Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 16:05:34 -0500 From: Tom Emerson Subject: THE TARNZAN MUSHRROM HUNTERS - BOOK VIII THE TARZAN MUSHROOM HUNTERS by R. Forbes Emerson (Bi-ped, inc., rom.) BOOK VIII - CONCLUSION "I lied," Josh said. "What?" Liff asked. "I told Kirk and Alex that Ellen was flirting with me. That part was true. But more is true, too." "Awesome, Uncle Josh," the eleven year old squealed. "Well," said his uncle, "you're a hard act to follow, but Alex may need a supply of stories, someday, so I thought I'd add my tale, if you guys want to hear it." "Pardner," young Alex drawled, "if I was slinging iron on even one hip, you wouldn't be talking fool where I could hear ya, follow?" "That goes for his sidekicks, too," Kirk echoed to a nod from Liff. Well, it beat molesting underage boys, so the twenty-five-year-old engineer began. (And this is not to say he left off molesting his coltish nephew, nor did he take his eyes off Kirk, who was being masturbated with a lingering tenderness by Alex.) "Dad," Ellen asked, "our family is pretty different than other families, isn't it?" "How do you mean, sweetheart?" Josh said. "Mom and Granddad," the girl replied, "your age, and stuff like that." "I gather you talked with your mom," the young father said. "After school," the girl said, "before she left with Will and Bruce for Lexington." "Good," Josh replied, "we've talked about treating you as a big girl, but I left it up to her as to how and when. "How much did she tell you?" "Mostly she asked me stuff," the girl responded, "like how I felt about you, and if I ever though of you as a handsome man, and not just my father. She asked me if I really liked flirting with you, things like that. "I said I thought you were the best and half the time I thought of you more as a tiger than a dad. She replied by saying she had very special feelings about Granddad when she was ten, and that I should ask you about anything that made me curious. "Other girls hardly talk about their fathers, except when they need money, and their grandfathers, even less. I want to talk about you all the time; when they're talking about going out with a fifteen year old, I want to talk about driving with you and going to the water park with you and reading with you and thinking about you before I fall asleep. I don't, of course, because kids have to be part of a group, at least a little, but once I said something about a letter you wrote me, and Marylou Kitt said it sounded like I was talking about my boyfriend, then Helen Ashley said if she had a dad like you, she'd talk about him like a boyfriend, too. So I learned that we're different, or at least I am." It's a little early to be back, but I'm sure Samantha fans have inquiring minds and will want to know. For a long time, six months or so, I've been hoping for an end to the relationship, owing to the extreme unlikelihood of its panning out in the end. The no-fool-like-an-old-fool syndrome probably kicked in a bit, I'll admit it, but a very guarded wolf of a fool, if any fool at all. Anyway, she and a little friend boosted jewelry and cash from Jessica's apartment, so she's history. In addition, I suspect her of lying to cadge money the other day, also new behavior. Guess my little princess is growing up. She doesn't have the underlying nasty, rebellious attitude of an American teen, probably doesn't have a mean bone in her body, but stealing is stealing and I've only got one half-million-dollar estate. Two lessons. One is an anti-lesson. I still believe a fit, attractive guy my age can have a long-term, positive relationship with a girl her age. The assumption here is that the girl is normal; reasonably nice, and pretty darn honest. The age question is pretty much irrelevant; Samantha could have been twenty-five, thirty-five or perhaps even an exceptionally fit and attractive forty-five; my feelings for her, and about her, would have been the same, (and, while there would be less likelihood of an older girl stealing, this (Belize) is a world of thieves, so no guarantees), and I would have dumped her for it. The real lesson is that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I took on, twenty-three years ago, the family in Dangriga that appeared to need help the most, and stuck with them, to the best of my ability, to the present day. Didn't do much good. The fact is, it never does much good trying to help certain peasant-class folk. I've seen it time and again, on top of my own vast experience. The formula is the more you give, the more they want, and the less they want to work for anything. It is politically incorrect to point this out, which is a major reason the whole of modern society is tripping one flashing red light and blaring klaxon after another. The only avenues of assistance are grass-roots infrastructure, and an intensely enriched school and homecare environment for a small percentage of a given population. Beyond this, only basic foodstuffs and medical aid, in certain famine situations, are useful. Helping others is apparently as ridiculous a notion as any in the bible. I've helped, repeatedly, by literally giving a man fishing equipment, and teaching him (them) to fish, and watched the whole thing fall apart because the fishermen argued all morning about whose turn it was to make the tortillas. Blacks reject white intervention more all the time. When I was with my crew, they performed like a freaking ballet. When I turned my back, it all went to hell in a hand basket. And all I had to do was be there. That's the freaky part. I never suffered myself to tell anybody much of anything, or do much of anything, and click, click, click, we set out over two-hundred-fifty lobster traps in forty-five days, got a place on Tobacco Caye Range, built a pier, arranged a sweet little camp; the whole nine yards. It's the magic touch of colonialism, and the current and next generations are going to prove life without that touch is lingering misery and premature death, however politically correct the rhetoric the politicians make come out of their mouthes. Mumbo jumbo umba bumba equality respect freedom liberty justice independence dignity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, empty bellies deserve banners as much as fat ones. So, that's an extra fifteen or twenty thousand Belize dollars in the discretionary fund, plus an express ticket to heaven for the extended help given dozens of friends over thirty years. There's an old saying a close friend used to quote from time to time: "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" In the past, I haven't been rich because I've been generous. The slip is now stamped "Paid in Full". So I can be rich and fight with the other camels for space in the eye of the needle. Seriously, how great to have paid one's dues, in full, never asking for nor expecting a farthing or a pee-pee in return, early enough in life so altruism is no longer a factor in future plans. In a backhanded kind of way, this is good news for the American public. The only thing that is going to pull, and I'm being all too literal here, their fat from the fire, is a king who's morally free to be an absolute prick. This new freedom to explore conventional partner options might liven up the text, but I doubt the market for consenting, unrelated adult relationships is insatiable, so my-life-as-a-novel may actually suffer from the reader's viewpoint. No cable, no prototype romance. Good ways to make a writer stick to his sex pistols. (Come to think of it, an of-age beauty, Laura, did it into a story. The yoga instructor from the Bay Area. Remember her? (Or maybe she showed up in the later chapters of "Stonington Stories".) Anyway, that means there might be a sketch or two in the future.) The point is, young partners are not something you can go after. They must come to you. This means building a constructive web, because it's needed, and waiting, happy with the web, and delighted if something special comes out of it (as against being trapped in it). If a thousand men took my advice, probably ten to twenty would get the ultimate reward, a happy and permanent relationship with a young partner, and the rest would help, guess what, just as scripture suggests. If I had it to do over, would I take the same tack? No. I'd have bought myself a bodacious Jaguar, paid the duty, and lived in a groovy pad, dating legal-age girls and likely marrying one. Do I regret doing it the way I did? No. A Jag and a blond do not a writer make. Of course, should one trade up to an Aston Martin... But that's a mere joke. After 9/11, what adventure story would one write? Market closed for repairs. "The Bridges of Madison County" has been done, so that market's not exactly thriving. "Out of Africa" and "Lonesome Dove" corner the romantic, the exotic, and the Western markets for the next generation or two. "The Shipping News" and Ford's "Independence Day" grant Pulitzer Prizes to the almost novel, so scanty one-offs are market poison. It's fun to whittle, but don't break the stick. There has to be some avenue for a talent in search of readers. You know what I might just undertake? Try guessing? How about erotic humor? Wouldn't that be a gas? Quad X and nitrous oxide. Let's see if I'm any good at it. Josh Evans and his daughter were in the living room, a section of their house made unique by the television set facing the wall, it's plastic cabinet mute testimony to a family that had seen a bit too much of Israel of late. That it hadn't been replaced with a rubber tree was a symbol of hope. While it might be illegal to drop twenty or thirty hydrogen bombs on the Middle East, it made enough sense, as a matter of national preservation, that the Evan's family were reluctant to give up hope, and donate the 27" set to the very Ronald Reagan Home for the Insane featured in "Airplane". In addition to the disgraced electronic Hebrew, were half a ton of books and piles of magazines. Me? I'd be comfortable there. Ellen Evans, almost eleven, was sitting in an arm chair opposite her father on the sofa. She was an athletic girl, a ringer for the football playing, dirty blond in the television ad for either a pill on an insurance company (possibly investments (raise your hand if you remember what they were.)) She had big, wise gray eyes, and was dressed in a white blouse and tan shorts, barefoot as befit the season. Her father drew teasing remarks for looking like Rick Schroeder, in his "NYPD Blue" years. "I'm twenty-five," Josh said to the girl. "Because you had to be eighteen to marry mom..." "And I was fifteen." "Cool," the girl said. "I love you so much," Josh said, "I go around looking for special facets that I can hook my feelings to, if anyone can hook anything to a facet; anyway, thanks for providing one free of charge." "Well," the girl added, "it's actually double cool. That you're twenty five, why, you could easily be my brother, and that you and Mom got married so young." "We were lucky," Josh said, "so lucky we never feel we deserve you and the boys. It's a nerve wracking life, I tell you, having such a run of extreme fortune, which, when you get right down to it, just means we have a lot more to lose when we hit a rough patch." "Good philosophy, Dad," the girl responded. "Live totally awesome, today, as inoculation against the catastrophic horrors that are out and about." "Call it the code of the father temporizing with his daughter," Josh said. "You don't want me asking a lot of personal questions?" the girl asked. "My first date with your mother," Josh replied, "I almost passed out from excitement and fear. How I lived through it, I still don't really know. How I'm meant to live through having a long talk with you, I don't know either." "All the more reason to be glad you're actually twenty-five, and not twenty-eight," the sharp pixie rejoined. "To me, twenty-six is an impossible dream," Josh sighed, to Ellen's giggle. "You think so now," she responded, "just wait." "What do you have in mind?" the young father asked. "Mom gave me something to wear for you. And yes, we have a big old date planned, but before we go anywhere, I'm going to change into it and sit in your lap, then we're going to talk like big boy to big girl, and you're forbidden to even think about, a, my age, or, b, the fact you're my dad. You are forbidden nothing else. That's as fair as Mom and I could make it." "Fairy nice," Josh intoned. "If you think you're going to clown me out of my mood," the girl hissed, eyes blazing, "your chances would have to be multiplied by a thousand to be half fair." "Just checking," Josh explained. Ellen's eyes softened from their mock stare and she smiled. "Good, " she said, "for a minute there I thought you might be nervous." "Your turn to multiply by a thousand," Josh said. "I am, too," the girl whispered, "and I'm still in street clothes." "It can't get worse than that," the young father observed. "You've got a point," Ellen acknowledged. "What says `taboo' more than baggy shorts and a button-up blouse?" They'd shared reading an illustrated "Little Women", and so realized perhaps the metaphor was a little wide of the mark, but the basic thought was true. The more reserved the clothing, climatic conditions notwithstanding, the higher the level of taboo it represented. Unfortunately, the theory did not stand up to its opposite, for, if it had, the less taboo one wore, the more comfortable one would feel, and Ellen felt nothing resembling the thousandth part of comfort in the possibility of appearing any less dressed in front of her father. If there was an issue there, who knew, because the feeling of excitement sent comfort packing for the retirement home, where it might be welcome one day, leaving only focused confusion in its place. A bold approach? Would that work? Strip and jump? Maybe some day she'd hang out with some bikers and could try it, but not with her beautiful young dad. She crossed to the sofa and sat at his left side. "I'm really sacred," she whispered. "Mom said Granddad loved looking at her, and you might not think I'm such great stuff." "Then, again..." he whispered. She smiled up at him, snuggling close. "Do you really want to see?" she asked. "I really want what you and your mom want," Josh said, "and as long as seeing you is survivable, they say it will make me stronger." "Or," the