Last Present

"She sounds like a wonderful person."

"She is. But one day she was preoccupied and on the verge of tears. I asked her why, and she told me that she wanted to get married but she just couldn't afford it."

"She was marrying someone else?"

"Yes, certainly. I wasn't interested in marrying her. I was completely otherwise oriented. That didn't stop when I left Germany. But I couldn't stand to see her sad. I still can't stand to see her sad. It breaks my hurt to see her the way she is now—and all because of me. Because she won't let me go. Because she won't grab at life. But, I was telling a story. So, I left her a tip that day. It wasn't cash. It was a check—for enough to pay for her wedding. I couldn't see her sad. She tried to refuse it, to give it back, but I told her all I wanted from her was a smile. That seeing her smile every morning was worth more than the check I gave her. And that's what she gave me—a smile."

"It sounds like happy ever after," I said. "But I don't see how you get from there to here."

"It wasn't a happy marriage. He beat her. Once again I could tell something was wrong when she was serving me those breakfasts. So, I paid the man off and arranged for a divorce lawyer for her who cost far more than she thought it did."

"And she was grateful to you and married you?"

"Not quite that easy. I made sure she didn't know who her benefactor was. I wasn't toying with her. I had grown to depend on that breakfast with the pleasant talk with her on the events of the day. She got me straight for my day. There isn't a vindictive bone in her body. When I went to breakfast mad about something that was happening in the world, in just a few moments as she was pouring my coffee, she set my attitude right. I knew already then that my day was set right by her—that I depended on her."

"Yes, but—"

"I had my first heart attack right there in the restaurant, at her table. She took complete and immediate charge—she even stayed with me in the ambulance and then in the hospital. She hasn't left my side since. And then, then I married her."

"But you are—"

"I didn't keep that a secret from her. And she didn't know who I was, what I was worth, until after we were married. I think she was just too tired with life then and felt defeated by the bad marriage she'd had. I think she herself just wanted someone to take care of and who she was comfortable with. It took some convincing, but she finally consented."

"And so, it's been how many years?"

"Ten. And when I got her to agree to us going on this cruise—she was afraid it would kill me, and I told her that that didn't matter as much as going on this cruise—I told her that this year, this year, I would give her the best Christmas present I could provide."

I said nothing. I had no idea what to say.

"I want you to make love to my wife," he then said in a quiet voice. "I'll pay you a thousand dollars U.S. But I want you to give her the fuck of her life—to show her everything that sex can give her, to make her live in that regard again. She says it doesn't matter, but I know it does. I want you to fuck that sad expression from her face. I doubt she's been fucked the whole time we've been married. I certainly didn't do it, and as I've noted before I don't know when she would have found the time or opportunity away from me to do it with anyone else. I wouldn't have begrudged her if she did, though."

"I don't know . . . why me? Why—?"

"I think I'm a good judge of character. I've watched you these last few days on the cruise. I've seen you sizing up the women on the cruise—and I saw how you reacted to Denise's obvious advances at lunch. I don't think I'm wrong, am I?"

There was a pregnant pause, during which all I could think of was that thousand dollars.

"You half thought I was going to ask you to fuck me just now, didn't you?—that that was why I'd asked you to have this drink with me, apart from my wife?" he asked in a low voice. "Would you have fucked me or given or received suck for a thousand dollars?"

Again, I was silent. I couldn't lie, even to myself.

"I thought so," he said. "Do you find my wife attractive?"

"Yes, of course. But would she . . . will she . . .?"

"I haven't talked to her about it yet, but I think I can convince her—when she knows how much I want to give this present to her. And once you've done it, I'm sure she will come alive again. I don't have long to live—I know that and so does she. I want her to live again after I'm gone. A new year is upon us. I wanted that to be the beginning of a new life for her."

"Here's the money. Please do count it. I want you to hold it. I'll let you know when and where. But it will be soon. It will have to be soon. Here, take it." His hand was extended, the money almost overflowing his shaky grip. I reached out and took the money.

"All I ask is that you be loving toward her—that you show her that it doesn't have to be like her husband did with her. I want this to be a beginning of the rest of her life. That's the best present I can think of giving her."

