Minutes later, her studio door creeks open. “Hi there,” he offers, entering, inching closer to her, musing how some women subject themselves to painful collagen injections to attain a pout as perfect as hers.

     An invisible, tantalizing cloud of English Leather wafts around her; she inhales and wills herself tightly wrapped in his powerful arms. “Hi,” she responds, followed by a candid little-girl giggle.

     “I’m Johnny Knight.” His voice rich and mellifluous.

     Johnny immediately notices the FM studio is almost twice the size of the AM studio and is filled with much more and newer equipment.

     “Jennifer Daye,” she provides wearing a schoolgirl grin. “Actually, it’s Bedd with two Ds, but I’m using my first and middle name on the air.”

     Her eyes look into his: large, fathomless azure pools inviting him to leap in and splash around, explore, see if he can dive deep enough to assess their total depth.

     She’s dated others, but none made her feel like now. I must touch him or I’ll simply die. Her need that essential.

     She offers her hand and he takes it without hesitation. The warmth from her slender fingers zips up his arm and plunges into his heart. He suddenly finds himself lost in fantasy, craving to know all her secrets.

     When Johnny’s strong fingers gently wrap hers, a bolt of electricity charges every cell in her body.

     “Off the air, do you go by Jenny or Jen?”

     “I go by Jennifer on and off the air.” Assertive.

     “Jennifer it is, then. A pleasure to meet you.”

     “This is my first time on.”

     “My first show, too.”

     “Nervous?”
     “A little even though I don’t have much on air time. We run mostly prerecorded tapes over there.”

     “I practiced a couple hours earlier in the production room. I think it’s helped me relax a bit. I don’t have as many butterflies as I thought I would,” she says slipping on a pair of tortoise-framed glasses, raising her hand, index finger pointing upward. “Stand by one.” She grabs the headset from the counter, opens the mic and reads a live station promo.

     Her voice sounds like an angel whispering in his ear.

     Jennifer intros a CD, takes off the headset and returns her attention to Johnny. “Is this going to be your permanent shift?”

     Jennifer’s face has an impish quality. The pout, the big, luminous eyes, the glasses, the slight tilt of her head.

     Johnny says, “Far as I know. Doctor King handed out the air shift assignments for the semester the other day and I got Wednesdays and Fridays seven to eleven.”

     “I suppose we’ll be seeing a lot of one another, then. I’m doing Wednesdays and Fridays seven to midnight.”

     Her airy blond hair explodes around her face. Her porcelain skin bears a beauty mark on the right cheekbone and another smaller one just above her lip on the left.

     “You from around Reading?”

     Johnny shakes his head and pulls a toothy grin. “I’m from Heidelberg,” he answers, allowing his words to linger.

     “You’re from Germany?”

     Johnny presents a generous smile of straight, pure-white teeth innocent of fillings. “I wish.” He chuckles heartily. “I’m afraid it’s not quite that exciting. Heidelberg’s a small town just outside Pittsburgh.”

     Jennifer grins. “Suckered me pretty good on that one, didn’t you?”

     “Please accept my most humble apology. I can’t seem to help myself when someone asks me where I’m from. What about you? You from any exotic or weird place?”

     Dourly: “Afraid not. Right here in Reading. Grew up just across town.”

     “I got a break coming up. Gotta go.”

     “Uh, yeah. Sure.”

     Jennifer watches through the windows as Johnny returns to the AM studio, taking his place at the small McMartin audio mixer. Styled dark brown hair, striking lazuline eyes, high cheeks, well-proportioned nose, boxy jaw.

     He glances her way and smiles while putting on his headset.

     Waiting for his prerecorded announcement to finish, he tries to force himself not to gawk at Jennifer with no avail; he has Jennifer on his mind.

     Johnny starts another half hour program and returns to the FM studio.

     “I can’t help but notice this studio is larger and much better equipped than AM. We don’t have half the stuff you do; we don’t even have the color weather radar screen.

     “Maybe because we’re really on the air over here.”

     “Huh?”

     “You’re on in the dorms only. The FM is fifty-thousand watts covering the city and then some.”

     Johnny is taken back, slighted by her outspoken truth. “Well, AM probably has a good audience none-the-less.”

