APRIL 2004

Hermanas,

Words to live by.  Words to love by.  I almost didn't share this one with you.  Can't really help myself.  It's my natural inclination to protect the people I love, but after much consideration, if she could have the guts to write this, I can suck it up and put it out there.

 
Dino

FEBRUARY 2004

Looking back, I think it was the coin and the revelation it had brought with it that had given Lach and I such a false sense of security.  Blinded us both, perhaps, to things I know we should have discussed.  We would be parting ways in the morning, Lach and I.  I would be going to Scotland with Terry and he would be returning to the Thorne residence to spend a week with his other best girl.... or 'Betty Bump', as he now called her.   

We had spent the night outside their home, checked ourselves into a cozy little hotel in London out of some sense of decency or privacy, I don't really know.  It should have been some sort of warning and yet, somehow, we missed it.  We simply spent a quiet evening talking and cuddling and throwing baby names back and forth.  Why hadn't we made love?  Did our bodies know something our minds hadn't quite registered yet?  Was it denial or maybe just love?

I can't really say.  

We'd already had a knock down drag out fight over just what visits should and should entail (at least for me) months ago.  We'd since discussed it, but as I lay there in bed next to him that night, it never occurred to me that it might warrant revisiting on the eve of this trip.  I don't think it occurred to him either.  He certainly never asked me if it would bother me if he happened to be intimate with Uma.  He'd had other visits and I know his hadn't been chaste, whereas mine certainly had.  Why should this visit be any different for me?  Above all others, Terry was the one Brother he trusted with me. 

I think somewhere inside me, it registered he might make love to Uma and that Terry wouldn't like that- but it was mixed up with other feelings.  I felt so good, safe and loved and protected when Lach made love to me.  I couldn't imagine Uma feeling much differently.  Why wouldn't they want that?  I know he loves her.  I know she loves him.

It was all so confusing.  Maybe deep down I was just projecting my own feelings about Terry onto them.  Maybe we'd all just gotten so close as couples and friends that the fact that we'd also been lovers had somehow gotten lost in the shuffle, like we'd forgotten how that heartfelt affection could flip on a dime and become something so charged with a different kind of love.  I guess I will never know the answer to that.  I don't know if it really matters.  I just know that none of us were expecting what happened.

Lach left me that morning with a hug and a kiss.  He was looking forward to spending time with Uma.  His quiet excitement leaked from him, given away by the hands he couldn't keep out of his pockets and the bounce he couldn't keep from his step.  We said a tender goodbye.  He knelt and whispered words against my belly and then rose to stand before me, strong and handsome and virile.  He held me and kissed me deeply. 

"Gonna miss you, Blue... both of you...." he whispered, his hands on the rounded swell of my stomach.

I smiled.  "And we'll miss you, Selkie Man."  

He colored.  "Be good!  Be safe..."  He touched my heart.  "Love you both."

I touched his too.  "Ever and always."  

He bounced out the door with a wink and a smile.  Thirty minutes later, the desk rang up to our room.  My Knight had arrived.  No shining armor to speak of, but he cut a fine figure in wool trousers, a thick knitted sweater and his favorite leather jacket. 

The flight was hardly anything at all, barely an hour.  We had arrived in Aviemore and had checked in and gotten unpacked well before lunch.  I don't think either of us even gave the room arrangements a second thought.  One suite.  One bed.  Sleeping apart had never even occurred to me.  I hadn't expected sex but I'd been looking forward to that intimacy for weeks. 

We took a long walk.  I 'ooohed' and 'ahhhed' over the gorgeous scenery.  Terry bitched about the cold and kept trying to stick his icy hands under my sweater.  I think he just wanted to cop a feel of the baby.  He's as shameless as Lach.  We had lunch at a cozy little café.  Watercress tea sandwiches for me.  Terry ate some gigantic plate of stodge that made me wonder if he had a hollow leg.  Where did he put it all?  He talked about Uma.  I talked about Lach.  It was very much like our phone conversations where we sort of bolstered each other up, exchanging confidences and worries.

Looking back, I think both of us had gotten so used to that role it didn't even occur to us at first to be any different with each other, even though we were alone.  Of course, it wasn't something that could last forever.  Feelings can- and do- turn on a dime. 

As they did for us that afternoon in the hotel room.                                    

It started innocently enough.  It always does.  He was razzing me about something I said.  I stuck my tongue out at him.  "Man!  Are you this much of a pain to her?"  (Of course I knew he was!)  "You think Lach ate some huge lunch and fell asleep in her bed like a beached whale?"  Then I sort of pulled up short as I realized what I'd just said.

To which he quickly retorted, "He won't be sleeping in my bed......  No one does."

We hadn't so much as even danced around this issue and I think we both knew it was past time we did.  I rolled over and looked at him.  "I didn't say your bed, Charlie," I winced a little and made my voice soft.  "I said hers."   

