The Heart Shaped Pendant

***************

Dora the daughter was at my back door the next day, a warm one with humidity promising cloudbursts. She was dressed in a blue business suit and white blouse. Coming into the kitchen, she stood confronting me: "I always knew something was wrong with having a handsome young man living next door to my mother. She should have married again, a man her age who could have taken care of her and made her happy. You two were like a couple of teenagers."

I couldn't believe that she called me a "handsome young man." That term never seemed to apply to me, and Dora was just a year or two older than I was.

"Dora, I never forced your mother to do anything. She lived her life and I lived mine. The first five years we were neighbors, she had two serious relationships that failed and I had one. Our work kept both of us busy in our own houses most of the time; after a while when we came out of our cocoons we gravitated to each other. We never flaunted ourselves in public and when Mallory was around, things were strictly platonic. I've treated your daughter as I would have treated one of my nieces, and my nieces always slept at Charlene's when they came to visit. If she had wanted a husband, I would never have stood in her way, and she frequently told me I should marry someone younger. You have no right to pass judgement on her or on me."

Dora blew out a heavy breath and thought for a long moment. "All right, all right. Mother was always very independent, and I guess this kind of relationship suited her better. Fine, fine." Her eyebrows creased thoughtfully and she pursed her lips. "So, you are fond of my daughter Mallory. If I get the pendant, it will be hers someday."

"I'm certain. I guess in time she may get everything."

"Will you give it tome, then?"

I shook my head. "I can't promise that. Your mother wanted it awarded this way for a reason. It would be unjust to give anyone special consideration, despite the fondness I may have for your Mallory."

"You pervert."

"Not at all. This is something I'm doing only becauseshewanted me to and I would have done anything for her. I wish that she were standing here before me right now and telling me it was time to go pick mushrooms. The contest wasn't my idea." Dora softened a little bit, but was still determined.

Finally, she sat on a kitchen chair in front of me. "Mother always gave me pointers on how to take care of a man. Neither of us were good at keeping them, but we were always able to get them when we wanted to." She started rubbing my lap slowly and subtly as I stood beside her, her eyes taking on a studious look. Despite the tone of our conversation, I began to respond, and she licked her lips as she quickened her pace. "You did take good care of her; she was very happy."

"You are the image of your mother when I first fell in love with her," I said very honestly, and she returned a sweet, genuine smile for that. She kneaded with two hands for a few moments as my forked radish grew, then her jacket and white silk blouse were on the chair to display a white, lacy bra containing two mountains of sweet, soft ivory. Now my pants came undone; she rubbed and kissed all over my forked radish and shortly her bra took its place on the chair as well. Painfully ready, I was fully taken in and overwhelmed by warm wetness. Her tongue was a tornado and her mouth fluctuated perfectly between high and low pressure. A low humming up and down the same short scale Charlene used sent my senses reeling more. The results of Dora's work were eventually displayed on the face, chest and breasts that were a mirror of her mother's at the same age. As she pumped the last drops from me, she closed her eyes and luxuriated in the wetness on her porcelain skin. She kissed my limp forked radish twice sweetly while she sat there and glowed for several moments before she took her clothes to the bathroom and washed up before leaving wordlessly.

*********************

Almond-eyed Morgan was my Thursday 1:00 appointment; she arrived with a boom box in her hand and wearing a black rain slicker on a sunny day. She was dolled up: wearing fantastically gorgeous makeup that brought out her lovely face and her hair was a symphony of soft blond curls. When she closed the door she asked, "Do you have a pole in your basement?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"In a lot of homes this old, there are support poles in the basement. Do you have one here?"

"Yes, I do. More than one." She smiled, and her eyes gleamed a little bit.

"Do you have any comfy chairs down there?"

"Yes, I do a little fly tying there and like to be comfortable."

"Let's go downstairs," she said, taking me with her free hand and pulling me quickly to the basement door.

We went to the basement, and she pushed several old boxes away to create a large area by one of the support pillars. She turned on a bare light hanging from the ceiling, and plugged her boom box into an outlet along the concrete wall. She moved all the fly tying gear away from the beat up old chair I keep down there to create some space around it. Sitting me down in the chair, she made sure I was comfortable before she began. Satisfied, she pushed the on button and started to dance for me.

