‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

Literotic asexstories – ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas by SlickTony,SlickTony
It was cold outside, but inside Haller’s Auto Repair it was warm with the bodies and the breath of men and the cooling engines of cars that people brought in to be worked on, and fragrant with that peculiar bouquet of engine oil, gasoline and dust that characterizes all garages. Since Christmas was approaching, it also smelled of the pine garlands tied up with red ribbons that Haller’s wife had made and hung from the walls. Eugene Wanzack, the youngest of Haller’s employees, was doing a minor tune-up on Harvey Beck’s Ford. He was a sturdy, dark-haired young man of average height, with gray eyes and a squarish, Slavic sort of face that often bore a faintly worried look, but right now he was happy, because he was exactly where he wanted to be. Beck was good about keeping his car maintained, and all it had needed was the oil and other fluids checked and changed, and a new set of plugs. Everyone was trying to avoid starting any job that would hang over into the following day; it would just have to wait until the day after Christmas because everyone was going to be off.

Albert Reems, one of the other mechanics, said, “Hey, Gene, have you decided where you’re going to stay tonight?”

“I guess I have till the end of the day to do that,” he said as he adjusted the gap on a plug.

He had two choices: he could either stay in town, in his apartment in Matthew Haller’s home behind the garage, or he could go home to his parents’ farm, outside of town. Going home had its appeal; his mother was a good cook, and the whole family would be there. During the war, they had been one short on Christmas, as his older brother Adam had been in France and England, mostly disabling unexploded bombs and mortars that had landed in people’s back yards, but he was home now. Zandra and her husband would probably drop in themselves. Zandra was not the most domestic of wives, and if she could eat someone else’s cooking on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day, she would. Later on Christmas Day they would visit Uncle Victor and Aunt Ruby and their bunch.

The very things that made going home appealing were also a good reason to stay where he was.

He had been living in the Hallers’ home since the summer of ’43; Haller had persuaded Anton Wanzack to let him learn all he could teach him about the art, science and business of car repair, and pointed out that if Gene lived on the premises, it would save Anton having to carry him back and forth every morning and evening. He spent so much time in the garage as it was that he might as well hang around and get paid into the bargain. Anton had consented under the condition that Gene stayed in high school long enough to graduate; it puzzled and irked him that a kid of his should be uninterested in higher education when he’d had to fight his father for every day of schooling he had. Zandra had been to veterinary school and Adam was majoring in electrical engineering at UT. Further, he saw the arrangement as an apprenticeship, pure and simple, and an Old World, old-fashioned way of doing things. But he figured he’d have better luck hanging onto the south end of a northbound bull, to keep Gene on the farm.

Gene’s apartment had a rudimentary kitchen, but he had hardly used it in the three years he’d been there; Matthew and Clara Haller expected from the outset that he would take his meals with them, and he dined heartily on food that had a hearty, European, pre-War solidity and plentitude. Adam, who stayed thin as a rail no matter what he ate, had warned him in one of his letters not to get fat. Gene wasn’t worried. Taking out and re-installing engines, differentials and transmissions, and wrestling tires on and off their rims was enough to keep any man fit. And he had reveled in the attention he received from the couple, as if he were the son they’d never had; he hadn’t realized how much he had craved this until he got it. He had often felt shuffled aside, a mere spectator to the crisis and drama that just naturally seemed to blow up around his siblings.

And then there was that special bond between them; not that they tried to leave him out; they just did, they couldn’t help it, for all that they would back him up in a fight. The closeness had worried Anton and Marie; they felt it was intense to the point of being…well, unhealthy. But the plain fact was, neither of them was the other’s type: the women Adam looked at were girlier than Zandra had ever been or could be on her best day; and Zandra had married her type—big and brawny and strong enough to overpower her physically if he wanted to, but easygoing, and with all due respect to Dennis, he was a good man—not quite as intelligent as she was. It was this, Gene thought, which kept them off each other, more than fear of hellfire.

While he was musing on these matters, a black 1940 Caddy purred into the garage. Gene looked up. The door opened, and out from the car, first of all, issued a pair of slender, well-turned legs, taut and shining in one of the few pairs of nylon stockings existing in Koenigsburg; clothes rationing might be over, but some things were still rare. A young woman descended from the driver’s seat, her dress riding up in a tantalizing manner as she did so. She shut the door of the Caddy, smoothed her skirts down, and came toward him. She had honey-colored hair that she wore in a long pageboy and a naturally melancholy cast to her face, unless she smiled. There were certainly prettier girls around, but on the other hand, besides those legs, she had the best rack he’d ever seen.

“Hello, Gene. Hello, Albert,” she said, noticing Gene’s colleague. “I’m going out, but Aunt Clara wanted me to stop in and ask you if you were staying at the house or going home to your family tonight.” She smiled.

As quickly as that, Gene made his decision. “I reckon I’m staying in,” he said. “Tell Miss Clara I’ll see her after work.”

“Will do,” the young woman said. “I’ll see you at supper, then.” She smiled at him, turned around and went back to her car, her skirt swishing around her legs and her round rump swaying gently as she walked. As the car backed out, he turned his attention back to his work. He wondered why women had to truss themselves up in these torturous-looking underpinnings that might just as well be made out of steel plate, like the armor the knights of old wore, and kept them from looking natural in their clothes. He much preferred the way her breasts looked under her dressing gown, when he passed her in the hall in the mornings when everyone was just getting up. They seemed to shift and strain at the satin cloth of the robe as if they were live things, longing for fresh air, and if it was cold, her nipples—about the size of 3/8″ acorn nuts, he thought—sprang out in vivid relief. He could almost imagine the weight and density of those fine Zeppelin breasts in his hands, the nipples pointing up in his palms—

“Boy, you’re gapping that plug way too wide,” Albert said. “Mr. Beck’s car ain’t gonna start nohow like that. And you better adjust yourself, before ever’body else in here sees what you’re thinkin’ about.” He looked pointedly at Gene’s lap, where the front of his pants was being tented by an all too obvious hard-on. Gene blushed and shifted the treacherous object into a less obtrusive position and tried to quit thinking impure thoughts. They’d gotten him in enough trouble already.

