NOTE: I hereby grant permission for all archiving and
other uses of this work, public or private, free or
paid, in any format whether existing now or to be
invented in the future, so long as a copy of this note
and credit to "theGreatxIam" is given and no alteration
is made to the body of the work. Copyright 2002,
theGreatxIam

The Fish Tank
in honor of ASSDÕs FishTank
Chapter 4 (of 5)
By theGreatxIam

TV Guide, bitter about having to pull millions of
copies with Jon and Janelle on the cover, took it out
on Pete and Des.

The editors sicced their best investigators on the
pair. These were the sleuths who had uncovered Jennifer
Aniston's favorite ice cream flavor, the shami who told
the world that Eddie, the "Frasier" dog, was a son of a
bitch.

True, it wasn't much of a track record, but then TV
Guide didn't usually go in for hard-hitting exposes.
This was different, though. This was money.

Pete got off fairly easy, even so. He was what he said
he was: a 48-year-old bachelor with a history of serial
monogamies, a modest career as a free-lance writer
after 20 years at a variety of trade magazines the like
of "Small Animal Veterinary Assistants Monthly." He had
no family left except a distant cousin in Pittsburgh
who had him confused with her ex-husband's nephew, the
nephrologist.

There were several speeding tickets, all paid, and a
fistfight with a current boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend
in college, but he'd already divulged all those things
during the course of the show. It appeared, as far as
TV Guide could tell, that Pete had no skeletons left in
his closet because he'd flung them all out into the
open.

Des was a different matter. She had said nary a word
about her past on the show, and the biography provided
in the publicity packet was scarce. Husband? No.
Children? No. Job? Retired. When the publicist had
called her up, after she'd been chosen, and asked,
"Retired from what?," there had been no pause at all
before Des's answer: "Working."

The magazine editors were sure something juicy was
hiding behind all those one-word answers. A term in
prison, perhaps? That hard-bitten exterior would fit
perfectly in "women in chains" movies, and the "Tank"
producers' background checks might have missed a thing
or two. A sex change? For a little woman, she did have
a deep voice. Secret Satanic rituals? A stint in a New
Orleans whorehouse? There had to be something.

This kind of imagination, let the reader note well, is
what comes of watching too much TV.

The editors were disappointed. Des had no skeletons --
not the scandalous metaphoric ones they were looking
for, anyway.

What she had was an older sister who had run away to
join the circus -- at 23, leaving behind two children.
Des had raised them and looked after her ailing parents
while going through a succession of small-town jobs
just ahead of rounds of layoffs. Her relatives said she
was too busy for a relationship. The rest of the town
said she was too demanding, too persnickety, too smart.
The man she'd been engaged to when her sister ran off
refused to talk, and the boy and girl she'd raised said
she'd asked them not to.

It wasn't juicy, but with the right twist on the
headlines it sold magazines.

---- ---- ----

Being described as too demanding at least reduced the
sympathy factor for Des, but she still wasn't pleased
by the article.

"Too demanding?" She threw the magazine across the
living room. "Yes, I was demanding. I demanded a man
have half a brain. I demanded he have some plans for
his life beyond nickel beer night at the VFW next
Saturday. I demanded he have some knowledge of sex
beyond what he and his buddy did behind the barn when
Mommy wasn't looking."

Pete laughed. "So the guys back home weren't your
type?"

"No, they ... Wait a minute. Don't you hand me that
sympathy crap now."

"No sympathy. I'm just curious about what it takes to
please a woman like you."

"Takes a hell of a lot more than you got, buster."

"No doubt. Though I've satisfied a woman or two in my
time."

Her eyes glittered. "Two? Let's not exaggerate. There's
your mama and who else?"

He pursed his lips. "Tough talk. I bet you scared the
hell out of the good ole boys at the feed store.
Meanwhile I was getting rave reviews from the women I
met."

She tossed her head and snorted. "Did you have to pay
them extra to say they liked it? Or did they throw it
in as a freebie?"

"How droll," he said. "Is that an example of the
rapier-like wit that was lost on the local yokels back
home?"