girl intoned in a deep, gruff voice, "it could be just an urban legend." "One legend per household," Josh replied. And, "Close your eyes," the girl replied to that. He did, and felt her stand, walk across the room; the light hiss of a zipper. "I'm baack," she whispered, standing at his knees. "Oh, Polly," Josh breathed, staring at the beautifully mature ten year old in her mother's training bra and panties. She settled on his knees, gazing into his eyes. "You know how to complement a girl," she whispered, blushing with pleasure. "If we'd waited until I was really twenty-eight, I'd just pass out." "Oh," the beauty cooed, "but probably not for very long." "Maybe not so very long at one time," the young father acknowledged, "but lots of times, the better to wake from my dream once again." The big eyes grew serious. "That sounds too romantic," the girl said. "Mom says we can't have too much of that. She doesn't have any toward Granddad, just towards you. I have to save it for my husband, too," she concluded. "Well," Josh replied, "you're here in the first place because you're mature, level-headed, and wise enough for three (the raving-beauty thing is just a bonus), so, no kissing, swooning, or palpitations." "That makes it sound like we're building a tree house, together," the girl noted, "so we better make some adjustments. How about flirting?" "I can top that, darling," Josh replied, "make it seem like the tip of the iceberg." "Without being romantic?" the girl asked. "Maybe it's me," her father responded, "but I don't see much romantic in a girl with a tummy the size of a basketball. Biology, yes, romance, conditional." "You want to get me pregnant?" she whispered, eyes huge and glowing. "Darling," Josh said, gently, "you were your mom's shower baby. Do you know what that is? It's also called a tummy baby and a family baby. From Granddad being with your mom. He found out she was pregnant by showering with her and massaging her belly with soapy hands. She was twelve. They checked with a certain clinic, found out she was physically capable of delivering a child, so, nine months after a very long and passionate night, you were born. Granddad got a city lawyer to doctor the paperwork. My math grades were good enough to get me into cyberland, whatever my age happened to be, or not be. It was pretty smooth, all things considered, and guess what? "What?" the girl asked. "Someone is coming home from this week probably pregnant." "Mom?" the girl asked, wide-eyed. "They're going to try. You've been such an outlandish success, one can hardly blame them." "Are Will and Bruce from you?" the girl asked. "Yes," Josh answered. "I hope it's a girl," the child said. "That's stipulated," her father said, "your mom wants someone to take your place if you move out when you're in your late teens or twenties, or whenever, or, if ever. She has this radical notion that the best way to keep a worthwhile man at home is to supply him with nubile female alternatives. Slick, eh?" "So, our family is pretty different," the child mused. "Wouldn't it be nice to know," Josh said. "One girl in five is active with a close relative before age eighteen. How different are they? Are they part of us, or victims? How do you measure the degree of acceptance against the degree of occurrence, so willing relationships can be measured and entered into the computer. All unanswerable, short of a major research project; probably half a dozen of them. The only thing I can say positively is that some millions of families are very happily engaged in frequent incest and pedophilia, and that some tens of thousands of them probably have shower babies." "I hope they don't all have to wait until they're ten to find out," the girl said. "Another major topic with your mom," Josh responded. "She wanted you and I to spend time alone together when you were eight. I voted for your being at least twelve. We bartered over you like fishwives haggling over the last mullet. Flattering, eh?" "Mom and I will outvote you when it comes to my daughter," the girl said, archly. "Then, be it known to all present, I concede," the young father intoned. "Could Mom's baby be from you?" Ellen asked. "Probably will be," Josh said, "but he has a good chance, too." "Is it exciting for you to know she's with him?" the girl quizzed. "Totally," Josh admitted, "because there's only one thing more intriguing than fantasizing over your wife responding to the touches of another male, and I'm sure you know what that is." "Not a girl dressed in taboo?" the girl asked, rhetorically. "Just don't tell anybody," Josh said in a stage whisper, then growing serious and adding: "You can tell people. It is not a deep-dark secret. You'll find other girls in school that are having illicit affairs, girls know what questions to ask each other, and you can be honest with them, and, if you keep your ear to the ground, and use that fine head of yours, you may even be able to intervene in cases where things aren't like they are in this house, and straighten them out with anonymous phone calls, letters, and threats." "Kind of like paying dues, eh?" the girl asked. "If there's anything to ying and yang, besides salesmanship, then a few righteous deeds along the way can't help but leaven the final accounting." "Fair," said the girl, and her dad echoed, "enough." Love tangles with the muses and the old pro becomes dobbin in the circle, head way down, plodding the grinding wheel. Samantha was by this afternoon, more beautiful than I've ever seen her. I drove her like a criminal. Drove off Jessica, too, for her negligence in not hiding her valuables. It does seem a bit much. Hellish mother, saboteur wife, and a thief. Her future is unimaginably dark; all of theirs is. To zero in income. Bev's made enemy's in town because of the black bitch attitude she's chosen, probably thanks to Jerry Springer and the like. Where once she engendered respect as mother of four clean, mannerly children, now she's just a hugely fat, noisy nuisance, no job, no man, no nothing. Will they (six with Melissa) actually starve to death? It will be interesting to see. There is much acute hunger here (thanks largely to the perpetual thieving committed by the likes of Samantha), and spindly children are a dime a dozen, but I don't think anyone actually starves in the clinical sense. Their problem will be that in trying to help them, I've, in a sense, domesticated them, leaving them unfit for the level of hustle it takes to survive. Whatever happens, they deserve every tear and belly groan. I am numbed by the cruelty of Samantha's act. Entering someone else's home, terrifying the three year old Winzie, searching for seven minutes until they found the chain and cash, then slipping quietly out the gate; a crime against a hard-working young, single mother of a very friendly disposition. The English were right. She should be hanged. She will go on to steal again and probably kill, if she doesn't die of aids, first. Well, I guess the muses are still on duty. Funny, they don't seem very playful, tonight. Why should they be down-hearted? Samantha has had a thousand times what a little Ethiopian child of her age ever gets. Health, beauty, cable, the emotional, if not physical, love of a man, Celine Dion. Like Linda Loman, I can't weep for her, though I kind of wish I could. Bev should be delighted. She got something well over a hundred thousand Belize dollars out of me, and her daughter is still a virgin, as prime as they come. More recreational obsession. How long will it be before Samantha's in the cab of the red Dodge pickup? The fat, old driver always has a couple of nubile cuties in tow. I left Anne in excellent shape with a kick-ass dog, new car, and house full of gallery furniture to attract number two, and I can say the same of my second great loss. Perfect for someone else. If it was a smaller town, everybody could join in the laugh, but, as it is, scarcely anyone will take the slightest notice. That's the Web. Probably the most famous love affair of modern times, taking place in real time, and the players, other than myself, as oblivious as the people around them. In West Hollywood, everyone knows, in Dangriga, almost no one. Now how many of you want to be writers? You may have to work disemboweled, but no time clock and no heavy lifting. There's the page to fill, and the chapter for the page, but the way the clock seems to have slowed, it should be a piece of cake knocking off another six thousand words in an hour or two. Thank god for marijuana. I don't what it does for physical pain, but a healthy stash is worth its weight in cut diamonds when love turns to dust. It would be an interesting (sorry to use this non-word twice) challenge trying to delineate what the drug does. I guess `subtlety' is the first word one would use. For example, it's impossible to say smoking X number of joints is the equivalent of X cans of beer. Apples and oranges. I did once hear that Ritalin is one-thousand times stronger than pot. Tenuous. Perhaps it's that it does nothing is its appeal. It's rewarding and fulfilling, utterly natural; a balm and pacifier, with no narcotic connection. It is a friend when you need one, but in no way a crutch. There is no discernable impact on my writing, other than tripling the per-session word count. It is such a nothing, that, when the price double to a still-ridiculously-cheap two Belize dollars for a bullet, I stopped buying it along with everyone else. The price has not changed in twenty years. I find myself wondering how extreme it would be to say that anyone who does not enjoy a couple of joints a day is a defective human unlikely to get the best from himself or be his best for anyone else. Does it distort, sidetrack, or muddle? Again, subtlety is the issue. It does all these things, in the proper place and time, while focusing and energizing when these qualities are called for. I remember a specific example. In 1972 and 1973 I drove a coast-to-coast semi. A hitchhiker left me with an o z of the only different marijuana I've ever had. After I had some I noticed something I never had, before, and that was that every driver coming the other way waved as he passed. It makes you more receptive, engaged and alert, again, if these qualities are called for. The firs time I smoked. I guess David will be patient an let me ramble on, seeing as how pot and sex have their common moments. Anyway, it was on the DMZ. LZ Sharon. Danny Teutsch. First, back to Colorado Springs; heading up to Denver in my '63 Corvair Monza. Danny, without so much as a hint, fires off a duber. I literally whipped the car into the breakdown lane and started yelling at him. Made him throw it out. Blah, blah, blah. Anyhow, we had a great time in Denver. So, on leave before shipping overseas, I chanced across an article in "Consumer Reports" detailing the lopsided whacko bible belt mentality surrounding cannabis. Now back to Vietnam. At long last, educated, I worked with Danny to cop our first stash. Few will want to believe this, but in Quang Tri, the joints are sold -- hold your breath -- rolled. Ten to a plastic baggie. For a carton of Salems, two bucks. Yes, we whistled while we worked. Sandbagging. For in Danny's pocket was the little bag. We knocked off, ate, and hit the tent. Sat on folding cots about four inches off the floor. I was so excited I was almost shaking. Danny, Swartz, Tannenbaum and Emerson. Ten joints. Where do you suppose this story is going? I was a light cigarette smoker at the time, so that part wasn't any novelty. I liked the smell, and just who wouldn't? Seemed fine enough, for sure. We smoked one, then a second. Why all the fuss, and why the two bucks? I was wondering. Then I stood up to go to the john. It felt exactly like being twelve feet tall. The cot seemed to rub against my Achilles tendon. Funny? Dunno, but everyone was laughing. I got my bearings, and left the tent for the latrine. Then the gods who enrich the writers kicked in. Just as I left the tent a star shell went off. I don't know if you were ever stoned for the first time, and watched a ten-million candlepower flare go off at twenty thousand feet, but I did. Then a second, third, and fourth. For sound effects, as if they were needed, the 155mm guns salvoed. The furthest from the admin tent was maybe a hundred feet. Today, looking back on it, I picture a charlie, in the vernacular of the time, coming all the way down from Hanoi to see the show the rich American's put on, whenever they fired in a mortar round or two. If their weed was as good as ours, they got their quid pro quo. Whether or not this was the entire reason for the war, I'm not here to say, but, as a witness, I can tell you it beat I-MAX all to pieces. Well, there are a few words for the first day of the rest of my life without her. Maybe it would be a good place to introduce Randy, lest the nation run short of crying towels. He's Samantha's younger cousin, eleven. He's been over, repeatedly (lives practically next door) so finally I invited him in. This was Saturday, and, no reason not to throw in a date, even though Web stories include them, Sept. 21, 2002. We chatted awhile about school books and I started tickling the bottom of his foot with my toe as he rocked in his chair. This went on to footsies for ten or fifteen minutes. I held out my hand and he came to me, settling cross-wise in my lap, with his head on my left shoulder. I took him very slowly, just slightly up under his shirt. He made no move to resist, even though I allowed him some minutes to do so. He is very slightly husky, giving his belly a satiny fullness like silk over butter. I molested him higher on his chest, beautifully full and soft; he lay, inert, his face against mine, breathing quietly. I found the right corner of his mouth and nibbled a little. He turned slowly to me, and for half an hour we made out, his mouth softer than his childish body, his teeth sharp, and his tongue its own moveable feast. Eventually I found my way down inside his loose-fitting pants, finding his pinky-size penis right away. He was half erect at my first tentative touch, but immediately became a hot pencil, or so it used to be called out at the Pelican, former watering hole of British forces. "Do you want to go home, or would you like to go in the bathroom with me?" I asked. He said he