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Subject: {ASSM} (REV) Twenty-Five Pairs 10/18 by Rachael Ross (SciFi, Rom, Advent,  Oral, Anal, Med, rache)
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25 Pairs
Copyright 2006-2009 Rachael Ross all rights reserved.
rache696@yahoo.com
Fiction by Rachael Ross
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Twenty-Five Pairs - Chapter Ten
Merritt Island, Florida 2025



    "Oops! Hi." I smiled at the uniformed marine as I slipped out of
Allen's room. His name was Walter and he loved NCAA basketball, his
wife, and rhubarb pie. In that order, or so he claimed.

    "Good morning, Doctor Pinchbeck," he nodded at me, looking up from
his Sports Illustrated.

    "Is it morning already?" I rolled my eyes and Walter chuckled, and
all the guards knew about Allen and me. Our affair was a very badly
kept secret. I made my way to my own room, hoping for a couple hours
sleep anyway.

    Or maybe just a long hot bath. I needed less sleep than most
people and like many things about me, I wondered if that was my DNA or
just...me? I had no way of knowing, and it was probably both, but I did
enjoy the convenience of being able to get by on just a few hours rest
out of a very busy day, maybe one full night's sleep out of every four
or five. My energy seemed to be wearing Major Fuller a bit thin
however, and that made me giggle while I soaked in my tub.

    Our rooms at the crew's quarters were VIP apartments really;
single bedroom, full bath, a study, living room and small kitchen. We
had our own guards, our own catering and maid service. We even had our
own secretaries, for lack of a better word. Warden was one that came
to mind and my own was a sunny and attractive young woman named Rio,
as in river. She'd come Stateside from Puerto Rico and she had the
binder memorized, being the bright, vivacious girl she was.

    "You've got zero-G evac procedures all morning. Lunch with Dale
Watersman, twelve to one..."

    "Who?" I looked up from my breakfast.

    "Watersman? He's with Time magazine, they're running the profiles
every week for two months, starting in October. Remember? Your studio
session is in three weeks..."

    "Studio?" I frowned.

    "For the cover?" Rio wrinkled her pert Hispanic nose, tapping her
small computer. "You get, um...The week of November third. I want an
autograph on mine."

    "I just want to go to Mars," I sighed and I'd grossly
underestimated the amount of public relations work I'd have to endure
on this job.

    "Playboy still wants to know if you'll do the February 2026
issue," Rio laughed. "They sent a check for five million by courier,
all you have to do is sign for it."

    "Where is it?"

    "I sent it back," she rolled her eyes and I nodded. "After lunch
more evacuation drills, in the tank with Doctor Chin."

    "Evacuating a space ship twenty-three light years from earth?" I
sighed. "What's the point? Chin doing the Playboy thing?"

    "No," Rio smiled. "They didn't ask her, so far as I know."

    "Oh, she's gonna be mad. Don't say anything."

    "I won't. Then tonight, dinner with..."

    "I won't be making dinner," I shook my head. "Whatever you've got
tonight, cancel it."

    "You've got a meeting with the people from Mayo, the
teleconference..."

    "Reschedule it," I told her. "I'm unavailable tonight."

    "Why?" she looked at me.

    "Personal reasons," I said. "Nothing goes in your book,
understand? Call it...Female problems, okay?"

    "Jen..." Rio sighed.

    "I'm serious, take my calls after five until...Whenever. I'm busy."
I stared at the girl until she nodded and Rio was a good assistant,
but she wasn't going to be very happy with a blank spot in her diary.

    "I need a number," she told me and that was an argument I wouldn't
win.

    "I'll be in Maryland, up at Bethesda," I said, going back to my
breakfast. "I have a friend in the hospital."

    "Alright," she nodded.

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

    "So, how does it feel to be the world's first xenobiologist?" Dale
Watersman was older, in his fifties and smart. He could be quite
charming, with a generous smile and pleasant voice. We'd been talking
for thirty minutes already and I'd found myself enjoying our little
lunch.

    "Heh," I smiled at him. "Well, I'm not a xenobiologist yet. We
have to find something first."

    "Sure, but you have to be pretty excited about it, Doctor."

    "I'm very excited, yeah," I nodded and this was all well
practiced. "Part of the mission is obviously to search for and find
extraterrestrial organisms. Such a discovery would be the achievement
of a lifetime and a credit not to me, but to all those people who have
contributed in so many ways to create this opportunity."

