Timing

"Randy, I'll tell you what, you open up for me, here..." pressing on the anus, "and I'll open up for you."

"What do you mean?"

"I offer you my heart. I'll answer any question about me that you want."

"Really? Anything?"

"Anything."

Randy considered for a moment. "Earlier you mentioned almost being raped. What was that all about?"

"All right... It was in the early spring of 2001, three years ago, in my senior year in high school. I was 18 at the time. I was out on ski patrol in Colorado, in the national park. The area was off limits to snowmobiles. They tear up the environment and disrupt the wildlife greatly. Three guys on two huge snowmobiles were making a big mess. I skied down to tell them they had to leave. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they didn't know that where they were was illegal for snowmobiles. I just wanted to warn them. But when I started talking to them, I realized they were drunk, and they realized I was female. They tried to run me down with their snowmobiles. It was clear from their calls to me that a three-man rape would occur if they caught me. Their taunts were so cruel. Mean and nasty, as nasty as nasty gets. Like how after they all enjoyed me in the first round, they would all enjoy me again in the second round, by taking me up my ass."

Lin thought silently, "There you go, my sweet Randy, I knew you'd be kind and let me enter you if I were gentle." Lin started to insert her gloved finger past Randy's fully dilated anus and into his rectum.

"I did some of the best skiing in my life! Fortunately, I knew the details of the terrain a lot better than they did. I just barely eluded them."

"My God, Lin!" said Stacey, "Were they caught?"

"It would have been my word against theirs. I was angry, though. That night I skied out there on my own, not on official patrol, and strung bicycle chains between the trees, less than an inch under the snowline. Sure enough, the idiots came back the next day. The chains destroyed the transmission assemblies of two very expensive expedition snowmobiles, over $20,000 worth of damage. Plus they were stranded in the park, caught red-handed in the off-limits area. The fines for that are pretty stiff."

"Wow, Lin. Awesome!" said Randy. "Were you a hero to the patrol?"

"Hell, no! What I did was very illegal. The patrol captain visited me at my school a few days later. He asked me if I could guess how those chains might have gotten there. I could have lied; there was no evidence of my guilt. But I didn't want to be a liar, not to the patrol. I told him everything, including the attempted rape and the taunts. Legally, he should have reported my crime. I gave him a detailed description of just where I finally managed to get off Serpent's Ridge and elude the men. I told him my ski tracks were sure to still be there, and he could see how closely the snowmobiles had been on my tail. He told me he wasn't going to waste his time looking for the tracks. Then he gave me a kind smile, got up and left. I wondered if I would soon see the police, but I never heard another word about it. I finally realized what he meant, that he trusted me so completely and was so certain that the tracks were actually there, that making the trip out there so see them would be a waste of time. Ah, here I am, my sweet Randy, I've found your prostate... You were so sweet to dilate for me... It feels to be in fine shape, a small, hard, tight ball, just the way it should be for a healthy male in his young 20's."

"Wow, Lin. You were so soft and gentle, I'd didn't even notice you were inside me until now. This feels really sexy! Is... is this what it feels like, to be a female?"

"Ha! No, silly. Having a penis inside a vagina feels much better than this! Perhaps you can think of this as a distant echo of a female having sex.... If I started pushing down on your prostate, I could pump a component of your semen right out your penis, a very alkaline part of it... The rectum is like a grand central station for diagnostics; all sorts of interesting things are accessible from here. In this direction is your bladder; I can tell you drained it, good. Down the pipe is your colon, of course. It's a bit slippery in here, I think you moved your bowels for me, good again." As Lin talked, the fingers of her other hand were again penetrating to the roof of the scrotal sac. "In this direction are the Cowper's glands, they add mucus to your semen, making it slippery and helping you to ejaculate it, hopefully into a willing female today! Ah, here's my real target for the rectal exam, the vas deferens. These tubes form the core of the ejaculatory duct. They link the penile urethra with the epididymis, the tubulars inside your scrotum connecting to the testes. Be patient with me, Randy, we're almost done with exams, and you're passing everything with flying colors. This might be a bit unpleasant, though, I need to push from both directions, rectal and scrotal, to do the vas deferens tactile exam. Cough for me now, Randy.... Good... And again..."

