SEAL'd Trust (Brotherhood of SEAL'd Hearts) by Gabi Moore (31)

In fact, what wasn’t fitting was …all the other stuff. Why have a wedding at all? What was the point of covering up the skin, lovely as it was? Why marry one person anyway, when we were all in possession of such beautiful bodies? Bodies that were capable of such wonders? Why didn’t people do this more often? What could be more simple and real than fucking a hot boy on a futon and having a smoke, in other words?

It took perhaps only one or two minutes, but my whole world had been turned upside down. I lay there thinking intently, on my back, with a little crime scene on my belly where my old self had been killed, and joyfully. As quickly as my virginity was gone, all the cogs and wheels of my life – a life built on that virginity – were shuffling and reorienting themselves. And how much space there was left over in my head when all that bullshit fell away!

“Earth to Mel. Hello. Are you still here with me?” he laughed, and I snapped my attention back to his expectant face. I could only smile at him.

“Ah, cock-drunk I see. It’s an effect I have on girls, I know. You need a shower I think.”

I blinked and looked around me, the world a different place. The membrane had been broken, and behind it reality seemed plain and clean enough already. I laughed as he dragged me out of my reverie and we went to the bathroom together.

He playfully slapped my ass. “Such a bad girl” he said.

Sure, why not?

“It’s all that smut and nonsense you bring into the house, Carol. You’re my sister, but honestly, I think some of the blame is yours here,” said my mom, smoking with more spite than she usually did.

“She’s not a baby anymore. She’s 22 for God’s sake. You know, it’s not so bizarre that a young girl like her wants to have a little fun. Such a pretty girl, too.”

“Too pretty if you ask me. And it’s not like she’s got that many good role models to look up to, does she?” here my mom stared daggers at my aunt’s poor confused face. My aunt, feisty woman she was, never quite got the hang of telling my mom to shut up.

“She sees you running around with that …that boy, and she gets ideas I’m sure.”

“Jared? I keep telling you we split up more ages ago.”

Both women returned their gaze to my left hip, where they were examining me. Earlier, I had stretched to reach down a stack of plates and accidentally flashed my newest bit of rebellion: an awesome looking winged eye, heavily tattooed on my pale skin in dark red and black. Now, after all the shrieking had died down, my mother had me pinned in the kitchen, my jeans yanked half down as she kept staring at it, hoping to find the answer to the question, “where did I go wrong?” no doubt.

“Nevermind, the damage is done now!” she said, gesturing to the tattoo, as though it and my aunt’s ex-toy-boy were intimately connected and if she ogled the thing hard enough, it might go away. In a sense, they were intimately connected. But I didn’t like thinking about that. And they certainly didn’t have to know.

I kept lots of secrets these days, some more happily than others.

“It’s devil’s markings first, then drinking and drugs, and next thing you know she’ll be having you-know-what, mark my words.”

I angrily disentangled myself and pulled my shirt down. “You know, you could try not talking about me as though I’m not even here,” I said.

My mother gave me that furious look she had been giving me a lot these last few months. I could see her thinking, stewing up something nasty to say, but the standard “not under my roof” spiel wasn’t working as well since I had moved out months ago. In just a few months, I would be a fully qualified dental technician, so she got what she wanted, in some ways.

“Reverend Peters says that people can get addicted to tattoos you know,” she started again, trying a new angle. “You never get just one, you have to keep going and going until you look like a biker or something.”

I went to grab my bag and put my jacket on. “Mom, Reverend Peters is 100% correct. This is my third tattoo. But don’t worry, the others are very well hidden,” I said, and let myself out. I closed the door quietly, and I could only hear the faint, shocked laughter of my aunt as I walked down the driveway and to my car.

It is true. You can get addicted to tattoos. But that’s not all. You can get addicted to all sorts of things. To porn or drugs. To food. To the absence of something. To feelings. To ideas. And to people.

“Close the door, it’s noisy out there,” he said.

I shut it, sealing us again in the dusky cave I had grown so familiar with recently. He was hunched over something, but I couldn’t make out much in the dim light.

“Open the curtains at least! You’re going to ruin your eyes,” I said. Turns out Jared had tons of secrets, too.

He was studying part time, for one. He had mountains of books hidden all over his apartment. It was third year physics, and his maths notebooks and heavy textbooks seemed written in a cryptic language; his assignments were all submitted secretly, too, without me ever seeing him doing it. Even the good grades he received were hidden for some reason, and he studied for exams in the back of cars and snapped the books closed when anyone came to look.

And he did this now, as though I had discovered him doing something truly embarrassing. Of all the things I had let this boy do to me in the last year, and me him, I had to smile a little that he could still be bashful around me. He shone a boyish smile in my direction and squirrelled the books away.

We sat staring at one another for a while, sizing up how things would play out this evening.

His eyes dropped to quickly take in the shirt I was wearing, the tight jeans. I saw a flicker of recognition in his naughty eyes, and returned my own to him. Fine. It was settled then.

“My mama kicked me out of the house today,” I said with an over-the-top pout. I dropped my backpack to the floor, looking like someone had stolen my candy. I twirled a strand of hair between my fingers.

He smiled that gorgeous sideways smile, just the same one he did when I first met him and couldn’t decide if I wanted to smack him or fuck his brains out. He knitted his fingers together and sat back in his seat like a bad guy in the club scene in a movie.

“Oh? Did she now? And why’s that, little girl?” he said, mocking me.

I sidled up to him a little, still pouting, deliberately avoiding his eyes.

“Oh, nothing. I’ve just been a little naughty.”

He grinned savagely, something playful yet dangerous in the way his hands rested on his knees, as though he was coiled up and ready to bite. I sidled a little closer.

“This is a very dangerous place. You were stupid to come here.” The smile was gone, and in its place came something more sinister. I loved this part. The mood dropped, clicked into a different gear. I shut my eyes and breathed in deeply and out again, just as he had taught me.

“Oh, I’m sorry mister, I’ll just be going then…” I said, picking up my bag and making as to leave out the same door. He stood up quickly, pinning me in my place with steely eyes. I loved how easily he could turn from sweet boy to …whatever this was. I didn’t know. Neither did he. And so we kept doing this over and over again to understand it.

“Drop your bag,” he barked, and I did.

He walked up slowly to me, menacingly, a showy swagger in his step that was seemingly put there to intimidate me. Little flutters erupted in the pit of my stomach. I said nothing; lowered my eyes. He brushed past me and softly closed the door, his hand on mine.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

I gulped. “But, I’m sorry to bother you, I really should just go now sir…”

He had caged me in with his arm, like the jock bully in an 80s High School series, laying claim to the innocent girl who had nothing but some books held to her chest for protection. I couldn’t say anymore. He watched me carefully, amused by my panicked breathing. I was wearing dark jeans and a torn black shirt, but in this moment, it was actually a chaste uniform, a blouse in virginal white and little skirt, and he could see that, too.

He dragged his eyes down the length of my trembling body and then back up again, then extended one finger to touch my collarbone, so gently as though he’d break me by accident. He hooked a dainty gold chain in his finger and lifted it to his face to examine it. A modest gold cross dangled nervously.

“A good girl…” he said, part question, part accusation.

I turned my head to the side, squirming away from his face, from the strong smell of his cologne. His abs were no more than an inch from my body. I was wet already, even though we had played this game so, so many times before. The answer to this half question was no, I wasn’t a good girl, over and over …but we were both compelled to keep asking the question.

He let the cross fall, then with the same finger traced a line along my jaw, grazing against my lips.

“Well you won’t be a good girl for very much longer…” he said and viciously grabbed a clump of my hair, forcing my head to yank sideways. Trapped like this, he set in for a greedy kiss, forcing his tongue deep into my mouth. He tasted so sweet, so wrong; I tried to shove him off me, a little giddy.

His hand went to my throat and slammed me hard against the door. My body went obediently limp, as his face scanned mine. His eyes changed briefly, becoming soft for a second, becoming that same goofy boy who was no more than a few years older than me. He looked into my eyes, giving me split second to use the magic word we had, to tell him that this was too much, that he was hurting me.

I tightened my mouth, stared defiantly at him and said nothing.

All at once he dragged me away from the door and flung me across the kitchen, and I went skidding to catch my balance on the other side of the room. He regarded me with hard eyes.

“Do you know what boys like me do to girls like you?”

I started to cry. Real, hot drops were rolling down my cheeks as I stood there, glee tainted with just a little fear, loving how easy it was to go so far with him. Something came over me in times like this. I had let go, that first night on the futon, and I had been letting go ever since. And now I was standing here, sobbing like a lost lamb, and he never skipped a beat, never wavered. He was going to play with me, and follow, no matter how dark I wanted to go.

What happened next was a blur to me; he tore my shirt off and yanked my jeans down, scratching my skin in the process. Eyes still bleary with tears, he pinned me against the kitchen counter, both hands in fistfuls of my hair. Steadying my hands on the counter, he grabbed my flesh and held me down.

I was so turned on I stopped differentiating between his body and mine, between pain and pleasure, between right and wrong. Under a shower of filthy words, he poured a long, hard stream of dominating energy into my body, and I, delirious and long gone into my own world, absorbed every thrust happily.

After he came, it took the hugest effort to pull his engorged cock from me, so hot and grasping my body was around him, so tightly had we knotted together. From behind, he wrapped his arms round my waist and nibbled my shoulder, as though to wake me and signal the end of our game. I came to, my body still ringing and faint prickles of pain still echoing on my scalp, and on the places on my upper thigh where he had clawed at me, desperate to jam even deeper into my body.

“Dirty little slut,” he said.

My new tattoo eyed him dispassionately. Yes, I was a dirty little slut, and it was all because of him. I hoisted my jeans back on and gave him a long, obscene kiss. He was a delicious kisser, and always had been. I was pleasantly, utterly obliterated, and lay myself down on the futon again, stretching my arms to find his hidden stash under the mattress.

He looked uneasy.

“You’re just going to go straight to …that?” he said, standing naked in the kitchen.

I looked at him. Well, what did he want?

He shook his head and came to sit beside me. His boyish charm was back in full force on his face, no trace of the animal that was here in this kitchen just a moment ago.

“I think that was a little too far, even for me,” he said eventually. His sudden change in tone felt like an insult.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He was meant to be my co-rebel, my partner in crime, not another person telling me what I should and shouldn’t do.

“Nothing. Just maybe we should calm down a little with that kind of stuff?”

For all the time we had been “seeing” each other, all the stolen kisses and secret meetings, I had in the back of my mind that $641 I had tucked away in my backpack. It seemed a lifetime ago to me now; how different I was then. He had never asked for it after that first night, and I had never offered it, and we had marched on with a nasty set of assumptions brewing between us, the money being a sore point – all the wrong kinds of sore, too.

“Why? You enjoyed it,” I said, more than a little hurt. “Who are you to judge me anyway?”

His face tightened. “Who am I? I don’t know, Mel, who am I?”

I smiled nervously, trying to lighten the tension that was growing in the room.

“Who are you? Well you’re my sexy boy toy, aren’t you? You’re my bad boy who’s going to teach me a lesson and…” I pouted playfully and tried on the same voice I had earlier, but he drew back and tightened his face further.

“What the fuck, Mel? Can you just cut that out? I’m sick of all of that. I’m not just a piece of meat you know.”

The spell was broken. My thighs were still sticky and my hair was still tousled, but he was ruining the mood, and fast. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to go. I like to have things planned out, even now, and he had stopped playing his part. He was supposed to be my handsome devil come to lure me away from righteousness, and defile me, and punish my innocence…

I drew back and looked at him, trying to think of something to say to hurt him. He was supposed to be on my side.

“You’re not a piece of meat? Well, tell me honestly then, are you still seeing them?” We had fought about this last time, too. He had sworn to stop seeing his “sugar mommies” but kept at it anyway. He had kept it all secret, the gifts, the short trips. Yet he wanted to judge me? I was a fucked up girl with issues, fine, but what was he?

He looked hurt and hung his head, saying nothing.

“Oh my god …you are still seeing them!” I said, expecting him to jump in and deny it. I stood up, face burning.

“So you’ll do anything for them, as long as there’s cash involved, but I can go to hell? Is that right?”

He said nothing, and I wished with all my heart he would look at me. I threw on my shirt and left, banging the door behind me. I had planned all of this out. And this was not the way it was supposed to go.

The trouble with losing your virginity is that you can only do it once. The trouble with fantasies is that they’re not real. And the trouble with bad boys is that they’re …well, they’re bad.

I went to my dorm room that evening and secretly had to admit to myself that things just weren’t right. That maybe it was me who was the bad guy in this story. That first night on the futon, Jared wasn’t a real person to me, I’ll admit it. He was my ticket out of my “issues”, out of my stuffy ideas abut sex and my unhealthy home life and my toxic, religious upbringing. He was a catalyst, the same one that had released my aunt from of her crazy red chrysalis and now had worked on me, sparking some fierce repressed rebellion in me and letting loose a new beast entirely.

That night, the blood of something old and primal smeared on my belly like a dangerous idea, I had changed. Jared has the eerie talent of being able to reach deep into people and pull out their real desires, pull away their layers and reveal what’s really underneath. He was a “toy boy”, sure, but he was also something like a sexual magician, his irrepressible energy and ridiculous abs conjuring ordinary people into caricatures of themselves.

How could I deny him his talent? How could I be jealous? My aunt had move don fairly quickly and was happy now, so where was the harm? He had been taking money from wealthy, burnt out women for years, and what he gave them went far, far deeper than a quick fuck in their laundry rooms before their husbands came home. It was an unspoken understanding between us. We were an unlikely pair, I knew it, but he tolerated my warped sexuality and I tolerated his …line of work.

Jared had fucked me so hard he seemed to have melted melt my brain – and I was left now with a strange new imprint, a permanent glitch in me that compelled me to live out the same scene again and again. I was stuck as the naughty virgin asking for it, and I couldn’t get out. And he was stuck being my bad boy and I would rather he squeeze my throat than hold my hand.

Now I was a little older, and living alone where my mother would never catch me in the act, and I was running out of space to put new tattoos, and worse, running out of people who cared.

The trouble with having wild fantasies like mine is that sometimes, they come true.

Jared and I didn’t see each other for another year at least.

In hindsight, we were both pretty immature. My aunt had moved to Costa Rica to give my mom something to stress about. Perhaps she’ll get married there to some guy, who knows. We adopted Buttons, who got fat. I finished my degree, although just barely, and, my old good girl image well and truly fouled, I began to relax a little.

I thought of Jared often, how we were ridiculous opposites of each other, how all that weirdness that had happened in his dark little apartment was like the meeting of matter and antimatter, cat and dog, good girl and bad boy.

But opposites sometimes cancel each other out. We had seen to the end of that game and didn’t know what more to do with each other, and so we drifted, I guess. I wondered whether wealthy, sexually frustrated women were still paying his secret way through college, or whether he still kept that same little stash under his futon, like he always did. I went to therapy for the beginnings of an eating disorder. My mother and I threw plates on the floor and I told her I was never going back to church. Mostly, life moved on.

Of course, by now, you can guess that that wasn’t quite the whole story, and that him and I had unfinished business to tend to. That business resolved itself one rainy afternoon, when I bumped into him outside a supermarket. It was unmistakable - I could recognize his body, his gait, anywhere.

“Mel? Oh my god is that really you?”

I spun round to look square into his face, still as youthful as ever, only with a quieter knowing sparkle in it instead of the naughtiness I had remembered. He was different somehow, but only a little. He still had that same audacity that comes with wearing loungewear in public, that cockiness that comes from an effortlessly buff body, that cheeky sideways grin.

Without thinking, I flung my arms around him and gave him a big, broad hug. He was surprised, even laughed a little. It felt easier, so much easier, to just touch him and be close to him than to say words, which I had none of just at that particular moment. He laughed again at me struggling to find something to say, and so I leant in and hugged him again, this time laughing too.

He had finished his degree, he told me, and had recently landed a job he had been interviewing heavily for the past few months. Things were looking up for him. He was going to move, next month, to a new city, and start a new life there. He seemed so happy.

“It was good luck that I bumped into you then!” I said, and we both went a little sad.

He had moved out of his dingy apartment, and, naturally, had long parted with that ugly black futon, the altar on which I had sacrificed all my weird sexual hang-ups. Over and over again. We chatted, and then, just like dusting the cobwebs off an old path we had cut a long time ago, I found myself all at once sitting with him at his place, which he proudly showed off. His decorating skills had certainly improved.

And he was still cute. Damn cute. I remembered the last time we saw each other, the nasty words. I had often felt pangs of guilt whenever I thought how I must have hurt him, how I judged him for letting others use him – all the while using him myself. How after everything, he wasn’t that much older than me, it had just felt like it. Caught up in my own childish drama, I didn’t notice his own quiet ambitions, how lonely he must have felt, how harsh my judgment must have seemed.

He opened a little carved cupboard beside him and extracted a small, familiar box, which he waggled my direction. The old stash.

“What do you say, for old time’s sake?” he said, pulling out a lighter, and some papers.

I laughed. “Some things never change,” I said, but the second I did, I felt sad. Lots of things had changed. In some ways, he was the cute stud I had met in my hapless aunt’s kitchen so many eons ago; in other ways, I barely recognized him now. I felt childish around him. Again.

“We had some good times, didn’t we?” he said, and to my surprise, my face flushed hot and I realized I was probably blushing.

“Some very good times,” I said quietly.

Fearing I might burst into tears and dissolve into a blob of inconvenient emotions, I smiled and tried to lighten the mood a little.

“You were the bad boy, remember?”

“Yeah and you were the good girl,” he laughed, putting scare quotes around the “good”.

“God, we were both so messed up.”

“Mostly you,” he said.

“Shut up!”

“Seriously you were a royal pain in the ass.”

“I know.”

“Hey Jared I’m sorry, I’m really sorry I said all the things I did that day, I was just being an idiot, I didn’t mean what I said at all, it’s just that I was -”

Oh here we go. The inconvenient emotions were coming out regardless. But he was shushing me, reaching over a friendly hand to rest over mine.

“Hey, don’t apologize, please. If anything, it was I. I was in a bad place. We were quite the bad influence on each other, weren’t we?”

I laughed.

“And holy hell were you obsessed about me taking your virginity,” he continued, and I hid my face, giggling.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry, I’m cringing to think of it all now …can’t we just chalk it up to my strict upbringing and not talk about it? You weren’t an angel either you know…”

His expression changed a little and I wondered if I had hurt him again. I couldn’t help asking, “Well, do you still, you know…?”

He put the box firmly on the table and fixed hard eyes on mine.

“No” he said simply, a small vein twitching in his jaw. I thought he was about to launch into an explanation, tell me that he had hit rock bottom, that he had learnt his lesson or something, found Jesus, won the lotto, met a girl, anything really. But he simply said “no” and kept looking at me, and I sensed that this was the only answer I was getting. Shame for me had only been a game. Something sexy to toy with. But I realized then, staring at his young face, how much pride there was in him, how different his demons were to mine.