    "Sure," Dale smiled and he'd heard that before. "So what makes you
qualified, Dr. Pinchbeck? Why were you selected for this mission?"

    "Xenobiology," I laughed lightly and took a sip of wine. "When the
requirements were being drafted, some big brains at IAS in Princeton
and the Rand people, the Thinkers, they had to define what Xenobiology
meant."

    "What skills a xenobiologist would need, you mean?"

    "Yeah, exactly," I agreed. "And so among other things, a
background in genetics, immunology, virology, ummm...Biochemistry..."

    "And you're a geneticist..."

    "Yes. I'm also a virologist, that was my first specialty and so I
naturally have a strong background in..."

    "A virologist, right," Watersman jumped on that like he'd been
waiting for it. "And you worked for the Army, yes? At Centers for
Disease Control in Atlanta. What did you do there, Doctor?"

    "I worked on IDSR, Infectious Diseases Survey and Response," I
told him. "I headed up a team of international doctors and scientists
to manage viral outbreaks worldwide. It was...hard work, but rewarding."

    "Sure," Watersman nodded. "And so that's the response part, the
survey part though...I understand you did some work for Fort Dietrich?
What was that about?"

    "Oh, that's, uh, not a subject I'm able to discuss really," I
cleared my throat. "I'm sure the Pentagon can answer that better than
I can."

    "Well, I asked the Pentagon and they told me that, among other
things, you were on special assignment through your office at CDC to
something called Project Tempest."

    "There you have it," I smiled at him and let the awkward silence
hang.

    "May I ask what Project Tempest was?"

    "Tempest was part of a United Nations joint initiative to
catalogue infectious disease in developing nations and produce a
vaccination program that would be effective against a broad spectrum
of contagions."

    "That's pretty...broad, Doctor," Watersman chuckled.

    "I'm not at liberty to discuss the details, that has to come from
World Health Organization and...I'm sorry."

    "The Christian Science Monitor, last month, reported that the
Central Intelligence Agency may have been subverting UN sponsored
programs to conduct field exercises in biological warfare..."

    "I'm sure I don't have any comment on that," I said behind my
frozen smile.

    "Was Tempest part of..."

    "Tempest was a viable program directly administered by the World
Health Organization to the benefit of 34 countries and some three
billion people, sir." I leaned forward, staring the man in the eyes.
"I'd suggest you take these questions up with Geneva rather than
spreading rumors which can only undermine the efforts and sacrifice of
so many good people."

    "I see," Watersman pursed his lips.

    "Our time's about up," Rio was right there to save me, leaning
close and touching my shoulder.

    "Right," I nodded up at her.

    "I'm sorry, Mr. Watersman. I'm afraid Dr. Pinchbeck does have a
schedule to keep," Rio smiled at the reporter who was looking
decidedly unhappy.

    "Thanks for the ambush, Dale," I stood up. "I won't forget it."

    "Hey, nothing personal, Jen..." he said, but I was already walking
away.

    "If Time Magazine ever calls..." I looked at Rio, "...for anything?
Tell them to fuck off and die."

    "No problem," she frowned and Rio was a little unhappy with
Watersman herself.

    Tempest was secure, I knew that anyway, but still...It would be bad
if any trace of the project, the real project I'd run through CIA/
DARPA, was ever exposed. I hadn't lied, not exactly, but the details
of my work were necessarily secret. The irony was that my long
involvement with the government was both my ticket into the Deep Space
Survey and a very large black mark on my record. A lot of the
scientists, those in the academic community at least, had little
enough love for governments and I'd taken a beating as my application
had been advanced through the screening process.

    Strange as it may seem, being selected for the biggest scientific
endeavor in human history was as much a popularity contest as anything
else. That's why I was doing fluff, like interviews for Time magazine,
to sell myself to the public, as much as selling the program itself.
Watersman had taken advantage of his opportunity and I understood
that, but I very much resented it as well. The man should be careful
though, some rocks just aren't meant to be looked under and I'd found
myself liking Mr. Watersman.

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

    "Acute myelocytic leukemia." I flipped through the medical chart
and it was all bad news. "They're giving you monoclonal antibodies..."

    "And chemotherapy." The old man looked tired, pale and thin.
Hardly dapper anymore.

    "And chemo," I nodded.

    "Be glad you'll never suffer this, my dear." Mr. Fox closed his
eyes for a moment.

    I pulled a chair close to his bed.

