She laughed and said, “Somehow, I can believe that. And I'm just being me, Ed. The me I've wanted to be since I first read 'Modesty Blaise' and saw 'Honey West' on TV, but I'm going one-up on them. I'm going into space."
Leslie looked up and pointed. “Just look at those stars, Ed! Look at that moon!"
I said, “Stephie, would you make her a telescope, please?"
Leslie looked at me oddly, trying to figure out what the hell I was talking about. I pointed to her right and she squeaked in surprise as the field extended inward toward her in a narrow, elongated funnel shape.
Stephie told her how to aim and tune it and Leslie's first target was the moon. As her excited outburst lapsed into quieter awe, I asked Stephie if she'd found any new music lately.
"Ed, I know you aren't a fan of country music, but..."
"Stephie, try it and we'll see. Who and what song?"
"Leann Rimes, Ed. She compares well to Patsy Cline. The song is 'Blue'."
"Most country songs are, Stephie, but go ahead. Drop a needle on it."
"Drop a needle, Ed?"
"It means 'play the record'."
"I'm terribly sorry for my confusion, Ed. Would you be referring to the primitive old vinyl records? Like seventy-eights? They were a little before my time, you know. Actually, they were a lot before my time. I can hardly be expected to understand..."
"What do you want me to do, lady? Stick a nickel in your ear? You gonna play it or not, kid? What are you afraid of? Will I need a beer to get in the mood for it?"
Leslie looked around at my outburst and saw me grinning. That didn't lessen in the least her surprise when Stephie's voice changed dramatically.
In an exemplary Barbara Eden voice, Stephie blurted, “Oh, yes, Master! At once, Master! Let me get you your beer first, Master!"
The cooler lid folded back and a beer floated out toward me. I took it as the Jeannie voice asked Leslie, “And you, miLady? Would you like one, as well?"
Leslie was momentarily stunned and simply nodded. Another beer floated toward me. I opened it and handed it to her.
I said, “Stephie, you watch too many antique reruns. That was a great Jeannie, but if you ever do Lucille Ball, I'm going to ground you for a week, maybe longer. Never, ever do anything from 'I Love Lucy', okay?"
"Okay. Are you ready to hear my pick now?"
I tilted my seat back, took a hit of beer and gripped the bottle in both hands, gritted my teeth, and said, “Ready. Twang away, Sadie Mae."
Leslie giggled.
What filled the cabin surprised the hell out of me. Whothehellever Leann Rimes was, I didn't care if she was as fat as Mama Cass or as ugly as a wart hog and I didn't care if all she sang was country stuff.
After a moment, I said, “Jesus. She's better than Patsy Cline's best. Play it again, Stephie."
"You liked it, Ed? Really? You aren't just being nice?"
Leslie said, “Stephie, he loved it. Go ahead. Play it again."
'Blue' filled the cabin again.
Leslie said, “Would you believe she's only seventeen, Ed? And that song was recorded in 1996."
"No shit? She sang like that when she was only thirteen or fourteen? Wow. Stephie, go ahead and lay in a supply of Leann Rimes, okay? We'll see what else she's done that we like next time out."
"Okay, Ed. I'm glad you liked her. I was afraid you wouldn't, because she's known as a country singer."
"Labels only cover so much in life, Steph. Never be afraid to sample stuff now and then and remind me if I forget."
"Okay. That should be fun."
Leslie giggled again. When I glanced at her, she tried to give me an innocent gaze that fell apart quickly.
When the lights below us stopped moving, I knew we were above my house. Stephie, in deference to Leslie's inexperience, didn't drop us into my front yard in her usual manner. The descent was much more gradual than it would have been if I'd had Linda aboard or had been flying alone.
As I stepped off and dragged the big cooler to the side, I said, “Thank you, Stephie. As usual, you've been perfect in all ways."
"Thank you, sir. I'll be upstairs if you should need me. Alone. In the dark. By myself. Did I mention 'alone'?"
Leslie had been half out of her seat. She laughed and sat back down.
