e "Great Men of History" theory has lost popularity recently, but not in my extended family. You see many, perhaps most of the truly great men of history were probably my kin. That's because of the curse. If one of those "Great Men, or Great Women" were childless, or left a child that wasn't even a pale imitation of the great parent, the odds are very good that they were in my blood line. I know for a fact that Alexander the Great and George Washington are my kin. 'The Mule' in Asimov's great work The Foundation Trilogy has to be based on one of my siblings.

 

I've just begun to study the curse, but have verified a few facts. All children born of "THE CURSED ONE" will be born sterile. My brother won the prize for his work in testicular cancer. His study wasn't altruistic. He was born with "immature testes syndrome." What that means is that his physical development was normal, but he didn't produce sperm. The sperm generator just never got started, same thing for his vas ducts, they weren't there. The vas duct might have been fixed by surgery, vasectomies are reversed routinely these days, but it wouldn't have made a difference. Like all my half sisters, I've been born with immature ovaries. We all seem to have a great love of children, and... it's very painful.

 

The exception is the cursed one. My current theory is that some enzyme is released as a cursed one dies. Somehow, that enzyme is absorbed by the child who kills him, probably through the blood. That enzyme triggers the development of the testes, and voila, a new Cursed One is created. Does it sound strange that one mutation could be transmitted through so many generations? Well, think about it, every single ancestor of every single living human lived long enough to pass along his or her genes or... you get the point.

 

There's just so much I don't yet understand about the process. Why is The Cursed One driven to mate with so many different women? Why do the women he mates with begin to hate him almost as soon as they become pregnant? Why do all his male children go into a homicidal rages in his presence?

 

I sure it is biological, but I'm also positive that it's nothing like a pheromones or some sort of mind control. The Cursed One is THE Alpha Male and people react to that. If all my siblings are literally THE one in approximately one hundred twenty-seven million, the Cursed One is so far beyond us as to be literally incalculable.

 

I know how that sounds, but let me tell you about the current Cursed One. He's too modest to tout his own achievements, but let me list a few before he became The One. He was a world class athlete. He was offered multi-million dollar professional contracts in soccer, basketball and baseball as soon as he finished high school. He was considered the top college football recruit in the country. Each year there are only three or four high school seniors who score a perfect 1600 on the SAT college entrance exams, my brother was one of them, but he did it as a junior, a year early.

 

He chose to go to the US Military Academy at West Point where he graduated first in his class. He fought in the last two wars and became the most decorated hero in US Army history, surpassing the great Audy Murphy. Yes, Col Brown is The Cursed One! At the time he resigned his commission, he was the youngest full colonel in the Army. He left to become tenured in only two years at Rice University, one of the top ten schools in the country. Oh, and by the way, he is without a doubt the best looking man anyone has ever seen. He was absolutely charming, a moral paragon, incredibly funny, and his voice would earn him a starting role in any opera company in the world. Even before he became THE Cursed One, he could have almost any woman in the world to have his children, now...

 

Col Arlan Brown:

 

Call me cursed. I would gladly trade with Ishmael on the hunt for Moby Dick. Hell, I'd trade places with Ahab. I'd even trade places with Oedipus, whose story is a lot closer to mine. I hadn't a clue who my father was. I'm almost certain my mother never knew his name. I was conceived less than five minutes after they met. No, my mother wasn't raped, nor was I the product of a commercial transaction, my mother was an intact virgin when they met. I was conceived in my mother's virgin's blood, born bloody, and became what I am because I was infected by my father's blood as he died.

 

Unlike Oedipus, I didn't marry my mother, I never got to know her. She was killed in an airliner crash before my third birthday. She was almost nineteen when she died, which makes her sound like some sort of besotted teen, but she wasn't. Even pregnant with me, she managed to graduate first in her class at a prestigious, and very expensive private school. She applied to Harvard, and was flying home from Boston, triumphant, after her interview when her plane crashed. I was raised by my grandparents. My Pops was the best dad a man ever had! I had an aunt/half sister who was a few weeks younger than me. Neither of my grandparents got a good look at my father's face. He just waltzed into their hotel suite conceived my sister/aunt, then conceived me, and left without saying goodbye. They didn't call the police. No one ever told me about that night, until after the bombing. I wish they'd explained it to me, it might have saved innocent men psychic trauma.

 

I know I sound cryptic, but that's not my intention... I guess the easiest way to explain is to tell you my story. My grandparents were wealthy even before the settlement from the airline. My grandfather, Pops, made his fortune as a land developer/home builder. I had an exceptionally good childhood and early adulthood. I joined the Army right out of high school and loved it. I had the world by the tail and I was the envy of every man, until my marriage fell apart at age thirty-five.

 

I had married a breathtakingly beautiful woman I'd met at a West Point dance my final year. It was only after our second date that I learned her brains were more impressive than her body. Although she was almost two years younger than me, she was just finishing her MBA at Harvard! She was the other half of my heart, and she loved me almost more than life. To this day, especially to this day, I can't say a single negative thing about her. Except, perhaps she should have been a shade less loyal. I wouldn't trade all DeBeers' diamonds for a single day of our marriage, but I wish she'd left me a few years sooner. She would have been happier that way.

 

Why did our marriage fail? It was my fault. No, I never cheated on her, even after the heat of the battlefield when the urge is so strong that infidelity shouldn't count. I loved her too much. She was the only woman I'd been with and I wanted it to stay that way. Our marriage failed over our children... more correctly, the lack of them.

 

After years of trying, we began to have tests. She was embarrassing fertile, she could have gotten pregnant from a men's room toilet seat. I was shooting blanks. I had more testosterone than the whole French army, navy and air force combined, but the sperm generator was "immature". My wife was loyal, she begged me to adopt, but I couldn't stand the idea of raising a child that wasn't mine. Ironic huh, but that's part of the curse too.

 

My most noble act during the noble part of my life was to divorce her while she was still young enough to have kids of her own. If, as the old country-western song goes "one takes the bow the other takes the blame," I did my best to take all the blame. I told her that I'd fallen for another woman. I offered her all my worldly goods as a settlement but she refused. She fought the divorce tooth and nail, even after I produced an exceptionally skuzzy woman I claimed was my true love. Hell, even after the divorce I couldn't even get hard for another woman, what irony.

 

Right after the divorce, I resigned my commission, I took a job as a teacher. I wanted to give back, and be around young people. If I couldn't have my own children, I wanted to leave my mark by my influence on others'. I think that's part of the curse too.

 

It was a good if quiet life. I had more money than I could spend. My grandparents had both died leaving only my "aunt" and me to split their fortune. I didn't know that aunt was my half sister at that time, although she did. She knew the whole story, because she'd gotten itfrom Pop just before he died. She said Pops was trying to shield me. That was one of Pops few errors in judgment.

 

The night it happened, I was walking home from campus, after the party to celebrate my gaining tenure. I was a little too 'happy' to drive, but my house wasn't far from the school. I was walking past the ROTC building when I sensed a man behind me. Furious, I whirled just fast enough to get knifed in the lung instead of the heart. Because of my history, I have a concealed handgun permit. Somehow, while he repeatedly stabbed me, I drew my gun, shoved it into his chest and shot him. He pulled me down with him, and I lost my gun as I hit the ground. We were both covered in blood and when his mingled with mine, my world changed. A wave of energy nauseated me, and I passed out in a pool of my own vomit.

 

I didn't see him stagger to his car, smash it into the ROTC building and explode. The explosives in the car destroyed the building, his body and made the whole thing look like the work of a suicide bomber. The "car bomb" was his contingency to cover his identity in case his attack on me failed. He didn't want the police to suspect that the man I'd killed was my father.

 

I awoke in the hospital hooked to more tubes and wires than a whole room full of computer servers. A dozen monitors beeped and chirped in a syncopated cacophony of alarm. I felt weak as a kitten and preternaturally alert. More alarms and bells blared, and staff materialized like characters beamed from a Star Trek rip off.

 

They spoke medicalese to each other, not exactly ignoring me, but too excited to pay much attention to me. I tried to force someone to talk to me, was immediately enveloped by fatigue and drifted back off to sleep.

 

When I awoke the second time, I wasn't as weak, but I was dead dog tired. Bushed! I was also hungrier than I'd been in my whole life. The alarms had been reduced by an order of magnitude, but still more than enough to summon an army of medical personnel. This time there were security types with them. They didn't look like regular police, more like FBI.

 

The medical types were even more absorbed by the -- what ever their instruments were telling them, than last time. The agents eyed me with that lean and hungry look that so bothered Caesar.

 

The one closest to my bed asked the stunningly obviuos, "Are you awake Colonel? Do you know where you are?"

 

I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry, only croaking sounds came out.

 

Finally, I managed to whisper, "Food."

 

One of the younger female medical types heard me and dashed out of the room. The agent poured me a glass of water, addeda straw and held it up to my mouth. That, was when I discovered that my hands were bound to the bed by those thick leather restraints that hospitals use. Why?

 

The female appeared with a glass of one of those milk-shake diet food supplements and I chugged the whole thing through a straw.

 

Slightly stronger, I said, "Thanks, please sir, more."

 

She laughed and disappeared again.

 

The medical types went crazy pushing the agents out the door, The female appeared again, glanced at all the monitors, as she gave me my second glass. Again I downed it without a pause while she studied a monitor over my head that I couldn't see. She barked an order that sounded like a series of chemical compounds, and several of the staff left turbulence wakes as they hustled to obey.

 

The young woman, who I'd assumed, in my chauvinist way, was a nurse, turned out to be Dr. Allison Dickson, the head of the whole department. A young orderly appeared with several cans of the diet supplement and a bucket brigade formed as I chugged a dozen cans.

 

Feeling only slightly stronger, I managed, "Where am I, what happened? Why am I still starving?"

 

The last question ledto several orderlies dashing from the room. It also seemed to have exhausted me, and I drifted back to sleep.

 

When I awoke the next time, it was very slowly. I became aware that my throat had some sort of tube crammed down it. Not fully awake, I pulled the thing out. It felt like I'd pulled internal organs with it. I bellowed loud enough to temporarily drown out all the electronic chirps and beeps.

 

I expected the full contingent of medical personal to appear like the genie from the lamp. Instead, Dr. Dickson rose from a chair next to my bed.

 

She looked at my hand, shook her head in awe then asked, "Are you feeling better? Are you still hungry?"

 

I thought about it, realized that I wasn't hungry. I felt different, but not hungry. I checked my hand to see what had surprised her and discovered that it had a torn leather restraint on it.

 

Nodding at the torn restraint she said, "You've been tearing those regularly. We've been contemplating surgery to install a peg. You've gained almost sixtypounds, not that we can see where it's gone. Your body fat percentage has actually gone down. The breakthrough was when you woke up and said you were hungry. No one had noticed you were suffering from extreme malnutrition. Starving to death right before our eyes. You seemed to stabilize an hour or so ago. I think we're over the hump, but we don't have any idea what's caused this. There are some gentlemen from Homeland Security who are very anxious to talk to you, if you feel up to it."