It was an seductive dance that involved stripping down to a strapless bustier and then to only panties to a mix of country music that began withPink Cadillacsand proceeded through a lot of Randy Travis, Tim McGraw and Travis Tritt. It was stimulating: I had seen clips of pole dancers but never in person, except when Charlene got crazy one night in this very place. Morgan swayed and swerved and twirled around the pole, using it to push and pull her body into different positions; occasionally she licked her lips hungrily. The cold pole made her nipples stand out forcefully and proudly; her skin glistened and shone with sweat as she moved with seductive energy. I sat rapt and asked, "Where did you learn to do this?"

"Strippercize tapes. I've been doing the workout for a year; do you like the results?"

Morgan was an extremely toned and streamlined version of Charlene, which was a big leap from most of the rest of the family. Charlene always called her body a dumpy old bag of bones but after I got to know how beautiful she really was, the sight of it always excited me. The night of her retirement party, we had much more to drink than usual and had come down to this basement at 2:00 AM for a raucous, spontaneous celebration of her freedom. She put onLe Sacre du Printempsand gave me an hysterical nude ballet: posing, swinging around the poles, and trying to make her tubby body gyrate in as many different directions as possible to the first half of the ballet as I rolled on the floor. For the second half of the ballet, I waved, bounced, juggled and squeezed her dear pendulous, floppy breasts in different directions to the rhythms as she sat in my lap panting and shrieking with laughter. We made hot urgent love on the cold concrete floor before going somewhere more comfortable for the rest of the night.

Morgan's body was a model's dream; she was naked performing for me and her form was perfect. She came over, ground her hips into my crotch and swung her heavy breasts in my face, making just enough contact to entice and frustrate. "What's this called?" I asked.

"Lapdancing. This is usually all the farther it gets, but today is different."

After a few more minutes agony, she knelt, ripped down my trousers, and began giving my forked radish the direct attention of her mouth and hands. The sudden forwardness after the teasing had dramatic effect; I lasted as long as three minutes only because her relatives had been visiting me earlier that week. She knelt before me and let me paint her breasts and torso without a brush when I could stand it no longer, massaging the sticky whiteness into her sweat with a beatific smile on her face. When she was certain I was done and we had a chance to catch our breath, she went upstairs, showered, and dressed. Then she restored my basement and left with her paraphernalia. I was glad to have some peace and quiet: I hate country music.

************

Friday saw Andrea, Morgan's mother and Charlene's youngest sister, arrive at my front door dressed in a blue blouse and tan pants with a portable table and a bag. She was almost as thin as her daughter and they shared lovely almond eyes. After I admitted her, she drew the curtains of my living room and set up her table, setting a lot of bottles from the bag on my end table. It was the only room of my house that would have held it except the basement.

"As you know, Mr. Fredrickson, I am a licensed masseuse and touch therapist. If there is any way that a good, all over body massage could take the place of what Charlene wanted, I would be happy to offer that to you."

"I do like a good massage and I will be happy to give you some authentic business sometime in honor of your sister. This week, I have been honoring your oldest sister's last wishes and I do not believe that I can accept a substitute. I've always had faith in Charlene's judgement. Nothing personal. If you are interested in the pendant, I must ask you do to as they did."

"That shows what kind of man you are."

"Not the one that you think I am. Charlene and I used to give each other back rubs and I would give all the fellatio in the world for the touch of her hand on my shoulder right now."

Andrea searched my eyes for several moments, finally sighing and beckoning me to the table. "I don't ever do this for anyone else, but if you'll remove your clothes and hop up on the table I will put this in a context you will find relaxing and enjoyable."

In the next half hour, with her oiled and tender touch, she had drawn all the tension from my back, shoulders and legs accompanied by soothing music, candles and light incense as I lay face down on the table. Flipping me over, she massaged my feet and worked on my legs. After working on my torso a bit, she gave a little fleeting attention to my forked radish, and on seeing a response she began a well lubricated digital stimulation. Her touch was like Charlene's: strong and gentle, supple yet insistent, and I responded to it gratefully.