She glared at him.

"Cat got your tongue?," he sneered. "Like it got those
two kids who couldn't be bothered to defend you?"

"Leave my kids out of this!"

"Your kids?" He raised his eyebrows. "Rather
possessive, aren't we? Ah, but then possession is
nine-tenths of the law. Pity no man ever found you
attractive enough to slip you the other tenth so you
could have a kid of your own."

"And they say I'm a bitch. Is that the charm that won
you a wife? Oh, wait, that's right. You never got
married either."

"Yeah. That's me, the pot calling Ma Kettle black.
Except, of course --"

"Except what?"

"Except Ma Kettle didn't wear tight T-shirts so the
world could see what a hot old lady she was."

Des looked down and cursed. Her nipples were bulging
into the thin fabric of her shirt. She crossed her arms
in front of her chest. "It's cold in here," she said.

"I'm comfortable," he said, uncrossing his legs.

She laughed. "Is that your ego in your pocket or are
you just glad to see me?"

The crotch of his shorts was, indeed, tented. He
grinned broadly. "If you're going to put up a
billboard," he said, "you have to expect somebody's
going to pop up to look at it."

"What's that, your best line? I bet that pulled them in
down at your corner meat market."

"I didn't need lines," he said. "Not when I have the
old Jack-in-the-box here."

"You can jack Jack yourself, pal. You're not getting
into this box." But she did keep looking.

---- ---- ----

Not a single light was on inside the Tank, but it was
lit softly by the glow from a hundred candles outside.
The diehard fans who called themselves Ichthyologists
had made a ritual of their all-night vigils.

Refracted and reflected by a dozen planes, the candles
twinkled like stars when seen from inside the house. A
writer who spent a night inside once said that was what
it would have felt like to be adrift on a spaceship in
the middle of the Milky Way. It was a touching line,
although his editor took it out because she didn't
understand why someone would be flying through nougat.

The master bedroom was at the very center of the house,
where the effect was most pronounced. There, lying in
bed -- a very comfortable bed, with silk sheets and
firm but yielding pillows -- Des was on her side,
facing Pete.

They had shared the king-sized bed for several nights
by then. Des has made a fuss at first of firmly
enforcing a borderline between her side of the bed and
his. When even a corner of one of his pillows slipped
across, she shoved it back with fury.

But that night her hand crept across the invisible
line. Her leg slowly slid toward him. When he rolled
over and bumped into her, waking up, he protested that
she was on his half.

That was patently true, but she flatly denied it. They
bickered. He pointed to the middle of the headboard,
then to her hand. "My side," he said. "There's the
line."

"Ah," she said, "but there's my side, your side, and
then the part in the middle. No-man's land."

Pete frowned. "No-man's land? But you're in it."

She stretched and the lace of her short black nightgown
failed to completely cover her. "Yes," she said, "but,
then, I'm not a man, am I?"

He smiled, and his boxers showed evidence that she had
not lost her appeal.

They talked quietly about nothing much. Her hand made
its way to his hair. His slipped onto her thigh. Color
rose in her cheeks.

The talk died a natural death. Their caresses grew
bolder. They kissed.

It was not, as rumors among the Ichthyologists later
had it, an explosion of passion after that. They still
moved slowly, but slow and steady can get you around
the bases, too.

She sighed when his lips at last touched her breast. He
groaned when her hands moved inside his shorts.

The sheets rustled as they moved together. She opened
her legs. He rolled between them. They made intimate
contact.

And he pulled away.

Her eyes snapped open. She reached out to him. He
rolled all the way over to the far edge of the bed.

"What's wrong?," she asked, talking to his back.

"You deserve better," he said. "I'm not good enough for
you. A crumb like me? Please."

"No," she said, "no, it was good. It will be good.
Don't leave me hanging like this."

Pete rolled onto his back and spoke to the ceiling.
"You want me? YOU want ME?"

"Yes," she said, "yes."

"Tell me."

"What? Oh. I want you."

"No, that's not it."

