A Change in Gravity

Author's note: I have personally checked the IDs of the characters introduced below and can attest that each was over the age of 18 during the sexual acts in which they participated.

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A Change in Gravity

Not all those who wander are lost - but these two were.

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Double D Ranch

Fifty miles west of Las Vegas

"Howdy, stranger!" Lulu said to the quiet man. He was pale and lean, which made her think crazily for an instant of the vampire movie she had watched with the girls a few mornings ago. How could anyone stay so white in this desert summer?

He would make a very sexy vampire, she thought. She imagined his teeth gently grazing her, just under her ear.

He blinked in her direction, the transition from brilliant bleaching sunlight to this pastel dimness rendering him briefly without vision.

Lulu found that she had closed her eyes. She had to will her hand not to caress her neck.

"Have you been to the Ranch before?" She recovered from her erotic revery, pivoting to the enthusiasm of sales and the confidence that comes from having a superior product to move.

He moved his head once, a subtle no.

"First time in Nevada?" She loved asking this question. She had fallen in love with her adopted state after fleeing Brooklyn and a failed marriage.

The man did not respond. The question seemed to pain him somehow, so she quickly moved on, holding out both hands. "I'm Lulu, the Mother Hen here. What's your name?"

He accepted one of her hands, very tentatively and briefly, and then let it go. He thought for a moment. Lulu was almost certainly not her real name, not here, not now. But him.... He didn't have anything left to hide.

"Mitch."

His eyes were acclimating. Lulu was probably in her mid-forties but retained the vigor of a younger self. He recalled Ben Franklin's observation that a woman's face might age - but that in the dark every cat was grey. Young or old, all pussy was good pussy. Especially if you had just spent a long stretch without feline company.

She was not that old and not at all grey.

He would have done her right there on the plush turquoise carpet.

Lulu recognized. It happened, and she was flattered, but she was not the attraction here. Her smile broadened.

"We're open all day every day," she said, "but it's a little early yet. The girls will be out to greet you in a minute. Let me get you a drink - first one's on the house - and then I'll tell you how things work. What's your pleasure?"

"Uh... Jack and Coke...." His eyes went to the woman who walked barefoot out of a darkened archway to the left of the bar, a tall blonde who strutted up to and then toed an imaginary line. She sent an air kiss toward him. Her tanned breasts bulged up out of a indigo leather vest, and her muscular legs went on and on and on up into a black miniskirt.

Mitch's mouth was already dry from the drive. The desert air sucked the moisture out of human cells. This vision of female perfection vaporized what little spit had sought refuge under his tongue.

"Hi," she said in a cheerful husky voice. "I'm Sandy."

Sandy was joined by Barbie, a brunette squeezed into a pink lace teddy and who perched confidently on six-inch pink heels. Barbie was plump in all the anatomically optimal places.

Lulu came back and handed Mitch his drink. She noted happily that he seemed stunned. That was good. That was the reaction they aimed for. Customers dumbstruck by the sexual overload of her girls spent impulsively. They also enjoyed their visit more, adrenaline amplifying testosterone in a lust-soaked feedback loop. Everyone went home happy.

"We have eight girls working today. As soon as they have all come out to say hello-" Lulu indicated with a wave the pair of women and the six empty places waiting their sisters. "-you can get to know them a bit and make your choice. No pressure. If you want, sit at the bar and relax while you think about it."

Mitch's eyes were riveted on the two beautiful women. He slowly raised the glass to his lips but did not drink.

"Our girls are independent contractors," she continued. "Whichever one hooks your fancy will quote you a price for their companionship later, in private. See anything you like so far?"

It was rhetorical. He lowered his glass without tasting the contents. His eyes stayed on the two like a starving dog on a dropped ham bone.

Lulu excused herself and walked down the hallway of the girls' rooms, tapping on doors. One of them popped open and a thin redhead rushed by her, giggling and yawning at the same time. Lulu heard the soft stampede of the other girls hurrying to the lounge. She smiled and returned to view the lineup.

"Where's-" she said. The man who had introduced himself as Mitch was not in his seat.

"He bolted." Sandy pointed to the exit door.

Lulu sighed. Nerves. She watched her girls mill around for a while, talking in groups. One was showing the bartender pictures of her kids. They slowly drifted back to their rooms to await the next lineup call.

