Keywords: M/F anal, oral, lite B&D, brief S&M
Author: W R Jenkins
Title: Sam 15: Baby Blues

  Disclaimer:(standard) Do not screw up. Do not do anything illegal.
 This includes specifically (but not limited to) reading on if you are 
under 18- 21 in some localities  If you are underage you must leave 
now. If you're young and curious, this is not the place to get the 
straight story. You act like this and people will look at you strange 
and give you a wide berth. Also, don't try this at home. Some of this 
stuff is just plain wrong, most of it is unsafe in the present viral 
climate and some of it doesn't work in this universe. They are stories. 
They deal with ideas, fantasies and thoughts that might not even be 
pleasant in real life. Thoughts are like that. Fantasies are there so
we can toy with the sensations without feeling or inflicting the pain, 
despair or humiliation. End Sermon.

	Sam 15: Baby Blues - (Sam15.txt)- Wherein the balance between
insipid plot and hot sex swings back to hot sex- just in time, since
our pregnant character may get bitchier in a short while. The story
line advances (don't we all prefer that to stand-alones) and the
re-appearance of old characters continues both comedically and rather
threateningly. M/F, anal, oral, lite B&D, brief S&M
(Orignally rated NC-17, but changed to R when major studio backing 
and a suitcase stuffed with money appealed to the MPAA. And changing
the line "pus-fucking cocksucker" to "pig-fucking cocksucker" which,
technically, doesn't occur in the final cut.)

				Baby Blues

	The shadow popped up on the side of the weathered, aged brick
and slid silently along until it dropped from sight. Across the alley 
floor it popped up on the side of a nearly identical wall. A cat arched
its back and hissed as it slid past it on the next alley floor. The
shadow stopped, obscuring a red door.
	"Here?" came a raspy voice.
	The rust and the patchy paint on the door were of nearly the same
hue. A small, thin hand broached the shadow and sent ominous clanging
sounds as it rapped on the door. Sounds of skittering disturbance came
from within.
	-----
	"I told you to watch your fucking foul mouth!"
	"Howard, please, don't," Amy said wearily, but his fist was
already on its way.
	It hit with a muffled splat and the other man rocked back a step.
Gumby dropped his right hand to his side, but kept his left clenched
and hovering at waist level. The man had his hand to his face and was
glaring.
	"Well, fuck you, asshole!" he spat out.
	Gumby stood guarded another moment as Amy walked past him and
then turned to follow. The guy was big, but little of his large frame
held spirit and less held courage.
	"I told him three times to stop it," he reminded Amy, pleading.
	"I know, Howard," she said patiently. "And I appreciate you
wanting to protect me, but I think you're having trouble judging the
level of threat."
	It wasn't so much a rehearsed speech as the product of much
thought. Howard let his shoulders drop. He still wasn't relaxed. The
burn of adrenaline was still streaming in his blood. 
	He knew she was right, but he couldn't help it. He didn't want to
be a belligerant asshole; it just happened. Things set him off. No one-
not him or anyone had the right to call Amy a cunt. He couldn't recall
ever using it to describe the body part to which it referred. That
might be marginally all right- if he said it, but no one else and never
in the way that sleazeball had been using it.
	That was the anger rising again. Gumby tried to breathe off its
effect. Little things put him on edge. He felt jittery all the time. He
had to get it under control. He knew that. He didn't know how.
	Amy led him into Judy's cafe and they slid into a booth. Gumby
looked up and saw worry on Amy's face.
	"I know," he said. "I just get jumpy."
	"You're a hero- my hero," Amy said seriously. "Right now I think
you're feeling the burden of it too much. If I didn't see what it's
doing to you, I'd be fawning all over you. It's good- but too much of a
good thing."
	"I know, but..." Gumby searched for the words to express it, "But
I don't do it, it happens to me. I don't know what to do about it."
	Judy herself came over to tend her famous patron. She kept her
flirting to a hint and a wink as she took their orders.
	"Well, one thing you can do is move in with me," Amy suggested.
	Gumby nodded absently. He had been giving it as much thought as 
Amy. Recently she had asked him, in a panicked tone, how long it would
be until he pulled out his guns to solve his problems. The thought
scared him more than Amy was when she said it.
	Amy's rooms were in a distinctly better part of town. That would
help, but Gumby needed a handle on controlling himself. He stopped
brooding for a moment to look up at Amy. She was watching him.
	"You are the greatest woman in the world, you know," he said
softly, "Even Staci broke uncle Sam's nose when he was being this much 
of an asshole."
	Favorable comparisons to Staci were always welcome, but Amy
didn't feel she deserved extra credit. She loved him. But the cold,
hard truth was she didn't have an alternative to sticking. She only
hoped she could help him.
	"Which is why we have to fix you soon," she said. "Because I
might not be so great in a couple months when I go crazy too."
	Gumby needed deadline pressure. I eat this shit up, drill
sergeant! They both knew it was Gumby's heightened sense of
responsibility that was making him twitchy. Neither of them knew the
answer.
	"Then we fix me," Gumby said firmly. "I just need to get a grip
and think."
	Judy interrupted the conversation with their orders. Amy picked
at hers while Gumby stirred his ketchup with a french fry.
	He wanted to marry Amy. It wasn't any uncertainty about that. He
was happy they were to have a child. He was worried about that, but not
displeased. He wasn't fearing anything... He was fearing that it would
all go away.
	He knew all about the baby. He had digested it in a slow smile on
his knee proposing. He loved Amy. Whichever combination grew inside of
her made no difference. Neither did the way it occured. He was proud to
rear and guard his child. He had thought it over since and had no
change of heart from the instant decision he made on his knee.
	He hoped Amy believed whatever was the most comfortable for her.
It would come out in time and then he could assure her it made no 
difference. There was tension in that, but not the sort that had made
him the raging avenger.
	"Howard. I love you too. It will be all right. It has to be. 
Lots of fucked up people get through this and we know it's right,"
Amy was speaking slowly and quietly.
	It was soothing to hear her voice sound so steady and certain.
That was a comfort likely to desert him when Amy's body was busy 
forming a child and she entered her own dark thoughts. That was the
fear. He didn't believe he could hurt her, but he didn't always
have control.
	-----
	"Look, you're not the one whose ass is saying hello to the world
out here," Staci snapped. "Can't you at least move down to the end of 
the row?"
	Sam reached over to the ass, which he thought was saying hello
to him, and slipped two fingers into Staci's cooch. Her concern was
real. She was embarrassed or humiliated or plain scared. His fingers
opening her flooded the car with her perfume.
	It was, like his best plans, one Staci never saw coming because
he was making it up on the fly. In the fine old days, when such
existed, they would be at a drive-in. Now drive-ins were extinct and
even their fossils were disappearing. They were in one such fossil, a
flea market camped in the bones of former entertainment.
	"I don't like your ass hanging out any more than you do," Sam 
told her, "If you had some decency, I might be able to sell peeks at
what you're giving away free."
	He was joking. The moneymakers for a peep show were smashed into
cramped pillows under Staci as she knelt doubled over on the seat with
her face resting on the fabric and her head butting the door.
	It was beauty at its simplest as Sam had pulled her wrists back
and cuffed them behind her knees. Hardly a diabolical banishment of all
hope of escape, Staci would still have to work to wedge herself between
the seat and dash to get into a position where she could bring the
cuffs to the front. Then she would be handcuffed in front and still
naked.
	They had been lovers a long time. Sam knew her struggles and
wails of despair covered passion. Still, he had only recently overcome
his prejudice that this was preliminary and that Staci needed his cock
to make it good. 
	For all that, it was a harmless prejudice which had only limited
their vistas and not dimmed their pleasure. Sam enjoyed the panorama
now that flash fires of youth had become the steady blaze that could
sustain excitement without the need to rush to the quenching. Simply
put, he could enjoy the wanting as much as the having.
	Staci, he was learning with some jealousy, had reached the point
where having was a stretch of hills and peaks that matured as it was
extended like fine wine. Her struggles and her wails covered passion
and on the way over he was sure her passion had crested two or three
times at the very least. 
	Sam thought it would have been more if she had been able to see
that which she only sensed. This was high-wire, not playing stuff. He
had wound his way through a crowded city with a naked woman, her butt
up high for perusal, beside him. He had cruised a bit before he settled
on their destination. Through it all Staci was appropriately
distressed, but she had not seen the angry, shocked, amused and
wondering looks her ass had gotten, nor how many careful preusals her
backside had been subjected to.
	Now Sam was clicking off possibilities. Cracks about prejudice 
aside, he had been nursing a hard-on since he stuffed Staci in the
car and locked her in place. He could allow Staci her ostentatious run
of orgasms, but his new understanding and restraint only delayed and
didn't eliminate his urge and right to do for himself.
	He wanted to kneel on the seat and fuck her right there. That 
was the most applicable and clearly impossible. Sam had never given
a thought to having a convertible, but he wished he had one now. He
could go to the door and lift Staci's head while he fucked her face,
but that was too one-sided and he found he needed a whining 
accomplice.	
	Either was actually possible in the setting. He would cause
interest and perhaps a rumble of protest, but this was a rough place.
Girls that stuck out their tongues and lifted their shirts were a
drawing card and almost a tradition. You might see anything and the
spirit was live and let live, like the carelessness of ownership of
the goods being exchanged.
	"Look up," he told Staci as he opened the door.
	She saw a flash of light in the descending darkness but it was 
a while before Sam could bring her head and the hole in the cover to
the same place. Sam hauled her forward and held her up as she got her
feet under her. She had been in her cramped pose some time and was
a bit unsteady on her feet.
	"What?..." she started, but was interrupted by Sam looking
meaningfully at the ground. 
	He had a pair of sandals for her to step into resting by her
feet. She stepped into them and gave him a dirty look.
	Hers was a hard ambivalence. Even now guilt and resentment
balanced in her. She was a dirty, worthless slut and Sam was her
tormentor. The fact that even now she was breathing hard, feeling
the excitement swell was proof of her polluted character.
	It had to be hard or her reward was reduced proportionate to the
level of pretense. She had to feel the level of danger and damage to
receive the jolt from the disgust of giving in. Like the junkie,
feeling every moment of the pain of weeks trying to kick and then
pushing the plunger, the despair was the fuel of her passion.
	Sam never got it. He operated solely on objective results and
acted solely out of faith. He knew what did it, but not why. He did 
it because he believed her need. He'd managed pretty well on that.
	"We're going to look around," Sam said, still waiting for the
idea to come. "Waddle in front of me."
	Waddle it was. The sandals were ill-fitting and not suited to
confident strides. Staci was still hand-cuffed under the engulfing
shroud, a head poked through a cover that showed no arms, only bare
legs where it ended somewhere below her knees.
	Somehow it was worse. Staci's heart beat to burst. Whether it
was seeing rather than imagining or the uncertainty of what was
coming, Staci was so far into the state that her breath came shallow
and rapid.
	"This'll do," Sam croaked with a rasp of dry throat and pushed 
her toward a cinder-block building.
	From paces back and without a hard-on, the lyrical might enthuse
over Sam's trusting to faith and willingness to deny himself for
Staci's good. If measured by how bad Sam wanted to fuck Staci, his
credit was indeed immense. So was his need.
	He was resisting a very insistent urge to refute all safety or
decorum and throw himself on Staci with every step as he searched with
increasing mania for a place to fullfill both their needs. The building
had been the snack bar in previous incarnations. Sam pushed Staci
toward the rest room.
	He didn't care which. He picked the closest. He identified it as
the men's by the urinals without interest. His goal was the closest
stall.