"Linda told me a little about flitter capabilities,” she said. “If you were in a bad mood, you'd be the worst thing anyone could meet in the dark, Stephie."
"Ed, Leslie's suggesting that I'm not delicate and ladylike, isn't she?"
"Yeah, I think so. It's just terrible how insensitive some people can be. Are you going to shoot at space debris tonight, ma'am?"
"I thought I might. There's so much of it up there, you know. It's dangerous."
"Absolutely true. Have a good time of it and try not to shoot down a shuttle."
Leslie hopped down to the ground and—unasked—grabbed the other handle of the cooler to help carry it into the house. As soon as we were clear, Stephie began rising into the night sky.
Leslie watched her rise until she was out of sight and asked, “Does she really do that? Shoot down space debris?"
"Not exactly. It doesn't really fall when she shoots it. It vaporizes. Stephie never sleeps, Leslie. I guess she needed a hobby beyond old TV shows."
"Jesus."
"Indeed."
We took the cooler inside and set it down in the kitchen. When I flipped the lid back to pull out empties, Leslie gasped softly and reached into it.
"What?” I asked. I didn't see anything startling in the cooler.
"The ice! I know this is the same cooler as yesterday ... Oh ... Hell ... I forgot again. Stephie kept it cold enough that the ice didn't melt, didn't she?"
"Yup. The ice wouldn't be necessary at all, really, but if I'd hauled the cooler to the room or someplace, I'd have needed it."
Leslie shook her head in amazement and said, “I really need a flitter, Ed."
"Talk to Elkor about it some time. Want another beer?"
"Yeah, why not? It's Saturday night and I'm not driving."
I opened two more beers and put the rest in the fridge, then we heaved the ice into the driveway to melt. Leslie saw my car and asked what kind it was.
"An eighty-four Olds Eighty-Eight."
Her surprise was quite evident. She looked up as if at Stephanie, then back at the Oldsmobile.
"Well, that provides some contrast, doesn't it? Why such an old car?"
"Comfort, Leslie. It isn't a pissy little car. I have head and leg room and it feels like an easy chair in there. Then there's price; one new-car payment. Difference, too. If you took the nameplates off any dozen of today's cars and lined them up, most people couldn't tell if they were foreign or domestic, much less what company made them or what model they were looking at. They're all slick little wedge-shaped toys and boring as hell."
"Aren't you afraid this one might break down on you?"
"It's got a 307 V8 engine, a solid drive train, and all the electronics work fine. No, I'm not worried that it will break down, and if it did, about the only thing on it that I can't fix on it is the air conditioner."
"I see. You seem pretty definite about what you like or don't like? People included, apparently."
I played dumb for her. “You mean Anne?"
"Have you dumped any other women since yesterday? You know I mean Anne."
"I didn't dump her. We discovered each other, then discovered that we liked each other less than we thought, and we both looked for a way to break off politely."
Leslie laughed softly. “That's one way to put what happened. What about me, Ed?"
I looked at her in the moonlight for a moment.
"You? Well, you seem likeable. Of course, so did Anne. On the other hand, your likeability has outlasted hers by at least an hour. Gee, lady, now I'm all confused. It must be the beer."
She fixed me with a dubious gaze.
"Do you even remember the last time you were confused about anything, E
d?"
"Sure. Some woman could see me yesterday when nobody else could. Does that count?"
"No."
"Well, then, I guess it's been about a year and a half. What did Linda tell you about the reason for me going to the factory?"
"Not much. Only that you'd be a high-profile decoy and that some accidents were being considered suspicious for the moment."
"Anything else?"
She shook her head. “Just that you'd done this sort of thing before."
"I have, but that doesn't mean much. Each situation has been different."
"But you got through them all."
I shrugged and turned the cooler upside down to dry in front of the car, then changed my mind and picked it up to take it into the house. Leslie followed after a moment and came into the kitchen as I was drying the cooler with a dishtowel.
"So tell me,” I said, “What did your friends think of your decision to leave the party early? They acted like they thought you were crazy."