**********

Pogonip, Nevada

Four hundred miles north of Las Vegas

Grampy Pete's house had been built when Germans were Huns and Native Americans were Injuns and construction codes were years away from being committed to paper, let alone followed.

Mitch stood in the back yard under an ancient plum tree and considered angles. On his tool belt he had clipped a tape measure and a plumb bob. He twirled a level in one hand like a baton and wondered why he bothered to own such tools. They only confirmed what his eyes told him - that the house was irregular, almost nowhere square, and, yes, out of plumb.

In the city he had lived in up until five years ago, this ancient pile of pine would have been bulldozed to make room for a six-bedroom four-bath three-car. Here in Pogonip, it was worth rehabilitating.

Six months ago, the woman who delivered Grampy Pete's hot meals twice a week discovered the old guy in front of his flat screen, peacefully expired in his worn lounger and happily awaiting the undertaker. Mitch consulted an NFL schedule and determined that the 49ers had whipped the Giants the day before his body had been found. Grampy Pete had no doubt died with a smile.

Mitch considered the angle of the shadows, the high desert sun being nothing a sane man looked directly at to judge the time, and wondered if it were nearing lunch. Then he remembered that he was beholding to no uniform anymore to tell him when the chow line formed. He dropped his tool belt onto a folding beach chair and walked away.

**********

The B&C Market had been open on Main Street in Pogonip as long as Mitch could remember. He had started walking the three blocks from his house with his mother's handwritten list in one hand and cash in the other at about the same time he started school and could barely read the list.

It was an independent store - to call it a supermarket was to devalue the word super - which had not expanded and had little changed since his first memories. Automatic glass door entrance - the only one in town - vegetables to the left, then fruit, then some freezers, turn the corner to canned vegetables, dried pasta....

In those days, Rico had presided over the meat department. Silver hair, ruddy face. Toothy smile and a free hot dog to the kids, that was Rico.

Mitch wondered what had happened to the guy as he opened the back door to the Market and felt the cold air envelope him on its way out. He stepped past a stack of boxed meat waiting to be sorted into the cooler and peeked around a corner.

Rose was wrapping pork chops for a woman Mitch recognized. That was no surprise. Even after so many years away, Mitch still probably knew by sight 90% of the people in Pogonip. And that meant they knew him. He stayed in the back until Rose had finished and was stripping off her vinyl gloves.

"Hi, cuz," Mitch said quietly.

Rose's face light up as she embraced her cousin. She moved her mouth and jaw as if she were beginning to speak, but nothing came out.

"Sorry I didn't warn you," he said apologetically.

She shook her head and reembraced him, harder this time, pressing her wet face into his chest.

**********

"Piper?" Mrs. Clarke asked, after her daughter had been silent for several uncharacteristic seconds. The cell was on speaker. These days, holding it too long up to her ear made her shoulder ache.

"Yes, Mom?"

"You got two packages yesterday. Should I open them?"

"Yeah, go ahead. One is for you anyway. It's an automatic jar opener for when your hands...."

"Oh. Thank you. How is work?"

"It's great," Piper was enthusiastic. "I feel like I am really doing good. Healing people. I just wish there was a clinic closer so I wouldn't have to leave you."

"Me too, dear, but you have to go where the money is."

Piper laughed. "That's the truth, Mom. Look - I have to run. I have a client on the hour."

Mrs. Clarke was on the verge of changing the subject, making a hard turn. Potentially introducing a painful memory. She formed the words in the buffer of her conversational brain: I saw Mitch today. But she could not induce them to her lips.

"Love you, Mom. Talk to you later."

**********

"Every Christmas card and birthday card and wish you were here card," Mitch said slowly, "was mailed from my lawyer's office. I didn't want anyone to know where I was."

Rose watched her cousin in silence. She was five years older, and he had been like this from a young age. Mitch had always chosen his words carefully, like he was constantly formulating a plan. She had been surprised when he dropped off the map some years ago with no contact but the cards. Her notes sent to the return address had been acknowledged with another simple card bearing few words, such as: Good to hear you are doing well. Love, Mitch.

This was sounding to her like a confession. She held up her hand. Stop.

"I'm not repeating everything to Nick. He's in town for the next few days, then he's hauling hay to San Fran. You come over tonight and fill us both in at the same time."

