The wind and icy rain continued to pelt the quad.
One might think that, of all people, changes in weather would affect Tami, whose naked body had no protection from the elements, the most. In fact it seemed to affect her the least. Summer or winter, hot sun or cold rain, gentle breeze or gale-force wind, Tami walked across the quad with pretty much the same pace, on this occasion her feet splashing casually through the melting slush, her upright frame accepting the cold shower from above, her hair unconcernedly plastered to her shoulders as it got wetter and wetter, rivulets of water ski-jumping unnoticed off her stiff nipples, her tan skin sleek and wet.
Everyone else trudged slowly, shielding their faces from the rain, struggling with balky umbrellas, lurching ponderously in ponchos and raincoats, heavy steps in heavy boots. Tami passed through them easily, having learned the truth: that short term exposure to these conditions, once gotten used to, is not harmful.
True, it was only in warm weather that Tami exhibited what Jeane's boyfriend Tom called her "earth mother" walk -- slow, languid, shoulders thrown back, breasts arched out as if in offering to feed the whole world, soles broadly pressing against the earth as if joining it, arms swinging gently at her sides.
But most times her walk was that of the high achiever she was -- a bit quick, purposeful, sure of where she was going and intending to get there on time.
On this afternoon Tami glided effortlessly through the rain and into Rockley Hall, where in the basement lab she found Gretchen leaning over a table. Gretchen turned around upon hearing Tami dropping her backpack. Gretchen's smile was so broad that it made her goggles slide up.
Tami knew what that meant. Watching where she stepped, she made her way over to the lab table where Gretchen proudly showed her an entire tub filled with golden brown thread.
"Woo hoo!!" Tami yelled, and she picked up the surprised Gretchen, who outweighed her by some 40 pounds, and twirled her around and around in a tight hug. "Come on, let's go!" She tried to pull her by the hand.
Gretchen made her wait while she cleaned up. Then she covered the tub and started for her coat and umbrella. "I'll go," Tami said breathlessly, "take your time."
A minute later a naked girl could be seen running across the freezing puddles of the main concourse, holding a closed tub above her head, breasts wobbling wildly from side to side in rhythm with her strides, a big smile on her face. Even those well used to seeing Tami in all her moods wondered what was up and looked back at her after she passed. Others moved out of the way so as not to get hit by the wide-angle splashes from her tough bare feet.
As to Gretchen, she did take her time, deciding to record the day's work, though with a hand shaking with excitement. She battled the elements and finally made it to the dress lab in Thayer Hall. There she found Tami, as expected, seated at a sewing machine. Nearby was the high-speed automatic loom, where almost all the fabric had already been woven.
Tami was using the sewing machine she preferred, the real old style one she had found in a closet and reconditioned last year, the one operated by a see-saw pedal on the floor. She had one eye on a printout of one of her computer generated boot designs. As she worked the see-saw pedal with one foot, her other foot was up on the table where the thread was guided into the machine between her second and third toes, which grasped tightly and then let slack as required.
Tami finished with what looked like a sock. She stuffed it into an unlined rubber boot she had been keeping under the machine.
"OK. You know what to do," she said.
Gretchen bent down and slipped off one of her waterproof Uggs. A bit bashfully, she took off her white sock, exposing a pale white foot. She put on the new boot and stood up.
"How does it feel?"
Gretchen looked down at the boot next to Tami's foot and wiggled her toes. "Strange. A little like cotton, but kind of like I'm in steel wool."
Tami looked down thoughtfully, in the process flicking a lingering drop of rain from her right nipple. "That's not necessarily a bad thing... It's good that it feels unique without being uncomfortable."
The two young women walked out of the dress lab and a bit down the hall, all the while looking at Gretchen's foot. They sat down in one of the little alcoves that dotted the hallways. Tami sat up cross-legged as Gretchen turned the boot as if modeling it.
This was a below ground level floor. High up on the wall was a little window half-encrusted with melting snow, sustaining the patter of raindrops.
"It's bunched up a little bit at the toes," Gretchen said.
"That's just my fault. I was in such a hurry I didn't cut it right."
"Do you think this material will ever get to Joe and Roger?"
"Actually I hope they're home before then. Joe comes back in three months."
"Roger comes back in four. Oh Lord..." Gretchen shook her head. "I hope they're safe."
They sat awhile in silence. Tami clasped her fingers with her toes with the same ease that anyone else would clasp their hands.
As their minds wandered a bit, Gretchen looked at the nearby candy machine. Resist... resist... she was a chocolate addict and was trying to reform. Suddenly she realized that this was the perfect time. She had thought and thought and thought about it...
"Tam, I'm going home the weekend after next. Want to come with me?"
Tami looked at her for a moment. "What?"
"Come see my family. I've told them about you."
"About me?"
"About you being my good friend," she quickly said. "I'd love for you to meet my folks, and the rest of the clan. It's about a two hour drive. We can go Saturday morning, come back Sunday night."
"You mean Jim-Bob and all that?"
It was Gretchen's standing Waltons joke about her family. She was the second youngest of seven.
Gretchen looked down at the boot and then made herself look up at her naked friend.
Tami smiled. "If it's OK with you, it's OK with me."