     “I doubt it. Most of the kids I’ve talked to listen to the FM.”

     “Well, they’ll tune in AM during my show.”

     “Pretty sure of yourself.”

     “Positive attitude. One of my strong points. Hey, gotta run. Break coming up.”

     Johnny returns several more times during his shift to talk, at one point borrowing a pen. “Mine ran out of ink and I can’t find another anywhere,” he claims, trying desperately to conceal the grin attempting to destroy his credibility.

     After her shift, Johnny is waiting outside Broadcast Hall, leaning against one of the old sugar maples so expertly planted along the wide, gently winding, gray cobblestone paths, the scene appears natural.

     “Enjoying the moonlight?”

     “I am. It’s a beautiful night. But the real reason I’m here is that I neglected to return your pen after my shift,” he says with a generous smile, holding the pen out to her.

     “Truthfully, I forgot about it,” she casually replies, taking the Bic from Johnny, her pouty lips now carved into a seductive smile. “Thanks for thinking to return it,” and she jams the pen into the small, black leather purse slung over her right shoulder. “See ya next Wednesday.”

     “Yeah. See ya.”

     He falls in behind her, cannot help admiring the muscular calves of her long, bare legs, studying the sexy way she walks, her buttocks shifting in her shorts. “Say, uh, Jennifer…”

     She stops. Turns. “Yes?”

     Jennifer’s rich athletic physique seems an open invitation and a challenge, an enviable combination of bold toughness and soft femininity.

     “You suppose I could maybe interest you in dinner tomorrow evening? Perhaps a movie?”

     You could interest me in anything. “Tomorrow evening?” A shrug. “Ah… I guess I’m not busy,” she says and vouchsafes a demure smile. “I’m in Rankin Hall. Three-one-three.” The smile grows.

     “I’ll pick you up about six.”

Sporting a charcoal blazer over a burgundy golf shirt with two buttons open at the neck, tan dress slacks and black loafers, Johnny arrives ten minutes early.

     “Aren’t we the formal one,” Jennifer says.

     “And you are the beautiful one, my little chickadee,” responds Johnny using his W. C. Fields impersonation.

     The Sea Wall in Birdsboro has burgundy suede walls, contrasting granite banquettes, and starched linens so white and bright they look holy.

     The hostess seats them promptly and Jennifer studies the dining room. “Wow! This place is something else. I love the saltwater aquarium,” she says, commenting about the floor-to-ceiling wall of marine life.

     “I’ve never seen a restaurant like this one.”

     “I’m glad we came. Look! There’s a baby shark in the tank.”

     “There’s a jellyfish.”

     “Ooh and a stingray.”

     “A swordfish. And an eel. Look how long he is.”

     “Johnny, over there. Look! There’s an octopus! No, two!”

     The waiter presents the menus. “May I bring you folks a cocktail?”

     “Water for me, thanks.”

     Jennifer says, “I’ll go for an iced tea.”

     They discuss their choices at length and make their decision. When the waiter returns, Johnny orders. “We’ll begin with an appetizer of oysters on the half shell followed by a garden salad, the lady’s with Catalina Lite, mine with olive oil and vinegar. For the entrée, she wants the giant prawns and I’ll take the Chef’s Seafood Platter.”

     “Thank you, sir,” the waiter says, leaning in, lighting the candle in the center of their table before leaving.

     “So… Where do we start?” asks Jennifer.

     “Hmmm. I don’t know. Let’s see… Well, in high school I enjoyed playing football, basketball and baseball.”

     “I played basketball, softball, soccer and volleyball.”

     The waiter brings their appetizer: six oysters on the half shell on a plate of crushed ice, a garnish of Iceberg lettuce in the center holding a lemon wedge.

     “I took classes in karate for a couple years.”

     “I studied piano for twelve years.”

     “In grade school I wanted to be a cop.”

     “I started out wanting to be an Olympian gymnast, then later, a soccer player. By the time I got to high school I knew I wanted to be a radio personality.”

     When the salads are set in front of them, Jennifer picks out a raw onion ring and starts crunching it while Johnny continues, “As I got older I changed from cop to third baseman for the Pirates, to an electrical engineer. At one point, at my mom’s prodding, I considered being a lawyer. I wound up undecided by the time I got to high school.”