"That's what I said."  I hate it when he's being deliberately obtuse.  

It also began to make me feel uncomfortable as I worked it out in my head and realized he had two very different sets of expectations here.  No other men in his woman's bed yet he could share a bed with me without turning a hair?

"What about this bed then?" I fiddled with the crocheted edging on the decorative pillow under me.  "'Cause I'm here.... does that make it Lach's as well?" 

"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"

I sighed, feeling that stone in the pit of my stomach get heavier.  "I dunno.... Why's it OK for us and not them?"  Or for me and not her, I added silently. 

"I didn't say that.  I said he won't be in my bed."  He shifted restlessly and pulled at his eyebrow, a sure sign of his agitation.  He was trying to evade the issue here, making out he meant the actual bed.  I knew exactly what he was trying to do and I hate it when he plays word games with me because I always lose. 

"You think they wouldn't want to curl up together?"  I wanted to curl up with him.  We had, in fact, done exactly that.  Come back from lunch and snuggled right up together like sleepy puppies.  He couldn't even admit to them doing that, much less anything more intimate.  Sheesh, double standard much? 

He huffed.  "Curl up together?  They can do that in the lounge... watch TV and eat chips..."  He was fiddling with his pack of cigarettes.  Telling. 

"And at night?"

He refused comment.  

I knew he wasn't going to like my response to that, but I said it anyway.  "You imagine they're just going to walk each other to the end of the hall and say goodnight?"  I wasn't even talking about sex and I could see that little vein throbbing in his forehead. 

"What's your point?"  He stared at the wall and shrugged before he turned to give me a hard look.  "You enjoying this?"

Yeah, it's a real barrel of laughs.  I was upset but it hurt to see him upset, too.  I scooted over to where he was sitting and touched his back gently, resting my head on his shoulder.  "You want me to get another room?"  That way he could at least pretend if we didn't share that intimacy then they might not either.   

"Christ!"  He pulled way and threw himself back on the pillows.

I felt pretty dejected at that.  His double standard wasn't making me feel too sunny.  I scooted away and rubbed at my belly soothingly with a forlorn little shrug.  "I'm sorry."  I didn't know what else to say.  And I was starting to wish we'd never come.   

He softened a little at that.  "No.... It's my fault."  He paused and sighed but his voice was defensive and more than a little sharp when he spoke again.  "I want you here with me.  I just don't want him there with her, OK?  That answer the question you didn't actually ask?"

Terry Thorne, man behind the mask....  You know, for as much as I love knowing that person, he can be a real ass sometimes. 

Maybe this was all just a big mistake.  It was hard but I tried again.  "So, what do we do?  You want to go home?"

"And walk in on the lovers?  What do you think?" he snapped.

He might as well have slapped me for as much as that hurt.  He wasn't the only one who had issues with this.  I grabbed my purse from the night table and stood up to leave.

"Heather- don't walk off.... I didn't mean that."  He rubbed his fingers through his hair in frustration and then dropped his face into his hands.  "My head's just fucked with this."

I felt like crying- but I knew for as bad as I felt, he felt worse.  I set down my purse.  "I don't know what to think or do..."  I wanted to be with him- I did.... but not if we couldn't work this out. 

"Look... I want to be here with you but I didn't realize until.... until it came to it... what I would feel about it all."  He reached for my hand and pulled me down to sit next to him.  "This is really hard, ya know?"

"I know."  Probably better than the thought I did.

"I know I'm being irrational... but I don't bloody care."  He sighed and threw himself back on the pillows again, not in temper this time, just frustration.  "That's how bloody irrational I am."  He thumped a pillow for good measure.     

"Part of your charm, hey?"  My voice was light but I still felt standoffish.  Hid behind the humor a little.  I was hurt.  It wasn't the idea of being intimate that upset me.  Nothing with him ever felt wrong.  It was that he could accept something with me that he couldn't with her.  That didn't send a very nice message.  And under it all was Lachlan.  Terry was a modern man.  How much worse would Lach's reaction be?  And at the very core of everything was the one thing none of us could really escape.  This was the Game.  This was how we lived.  And there could only ever be one logical conclusion to the direction of this argument.

"I deserved that.  I know I did."  He groaned and smiled at my teasing words, but it wasn't a happy smile. 

"Yeah, you did."  Neither of us was pulling any punches now.  

He sighed.  "Heather... please... just talk me down... you know you can.... no one does it like you..." 

Our hands found each other.  I smiled a little.  "Charmer."  Not the response he wanted and I knew it. 

"I was not charming you.  I mean it."

"I know you do, Terry."  I knew how he felt.  I just wasn't sure I could make it better.  Not this time. 

He gave me a look.  "This is not about you and me."

"It isn't?"  Could have fooled me.  This was about us.  Just not in the way he was thinking.     

"No, of course not.... you and me are different... special."

Now, that made me smile.  Not because of the sentiment, however.  I grinned wryly.  "You know he said that to her in Manila?"