"But if she won't . . . it if doesn't happen."

"As long as you are willing and come when and if called and treat her right if called, the money is yours."

Denise Bessinger and I fucked for the first time, in her cabin, later that night, on Christmas Eve night. To put it more correctly, though, Denise fucked me. The woman was voracious. And she was an expert. I couldn't help but wonder what her husband's secretary had that made Denise second best.

She insisted on putting on a strip show for me—and then me for her. Then she directed me to sit on the edge of her bed and lay back and she leaned over me between my legs, one hand grasping my engorging cock as she kissed and tongued her way down my body. Her pendulous breasts teased my torso and thighs as she worked her way down to a kneeling position between my thighs. And when she swallowed me almost down to the root, I moaned deeply, not even realizing that I had that sort of reaction to the pleasure of cock play inside me.

When she had me a size that made her moan with expectation too, she rolled a condom on me and commanded me to rise up on the bed. Then she came over me, straddling my hips and slowly lowered herself onto my cock, with both of us holding our breath. When she began to pump herself on me, I groaned and reached for the handles swaying above my face. She lowered her chest over me enough for me to reach her nipples with my mouth, and after that I was fully satisfied until she'd drained me dry.

I had hoped that we'd doze when we were finished with that fucking—and that she'd sleep more soundly than I did, but Denise wasn't finished with me. She made me stand by the bed with her sitting on the edge, and she went back to working my cock up with her talented mouth.

Then—and I'd rarely done this before and certainly not at the request of the woman—she stood and leaned over the bed between my thighs and asked me for ass play. Her cunt was slack and well used, but her ass channel was tight. She writhed under me as I grabbed her hips with my hands and worked my cock inside her, and she grunted and groaned trying to accommodate me. I asked her more than once if I should stop, but she commanded me to keep at it, and I must admit that it was much the more melting fuck position for me that night. Denise claimed to have liked it best too.

We continued on the bed, stretched against each other for a couple of hours before she'd had enough and drifted off to sleep.

That's when I got up and pulled my clothes on and started stealthily rummaging around her open jewelry case for a greater tip for the evening than the hundred dollars she'd slipped to me in the Bamberg restaurant.

* * * *

I must have just been a notch on Denise Bessinger's belt, because our animalistic fucking on the night of the 27th was our last. On the next afternoon, I saw her putting the moves on the cruise ship's captain, a strapping Norwegian in his late thirties who the blonde pianist, with the confidence of one who knew, had whispered to me had the only cock and fucking expertise on board to rival mine.

I didn't begrudge Denise her fun. She paid well for it, and I really didn't want to be tied down to her. I had work to do, and I'd already gotten from her as much as she would give, I was sure. I did rather wonder, though, what she could attain beyond the captain if she was moving her way up the ladder. There were still five days left on the cruise. I'd already found out that she'd almost put the steward of her room in the hospital cabin before she'd moved on to me.

I made maximum use of the next three days, locating and seducing two lonely and very willing rich widows and relieving them of gems that I hoped they wouldn't miss until they got home to Illinois and Wisconsin, respectively. I had enough—even beyond Denise's diamond earrings and Hazelton's thousand dollars now for the operation to be worthwhile. Whether or not I got Claire Hazelton fucked, I'd be leaving the boat in Koblenz. I already had another lonely and rich widow in a village outside of Koblenz prepared to take me in and take care of me until any heat of my gem-collection escapade had blown over.

George Hazelton's plan started to take shape on the day of New Year's Eve. Our boat was parked during the previous night in the shadow of the rambling ruins of the historic Heidelberg castle. That morning I received word that George Hazelton wanted to go on another motorized wheelchair tour of the town.

And this time when I came down the gangplank to accompany him, Claire Hazelton wasn't getting on the tour bus. She was standing beside his chair.

"I thought Claire might go with us today," Hazelton said when I walked up to them. "I think the two of you should get to know each other better."

We had not much more than an hour before we were all to congregate at the Hackteufel restaurant for lunch. Hazelton was interested in crossing the river on the old bridge below the castle and then slowly moving back, stopping midstream to take a long, lingering look at the castle ruin. We had been walking for over a half hour and Claire was more outgoing than she had been in the restaurant in Bamberg, where I guess she'd been somewhat intimidated by the forwardness of Denise. The conversation was comfortable. I moved in close beside her on the other side from Hazelton's wheelchair, and she didn't shy away from me.

