Lloyd's Angel Ch. 13

I didn't want to stay at the store, so I'd made reservations at an Italian place Danny recommended. It was expensive enough to keep out the noisy crowds, but perversely focused on the "casual chic" sort who didn't get excited about dressing up to eat.

Angela gave me a long look. "Am I going to be okay like this?" she asked me, gesturing at her sweater, after I'd given her the option of convoying or carpooling.

"I'm not changing," I nodded. "Besides, you know you'll have the waiters walking into walls."

"Stop it," laughed Angela. "What would you know? Do you even own any clothes younger than I am, gramps?"

"Ouch," I winced. "I have it on good authority you're fine. Shirt? Check. Shoes? Check. No swimsuit -- Check. Don't worry."

"Well, I'll trust you," she said lightly, sending a faint chill down my spine. "But I'll drive; I seem to recall somebody saying he didn't see too well after dark."

Her old Taurus looked and sounded like it was on its last legs, but it knew its mistress and got us to the restaurant without complaints. Angela hesitated in the driveway, seeing the valet sign ahead but no alternatives -- apparently the casual chic didn't like to self-park, either. She sighed and pulled up in front of the door.

They were expecting us, and the maitre d' led us back, not to the table I was expecting, but to a curtained-off private room. It boasted a fireplace, a chandelier, and an ornate table set for two. A single long-stemmed red rose was laid across one of the settings. Goddamn it, Danny! I silently cursed and colored beneath the expressionless gaze Angela turned on me.

"If this will suit?" the host asked, pulling back a chair for Angela.

She nodded, showing considerable poise, and allowed herself to be seated. I was seated across from her a moment later, and the wait staff left us, promising to return momentarily with menus and water.

"Well," Angela allowed. "This is... a little more than I was expecting. You did say 'drinks', didn't you?"

"I have never been so embarrassed in my life," I muttered into my lap.

"What?"

I looked up at her. "I said, I'm sorry." After a heavy sigh, I continued, "I asked a -- friend -- to recommend someplace quiet where a couple could talk. I think he's a little too invested in my emotional well-being and jumped to conclusions. I certainly didn't expect this! We can leave, if it's making you uncomfortable."

"No, we're here," Angela said, lifting the rose to her nose and inhaling. "I saw your face when we came in, and I know you didn't expect this any more than I did. It's a little humorous, really."

There was a break while we ordered drinks and some appetizers.

Angela spoke up again, sounding stern, as soon as we were alone. "But you've been holding out on me, Lloyd."

I let my surprise show, uncertain what she meant.

"I was curious, so I looked you up in the alumni directory. Why didn't you tell me you have a Ph.D.? Christ, no wonder you can sleepwalk through my coursework! What are you doing wasting your life doing store security?"

"That part of my life's over," I told her flatly, slumping back in my chair and draining off half my glass of wine. "I can't do it anymore."

She backed off her intensity. "Yeah, your wife. I Googled her. I'm so sorry; that must have been Hell for you. What a tragic accident."

I didn't say anything, but just stared at the menu without seeing any of the words and clenched my hands in my lap. And cursed Angela's perceptiveness.

Her eyes narrowed. "It was an accident, right? Surely you can't blame yourself for it? Lloyd?"

"I. Don't. Want. To. Talk. About. It."

Angela sighed and picked up her menu, but the atmosphere remained tense through the end of the salad course.

She surprised me by speaking up just after we'd gotten our entrees. "I'm sorry I'm being pushy, Lloyd. I'll say one more thing, and then I promise I'll shut up and never mention it again if you don't want me to. Okay?"

I nodded, resigned.

"Don't cheapen Alexandra's memory this way. I care about you, and you're throwing your life away for something that wasn't your fault. Look, I saw a lot of bad things in Iraq, and others saw worse. Bad things happen in life, Lloyd. But we pick ourselves up and move on, because if we don't, then what were our friends sacrificing themselves for? Don't be a quitter."

Her premise was wrong, but I couldn't tell her that. Knowing she cared lightened my heart, and the humor of the situation got to me. Getting lectured about life by a young girl? "Yes, mother," I rolled my eyes.

She smiled, and the rest of the evening passed much more agreeably.

When we left, Angela was carrying the rose with her. "Thank your friend for the rose," she told me while we waited for the valet.