Terry snorted at that. "Yeah... I'll bet."  He pulled that face that he does.  Sour lemons.  "Heather, I would prefer not to know what he said to her... or what she said to him..."  He sighed heavily.  "That's my point."     

"You're such a man, Terry."

Our eyes met.  "What else do you want me to be?"  He was smiling at himself, though.  And why shouldn't he?  For as hard as this was, would I really want him any other way?  Would I want Lach any other way?  To so readily accept another man into their bed, especially now?  I knew the answer to that.  That's what made all of this so damned hard.

I put my head on his shoulder and he pet my hair soothingly.  "I understand what you mean, though.  I don't want to know their intimate details either."

He pulled back to see my face.  "But you can cope with it, can't you?"

I shrugged.  "I'm a woman.  It's different."

"Why?  Why is it different?"  Intent look on his face now.

"Hard to say."  Without it being a novel, anyway.  I could write a dissertation.  Why do we do what we do?  It's one of my favorite questions.  Funny how all the extensive studying I've done on that has done completely jack for its application to my own life.  Typical.  I shrugged again.  "Biology... culture.... conditioning?  I don't know..."

He grunted.  "Sounds like me."

I rolled my eyes.  "God, anything but that."  We shared a quiet laugh over it.

"Listen.... I just want to forget them... blank it out of my mind and just be with you."

"Can you?"  I turned over and crawled up to him, touching his face gently.  "Can you really do that?"  Somehow, I wasn't so sure.

"Hey, I'm the original robotic man.  I can forget anything."  Not smiling now.  

"Don't say that!  You are not a robot!"  I could hear the heat in my voice.  I hated it when he said things like that.  He was one of the most giving, tender men I'd ever known.  His problem wasn't that he felt nothing.  It was that he felt too much. 

"No?"  Not fishing now.  Just curious. 

"No- never."  I touched his chest lightly with my fingertips.  "Much to much in here for that to ever be the case."  There was a long moment where we just looked at each other.  "It's OK if you can't forget, you know?  I think maybe that's why it's OK."  Would I really want him if he could put Uma from his heart?  Somehow, I didn't think so.  And I didn't want to be the kind of person who could put Lach from my heart, either. 

He just sighed.  Took my hand and pulled it back to touch him. 

I put it over his heart.  "She's in there."  He nodded.  I touched my own heart.  "He's in here."  He nodded again.  "But that's what makes it good.... safe."  There would never be any confusion for us on that matter.  Not ever.

He was quiet a long time.  "I want you, Heather.... what does that say about me?"

"Says you're a man."  And I meant that in the most flattering way possible.  It took a lot of guts for him to say that. 

He didn't take it that way, of course.  Or maybe he did as was just being difficult.  Who could really tell with him?  "Just a dick, hey?"

I ignored him.  "I want you too, Terry.  What's that say about me?"  I couldn't quite keep the edge from my voice.  "Somehow, I don't think it's quite as nice."  Culture and conditioning works both ways, you know?  His reaction was immediate and intense.

"Hey!  Don't let me hear you say that... never let me hear you say that what we have is just some sort of sleazy affair.  It was never that and it never will be."  He was adamant. 

I put my head on his chest and curled my tiny fingers in his.  "It never feels like that, Charlie.  Not ever."

"Because it isn't."  He held me tighter.  I was glad he did.  He wasn't the only one who was struggling with this. 

"'No right or proper between us'..... you said that to me once, remember?"  He nodded and I snuggled deeper into his embrace.  "I've been thinking about it a lot."  I lifted my head to meet his eyes.  "It doesn't feel wrong with you... it never has... it just feels like love."

"That's because it is love."  He kissed my fingertips softly.     

"Baby or no baby," I added softly.

He smiled.  "You are still you, lassie.  I'm still me.  So, you have a passenger?  Think I'd ever let anything harm either of you?"

"I know you wouldn't."  I pressed a kiss to his heart and covered it with my hand.  "And I'd never let anything harm this."

He sighed again and all of the tension in him seemed to drain out.  He relaxed against me and pulled me close.  "Reckon we just sorted it out then?"

I felt a smile turn up the corners of my lips.  "I think we did, Charlie."  We lay there a long time, simply feeling each other breathe.  Just taking comfort in that simple intimacy.  He smelled my hair.  I listened to the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest and felt the warmth of the big hand wrapped around mine.  It was a while before he spoke again.    

"OK then... what do you want to do.......  First?" 

I giggled.  "Dangerous question."

"Needs an answer."  He is so adorably cocky.  

I couldn't help but laugh full out at that.  "I think will we have to go with the old standby....."  his eyebrows rose.  "I have to wee...."

He laughed and rolled his eyes.  "Me too... BUT!.... I shall be a gentleman, seeing as how beating pregnant women to the toilet is hardly White Knight behavior...."  He giggled.  "Just so long as you know I could.......... beat you, I mean." 