wanted to go, so we chatted a little more, and he left. He was back the next day, but we just chatted a few minutes on the porch, mostly about his errant cousin. At this point, I need someone to run errands, so he's a perfect choice. One thing for sure, you can beat the you-know-what out of a writer, and what does the s.o.b. go an do? Finds something else to write about. Besides workitivity and creativity, this art requires a perfect combination of thin skin (sensitivity) and thick skin (durability). Oh, how welcome you are to try it and find out for yourself. Loads of extra cash and a brand new cutie, that, who knows, may actually be young enough to influenced in a positive way. The great experiment continues. Rhageedha is not off the list; Randy may be on it, the house is quieter than it's ever been, the artist regroups, the words make the climb, and, it's business as usual. Women spit, men bounce, and a new day dawns. One little project might be to assume this manuscript will be read, one day, by a mainstream audience. Here's there problem. I've just assassinated Samantha for stealing; sent her to the wilderness, and now I'm molesting Randy. Is there, or is there not, a double standard in play? My answer is not. One person badly hurt another for personal gain. One person played footsies with a child who willingly became his lover, for no gain, and, if he's one percent of his cousin, for inevitable loss. You, the mainstream reader, will say my values are warped, and I say yours are. I don't depend on a sense of rationalization or even humor here, but on the evidence. The laws of probable cause and effect. The fact that I could live with both Randy and Rhageedha, to each of their great and long-term benefit. Samantha was beyond this, they may not be. To keep writing, is to keep living. They must be tried and will be tried until the big-brother they knock my door in and laugh at my notion of artistic immunity. By the way, this should round us out in the chuckles department. I've laughed a time or two at hijinks along the way, many of you may have, and now some jokiness for the mainstream reader dreaming of me through clanking iron and vertical bars. Few authors are so comprehensive in giving a reader his money's worth, of that I am sure. I guess these days they call it due diligence. And how will I know I've succeeded with the mainstream? When I've replaced Los Angeles Detective, Mark Furhman, at the top of Oprah's worst-man-who-ever-lived list. Diligence has its rewards. There's a lucky segue, because I keep wanting to clear up a misstatement. In `taking dictation' as did Mozart, I do work a bit within the paragraph, so it's not a case of typing out perfect copy. Once the paragraph is set, I virtually never change it, is what I meant, leaving open the definition of `setting'. My ego on the subject stems from the fact I work with a score of ten-thousand plus words, not eighty-eight keys. Mozart gets ten points for writing for a variety of instruments, while most of my characters share an identical voice. In the final analysis, it comes down to quantity. Although the Kershel numbers exceed four hundred, only a few dozen of his compositions merit general popularity. All my work does. There is not a trunk page, much less a trunk manuscript. If it isn't Mozart at his finest, it doesn't get typed. Never his better, always his equal; how strange there are only the two of us, how grand so many who come so close. "Dad, can we talk about dominance?" Ellen asked. "I know you didn't like the fairies, dear," Josh said, "but could we maybe try something in the middle. like strip poker?" "You are a funny one," the girl said. "I'm not talking about whips and chains. I'm talking about something else. Something we'd have to do together in the shower. Something I only want to try once, to be sure I don't like kinky things." "What if you do?" the young father asked. "It would give me a handhold on reality, I guess," the girl responded, "something I have to deny myself and ward off on account of being brought up by a sterling young father who's like awesomely hip to character issues." "Speaking of awesome hips," Josh said, "if we're going to use the bathroom I want to molest you in front of the mirror, starting with where you're beginning to show you're going to be a woman, and before I find your breasts." "How long will that take?" Ellen asked. "Half an hour," her father replied. "I guess I can wait that long, if we're next to the shower," the girl said, pausing, then adding: "as long as we're both naked." "I figured out the shower thing," Josh said as he rose and extended his hand to his athletic daughter. "Sure you did," the girl said. "It was easy," Josh replied, "we're going to have a towel fight, and the winner gets to soak the loser's head." "That would make a good porno movie," Ellen said. "Cute dad and his ten year old, snapping at each other, then a lingering rape scene." "You do know I'm going to rape you, don't you, Ellen?" Josh said as they climbed the stairs. "You are underage. The second my hands go down over your hips, I'm beginning an act of statutory rape, which I will complete in the shower or in your room on your bed." "As long as you rape me one your bed, too," the girl replied, "just so I don't get odd notions or hang-ups." They walked hand-in-hand down the hall and entered the master bath. "If we were having foreplay, I'd be kissing your neck and biting your ear," Josh whispered, as he brought his child to the mirror and stood behind her. His hands went lightly to her waist, then down into her panties. Slowly he slid them to the point they dropped, and helped her balance as she kicked them from her tiny foot. He un-clasped the young girl's training bra and let it fall, following by quickly slipping out his own clothes. Then he took his child, looking into the mirror. She came nicely high on him, her head a patch of tumbled gold just beneath his jutting male nipples. He felt her up for several minutes before her hands found him and brought him to her belly, pressing gently. He pulled her to his swollen penis and her young nipples reared at the touch. "Oh, Polly," he whispered as the looked at her now heaving chest. "Is Granddad doing this with her?" Ellen asked. "Yes, darling," Josh whispered, "I watched him make love to her when she was your age. All men do it the same, so I didn't learn much, but, yes, he molests her for an hour or so, no kissing, that's the difference from foreplay, then he mounts her in the shower or on his bed." "Have you watched them go all the way?" the now shaking girl asked. "Yes, love," Josh said, "three times." "How can you tell when the last part is happening between them?" the girl asked. "He'd tell her," Josh said, "then I'd see his semen between her legs and flowing down on the sheet." "Does a man hold a girl a special way when it's happening," she queried. "Either he mounts high on his arms, so he can see the female's belly and his penis in her, or he lies partly on her chest so he can kiss her and listen for her coaxing. The female often wraps her legs around the male's thighs to ensure his full penetration so he will cum in her cervix; other than that, no, sometimes a couple can be still as mice, or making out while it's happening." "How much can the girl feel inside her?" the curious child went on. "If he holds the female still in his arms, she'll feel a strong pulse in her belly. If there's any movement, the female often can't tell whether or not the male has ejaculated." "Are you going to hold me still?" Ellen asked. "Yes, darling," Josh says. "Sometimes feeling a male cum off makes a female climax." "I'll bet that's easier if she's madly in love with the man," the girl observed. "And being his daughter and wanting to get pregnant from him may help, too. Everything counts." "I know," the girl said, "going without foreplay is rough." "Well," Josh responded, "you brought up the subject of domination." "Then I order you in the shower," the girl giggled. "No towel fight?" he asked. "Just march," she growled. So he did. She came in behind him, and guided him to the bench, sitting on his lap, facing him. "Just once," she reminded him, and let her flow begin, raising his thighs so that she urinated directly on his penis. He supported her at the waist, and let her have her will, far more thrilled at the trust implied than the sensual gush of her warmth over his erection. When it was over they stood, rinsed, and dried off. The left one towel in the bathroom, and the girl carried the second to her bedroom, leading Josh. She spread it in the middle of the bed and lay on her back, spreading her legs, widely. Josh positioned himself over he, they adjusted themselves to each other, she guided him for a moment with her right hand, then lay back as he entered her without foreplay. They came together gently, his eyes soft in her's. She coached and coaxed, mewing at his new depths, and trying repeatedly to find a rhythm against him, as he tried to find one with her. His tender but full thrust through her hymen brought a gush of tears and he held her, whispering, for several minutes, then in three gentle strokes the loving young father mounted to his hilt, holding her still as she hissed softly in his left ear. "Did Mom cry with Granddad," the girl whispered, her sobs vanishing as she spoke. "Just like you, angel," he said, "but guess what, I was there to lick them away." His tongue found her eyes. "Can I bring my legs up over you now," the young athlete whispered. "Yes love, but I'm going to wait a few minutes before I cum in you, so you don't have to stay that way." "It feels like you're really deep inside me," Ellen said. "That's because I penetrated your cervix, darling," Josh said. "When you grow up, you'll just feel the tip of the male's penis against you there." "I like the feeling," the girl whispered. "So do I," her young father managed to whisper, as her muscular legs found him and drew him wantonly against her soft belly. Piece of luck for me that Samantha is so interesting. Makes a fatter book out of a fat one. I now have her pegged as the mastermind and ring-leader in the theft of Jessica's necklace and cash. The other girl, Lilly, had never been on the property before, and, more importantly, wouldn't have known that Jessica's bicycle being absent would mean that Jessica was away. Samantha would have known this, plus, she's been on the property many times, and in the downstairs apartment, several times. Lilly appeared smaller and dumber than Samantha. Try to think of a crime movie in which the dumb crook isn't given the loot so the canny one won't get caught with the evidence. And Lilly was, in fact, caught with the loot (which has been returned). I spent half an hour grilling Samantha this afternoon. At first she said she was on the swings, then, when I insisted Winzie had said two girls entered her house, she said she was there but didn't' touch anything. For awhile she tried to claim that they looked through the window and saw little Jess about to fall off the bed, then went in to save him. This didn't wash, because I was sitting directly over the carport, which serves as the downstairs verandah, and would have heard even the slightest commotion, so that story got dropped. The frustration is that if anyone had told me Samantha was involved in something like this, I would vigorously deny that she was the type. Linden thinks his sister is much to much a fraidy cat to pull of such a stunt. But I saw it; saw them skulking soundlessly off the property, and no other story fits, at all. So we're back in some sort of limbo. No money from me for a minimum of two weeks, and we'll see. On a brighter note, Rhageedha was by in a little two-piece suit, lying on the bed, and watching my "Screenshots" screen saver. Some of the pictures are of bathing beauties. Every time one came up, she giggled and pointed at the screen, saying That's me, simultaneously arching her back and wriggling her hips as Samantha and I looked on. Every instinct tells me she's an experienced and avid lover; mine, anytime I want her. It's a little daunting, the thought of being with a girl who probably doesn't weight fifty pounds, and, for sure, an end to twenty-three years of celibacy that will be worth a few lines in what is becoming a diary. What might be kind of neat is if she gave me VD. I know that's a strange thing to say, but it would prove she'd been with other men, and this would take off any potential heat, allowing us to live more-or-less openly together, Samantha, too, to the great benefit of the three of us, and society. So, what's new with you? Have you ever dumped a fourteen year old for a seven year old? If so, contribute to Nifty. And I haven't dumped Samantha; she's on fiscal hiatus in a last-ditch attempt to convince here that we are extremely and extraordinarily lucky to have what we do, and a little respect and discretion are strictly in order. If two weeks without food don't do the trick, then it will end up Rhageedha and I, or I'll head out to the cayes and find another Laura; start writing kiddie porn instead of trying to live it. In the meantime, life is dashed exciting for an old chap. Yeah, wanna bet? I will stand with any group of high school males in a bathing suit contest and probably come in third or fourth. I'm a fox. Any belly I ever had, almost gone. I went to town today for the first time in a week, and my shorts were looser than ever. Randy made out with me for half an hour, without pause. I keep stressing athletic conditioning, and reading so you won't look like an aluminum pot with a face drawn on it. This is why. So if your wife spits you out, you can land dead on your feet, and with charming, young companionship. I could have done this years ago, but I got bored with being a legend in my own mind, and so worked at my life-long passion. For decades. Otherwise, I would have had a sleek ten year old female as a long-term love six months after Tom Cruise moved in on Anne with his glib there-theres. To have ended up with this career, this masterpiece growing five thousand words a day, and a female dynamic duo out of Fantasyland's Fantasyland is nothing more or less than the fruit of ceaseless toil and bone-deep sacrifice. Feel amazingly grateful you have me to do it for you, and, if the WASP shows off