Mitch took in a breath as if to launch into a paragraph, but then he let it out and nodded.

"Okay. That makes sense."

"What do you want for dinner?" Rose asked.

"What are my choices?"

Rose swept her arm in wide arc that encompassed the whole of the full display coolers.

**********

Double D Ranch

"Jonathan," the man replied nervously. "...ma'am." He worried a greasy John Deere baseball cap in his hands. His threadbare plaid shirt, worn jeans, and boots whose creases were permanently caulked with beads of soil told Piper that he was a rancher. Probably one of the locals. Ranchers would clean up a bit if they traveled to get laid, but this seemed to her like a spur-of-the-moment visit.

Piper pried one of his hands away from the hat and led him down the hallway to her room. She had decorated it in shades of purple after reading studies that purple enhanced the sex drive of heterosexual males, which coincidentally were her target demographic. The study also warned that purple was simultaneously the worst color choice for peaceful sleeping. Good thing sleeping was not one of the items very often requested.

The room was the largest bedroom Piper had ever seen, let alone occupied as a personal space. It boasted a king bed, a loveseat, two suede chairs, glass coffee table. The walls were hung with paintings of sepia-toned nudes illuminated by soft spotlights. Jazz played quietly from hidden speakers. Through large double doors was a huge bathroom with a hot tub.

The daily rent was fifty dollars, which had floored Piper as the deal of all time, even though the Ranch took half her fees. For two-week stints, this was her turf. Her workplace.

Piper felt in Jonathan's grip an apprehension that was not like the normal nervous excitement of most clients. It was as if he were afraid of what was going to happen. He flinched as the door shut behind them.

"First time here?"

He nodded, then gulped.

Piper put her other hand on his chest. "Let's sit down and talk."

She guided him to the loveseat.

"Jonathan, what do you want to do today?"

He shrugged, not looking at her.

"Married?"

His head turned and she saw tears in her eyes.

"Oh," she said. "Oh.... Tell me." She put her arm around him and kissed him on the cheek. He gasped when her lips touched him.

"She left...."

"I'm sorry. Were you together long?"

"Since we were in high school." One tear left his eye and ran glistening down his cheek into stubble.

Piper slipped a hand into his shirt and undid the top button. She rubbed his bare chest slowly.

"Why? Did she talk to you?"

"She said I was no good at...." He looked about helplessly, embarrassed.

Piper kissed him again. "So you came today to learn a few... secrets?

He smiled just a bit. "Is that possible?"

Many of her customers walked into this room with specific goals. A blowjob. A fuck. Missionary. Doggy. Cowgirl if they were going to go wild. They simply wanted to feel a strange cunt encasing them.

Others sought out the comfort of the brothel. Comfort in the sense that they knew they would not be turned away, judged for their looks, intelligence, social standing.

Anyone with the cash and who passed inspection was guaranteed to score.

Jonathan was a project. Piper thought a moment, developing her lesson plan.

First, cash and examination of the equipment.

"Jonathan," she said at last, "today we are going to go to school. Sex school. Are you up for that?" She poured a big load of innuendo into the word 'up' and shook her tits. She was wearing black heels and a pair of Levi's cut down into such miniscule shorts that only a frayed and faded strip of blue denim perhaps one inch wide covered her shaved vagina. Her breasts overflowed from a blouse pulled tight, and when she pressed them in Jonathan's face he let out a low ohhh.

"The tuition for this one-hour semester is four hundred dollars."

Jonathan stared wide-eyed at flesh and grabbed for his wallet.

**********

Pogonip

The entrée was tri-tip. Convection roasted with a crust of kosher salt and black pepper. Served with mashed potatoes, onion gravy, and a green salad. Mitch had been unable to find tri-tip back east. It appeared to be a western thing, and he had sorely missed it for a decade. For the first five years of that decade he had made do with brisket, ribs, and sirloin. The second five years had turned out to feature a lot of bologna, hamburger patties, and canned corned beef.

Nick and Rose were anxious to hear his tale, but as he told it - in order and without embellishment or apology - they listened with amazed disbelief.

"But...." Rose interrupted at one crucial point. "You and Piper were...."

"Yeah," Mitch said. "Me and Piper."

**********

Double D Ranch

Piper, on her knees, shirtless, manipulated Jonathan's hardening penis in her hand and inspected it critically. The young man fixated on her wobbling tits.

