Heart-Shaped Headfuck

'Hey Valentino, I thought you were off getting loved-up!' grinned Dana the grungy high-schooler on check-out, as he re-entered Barnes and Noble.

'Yeah,' he said dismissively, wondering if she were in on this little set-up as well. 'Getting there.' As discreetly as possible he checked through Erotica - it was nestled in-between Crime and Women's Fiction - but the book was not to be found. What if someone else had bought it? But no - Sammy would never be that sloppy in her thinking. That pretty ingénue's face concealed a scarily sharp mind. He went to customer inquiries where Erin, his somewhat po-faced forty-something colleague was on duty. 'Erin - was there a book reserved for me by any chance? By - anyone? Called - ehh - ' He hoped the inner cringe did not register on his face. 'Spank You Kindly?'

'I'll check,' she said, after a discernable beat. She delved amongst the shelves below the counter and returned with a slim paperback. Its cover was graced with a pert feminine ass stretched across the lap of a tuxedoed gentleman, rose petals crushed about the bared butt-flesh to make it all look tasteful. 'There you are. Pre-paid.'

'Thanks. Ehhh - that's great.' He turned away relieved that he did not have to spend further time rummaging in his wallet, but suddenly remembered he was on a quest. 'Hang on - I just need to check for something...' Erin looked at him curiously as he set down his floral burden and flipped through his gift. The inscription was, as he'd expected, on the inside cover. He hadn't expected it to be in French.

Posez ton main virile ferme sur mon cul tendre d'attente mon amour et faites le bruler.

Damn her. She knew he'd dropped French at the end of eighth grade. She'd provided some coaching, certainly, but insufficient for this. 'Erin -' Could she be a part of all this? Genuine paranoia was setting in now. 'You don't know any French, do you? There's something here I need translated. Kind of urgently.'

'O-kay,' his pony-tailed, bespectacled colleague said curiously. 'Mine's a bit rusty. I think Bernice might be a surer bet. Wait here. I think she's in the stock room...' She returned a couple of minutes later with Bernice, a larger lady with a cheerful attitude and an abiding fondness for Shane. This afternoon he could scarcely look her in the eye.

'Hey handsome,' she smiled, eyes glinting cheekily, 'someone left you a message in the language of love? Let me check it out.' Shane spread the book wide so Bernice couldn't see the gaudily indecent cover. She inspected closely and stared at him a moment. 'And you - want this translated right now?'

'Ehh - yyyyes, if you could...?' He suspected something was amiss.

'Well,' said Bernice, as though trying to suppress some strong emotion, 'roughly - I'd translate it as... You ready for this?' She enunciated as might an elocution teacher: "Put your strong, firm hand on my tender waiting ass, my love, and make it burn". Yes, definitely. That's it.' Her eyes flicked up to Shane. 'That mean anything to you, honey?' She asked it with an utterly straight face.

Shane spent a moment in quiet, mortified contemplation before his two colleagues. Bernice and Erin, he noticed, were studiously avoiding each other's gaze. 'And - that's the whole thing?'

'The whole thing,' said Bernice frankly. 'Oh, have you checked the back inside cover?' Shane glanced up at her suspiciously, but she had assumed a look of supreme innocence.

'No, not yet.' He searched and found a second message. While you're here pick up your copy of 'The Reluctant Gardener'. Don't miss the free gift! Then take it to our Special Tree in Central Park.

Shane turned back to his two associates. He was sure by now they were both - yes, Erin too - stifling advanced amusement. 'You couldn't check to see if there's a copy of The Reluctant Gardener waiting for me too?'

'Well whadda ya know?' said Bernice, when Erin produced the required item from the same place as the spanking novel.

The free gift was a small garden trowel. Shane resisted the compulsion to thump his head against the counter and smiled ruefully instead. He considered asking how much they knew about whoever had ordered the gifts, but figured he would not get very far. 'Thanks girls, you've been very helpful. See you later...'

'You look like you're having a fun day,' quipped Erin as he turned to leave. She didn't even crack a smile.

'Happy Valentine's!' Bernice called cheerily after him. 'You've got quite a gal there!' Several other members of staff, check-out girl included, were joining in the laughter.