	"Grab... Oh, that's right. You can't," Sam goaded Staci as he
pushed her head down with one hand and lifted the cover with his other.
	He threw the de facto muumuu over her head and the flush handle
as he pushed her face toward the bowl. He lifted up on the links
between the cuffs to secure her as he opened his fly.
	He was going to be a child again. Staci made a whooshing sound
as his cock slammed into her, but not from the difficulty of entering.
She was so wet Sam's cock made a wet noise like a plunger in reverse.
He fucked her, feeling the links cut into his hand with the force
needed to keep her from tumbling head-long into the toilet.
	They were neither subtle nor careful. A murmur outside became a
buzz and scattered encouragements gathered to be a chant. Sam was 
smacking loudly into Staci's rear without intent or regard for the way
the sound echoed and encouraged the hearers. They were the same with 
the assorted grunts, groans and sounds they made as Sam fucked Staci
with a fury that ranked high on the list of energetic fuckings without
his caring.
	The gathering rhythmic chant had no chance to gather momentum.
Sam was a boy again. He had recaptured the driving need in his self-
denial and he fucked Staci without reserve. He puncuated each 
ejaculation with a loud thrust and a coarse sound that mimicked the
endorsement of the listeners.
	Staci was unsteady on her feet as he lifted her up and
staightened her cover. She was a shade of fuscia as Sam opened the
stall door and pushed her out for the inspection of the assembled. Sam
held her arm though the wrap as he acknowledged the winks, crude
remarks and occasional back slaps piloting her from the crapper.
	"You are a sick fucking sick fuck," Staci snorted when her throat
had relaxed enough to speak.
	Sam smiled at the compliment.
	The advantage of Sam's driving need was that the car was close.
He helped Staci into it, hand on her head, like any hand-cuffed perp
and got in the other side.
	"Of course I could have left you there and sent them in one by
one," Sam said.
	She could not fear that because he would never do that. Still,
Sam was pulling away from the scene before he added the topper. It was
play. This time serious and dangerous play, but the purpose had to be
remembered.
	"Did I forget a birthday?" Staci asked after some minutes.
	Sam pulled over and freed her from the handcuffs before
answering. She had ridden out the last ripples of her excitement. It
was time to go back to normal.
	"Probably somebodies," Sam teased, "But like all my best-laid
plans I just jumped right into it without thinking."
	"Thank you," she said, "You were inapproprately horrible and
rotten. I could suck your cock while you drive if you want."
	-----
	"There's the beauty," the fat man with two inches of paunch
showing under his stained T-shirt said. "Everything a man could ever
want."
	A sea of dust motes floated through the air in the slants of
light coming from low, long, high windows in the squat brick wall. The
little group was in shadows and the machine in the last shaft of light.
Around them the skittering had subsided into wary scratches and
sporadic chittering of the rodent population scouting new concealment.
	"Fully operational?" the silky voice was heard for the first time.
	"Sure. If you can power it and know how to operate it," the fat
man said. "I have this funny aversion to being paid off by getting 
killed."
	"An understandable paranoia," the raspy voice spoke, his hand 
relaxing on the handle of his weapon, "As is ours in needing to be sure
it was in your possession."
	They fell silent. It seemed the rodents had effected their 
relocation. Silence stretched for some moments until, as if satisifed,
it was broken by the retreating footsteps.
	-----
	"Now bring me in the fat one,"
	The big man by the door spared one glance for the bleeding woman
laying motionless at the end of the bed and turned to go. The other man
lay back, smiling down at his hard-on. He was going to give the fat
bitch a hot what for.
	The chubby brunette was only brunette because the big guy had
snatched off her obvious blonde wig. She was chubby to the tune of 
about 36-30-40, but that was as good as a whale to her host.
	"Come here, baby, I've got something for you," the man on the bed
invited.
	She looked at the other woman, who was just beginning to stir.
She looked like her ass had been dragged over a barbed wire fence. She
looked at the man who was now sitting on the edge of the bed. He was
smiling broadly.
	He stood up as she approached and made a place for her to crawl
onto the bed. He grabbed her before she could lie down snd held her up
on her knees. He pushed the other woman off the bed, where she landed
with a groan and a thud and he got on the bed behind his chubby find.
	On her knees and elbows, she looked back under her arm to see the
other woman crawling on her knees from the end of the bed. She began to
shake as she imagined what he might be planning to do to her butt. She
was terrified of the wait for the first whatever to come on her exposed
and posed rear.
	He spit on his hand and rubbed her crotch to find her slit. Once
located, he spit on his cock and brought the saliva together. He
shocked a cry from her as he pushed in with that inadequate
lubrication. Still, she tried to quell her reaction. It wouldn't be
that bad, that long. It was ordinary and so much better than her best
hope of what he intended.
	He was uncaring, but not crazed. He didn't want to fuck a nasty
dry pussy and gave her a moment to get the juices flowing before
grabbing her hard and starting to slam against her ass.
	"There's my moo cow. Fucking a cow now. Say moo, cow," he
puncuated his thrusts.
	"Mooo?" she asked tentatively.
	"Shut up!" he snapped, "I'll talk. You keep your ass in the air
and shut up."
	Reprimanding her certainly hadn't ruined it for him. His cock was
probingly stiff and he burrowed it in her like a roto-rooter. He was
going to give her a hot what for.
	"Yes cow. Good cow. Shut the fuck up. Take it, you fucking cow. 
You like that, don't you, cow?" he babbled as he fucked her.
	"Yes," she said.
	He didn't respond with the same increase in fervor fucking her
the second time. She felt his hand bounce off her head. She knew that
if she had not had it tucked in and hard to reach he would have stunned
her. He didn't get off on her fucking up.
	"Shut up or I'll punch you," he threatened. "I'll show bad cow
what she gets."
	There was a short pause as he loaded his finger with an excess of
lube and pushed it up her ass. The excess hadn't helped. He clearly 
didn't care whether it was comfortable for her. He was only greasing
her so it would be comfortable for him.
	"Big cows have big holes- big holes everywhere, so I'm sure you
won't mind," he said as he fucked his finger in her ass. "You'll like
it in the ass, won't you, cow?"
	She didn't know if there was a pass to go with fail. She heeded 
the warning of her still-hurting head. She shut up and tried her best
to stay still as he dug inside her.
	"Yes, cow. That's a good cow," he told her. "Learn and it's nice."
	It was nice as far as not being worse. Any relief she felt was
quickly interrupted by his getting up on his knees again and shoving
his cock in her asshole. Gauged from the way she felt, comfortable had
a different meaning for him. True, the lube made his penetration
possible, but she couldn't imagine the struggle it took to force open
the unwilling muscle was comfortable.
	"I love it when you fight me, cow," he contradicted. "I love it
when it's so fucking tight. That's a good cow asshole. Take it, cow."
	He really liked it, just not in a 'hurry up and cum and get it
over with' way. He babbled and fucked for far too long before pulling
out and getting point blank in her face before he started cumming. He
finished cumming in her mouth, telling her how cows liked eating shit
and how he was doing her a favor to feed her stupid cow face.
	-----
	Gumby had had a wham bang day of chasing down fugitive land 
contracts the wily land deeds at the recorder's office. It actually
suited him to be lost in paperwork. 
	It didn't help. He knew the problem was an overactive fear for
his family. He knew the solution. Stop it. He couldn't think out how to
manage that.
	"Howard, my darling," Amy said as she breezed in. "You didn't
come back to the office."
	"Naw, I was already over here and I figured there was no reason
to go cross town just to come back," Gumby said.
	"Going back tomorrow?" she asked.
	"Just to the office. I was done. That's why I came home," Gumby 
said.
	He said it naturally, but the word struck both their ears when it
was uttered. Home. It was charged with so many emotions. For them it
was a statement of their entire situation. 
	It was the obvious choice. Over a bedroom/everything else and a 
bathroom pretty much anything won. Amy had three rooms- and a bathroom.
That might work out for the immediate future. It was that future that
was contained in 'home'.
	They would be in their home together, married, expecting...
forever. Gumby wanted to marry the cute little girl. They should have
children. He knew both to be the way it would work out. Just they were
still working on it when the baby jumped them over the working it out
right to the conclusion.
	He loved Amy. He wanted the child. The apartment was the only 
thing left for him to be irritated by.
	"Well then, let me sit in your lap and tell you about my day,"
Amy said.
	-----
	"Well, lookee fucking there," Sam called to Staci.
	Staci stepped in and followed Sam's finger to the hunched,
sweating cop on TV.
	"Who's the genius that made Catalano spokeman for the cops?" Sam
asked rhetorically.
	"Come on, Sam, give the guy a break," Staci said to draw a 
startled look, "He probably knew Catalano wouldn't give out any 
information because he doesn't know anything."
	Sam smiled at the deception and joke.
	"What is he demonstrating his lack of knowledge of?" Staci asked.
	"Nothing new," Sam said. "Just your normal murder and mayhem in
the streets."
	Staci looked at Sam. It wasn't normal for him to blase about 
murder and mayhem. He returned her look with complacency. She decided
it was exaggeration to further discredit Catalano.
	Sam was observing more than acting. He figured he had little
chance of fooling Staci, but it looked like he got lucky. He had
covered his concern, but had gone a bit too far the other direction. It
looked like she was going to pass that. Now all he had to do was to
keep her from seeing it herself.
	Some of the guys were Russians. More of them were homegrown
hoods. Unlike past influxes, like the group that greeted Gumby's
arrival, this had the feel of significance. Sam wouldn't mind a gang
war if innocents didn't keep getting dragged in, but it seemed
inevitable. Even if one group peacefully slaughtered the other, the
victors were liable to step up their activities in celebration.
	Sam was rooting for the devil he knew- Gino. Everything he knew-
which was next to nothing- about the Russians said they were worse. He
wasn't cheering very hard. Gino was still Gino.
	-----
	One upward flick of an eyebrow was all that escaped him. He
wasn't here to betray his concerns. It might be dangerously mis-
interpreted.
	Impassive face restored, he watched the man pirouette and bring
the limber whip up across the buttocks presented for him. The man 
paused in his follow-through to hear the scream and then re-created the
swing path in the opposite direction across the other buttock.
	He didn't care what happened to the woman. He didn't like the 
obsession and what it might say about the other man's judgement in a time of crisis.
	"You want me to cover up so you're not distracted by homo thoughs
or something?" the man asked as way of greeting.
	"Nyet," Alex answered to remind the man that he was above such
foolishness. "I have come to describe the machine."
	It wasn't 'homo thoughts' that preyed on Alex's mind as he talked
and answered questions about what he saw. It was the number of 
liabilites this man presented with his tastes and his appetite. It
wasn't his place to question the choice, but it was his place to spot
trouble and deal with it. He could see himself dealing with this man as
soon as his usefullness ended.
	"Sure you won't stay?" the man invited. "You can take a crack or
two- fuck her if you want. In a bit, you can kill her and eat her while
I'm fucking the fat one, for all I care."
	Alex declined. He was no stranger to beating a woman to death, or
forcing a reluctant one to satisfy him, but those were different 
matters. He had a clear understanding of violence as a tool. Seeing it
as anything else was not productive and a weakness.
	Alex left to arrange acquiring the machine. He wondered if the 
other's attitude about man sex covered a secret desire. He wondered if
their agent might like to fuck the fat man before Alex killed him.
	-----
	It was hard to be irritated by anything with Amy's well-defined 
butt searching for his cock through his pants.