I thumped him.  Like there was ever any doubt?     

He helped me up and gave me a gentle push.  "No go.  Wee.  Hurry up!  Or I'll have to tie a knot in it."  He grabbed himself playfully. 

"That sounds like fun...."  I waddled away.  "You gonna let me hold it?"

He chuckled.  "Might do."

After I was done, I shouted from the bathroom, "Hey, I think I'm going to take a shower..."  I started the water and he wandered in a few minutes later to pee.  He unzipped and I stopped in the middle of stripping off to give him a feel before I stepped into the shower.  He pulled back the curtain and pretended to hose me down.  I shrieked, of course.  It wouldn't have been any fun if I hadn't.  He finished up and then stripped off to join me under the hot spray. 

I felt a little nervous... excited too.  Not in a sexual way.  It was just that it had been more than a month since he'd seen me naked.  The last time was when we'd been doing those portraits in Oz.  I'd changed so much.  His hands went right to my belly.  "Jesus...."  It took a few minutes for the soft, wet look in his eyes to become a naughty twinkle.  "You look like Shamu."  Shamu and Flipper?  What a scream. 

"Thanks a lot!  That makes me feel so much better."  It was hard trying to keep the giggle from bursting out.  He was clearly enamored. 

"Actually..... I rather like a bit of flesh."  Like I didn't know that?  He had some flesh of his own that had already given him away on that score.

"Good thing.  I seem to have more than just a bit here."  I gave him a look.  "Same goes for you." 

He tutted and wagged his finger at me.  "Hey... don't be personal."  He struck an incredibly ridiculous pose and then ruined it by rubbing his belly.  "It's all muscle... well, most of it anyway."

My eyes dropped lower and I snickered.  "Yeah.... one really big muscle..."

He preened, of course, and gave it a cocky little pull.  Men, they do love to show it off, don't they?  "Well, thank you ladies for that vote of confidence."

I raised my eyebrows at him.  "Oh, so it's 'ladies' now?  And what if the passenger's a him?"

Terry pulled me close.  "Well, he better close his eyes... 'cos his Mum's about to be a very naughty girl...."

"Is that OK with you, Charlie?"  I searched his face and the playfully teasing moment slid into something softer as he put his arms around me.  I put my cheek against his heart and let the warm water run down over us, seeking the reassurance of his touch as well as his words.  We would never be like Uma and Lach.  They make up their minds about something and throw caution into the wind.  Terry and I are more cautious by nature.  We're just as capable of cutting loose... maybe even more so at times... it just takes us a little longer to get going.

He caressed my back gently.  "Let's just take our time, hey?  See what happens.... if it feels right."  And then he simply touched my stomach and kissed me, slowly, softly, with both passion and tenderness before he lifted his mouth from mine.  "And if you just want me to hold you... that's OK too, lassie."     

"I know.... thanks."  I held him a little tighter and pulled back to look into his eyes, smiling softly.  "I want to make love with you...."

He smiled back.  "Slowly, love.... I know... we'll get there." 

We spent the entire afternoon naked in bed, talking and touching.  Let's face it.  Between Uma and Lach, we were hardly sex-starved.  And to be honest, it wasn't his body I most wanted knowledge of.  It was the essence of the man inside it.  That's where the real intimacy lay.  Sharing our bodies was a beautiful gift, and one that I would always treasure, but it was sharing the people inside that I loved most.

We roused ourselves later, well beyond the usual dinner hour and dressed each other slowly.  Savoring what time we had together.  Making every moment last.  I think we were both aware this wasn't a time that would ever be repeated.  We shared a quiet dinner, talking and laughing.  We kissed and touched.  An old couple at a nearby table stopped on their way out, and with a thick, barely intelligible brogue, offered Terry congratulations on his impending fatherhood.  He did not correct them. 

We must have sat and talked for two hours, eating strange fare and sampling several of the local desserts.  Terry sampled several of the local malts as well.  We took a walk afterwards, enjoying the scenery and the comfortable silence.  And as we did, several snippets of intimate conversations we'd had in bed that afternoon played through my head.

Jesus.  How do you put that in your mouth?

Because it's part of you... part of the men we love... and love to love.  

I am so glad I'm straight.

Well, turn the tables then.  Ask it of yourself.  How do you manage, putting your mouth on a woman?

That is a privilege, love.

There's your answer then.

And later:

Could you touch a woman?

Me?  I don't know.  I doubt it.

Just curious.... didn't mean it as a prurient male thing.  

Oh, right.... so, feeding your little fantasies of me and her at the beach, am I?

No way.

I know.  I'm just teasing you.  And, no.  I don't think I really could.  

Good.  I'm an old fashioned bloke..... I like to be the one handing out the orgasms.

Heh.  I could dance with one suggestively to shine you on maybe.... in a funny ha-ha sort of way... but never anything real.