This was a relief, but it also would have been a relief if Tami had said no. Gretchen was trying to treat Tami as a regular good friend. Her upbringing said it was just courteous to invite her. But then --
Suddenly Tami looked up at the window. "Whoa! This is the perfect time! Let's go outside!" She hopped out onto the floor with a determined double slap.
"What?"
"There's freezing cold puddles out there now. It's like the perfect way to test whether it holds heat!"
Gretchen's mind quickly changed gears. "Tami, it's a mess out there."
"Exactly. Who knows -- this might be the last time it's that cold outside. It might be an early spring. And in the cold water the loss of heat will be the most acute. Wicking properties!"
"Uh, yes..." Gretchen had to admit that Tami was right. And so she followed her naked friend as they ran out of the building.
Unfortunately Gretchen had forgotten her umbrella, but a few minutes of freezing rain on her head was a small price to pay for what would be a great breakthrough. Tami took her by the hand out to the grass, where there were still soft patches of snow. Hunting around, they found a large puddle that looked especially deep.
And so it was. Planting the boot in it, the water came halfway up. There must have been a rut here. It was so wide that Gretchen had to stretch a bit to keep her other foot out on the relatively firm snow. Tami stood in the puddle next to the test boot, the water up past her ankles.
Tami said, loudly so as to be heard over the rain, "Does your foot feel cold?"
"What?"
"Does... your... foot... feel... cold?"
Gretchen saw Tami's bare foot submerged in the freezing cold water right next to the boot, icy mud swirling from between her toes.
"Does your foot feel cold?" Tami shouted again. Sometimes Tami could get a little impatient and testy when she was excited.
"Oh Tam..." Gretchen thought of her foot in the boot and sock and could not stop looking at Tami's bare toes in the icy puddle.
Tami appeared to recognize the problem. She climbed out of the watery rut and said, "I'll be at the doorway. Wait one minute if you can. Feel your foot!!"
Gretchen took a deep breath and looked down, finally undistracted. She wiggled her toes again. Then closed her eyes, trying to feel. Yes, her foot was staying warm. There was no chill, or at least very little, possibly due to the poor fit of the sock. She felt the cold rain pelting her hair and face and vowed to endure...
Sixty seconds later she was splashing back to Thayer Hall, each step a great effort trying to lift the test boot, and the Ugg on the other foot, out of mud that was like glue. Tami was in the doorway as promised, but came out to the sidewalk to meet her. "Well?"
Gretched smiled as if to bring warmth to her friend. "Yes! It's nice and warm and snuggly!"
"Yes! Yes!" The two friends, rain pouring down on their heads, hugged. Tami once again picked Gretchen up and twirled her around, the water from their wet hair spraying out in a double helix around them, prompting a second glance from the passersby as they trudged slowly through the wind and the icy rain in their umbrellas and boots and raincoats.
Rod was lucky this day. They were ready to work on the new dam, had all the kinks worked out, but the rain came and would not let up. There was no planning or paperwork to do while waiting; it had all been done. So he got to go home early.
Driving back home he realized how tired he was. He was doing better recently. Inspired by Tami's pep talk, he had quit trying to decide whether his boss was a good boss or a bad boss or whether he was being treated fairly or unfairly. Instead he decided to act like a major league rookie who knew he was lucky to be invited up to the big time and determined to do the best job he could. As a result things were going more smoothly. His boss seemed to be easing up on him.
Looking at his watch he saw that Tami would be in the middle of one of her "therapy" sessions over at the Chalfont Institute. He thought about stopping by. Dr. Kantor, a pleasant but boring man, had said hi to him now and then when he came to pick Tami up. He had also met Dr. Abu Jamal, who after Dr. Schnitzer retired had become the new director at Chalfont. A rather high-strung guy from Pakistan. Both were undoubtedly well-meaning, obviously feeling obligated to cure Tami after all that she had been through under their roof.
They had seemingly tried everything. Tami didn't say much about it, but when he pumped her for details she told him about the talking therapy, the behavior modification therapy, hypnosis, the testing of her skin responses. The last time he came by, Tami was in a lab room standing up on an exam table, stretched out into an "X", grasping a long metal bar near the ceiling, wires taped to her skin, while Dr. Kantor and his assistants positioned loops of fabrics around her body. He could see the goose bumps, the stiffening of her already erect nipples, even her pubic hair seemed to stand on end when the "covering" got too close. These therapies seemed very mild and tentative, but they were the experts, not him. Also, to be fair, they probably didn't want to risk causing any further harm.
He decided he was too tired to go to Chalfont and went straight home. He fell on the bed without taking off his clothes and was soon asleep.
It was a scary, uncomfortable feeling. He felt decidedly out of place with his suit and attache case, following El Hamad down the stone steps. As special American envoy this was the most important assignment of his life. But thus far El Hamad had been rather chilly and almost brusque, with little of his famous charm.
The passageway got darker and the steps more uneven. A sentry followed him.
Yet another, increasingly narrow stairwell down, and the air got downright chilly. As they passed under a bare light bulb he could see his breath in little clouds. Finally they reached the rock bottom, the subbasement.
It took his eyes a while to adjust to the darkness. It was an enormous room divided by a stone wall. The floor was rocky and uneven, as if bedrock had been chipped into to create this level with no attempt to make a true floor. He could feel the pointy outcrops through his shiny, leather-soled shoes which slipped and bent as he tried to keep up.