Cora was Matt Haller’s niece, the child of his brother, who was an indirect casualty of WWI. He had been exposed to gas in Aisne and his lungs had never been any good after that; when the flu epidemic hit, he caught it too, and he died. When a few years later, his wife also died, Matt and Clara took their child to raise. The girl had a right to look melancholy, even so; except for her uncle and aunt’s care, she had received some unlucky breaks: orphaned by WWI, she had been widowed by WWII. The last thing her husband had done before going off to Europe was to get her pregnant, but she lost the baby.

As she was young and healthy, she soon recovered from the miscarriage physically, but she was depressed for a while after. Sometimes Gene would bring her a cup of tea, when he was in the house, or something funny from a magazine or paper that he had cut out, to cheer her up, and they became friends as they never could have when they were younger. To a boy, a girl two or three years older seemed as distant as the moon. One evening, to his astonished pleasure, he found himself walking with her to the drugstore—she said she was in the mood for ice cream, and asked him if he wanted to come along. It was Saturday, and a few of his ex-classmates were in there with their dates. He wondered if anybody would think this little expedition was a date. She disabused him of that idea when the Sundaes came and he began to get out his wallet.

“Put your money away, Gene,” she said. “You don’t have to get my ice cream. I’m getting it for both of us. It was my idea.” Gene put his money away. It was plain that she didn’t think it was a date. He began to relax.

That was last year, but now everything was different. And it was his fault.

On summer Sundays, very little happened. There was hardly anywhere to go, and in the heat of the day, everything and everybody shut down. After dinner was finished and cleared away, it was a good time to take a nap. It was too hot to do anything else. That was what Matt and Clara were doing, and Gene presumed that Cora was doing the same thing. He was feeling sleepy, himself, but he was also thinking about the peach pie they’d had for dessert; he had turned down a second piece, and now he was wishing he hadn’t. He padded into the kitchen in his trousers, undershirt, and no shoes, and got another piece of pie, which he ate standing up next to the sink, looking out the window. When he was done he put the pie back in the pie safe and rinsed his plate and fork, putting them on the drain board to dry.

His place was at the end of the hall; one then turned right and went up a short staircase to a tiny landing. Cora’s room was just opposite the passage. The latch to her door was bad; unless she closed it hard, leaned on it and listened for the click of the latch to make sure it had caught, it came open, and since nothing in an old house was quite level, the door would swing a little ajar. She had been after both the men in the house to do something about it—after all, she said, a pair of ace mechanics ought to be equal to fixing a doorknob—but so far nobody had got around to it.

Gene paused at the end of the dim corridor. She’d probably meant to close the door this time, and as usual the latch had slipped out and the door fallen open. He thought maybe he should pull it to for her. As he stepped forward to grab the knob, he saw into Cora’s room. And all thought of pulling the door to completely fled his mind.

She was reclining in a chair of peach-colored velvet, her aqua blue satin dressing gown fallen open. Her naked body was everything that he had been wondering about or could have hoped for, from her luscious breasts to her tiny waist to her well-shaped legs, which were parted and spread wide, to reveal…well, more than he was expecting. Her luxuriant bush was a shade or two darker than her hair, and in its midst, like the flesh of a splitting-ripe fruit, her cunt swelled and glistened. Growing up on a farm, he had seen the parts of various female animals, in heat or not, and although he’d never had a clear look at a human female’s parts before, he saw more similarities than differences. What he had not expected to see was the fingers of her right hand skidding wetly over all this suddenly complicated and exotic flesh, now slipping into her vagina, now parting over and bracketing the bud-like nub of her clitoris. While he watched, entranced, she brought forth from the folds of her robe a thick, partially-used candle, the blunt end of which she first slid up and down her slit, and then plunged halfway up inside her. She slowly began to slide it in and out. His gaze shifted between the utterly fascinating way the dark-rose inner lips of her pussy yielded and then clung to the white shaft of the candle, and the concentrated, inward look on her face.

He had taken for granted that Cora grieved over the loss of her child and missed the companionship of her husband. It had not occurred to him that she missed anything else.

His cock had sprung into ferocious readiness with the speed of a fire hose filling up, and was straining against the front of his trousers. He was barely breathing as he watched the woman’s hips rocking to meet the thrusts of the candle, the long muscles of her thighs flexing, faster and faster. A few more thrusts, and she jammed the candle up and in a final time, and her body abruptly pronated and stiffened. Contractions rippled up the muscles of her belly. He heard the heavy panting of her breath.

He thought that if he didn’t come himself, he would die. There wasn’t time even to shove his hand down his pants, let alone open them; he grabbed his cock from the outside, and the encircling pressure of his hand was enough. He gasped as his climax slammed through his body. At that time, Cora relaxed, spent, and then looked up to realize that her door was open. Wild-eyed, she yanked the candle out and shoved it down the side of the chair, and was on her feet, her robe wrapped tightly around her body. It was just a few steps from there to her door, but, he thought afterward, there should have been time to get away. He didn’t. He couldn’t. She jerked the door open and there he was, hapless, helpless to do anything but what he was doing, gripping his cock which was pulsating wildly in his hand and making a spreading stain on the front of his trousers. She looked at him, her eyes wide, her face flushing; when the door banged shut in his face—and that time she put her shoulder to it and it clicked—he was able to move. He was back in his apartment so quickly he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there.

For a little while he stood with his back to his door as if something or someone were after him, trembling with shock and embarrassment. Despite the heavy warmth of the room, he felt cold. For several minutes he remained like that, waiting for the world to end.