I kissed him quickly, once, and something like happiness flickered in the corners of his mouth so I kissed him again, this time more deeply. His lips were as smooth and yielding as ever, and his tongue as soft and luscious as I remembered. We smiled tenderly at one another for a moment. With some hesitation I touched his arm, the little hairs there rising up to meet my fingertips.

“I’m kind of sad you’re going, to be honest.”

“Me too,” he said.

I don’t know how it happened, but his tongue was in my mouth again, and we kissed slowly and with delicate purpose, feeling out one another as though we hadn’t already done it so thoroughly so long ago. We had both been worn a little by life, humbled a little, with our strange edges rubbed off, but I was thrilled to find that same boyish deliciousness in him still, that same elasticity in his movements, the way we could lap each other up, how his tongue would respond so swiftly to mine.

The same naughty thrill rushed all through my body, but this time it felt more naked, unencumbered with my …well, “issues”. Back then, I had made him manhandle me; he had thrown my young body around, squeezed my wrists, bruised my hips. I had egged him on, thinking that more was better, always more. But now, with his subtle, inquisitive tongue, it felt like we were doing something that even we were too afraid to do back then.

It seemed as though the more softly his lips touched mine, the more intensely my body pulsed and ached; the more slight the delicate caresses on my wrists and forearms, the deeper the pining in the rest of me grew. He sensed this too, it seemed, judging by the tender, almost pained expression he had as he stroked my arm, trying to discover if I, too, was the same.

Our clothes came off easily. First him, then me, then him again, then me again, until we were naked as the good lord made us, bare as Adam and Eve before the fall, only not quite so innocent. His caresses continued, flowing smoothly all over my whole body, missing nothing, lavishing warmth and attention onto each part of me. Had we done this before? Why not?

His lips and tongue now followed where his hands had traced, and my skin thrummed and prickled in response. He lay the full length of his nude body against mine, the heat of our flesh so surprising I smiled into the new kiss he was giving me. His warm dick was between us, hardening. Cradling my body in his hands, I undulated up into him, stroking the length of his shaft with my belly, kissing every part of him with every part of me. Then, with no force, and no resistance, the thick head of his cock found its way to my slit and sunk into me slowly, and easily. I exhaled loudly, this single thrust melting away all my doubt, my body melting onto him and swallowing him with something that felt like gratitude. He mumbled something into my ear, both hands cupping each of my breasts, and I curled my hips up to pull him more fully into me.

The moment was swollen, and slow. His movements were almost graceful, hips describing big, round, subdued shapes and the weight of his strong body bearing down on my thighs, pressing them open. Each movement was so precise, so exquisitely tuned into every little breath and moan, that it wasn’t long before I was quivering right on the precipice of a great, towering orgasm.

To my delight, he skillfully kept me lingering there, pushing my body right to the edge and pulling back slightly, letting me relish the moment, so full and so close to splitting right open. It was quiet, fragile fucking, and at its apex, I sat twitching round his hard body, his heavy dick stirring me into a frenzy, teasing me, leading me down thick, syrupy paths of pleasure. He detected my pussy whispering round him, drew me closer to him.

“Come,” he whispered.

I moaned, and he pushed once more, his fullness stretching me. Under his comforting weight, I whimpered and came, hard, crying out as deep thundering strokes moved through me. He smiled down at me, taking in every quiver of my lips, every flash on my expression. With each ripple of my pussy, I pulled him further down with me, and eventually he gave in and came tumbling after me in an orgasm that made him grunt, and press down into me with his broad, manly hips.

I clung to him with my legs and anchored against his sweaty form. We both giggled. He stroked a piece of wild hair from my face and smiled that sideways smile at me.

Ladies and gentlemen: it was my first time. I had fucked Jared millions of times before. But this time we had done something else. Something both of us had never done before. With anyone.

Chapter Fifteen

My name is Melanie, and I’m a pretty good girl.

I have just one secret.

Judging from what a crazy mess the world is, and how awful most people are, I would rate I’m not doing too badly if I only have one.

My secret is that I have fallen in love, and I don’t know what to do, or how to do it.

“You don’t have to make a decision yet,” he was saying, his warm hand resting on my lower belly. He wanted me to move in with him, pack up everything and come run away and join him in his new life and his new job. Now was the perfect time, he said, and every time we met up again he had some new detail to add: I could help him decorate. They had this amazing park there I’d love. We could bring Buttons. It would be great.

“But just think about it?”

I hemmed and hawed, and played at thinking about it, but honestly my mind was already well made up. He sat up quickly and gave me a more serious look.

“Mel, I’m going to show you something now, and it’s a secret, and you’d better promise not to tease me about it.”

I looked at him with new interest.

“A secret? I’m sure I know all your naughty secrets…” I said with a cheeky smile.

“No, I’m serious though. Promise you won’t judge me?”

“Well just how bad is it?”

“It’s …it’s kind of bad …just promise you won’t be mean if I show you?”

I was curious now. I sat up as well. What dirty secrets didn’t I know about? Didn’t we know everything about each other by this point? Was he more of a “bad boy” than I had thought?

“Yes ok, show me.”

He pulled out his iPad and started to swipe. Glossy images whizzed by on the screen. I peered over, intrigued. He took a deep breath and then turned the screen around to face me. A Pinterest board. With dozens of colorful pins of home décor. Pages and pages and pages of tasteful shabby chic quilts, Scandinavian style furniture, light fittings, Japanese crockery.

“What’s …what’s this?” I asked.

“It’s my Pinterest account. This is my ‘Home’ board. Come and live with me. Come and live with me and we’ll make a house that looks like just this.”

I burst out laughing.

“That’s very, very bad of you!” I giggled, swiping through the pages, barely believing my eyes.

“Well, will you come?” he said again, boyish puppy eyes staring at me.

It was naughty, I know, but something made me rest my hand over his, and trace his fingers downwards, where I was still slick.

“Sure, but you’ll have to convince me first,” I said and, you know, we both still knew how to play that game.

* * *

The human body can descend from five stories into the water in just under one second. I worked the math out well after the fall had taken place, in an effort to reconstruct exactly what had happened.

When you go through your basic training, there is a lot that you don't think about.

You don’t think about what it’s actually going to feel like when you’re stranded from the other members of your team. You don't think about whether or not what you are doing will have long-term ethical consequences beyond the security of the nation. You don’t even imagine what it might be like to have a family, or a person that you would commit yourself to, beyond the desire to become a soldier.

For the most part, being a soldier means that you tend to be on one of a few different varieties of ego trips.

Either you think you know what is righteous and good, and therefore, you should be free to go about and become an enforcing member of society. Or, you believe that you know what a man is, and therefore must take action to become that man. Or perhaps still, you think you know what it is to seize power — independent of ethical constructs or gender identity, and as a result, you move toward the most powerful group of fighters in the free world.

I couldn’t tell you which one of the three I was when all of this started, but now that I look back, I can tell you that I saw a little bit of each one inside of myself, and still do.

The difference between training and being on a mission is that the premise of your work being a drill no longer has the total absence of emotional content that is built up during months of training.

When you kill someone, regardless of whether or not they deserved it, you now take the responsibility for that life with you throughout the remainder of your own. As for the defensive component of all of this, the lives that you fail to protect will haunt you as well. The latter happens to be one of the strongest forces in perpetuating either side of a given conflict. When you’re in the heat of it, politicians and morality tend to go out the window for most people. All you really want to do is get yourself, and your friends, home safely — though that doesn’t always work out as planned.

No amount of brotherhood mentality can offer the protection necessary to fail-safe a doomed mission.

We trained to be aware of eventualities and to prepare the foundational skills necessary to engage the unknown. As Navy SEALs, we were called to do things that most will only watch in the movies.

While all the world passively watched Hollywood’s fiction, it was our job to live the ugly truth, so the civilians could remain blissfully ignorant.

In the movies, you can’t feel the terror, or isolation. You don’t reach that edge of existence where you aren’t sure if you will ever return to ‘normalcy’. Most of my life I took that for granted. The ability to live life on the edge like that is what makes a good soldier, and an anxiety-ridden civilian.

In the moment, we are taught to keep calm in difficult situations. We are taught to anticipate, adapt and achieve. When the lull after the action comes in, and there is enough time for reflection, that’s when things get hard.

I didn’t have any time to think until after the fall, so that’s probably the best place to start our story.

The human body can descend from five stories into the water in just under one second. Problem was that my fall wasn’t graceful, and it wasn’t without molestation. I was snagged in the back of the head by a round on my way down to the water. I was lucky as hell, as the bullet only gave me a concussion, but head trauma is no way to start a five-story dive.

When you’re facing an absence of consciousness, you are spared the terror of impact, as well as the shock of the cold water. These things do not disappear completely. Instead, they tend to take form as echoes, or impressions more than concrete facts.

When semi-automatic weapons are firing overhead, and you’re outgunned, it’s a good idea to take the plunge regardless if you can see the water.

The positive thing about not being able to see the water at night is that anyone who shot after me wasn’t able to see very well either. They also clipped me in the shoulder, though I only remember that shot because of the scar.

I’m positive that if they had been able to see me, I would be a dead man.

When my body hit the water, the impact and the cold brought me back to my senses. The fact that I had just been hit didn’t mean much. My SEAL training provided an automatic baseline survival set.

Truthfully, there was little else going on, cognitively.

Can you move your limbs? was an automatic question I heard within myself.

Some folks have out of body experiences. They get to watch themselves go through traumatic events and hope that they make it out on the other side.

There is an element of detachment and unreality in these scenarios. People often report a lack of immediate awareness of the fact that they are in fact dead. They think they might wake up soon, and they think about noticing things that are happening around them.

I’m no psychic, but I can tell you that if you have trained something into your mind for long enough, that information is there in the sub-conscious state, just waiting to be utilized. Sub-conscious internalization of procedure is the mecca for recruitment officers and cult leaders alike.

I had retained enough of my motor skills to swim, though I didn’t have anywhere to go. The longer I swam, the more confused I became. My movements were like I was operating my body from within the confines of a dream. The connection between my physical body and the mind which commanded the muscles was at a hopeless gap. I totally lost my sense of direction, as well as my environmental context. Keeping up the movements was exhausting, and eventually, my will failed to be enough to save myself. Sooner than later, my ability to move slowed, and eventually stopped altogether.

Your best bet in that sort of situation is called the ‘Dead Man’s Float’. A bit ironic, that name, though completely understandable.

Had I been in that position for any longer, I’m not sure I would have made it. The water was cold, dark, and I should have died. In fact, I’m certain that the only reason I’m alive is because of my training, sheer stubbornness, and probably more than a few neglectful moments from whatever fallen angels should have come up to claim my life.

While I was floating, I had lost consciousness. When I woke up, I didn’t have any memory of the night before, and I didn’t know where I was.

All around me were the simple accommodations of a house by the sea. We’re not talking one of those fancy playboy mansions. I mean an honest to goodness, wooden shack. I knew I was at the sea, because when I woke up, I could smell the saltwater in the air. I could hear the wave lapping up against some type of structure just outside of the building. The smell of the sea was the only familiar element in my entire worldview. Thank God that one ocean is just as good as another.

For someone who made it their life’s mission to work around the water, the similarities make it less difficult to get homesick.

There was nobody around the shack when I first woke up. As a consequence, I had a bit of time to investigate the surroundings. Looking out the window in the room, I was able to see that the buildings were built close together. They were small, which meant that I wasn’t in a wealthy area.

My clothes were simple, layered, and from the looks of it, second hand. I was dressed in thermals that were gray and off-white. There were a few holes in the clothes, but because I was wearing layers, the holes only showed other fabric.

I reached my hands up to feel my face, and my fingertips brushed against a thin scrub of facial hair.

How long have I been out? I thought, reflexively moving my fingers and toes to make sure I retained a full range of motion.

I had shaved every day of my life since I was fourteen years old. I strained my head to figure out why I was there, but I couldn’t put all of the pieces together. I was alive, but so much of the other information was either scrambled or simply absent when my mind attempted access.

I was fortunate that I had ten uninterrupted minutes to take in my surroundings.

I stood up out of bed, and immediately felt weak. My shoulder had a severely limited range of motion. Upon closer inspection, I realized that not only had I been shot, but there was a scar on the outside of the entrance point of the wound which indicated that someone had performed surgery.

Damn, I was gone, I thought, realizing that I had no idea where the wound had come from.

When I touched the scar, flashbacks from the evening came to me in my mind. I saw myself from a third person perspective, getting shot at while my body dove headfirst into the blackness of the water below.

The experience jolted me, and my heart started to beat heavily. Anxiety overwhelmed me, as I struggled to put together exactly why I had been shot, and who had done the shooting.

Was I thrown into the water? Or was that my decision?

Adrenaline coursed through my body, and I began to grow dizzy. I had to leave to find safety, but for some reason I paused.

Whoever brought you here could have killed you by now, I reasoned.

I took a deep breath and resolved to stay put until someone showed up.

Helping myself to my feet once more, I wandered throughout the house. The home was little more than a fisherman’s shack. There were two bedrooms, though each of them were more like cubbies within the shack. The room that I woke up in had a faded photograph tacked on the wall, of a young woman with dark brown hair. She was smiling and standing next to an older man.

Grey beard, large brimmed hat, and a cigarette, I muttered.

The older man was smiling, though the younger woman was a bit solemn in her expression.

The other bedroom was basically vacant, except there were a few tools that hung in their place on the wall. Hand tools mostly, and a couple of well-kept knives.

Without thinking, I grabbed one of the knives and began flipping it around in my hand. The blade moved with ease between my fingertips, and I watched with amazement at my instincts at work. Even with a wounded shoulder, I was able to manage the blade soundly with one hand; switching to the other wasn’t a problem either.

I walked into the kitchen and found a pot was on the stove, with hot water boiling. A radio was playing in the kitchen, and the station was set to classical music, which was interrupted by a voice which spoke the Italian language.

Without trying, I was able to pick up on the words that were spoken by the radio host.

“That song,” the voice said, “was performed by the classical pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, as he plays Chopin’s Piano Sonata Number Two, written in B-Flat Minor. The song is a fervent piece which reminds us of both the temporal nature of our lives, as well as the depth of love which punctuates our struggles. And now for--”

I heard a noise outside of the shack, and my attention snapped into focus toward the sound.

As the next song began to play, I positioned myself to the left of the entrance to the shack. The water was boiling, and steam began to fill the air, accompanied by a shrill whistle. The figure at the door placed their hand on the door knob, and my grip tightened around the handle of the knife.

I held my breath, and the door opened.

I saw that the man who entered was unarmed, and my body relaxed. I slipped the knife into the waistband of my pants and waited for him to notice me.

The man jumped in surprise and placed a hand on my wounded shoulder.

“You’re awake,” he smiled, placing one hand on his heart, to steady himself.

His touch was gentle, and I knew at once that this was the man who had helped me. My expression showed nothing. I stared at him, still trying to discern more about his character.

“Do you speak Italian?” he asked, looking into my eyes. He paused for a moment, and when I didn’t respond, he waved his hand dismissively.

His face was similar to the photograph, though he was a few years grayer. There were lines on his face, and his skin was well-tanned.

He let his shoulders fall, and then closed his eyes. Nodding to himself once more, he walked toward the stove and turned off the burner.

“Coffee?” he asked, gesturing to the stove, and looking to gauge my response.

He turned down the radio to a low, melodic hum, and measured out grounds from a glass container on the countertop. Two mugs were produced, and within minutes, I had a warm cup of coffee in my hands. He didn’t bother to talk to me anymore. Instead, he sat quietly with himself, allowing me to enjoy the espresso.

The drink was rich and put my mind at ease. The steam felt good in my nostrils, and the liquid soothed my throat.

We sat together in silence for several moments.

Then, raising his finger up toward the ceiling, as though he had just remembered something to share with me, he walked over toward me and patted me on my injured shoulder.

Out of his side pocket, he produced a small object, which he must have had on him for several days.

Holding the object up in front of me between his two fingers, I saw that it was a bullet. The metal was misshapen, from where it had struck.

He paused for a moment so I could take in the full sight of the bullet. I opened my palm toward him, and he dropped it into my hand.

“I pulled that out of your shoulder,” he muttered. “Good thing for you I couldn’t find the one that knicked the side of your skull.”

He tapped the side of my head just above my temple, and a shot of pain rang through my head.

I hadn’t noticed the pain before that moment. I only had been aware of a dull headache, and a sense of general disorientation. I turned quickly to stare at my reflection in the window. Straining, I pulled my hair to the side and noticed that there was a severe dent in the side of my skull.

“I bet that stung,” the man said, pulling some tobacco out of his pocket.

He sat down at a table as worn as the rest of the house. Positioned across from me, I watched as his weathered fingers dexterously loaded tobacco into a paper, and then rolled it together. His motions were fluid, and I could tell that this was a dance he had been performing for years. He didn’t spill a single grain of tobacco on the table. When he was finished, he placed the cigarette between his lips, opened the window and struck a match.

“You should tell me who you are. I’d hate to have to turn you over to the police.”

His threat hung in the air between us, and his eyes were trained on me. My body tensed, involuntarily, and my mind went to the blade that was secured on my waistband. The man exhaled, and tapped his cigarette outside of the window.

“So you do speak Italian?” he said. “The eyes do not lie.”

I placed the bullet down on the table between the two of us.

“How did you know how to pull that bullet out,” I asked.

“Do you know the name Bartolomeo Vanzetti?” the man said, ignoring me, and taking another drag of his cigarette.

I shook my head.

“He was an Italian fishmonger from the 1920’s, whose political and social beliefs resulted in his execution. He and another named Sacco were wrongfully accused of murder. Though that did not spare their lives. Another man came forward and admitted that it was, in fact, he that had committed the robbery and murder.”

After yet another long exhale, he continued his story.

“The point of this tangent is that Italy has a continuous history of working class people who have the need to know skills that are traditionally affiliated with those of more militarized persuasion. Something you’ve come into close proximity with recently, it seems.”

He tapped his cigarette over the bullet, dropping ash on the deformed bit of metal.

“Social unrest has been a pattern for us throughout the years. Not something that many foreigners can appreciate. Perhaps, not all are so ignorant of the utilization of force to fulfill the agendas of the few.”

The man finished the rest of his cigarette in silence. When he was done, he reached a hand out of the window and flicked the cigarette across the dock and into the water - no more than a few meters.

Having nothing more to add to the conversation, I held my tongue. I needed to know how much this man knew about me, and so I sat patiently.

“I realize that you’re not sure whom you can trust,” he said. “But believe me when I say, if I wanted to have killed you, I could have easily done so. Also, you could have have taken my life as soon as I arrived home, not twenty minutes ago.”

He sniffed and looked down at the bullet.