 

Looking at the doctor, I was struck by two thoughts simultaneously, she was beautiful, and she was a younger version of my aunt. More alert, I wondered why I'd thought she wasn't in charge last time. The aura of command radiated on her like sweat on a marathoner. All of that authority was focused with laser intensity on me.

 

Responding to her unasked question, I tried to assessmy physical condition and delivered the succinct line, "I feel funny."

 

She smiled wryly and said, "I'm not surprised. Early on we thought you might have been the target of a terrorist attack and not the ROTC Building. We pumped you full of every type of antibiotic and tranquilizer we thought wouldn't kill you. Not having any idea what we're facing, we gave you everything but the kitchen sink. We'd still like to run some more tests on you. There are other physiological changes that have been going on that we can't explain. Your weight gain being the most obvious. However, the only signs of pathogens have been you lack of energy. "

 

What followed was a week of medical torture, and Homeland Security interrogation. The Homeland people at one point got rather combative. I didn't have any explanation for why a "terrorist" would attack me before blowing himself up in a building. I didn't want anyone to know that I was certain I'd killed my father. I rather thought that was a hallucination and didn't care to undergo a full psychic exam on top of having every orifice prodded and poked. They did pull out most of the tubes and wires, but the tests were never-ending.

 

My first clue tothe curse came on my last day in the hospital as I was waiting to be released. The medical people had reached a dead end and I was going stir crazy. One of the Homeland Security people became belligerent. He was insisting that I must have some idea what my attacker looked like because I had his blood on my gun. I'm not in the habit of lying, and because I was lying, I lost my own temper. When I roared back, the man acted like a defeated cur.

 

The vision scared me, and using some of my service privileges, I demanded that the army medic I summoned escort them from my room. As they left muttering, a 'pink lady'volunteer came in to help me get home. Getting home involved more than a cab ride, since I'd been flown to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. Because of one more foolhardy acts during my Army career, I was entitled to free transportation on military aircraft, so oneof the staff had made arrangements for me to get back home that way.

 

Flying military is a hassle, and I only do it if I'm going to a base for some reason. Since money wasn't a problem, I'd asked for a hospital volunteer who might know something about booking flights to help me.

 

As she walked through the door, the curse erupted. Need drenched every cell of my body. My cock got harder than and diamond edged drill bit, and as thick as a core sample. I was dumbstruck! The woman was very attractive, but not beautiful. She was mid thirties, and looked more like one of those TV moms than a sex sensation. She was dressed modestly, her figure trim, her hair and make-up understated. She was far from the best looking or sexiest woman to enter the room that morning. Several of the nurses and younger doctors who had made a point of calling on me to say good-by, were more attractive. Several of those made sure I knew they were 'available', and left notes on how to contact them. Yet I hadn't reacted like I wanted to rape any of them.

 

The woman couldn't hide her awareness of my reaction to her. Her eyes got wide and for a second, I expected her to run screaming down the hall. Instead, she shocked me. She walked back to the door to my private room, but instead of leaving, she closed it behind her, then leaned against it to lock it, and announced, "I'd planned to stop taking the pill at the end of this cycle."

 

I swallowed hard; I was trembling more violently than during that foolhardy moment I mentioned earlier. Which was the most scared I'd been in my life up to this point. I couldn't speak. I just stared at her.

 

As the silence lengthened she said, "If you don't have to leave town today, you could come to my house tonight."

 

I blinked hard, she looked disappointed but continued, "My daughter is in a wedding tonight, but she'll be home later; you can stay for her if you'd like."

 

She paused again and then pleaded, "Please!"

 

Her eyes never left mine, but I think she saw my erection pulse. I knew she was aware of my musk when she wrinkled her nose. I've always had a strong crotch odor; I'm the guy that "personal deodorants" were designed for. Now it smelled like I hadn't changed underwear in a month.

 

I was embarrassed. I intended to apologize, instead I said, "Get me a rental car and directions to your house. I'll be there at seven." I was flabbergasted that I used my 'command voice.'

 

I hadn't meant to sound so demanding; I just knew that I had to get her out of the room, I was holding on to my control by my finger tips.

 

She gave me a lottery-winner's smile and gushed, "I'm so honored, we'll be ready for you. I'll have a rental here within an hour. I'll have a map to my homein it for you. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

 

She hadn't placed any untoward emphasis on the word "anything" to make it suggestive, but I knew her offer was all inclusive. I waved my hand in dismissal. I wasn't being rude, but the only words I thought I could form were along the lines of, "Turn around, drop your panties and bend over!"

 

When she left, closing the door behind her, I felt my blood pressure drop to normal levels. What didn't drop was my erection, or my awareness of that woman. I pictured her hurrying down the hall, rushing to get me a rental car, using her cell phone to call someone to help her. I hadn't been the only one in that room who needed a personal deodorant. What I didn't know was the curse was the cause.

 

Less than a half hour later a male orderly arrived to help me checkout. It was as smooth as the Army could make it. The Army takes care of its own, and I would always be welcome. I didn't see the woman, but a top of the line luxury car was waiting for me as I was wheeled to the hospital exit. The keys were in the ignition and a rental agreement was on the front seat. One of those computer maps was evident, and the GPS system had her address programmed into it. I checked the rental agreement, it was in her name. Mary! I was listed as a driver, operating under my insurance and license. I have no idea how she got that information, I assume the hospital had it, or perhaps she had access to my wallet.

 

As I started the car, I checked the clock. I had five hours to kill before I was due at her house. I thought about going straight over there, but I was sure she wouldn't be home. I don't mean to imply that I had some sort of ESP connection with her, I didn't. I had just had strongest feeling that she wanted me as much as I wanted her and that the time she'd given me was the earliest she could make herself available. It was all non-verbal, but stronger for that reason. I knew that she was going make me her top priority and the devil take the hindmost. She had wanted to get pregnant before she entered my room, and when she saw me, she decided that I was to be the father.

 

Later I wondered why that little fact didn't bother me at the time. I knew I couldn't give her a child. Even if I could, I wasn't the type of man to make a baby and abandon it. I believe that all babies need their fathers living with their mothers. I wasn't the type to lie to a woman or to take advantage of her. Yet, I was acting worse than a penned bull next to whole herd of fresh cows.

 

Now, I that I was feeling a little more normal, I tried to decide should make my own flight arrangements. After a small internal debate, I decided I wanted to stay the night in Washington. I had some very good friends here, working at the building of fives. (The Pentagon has five concentric, five sided rings, each, five stories tall.) Those jerks at Homeland Security had classified my presence in Washington as 'secret', so I hadn't seen any of them. I knew I wasn't being fair in my resentment of those agents. I knew that what happened to me wasn't part of the war on terror, but they didn't. I admire the job they're doing to keep us as safe as we are. Still -- I had buddies in town and I wanted to see them.

 

I drove out to the Pentagon, showed them my service ID. I'd forgotten that the hospital personnel had attached a small miniature service ribbon to my civilian suit. It was the pale blue one with all the white stars. The sentry checked my ID saw the ribbon and rendered a very snappy salute. It embarrassed me that I couldn't return the honor since I wasn't in uniform. I tried to hide my annoyance when he directed me to VIP parking lot. I'd told the sentry that I didn't want any honors, I was just there to see some buddies, but the halls soon filled with folks being deferentialanyway. My buddies arrived and we went to one of the cafeterias, where I ate too much and practically drownedin bullshit. I felt wonderful. I missed the service, and was almost tempted to try to go back.

 

Before I realized it, it was time to fight the traffic to Mary's house. She lived in Georgetown, one of the most posh sections of Washington. When I got there the house was one of the more impressive, and I wondered why I didn't feel in the slightest intimidated. I had money, all I needed, but this house bespoke serious wealth. The kind that gets you listed by Forbes Magazine as one ofrichest in the country. I parked in the driveway, and as I rang the bell, I wondered if there were servants. As I waited a whole host of questions surfaced. Why had the security gate been open? Had this woman worn a wedding ring? Why was she a volunteer at Walter Reed? This kind of money wrote checks; they didn't spend their time taking care of soldiers. Could she be an employee here? It never occurred to me that she might have sent me to the wrong place, just as it never crossed my mind that the solid man who opened the door was anyone other than her husband!

 

Our eyes locked and I took the man's measure. I had never believed in the 'Alpha Male' theory, but this man was an Alpha Male's alpha male. He exuded confidence and power. I liked him immediately. I didn't know why his wife was willing to cheat on him... openly! As our eyes locked, I knew something else. He would defer to me. Itook charge. I wondered that his deference didn't make me feel uneasy. I hate wimp husbands. The idea of a man watching me take his wife sickened me. I realized, after a second, that this man would never do that; he'd kill the man who tried to hang horns on him.

 

As he looked at the floor and shuffled his feet, I wondered again. An idea flitted through my mind that perhaps he had a problem that even Viagra couldn't fix. He exuded ex-military and I wondered if he'd given more to his country than any country should ask. If that was the case, he was the type of man who wouldn't stand for his wife running around behind his back, he'd meet them at the front door in person. He'd kick their ass if they weren't up to his standards. No, I shook my head, while that image was right, this didn't feel like that sort of situation, and they had a daughter. I couldn't understand what was going on. He didn't want me here, didn't want me to see his wife, but he wasn't going to stand in my way. I then wondered if he'd cheated and this was a condition of her staying with him.

 

Whatever it was, I didn't want any part of it. I was just about to offer my excuses and leave when Mary appeared. It happened again. I went into full rut, practically pawing the ground.

 

Her husband might as well have been an automatic door opener, except I heard him growl, "Don't make me watch this!"

 

Irritated at the distraction, I said, "Go sit quietly in your chair, stay there until I'm done. Don't get out of it except to go to the bathroom."

 

I wasn't aware of using my command voice, or what I was saying. I only know because of what happened later and what they told me.

 

I saw Mary flash a look at her husband, it was lament not lust. I've never seen a look show such remorse, and regret. I didn't see him leave, but her regret gave me the slimmest margins of control.

 

I looked at her closely, and I said, "Did I miss-read you? Did you have another reason for inviting me here?"

 

It didn't seem possible for a face to change so quickly.

 

She positively beamed, "I didn't think you'd come for me. I was hoping you'd come, but I thought it would be for Kristin, our daughter; she should be ovulating," her face positively radiated, "I did tell you I'm still on the pill; not that it matters."

 

I know now that the curse wasn't at full strength yet, or I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from taking her on the floor, right in front of her husband. I would have had no more control than baseball headed for the bleachers. No more control than my father had had with my mother. When the curse completely controlled me, going a week without impregnating a woman would send me into a state similar to the Viking berserkers. Encountering a woman who wanted to have a baby, with me in full rut, and not doing the deed on the spot would be like trying to stop a sneeze once it was started.