Leslie was silent for some moments. I looked up as I hung the towel on the stove handle and gave her a questioning look.
"I told them that 3rd World had hired me to teach middle school grades at the factory. They thought that was marvelous. Then I told them that I'd be leaving for the job tomorrow. Shocked looks all around. All of us went to pick up my stuff. Then came my decision to go with you this evening and your comment about sleeping arrangements. That's when they all decided that I was crazy, and every one of them is as envious as a woman can get right now. They see all this as an escape fantasy come true and you as the one who caused it to happen."
"They're one hundred percent wrong. You caused it to happen, not me. First by being able to see me and then by being qualified and willing."
She nodded and sipped her beer.
"I know that. They haven't realized it yet. They're all still waiting for princes, deep down. Some guy to find them and make their lives all better."
It was my turn to nod and sip, largely because it was vastly safer than saying anything at all in response to her words about her friends.
Leslie sipped again, too, and seemed to be considering her next words. After a pause of some moments, she spoke again.
"I told Marcie that ... “—she paused again as she prepared to quote herself—"That I was going, that I was going to have a good time, and that I might even get a good lay out of it."
She wanted me to be shocked, if only a little bit, so I was shocked. A little bit.
"You told her all that, huh? Damn. Did her eyes bug out again?"
Leslie giggled and said, “Oh, you should have seen her. Like someone goosed her, her eyes bugged out. She tries to act cavalier, but she's really very prim and proper."
Leslie's grinning giggle became a laugh that kept trying to recur as she said, “They were all like that, Ed. Shocked and titillated to the core. Big-eyed and excited and absolutely incredulous about it."
I grinned with her and let her savor that moment again without interruption. When she looked up at me again, I asked, “And how about you? How did you feel?"
Leslie's gaze turned slightly cautious, but she said, “Shocked and titillated to the core. Big-eyed and excited and absolutely incredulous about it. Just like them."
I nodded as I put my beer on the kitchen counter and held out my arms to her. She put her beer down and came into my arms. When our kiss ended, I suggested that we call it an evening and get ready for bed, but I also told her that holding her felt so good that I wasn't in any particular hurry to let go of her. She grinned up at me and softly squeezed my thigh between hers.
"Good,” she said, leaning most of herself against me fairly heavily.
Chapter Fifteen
I woke to noises in the house and was on alert before I realized there was no need for alarm. My bedside clock read seven-fifteen.
Damn. She's an early riser. That could be a problem.
I rolled out of bed and wrapped a towel around me to see about some coffee. A naked Leslie was cracking eggs over a pan as I walked into the kitchen. I tossed my towel over one side of the batwing doors in order to conform somewhat.
"Hi, there. Got any coffee..."
Her reaction was spectacular enough. The spatula left her hand and bounced off the range before skittering across the floor, and the two eggs she'd been preparing to crack were crushed in her hand, instead, trailing goo as she spun to face me, breathing hard.
"Um. Sorry,” I said. “I just came in..."
"Jesus! You scared the hell out of me, Ed!"
"Yeah, I could tell. Is there any..."
"Don't sneak up on me like that, okay?"
"I'm kind of barefoot, Leslie. Sorry if my feet don't make enough noise for you. Is there any coffee, yet?"
She moved aside and I saw that the pot was empty.
"I was going to make some to go with breakfast,” she said.
Maybe she could hear the unthrilled essence of my, “Uh, huh."
I looked for my jar of instant on the kitchen counter and saw it not. That's not a typo. I saw my instant coffee not, and that was not good.
"Where's my instant coffee, Leslie?"
"Oh, I put it away. I'm making a fresh pot, Ed."
"Where did you put it, Leslie? Where the hell is 'away'?"
She opened a cabinet that I haven't opened twice in ten years and there was my coffee jar, sitting on the middle shelf. I immediately reached past her for it, brushing much of myself against her in the process.
As I withdrew my coffee and stepped back, I could see that Leslie's nipples had hardened and her face had reddened. If that's all it took, she was probably damp, too. That thought made my dick rise in spite of my coffeeless circumstances.