	"...And then the courier just stood there for, like... minutes,
not moving. So I asked him if he'd mind taking my poodle to the vet too
and he just nodded," Amy was saying.
	"Well, some guys are like that," Gumby admitted, carefully 
excluding himself from the group that might be awe-struck into 
catatonia by the sight of Staci's tits. "You'll have to watch out
yourself soon."
	Amy giggled, only partly because Gumby had his hand under her 
shirt, stroking her own breasts.
	"You mean because I'll have tits?" Amy asked.
	"These are fine," Gumby said as he ran his hand over the 
marshmallowy tufts, "And they'll grow."
	"You're sweet, Howard, but I know how I am. And not just because
I get a daily lesson in humility working with Staci," Amy smiled, "I
don't care. I got used to me a long time ago. And the most important
thing is I can feel you don't care either." 
	How could he help it? Whatever the size, stroking her breasts 
made her eyes smile and her wonderful little butt rubbed against his
hard prick with a nymph-like promise he defied anyone to resist. Plus,
he loved her. How could he help but want her?
	"I care," Gumby argued. "I care that you're you and I like you
the way you are. And if you change, I'll like you that way too."
	Amy leaned her head back along his collarbone and turned her
face up. Gumby responded to the invitation to kiss her. She knew it
was a good time to stop him from talking. He was beginning to struggle
to make her understand what she already knew. 
	"No, Howard, we'll eat when you've worked up an appetite," Amy
said when Gumby tried to defer.
	Moving in together did present some issues. Before, they would
leave their dens and come together like rutting animals and then
retreat. Now they were constantly together and could hardly spend their
lives working, fucking and sleeping. She knew they had to find a
balance, but she wasn't going to let Howard's hard-on fade.
	"I could suck it," she offered.
	"No," Gumby said firmly, "If I'm getting off then you're getting
off."
	Amy wasn't sure why they couldn't just work, fuck and sleep as 
they scampered to the bedroom leaving a trail of clothes. She wasn't
in the mood to do anything but fuck at the moment.
	Gumby caught her removing her panties and lifted her into his
arms. She clung to his neck and wrapped her legs around him as his
tongue invaded her mouth with a careless passion. He lowered her
toward the bed and they fell the last couple of feet onto its cushion.
The head of his cock tickled against her butt as he held his weight
on the arms holding her.
	It was a very erotic sensation as Gumby moved his hips, first
searching the meeting of the arcs of her buttocks and then probing
up to search out her pussy. She could feel his intention as his
cock blundered around her lower lips, arousing her as he attempted
to gain entrance to satisfy that desire. 
	"Now just wait a second," she turned her head from his kiss 
to stop him short of taking her.
	Gumby moved back to look at her questioningly.
	"Too fast?" he asked.
	"Too easy," Amy countered, "And not looking to the future."
	She squirmed out from under him, leaving him poised as if 
to fuck a ghost woman, to adopt a similiar pose next to him.
	"Baby won't like you laying on him soon," she said. "We
better work out something for the three of us."
	Gumby had already entered her in his mind, but the loss of
her tightly surrounding his cock as he fucked her was more than
repaid by the sight of her arched in a knee-chest position with
her ass not high but hovering some inches from the bed. She looked
more in heat than usual and Gumby couldn't help but join that need
as he looked on that cute litte butt swaying for him.
	Gumby tempered his frustration with appreciation for Amy's
wisdom as he struggled to find a stable way to plant his knees and
still bring his cock to the target. This was the constant struggle
with the tiny woman and soon not to be solved by hoisting her
feather weight and jamming her on his cock.
	His knees were level with her butt and spread wide, his hands
far above her head when his cock touched wetness and moved into her.
	"Oh gosh! It feels even bigger this way," Amy gushed as she 
moved her ass up to facilitate his reaching bottom.
	Gumby had to admit it was interesting. She still made it so nice
with her little rear responding to his thrusts and his strange balance
over her gave him the feel his whole body was moving his cock in and 
out of her rather than just his hips. Yes, that was good. Not hips
driving cock, but his whole body, cock attached, moving into her and
feeling her grab at him with her wiggling ass.
	Only it wasn't- and then it was. The drive, the fury which came
on him as he neared climax was hard to duplicate when he had to rock
his whole body back and forth. It seemed impossible he would be able 
to drive deep with short, fast thrusts and then Amy rescued them. Her
little ass pushed back hard. She supplied the energy and the rapidity
by fucking him as he labored to the crest.
	She briefly increased her motion as he was cumming and then she
was forcing him up, threatening to take weight off his knees, as she
quivered and caught him in a warm cataclysm to her very depths. It
shut out moans and sighs. For Gumby they were suspended in a silent,
frozen moment as his cock continued to jerk wet worship in spasms and
Amy's cunt encouraged, warmly, wetly, tightly, his total completion.
It felt like an orgasm spontaneously occuring simply because they were
intimately joined and loved each other, as if all it took for either
of them to find complete joy was for he to put his cock in her and for 
her to hold his cock inside herself. 
	"I'm still not hungry- for food," Amy said after an interval.
	Gumby had tipped himself, thrown himself really, onto the bed
beside her on his back. Amy had crawled over and was curled up on
his chest. Gumby understood her desire, but his urge would not grow
distracting again for a while. With all the clarity he could muster,
holding his beloved, he kissed her on the head and slid gently from
under her.
	"You'll need your strength. For later," he appeased her.
	She could call him all the names she wanted. She could beat him
with her tiny fists. Gumby knew with certainty at that moment that he
would never be able to hurt her. He lost control when she was 
threatened.
	Of course that didn't mean he didn't still have to work on that.
	-----
	It was a scene out of torture porn. Hard case officers were 
having trouble getting out of the crime scene perimeter before puking
their guts up. Even the ME's deputy, who was a fan of torture porn,
was looking pale and queasy.
	There were so many chunks that it was unclear how many victims
there were. Perversely, there were pieces that made it clear that at
least one woman, a young and desirable woman, had been cut into 
nauseating hunks.
	Captain Andersen was conferring with the ME's deputy.
	"Efficient doesn't mean professional," he was debating, "It's not
professional to toss the evidence where it will be found within hours."
	That was hardly the last word. She- or they- that still awaited
examination, had been butchered with a chain saw. Surprisingly clean
and remorselessly efficient, the deputy opined that the body had been
frozen before dismembement.
	It wasn't much of a lead and Andersen doubted that identifying
the victim would give them much more. Hasty might be a better word 
than sloppy for describing the disposal. It might be different, but
Andersen had noticed the change in the wind. 
	"Brooks. Miller. It's yours now," the captain said, "See if you
can ID the corpse and go from there."
	-----
	Sam settled behind his desk full of hope. He hoped things stayed
quiet. He hoped all communications came by courier in the now familiar
Private and Confidential folders from Cock Sucker & Dick. He hoped he
would be happily bored with routine.
	There had been enough excitement among those inside the doors of 
the office in recent weeks. He had personally been forced to confront
and, to whatever extent that was possible, solve his own deepest and 
most bitter conflicts. Deeper questions, because they dealt with the
future and not the past, had been answered.
	Storms loomed on every horizon and Sam fervently hoped his little
family, for they were family now, would only be caught in the mundane
squalls of marriage and parenthood. He had never wished to set the
world right. He struck blows, pointless probably and meaningless
mostly, for truth and right. He'd never thought he was the one to fix
the whole thing.
	Yet he knew he had come dangerously close to the crisis he knew
was unfolding. He wasn't going to become a crusader. He wasn't that
guy, never was. He was still content to let the world turn on with its 
resident evil and not trouble himself over it.
	It was like the flea market- live and let live. Because he could 
see at a glance which were the shady customers didn't mean it was his 
job to drag them into the light. He was a mercenary. Knowing without 
acting was his idiom, until someone complained and paid him. And there 
was no reason for him to act now. He would not act because he knew, in 
this, he was sure to be paid in death.
	"You're not going to replace Amy just because she's pregnant are
you?" Staci asked.
	Sam looked at her questioningly.
	"Because that would be just the kind of pig thing you might do,"
she said and her eyes twinkled.
	He wasn't getting it. Was she trying to pick a fight? True, there
had been quite a spike in their sex lives. Was she looking for him to 
rise and drag her off for a mid-day fuck?
	"Darla is outside. She wants to talk to you," Staci explained.
	That was no less confusing. An interesting happenstance to be
sure, it still jangled with his desire that all things be ordinary.
	"Gumby's girlfriend works here?" Darla asked as she entered.
	It had been a while since Darla had been around. Sam was
surprised she knew Amy at all, but then he remembered the funeral. 
	"She's worked here longer than Gumby," Sam said, rather quickly
to wipe out the sudden memory, "And they're going to get married since 
someone knocked her up."
	Darla paused a moment and then laughed.
	"Well, you've told Staci because she'd know, but does Gumby?"
she asked.
	Sam didn't pretend confusion at her point.
	"It is altogether likely that Gumby is the father," he said. 
"We're proceeding on that assumption."
	That had wrapped up much excitement and brought Darla up to date 
on his dealings. Sam still didn't know what Darla had been doing or why
she was there.
	"Oh, me," Darla said under his stare, "I'm here because a friend
of mine disappeared."
	"You see where you had to come to find me?" Sam asked. "I'm a 
lawyer's lap dog now."
	Her initial reaction, as if she had been slapped, petrified into 
a cold stare.
	"I got money," she snapped. "I can afford even a hot-shot like 
you, Sam Hill."
	It was Sam's turn to feel slapped. He didn't mean to be harsh to
Darla. It was his concern about tempting fate. He was harsh, but only
to stave off the trouble. It was clear he couldn't separate the two.
	"I didn't mean it that way," Sam said, "I just meant I'm not on 
the street anymore. I don't live in old town. Things aren't the same. 
I've lost touch."
	The more he talked, the more he sounded like he was pleading. He
was stuck. Letting it all slide to protect his family sounded like a
fine idea. Beginning to pare down his definition of family to remain
uninvolved didn't have the same ring.
	Hope was a fool's paradise anyway. What was happening was big and
he knew it would touch them. Otherwise he wouldn't have taken refuge in
hoping. No, he sighed, he always knew it would come to this.
	"What is it?" he asked and leaned forward to meet the bad news.
	"It's nothing, really," Darla backed off. "It's just a feeling.
I haven't seen... she calls herself Jewel, for a couple of days."
	Sam looked in Darla's eyes and saw they shared the dread. Darla
was a tough broad, a smart broad. She didn't like it either and he
could see she was as anxious to drag Sam into it as he was to go.
	"It's bad out there," she said. "People disappear and you wonder
if they'll turn up in pieces. It's war. If I wasn't with Madame Louise
..."
	She let that hang. For all the dancing, the messages had been
sent. They might not have the kind of connection that existed between
Sam and Staci, but they understood one another. 
	Darla knew Sam hadn't changed. He wasn't cutting her adrift.
Neither of them liked it and both were scared. Sam even heard Darla's
permission to go easy- not get too deep, not for her.
	"What does Jewel look like?" Sam asked, dragging out his notebook.
	"Cute," Darla said, "Likes to pretend she's blonde, but isn't.
Kind of... I don't know, plump. And she's just a kid."
	They were all kids to Darla. She alone, and maybe Madame Louise,
were street-smart and world-wise- at least according to Darla.
	"Height? Weight? Measurments?" Sam tried to get something more
than Darla's edited version.
	"5-5, maybe 140," Darla said. "I'd guess 36-28-38 or something."
	Sam adjusted the measurements to suit the height-weight Darla
gave him. Darla was being kind, but plump, he figured, suited this
girl.