"My first American soldier was up there in the forested area beyond the castle grounds," Hazelton said in a whisper as we gazed up at the castle.

He was speaking in low tones, and I initially hoped that Claire hadn't heard him. But of course she had. She was so attentive to his every need and utterance that of course she had heard. She hadn't flinched, either.

So, I thought, Hazelton hadn't lied about her knowing about him. I moved my hand to her waist and I felt her lean into me. I couldn't tell if it was a natural response or if she'd done it on purpose.

"He was a beautiful young man," Hazelton said. "It was the day before we shipped out. Dark as night. Muscular and with such stamina. I don't remember ever having been touched so deeply."

I moved my hand down to cup Claire's buttocks, and she shuddered but she didn't move away.

The luncheon ritual was a repeat of that in Bamberg, except that Denise Bessinger wasn't there. I hadn't seen her in the tour bus. My surmise was that she was in the captain's cabin giving the strapping Norwegian a workout.

The conversation was comfortable—and far less bombastic and perhaps more intellectual and culture centered than it probably would have been with Denise there. The food wasn't up to Hazelton's expectations and, just as in Bamberg, Hazelton asked Claire to continue on with the regular tour and asked me to take him next door to a place called Vetters for a pils before taking him back to the boat.

"I've told her," he said almost immediately after we'd settled in and received our steins.

"I rather gathered you had. And she wants it?"

"She says she will do it—but only because I got agitated when she began to fight me about it. I have no doubt, though, that when she has a man like you between her legs, she will see life differently. I, of course, haven't a shred of jealousy about this. I'm still convinced it's the best present I can give to her. I am counting on you giving her what she needs."

"How can you be sure?"

"Denise holds little back. Even Claire has heard about what you have to give. And we both have ears. Denise's bed is just on the other side of the cabin wall from ours, you know. I am amazed that you can keep at it all night."

I blushed and looked down.

"You know you are very much like my Jim—the man I was with the longest. I think that's why I focused my hopes on him. It's not true, of course, about the black soldier on the castle grounds. He wasn't the biggest or the most satisfying. That was Jim. I can't help but thinking that under other circumstances, at another time, it would have been you."

I took a long drink of my pils, not knowing what to say.

"Pity." It was a whisper and then after a few moments of silence, "I can't resist asking. If I'd offered the thousand dollars to service me, would you have?"

"Yes."

"Thank you for that."

After the captain's New Years dinner that evening and as the party that followed in the Panorama Lounge was winding down, a steward came to me and asked me if I'd join the Hazeltons in the Rear Lounge. I found them sitting at the same table that I'd sat with Denise on the four nights earlier. Hazelton was in a wheelchair, and he looked all done in, even though he'd left the captain's dinner early and hadn't appeared at the festivities in the Panorama Lounge.

"Thank you," George whispered to the steward who escorted me into the lounge. "Please come back in fifteen minutes and take me to my room."

I knew then what he had in mind. Claire wasn't going to be taking him back to their room.

I looked over at her. She was lovely, dressed in a shimmering gold-sequined- covered sheath dress that swept down to the floor, had a plunging neckline and back, and a side slit almost up to her hip. I had never seen her look so sensual.

She was looking down at her hands, though, not at either Hazelton or me, and I felt rather than saw that she was slightly quaking.

Like a virgin to her wedding night was the thought that entered my mind. And that thought didn't seem to be off the mark.

"So," I murmured.

"Quite," Hazelton said. "I am quite tired. Would you be so kind, Dieter, as to entertain Claire for the rest of the evening."

"Entertain?" I asked, wanting to be positive about what was expected.

"Yes, as agreed, please."

"That might be a problem," I said.

"Claire has the key to Denise Bessinger's cabin," Hazelton said, brushing away any possibility of misunderstanding. "I believe Denise will be visiting the captain's cabin tonight."

"So I've gathered," I said.