Evidence, he thought. He had to get rid of the evidence. Making sure that his own door was locked, he stripped off his lower garments, feeling his spunk already cooling, congealing, and causing his boxers to cleave to the end of his abashed dick. He put on a pair of clean ones and threw the soiled trousers and underwear into the sink in his small kitchen, running hot water onto them. He attacked the clothing with soap flakes and a scrubbing brush, obsessed with the idea that no one must see the evidence of what he had done. Usually Mrs. Haller was kind enough to wash his clothing if he left them in a basket outside his door, but not these, no, never these. When he was sure the clothes were clean, he wrung as much water out of them as he could and hung them over a chair, and his window sill, to dry. He lay down on his bed in his underwear, looking up at the ceiling without really seeing it. His mind was a whirling chaos of images and fragmented suppositions. He’d never considered that a woman might have a need to do—that—the way a man did. He’d thought that girls were somehow…above all that. If some of them were not, maybe none of them was. It hardly bore thinking about.

He thought of Cora’s face when she had opened her door and seen him, and wondered what she must be thinking of him. Was she thinking he was some kind of pervert, some kind of peeping tom? In a way, he was, but he hadn’t looked at her on purpose. He just hadn’t been able to look away. Would she tell on him? Surely not, when he had seen her as well…but it wasn’t as if he would say anything.

For the next several days when they met each other in the house, they could hardly look at each other. Gene noticed the Hallers looking at both of them with puzzlement and a little concern, and dreaded the moment when one or the other of them would demand some kind of explanation from him. They would not have been the only ones. He could use a few explanations, himself; he wished there were someone he could talk to. Anybody he worked with was out of the question. The priest? He hadn’t been to confession since he’d left home, and he would be doing penance from now until next summer. He thought briefly of talking to his father, or his brother. One was a possibility, although Anton would probably just remind him that blue-balledness was a natural condition for a man of his station of life, as surely as a flower had to be a bud first. As for Adam…he used to be a romantic, falling in love at least once a year, but the war had changed him. There was a woman, a good-looking widow who lived between Koenigsburg and the next town, who would let certain gentlemen call on her and spend the night, as long as they understood that they were to leave money on her dresser the next morning…That was the kind of advice his older brother would give him. It wasn’t his business, but it seemed to Gene like an unsatisfactory way to operate. That left his sister, so a couple of Sundays after this event had taken place, he borrowed one of the garage cars and went to his brother-in-law’s farm. He found Dennis there alone.

“It’s Sunday!” he said. “What’s she doing out on calls?”

“It’s not like animals know to put off being sick until Monday. Well, Dr. Muldaur promised to take her into his practice, and it looks like that starts with taking over his Sunday business. She gave me a list of where she was going to be…” He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “Looks like you’re going to have to chase her down. You want me to come with you?”

“You don’t have to,” Gene said, “unless you just want to see her.”

“That’s all right,” Dennis said with a grin. “I know she’s coming home.”

He ran her down at the Elsings’ farm, where she was examining a horse. She looked surprised to see him. “You look a little down in the mouth,” she said. “What’s going on with you?” She gave him a sharp look. “Something bothering you? Tell me about it. But it’ll cost you.” Gene looked at her questioningly. “Just hold this beast’s head while I get this dose of medicine down him, will you?”

She listened while he related his story, one corner of her mouth twitching. “Well, blow me down,” she said when he was done. “And here I thought you’d made up your mind to die young.” “It’s not funny,” Gene said. “If Mr. Haller had caught me, I would have died young.”

“You know what I mean. You were always the good kid of us three. I must say, when you decide to bust loose, you do it up brown. Anyway, he didn’t catch you and he won’t find out unless she tells him, and I’d bet a week’s pay she won’t do that. You’ve got a Mexican standoff here. Another thing: for all you know, she could have been thinking about you…”

“That’s crazy,” Gene said. “She thinks I’m a kid.”

“Do you think so? You’re not, you know.” She was right. Now that high school was behind them, he and his classmates were sorting themselves out into what they would be doing with their lives; some, to work their family’s land, some to take jobs in town, some to college or the military. Many of them had paired off already. He was keeping his eyes and his options open. As the best-behaved of the Wanzack kids, he’d had his share of pleasant dates, but the older he got, the more he found that some of the girls’ parents were giving them The Talk—the one that invariably included the phrase, “His folks are good, good people, but…” But. But. The family’s obscure eastern European origins, and their eccentricity. The fact that they worked the land, and didn’t live in town. Maybe he should have considered going to college. Trouble was, when he thought of it, he couldn’t see himself there. He couldn’t imagine anything at a university as interesting and challenging as working on cars. The other men in the shop made enough money to live decently and support a family. Now that he was through with school, he was working more hours and starting to make more money, most of which he banked. He was saving up for a car of his own…

Zandra was talking to him. “Don’t cut yourself up over this,” she was saying. “What happened only means as much as you decide to let it. She’s probably as embarrassed as you are. Just give it time and you’ll get this behind you.”

He had taken her advice, and eventually, he and Cora were able to look at each other without turning red, and even to hold a conversation. That was during the day. It was as if he had become two different people. In daylight, he was able to look her in the face and talk normally with her. At night, alone in bed, he tried to keep from reliving that scene. At times, he succeeded; floor exercises sometimes worked; they were more effective than prayer. Other times, he gave up: put a dollop of lotion in his hand and let his imagination run wild. Sometimes the fantasy finished just as it had in real life; at other times he burst in, plucked the candle out of her hand and cast it aside and…at this point things got a little vague, but that didn’t matter because by then he was coming like a volcano…

Outside, the sky darkened. Gene finished up with Harvey Beck’s car, and Beck came and picked it up. Matt came out of his office and said, “Go home now, boys. Hope you all have a merry Christmas, and I’ll see you day after tomorrow.” To Gene, he said, “Let’s shut this place down and go in to supper.” Gene hauled down the big doors of the garage. They put away a few tools which the men had left out. The switch that governed the ceiling lamps was by the back door. Matt snapped it down and they left.