Quite like that idea, though.

You would, you perve.  

Flattery will get you everywhere, lassie.

And on a more serious note while we were dressing:

Christ, when I think of all the years I fucked about.... all that spunk wasted-

It wasn't wasted.  You weren't ready to be a dad.

And then you suddenly realize what it is really all about....

That was a thought that particularly resonated with me.  There was more, of course, as we opened back up to each other- but it's really not important.  Not to anyone but us, anyway.  Fears and concerns.  Mistakes made and borne.  Lessons learned.  Happiness found.  Life's divine plan, I guess.  The best and most fulfilling answer to the one question that really drives us.  Why are we here?

We returned to our suite a little after ten and everything was different this time.  He never even let me go.  He simply said, "Go get them, lassie."

I knew exactly what he meant.  The pearls.  I hadn't worn them since that morning in Manila.  God, it had been months and months- I suddenly stopped short.

He smiled.  "Six months to the very day, love."  He took them from my fingers and slipped them around my neck, fastening them deftly before kissing my nape, just as he had done that night so long ago.  Only this night, they were a beginning not an ending.  Or maybe, they were always that for us.   

I touched them reverently and turned in his arms.  "Such sweet memories, Terry."

He smiled.  "So, you still think about it, do you?"

"Of course I do."  I smiled back.  One of his leading questions.  He wasn't talking about just that night and we both knew it.  "My thoughts and fantasies are softer these days, a reflection of the life growing inside me, I suppose... but yes, I still think of you that way."          

"Tell me."

"Tell you what?  That I think of your touch?  Of you feeling this new shape of mine?  Of course I still think of sharing it with you... feeling you next to me... .touching you...making love with you."  We were slowly shucking off our heavy clothes, scarves and sweaters and shoes, as we got more comfortable.  I touched the soft swell of my belly.  "Does it stop you from thinking about it?"

He snorted.  "What do you think?"  

"Well, it's hardly the stuff of fantasies... morning queasiness and that greenish tinge.  Not exactly the image of me wearing your tie and sexy fuck me shoes in your office, now is it?"

"You'd be surprised what turns a man on."  Little lift of his eyebrow.

"So tell me."

"I asked you first."  He can be such a boy.  

We slid down on the bed together, mostly clothed, our feet rubbing together in that way that they do when you know you're going to be intimate but you're not quite there yet, still enjoying the growing emotional intimacy before it turns physical. 

I smiled at him softly.  "And I told you- you turn me on.  I fantasize about making love with you... imagine you inside me, a baby between us."  He kissed my neck, slowly stroking my arms and sides with his big hands.  "And sometimes, once in a blue moon, I even wonder what it would feel like to have your baby inside me."  Now it was my turn to hide my face in his neck.  "Silly, I suppose."

"No, not silly at all."  He pulled me a little closer.

"I mean no disrespect to Lach or to you...I wouldn't ever-"

"I know, love."

"But a fantasy is just that... .pleasant fiction, you know?"  He hummed but didn't say anything.  "You think I'm foolish, don't you?"

He pulled away to meet my eyes, playing absently with my fingers as he did so.  "Do you have any idea how much a man wants to impregnate a woman he cares for?  Fill her with his life?  You are not foolish, lassie."

I smiled and kissed his palm.  "I didn't think men felt that way."  

He shrugged.  "Men are gregarious."

"Do you feel that way?"  His eyes flicked up to mine.  "Never mind- I shouldn't have asked that."

"I do."  He kissed me, slow and wet and deep.  My head spun.  "I think about you erotically in the most inappropriate ways."

"You do?"

He laughed.  "You sound surprised."

"I am surprised."  I giggled and snuggled deeper into him, enjoying the feel of his strong warm body.  "So....come on....tell me.... I told you."  Two bodies holding each other intimately, looking deeply into each other's eyes... breathing in the musky scent of each other's arousal.  He touched the pearls at my throat and something electric shot between us.  This moment of erotic capitulation.  There is no right or proper between us.  A sentiment that we would now make true in both word and deed.     

He spoke softly, stripping us gently as he did.  "I see you sitting on a large cane chair.  Naked.  Your belly is engorged.  Even more heavily pregnant than you are now."  His hands stroked the naked skin of my stomach. 

"You like that?"  I touched him too, tenderly stroking his arms and chest.

"I adore that image."  He kissed and licked my neck, sucking the string of pearls into his mouth for a moment before giving me a soft bite.

I writhed gently against him.  "Tell me more."

"You are dreamy, stroking your belly and singing softly to yourself.  A lullaby."  He smiled.  "It is such a maternal scene.... yet erotic.  It makes me hard."  He didn't need to tell me that.  The evidence was pressed against my hip, warm and smooth, where he was rocking gently against me, stimulating himself while his hands and words stimulated me.  "I want to kneel at your feet and touch you.  See you look from your child to me."