	"Where does she work?" Sam asked.
	Darla rolled her eyes.
	"She's a whore," Darla said.
	"Oh my! I am so shocked!" Sam gasped in his best display of
amateur acting. "She walk streets? Got a manager? Get dates over the
phone? Which part of town should I start looking?"
	"She's special," Darla said, "Gets recommendations from one of
those underground clubs."
	"They don't like me," Darla said before he could ask. "I've
pissed them off before."
	"I'll see what I can find out," Sam said. "You go home. It is bad
out there. Don't go out there."
	He didn't know what good it would do. He took comfort that she
had come to him. At least she was cautious enough to try and help
without rushing headlong into the situation herself.
	"Keep me posted, then," she said as she got up.
	She wasn't going to let it go. It wasn't tossing him the burden
and then feeling clear. She expected him to follow up. For the first
time in some time, Sam wished he smoked. It would give him something to
do with his hands while he sorted out this mess.
	-----
      He didn't need cigarettes to grant him the ease of an early
death. That possibility crept up on him with the stench of garlic
breath.
	"He wants to see you," garlic breath said.

	"I thought we was pals," Gino Macaroni complained to Sam.
	A better suit didn't change the way Sam felt around Gino. He
was only staining more expensive fabric with his sweat.
	"I thought so too," Sam said. "I listened hard to that tip you
gave me about who was in town."
	"Tip?" Gino questioned, "That was a clue about how they do it.
It's a big scam."
	Sam felt helpless, but it wasn't in his best interest to show
Gino that. Sam didn't care, either, but he knew Gino wouldn't
appreciate his position.
	"And a nice one," Sam said. "I didn't see how to crack it. Like 
all... those guys, it's just legal enough you got to get someone inside
to talk before you can do anything."
	Gino considered him closely. It wasn't the jovial Gino being
amused by the squirming private eye. More than usual, Sam felt his fate
being weighed on the balance of his usefullness.
	"I thought you'd break the skirt," Gino said.
	"I thought you'd shut down the delivery company," Sam said and 
the men glared at each other.
	It wasn't smart. It wasn't wise. It was a slim chance that Gino
would respect Sam for doing what he had to. That, and the creeping idea
that Gino had something for Sam to do. If Gino was pissed, Sam
reasoned, he'd be dead already.
	"You got balls," Gino said with no hint of his previous pleasure
at that thought. "I guess some Mickey Mouse beef wasn't going to do
much anyway."

	Sam didn't have time to calm down. He sat beside garlic breath
thinking.
	He could see why Gino was offended. Not that Sam hadn't proved to
be his puppet, but by the Russians. True, Gino was trying to work a
deal behind their backs, but Gino would think that was his perogative.
Sam thought Gino would understand perogative. Gino worked on being
smarter than he looked.
	Now it seemed the Russians were abusing the crumbs Gino tossed
them, using the toe-hold to mount a counter-attack. That was Sam's 
take on the turbulence flooding the evening news.
	It seemed he would have to make a gesture toward one party or
the other, the obvious one being Gino since Gino knew where he lived.
	The last was emphasized when garlic breath let him out in front
of his building. It wasn't a mystery. He was listed. It only underlined
which devil he knew.
	-----
	"It's true Sam, here they are," Staci said as her hand explored
his pants.
	She wasn't being dismissive. She wasn't even sure she was
helping, but she knew they had to shake off the grimness. There wasn't
anything for her to assess. It wasn't choosing options. All they could
do was be as ready as they could be.
	"I know there's nothing to do," Sam said, knowing she got it,
"But, damn it, it's like Pauline on the tracks watching the train 
approach."
	"No Sam," she said firmly, an attitude reflecting her grip on
his genitals, "It's like watching the train closing in and wondering
if you'll make it in time to save her." 
	He appreciated her casting him in the role of hero rather than
victim, but she was wrong. He might not be the victim, but he wasn't
on the overlooking hill either. Pauline was facing her doom somewhere
out of sight and he didn't know which direction to run.
	-----
	Jewel sat hugging her knees at the head of the bed in the very
corner of the room. So far as she could tell, she was alone.
	In the silence in the room and down the hall the scream echoed
louder in her head. It stayed with her because she feared she knew
what it meant.
	She had heard many screams. She had heard play screams and real
screams, work screams and fright screams. Not thinking that she could
attract trade given her stout body, she had sold herself in cellars and
dungeons in the underbelly of the city. There were private clubs, clubs
only known by word of mouth where 'specialists' would gather to 
practice their lusts for pain and domination.
	Jewel worked those clubs, giving herself over to the whippings,
the spankings and the abuses. She had heard and uttered many screams,
but the scream that still echoed in her head was the scream of despair
and terror. Jewel was certain the screamer would never scream again.
It was that kind of scream.
	Now she huddled in the locked room wondering when it would be
her scream. If she was right, she didn't know why she was still alive.
This was of greater importance than the puzzle of the 'cow' man.
	She didn't understand what he wanted of her either. When she was
first pushed into the room with him, she thought she knew. She was
fresh meat for him to beat, fuck and then... she didn't know.
	When he only fucked her, roughly yes, with venom yes, but without
even spanking her, she grew confused. Her confusion grew when she 
again was the receptacle for his cock and ejaculation with a second 
and different woman laying whipped to ground meat on the floor.
	It was outside her experience to be the one the customer fucked
rather then the one he beat. She wondered if it was a systmatic plan
to terrorize her until the man felt she was sufficiently disturbed for
him to whip. Perhaps she had broken an unspoken rule by not responding
to questions she knew he didn't want answered.
	Perhaps that was the reason she was still trembling in the room
and not dead. Perhaps she was only working toward a more gristly death
at his hands.
	All she knew for certain was the men with accents didn't care and
weren't going to be swayed by anything she did. They handled her, took
her to the man and put her away with less emotion than if she was a
dog. They were strong, hard-eyed and cold enough to give her a chill
looking at them.
	She could relax for a while. She knew that. She didn't hear a
sound on the whole floor. Only she couldn't bring herself to stop 
hugging protective knees to her chest. She was going to die. It was
certain. But even that wasn't as fearful as wondering what death
could cause the scream she heard echoing in her head.
	-----
	Sam wasn't going to see anything at the scene. It was too
conveninent for the cops to seal off the alley at both ends and leave
everything interesting too distant. It was the same as the first place
a body had been found. He was left with getting a feel for the place
and the area where the bodies were discovered.
	Too late, he saw the rumpled suits and ill-tempered expressions
of Brooks and Miller. Brooks was busy slopping coffee on his shoes
as they approached. They were interested. Sam knew they were on course
to roust him.
	"What are you sniffing around here for, dick?" Brooks asked.
	"Maybe I'm out for a walk," Sam ventured.
	Brooks looked him up and down. Sam knew the sneer. He had 
considered the irony himself as he watched the detectives approach.
In the old days, the police looked nappy compared to Sam. Now they were
grumpy men in ill-fitted cheap suits that cost about as much as
alterations to one of Sam's.
	"You're not dressed for it," Brooks observed. "Slumming?"
	"It's a public sidewalk," Sam said, "And my business is
confidential."
	There was a mire of technicality in how confidential it was. For
once, Sam could work that to his benefit. Darla hadn't turned over any
money, nor had he asked, but she had offered. He could choose to view
that as a promise to pay any bill he presented. That would make him
in her employ and give him an excuse not to answer.
	"You'll find you're not the golden boy you were when Baker was
running things," Brooks challenged. "Some of us didn't like you then."
	Sam looked at Miller who was suddenly interested in a passing
car. Sam didn't think Brooks spoke for everyone.
	"Then I'll stop your irritation by moving on," Sam suggested.
	"First you'll tell us why you were hanging around a crime scene,"
Brooks said, stepping more directly in from of Sam as if to stop his
passing.
	"I like the pretty yellow tape," Sam said.
	"Yeah- crack wise, that's always a winner," Brooks snapped. "It
can't be you're reconnoitering for your boyfriend Macaroni, could it?"
	It was easy to give Brooks a look of disbelief. It was the last
thing Sam expected to be accused of.
	"Macaroni? Like Gino Macaroni the gangster?" his wide-eyed
confusion was a bit harder to ape. "You think he had something to do
with this?"
	"Play innocent. I guess that's next on the list," Brooks said.
"We've heard things. Like how you and Macaroni are all smoochy-smoochy.
And this has his bloody fingerprints all over it."
	"Bloody fingerprints, huh? Then I guess you'll have no trouble
bringing him in this time," Sam said.
	He caught Miller shifting out of the corner of his eye. A glance
told him the other detective was stifling a laugh. It was some small
sign that maybe both of them weren't brain dead.
	"You know what I mean," Brooks snarled. "This is Gino's turf.
It figures that things that happen on Gino's turf belong to Gino." 
	"Probably the secret of his success," Sam said innocently,
"Leaving incriminating evidence where it can be connected to him.
That's why you guys have busted him so many times."
	"Maybe it's a screw-up," Brooks wasn't done. "Maybe it's the
screw-up that hangs him. Maybe that's why he had his boy toy come down
to see what we had."
	"Or maybe some strange foreign guys with tattoos have it in for
Macaroni and are trying to help you guys out," Sam said. "I guess it
all comes down to whose boyfriend you are."
	"Get out of here or I'll run you in for vagrancy," Brooks
threatened.
	Sam managed to stifle his laugh down to a chuckle. So many
vagrants wore Italian silk. His mirth at his change of station was
quickly turned to interest as he walked away.
	He might be hopeful again, but it seemed Miller was irritating
Brooks with quiet conversation. He could only hope that one of them
had sense enough to consider someone was trying to set Gino up.
	-----
	It was far from a done deal that Gino wasn't involved. Sam
realized this, but kept it in reserve as he investigated the path he
had laid out to the detectives. For one thing, Gino hadn't become
untouchable by such foolishness. For another, more to the point, it
wasn't Gino's style.
	If it only took 10 seconds to slice and dice the two bodies that
had turned up, it was 9 seconds more than Gino's men would waste.
Forget that Gino had no history of ordering mangling the dead- only the
living, it was a kind of violence that said the perpetrator had
something to prove. Gino never had anything to prove. He was cold and
calculating and final. Sam didn't think it would occur to Gino that he
had to be any more fearsome than he already was.
	It was also not a lock that Sam had a clue. Hookers were
disappering and chunks of women were showing up. To link them was
almost as presumptious as blaming the sun for a daylight robbery
because it was shining. Still, he knew it was what Darla feared and
what had him wearing away expensive shoe leather trying to discover.
	So far as Sam knew, no one had come forward to ID the victims.
That was a little odd unless the police were supressing it. And that
would be odd because Sam imagined they were feeling the heat to show 
some progress in at least a few of the rash of killings that had
come to the city.
	But odd could be its own kind of clue. The proper victim might
include a motive. Supressing the identity might mean the cops were
onto something they thought was big. Neither of them interested Sam-
or better, pointed away from the victim being the girl he was hunting.
	He was in the direct center of a vast area of nothing. He was
left to pick apart the slimmest of circumstances to feel he had a hint
of anything at all. One club manager, recognizing Sam and believing
the lies Staci printed, admitted knowing Jewel. She hadn't worked his
club in months. No one else had ever heard of her.
	-----
	"What's uncle Sam working on?" Gumby asked.
	"Well, I don't know. You guys are the detectives. I just answer
the phone," Amy said.
	She was sitting in Gumby's chair with her feet in his lap where
he sat in the client chair by his desk. He was rubbing her feet while
they had lunch. She looked at him suspiciously.