"I'll tell him what he can do with your rose," I growled, still embarrassed by the whole thing.

"You're so sweet," she laughed, and squeezed my arm gently.

We drove back to the mall, and Angela pulled up next to my old Acura. "Next week, my turn?" she asked casually. "In less refined surroundings," she added with a laugh.

"Absolutely," I agreed with delight. I was even more delighted when she leaned over and brushed her lips against my cheek before I climbed out. "Drive safely," I warned, closing the door.

"Live well," she shouted through the glass. Angela waited until I had the engine started, and pulled away into the night. She was incorrigible.

I spent the night dreaming about the touch of her lips, and what they would feel like everywhere on my body. In my dreams, we revisited the restaurant, but Angela was the main course. She lay naked atop the table, writhing in ecstasy, while I gave her the fucking of her life and we both came together. Later, we spooned on the plush rug in front of the fireplace, and her kisses tasted of our combined excitement.

That smile was still on my lips when I woke alone in bed, and the stickiness in my pajamas belonged only to me. Was she as interested in me as I was in her? The question kept preying on my mind.

I didn't know which one of my bastard coworkers to blame, but I knew the jig was up when I met Angela in the break room Thursday morning.

"Hey, I'm sorry, but I have a conflict for tomorrow. Could we reschedule for Tuesday?" Angela already had her "professional" smile on, but I could see the glint of humor in her eyes. For damn sure she knew it was my birthday.

Arguing would have prolonged the inevitable. "Yeah, but no fancy stuff," I warned her.

"Plain enough for you?" Angela asked archly; she'd just pulled her winter coat over the uniform. It meant we weren't going upstairs, and probably weren't going out anywhere that wasn't extremely casual.

My pulse sped slightly in nervous anticipation. "I'm yours to command."

She laughed. "How long will that last?"

It wasn't technically holiday season yet, but the mall had already opened satellite parking lots for the employees, so we rode the shuttle out. "Just follow me," Angela said during the ride. "I'll drive really slowly so it'll seem familiar to you."

Angela didn't carry through on her threat, but she was a careful driver and I didn't have problems staying with her, even in the evening rush. We headed generally in the direction of the University and turned into an unremarkable residential area. I followed her slowly down a street, and saw Angela roll down her window and point towards a vacant spot along the curb.

As I pulled in, she sped down the street and turned into an entrance just beyond the building, quickly disappearing from view. I got out of the car and looked around, feeling a little light-headed; this had to be where she lived! I started walking towards the door of the building she'd gone behind, and Angela appeared in the doorway when I was about two-thirds of the way there.

We walked up to the second floor and she unlocked her door before ushering me in. "Welcome to Casa Vasquez, Lloyd. Throw your coat in the closet. Can I get you a beer or glass of wine?"

"Something red would be great," I answered, looking around with interest. There wasn't a lot of furniture, and everything was spic-and-span; pretty much the polar opposite of my place. I heard some clunking and shifting of cookware in the kitchen, so I drifted that way.

Angela met me there. A pair of half-filled glasses sat on the counter, and she'd just put a pot on the range. "It'll take a little while to heat, but the hard stuff was done yesterday. I hope you like Mexican."

I smiled and told her, "I'm not so picky in my old age."

"Great! If you can amuse yourself a minute or two longer, I'll change into something more comfortable." Angela winked at me and sauntered out.

A sip of wine steadied my nerves, and I wandered back into the main room. There was a small display case hung on the wall, and I moved closer to examine its contents. There were some ribbons and medals, of which I recognized only a Purple Heart, what I took to be a unit insignia, and her Bachelors diploma. The rose from our last dinner lay in the bottom of the case. I looked around for pictures, but didn't see any.

"Ta-da, comfortable and decidedly not fancy!" Angela announced. I'd faintly hoped for a filmy negligee and heels, but what I got was sweatpants and a tee-shirt, with fuzzy slippers. The shirt, which was black, proclaimed "I invaded Iraq and all I got was this fucking shirt." It had the same insignia as the patch in the case.

"It seems like a lot of work for a shirt," I laughed.

"You have no idea," Angela said, walking back to the kitchen to check the pot. The back of the shirt said, "TWICE."

"Come on," I kidded her, "were you even out of diapers for the first one?"