I encouraged him to tell me more with both my hands and my voice.  "That's something I've seen in my own fantasies as well, Charlie."  

He nuzzled at my neck, palming my breast in his large hand.  "I want to kiss your breasts, heavy now and swollen.... run my hands over your stomach, feel your child move and kick against my hand...."  His hands echoed his words and I covered them with mine as he embraced us both.  "....cradle your naked cunt where your child will be born.  Kiss that place where life is made and born...."  He finally looked up and our eyes met.  "I wouldn't want anything more than to touch and kiss you...."  His voice trailed off.

"Is that really where your fantasy ends?"  His hand stroked me softly between my legs and I held him closer, rocking into the gentle touch.

"I'm a liar," he breathed, not sounding even the slightest bit apologetic.  "I want to strip for you, stand before you, let you see how beautiful you are to me... and how I want you.  Hold myself, watch the first drips trickle out at the sight of you...."  He'd taken his heavy erection in hand and was breathing hard. 

"And I would touch you... stroke your beautiful cock and bring the drips to my mouth."  He groaned as I did exactly that.

"Anyway you want, Heather....."

"In my fantasy, I would want to taste you first... kiss and love that part of you that can make a life.  It's precious to me, as you are.  Will you let me....?"

"Anything you want," he breathed.  "My fantasy is to be what you want."

"I want to love you... make love with you....kiss and suck..." I stroked him and he shuddered under my touch. 

"I want to see my cock in your lips...."  His words sent a wild thrill through me and I knelt before his open knees while he sat at the edge of the bed.  "Just- just to see it..."  He groaned deep in his throat as I took him between my lips and gave him my most intimate kiss. 

He spread his legs wider.  "Touch my scrotum... hold me-"  His voice broke.  I touched him all over, his legs and thighs, up to his root and down again.  Held his balls, felt their weight and heft, warm and heavy in my palm, rubbing and stroking the seat of what made him a man.  "Jesus... I love that...."  His head dropped back and he growled low in his throat as I sucked that little tuck of skin and flickered my tongue into his sensitive slit.  He was breathing so hard.  His body trembled and gooseflesh rose, tightening his nipples into hard little points as he rocked his hips and clenched his fist in the coverlet.  I hummed around him and felt his hand soft on my cheek, adoring me as I adored him.   

I sucked and swirled my tongue... but not too much.  I wanted him to come inside me and I told him so.  He writhed.  I love it when he feels like that.  When it's so good he can't keep still.  He watched my tongue tracing his veins.  "Jesus...."  Licking up and down his beautiful proud cock, wet with my saliva and the essence of his passion.   

"Worship you," I whispered.

"I will worship you."  He caressed my cheek one last time and pulled himself from my lips with a groan, helping me to stand before he switched our positions and sat me back against the pillows, kneeling before me as I had knelt before him.  "Like a devotee before a shrine," he murmured, pulling my legs over his shoulders.  "Let me taste you...."

I sighed with pleasure and touched his strong arms, unwilling to break that connection between us.  "Taste me, love me...." I loved to see his head bent to my body, to feel his most intimate kiss. 

He blew lightly on my curls.  "Glistening already," he said, with equal measures of pride and awe.  He gave me a slow, lazy lick along my folds and a shiver ran through me.  I felt my legs tense against his shoulders as he lapped around my tight little hole.  I called his name softly, said it so gently, over and over as I rocked against his mouth and slid a hand into his hair to caress his neck. 

"Terry.....Terry, please...."  He felt me shudder and widen my legs.  I knew he could see me open for him, pink and wanting, wet for him... because of him, because of his touch.  He kissed my lips like they were my mouth and I moaned softly.  My head fell back against the downy pillows and my eyes fluttered shut as his tongue slipped inside me to taste the rich pungent cream.  I fluttered around it and I knew he could feel me flex and clench on the tip of his tongue.

He was jerking himself, unable to stop touching at the sensation.  I whimpered and pulled his hand away, whispering to him, telling him not to make himself come, that I wanted to feel him inside me.  My breathing got fast and shallow.  God, so close.  "Terry... I'm gonna come...."

He moved his mouth to where I was dying for him, circling slowly and them faster, pushing a finger inside to feel my orgasm.  I cried his name, squeezing hard around his finger, trembling as it rolled through me so strong.  He kissed my swollen belly, felt the orgasm shudder through me and felt the baby buck against it.  I called out to him to hold me... to hold us both.  He did. 

"I'm a little scared," he whispered, crawling up my body to lay next to me.  "Your coming was so intense...." 

I held my arms open to him and we lay together for a moment, soothing and petting.  I smiled.  "It was intense... but I'm strong, healthy... my body was made for this... for love and babies.... I want to wrap you up, too..."

He was so hard and weeping.  He must have been dying to come inside but he was so soft and gentle with me, even now.  "How do you want me?"  His eyes were dark and hooded with desire.  "Tell me."      