“You might even owe me an explanation,” he said, “if you can manage to produce one. Otherwise, another bullet, from a similar weapon might find me.”

His words caught me off guard. My hands reached up over my forehead. I nodded.

“Everything’s a bit murky,” I replied.

He scowled, and nodded his head slowly.

“Concussion. I found your body floating in Laguna Veneta. Who knows how much water got in your lungs.”

“Thanks,” I said, surprised to be alive.

“Don’t thank me, Giovane,” he muttered. “You traded one shark for another, and were fortunate that neither devoured you.”

I paused for a moment, reflecting on the man’s words. I didn’t know how to respond. Attempting to recall memories was a strain on me. The effort was rewarded by a headache which formed in clusters around the dent in my skull.

I was about to respond when I heard footsteps walking along the dock toward the house. My body tensed up, and the man casually pushed the bullet toward me on the table with the edge of his fingers. Without pausing, I picked up the bullet and secured it in the palm of my hand.

A woman walked passed the window and began to open the door.

I relaxed, but I noticed that my host was not put at ease. In order to hide his obvious discomfort, he proceeded to roll another cigarette.

The woman entered, and at once I recognized her from the photo in the bedroom. Her hair was cut short, well above her shoulders, but her jawline was a strong, distinguishing characteristic that I immediately placed as coming from her father.

“Piper, Mia Bella,” the man said, turning to face his daughter.

She leaned in to kiss him on the cheek. He paused for her kiss, and the contact brought a slight smile to his eyes. His lips, however, remained in a dour expression.

Within moments, he had finished rolling his second cigarette, and with the practiced care of a man who has lit far too many matches, he ignited the end of it. I could tell by her expression that she was not pleased by the habit, but she didn’t bother to call him out.

“You have a guest,” she said, starting her inquisition on a non-personal topic.

“Yes, we were just talking a bit about social history.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, do you remember the story of the Anarchist Fisherman?“

“Of course. One of my favorites.”

“Ah, yes,” the man replied, looking my way. “Piper, you see, she has the spirit of someone who understands our great culture, but in practice, she is missing out on some of the core principles mentioned in the lesson.”

The woman scoffed and turned around toward the stove to heat the kettle.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” I said.

“Your friend speaks Italian very well for a foreigner,” she said.

The man took another drag from his cigarette.

“I’m sure he has many surprises and skills. To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit today, Mia Bella?”

Her dark eyes gave me a calculating glance, and then, as though preoccupied — she diverted her attention to the stove. As she got some coffee grounds out from the canister on the counter top, I noticed she had a tattoo on her left shoulder. The image was a black cat, arching it’s back within a circle. I stared at the symbol, feeling a strangeness wash over me. I had seen that symbol before, but I couldn’t quite place where.

“I’m here to ask you a favor,” the daughter replied.

“I see. You would perhaps like a small loan, so you can resume your studies at the University?”

The woman scoffed.

“We’ve been over this. The University wouldn’t know what to do with a mind like mine. If my future were up to you, I’m sure you would have me writing doctoral dissertations on the meaning behind the Anarchist Fisherman.”

Her tone of voice was acerbic. I could tell that the exchange between the two was a reserved form of a long-standing argument between father and daughter.

I held my tongue and continued to observe their interactions.

“Not that such a dissertation would be a poor use of your time,” the father said.

“Which,” the woman quickly added, “I believe is the one thing that you misunderstand about that fable.”

“It is not a fable. It is the history of our people.”

“Your people. Those who earn a living pulling life from out of the sea.”

“You act like this is a bad thing,” the man said, stubbing his cigarette out on the table. “Perhaps you forget that you were raised on the life which was pulled from the ocean.”

“You never cease to remind me,” she said, now preparing a cup of espresso for herself.

“It was a good childhood. The best I was able to offer. Was that not good enough?”

“Oh, it was good enough. I’ve expressed my gratitude, and I’ve shared my rationale for abstaining from fish.”

“That you have,” the man replied, flicking the butt of his cigarette into Laguna Veneta.

The woman paused, and bit her lip. I could tell that she wasn’t happy about falling into an old pattern of argument with her father. But there appeared to be axiomatic differences between the two, and the argument continued. Family relationship dynamics were painfully obvious when observed from a third party perspective, but hopelessly frustrating when a person is caught within them.

I kept my mouth shut.

The woman regained her composure and sipped deeply on her cup of espresso.

“I came here because I have a favor to ask of you,” she said. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable speaking in front of your friend.”

“He is a friend of mine. If you have something to say, then I suggest you say it publicly.”

The woman inhaled sharply.

“Fine then. I need you to hold onto something for me. I wouldn’t have come here, but I don’t have any other options.”

She walked over toward the table and released a pack that had been on her back. As she dropped the item down on the table, I got a closer look at the cat tattoo on her shoulder.

“Will you help me or not?”

I could see the man’s face grow more solemn. Obviously, he was not enthusiastic about the situation, but to his credit, he retained his composure.

“You know, Mi Bella, what you have presented is a false dichotomy. A human always has more than one option, regardless of how constrained they may feel their decision-making process has become.”

Exasperated, she set down her unfinished cup on the countertop and walked over to the table to pick up the bag.

“Looks like my options are more limited than I thought.”

When she tried to lift the bag off the table, the man held his hand out and anchored the bag firmly on the tabletop. I could see the fervor present in his arm strength. He knew what he was doing, but he was not pleased with the end result.

“Principles are not the same thing as action, Mi Bella. That is the moral of the story.”

“And faith without works is dead,” the woman replied.

“Yes, this is also true, but there is a difference between the actions designated by faith and direct action.”

The man’s final words echoed in my mind in conjunction with the image of the cat tattoo on her shoulder.

My mind flashed back to a moment where I saw a man sporting that same tattoo on his hand. It was a photographed picture on a surveillance screen. The man was dangerous and was targeted as a major terrorist threat. The image was a video clip in my mind where he was speaking to a group of people about the value of direct action as a tool for radical social change.

More images flashed in front of my mind, and I found it difficult to focus.

“What the heck is wrong you?” the woman asked, targeting her question toward me.

“Nothing,” I shook my head and offered a smile. “It’s been a rough day.”

She nodded, accepting my statement, and turned back to face her father.

“I’ll be back to pick this up in a week or so. Can you put it somewhere safe between now and then?”

“Of course. Anything for you, my daughter.”

She leaned in to kiss him on the forehead, and I saw the man’s face relax into a state of ease. It was obvious to me that he loved her very much, even in spite of the fact that her decisions were causing him some degree of anxiety.

“Have a good chat with your friend,” she said, casting a glance of uncertainty toward me. “I hope he is as good of a friend as you think he is.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Mi Bella. When you live as long as I have, you tend to be an excellent judge of character. You’ll figure that out soon enough.”

The woman left the room with a roll of her eyes and stalked off to conquer the next set of events within her day. She was driven, and I could tell that there was a lot on her mind. When she was gone, the man stared at the bag in front of him, and then stood up to stretch.

“That was Maria, my daughter.”

“Charming girl,” I replied.

He let out a laugh.

“Just like her mother,” he said, seemingly lost in thought.

“Look, friend,” I said, keeping the pretense of familiarity up for the moment. “Looks like things are getting heavy around here. I think it might be best for me to leave.”

He nodded.

“I see. And where will you go? To the American Embassy, I suppose.”

“I hadn’t thought about it.”

The man nodded again.

“Do you have a name?”

Thomas Reydan,” I replied automatically, “I’m a Canadian.”

“Is that so? And what are you doing in Italy?” the man asked, ignoring my desire to leave.

“I don’t know.”

“Ah, probably an unfortunate tourist. Got mugged, perhaps, and fell into Laguna Veneta. You are a miracle.”

I shook my head. He was getting a bit agitated, and his patterns of speech were increasing in rapidity.

“Do you like soccer?” he asked, not pausing for a response. “Perhaps you made a bet with some of the locals, without understanding the passion of Italia.”

He nodded at himself.

“Surely there is a reason why I dragged your unconscious body out of the water five days ago, only to surgically remove a bullet from your left shoulder. Not to mention letting you rest in an unconscious state for the majority of the last week.”

I paused, thinking about the context of his statement. He knew more than he was letting on. I thought about trying to change the subject, but I was tired. I couldn’t focus, and to make matters worse, the man was stressing me out. If I had been in a better state of mind; if my body had been healed; if I wasn’t so completely and utterly at a loss for how to move forward in this scenario, I might not be so easily distressed. All I can say is that losing track of your memories, and waking up in the middle of a foreign country is not an easy process to work through. I had to simplify, and I had to act promptly.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked.

“Not sure I should tell you. After all, there is actually very little you have told me. And let’s be honest, not a bit of it is the truth. So until you are comfortable enough to know where you are going, and how you will achieve that goal without any money, or papers or friends — I suggest you stay put.

You could go to the embassy. Of course, unless you’re willing to tell people that you are actually an American, you’ll first have to figure out how to get to Rome, which is not a small journey. After all, Rome is where the nearest Canadian Embassy is. If you’re going, to be honest about yourself, and share that you are an American, then you can go to the U.S. Consular Agency near the airport.”

“How did you know I was an American?” I asked, letting my hand fall down to my side.

“Did I mention that incidentally, right now the police are looking for a group of Americans who blamed for an attack on Italian civilians last Tuesday night? Apparently three women and one child went missing in Giudecca, and three men were killed in an explosion of some kind.”

He bit his lip, and I could see tears starting to form in his eyes.

“Not that you would know anything about that. You’re a Canadian Tourist, right?”

He stood up and walked away from the table.

My hand reached out toward the small of my back. I couldn’t remember if I had attacked those people or not, and I decided that to be on the safe side, I should be prepared to defend myself in the event that this man thought I did.

“The funniest thing about the current here at Laguna Veneta,” the man continued. “Did you know that there is a riptide that travels exclusively between Giudecca and Lido?”

He walked into the other bedroom and began to lift some of the furniture from its position.

“That’s where we are right now,” he laughed uncomfortably, “Lido.”

I stood up from the table in order to watch him. He didn’t have to pry too hard. The mattress was moved, and some loose flooring was cast aside. Then, the man was on his hands and knees digging through a concrete cell located just below the floor. After a moment, he produced a handgun.

Acting on instinct, I charged at the man.

The knife was in my hand and soon the hilt of the blade was smashing down on the grip of his pistol hand.

With a smooth sequence of movements, I had positioned myself behind him, just to the left of the hidden alcove on the floor. The blade was pressed up against his throat and I held him just off balance.

He was a strong man for his age, but I still had him. The training that I had used was second nature to me. There was no room for hesitation. Had I had wished it to be the case, he would have been bleeding on the floor beneath my feet only seconds after my attack.

I would have probably killed him, but I noticed a set of dog tags fall down on the floor next to the gun. The tags had fallen out of the man’s closed fist when I had positioned myself behind him. He instinctively reached up to try and pry my arm away from his neck and had dropped the tags trying to defend himself. Seeing the tags brought a torrent of memories to my mind.

“Those are my tags,” I said. “That’s my gun. Why didn’t you tell me you had my things?”

I removed my arm so the man could speak, but I continued to hold the edge of the knife against the weathered skin of his neck.

“I was going to show you,” the old man said, “that I know you are more than you claim to be. Though, I feel as though given your demonstration of abilities, that is no longer necessary.”

I lowered the knife to my side, and I felt him relax.

He stepped over the gun and walked out to the kitchen in order to roll himself another cigarette.

“By the way,” he muttered, “your tags say your name is Tyler Franks. Not a lot of trust shown to the man who saved your life — you can’t even offer a real name.”

While the man was in the next room turning on the kettle once more, for another cup of pacification, I was holding the firearm in my hand.

The weapon felt like a natural extension of my body. Holding the weapon was like a ticket to a private theater. I stood arrested by my thoughts as the major events from the attack came rushing back into my mind.

It was late in the evening when we reached the dock outside of the mainland. The night was clear, and all of us were ready to go. We had been prepped before the flight over to Venice, and each of us knew our positions for the upcoming strike. There were five of us total. An elite team of SEAL operatives taking care of an international terrorist threat before the incident became too big for anyone else to handle.

The organization we were striking against was posing as a set of freedom fighters, but their desire for armaments posed a threat to neighboring countries. The Commander and Chief of the US military called for an assassination job on the primary target before things got out of hand. We were supposed to intercept an arms deal, eliminate the threat, and get out without anyone being the wiser.

The operation was fairly standard, and this wasn’t my first trip overseas for an assignment like this.

One member of our team was a rookie, named Joel, and we all teased him a bit about breaking him in on a mission like this. There was a certain amount of blind, macho, nationalistic bravado that pervaded the group. We all thought it was going to be a clean strike. After all, we were the best, and there was no reason to believe that things would go sideways.

Our equipment was light because this was primarily a stealth operation. The plan was to take the channels up through Venice, and into Giudecca. There was a warehouse building there, adjacent to the waterfront. Our intelligence had informed us that the hand-off was due to take place at midnight.

There were two marks.

One of them was an Afghani arms dealer named Benoit, and the other was the leader of an Italian rebel group we went by the name, Maurice. We thought we would go in, make the strike, get out, and be back home on American soil for brunch the following morning.

We couldn’t have been more wrong.

The boats we took across the water were styled after the classic rowboats of Venice. Wearing raincoats, we were able to disguise our comings and goings without having anyone take a second glance at our equipment. If anyone saw us, at most, perhaps they thought we were a late night athletics club, out for an evening on the water. Of course, the preliminary disguises were completely useless. Nobody was out on the water, and very few people were out on the street. If someone did notice, us, they didn’t give us a second glance.

We made our way across the primary channel, and into the close corridor waterways of Venice. There were no interruptions to speak of, and all of our minds were diligently focused on the task at hand. We were professionals, and we were in our element. The water was a comfortable friend that each of us had trained with as an integral part of our task force.

We exited the inner channels of the closest island and crossed the final waterway over to our strike point on Giudecca. Climbing out of the boats, and tying them up to one of the metal rungs set aside for that purpose was our first step. Leaving behind the coats, and stalking through the streets toward the warehouse was our second step. The warehouse was located in an alcove of buildings, and we only had to negotiate a couple of alleyways in order to find the entrance point. We were early by about fifteen minutes, which meant that we were right on time to intercept the parties before the main event took place.

With the coast clear, we popped the lock on a basement latch and ducked into the building.

The room was dark and smelled like a mixture of metal filings, dust, and the water from the channel. Not a single member of the team made a sound, as we cleared the basement. There weren’t any signs of lie present within the lowest floor of the building.

When we reached the inner stairwell which lead up from the basement, we knew something wasn’t right.

Joel had actually been the first to notice the sound, and the rest of us caught on quickly. A faint sound of crying could be heard through the thick door, and down into the stairwell of the basement. The crying sounded like it was coming from a child.

I began to grow uneasy.

Civilian presence went against the diagnostic plans we had made for our strike. The SEAL team is designed to be adaptive for all possible scenarios. Naturally, we needed to push forward, but I could tell that the rest of the team mirrored my anxiety in moving forward. When an element of civilian vulnerability is introduced into a strike scenario, the stakes are raised. The initial bravado of the attack is replaced by a more pensive and cautious sentiment.

The door which lead toward the first floor of the warehouse was latched shut from the other side with a deadbolt. Our security specialist produced some military grade lock pick equipment from a leather case attached to his belt and made short work of the deadbolt.

In spite of how quiet we had been throughout the entrance to the building, and in spite of the precautionary oil that was placed on the hinges, the door blew our cover.

The rusted hinges creaked sharply when the door to the main room was opened. The sounds of crying stopped and my heartbeat began to thump wildly in my chest.

I breathed in deeply through my nose, in an effort to calm myself and regain the level of focus which was required by our mission. The air held the anxiety of the group. Though our training prepared us, the stakes inherent to the situation were getting higher by the minute.

With our weapons drawn, we prepared to enter the first floor, and engage.

I lead the group through the door and made myself vulnerable to the primary attack. The four other members of my team followed me through the door and posted up at the positions mandated by our formula of operation.

We were able to clear the room with little effort, though the dispositions of the hostages were disconcerting, to say the least.

They were bound and gagged around a central pillar in the middle of a vacant floor. There were no other furnishings, and each of them was made to hold their hands above their head. Manacles were around each of their wrists, and rags were stuffed inside of their mouths. I watched their tears out of the corner of my eye as we secured the perimeter of the room.

With no sign of enemy combatants, we posted one man at the first-floor entrance, and one man at the entrance to the stairwell which lead up to the second floor.

Our security man worked through the crowd of seven hostages one at a time, removing their manacles, while Joel offered his consolations.

I remember hearing how soft and gentle he was while he interacted with the hostages. There were three men, three women, and one child in total. I remember being baffled at the hostage selection.

What type of person involves a child in a hostage situation, I thought.

I still recall the way the child’s eyes looked when they were being freed.

There was hardly any trust left within his eyes. The hostage situation had nearly stripped him down to a base level of fear. He didn’t even respond well to Joel’s sympathetic gestures and had to be consoled by one of the women who were set free. We tried to quiet the child down, but we were not successful. In retrospect, we should have simply left the gag in place before we left. Unfortunately, hindsight doesn’t provide any tools to fix previous mistakes.

We managed to undo four of the hostages before the child became too loud, and blew our cover. Even Joel lost his patience and forced the woman who was caring for the child to wrap her hand around the child’s mouth.

The sounds of men walking down the stairs set my nerves on edge. Combat was an inevitable reality, and we were primed to explode.

I grabbed the woman and child by the arm and dragged them over to the basement entrance. Joel followed suit and grabbed the two other women that had been freed by their arms.

We thrust them into the basement.

When I turned around to engage, I had to avoid the eyes of the three men that we couldn’t save. I knew that tears were rolling down their cheeks in that moment.

I’m sure that some of those tears were for the hopelessness present for them in that situation. There was no time to free them, and the chance of them dying in the crossfire was, unfortunately, high. My guess was that if they cried at all, it was because they could have been in a position to fight against their assailants. Instead, they were left helpless, and largely indefensible.

We could all hear the approaching boots on the concrete stairs. The sounds were the proverbial words written on the wall.

Our only chance was to prepare to strike first and hope that our training was sufficient enough to compensate for our lack of surprise advantage.

Joel and I were in a poor starting position when the attack first went off. I had to find an appropriate place for the most vulnerable of the hostages. I know that Joel felt the same way; that was humanity, not training.

With three guns leveled toward the entrance to the second-floor stairwell, the first few members of the opposing force made their way through the door.

The attack started with a single point of entry.

A lone gunman walked through the door. He had a black bandana wrapped around his face, and he carried a semi-automatic rifle. I heard the man begin to shout in Italian about how three of the hostages were missing, but his voice was truncated by a single shot of a silenced pistol. Even with the silencer, the weapon was loud enough to signal to everyone in the area that a gunfight had begun.