     The waiter serves the entrée, refills Johnny’s water glass and brings Jennifer another iced tea. The Chef’s Seafood Platter, a mixed seafood grill, much to Johnny’s dismay, does not include any shellfish. It does, however, come with a steamed ear of corn and lima beans.

     Reaching a giant prawn, Jennifer says, “You stated a minute ago you were undecided about a career when you graduated high school.”

     “Yeah,” he answers with a slight nod and draws in a breath. “I couldn’t seem to get a grasp on my life. Despite the fact I had a lot of career ideas growing up I had no real goals by my senior year. Somewhere along the line, I morphed into a general goof-off. I didn’t want to go to college, but at the same time, I didn’t want to get a job. Didn’t know what I wanted. When I graduated, I bounced around a bit hoping to hit on something. I worked the kitchen at an Arby’s in Heidelberg for about a month. Got bored with that. Got an apprenticeship with a local plumber, screwed up and got fired, but didn’t care. I already knew didn’t like the work anyway.”

     “What did you do to get fired?”

     Johnny chuckles. “Two major screwups. The first came my third day on the job, a really rainy day. The boss, guy named Pat Hogg who used the slogan Let Pat Pamper Your Pipes, had a ton of pipe on the truck he wanted me to unload and carry into this office building we were working. Well, with the rain coming down in buckets, I thought I’d save myself some misery by backing the truck up to the rear door. Of course, I didn’t think that the rain had completely saturated the ground, and as soon as I pulled the truck off the roadway, it quickly sank to the axles. Had to be towed out.”

     Jennifer laughs.

     “A couple weeks later, after we finished the plumbing, Pat sent me to the third floor with a five-gallon bucket of water to clean drywall dust off the lavatory fixtures. When I finished, I dumped my dirty water into one of the commodes never thinking he’d be in the basement still hooking up the main waste line. He got drenched and got so mad he fired me right then and there.”

     Jennifer picks up a prawn. “I’ll bet he was furious.”

     “Livid. Screamed How can anybody be so stupid and still be alive? Of course, he used many four-letter expletives in his delivery. Anyway, after that fiasco, I tried working at a mobile home factory the next town over. It took me less than a week to find out I didn’t care for caulking windows and doors at Hauser Homes.”

     Johnny watches Jennifer pull the head off the prawn, swallowing in one mouthful its rich pink and white flesh, then breaking open the bony plate of its skull, sucking out the greenish brain tissue.

     Johnny lobs butter on his ear of corn then forks several lima beans. “I eventually decided I wanted to see some new places,” he continues after chewing and swallowing a mouthful of beans, “so I withdrew my savings, bought the truck we came here in, packed my clothes in a trash bag and took off for greener pastures. Worked construction in the Virginias, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.”

     “Oh, wow. I never left Pennsylvania. Never got out of Reading for that matter. Dad’s a commercial painter. Mom worked in the office for Quinlin Pretzels until the plant closed. That’s when she took a job with our church keeping the books, typing the bulletins and doing light housekeeping in the rectory. We never really had enough money for a vacation.”

     “We never vacationed either which is probably why I had the urge to see something besides Heidelberg. The old man ran a vacuum cleaner sales and repair shop from a converted garage at home and he could never find the time to get away. Man, did his business suck!”

     Johnny pauses for Jennifer to digest the pun, picks up the cob of buttered corn and rows methodically disappear as he works end to end.

     “Anyway, I came to Reading about two years ago to help lay brick for a nursing home in Exeter, but by then I tired of construction and living out of a suitcase and started looking around for something else. Took a job at Textile Machine Works.”

     “The small castings foundry in West Reading?”

     Johnny watches Jennifer attack another prawn.

     “That’s the one. Anyway, the idea of being a radio personality sort of came by accident working there. A couple guys I worked with, Brandon Kattle and Ed Wardian, insisted that with my voice and quick wit—I kept them in stitches all the time—they said I should be a stand-up comic. I didn’t have a clue how to do that, so I set that career idea aside until eventually I came up with being on the radio. I made good money at Textile, saved for college, and here I am.”

     “What did you do at the foundry?”