He sensed her dark silhouette as they approached. And then was spooked by dull green flickers that turned out to be her eyes. The sentry lit an oil lamp on the wall.
It was recognizably Tami, but this naked girl was almost his height. Standing upright, legs apart, her dirty bare feet cuffed to rivets in the rock. Her skin was brown, in fact almost as dark as his own, contrasting with her green eyes in the flickering light. Her arms were drawn back, a heavy chain connecting her wrists to the wall behind. Her breasts were enormous, standing straight out like brown mountains over her concave tummy. Her nipples, gigantic and stiff in the cold, were pierced with rough thick iron rings three inches across that hung down in the chilly air. Below, one could dimly see her abundant pubic bush.
"Irish," El Hamad said. "Strong race. She could kill me with her bare hands, and probably wants to." She looked at him with undisguised hatred, her tummy breathing in and out with her passion. Then as he feared, she turned her gaze on him.
"What was her offense?" he said as blandly as he could.
El Hamad shrugged. "I forget."
He looked around. Except for them the entire level was empty. "Is she being punished?"
"No, this is her usual position when not performing hard labor."
"Where is her cell?"
El Hamad looked at him and waved his hand. "This IS her cell. She sleeps with one ankle cuffed."
There was no bed, no toilet. She slept naked on these pointy rocks?
"It's very cold down here," he said.
"Like I told you, a strong race. She's been naked for three months now. Hard labor keeps her toned. Of course, we have a purpose." El Hamad took out a flashlight and took him behind her. He gasped. Coming up out of the floor at an angle was a rusty iron shaft about two inches thick that disappeared between her taut butt cheeks.
As if to increase his consternation, El Hamad asked his sentry, "What's the penetration?"
"Eight inches."
Open-mouthed in astonishment, he just couldn't forsake his duty and said what he had to say. "You must be aware that this violates the Geneva Convention."
El Hamad laughed. "Oh really. And what country are you from?"
He bit his lip. This was untenable. His country was aware of El Hamad's human rights abuses, and had been willing to look the other way because they needed his help. But now El Hamad was rubbing this outrage right in his face.
He saw a way out. This might be a vital interrogation. "What information do you hope to get out of her?"
Another laugh. "This is not a spy movie." A small recorder emerged from El Hamad's pocket. Resplendent in his full-dress uniform, he faced the the naked prisoner. She spat at him.
El Hamad laughed and wiped it off with a handkerchief. "Good thing we'd rather have you alive... Now confess to the bombing."
She glared at him, her huge breasts heaving, the rings rising and falling.
El Hamad slowly twisted one of the rings ninety degrees. She was stoic but by the time he twisted to 180 degrees she was clearly trying to hide her pain.
The recorder came out again. "You know the words to say. Whether you actually did it or not is of no moment. Say what needs to be said."
She refused. The sentry, with a hammer from his coat, struck the iron shaft fiercely. The clang reverberated through the dank empty basement. The naked prisoner tried to shift her feet and stifled a cry, her breasts bouncing ponderously. The pain in her abused sphincter and rectum must have been horrible.
She looked right at him with green fire in her eyes. She had not said a word. Was she demanding that he help her? Or condemning him for not doing so?
Now, the sound of rushing water from behind. He turned around -- was the basement being flooded?
Rod awoke with a start. He found himself still in his suit and shoes, lying on the bed. He staggered to his feet, disoriented. He had had dreams about Tami before -- sometimes as a naked superheroine, saving the world in comic book fashion from evil, sometimes as a naked Olympic swimmer whom he was coaching, often as a naked Queen on her throne whom he approached in supplication, even as a naked paper girl who delivered the newspaper every day. But this was the first time his dream-Tami had been imprisoned or abused.
It was past seven o'clock. He had been asleep for four hours. Glad he was in the comforting real world again, he lurched to the bathroom and the sound he knew so well, of Tami taking one of her bubble baths.
She had just turned the faucet off with her foot. This was one of those old-style free-standing tubs with legs. Lying fully submerged except for her head and her bent knees, her eyes closed, a little smile on her face. "Mmmmm..." Despite the bubbles he could see almost her entire body, her breasts buoyant.
She opened her eyes as if expecting him. He told her about his dream.
She giggled, a low, womanly giggle which made the water ripple. Lifting her feet up to the sides of the tub and wiggling her bubbly toes, she said, "Fortunately my circumstances are not quite that desperate."
He put the toilet cover down and sat next to the tub. He noticed the unadorned third toe and picked up the wedding ring she had she placed on the floor. "I think it's getting too tight," she said. "It gets uncomfortable sometimes."
He looked down at her. "You don't seem to be gaining weight."
"No," she looked down at her tummy. "The rec center takes care of that."
Rod watched absently as Tami's nipples broke the surface and then submerged in the little ripples, and thought again about his dream. "You were in a dungeon. That was like at the pony farm, right?"
"No, I wouldn't call it a dungeon. They kept us in a stable with straw on the floor but everything there looked pretty expensive. The food was certainly better than here."
"Ho ho," Rod said with a smile. A reference to his disastrous attempt at lasagna last night. Which Tami, with her winter appetite, ate anyway.