"I don't understand -- like this? I want you, lover. I
need you inside me, now. Come to me, fill me up!"

He sighed. "No. That's not it."

"Tell me what you want! Should I talk dirty? Squeal
like a schoolgirl? Be shy like a virgin? What?"

"You need to apologize."

"Apolo -- for what?"

"For all the nasty things you've said about me. For all
the arguments. For all of it."

"Are you kidding? We're just having sex here, not
reaching a peace treaty."

"OK, then, if you don't want --"

"Yes," she said, "yes, fine. I'm sorry. I apologize. I
shouldn't have said those things. I'm sorry I hurt you.
I'm sorry."

He rolled away again.

"Hey!" Des poked him in the back. "What gives?"

"You weren't sincere," he said, and went to sleep.

---- ---- ----

Pete brought her breakfast the next morning, oatmeal
and fresh fruit. She watched him warily, but he showed
no sign that anything was amiss.

He had done the laundry and he bustled around the
bedroom putting things away. He even put her clothes on
padded hangers.

He was like that all day, thoughtful, helpful,
friendly. They talked a lot about their pasts -- the
producers had abandoned the idea of giving them daily
tasks and challenges after Pete read them the Riot Act,
so the two of them had a lot of time on their hands.

Des was hesitant at first, watching him carefully,
speaking slowly as if choosing every word. But he never
turned on her, was always charming. And he could be
very charming. The stories he told about his childhood
had her laughing so hard she fell off his lap.

By dinner time, they were best buddies, chopping celery
and husking corn side by side.

The change could be traced in the crowd outside, too.
It had thinned out. For the first time all season,
there were gaps in the line along the walls.

Like kids who get bored with their ant farms, some
people tried to stir things up. But "Des: Pete Wouldn't
Fuck You If You Were the Last Woman on Earth" didn't
get a rise, not even when the signholder held it to the
wall right in front of her and screamed his lungs out.
And the two teen-aged girls who wrote "She says you
can't get it up" in lipstick on the side of the house
only got puzzled frowns. It might have helped if they'd
written it to face inward so the people in the house
could read it.

Nothing seemed to break the era of good feeling that
had fallen over the Tank like a wet blanket.

That night, as she got ready for bed, Des selected a
red nightgown so wispy that two very respectable
businessmen were caught dry-humping trees along the
side of the house. She paraded it in front of Pete,
whose black silk boxers showed his appreciation.

They turned out the lights and the candles outside made
the night glow again. It was as romantic as living in a
fish tank could get. Or it was until a couple of guys
set up klieg lights outside that spotlit the coosome
twosome like the center ring in the circus.

Pete gallantly drew the covers over them, so all the
audience could see -- those whose retinas weren't
immediately fried by the kliegs -- was movements under
the covers, like rats in a sack (to use the metaphor of
one disappointed watcher). And a minute or two later,
when a neighbor discovered the extension cords snaking
into his back porch and pulled the plugs, the crowd
couldn't even see that.

What they missed under the covers was more of the same
from the night before -- tender kisses grown hungry,
groping hands finding their targets.

The temperature rose quickly. Des pulled her nightgown
over her head and pressed her body to Pete's.

"This feels so good," she said. "Why did we wait so
long?"

Pete had no answer. His lips were busy on her neck.

They touched. They caressed. Her nipples grew hard and
pressed into his sweaty chest. She wrapped her legs
around him, pulling him closer, rubbing against the
erection that throbbed inside his shorts.

"You were so nice today," she said. "Do you want a
treat?"

"Depends on the treat," he said.

"Well, it's some of this --" Her lips fluttered kisses
down his chest. "And some of this." Her hand slid under
the waistband of his boxers and over his manhood. "Mmm,
I think you like that."

As her kisses came down his body, she peeled off his
shorts. She ran the rubbery head of his penis along her
cheeks, letting the sticky fluid leaking out of him
trail along her face.

She began with light kisses all over the shaft, like
raindrops on a sunny day. Then she licked him,
especially along the ridge on the bottom, as his breath
came in bushelfuls.