a little, bear with him, mind? How about "Modifier of Corruption" as a concept for an organization? The only fear I have is being judged against a Garden of Eden, before the fall, standard. If I'm judged against the world as it is, then I'm just that. A modifier of corruption, that's occurring, anyhow. Taking the kids I come in contact with, not to a phony land of saints and icons, but to a real world of discipline and dignity, allowing, at the same time, some excitement. Reading how fine I am makes me think of myself as a slacker; that I should have had twenty or thirty boyfriends in the last ten years, instead of five or six; a dozen girls, instead of zero. What I'm afraid of here is that life will in fact even out. I had a totally normal boyhood, a zero date because of the library high school and college career, normal dating, but exceptionally fine girls, for ten years, then married at twenty-nine. Four years of that, and then twenty-three years with no heterosexual interlude of any significance. The law of averages just plain say I'm for it. My specific worry is that Samantha and Rhageedha will even the score in less than half an hour, leaving me Mr. Normal, once again, and, as a certainty, you won't be reading any novels by Mr. Normal any more than you would read one by the guy next to you in the elevator. It's intensely exciting. Yet, if a "Truman Show" camera was following my life, how soon you'd snore. I am so absolutely uninteresting. I don't leave the house for ten days at a time. I work eighteen hours a day. I cook one meal, and chug two or three glasses of milk each day, exactly as I did the day before, and will tomorrow. Five boys come to visit, plus Samantha and, now, Rhageedha. We do not have sex, we talk about school. Samantha and I make out and pet a little, once in awhile. Zero at the bone. No parties, no literary friends, no cafes, no trips or excursions, just a monitor, a keyboard, and my 150-watt Sony. If I shuffled by you on the street you'd no more make me out than Salerie was able to pick out Mozart in the famous movie scene. If you did, you'd be twice as disappointed (not half). What Tom Wolfe spends for a glowing white suit, and natty accessories, I haven't spent for clothes in my life, and my only accessory is absolute genius. I am in no way a Bohemian, neither artist's granny glasses nor poet's beard. I don't dance, I don't play cards, I don't posture or pose. I don't chase girls or boys. Seems to me I just work, wander around my beautiful little house, and go back to work. Yet under the hum-drum facade is a life of manly adventure that would scorch the pages of "Argosy", though, since my adventures include young, bare-breasted African girls, "The National Geographic" might be interested. I wonder how this stacks up against an Arkansas trailer camp. The kids would be white, but likely sullen and unresponsive; do it, because there was nothing else to do, and, of course, for money. White tourists that go to Haiti after boys (supposedly the initial aids vector into the U.S.) are called `coal miners'. I think I must be a writer because I've lived here over ten years and haven't mined enough coal to soot a saucepan. I had a hundred thousand US dollars when I arrived. I could have bought innumerable young bodies, and bought none. To the extent possible, I've practiced what I preached; set up a long-term safety net for a small group of people. Out of that, yes, has come the occasional partner. Clarence, for example, first came to my house looking for a walk-a-thon donation. He left with a dollar or two, and came back in a few moments and flat out asked me if I liked to `boty'. Over the next few weeks, yes, we became lovers. One hundred percent his idea; no coercion on my part by dollar, word, or deed. Ditto, all the others. If you want manly adventure, leave the belaying pins and bungee in the closet, and set up a support system for some family, somewhere. If you spend a lot of time with them, keeping your hands to yourself, something may come you way. If not, as previously stated, you're on a good enough track as it is. Same thing with writing. Build a life of experience, and the words come to you unbidden and with no groping. The fly in this ointment is that you have to be sincere. Live sincerely, as a fisherman, bus driver, or whatever; you can't `do it to write about it'. Same with your family. You have not to care about IT, you cannot rush IT, and IT may never happen. For example, I've know Samantha over eight years, and there's probably still only a ten percent chance our relationship will be consummated. During the same time, and for the same money, I could have gone to Guatemala and purchased dozens of girls and boys of any age that appealed to my Tendencies. I've never been there, other than to renew my visa; I've never inveigled, seduced, coerced, hit on, or made advances toward anyone to do anything. I can't even get them to chop my yard and mop my floors, much less roll in the hay, yet, out of the dozen I've helped, year in and year out, some willing young people have come my way. Since it is self-evident I don't get along well with adults, I've accepted them as infrequent but long-term partners. (Content with my lot, while wanting a lot more.) Many people reading this might think I'm wrong, and they may be right. Perhaps it is time to put on some pressure. Insist that Samantha sleep over this weekend. She'll be at the very end of her cycle, and we do seem to need something a bit stronger than money in the bonding department. I fault myself for having less of the biker, pirate, okay, bitch, your time had come, mentality than might suit a novelist -- too many show tunes in my impressionable years, no doubt. I'm a crown prince, an ethereal artist, and a pussycat. What's wrong with this picture? Pondering, I come up with the idea that, having five real cats, maybe the pussy is the one for the chop. If she's a thief, shouldn't I get her before she goes to jail? Something like that. And what if I don't? She knows I've supported her and her family, entirely, for over eight years; never even tried to be alone with her, much less touch her, until she started coming to me and touching me, on her own and with her mother's approval. If she doesn't give herself to me, won't she regret it for the rest of her life? If the shoe were on the other foot, it would haunt me, no mistake. Also at issue: if she's old enough to trespass and steal, a certain logic says she's mature enough to spend the night. Honest, folks, I didn't plan all this. I figured Samantha might be good for an occasional rest stop during the long furrow of the second act; yes, that something might finally happen, and a page or two would be born. Now we're up to our ears in thieves and liars; charm and the darker recesses, with Rhageedha, doubled, and galloping along at a pace to challenge my well-honed ability to type it all out. Even if it's just Randy who shows up tonight, that's going somewhere, and if the boy does other things like he kisses, The Least Reverend Alex Christopher, Harvard, '96, and the Mushroom Hunters, may have to wait another hundred pages to get a something-or-other in edgewise. Pledge. If it isn't of interest, in the Nifty framework, it will not be included. At the moment, six or eight dead handsome boys and a dynamic duo of cuties, if ever there was one, allow a pretty loose rein. If they begin behaving, they'll be left to the obscurity of the masses, but, by misbehaving, they help define what misbehavior is all about, and so play a role. How much of one? There's a terrific question. How far can I let Samantha lead me astray? Should I take a couple of provocative pictures of her, perhaps Rhageedha, too, and hang out at the Riverside Cafe, waiting to invite good looking young guys to come out to the house and party? Charge for it? Pimp the girls and maybe Randy, who's the pedophile's perfect age? The bleak thing is that as a novelist, that's exactly what I should do. Go right out to the very edge, and tell the tale. No more languorous days in my work bed, spinning fantasies our of thin air, but realistic descriptions, of, say, the expression on the face of a cute young six-six guy I see around town from time to time as he becomes supercharged inside Rhageedha's tiny body; her clawing, yelping and thrashing as she feels him begin to cum; the disposal of the inconveniently large body when he fails to survive the experience. The hunt for the next male. If it could be done without drugs or alcohol, it might be worth a shot. My girl is a material girl, I will never trust her the least part of an inch; if she wants the bold track, hey, I'm fifty-six -- gotta die of something one of these days -- and a literary immortal, why should I raise a fuss? Fact of the matter is, I have enough skill in these fingers to point on that if the girls and I don't end up on the wild side, I'm denying them something akin to their right to pursue happiness. They are persistent visitors; do they entirely not know what they want because of a number seven or a number fifteen? Seems that's as ridiculous as saying they do know something because they are seven or fifteen. It has taken many stupid people many long centuries to come up with the existing codes and statutes. A look at things, generally, shows they were monumentally incompetent on a hundred fronts, so why would they suddenly be right when they say this person can't do this harmless thing and that person can't do that harmless thing? If the lines are drawn too tightly, no one can color between them; if too loosely, everyone gets fat. The problem is exacerbated when we discover the lines must be re-drawn from time to time. In the old days, there were The Lone Ranger and Tonto, but now it's The Artist and his Groovy Chicks, plus five empty bedrooms. The best little whorehouse in Dangriga? That'll take some paint and fixin' up. Meantime, guess who has the best little whores. I'm even recalling the nickel/dime security camera I saw in town recently; couldn't cost two hundred dollars. I have room on top of my stereo for a nine-inch receiver, so a video to text transfer would be a piece of cake. Keep an eye on the kids. Which would you vote for? Samantha as thief, sure to get caught, done over by the cops, and imprisoned, or as a girl on her back, her fabulous belly and tender thighs coaxing selected males for hours at a time? She's taken home, hearth and apple pie off the table, and it's for me to field the ball in play, not ask for a new game. That it's all happening smack-dab in the middle of one of the greatest novels of all time seems like overkill, or, it could also be that the overkill was in the practice and preparation, and the story is of interest only due to the exaggerated skill set of the teller. (Wouldn't that be a joke on me?) I actually find myself vamping, for the first time, ever. Samantha and Rhageedha will be along in an hour or two, turning on the burners and lighting the oven. Also, Shirley, Rhageedha's mother, is meant to stop by for the riot act. Samantha is now an abject lesson in what happens as a result of under-involvement. I don't want the same for her daughter. If she's going to come over at all, I want her here a lot, and want a good deal of intimacy. If I'd had Samantha with me these past five or six years, she'd be reading in spite of her diminished capacity, and she wouldn't steal anything from anybody. I want the girls here and hot, or gone so I can find someone else. It can be Billy Graham or Billy the Kid with them, for all I care. Now that I've brought my ability as an essayist to the equal of my skill as a novelist, I can switch hit at will, and, since truth, at least in this case, seems about as strange as fiction, keep the game going all night long. What would be fun now would be adding a third dimension, or, element, if you will. Fiction. Non-fiction. That would seem to be it, but it's not. There's anticipation, which might to turn out to be either of the above. For example, I'm trying to anticipate Samantha's reaction if I tell her I want Rhageedha as a spare girlfriend, in case she, Samantha, is trotted off to prison. Suppose the younger girl lies on the bed and starts giggling at the models in their swimsuits, as she did last night, and I lead Samantha's hand to her bare belly; what would the reaction be? If we decide to party in the future, how will I feel the first time she goes off into a bedroom holding the hand of a tall, dark stranger; how will I feel holding her, when he brings her back an hour later? I've said it before and I'll say it again, inquiring minds will want to know. What is the social argument? Dangriga gambles ten thousand Belize dollars a day, twenty-thousand on Sunday; it holds some kind of per-capita record. That nullifies any economic issue. Will the town be a better place or a worse place for the echoing rumors and whispers of dark scandal? Since ninety-eight percent of its energy seems to be devoted to laundry, it's hard to see how more livid gossip would make much difference, one way or the other. And the alternative is the girls running loose, unsupervised, randy sluts passed from bed to back seat, with no one at a keyboard to record their tale. How much does the `doomed society' syndrome play in this thinking? America is getting so fat, confused, and Jewish, it simply cannot endure, or want to endure, much longer, and as it goes, so goes the world. Fatalism. Like the George Kennedy line in the Academy Awards scene from the "Naked Gun" film: "If I'm gonna go out, I'm gonna go out happy," as he kisses a nearby beauty. I think it's there. If conservatives ruled, and the house was in order, I'd be inclined to go extra miles before I slept in trying to steer Samantha onto the accepted straight and narrow, even knowing there was a minimal chance of success. As it is, this would likely simply deny her the pleasures of being young, beautiful, and female, and we'd dither away, virgins unto untimely death. Kids passing in the street. School's out. Waiting. Maybe Bev will get impatient with starving and sell her to someone else -- the guy in the red Dodge truck. Call my bluff, and dump me instead of my dumping her. Leave me like the wolf at the little pig's brick house, huffing and puffing and yelling "Curses!" (Of course, I could save my breath and my money and sojourn on Tobacco Caye for a week or two so as to fill in any gaps in my romance novel.) She came back shaved from Seine Bight a month or so ago, so maybe this has already happened. Novels are meant to live with the twists and turns of playful and wicked life, and finding myself set up as an arch cuckold would fit a boiling plot to a T. If I was so busy feeding them I never had time for anything else, the hero comes across as noble and likeable. Nothing goes to waste. We've had the tempest, now to build the teapot. Andrew showed up. I explained my theory, and he alluded to the one loophole I acknowledged as a footnote, and that was that Lilly is a chronic and well-known thief. Still, his sister operated in complete silence and obvious complicity. Then, of course, Samantha showed up, and the teapot was complete. She is such a shocking beauty; no neon, all soft glow and quiet light. She has a hundred smiles, all reflexive, all earned, nothing gratuitous, no public display, but private, intense, and just the ticket for having every jailer in the place eating out of her hand. On top of this, she is hands-down the best kisser in the universe, which is a cryptogram saying, yes, they got their grocery money, and, yes, things are back to normal, whatever that is. I told her point blank we were going to have to start sleeping together, and very soon, and she dropped her head to my chest and purred like a happy cat. Seems to me I said somewhere along the line I took these little editorial forays as kind of a busman's holiday to alleviate the incredible strain of publishing a novel as one writes it (with no chance to go back and re-write early chapters). In the meantime, the non-fiction plot has thickened so fast and so dramatically, with Randy and Samantha and Lilly and Rhageedha, it now seems like it might be an idea to return to the world of make believe for a little R and R. Passing 170,000 words, approaching one million characters, fifth novel in under two years: I'm sure I have a real good idea of what R and R is all about. Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the novel, Andrew stopped by for a second visit, after dark, if that tells you anything. I read him his paragraph, and he thought it was okay. So, now, another one, which I won't exactly read him. We've been occasional (weekly) partners for the last three years. He's been inside me three times in the last month or so, the last time, while I was lying on my back. He was premature, but fully mounted and I felt him cum very plainly. Last time he was here, I masturbated him from behind and watched him ejaculate for the first time. Tonight I sucked him and we were perfect together. I sensed his saltiness while I was deep-throating him, and was able to take most of his sperm on the tip of my tongue. He jerked me off very well, bringing me steadily up over five minutes to a fast, hard cum. My diet has really kicked in an my belly looks like a kid's. Cool, if I say so myself. Aside from one time with Clarence, he's my only anal partner. Maybe I need more practice, but, so far, I don't see it as anything that special, though he cums so fast and so hard, it must be exciting for him. I've never attempted to penetrate him, nor any other boy. Jose and Steven never did it that way with me. It's nice to know I have things yet to try and learn, as one would not like becoming jaded and too worldly. Call me Hugh Hefnerito. "It feels so natural," Ellen whispered. "The Egyptians had no word for `virgin'," Josh said, "and it isn't too hard to imagine a three year old female with her ten year old brother inside her, perhaps even having trouble staying awake." Josh felt his daughter tense for a giggle, but the fatal movement was nulled out at the last moment, leaving both the male and the female gasping and sweating. When Ellen had regained control of her young body she said the only way they would be able to stay together was to find something to talk about. "How about Granddad?" she whispered. "He's a very different lover than I am," Josh whispered back; as glad as his daughter for the diversion; "much more masculine. He thrusts hard and fast, and cums while he's being super hot with the girl." "Is that how he's being with Mom?" Ellen asked. "Yes," Josh said. "And you're with Mom the way you are with me?" she quizzed. "Yes, darling," the young father said, "we talk and make out. I cum after half an hour and she does a minute or two later. It's very intimate, but once in awhile, she likes her big, athletic father to lie her back, spread her legs, and use her like a tiger, leaving her sopping from a massive ejaculation. "And," the young man continued, "if you want, and your mother and I do want, you can find out for yourself by visiting any time you want." "I think I like talking better than sex," the cutie replied, "so I'll stay with you." "It's something you want to know, not think, darling," Josh said, "so we've booked you to be with him for a week at Christmas." "I'll go as long as you're there to hold my hand," Ellen whispered. "I will be, darling, if you want," Josh said, "and there's not an ounce of pressure for you to go at all." "No," the girl replied, "I want to. He's the coolest man in the world next to you, and the fact he's my real dad is exciting, too. I doubt any of those Egyptian girls felt the way I do, and I'd feel the same way with him." "Emotionally, yes," Josh observed, "but physically, he's much more exciting; his chest is matted and that will make your nipples swell more than with me, and he'll make you cum three or four times, while it will only happen once with me." "I like tidal waves more than surfing waves," Ellen said, instinct telling her in no uncertain terms where her naked you body was headed. "You're your mother's daughter," Josh replied. They lay together for long minutes, then she whispered, "Oh, Dad, I knew it would be perfect." His hard pulsing eased after half a minute, and he held his child gently as he felt her tense like a coiling spring, and first mewing, then silent and gasping. "Oh, god," she murmured almost to herself, then her body began quaking violently and her legs and arms flailed and grabbed his strong, athletic body. It went on, violently, for twice the length of his cum and left her shaken, lank haired, and sweating, her head lolling from side to side and her eyes unfocused. "You are definitely the strong, silent type," she whispered as she came back to consciousness. "And you are an extremely well fertilized young girl," Josh said. "Will it happen again?" she asked. "All night, if you want," Josh said, "maybe six or seven times." "Sounds like a good way for a girl to get pregnant," the child said. "Your breasts are like you Mom's the first time she did," Josh said, "so it could happen. You'll have to test every few days. If you get a positive, you'll have to kill the child after a month, while it's still an embryo. After that, we'll use foam until you're big enough to bring a baby to term, then the choice is yours." "My only choice is a girl so her dad, or her granddad, since you'll be both, can teach her about private tidal waves, but when she's seven or eight; no more of this ten stuff. Deal?" "A girl is acceptable," Josh admitted. "Dad?" Ellen asked, "before, when we talked, it kind of kept it from happening too fast, now if we're talking, it seems like it's taking us somewhere. It's neat." "I guess it prolongs in a negative and a positive sense," the young father said. "I like them both," the girl said, now fully conscious and smiling up at him, wriggling her hips slightly in a mature feminine gesture of happy welcome. She emphasized the gesture by bringing her naked legs once again up on her powerful father's muscular thighs. "Tell me about your first time with Granddad," she said. Remember the guy with no life? The one who spends all day typing and occasionally gets up to cook or let the cats in our out? The guy with the super awesome secret life? He claims to live in a novel, right? His novel just got a whole lot bigger. Queenie showed up, that's all it took. Queenie and the writer go back seven or eight years. She is Samantha's age, and an outright, drop-dead beauty where Samantha is a quiet and special beauty. Not only did this extraordinary fifteen year old show up, she's bringing the whole gang to occupy the downstairs apartment. Plus, Shirley was by the writer's house an hour before Queenie, receiving the riot act, and agreeing to let the girl come often and try to make something of the situation. The writer now finds himself in the position of the man with the pail at the dike. However fast he transcribes, more keeps happening. Queenie's mother, Daisy, is a former hard drinker and crack addict; girlfriend of Linford, my fishing partner of seven years ago. I was investigated twice for feeding her and her brothers; once again, Dangriga's most hard-scrabble family. That went nowhere fast. Several times the girl came to me late at night needing emergency money. Once she said Junior, her older brother, chopped his foot with a machete and needed a taxi to the hospital. Two days later Junior showed up with two perfectly good feet. Other similar stories. My favorite was when she wanted a dress for communion, which I provided, then wanted to buy hair pieces to go with it. I couldn't stop laughing. She is a total, high cheek-boned, dazzling beauty and the thought of her trying to improve herself by clipping on plastic hair was just too much. Even today she began with a story about some lump in her chest that the doctors needed to take out (for fifty dollars) or she'd drop down dead. I listened to her heart, and I didn't need to spend a minute in medical school to tell it was lub-dub perfect.. She has a beautiful, rich Creole voice, fabulous posture, and if she gets a guy making less than a million a month, she's throwing herself away. (Of course, it could be a nice guy, with an ordinary income, but novelists don't write about them.) The writer is especially happy because Queenie is not interested in him as a boy; he can treat her as a daughter, but Samantha doesn't know that, and that's just exactly what the novelist's number-one vixen needs, a little competition. She has a tendency to come for the money, and run, leaving the wolf lonely. With Queenie and Rhageedha around for company, the smart girl will watch over her wolf with great care, it is hoped, in the process, giving up her thieving ways. So the endlessly patient, endlessly toiling scribe now gets to sit back and pick the girl who loves him best, and, if he vaguely wonders what happens in the event of a photo finish, at least he has time to prepare himself for the eventuality, like a soldier setting his affairs in order on the eve of battle. As his luck seems to be running, the next time he's downtown, Laura will come running up and say, "Tom, it was stupid of me to say I don't go out with older men. I want to apologize. Would you like to have dinner with me at the Pelican?" This is hard on the writer, for he knows that he who doth tarry with more than one, most oft endeth up with plain old none; even knows this is how it should be. The life of a literary giant is as extreme as it gets, under the best of circumstances; should he try to live as he writes, he's like a doctor treating himself or a lawyer representing himself, in a word or two, beyond help. Then again, someone has to do it or we'll all die of boredom. Better to die of fat, so, the deal is, you get fat, and I'll be exciting. "Mr. Atwater," eleven-year-old Josh Evans asked, "did you want to see me?" "Yes, Josh, come in," the rangy, athletic forty year old said, "Coach Metcalf recommended you and I thought you might fit in with our little organization here." The boy entered the office and sat opposite the desk, gazing around at the carting trophies and pennants on the walls. "Probably better not to breathe," he thought to himself, "because even inhaling could wake me up from a dream like this." Frank Atwater, in his turn, gazed at Josh. He'd seen the boy around town but never met him. "I'd hire you for the team picture," he said, smiling, "not that hiring means anything, because you don't exactly get paid for running around the track in front of an eighty-horsepower engine." Josh had to breathe, so he did, then sat still as a mouse. "Of course, you do get paid for working in the shop, running errands, taking tickets, and pushing a broom around once in awhile," the track operator went on, "though, as a child laborer, you won't be making much of a fortune to start." "That's okay," the boy managed to squeak. "Yeah," the man said, "I suppose a couple of hundred laps a week does count for something in the quid pro quo department." "I'll try to be a pro," the boy said. "Well," Frank said, "Bill Metcalf said you had the best reflexes he's seen in a long time. Interesting, because you're so tall and half-grown. Anyway, it's a great sign; if you're tight now, you can only improve with some practice, and if you don't grow into a six-six mother's son, like I did, you might go a ways in the glamorous world of eating hot rubber and breathing hot oil." "I'll try," the boy said. "Bill said that about you, too," Frank said, "first on the floor and last off. Fifteen laps instead of twelve. One of the reasons he recommended you to me was he wanted you to back off on the physical stuff. It's okay to be active at your stage of development, but too much pounding takes its toll, and there's a lot more to life than basketball." "He has been whistling me off quite a bit lately," Josh said, "I guess that's why." "Leave it to the boys with no other options," Frank said, "let them cope with the arthritis and chronic back pain, you're meant for better things, like fiery rides along the wall and final turn spinouts. Two or three of those, and I'll have you alongside me at the blueprints, teaching you the intricacies of trig as they apply to milling steel in the search for that extra hundred r.p.m." "My mom's been coaching me at math, so I might be able to learn some," the boy allowed. "So I heard," the man said, "which means you've got the reflexes to drive, and may even have the brains to move on if the novelty wears off." "The only thing I'll be fit for when that happens, sir," the boy said, "is a cadaver for a medical