Chapter 3.

"Wait, before we get started as lovers, is your heart still open to me?"

"Yes, Randy, it is. I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"Well... Stacey is the first girl I ever physically loved, and you're about to be my second. What's it like from your side? You mentioned once having a lover with this same problem, am I your second lover? You're such a sweet person, how come you broke up with your earlier boyfriend?"

"Randolph!" hissed Stacey, "How dare you ask such an intimate question!"

"No, it's okay, Stacey" said Lin. "Randy, I want to express complete trust to you. You have my heart. Please be gentle with it.... You are the third person in my life I'm accepting as a lover. My first lover was two years my senior, when I was a sophomore in high school. I had a schoolgirl crush on a handsome senior. We did get intimate with each other for a brief time, petting each other's bodies, no intercourse. And then he graduated. We wrote each other for a while, drifting apart but remaining friends. And then there's Jeff, the passion of my life in my senior high school year. And to understand why we broke up, I have to back up and explain my family to you..."

"Both my parents are flower children of the late 1960's. My mom met my dad as a freshman at their community college in San Francisco in 1968, when she was 18. My parents spent much more time in concerts and sit-ins with their friends than studying, but financially, it didn't matter. My dad's mom was very, very rich, and she would dote on him and keep him financially secure. My parents finally married about ten years after they met, and I was born in January 1983. My mom would often smile and call me her "accidental child". Sometimes, people say this to be cute, but in my case, it was completely true. My parents had no desire for children. They didn't hate me; they were just very distant, and unable to be caring parents. I think my grandmother realized this would happen, and when I was born, she persuaded my dad to head a company she was forming where she lived, in Dallas, Texas."

"I spent the first twelve years of my life in Texas, with my grandmother as my only true parent. She was a wonderful, generous, and kind person. Her only fault, if any, was being too easy on my father, continuing to pump money into his company year after year for product development, while the company never actually sold anything! My dad had hired a bunch of his flower children friends to be the executives and researchers of the company. When I was 12, my grandmother had a stroke, and couldn't interact much with anyone. My parents moved the company to San Francisco, and I spent the last two years of my life before high school there. My parents' company was still very well funded with trusts from my grandmother, and my parents began to throw weekly parties for all the company employees. I don't want to dehumanize them, but they all seemed to be first class bullshit artists."

"Just before she had her stroke, my grandmother gave me a great present. She knew her health was failing, and told me she would fund a boarding high school for me. It was an act of caring love; she knew I would mature better away from my crazy parents. I picked one in Colorado, one I had heard about during a ski trip there. My grandmother talked to the school and pre-paid for four full years, including summer boarding, riding lessons, climbing lessons, skiing lessons, everything, two years before I would even get there. She even sent money for all my ski and tackle equipment, camping gear, even money for an account for all the clothes that I would need. She was that thoughtful. She had her stroke less than a month later."

"I blossomed in Colorado. It's so beautiful out there, Randy. I dove into my studies and the athletics: hiking, trail riding, technical climbing and skiing. I went from child to adult there, making only Christmas trips to San Francisco. My parents really didn't want to see me more often, or to pay for the plane fares. My dear grandmother died in the summer of 1999, when I was 16 and about to become a junior. The trusts that were funding my parents' company transferred to them, over $10M. She never told me, but she also funded a trust for me, with over $1M in it."

"The last time I actually saw my parents was in February of 2000. The trusts had just passed through probate and they were giddy happy with all the money they had, so happy they sprang for a non-Christmas plane fare for me. They also handed me copies of the papers describing my trust. My grandmother didn't trust my parents on decisions on how to spend it, so the money could only be withdrawn for payments directly to certified colleges for tuition, room, and board, until I turned 21, when it would be mine to use however I wanted."