 

I didn't understand all that at the time; ignorance is not bliss. I think the reference to her daughter drained some of my pressure as well, but I wasn't sure why. With that control came serious confusion. "What do you mean about your daughter?"

 

She smiled, "I thought you had turned me down, that it was my daughter that brought you here. She is one of the bridesmaids, but if you want her now, I can go get her for you. By the time I get to the church the service should be over."

 

I felt my pulse rate surge, that hollow excitement began in my chest, the one I always got just before the biggest of games or the smallest of combats. Before it overwhelmed me, my voice of reason kicked in. "Are you offering your daughter to me, knowing she might get pregnant? What is this? Some sort of sick game? What kind of slut are you? How old is your daughter? I had visions of some junior high kid. Does she know what her mother has planned for her?"

 

It was the second major misjudgment since I stepped through the door. I normally don't make those sorts of mistakes, but I was thinking with the wrong head. It would be months before I learned enough to prevent the curse from leaving behind the havoc I was in the process of creating that night. At the time, I let a mild concern about the willingness of a child to engage in a slut mother's plan lead me into a greater mess. "Just tell me where the wedding is, I'll see if she's -- suitable."

 

I'd meant to say 'if she's old enough and willing'; what I said had a very different connotation. I still hadn't gotten with ten feet of Mary, much less touched her. If I had -- I would have left.

 

As I left the house, I told her I'd return; her husband never crossed my mind. But then I didn't know that he was virtually chained to his chair, unable even to speak. I'd like to think that I wouldn't have done that to a man I detested; I know I would never have done it to someone I respected. Despite the shortness of our meeting, I respected Mary's husband. I'm pointing this out to show how the curse was influencing me, not just those around me.

 

Safely out of sight of Mary, my other head began to do some of my thinking. Mary and her husband obviously wanted me to get her or her daughter pregnant. I tried to come up with a rational explanation of why they'd want that. Seeking to eliminate false modesty, I could see why someone might want a smart war heroto father their child, but that just didn't ring true in this case. Nor could I explain why she and her husband were trying to make me think that I had some sort of power over them... No, I realized that they weren't trying to make it JUST over them, they were trying to convince me that my attraction extended to everyone. I don't believe in things like witch-craft, spells or mind-control, but I wondered if she was using some sort of pheromone to control me. Certainly, I could smell her excitement, but at some instinctive level, I knew that it wasn't something like pheromones.

 

With that though, I was so close, I so wish that I'd been able to unravel the clues to the curse as I drove to the wedding. Instead, I reviewed my actions since I'd left Mary the first time. I'd encountered any number of women, and I hadn't noticed that any others seemed anxious to have my baby. If I had only known... the saddest words in the English language.

 

I've never crashed a party in my life. Part of that is I can't remember a party I wanted to go to that I hadn't been invited to. It never even occurred to me that I was crashing now. When I got there, the reception had already started. There was a large engagement picture of the happy couple as you signed in. I studied the pair. Their happiness was obvious. The young man looked promising. No, nineteen year old could ever be described as an alpha male type, but the promise was there.

 

No doubt influenced by the curse, I decided that instead of trying my 'appeal' on Mary's daughter, I would confirm my lack of 'appeal' by trying to charm the bride. I joined the end of the reception line. When I reached to shake hands with the bride, I tried to project the same desire for her I'd felt for Mary.

 

I was embarrassed, but relieved when all that happened was that she gave me a look that said, "You must be one of Steve's people, I'm so glad you're the last one."

 

When our hands touched, what she said aloud, was, "I can't tell you how excited I am that you're here. I'm flattered beyond words."

 

Giving me a conspiratorial look she added, "Would it be alright if I talk to Steve privately about how we're going to do this and get back to you? I don't want to hurt him, please?"

 

The pleading was now as evident on her face as in her voice.

 

Startled, I moved to shake hands with the groom. As our eyes locked. I saw that same surge of anger that I'd seen in Mary's husband. This time it was gone much faster, and a pleading expression replaced it.

 

He whispered, "Please don't let anyone know. It's my wedding day -- couldn't you wait till we get back?"

 

Again, I felt an irrational surge of anger. I'd always encouraged subordinates state their cases vigorously, yet now I was getting furious when an unreasonable act of mine was being challenged!

 

I replied in my command voice, but pitched so only he could hear, "Bring her to Mary's house as soon as you can get away."

 

As I saw acceptance in his face, my anger evaporated and I added, "You don't have to let anyone know, leave at the normal time."

 

The part of me that still wasn't controlled by the curse was aghast that I was telling a groom that I was taking his wife on their wedding night.

 

Trying to soften my intolerable action I added, "I'll make it up to you, I promise."

 

The relief on his face was so profound I fled before he could embarrassed us both by an inappropriate display of gratitude.

 

Those were mistakes in judgment numbers three and four. I've probably been that wrong about that many people before in one day, but I don't remember when. Never have there been the consequences like the one caused my miscalculations.

 

Again, once I got out of sight of the bride, I seemed to come to my senses. Realizing that I didn't know Mary's last name, and since she wasn't at the wedding, I figured there was a better than even chance the bride and groom would have no idea where I'd told them to meet me. The further I got from the young couple the more outrageous the whole idea seemed.

 

Determined to leave before someone recognized me, and before I could make a bigger asshole of myself, I almost ran over Mary's daughter. She had the same coloring and the same solid good looks. She was older than I'd hoped. A young woman in that age range where guessing was impossible. She could have been as young as sixteen or as old as twenty-seven. I don't know how she spotted me, but she'd blocked my path.

 

Standing with arms akimbo she said, "You're Col. Brown aren't you? The man my mother told me about?"

 

Once again my system flushed with lust, my hands moved to rip her clothes from her. My body planned to take her right there in the lobby, my hand actually grasped the neckline of her bridesmaid dress before my brain caught up with what I was doing. Using every erg of the iron control I'd been taught at West Point, I forced my hand to my side. So locked had been my eyes with hers, that it took several more seconds to realize that she hadn't been prepared to struggle. In fact as my hand dropped, it appeared she was about to remove her dress on her own.

 

I was breathing hard, trying to hold a semblance of control, images of her mother and the bride, naked and draped open in the same bed flashed through my mind. Normally, an image like that would ensurean erection. Curiously, it had the opposite effect. I'd just learned that one way to control what I now call it THE FLUSH is to remember that you have waiting and willing partners. As I struggled for the decorum that I expect of myself, I saw fear creep onto her face.

 

In a trembling voice she asked, "Don't you want me? I didn't believe mom when she told me what she'd done. I thought it was some sort of sick practical joke. Then I saw you talking to Edna and I knew. Mom said that if you came, it would mean you wanted me, please don't change your mind now!"

 

As I looked in her eyes, I had my next insight into the curse that will control the rest of my life. This young woman also wanted my child. By displaying THE FLUSH as I'd done, it encouraged her. If I didn't at least give her the opportunity to try to get pregnant, it would be worse than an Olympic favorite, prepared to compete watching the event cancelled. No worse than that, far, far worse. It probably would make this bright, cheerful young woman suicidal.

 

I understood that, temporarily I had the ability to say no to Kristin, but she would bear a heavy price if I never gave her the opportunity. I marveled at the arrogance of that concept, but I knew that I was right. As much as it bothered my sense of ethics, I knew that I would need to -- Then as if from nowhere, I felt a new concept develop. While the attraction between us was far more powerful than what I'd felt for my wife on our honeymoon, but it might be possible to postpone consummation for a few years.

 

I asked, "How old are you Kristin?"

 

Her smile was blinding. She knew she'd won. She knew I'd give her the opportunity to have my child and I could see her tension drain.

 

Ebullient, she gushed, "I'm 17 but I'll be 18 in less than a month! Mom was only fifteen when she got pregnant with me. We De Mille girls produce good kids young. Tonight would be fine, a monthdoesn't matter!"

 

She might not want to wait, but -- I wondered just how old the bride was, if her bridesmaid was only seventeen. It might be another out.

 

Looking at her I promised, "I'll come back for you the day after your eighteenth birthday. If you aren't already pregnant or --"

 

I paused and tried to think, there was something else that could keep me away, but I quite grasp what it was. I left the sentence incomplete, it didn't matter the promise was made.

 

She studied me intently, making sure that I wasn't trying to use a verbal slight of hand, then shocked me by asking, "Did you offer Edna a baby?"

 

I nodded, I hadn't known the bride's name, but now, Edna would know where to find me. I hurried to my car, and drove aimlessly for the next couple of hours trying to understand what was happening to me. Doing my best self-analysis, I decided that I could sense when a woman wanted to have a baby, or was at least open to the idea. I knew that when I Flushed I was broadcasting my desire to father that child. What I couldn't figure out is why any woman would respond to such an outrageous arrogance.

 

Around midnight I thought I'd managed to regain a measure of sanity, and with a growing sense of horror I headed to Mary's house, still determined to find some way to mitigate the evil I'd set in motion.

 

Despite my best intentions as I rang the front bell, I felt THE FLUSH blossom as Kristin opened the door. Seeing her and not one of my two intended, I felt it ebb. Although I didn't understand how, I was grateful to gain some measure of control. Unfortunately as soon as I'd FLUSHED, every one of my plans had been subsumed by my passion; leaving me physically and emotionally drained. Even as that mindlessness receded, I could only remember the barest outline of what I'd intended to do. I remembered planning to send Edna and her husband on their honeymoon, concentrating my lust on Mary. There had been more too it, but I couldn't remember. I did remember rationalizing that since she was already a slut, I would use that to limit the damage at least a bit.

 

Entering the foyer, I saw all of them. Mary stood by herself, Edna huddled with her arm locked through her groom's arm. Kristin walked to her mother's side and looked like she also wanted to hold her mother's hand for comfort. As I closed the door behind me, I FLUSHED again. I have no memory of moving but suddenly I had my arms around Mary. As I pulled her to me her scent repulsed me. It was the foulest odor I've encountered in my life. Much worse than the exploded stomachs and putrid odor of rotting corpses, I've encountered after battle. I shoved her from me, a different kind of rage descending upon me.

 

"You have sperm in you! When did you get it?"

 

I had no idea where that had come from, or why it caused such furious revulsion.

 

She was horror struck, her expression pleading for understanding.

 

She was near tears as she said, "Please it was five nights ago, my husband -- I didn't know you then. I didn't know it would matter, I'm not pregnant."

 

I heard my voice growl, "Sperm can live for six days inside you. I will not be polluted by another!"