I have a small cabin at a private lake southwest of town. The property takes in one end of the lake that holds a protected cove, a dock and a two room cabin. When the solitude of the two old painted ladies Charlene and I lived in were not enough, we would repair, singly or together, to the cabin to refresh ourselves in God's creation. The last time we were alone there together it was a sultry August day that we spent on our lawn chairs under the shade of the porch and the glorious view, swimming and playing in the water to break the inertia. The years dropped away and we two chubby senior citizens were lithe children once again, naked and innocent in the garden of Paradise. We went into the cabin, put a blanket and pillows on the kitchen table, and gave each other a long, slow sensuous massage. She appreciated the warm oil and my tender touch, particularly on her arthritic feet, and I appreciated the relief she brought to the twinge in my left shoulder. The night was hot, and after making love on the grass we lay under the stars together wearing nothing but insect repellant, holding hands and pondering how young we were compared to the wonders above us.

Andrea reached for a small spray bottle, put it next to me and turned her attention to my forked radish with her lips as well as her hands. After spraying something in her mouth, her tongue and mouth sent chills through me as she went up and down and around. Periodically, she would refresh the spray and I was soon a fountain spraying directly up in the air. Cleaning me up with a towel, she checked for any muscles that had retightened during my exertions. There were a couple that she untighted again before moving me off to the couch, then she bade me to take a long, hot bath as soon as I could draw one, packed up and left. It was four o'clock before could I stand up, dress and think about preparing a light supper.

**************

I got up early Saturday without the alarm, fixed the usual coffee and went into the garage to get some scraping tools. There was too much input and output to go with my grief that week and I needed processing time. There was no way I could make the choice she wanted me to make: I was confused and saw no way forward.

As I rummaged around the shelves with the garage door open, Mallory came in barefoot wearing a yellow tube top and cutoffs, her medium length hair in pigtails and her usual mammoth coffee mug in her hand. "Hi Charlie, how's it going?" she asked me brightly.

My heart fluttered as I saw her. "Don't sneak up on an old man like that. Get in here and out of sight from the street before I have to fight the natives off with a paint scraper to protect your virtue." We both laughed and I wiped my face. "Why did you drop by today?"

"You invited me to come by anytime. It's my dad's turn to keep me this weekend but he's out of the country and Mother is in meetings all weekend. So I'm off the radar, hanging out at Grandmama's for the weekend and I wondered if you'd like to go swimming later."

"I've got to get my house scraped in order to paint it next week. Need some mindless physical labor to unwind with."

"If I help you, we could get it done by noon and go swimming then."

The afternoons were still too hot for manual labor by an old fat man and a swim in the lake sounded like an excellent idea. "You're on. Grab a scraper and be careful where you step."

We put some drop cloths down and scraped the house all morning: I was on the ladder, she was down low, and we made quick work of it. At times I caught a view down her tube top and saw her grandmother as a teenager; I had to be sure to focus my attention on my work in order not to get caught in an embarrassing situation. After the week I just had with her mother, her aunts and her cousin, I'd have thought there was no gas left in my tank at all, but I was very wrong.

A couple of sandwiches did for lunch as we drove to my cabin. I wore my big blue swimming trunks and a white t-shirt; she wore a yellow bikini that became rather transparent upon entering the water. Her nipples poked up as sweetly as maraschino cherries on generous dollops of vanilla ice cream, and the dizzying swoop of her hips competed with them for attention. She didn't have Morgan's aerobically sculpted perfection, but I knew the delicate young poetic soul she was and that surpassed any physical deficiencies. She could be my Nimué: trapping me in her magic spell.

The water was perfect and I stayed in a lot to hide my unconscious interest in Mal's body. Otherwise we had a lot of fun: playing and splashing in the cove as we had together with Charlene on many occasions. I felt her presence in the waterplay and that cooled me off to solemnity and sadness as I walked the halls of memory. Mal and I then rested side by side on the dock as we had done many times to let ourselves dry in the sunlight.