"So what were you working on today?"
"Dragging seedlings out to the campus lawn. It was a slippery, muddy mess in that rain. I fell three times. I needed this bath b-a-a-d."
"No, not the grounds crew, I mean at Chalfont."
"Galvanic skin tests."
Rod exhaled in exasperation.
"And," Tami said with a smile, "we got the polymer to thread. I made a boot out of it. Gretchen put her foot into a puddle and said it kept her warm."
"Great! -- So where is this headed?"
"Ling told me the government is interested. They might send us some things to sign."
"Wow..."
"And not only that," Tami said, "I got an interesting gift from a visitor. Look under the sink."
Rod at first did not know what this huge object was that he was dragging out of the cabinet, but as he supported it in his hands he suddenly looked at it in horror. "God... this isn't..."
"It's not exactly what they stuck in me. Mrs. Wickland says it's improved and they're not into punishment any more. There's a remote there too. Push the purple button."
Rod found the remote and dropped the huge tail in surprise as it buzzed. "So now this is a vibrator?"
"Ja. Sehr nett?" Which meant, "Very nice?"
Rod held it in his hands. "I can't believe this whole wooden part went inside you."
"I had had a lot of practice at the time."
Rod remembered Tami's account of the huge dildos pistoning into both her holes at Chalfont under McMasters's direction. "It seems impossible."
"No, it's possible."
He thought again about the old plantation grounds, the pony girl system. That the slaves were there by choice made it in way worse. "What a sick enterprise. Playing master and slave."
"I had a dream about it once that wasn't too bad."
"Oh really. I suppose you were the lady of the manor?"
"No, I was the barefoot Irish kitchen girl. You were a field slave out picking cotton."
Rod cocked his eyebrow. A black person and a white person would have different ideas about such a dream.
"We would wink at each other, and one day we both escaped into the countryside, made love under the stars, and built a little hut to live in."
"If I was a field slave I wouldn't get a chance to see you, much less wink at you."
"It was a dream, Rod!"
Well maybe that was not so bad. Tami sat up in the tub, water coursing from her nipples, and kissed Rod's adorable shaved head. He watched as she settled back in. Her famous pubic fronds, buoyed by the water, waved to and fro like wheat in a lazy summer wind. Plum-colored wheat, of course.
"Got home early?" she said, sliding down some more.
"Yes. No work at the moment."
"Me too. It's a night for chilling out."
He took one last look at her submerged charms and then started out the bathroom.
The ominous whoosh of water into a cave. He looked back and she had braced her feet against the sides with toes spread. He knew this well -- she was a cobra rising to pounce. He tried to make a run for it and almost made it into the kitchen. But fifteen feet was well within her range. She raised her body up and a long thin squirt of bath water arced out from her womanly depths and hit him square in the back of his jacket. The female hunter-gatherer had once again arrowed her prey.
"Damn," he laughed. The only thing to do was swear revenge.
In the kitchen, his wet jacket drying on a chair, Rod puttered around for something to make for supper. It was his turn again. He decided on what he was good at, salad with hard boiled eggs, cheese, and a side of toast.
As he was getting out the lettuce he heard the splashing and dripping of water. Tami was getting out of her bubble bath. She used to try to invite him in with her but the tub wasn't really big enough and, besides, she liked the water really hot, which he found suffocating.
"Aiee! Damn!" she suddenly shouted.
When he got there he saw his dripping nude wife looking at a big white towel on the floor.
"That thing is like fire!" she said. She reached down for it but drew her hand away at the touch.
Rod picked it up. It felt like the same old towel as always. The two searched for an explanation. "Maybe you're allergic to the detergent. Did you buy a different brand? I know I haven't."
"No."
He went to the linen closet. Unfortunately their other towels (all four of them) were in the dirty clothes hamper, leaving just some scratchy wash cloths. He threw three to Tami. In spite of his concern, Rod always found it sexy seeing her dry herself off.
He put the white towel in the hamper, intending on doing the wash later, then went back to the kitchen. Now a voice from the living room. "Rod."
He found her there sitting cross-legged on the upholstered couch, leaning against a pillow.
"I don't feel so good. I feel... I don't know, like I'm going to throw up."
Now he was really concerned. In all the time he knew her Tami had not once gotten sick. In Pilgrim Hall she was famous for it. They both figured it was because the constant exposure to the elements had toughened her. It was something she cited with pride during her embrace of "the theory of nudism" last year.
He didn't know what to do but she seemed so confused as to be helpless. He pulled her up by the hand and led her to the kitchen. Once on the cold tile floor she sighed. Then she sat down on it, breathing deeply. She opened her eyes and seemed to have recovered. Then she drew a glass of water.
"Rod," she said, "let's get some air."
Tami led him out the back door. The half moon was out. The forecast had been wrong; it looked like it was freezing up again tonight. They stood on the re-freezing crusty snow in the back yard. He watched as she took some more deep breaths, exhaling in little clouds of condensation, over her nipples that were stiffening with the cold. Wisps of mist emanated from her body, still hot and moist from the bath. Then she squatted and peed. She never had a bashful kidney when it was just her and Rod, or some of her close friends. Sometimes they would stand in a circle around her, conversation going on without interruption as she relieved herself.
Rod and Tami both watched the steaming yellow hole that formed in the snow.