 

That sounded true, incredibly stilted, and arrogant, but true. However, it wasn't a piece of information I'd ever remembered reading, and I certainly wouldn't have bet a plugged nickel on its validity. Some tiny portion of my rational brain filed away the datum that any woman who had living sperm inside her was safe from The Curse. Although as Mary proved, that woman wasn't safe from her attraction to me.

 

As a waves of fatigue engulfed me, I learned something else about the curse. I didn't know what happened to me when I broadcast my desire, but it physically drained me. I was almost as tired as I'd been that first time in the hospital. My brain was so leaden; I was near the hallucinations stage. I'm not trying to excuse what I did next, but I'm trying to explain. I crossed to Edna and smelled her. She smelled like honeysuckle and Jasmine, but I knew she wasn't wearing perfume. She was sweet and ready for me. I wasn't ready for her.

 

"I'm going to have Kristin help me to the guest room. I need to rest, take a nap. When I'm ready, I'll call for Edna to join me," turning to the bride, I added,"While I'm sleeping show hubby you love him... nothing that could contaminate you. He can suckle you, kiss you, but don't do anything that might let a single sperm come in contact with you-- from anyone!"

 

I saw the stricken face of her husband, remembered my promise and said to him, "Use Mary when you want Edna. She's a slut; it won't matter. Cum in her, it'll take the pressure off, she'll do anything you want."

 

I turned to Mary and said, "You will take care of all of his sexual needs until he can make love to his wife. Make him very happy. It's your audition for me. If he isn't ecstatic, I won't be back for you... or for Kristin. I want you leaking from all three places. It's the least I can do."

 

"Now," I said in my command voice, making sure I had everyone's full attention, "all of you go watch dirty movies, have sex, whatever until I send for Edna."

 

I didn't know what I was saying, I was babbling, I just wanted them to relax until I called for Edna. I wanted Edna and her groom to be able to enjoy each other to the extent they could. I never thought that Mary would do anything with him before I woke up, I assumed they would retire to one of the bedrooms after Edna came to me. It also never occurred to me that they were going to the TV in the den. Going to the den where Mary's husband was stuck in his chair. I wouldn't have done that to him. I certainly didn't intend to make Kristin or her father watch Mary... do what she did.

 

When I was a second lieutenant, my squad was cut off and in continuous contact with the enemy for thirty-six hours. That's the only time I ever remember having more difficulty thinking. I never considered that the groom might not want to have sex on his wedding night with someone else. I will never forgive myself for ordering him to make love to another in front of his bride. I certainly understand why she hates me now. I don't understand why she still came up to me when I called for her.

 

As Ilay on their guest bed I dreamed, and I begin to learn. The curse was worse than my most terrifying nightmare. I was THE Alpha Male! I wasn't even subject to challenge. My children would be the pinnacle of human evolution. That fact was somehow communicated when I felt 'the flush.' Most women would be drawn to me at a sub-conscious biological level, desperate to have my child. Most important, they would love and raise my child as their own. Sounds like some adolescent boy's wet dream doesn't it. It's a horrible curse!

 

The curse is that it is ONLY biological. The curse doesn't make the women like me, or desire me. They want my sperm, some are willing to literally crawl on bare hands and knees over broken glass to get it. But, once they've got it, and are pregnant, they aren't in the least hesitant to let their true feelings erupt. The same is true of the men. They won't try to hinder me, or try to kill me later. They will just consider me as fondly as they would someone who had used drugs on their loved one to get her pregnant! That woman will get pregnant. The only thing 'magical' effect of the curse was that any fertile woman I slept with, will have my child. It won't matter if she were ovulating at the time or not. It wouldn't matter if she were on the pill or not. That was a universal response to my unique DNA. It causes ovulation, almost like some sort of fertility drug.

 

That same DNA causes other responses; all my children will hate me. I don't mean the normal child/teenager friction, I mean we can't live in the same house, even newborns. This response is transmitted through the placenta to the mother. So, even if the mother and I married for love she'll hate me while she's pregnant. Were I to marry, my wife and I could have a loving day once every nine months, tops.

 

Then there's another little part of the problem. Should I encounter a woman who is trying, or even has just decided to have a baby, I will sense it and I will respond like a sex starved sailor given the privilege of the harem. My only defense to the urge is if I either have a previous engagement, or I've created a child in the last few days. Because both Mary and Edna had decided to become pregnant, and I hadn't had sex since my divorce, neither they or I had a chance.

 

Last but certainly not least, should I get a healthy non-virgin pregnant, she will have a girl. All of my daughters will be barren, and will hate me. My sons are worse; their DNA will induce a rage if they ever encounter me, and they'll try to kill me. I think it has to do that in order to produce a son, my sperm must pass through the woman's blood, for example an intact virgin. Female blood destroys the 'female' type sperm.

 

It's all biological, geared to the survival of the child, and the benefit of the human race. Each year hundreds of millions of children are born. By any criteria you chose to use, my thirty or forty children will be the top thirty or forty born that year. That's good for the species. Yet there's no danger that a 'super species' will evolve because they're sterile.

 

The child's DNA level distaste for me, that is transmitted by the fetus to the mother helps rebuild the bond to her real mate. The child, even as a newborn will be a daddy's girl, or boy in the extreme. Which also helps bond the family to give the child the support it needs from a 'Daddy', that's only aided by the child's extreme antipathy for me.

 

It all makes perfect sense biologically, but it dooms me to a life with no companions, male or female. I'm driven to have children, to want the very best for them, to attempt to make sure that they have everything they need. I yearn to be a 'Daddy' yet I can have no part in raising them. Could there ever been a man more cursed?

 

When I awoke, I had two overwhelming needs, the first was to procreate, the second was to find out if my dream was true... and if it was, some way to fix it.

 

Mrs. Mary De Mille:

 

It is extremely painful to remember what happen that night in our den.  I've always thought of myself as a moral woman.  I've had my lapses, I'm thirty-four and my daughter is almost eighteen.  Still, despite all the problems, my husband and I have been happily married for eighteen years.  I'm not sure that our marriage will survive to our nineteenth anniversary.  I desperately wanted another baby; I just never thought that I'd ever be an unwed mother …

 

I had known my husband all my life, but he didn't know I existed until I seduced him when I was sixteen and he was twenty-two.  We both lived in River Oaks, one of the wealthier sections of Houston.  He was the local golden boy.  He went to the exclusive The Kinkaid School and was a senior when I was in seventh grade.  He was all-everything, and of course, my fantasy.  After he graduated valedictorian, he played football at Rice.  Several polls selected him as an all-America, but since he was in ROTC, he went into the Army instead of the NFL.

 

He came back to Houston Christmas looking like a modern day cavalier in his Army dress mess uniform but I managed to catch his attention at one of the Christmas parties.  (I had what they are now calling a costume malfunction, back then we called it flashing.)  I'd just turned sixteen, and was already a junior at The Kinkaid.  (I'd skipped fourth grade.)  I told him I was a freshman at A&M and he never found out any different until I discovered I might be pregnant three weeks later.  I know he didn't want to marry me, but I made it work.  He was my sun and my moon, and by any standard, we had a very happy marriage.

 

The only problem was that since I'd had Kristin so very young, I had trouble getting pregnant when we decided to try again just before my thirtieth birthday.  What followed were four years of frustration and tests.  Finally, I had micro-surgery to repair some problems with my plumbing, only to begin having wildly erratic menstrual cycles.  The doctors recommend that I go on the pill for three months to see if I could get them regulated.  When I met Col. Brown, I was on my third month.

 

I've tried several times to explain my attraction to Col. Brown, and I can't.  I know that I love my husband, I would never do anything to hurt him, I'd never dreamed of being unfaithful, but it was like I was Cinderella and Col. Brown was the prince.  Saying no simply wasn't an option.

 

I'd done everything I could to raise Kristin to understand the dangers of getting pregnant before she married, but when I came home from the hospital, I told her that she had the most wonderful opportunity.  She was scandalized by what I was saying, but then she hadn't met him.  When I told Rodger, my husband, he thought I was playing an elaborate practical joke.  He had attended several military soirées where Col. Brown was a guest of honor, and knew his history.  He admired him immensely, although they'd never been introduced.  My husband isn't easily impressed; he's built the family business to a size where he has personal meetings with Presidents, Princes and Potentates.  Generally, they end up marching to his drum.  When Col. Brown walked through our front door Rodger looked like he'd been pole axed.

 

I wasn't surprised when Rodger agreed to leave the room after Col. Brown arrived at our house.  We Americans have the idea that all men are equal, and they should be as far as rights and the law is concerned, but Col. Brown has no equal.  I spoke with Dr. Dickson at Walter Reed.  I've heard her theory that out of all the billions of males on the planet somehow he is the #1 male by any measure, by orders of magnitude.  I don't understand all that, I just know that I was bowled over by just meeting him.

 

When I asked Rodger about it later he said, "I had always believed that if I couldn't win a fight, I could hurt the other guy enough that he'd back off.  That whatever he won, wouldn't be worth the cost I'd force him to pay to win.  I'd make sure the other guy knew fighting me would, at best be a Pyrrhic victory.  When Col. Brown walked in, I knew I couldn't win, and my best shot wouldn't faze him.  What was worse, since I'd seen him in person several times I wasn't prepared for the force of his personality one-on-one.  He was just overwhelming.  I would have gone after any other many with knives, guns or brass knuckles, with him, I was almost ready to give support him.  I was actually grateful that he wasn't going to make me watch what I was willing to allow."

 

I was grateful Col. Brown sent Rodger away too.  I was acting like a preteen around a rock star, and I didn't want my husband to see that.  When Col. Brown left to get Kristin, I went upstairs to get ready.  I still wasn't positive he was going to be willing to get me pregnant, but I wanted to be prepared.  First, I showered, and I took my time washing.  In fact, I was so careful washing my twat that it almost constituted masturbation.  I didn't think that Col. Brown would go down on me, but I'd been smelling myself ever since I'd met him, and I wanted to be fresh.  I then took a long soak in a bubble bath using scented oils.  I shaved my legs and under my arms.  For the first time, I was tempted to shave my twat.  Roger had asked me to do that once, but I had resisted.  I had a horror of being in a car accident and having someone else see me that way, and yes my mother always insisted that I have clean underwear on before I left the house.  I actually had the razor poised when I decided that I didn't want Rodger to know that I'd done that for someone else when I wouldn't do it for him.

 

After my bath, I redid my make-up and hair.  Then I had to decide what to wear.  I have a few Victoria's Secrets outfits, but I didn't have the courage to wear them.  Besides, those were for my husband and I didn't want to give that, even to Col. Brown.  I thought about several dresses, but I wanted to show off my figure and the only ones I had that did that were not something you'd wear around the house.