	He seemed wrapped up in fondling her feet. It appeared to be no
more than idle curiosity.
	"So you didn't get the call?" Gumby asked.
	She looked at him sharply again. He still looked innocent.
	"Why do you care?" she asked. "You're not thinking about getting
into something dangerous are you?"
	"Not intentionally. I was just curious- occupational hazard,"
Gumby replied. "But you know danger can't be helped sometimes."
	Amy examined him yet again. He was being ultra-honest Howard as
far as she could tell. He wasn't avoiding looking at her, so he 
probably wasn't lying.
	"The little blonde we saw at that policeman's funeral came in the
other day," Amy said, stretching 'little' since Darla 'towered' a good
two inches over Amy. "That's all I know."
	"Well, then that's pretty good," Gumby said grinning. "Uncle Sam
deserves to be let out once in a while."
	"What does that mean?" Amy asked, taking her feet off his lap.
	"Nothing!" Gumby was defensive, "It's just Darla... If Darla has
something for Sam to look into it probably involves whores."
	"That's Darla?" Amy interrupted her concern to consider this new
nugget.
	Then several things came into focus. Darla and Howard at a
batchelor party, Darla the grateful and easy-going- particularly to
Sam and company, and Howard the vibrantly masculine stuck with an
expanding woman and comtemplating marriage. As she went down the list
her concern came back multiplied.
	"You know about Darla," Gumby put on a wounded look, "It was long
ago. Even then it was like a favor to uncle Sam. She might be a fine
woman trapped in her profession, I don't know. I do know that I've got
the real gold right here- gold all over and not just a heart of gold."
	"Well... You better," Amy said grumpily and gingerly put her feet
back in his lap. "Because this is an important time right now and I
need you. And I need you all in one piece."
	"If uncle Sam asks me, I'll help," Gumby said, feeling he had to
get this straight now, ahead of time, "But you know how he is. He won't
let me get into trouble. And I won't go looking for trouble either."
	Amy was mildly comforted by the pledge, but more so by the
trouble Howard took to clear up his position. He was at his most honest
when he was unnecessarily explaining the exceptions and wildly
improbable event that might happen. Then she giggled. Howard was
tickling her feet.
	-----
	"So you're wondering what anyone would want with a fat whore?"
Staci was saying very sharply. 
	"Of course not, sweetums," Sam lied quickly. "I was wondering
what kind of lucky gentleman would be so discerning."
	"You mean what kind of pervert would prefer meat to bone?"
Staci kept on.
	She was holding a threatening looking hair dryer as she made her
point. Her point was eroding as was the danger in her actions. She 
tried a clumsy feint toward Sam's dick but the blast of hot air was
too deliberately teasing to support her expression.
	He didn't have to understand this, Sam sighed. It was interesting
to see Staci sliding over to hijack his role, but he didn't have to 
get it. All he wanted, as his hard-on testified, was to finish what
they started in the shower.
	"Well, I'm a stupid one to ask," Staci snorted and turned her
back to him.
	Sam didn't care about the irony of her feigning offense for fat
women and then disassociating herself from them. He saw his opportunity
and pounced.
	"Oh Christ! Can't you wait until I finish my hair?" she
complained.
	Sam hadn't wanted to wait to get out of the shower. They had 
plenty of hot water. He could have slipped it in her and they could
have fucked under the warm spray. He wouldn't have had to crouch down
any further there than he had to coming up behind her bending over
the sink.
	But Staci insisting on going over the details and then jumping
out of the shower to grab the hair dryer were in the past. He was in
her and his hands on her still damp tits were melting her resistance. 
	It was all good- even the preceding frustration- when he had his
cock in Staci.
	"So ask yourself what you see in me," Staci breathed, going back
to identifying with fat chicks. "Take it as a clue."
	Sam couldn't do that. There was no evidence this Jewel had 
hooters as big as two import cars. And Staci wasn't fat. Sure, her
waist was hardly an ad for an ab machine, but it was soft and neither 
large nor flabby. If she looked fat, it was because magnificent tits
were subject to mammoth pressures from gravity.
	Her ass- well, her ass was big. It was big, soft, wonderful and
something you had to expect if the poor woman was going to balance
those huge knockers. It did not make her fat.
	Sam didn't try to make those points. He was busy driving against
the aforementined ass, holding Staci's tits and working off a lust she
had only enlarged with her stalling.
	"Damn it! Damn it, Sam!" Staci gasped out as the hair dryer in 
her hand sent bottles and jars skittering off the vanity as she reached
to steady herself.
	There was no message in her words, at least none that spoke as
loud as tilting her ass up so Sam could straighten from his crouch
slightly and take her with a more steady assault.
	If it was fertile women that brought back this spark or the
imminent blooming of that fertility, it didn't matter. Something had
seemed to come over the office and they all were more vital and given
to sexual expression of it in recent weeks. 
	It might be the spirit of the wedding and birth or even some
communicable passion caught from the young lovers. It was simply ironic
that it would occur as the world around them moved into dark days and
a fury previously unknown moved in the city.
	-----
	"No one has seen her, but she isn't in some dumpster in pieces,"
Sam reported to Darla.
	The last was only slightly more than a guess. Sam had responded 
to attempts to identify the girls, for it had been determined that 
each scene, for all their gristly momentos, had only one body cut into
many parts. He had been fortunate to meet Detective Miller instead of
Brooks and gave him Darla's description of the missing girl.
	Miller said it didn't fit. One was a real blonde (Sam didn't ask
if that was from a forensic report or a crude joke) and the other 
didn't have the mass for it. Not knowing how accurate either Darla's 
or the detective's estimate could be, Sam thought that a questionable
way to rule out Jewel, but he wasn't going to communicate that to
Darla.
	"I'm still looking, but I hope that relaxes you a little," Sam
said.
	"What about you? Could you use relaxing?" Darla asked.
	Sam saw the tiny shift before Darla snapped back to business.
He was glad to offer what reassurance he had. He even appreciated her
offer. If he had solved it, maybe, but accepting her gratitude for
such slim news seemed like taking an installment payment and Sam didn't
want it to turn into something that mercenary.
	"Maybe later, but only if you buy the booze," Sam kidded.
"Anyway, Staci has seemed to enter her second wild child and I'm not
sure I've got it in me."
	"That's why you visit a professional," Darla shot back.
	Banter intact, Sam excused himself. Not identifying Jewel wasn't
the only thing he and Miller had discussed. Sam had picked up the
unreleased clue that the bodies had been frozen before being diced.
	It wasn't a slip. Sam traded the heftyness of Jewel and the
S&M connection for it. At least Miller didn't suck. They both agreed
it looked more like a foreign influence than local. Neither of them had
a clue what the Russians were doing.
	The freezing part wasn't going to crack it. No doubt, at least if
they listened to Miller, low-lying, as in legitimacy, packing houses,
ice houses, refrigerated trucks and the like were already crawling 
with or had been crawled over by the cops. 
	Sam wasn't superman here. He wasn't going to pick up the magic
fiber or see the speck of blood the rest missed. All he had was a
feeling for what it meant and a better direction to look for where
Pauline was tied to the tracks.
	His only advantage was that living women were higher maitenance
than dead ones. He had a more chances to spot activity than a one-shot
of catching them storing another body. That was, and Sam hated to have
to consider all the angles, if Jewel wasn't the first victim, disposed
of in a better and as yet undiscovered way that was then discarded for
the simpler expedient of dumping them in their competitor's back yard.
	-----
	It was all the machine a man could want. A factory in a box,
assembly line to go, it was simply the proverbial money tree. And
for all his professed aversion, the man brokering the deal accepted
the currency of death with only a shriek and then a gurgle.
	Alex felt better killing this man than guarding the freak only
because it had purpose. No one would trace a transaction, hear boasts
about his success, get any information unless it was he was dead. It
was the exact opposite of his feelings for the pervert who it was so
dangerous to trust.
	"Oh yeah- all here," the pervert enthused, "It is a beauty. Old
guts-on-the-floor here does- did nice work."
	Perhaps he would be so stupid and arrogant as to show Nickoli all
the features. They were only dumb Russians after all. And if not,
Alex shrugged, he could be persuaded.
	Feeling the time when they could be rid of this pervert edge
closer brought Alex what passed for happiness. But there were details.
First they would move the machine, in case the man on the floor had
partners. Then came the process of making the pervert expendable.
	-----
	"No, you had it right about the trucks," Sam told Staci. "It
makes perfect sense. Girls- liabilities for disposal, trucks- just the
means to transport whatever they transport, they both are on the 
fringes. They can be cut loose, denied without disturbing the core
activities."
	"But that's not what you're looking for?" Staci asked.
	"I can't do anything for dead girls," Sam said. "And I don't
think they'd want the liability too near anyone or anything important.
But they're probably not going to ship bodies all over either. It's
something fairly new, some place in the general area of their trucks."
	"And you're going to knock on doors and say what? You Russian?
Seen any Russians around?" Staci scoffed, covering her growing sense
of danger.
	"I'm going to put Gumby on it," Sam said.
	He let Staci puff up with all the reasons to keep Gumby out of
the whole mess before he explained.
	"He's been poking around in deeds and land transfers already,"
Sam said. "He can look for recent acquistions that fit. He'll be smart
enough to pick up on ghost corporations and other crap. And he'll be
far away from the bad guys."
	Sam left out the part about keeping him out of trouble when he
told Gumby. He managed to build up the part about Gumby's keen sense
of smell sniffing out the rats enough that Gumby was flattered past
thinking about being on the sideline. It was complex enough. It would
take some sense, some intuition about which transactions might apply.
Sam wasn't making busy work.
	Amy saw the ruse the same way as Staci. She hopped up, yanked
on his arm and kissed him on the cheek as soon as she saw him.
	"Thank you for Howard. Staci told me," she said. "It was sweet of
you- daddy."
	Sam knew he was being yanked, but he didn't know which way. Amy
could be confusing, at the best of times- in any area and this was an
area that was confusing on its own.
	"Thank you, kitten- or mommy, whatever," Sam said to cover the
angles.
	It made him wonder if Gumby knew- or how long it would be before
Gumby knew. Then it made him wonder how big a fool he was. He had a
blind spot around that little girl. She had shown a discernment and
even calculation in the past that he never considered when he thought
of her. She was the happy little airhead in his mind- always, even when
other possiblities presented themselves.
	It was possible for her to play games with him. Good, he thought.
It meant some of the glare was off his image. She needed that because
Gumby should be her hero. It was the only way that made sense for the
future.
	-----
	Gumby spent two days proving how much of a genius his uncle was.
Acquisitions, legitimate and not, seemed like a patternless scattershot
across the map of the city. The pace of transfers seemed to have picked
up all over in the wake of growing troubles.
	Promising clumps had a way of turning out to be a few unknowns
mixed with a domino effect of flight from the less savory areas of the
city. It wasn't a good basis to sort out where an organization that
didn't want its presence known might be.
	Then help came wearing the face of Detective Catalano.
	"Do you think your discovery tonight is linked to the grusome
discoveries of two bodies in recent weeks?" the reporter was asking.
	"That is still under investigation," Catalano said. "However
there are facts that make that seem... um, something we're
investigating."
	Sam could imagine some department chief just off camera gesturing
frantically to keep Catalano from spilling something. The rest of the
interview was just as comic, with Catalano using the word investigate
in all its tenses some dozen more times.
	The interesting part was that the TV lights were showing the 
trucking company in the background. The cops had found another victim,
this time whole. What Catalano was trying not to blurt out was that the
woman was frozen.