    "It's undignified." He opened them again, looking at me as I sat
close. "I heard you had an interesting lunch."

    "Oh? You heard about that, huh?" I wasn't surprised.

    "A little bird told me," he sighed, the air rattling out of his
lungs.

    "Watersman tried to hit me with Tempest," I shrugged. "There's
nothing there."

    "I know." He closed his eyes again.

    "Does it hurt?" I glanced up at his I.V. and he was getting
meperidine already.

    "Oh yes," he smiled. "You received my gift."

    "The files?" I nodded. "There was more than I expected."

    "Hmmm....I should have kept some then." He licked his thin white
lips. "Death is an unfinished business."

    "The immunotherapy might work," I said moving to rise. "You need
to rest."

    "No. Stay...Ask me what you came here for."

    "I came to see you." I settled back into the chair.

    "Too soon for that," he chuckled softly. "You came to ask me
something. Like a good daughter."

    He sighed and I looked at him for several minutes.

    "Where's Ronald?" I asked gently.

    "It's in the files," Mr. Fox breathed, but he was avoiding the
question and perhaps on his deathbed the old man had found a
conscience.

    "Not the baby," I shook my head. "Abduction of the placenta in the
second trimester? I don't believe that either."

    "I knew you wouldn't." His eyes were closed again and I wished
he'd look at me.

    "Where's my brother?"

    "I told them," he breathed slowly. "They always underestimate
you."

    "Mr. Fox..."

    "He's gone, Jennifer." His eyes opened and the old man turned his
head. "I couldn't do anything."

    I looked down and felt a great sadness inside.

    "I saved you." He made a satisfied sound deep in his frail chest.
"I got you in, they can't touch you now."

    "What do you mean? DSS?"

    "Yes." He coughed softly and looked at a cup with a straw in it.

    I held it to his lips and he nodded gratefully while he took a
small sip.

    "What to do with you?" Mr. Fox smiled. "You frighten them, you
see? After all this time..."

    "You tried to talk me out of it."

    "Only because I knew I couldn't, darling girl." He reached for my
hand, barely stretching his limb and I gave the man my fingers to
hold.

    "And you got me in," I frowned.

    "It wasn't easy," he barely nodded. "Everything is so hard these
days. It's good to sleep."

    "And I thought you just wanted a failsafe."

    "I do." His grey eyes weren't dulled by the cancer or the pain and
he looked right through me. "You're going because you're the best."

    "Oh, you're sneaky," I sighed. "Now I don't know what to believe."

    "Believe in yourself, dear." He closed his eyes.

    "Goodbye, Mr. Fox." I let the old man go and I was free of him
now. He'd given me that much at least, after taking away everything
else.

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

    Ronald was in the files, but only as a number. An experiment
terminated after twenty-two years, three months, and seventeen days.
It had taken me two hours to find it and then it was just a bad
photocopy of an interagency memo.

    More than ten years spent with one eye always open, hoping to spot
him through a window, or walking down the street. I could close both
of them now. My brother was dead.

    I drank a lot. Too much and I cried. For Ronald, for our baby, for
my parents. I cried for me and I felt almost better afterwards, but
not really. Nothing was changed. I had two cartons of files, my whole
life on paper. From my mother's original request for a research grant,
now classified top secret/compartmented information to the TSCI order
terminating the project less than an hour after public announcement of
my selection as a scientific member of the Deep Space Survey.

    I'd become untouchable then and I understood that some of those
persons responsible for my existence were anxious to see me
terminated. Not for any specific reason, merely for insurance. Tying
up loose ends, as it were. Mr. Fox had saved me and so far as anyone
would ever know, I no longer worked for him or the CIA, or anyone but
NASA. But I did and that was our little secret. The one Mr. Fox would
soon take to the grave and I would take into the depths of space.

    That was more responsibility than a half-drunk, genetically
engineered, 28 year old woman needed at two o'clock in the morning.

    "Hello?"

    "Hey sleepyhead," I giggled into the phone, feeling cheered at the
sound of his sleep slurred voice.

    "Hey new girl," Josh sighed happily. "I was just dreaming about
you."

    "Liar."

    "Well..."

    "Don't stop though," I whispered, curling up on my bed, hugging my
teddy bear to my breasts. "I like it."

    "Yeah, we were by the river," Josh chuckled and he was coming more
awake. "Having a picnic lunch."

    "Oh, yeah," I closed my eyes, wanting to see it.

