“This will do nicely.” I smiled. “I’m really very grateful. It’s very generous of you to put yourself out for perfect strangers.” I looked down at my feet, embarrassed for being on the receiving end of Melanie’s charity.

Melanie raised her hand to the side of my face and lifted my chin with the baby-soft skin of her fingers against the chafe of my uncut whiskers until our eyes met, “My house is your house.” Her eyes were soft and kind and moist with emotion, “Amber didn’t tell me much about your situation, but she did say that you were a friend of hers in need, and that is all I need to know. You’ll be safe here until other arrangements can be made. In the meantime I want you to treat this house as if it were your own. If you want something from the fridge I don’t expect you to ask. Just help yourself.” She dropped her hand from my face and down to her side, “If you only knew what Amber did for me you would know that I mean what I say.”

“Thank you.” I said, a bit choked up by her sincere generosity.

“Would you like to help me make cookies Sarah?” she said looking down at Sarah who was adhered to me like a barnacle to a boat.

Sarah looked up at me anxiously. I nodded and she grinned up at Melanie, “Sure.” she said. And Sarah trailed behind Melanie toward the kitchen. I stripped to my boxers and collapsed into the bed and fell asleep, truly asleep, for the first time in almost a week.

As you can imagine my exhaustion had caught up with me and I fell so hard asleep that I might as well have been dead except for the crazy dreams that tormented my slumber. We were having a party at our house, Catherine and I, and people we knew both dead and alive from past and from present, were there; Teresa and Albert were dancing in what had grown from our tiny living room into the giant terrazzo covered church devoid of pews and set up as a cathedral ballroom and Teresa waltzed toward me and then by me (I was standing with Catherine) and scowled at me and growled “I knew you would kill her you perverted shit!” and then she twirled away from me and was gone. I turned to Catherine and said, “What is she talking about?” but I found that instead of

Catherine Amber was standing at my side. “I don’t know darling, did you kill Catherine? I need to know because if you’re planning to kill me too, I’m leaving!” and Amber danced away with detective Bergant who just happened by and he shook a scolding finger at me, “As soon as this party is over Mister, I’m taking you in.” and then he laughed as if he were only kidding. Teresa and Albert waltzed by again and Albert said, “You know, I think Tommy Sullivan killed Teresa! He left town right after Teresa died, didn’t he Teresa?” Albert was looking at Teresa waiting for her to answer as they had come to a complete stop, “I don’t know dear, let’s ask him. He’s over there.” Teresa was pointing at Sarah and Tommy who were standing by a punch-bowl arguing with one another, “You killed Catherine!” Tommy pointed an accusing finger down at Sarah, “No! You killed her! You killed Teresa too! You’re just a dirty rotten killer!” Sarah ran over to me and held my hand and looked back at Tommy and said, “But you better not kill my daddy! We’re married.” Tommy, not being one to lose an argument stared at Sarah with angry eyes, “You can’t marry Matt! He’s your dad.” “I can too.” “Can not!” “Can too, and I’ll prove it.” And Sarah unzipped my trousers. “No honey, you can’t do that! How many times have I told you?” Catherine, who was now holding hands with Detective Bergant, scolded Sarah. My heart was racing and I was sweating profusely. As I slowly slipped from my dream to consciousness I was both horrified and amazed that I could actually feel a pair of warm moist lips wrapped around my penis and I screamed out “No! Sarah! No!” as I bolted upright in bed and in the darkness of the night (as I was to find out I had slept for almost thirty hours) I found a Beautiful golden-haired goddess completely naked kneeling between my legs, in my bed, and she nearly ripped my erupting phallus from its socket when I sat up and screamed at her.

“Damn!” Yelled the goddess, her eyes white and wide and wild in the cast of the little plug-in nightlight, “You scared the hell out of me.” Amber’s distinct southern voice whispered scornfully from in front of me. I was still in shock from the horror of my dream; I felt like a pedophile once again. I sat and I stared at Amber’s face in the dark trying to gain my bearings; trying to separate dream from reality and trying to overcome the vile sensation building in my stomach for having violated Sarah once again in a dream.

“Well aren’t you gonna say something?”

“Like what?”

“How about ‘Damn Amber! You sure do suck a mean dick!’”

“Amber, you have a hell of a way of introducing yourself!” My pulse was gradually slowing but my nausea persisted.

“Well you were sleeping, and it was already pretty hard, and to be honest I was a little horny.” She giggled.

“You’re crazy.”

“No, just horny lover! You make me that way.” I could see her bright smile by the light that seeped into the room through the window and seemed to cast directly on her teeth. She was talking in the comically-sluttish manner in which she liked to speak on the phone, and in the dark, her image still dull and scratchy like an old black-and-white movie, it was is if we were talking on the phone still miles apart.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Well I was a lot better until you scared the hell out of me.” She put her hands on her hips feigning anger, but naked as she was she didn’t quite pull it off.

“Thank you…for setting this up.” I reached out and held her hand. “Melanie is one fantastic girl.”

“Isn’t she though? We go way back. She’s a sweetheart.”

“Is it okay for you to be here so late?” I looked over at the clock on my nightstand and noted that it was past one a.m. “I mean your husband didn’t have you followed or anything?” Bringing her husband into mind seemed wrong even if only in words but I needed her reassurance that we were not in danger.

“I think the good detective got bored with me. I saw that he was following me so I called Melanie to have her meet you and then I took the private dick,” she placed her free hand under my prick and flipped it like she was tossing a hotcake, “to every shoe store in

Wichita.” She drawled the word Wichita. “Won’t your husband be wondering where you are?”

“Charlie? No. I called him from my sister’s house so he could see her number on the caller I.D. and I told him that we were playing cards and that I wouldn’t be home until very late.” Amber pulled herself a little closer to me and slid her hand along my thigh while she lifted her legs over mine and straddled me.

“Where is Sarah?”

“She’s asleep on the couch.” Amber slid a little closer, shuffling forward on her knees, still straddling me.

I never thought that in my lifetime I would ever know another woman intimately. I never thought I would want to, but then I never thought that Catherine would want to either. But with the heat of Amber’s smooth thighs against my own my lust overwhelmed my nausea and I found that I wanted her very much. I found that, despite the pain I felt at Catherine’s betrayal, I had no problem becoming a party to another man’s emotional disquietude. Instead, his loss was my gain.

I had been quite nervous about meeting Amber ever since I began my journey west, and as excited as I was at the prospect of finally meeting her I could not begin to imagine breaking the ice with her let alone getting comfortable enough to sleep with her. The buildup of over a year of phone-sex was too much for reality to possibly assimilate to. But with Amber already in my bed, having done what she had done with those tender loving lips (no matter the accompanying dream) I no longer had any apprehensions.

I had wondered, during those many sleepless nights at home and in those cheap motel rooms, how we would broach the delicate transition from fantasy to reality. I wondered how awkward our love-making would be. I wondered if I would be like a clumsy schoolboy and leave my ejaculate dripping down her thigh having never reached the Promised Land as I did with Catherine on our first attempt. As you can imagine, having not been with anyone but Catherine all my life I was a bit concerned. I was worried that I might disappoint her. But my clever Amber had found a way to take us past all that. And there she was in my bed, this Beautiful enchantress of a woman. She appeared before me, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, like a vision of