The man’s voice trailed off in a gurgle, as he choked on the blood seeping out from his neck.

The man who was covering the door shot low for the head and ripped open the man’s neck with a single bullet. As his body slumped against the wall of the stairwell, more voices went off in alarm. Those soldiers who remained in the hallway didn’t pour out to meet their fate as the others had but instead barked orders to regroup, and modify their attack. The first man’s life had amounted to warning flag for the benefit of his fellow terrorists.

I would have hated to have the sum of my life be a warning shot, but you get what you are looking for, as they say. Perhaps, he thought he was doing God’s work.

I still remember the loud noises made by the voices of the terrorists. Subtlety was completely absent in their procedure. I grew arrogant in that moment, thinking that they were amateurs.

Our team rushed to the door to position ourselves on either side of the stairwell. We knew better than take the enemy from low ground, and held our position in spite of the fact that we were itching to finish this battle quickly.

Standard operating procedure is to shut the lower door, or clear enough of a path so that in the event of a grenade, there is enough room to escape. Accessing the door wasn’t an option, and if we cleared a wider path, not only would we be in danger of getting shot, but we would be in the bullet path for the hostages, and the certainty of incidental casualties would increase.

A grenade bounced off of the floor at the bottom of the stairs and skidded across the room toward the central pillar.

My heart dropped into my stomach, and I watched as Joel dove toward the grenade. He tried to cover the blast up with his body or kick it out of the way if there was enough time. I knew there wouldn’t be enough time to manage and when I saw Joel head over toward the grenade, I knew that it would be the last time that I saw him alive.

Heroes are different than humanitarians, or at least, they are not always the same thing.

When the grenade went off, the three men were blasted with a spray of blood from Joel’s now shattered body. The life was gone from his body, but what was shocking was that the explosion was sequenced and much larger than I had anticipated. A series of explosions went off near the central pillar, as though coming from within the pillar itself.

I watched as the lights of the explosion illuminated the entire room, sending scatter shots of marble and concrete into the air around us. The three men attached to the pillar didn’t have a prayer of survival. There was only one thought in my mind, and it wasn’t even my own survival or the safety of the team.

Why? was all my mind was able to articulate.

I couldn’t understand why the terrorists would eliminate the hostages.

The chaos of the explosion knocked the remaining members of the team into the wall closest to the stairwell. We were losing ground and our composure.

While we were caught off balance, the remaining members of the terrorist team came down the stairs and opened fire. They were walking into a pincer attack, but unfortunately for our team, the firefight ended up causing casualties on both sides through friendly fire, as well as through enemy engagement.

As much as I don't like to say it, our training went out the window in the height of that emotionally volatile situation. We lost our cool and opened fire. The results of our actions were a series of loud explosions erupting from the barrels of our weapons.

Following the gun blasts, there was also the sound of blood splattering on the wall. There were cries that rose into the air while the bodies were falling down to the floor.

I thought about the two women and the child in the basement. I prayed that they would find some way to escape and that they would stay well out of the way of the firefight.

The terrorist group continued to pour down the stairwell, and we were overwhelmed by their numbers.

When considering the general theme of the events to follow, I can only imagine how much more valuable it would've been to be consciously responsive, instead of instinctually operative.

There's a certain type of movement that takes place when the body reaches a peak state of arousal. Time tends to stop, and all actions around me become slow motion. I can only attribute this to the endless amount of training that I performed as a SEAL operative. The trance state saved my life to be sure, but I can’t help but wonder if things would have ended up differently if we had all retained a bit more control of our awareness.

Both bodies and shell casings hit the floor, and I was in a state of meditative purity. Only two people were standing at the end of this second assault. One other operative from the team and myself are eliminated the entire terrorist threat. The initial threat had been eliminated, the casualties were great, but the conflict was not over.

The remaining soldier and I turned to see the door first floor burst open, revealing a SWAT Team of Italian Police Officers.

The SWAT Team wasted no time in making immediate snap decisions about who we were, and why we were in the building.

We didn't have jurisdiction here, and this project was an off-the-record situation. As a result, there could be no way for us to maintain our cover while engaging with the police. We were caught in a bad place, without any of the options available that would have alleviated the impending conflict.

Both the remaining teammate and I were fluent in Italian. Realizing that the situation did not look good, and would not look any better in the near future, my teammate called out in Italian. He tried to address the police directly. To share with them why we were on the premises, and to assure them that we were not in fact a threat.

The police were not interested in anything we had to say. They commanded that we drop our weapons.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw some movement on the upper platforms of the stairwell. One of the remaining terrorists was alive and was raising a weapon toward the only remaining member of my team.

Without thinking, I turned around, aimed, and fired. My snap decision brought the terrorist ground. His body slumped down the stairwell, leaving me to passively listen to the police yell, and raise their own weapons into the air. Another shot went off before the police could fire; the sound had come from our side of the room.

In the face of an aggressive Italian SWAT Team, my teammate had opted to fire first, before being fired upon. In retrospect, I don’t blame him. In all reality, that decision of his probably saved my life.

We were all caught up in a situation that we didn't have any control over. There was no way that we could've known the hostages would be used as a decoy; as a mere explosive spectacle to flag the SWAT Team. There was no way we could've known that the police would be present to arrive at the situation so quickly. There is no way we could have known how many hostages were present, or how many opponents were within the stairwell. We did the best that we could given the situation, but when push comes to shove, our intel was wrong. What we could not have known was no longer relevant. The only things that remained relevant were the conflagration of circumstances which brought me into amnesia. I was the last man of my team, turning tail and running, with an Italian SWAT Team hot on my trail.

I sprinted up the stairwell, keeping an eye out for anyone that might be there in my past, but they were already dead. When I got to the top floor, I burst through the opening on the roof. Realizing that there was only one exit from this point I sprinted toward the edge closest to the dock.

My only hope was that I would be able to dive into the water below. Obviously, I didn't make it all away. As luck would have it, the bullet that found its way toward me only grazed the side of my skull. Flying through the air in a semiconscious state, my body met the water.

After that moment, all I knew was silence.

With my mind clear, I was able to go into the next room and sit down to share my newfound awareness with the old man who had rescued me.

I took a deep breath and looked at him from across the table. It was obvious that he was worn. He appeared both meditative, and under high levels of stress. His eyes were fixated on the bag which is daughter had left in his keeping.

I wasn't certain how much information to share with him, and how much information I should keep to myself.

I decided to air on the side of caution.

"If the police are after me,” I began, “and you thought that I was responsible for the lives of those men and for the current whereabouts of those women and that child, then why did you let me live?"

My hands were folded on the table, and I made direct eye contact with him. I had to know where he stood on the matter before moving forward in any capacity.

"Let's just say I don't always agree with the story that's provided to me by the police. Besides, if I wanted you in prison, all I had to do was inform the police of your whereabouts, which wouldn't have been too much of a problem. Even if you had killed me, the chances of you getting off this island without police awareness are slim to none."

The man laughed.

I figured that he was some kind of manic conspiracy theorist, but then I thought about the situation more thoroughly. It seemed likely that his intuition was correct. He hadn’t turned me in, and had I killed him, I would have been an amnesiac in a lot of trouble. I woke up at no idea where I was at, or what was going on in the world around me. I could've figured it out. I'm sure my training would have kicked in eventually. However in the larger scheme of things, having no money, no passport, no weapon, no identification, and a warrant for my arrest — what a fucking challenge that would have been.

The man sat there, rolling his stubbed out cigarette in his hand. He had a pensive look on his face, and the room smelled like ash. The fisherman nodded to himself, as though he were forming a conclusion in his mind.

"I know what you need, and I know how you're going to get it, but it's not going to be easy."

"I agree with you," I said. "I don't think anything here on out is going to be easy, not until I get stateside, and even then, I’ll have to answer for a flopped mission and collateral damage.”

"I don't expect you to tell me everything,” the man said, “but I would at least like to know if you're innocent."

He was staring at me from across the table, and I could tell that there was more to be had in our conversation, but he wanted to get something clear first. I couldn't turn him down. I understood why he would want to have that kind of clarity.

When you stick your neck out for someone, you want them to be able to respond to you. You want them to be able to justify why your behaviors were in alignment with a greater good. I knew that responding to this man's questions were just as relevant to the safety of the public as they were to his own ethical navigation.

I shook my head.

"I didn't kill any hostages. At the very least, I can tell you that with certainty. My team and I--”

"So there are more of you," he asked, raising his eyebrows in alarm.

“Not anymore. Seeing my weapon and the dog tags jogged my memory. If my mind can be trusted, I think I was the only one that made it out.“

The man nodded grimly.

“Then, you're aware that the police sustained injuries as well.”

"Of course," I replied, thinking about the final attack on the terrorist who had approached our team from behind the stairs.

If I hadn't taken the initiative to shoot that person, it's likely that they would have shot us both or the very least they would've shot my friend. The police might have interpreted the last terrorist and me as being on the same side. With those kinds of assumptions in effect, the terrorist might have even shot at the police, causing a firefight and presenting my escape. I could've been dead, instead of sitting here at this table with a grizzled fisherman.

"I can't be certain about it,” I continued, “but it seems to me like the whole thing was a setup. Our goal was to assassinate the leader of a dangerous terrorist organization, and instead, we found ourselves in a hostage scenario, fighting untrained gunmen."

"What makes you think they are untrained," he asked, twirling his cigarette in his hand nervously.

"I've spent enough time in training to know what a battle ready soldier looks like, and what a new recruit looks like when they fight. Any battle ready soldier wouldn't have made the same mistakes that the soldiers made. They went down too easily, they also didn't have any effective organization. They didn't respond well to the element of chaos present in the scenario. In retrospect, it seems to me like they were nothing more than fodder."

"Fodder?"

He stroked his beard pensively, while staring me hard in the eyes. I could tell that he wanted to break through to the source of this thing. I could tell he was a critical man, a man who didn't take things at face value.

"There was something wrong with that entire experience," I said, brooding over what details I could bring to my mind. "We were supposed to assassinate the leader, and instead, we found entrapped hostages and incompetent militia.”

"I agree," the man said. "It doesn't add up.”

I sat in silence for a moment and allowed myself some time to reflect. I was relieved that the man believed me, but that didn't mean that the entirety of my predicament was going to be alleviated anytime soon. My mind was spinning, attempting to secure a single place where I could start; some way that I might be up to gain ground.

"I have a favor to ask of you," the man said.

His hand reached out onto the table and came to rest on the backpack which his daughter had deposited earlier that afternoon.

"My daughter is in a position where she might need some additional protection. Someone of your caliber, who is able to successfully defend against Venice's finest, likely has the capacity to provide the type of protection that she will need.”

I regarded him with curiosity.

"Is this something that I'm doing for you as a thank you?"

"You could call it a thank you, though I think that you might find some benefit for yourself as well. You can start by taking this bag back to her. I'll give you her address if you're interested."

I took a moment to stare at the man, and my arms stretched high, over my back. I thought about asking what was inside the bag, but I realized that it might be better if I didn't know.

"Okay," I nodded. "I can do that for you. Thanks for everything.”

"No,” he replied, “thank you. I worry about my daughter’s health more than is healthy for a man of my age. She has my fighting spirit, but I’m afraid that bitterness has corrupted her intentions, and is contributing to a more confused state of awareness. It would be a great relief if you would go and share some of your experience with her. I think she fetishizes the idea of militant force, without truly understanding the ramifications of their consequence.“

“Playing mentor wasn’t exactly what I had cut out for myself,” I said, “but it couldn’t hurt. I’ll stop by tonight. Is there anything you can do to help me get overseas?”

“My daughter can help you. Go to her.”

My father, Nosa, had a man with him today when I went to visit. Most of the time when I visit my father, he is alone. The man is a conspiracy theorist and a world-weary philosopher. He spends most of his time out on the water trolling for fish. The rest of the time he spends at home smoking his awful cigarettes.

Dad has been practically useless since mom died.

In spite of the fact that he says he goes out to fish every day, he never comes back with more than enough to eat and barely scrape by. It's a good thing my father was never in debt because it allows him to maintain his minimalist lifestyle.

Of course, by minimalism I mean never trying hard enough to accomplish anything except scraping by. If you asked him, he would tell you that he is simply taking only what he needs. I would be inclined to believe that if the drastic change between his success when mom was alive and his current form of minimalism wasn't so apparent.

Last year, he actually had an accident and didn't have enough money to pay the medical bills. Fortunately, I was coming into some new work at that time that was more lucrative, and I was able to help him out. Ever since that moment, he stopped being so directly critical of my choices and moved to a more passive form of criticism.

The good thing about having a conspiracy theorist for father is that his natural level of distrust for organizational operations makes it easier to rely on him for help in matters which require some discretion.

While my father was a hard-working man, once upon a time ago, he encouraged me to be hard-working as well. I guess the problem that my father had with my current lifestyle is that he didn’t quite agree with the cause that I was working for. I tried to tell him that the cause was one that was similar to the values he held so strongly to, but there was no way to reach the man.

Better to simply let him stay out of the way.

Unfortunately, I was handling some sensitive materials, and I needed to have a temporary safe house. My father was supposed to hold onto those materials for me. I knew he wasn’t exactly going to be pleased about it, but I also knew that he wasn’t going to turn me away. As a matter of fact, he did not choose to turn me away, but for one reason or another, he had someone else do the work for him.

I was a bit surprised when my father's "friend" showed up in my apartment later on that evening.

But first, to paint a complete picture, let me share a bit with you about my ‘decompression’ time. What I was doing to treat myself right before this fucker interrupted me.

I wasn’t doing much more than laying on my bed, checking my email at the time. Nothing terribly important going through my mind, and especially since I had just made the only drop-off that was necessary for the day.

I sang to myself a little song and smiled.

Generally, I was feeling like I needed to take a break and please myself for a while.

My position on the bed caused my breasts to spill out in front of me. I only get a chance to feel sexed when I’m far too stressed for my own good, or when I’ve taken a break from everything that has been going on in my life.

People used to call me a whore when I was younger, but I stopped paying attention to that a long time ago.

“I’m a woman,” I continued to tell myself, until eventually, I stopped giving a shit what other people thought altogether.

I sat up on the bed and straightened my spine. My breasts hung low on either side of my body, and I held them in my hands, pressing them together, and massaging my nipples. I would give them an occasional squeeze and then straighten my hair. My body swayed from side to side as I touched myself.

When you don’t have much of anyone around to fuck you on a regular basis, your mind tends to be free of a lot of the emotional drama that is so often associated with relationships.

I had nothing more to do with my time than take care of some business, and then find some time to relax and enjoy myself at the end of the day. So what if today, that ‘end of the day’ time came a bit earlier than usual?

“You should enjoy yourself, right?” I said out loud, rubbing my breasts together once more.

My nipples were growing red, and erect, as they usually did.

I had big nipples. They looked like cartoon-esque saucers of pink in my own eyes. Sometimes, I looked at them, and they looked like the breasts of a beautiful woman. Other times, I just thought they looked like pornographic cartoons. I suppose that is the internalized misogyny of our culture coming up to bite me more than it is an accurate interpretation of reality.

My breasts were hanging a bit lower than usual, though I think that had more to do with posture than anything else. I had been dealing with a lot of stress lately. Trying to relax, I playfully lifted and bounced them up and down, while bringing my fingers around toward the tips of my nipples. Feeling a bit more kinetic after the bounce on my breast, I spread my body out on the bed, bringing myself up onto my knees.

I still wore a cute pair of pink panties, but my breasts were free, and I felt good about their position. I lay down on the bed, holding one knee to my chest, and extending the other leg forward. My right hand itched to take off my panties and fuck myself for a while, but I knew better than that. When you’re in a position like this, and you want to treat yourself, the last thing you should be doing is rushing the only time you’re really treating yourself.

I laid back and let my hands rub along the insides of my thighs and along the bottom of my rib cage. I looked up at the ceiling and thought about how the day had progressed.

Got my shipment dropped off, I thought. Maurice is not going to hassle me any longer, and there was that cute guy at my dad’s place — that was a neat little visual treat.

I stripped my panties off from my body and began a long stretching session, combined with ecstatic forms of touching. My hands were soft on my body. I had to be, otherwise, I’d just fuck myself silly.

Forcing myself to go slower brought my attention to every single inch of my skin. I figured I had all of these nerves, just waiting to be enjoyed, so I might as well use them.

My cunt was already hot. More than anything else, I knew how to work myself up into a state of arousal. Oh, believe me, I have other skills, but I’d been practicing this one for a long time, and I was quite fond of the erotic.

I leaned back against a series of pillows, holding one hand up to my chest, and letting the other trace down my breasts, and toward my clit. I didn’t want to touch myself quite yet, but with each pass, I found it more and more difficult to restrain myself. My hand moved slowly, almost unconsciously down the center of my sternum, and up once more toward my neck. During each pass, I found my breasts and gave them a little more attention than the last time. My nipples remained hardened, and this time, when I looked at them, in a more aroused state, I was less critical of myself.

You’re beautiful, I allowed myself to think, and the positivity gave me even more appreciation for the intimacy that I was sharing with myself in that moment.

Both hands began working together now, joining in concert as my hips worked in unison with the movements.

I reached under a cushion and found my favorite purple vibrator, as well as a bottle of lubricant. Relishing the feeling of the sex toy in my hands, I dripped the lube all over the surface of the silicone wand and stroked its surface with my hand. Without wasting any more time, I brought the tip of the vibrator into my cunt and began a shallow pumping motion with my wrist.

A smile came to my lips as I began to relax and fuck myself.

The motions were slow at first, steady, and only about an inch or so inside. My other hand moved instinctively to my clit so that my middle finger rested on the surface of my clit. Just the pressure there was enough for the moment. My ring and index fingers spread my labia, and then I pushed in deeper with the dildo.

A slight vibration was whirring along the lips of my clit, and inside of my body. The vibration increased the intensity of my already aware nervous system, and I felt a wave of pleasure spreading out from between my legs. My head was already rolling back on the stack of pillows, and a mixture between a smile and the type of lip curl that only the dirtiest girls know how to do was on my lips. My shoulders were tense, and my breasts moved along with the pumping motion of my right hand.

I could feel the strain of the muscles in my arm as I pushed back and forth, deeper each time. The strain felt good, but I switched hands, just so I could get that steady pace going, and not have to think about anything else except for the feeling of getting fucked.

Two hands worked best, and I would alternate between the two, breathing with my mouth open the whole time. My eyes were dilated, and the colors of the room seemed to increase with vibrancy. My hands came together like I was in prayer, pushing the dildo inside of me like I was fucking myself with some sacred monument.

My left hand freed itself from the prayer and began to clutch at the inside of my thigh. My fingernails dug into my thighs, and I felt the moisture, my own lubrication, this time, dripping down the side of my ass cheeks. Both of my breasts moved from side to side, and I increased the angle and the frequency of the penetration.