"I want to see your face."  My belly might be too big for most positions, but I still wanted to see his eyes.  "Can you make it work?"  There was a touch of awkwardness.  He couldn't very well ask me how Lach and I managed, nor could I ask him.  But I knew we could find our way together.  I was never afraid with him. 

"Let me lie back."  He kissed me one last time, rubbing his tip against my belly and leaving a slight trail before he gently pulled me up and helped me move over him.  I could feel his strength, feel how easily he moved my body.  I couldn't resist a kiss to his tip before I moved up his heavy sprawling frame.  He raised me and kissed me, tasting himself on my lips.  "Sit on me.... I can support you, love..."  Easing me onto his lap, he slid himself through my folds and slipped just the tip into me. 

My eyes held his.  "Yes... more...."  I touched his arms, his shoulders and chest.  "Please, inside... want you so much...."  I laced my fingers with his and put his hand on my belly as he lowed me down, bit by bit.

"Not too deep."  He was shaking.  The tendons in his neck were standing out prominently and yet he was exquisitely gentle with me.  "Christ... you have no idea how this feels...."  He moved from side to side before pushing in a little further. 

"Tell me... tell me how it feels...."         

He smiled.  "Like liquid love."

"For me too...."  I shifted against him, adjusting to his size.  

"Softly," he whispered. "So gentle, lassie.... I'd never forgive myself if...."

"I know... I know..." I breathed against his throat and kissed his jaw as we began to move.  "A baby between us..."

He stopped our movement and held me still against him.  "I love you, Heather.... you know that, don't you?"  I nodded, my eyes wet with emotion.  We'd never given each other the words before.  Not like this.  "I'll always protect you- all of you - the three of you...."

I felt my eyes fill.  "I love you too, so much-" my throat closed and he nodded.  I moved on him then, rocking gently and he gasped.  He thrust slowly, raising and lowering my hips, easily strong enough to move me as he wanted, even with the added weight of the baby.  I kissed his face and neck lightly, running my hands down the thick, heavy muscles of his chest and arms and squeezed down hard, wanting to make it so good for him. 

I felt the surge of his cock.  He closed his eyes and bit his lip, for a moment looking so very boyish.  I gasped softly and my head fell back.  "You feel so good...."  I bent and kissed his mouth and felt his hand come up to hold my neck.  His eyes were closed and he was still jerking steadily.  "Where are you?" I whispered into his ear, so very softly in time to our movements.

"In you... deep, deep in you...." he panted out.

"It feels so good to me to have you there."

His eyes opened.  "Too good.  I'll never last."       

I smiled and we moved a little faster.  "I don't want you to."  

He rubbed my belly in time to his thrusts.  "A different shape," he whispered.  How could he not help but compare us?  But not in an unkind way.  In a way that made it more full for both of us.  He was different to me too.  "How does it feel?  Like before? Different?"

"Tighter than before.  More sensitive.... more intense... physically... emotionally...."

"Yeah... like every erotic dream I ever had."  His hands tightened on my hips and his rhythm began to change.  "I want to hold you both.  Keep the world away."

"You do."

His hand palmed my breasts and rolled my nipple before slipping down over the curve of my belly to where we were joined.  He stroked me softly, crooning to me.  "Come for me, girl.... lassie... let me feel those strong muscles that will push your baby into the world one day..."  He stroked me as he thrust, holding my eyes, one hand on my hip, the other between our rocking bodies.  "Come for me...."

I fluttered around him and shook hard, contracting on him again and again as the intense pleasure of my orgasm broke and swirled around me.  He continued to stroke me and held me tight with his other hand, whispering erotic thoughts to me while I came back to myself.  "Naked... open... wet... Imagine what we look like..."

"Like a man and a woman, ripe with life... wet with each other."  I squeezed around him purposefully and he shuddered.  "What do you need?  I want to make you feel that good..."

His eyes closed.  "If someone could see us... what would they think?"  I knew then what he needed.

"They would think you made this life under my heart."  I rocked harder on him.  "I'm flushed... they would think you'd just made me come so hard... and you have..."  He tensed at that and I could tell he was close.  His hand snaked around my belly.  "This child.... our child... a baby you made... so potent..."  I squeezed him in time to my words.  He was rocking and moaning as he thrust.  I bent and whispered in his ear.  "Come in me... give me your life... nothing wasted, Terry, I swear it.... nothing...."

He said nothing, merely kissed my forehead as I felt the jerking rush of his orgasm.  He held me to him, trembling, and I felt his liquid warmth bloom inside me, felt his body pulse and shake under me.  His eyes opened and I hid my face in his neck, a little shy I'd spoken so openly of that particular fantasy, even though it had clearly been his fantasy as well.

Touching my cheek so softly, he drew my eyes to his and smiled.  "How do you know to do that...?"  I blushed and shrugged and he groaned contentedly, moving me to lie back against the nest of pillows as he withdrew. 