school." "Ah," Frank sighed, "enthusiasm. I remember it well. `Nothing great was ever achieved without it', Ralph Waldo Emerson." Josh didn't say anything in response, just slowly scanned the plaques and trophies until he made Frank blush. "Just kidding," the man finally said, adding: "yeah, I had plenty of it; still do." "Duh'uh," the boy intoned, thus initiating the bonding process. "Did Bill -- Coach Metcalf -- tell you much about me?" Frank asked. "Even before this afternoon," Josh said, "you did a lot of swimming." "That's the ticket," Frank responded, "hammer thee not thy cartilage as fair youth to manly grace doth sprout. Limp not, thy life away, whilst thee supporteth not thy pill roller, thy charlatan, nor thy witch doctor." "He said he could always find you at the library," Josh said. "My grades bore mute testimony," the handsome entrepreneur said, "as I found letting teachers interfere with my education was like swimming in heavy mud. I lucked out with a knack for maths, and I was all hands and feet, so I could swim. The library made me comfortable with the world and its variances because it taught me any lack of terror regarding just about everything means you're in that medical school reeking of formaldehyde." "And not likely to graduate with your class," the eleven year old observed. The man's eyes caught fire. "Bill didn't say you were a package, or the complete package, he just said you were t-h-e package. He's sixty-two now, so I guess a little droll understatement is his idea of being funny." "He said your IQ is about three hundred," Josh said. "Actually, that's the number of people on earth who are smarter than I am," the man said with a grin. "Witness yourself sitting here in my office." "As long as I don't have to leave, I'll buy into anything," Josh said. "Well spoken," Frank responded, "but you've passed so many tests, so fast, we do need to take a little walk." They left the office, crossed what's now known as a campus to a lab marked Ultres Engineering. "Get the name?" the older male asked as he palmed a glass plate. "'Tres' is French for `very'," the boy said, so, it reads `Very Ultra'." "Welcome home," the man responded, and Josh got that, too. It made him blush. Now we get to where the rubber meets the road in the genius department. The following is the author's intellectual property. Anyone wishing to pursue the concept herein described can contact him through the offices of J.M. Forbes and Co., in Boston. Again, this is my property. "It's almost silent," Josh said. "Go ahead an touch it; use this rag so you won't burn your finger," Frank said. "Is it running?" the boy asked. "Twenty-one hundred r.p.m.," the engineer replied, "production units won't be quite as smooth, because we hand built the prototype, but they'll be just as quiet." "Six cylinders," the boy noted. "Thirty cubic inches," the man added, "twenty-five horsepower." "Is it for carting?" the boy asked. "No," Frank said, "no torque, no throttle response. It's designed to run at a constant speed, like a diesel, but it uses gas so it won't rattle and smoke." "It's too big for a lawnmower," the boy said. "It has a number of possible applications," the engineer said, "all relatively minor, and one that's monumental. Can you guess what?" "I'd guess as the piece de resistance in a primo art gallery, but I don't think that's what you're getting at," Josh said. The little engine was a boxer, horizontally opposed cylinders, small enough to fit in a box for hiking boots, a dazzling miniature of the power plant used in generations of Porsches and light aircraft. As its induction system was on the bottom, only the burnished aluminum forging of its basic shape formed the deliberate sculpt of its beauty. The humming engine was mounted on a jig and Josh studied it from all angles. "Interesting detail that you have the header pipes wrapped in plastic tubing," he noted. "They'll be slicker on the production models," the man said, "but what it allows is using composite header pipes two inches off the manifold, with a simple stainless insert for the connection to the cylinder head. El cheapo, and they last forever." "Three water pumps," the boy noted as he continued his inspection. "Yes," Frank said, "if they stop spinning, their impellers retract so even one can operate the system. If they all fail, or the temp climbs for any reason, there are sensors so slow down the engine, than shuts it off." Nice details, but what was it for? The quietest, smoothes lawn tractor on the block? That was hardly `monumental'. "Do you give up?" Frank asked. "I guess so," the boy said. Hey, he was eleven. "Then pull aside that curtain," Frank said, "but first pull up a stool so you won't fall down." There was one handy, so why not. The boys at school whispered about vibrators, maybe the machine powered one for a hundred girls. Not. Frank pulled back the curtain, and was glad he was sitting, after all. Now the small engine piggybacked on a larger one of the same design. It fit at the back of the big engine, with the space to the radiator occupied by a long, thin generator, to which's forward end was attached the a/c pump and the power steering pump. "Oh, my," was all Josh could think of as he got off his stool for a closer look. "It's an auxiliary power plant, APU." "So it must have electric drive," Josh said, fingering the potent looking generator. "For edging along in traffic, or puttering around town," the engineer acknowledged, "but if you step down on the gas, the big engine starts immediately, and that's rated at two-hundred horsepower with performance options." "How many batteries," the boy asked. "Two truck twenty-four volters," which do take up some trunk space, but they add fifty instant horsepower, so they're worth having around." "So then you can creep without using either engine?" the boy asked. "Yes," Frank said, "and not only that, since it's all electric, you can use a simple sonar device, like on a Polaroid camera, to keep you say ten feet behind the vehicle in front of you, so all you do in stop-and-go traffic is nudge the steering wheel once in awhile to stay in your lane. The stopping and going are automatic, up to eight miles an hour, then the driver is alerted to take over, or it the vehicle comes to a slow stop." "You could almost sleep behind the wheel," the boy observed. "You could sleep as long as you were in heavy traffic on a straight length of road, then the system will ping when it starts to move." "Meantime, you're burning no fuel at all," the boy said. "If you charge the batteries with the optional solar panels, no earthly energy is used," Frank explained, "unless it's hot enough for the air conditioner, then the small engine kicks in so you're feeding twenty-five horses, instead of two hundred." "And cold weather?" the boy asked. "With the electric water pumps, the small engine can take the chill off down to about freezing, after that, you might want to heat the cabin by running the big engine." "Where's the starter motor for the small engine?" Josh asked. "The generator serves as a starter motor," Frank said, "that's why it's not an alternator, plus, a generator can dump its full output to the electric motors, doubling the amperage from the batteries." "Where are the motors mounted?" the boy asked. "On the front wheels," Frank said, "that way we let the big engine drive the rear wheels, so no CV joints." "Get rid of the timing belts, and you'll have an old fashioned, durable car," Josh said. "Go to the head of the class," his boss replied, "we take a three percent beating on efficiency, for a thirty-year, wrench-free system." "Pushrods, forever," quoth the boy, adding that he couldn't think of any market that wouldn't go for the concept. "Long-haul salesmen are the only ones we can think of," Frank said. "If you're cruising most of the time, the system just adds weight. But for ninety percent of light vehicle usage, the system will save money and vastly reduce pollution. Once the driver is familiar with it, and assuming a solar collection site, it will actually be possible to go through light traveling days without ever starting either engine. In fact, all normal running around can be done either on battery power, alone, or with the pony engine added to the batteries, yet when you want to pass a truck on a hill, do a thousand miles in a day, or haul a trailer, just step on the pedal and go." "How much power from the electric motors?" the boy asked. "Ten, each," said the man, "with maximum torque at zero r.p.m." "If twenty horses can't get you out of a ditch," the boy noted, "you probably shouldn't be there in the first place." "It's a thought," Frank agreed. "What do you call it?" Josh asked. "Six-Pac Pac, for this model," Frank said, "like a pack of two six-packs; then there's a smaller version, with twin four-cylinder engines; maybe, someday, an Eight-Pac Pac with something like three-hundred horsepower from the big engine and fifty from the APU." "How much does it cost?" asked the student. "Our thinking is a little sky-high here," Frank admitted, "but we say nothing extra, for two reasons. First, if it were universally adapted, the economies of scale of building one power plant for an indefinite period of time would greatly reduce the cost, and, second, since the computer allows the electric motors to boost initial acceleration, we can get by with lighter drive-train components including transmission and rear end. Assuming these, the added cost would be nominal, if anything." "And the motor/generator acts as a flywheel," Josh said, fingering the humming unit on the test stand. "Pretty trick, at that," Frank said. "How about the induction system for the pony engine?" the boy asked. "It works updraft instead of downdraft, so we just plumb it into the throttle body of the big engine. The two are mated, then you turn a long screw-jack, and it clamps the intakes together. The exhaust is joined to the Y-pipe of the big boxer engine, and actually acts as a partial muffler by breaking up the pulses from the big engine." "All water-cooled," the boy noted. "Why not?" Frank asked, rhetorically, "the technology of plastic tubing, fittings, and small electric pumps makes it a drawing and execution exercise. As we said when I was a boy, cool." It was startling to think of him as not a boy, Josh realized. Age was weird stuff; a forty year old could be a teenybopper, and he knew a few kids his own age as old and slow as grandma's cow. Coach Metcalf, ditto. He wasn't boyish, not in any calculated way, just nothing to do with old. "Speaking off which," Frank added, "we have a pool attached to the R and D department. More thinking size than Olympic size, but everyone's gone home, so we'd have it to ourselves if you'd like to hang around for awhile." "I don't have to be home until seven," Josh said, "and if we called my mon, I could stay later, if you wanted me to." Frank was thrilled by the boy's use of `we'. "Then a swim and dinner, half-way like a real date, would that be okay?" he asked. "Yes," Josh said. They toured the lab for another half hour, Frank explaining that he wanted Josh to test drive one of their Six-Pac Pac vehicles because young boys liked to steal cars, and a diligent engineering department tried to cover all eventualities when it came to satisfying consumers. Josh wasn't sure if his friend was kidding, or not, and, the closer they got to the door marked `pool', the less he cared. Frank seemed nervous, too. "My wife died three years ago," he said, "since then, it's been getting these projects done, so, truth to tell, I haven't had time for much in the way of a life. Work, take care of my daughter, and repeat. Bill thinks you'd be perfect for Polly, but she's only nine, and he thinks you'd be perfect for me, which might impress you as being too kinky for words, but, as I said before, you passed so many tests, so fast, I think he's so right, I thought I'd at least bring the subject up and tell you that what does or does not happen between us as man and boy will have no influence or effect, whatever, one way or the other, on your status as an employee. You can tell me to jump in a lake, and you're still hired, or, we can become avid social partners, and I'll fire you if you don't fit in." "I don't think loving the real you would present any difficulty," Josh said, blushing half red. "Just save the serious stuff for my daughter," the man said, "and the radical stuff for Ultres." "That sounds about right to me," the boy said as they reached the pool door, still nervous, though comforted by the middle ground between the convention of someday dating the beautiful Polly, whom he knew by sight, and the change-the-world innovations of the R and D department. The pool was a Greek beauty; small, but delicately tiled in white and blue and surrounded by marble benches. Frank indicated a changing room, and took an adjoining one for himself. In a couple of minutes the males emerged in white terry robes and by accord sat together, Josh on Frank's left. "Did the suit fit?" Frank asked. "I don't know," Josh said. "You're not wearing it?" There was a sudden sick husk in his voice with the words. "Do you want me to?" Josh asked. "I just want to be very sure that you're comfortable," the older male whispered. "I was totally nervous my first time with Bill, so I want everything to go at your speed, the way things went with us." "Did you wear a suit with him?" Josh asked, his voice in the same ethereal gutter as that of his mentor. "For three dives. Then something made me take it off for the fourth dive. But I didn't dive. I just stood on the end of the low board, so he could see me." "What did he do?" the eleven year old asked. "He watched me for a few minutes, then got out of the shallow end, where he'd been checking my dives, and pulled down his suit. Then he put his hands behind his neck, and arched his back, so I did the same thing. After that, he walked down the side of the pool and stood at the bottom of the ladder." Frank looked into the hot eyes of the boy, and continued with his story. "I backed off the board," he said, "and down the ladder. He stood still when I came against him, and his penis came up between my legs. Then he started to molest me with his hands, and I let him. "We did that for a long time, and he asked me if a man had ever touched me