“Fuck, I need more,” I said, not thinking about anything but my own desperate, self-serving needs.

I got down on the floor, so my abdomen was huddled on the side of the bed. I felt like a whore on my hands and knees like that, but that only served to turn me on even more than the times before. While I was bending over the bed, with my breasts pressed up against the sheets, and my mouth spread open wide, I allowed myself to fantasize.

Usually, when I masturbate like this, I work with whatever the first idea is that comes to my mind.

I’m often so taken by my own desire that I don’t have much control over the content of the images. They pass through my minds like flames crackling up over a fire pit. Sometimes, the pit is larger than others, and other times, I lose the context of the pit all together, and all I see is the heat from the images. The picture that was particularly strong in my head at the moment was a man bearing down on the back of me, and fucking me with his cock.

To replicate this image, I put my head down on the bed and pushed the dildo in and out of my cunt from behind. My asshole was in the air, begging for attention, though I wasn’t able to share. Only having one shaft, I had to do what I could for my vagina. She was pulling at the dildo on a regular basis. My speed had increased, and my eyes were closed. In my mind, the man flipped me on my back and shoved me down on the bed.

I moved my body so I could feel what it might be like to switch positions in accordance with my fantasies.

I grabbed my breast and fondled myself with one hand, while working the dildo with the other. Then, suddenly, as if obeying some need to be more primally connected with my own body, I set the dildo to the side and let my fingers do the work that so desperately needed to be done.

My slit was warm and wet to the touch. I felt like velvet, and for several long moments, I slowed down, and just enjoyed what it felt like to probe the inside of my cunt with both fingers. I would push and pull up toward the top, all the while thumbing my clit. The ecstasy guided my motions, and soon my whole hand was outside of my vagina, and I was massaging my clit with delicate fingers.

I closed my eyes and thought of that man once more.

Then I saw his face.

It was the man from my dad’s place. His ‘friend’.

I make a rule not to judge myself whenever I am fantasizing. I allow myself to think about whatever it is that gets me off, and I let myself know as much about my own desires that way as possible. The desire to get fucked came into my mind once more while I thought about the length of that guy’s cock. I had no idea how long it was, and in truth, it really didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was soon bent over once more, imagining him fucking my body from behind.

My shoulders were down on the bed, and my wrist was strained. I would switch between fingers and dildo, letting my body decide which type of stimulation it wanted in the moment.

I became more and more verbal, letting out a moan.

The walls of my apartment complex were thin, but I could already hear the moans coming out from my subconscious body, as well as the knocking of the frame of the bed against my neighbor’s wall.

When I fuck, I tend to move. Fucking for me is not a passive activity. It is a sport, where I can thoroughly engage myself, and love every minute of it. When I fuck, I have multiple orgasms, and I make it a point to be unapologetic. I’m a whore and a nymph, and I make no claims to be anything else. We are all only human after all.

My body shook, and I squirted all over the bed, gushing out below me, and soaking the sheets beneath my body with my juices.

I gasped, and let my vagina push my dildo out from the inside of me. I was out of breath and felt incredible. Knowing that there was a peak period of time where I could possibly get off a second time, I bit my lip and made my way to the bathroom. The bath is my second favorite place to get off, and I like fucking around with more holes than just my vagina, if you know what I mean.

It just happens to be easier to play around in a more free context when I’m in eight inches or so of sudsy bath water. Feeling indulgent, and as sensual as a fucking goddess, I let the water run while I let my legs relax in the warm water.

The tub has to be my favorite place to get off when I’m spending time with myself. I can grab the suds and spread them on my body. Instead of feeling like a dirty girl, I can feel like a sea nymph, or something a bit more pleasant. I like the way my ass feels sliding on the smooth porcelain surface of the tub. I also really get off on the movement of the water as I stroke my clit and slide up and down on the slick, warm surface of the tub.

Shoving my finger inside of me is easy enough to do because now the lubrication is completely surrounding me. Turns out all I really needed to do was open my lips up and let the water do its work.

The images of that man came back into my mind, and so I removed the batteries from my dildo and began fucking myself once more with the thick, silicon shaft of my best friend.

I could practically feel him pushing his cock into me, again and again in the bath. I imagined what it might feel like to have the water rushing over my shoulders, and splashing out onto the floor. I grabbed the edge of the tub and braced my feet from slipping on the surface of the tub. Soon enough, I was out of the tub, my back up against the cool tile of the wall. My ass sitting on the side of the tub, and my beautiful, perfect cunt taking a solid fucking from that dildo.

Gripping madly at the tiny bits of grout between the tile, my fingers tore at the slick surface, attempting to hold onto something substantial while another orgasm took my breath away.

One more ought to do it, I thought to myself, imagining how I might be able to fall asleep after I had fucked myself clean, and relaxed my muscles in a warm bath.

Staggering in a peaceful strut from the bathroom, and pausing only to let the towel do a bit of rubbing between my legs, I made my way back to the bedroom.

The towel served to get most of the obvious moisture off of my body, but I was headed toward my blankets, and as far as I was concerned, the suds in the tub had made me as clean as I was going to get. I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about anything else besides how this mystery man in my imagination was going to make my afternoon come to a beautiful, climactic conclusion.

I bit my lip, getting ready for an early night, and some well-deserved rest to follow.

Diving onto the bed, I let myself bounce, and felt a bit delighted, and a bit like a little kid. I loved letting myself go like this, occasionally. I really felt like all I needed at times was a good fuck and the rest of whatever petty problems seemed to get on me during the week would just fall to the wayside. Perhaps, they would drip down from the inside of me, and come out later in the wash; either way, it didn’t matter, they would be gone.

Rolling on my side, I pulled my legs together and began to fuck myself with the dildo in one hand, and a finger in my ass. I had no hesitation with my finger in my asshole, as I knew that I was clean and could relax and enjoy myself. I didn’t feel the need to press too hard at that moment. Just the pressure and presence was enough. My cunt was on fire, in its own wet, sloppy way. I stopped fantasizing about anyone or anything in particular and just stayed present with my body. All I needed was to listen to the sound of my wet lips pulling on my toy. All I felt was the repeated breathing and gentle creak of the bed, rocking back and forth with my movements.

Both the dildo and my fingers got deeper, and eventually, my voice had joined the chorus of sexual sound emanating from my room. I was almost there, and I couldn’t be bothered to think about anything but those few precious strokes that lay between me and the biggest orgasm that I would find in this entire solo session.

I slowed the strokes down, drastically, trying my hardest to savor every last movement. I could feel my labia pulling on the toy, and I could feel my asshole contracting around my fingers. My mouth was spread open wide in a near maximal stretch. My eyes were in a soft focus, and the whole room buzzed with light and energy. My sexuality had spread to everything and I was about to blast off into sleep — and then the doorbell rang.

I'll admit, when I first opened the door, I thought that I was in trouble.

I had only recognized his appearance after I took note of his physique. He was a good-looking man, strong and capable. The man was built like a truck, and he matched my fantasies quite well.

I had no idea where my father met him. It wasn't like my father to hang out with military types, in spite of the fact that he was sympathetic toward historical revolutionaries.

There tends to be a big difference between historical revolutionaries and military types. Historical revolutionaries are often times scrappy looking, farm boys. They have cigarettes dangling out of their mouths, and they typically don't have a problem with spending the evening with a bottle of alcohol. If they know how to shoot, they know how to shoot because of a desire to enact their dream against whatever oppressive forces they happen to see within society.

Military types are different. I could tell this one was military because of his posture. The way he held himself was different and sufficient to be marked as unique. From the looks of that, this guy was an American, but he could've been German if I hadn't heard him speak earlier. He had that whole Aryan thing going for him, with the height, and wide shoulders. He was clearly a stud, and when I saw him I felt my body respond in a way which indicated that I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to fight, flee or fuck forcefully.

"How the hell did you find me," I asked.

It's not that I didn't know that my dad had sent him over here; I just wanted to hear the words out of the man's own mouth. I wanted to hear that my father was no longer interested in helping me out and that he wasn't brave enough to say so himself. Obviously, a bit of my contempt was seeping through.

The man didn't see a point in responding, so he didn't. He walked into my living room, without so much as asking me if he could come in.

"Some fucking manners you've got on you," I said.

"I'm not here to impress you with my manners. Besides, the way that you treated your father earlier, I'm not sure you're deserving of many manners at all."

"What are you,” I asked, smirking. “Some jar-head stranger come over here to teach me a lesson?”

"Is there a place I can sit down," he asked, staring deadpan into my face.

I could tell that the man was not amused, and since it seemed to me that I wasn't going to be able to get rid of him anytime soon, I waved him into the kitchen. He pulled one of my cheap chairs, so that it squeaked on the linoleum floor, and had a seat. I sat and watched him for a moment, not wishing to say anything. I wanted to get a sense of who he was and why my father had sent him over.

The backpack which I had dropped off at my father's shack earlier was around the man's shoulders, so that much was obvious about the man's reason for visiting my home. I felt like if I could read into him a bit more, I might be able to discern something more about his character.

It was my intuition that a man of this size does not run errands for fishermen because he's bored. Had he been a long-standing friend of my fathers, I might have thought differently, but earlier that afternoon was the first time I had ever seen him.

"I see that you brought the package which I had delivered intentionally to my father."

The man turned the package off from his shoulders and set it down on my own table with a resounding thump.

I was reminded of how I felt so accomplished knowing that the package was secure, and was more than a little annoyed that my work had been undone.

"Did you look inside?" I asked, walking over to the table so I could inspect the contents of the bag.

I didn't wait for a response, and I knew that if this person had taken a look at the contents of the bag, which was likely, then my father might have unwittingly made things significantly more complicated for me. I wished that he would have simply provided assistance when I needed it most.

I unzipped the back while hunching my shoulders over its contents. Peeking into the bag and rooting around on the inside, I came to the conclusion that while things were not in the exact same order that I had placed them, everything was accounted for.

"Nothing is missing," the man said, "but one with think you would know better than to drop something like that off at your dad’s house. Especially when he has got nothing to do with whatever it is you got yourself wrapped up in."

I zipped the bag shut and left it on the table.

"Did you come over here to reprimand me, or are you here for some other more pleasurable purpose?"

“Pleasureful for you, I doubt it. Actually, I'm in a bit of a bind, and I could use some help. Your dad seemed to think that you would be in a position to assist me."

I had to laugh again. Really, my dad was too much to handle.

Not only did he feel comfortable lecturing me when I dropped by his place, in spite of the fact that I was helping him out. But, in addition to that, he sent army boy over here back with the bag that I had planted intentionally. Now, with the problem of the bag still not taken into account, this guy thought I was in a position to do him a favor.

“I think you better leave right now," I said. "Not that I don't appreciate your little visit. If you have seen the inside of the bag, and you know that I've got more on my mind than doing favors for men like yourself.”

“Men like me?”

“Men who are instrumental in making my life exponentially more difficult than it needs to be,” I replied, coldly.

"Do you always blame people for your problems? You're free to do what you want, but there are more productive ways for you to spend your time. Besides, I’d hate to have to share what I know about your business with local law enforcement,” he said, leaving me with a thinly veiled threat.

I stopped in my tracks, forced to re-evaluate.

“You really aren’t a friend of my father,” I said, taking a long, hard look at him. “If you were a friend, then I seriously doubt that you would have any interest in bringing me into prison.”

I shook my head from side to side and then decided that this man was most likely bluffing, just to fuck with me.

“I’ve got a sample from the bag, and I’ve stashed it somewhere safe,” he said, pulling a cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “As a matter of fact, I can have the police here in about four minutes. Do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Don’t do that,” I said, not even wanting to dare him. Too much was at stake, even if he was bluffing.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I need some help getting out of the country.”

“Ha! You’re not a keen negotiator are you? The Consulate is on the mainland, you can go there, and I’m sure they will take care of whatever passport needs you have.”

“I can’t go to the Consulate.”

I smiled at him, knowing that he couldn’t go to the Consulate. I just wanted to hear it from his own mouth.

“Why’s that?” I asked, innocently.

“Look, are you going to help me out, or am I going to have to call the police, and lock you and your little operation up?”

I ignored his threat, and pointedly asked about his own obvious predicament.

“The only people who ask me for help getting out of the country, are criminals or spies. Which one are you?”

“A strange mixture of the two, with a little bit of loyalty to a man who doesn’t want to see you wrapped up in whatever it is you’re doing with this,” he gestured to the bag.

“Loyalty? Did he give you some kind of sage-like advice, because I know he didn’t give you any money.”

“Your father saved my life. I’m just trying to help him out, and get back to the United States. You don’t really have a choice in the matter, so you might as well start complying. I’ll call the police right now, and it will make your life a lot more difficult than it already is.”

“Call them,” I sneered, “I’m willing to bet that whatever it is you are running for is a lot more severe than whatever it is you think I’m involved with. Not to mention the fact that I have enough friends with money to make bail within one night.”

He shut up and lowered his head. Obviously, I had struck home on something vital. Victory felt sweet.

“You will have made my life a bit more difficult in the short term,” I continued, “but within a week, I’ll be back to my routine, and you’ll be in the Italian equivalent of Guantanamo.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, looking up and staring at me.

His forthright way of addressing me caught me off guard. It wasn’t as though he was asking me why I was pitting myself against him, but more why I was involved in the whole process. I was startled and stopped for a moment.

The strangest thing about being involved in a long-standing activity is that you tend to forget why you got caught up in the activity in the first place. The rest of the actions which comprise the daily course of behavior tend to be somewhere between compulsion and obligation.

He saw me give pause, and my pride took over my critical thinking abilities. All I wanted to do was finish my most recent assignment and get moving onto the next one, and I didn’t feel like it was necessary to invest a lot of time in this man’s moral inquisition, or whatever the fuck he was trying to do.

“You brought this on yourself,” he said, standing up from the table.

“What are you going to do?” I asked, slightly caught off guard, yet authentically curious what he believed he was going to accomplish next.

“If the police aren’t going to scare you, then, believe me, I will,” he promised. “I’ve made it a personal skill set of mine to learn how to scare people like yourself. I don’t even have to try that hard; it’s something that comes naturally to me.”

“What do you mean, people like me,” I said growing a bit tense at this man’s forwardness.

He got up from the chair, walked behind me, put his hand on my ass and he held me down onto the table.

I would have resisted, but I thought instead to play it cool.

“Seems like you’re just looking for a score,” I said, smiling at him from my position on the table. “I’m not sure how scary that is.”

I tried to push up, to show some resistance, but his hand was held firm on my lower back.

Feeling a man in that much command of my body, while I had just been interrupted in the middle of a private fuck session has its way of putting me in my place. Turns out, I didn’t actually want to get up. Before I knew it, my pants were down, and he was behind me, spitting on my butt cheeks and digging his fingers into my body.

“Maybe I’ll let you scare me just a little bit,” I said, grunting while he slapped my bare ass with his hand.

“That’s polite of you,” he said, punctuating the comment with another slap.

“What a hard-ass. Are all military types total fuckboys like yourself?”

He had already slipped a finger into my cunt.

“Fuck boy,” he laughed, “you’re the one who’s soaking wet.”

He unzipped his pants and slapped me in the ass once more. “Spread them,” he commanded.

Placing his cock up toward my cunt, he pushed inside of me and began to fuck me slowly on the countertop.

Getting taken like this in my own kitchen was a bit incredible for me, but in that moment, all I could think about was how incredible it felt to have this man inside of me.

I moaned, and pushed myself back toward him, trying to get into the fuck and make myself as wide open as possible. His cock pushed harder inside of me with each stroke, and he leaned hard over my body, ramming himself up against me and pulling my pelvis in toward him with each thrust.

The table slammed repeatedly up against the wall, and soon, he was slamming his balls up against my ass cheeks, shoving the entire length of his cock into me. All I could do was hold on while what seemed like eight inches of hard military cock kept pumping me.

He grabbed my hair, with one hand and pulled me back up toward his body. He knew how to fuck like a man, and while this wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, it was a lot better than any vibrator could hope to achieve.

I raised a leg up on the table so I could give him better access. Leaning in, he bit my neck and whispered in my ear.

“People like you get in trouble when they pretend to be more badass than they actually are, don’t you?”

All I could do was moan, plead, and rub my clit while he continued to fuck me.

“Cum inside of me,” I begged. “Please cum inside of me.”

“I’ll cum when I’m ready to, and it may not be anytime soon.”

He grabbed my neck and pinned me down to the table, and with one huge hand, he pulled my ass cheek to the side.

I was so completely used, but feeling that intense lack of control was liberating in a way. I could feel him towering over me, and pushing his cock inside of me over and over. He was a strong man, and his power came through with every single thrust.

“Not so hard now, are you?” he said, his teeth grit and lust fierce in the tone of his voice. “Turn over, I want you to see my face.”

I felt relieved at his command because I did want to see his face. I wanted to imprint this moment in my mind. Not because of some overt longing for this man I didn’t know, but out of a queer fascination for accurate details about the fantasy that had already proved itself to be lurking in my subconscious. I had literally, no more than an hour ago, been fantasizing about this very man. Here he was, treating me like he owned me, in my kitchen, on my fucking table nonetheless.

Turning around, I saw his face, and I stared at him, unblinkingly, being bold, and being real — while still offering my body in submission.

That was the key to being a sexual submissive - in my opinion. You stood to gain a lot by letting a man or a woman totally own your body. You stood to understand more about yourself and more about the other person than they every might have shown you in your entire relationship. You stood to learn more in those precious minutes than most people would learn about that person in their entire lives. Sex was a powerful thing like that.

As far as I was concerned, this man had dropped off the package here, and while that was counter-productive to what I was hoping to achieve, he had also brought a cock… which he obviously wasn’t afraid to use. For that last, minor detail, I was prepared to forgive my dad’s indiscretion. Watching him press my thighs up against my body, holding my ass up in the air in front of his cock, I thought I might even help him out with a passport.

Or maybe not, I smiled to myself, my grin turning fast into another rush of pleasure and pain while he pushed himself into me once more. I could get used to this.

My thoughts were immediately shoved aside as I lost track of everything except the slow and persistent thrusting. I was rubbing my clit furiously with my hand, holding on to my forehead, and my ass, alternately.

I continued to moan, and pray, my mouth spread wide, hoping for anything, but not really having much room in my brain to do anything besides get fucked and let myself go. I was in a totally passive position, and I had let this man put me there.

I massaged my clit; occasionally slapping it as I saw fit. I was working up toward an orgasm, but the sensation was really one of fullness more than anything like what my dildo had prepared me for earlier.

Placing a boot on the table, he began to level himself so that his entire cock was sliding into me. Feeling the burn as his lubrication started to wear thin brought a heightened sense of urgency to my masturbation. I began rubbing my clit and squirming on the table, while he pumped himself into me. I looked up at his thighs and saw how powerful they were. I saw the length of his cock push into me, and more importantly, I felt him. It was like he was literally pulling my insides out with his cock, and all I could do was rub my clit and hold my legs toward my chest.