As the jet of urine slackened she looked up and said, "I want some eggs. Let's go eat at the Plaza."
In this town, that meant the Plaza Diner, three blocks away on Water Street. The snow crunched under her feet as she slowly sauntered to the side gate with an even gait.
"Wait, Babe, while I get my coat." Rod also changed into his boots.
In a minute they were walking hand in hand down the small side street. He tried not to look over at her. Fortunately she seemed OK. By the time they got to the diner and she waved to Theo, the owner, and they got their favorite table at the back, it was back to being a normal night.
It would be too much to call the three-eggs-and-steak plate the "Tami winter special", but that would have been appropriate, because hardly anyone else ordered it. Rod picked at his own pancakes as she started wolfing it down.
He brought up something that had been bothering him. "I still can't believe you were so... casual about accepting that tail thing, that monstrosity, as a gift from that lawyer. Don't you remember what they did to you?"
"It was mistaken identity. Anyway, it seems like it was a hundred years ago." She leaned over and rubbed his scalp like it was a Buddha's belly and she was wishing for good luck. In the process her breast leaned into her potatoes. She wiped it off with a napkin as she said, "What am I supposed to do, relive it over and over? If I dwelt on all that old stuff I'd go crazy."
She had a point. That summer was three years ago, almost. She was just turning 19 then. From 19 to 22 is a long period in a person's life. More than 22 to 25 was, as with him. It was a condescending thought, and Tami had been through enough trauma and shame for several lifetimes. But nonetheless true.
Rod wondered about that dream he had. What did it mean? That Tami was being tortured inside and it was up to him to help? Yet she seemed so well-adjusted to what life had handed her. Except for Henry Ross and Dean Jorgon and a few others, all of whom were gone, she had forgiven everyone involved in her freshman year torments. As she put it once, they were simply under mistaken impressions created by a couple of bad people. She was even on good terms with Homer Winant now, that clever creep. And who was Rod to say that this peace of mind was not real? It certainly seemed real to him. She never had unsettling dreams, like the one he just had.
As she sipped orange juice she giggled.
"What."
"I was just thinking -- what if I wore that tail around campus?"
All Rod could think of was how uncomfortable it would be, but he saw how it might be funny and played along. "Maybe just to parties?"
"Or special occasions. Like graduation."
Now he did laugh. "Your valedictorian speech."
He thought about sitting in the audience, using the remote to bring her to orgasm after orgasm as she spoke. Maybe he shouldn't be turned on, considering her freshman year experiences. But still...
Stuffed for now, Tami sat back and put her feet up on the opposite seat, on each side of Rod. She fondled the sides of his jeans with her toes.
"How are your fans doing?"
"Attentive as ever. Spica keeps bringing up the idea of an after-hours get-together."
"Who?"
"Spica. She's a freshman. I don't think you've met her yet."
"Is this the 'Tami-thon' idea again?"
"Kind of."
The two of them had never gotten each other's views on this long-standing proposal because neither was sure what they thought about it themselves. But now Rod found himself saying, "If they want to do it at our house, that's O.K. I'd like to be there, though."
Tami looked at Rod. "It sounds too, like, intimate for you not to be there. Think of it as having Jen and Leisha visiting. The expanded version."
"I don't know if we can afford all that fine wine."
"Not for me."
"No?"
"No, I prefer keeping my senses sharp. Like when I'm with you."
So there he had it. The marathon, multi-tongue party idea had been OK with Tami all along.
Tami said, "You know, about this tail... If it does what Ms. Wickland says it does, it would come in handy, like the bra and panties from Chalfont." Which she couldn't wear any more.
The tail would certainly mean less work for him every night. He could just watch, or maybe work the remote, while her immense sexual thirst was quenched, instead of doing all that work of humping from below, from above, licking, sucking, always holding back, managing her orgasms so to speak. Instead, he could hold her hand as she spasmed to her heart's (or clit's) content, and just "come in" for the finish.
"The important thing is that I am with you, Babe."
Tami inserted a sausage in a hole in Rod's pancake, which made him chuckle. "You know I was doing all sorts of tasks while wearing that tail thing. Chopping branches, pulling buggies..."
"Babe, please -- I don't want to hear about it."
"My point is, sometimes I think it's all work for you and all pleasure for me."
"I don't have your capacity."
"Still. The tail will free up my hands and mouth and everything, to give you pleasure."
"You DO give me pleasure." At least as much as he could stand, considering he could only come once or maybe twice a night. Sundays, which they tried to reserve for being alone, he could usually come four times during the course of the day.
"What I'm thinking of is the TL's," Tami said. "They don't ever want pleasure for themselves. All they want is to make me come a lot. And it's not like they're playing me like a pinball machine like you say. It's kind of selfless. Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but the way they get into it seems almost mystical." She finished the last of her toast and then looked out the window into the black night. "I'm too much on the receiving end. I should devote myself more to pleasuring you. Be an RL. A Rod Licker."
Rod did not know what to make of this strange turn of the conversation. After a moment, he changed the subject.
"How's Joe doing?"
"O.K. It's a crummy situation all around but at least he's not getting shot at and he enjoys what he's doing."
"And what's that? He's with the 101st, right?"