 

Finally, I decided on a jacket and trouser outfit by Bernard Zins.  The trousers were loden green with full leg and a regular raise waist.  They didn't have pockets and I thought they showed that I wasn't carrying any extra weight.  I chose an almost black Dana Buchman pullover blouse that make it clear that I wasn't wearing a bra, and would allow easy access to my very average boobs.  The jacket was a black and white tweed with a notched collar and three buttons.  The jacket would let me cover what the blouse showed if Col. Brown was only interested in Kristen.  I didn't own a thong.  In the past if I didn't want to show a panty line I would normally wear pantyhose.  Tonight was not a night for pantyhose.  Feeling a bit guilty, I borrowed one of Kristin's thongs.  When I finished dressing I thought I looked as good as I could for someone my age.  I added some aquamarine and diamond earrings, a wide gold bracelet and almost added a necklace and broach before I remembered that it might get in the way.  I finished the package with few drops of Sabi Parfum to make me irresistible.

 

My timing was almost perfect; I had just gone into the guest bedroom to turn down the sheets when I heard Kristin arrive.  I called her to help me and we lit some incense sticks and a few candles.  I wasn't actually that big on incense or candles, but I had a horror that Col. Brown might make our baby in our marriage bed and the incense and candles would be a good excuse.  I didn't want to share that bed with anyone else.  I know that sounds irrational, but somehow I was able to separate getting pregnant from lovemaking and from my marriage.  I was doing my best to seduce the man, but I knew that after I was pregnant, I'd only want my husband.

 

We'd just finished when Edna and Johnny arrived.  Edna looked radiant, as all brides look, but I think the idea of creating a new life with Col. Brown gave her a special glow.  Johnny didn't look happy, but that was certainly understandable.  It was horrible timing, but that was just the way things worked out sometimes.  I was trying not to be discouraged by her.  I had no doubt that Col. Brown could get two women pregnant in one night, but would he want to?  Kristin had already told me that he wasn't going to be with her tonight, but what about me?  I would be honored to have Edna use our house, but I didn't want to be overlooked.

 

I knew about men's fantasy of having two women at the same time, and I was determined that if that was the only way I could get what I wanted I would be the third wheel.  I was trying to visualize what that would entail when the doorbell rang.  Kristin rushed to open it and I stood there in the foyer as he walked in.

 

I know that many women have fantasies about working in a brothel, I never have.  The idea of walking out with my "sisters" to stand in front of a customer hoping to be picked is nightmarish.  Yet that is exactly how I felt as he entered the foyer and closed the door behind him.  Kristin walked over and stood by me I knew she wanted to take my hand.  I on the other hand, was trying not to do a hip thrust while pushing out my breasts.  I was wishing I'd worn my wonder bra, or something more daring than the thousand-dollar outfit I had on.

 

Col. Brown looked at us and he shuddered with need.  I was standing there with two other women and suddenly I felt like the most desired woman in history.  My need for him hit me with a force I couldn't comprehend.  Being wanted has always turned me on, but I've never felt this needed in my life.  It seemed a life or death matter, and I knew that while this man could have any woman in the world, it was me that he needed, desired.  I felt my twat swell with moisture and my nipples pushed against the silk of my blouse.  I walked to him and I turned to jelly as I felt his arms encircle me.

 

Just as my nipples made contact with his shirt, he thrust me away and looked disgusted.  He looked at me like you might look at a strange dog's poop on your sidewalk.  He yelled about having sperm in me and I wanted to deny it, but Rodger and I had made love on Tuesday night.  I was horrible embarrassed to admit that, but mortified to discover that it meant he wasn't going to give me a child.  When he talked about six days, I was determined to douche in the wild hope that I might be 'clean' by tomorrow before he left.

 

I was so focused on that that I almost missed what he said next.  He called me a slut, something that I'd never been called, even when I was pregnant at sixteen.  Then he was telling me that I had to audition with Johnny!  I was so mortified that it wasn't until after he left that the other shoe dropped for me.  I was going to have to 'audition' in the den.  The den where Rodger was watching TV!

 

The others began moving towards the den, but I stood there in shock.  Realizing that I needed to talk to Rodger before they arrived I asked if they knew where we could find one of the dirty movies we'd been instructed to watch.  Edna said she had a DVD in her suitcase that she'd been given as a gag gift.  Johnny volunteered to go get it.

 

I begged Kristin and Edna to give me a few minutes with Rodger alone before they joined us.  Then I hustled to see if I could get my husband to go to the library while we used the TV room.

 

When I entered I saw him staring, eyes fixed on the Fox News Network.  I was afraid that he might look diminished after Col. Brown, but he didn't.  He was the same strong man I'd married.

 

 I came over and knelt down beside his chair and said, "Honey, do you think you could go into the library for a little while."

 

I paused trying to think of a way to explain what was happening and he answered in a whisper, "I've been ordered to stay here and be quiet, I won't leave unless he changes those orders.  Surly there are enough rooms for you to use without coming in here.  Is he going to give Kristin a baby too?"

 

I felt an invisible hand clutch my heart, "No, he's going to wait until she's eighteen."

 

I paused and I felt him relax a bit.

 

Then he said, "He's a good man, but I almost wish he wouldn't wait, I'd like to see both babies born around the same time.  I appreciate him not taking you in our bedroom, when he comes in, I'm sure he'll let me go to bed.  I'll ask if I can take my eighteen year old Glenfiddich Scotch with me."

 

He looked at me intently, his eyes burning holes into my brain, I hadn't been this scared or upset since that morning I'd sat on the commode about to learn I was pregnant.

 

I wanted to cry at the pain I saw in his face, but his voice was even when he continued, "Mary, I'm going to get so drunk that I won't remember a thing that happened after I got home.  I know I get amorous when I get drunk, so if I do anything to you tonight, I want you to forgive me if I don't remember it."

 

I could feel the tears rolling down my cheek, I tried twice to form words but my throat wouldn't work.  I couldn't meet his eyes any more and I looked away.

 

"I'm not going to be leaving this room tonight either.  I, uh, I'm not presentable right now for him.  I … uh …"  I broke down crying and Rodger picked me with his incredible strength and set me gently onto his lap.

 

Wrapping his arms around me he said gently, "Is it something we can fix?  Will he come back for you?"

 

I nodded my head still unable to speak.  Rodger voice showed relief, "I've got to say I'm glad he's not going to be with you tonight.  I'll make it a point to travel a lot in the next couple of months that'll make it a lot easier on me too.  I don't want to know when it's going to happen, it'll be easier if I can pretend it never happened."

 

My heart was breaking and my soft sobs turned to horrible wracking boohoos, great gasping things that would have been melodramatic if my pain had been any less.

 

"Rodger," I managed at last gaining a small measure of control, "He's going to give Edna a baby.  He feels terrible about doing that to Johnny on his wedding night, and so he's given me to Johnny, in here!  He thinks I'm a slut!"

 

I felt every muscle in Rodger's body tighten, and I heard a growl of pain and fury deep in his chest.  I felt his body prepare to bound from his easy chair and I automatically rolled out of it so he could.  He began to hyperventilate as he struggled to rise.  I threw myself to my knees beside his chair.  I took his right hand in mine and bathed it in my tears.

 

"Please don't Rodger, I don't want to lose you."

 

I managed to mumble my chest heaving as I cried.  I couldn't stand for him to blame himself for his inability to act.

 

I knew every fiber of his being wanted to challenge Col. Brown and we both knew that would be fruitless.  It would only humiliate him more than what was already happening  It wasn't until much later when we realized that had he challenged Col Brown, he would have cancelled his orders.

 

I've often used the phrase, "I'd give my right arm..." At that moment, I would not have suffered a severed limb.  However, I literally would rather have been horse whipped that what Col. Brown was forcing me to do.  Yet, I didn't have the will even to oppose him, to ask him to relent.  I didn't know if my willingness to do this was based on my desire for a child by him, a grandchild by him or simply because he'd ordered me to do this horrible thing in front of my husband.  I knew I no desire to ever 'be' with anyone but Rodger sexually, yet whatever the source of my motivation to follow Col. Brown's orders it was stronger than my will, and best intentions.  I would hate every second, but I would do it.

 

I'd like to think that I might have found some way to succeed in my struggle to oppose what Col. Brown had ordered, but at that moment Kristin, Edna and Johnny came into the room.  Carefully ignoring Rodger and me, the newly weds sat on the couch between the two easy chairs in our home theater room.  I went to the bathroom and tried to repair my make-up while Kristin got everything set up to play the DVD.

 

My tears under control, but my make-up hopeless, I went to my recliner to the left of the couch, carefully not looking at the three on the couch or Rodger in his recliner on the other side.  The "movie" started and it was as bad as you might expect.  It was triple X and thankfully the dialogue was skimpy at best.  It mostly consisted of a couple trying to see just how many positions they could try out.  As a honeymoon gag it was perfect, as something to watch in that situation it was horrible.

 

I couldn't help but see, out of the corner of my eye, that Edna and Johnny were getting into it.  His hands were roaming, but carefully above the waist.  She had opened her blouse and unhooked her bra.  Even doing my best not to watch, it was far more erotic than what was on our wide screen.

 

Even if I hadn't been able to see it, no one could miss the sounds as he began to suckle her.  I heard him ask if she could cum from what he was doing and she shook her head.  I couldn't hear what he whispered but she shook her head again.

 

There was more discussion and I heard him say, "Please I want you to cum for me before you go to him."

 

The sounds of his suckling started again and Edna added new sounds of her own passion.  I glanced over and saw that she was using her own hand to stimulate herself through her pants.  I turned to watch, not because of any voyeuristic desire, but because I knew it would be seconds before I was take her place.  She shuddered and pushed Johnny away.  I was almost certain she hadn't had an orgasm, but she wanted to get away from Johnny before there was any danger he might have one.  She couldn’t take any chances that a premature release might contaminate her with his sperm.

 

She shot me a look of pain, then a silent plea that I wasn't sure I understood.  I knew she didn't want me to be with Johnny, but I think she wanted him to be so occupied that he wouldn't think about what she was doing upstairs.  I tried to convey in my smile that while I was going to do this, I had no desire for her husband.

 

Aloud I said, "Edna, I think that perhaps you might be more comfortable waiting in my chair, why don't we switch places?"

 

I didn't have to look at Rodger to see the tears on his cheeks.  I had never seen Rodger cry and it was like a knife twisting in my guts rolling my intestines into knots.  He was carefully centering his entire attention on the TV, but when I lowered my footrest to get out of my recliner, I saw him squeeze his eyes shut.

 

Edna had been sitting in the middle of the couch next to Kristin.  I couldn’t do that and motioned for Johnny to move over letting me sit next to what was now Kristin's chair.  He reached over, squeezed Kristin's hand and made a space for me to sit next to him.

 

I was only thirty-four, but Johnny had been coming over to our house since he was in pre-school.  Edna and Kristin had been friends and soccer teammates forever.  Edna and Johnny were only a year ahead of Kristin in school, and despite what I'd just seen, I couldn't think of him as anything other than the little kid I'd made jelly sandwiches. I couldn't believe that I was sitting down next to him to be a wife substitute.