“… Uh, I haven’t ah — ooh,” I tried communicating, but all I could do was grunt and curse. “Fuck…”

My hand rested on my head, and I let my hand press up adjacent the wall next to my head. I decided that instead of making small talk, I should just be giving him more encouragement.

“Fuck it,” I started telling him, between grimaces. “

He pushed my entire body onto the table and rest my legs on the side. He pressed his cock into me once more, and I could feel myself pulling and pushing back in again at his movement. My cunt cupped around the head of his cock and brought him close to me. My tits bounced with the pressure of each firm thrust, and though I gasped and moaned for hopeless release, he held onto me firmly.

Pulling out for a moment, he walked away from the table and sat down on the couch. His dick was firm in the air, beckoning me to sit down on top of him. I didn’t have much of a choice when I think about it. My body was so drawn to him. In that moment, my cunt felt incomplete without feeling the constant friction of his shaft inside of my body. I got on top of him and positioned my hand so that I pushed the head of his cock into me once more. I gradually lowered myself onto the length of his dick.

I kept up the rhythm, but mostly out of the desire to be fucked, more than any respect for the tit-for-tat source of effort. He had done his job fucking me in the beginning, and now I was here bouncing on top of his body, letting him bury his cock deep inside of me. My mouth was open, and my breasts were pressed down firmly on his chest. Gravity and a little bit of hip action were doing most of the work, and the work was wonderful.

We embraced for a moment, but soon he was on top of me once more.

My ass was spread up in the air, and his hand was pressed once more on my head. He was pushing my cheek down into the fabric of the couch. I could feel his fingers digging into my scalp. And as though he could read my mind, he formed his fingers into a fist and began to pull my hair while pushing me down — sending me into a cocktail of pleasure and pain. I grit my teeth, and spread open for him, wanting him to continue, but also wanting him to finish inside of me. I was looking for the moment when his pride would come down, and he could join me in a collapsed heap on the couch.

At the rate he was going, that didn’t seem like it would happen too soon.

The two of us moved forward in this pattern for a few more moments, and I found that I was addicted to the sensation. As soon as he would pull out, I would back up and position myself in such a way that he could penetrate me once more. I wanted to feel him explode inside of me so badly.

It seemed like he would never stop.

My eyes rolled into the back of my head, and my lips were pursed, basically praying to the gods of sex that this man would fucking cum.

This guy is unreal, I thought, in a sex-fueled delirium.

Here I was, I'm being taken by a total stranger on the couch in my shitty apartment. Instead of coming inside of me, or coming at all, he pulled out and slapped me hard in the ass.

I collapsed onto the couch, feeling the sensations inside of me. I savored the feeling of being thoroughly, completely, and utterly, well fucked. I could still feel myself contract and twitch with spasmodic pleasure.

“Couldn’t you just,” I started to beg, but then I stopped, and a huge moan came out from the inside of me.

My fingers flicked mercilessly against my clit, and I collapsed into the fabric of the couch. My mouth was open, and I was gaping in every sense of the word. I could feel the contractions pulse through my entire body, causing my legs, and even my toes to twitch with an uncontrollable release.

He turned and watched me, seeming to be unimpressed, as my body basically melted into the couch, leaking and spraying juices everywhere. I gasped, trying to catch my breath, and get some control back into my perception of reality. After a few moments, I looked over at him, a deep calm having set into my body.

“You could have cum…” I said, staring at his cock.

"Not that you don't deserve it," he said, “but I think I'll be saving that for later."

I watched him get dressed once more, and that beautiful, powerful cock disappeared back inside of some cheap, thrift store jeans. I recognized the thermals; then I remembered why he had come by in the first place.

"When you can walk again, you'll have to come get it," he said nonchalantly.

Still feeling woozy, but not one to take an attitude like that laying down, I got up and walked over toward the table. I was more hobbling than anything else. I would have preferred to stay there, and simply bask in the pleasure of a well-fucked body, but my pride had other plans.

He walked over and picked up the bag from the table.

I reached my hand out to grab it, but he was too quick, and before I had a chance to respond, he had deflected my hands away from the bag and brought the bag up to his own shoulders.

I took a deep breath and focused in on him with my entire attention.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I demanded.

“I probably should have done this in the very beginning,” he said “instead of sitting down and trying to talk with a woman like you. Just because you think you’re on the inside of some criminal underworld doesn’t make you hard; it makes you a fool. Every single fool just like you gets chewed up and spit out by whatever big dogs you think you are charming with that pretty smile of yours. Now that I’ve been inside of you, I figure you’ll come around sooner or later for more. Then we can talk about how you want to deal with this bag.”

With the bag slung over his shoulder, he began to walk out of the kitchen.

I got in the way to stop him and even threw my foot up for a kick to his groin. My efforts were pathetic at best. The whole movement was immediately caught by his body. He raised a knee to deflect my leg and then kicked that same leg out so that his own leg hooked underneath mine. With his leg high up in the air, and my balance completely thrown off, all he had to do was push on my forehead with the tip of his fingers and I was down.

My ass landed with a thump on the linoleum, and I grimaced at the pain. By the time I had a chance to actually scramble to my feet, he was in the living room, only five steps away from the door. He wasn’t moving quickly. The cocky asshole that he was, he was confidently striding toward the door, effectively holding my personal belongings ransom.

“Fucking scumbag!” I yelled.

“Call the police,” was all he said, not even turning around.

I reached under the table and pulled out a pistol that I had kept there for situations just like this. Drawing the pistol out, I cocked the weapon and issued my final demand.

“Drop the bag,” I said, with a cold edge to my voice.

Of course, I didn’t even need to say anything, because as soon as the weapon was cocked, the man stopped moving, and put his hands in the air.

I was zeroed in on the back of his body, and ready to lay him out flat. I watched as he turned around, slowly. As he rotated, he let the bag slide down his right arm, until it hung on his fingertips, two feet above the ground.

“You want the bag?” he asked. “It’s yours, but don’t expect my help unless you’re going to come around and reciprocate. I’m just not into unequal relationships.”

I sneered again, but my contempt was broken when a forceful knock came to the front door.

My nerves were jarred, but I took a deep breath and fought to hold onto what little composure I had left. With the weapon still trained on the man, I held my position.

With a burst, the door was kicked open. Little splinters of wood shot into the air to the left side of the man by the door. On instinct, the man dove to his left, still holding the bag, and out of sheer surprise, I pulled the trigger.

Within a matter of minutes, I came to understand why people who own firearms need to be highly trained in their use.

The whole point of owning a weapon is to be able to effectively use it against an opponent, in the service of either aggression or protection.

In my case, I initially was trying to protect myself against what I thought was essentially a thief, stealing my personal belongings. What ended up happening was that I fired on my employer and wounded one of his main men.

A cry came through the door, and the shot was followed by a series of other shots as people fired into my home from outside of the door.

Frightened as I was by the cry of the man who had been hit outside of the doorway, I ducked to the side. Crawling on the floor, I began to move toward the side of the kitchen where I could hide and regroup my thoughts. That fucker still had my bag, but it seemed as though in the moment I had other things to worry about.

From my position in the corner of the kitchen, I heard more gunshots fired into the living room, followed by the dull sound of one body hitting another. A groan filled the air, followed by demands from someone who sounded like my boss.

“Piper, who the fuck is this?” the man demanded.

The man obviously responded with force, as more weapons sounded off. The noise inside of my tiny apartment was so awful, and while I was concerned for my own life, at least I knew who was there. The problem was that my own lack of cool had started the whole thing, and now the police were for sure going to come. I realized that I had to stop this senseless fighting, otherwise we were all going to go down for assault.

“Stop!” I screamed. “Stop, the police will be here any minute.”

“You called them?” one of the men who came with my boss yelled at me, recognizing my voice.

“Just cool it with the fucking weapons,” I said, “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“You heard her, now, put down the gun,” I heard army boy’s voice rise above the chaos.

Turning around from my place in the kitchen and daring to look into the living room long enough to realize what was happening, I saw that my boss had been knocked over, and was bleeding from the nose. Another man had been shot and was bleeding out on my floor. The wounded man’s back was pressed up against the front door. He didn’t look good. In fact, he didn’t look like he was going to make it out of my living room.

A sinking feeling came over me, and I looked up to see the bullet hole in the door. The wood to the door was cheap, and the light coming through from the day outside only caused a bleak contrast to come into my mind.

I trained my weapon on the man who had stopped by to drop off the bag. The man who had stolen the bag from me, and who had gotten me into this mess. I blamed him wholeheartedly, and I knew that there were only minutes left before the police arrived. I was certain that the neighbors would have called the moment that they heard the first gunshots. My entire cover was blown, I had to think fast.

That was the first time I had actually shot a man.

I wasn’t prepared for the psychological trauma caused by taking such an action. We may think, at times, that we are capable of pursuing a certain type of action, and we may even play around by pretending that we are comfortable moving in a given direction — if the theater of the moment suggests that such an action take place.

I took a deep breath and began to cry.

“Fuckin’ shoot him, Piper,” my boss said.

He was on the floor and had his pistol out on the ground. My pistol was locked on the man with my bag, and the man’s pistol was focused on my boss. My eyes continued to shift between the man dying at the door, and the man who stole my bag. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t move forward with the kill.

While I was still deliberating over what the hell I was going to do, the man jumped through the front window, carrying my bag with him as he left.

I could hear the police sirens echoing throughout the cityscape. They were on their way, and all I could do was stand there frozen, and helpless.

My boss checked the pulse on the man on the floor and found that it was negative — he was already gone. Running over to me, he grabbed me by the arms and dragged me forcefully outside of the room. We left out the back and ended up running through the corridors of the apartment maze adjacent to where I lived.

The whole area was slummy, and we as we ran, we were given shelter by the ambivalence of the community members living nearby.

It wasn’t that they wanted criminals to live near them, it was that they had enough problems by their own merit without having to resort to intervening in the problems of others. I watched doors shut, and curtains get drawn while we passed through the narrow passageways of Venice.

My lungs burned, and yet my boss continued to run and pull me along with him. His grip on my arm was held fast, and there seemed to be no way that he was going to relinquish control. My own heart was beating so fast, and all I could think about was how everything had changed as a result of a single action.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have gotten to this if I hadn’t of pulled the trigger. Or, if I traced things back further than that, perhaps I wouldn’t have arrived here if I had been more selective about where I placed the bag. Finally, I realized that my thoughts moved onward until they reached the place where I was forsaking my own life.

If I hadn’t of been born, continued my inner dialog, none of this would have happened.

When you reach a place like that in your mind, the easiest thing to do is to conclude that you should either act on that information or stop wasting time thinking about the consequentiality of events in sequence. I decided to do that latter, though it took me a fair bit of mucking around in confusion to reach that conclusion.

My boss was absolutely livid during the entire process. He held so tightly onto my arm that I could feel bruises welling up beneath my skin.

Finally, we made it to a place about two miles away from my house.

Apparently, we were far enough away from the apartment, because my boss pushed me into a wall, and got about an inch from my face.

“What the fuck was that about?” he spat.

I could tell that he was furious. He had only been rough like this toward people when they had caused him serious problems. Knowing what I did about how much the bag was worth, I knew he would be upset, unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to do much of anything besides hyperventilate, and cry.

Then he slapped me.

The strike was a hard, open palm hit across the face. He didn’t hold back either. I was so shocked that he had actually hit me that my tears immediately stopped. I felt a throbbing pain pulse through my face and stared into the eyes of the man who had struck me. I didn’t know it yet, but with that hit, everything had changed.

“You want to explain to me why you fired on Johnson?” he growled, while clutching my shirt inside of his fist.

“I didn’t know…” I began.

“You didn’t know. Well, because you didn’t know, the goods are gone, and one of my best men is now in the morgue.”

I cried. Tears came down from my eyes without much awareness as to why they were coming out.

“I was trying to shoot,” I tried to explain.

“Well, obviously you weren’t trying hard enough, because when you had a chance to shoot him a second time, you held the trigger. Who was that? Some kind of freelance friend of yours, trying to work with you to rip us off?”

His voice was on edge, and it seemed as though he was trying desperately to regain control of a situation that had proven to be completely out of his control.

My boss was a man who didn’t like to be out of control. He liked to have everything just so, and when things didn’t go according to plan, he wasn’t exactly the most graceful man I had ever met. I was authentically scared. There was very little that I felt like I was able to do, and in that moment, with his hand on my shirt, and the knowledge that he had a weapon pointed at my chest, I felt like my life was about to end.

Instead of thinking about why I had shot Johnson, or about why the other man had stolen the bag, I was caught in a thought loop where I was visualizing my death, then and there, in an alley on the east side of the slums. He could have done it, he really could have killed me right there, and nothing would have been done about it. The way that he grit his teeth, and kept exhaling in a fierce and abrupt way demonstrated that he was struggling to maintain control.

“I swear, I didn’t mean to do that,” I begged, my voice quavering. “ I was surprised… and you kicked the door down.”

“I kicked the door down because I thought you were getting mugged! We were visiting to check on things, to make sure that everything was going smoothly. Imagine our surprise, when we have entrusted you with a package as rare and valuable as that particular shipment, only to hear you screaming while some dude is ripping you off.”

Then he lowered his voice, and each word of his question was punctuated by a thrust of his weapon into my chest.

“You’re going to talk, and you’re going to talk now. Who was that man?”

My heart was racing. I could barely think. I was so scared, and if he had only slowed down, or stopped being so aggressive, I might have been able to think clearly, to respond more appropriately to the situation. As it was, I was too frightened to say much at all.

“I don’t know his name,” I replied, haltingly.

“You don’t know his name? A man walks into your house, and walks out with four million dollars worth of inventory, and you don’t even know his name?”

The hand that held the pistol raised up and he slammed the butt of the weapon into the bricks to the right of my head. Little pieces of the wall broke off from the force of his blow, and then I realized that if I was going to get out of this alive, I would have to adapt my approach entirely. I had to become unafraid of this man, and I had to reclaim ownership of the situation.

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second. He slapped me again, but this time, it didn’t sting as it had the first time. As it turns out, the first time, I was responding more in shock than in pain. I didn’t show the same amount of resistance the second time.

They say that when you meet an aggressive force, there are psychological pressures that are buried into an interaction template that both parties are unconsciously participating within. The aggressor, in this case, my boss, was furious, and as I continued to be afraid of him, he continued to push forward in the same method. In order to psychologically break the pattern of engagement, the party who is more conscious needs to assume a role which is outside of the behavioral matrix that has been established. The ‘victim’ needs to shed the role of ‘that which is aggressed toward’, and move into a new state of mind — one without fear.

When I opened my eyes, I stared at him coldly, as unemotionally responsive as I could muster. My eye contact in that moment told him more than anything my words could have ever shared.

I’m not afraid of you, and there is no reason for me to be.

To my surprise, the switch worked.

A consciousness change came over my boss, and he realized that in order to recover the thing which he lost, he was going to need my help. In order for him to fully realize this fact, I was going to have to assist him.

“I can reach him,” I said firmly. “I’ll recover the bag, and we will move forward through this together. I’ve been loyal to you, and there is no reason for me to believe that I want to change that, though if you strike me again, you’ll have to bother locating that fucking thief all on your own, and I’m pretty sure you have other things that are more important to deal with.”

“Why should I trust you?” he asked, pausing a moment, and providing me with one final test of my resolve.

“I’ll let you figure that one out,” I replied, not breaking eye contact. “As for Johnson, maybe you fuckers should learn some manners before you go busting into people’s houses. I had it under control until you showed up. Thanks to you, I’m basically homeless now, so I think you’d better show me a bit more respect.”

He took a deep breath and reconsidered his position. My words rang of truth, and in his heart, he knew that much of what I said was entirely accurate. In spite of the monetary value of the items in the bag, he did have more pressing concerns, which was why he had interested me with the bag to begin with. As for the bit about Johnson’s death, I hadn’t actually killed Johnson, which may have been my only saving grace.

I could still squarely lay the blame on my dad’s friend. The only thing I had to be careful about was implicating my dad in the theft through association. I didn’t want to make things any more difficult for that man that I had already; that much was certain.

“Your move,” I pressed, standing up to him. “Are you going to kill me, or are you going to let me take care of this?”

Presenting the question in such a direct way brought a new point of perspective to the scenario.

He laughed. A twisted, and bewildered sort of laugh. Then he smiled.

“I like you, Piper. I knew I liked you the moment I brought you onto the team. But don’t play things too cocky. You may be valuable to me, but you are only as valuable as the amount of trust I have in you, and right now, that trust is almost gone.”

He hadn’t answered my question, and I couldn’t lower myself to plead because that would be placing myself in a victim’s role once more within our little theater of the moment. It takes a firm will to be able to manage situations like this, and I knew that I had to play my moves just right in order to get out of this with any grace whatsoever.

I didn’t respond.

I met his gaze and didn’t flinch for a second.

He walked closer to me as if testing to see just how far my conviction held.

"You know it's been a while since I had a piece of that ass, he said, looking down on me like he was surveying some goods on the street.

As he spoke to me, he leaned toward me so closely that I could feel the heat from his body pressing up on me.

I knew what I had to do.

This man needed to know that I was 100% committed to him. I knew very well that meant fucking him in broad daylight, in the middle of this quiet slummy neighborhood.

I was okay with that.

I brought my hands to my mouth, intentionally placing some distance between him and myself. With a theatrical display, I brought my palm to my mouth and licked my hand. I let a great deal of spit come out of my mouth, and fall down onto my palm. It was excessive, seductive, willing, and everything that he was looking for in a lover. I saw his eyes gleam as I brought my hand down and shoved it into the front of his pants.

That fucker was already hard. He was ready to take me then and there. Damn, he might have been planning to fuck me this whole time for all I knew.

"I should've known," I said, not bothering to hide my derision.

The comment was obviously a swipe at how effectively he did or did not hide his attraction to me. I wanted to play coy, but I also wanted to come off as a bit of a hard ass.

You can be a confident person without bowing to everyone's will, or allowing people to push you around. The problem is, that if you're trying to convince someone that you actually give a shit about them, that needs to be your number one priority in communication. All forms of behavior our communication. Body language is communication, emotional expression is communication, even the varieties of disgust or acceptance — everything matters.

I had to show no form of fear. Every single emotion that I displayed had to be completely rooted in a desire for this person. What was more, was that I had to act quickly if I hoped to keep this ruse up.

Without a moment's further hesitation, I dropped myself down to my knees and unbuckled Maurice's khakis. I unzipped him and watched with an amazed expression on my face as his penis flopped out from the confines of his designer slacks.

I had seen Maurice's cock before. As a matter of fact, there was nothing spectacular about his cock.

I opened my mouth and brought the head of his cock past my lips. He wasted no time in grabbing the back of my head and shoving the length of his cock down my throat. I gagged, and dug my hands into either side of his ass, merely to hold onto something.