    "You were still thirteen though, strangest thing."

    "Really? How old were you?"

    "My age," Josh sighed. "Thirty-three and all I could do was look
at you."

    "Ohhh..." I pouted, "What kind of dream is that?"

    "You woke me up, remember?" he laughed lightly. "I was just
reaching for you too."

    "What a tease," I smiled into the phone.

    "You were wearing that green dress you used to have. The one
with..."

    "The yellow flowers?" I giggled. "God! That was horrible!"

    "No, no...I loved that dress."

    "You never told me," I sighed. "I would have worn it more often."

    "You should have," Josh agreed. "When you used to lean over, the
top would fall open and..."

    "What?" I gasped happily.

    "Yeah, you didn't know that?" he laughed. "I always thought you
did it on purpose."

    "Oh no." I closed my thighs on my bear, my big one from Germany.
"You saw me...What? All of me?"

    "Oh yeah. Those hard little nipples you used to have, like Bazooka
bubblegum."

    "Bazooka?" I rolled my eyes.

    "God yeah, Jen. I thought that was the sexiest thing in the
world," Josh said. "Looking down your dress."

    "Hmmm...I miss you."

    "I miss you too. What are you doing now?"

    "Hugging my bear, lying in bed."

    "No..." he chuckled, "...I mean the astronaut stuff, what are you guys
doing?"

    "Oh, boring stuff. We have to know how the spaceship works and
what to do if we drive into the moon and..."

    "Yeah," Josh chuckled. "You have to come back."

    "I know."

    "Will you marry me, Jen?"

    "Yeah," I giggled.

    "I'm serious," Josh swallowed hard and I smiled. "Will you be my
wife?"

    "You can't ask me a question like that over the phone."

    "I could come there and ask," Josh said. "My truck's working
good."

    "Heh!" I laughed. "You can't even find the gas to start it, how
are you going to drive all the way to Florida?"

    "My old man stashed a five hundred gallon tank at the mill," Josh
chuckled. "He said he wasn't ever gonna drive plastic."

    "He never did either, I bet."

    "Nope. Pop never did."

    "Well, save your gas for when I come back, okay?" I said, feeling
a little sad suddenly. "They won't let me go if I get married."

    "I know," Josh laughed.

    "Ohhh...I see now," I laughed with him. "Trying to pull a fast one
on me."

    "I'm just an old dirty saw tooth, baby."

    "Lookin' for some love," I giggled. "I know."

    "I found it once," the man sighed. "I just want it back."

    "It never left," I promised him. "I love you so much."

    "I could still come out," Josh said. "Even if I can't marry you."

    "Do you want to?" I asked and I suddenly wanted to see him
desperately.

    "Of course I do."

    "We go in quarantine in a month," I bit my lip.

    "Why?"

    "Ninety days before the launch, just to make sure we're healthy,"
I told him. "Make sure we don't catch anything before we leave earth."

    "In a month?" Josh asked and he didn't wait for an answer. "I'll
fly out this weekend, okay?"

    "Yeah," I agreed with a happy giggle. "I'll have to go shopping."

    "Shopping?"

    "For a green dress!" I laughed.

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

    "How's your trauma, Doctor?" Nielson was looking at me and we were
entering the mockup of the ship's sickbay and medical labs.

    "I interned at Baltimore General," I shrugged. "The emergency room
was an awful lot like World War Three."

    "I bet," he snorted appreciatively. Baltimore General Hospital was
in the bad part of town and Johns Hopkins liked to send its best and
brightest there to be humbled.

    "How's yours?" I asked the man.

    "Rusty," Nielson admitted. "But there's two of us and only six of
them, so we'll be okay."

    He watched me as I closed the two airlock pressure doors, because
that lab had been designed to be an exact and functional replica of
the real one. It was a level four biosafety facility, although not
certified of course, meaning it could safely store the most lethal
contagions known to man. Safely was always a relative term however;
the word didn't exist in the lexicon of virologists. We called it an
ARF...an Acceptable Risk Facility and I wanted to demonstrate that to
Dr. Nielson. We needed to have a chat before it was too late and I'd
been putting it off.

    "Here." I unzipped a breast pocket on my NASA jumpsuit and pulled
out a sealed vial, like a test tube.

    "What's this?" He took it from me and examined the contents. It
looked like dead blood, black and congealed.