Their Special Tree. There was only one in all of Central Park's eight hundred and forty-three acres to which that could refer and to there he went with his roses, and with the novel and the trowel stowed alongside the champagne. Past the Guggenheim, into the Park east of the Reservoir, then fifteen blocks south, hardly noticing any of the place's furled winter beauty on his furious, laden-down trek. The seasonal cold was biting now, but daylight thankfully was still sufficient for what he had to do. Had to do? Who said he had to? His clearly demented girlfriend? Sammy's hilarious treasure hunt was losing what crazy appeal it had begun with. But yes, of course he had to know what was buried at that freaking tree.

Twenty minutes' hard walking and he arrived at Cherry Hill, his breath smoking. There were hundreds - hundreds - of cherry trees surrounding the summit, but she'd known he would remember. They had walked the same route less than a month previously, snow still on the ground, wrapped in winter layers which had failed to distract from how fucking hot they were for each other. Then they had strolled past Bethesda Fountain, had sauntered off the path with the lined-up carriage-horses watching them and snorting, just like they watched Shane now. Across the grass to explore this particular cherry grove, Sammy teasing him all the way. 'Sooooo cold baby, I need you to warm me up the way you do. You know, stoke my furnace...'

And they had ended up making out against - against that tree. Okay, he could have mistaken it for one either side, had it not been for the red ribbon tied around the base of the trunk. Demented. This whole thing is fucking demented. He searched around the tree nonetheless and noticed a stick planted in the ground and adorned with the same colour of ribbon. It had been jammed down into freshly-dug earth. Freshly-dug, but packed hard again, stamped down with a vengeance. Checking that no passers-by were watching, he dropped to his knees, lay down the increasingly frost-bitten flowers and produced the trowel from his pack.

This was meant to be fun, right? This was a dig for treasure, a literal one - the 'dig' part at any rate. And he did want to know what was worth fucking up his perfectly acceptable plan for a Valentine's celebration. So he raised his hand and stabbed down hard with the little painted trowel.

It jammed against the ground, making virtually no impact. The tip dented slightly. Shane swore and shook out his jarred hand. He gritted his teeth and tried again. The blade rasped against the dirt, breaking off a thin crust. He went at it harder in repeated shallow scoops, eyes flicking about for suspicious park wardens all the while. Mind you they hadn't been terribly vigilant on that day in early January. They hadn't seemed to notice him pushing Sammy up against this very tree, kissing her cold lips heatedly, orally transferring to her all the glowing warmth of his desire and feeling the grinding response of her pelvis against his, their picturesque winter stroll having turned unexpectedly combustible.

'God, you've got me all wet, baby,' she had breathed cloudily, and in the heat of that January moment he had flipped off a glove and tested out her revelation. His hand had slid up her skirt and back down beneath two layers of thermal tights plus panties to discover the marshland between her thighs. His trowel ground into the compacted dirt and he scooped and scraped and dug into earth as resistant as Sammy's sweet cunt had been wet and yielding. His middle finger had been swallowed up easily into her silky warmth, the pads of his palm gently crushing against the fully-blossomed hardness of her clitoris as she ground into him.

'Ohh baby, that's so fucking naughty, you bad bad boy. Oh God don't stop, don't stop...' Writhing and giggling and biting his ear. 'Baise-moi, baise moi avec vos doigts, mon beau cheri.' He'd still no idea as he shovelled hard what the hell she'd been saying, but it had sounded so beautiful, so sexy-dirty, as she ground herself into his slickened palm and took his wriggling finger as deep as he could thrust it. 'Ohh baise-moi, baise-moi - fuck me, fuck me...' Fucking hell, how deep had she buried this damn - freaking - whatever it was? 'Baby - baby - gonna come - gonna come -' Right in his ear he could hear her like she were there again as he drove that fucking shovel deep, deep, deep into the earth like he'd burrowed his fucking finger into her...

Thump. 'Ow! Damn! Shit!' The blade hit hard against something solid. Solid and wooden, he was sure, though sealed in plastic. He scraped around the object, managing to outline a rectangular surface. Then he dug some more, a lot more, till he could lever out his find from its earthen resting place. His heart was pounding and he was bulging in his jeans from the memory of that recent afternoon at this very spot.

Swiftly he tore open the zip-lock covering. From it he slid a carved pine box - it might have been a jewellery box. Heart continuing to race, from more than physical exertion, he prised it open. The inside was crammed with cotton wool. He searched amongst the stuff and his fingers found something - solid, hard, metallic - which he plucked out. A silver pocket tape recorder lying neatly in his palm. Okay, it had got to him. If not before, certainly now. The sheer artfulness of it all. He hesitated, savouring the thrill of the moment, then pressed Play.