before, or if I'd ever experimented with other boys. I told him nothing had happened. He said he wanted to cum, and asked if I wanted to be with him when it happened. I said yes, so he dried me off and took me into his office. He sat on the old leather sofa, and I sat on his lap, facing him. He showed me what to do so I could see his sperm, and then he taught me how to french while he was getting ready to spray. Then he whispered that he was cumming, and I looked down to watch. It took a little while, but all of a sudden he started getting me wet." "With the sperms?" Josh asked. "Yes," Frank whispered. "It was white and hot and it kept coming until it was all over me and him, both." "Did he make yours come out, too?" Josh whispered. "He stood me up, and got behind me. I spread my legs really wide even without him telling me to, then he put his left arm around my chest and did the same thing to me that I did to make him cum. Pretty soon I could feel it was going to happen, so I told him. When it started, he turned me to him so my semen wouldn't spray on the carpet and so he could get it on his legs. "We did it three more times the same way. I'd dive for half an hour, then show him my boner. He'd molest me on the ladder or in his office, then we'd go back to diving. Finally, there wasn't as much sperm at the end, but it felt even more intense as we got used to touching each other. He told me he was molesting one other boy, who had a steady partner at home, and asked me for a date. We went together from then on, and even now we spend a weekend or two a year together." "Do you still get a boner with him?" Josh asked. "Not for the last few years," Frank said. "That's pretty typical. We ended up friends, not lovers. But something could happen, again; I still think he's physically attractive, and I guess I haven't gone too far to seed." "Did you ever molest a boy together?" Josh, the advanced curios asked. "Once," Frank said. "We were hiking and we met a father and son on the trail. Mr. Ellis claimed he had to go into town to make a business call, and asked if we'd watch Chris for the day." "How old was he?" Josh asked. "Nine, almost ten," Frank said "Was he curious, like me?" the boy wanted to know. "Very," Frank said, "it turned out he had a wild crush on his dad, not that far-fetched, because Jen Ellis was about half tiger, and he was pretty frank about wanting to do secret things when they were in their tent that night." "The same things Coach Metcalf taught you when you took your bathing suit off?" Josh asked, apparently as brilliant a conversationalist as he was student and ball handler. "There's something else males do with each other," Frank said, "he wanted to know about that. About kissing and licking his dad. He'd heard other kids talking about it, so he asked if I'd do it with Bill, so he could learn." "Did you know how?" the boy asked. "We'd never tried it, because we'd only been on two dates, but I wanted to, so we hiked away from the trail and found a pool with ferns on the bank." "Did you take Chris's clothes off?" Josh asked. "Bill did that with me, first," Frank said, "he molested me and got me naked while Chris sat on a log, watching. Then he got naked and stood behind me, to show how a man usually takes a young boy. Then I stood at Bill's right hip, and showed him how a kid does it the first time with an adult. By that time, Chris was just wearing his underpants. He came to where we were standing, and let both of us touch him, then get him naked. Then Bill leaned back against a tree and I knelt in from of him on a backpack, so I'd be the right height. Then Bill guided me to him with his hands on my face, and I started experimenting. I taught Chris to use his hands, and then we shared Bill in our mouthes, taking turns licking and experimenting. Just before it happened, Bill pushed Chris away, so he could watch, then he guided him to me, so he could go all the way." "Maybe," Josh whispered, "I could learn about doing it with my tongue the way Chris did, with both of you." "That would be very special, for both of us," Frank said, "meantime, I'd like to cum on you before we go in the pool." "Yes," Josh whispered. The boy shrugged, dropping his terry robe to the marble seat. Frank did likewise, and the two stood, arms at their sides, facing each other, their eyes hot with discovery. Frank was almost nine inches, bent to his left, uncircumcised. Josh's penis was fully man-sized, also uncircumcised, and so erect it stood hard against his flat, pre-teen belly. The man reached for the child's hands, guiding them, then he let the boy experiment. Josh cupped Frank gently with his left hand, and used his right to draw back the foreskin of the jutting phallus. He tried a few grips and strokes, gauging their effect from the tension of his adult partner. In a minute he had learned, and he settled into long, mature strokes, gripping hard and standing close. Instinctively, he wet his right hand in the mature male's flowing seminal fluid, and the shocked gasp of the adult spurred him on, both now craving the hot spray of the ending. "I'm cumming," Frank whispered after awhile. Josh looked down and was staring at the man when it started. Some of the flow covered his pumping hand and he thoroughly wet his partner before instinct told him to hold the ejaculating male's penis firmly at the base. This brought a new torrent of semen, and the boy stared transfixed as it covered his bare chest and raw, coltish shoulders. As Frank's hard, fast pulsing subsided, he gently manhandled the child in front of him, and, bending over, took Josh in the classic way. The boy lifted his feet to the low marble seat and spread his legs widely. Frank leaned into his young body, and began masturbating the eleven year old. After five increasingly tense minutes, the boy choked his warning, and soon his watery, pre-teen cum was splashing wildly on the tile next to the pool. "Mmm," Ellen sighed, "I can feel you cumming again, Daddy." "I was thinking about my first time with your mom," Josh whispered, hoarsely. "Oh, Daddy!" the girl cried out, and in an instant she was a flailing, wild-eyed animal, hands clawing, legs pulling, screeching as she bucked her hips frantically against the adult male, taking his seed while she yowled like a cat.. Minutes later they lay panting in each other's arms. Fizzle. No Queenie and family; supposedly they were to move in today, Friday. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe, like my second tenant, they just won't show up for who knows what reason. Samantha was by in the middle of the day, as it was a half school day. I pretty much laid down the law; either sleep over, or no more money. She didn't return with her night things, so I guess that answers that. Her mother and brother are in a first-degree state of denial over her being a trespasser and thief, and, if I hadn't witnessed her behavior, I'd tend to side with them. Anyhow, it's quire a rift because I think their failure to acknowledge the truth will just encourage her to make other bold moves on the basis of her family being solidly behind her. It reminds me of working in South Central. The blacks were always complaining about the crime rate, but when a suspect was brought to trial, were so absolute in freeing him, that jurors -- all white -- had to be imported to Compton from Palos Verde Estates. Last I new, O.J.'s mother stood rock solid behind her boy, secure in the knowledge she didn't raise no criminals. Fizzle would be a good ending. We'll just slowly lose interest in each other, and move on, I fifteen or twenty thousand dollars a year richer, they, an equal amount, poorer. Bev is very much into `rights' these days, and there's something fundamental about the right to starve, so, while it seems an odd choice, presumably it's one she's thought about and accepts. It's probably good for an artist to be powerless; to be able to say anything, and be ignored, with no one acting out and proving he's a moron, thus knocking him off his high horse. Entertain, funny man. The clown has left the building. And, truthfully, wouldn't it be a bit much if he who dazzled with his literary footwork also blazed an alternative to the dangerous trail of his people? Of such stuff legends are made; the poet prince, the laureate and the law-giver. Better they were separated at birth. You can laugh at me, saving your admiration and fealty for your ballot fodder. If that seems harsh and cynical, look around. What else are you going to do? Fat people are wide at the middle. You must look around them. (And you thought I was having you on, as my English cousins say.) At what point does a writer acknowledge god? Ernest old Hemingway is universally held the archetype novelist's novelist. If I beat him by a million times at his own game, isn't god somehow involved? When the outpouring of talent becomes a torrent, of which I can get a percentage point or two onto the monitor, does one not have to lift his bent old-dobbin head and stroke his chin, thinking to himself, "Hmm, something's going on here." He knows it's unnatural. No one else on earth can do it, can even come close. But in what way? For what purpose? If other's ask why, shouldn't he hire a skywriter for the question? It is said that a tidal wave cannot drive a nail. By the same token, I find myself a god. This is to say while my general influence is universal -- obey or die -- I can't keep Samantha out of trouble, can't bend her path a single inch. This turns out to be unarguable affirmation of my status as a deity, for no god has ever, is not today, nor ever will intervene in behalf of the merest amoeba. God's most useless creation is himself. Since I seem incapable of creating anything useless, that's a vote for the naysayers; those who doubt Thomas. Otherwise, you just sit yourself down at your keyboard and write yourself an essay on where it does come from. Remember, you're talking about an ocean, not a stream, pond, or river. Why so much to one? (And why deny Hollywood, even as Salerie was denied?) Your treatise should be at least twenty-five-thousand words, because the long ball is the breakfast of champions. It should include thoughts on being, by all historical standards, a crown prince as well as nonpareil virtuoso. It think I'm diligent in covering ego issues as I go along, but as long as you don't double your word count, you might want to address the subject. There are some technical asides you might want to touch on. Number one computer user, number one worker, in any sense, number one Web contributor measured in words or hours, stuff like that, so that at least I end up a dobbin, even if it's only the wee manure that ye be partakin' of. My modest lifestyle should play into your words. Teetotaler, modest smoker, and almost infinitesimal drug user. Celibacy? Almost too much of that for it to merit attention; write about the blue sky, instead, seeing as how there's so much less of it. Don't forget Anne. She never told me I was a good lover, because she freaking never had to (in Mexico, if they tell you your Spanish is good, it isn't). Do you suppose she told Tom Cruise? In her last kiss at the Santa Fe bus depot, she used her tongue to tell me she was going to have oral sex with her new boyfriend, to the point he ejaculated in her mouth. Probably, that she would swallow his cum. She never attempted this with me, so, if it turns out he's a better lover than I was, it goes to sabotage. Write their first morning together. His mode of living was described to me as Marriott Motel, so you needn't waste time on the surroundings or atmosphere. If you're comfortable with Nifty's criteria, and work within it, submit your essay for publication (either that, or for heaven's sake send them some money). (Don't send it to me, the spam's so bad I have little desire to go back online) God and talent are the starting point, then a few scenes a la the alternative archives, then religion and politics, with more scenes, perhaps ending up with lifestyle issues and a woman either dumb enough to marry the greatest artist of all time, or smart enough to divorce him for the lawyer's bed and child, or, vice versa. Frank took Josh home with him after dinner to meet Polly, who'd eaten with Nancy Reynolds, her best friend. Typically, for my characters, they found they both liked to read and in half an hour were thick as thieves, sitting Indian style in front of the bookcase in the nine year old's bedroom. (The one with no green eggs and ham or Bilbo anything.) They dated immediately and avidly, Frank unable to help feeling just a trifle smug about the powerful magnets he'd brought together. The father also dated the eleven year old, and was openly affectionate with the boy in front of his daughter when the threesome was in private. Polly responded with a savvy delight, flirting ever more with her drop-dead sexy dad. Two years passed in a whirl of work, grades, money, and family commonplace. Josh spent two or three evenings a week at the Atwater home, often showering with Frank to Polly's excited teasing. The boy developed physically as a result of overnighting with Frank, his gym teacher, and the ten year old son of one of Bill's former athletes. Both mature males ejaculated on the wriggling pixie boy, and Josh licked the heaving chest repeatedly, quickly graduating to taking Frank's sperm directly on his tongue, and swallowing the hormone-rich semen. Since the boy did not overdo this, he grew to an astonishing but not freakish seven and a half inches by his thirteenth birthday. It was some weeks after this that Polly had her eleventh, and this is where Josh picked up his story, as he lay with his daughter breathing now softly against his left ear. "That's the hardest time I ever had being good in my whole life," the birthday girl said, collapsing on Frank's lap and extending her hand to Josh; adding: "I couldn't have done it without you. One suggestive look, double entendre, or Freudian slip, and I would have made a spectacle of myself in front of twenty kids." "The credit due is massive," Josh agreed. "I'd rather have my eyes pulled out than take them off you." "And Dad, who has the biggest, most beautiful penis I've ever heard of, well..." "Well," Frank interrupted, "two jocks to wash tomorrow." "Let's do it now!" Guess who said that. "We were going