    "I'll give you five minutes to find out," I looked at my watch. "I
treated the stopper with a sulfuric acid solution. That was seven
minutes ago."

    "What?" He blinked at me and then looked at the vial, noting the
deterioration in the rubber seal just as I'd promised.

    "Time's wasting doctor," I shrugged. "That gets out and they'll
have to take a flamethrower to this place."

    "Shit." He was moving then, I was pleased to see, and the doctor
seemed almost competent in a lab.

    "Been awhile, huh?" I leaned against an empty worktable mounted to
the bulkhead, crossed my arms and watched Nielson prepare a vacuum
chamber.

    "What do I need to know about this?" he frowned.

    "It will kill you."

    "Great." He wasn't shaking at least, but he might have thought it
was just a drill too. Hard telling for certain and I'd seen some very
competent physicians lose it completely when they looked at death
through the naked eye. A few people thrived on it and most everyone
else fell right in the middle, like Dr. Nielson apparently.

    "Keep going, you still have three minutes to get it under glass."

    "I'm not going to identify it in three minutes." He looked at the
vial which was now safely stored in a portable containment chamber at
least. The rubber could melt and the virus wasn't going anywhere. That
was the easy part.

    "Not if you're talking to me," I smiled. "Come on, Zach's dying!
We have to know what's killing him."

    "I'm a surgeon," he grumbled, moving the chamber carefully by
hand. Theoretically the small box could be dropped from twenty feet
onto solid concrete and remain fully viable, but who wanted to find
out? Dr. Nielson was being very careful.

    It was a simple procedure really, and one any second year medical
student would be all too familiar with. Preparing a sample for
computer analysis and another sample as a slide to be looked at under
a microscope. If you were a shit hot lab tech you could get a slide
done in just a few minutes, even with using the remotes. Some
technicians preferred the robotic hands, others liked to use gloves.
Dr. Nielson was a hands on guy, so he was using a glove box and his
time was...

    "Up! That's it," I sighed theatrically. "Zach's dead."

    "This was fun," the older man frowned at me.

    "Keep, going. See what you got," I said. "We're going to have to
work on our lab skills."

    "I know," Nielson agreed, a little easier than I thought he would,
but the man knew as well as I did that if we found life in space, it
wasn't going to look like a little green man. It was going to look
like...

    "That's...a shepherd's crook." Nielson looked up from the electron
microscope ten minutes later and I could see what he was looking at on
a computer monitor next to him.

    "Uh-huh," I nodded pointing at the screen. "That's the RNA strand,
see the envelope? With the spikes? That's what's left of the original
host cell. In this case, heart tissue from a rhesus monkey."

    "That's hemorrhagic fever," Nielson swallowed hard.

    "Ebola-Reston," I nodded.

    "Are you crazy?" he stared at me.

    "It's harmless," I shrugged. "But still, better safe than sorry,
right Doctor?"

    "You could have jeopardized the entire mission," Nielson's face
was red. "What if it had gotten out?"

    "Then you wouldn't have belonged on the crew, Doctor," I told him.
"Have you seen my Mission Brief?"

    "Yours?" he blinked at me. "No. I haven't. Why..."

    "The short version is that in event of crew exposure to
unidentified biological organism I'm to take every possible step to
isolate, catalogue, and retain a sample of the organism."

    "Okay."

    "All other considerations, including crew safety are secondary to
that objective." I watched his face. "If that means I have to walk
around with a hot sample in my pocket just to find out if you can back
me up, I'll fucking do it."

    "I want to see that Brief," Nielson swallowed hard.

    "You understand why this isn't in a binder, don't you?" I asked
him. "Why it isn't in the press kit, or up for discussion in one of
our scientific working groups. This is between you and me, Doctor
Nielson. You need it in writing, you'll have it. What I need from you
is more lab skill than I saw today."

    "I heard about you." Nielson wasn't the sort of man to take a
lecture like that from anyone, but especially not from a young woman
like me.

    "What's that?"

    "You're a mercenary," he said and I narrowed my eyes. "That was
you, in the Sudan, the Lassa outbreak two years ago."

    "That was me," I agreed, not bothering to wonder how he'd found
out. It wasn't a secret.

    "How many people was that, Doctor?" he stared at me. "Sixty?
Seventy?"

    "After Lassa got there?" I shook my head. "They were ghosts. I
didn't kill anyone."

    "But you ordered it," he nodded. "Let me see that Brief. I'll back
you up, but my crew is not going to be expendable. Understand me?"