"This might be embarrassing, honey, and I apologize. Rules of the house." She slowly stroked him and with the other hand lifted his scrotum to peer underneath. "But it doesn't feel too bad, does it?"

He groaned, probably agreement.

**********

Pogonip

He had arrived at the crucial point in the narrative, the crux where consequences parachuted into his charmed life. His audience was rapt. Nick had put his knife and fork down; Rose held a spoonful of mashed potato in the air. It stayed still for several long minutes.

It's going to get cold hanging there, Mitch thought.

He had no such appetite qualms anymore, having come to peace with his story by now. His plate emptied of beef and he refilled it, never pausing his narrative.

**********

Double D Ranch

Piper sent the young rancher to the shower with strict instructions: shampoo, scrub every square inch of his hide, brush teeth. He turned away from her and waited, maybe for her to leave the room. Piper reached around him and finished undressing him until he stood naked, breathing deep and rapid. His cock pointed up, the shining ruby head bouncing against his muscular stomach.

Piper adjusted the temperature and pushed him gently into the glass cubicle. After he was drenched and soaped up, she took a deep lungful of air, squared her shoulders, and kicked her shorts down and off.

She rarely did this.

Jonathan felt the door open and turned to her, blinking away the water. She kissed his nipples and nipped his shoulder.

"Let's get the first one out, honey. I need you to last for me. My pussy is swollen thinking about your beautiful cock."

She stroked him, pointing it away from her. It didn't take long. He grunted and convulsed, his semen shooting out in five robust streams that sliced through the shower spray and splattered against the tile.

Maybe technically pushing the mandatory condom rules, Piper knew, but the soap was antibacterial and his penis had been squeaky clean. In her professional opinion, Jonathan was a one-vagina low-mileage dick.

Piper scooped up a good handful of suds and massaged them into his crotch.

**********

Pogonip

"Wh... why?" Nick said. Then he rethought his question. "I don't mean why you... did it, but why tell us? You could have just showed up and not said a word. Or made up a less...."

"Sordid?" Mitch suggested.

"Yeah, I guess. You could make up a much nicer story."

Rose shook her head at her husband. "Mitch has decided not to lie anymore. Right, cuz?'

He nodded. "No more bullshit. No more delusions. I fucked up. I own it."

**********

Double D Ranch

Piper laid a finger just south of her belly button. "Start right here. Slowly down to...." She touched her clitoral hood. It was swollen, as she had said. She wasn't just talking up the client. She was aroused.

"When you get to the clitoris, ease up. Just a hint of a tickle, then back up and start again. Go slow... and...."

Jonathan followed directions. He put his forefinger on her abdomen and oh so agonizingly took his sweet time dragging it down to her pussy. Then he did it again. And again. And again. Applying pressure on the way down and letting up just as....

"Oh...." Piper moaned, surprising herself but not her customer. He was concentrating on the lesson and kept on stroking her tight soft belly.

"Then," she panted, "start pressing a little more on the.... oh, yes." She laid her head back and her mind travelled back to where this move had come from. She and Mitch had experimented on each other, and he had discovered this. He could always make her come this way. And other ways. With all of his fingers, with his tongue, with his-

"And take her nipple into your-"

Jonathan finished the thought for her, bending down and sucking the tit nearest him.

Piper's abs contracted and she lost the power of speech.

**********

Pogonip

"Do your parents know?"

"Yes. Next of kin and all that, so they knew exactly where I was. They moved to New Mexico about the same time I was getting married. They flew out for the wedding. I don't think they ever liked Addison, but they never let slip a bad word about her."

He paused and picked up his bottle of beer. "Unfortunately, I would not have listened."

**********

Double D Ranch

Jonathan knelt above her, his face apprehensive and immensely proud at the same time.

Piper opened her eyes. She reached to the bedside table and picked up a condom. Her hands shook.

He saw that. Something about it struck him as true, and she could see his cock ticking like a metronome.

She rolled the rubber on him.

"Inside me. Now!" she whispered hoarsely.

**********

Pogonip

The front porch was, well, not a proper porch, but what else did you call the steps leading to the front door? A stoop? That sounded vaguely trashy, but as Mitch contemplated the nonlevel heap of cement block and odd stones, he could not find in his admittedly limited home improvement vocabulary a better name for it.