The thing about fucking Maurice is that he likes to be in control. I happen to like men who are in control, but he lacks a certain sense of refinement that some other men possess. Being in control is one thing, and being abusive is another. Maurice bordered on the latter, which was why fucking him was such a tricky task. You had to be committed, otherwise, there was no way around his bullshit.

When I am fucking Maurice, I am reminded every of just how much of a prick he is every single time. It seems as though he is getting just as much pleasure out of treating me with cruelty as I am wishing he would fucking cum already. He tends to get harder, the rougher he ‘plays.’ The problem is that he doesn’t keep his erection for long unless you overload him somehow. The fucker is so insensitive that it’s actually harder than you’d think to get him to cum.

I once watched him fuck a woman until she literally could not walk any longer; it wasn't a good kind of exhaustion either. He was making an example of her, and she was trying her hardest to find some kind of place within the organization. The combination of the two efforts ended up making for a spectacle of cruelty which would not easily be forgotten.

There was a moment, in that public fuck session that Maurice made everyone watch, where the woman began to stand on her own feet. She began to make some aggressive assertion toward Maurice's body. In those moments, she turned his entire paradigm on its head. I actually picked up my own methods of dealing with Maurice from her lead.

While she had the upper hand, it seemed as though she might have successfully found the way out of her situation. Unfortunately, her will wasn't strong enough to maintain that disposition. Instead, she fell back into the passive, submissive, victim-based role, and was summarily fucked until she literally could not walk away.

The woman ended up being alright, but it had taken her the better part of the week to recuperate.

I thought about the small moments of victory that she had achieved while Maurice’s cock was pummeling the back of my throat. Knowing that I needed to accept him completely, I opened up my throat and gave him full access to my body. While making room in one direction, I opened for a more aggressive motion from behind. I dropped his pants down around his thighs, under the premise of giving myself more access to his cock. He gripped the sides of my hair, essentially using my hair as handles to hold either side of my head. Without missing a moment, I used one hand to grab his balls, and the other hand to shove two fingers into his asshole.

He was tight, and my fingers were too dry make their way inside of him.

I felt him push back harder by shoving his cock inside of my mouth and holding it there so I had to open my jaw as wide as possible just to accommodate the girth of his cock. I was drooling uncontrollably, and all I had to do was take the hand that was cupping his balls and hold it beneath the length of his cock.

Within a moment, he had pulled out, and I gasped for air. My hand went immediately for his shaft and was promptly soaked in a thin coating of saliva. I leaned forward, indicating that this was far from over and that I wanted more. He smiled and didn’t even notice what I was doing before I pushed two fingers firmly inside of his asshole.

It should be said, that Maurice is a tight ass. I mean a tight ass in every sense of the word. He was even too stingy to let me keep my fingers up his ass long enough to manage an explosion from his prostate.

He slapped me with the flat of his hand, and I felt the sting of his strike against my face. I refused to back down and plunged my fingers deeper into his asshole. I was up to the knuckle, and massaging intensely toward his prostate with one hand, while the other hand was pulling tight on his balls.

My mouth was wrapped tightly around the head of his cock, and my hand slipped up from his balls to around his shaft. Having fingers in his asshole seemed to act like a pressure release switch to manage his bullshit. He was wild at first, like a bronco, but now that I had him where I wanted him, I looked up at him with total admiration in my eyes. His attentions toward me ended up being softer, and more compliant.

He reached his hand down to stroke my breast, but I batted his hand away from me.

I’m in charge, I wanted to tell him, though I didn’t dare remove my mouth from his cock long enough to make that message verbally clear.

In spite of my science, he managed well enough to understand. His hand continued to hold at the base of my head, while my head continued to bob on the head of his cock. He was softer than usual, but as long as I was in control of the pacing, I didn’t really mind. He threw a curveball at me though and he leaned forward to kiss me.

“Going soft on me, huh?” I asked, leaning back on the floor of the alleyway, spreading my legs, and holding his head down toward my vagina.

“You know I like it when you fuck me like that,” he said, pausing between licking my hot, red cunt.

It must have been my day. I looked down at him with total admiration and allowed myself to feel like a queen who was being serviced in an alleyway in the slums in Venice. My abs moved in a wave-like motion, and his tongue moved seamlessly from my vagina to my asshole, and back to my cunt once more. My legs were spread wide, and his hands had me pinned down once more.

He was starting to get more aggressive, and so I wrapped my legs around him, pulling his head toward my vagina once more. He got the inspiration to try and fuck me, so he came forward, and began to shove his cock into my vagina. His hand wrapped around my throat and began to push me into the ground, while his cock shoved itself about half way inside of my vagina.

I reached my hand out and slapped him, and then put my own hands around his neck. He responded by lifting my leg up over my head and binding it to the wall behind me with his hand. He had me pinned on the floor, ready to fuck, and with nothing to be done about it. His other hand was on my neck, though he strayed far enough to shove a thumb down my throat. I bit him slightly, just to let him know that I would do whatever possible to fuck with him if he decided to get out of control again.

All the while, he started to fuck me stronger, pushing his cock into me with more and more pressure. Each slam of his dick caused a contraction in my abdomen. I looked up at his strong, Italian features, and I actually caught a glimpse of the reason I had been attracted to him in the first place. I knew that it was good to think about these sorts of things because they would provide more authenticity for my performance.

“Get off of me and let me fuck you,” I told him, pushing him off from on top of me with all of my strength.

He had more strength than I did, that was for sure. Maurice was a huge man, and he knew how to handle himself. However, I had reached something inside of him, and I knew it. He wanted to feel loved, just like everyone else, and I was just the woman to share that with him.

The head of his cock worked in and out of the entrance to my vagina. I kept the rhythm up, and my slit opened for him again and again. Deeper, and with a steady rhythm each time, I bobbed onto of him. He ended up getting excited again and thrusting his cock inside of me. I could feel his tense muscles convulse with every single thrust.

Maurice was the type of man with a six pack, and a firm hand. He held me to his chest by wrapping one hand around the back of my neck, and grabbing onto my ass cheek with the other hand. All I could do was fuck, and put on a show. I knew that people were watching, and I didn’t give a shit. They had no idea what I was going through, and I wanted Maurice to know that I didn’t give a shit about them either.

I pushed off him once more and leaned back on him so he could watch me riding his cock and playing with my clit at the same time. I was Maurice’s showgirl, and I knew what he liked.

He wanted me to be getting off on him. He wanted to be Maurice, the sex god, wanted by everyone, and so I gave him that performance.

I fondled his cock and made the most beautiful, agonized faces possible. I spread my legs wide and bounced up and down on his cock, bending him with my pussy while I pinched my nipples with my free hand.

In a quick move, I turned around, giving him a view of my ass while sharing my tits and face with the whole neighborhood. I made sure to moan with each wave of pleasure, allowing myself to be more vocally expressive than I would have perhaps been had I been even by myself.

I couldn’t fake it — you couldn’t fake anything with Maurice. I had to believe it. And so I did.

“God dammit, you fuckhead,” I cursed him. “Shove your cock inside of me like a fucking man!”

I slapped him on his balls and grabbed them, lifting them up off the ground.

“You want to see my asshole while you fuck me?” I asked, turning around and looking at him like a whore. I spread my cheeks for him, so he could see my asshole as clear as the afternoon sun.

He pushed me off of him, and held me down with one hand. He didn’t go for my ass, but kept at my cunt, pushing inside of me and holding onto my lower back with his large, firm hands.

“Oh FUCK, Maurice!” I yelled, eliciting a slam of a window nearby.

I looked over at him, and saw him grinning, in all of his pride. He loved this whole experience. Fucking me raw in front of this place, and watching me beg for more. I spread my cheeks for him so he could get a clear look at both my asshole, as well as the way that my eyes begged him for more.

My hands dug into the asphalt below my body. I was getting torn up by the concrete, but I didn’t care. My legs would heal. What was important right now was being present, and vulnerable; that was the only way to get through this whole thing.

“Fuckin’ swallow it,” he commanded, backing off, and laying down so I could get on top of him with my mouth.

I didn’t hesitate. One hand was massaging his testicles, and jerking him off fiercely.

He shot his load all over my cheek, and I wrapped my lips around the head of his dick pulling him closer into me so I could suck what sperm remained inside of him out into my mouth.

I could feel him relax and grow less tense. All of the power left his body, and I was there to pick up the mess.

I turned around, so he could see me sucking on his cock as it grew more flaccid. His eyes were closed, though, but I knew that didn’t matter. When he opened them, I wanted him to see that I was worshiping him. I wanted him to know that I was totally committed to the cause, and unquestioningly committed to him.

Sure enough, he opened his eyes, and I was there to smile at him. The cock in my mouth was already limp enough to let fall to his abdomen, but I wasn’t finished quite yet.

While he was staring at me, I made sure to raise a finger up toward my cheek so I could wipe the cum from my cheek off and place it decidedly on my outstretched tongue. I sucked my finger clean and then proceeded to lick up any and all of the escaped sperm that had not ended up in my mouth on its way toward my cheek.

As my tongue trailed along Maurice’s abdomen, he looked at me with and expression that I can only describe as wonder.

That’s how you do it, folks, I thought, while slurping the last bit of cum up from his abs.

“Big load,” I grinned, swallowing obviously so that he knew it was all gone.

I gave him a raised eyebrow and a deep sigh. At that point, I could have probably stopped, but I wanted him to be the one that pushed me away, so I went after his cock once more. Some men, you can continue to suck them off, and they will get hard again; Maurice is not one of those men. Once he is spent, there is no more joy to be had with that man’s cock until a fair amount of time has passed. Often times, Maurice will go a week or two between fucking someone, sometimes as long as a month. When you’re busy taking over the world, you don’t really have time to screw around as much as you might like.

I brought his cock toward my mouth and sucked him firmly, taking more than a bit of pleasure in feeling him shrink up and push me away in his sensitive state. I licked my lips and looked up at him.

“Later,” he muttered, obviously thinking that I was more of a sex-driven animal than a human being.

Personally, I couldn’t tell much of a difference between the two, but the look of disdain in his eyes made it clear to me that he had a very particular idea of how things were going between the two of us. I had serviced him, and I would now go and service him financially. We had an unspoken agreement.

He got up and the two of us got our clothes together once more.

A kid from one of the neighborhood houses threw a tomato at us, which splattered harmlessly against the wall, though some of the seeds did manage to spray on Maurice’s clothes.

He shook his head. “Fucking kids.”

Things were going to be ok — all I had to do was track down army boy, and get the bag.

In my heart of hearts, I thought Maurice was a total prick, but I also knew that he would make my life miserable if I fucked him over, so I knew what I had to do.

Before he could walk away, I hit him up for some cash. I guess I was still riding high on that wave of courage.

“I’m going to need some funds,” I said, looking at him like I meant business.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve,” he replied, looking at me with a sidelong glance. He sighed, as though letting me know that he wasn’t happy about it, but that he would comply.

I smiled.

“You know I like you, though,” he said, reaching his hand out to stroke the hair behind my left ear.

I waited until he had forked over whatever cash was in his pocket before replying. He handed me four hundred dollars in large bills. With that money, I would be able to find a place to stay for a couple of weeks, maybe crashing with a friend or something of the sort. I had a friend in mind, while I looked over the bills, and back to the man whose temperament had changed so drastically due to subtle cues in emotional manipulation.

“If you liked me, you wouldn’t lose your shit and slap me like that.”

He laughed bitterly and walked away.

“If you don’t come up with the goods inside of the next week, you’ll have to deal with a lot more than that.”

“Burn in hell,” I called out,

Though he was walking away, I swore I heard him say, “Already there.”

When dealing with a man who has a chip on their shoulder that size, a person should always be wary. He was an unstable fucker, with a vision, which was exactly why he was so dangerous. Most of the time, people who were unstable had a sense of disorientation and confusion about them and were no real threat to society. The way Maurice operated was to take that anger that most commonly would have been internalized and to focus it on the world around him. His world-view had been constructed and calcified. The hardening process gave him a vision of a society where leaders were put in their rightful place, and the working class was free to be as they wished — essentially controlling the means of production themselves. He was a Marxist who had turned to black hat anarchism as a matter of course, a means to an end.

Initially, I had been persuaded by his charisma and his vision. I think we all were, but when the stakes are high, and people aren’t sure if things are going to pan out how they hoped, people tend to show you their true colors.

Turns out Maurice was an abusive, scared son-of-a-bitch. While initially, I thought he was someone who I could count on to right the wrongs that so many of us felt on a sub-conscious level, regarding our society, and how the political and social system was organized, I was beginning to realize that I may have been wrong.

Nobody treats me like that, I said to myself, as Maurice walked away.

The truth was that far too many people had treated me that way over the course of my life. All of them had been men of similar character to Maurice. I had a bad habit of being seduced early by rhetoric and visions, only to find the ugly truth about a person when times got rough. Fortunately, the experience had given me a keen insight into both who I was as a person, as well as how to deal with men of that caliber. The unfortunate reality of the situation was that my experience hadn’t apparently done me enough good to be able to successfully discriminate against dealing with the same types of men over, and over again.

“You think you’d get it right, eventually,” I said, while I walked out of the alleyway in the opposite direction as Maurice.

I didn’t have a plan immediately, but once I checked my surroundings, I found that a dear friend of mine didn’t live too far away. Her name was Angela, and she was both a tech guru and a hemp fiend.

I had to level my head, which was why I went over to her place initially; that and I didn’t have too many other places that were safe to go. Her other interests ended up being crucial to my current predicament, but all I could think about at the moment was finding a place to relax and clear my head. Dealing with Maurice had been emotionally taxing in a severe way, and I could barely function now that the adrenaline had left my body.

With a long sigh, I made my way the remaining four blocks to her flat.

Angela didn’t have a doorbell.

“I hate the sound,” she told me once. “Here I am busy doing something, and someone from the outside world has something to do that demand of my time. Honestly, Its a pain in the as that the rest of the world might have to deal with, but I don’t.”

To a certain extent, she was right, except it was kind of a pain in the ass when you were a part of the rest of the world that wanted her attention.

I knocked, and then waited a solid ten minutes for her to get around to answering.

Angela wasn’t a flake, and when she came to the door, she opened it like I was an old friend she had been expecting. I never failed to feel welcomed when I was in Angela’s presence, no matter how long it had been since the two of us had spent time together; that was one of the primary reasons why I enjoyed spending time with her so much.

She was like a second home to me, and now that my primary home was no longer a viable place to rest, I was hoping she would actually be a first home to me.

I didn’t waste any time in letting her know exactly how much of a burden I was hoping to be on her; that was how you did things with Angela. Never beat around the bush.

“I’m in a bad way right now,” I started off, “and I might need a place to crash for a couple of weeks.”

“Good to see you too, hun,” she replied, blinking and staring at me with an obvious unspoken question on her lips.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “I have a bit of cash to help pay for rent for the time that I’m going to be spending with you.”

She seemed to relax a bit once she knew that the most she was going to be put out from having me around was a bit of solitude. I knew well enough not to bother her when she didn’t want to be bothered, but you can't avoid all contact when you're crashing at someone's place.

Angela and I had the type of relationship where we didn’t want to step on each other’s toes, and if I treated her well, and respected myself, everything would end up just fine; that was what was so beautiful about our relationship. Co-dependency was not a part of it, even if we came to one another for favors every now and then.

To say that Angela came to me for favors is honestly a bit of an overstatement. She was a recluse, and by her nature, a very independent woman. There was very little that Angela needed from other humans unless of course you count emotional presence. Angela was notoriously manic and had an intensity about her character that was not normal. I personally wouldn’t have had it any other way. I loved Angela with all of my heart, and if she wanted to spout some of her genius in my direction while I was around — which inevitably, she would — I was more than happy to accommodate that process.

As a matter of course, immediately after she invited me in, she offered to smoke me out.

To call Angela a frequent marijuana user would be a gross understatement. There was very little that Angela did on a casual basis. She was the type of woman who if she did anything at all, she completely integrated it within her lifestyle; this level of intensity was actually one of the reasons that Angela believed that she never held any long standing relationships.

“I can’t be bothered to deal with fickle people,” she would say. “Honestly, it just bums me out. A guy will pretend to be interested in me, and then within a matter of weeks, it turns out that he has no sack at all. You’d think that there would be someone out there who would be interested in hooking up with me — and there are, but they just aren’t interested in me as a complete person, and that is a total turn off.”

Conversations about her dating other people inevitably ended up with a bit of cuddling, and some more marijuana. When she was feeling amorous, she wasn’t exactly someone who you would call productive. Her proclivities toward the sensual seemed to overtake her body, and she would put all of her projects on hold until the feeling passed through her. In a sense, she was vulnerable to the type of romantic possession one might attribute to a Don Quixote or some other fabled romantic knight. I would say that it was brutal if it weren’t so damned endearing.

“So,” she said, “why the hell did you show up this time? I know you only come over here when you’re in trouble, so what the fuck happened to your house? Are you still fucking that guy? How’s your dad?”

The questions were an immediate onslaught, as she was in a hyper-manic state of being at the moment. I was absolutely fine with her current temperament, as I wasn’t really feeling cuddly at the moment.

We shared a few bowls, and she actually talked to me rapidly for longer than usual, though I was able to share the basics about what had transpired earlier that day. I covered a few of the other questions she had for me in short answers, but they weren’t short for any lack of transparency on my part.

Angela clearly just had a lot she had to get off her chest.

“Nobody’s come by in a while, to be perfectly honest with you, so I’m glad to see you,” she said, talking a mile a minute.

“You’re pretty chatty today, are you on uppers or something?” I asked, casually, the herbs working their magic on my state of mind.

“Naw, I gave those up months ago. Couldn’t fucking handle the comedown. The problem is that they really help you out for about eight to twelve hours, and then they leave you nothing more than a burnt out husk for the entire rest of the day.”

She shook her head, just recalling the pattern.

“Naw,” she continued, “this is just my regular energy level these days. I’m working on a new project, and you know how I get when I’m onto something that I can give my complete focus toward.”

Indeed, I did.

“You going to show me?” I asked, knowing that there was no way she could refuse, and in fact, it was likely the very thing she wanted to do most at that moment.

“Hell yeah,” she said, and then she paused for a moment in reflection. “Actually, this is the sort of thing that you’d really be into right about now, we might actually be able to use it to help you out some.”

“No shit?”

“You know I’ve got better things to do with my time than lie to you.” She gave me a hug and smiled like a manic pixie.

I followed her through her living room toward the basement.

Angela was a regular mad scientist, with a bit of a paranoid schizophrenic streak. The weird way her brain was wired only made her more interesting in my opinion, though for sure it put some people off.