    "I understand perfectly," I told him. "Come on, let's suit up,
we'll work up a PCR on the sample."

    "A PCR?" Nielson rubbed his jaw, letting his anger go as he had
to. "On the tissue, you mean. I've never done a polymerase chain
reaction before."

    "It's easy." I looked at my watch. "After dinner we'll do an
ELISA. I hope you're ready for a very late night."

    "ELISA?" The man shook his head. "You can't do that on just a
blood and tissue sample, you need..."

    "Oh, ye of little faith," I smiled at him. "Using the 'C' word in
my lab, that's a no-no."

    "How are you going to..."

    "I have a patient coming up from Atlanta," I told him. "A monkey,
not a person. Arriving in about an hour."

    "I see," Nielson nodded. "Infected?"

    "Could be," I laughed lightly. "Don't you love medicine, Doctor?"

    "I used to," he actually smiled. "How do we do a PCR then?"

    "Let's get dressed and I'll show you." I put my hand on his
shoulder. "Arthur, I'm not the enemy, alright? I need you, we need
each other."

    "I have to be able to trust you," he took a deep breath. "You're
not making it easy."

    "I'm laying it all out for you, right now," I shrugged, giving him
a small smile. "I didn't write the Brief."

    "I know," he nodded and we looked at each other for a moment, his
eyes searching mine for something. "Your father was a good man. He
should've been on this mission."

    "I know," I closed my eyes and nodded. "Part of him is."

    "I hope so, Jennifer," Nielson said when I opened my eyes again.
"I really want to believe that."

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

    I was looking through my old files, tapping my computer slowly and
wondering how many people I really had killed in the Sudan. I'd come
through with my team from Atlanta, collecting samples, promising help.
But they were dead. A whole village bleeding from the eyes. Black
angels with crimson tears. I'd never forget that.

    It was a waterborne vector, from the only well in town, and
everyone was infected. Sixty-three men, women, and children. The
numbers were ruthless and predictable. Forty-four of them would die,
no matter what we did, fourteen would survive and be immune to that
particular strain of the virus forever after. Five of them would show
the anti-bodies, proving they'd been exposed, but never even get a
fever.

    We spent a week trying to create an antigen. We transfused blood
from healthy and convalescing patients into the dying ones, hoping
that antibodies and T-lymphocytes would arrest the disease, but that
was largely unsuccessful. In the end, we burned the village out with
fuel-air explosives dropped from low altitude. That had been my
decision and I lived with it every day, and one angel in particular
haunted my heart like no other. I was looking at him, an old photo of
the two of us in Africa, when Josh came out of the shower.

    "What are you looking at?" My boyfriend had been there almost a
week already and I was intensely glad of that.

    "Nothing." I shut my computer off and turned around, looking at
him wrapped in one of my pink towels. "Sexy."

    "You like it?" Josh smiled and he was even more handsome than he'd
been the last time I'd seen him, back in Utah several years
previously.

    "Come here," I said, licking my lips and holding out my arms.

    Josh stepped close, between my wide spread legs as I sat on my
desk chair. I put my hands around his back, feeling him hot inside and
cool outside with damp water still beaded on his skin. I pressed my
face against his stomach, flat and hard. He smelled clean now, not
like sawdust from his lumber mill at all, and I missed that. I kissed
him and licked around and then inside his belly button with a soft
giggle.

    "Hey now," he chuckled. "You're wearing me out."

    "Am I?" I sighed, pressing my cheek against him and closing my
eyes.

    Josh put his hands on my head, stroking my hair and I wondered how
I was going to leave him. He was thirty-three and never married. Josh
was waiting for me, just like he'd promised, and it was so rare that
we were able to spend our time together.

    "I thought maybe you were thinking of your boyfriend," Josh teased
me, but only partly.

    "Who?" I blinked with some surprise, not guilt, but...

    "Major Fuller?" Josh cleared his throat.

    "Oh. Don't worry about Allen," I said with a relieved smile. "He's
just a little unhappy, he'll get over it."

    "It's not him I'm worried about."

    "What's wrong?" I looked up, into Josh's soft brown eyes.

    "You're going to be with him for a long time," Josh shook his head
slowly.

    "Allen's not happy you're here either," I giggled. "He's afraid to
say anything though."

    "Oh?"

    "He's afraid I'll reject him if he looks for a decision," I said.
"And the Major is one of those guys who never got rejected by anyone
for anything."