"Yeah, but he's in ordnance. The guys who repair stuff and put it back together... I'm still amazed that Joe found his calling so quick. He used to be a total klutz mechanically. I told you about the time I had to run all the way to church to jump-start the car on Christmas morning because he didn't know how."
Yes, Rod remembered that story, from her freshman year.
"And his grades were never very good. Then after high school he decided to enlist. He was inspired by 9/11, of course, but then when they put him in mechanic school he suddenly took right to it. Really the first thing he's ever tried that he was a 'natural' at. . . If only they could have kept him at Killeen, instead of going to Iraq. They're really stretched for troops."
"Yes. I hear. My cousin's there." Actually a rather distant cousin, from relatives in Detroit.
"Oh right, I forgot. Well a friend of Joe's tried to get a hardship transfer back to the States because his uncle died. He couldn't get it. You have to be practically the only remaining source of support for 23 disabled children. Well," she said, stirring her coffee, "at least Joe'll be back soon."
"May?"
"Either that or early June."
"I'm curious. How did your father react to his picking the Army instead of the Navy?"
Tami chuckled, while wiping a drop of ketchup off her nipple. "That business about competition between the services is really not true. At least not with Dad."
The diner was almost empty on this winter night. Tami's position at their table was always facing away from the door. This way, if an out-of-towner walked in, which was unusual, he would see only her bare shoulders and naturally conclude that she was in a strapless dress. Now Rod saw a couple of scary-looking guys come in and sit at the counter. Maybe not scary. They were more like goofy and loud, and Tami's shoulders caught their attention.
Rod choreographed the situation as he usually did. Before they got too curious he asked for the check, then got up and made a show of flapping his coat around before putting it on, blocking the view. Tami got the signal and shot out the back door. Rod followed and the two walked back to the house along the path hidden behind a row of shrubs.
When they got back they sat around in the kitchen while Rod examined the tail minutely and tried the remote. There was a purple button but also a small touch-pad like a laptop has. Running the finger along the touch pad caused a little bump to travel along the shaft at the same speed. They both laughed at this, amazed at the ingenuity.
She got up on the table on all fours. Maybe some day she could accept this huge thing inside her again, but he didn't dare try that yet. Instead he got out one of Tami's selection of regular size dildoes, dabbed it with lubricant, and slowly worked it into her anus.
He hadn't done work in Tami's back door in a while. For now, he satisfied himself with using the tail as a big vibrator, pressing it against her clit as he worked the dildo in and out. He was rewarded with several short, sharp climaxes. Small climaxes for Tami, but no less satisfying to see.
Back in bed, he tried training the vibrating tail on her clit again as he slowly screwed her from below. Unfortunately the vibrations on his dick were too direct and his dick went numb, which was pretty funny. He ended up not coming himself, finishing the evening by licking Tami to several long, slow, rolling orgasms.
Melissa, the new TL, smiled as she sat down at one of the chilly concrete tables in the Student Union courtyard. Tall, blonde, beautiful, she looked like a model and instinctively dressed like one, this time in a black carriage coat with blue scarf, black snow cap, straight leg jeans and long black boots. Every passing guy gave her a long look, but she was used to that and ignored them, focused on the object of her desire and thanking her luck.
It had become cloudy and a bit windy, but the courtyard was still filled with students and faculty during this lunchtime hour. Some were sitting at the round tables, some were standing, but none were at the table in the middle except Tami Smithers, lying on her back right on top, arms and legs spread out, snoozing.
The morning had been sunny and gloriously warm, a preview of the spring that was still some weeks away. Melissa had heard that Tami had taken an early lunch with some friends, sitting cross-legged on the table as she often did, and then as they left dropped off into one of her famous midday naps. When Melissa heard the news, the sun had disappeared, the clouds had come out, the temperature dropped. She had rushed over. Fortunately the cold hadn't awakened Tami yet.
This was not an unusual scene and the people in the courtyard took the naked slumberer in stride, almost as if she were a sculpture of a naked woman that was always there. They drank coffee, ate, chatted about their business, only a few glancing at the naked form, mostly passing guys who stopped by on a pretense but were careful to get going lest they be thought gawking. A few brave persons began to sit at Tami's table, careful not to be too near a bare foot. In the process of turning in her sleep, Tami had been known to kick over sodas and worse, one fine autumn afternoon having upturned a plate of spaghetti into a professor's lap. All the while without waking.
She was bound to wake up soon. Continuing to nap in this chill would be impossible even for her. Melissa watched, entranced, at the sight of pubic hair being ruffled by wind in the midst of the crowded courtyard. Tami stretched and turned onto her side, facing her. Her nose twitched, then little twitches of the hands. Tami's pinky toes extended. Her breasts trembled ever so slightly, the stiff nipples pointing right at Melissa. Tami must be dreaming. What was she dreaming of? There was always speculation. Maybe she was dreaming of running. Maybe of gymnastics, her old sport. The most common speculation, oddly, was the most ridiculous: that she was dreaming of wearing clothes and shoes.