The house was warm and fragrant with the smell of roasted meat, potatoes, vegetables. “Supper’s about ready,” Clara Haller called from the kitchen. Gene went to his apartment, which seemed cold and dark compared to the rest of the house. He lathered up his hands with castile soap, going over his nails and the knuckles with a little brush to get as much grease out of his skin as possible. They were all fussy about their hands in his family. Some of the guys he knew laughed at him about that, but his folks had told him, “Take care of your hands and they will take care of you,” and so far they had been right. He didn’t let anybody know about the glycerin, though. He rubbed a little into his hands, and the stuff vanished almost immediately. That was what lotions did when it was winter.

The Hallers were all at the table when he came into the kitchen. The house had a real dining room, but except for holidays and other special occasions, they preferred to eat in the kitchen. It was warmer there, and it made things easier for the people doing the cooking. He sat down in the empty chair next to Cora, who was still dressed up; he wondered where she was going after supper. Matt said a short grace and they started eating.

“I know you’re going home some time tomorrow for Christmas,” Clara said to Gene. “Were you planning to go in the morning?”

“I pretty much have to,” Gene said. “They expect me to be there when my brother brings in Christmas.” Bringing in Christmas consisted of Adam getting up at dawn and singing Adeste Fideles in the original Latin, something he’d started on a whim when he was young enough to sing in the boys’ choir. After that, presents could be opened. He might have become tired of the custom when he got older, but after he came back from the war, Marie begged him to start it up again, and he acquiesced. He didn’t mind it; he had the best voice in the family.

Gene thought about the presents he’d gotten for everyone in his immediate family; they were all in his room, waiting to be loaded into the car the next day. The immediate family had expanded to include Zandra’s husband; he hoped Dennis would like what he’d bought for him. He’d gotten presents for the Hallers, too. He guessed he’d give them when he came back later in the day. “Are you coming with us?” Clara asked. On Christmas Eve, the Hallers went there for the special Christmas Eve Mass, and to say extra prayers and light extra candles for the repose of Martin and Elise.

“I reckon I would,” he said, “if we could come home before midnight. I need my beauty sleep.” Clara gave him a look of gentle sorrow. It bothered her that Gene hadn’t set foot in a church in two years. His siblings hadn’t either, but that was their mother’s lookout. Marie didn’t like it, but Anton, who was as much a Freethinker as anything else, had said they didn’t have to. So this was why Cora hadn’t changed into a housedress. Gene’s mood lifted at once, and he recognized that what he was feeling was relief. He had wondered if Cora was going out with someone.

Sure enough, when the supper things had been cleared away and the dishes washed, Cora and her aunt and uncle put on their coats and hats, and the three of them went out, leaving Gene alone in the house, feeling annoyed with himself. He’d allowed himself to be distracted by Cora’s smile and the shadow of her cleavage in the deep vee of her dress when she’d asked him what his evening plans were; otherwise, he’d have remembered about Christmas Eve and gone to the farm, where the house would be full of people. He thought about just leaving that night, but this would entail either taking one of the Hallers’ cars, which he didn’t like to do when they weren’t around to ask, or asking his dad to come out and get him. He decided to go to bed.

He stripped down to his underwear and got into bed. He thought it might take him a while to get to sleep, but he was out almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He was awakened by weight on the edge of his bed; someone had sat down next to him. A small cool hand fell on his shoulder. He was reminded briefly of the way his mother would come and check him for fever during the few times he had been really ill, but this hand felt nothing like Marie’s warm, slightly rough one. As soon as he became conscious, he recognized the cologne that Cora wore, and he was wide awake at once.

“Cora? Is everything all right? What’re you doing here? I thought you’d gone to church with your aunt and uncle.”

“Everything’s fine,” she said. Her breath smelt faintly of cloves. He turned on his bedside lamp. She was wearing her aqua satin robe. “They’re still there. I told them I had a headache and walked back.”

“Do you think you ought to be here?”

Cora gave him a look of impatience. “I could have sworn you wanted me,” she said. “I’m going to feel like a right fool if I’ve made a mistake.” She shifted her weight and made as if to get up.

“God, no, you haven’t,” Gene said. He put his hand on her arm to detain her. “I mean, of course I want—please, don’t go away. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting…why?”

She smiled slightly. “I was at a loss what to give you for Christmas.”

He was dumbfounded. “I—I gave you stationery. With your name on it.”

“I’m sure I’ll like it very much,” she said softly. “Now can I come into bed? I’m cold.” He slid over toward the middle of the bed and drew back the bedclothes. She must not have been too cold, because she stood up, untied the sash of her robe and let it drop to the floor, and then he was beholding a real live naked woman, not a picture or a photograph or a statue, only a couple of feet away. She stood beside the bed in an unself-conscious, at-ease posture, her hands at her sides, her legs a little apart. Her breasts, round and full, with nipples made spiky by the cold, were everything he had imagined The dark gold tangle of her pussy hair was nearly eye-level to him, and he looked for the many-petaled complication of flesh he’d seen that summer day, but it was hidden now. “Come on in,” he said. “I don’t want you to freeze.” Now she was beside him; he could feel her warm smooth skin everywhere that they touched. “Your hands are cold,” he added. She put one of them in his armpit, and he giggled reflexively, because it tickled.

She took her hand out of his armpit and put it on the back of his neck. “Don’t you want to kiss me?”

That was all the invitation he needed; he pressed her down onto the bed, tangling his fingers in her hair, and took her mouth over for a long, long time, and she gave back as good as she got. Her hands were warming up as she caressed his back. When he finally stopped, out of breath, she said, “Wow.” He lay half on top of her, his cock, as hard as a steel bar, trapped between them; she had to be aware of it. He wanted to touch and grab and explore her everywhere; he wanted to swarm aboard her like a pirate, but he lay still; he didn’t want to do anything that would change her mind about being there.