	It made sense. The others had been and the truck in the middle of
the yellow tape and bustle was a refrigerated truck. It wasn't what
Sam was looking for. In any case it was abandoned as he predicted, but
it was near what he was looking for.
	Gumby was more helpful once they had a yellow pin in that spot on
the map. There were warehouses nearby, an abandoned factory or two,
mostly owned by absentee landlords, according to records. The best link
was toward an area joined to the trucking firm by commercial roads, as
in self-built by the businesses to link their operations and give
access to the world.
	The time for narrowing the search was over. Looking over records
would be slower than Sam taking a look to see which buildings were 
indeed abandoned and which had signs of activity. He put on old clothes
with a sigh.
	As his encounter with the police had proved, wearing his new
respectability like his expensive suits had its advantages, but there
was something homey and to Sam more romantic about cheap suits and
trench coats. It wasn't only camouflage. It seemed to Sam that he was
dressing real to get back into the real part of his job.
	Whatever he told Gumby, however, his old clunker was beginning to
drop out of that picture. It was clearly on its last legs and becoming
cantakerous starting. It still ran, but Sam was coming up on the time
he would have to take Gumby's teasing and replace it.
	-----
	"You know what to do by now," he gave Jewel a pitying look.
	He was anxious and jittery having watched Alex gut a man. The
bloodied woman laying on the bed was moaning. He hadn't even beaten
her into unconciousness. He was impatient to forget. He was aroused
and in a hurry to lose himself in the joy of humiliating the fat cow.
	Jewel got onto the bed and took her place on her knees. She
propped herself on her elbows and carefully tucked her head in. She
wasn't sure it was the right thing or the wrong thing the same way she
never knew whether to answer his questions, but she was too scared to
do anything else.
	He seemed satisfied. She was hardly in place when she felt him
rub wet fingers between her legs and then push against her with his 
cock. He was always rough, so that wasn't the difference, but Jewel
thought he seemed more focused on ramming his cock to the hilt than
usual.
	"That's my cow. That's my fat cow," he started, a bit later than
he usually disparaged her, "Used to it aren't you, you stupid beast."
	She took it. She took it like a fat whore. She took it like a
docile fat whore. She was nothing. She should be grateful he bothered
to fuck her. She was just a fuck hole- a fat cow fuck hole for him.
	Driving into her, calling her the names, it made the other things
go away. He was in full revenge mode, taking care of all fat cow
whores. He was showing them all in service to an ancient hurt and
wasn't thinking about the present.
	"Now fat cow whore, what do you want? What do you want now, fat
cow whore?" he asked.
	Jewel knew what was coming. It hurt like hell, but it wasn't the
worst thing he could do. He was going to ram his cock up her ass and
she was sure he wanted it to hurt. He was most vicious at first as
he fucked her ass as roughly as he could. When it stopped hurting so
much, he seemed to lose interest and went at her just so he could
shove his cock in her face and make her swallow his cum.
	She wasn't sure if she was supposed to say it. He had told her
she knew what was coming. He had told her she knew the routine.
	"You're going to fuck my ass," Jewel said.
	It didn't make much difference that her head was tucked in. His
fist came down where her shoulder joined her neck and glanced over the
back of her head. The second one glanced off the back of her head from 
the other side.
	"Shut your cow mouth!" he screamed at her as he pummled her. "You
shut up and take it. You're a fucking fat cow. You're just a fucking
fat cow!"
	"Please stop! You're killing me! Please don't kill me!" Jewel
begged frantically.
	She didn't think it would calm him down. She was so scared that
she couldn't help herself. She had screwed up and now she was going to
die.
	It did calm him down.
	"Yeah, I'm killing you," he panted, "I'm gonna kill you all
right!" 
	"I'm gonna kill you right here!" he told her as his greased
finger stabbed up her ass with the same fury as his punches.
	He gave her a preview. The greasing became his way of returning
to the script he always repeated. His finger fucked her ass in hard,
punching strokes until he wanted to do it with his cock.
	Then he was fucking her and they both were screaming. He didn't
seem to mind her howls of pain. He was babbling on and fucking her
with all his will.
	"This doesn't hurt a cow! A fat cow can take it. You've got big
fucking fat cow holes!" he was screaming at her. "You take it like a
cow because you're a fat cow!" 
	For once he was so busy ramming his cock in her that he couldn't
stop in time to jam his cock in her face. He kept heaving body-heavy
thrusts into her ass right to his climax and then tried to hurt her 
just a little more to make her pay for making him lose control.
	Jewel knew she was torn and bleeding. She didn't need to see
the blood where she landed when she was thrown back into her room to
confirm the damage. She felt sick, but she was alive. It wasn't much
living, but it was all she had left.
	-----
	The quick sweep didn't produce miracles. Sam hadn't really
thought it would. It did give him a sense of the lay-out of the
buildings he and Gumby had thought were most likely.
	He pulled under a projecting concrete cover in front of the
best vantage point. There was a discarded flatbed with no tires and
missing two wheels rotting there and he pulled behind that. Now he
was covered unless his uncompromising luck had put him in front of
the building he was trying to find.
	He poked around innocently as if he had no purpose to give
someone time to chase him off. No one appeared. When he found that door
that could be forced, he walked quietly into a building that returned
the silence. It was deserted. 
	He still went slowly. Anything could be waiting around the next
corner, crouching on the next level. His careful progress finally led
him to the last set of stairs and the door of the roof access.
	He didn't do a dance of joy. Rather, he was more like a sniper
edging to the wall to take a cautious peek over. There didn't seem to
be guards on any of the roofs. He made a sweep with his binoculars to
make sure.
	He still had it, he breathed to himself. This was so automatic
it was like a bad habit. Now all he had to do was keep the sun off
his optics and examine the buildings carefully, one by one.
	He had duck-walked nearly around the entire perimiter when he
saw her. A heavy naked woman vaguely fitting Darla's description was
visible across the way. He quickly scanned the other windows. There
were stray items, a thermos, a bag, other things in view on the second
floor, but no signs of life.
	On the fourth floor, where the woman was, Sam saw a suspicious
shadow. It was some distance from the woman. There appeared to be a
door between the areas. He was debating what to do when he turned
the binoculars on the woman again, dialing in for maximum magnification.
	She was crouched holding herself, crying. She didn't look badly
hurt- and then he saw the blood on the sheets. The woman didn't seem 
to be badly injured, but the blood changed things. If they had started
on her, he had no guarantee they wouldn't finish the job before he
went away and returned with re-inforcements.
	He searched the windows again calculating. Maybe one guy, maybe
just a shadow, there could be more out of sight, but he wasn't seeing
anyone. He had a plan but it was risky and could be downright dumb.
	He wasn't going down and then investigating to see if the 
building was deserted on his way up. The best path was straight to the
woman and back. He looked for a way over.
	It was probably the dumbest plan ever. Sam was soothed by the
fact that it was most likely to fuck up before any harm was done.
Laying among the detrius on top of the building was a ladder. Sam
supposed it had been used to service the billboard that was only a
remnant now.
	If he could slide the ladder across the gap, he he would have
a way to get to the roof of the other building, down to the fourth
floor and, in a dream, back up and over with the girl without alerting
anyone. He wasn't so much troubled by all the things that could go
wrong because he was convinced that the ladder would fall apart, that
he would not be able to balance it to push it so far, or that it 
would prove not to reach.
	The ladder was aluminum, white and stressed, but not falling
apart. He was nearer to the case in not being able to hold the weight
as he tried to extend it over the gap. Marveling at his own desire to
meet his doom, Sam barely solved that.
	Extra weight fastened as he could to the end allowed him to 
barely control the ladder as he pushed it to the limit. It was slipping
and threatening to drop below the level of the far ledge when he gave
a desperate pull on the rope to send the extension flying out.
	Sam wasn't evaluating his luck. The end caught and he could
push enough to be secure over the ledge on the far roof. Now he was
faced with the long crawl on an uncertain ladder some 50 feet above
death on asphalt. He wouldn't blow up, he reasoned. It wasn't that much
of a drop. He might be twisted like a broken doll, but he body would
seem mostly intact. But he would be dead. It was far enough to 
guarantee that.
	Sam wasn't thinking about heights one way or the other. That
didn't bother him particularly. It was the dying after the fall that he
tried to keep out of his mind as he got up to the ladder. But that
wouldn't happen, he braced himself. He was going to crawl. He would not
take a hand off a rung without the other firmly gripping another.
He wouldn't let go if he slipped. That would kill him. He could count
on himself to hold on.
	Sam was sweatier and shakier than he would wish to report when he
gave up his pledge to himself by placing a hand on the stone of the
other roof and moving his other hand ahead. The ladder had held.
	He knew his path down to the woman's room. The access ladder over
the side to the fire escape was one of the reasons he thought his
idea had any chance. He stepped on the grating when the woman saw him.
	He motioned for silence. He mimed taking her out and up. She
was terrified, but didn't cry out. She pointed to the door and shook
her head. He knew it was locked. Sam tried not to look frustrated.
	That didn't last when he confronted the window. Sure, just climb
over, open the window and slip in. It made sense it might be locked.
It didn't matter if it was just frozen by long disuse. Sam wasn't 
going to budge it.
	He wasn't going back now. Taking a deep breath, Sam threw his
shoulder against the glass.
	He fell into the room in a shower of broken glass. Then he knew
the shadow wasn't coat rack. He heard a questioning voice and
footsteps. He had only enough time to roll to his feet as the door
opened.
	He kicked it back at whoever was on the other side and heard a
curse. As the door opened again Sam was in full spin. It was 
desperation whole and undiluted. He spun to face the intruder with the
only weapon at hand- a fire extinguisher. The extinguisher seemed to
trace the path of the door, lagging by a foot. He saw the Russian and
the Russian saw Sam at almost the exact moment the metal cylinder
collided with the guard's head.
	A gun went off, but Sam felt no pain. He stood over the man like
some primitive beast, but he groaned and didn't move. No one moved.
Sam heard no footsteps rushing toward him.
	He picked up the 9mm on the floor and stuffed it in his belt.
He was moving freely, no pain. He decided he hadn't been hit. He was
too busy pulling off the man's belt to check himself.
	As he brought the last wrap around and secured the tang of the
buckle through the last hole, he determined to give Staci a kiss. Long
practice making her immobile made him confident his tie would hold
until they could get away.
	As cool as it might appear, Sam didn't risk more noise by
shooting at the lock. A couple of hard kicks and the frame gave way.
	"You're Jewel," Sam told the uncertain woman. "Darla has me
looking for you."
	It didn't seem to register. Sam fell back on the best and most
direct and effective line a rescuing hero can say.
	"Come with me if you want to live."
	Sam tried to clear the way better by knocking out more glass with
the gun. Once motivated, Jewel didn't seem to be put off picking her
way through broken glass or climbing through the window.
	She hesitated a bit going up the access ladder and Sam had to 
restrain himself from putting a hand on her ass and pushing her. He 
restrained himself by lamenting what that was going to mean when she
saw their escape route.
	"Look down if you want. Just don't let go," Sam told her as she
had the expected reaction to the thin bridge to freedom. "I made it
over here and you can make it back."
	Sam decided she was only terrorized in general once she started
out across the chasm. He held the ladder for her to give her some
added security, but she picked her way, not rapidly, but steadily over
to the other side. Sam vaguely wondered what someone would think if
they looked up and saw a naked woman crossing a ladder overhead.