The moment I entered her flat, I was assaulted on all sides by things. The strangest part about the whole experience was that she wasn’t a border so much as she knew exactly what she needed, and she happened to need a lot of things in order to get her projects off the ground. She also operated on a budget, which usually meant that she had to acquire her equipment second hand, and then make modifications as necessary. Sometimes, when she was able to manage it, she would get some top of the line piece of tech that would be the pinnacle of whatever she was focused on at the time. Usually, she didn’t splurge on something that was fancy and new, simply for the sake of it; she was a pragmatic woman, in that way.

“Everything has a function,” she said “and if it doesn’t, then it’s just taking up space. I’ve got no use for things that just take up space unless of course they provide conversation or rent money.”

She turned around and gave me a wink while she lead the way downstairs.

All the way down the stairs, I was surrounded by strange, archaic radio equipment. There were meters behind small glass portals that offered information that I’m sure Angela knew how to read, but I had no idea how, or why they operated. To me, her environment looked more like a classic science fiction fairy tale. I realized that because I didn’t understand how these things operated, I had imparted a type of reverence to Angela that may have been beyond her station. In all reality, she may not have been a wizard, but she never ceased to amaze me.

The lab itself was a room densely populated by all manner of electronic devices. It seemed as though one might dissect them into segments, according to project. The largest project took center stage and had a gigantic mainframe structure.

Angela saw me looking at the structure and began to elucidate.

"What you're seeing there is a data storage mainframe. Essentially, this is something that's very similar to the types of storage facilities that the national security agency uses for mass data collection, in their civilian spy program. There are lots of different varieties of information which can be collected, and most facilities are massive in scale, much larger than anything you see here."

The two of us walked together toward the gigantic storage mainframe, and I noticed the bundle of cables that was coming out from the back of the data storage locker. The circumference of the bundle was about the size of my thigh and stretched into a hole that had been bored into the ceiling just below ground level.

"I don't think I'll be getting my deposit back," she said, her eyes trailing my own vision. "The cables go through an underground tunnel which I had to specifically dig in the front yard. There was no other way to get around it. It was quite the Mission Impossible experience, installing something like this while maintaining a covert status. I had to plant a series of shrubs, which meant I had to take a break from my normal routines and learn a thing or two about planting drought tolerant, self-maintaining perennials."

I looked at Angela incredulously.

She demonstrated such attention to detail which she invested in her plans. Without my understanding what it was that she was collecting data from, the conversation had already transitioned into supplemental materials that she felt the need to research in order to adequately complete the task of setting up the thing.

"How many other non-related tasks do you have to get a basic understanding of just to achieve the thing you're trying to do?" I asked.

Usually, thoughts like that stay inside of my head, but I was in good company. Angela and I made it a point to not censor ourselves well in front of one another. This didn’t mean that we were unaware of when to have conversations, and when to not have conversations; it only meant that the conversations that we did have tended to be very straightforward. Neither of us enjoyed dealing with the emotional friction that one tends to find in conversations with people who are less honest.

“You don't even know the start of it," she said, proudly.

"I'm basically operating a microcosm of ‘Big Brother’, except I'm focusing on law-enforcement and government officials in the area."

It took me a minute to understand exactly what it was she saying, and how it related to my previously described predicament.

"So, what kind of information are you gathering?" I asked, with no small amount of curiosity.

"All kinds. Government email servers were the first because I didn't need particularly strong reception equipment in order to secure them. All I really had to have was this mainframe set up, and that was less of an initial investment and more hardware tinkering to get that to work."

She walked around the back of the box, and I followed.

The mainframe itself was the size of the chest freezer stood on its side, and reached up toward the ceiling. If I had to guess dimensions, I would say 12 feet high by 16 ft.² at the base. Like all of Angela’s equipment, it didn't look new. In fact, it looked a bit beat up. However, there were signs of care in the reassembly of the thing. The wires were all neatly bound together. The input-output jacks were also cleaned off, so it was clear which components were linked together.

"Can't you get in trouble for this kind of thing?"

"Only if you get caught," she replied. "The way I see it, I didn't personally offer the government any permission to conduct mass surveillance on my life, and our government is primarily based on a social contract system. The social contract is that I give up some of my rights so that the whole can be more collectively operated. If I don't consent to give up these rights, then all I see going on here is the collection of information, which might be used to benefit myself or others."

I smiled at the obvious rationalization for a dubiously criminal act. The real beautiful thing was that the legalities for mass surveillance were gray while operating on a national level. Angela had not differentiated herself much in the end result of her plan. Naturally, if she were caught, her entire operation would be seized. If she was lucky, they would realize her genius and then hire her, but for Angela's sake, I hoped that would never happen.

"The cables,” she continued, “are what really transforms this whole thing from low-level hacking into a formidable tool against the surveillance state. I mentioned to you that the cables go out at the ceiling level, and into the underground current located just outside of the building. If I had to pay for the amount of power this sucker produced… well, let's just say the city is helping me out.”

I had to laugh, but she continued uninterrupted.

“Anyways, the cables also go up to a satellite dish which I have installed on the roof. The satellite dish has been modified so that I can pick up local signals. The combination of the satellite dish as well as classic CB radio tools essentially enable me to get free access to phone records police scanners emergency radio systems, and patrol car radios."

"You're amazing," I said, totally in awe of the type of brain necessary to come up with this kind of system and make it work.

"I know," she said dismissively. "As our government has already demonstrated, the primary issue with scraping this much information on a regular basis is not only storage, but also organization. Without organization, the data tends to appear like a cluttered, undifferentiated mass. Fortunately, I was able to mitigate this problem slightly by ensuring that different sources were automatically routed to specific servers. Even after the bulk of the sorting has been done, in order to sift through this data, you have to have either something that you're specifically looking for or you need a national security budget."

“I need a minute,” I said, leaning up against a dusty tower of electronics.

This whole thing was way too intense for me to piece together all at once. It seemed to me that what she was proposing was impossible, but if there was enough data here, and we were able to search through police radio logs…

“This might just work,” I muttered. “Can you use time stamps as search criteria?”

Angela flipped open a laptop that was stationed next to the mainframe stack and loaded a custom designed search tool for the data she had collected.

“Not a problem. I had a friend design this search interface for me so I would be able to locate specific items. I can search by address, time stamps, badge numbers, and the like. Pretty much any specific information you could want, I can form a query around those terms. The only thing I can’t do is track the specific content of all of this data at once.”

“Did you program this as well?” I asked, looking at her in admiration.

She smiled a me.

“Of course not. You can’t do everything by yourself. I had a close friend of mine take care of the software element. Told him that I wanted to geek out on some database work, and he helped me out. Favor for a friend stuff.”

I gave her a nudge in the side, followed by a wink.

“Favors for Favors?”

“Fond, but not in love,” she replied, indicating that it wasn’t exactly going to work out like she had hoped, but that things had worked out as well as could be expected for that particular experience.

“Should I start with your address?” she asked. “I assume you are going to want to look through the police radio records.”

I nodded.

“That, and you can use the time stamp feature. Just to be safe, go ahead and use about 3 PM to now.”

“You got it,” she said, and before I could blink, her fingers were working their magic on the keyboard.

The screen became a flurry of activity while I watched the database program begin to sift through literally hundreds of thousands of folders, each one with what seemed like just as many sub-folders.

“This thing is top of the line,” she informed me, resting her finger on the side of the laptop. “If I wanted to make this work any faster, I’d literally have to invest thousands of dollars in order to get a computer system that was hot enough to manage all of this data. Since the search parameters are relatively small, and we’re only going through one database, the results should be in within about four hours.”

My hopes for an immediate solution were dashed, but then I realized that even four hours of hanging out with Angela would be much better than any alternative I could think of at the moment. There was really nothing more that I could do.

“Thirty minutes ago,” I reasoned out loud, “I had no idea how I was going to move forward, so a few hours of processing time seems like a small price to bay for the ability to get a hint as to where I’m headed next.”

“Yea. Hopefully, this guy you’re looking for has enough of a survival instinct to stay out of police custody or hasn’t been caught already. Of course, if he has been caught, or he ditched this bag you’re after, then none of this really matters anyway.”

I blinked, taking in the sober realization that Angela was one hundred percent correct.

I hadn’t even thought about what would happen if the man I was after had been apprehended, or ditched the bag. Any self-respecting criminal would probably do everything possible to avoid getting caught. However, if he was caught, I’m absolutely certain that he wouldn’t want to get caught carrying those goods. He seemed like he was already on the run from something, but tacking on the weight of baggage like that was sure to land him a place in hell.

“You want to take a nap,” Angela yawned and looked over at me with hopeful eyes.

I smiled, and nodded, realizing that at this point, there was nothing more that could be done, except wait.

“That would be nice. I could use a bit of recovery time.”

We walked upstairs to her crash room.

Angela was the type of person who had a nearly unlimited capacity for projects, and the majority of her house reflected that fact. In addition to her excessive penchant for electronic equipment, her kitchen was full of fermentation experiments, and her bathroom was full of plants. The only room in the house that had minimalistic sensibilities was her bedroom.

“I keep this area clear,” she had explained to me once, “so my mind has a place to relax in the face of all of these other distractions.”

Her flat only had a living room, a basement, a kitchen, a bathroom, and the crash room. Really, the place was relatively lavish, given that she was the only one that lived there. Rent was her biggest expense, but she never had any difficulty coming up with the money. One of the reasons that she was able to afford to live in a place like that was because it was on the outside of the slums.

Where Angela lived, things got a bit less grimy, in terms of the petty criminal activity and trash that was typical of the inner slums. The outer sector of this area led to an extensive network of warehouses until the island hit the water.

There were other, more prosperous areas of Venice. Areas where tourists longed to visit, and where businessmen decided to spend much of their time. For the moment, this area was safe, and I was safe as well. I allowed my guard to relax.

Some friends are worth all the gold in the world.

And that’s when it started.

While were sitting together on the bed.

Our bodies were only a few inches away, and we were settling into that old familiar feeling. The feeling that best friends feel for one another, while appreciating their inherent level of comfortability.

Our conversations moved slowly toward sexuality.

Angela was the first one who brought it up.

“Do you ever think about what it might feel like if we were to make love?"

I took a deep breath and then nodded, turning slightly to the side away from Angela. Then I realized how silly it was for me to think that way.

This was a woman that I've spent so much time with during the course of my life, and I wanted nothing more than spend more time with her. It was obvious that the men in my life were nowhere near as sensitive as she was, and we're not nearly as interested in helping me as she had been.

In a bold move, she walked her fingers across the distance between the two of us and placed her hand on my vagina. I felt her fingers on my lips, and I felt one of her fingers pressed slowly inside of me. I was already wet for her, and soon, the two of us were sharing one another's bodies as well as a bed.

At first, I was a bit slow to pick up, but that was because I hadn't had much experience with women before. When I turned close to her and saw her face less than an inch away from mine, I knew that there was no going back. My desire for her was too strong, and the joy that I felt and sharing in touch with her was more significant than anything I could've hoped for.

She held onto my shoulder and kissed me, pulling at my skin with her mouth. Neither of us had actually penetrated the other. We were still both wearing pants, but I was getting so hot that I didn't want to wear my pants anymore.

Angela was lifting her leg up so that she was slowly wedging her knee between my legs. She leaned forward, her mouth only centimeters away from mine.

I offered her a small nip, to which she replied with a passionate kiss. She had her hand around my neck and was kissing me completely. She wasn't holding me down like the men had, or fucking me brutally. She was sensitive and understanding. She was warm, and I love the way that her curves made me feel.

She leaned over me, and I kicked the covers off from between the two of us. Soon, we were kissing one another, my tongue was flapping out of my mouth, and my hand was tearing down her shirt so that I could find her sweet nipple with my lips.

The passion exchanged between the two of us was a beautiful thing. I loved staring at her, and more importantly, I loved pawing at her. It was like both of us are so hot for each other, and the only thing we could do was allow one another the pleasure of touching each other's body. Even her hugs were sensual and passionate.

As I was removing Angeles shirt, I kissed her beautiful chest. Whether it was her nipple, her breast, or the space right above her abdomen, I couldn't get enough of her.

She was so passionate, and so incredibly beautiful.

In no time at all, my legs are spread, and her leg was pressed up in between my crotch. She pushed into me, grabbing the back of my head with a fistful of my hair. I tried to push into her, and the two of us were like sparks together.

We were wild, feral, and in that moment, freely in love.

She pinched my breasts, and bit at the side of my neck. All of the passion from years of being around one another was coming out now in one single uninhibited session. I knew that nothing would ever be the same between us again, but I didn't care. This was too beautiful.

We removed my pants, and I held my knees to my chest. Feeling as though I was being blessed by an angel, I gasped. My hand ran along her hair, while she kissed the outside of my panties. I was soaking wet for her, she was running her hands along the insides of my knees. She grabbed hold of the fabric of my panties and pulled them so that they pressed up against my clit. Losing patience, she moved forward with her head so that she could take a mouthful of my breast while pulling my panties down around my legs. They didn't make it all the way off, though because her finger found its way around and begin stroking my clit.

She pulled my panties all the way off, and threw them to the side and then, slowly, and with such beauty and grace, she spread my legs.

I felt so free. I felt so amazing, and I knew that she wanted me. I wanted her to, and I gave her everything, without contrivance.

When she finally spread my legs and brought her mouth to my clit, she moved in slow, purposeful motions.

The way that she looked at me, was like she was inspecting the treasure that was available exclusively for her. To Angela, my cunt was a mystery, a beautiful thing to be explored and treasured. I breathed deeply into my diaphragm, I sat up and then let my neck rest so I looked at the ceiling. I was gasping for breath, and smiling in a slow and steady way. When I looked at her, I saw that her pupils were wide. She was paying close attention to my body, and seemed like to her, the world had decreased in size and narrowed down to a tiny nub of sensitivity placed between my legs.

Angela had never looked so beautiful.

Her tongue moved gently, almost longingly on record. While her hand was pressed firmly on my pubic bone.

“Oh my God," I gasped, rolling my head down to the side and clutching onto the sheets once more. "Feels so good. Please don't stop!"

My breast was heaving, and my hand was clutching at the side of my head, pulling my hair by the roots. Angela, on the other hand, was taking her sweet time. Her mouth was incomplete contact on my labia. I could see her lips pressing firmly up against my labia, and reaching her tongue out toward the underside of my clit. The pleasure was too much to handle.

I clutched the side of the pillow, with one hand, and began to firmly pet Angela's mane of hair with the other hand. When she put two fingers inside of me and began fucking me, I had to turn to the side and bite my wrist in order to control myself. My breasts were moving to each side, and my whole body was shaking with the intensity from her masturbation. She was fucking me with her fingers and a ceaseless, fervent motion. All the while, her tongue was eagerly pushing towards me, tasting everything that I had to offer.

The way that my hands on her head changed when she was fucking me was an indicator of the intensity. I went from petting her, screaming and pleasure, and grouping to inherit the base of her skull.

She looked like a wild woman, and her face was attached to me. I could see the section on the inside of her cheeks. I could feel the intense short bursts of energy being pumped into my cunt.

I gripped hold of the sheets with both hands and watched as she shook my entire body with the force of her arms. Grasping hold of her head with both hands, I came into her mouth come. The orgasms were rolling, and multiple. In spite of the fact that I had already come once, she didn't stop her work.

Her fingers kept working on the inside of me, and her lips and tongue continued to press up against my clit. My whole lower body started involuntarily humping her face. I grabbed a hold of her while she bounced her face against my pubic bone.

"Oh, Angela!” I cried. “That's so fucking incredible."

My thighs clutched either side of her face, squeezing her between my body. I had so much tension inside of me I didn't know what to do with it so I was grabbing onto everything including her hair and the sides of her face. The sheets and pillows all around us were a mess. In spite of the fact that I had come twice now, she didn't stop her passion. She was staring directly at me and feasting on my cunt. She looked wild and untamed. The dark color of her eyelashes was all I saw when she came up to kiss me.

Tasting three orgasms in a row on the lips of my lover was an incredible feeling. I felt free, and beautiful. I wanted to love her, and I was so incredibly attracted to her.

She removed her shorts, and I worshiped her ass. I lowered her panties and licked the back of her body. My hands moved all around her, and I pulled her ass cheeks away from each other. Slapping her, and looking at the place where I had slapped her, I could see the blood rushing to the surface of her skin.

I set her down on the bed, began to worship her legs next. I could tell that she was fascinated by me.

She pinned me back down onto the bed, and wrapped her hand around my neck, holding me down on the sheets. With both of our underwear removed, she began to fuck me. She held my left leg up and rode her cunt against mine. Both of us were wet, but she looked like a prince. Her hair was down on her face, and she was a wild, fair own beauty. Our clits rubbed against each other, and the feeling of her hand wrapped around my leg was intoxicating. When I looked up to see her, I saw that she wasn't even aware of me at all. It looked like she was using me exclusively for her pleasure, and there was nothing that would've made me happier.

I never noticed Angela's lean body before, or the way that her hair hung in front of her face as her mouth was open. I knew that every single lover who had ever turned away from Angela had been a total and complete fool. In that moment, if she had asked me to stay there forever, to run away with her, that's exactly what I would've done.

She kept fucking me, while holding the back of my neck firmly with her hand. She switched her position once more and pinned me again to the bed. Her body was pressed completely against mine, her cunt on my thighs, and her lips on my lips. I moved up toward a peak, but before I could get there, she was making out with me again and holding onto my vagina with her right hand.

My pleasure was entirely in her control. Like she was holding me hostage, she pushed me up onto my seat and whispered into my ear.

"You're not gonna come until I tell you too," she told me. "It's going to be soon, but it's not going to be soon enough for you. I'm going to hold you in agony here as long as possible, playing with your clit."

She held me close to her body, one hand wrapped around my shoulder grabbing firmly on the underside of my breast, and the other hand playing with my clit. Her movements were deft, and she knew exactly what to do. She kissed me and massaged my clit and short repeated bursts.

While she manipulated me, I stared into her eyes.

She dove two fingers inside of me and began pulling up inside of my cunt. I began to twitch wildly like I was close to an orgasm, but she didn't let me come. Instead, she laid me down on the bed and put her ass right in front of my face, straddling me.

Dutifully, I run my tongue along the entire length of her vagina and pulled on the soft flesh of grass. I moved my head from side to side beneath her body, and she sat on top of me, letting her ass place itself firmly and squarely in front of my face. She wasn't intelligent for long, though, and soon her fingers found the inside of my vagina once more. I made it a point to lick her clip, and pull my tongue all the way out the inside of her crack until I hit just below her asshole. I brought her clit into my mouth and tug data from side to side tasting, and feeling so incredibly grateful that she was spending time with me.

Angela busied herself by biting into my thigh, by kissing my clit, and moaning. The moans went on the longest.

Truth be told, I was incredibly happy that she was moaning. She brought me to orgasm three times already, and I hadn't even done the same for her.

"Now, it's your turn," I promised, in an unspoken moment of dedication.