'Hey baby...' He clicked it off the instant he heard the warm, drawn-out sultriness in Sammy's voice and looked about. From fifty yards one of the carriage drivers was scrutinizing him curiously, but that was it. He resumed listening and grew quietly enthralled by the breathy teasing of his girl's recorded voice. '...You all warmed up from your digging? I'm waiting patiently for you to find me. And you know I find it so difficult to be patient for you. Remember at your folks' place? I tried so hard, I behaved myself all that evening. I was such a good girlfriend, so appropriate...'

Well almost. Shane had a marginally different memory of the evening and it all flashed instantly into his mind. It had been not two weeks previous when Sammy had gone upstate with him for his dad's fiftieth birthday dinner. He'd been delighted she had agreed, and of course how his devoutly Presbyterian parents had loved his polite, sweet-natured guest. Her playtime had begun at dinner and had strolled an excruciatingly fine line.

'So, how did you and Shane meet?' It was Mom who had broached the dread subject.

'It was so lovely,' Sammy had responded sweetly, batting her lashes his direction. 'He was working in his movie rental store Christmas Eve and not looking very festive at all, poor love, and I came in from my part-time job in a Santa suit... Can you imagine?' She had drawn both parents into a shared smile. 'So we got chatting and I could tell right away he was a sweet guy, and not at all bad looking' (giggle) '- he gets it from you Mr Houston.' Laughs all round, she had said it with such a complete lack of guile. 'And I just wanted to cheer him up, put a smile on his face for Christmas, isn't that right Shane?' She had laughed, her dainty chin perched on her steepled fingers, and looked at him with doe-eyed adoration.

'Yeah,' Shane had responded, a prickling sensation around his hairline while he fumbled his hold on the mashed potatoes. 'She was - ehhh - charming, quite charming.'

'So I just kinda stuck around, and we got acquainted, right? He told me later I blew away all his cobwebs.'

'You were happier Christmas Day than I'd seen you in a while,' Dad had ventured, jauntily, glancing over at Sammy. 'And now I know why.'

'I'm glad I make you happy,' she had told Shane winsomely, then snaked her tongue over her upper lip when only he was looking.

Over dish-washing Mom had whispered to him, 'She's a sweetheart. You want to hold on to that one.'

The President of the local Presbyterian Women's Association might have changed her mind had she seen what went on next door to her bedroom hours later. It was this memory which was being revived in Shane's mind via the medium of tape-recording.

'...Until later that night, of course. You couldn't quite believe me tiptoeing from the guest bedroom and creeping into yours, could you? Couldn't quite bring yourself to send me away either, not when I turned on your table lamp and you saw me in my thigh-skimming - pink - silk - nightie. With my nipples standing out so hard against the silk. And when I pulled away the covers and crouched over you in reverse to peel off your shorts, you could see I was wearing nothing underneath. Your Mom and Dad just feet away in the next room, but you still let me brush my naked ass back and forth all over your beautiful stiffening cock, before I swung around and fitted you inside myself and then slid my tight - wet - pussy all the way down onto your big - thick - shaft and then began to ride so ffffucking slowly with your folks next door so you couldn't make a sound. I had to put my hand over your mouth when you came.'

Her voice turned from breathy to brisk and sparky in a beat. 'Oh yeah. And then the next day we all went to church and you got to sit beside me in the pew and think about what a sexy little slut I was. Remember?'

Ohhhhh fuck he remembered it all.

'Well if you want this sexy little superslut, you'd better get your ass over to her place right now. Cos she's ready, baby - for whatever her bad boy wants to do to her. Text me baby - I want to know you're coming. So to speak.'

Shane was as stunned as he was aroused. No hotel then. No exotic location of any kind. His little queen of tease was waiting back at her own apartment. Well that was all the 'exotic' he needed. He kept the text short - ON MY WAY. Then smiling a secret smile, shifting his fully-resolved erection about his pants-crotch for comfort, he packed everything - trowel, box, recorder, even the damned roses - into his backpack and set off east through the fading light of the Park. Ten minutes' newly- motivated walking took him to the Frick Museum, another five to 68^th for the Green Line.