Her hands closed around his rod as her pursed lips
touched the top. She pressed down, little by little,
making her mouth engulf him. Her tongue swirled over
the tip, a ballerina's solo.

Pete's hands grabbed fistfuls of the silk sheet. His
toes curled and his back arched as Des slowly, slowly
took him in.

Her cheeks hollowed as she ministered to him, slipping
him deeper and deeper inside, then bringing him out
with her lips still tight to his flesh.

His hands found her head. Fingers entwined in her hair,
he pressed her onto his shaft. He began to moan, rising
in pitch, and then it cut off abruptly.

Des gulped, pulled off gently, milked him with her
hands and licked his shrinking rod clean.

When his hands dove between her thighs, she opened
herself to him swiftly, rolling onto her back.

He twisted around until his body was between her legs.
He began to nuzzle the soft skin of her inner thighs.
She sighed and brushed her fingers through his hair.

He approached her center slowly but was drawn to it
like a bee to a flower. The light brush of his
fingertips along her opening made her flush. She
trembled as his tongue came closer and closer. Musky
odors rose. Her hips swung upward, chasing
satisfaction.

He pulled back, sliding his head back out from under
the covers.

By the time Des had curled around and poked her head
out as well, Pete was propped up on his pillows,
reaching to the nightstand for a glass of water.

Her voice was soft and pleading. "What's wrong? What
happened?"

"It wasn't good enough," he said quietly.

"It -- you mean me? But, I -- you --"

"I wasn't good enough. My technique's all wrong. I
don't have the moves. I couldn't please you."

She reached out to him. He flinched.

"No," she said, "you were great. Magnificent! Just do
what you were doing. Or perhaps --" She brushed his leg
with hers.

"Don't lie," he said. "I can't please the ladies that
way."

"Oh, Pete! No! Believe me, I loved it. Any lady would."

He sniffed. "Then, when you're a lady, perhaps you'll
be so entertained."

She pulled back and snarled. "What kind of sick joke is
this? Are you schizo or what? You want me, you don't
want me. You like me, you hate me. It's like living
with Sybil. God, what a jerk."

"That's the attitude that cost you your pleasure," Pete
said. "No wonder you never married. Who would want such
a disagreeable woman in his bed every night?"

"Listen, you. Stop this crap. I'm not stupid. I'm no
child --"

"That's true enough."

"Bastard. Look, if you can't take me, go screw
yourself. And I mean that literally. I've had far
better lovers than you, and they weren't so namby-pamby
that they couldn't put up with my talk. Yeah, and what
I have is worth it, too, pal. Or did you forget that
little job you just got? And that wasn't even my best.

"I've got moves that would make your eyes pop and your
balls start swinging like church bells. But, hey, if
you can't cope with a real woman, take a hike."

"You're right," Pete said when she finally took a
breath.

"Of course I am," she said. "So can we skip all the
nonsense and just get to it?"

"You're right to reject me," he said. "I couldn't
satisfy you. Why try?"

"Oh, for the love of -- Are we back to this again? Come
off it. We're two healthy adults. And we're stuck in
here for another eight days. Let's enjoy ourselves."

She reached across the mattress and found his penis
hard again. She squeezed it softly. "Looks like he
still wants to play."

She grabbed his hand, tugged it toward her crotch.
"Let's go," she said, and her voice had developed a
whiny tone. "You can't get me all hot and bothered and
just drop it. I'm no teen queen but I can still make
you feel good. Come on!"

Pete pulled away, carefully extracting himself from her
grasp. He grabbed his pillows as he got out of bed.

"Where are you going?" Des sat up, the sheet falling
from her breasts.

Pete didn't answer as he walked out of the room.

She was breathing hard as she watched his silhouette
go. Her eyes blazed.

Then she drove a fist into the mattress and fell back
against the pillows. Into the night she muttered
harshly.

"Cunt-tease," she said. 

To be continued...

For the complete story and more, visit
/~theGreatxIam
For more about the FishTank, a place for writers to get
feedback, visit
/~Desdmona/FishTank/base/index.html