	Sam concentrated on his pride to get back on the ladder. He had,
the facts coming to him in a delay, probably looked pretty good 
bursting in and neutralizing the Rusky. She had scampered across the
gap like a deer (here the exaggeration was to spur himself on). He
couldn't look like a wuss.
	It was comfortingly better on the return. Jewel had planted
herself on the far end, bracing the vibration and Sam no longer had to
make each advance wondering if the ladder would hold. He made it back
without disgracing himself.
	"We've got to pull it back," he told her.
	That was accomplished with pleasant ease as Jewel added her
weight and strength to pull the ladder back from the other roof. She
pitched in without hesitation, but when the ladder clanged to the roof,
Sam saw she was shaking.
	"It's okay now," he told her. "The way beneath us is clear.
You'll be all right."
	Then he thought of another reason she might be shaking. He 
retreived his trench coat where he had dropped it to free himself for
the crawl. She still trembled when he draped it over her, but she
looked up with grateful eyes.
	"Darla sent you?" she asked.
	"Yes," Sam kept it simple. "She was worried. I'm a friend of hers
too."
	It was enough for now. It was enough for Jewel. They went to the
roof access and went down as fast as they could without sending the
echoes of their footsteps though the deserted structure. Sam was still
expecting someone to prevent their escape.
	They made the car. The old clunker started. Sam was still waiting
for the pursuit as they reached the end of the access road and turned
onto the bridge over the highway.
	Luck held. They were driving down populated, familiar city 
streets and Sam relaxed a little.
	"I'm going to take you to see Darla now," Sam said, unable to
think of anywhere else to drop her.
	Sam had long enjoyed the freedom to use the back door at Madame
Louise's. Everyone who worked for her knew to not give him trouble.
Still, he got a look from the large man at the door as he came in with
Jewel wrapped in a trench coat.
	"You are a fucking son-of-a-bitch!" Darla said when she saw them.
"You found her. How the hell could you do that?"
	Darla's next moments were taken holding Jewel, who had finally
burst into tears, and then finding her friend better clothes. Sam took
a moment to be offended by her lack of faith, but then joined her
amazement as the crazy events played again in his head.
	"We're going to have to find somewhere better for her," Sam said
as if Jewel wasn't there.	
	"What's wrong with this place?" Darla snapped.
	"Too many tongues to wag. The people that were keeping her aren't
going to be happy she's gone," Sam said. "They will be out in force 
looking for her."
	"Nobody here would turn her in," Darla said.
	"Not for a lot of money, or maybe so they stop smashing their
hand with a hammer?" Sam asked.
	"She can't go out now," Darla said reasonably. "We can hide her."
	That might hold for a little while Sam admitted. The broads were
tough and smart, tougher and smarter than any other place he could 
think of hiding Jewel.
	-----
	He hadn't asked her what she knew, who the guys were or any of
that other crap. He really didn't care. He had done something very
stupid on the spur of the moment and had screwed up into some 
miraculous rescue of the one he was looking for.
	He no longer had a part. He wasn't looking for a world to save.
	Sam had no corner on stupidity.
	It should be hoped that Gumby did the stupidest thing he would
ever do in his life. And, like all stupid acts, he did it without a
nano-second of thought.
	"All right. Don't move or I'll..."
	Gumby was locking the door to the office. He looked up and saw
the goon holding Amy. The lack of thought included what the knife in
the man's hand might do to his love.
	He was in the air as the words were coming out. He was imminent
when the man stopped talking. Gumby had no plan. As he launched
himself, his left hand reached out, his right pulled back in a fist. To
grab the man or hit him was still unformed thought.
	The reaction was to push the knife at Gumby to fend him off.
Gumby's left had swatted at it as he crashed into the man. The force
knocked them all down and broke his grip on Amy. Gumby yelled for her
to run. The punch landed on the floor next to the man's head.
	Amy didn't so much think as react. And she didn't run. She hadn't
thought of running when she felt the knife pull away and brought her
tiny fist up from the region of the man's knee to smash into his groin.
	It had pleased her so much that she scrambled to her feet and
aimed a kick at the same crotch. It was a madhouse compressed into
five, perhaps six seconds. Gumby flailed away while trying to keep 
the knife down. The man was ineffective blocking the blows as his
hand kept instinctively dropping down to protect him from Amy
kicking him as fast she she could bury her foot in his balls.
	Finally a blow caught him square and there was a thud as his head
bounced off the molding in the hall. He was quiet far longer than it
took for Gumby to pull out his handcuffs and lock him in.
	"You're hurt, Howard," were Amy's first words.
	"You're an idiot! What were you thinking?" came on them without
pausing to find out how badly he was hurt.
	"I wasn't," Gumby said sheepishly, "And it isn't too bad."
	"I thought about not thinking and not knowing what I was doing or
what I was trying to do and then I landed on him," Gumby said. "I just
saw you in trouble and I didn't think at all."
	"Well, this sounds stupid now, but you've got to work on that,"
Amy said.
	Gumby wasn't even woozy. The paramedics took over from Amy and
wrapped the gash in Gumby's side. It was deep and bleeding steadily,
but not mortal. At the hospital they managed to close it without 
stiches, but assured the staples would hold by wrapping him like a
mummy from armpit to belt line.
	"Howard has said it before. Sometimes it's dangerous and you
can't control everything," Amy was comforting Sam. "You were trying to
keep him safe. It isn't your fault."
	If he'd shot the son-of-a-bitch in the head... Sam knew it was
his fear talking, but he had reason to be afraid. However extreme, it
could be excused, at least he was willing to take the consequences if
it kept any one of them safe.
	"He's your nephew, Sam. He's got the same stubborn streak. It
runs in the family," Staci said. "It also seems the luck to get away
with stupid bravery is in the blood."
	She wasn't being as soothing. Sam needed tough talk. She was also
upset that Sam had been nearly as foolish himself. She knew he couldn't
help it. It was the core of what she loved in him, but she couldn't
help but feel how he ignored her grief in his willingness to sacrifice
himself.
	"Okay, I get it," Sam was a bit surly, "It still pisses me off.
And it pissses me off more that we've got to back off and be glad it
wasn't worse. Right now I'd like to slaughter every one of those 
bastards. But I get it."
	-----
	"You know, Sam, a girl could feel bad that you don't want them,"
Darla was pretending to pout.
	Playing emotions was part of her trade and she was good at it.
Sam was sitting on her bed in the aftermath of their spirited tussle.
He had pulled his pants up but not closed them or put his cock away.
	"Sometime- I'll put it on my calendar, I swear, I'll come over
and we can do it for old times sake," Sam said. "But I didn't do it
for that. I don't want to feel like I'm being paid."
	He was too accurate hitting real emotions behind the sham. Darla
understood the feeling. More powerfully, she was crushed by the thought
that Sam really cared.
	"But what about Jewel?" Darla was serious. "She doesn't
understand it the way you do. She wants to be grateful."
	The girl had gone through hell. Sam couldn't ignore what she had
suffered with some cold judgement that she'd made her choices. Whatever
she might deserve didn't extend to the terror of her captivity and
fear for her life.
	Sam nodded.
	"I'll go get her," Darla said.
	Sam knew he'd been right. The capture of the thug guarding Jewel
had sent the rest scurrying down some rat hole, but the danger hadn't
gone away. She was a danger to the 'cow' boy and some broody crew-cut
Russian with tattoos on his fingers while she lived. They were in for
kidnapping at the least and probably murder.
	The retreat had delayed the damage as they re-grouped but
something had to be done.
	"Darla says you're this hero guy that does this stuff all the...
Geeze, you are hung," Jewel told Sam.
	"But no one ever risks anything for me. I'm... I'm so...," she
said and dropped to her knees in front of him. "I want to thank you."
	Sam glared at Darla as she watched, grinning. He knew she thought
it was sweet or something dumb like that as Jewel carefully lifted his
cock and licked it. It wasn't sweet. It was strange that this woman
didn't know how else to show her gratitude.
	But, Sam thought as he leaned back on the bed, she did know this
way of showing her gratitude. He was a man, goddamnit. He had a dick 
and his dick only knew a soft tongue was teasing over its skin and it
liked it.
	"With a dick this big you could fuck anyone, I bet," Jewel said
as her tongue work made Sam's cock stand thick and straight in front
of her face.
	"He does, honey," Darla said. "He's famous for it."
	There was a gleam in her eye Sam wasn't so sure was all gratitude 
as she took the head of his cock in her mouth. Then all that stuff 
became vague and unimportant as she sucked him. She didn't do too
much. She stayed in control. Her hand squeezed and stroked here and
there, but her focus was, for lack of a better descriptor, polishing
his cock head in her mouth.
	It was reverant and exploring. Sam had a sense she was trying
to flatter his cock itself so it would have its own lust for her. It
certainly had the rest of him in the mood to finish with all the 
attention to lust he could manage.
	Somewhere as her mouth rubbed on, slid over and sucked his cock,
Jewel had managed to get his pants off. Sam dimly thought it may have
come when he was having the urge to push his cock in her mouth. He was
aware of it when Jewel stood up and dropped her robe. She climbed on
the bed next to him and presented her rear.
	"Everyone says this is my best side," she giggled, "I bet you
know what to do. And you can do anything to me."
	Everyone had been doing anything to her for a long time. It was
a rogue thought and Sam let it pass through his head without pause.
He had a hard-on and there was the place to stick it.	More importantly,
as he saw Darla smiling with a bit too much glee, this time she was
offering anything for a better reason.
	This was why you went to professionals, Sam thought as his cock
sunk into Jewel. She was hardly gushing wet with excitement. She knew
her way around that. She was ready, slippery, yet without a hint of
greasiness as Sam parted her meat curtains and pushed inside.
	"Don't take it easy. I like it rough," Jewel encouraged. "I want
to see what it's like when it's rough with a big one."
	Sam was beyond compliments to his size, but he appreciated her
intention. Only he didn't want it rough. He settled tight against her
and judged the room to work. It was cunt. She made him want it. There
was no point in not taking advantage.
	"Oh Holy God! You fill me up! It's so fucking good!"
	Sam worked his cock in her from short to deep. He settled into
deep, short thrusts while she gushed. He let himself believe her cries
of need because it made him hotter. Good cunt. Good, slippery and 
expertly moving cunt that was being just what he needed. Just sex.
Good professional sex.
	"And you take it too?" Jewel asked Darla after he was done, with
perhaps less dishonesty than Sam had assumed. 
	"Outside dimensions are no predictor of inside size," Darla
answered wisely and made Sam think of Amy.
	-----
	"You stink of sex. Darla organize a whore-a-thon for you?" Staci
asked when he walked into his office.
	"Her friend," Sam said. "She didn't have any other way to thank
me."
	Amy furrowed her brow and shook her head. Staci smiled at her.
	"As you go along you find a lot of things that don't fit inside
the way it should be," she said. "Be glad when you find someone that
shares your present understanding and hope someday that becomes a way
to make sense of all the crap that isn't the way it should be."
	It might as well have been Romanian or Finno-Urgic. Amy shrugged.
	"But what is she going to do?" Amy asked. "Those people aren't
going to forget, are they?"
	"I think she's going to accept the deal with the devil," Sam
said. "And I can't say she's wrong."
	Jewel had agreed to make a statement. The court agreed to seal it
until such time as they had a case it applied to. They had enough on
the thug that attacked Amy and Gumby without adding his part in holding
Jewel. The cops offered her protection.
	They'd hide her, find her nice job and keep her safe. Not very
trusting of the police and not excited about answering phones or some
other job she was qualified for, Jewel put them off. Sam brought her
the other offer.
	Gino had a cousin up North. He'd take her in and see to her
safety. It was all Gino's idea.