 

It wasn't until that second that I remembered that Col. Brown had said he wanted me, "leaking from all three places," or he wouldn't be back for me or for Kristin.  I do oral for Rodger all the time.  I've never let him come in my mouth, and I don't do deep throat.  I tried once but I ended up throwing up.  Still, as long as he doesn't force it too deep, I enjoy it.  I like the way it gets him excited.  My girlfriends think it's odd that I don't like him to go down on me.  I'm so sensitive down there that his tongue tickles me, and I'm so scared I might pee on him; it makes me a nervous wreck.

 

Now, I was going to have to let Johnny cum in my mouth, and something I've never done with Rodger--- anal!  I did let him try once, but it hurt me so much, even before he got it in that he stopped without my asking.  I was so grateful, his concern for my feelings is one of the things I love about him.  Now I was going to have to accept that pain from Johnny.  What's more I was going to have to do it with my husband in the same room.  Somehow, I was going to have to find a way to keep from showing that pain or it would kill Rodger, or he'd kill Johnny!

 

We sat on the couch for several minutes watching the DVD.  The machine was set to repeat, but was so monotonous that I wasn't sure if it had yet.  Johnny's hands were in his lap and mine were in mine.  I was so upset just thinking about what I had to do, that I was almost trembling.  Because I was distracted, it took me several minutes to realized that Johnny was trying to edge away from me, our hips weren't touching anymore.

 

I'm almost never an aggressor with Rodger.  I don't have to be.  Frankly, I love the feeling of being wanted and I always respond to it.  I took a deep breath, and shifted, trying not to let Kristin see what I was doing.  There was no way I could make mad unrestrained sex, much less wild if unwanted adultery, with my daughter sitting on the same couch with me.

 

"Kristin, do you think that you could bring your father that special bottle of Scotch from the bar?  The one in the round tube, and while you're up would you bring me a light blanket?  I'm afraid I'm a little cold.  And, uh, you might want to bring yourself a cushion, I'm feeling a bit tired and I might stretch out here on the couch."

 

It was the thinnest fiction, but it was the best I could do.  I'd never seen Rodger drink to get drunk, but I hoped it wouldn't take him long.  I decided we'd wait until he passed out, and Edna left.  Even if Kristin was still in the same room, I could use the blanket to hide what I was doing from her.  As she left, I switched sides, so I could turn my back to Rodger when the expected began.

 

What I didn't expect was for Johnny to lean over a whisper him my ear, "Mrs. D, I hate what I'm going to do.  I don't ever want another woman except Edna, but he told me I have to use you when I want Edna, that I have to cum in you.  This is making me sick at my stomach, especially in to do it front of Mr. D and Edna but I don't have a choice."  He made a sound that was half a choke and half a sob, "Him wanting Edna makes me kind of proud in a strange way, and we wanted children right away.  It's why we were getting married so young; with our trust funds, it's not like we have to wait until I can earn a living.  I'm sorry as hell about our wedding night, and I resent that he made me come here with her, but this … with you, is sick;  it's like doing it with my mom."

 

I understood exactly what he was saying, and would have told him so if I wasn't holding my tongue between my teeth to avoid making a sound.  As soon as he'd moved to whisper in my ear, his hand had moved to cup my right breast.  When he finished talking, he moved down to kiss my neck.  At the touch of his lips I jumped so hard I almost bit my tongue off.  I was as rigid as a board, and I felt like if I moved I'd shatter, shooting splinters all over the room.  I turned my head fractionally and I could see the muscles in Rodger’s jaw clench and unclench.

 

My right hand flew to cover my mouth, like a little girl who accidentally said a bad word.  Although Rodger was staring straight ahead, I know he was watching.  His lips began to move and I knew he was cursing under his breath.  He'd been told to be quiet and he was following orders, but he was scaring me.  Johnny began to fondle my breast and my nipple.  Because of the coolness of the room that nipple was already hard.  I couldn't bear the thought that Rodger might think I was responding to Johnny.  Johnny was trying to be sexy, but while he wasn't hurting me, it felt like the technician positioning me for my last mammogram.  He kissed my neck, right below my ear, a place I've hated to be kissed since a boy, whose name I've mercifully forgotten, licked me there in the sixth grade.  At that time I'd run screaming to the teacher for a towel to wipe off the germs.  With Johnny, it made my skin crawl and I wanted to turn and bite his head off.

 

I took a deep mental breath.  This wasn't going to work, I not only had to get very intimate, I had to do a good job.  Johnny was enough of a gentleman that he'd no doubt be very complimentary of my "performance" even if I acted like a dead log.  However, I knew right down to my bones that he would be honest, to a fault, when he answered questions by Col. Brown, no matter what its effect on Kristin and me.  I'd never been good at faking passion; Rodger was so good I didn't have to.  He could still make me wet just by locking eyes and cocking an eyebrow wickedly.

 

I suddenly had a horrible image of what my future would be like if I were to go through with all this only to have Col. Brown use my lack of enthusiasm as a reason not to give Kristin and me a baby!  The thought didn't do a thing for my passion but it did wonders for my motivation.  Rodger could only forgive what I was doing if we won in the end.  I glanced at him again, and he was the picture of a man absorbed in a TV show – except for those muscles clenching and un-clenching in his jaw.  I used my right hand to adjust my jacket to shield what Johnny was doing to my breast.  It was the smallest of fig leaves, but it let me pretend that Rodger didn't see.  I bit my lower lip and tried to enjoy the mauling of my boob.

 

It only took a second to realize that would never work.  As soon as I opened my jacket, Johnny began jiggling my boob like it molded Jell-O.  I pressed my jacket into his hand, forcing him to stop playing with me like the kid he was.  His response was to pinch my nipple, something else that I hate.  They are so sensitive I can barely stand to have Rodger lick them.  I love the feeling when he takes in a mouthful of me and that sort of hard contact, but pinching them is just painful, not sexy.  I couldn't contain a small yelp and I saw Rodger whip his head around, his eyes boring holes into Johnny.  He didn't say anything, he just stared hard, his eyes narrowing, his lips thinning.

 

I didn't have to hear him say the words, 'That's my woman you're manhandling and if you hurt her you'll answer to me,' to get the message loud and clear.

 

I felt Johnny tense and I heard him swallow hard.  I had to grab his hand to keep him from moving it off my breast.

 

When I did, I saw Rodger nod curtly to Johnny turn back and resume his fascination with the second or third showing of the very short porn DVD.  Johnny acknowledging that I wasn't a toy, unceremoniously and a bit defiantly moved his hand from my breast to my legs.  I had them crossed but he jammed his hand between them a few inches below my crotch.  The last thing I needed was for Johnny to take out his anger at Rodger's rebuke on me.  I was determined that we would never see Johnny or Edna after this night, but I couldn't afford for the two men to erupt into open warfare.

 

As Johnny pushed harder I uncrossed my legs and allowed his hand to shoot up and cup my mound.  He was gouging me, and it was very uncomfortable.  I felt my face turn scarlet as something in Johnny's body language let me know Rodger was watching Johnny's hand touch me where no one but Rodger had ever touched me.  I'm not sure what I would have done if Kristin hadn't finally gotten back with Rodger's Scotch and a light blanket for me.  She hadn't brought a cushion for herself, instead she had a small pillow and second light blanket.  She wrapped herself up, turned her back to us and pretended to be trying to go to sleep.  For the first time since Johnny had touched me, I looked over at Edna.  She had tears streaming down her face and mouthed, "Sorry," when she saw me looking at her.

 

Johnny had his back to her but some reaction from me must have let him know what Edna was doing.  He turned and looked at her.

 

She whispered, "Not like that Johnny, Mrs. D doesn't deserve that, don't make it harder on her.  You understand what I need to do, I understand what you need to do, and what she has to do for Kristin.  It's not her fault."

 

Johnny actually blushed, the pressure on my twat stopped being hostile.  Twisting so I had my back to my husband I covered us both in the blanket then I pulled him to me and gave him the best kiss I had.  I let my tongue slip between his lips and tenderly explored his mouth.  When his tongue responded I did my best to caress it.  Steeling my nerve, I moved my right hand down to his crotch and I felt his erection.  He broke our kiss and gave me the funniest expression.  It took me several seconds to understand. I realized that Col. Brown had said I was a slut, and Johnny was afraid he didn't 'measure up.'

 

I leaned into him, pressed my mouth to his ear and whispered so that only he could hear, "It's very nice, I'm going to enjoy my time with this."

 

I gave it a gentle squeeze.

 

I felt him relax.  Johnny had no way of knowing that this was only the second penis I had ever taken into my hand.  It was a little smaller than my husband’s, but I had no idea if it was nice or not.

 

I whispered, "Johnny, I'm not a slut, I never have been;  you'll be my second.  I would never do this except for Col. Brown, but it is going to happen so let's just make the best of it."

 

I felt him relax a little more, and his finger caressed my slit through my designer slacks.  Now, his touch was different … firm but gentle.  I sighed very softly, I wasn't being turned on yet, but at least he'd stopped turning me off.  I sensed motion behind me and twisted just enough to see my husband take another long swig from his bottle.  He wasn't chugging it, quite, but it was a heck of a way to treat two-hundred dollar a bottle Scotch.

 

Johnny snaked his other arm around behind me, pulling me to him.  I felt his hand move under my blouse and cup the same breast he'd mauled earlier.  This touch was also different, he was taking my measure as a woman.  His hand was warm and his touch was sure.  His eyes met mine and they let me know that he liked what I had.  That knowledge sent a small shiver to the center of my sex.  We kissed again, and I remembered seeing a fire starting demonstration with flint and steel as a young girl scout.  The leader hadn't created a single spark but a whole shower of hot embers.  Deep inside I felt the first glow of an ember; this young man, barely past the age of scouting might get an indecent fire going yet.

 

Johnny lifted my blouse and ducked his head to take my breast into his mouth.  His lips were warm and as his tongue probed my nipples;  I was struck by how different it felt from when Rodger suckled me.  I ran my fingers through his hair drawing him to me, and I couldn't help but think that he was young enough that I might have nursed him as an infant.  That thought was as effective as a bucket of cold water on the sexual flames I'd been trying to build.  I squeezed his penis through his pants.  There could be no more effective reminder that the mouth at my breast wasn't an infant's, but it didn't help.

 

Touching the skin of Rodger's cock was always a turn on for me.  Feeling the heat of it in my hand always ignited my fires.  Summoning my courage, I unzipped him.  At first I tried to do it slowly so as not to make noise.  However, as each tooth unsnapped it sounded like a Las Vegas dealer shuffling a deck of cards.  Reaching inside, I found the opening in his boxers and a second later, I touched it.

