way and showed it to Cathy, thumbing through a few pictures with her neck craned around.
Pictures that were, undoubtedly, most definitely, of her, along with Jeff. They could deny whatever they liked, still—they weren't so risque as to be undeniable, but it wasn't a long way off of it. Too close for siblings. Much too close.
"Where did you get those? Isn't it illegal to take pictures without my consent?"
"Um. Technically, no. You're in public there, see? And so you don't have an assumption of privacy. But at th
e same time, it could get ugly, if it went to court. So I didn't want that to happen."
Cathy felt a chill run down her spine at the way that the other woman spoke so candidly. As if everything from this point on was already set in stone, so why try to fight it?
There was a certain perverse logic in it, of course. Whatever it was that this… Lana woman wanted, she first needed to convince Cathy that regardless of what she wanted, something was going to happen. That way, she'd be best advised to try to make sure that what ends up happening falls her way, rather than going any other direction. Easy and smart.
"Okay, you've made your point. What do you want from me?"
"Well, first, these are you, right? I'm not talking to the wrong woman?"
"If you really need to know—"
"I'm looking right at you, I know it's you, I'd just like to hear you say it."
"And are you recording this conversation?" Cathy peeked her head out the door and looked up and down the empty hall.
"Would you mind if I did?"
"Yes. Don't record me."
The woman looked annoyed, which gave Cathy an unpleasant feeling of satisfaction that she probably shouldn't have felt, but she felt anyways. Then the woman pulled out a notebook and a pen.
"I guess we'll do this the old-fashioned way."
"Can I answer questions off-the-record?"
"Are you the woman in the picture?"
"You first."
"I'd rather you didn't," the woman offered, like it was some kind of compromise. It's not that she's not allowed to, or that she'd refuse the answers if they were off-the-record.
"I'd rather I did, though, you see, so…"
"I can promise you that your name will be completely left off the record. If you're worried about your own career, whatever it is you do, then—"
"So if I go on the record, it's just Jeff who gets picked up by your, whatever? News cycle stuff?"