"First grade, I think," she mused while giving the pot a stir. "They decided a second tour was good enough for government work. Here, get some more wine; we have about 15 or 20 minutes, I think."

Angela disappeared again while I refilled our glasses, but she was back by the time I was setting down the bottle. "Happy birthday, Lloyd," she smiled, and then handed me a gift box.

"You didn't have to do this." Whatever it was, it had a little heft to it. I opened the box, and found it contained a man's watch. Looking more closely, I realized it was an old stainless steel Rolex, still in pretty good condition. "Angela, I can't accept this; it must have cost you a fortune."

She lightly pushed away my hand. "It didn't cost me a penny. My mother gave it to me; I guess it was my grandfather's." Her eyes focused inward for a moment. "She's never been very talkative about her side of the family."

"It must have some sentimental value; save it for your husband, then."

"Stop whining and just accept it! I forgot I even had it, honestly, but I thought of you right away when I found it. You know nobody my age wears watches anymore -- we just look at our cell phones. It would make me happy for you to have it."

I carefully removed the watch from the box and examined it. It looked like an Oysterdate, which pretty much exhausted my knowledge of Rolex watches, and appeared to be in mint condition except for some scratches on the bottom of the steel link band. Angela obviously had wound it and set the correct date and time.

After a moment of thought, I removed my pedestrian Timex and put on the Rolex; it sat solidly on my wrist, a little loose but quite passible. "Thank you, then, from the very bottom of my heart."

"You're welcome." She hugged me, and I was intensely aware of her body beneath the thin shirt. I didn't want to embarrass either of us with an erection, but my body had other ideas.

"So, what are we eating?"

"Carnitas," Angela answered, looking back at the range. "It's slow-cooked pork, served with lots of things that are bad for you. But, hey -- we both probably should be dead already."

It proved to be delicious. I forced myself to stop before I was full, not wanting to be bloated.

"Forget about the dishes," she ordered me when I started to clean the table. "Go sit on the futon and pretend you're a guest, okay?" Angela punched the button on the coffeemaker and joined me; our knees were almost touching.

I shifted a bit, using my hands folded in my lap to cover my rigid penis. Angela looked at me, as if she were waiting for something, and I gazed back at her, taking in the loose coil of hair on the back of her head, the way her bust moved lightly beneath the shirt as she breathed, and the curve of her legs beneath the soft pants.

"You're undressing me again," she chided.

"I think you're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," I told her with a dry mouth.

A slight wariness entered her eyes, but I was already too far gone to notice it. "I admire you very much, too."

They were almost the words I'd been longing to hear. I needed her so badly! My hand trembled when I reached out to turn her face towards me so I could kiss her the way I'd been longing to.

She swept my hand easily aside and turned her face away, stiff-arming me back into my place. "Lloyd, no!" Angela was clearly upset, but still in command of herself and the situation.

I stared at her in stark incomprehension. "No?"

"I invited you here tonight to salute you and feed you, Lloyd -- not to have sex!" She was trembling now, herself. "I am not that kind of woman."

"You're all that kind of woman!" I shouted, and began struggling to reach her.

Physically, she had nothing to fear from me; emotionally, anger started to displace her initial disbelief. Angela shouted, "NO!" and slapped me, hard.

"YES!" I raged, and waves of emotion fueled by loss, rage, humiliation, and lust channeled through my mind's eye and crashed down on her like a ton of bricks. Mentally, it was more like a ton of flashing, razor-edged knives.

I wasn't consciously directing anything, but my raw ability hadn't faded any after years of disuse. Any inhibitions I might have felt were buried beneath raw emotion and a bitter sense that all my past attempts at self-restraint had ended badly. I didn't show any restraint at all, that evening.

The tangled ball of Angela's mind thrashed as if the individual strands of her consciousness were unraveled simultaneously in place and then stretched in differing directions, somehow forming two almost independent but interwoven tangles, before the sparkles forming them began to flare under the pressure of my intent.

I wanted a slut, a wanton sex object who would always be ready for my attentions, craving my touch, and loyal beyond all doubt or distraction. Not a slave, exactly, but a partner whose most focused desire would be my own gratification by whatever means necessary. If I felt even a passing desire to take her, she would be ready. The living incarnation of every adolescent boy's unwaking wet dream and carnal fantasy.