     “Pour-man.” He chuckles softly, saying, “When I interviewed, the Super and I were on a tour of the workplace, and with all the noise, I thought he said he would start me out as a Fore-man. Geez-o-Pete,” says Johnny, slapping the table with his palm, “did I get excited or what. I mean I thought I got the break of my life, getting into management at only twenty-one. What a huge plus for my future I thought. When I reported for work and found out what he really hired me for, I had one of the biggest letdowns of my entire life.”

     “I’ll bet.

     Jennifer takes a sip of her tea then reaches another prawn. Just before she tears off the head, she says, “So how old are you?”

     “Twenty-three. Born on a rainy Thursday night at ten-thirty-one,” Johnny says reaching for his coffee.

     “Thursday’s child is full of woe.”

     “So I’ve heard.” Johnny sips his coffee and sets the cup silently back on the saucer. “What about you? Wait. Don’t tell me. Mmmm. Let’s see. Libra.”

     “Sorry. Aries. March twenty-eighth. A sunny Tuesday afternoon at four-oh-nine,” replies Jennifer with a slight tilt of her head and a smile Johnny wishes he could somehow save for a rainy day. “Your guess would be right for my sister though. She’s September twenty-seven.”

     “You have a sister, huh? Younger or older?”

     “Younger.”

     “She a southpaw, too?”

     “No. I’m the only lefty, but it’s not genetic. I took to using my left because for some reason my right hand hurt a lot when I tried to use it until I fell off the slide and broke my wrist on the school playground in third grade. Of course, by then I’d become used to doing everything left-handed. You have any brothers or sisters?”

     “Just me.”

     Jennifer fishes her purse among the detritus and pulls out her wallet. Flipping through the glassines, she stops about midway, slides out a photo and says, “This is Ashley Marie,” and she passes her sister’s senior picture to Johnny.

     “She looks just like you. Very pretty.”

     “We’re seventeen months apart.”

     “Is she planning to go into broadcasting, too?”

     “No. Ashley hasn’t made up her mind as to what she’ll do,” Jennifer says, retrieving the picture from Johnny. “She’s mentioned nursing or teaching, but truthfully, I don’t see her in either of those rolls,” she continues, slipping the picture back into place in her wallet. “Ashley’s very quiet and shy. Almost to the point of being backward. Never had any close friends. Even I could never get real close to her, and I’m her sister. Doesn’t socialize with her classmates. Not into sports. No hobbies.” She flips a few more pictures, pulls another one out, hands it to Johnny and says, “That’s Mom and Dad at my graduation.”

     Two middle-aged, conservatively dressed people wearing faces devoid of any personality. Johnny smiles and returns it without speaking.

     Jennifer slips the snapshot back into her wallet, snaps it closed and shoves it back into her purse.

     Another prawn head separates from its body.

     “Mom and Dad are staunch Pentecostals. As a family, we prayed and went to church all the time. Every Sunday and Wednesday and whenever other services were offered. Mom made sure Ashley and I never missed Sunday school, and made us attended vacation Bible School, summer camp, revivals, church socials and fund raisers and live a life of absolutely no swearing, no alcohol, gambling, or dancing. She sewed all of the ‘appropriate’ clothing she made us wear despite us being the joke of the school. I guess I had enough. Once I left home, I took control of my life and began doing what I wanted. That’s when I started buying the clothes and jewelry I wanted to wear, reading books I wanted to read, listening to music I wanted to hear, got myself on the pill and started dating. What about you? You go to church?”

     Johnny shakes his head. “Raised Catholic. Went to Catholic schools and attended every Mass until I left Heidelberg. Guess once I went on my own I didn’t have the incentive.”

     “What about your parents? They still go?”

     “They’re both deceased. The old man gassed himself in the garage while I laid brick for a new elementary school in Poosey, Kentucky, a couple years ago. By the time I made the drive home, Mom had a fatal coronary at the mortuary while making his arrangements.”

     Jennifer pales. “I’m so sorry, Johnny,” she consoles and softly touches the top of his hand with hers. “I didn’t mean to bring up sad memories.”