“There’s something you should know,” he said. She looked at him inquiringly. “I, uh, haven’t—this’ll be the first time I—I mean, I’ve done a little of this and a little of that, but never…”

“That’s all right,” she said. “We’ll do fine.” She took his hand and placed it gently on one of her breasts, which was only a little flattened by her lying down. Hardly believing that he was at last doing the thing he had daydreamed about just that afternoon, he flexed his fingers gently around it. “So sweet, so polite,” she said smiling. “I’m not made out of glass. If something you’re doing doesn’t feel good, I’ll let you know.”

Here was territory he was familiar with. He just couldn’t help it, he was a tit man. And Cora had such nice ones, the best he’d ever had his hands on. Each was more than just a handful, and they were so luscious and dense. He nuzzled them, making sure neither one was neglected, and licked and sucked their nipples until they were a deep dusky rose color and hard as pebbles and she was breathing in gasps. He left her breasts and gave her another voracious kiss. She whimpered low in her throat and sucked in his invading tongue. Her pelvis, held down by his thigh, was making little involuntary thrusts. When he came up for air, she said, “I can’t believe you haven’t made it all the way to home plate before now. Your girlfriends must all have had a will of iron.”

“The way I see it, it’s a man’s job to attack and a woman’s job to defend. They all did their job better than I did mine.”

Cora gave a little laugh. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at things. Have you ever wondered why that is?”

“Not much,” he said. “That’s just the way it is, isn’t it? Also—to answer your question—if I got anybody pregnant, if her father didn’t drag us to the church, mine would.”

“I see.”

“I should have asked before—is now a good time for you to be here?” She nodded. “Good. Can I get out of these shorts? They’re awfully uncomfortable.”

He sat up and pulled the shorts off, tossing them to the floor to land alongside Cora’s robe. His cock, which had sprung loose and bobbed like a diving board, slapped against his belly when he leaned back. Cora got up on one elbow and looked at him. “Well, here I am. Do you like what you see?”

“Oh yes,” she said. “Let me look at you for a little bit. I s’pose once we get started, I won’t see anything but the ceiling.”

He felt self-conscious and vulnerable under her gaze. As far as he knew, no woman had seen him completely naked except for his mother and sister, and that was a long time ago. He supposed he looked all right. Nothing fancy, but he’d do. He was hard-bodied from years of farm work and now working in the garage. A line of dark hair ran from the patch on his chest to the thick growth that surrounded his cock and cloaked his balls, but he had no hair on his shoulders or back, thank God. Cora sat up and got closer to him. She touched his body with a curious and appreciative hand, tracing the line of hair down the center of his belly, to his cock. She had small hands, and her slender fingers curled around its shaft made it look thicker. A clear drop of liquid welled up in its tip; she spread it over the surface of the head with her thumb, while he worked to control himself.

“No covering,” she observed.

“Yeah, Dad had both us boys done—he thought it was progressive, and said it made it easier to keep clean.”

“Do you ever wish he hadn’t?”

“I never thought much about it—you don’t miss what you never had,” he said.

“I guess you don’t,” she said. “It looks nice, though.” She continued with her visual and tactile exploration of his body. The tip of her index finger barely grazed one of his nipples; it drew up into a hard point; the jolt of sensation from that touch rushed all the way down to his cock and made it twitch again. She smiled mischievously at him, and leaning forward, flicked the nipple with her tongue and then gave it a quick little sucking kiss that made him start back and say, “What the hell are you doing?”

She looked up. Her hair tickled his chest as she raised her head. “What do you think I’m doing?”

“I never heard of a woman doing that to a man.”

She shrugged. “Man’s got nerve endings in the same places a woman does. Besides, you have such cute ones, I couldn’t help it. I won’t do it again if you don’t like it.”

“I—I did like it. But it gets me too excited.” She leaned forward again, and Gene thought she was going to kiss the other one, but she wanted his mouth again. They kissed languorously this time, and while they were doing that, he gently pushed her onto her back and then lay beside her, propped on one elbow. She had a little dimple by the corner of her mouth. He wondered how he could ever have thought she was anything but beautiful. There might be girls in Koenigsburg who were technically prettier than she, but none of them was naked in his bed. “Let me have you, Cora,” he said. “Please. You don’t know how much I’ve wanted—but no, you probably do…”

“Ah, yes,” she said. “And things haven’t been quite right between us since…let me explain.” “All right, but don’t take too long…” His cock was pressing against her hip; he was nudging it against her because it ached with its need to go in somewhere. Two could play that game, he thought, and circled his finger around her aureoles, watching her nipples getting hard again. Maybe she would get distracted enough to abandon talk.

“I was hungry that day,” she said. “I missed lovemaking after Bob went overseas…and then, you know, he didn’t come back…I wanted it—I didn’t care where from…and then, when I went to the door and saw you…oh, the look on your face…!” She dimpled at him again. “The next time I—did that—I thought of how it would have been if I’d told you to come in.”

“I did too. Let me come in now!”

“Yes. Oh, please put it in me, do it now!” He swarmed aboard her now. She opened her thighs and canted her hips; took hold of his cock to guide him into her, and there he was, sunk balls-deep in the hot slickness, the all-encompassing grip that he had dreamed about and fantasized about ever since he was old enough to experience desire. At the end of the fast glide that had taken him into her, she emitted a half-whispered “Oh!” of pleasure, wrapping her arms around his torso and her legs around his. The muscles of his back and ass and thighs told him what to do then, and he did it. Her body flexed and thrust back at him. Her face had that same look of inwardness, of concentration, that he had seen before. The sensation that he was riding to catch turned on him and seized him, and he knew he was moving too fast, but he couldn’t help it. It was starting and he could no more halt it than he could take back an arrow once out of the bow. He closed his eyes as he flowed and pulsed into her, and the darkness behind his eyelids had spangles in it. It was the finest climax he’d ever had. His whole body tingled with it.