Both of us screamed. What Angela felt, I didn't know, but the mother of all headaches seemed to hit me like lightning, and the sparkles of her mind were eclipsed by the stars appearing in my vision, just before I passed out.

My senses were out of kilter when I finally decided I was awake. Keeping my eyes closed seemed to reduce the intensity of the headache, and allowed me to concentrate on the pleasure I was receiving. My first thought was that Susan was blowing me; that we'd stolen away again to the lumpy couch in the ladies' washroom for a quickie. She was all frantic desire, without the quiet, assured confidence that Alex had developed after decades of learning more about my body than I knew myself.

Belatedly I understood that framing the comparison at all meant it couldn't be either of them, and I forced my aching eyes open. Angela knelt between my legs, worshipping my organ with an intensity of purpose that showed in every line of her body. The sight of this fantasy realized brought me to full rigidity.

Angela stood, revealing her sweatpants and underwear already were missing. My eyes drank in the arousing contours of her young body, pausing briefly at the traces of semen glistening near her neatly groomed bush. Wearing only the tee shirt and socks, she quickly knelt atop me and guided my erection into her pussy.

We both moaned at the exquisite sensation, and Angela quickly looked up at my face. Seeing that I was awake, she gave a cry of delight and leaned forward to kiss me aggressively. "Master!" she cooed a moment later.

"Don't call me that," I blurted, feeling the word jab at my guilty conscience.

She started and pulled back slightly, suddenly looking as if she might cry. "Don't you find me pleasing?"

"Don't stop! Oh, you're extremely pleasing; just -- not that word. I'm nobody's master, least of all yours."

The smile reappeared instantly. "Whatever you say," she agreed, and began to work herself on me again. Angela's expression suggested she was pandering to some beloved, but addled, elder -- not a bad analogy -- but became by turns more self-absorbed as our excitement crested higher.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd cum more than once in a day, but years of abstinence coupled with the sight -- and feel -- of Angela's wild abandon were pushing me to the edge again. "Oh, you hot fucking slut," I gasped, not bothering with any self-censorship at this point.

As if my words were goads, Angela began panting. "Oh, fuck! Fill me up with your cock! I am your slut! Oh! OH! Ohmygod!"

She was too much for me, and I felt my penis throb as I orgasmed the remaining dregs of my scum into her. Angela screamed her delight at the same time, orgasming so wildly she put out a hand to grip the futon and keep from falling over. Part of me suspected it wasn't a coincidence, but the rest of me was having too much fun watching to give it any thought.

Angela pulled herself off me and watched, entranced, as commingled lubrication and jism glistened along the entire length of my deflating manhood. She reached out to grasp me, but I shooed her away.

"Go easy on an old man! You don't want to break it, do you?"

"More," she pleaded, with the air of a five-year-old in a candy store.

I couldn't help laughing. "We'll see! First, I'd like to see more of you."

Angela stood without artifice, but with innate grace, and faced me. She pulled the shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor. A toss of her head arranged her hair behind her shoulders, and she was already removing the simple cotton bra she wore.

My mouth went dry looking at her. I knew what Angela looked like fully clothed, but some women were expert at using garments to accentuate their good points and obscure those that weren't so good. She hadn't struck me as that type, but it was clear her body didn't need any help at all in that regard. I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I wasn't going to end the night at this point!

I stood up, and discovered my pants were still puddled around my ankles. Happy I'd worn loafers, I managed to free my feet without killing myself. A few steps brought me within reach of Angela. Gingerly, I reached out to cup a breast; it was warm, soft, and I felt the nipple erect itself against the palm of my hand. Angela's lips parted in an unaspirated sigh, and her body melted against mine. Well, against my flannel shirt and cardigan, anyway.

"Damn shirt," I muttered, and withdrew my hand to start unbuttoning it.

Angela brushed my hands gently aside. "Let me," she offered. Her fingers were deft, and didn't miss a single opportunity to touch and stroke my body. When she finished peeling my undershirt over my head, we were pressed against each other with our outstretched arms entwined.

My cock was thinking about rising to the occasion a third time. I left it to fend for itself, sandwiched against a toned hip, and pulled Angela tighter against me. I kissed her again, and this time she reacted passively, parting her lips and allowing my tongue to explore her mouth as I chose.