    "Would you?" Josh asked me seriously. "Choose me over him?"

    "Josh..." I kissed his body. "Silly boy. I chose you a long time
ago."

    "Hmmm..."

    "You've ruined Allen's perfect record," I giggled and my fingers
were working to let Josh's towel fall from his narrow hips.

    "Careful," Josh chuckled as his cock literally sprang free, the
swollen head of his erection catching me lightly on the chin and I
laughed.

    "I thought I was wearing you out?" I lowered my mouth and kissed
the top of the man's cock. "You're such a liar."

    "Never," Josh sighed, leaving his denial sweetly ambiguous. I
licked and kissed his long thick shaft slowly, my hands on his ass,
squeezing his firm cheeks. Working lumber hadn't done anything but
make the man strong and I loved that. I loved him because he was so
simple, so fundamental in his heart and mind. Every other man I'd
known had been complex and striving for something beyond himself, but
Josh...He was the goodness that I saw in the world around me and I
needed that anchor desperately.

    Josh gave me a low moan of contentment as I took him between my
lips. I wasn't a thirteen year old schoolgirl anymore and I soon had
every inch of the man inside me, opening my throat and making love to
him the best I knew how. My own cock was throbbing with the pleasure
of it, the raw ecstasy of being with the only man I'd ever been able
to love without reservation. My first love. My Josh.

    "Don't cum yet..." I breathed five minutes later, pulling my mouth
off him with a heavy wash of saliva and precum that ran down my chin
and dripped onto the carpet.

    "Oh, God! Don't stop now," Josh rolled his eyes and he was getting
close.

    "Yeah, I am stopping," I giggled. "Your turn for awhile."

    "Uh-huh," Josh nodded and he was slipping to his knees while I
unzipped my jumpsuit, shrugging out of it with the man's help until I
was just sitting there in my panties.

    My cock was straining at the thin silk, evident as a hard ruddy
bulge through the fine lace, and Josh kissed me there, through the
material while I smiled. He teased me for a long while, too long, with
kisses and soft bites on my thighs and tummy, everywhere but where I
wanted it most. I was nearly begging for relief when Josh finally
pulled my panties slowly down my legs and I felt his humid breath of
my cock and balls.

    Josh pressed his mouth to the base of my erection, to the spot
where the shaft met my scrotum and he kissed me there, then sucked
lightly at that spot so that I giggled with a shiver of delight and
wondered what he was doing. He used his right hand to hold my testes,
caressing them through the smooth shaved sack hanging between my
thighs. His other hand moved to my tummy and upward to find my tits,
and then my waist, just moving and touching me everywhere. The
sensation warmed me nicely and I sighed with unabashed pleasure.

    My cock quickly began drooling precum with my arousal and the
clear fluid ran down the shaft in large clear drops. It stained Josh's
cheek where my cock pressed against him. I had my fingers in his hair
by then, still short and brown, but wet now from his shower and cool
beneath my hand. I rubbed him briskly with a laugh, drawing his brown
eyes upward with a smile before taking my cock finally into his mouth.
He did love me so well, so perfectly, and I knew it was me. Not my
biology, not just my body, but Josh was in love with me. We would have
known and loved each other in any time, in any place or guise. I
believed that completely and it wasn't mere chance that had brought us
together.

    "I'll marry you," I smiled at him and Josh widened his eyes and
pulled his tightly stretched lips from around my cock.

    "What?" he smiled back, looking only slightly confused.

    "I said yes," I sighed, stroking his face with the back of my
hand. "I'll marry you, Josh."

    "I didn't get to ask you yet," he stuck out his lower lip with a
mock pout.

    "Well?" I tilted my head expectantly. "You're on your knees
anyway, that's a good start."

    "Wow!" he chuckled. "You're kinda taking the fun out of it."

    "Oh...Never mind then!" I groaned. "I don't wanna marry you. I take
it back. Keep sucking."

    "Jennifer?" he asked a minute later.

    "Hmmm?" I stared into his eyes.

    "Will you be my wife?"

    "Yeah," I smiled. "I will."

    "Uhhh...Shoot," Josh looked over his shoulder towards the bedroom.
"The ring is..."

    "You have a ring? Give it to me later," I grinned at him. "Show me
how much you love me."

    "Yeah," Josh agreed, leaning forward and kissing my soft tummy. "I
will, baby."



end 10
rache696@yahoo.com

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