     “Trust me,” he says reflecting on his childhood. If it weren’t for you, his mother would remind him, if you hadn’t ever been born, I’d have a much better life. At least I wouldn’t have to put up with the likes of your father. “There are no sad memories.” Then there was the “punishment box” Long built for his son. A wooden shed with no windows and lighting from only a single bare bulb. A shed only tall enough and narrow enough in which to kneel, with twenty bins on the rear wall into which Johnny, kneeling on glass marbles, had to sort a daunting pile of finishing nails dumped on the floor. You’ll sort those nails ‘til every last one is in its proper bin, boy, Long would rant. And if I choose to do so, I’ll dump them again and you’ll sort ‘til the cows come home and your fingers are raw to the nubs.

     Jennifer goes back to the prawns.

Johnny helps Jennifer out of his truck in the dorm parking lot. Nearly midnight.

     “I had a wonderful evening, Johnny.”

     “Me too,” Johnny says, locking his truck.

     They start toward the dorm. Jennifer glances to the sky. “Look at all the stars.”

     Johnny does.

     “And, mmm, such a wonderful, clean smell to the air. And it’s so quiet.”

     “So quiet,” jokes Johnny, “if you listen closely, you can hear my truck rusting.”

     Jennifer giggles and takes Johnny’s hand. His mouth looks soft and tempting and she lusts for a taste.

     At the dorm, its massive limestone façade, arched doorway and windows imparting the look of a medieval castle, she can no longer resist. She leads Johnny into a penumbra of the wall-mounted security lamps, leans into him and touches her lips to his.

     Johnny feels his soul melt and his blood rush. He inhales the smell of her shampoo, almonds and aloe, and the world obliterates around him. He loses all sense of time.

     She locks onto his mouth like a succubus and they embrace, and to Jennifer, Johnny is so solid and strong and so warm, that, if she could, she would crawl inside him. They kiss until their lips ache, almost bruised and bleeding. Her tongue explores every inch of his mouth; so sweet and so delicious she cannot get enough. Breathless, dizzy and euphoric, her body buzzes, her private place tingles, nerve endings sing with sexual heat; his throbbing tumidity presses into her soft flesh. At this moment, Jennifer Daye Bedd knows that she will do anything—anything at all, whatever is necessary—to call him hers.

     Their next two dates, sandwiched between schedules of classes, duties at the campus radio stations, and part-time jobs, are conservative: a movie and large popcorn with a shared soft drink and a little necking, then a football game with hotdogs and hot chocolate, and a nip of vodka Jennifer sneaks into the game in a Nyquil bottle, and more necking. Their third date consists of a quiet meal at one of Reading’s many affordable restaurants after which they spend time walking the malls, checking outlet stores and antique shops, telling each other yarns of high hope.

     “I’m going to have lots of money. Tons of it. Drive a luxury car, own only designer clothes and shoes and have gobs of expensive jewelry. I’ll wear real diamonds in my ears instead of zircons and I’ll surround myself with a plethora of antiques and a giant collection of fine art,” Jennifer professes. “I’m so tired of being penniless.”

     “Me too,” Johnny adds. “I’ll own half the world and visit my empire in my personal jet. I’ll fly to Paris for pastry and coffee. Germany for a beer with lunch. Rome for wine and dinner.”

     “Too cool.”

     No matter where they are, they are always cutting up, exchanging jokes, enjoying each other’s company.

     “Mallard waddles into a bar, orders, Double manhattan, neat. And put it on my bill!”

     “Hey, Johnny, know how they bury dead politicians?”

     “How?”

     “They screw ‘em in the ground because they’re so crooked!”

     “Ah yes, my little chickadee,” Johnny says in his best W. C. Fields imitation then clears his throat and puts on his announcer’s voice. “A horse wanders into a tavern, trots up to the bar, stares at the bartender, snorts, curls his lips and says in an oaten voice, Draught, please. Quickly, the bartender sets a frosty mug of beer down in front of the horse, studies him for a second and asks with a frown, Gee fella, why the long face?”

     “Know why the big German Shepard always stayed in the shade?” Jennifer counters with a silly giggle in her throat.

     “Uh-uh. Why?”

     With an impish grin and a jesting punch to Johnny’s shoulder she jokes, “He didn’t want to be a hot dog.”