 

I felt like Eve in the Garden of Eden, my eyes were suddenly opened.  This cock was going be inside me.  It was going to be a part of me and my vagina cringed at the thought.  I almost gagged and my anus puckered as I remembered again where else this cock was going in a few minutes.  Tears filled my eyes and ran down my cheek, and I knew that I would not be able to summon true passion.  I would do my mechanical best, but I didn't want this thing inside me, and I certainly didn't want what came out of it.  I just wanted this whole day to be over.

 

Johnny was searching for the zipper to my slacks, so I released his cock and reached behind me to unsnap and unzip.  It was a little difficult to do one handed, but I managed.  I never thought about what Rodger was seeing as my pants opened.  I did however, look into Edna's eyes and her tears matched my own.  I couldn't stand to face her and I twisted, pulling Johnny with me so I faced the TV again.

 

Johnny's hand slipped into my opened pants.  I felt it glide over my pubic hair and I opened my legs to allow him to touch my most private of places.  I managed to keep the blanket pulled about my neck, as I felt Johnny's finger find my opening.  I didn't realize that the blanket was resting on top of his hand, that Rodger could see every motion as Johnny fingered me.  Johnny's head was covered but the outline was clearly over my breast and blanket didn't cover the wet sounds of his mouth.

 

Unaware of the spectacle I was providing, I opened my legs further to give him room.  I wasn't completely dry, but if it had been Rodger's finger I would have asked him to wet it.  But if it had been Rodger's finger, there would have been no need to ask him to use his saliva.  Using what moisture I had, Johnny twirled my clit and it wasn't quite painful.  I pressed my hand on his to show him I wanted him to finger me more, to get me wetter before he tried to stimulate me that way.

 

As he pushed into me again, I grabbed his cock and I tried to think of times when I'd been especially turned on.  The finger inside me pinched that sensitive skin, and my mind snapped back to the first time Rodger and I … I started to say made love, but the fact is that we fucked like rabbits.  We'd gone down to Galveston and were at his family's beach house.  We'd had Chinese delivered and were on the couch watching some silly movie.  I had been wearing slacks that day too, and they were on the floor with my panties.  The subject of birth control never came up.  Rodger thought any college girl would be on the pill and I thought you couldn't get pregnant your first time.  As Rodger had entered me, my hymen tore.  It had felt like a little pinch but I was so hot I didn't even flinch.  Rodger was so hot he pounded me like a two-dollar whore and we both loved it.

 

It was only after we were finished that I realized that I'd bled like a stuck pig.  Rodger was so apologetic and embarrassed.  We had to get cleaning fluid to keep the couch from staining.  We used a towel the next time, but it wasn't needed.  Kristin was conceived that first time.  The rest of the time Rodger used condoms but it was a case of closing the barn door after the horses were out … hmmm that is a strange backwards metaphor, but remembering the episode had gotten me wet and Johnny's finger now circling my clit felt almost good.

 

Being careful to keep the blanket over me, I shifted and lifted to get my slacks and my thong off.  Again, I never thought about what the image of those clothes on the floor looked like to our respective mates.

 

While I was taking mine off, Johnny unbuckled and unbuttoned then pushed his pants and boxers down to uncover what I needed.  I crawled over him and grasped his cock.  He was wetter than I, and I used that moisture to get my slit wet.  Looking over the top of his head, I positioned his little head at my opening.  I didn't want to see his face, and I certainly didn't want to see any of the other people in the room.  I pushed down, feeling my vaginal lips separate as he began to enter me.  As his head pushed into my intimate passage, I felt my walls expand, and my skin pinch.  I was still dry, and this was more painful than losing my virginity.  I concentrated on my memories as I bobbed trying to use his moisture to wet me.  I pulled back fractionally, then pushed down on him so I could get more of his unwanted cock into me.  After a dozen painful little jabs, when he was about half way in, my own juice finally released.  I've always been what Rodger calls a juicer, and now I needed every drop.

 

It seemed an eternity later when my bottom rested on his legs, I got no clitoral stimulation in this position, and I was going to have to do all the work to make him cum.  Still, I could use the springs in the couch to help me bounce on him when he got close.  I lifted my blouse and offered my breasts to him.  He cupped my right and took my left into his mouth.  I pulled his head to me as I took long strokes almost pulling off him before I would push all the way down to his legs.  The third or fourth time I did that, I clearly heard the slapping sound of my bottom on his legs and I was too embarrassed to continue.

 

I gritted my teeth; I hated the feeling of him inside me, but the only way to get him out was to give him the pleasure of my body.  Yet I refused to let my husband hear the wet sounds of our joining and think that I was getting any pleasure from this.  With all of him inside me, I began to rotate my pelvis in the classic fuck motion, but I wasn't sure I was giving him enough stimulation to cum.  Certainly, it wasn't doing a thing for me.  His hand and mouth on my boobs felt nice but his cock might just as well have been a turd inside me.

 

It was at that moment that I had a visual image of what I was doing.  I had another man inside me, I was rutting like a bitch in heat and both our mates were less than six feet away.  I also remembered for the first time that my daughter was hearing everything too.  I stopped moving my hands covering my face in shame.  As I stopped, I became aware for the first time that Johnny was thrusting up into me, or perhaps he started when I stopped.  His movements were frantic and almost before I understood what was happening I felt the first spurts of his orgasm.

 

I'll never know where the impulse came from, but I literally hopped off him and the couch.  I fell to my knees and showing more coordination than I'd ever shown in my whole life, I got my mouth around his cock in time for the last spurt to land on my tongue.  I used my teeth to scrap it onto my lips before I wiped it off with a tissue.  I used the same tissue to clean the leakage between my legs.

 

By the time I'd finished my brain had caught up with what I was doing and I whispered very softly so Rodger couldn’t hear, " Col. Brown was just using a euphuism with his ‘leaking’ comment, an extremely crude way to say that I was totally available to you.  What just came to me was that while I have to fulfill the letter of his orders, I don’t have to do it literally.  Johnny, I understand that I need to have you cum in all three places in me, but that doesn't mean that we have to do this three times.  Or that somehow I have to hold your sperm in my mouth.

 

His eyes got big and for the first time a wry grin split his face, speaking in a normal voice he said, "No, and while he told me I had to use you, there's no reason that what the junk  has to be mine!"

 

That hit me like a thunderbolt.  I'd only been worried that it wouldn't be possible to get Johnny to three orgasms in the time that we had available.  I couldn't look at Rodger;  I had just acknowledged that I had another man's semen coming out of my mouth and vagina.  I still needed to have anal sex to fulfill my command but unless Rodger took the initiative, I would never have the courage to approach him.  I know how irrational that sounds, but it wasn’t a rational time.  My husband will help me to an orgasm with his fingers if I don’t come while he’s inside me, but he’s always very careful not to finger me when I’m ‘messy.’  Now I was messy from another man.  I didn’t want to have anal sex with Johnny, and I had to have anal sex.  As ridiculous as it sounds I couldn’t ask Rodger to take me that way, because I was too embarrassed and I was afraid I would gross him out.

 

"Mary, I'm a little chilly, would you mind sharing your blanket?  You could sit in my lap if you'd like."

 

His voice was carefully neutral and it showed only a hint of the scotch he'd consumed.

 

My heart felt like the weight of the world had been lifted.

 

"I need to go to the bathroom, but I'll be right back."

 

I wrapped the blanket around me and hurried to the half bath just off the den.  I did need to pee, but I mainly wanted to wash my mouth and my bottom before I went to my husband.  As horrible as all this was, he was my rock, and I thought this meant we were okay.

 

As I was finishing, I heard Edna, get up from her recliner and say, "I think I'm going to go upstairs and use the bathroom."

 

She then quietly left the room.  I hoped Col. Brown was ready for her.

 

The first thing I noticed as I crawled onto my husband's lap was that he was completely soft.  The second thing I noticed was that he turned his face away when I tried to kiss him.  I could feel tears well up again and I buried my face in his neck I was so ashamed.

 

He whispered in my ear, "Why don't you use that sweet mouth of yours on my cock, and then we'll see if I can help you with your little problem."

 

His voice carried that same carefully neutral tone, like a drunk trying to convince a cop that he hadn't been weaving.  It was not the voice of a loving husband, and it wasn't the tone that I'd ever heard in our bedroom.

 

I’m not exactly sure what I’d expected from Rodger, I knew we’d both be a bit inhibited having anal sex in front of others.  I think it was because I needed to be loved so much by him at that moment that it hit me so hard.  I wanted to be re-assured, to be cherished to be loved and I’d gotten more attention from Johnny.  I didn’t understand, and I began to cry … again.

 

I couldn't see his expression through my tears and in the dim light, but I couldn't miss the way he was pushing me off his lap.  I felt a cold vacuum where my heart was supposed to be as I fell to my knees and waited for him to unbuckle, unbutton, and unzip.  I kept telling myself that no matter how bad this coldness from my husband was, it was better than having to do this with Johnny.

 

I was battling my tears as I lowered my head to take him in my mouth.  I don't remember him ever being this soft or this small.  If it hadn’t been his scent, I might have thought I had a stranger in my mouth.  It felt so unnatural to have all of him in my mouth and have room to spare.  I wasn't sure what to do!  I'd always had to bob to get all of him in, even when he was soft.  Now it was like he'd shrunk and all I could think to do was to roll it around in my mouth with my tongue.

 

For almost two full minutes, nothing happened, and then when I was sucking with all my might, I felt a twitch.  I redoubled my efforts to wrap my tongue all the way around it while pressing my lips as tight as I could.  It twitched again and it was the size I was accustom to having when he was soft.  Now I was on familiar ground, I knew what to do.  Although it took longer than I ever remember in the past, I was able to get him to full hardness.

 

For the first time I looked up to see how he was responding and he was looking into space.  I bit my lower lip.  My every instinct was to bolt from the room.  To bury myself in my pillow and cry myself to death, but I wasn't allowed.  I had the blanket wrapped around me like a skirt, and I held it as I slowly stood.  He still wasn't looking at me and I couldn't hold back a sob.  Trying to feel like a robot on remote control, I turned so I had my back to him.  I wet two fingers and rubbed them on my anus.  Then, shifting the blanket so I could present my bare bottom to him, I maneuvered into position.  Gripping his cock, I sat back into his lap guiding it to my virgin ass.

 

The tip pushed into me and there was a terrible pain, but it was nothing to the pain I was feeling where my heart should have been.  I pushed out like I was trying to fart, a girlfriend had told me that would help and it slipped inside me.  I had to stop several times to let my rectum adjust to his size but once he was in me, it wasn't as uncomfortable as I had always imagined.  In fact I might have enjoyed the full feeling if Rodger had so much as put his hands on my hips.  Instead, his hand clutched the arms of his recliner, his knuckles white.  He never made a sound or said a single word.