Leslie stared at the little monster that was pointing at her and reddened further, which made my dick throb for her. I glanced around. The mess on the floor would be there in a few minutes. The fry pan was still heating up.
Leslie's eyes followed mine and she turned to check the pan. I moved in, put my coffee jar back where it belonged and wrapped my arms around her, kissing her neck and shoulders. My left hand trailed across her thigh and slipped between her legs. Yup. Not just damp; wet.
"Back up a step and lean on the counter, please, ma'am."
Leslie looked back at me and asked, “Here? Now? But..."
"Here's good and now's fine and your little friend, here, wants you real bad, and you're ready, ma'am. Unless you have any real objections..?"
Leslie took the step back and leaned forward. I let myself slide between her legs and nuzzle the wetness, and when the angle was right, I began nosing it into her.
A few minutes later she gave a great gasp and her knees buckled. I rode her to the floor and kept working that special spot within her as my fingers made her clit sing.
We nearly came together. She came, crested, and triggered mine too late to meet hers, but as I gushed into her, she gasped again and shoved back against me to lock us deeply together.
When I was finished pulsing my stuff into her, I kissed her back and shoulders and stroked her arms and whispered, “You're so good at this..."
She giggled—an interesting feeling from the inside—and then laughed. A moment later, she held up her hand, dripping with egg that had been spilled on the floor, and said, “Eeewww. Cold. Yucky."
"I guess that kinda kills the mood for you, huh?"
With a grin, Leslie shoved the hand back toward my face and said, “Well, what do you think? Eeewww."
"But it's already there. Just put the hand back where it was so things don't get any worse and I'll just stay right where I am until my dick goes down, okay?"
"Selfish man. Selfish, selfish man. All you care about is your dick. Pull that thing out of me so I can start cleaning up this mess and finish making breakfast."
I poked her deeply a few times quickly, which made her squeak, then I sighed, “OhhhKaay ... If I have to, I have to, I guess."
"And don't dribble stuff on the floor,�
� she said. “I have enough to clean, here."
"Huh. You're the one who's dribbling, lady. Just a minute. Hold still."
I grabbed a couple of paper towels, then remembered my bath towel and pulled it off the door. After a quick wipe of myself to keep from leaving a sticky trail, I folded the stuff into the towel and handed it to Leslie while I began scooping up egg with tearout cards from a magazine.
After we got ourselves and the kitchen cleaned up, I used hot water from the sink tap to make myself a cup of instant coffee. Leslie watched wordlessly until I had finished and was in the midst of taking a sip.
"Eeewww."
"Good stuff. Jello coffee. Wakes you right up."
She closed her eyes and shuddered. When she opened them again, she seemed to notice something and knelt while reaching for my dick. I almost thought something was wrong until I saw her tongue lash out and capture a stray droplet. She took me in her mouth and milked me for a few moments before pronouncing the job done.
My dick was more than halfway up again when she let it go. Leslie giggled and turned away long enough to flip the eggs, then turned back to face me. With another giggle, she went to her knees and sucked and massaged me until I was hard again, took a moment to admire her achievement, and then rose to load the coffee pot and turn it on.
I leaned against the counter with my coffee and watched her, my dick sticking up in front of me. Leslie grinned as she reached for it and stroked it a few times. She glanced to check the eggs, then backed up against me and inserted me into her dampness and rode me for a few moments before she seemed to stiffen.
I couldn't see her face, but I'd seen such expressions of surprise before.
She gasped, “Oh ... My..."
"Found another one in there, didn't you?"
"Ahh-hahh..."
Leslie stroked deeply a few times, but the feeling was fading. I could tell. She pushed hard against me in her efforts, pinning me to the cabinets, but the feeling got away from her. She sighed a little sigh of disappointment.
"They're supposed to come and go, ma'am. To keep our interests up, I think."
She pulled herself off me, leaned against the cabinets next to me, took a deep breath, and said, “By God, I guess that must be so. I can't think of any other good reason for a feeling like that not to last forever."
Book 2: 3rd World Products, Inc. Page 14