When he could think again, he opened his eyes. Cora was still moving under him, a little; her hands were laced lightly behind his neck. Her expression seemed remote.

“You…it didn’t happen for you, did it? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to finish this soon…”

Cora stopped moving with a small sigh and opened her eyes. “Don’t worry. I didn’t expect it to. This was your time; I wanted you to enjoy yourself without worrying about me. But if you’re that concerned…”

Gene pulled out of her and lay next to her. He needed cool air on it. “Give me twenty minutes,” he said. “I’ll be ready to go again. Maybe a quarter hour, even…”

“Here’s what you can do in the meantime,” she said. She grabbed his right hand and brought it down between her legs. His fingers skidded into slippery folds of flesh, amazingly hot and slick with her juice and his. Her clitoris felt like a hard little ridge. He wondered what he should do with it, but she did not require any action on his part at this time; she held his hand in place and tilted and rocked and rubbed against it. In a very short time she uttered a low, heartfelt “Ahhhhh…” and her body stiffened as he had seen it do before. He felt her vulva contract as she pressed his fingers against it. Her breathing was strong and heavy. Below her breasts, he could see her rapid pulse. When she was done, she took his hand and kissed the back of it, licked the fingers; then she pressed against him in a quick embrace, snuggling her head under his chin like a cat.

Gene pulled the covers over them both and sneaked a look over her head at the clock on the bedside table. It was only a little after 10:00. And so much had happened! He anticipated Cora sneaking back to her room before Matt and Clara came back, and determined to make the best of the time they had until then.

“Cora, that was great,” he said. “I can’t tell you…um, thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said gravely, but there was merriment in her eyes. They looked at each other and laughed. They were now thoroughly warm and cozy in the little cave formed by the bedclothes. A humid and musky odor wafted out from under them at times. He thought it smelled wonderful. Nevertheless, he pushed down sheet and quilt halfway so that he could enjoy the sight of this unlooked-for gift that was lying next to him, marveling at how neatly and wonderfully she was put together—the slenderness of her neck, the triangular hollow of her throat where he could also see a pulse beating, the shadows made by her collarbones. Below them, her breasts stood as round and firm as perfect scoops of ice cream. Their aureoles had reverted to a pale pink. He could see the faint outline of her ribs, the delicate arch where they met her breastbone. Her belly was a slight concavity between the points of her hipbones, the skin perfect, without blemish. The child she had carried had slipped away before she would have started to show.

“Now I know,” he said. “Now I know why people study anatomy.”

“Nothing to do with studying to be a doctor?” Cora grinned at him.

“Not in my case,” he said. Thinking: it was just so marvelous, the way she was made; she was as fine as a car. He wasn’t going to say that, however. He was afraid she’d take it amiss.

Now she sat up and gave him the same minute regard he had given her, but she wanted to touch as well as look. She traced his eyebrows with a delicate finger, and the outline of his lips; she kissed the space between his eyes, and his mouth. She nibbled at his pectoral sinews. Her dangling hair tickled him. He had been lying with his head pillowed on his arms, but when she started nuzzling the rosettes of straight black hair in his armpits, he had to fend her off, because that was entirely too much tickling. “This isn’t tickling you, I hope?” she said, as she swiped her tongue over his nipples.

“No,” he said. In fact what it was doing was sending urgent telegrams to his cock; he could feel it coming back to life, stiffening and swelling. She straddled him and lay on top of him, and kissed him deeply and sensually. Her hair settled in a tent over their faces. When he got his hands between them so that he could play with her breasts, she moaned, but did not release his mouth. She’d somehow managed to align the cleft of her pussy and the underside of his cock; they fit like…well, two things that are supposed to fit together. She was wet from her own juices and what he had given her, and as slippery as oil. She slid back and forth, and it was almost like the real thing, but not quite; it was tantalizing and agonizing at the same time. She began sliding faster, and then the sudden liquid warmth on his cock, the change in her breathing, and her moans into his mouth told him that she had come. “Oh, God, Cora,” he said. “You’ve got to let me fuck you now.” He had not used this word since the time, well over a decade ago, that his mother had washed out his mouth with soap, but he was feeling wicked and wild. She ended their kiss and lifted up enough to surround him with her slippery heat and settled down on him again, full-length, her legs outside of his, her hands grasping his shoulders. It felt different from when he had been on top of her—shallower but somehow tighter, her movement on him a narrow ellipse. He let her do most of the work, keeping his movements at a minimum. He wanted to give her what he had not been able to give the first time.

“Gene,” she panted, as she began to plunge and grind, “I’m about to—” With an urgent cry she gripped the mattress with her knees and hunched on him, her hands clutching his shoulders, her face buried in his neck. He felt her rapid breath near his ear, and her contractions around his cock were surprisingly strong. She looked up with a dazed expression. He rolled over with her so that she was beneath him. He needed to thrust. “Oh yes,” she muttered. “Do it to me. Just as hard and deep as you need to…”

He let loose with long, hard strokes, and she braced herself to take them. At the end of some of them, she gave a little grunting cry, and he pulled back, saying, “Am I hurting you?”

“No!” She lunged upward underneath him and he abandoned all concern, riding her hard and high and joyously, thinking about nothing except the need to satisfy the feeling in the center of his cock that was about to spill out into the rest of his body. The point of no return felt like being launched into the air, and then it happened and he clenched himself over her, feeling the wild pulsations that took him, seeing more stars.

He pulled out and lay beside her, feeling weighed down and weightless at the same time. He smoothed the hair away from her slightly damp face and kissed the lids of her closed eyes. She opened them and smiled at him.

“All this and personalized stationery,” she said. “I was thinking that this was mostly your Christmas present, but I do believe it’s been mine, too. There’s something to be said about opening your gifts the night before.” He laughed and gave her a hug.

“This is the best Christmas I’ve had since I was a kid,” he said. He looked at his alarm clock again. “We need to keep an eye on the time,” he added. “They’ll be home in another hour.”