Now Tami lay on her back again, legs straight out, arms stretched over her head, sticking out from the end of the table. Her nipples poked up to the sky. It was hard to believe that she could sleep like this, bare skin scraping against cold concrete, but everyone knew she had slept on all kinds of rough surfaces during her legendary cross-country journey. Now her legs separated again, one knee slightly bent. Melissa could see the lower lips parting ever so slightly, perhaps the nub of her clit showing, she wasn't sure. Tami's mouth opened and Melissa suppressed a giggle as Tami started snoring. There were other smiles too. On the inhale Tami sounded like a revving motorcycle.
Now that guy in the wheelchair from the administration, whom everyone called Homer, wheeled up with a tall guy in a suit and with Assistant Dean Congi. All were wearing overcoats, Congi in suede gloves. They stationed themselves in front of Tami, practically between her spread legs, and chatted, then turned to her as if expecting her to wake.
Wake she did, cutting off in mid-snore, opening her eyes, blinking back into a consciousness of her surroundings, then lifting her head to say hi to the three with a total lack of surprise. With her legs still spread, she spoke a little in that position, just her head lifted. To look her in the eye they probably had to look right past her open pussy. Yet Tami made no attempt to close her legs or change position until a minute later, when she laid her head back, stretched like a yawning cat, then sat cross-legged to continue the conversation. Midway through she gave Melissa a thril by idly scratching one of her big, dark brown, permanently erect nipples, making her breasts dance for a second.
The exchange was obviously cordial, though Melissa couldn't make out what they were talking about. Soon Homer, Congi, and the tall guy left. It was time to make her move.
She decided not to be hokey with any "my Queen" business, it being her first time. "Hi Tami," she said, standing next to the table. She slowly extended her hand, being unable to resist a quick glance down at those nipples whose sensitivity made further words unnecessary. Tami smiled a royal-looking smile and allowed Melissa to help her off the table. As Tami stood up she brushed bits of concrete grit off her butt cheeks. Then Melissa led her from the courtyard, up toward the library walkway. Tami kept up with her as they went up silently.
Tami had nothing with her. She kept her things in a locker in the Union with a combination lock, walking without carrying anything whenever possible. Nobody knew why this was. Maybe it reminded her of her journey across the country with no money or clothes or things, just her bare body. It just added to her reputation, the icon of female strength that the TL's all but worshipped.
Melissa had planned it well and the area turned out to be deserted. It was the series of concrete tables on the edge of the big plaza outside the upper library level, near what was technically the main entrance but rarely used because the whole plaza was so out of the way. She guided Tami to one of the tables and sat Tami down at it while she herself sat on the bench.
Tami's pussy was at her eye level and she looked up as if asking permission. Upon seeing the silent smile Melissa began. She kissed the plum-colored forest, the opening to the royal palace, then stood up to kiss and then tenderly suck each nipple. Tami closed her eyes, her head back, and began to breathe deeply. Melissa grabbed one bare foot in each hand and intertwined her fingers with the rough cold toes. The toes clasped back with amazing strength.
Now a gentle series of kisses down the tan, concave midriff, on the navel, and down the thickening forest. A hot breath on the lower lips. Melissa's hands wrapped around the taut butt cheeks and her breath quickened as she inhaled the first scent of Tami's secretions. Her tongue inserted, at first pointed and now flat against the inner lips, and she got her first taste of the famous nectar. Not sweet, not bitter, a mellowed yet distinctive essence, grown-up womanly and frisky girlish, so hard to describe yet so immediately recognizable, this essence of female. She burrowed deeper, remembering what she had learned, flat tongue side to side, regulating her own breathing, and now, an occasional swipe of the clit, rewarded by the little gasps above.
She continued for a couple of minutes before a slight grinding of Tami's pelvis told her it was time to "take her up". More determined, deeper burrowing, now up and down to include the clit, the nerve-rich uniqueness of the female, the only body part devoted exclusively to sexual pleasure, and now Tami found her own rhythm, and the two women synchronized their breathing, together in the ancient dance, and the naked goddess now cried out over and over, gasping as if for air but also to the skies and to the earth. Now the bare feet braced against Melissa's thighs on the bench and the great arching of the pelvis, the inhaling of air between clenched teeth, and now the great waves beat upon the shore, one after the other. Melissa was with her all the way, spasm after spasm, holding on for dear life, as if hugging a little motor boat bouncing across a choppy sea, as Tami took her up with her. The last irregular spasm spent itself, and now Melissa slackened just a bit, then returned to the flat tongue rhythm, keeping the naked girl on the plateau.
They were together up in the sky, whirling around this axis of tongue and clit. Now Melissa darted in, way in, and pulled the butt cheeks apart and in toward her, and her Queen moaned continuously as the tongue melded into her femininity, as if the tongue reached all the way in to snake around each ovary to caress and stimulate it, to secret itself into the cervix and all the way up the uterus, to the essence of the female and her gift of life. Melissa felt a hot sweat on her face, hotness under her many clothes, privileged to be present at this sacred moment, as Tami crested again and exploded with a loud cry.
Tami and Melissa traveled through the ages, looked down on empires and civilizations as they rose and fell, the projects and intrigues of men, while they themselves flew on, ageless and all-knowing and indestructible. Their joy was the joy of the universe, the pulsating, orgasmic surge of life. They were the sun and earth, earth and moon, and now they were a double sun revolving around each other, setting the universe ablaze with light, spiraling out radiation and hot sun spirit. . . Tami caressed Melissa's hair, her supple feet wrapped around and caressed the coat and scarf around her shoulders and back, the embrace mutual.