 

I used my legs to 'bounce' as soon as I felt I'd adjusted to the intrusion, and again, mercifully, I felt my husband cum just minutes after I started.  Using my last reserves of willpower, I waited until I felt him give his last twitch then I stood, wrapped the blanket around me and fled to the bathroom, where I curled up on the floor and cried.  My husband had just treated me worse than he would a whore off the street.  I almost, almost wished I’d done it with Johnny.

 

I don't know how long I was in there, at least forty-five minutes.  Long enough for the mess on my thighs to dry and cake.  When gained a measure of control, I used a washrag and the sink to clean up part of the mess.  I had to move to the toilet to finish.  I wasn't leaking from Johnny, I don't thing he actually got much inside me.  My rectum was burning and I felt like I had a touch of the runs.  I must have used a half roll of paper.  The real problem came when I tried to clean my face.  Every time I looked in the mirror, a new crying jag would overtake me and that led to farts, which meant I had to clean myself all over again.

 

When I finally got control of myself, I came back out to the den and everyone was gone!  I felt a stab of terror and my mind couldn't deal with what my eyes were seeing.  I think I screamed, because the next thing I knew Kristin was there holding me.

 

"It's okay mom, Col Brown's gone, Edna and Johnny are gone too.  Dad is upstairs getting cleaned up.  I was just activating the security system.  Col. Brown gave us a number to call when we're ready.  Everything is fine he’s going to give us what we want.."

 

Everything was not fine; my husband had just told me he didn't love me, even if he hadn't spoken a word.  I'd been humiliated and I didn't know how I was going to stand it.  Thank God that Rodger walked in at that second and took me in his arms.

 

"Mary, my sweet Mary, we're going to get through this, I know you're upset, I'm upset too.  I love you, but I need to be alone for a little bit.  Kristin going to stay with you, I'm going down to the gym and work off a bit of mad, then I'll join you if you want.  We'll talk tomorrow."

 

He released me and walked away.  It was only then that I realized how stiffly and unnaturally he'd held me.  His body had spoken much louder than his voice.

 

I blinked hard, twice as I realized something else.  Rodger had used a tone of voice I've only heard three times in our marriage.  All three times, it was in the middle of huge fights and he told me he was leaving for a drive, and if I tried to stop him, he would use force.  I never know when to stop in a fight and those few times I'd gone too far and Rodger needed to get away and cool down.  Each time he'd driven off and come back a few hours later and we'd worked things out.

 

Now, I needed desperately for him to hold me to tell me he was coming back.  I felt so filthy and I needed him to help me get clean.  I broke down when he turned the corner without looking back.

 

Kristin was supporting me with her arms when she whispered, "Come on mom, let's get you into a shower, you smell a bit rank and you'll feel better when you're clean.  Then we'll talk;  daddy's not going to leave, but you can understand why he might want to be alone for a bit, surely."

 

Honestly, I didn't want to understand, I wanted my rock with me to support me and I hated myself when I broke down and cried the way I was now.  I was very sore, but I also needed for my husband to make love to me.  I wasn't horny in a way I'd ever been before, but I'd been asked to choose between a first class round the world cruise and my husband inside me … there just wouldn't be a decision to make.  I still felt that terrible emptiness inside, and only Rodger inside me could fill it.

 

When you have no choice, you can do things you never though possible.  I would not have believed I could walk, even with Kristin's help, up the stairs and then to our bedroom suite.  I'm sure I couldn't take off my blouse and jacket, much less find a way into the shower.  Kristin literally held me up as the hot water pulsed over me.  I had no more strength than a baby as she began to use the shower wand to clean me.  It didn't even register at the time that she used the hardest setting and for all practical purposes gave me an enema and douche.  She washed my hair and my face, then moved me into our two-man tub with underwater jets.  Kristin joined me and as I let the water pulse over me, I felt my mind go mercifully blank.

 

I'm not sure I slept, but when I became aware of my surroundings again, Kristin was giving me a cup of coffee made with twice the cream and three times the sugar that any sane person puts in, just the way I like it.  I still felt extreme ennui, but I'd recovered from the seamless void I'd retreated into.  I wasn't even aware that my eyes had never stopped crying.

 

Kristin helped me out of the tub and dried me off with one of the big fluffy towels I love, then helped me into my favorite nightgown, the one I call my Mother Hubbard.  I know I was acting catatonic, but actually, I felt more like when they'd given me too much pain medicine after Kristin was born.  Except that then, even with the all the body changes, I hadn't felt as empty inside.

 

I think Kristin was leading me to bed when I felt Rodger's arms around me and his cheeks next to my neck.

 

His cheek was wet, which made no more sense than when he said, "Mary, I'm so sorry, I've always thought I was strong enough for anything, but I wasn't strong enough to keep from raping you."

 

I whirled and I slapped him so hard my hand stung.  I had no idea I was going to do that, but I certainly knew why.

 

 "Don't you ever use that term for what you did!  Is that why you wouldn't hold me or love me?  Didn't you know how much I wanted you then?  Do you think it mattered where?  Oh you damn fool!"

 

I thrust my self into his arms, and much to my surprise I cried.  I know it's hard to believe but I probably had only cried two dozen times since I got married, but these were tears of relief.  What Johnny had done to me was a kind of rape, not by Johnny but by Col. Brown.  What my dear Rodger had done was an act of kindness.

 

I don't remember Kristin leaving but Rodger and I were in bed alone.  He told me that the anger he'd needed to work off hadn't been at me but at himself.  He told me that Col. Brown had come and apologized to him, and to Johnny.  He'd offered to talk to me but Kristin had begged him not to.  “Mary, I don’t understand it, I accept that he’s a better man than I, but I don’t understand how I react to him.  When we were in the den and … and Johnny and I were doing what we did, I was resolved to kill him.  I knew I couldn’t do it myself, but I swore that if it took every dollar I had or could borrow I’d hire enough people to kill him.  Then, Edna came down and he talked to Johnny and I saw Johnny slug me, then they shook hands and they left smiling.  Seeing that smile I was almost ready to kill Johnny too.  I don’t want that man in my house, ever.  Edna’s welcome, but he’s not.  It’s not his fault, but …

 

Rodger, took several seconds to compose himself, then continued, “He came over to me and we talked about the child you and I are going to have, to raise.  He made me feel proud of what we’re going to do, and I felt so sorry for him.

 

"I'm not sure what's going on with him Mary, I don't think he understands it either.  He said that he had been reacting to everything like he hadn't slept in three days.  He gave me the most heart felt apology I've ever heard.  He forced me to spill the spleen I’d bottled up over what he’d done.  He almost had tears in his eyes and asked what he could do to make it right.  He gave me a blank check on himself, and it was everything I could do to keep from tearing up.  Then he forced me to slug him in the gut.  It felt like I was hitting a brick wall but I was able to forgive him.  I never had to forgive you, you didn't do anything wrong.  I just wish I'd had …"

 

I'd never hit my husband, except for that slap but I did then.  I hit him as hard as I could in his stomach.  He wasn't expecting it and he curled up into the fetal position for almost a minute.

 

When our eyes met, I said, "Since that seemed to help you with Col. Brown maybe this will help you with me.  I will allow you to apologize, one time for being a bad lover in the den, I will not hear of anything else!  If you ever try to imply what you did earlier, my next shot will be lower … and I don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face."

 

I knew I'd hurt Rodger, but as the last words registered I saw that gleam in his eye that told me he understood.  We made love, it was very private and it was wonderful.  Just before Rodger entered me I had asked him to give us a baby and we made love to make life.  That's a special tenderness that can only happen when you first make that decision.

 

I was still on the pill and I know intellectually that I didn't get pregnant that night.  I got pregnant two weeks later while Rodger was on a week-long business trip.  I'm glad I'd talked to Edna and knew what to expect.  I've been more emotionally involved in a pap smear. 

 

I was nervous when I answered the door for Col. Brown.  He was a stranger and he felt like a stranger, not someone coming to share my body and give me a child.  I had prepared a guest suite with candles and soft music just in case he wanted them, but I don’t think they even registered on him.  We went up to a guest suite, and we didn’t even hold hands.  He told me to lift my dress and take off my panties.  He twirled his finger to show me that I was to turn around.  He told me spread my legs, bend over and brace myself on a chair.

 

I’ve already said that I don’t enjoy oral sex.  So the closest I came to any emotion was when he kneeled behind me intending to do just that.  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to prepare myself.  As odd as it sounds his tongue lapping and mashing my twat lips wasn’t even sexual.  A different texture and I might have been washing myself with a flannel.  He seemed more interested in working his saliva into me than in sexual stimulation.  I felt that pinch that I knew was ovulation, and I must have reacted, because he asked me if I’d just ovulated.  He stood used his hands to adjust me for his entry and pushed into me.  I was surprised that his entry was very easy, I was so lose I could barely feel him.  He wasn’t small, the largest of my small sample, but I would have sworn I would have been very dry and very tight.  As soon as he was fully inside me,  he came.  Normally I would have thought it was a case of premature ejaculation, but as he pulled out I heard him mumble, something I couldn’t quite hear, and somehow I knew that he’d come to expect sex to be nothing but minimalist procreation.  I went to the bathroom to clean up and when I came out, he was gone.  It was the oddest experience I’ve ever had, and I don’t just mean sexual experience. 

 

He had apologized when he came in the door and aside from instructions on taking off my panties; the only things he'd said to me were about loving the child.  I would have been devastated if he hadn’t come, but I was very glad he was gone.  I've said I don't cry, but when I heard the longing in his voice for a child, he promised never to see … well to use a tired old phrase, "I felt his pain."

 

That was a week ago, and my period is a week late.  I had been due to start the day after Col. Brown and I ‘got together.’  I talked to Dr. Dickson about it and she said she thought that an enzyme in Col. Brown’s body fluids acts like a fertility drug causing women to ovulate.  I don’t know abut that I just am sure I did.  Johnny and Edna are back from their honeymoon and she is pregnant.  So is Kristin, yesterday, just after midnight on her eighteenth birthday.  I keep trying to be unhappy about that, but I can't be.  We have the resources to raise that child, and any man that Kristin marries would have to accept a cuckoo in his nest anyway, so this might make it easier.  Honestly, I'm more upset that she'll be having a little girl than a little boy.  I had no idea she was sexual active.  Rodger has had a few bad days, I have had a few nightmares about what happened in the den, but none since Col. Brown apologized to me.  Call me Pollyanna, but I believe that tests that don't break you make you stronger.  We have three wonderful little girls coming into our lives that will truly be special, probably the top three babies born this year worldwide!  On the scales of my life, that joy is like a cannon ball and the pain is like a feather.  The only one I really feel sorry for is Col. Brown.  I don't like him very much, but I do feel sorry for him.