“Gene, sweetie,” she said, laying a forefinger on his chin, “Let me remind you about something. Matt and Clara raised me, and they’ve always looked after me, and I’m eternally grateful, but I’m not their daughter; they don’t have dominion over me, like I was some teenage virgin; I am a widow and I’ve kept house on my own before, and I’m of age. And I’m exactly where I want to be.”

“And I want you to be here,” Gene said. “I just don’t want a big ruckus, in case they have other ideas. They’ve been very good to me, and I don’t want them to think I’ve been abusing their kindness. Besides, someone in my family needs to have some dignity.”

“If it’ll make you feel any better, I did leave my bed looking like I was still in it, in case they stick their heads in the door when they get back.”

“It does,” Gene said, giving her a kiss. He looked around at his one-room apartment, feeling suddenly discontented in it, when he’d loved living there for the last three years. It was fine for a single man; it was plainly furnished, with a bed and bedside table, a dresser, a small table at which you could take a meal or write a letter, and two chairs. Against the wall, just outside the bathroom—it and the kitchen were barely more than alcoves—was a plain but serviceable armoire. The wallpaper above its scarred wainscoting was faded. He was glad the bed was a double, but the place was so small! You couldn’t keep a woman, a lady, who’d had her own home, in a place like this. He decided that over the coming year, as much as he liked living with the Hallers, he was going to look for a place where he could live on his own—or with another person. He had money saved, although before this night he had not thought to save it for anything besides a car.

“What are you thinking about?” Cora asked him.

“The future.”

“It’ll get here. I’m thirsty, could I have some water or something?”

“Sure,” he said, and got out of bed to get it for her. It was cold, once he got out from under the bedclothes. He found a clean glass, filled it from the tap, and brought it to her. She drank three quarters of it and he drank the rest; he was glad to be able to put it on the bedside table and get back under the covers.

“Let me get you warm again,” Cora said. She pressed up against him, with her firm hard-tipped breasts rubbing against his chest, her warm legs sliding over his cold ones. He anticipated getting very warm, very soon.

They cuddled beneath the covers once more, kissing occasionally, getting familiar with the new territory each had discovered in the other, talking.

“Your first time,” Gene said. “Did it hurt very much? I’ve heard it does.”

“It depends,” Cora said. “Some women say it hurts a lot, and some others hardly notice it.”

“How was it for you?”

She brought her hand out from under the covers to make a balancing gesture. “Oh—somewhere in the middle. I didn’t weep and faint, but I sure noticed it. It hurts less with practice. Why do you ask? Heavens, I didn’t make you bleed did I?” She looked at him with mock alarm. He laughed, rolling onto his back and pulling her atop him. He pulled her head down to his and they kissed some more. When she raised her head, she passed her hand over her chin, as if something had irritated the skin there. He ruefully considered his own chin.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have shaved.”

“It’s all right—it’s kind of nice to have a bit of beard-burn after all this time.”

“I take after my dad—we’ve gotta shave every day, or else look like a bum. We could shave twice. In fact”—he found himself grinning—”We kids figured out that whenever Dad shaved in the evening, it meant that he and Ma were going to, um, well…We could get away with things, provided we were careful.”

“Y’all were bad!” Cora said, laughing. “You didn’t really watch out for that, did you?”

“Cora,” he said in a pained tone. “I was the good kid. That doesn’t mean I was a chump.”

“I don’t remember much about my own folks,” Cora said, a wistful look on her face. “My father was unwell as long as I knew him.”

“Ah, I’m sorry,” Gene said. “I forgot about that.” “It’s all right.”

“Cora,” he said. “This—this isn’t going to be a one-time thing, is it? Will there be other times?”

“Gene, Gene…” The young woman shook her head. “Are you still thinking I’ve come to you out of some kind of charity? We’ve always been friends, you silly goose. I admit, I didn’t think about you in—this way; you were a few years behind me in school, and sometimes it’s hard to…well, switch gears. But switch I did, and…”

She got up and knelt at a right angle to his body, and took his cock in her hand again. Then, to his astonished delight, she leaned down and closed her lips over the head. It started rearing and swelling to fit into her hand, her mouth, at once. The feeling was like nothing he’d ever experienced before. The vague threat of her teeth, which he felt from time to time, was offset by the softness of her lips and the movement of her tongue, circling and spiraling and flicking. The sight was fascinating. He had heard of this act, but had never experienced it, and wouldn’t have believed that any girl of his acquaintance could be persuaded to do it. A curtain of hair fell over her face, obscuring his view; he reached out and pushed it aside. Although he had come twice before, and each time took longer than the one before it, he could feel another climax starting to build up.

“If you keep on doing that, I’m going to go off in your mouth,” he said. “You don’t want me to do that, do you?”

Cora raised her head. “Another time, I might,” she said. “This time…” Still holding his cock, she straddled him and slowly impaled herself on it. This time she did not lie on top of him; she sat up, and the next few minutes were like something he might have fantasized. She rocked and undulated as if performing some sensual dance; if he looked down he could see her pussy sliding on and off his shaft. This was too exciting to watch; he had to look away. And she had taken his hands and fitted them over her breasts, so he could feel her nipples hard in his palms. She shifted his hands so the nipples were between his thumbs and forefingers. “Pinch them,” she said. “Like this.” He squeezed them lightly. “Oh, yes. Oh, that’s good.” She continued to rise and fall and sway atop him. He continued to balance on the sharp edge of pleasure. The sight of her fine body dancing in place was almost more than he could stand, but if he shut his eyes, there was nothing to distract him from the sensations her hot, slippery sheath was giving him. Her rhythm became more focused, her downstroke shorter and harder. He could feel her getting hotter and slicker, and then she reached down and swept her fingers over her clitoris. She came in a crescendo of small breathy cries. He saw the waves of her pleasure rippling up the muscles of her abdomen and felt her hot tight interior grip, grip, and grip, and that did it for him. He thrust upward, to enter her more deeply, and exploded into her, the intensity of his climax once again dimming his vision. She settled down to lie on him again while the aftershocks of his climax faded. When he had quit pulsating inside her, she rose from him and lay beside him again.