Thousands of years went by, and countless eruptions, as like a volcano Tami quaked and subsided and quaked and subsided. Now Melissa felt the call of ambition. She inserted her fingers way, way in, then gently hooked upward, finding the little twin grapes and pressed them toward her tongue. Tami lurched. "Ohh!! Y - yes!" Melissa tongued the clit, then pressed, working the clit and G-spot like a see-saw, as the pelvis shook and shook some more in unbearable escalating tension.
Now Tami's legs shot out straight with terrific force as if dealt a death blow. She shrieked as the first jolt hit, the first of a new and stronger series, and Melissa wrapped her arms more fully around her butt in a looser yet more all-encompassing embrace. Shriek after shriek echoed off the cold concrete architecture of the big deserted plaza. Melissa could not keep count but imagined someone might be watching, counting the contractions of this prolonged orgasm with awe and envy. With each jolt Melissa felt herself shooting up to the heavens with Tami like an astronaut in a rocket.
After it was over Melissa looked up, tongue still inserted in its home, to survey the quietness of Tami now lying back in rest on the table, breasts heaving with the recapture of oxygen, sweat drying, her body a strewn landscape after a violent storm. Now for a little comedy. Melissa flicked up to the clitoris to see Tami's whole body jolt upward. Another flick, another jolt, making Tami giggle, her belly and breasts jiggling. More flicks, in a steadily quickening rhythm, and now Tami's body jerked and jerked and she laughed and trilled like a bird, and the Queen bestowed her last orgasm on her subject like that, light-hearted trilling and laughing as she went up and then came down, like the last act of a Shakespearean drama, after all the heights and depths of drama, a little comedic epilogue to make the audience go home happy.
Melissa rested the side of her head on Tami's forest, like a child at her mother's breast. Now she separated, lying back on the back of the bench. Her tongue was sore, but only a little, and her whole body, recovering from the experience, was pleasantly tired and a little sweaty. She became aware of the chilly wind again and was grateful for the coolness. She held her hand up to her nose to whiff the drying scent. She had never felt so satisfied, so... fulfilled.
Now she found Tami hugging her. "Thanks," the naked Queen said softly, "I'm glad you came." After a tender moment Tami separated and said, "What time to you have?"
"Uh... Five minutes to two." It seemed like but moments but in fact they had been in commmunion for almost half an hour.
"Gotta get going. See you around." And with that Tami sprinted off across the plaza, pumping her arms like an athlete, her soles a sandpapery whisper on the concrete. She passed a few people coming this way and waved as they waved back. Just before she turned out of site at the far end, her fingers scraped the back of her head, as if to unstick hair that had gotten sweated on. And then with a final flick of an upturned sole she was gone.
Marianne watched, more or less helplessly, as Tami hefted the big trunk onto the top of her little BMW. At least she was of some assistance when it came to tying it down, holding the rope down with her thumb as Tami did the knots. Soon the loading was done and Marianne, up until now a TL, stood there in her sweater coat and jeans and sneakers, car keys in her hand, looking down at Tami's bare feet and legs on the wet gravelly shoulder, then again at her car, aimed down High Street in the direction of the interstate ten miles away.
"It still seems odd to quit in the middle of your last semester," Tami said.
"It's what I should do, Tam. My mother needs me at home."
"She has the nurse."
"Yes but she needs ME. I should be there. I think of all the times she took care of me when I was sick, all those years as a single parent, just me and her. Now it's my turn to take care of her."
That her mother would likely recover from her latest relapse was known to both of them. Of course Tami did not point this out.
"It was you who put me in a place where I could make this decision, Tami," Marianne said, deciding this was the time to look her full in the face. "When I first came here I was a spoiled kid, only interested in myself. To make any kind of sacrifice was just not something that would have occurred to me."
Tami did not correct her, tactfully, because both of them knew it was true.
"But with you I learned selflessness. At first I thought Georgene was some kind of New Age airhead for talking about the mysticism of licking you. But as I got better at it, and more into it, and you took me up with you to see the whole world at a glance, all around us, without having to turn, with you holding onto me to keep me from falling, my perspective expanded. It went way beyond sex. You taught me how to give of myself. How one gets more out of giving than out of taking. Any good mother knows that. As I now realize. And it is high time I become a good mother to my own mother."
"Best of luck," Tami said. "Stay in touch. Tell your mother I said hi and we pray for her."
Marianne reached around Tami's bare shoulders and gave her the biggest, teariest hug she ever gave. "Bye, my Queen," she said with a chuckle and a sniffle. She got in the car and turned the key and then stuck her head out the window to say a few more words.
She saw Tami waving in the rear view mirror and then the road curved and her permanently naked friend was out of her line of vision. Fortunately as she reflected on her long drive home, down past Brattleboro and Springfield and Hartford, the words she left Tami with, well-rehearsed, remained the exact words she had wanted to say. They were the words of a 21-year-old who was trying to be profound but was utterly sincere. "If we are lucky, we meet someone who shows us who we are, what the really important things are in this life, and how to pursue them in a way that is honest and worthwhile. It is hard to say in words because it cannot be taught in words, just by example. In the life that happens to be mine, that person was you, Tami Smithers."