	"But how can she trust guys like him?" Amy asked.
	"Because they seem more honest to her than cops," Sam said. "She
knows Gino's cousin runs a house. She knows the life she's choosing and
it's familiar."
	"Better than that," Staci added, "Gino's got real motivation to
see she stays healthy and available. She's an ace in his pocket, a
trick up his sleeve. Now he's got something on the Russians and he'll
want to keep it."
	"It seems like she's a chip or something. What happens when this
Gino character wants to make a bargain using her?" Amy still wasn't
convinced.
	"You bring up a good point, along with how much it would hurt
the Russians if she tells what she knows. A couple of guys? I'm sure
they're considering killing them to keep themselves clear. But it's
her choice," Sam said. "She's a good whore. Maybe she figures Gino's
cousin will like her so much that he'll take care of her for that."
	Amy was still confounded, but she glanced at the time and
realized she better be going home to tend her poor Howard-kins. Staci
watched her leave before she turned to Sam.
	"You didn't say much about your meeting with Gino," she said.
"And I don't get the part about her being valuable either."
	"It was pretty much the normal meeting with Gino," Sam said.
"Gino talked and I tried not to be obvious while I sweated. He's taking
it as a sign my heart's in the right place- and I guess that it's okay
if it keeps beating- because of me pissing off the Russians. He offered
to fix the girl up as a favor. But we've already discussed that."
	"And it couldn't possibly be he's really doing something nice?"
Staci asked.
	It seemed Sam was forever balancing Gumby's fire and need to see
Gino pay for all his evil with Staci's softer view.
	"Most likely it's something we can't see," Sam said. "I don't 
think Gino minds doing something that could been seen as good, but I
don't think it's his real motive. It's one of those things about the 
way he works that I don't want to know."
	-----
	"Now I don't want to hurt you..." Amy was saying, "So don't be
brave or something. Tell me right away so I don't start to think it's
a dumb idea."
	Gumby didn't see why that should stop her. He'd had lots of dumb
ideas over the past few days. One of them might have saved them a lot
of trouble. It also accounted for the gash in his side, but that was
a happier outcome than any of the other things that could have gone
wrong.
	No, he reprimanded himself, he shouldn't think of it as a good
thing. He was lucky stupid worked out for him. He felt a little guilty
being rewarded for something that had worked out almost by accident and
could have gone horribly wrong if it hadn't.
	Then he felt ungrateful, not for the way Amy's lips moved
smoothly over his prick, he was very grateful for that. He felt
ungrateful for the restlessness he felt moving in with her. It was too
many changes. It was too much pressure- boo hoo.
	A rush to marriage because his bride-to-be was soon to deliver a
family was pressure. Trying to take it out on everything else because
he didn't want to face how he felt that they didn't have more time-
more planning, was petty. And in the face of the ring of fire they had
just passed through together it seemed smaller yet. 
	So they cut out months of growing together. So they didn't get
things in place before they started a family. That was old news and
not going to change. They had just survived something together that 
made it undeniable that they belonged together. 
	"Stop moving," Amy scolded him. "You've got to lie still and
relax or you'll start bleeding and I'll stop."
	I can't relax when you're doing that," Gumby whined, "It makes
my insides go all crazy."
	"Then maybe I should stop?" Amy asked.
	"Maybe it would be just as good if you lay down beside me and 
held me," Gumby said. "I'd like that too."
	It wasn't the time to tell her he felt better. He hadn't told her
that anything was bothering him. He wrapped her in his arms and willed
his embrace to express his feelings.
	Amy was left to ponder the contradictions that were Howard. He
had been her knight rescuing her, but in a way that was- she had to
admit it- goofy. She knew he was a good man. Loyalty and honor were as
much a part of him as his organs. He shared so many of the traits that
made Sam her hero.
	Yet she also had to admit she understood him being called Gumby.
Right then she was appreciating that slightly dopey part of him. It was
the part that made him gentle and thoughtful, the part that traded sex
for this hug. Together it made up a man Amy knew she could count on.
	She nuzzled her lips along his neck in appreciation. When she was
a mother, she would need that kind of man. It was a natural thing. Most
women got through it, yet she felt an apprehension about the coming
child she had confided to no one. Having Howard made it not as
fearsome.
	"This is like sex," Gumby mumbled as they snuggled. "Only calmer
and it can last for longer. I think right now it's just the thing."
	He was very tired. Finally the tempest of events and emotions had
calmed and the loss of blood was taking its toll. He was safe now in
Amy's arms. The last of the soreness had been removed with his
acceptance of their plight. It was easier when she held him. He felt
like he was where he ought to be.
	Once Amy had thought it romantic to lie in a lover's arms all
night. She had discarded it as childish when she found out how
fullfilling it was to fuck instead. Now she returned to the thought
with a different understanding. The romance was being together. Sex
was a damn nice expression of that, but not the only one.
	Somehow she felt the emotions Gumby had willed into his embrace.
She lay there while he slept sharing the comfort and safety he felt in
her arms. 
	-----
	It was not time to put the pervert away. Or perhaps Alex was no
longer the one to do it. There might be another on his way to kill them
both.
	Alex was well aware of his precarious position. His distaste for
the other man's foiables had finally settled on the one thing he could
blame him for. After all, it was his whore that had made the trouble.
	Stupid Nickoli had betrayed him with carelessness. When Alex and
the freak had returned there was an empty building and no Nickoli and
no whore. The smashed door and broken window told the tale of the 
escape, but Alex had learned no more than Nickoli had been arrested
attacking someone downtown.
	Perhaps the whore and her protector? Nickoli would understand the 
need to retrieve the woman. How he had failed was the mystery. But no
one would be interested in that detail, nor would Nickoli satisfy the
need for an example. Alex stared across the room at the pouting little
man.
	If he was sure they were dead, he could at least kill the pervert
now. It would give him satisfaction before he suffered the same for the
incompetence of Nickoli. But there was hope. Perhaps the pervert
remained valuable, or better, perhaps Alex would be welcomed back and
allowed to dispatch the freak.
	-----
	Actually, it had been almost sane. By comparison to Sam's wildest
exploits, it was a well thought out plan. Compared to Gumby's utter
stupidity, it was cunning. But as she had only sniped at the ill-
advised nature of Gumby's heroics in her fear for Gumby's well-being,
Staci now held back from granting Sam the compliment.
	He'd been well-compensated for his daring, she considered. She
wasn't huffy about Jewel thanking Sam, that wasn't it at all. She was
feeling a bit left out. She didn't bring that up either.
	It never failed. That was why there were cliches. You went along
hoping for more and when it rained it poured. The new surge in Sam's
attention was in that way better than it had ever been. He had the 
energy of youth and applied it with the understanding of age's long
practice.
	Then Darla shows up and in the midst of some of the, if not best
at least most concentrated, fun and games Staci feels a pang of
something nostalgic and lost. She could have easily groaned that the
confusing feelings were all she needed, but it didn't feel that way.
	It felt like unfinished business. At the same time she had no
idea how Darla felt. She knew her little friend well enough to know
Darla would miss the sex like she'd miss warts, but how she might feel
about the lapse seeing each other was beyond guessing.
	"I thought you didn't want to get stains all over your precious
desk," Sam interrupted her thoughts.
	"What?" Staci took a moment to jump from her thoughts to the
present. 
	"You know what's coming," Sam continued, "I know you have to
squawk and bitch, but you know it won't matter. You know what's coming
and it's liable to get messy. So why are you sitting at your desk?"
	"You rescued a whore, Sam. You got your reward for that. I don't
know how you can stretch that to case closed. Where are the Russians?
What were they doing? This isn't over by a long shot," Staci was firm.
	"In that spirit, I'll let you choose another venue, but don't
think I'm going to be put off," Sam didn't relent.
	"You're right about messing up my desk," Staci sighed, rising and
walking to the next room, "But it isn't like you solved anything."
	"Darla wanted to pay me off- on top of what you call my reward,"
Sam said casually, "She was the client. So I say my case is closed."
	"All right. All right, I won't argue with you. Fuck me in the
ass. Get your jollies. I'm just saying..." Staci sighed again and began
to take off her clothes.
	Her thoughts of Darla still lingered. She knew she should be more
in the moment, but she didn't think Sam deserved to think it was over.
She just wasn't in the mood to argue. She was being pensive.
	"Okay, Miss Spoily-pants, be that way," Sam made Staci feel
guilty for her mood, "Just fuck me and when the Russians get me you'll
be sorry."
	She was sorry she chilled his ardor, but he was being silly. The
Russians loomed as a real danger, but he was still being melodramatic.
	"No, no, you want to think it's over. You want to fuck me in the
ass. Just go ahead and do it," Staci sighed one more time.
	Sam's silly came and went. His stubborn was as constant as the
color of his eyes. He wasn't accepting apologies.
	"I'm not in the mood now," he said contrarily. "We'll just fuck.
And you get on top."
	"Look here," Staci said, bending over to put a hand on the bed
and reaching back with the other to pull aside one cheek, "There's
where you want to be. Go ahead. Fuck my ass."
	It was all upside down. She shouldn't be begging for him to
bugger her. She was supposed to- what was it? squawk and bitch and
he was supposed to ignore her. It got weirder still as Staci went
totally masochistic and started to grease her own asshole.
	"See- all ready for your big cock," she invited. "You know you
want it. Don't be a pussy. Fuck it."
	She finally gave in. It was weird. It was so weird she could
understand why Sam would refuse. She didn't like the prissy way he 
kept blaming her, but she understood him passing it up. The mood was
definitely not right.
	"Okay, lay down and I'll fuck you," Staci relented. "But you're
being a prick about this."
	Despite the unsettling way Sam had turned into a sissy, his cock
went from a 'halfsie' to real steel as he lay waiting for Staci to
climb over him. She was relieved that Sam hadn't settled on a total
role reversal. True, she was embracing her aggressive urges more, but 
she didn't want to carry the load. She still needed Sam to be in charge
most of the time. She only liked to flip occasionally for a change.
	Under her, Sam groaned in total satisfaction as she settled down
on his cock. It wasn't just the feel of Staci's cunt surrounding him.
It wasn't just tricking her. It was that she didn't have a clue.
	"What is this?" Staci squawked as she got her first clue.
	Sam had reached under her arms and grabbed her shoulders, pulling
her down until her cushiony tits were smashed against his chest. He was
holding her tight and all the alarms were going off.
	"It's all about arrogant cunts that woo you with promises of love
and then abandon you when they've got theirs."
	Staci wasn't sure if the chill she felt was thrill or fear. She
had been snookered, horn-swaggled, grifted and so totally she was
embarrassed. And her ass was up in the air open and vulnerable. She
didn't have to look to know Darla was sporting a familiar purple dildo.
	"Darla?" Staci gulped.
	"I might not have solved the case to your satisfaction, but Darla
was ready to close it," Sam managed to get out between chortles.
	"It's not going to be so much closing as opening," Darla contradicted Sam as she came up behind Staci and centered her purple
dong.
	"Not both of you!" Staci yelped from the border of panic and lust. "It'll be too much!"	
	"It's just me," Darla said just before Staci's howl as the dildo
shouldered into her anus. "You're my bitch now. He's only here because
that's what he wanted for payment."
	Staci had no more to say. Thoughts of the wonderful treachery
spawned by Sam and Darla, the total shock and the insidious perversion,
were swirled in with the immense intrusion. She could only grunt with
content as their nasty trick warmed her heart and the mix of suffering,
shame and the physical surging domination of her body warmed her loins.
	###