After a while, she broke the silence. "There a poem that's been on my mind a lot lately. I read it a year ago and it speaks to what my life has been like so far."

"Oh? Do you remember it?" I asked.

She swallowed and said, "It starts:

'From childhood's hour I have not been

As others were; I have not seen

As others saw; I could not bring

My passions from a common spring.

From the same source I have not taken

My sorrow; I could not awaken

My heart to joy at the same tone;

And all I loved, I loved alone."

My eyes were drowning. I said, "Edgar Allan Poe'sAlone. I always felt that poem was the best description of my life, too, and Charlene felt it said the same of her." Mal rolled over and looked me in the face with her streaming eyes, then buried her head on my shoulder for several long, wet moments as I held her.

Our normal lake days usually included an extended savoring of the sunset, but neither of us wanted to stay that day. We got back home by 4:00, and went to our houses to put our stuff away .

After I came through the my front door, I took a quick shower and laid down for a nap wearing a t-shirt and running shorts. I had assumed that Mal had gone over to her grandmother's house to do the same, but I was wrong. Twenty minutes later I felt a heaviness on the bed beside me; Mal was sitting cross legged on the bed, watching me as I slept. The look in her eyes made me concerned: she was regarding me with a reverence that I had only seen before in Charlene.

"Hi," I said awkwardly, "How's it going?"

Mal had her tube top and cutoffs on again, and the wonders beneath were talking to me. She laid her hand tenderly on my knee. "I had a wonderful time with you; I always do." Mal then looked at me with a determination I'd never seen before. "I want a chance at the pendant," she said flatly. I returned a frightened look. "I want a chance at the pendant," she repeated.

"You don't know what it takes to get it, do you?" I hoped that she didn't and would be shocked at the requirement to compete.

Mal keep looking at me and her left eye grew watery. "Yes. I have to give you oral sex better than any other woman in the family, in your judgement. I read the will at Grandmama's house when they got back from your meeting and I asked them why I wasn't there. They said I was too young, were upset that I wanted to do it, thought I was presumptuous for wanting it now, and were aghast that I wanted to be a slut like Grandmama, as they said. Mother promised me that if she got it, I would get it eventually, so I would have to depend on her . But that's not fair, that's not what Grandmama wanted."

"How do you know this?"

"She told me the last time I visited her. She told me that she set up this competition to find out something important about her family and the winner would be the one who should get the pendant and everything. You would know who she's looking for, she said; she trusted you completely and knew you would give it to the right person. The contest was to let you know what her sisters, her daughter, her niece and her granddaughter were really like, and who was most deserving a precious inheritance."

"You were to be part of it?"

"She wanted me to be part of it if that's whatIwanted; I was old enough she said."

I turned away from her. "Mallory Charlene, I've always treated you with respect. As you've blossomed into a woman, you've caught my eye and right now you're exciting me more than I care to admit. You are so very beautiful and you don't realize how beautiful you are. But I'm having trouble seeing you as an adult, much less one that's eligible for my lascivious attention. I'm old enough to be your father, and my last lover was far older than I am. I've never made love with a teenager, even when I was one: I'm afraid I might blow a gasket if I tried. If youreallywant to do this--I'll let you--but--I'm not sure this--is a good thing."

Her hand glided up my thigh and caressed my tentative erection warmly. "I am. I have always loved you, was always glad you noticed me. I told Grandmama and she said that she felt the same way, too. I'm making you hard right now, and I'm so proud that I can do that. I want more, even without the chance at the pendant. I want you today and I want you tomorrow and I want you the next day."

I wasn't sure I could deal with this, with her. It was a couple of moments before I could look at her. "I need to make a phone call before anything else happens."

A quick call to Charlene's lawyer answered my specific question: "living female relative" was a very broad term and since Mallory was well over eighteen she was eligible under the terms of the will to participate and win the pendant. Dealing with the fallout from the others might be a problem, he thought, but those were the facts. I hung up the phone and returned to the bed to lie down; my heart overloaded again. What are you doing, Charlene? What are you doing to me?