     “Okay, get this, then,” quips Johnny. “Big brute—burly, six-five, over three hundred pounds—walks into a crowded bar with a set of jumper cables hanging around his neck, goes to the far end and orders, Whiskey! Bartender brings his drink, sets it down, stares at the big guy for a long moment, then says, Hope you’re not planning to start something in here, fella.”

     “Hey Johnny, what’s a hen-way?”

     “Mmmm, got me.”

     “Oh, three, four pounds or so.”

     “Say good night, Jennifer.”

     “Good night, Jennifer.”

In the spring of that year, they pool their monies, gas up Johnny’s twenty-year-old, well-rusted and faded red Chevy pickup that he keeps running on a song and a prayer, and go to explore Valley Forge State Park.

     High atop an observation tower overlooking the historic battlefields, Johnny puts his arm around her slim waist, pulls her close to him and says, “Jennifer, I think… No, honey, I’m sure. I want to be with you and only you and I promise never to stray from your side. I’ll be faithful to you forever.” He touches her gently under the chin. “Let me kiss you.”

     As their lips so tenderly meet, Jennifer knows deep in her heart that her love for him will endure forever the shimmering air of summer’s heat, the cool veil of autumn’s rain, and the icy swirls of windblown snow.

     Johnny slips a red velvet box from his pocket and hands it to Jennifer. It holds a delicate gold necklace bearing a tiny gold heart with a diamond chip in the center.

     “It’s beautiful,” Jennifer says taking it from the box. She holds it out to him. “Put it on for me.”

     Carefully Johnny closes the clasp and lightly brushes her neck with his lips.

     Jennifer says, “I’m truly happy, Johnny Knight. I love you more than you’ll ever know.”

     When they approach the truck, darkness has nearly consumed the light. As soon as Johnny pulls his door shut, Jennifer throws her arms around his neck and locks onto his lips.

     Kissing, tongues exploring, breathing labored, Jennifer begins to slide her hand under the waistband of his jeans. “I know you said you want to wait. But my love for you is too strong. I can’t go on waiting for what I so desperately want and need.”

     Johnny grabs her wrist. “I’m not circumcised,” he bashfully offers.

     “Neither am I,” she nonchalantly replies and slides her hand into his boxers. “I want to be totally naked with you. I want to feel our bare skin touching, rubbing, sliding. Quick, take everything off me.”

     Johnny eagerly obeys her wish, carefully removing her top, then slowly pulling off her sneakers and sliding her jeans from her long legs, then gingerly removing her bra.

     “No, wait,” she says when he goes for her thong, “don’t take it off, grab it by the crotch and rip it off. Tear it. Shred it. I want to feel ravaged.”

     The next hour in the old red truck parked at the end of an unlighted and deserted parking lot with just enough natural light from a slice of moon above to be able to see each other’s outline, Johnny finds himself in a dimension where pleasure, pain, and surprise meld into something beyond his ability to ascertain. Jennifer knows all the right moves; her lips and her tongue work with ruthless assurance, her hips rhythmic, her fingers touching, probing, invading his most intimate space with a technique she has not picked up by browsing some article in a grocery checkout line.

     Exhausted and spent, Johnny wants to pull out, but she denies him by wrapping her long legs around him and holding him tightly in place, forcing him to remain inside her, forcing him to become rigid again.

     “Ride me as rough as you can. Thrust and pound me until I say you can stop.” She speaks softly, but in actuality, she gives him an order.

     “You did good,” she purrs.

     Johnny, not quite sure what to say, says nothing.

     They sit up, and silence fills the space around them. Johnny worries how Jennifer feels about him. Jennifer fears his reaction to what she has in mind next, but she has to know and choses to proceed even at the risk of losing him.

     She reaches into her purse and begins pulling out a long silk scarf. Blacker than the night and seemingly endless. She keeps pulling it out of her purse as though from a magical hat, allowing it to drop between her thighs as she brings it out.

     When she has it all, she bunches it and presses it against her center, rubs herself with it, then touches it to his bare chest. “You like its feel?”

     “Uh, yeah. It’s nice.”

     She holds the scarf in front of his face. The essence of Jennifer teases him. She touches it to his cheeks, one and then the other, and then she pulls back, grins and looks into his eyes.