I sighed, missing him already.  "Wish you could stay there," I whispered.  He smiled.      

I saw him watch the rush of semen trickle down my thigh and pool on the sheet beneath.  Shy smile from me as our fingers met and twined together.  "So much.... wet with you..."  I moved to put my hand between my legs but he stopped me. 

He bent down and caught the drip on his tongue instead, languidly cleaning me up with his mouth.  It was an incredibly erotic moment.  My eyes sparkled wetly and I touched his face, squeezing his hand in mine while he bent to this most intimate task.  When he was done, he moved up, coming to lie beside me.  I pulled his face to mine and kissed him.  Slowly.  Deeply, sharing his precious gift of life between us. 

We drew apart.  "Never wasted," he said softly against my lips.

"Not with you, Charlie.... not ever."

We rested quietly together, wrapped in each other's arms with him spooned up behind me.  Even my little baby was quiet, no doubt lulled to sleep by our gentle rocking.  He broke the comfortable silence a little while later.

"What I said before.... I meant it.  It wasn't just sex talk...."

I smiled and kissed his palm.  "I know you meant it... and how you meant it."

"I don't understand it, but it's true.  It's how I feel.... just love... wide and deep and peaceful... like a calm ocean... Not just for you... for your child... even for him," he admitted grudgingly.  "How crazy is that?"

"Not crazy.... we're family."

"Yeah... guess so."  He snuggled up close and pulled the covers up over us.  He sighed, long and slow and deep, relaxing against me fully for the first time since we arrived.  "Family, hey?  I can live with that."

APRIL 2004

Hermanas,

I've been giving this a lot of thought.  And you know what?  If she can have the guts to be brutally honest, so can I.  I fucking hated every single word of this.  And Christ- she let him fuck her?  Worse, he went ahead and did it.  Motherfucker.  She's right about cultural conditioning and biology.  Just because we're in this World- it doesn't negate those things we've spent a lifetime learning.  If Terry was here right now... he would go down.  Hard.  And I fucking hate that she can make me feel that.

I haven't been jealous of the old man since that shit in Tecala.  And I don't mean Alice.

This whole thing... it's like one big goddamn mindfuck.  This is the Game.  Free love and all that shit.  This is our life.  You don't fuck your friend's girl.  This is our code of honor.  Unless the baby inside her is yours- you don't fucking touch her. 

The real bitch of it is, I wanted to.  I still want to.  How fucked up is that?  The more I dig at this, the worse it gets.  I know why it was him and not me.  She would never be crass enough to say she loved one of us more.  She will only say that he is safe and I am not.  Like that's supposed to be some sort of consolation?  What about my feelings?  My problem is that I am too well favored.  Gee, where have I heard that before?

It's a thought that gives me some insight I'm not sure I ever wanted.  So, I'm her Maximus, am I?  Man, when I think back over all the shit the old man and I have ever said about that matter... all the ragging I did and all the advice I ever gave... to then have to turn that around and apply it to my own life?  It was a look into the General that I could have done without. 

And that those particular insights come from my friendship with a man I'm pretty pissed at right now doesn't exactly help matters.  He's supposed to be the one who talks me down when I'm like this.  It makes no sense.  He's missing.  I'm worried about him.  I want to help him.  I want to hit him.   Christ, it's all so fucked up.  So, where does that leave me?  K and R face.  Fall back into logic and reason. 

Do I want a child?  No.  Would I ever want to have one in this World?  No.  Would I want one with her in another time and place?  Not quite so easy to answer.  If I had a woman of my own, could I share her in this construct?  Grudgingly.  If she was carrying my child?  I'd kill anyone who touched her. 

Heather knows me.  Knows what reading this would do to me.  In those days I spent with her directly following Uma's disappearance, she told me I would read things I wouldn't like.  I am real enough with her that I didn't offer up some trite protest in response- and as it turns out, that instinct was correct.  Did I like it?  No.  Does it change how I feel about her?  No. 

She might know me... but I know her, too.  Not all her secrets but I know her.  And I know she'd never write something like this if she ever thought she was coming back.  That hit me hard.  Broke me down.  She knew it would.  And I did the only thing I could. 

I finally read that last private letter she'd left for me.  

Does that mean I have no more hope?  Not sure.  I do know it means I hold in my memory the sum total of everything we might ever say to each other.  There are no more words left from her heart to mine.    

Conclusive report?  Hardly.  

I got angry.  I got drunk.  I cried.  I did some thinking.  I did some soul searching.  And here it is, boys and girls. 

I am angry that in their selfish love, they've bloodied and bruised the hearts of others and frayed the fabric of our lives and the threads that bind us together.  I am hurt that she could share herself with him and not me.  I am jealous of my Brother.  I am an outsider, aching for something that had never even been a blip on my radar.  And here's the real kicker.  If it was me and I had this shot with Gen?

I'd grab it with both hands, jump off the cliff.... and

Never.

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