to take turns raping you on your bed, darling," the athletic father said, "but it would be very comfortable down next to the furnace, and it is never possible to argue with laundry." "Everything I've got on needs washing," Josh added, helpfully. They weren't kidding around. The thought of their princess doing household chores in her training bra and panties was suddenly more alluring than visions of the most exotic bubble bath, candles and incense. They spent an intensely nervous half hour cleaning up the remnants of the party, almost getting fussy because no more delicious anticipation was possible. Finally the last plate was dry and the last cup hung. They emptied the hampers in the two bathrooms in stone silence, passing each other in the halls mute as wood. Then the were at the cellar stairs. Frank and Jose took the baskets down, placed them in front of the washer, and quickly stripped out of their clothes. Polly slipped out of her sandals and stripped out of her blouse and shorts, carrying them down the stairs and tossing them in once of the baskets. The males stood by the machine as she turned it on and began to load it. They scored themselves very high on intuition, for the black curly haired, big-eyed beauty was more soccer mom than languid queen of the night. She half looked like a boy in her blue bandana and with her broad shoulders. "Do you mind if we whistle while you work," the girl's father asked. "Not if you know how to put your lips together and blow," the girl responded, paraphrasing Lauren Bacall. The ribaldry was not Josh's style, but he stood it with good grace. Bawdy seemed trivial, and if he listed a thousand things he felt about Polly, `trivial' would be missing. Frank sensed the boy's discomfort, and loved him for his sensitivity, while wondering to himself at the delicacy of one thing versus another; of ravishing the pre-teen, probably for hours, yet not uttering an indelicate sentiment. It made it fun being human. In a minute the machine was loaded. Both males watched intently as the girl carefully balanced the load before closing the lid. The machine, already warming, now purred and vibrated softly. Polly turned and leaned back against it. Frank and Josh came to her and she stood, arms at her side, while they began touching her belly, stepping close so their penises throbbed hotly under their fondling hands. As she got used to the heat of them, her hands came forward to join theirs, found theirs, and then she was being taught how to fondle and masturbate. The wasn't deliberate, because she couldn't be with two at the same time, so she toyed, spreading their flow of seminal fluid back and forth and squeezing their swollen glans together with her tiny, wet hands. The males found her bra hook, and slowly bared her chest, molesting her tenderly as they took turns kissing her on her hair and forehead. Her breasts were pink swollen buds, hot to their fingers. Every touched shocked her and made her mew and tremble. The male's plan had been to lie Polly on her bed, then Bill was to show her what he did with Josh in the shower, letting the boy cum off on her, so she'd know what was happening when her father mounted her. Now they could tell they both wanted to cum inside her. Frank was about to let Josh be first with her, when he had second thoughts. They changed his mind. If he was first, the boy would be highly excited; additionally, he'd have the excitement of a male mounting a wet female with its associated primal drives. It was dry thinking for such a moment, but, on review, it made sense. Josh, watching him rape Polly, after he, Josh, had cum would be a lesser option. Again, dry thinking; the practical engineer over the wanton lover. But how to compensate for taking Josh's symbolic place as her first lover. It seemed an insurmountable problem, but love found a way. They fondled and kissed the eleven year old for half an hour, then laid her gently back on an improvised bed of folded towels. Josh crouched over Frank, and guided him to the girl. The mature male thrust in fast, short strokes, taking his filly as he always would in the future. He wasn't rough with her, just dominant, taking her fully in minutes, slowing, but not stopping when she wept and the sting of his initial entry, Josh tender and sweet as it went on and on and he settled to his hilt, now grunting over her and beginning to plunge hard with his taut thighs and straining lower back. He swept her hard before him. Twice she yelled out for Josh, and the boy squeezed her hand as she used it to grab her plunging, raping father. Her orgasms tensed her father like winding a spring with the single stroke of a lever, bulging his muscles and triggering a hard, panting sweat. Polly began crying to Josh to make him cum, but before the boy could do he knew not what, she tripped headlong into another hard orgasm, spurring her father to bellow his warning and slam her like an amok machine as she clawed and screeched back at him. Josh saw the sperm gush from between their bodies, and squeezed Polly's hand so she'd know what was happening. They went on for over a munite, then Frank slowed with her, gently left her, and gently manhandled Josh to his daughter. Josh took time to get his girl back, then gazed tenderly into her eyes as he entered. By accord, neither moved. She lay spread eagle under him, her legs on the bed, her arms now extended over her head. The boy remained above her on his arms, looking into her eyes. Neither child moved, while both slowly tensed. Josh lowered to her lips, kissed her, then rose again to stare into her eyes and gaze down over their sleek, childlike bodies. After ten minutes, Polly sensed strong changes sweeping through the beautiful male staring down at her. His breathing deepened to a rough pant, his hair became dank with sweat, she was about to receive her father's gift. Then she was. "Oh, Dad, thank you," she gasped as she clearly felt the beginning of Josh's cum. It lasted until she was beyond marinating control, and two minutes after Josh became still inside her it quaked and rocked her senseless, leaving him slack and hot against his swimmer's chest. It was half an hour before either child could move, and that was the greatest gift of all. And so was Ellen beneath him, limp, damp, now just beginning to catch her breath. "Did she get pregnant from that night?" the girl asked her father. "Yes, darling," Josh whispered. "She was too small to bring a child to a safe weight, so she aborted it in two weeks. After that we used foam until she was twelve. You were a shower baby because your mom never had a period, and your dad found out when he was molesting her. We still argue over who was the first to be sure." "So I was pretty right about our being a different family, wasn't I," the tired, happy girl whispered. "We're not different because of what we do," her father answered, "we're different, because within carefully chosen company, we're open about it. It's not recreation, it's not sport, it's neither addictive nor essential, it has to do with love, but is not love, it is what it is and that's something unique and totally special, all by itself in the whole wide world. "That sounds like the beginning of a story," the girl said with an impish grin. "Not on your freaking life," her dad responded. CONCLUSION The candles in the rectory were burned half down. Alex's audience, like snakes in a flood, had taken off their war paint and settled together on the matrimonial bed, hands to themselves. They were not so much numb as satiated, and not so much satiated as young. He called for a lunch break. No takers, except Corey who wanted to use the bathroom. Perhaps they were right in their youthful ways; working together in the kitchen, knowing what was about to happen, sharp knives, and all of that, might have been ill-advised. They were a pack of young animals on the verge of tame; they'd sat for three hours as one story led to and through another, it was not time for lunch. There was a tap on the door and it opened. Corey coming back from the bathroom. The twelve year old was naked. "Is this okay?" he whispered from the doorway, arms hanging at his side, head bowed as he looked down at his jutting five-inch circumcised penis. Glenn went to the door and led the boy back into the bridal suite, kneeling him on the bed at his sister's left side. Gregg pulled the cloth covering from the naked Crystal, and Glenn helped Corey spread his legs so he could masturbate the boy against his sister's left nipple. By accord, all slipped out of their togas, and, naked, came together to watch the rape of little Crystal Cavanaugh, eleven. Glenn held the child in his strong left arm, and stroked him slowly and gently so the others could see everything he did with the little boy. All were entranced by the candlelight playing over the athletic teen's powerful shoulders hunching over the slimmer recitative of the pubescent Corey. Glenn's almost bull neck, contrasting with the slim, elegant neck of the now panting boy. Their arms, linked, massive trunks, slim branches, the twelve year old's hands delicate on the powerful wrists of the male behind him. "The youngest and the oldest," Ben Cavanaugh whispered to Alex, jockeying the club leader to his sister's right side, urging his legs widely apart, and stationing himself at the tall, young man's right hip. He matched Glenn's slow, careful way with Corey. Crystal, dazed, rolled her eyes from one male to the other; man to boy, and back. Will, next older than Corey, positioned himself behind his sister's head and supported her so she could focus on Corey and Alex, now wetting her budding nipples with their seminal fluid. Vicky and Amy found brothers and guided them carefully in close to their naked little sister, emulating Glenn and Corey by slowly stroking the mature boys as they held their swollen penises against the eleven year old's tender thighs and belly. Gregg positioned the last brother, Nicky, and now the little girl's eyes darted to the sight of four of her brothers and the feelings coursing through her body as they were gently stroked against her delicate, white skin. She reached her right hand up to Ben, who took it and guided her to Alex, cupping her gently against the swollen adult as he taught her to masturbate. Her left hand went to Corey, and Glenn, in his turn, guided the tall, naked angel so that she was holding and massaging a man and a boy at the same time. And so, quietly, gently, sweetly, ends the greatest novel of all time. Young will, holding Crystal's head, maddened by her soft hair against him, began ejaculating soundlessly, spontaneously, cumming hard and fast, his sperm arch two feet in the air to splash heavily on his sister's immature chest. Corey established the proper order of youngest to oldest, and was followed by Nicky whom Vicky guided to a long, shuddering orgasm all over the girl's soft, white belly. Alex, letting Glenn take his place as Ben's first oral partner, flooded the girl repeatedly with as much semen as all the boys, combined. He gently manhandled Ben to the girl, and, hunching over the eighteen-year-old athlete, guided him to Crystal, holding him firmly as he used gentle strokes to penetrate the eleven year old, then a rough lunge to tear her hymen. Glenn replaced the still panting Will, and positioned himself in a squat above Crystal so the now fully mounted eldest brother could find him with his mouth. Gregg knelt behind his roommate, as his sister positioned herself behind him so she could reach around an jerk him off. Ben was every bit a husband to his little sister. When her stinging subsided, Alex removed his hand and the teen took her slowly, tenderly and gently, at the same time bringing Glenn to a fast, hard climax, letting the athletes heavy, white sperm drool from his lips to those of his at first shocked, then gulping, licking little sister. As Glenn subsided in his mouth he lost control inside Crystal. He looked down between their bodies to see his cum well up on their sweating, panting bellies. The sight drove him hard into the girl, and she gasped and panted at the feeling of his hard, deliberate throbs deep in her womb, quickly climaxing with crying mew and raking fingers. An ending is a time for totals. At the national average, Tom Cruise has cum inside Anne something like three thousand times. I have cum in no girl for over twenty years. One for the lawyer. I have published five novels, written six (as well as three original and three adapted screenplays), and published five novellas and six short stories. One for the artist. My beloved traded her dancer's body for a piece of land and put away her brushes. One for nobody. Samantha seems to have pulled the final stunt, cadging thirty bucks this morning with a promise to bring over a new CD and a map of Belize she needed to color for school. Dumped. I know the feeling. The financial savings is so huge, I can't be all that sad. The truest of all adages is, when it comes to romance, not ichthyology, there are just as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. It's been a rocky road, probably richly deserved. Protecting work time makes a prickly cuss out of any artist committed to his absolute best every page every paragraph. What next? "One Fish at a Time" intrigues me. It's the classic two-minute sell. What's your new novel about? It's about producing a fishing show in the Caribbean. The question is whether to write it a la Nifty, go for the huge, instant readership, or toil away on a mainstream manuscript. I think we'll go all Nifty, because I love the work of my fellow writers, and I can hardly say the same about Hollywood. I don't know when, or even if, I'll be online again. I'm sorry for this, as the reader mail has been stunning and terrific, but losing five thousand pages to a virus is what you call a lifetime lesson, even though, in this case, it turned a nice enough little effort into a masterpiece. You know so much, I know so little. You know if you know nothing, that the only place you find anything of me is on the Web, whatever future year it might be. Or has it just begun, and by 2020 I'm being read and taught universally with a bio with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Or a sentence without end. THE END posted by Thomas C. Emerson, Dangriga, September, 2002 xxx