"Unfortunately, my grandmother didn't realize how crazy my parents are with money, and she left them as the trustees of my trust, with sole power for investment and disbursement decisions. With their own $10M, plus max mortgaging their house and all the business assets, they bought over $20M worth of high tech stock on margin in February 2000, buying companies they called "safe doubles", companies that would safely double in stock value in a year. As sole trustees, they did the same for my trust. The only difference was my trust would not allow buying on margin. The safe double my parents picked for me was Global Crossing. They sold all the US treasuries, municipal bonds, money market, stock-index and real-estate funds in the trust, and dumped 100% of it into over 20,000 shares of Global Crossing, paying more than $50 a share. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it, though I pleaded with them for days to change their minds."

"In the spring of 2000 I started dating Jeff, a fellow junior. I had bragged to a few people that I had a $1M trust, and word got around a bit. Jeff was very charming, very athletic, very affectionate, and, once we solved our problem with sexual function, a fantastic lover. We went on long hikes together in the summer of 2000, trail rides in the fall, and ski outings in the winter, spending much time sharing our dreams and planning for our future together. I felt we were very, very close to each other emotionally."

"From April 2000 to September 2000, Global Crossing was bouncing around $30/share, my trust was over $600,000, and I still thought my financial future was fairly secure. My parents, though, were frantic. Their margin calls were killing them, and even the flower power executives started leaving their company, when my parents started cutting salaries. They were still optimistic, though, insanely so, and I couldn't get them to change. I was so happy that they couldn't buy on margin in my trust."

"In early November of 2000, I finalized my career choice for nursing, confident that I could get into Deaconess in Boston. Global crossing was still over $20/share, and $400k was still more than enough to fund my training to my R.N. and Masters degrees. My parents were panicking over their own finances, but they were so incoherent on the phone about it, it was difficult to see what their true situation was. They said sending me my Christmas plane tickets would be difficult, but that since I had just seen them with my extra trip in February anyway, not going home this Christmas would even up the visiting schedule."

"In April of 2001, I got accepted to Deaconess, and I asked my parents to pay my tuition from my trust for the upcoming fall. They said they would, but the school never got the check. The reason finally became clear to me on Memorial Day weekend. My parents had already told me they wouldn't be coming to my high school graduation. I wasn't surprised; they had never come to my school, even when they would ski in Aspen. Global Crossing had closed the previous Friday at $14.22. My trust still had almost $300k in it. It was then I finally realized I was in serious trouble. My parents started saying that I really didn't want to sell any of the stock when it was so low; I should just wait a few weeks, a few months at most. I pleaded my heart out to them, but since I was still under 21, it was their sole decision whether to disburse any of the trust's assets."

"I had a few savings bonds from my grandmother in my own name, plus over $2,000 still left in my clothing account. I took a full time job and two, no, three part-time jobs in Colorado during the summer, pleading with my parents on the phone and in letters to pay my tuition, and counting on Jeff to be my rock during this insanity. In mid August, Global Crossing broke below $5/share, and I was going crazy! My parents were totally nuts, saying that they would never sell Global Crossing at $5/share, and I should take a year off from schooling and wait for it to recover. They also insisted I send them all the money I had personally, about $18k, so they could re-start their company. They had been wiped out by their margin calls. Dead, flat broke."

"I took all the money I had, and paid my tuition and room charge for one semester but didn't have enough for the meal plan. I sold all my ski and tackle equipment, first class stuff. I arrived at Logan airport over Labor Day weekend with over 20,000 shares of Global Crossing at $4.23 in a trust I couldn't touch, with a good backpack, two suitcases, and $17 in my pocket. I felt broke."

"Deaconess was very kind. They helped me get an emergency loan so I could buy my books, and stop hiking Beacon Street downtown to eat at charity kitchens. On October 5, Global Crossing closed at $0.83. It still would have been enough for my next semester's tuition, but I had given up all hope on it. My parents would scream at me on the phone that I had ruined their lives, by not giving them the seed money they needed to restart their company. Global Crossing traded over $1/share for most of that fall, one last tantalizing opportunity for $20,000, a pretty brass ring forever beyond my reach. The stock finally stopped trading in January of 2002. I was glad the insanity was over. My trust had been wiped out to zero."