“I’m going to have a hard time trying not to think about you when I’m back at work,” he said.

“I’ll be thinking about you, too. I’d like it fine if you could…call on me during lunch.”

“I don’t know if Matt and Clara would, though.” “They think of you as family. You could be—have you given any thought to it?”

“I hadn’t before, but I am now.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

This felt almost like a change in subject. “I don’t know,” he said. “There were girls I wanted, but…no, I don’t think so. I’ve watched it happen to others and it looks like it’s painful. One thing I do know—I’ve always liked you a whole bunch, and now I’ve had you, I’m going to want you again.”

“Oh, I think that can be arranged.” She got up on one elbow and looked down at him. “You’re one of my uncle’s favorite employees. No, I shouldn’t say favorite, that doesn’t sound right—he thinks you’re one of his best. He thought you had the makings of a good mechanic when you started hanging around the garage getting underfoot as a kid. And…you know I’m his only heir, after my aunt, don’t you? Consider it.”

“I’m considering it,” he said. She leaned down to kiss him and her hair tented their faces again. So—his future was falling into place. He could see where some other fellows would feel as if a trap were closing on them, but it seemed like nothing but a good idea to him. It was something to worry about, having authority someday over men much older than himself, but that was a long way off. Matt was hale and healthy, and Gene was generally liked in the garage anyway. If the men changed, he thought he could handle it.

He now felt relaxed to the point of drifting off to sleep. Cora settled down with her head on his shoulder. He was falling into a light doze when he heard a noise from outside—the sound of two car doors slamming.

“Aw, geez, Cora—they’re here. What do we do?” He felt his heart begin to bang in his chest.

“Turn off the light,” she said. “I’ll go back to my room when they’ve turned in for the night. You know they never stay up long.”

They cuddled together in the darkness. Presently Cora turned and he pulled her close to him so that they lay spooned. He looked at the dim outline of the window and waited for Matt and Clara to settle down for the night, and for her to leave him.

Some time later he woke and realized that she was still with him. He didn’t worry about what time it was, or what she was doing there; he just knew that her firm, rounded rump was fitted into his lap, he could smell the scent of her hair, and his hand had found its way to her breasts. When he cupped one of them, the nipple hardened in his palm. Remembering their last joining, he lightly pinched it between his fingers. She caught her breath and wriggled her hips against him. His cock rose, thick and stiff, between them. With a wordless murmur, she repositioned herself, lifting her top leg. He was able to find her opening easily, and slid into it. She gave him a squeeze.

They had to move quietly and stealthily—the last thing they wanted was for that unmistakable squeaky-bedspring sound to be heard. It was exquisite and agonizing. He was so close to the edge it hurt, and the slow, slow stroking made it worse. Or better. Cora took his hand and drew it down between her legs, where they were joined. His fingers skidded into the folds of her sex again, and she arranged them around the hard bud of her clitoris. Her movements told him that he needed to slide them up and down. Very soon he heard her shuddering breath and felt her convulse around his shaft, hot and tight, and then he had to move. He thrust into her with short, controlled strokes when what he really wanted to do pull out his entire length and whale it back in with abandon. Again he had that launched-into-the-air feeling and he gave himself to it. The darkness pulsed and sparkled behind his eyes and his skin tingled as he finished inside her, breathing hard into her hair. After he had fallen out of her he sighed in contentment as his heart slowed back to normal. A wave of sleepiness overtook him, and he slipped away with it before he could so much as change his position.

He woke in the gray light of morning; what had roused him was a smell that was normally familiar and soothing, but in this context as alarming as if the house was on fire. Something was burning, but it was not the house—it was coming from the pipe of Matthew Haller, who was sitting patiently in one of the only two chairs, smoking while he waited for them to wake up.

“Merry Christmas,” he said with an ironic smile.

Gene didn’t know what to say. Beside him, Cora was starting to wake up. She started when she realized that her uncle was in the room, and sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest.

“I am bound to ask what your intentions are toward my niece,” Haller said.

Gene put his arm around her shoulders. “What I intend,” he said, “is to support her as best I can—provided I’ve still got a job.”

“Of course you’ve still got a job.” He looked at Cora, shaking his head. “Niece, could you not have at least waited until he was old enough to buy a drink?”

“He’s old enough to sign a contract—and he’s old enough to get called up in the next war.”

“That’s true enough. Though God forbid—what do you mean, next war? The one we’ve had is enough. So, this is what you want?”

“Yes,” they replied, speaking at the same time.

“We’ll talk about this some more,” Haller said. “You might get dressed in the meantime.”

“So, is Gene going to be here for breakfast or not?” Adam paced restlessly around the front room.

“Let’s give him just a few more minutes,” his mother said.

“I’m hungry.”

“Go cut yourself a piece of bread, then.”

“All right.” Over his shoulder, he said, “Zan, do you want some, too?”

His sister, sitting next to her big husband on the settee, had a tense, uneasy expression on her face. “I guess I could do with a piece of bread. And could you toast it? But please, no butter on it.”

The phone rang and Anton got up to answer it. The family watched the conversation with interest—watched, because all the talking seemed to be taking place on the other end of the line. Finally he said, “Well, I can’t say I’m all that surprised. I had a feeling things were heading in that direction. If that’s what you want, I’m happy for you. We’ll see you later, then. Merry Christmas, son.” When he got off the phone, he turned to his family with a half-smile. “We might as well go ahead and eat breakfast. He won’t be here; he’s eating at Hallers’. But he will be here for dinner, and then you’ll have to set another place at the table, Marie. He says he’s bringing his fiancée.”