We three sat there through ten minutes of silence, none of us looking at the other, all of us deep in our own thoughts. I almost laughed when the thought hit me that this was more like a funeral than a wedding, but I managed to suppress the urge.

The steward came back, and Hazelton somewhat sadly bid us both good night and was wheeled off.

"So," I said again, nonsensically.

"We should wait for a few minutes. Then I must go and see that he's put to bed properly. But I'll be back. It's . . . it's what he wants."

"But is it what you want?"

"It's what George wants. That's enough . . . for now."

I watched her rise and move toward the corridor. My eyes went to the mounds of her buttocks. Desire rose inside me. In that instant, I wanted to put my hands on those mounds and spread them, part them with the head of my cock, and to plunge inside her. I wanted to hear her moan . . . moan for me. There was no question that I was ready for her. The lust for her was powerful even with the recognition that she had left me to see to the needs of her husband—that always he would come first with her. I had a feeling that would never change. She was the ultimate loving wife.

When she returned, she didn't sit. She stood there looking thin and sensual in the shimmering gold sheath, the key card to Denise's cabin in her hand.

"I'm sorry, I hope you understand. But we must tell George that he got his wish, but I just can't do it. He's my husband. I don't have the capability for more. I . . . I just—"

"I understand," I said. "I won't force you. And of course we can tell him it happened." I tried to hide my disappointment. I truly wanted to fuck this woman. But she had to want it too. I didn't want it the other way. And the business side of me was screaming that the money was mine either way. It just didn't matter. I had just met these people. I didn't need to complicate my life with their situation, their issues. I tried to pull the hard side blanket of my thinking over everything. But the truth was that I did care. And I did want to fuck this woman.

"You'll have to walk me to the door, and we'll have to speak in the corridor—in case he's still awake and listening for us."

"I understand." I didn't seem capable of saying much of anything else. But saying that prevented me from humiliating myself and telling Claire what I really wanted.

We chatted in the hallway. I tried my best not to sound strained, and I walked awkwardly because Claire had given me a raging hard. When she opened the door, I took hold of her arms and turned her to me, and my lips went to hers. She initially was stiff with surprise, but she yielded to me, hungrily opening to me. Showing me that in other circumstances she would want what I wanted. And then she slipped away from me and the door shut in my face.

I went into the Panorama Lounge and scanned the room. The party was winding down, but there were still quite a few people swirling about, many of them frantically on a last-minute cruise.

There was a silver-haired but still quite well put together woman at the bar in a red dress who I had cultivated on and off but hadn't gotten around to yet. She had said something about this being a celebration cruise for divorce from a Texan who hadn't been bright enough to demand a prenup. She was the oldest of those I'd had my eye on, but she wasn't the worst looking, and her body still looked like I'd manage to keep it up for her.

"It's New Year's Eve," I said with a big smile as a walked up to the bar, "Surely you're not all by your lonesome, Avis."

"Why lookee here," she said, her eyes opening large. "My, my, you certainly look the superman hunk in that tuxedo, Dieter."

"Any interest in seeing me without it?" I said, with a wink.

She cried and thanked me over and over again, as I gave her the deep, gentle fuck I had thought I'd be giving Claire. Avis scored a New Year's Eve memory for the books, and I scored a glittering amethyst bracelet—but not the New Year's Eve memory I would have preferred.

* * * *

The next day, New Year's day, was the highlight day of the cruise. For two hours, the boat would be slowly cruising the Rhine River gorge between Rüdesheim and Koblenz, with its necklace of castles on the heights on either side and the culmination at the historic Lorelei rocks of legend, where the sirens of old lured sailors to their deaths with their sensual invitations.

The temperature was brisk—cold enough that nearly all of the passengers went to the Panorama Lounge and lined the windows to enjoy the spectacle.

George Hazelton, however, insisted on going up atop the boat to the open Solaris Deck to enjoy an unencumbered view. I was called in to help. I gathered up all of the blankets I could find and Claire and I took George up to the top in his wheel chair and then wheeled him out to amidships, where he could look in any direction he desired. He insisted in being in one of the lounge chairs as Claire and I were, so we put him in one between us and covered him with blankets. Claire and I were bundled up too.