The subway train was surprisingly full for a weekend afternoon. Shane jostled fellow-passengers all the way. The flowers were properly crushed by now, petals trailing limply from the cold-wilted heads. Several commuters smirked at their battered state, thrusting out of the pack as they did. But with visions of Sammy crowding his head, he did not care. He was sustained all the way to the Lower East, shielded from ridicule by the thought of his imminent liaison. He was headed for Avenue B and his naughty Valentine was waiting.

The apartment was five minutes' hard walk from the Spring Street Subway, but by now Shane was beyond cold and tiredness. Excitement was bubbling in his stomach as he rushed up the steps and tapped in the entry code. His imagination reeled with delicious possibilities and anticipated sensations as he bounded - hell with the elevator - up two stories. The key he'd been given to would unlock untold erotic delights, he knew, and he could barely contain himself as he turned it in the door and passed inside.

The living-space of the pre-war apartment, hung with Vanessa's own sketches and Sammy's Renoir and Matisse prints, was deserted, but someone was at home. Sammy's bedroom, the larger of the two, the one with the better-sprung bed and the space in which to manoeuvre imaginatively, was alive with music. Buckcherry's Crazy Bitch of all songs was booming its way aggressively through her door:

Heyyyy, you're a crazy bitch

But you fuck so good I'm on top of it...

When I dream, I'm doing you all night

Scratches all down my back to keep me right on...

So that was the Valentine's vibe she was going for. Shane's heart pounded along with the raunch of the track. He hadn't even known she liked Buckcherry. But he was indeed on top of this. In his soul and in his pants he was primed. Casting aside his backpack and straightening the rose stems, he walked to the vibrating door and stood for a moment in contemplation of the position in which she might be posed, of the scraps of clothing in which she might be barely clad. Thanking the Universe for this precious, precious moment he strode inside...

...And saw Vanessa stark naked on the bed, being fucked hard from behind by her brawny Canadian boyfriend. She was facing Shane directly, having been on all fours only to be hauled up from the covers by her arms, so that she was stretched out robustly like a ship's figurehead. The locks of her flaming hair were dancing wildly about her shoulders, her lightly freckled body was glistening with moisturiser and sweat and every Buckcherry-accompanying thrust from Dave was shivering through her firm, ample tits to the bullet-hard points of her nipples. Her eyes lit on Shane and she met his shocked stare brazenly, not remotely phased by the audience.

Appalled, Shane stumbled in reverse, but the throw-rug at the room's entrance slid from under him on the recently-polished wood floor and he went crashing to the ground in a flurry of thrashing limbs. The roses smashed into the wall as he went, several of the stems snapping cleanly. Dave finally noticed there was company and let go Vanessa in his surprise, so that she slid off his cock and tumbled onto the surface of the bed. He groped for a pillow to cover his bouncing wet erection, as Shane attempted a scramble to his feet only to collapse once more.

'Sorry! Sorry! I'd no idea... I'll get out! Sorry!' he was shouting desperately above the roar of the music, vaguely wondering what the fuck had just gone wrong. Only Vanessa seemed unabashed by the situation. Clambering from the bed, every inch of her lionine body on display, she calmly lifted an olive-green silk kimono from a bedside chair and wrapped it around herself. Shane had still not succeeded in departing the room by the time she switched off the stereo.

'Shane, it's okay, chill.'

'Vanessa... Sorry, I thought... Ehhh, why are you here? In this room?'

'Ah. Sammy didn't tell you about the swap then?'

'Swap? No, no, she didn't say a word, I'd have remembered. Oh... Hi Dave.'

'Hey buddy.' Vanessa's muscular, long-haired boyfriend gave him an uncertain wave from behind the protection of the pillow.

'Ehhh...' Shane had felt at his inarticulate worst for most of that afternoon. 'Is Sammy...' - he indicated the adjacent room - 'here?'

'No, she's not here,' Vanessa said simply, shaking her head.

'But she...led me to believe that I'd be meeting her. Here. Now.'

'Yes...' Vanessa appeared to have had a light-bulb moment. 'There was something I was to give you.'

'Ohhhh,' said Shane, throwing his hands in the air resignedly, as realisation dawned. 'Of course there is.' He watched as she went to her bedside table, flipped through the pages of a magazine which sat on it and picked out a lavender envelope.

'There you are,' she said helpfully, returning and flicking it into his hand.