"And as for Jeff, he had been very attentive and supportive, helping me to plan how to deal with my parents the previous spring and summer in Colorado. At the end of August, when things were so dreadfully, dreadfully stressful, from my four jobs and my insane parents, I explained to Jeff how I was about to be penniless, and...."

Lin was silent for a long moment, Stacey and Randy waiting patiently for her to continue. Lin's body appeared to be shaken by an enormous hic-up, her face a grimace, and then tears flowed from her eyes and she began to sob. "Oh, the colors, Randy! The colors! After three years, the colors of the romance are still so vivid!"

"I remember the colors of a beautiful plaid wool skirt I had, with a large silver pin. I used to think of it as the skirt that helped me to capture Jeff. I used to wear it often when we first met, and enjoy turning sharply, and watch his eyes try to catch a glimpse of my bare legs under the spinning skirt... I remember the joy of lying naked under him and being petted, with my room lit only by the small orange night light, just after I had given him my virginity..."

Lin's heart was in anguish, the upwelling of emotion beyond control. "I remember range riding through the fall colors of the high meadows, riding a beautiful chestnut mare named Steamboat, and Jeff on black Ajax... I remember skiing with him into the deep back country, bright red parkas and pure green pines, the mountain air so clean, under God's great blue and purple sky! The soft brown stuffed animal he gave me for my birthday... All the beautiful colors, Randy..."

Lin tried to stop herself from crying. "Punch through and end this, Lin," she thought to herself. "All these colors were washed out years ago to a harsh white, in the cold, bright light of the betrayal."

Lin finally spoke, "When Jeff finally realized I was penniless, he decided that he didn't want me."

Stacey put her arms around the sobbing Lin, glaring at Randy for dragging these memories out of her. Randy was at a complete loss for words, desperate but unable to apologize.

Lin tried to compose herself, almost settling down. "No, Stacey, no. Don't glare at Randy. My life is who I am. I'm glad I've told you both. You are my closest friend, Stacey. And I'm about to take you as my lover, Randy. I want to give my heart and my trust to both of you."

Lin took a few deep breaths, calming herself, and then continued her story. "I thought my summer was stressful, but my first year here was unbelievable. I just wanted to dive into my studies, but I felt I was standing with one foot over a financial cliff. I kept having a nightmare about skiing off a mountain, falling thousands of feet to my death. I donated my wool skirt and pin to the Salvation Army. I had lots of part-time jobs, sales and cleaning and waitress jobs, every one of them competing for my study time. That was my first year here. The death nightmares were a horror. And I had no Stacey to comfort me."

Stacey kissed Lin and petted her head. "I never realized," said Randy softly. "I knew you two were good friends, but I never realized how incredibly close and supportive you are of each other..."

"I survived," said Lin. "In mid-fall of 2001, I added a $21 expense to my annual budget, the cost of writing weekly, stamps and envelopes, to my parents. I was e-mailing before, but I felt that seeing my handwriting might help them to see me more as a real person. They sometimes write back. I got a Christmas card from them just last January. They're living in an apartment in San Francisco; my mom is working at Starbucks. I'm not sure what my dad is doing. My mom has opened up to me a bit, this last year. My dad still blames me for not restarting his company. But they're my parents, they gave me life. I still love them both, in a quiet way..."

"And my future is bright! I'm now working in my profession. I love my clinical research job! And my top grades have really helped with scholarships. With very conservative estimates, I'll have both my Registered Nurse and Master of Nursing degrees in two years with less that $40k of student debt. And I'll have more than $10k of cash in hand, even after budgeting for a trip to SF, if my parents ever say they want to see me. I'll hit the market with manageable debt and with very saleable degrees in a field that I love. My ski nightmare has disappeared..."

"And as for Jeff, it was life's hard lesson. I did not see the flaw in his character, and the hurt is still there, but I was fortunate to take the fall when I did, when I was 18. I would have accepted him in marriage, and imagine me pledging lifetime commitment, of accepting Jeff for pro-creation, and then realizing in horror that my husband had taken me for my money, as a trophy wife."