     In one fluid motion, she closes in with the scarf and Johnny realizes what she plans.

     Her tongue licks her lips as she wraps the scarf around his head, once, twice, three times, covering his eyes.

     He cannot see; she knows it and she ties the scarf moderately tight in the back.

     Johnny does not recoil nor utter a sound, which she considers good for her purpose. She knows he will allow her to continue without protest. She knows he is right for her.

     Something cold and hard presses against his breastbone. Metal. A cold needle of fear pierces his soul, injecting a bolus of panic into his brain, telegraphing an urgent retreat to the nerves in his muscles.

     “Do you know what I have in my hand?”

     Something to be very afraid of in this deserted parking lot, he worries, saying, “What is it you have?”

     Stoically. “Handcuffs. Now put your hands behind your back.” An order.

     Something about the way she speaks twitches his nerves. His heart beats faster when he figures out she intends on binding his hands.

     One wrist, then the other. Ratchet them tight, but not too tight. Johnny tests the limits of the binds. Hinged link. Completely immobile.

     She pushes him down on the seat on his back, climbs on top of him and guides him inside her. As soon as she feels him filled and pulsating, as soon as she knows he is well beyond the point of any self-control, her hands wrap his throat. Warm and soft. They tighten just tight enough for Johnny to feel pressure. He doesn’t move. She squeezes tighter, not speaking, and it grows harder for him to breathe. He worries, stiffens, wants to react but pride forces him to relent. Tighter. His face flushes, his head feels like it is swelled to twice its size, his eyes begin to feel like they will pop from their sockets. Still tighter. Now Johnny cannot breathe. He begins to go into a lucid, semi-hallucinogenic state called hypoxia. Then a hot tingle fills his groin followed by an even hotter rush, no less powerful and addictive than cocaine, and a sudden, compelling urge to climax, and with an explosion, he does. And he wants so much to do this again.

     He has a realization now of her power to do as she wishes with his body and he finds himself desiring her more than ever. Needing to know all her deep secrets. Wanting to delve into her darkness.

     Her hands release and slowly slide over his chest, her fingers seemingly counting his ribs. “Do I scare you, Johnny?”

     Air rushes into his lungs. He can breathe. He answers, “No,” but has reservations.

     “Do you trust me?”

     Slight hesitation. “Yes.” Johnny does his very best to answer without his voice betraying him.

     “Completely?”

     More hesitation. “Yes.”

     “Are you afraid of me?”

     “No.”

     She scoops his testicles in her hand and loosely closes around them.

     “Are you afraid of what I could do right now?”

     “No,” he answers, even though right now he really does fear her but he knows he cannot let her know his fear.

     “I do scare you. And you are afraid of me, Johnny. I know you are. I can sense it. But that will pass and you will come to depend on me. To need me and to completely trust me. You will relish my touch, my lips, my entire body. You will enjoy the pleasure I will bring you. More than you have ever enjoyed anything in your life.”

     He feels the warmth of her whispered breath on his bare chest; feels her fingers tighten slightly, then release his testicles and go lightly gliding along the length of his rigid cock then over his torso.

     Slow. Exploring. Teasing. Testing.

     Soon her tongue flicks one of his nipples, then the other, and then she presses her lips against his breastbone and he can feel her leave her mark in the center of his chest.

     “I will teach you to experience much more than simple sexual union. In the days and weeks to come, you will not only enjoy me, and desire me, and need me forever, but you will enjoy satisfying my every want and desire, because you will know if you do it right, the way I want, never once doubting me, you will experience more pleasure than you ever dreamed possible.”

     She spreads her legs over his blindness, straddling him, commanding him, “Take me into your mouth,” and as he meticulously follows her directions—“Harder! Faster! Come on, Johnny, you can do better than that.” —he knows, in fact, that he loves her for the pleasure that she allows him to give her. That brings him to climax.

     “Push all thoughts except those of me from your mind whenever we’re together,” she instructs after he brings her to oral climax and she removes the handcuffs. “You may take off the scarf.”

     His eyes adjust the muted light. Sweat beads pop, moisture coats his face. Johnny knows that after tonight he will never be able to get Jennifer out of his thoughts.