Bush Drums

I suppose I should have said something sooner - back then months ago, even before the day Sean arrived in our home.

I found out he was coming on a Tuesday evening in late January. Beth was laying in bed watching a romance movie on TV. It was a chilly evening, she was settled under the covers, sipping a glass of wine and enjoying the attentions of her husband - because I was under the covers too. All the way under, my face nestled within her thighs, licking and loving her dark wet bush. I was in complete blackness, my senses of hearing and smell made more acute by the lack of light. I could hear the muffled voices and music of the movie, the tinkling of the ice in her wine glass, and the small sighs of contentment in her breathing as I licked a particularly sensitive area. After about an hour of this she was responding enough to raise my hopes.

The phone rang.

I tried not to let my disappointment show in my attentions. I shifted my tongue from her clit to her labia, because this would offer a steadier, less intense measure of devotion, maintaining her excitement level while at the same time allowing her to speak without distraction to her caller. I was disappointed because if it was a long call, by the time I got back into gear and carried my wife over the edge, she would be tired, and unlikely to grant me the minute or two I craved so desperately.

The giggling told me it was Sherry, my wife's best friend, and so I was free to move back to her clitoris, and began to thrill it again with darting, unpredictable flicks of my tongue. Our nightly habits were no secret to Sherry. "Hey, down there - Sherry says hi!" I was a private, girlish joke between them - when Sherry was over they'd kid around, talk about Beth loaning my mouth out for the night. Auctioning it off at one of their charity fund-raisers. I expected them to chat and fool around for a while - the two of them routinely spent hours on the phone talking about all sorts of trivial nonsense. So in an effort to head that off I began to work more feverishly at my task. I did gain her undivided attention, hoping she would end the call. But my wife reached a hand beneath the covers, grabbed my ear roughly, and I knew enough to slow down again. There was something serious Sherry and she needed to talk about. There was a "he" they were discussing, and from Brenda's side of the conversation it sounded like "he" was coming to live in our home for a few weeks.

I suppose I should have said something right then, immediately after she hung up the phone. I should have demanded to know who they were talking about, and let her know how hurt I was that she agreed to let some stranger live in our home without even discussing it with me. But she didn't re-start the movie - she just shifted her hips lower in the bed. She was ready. I began rubbing my mouth all along up and down her cunt, after a few minutes of this she began shaking her thighs. When she started with the nasty talk, I slowed down, holding her on the edge for as long as I possibly could. She crossed her legs on my back, wrapped her thighs around the side of my head, locking my face against her in a vice-like grip. Her legs were strong and muscular, built by countless hours on the Stairmaster and the relentless attention of her personal trainer. I was pinned there, held fixed and motionless while I felt the aftershocks through her body. When it was over, she relaxed her grip, giving me a small region of space so I could gulp some air. I waited while her breath settled down.

"C'mere," she said.

I untangled myself from her legs, and I climbed free of the covers and sat up on the bed next to her. She reached between my legs, opened the buttons of my pajamas, and felt my cock. It had been hard for hours, the tip of it was wet and sticky with excitement and yearning.

"Sherry has a young friend who's going to live with us a few weeks." She reached in deeper and grabbed my balls. "His name is Sean. He has an internship at a law firm in the city, and he needs a place to stay." She pulls my cock out of my pyjamas, and starts to stroke me with a delicate, unhurried touch. "You don't have a problem with Sean living with us for a little while, do you?" Her fingers were like satin, my heart was racing.

I suppose I should have objected, but I wasn't thinking of anything except for the prospect of my release. I knew if I objected, she'd stop making those tiny circles on the head of my cock. We'd have to talk, and I didn't want talk. All I could say was "No."

"I hope it's not just the little head taking. I hope you really mean it. Look me in the eye."

It took forever to lift my gaze from the sight of her long red nails.

"Look me in the eye and say it's not a problem."

That was the time to say something. Before all this started.

==

Sean was a tall, thin man of 22. He came from a wealthy family, and he had just graduated from Notre Dame. He had a young mans energy - he'd arrive home from his internship at 8 o'clock, still fresh and vibrant after his day at the firm. He'd throw his jacket on the living room chair, he'd pull his tie off with a flourish and sit at the kitchen table and eat the meal my wife saved for him. On the weekends he would sleep late, arriving in the kitchen around noon. Beth would make him breakfast, and he'd sit at the head of the table, bare-chested.

He had an athlete's body - at Notre Dame he was on the varsity swimming and hockey teams, so his muscles were pulled together like tightly wound cables. His appetite was ravenous - he'd shovel the food into his mouth and hand one plate after another back to Beth, asking for more. He was a ball of nervous energy, his hands darted about when he spoke, he shifted constantly in his chair. All of this pent-up energy kept him trim. He wore his large silver cross that hung loose over his belly as he leaned in for another mouthful. During the week he looked the part of a young lawyer on the way up. His face was clean-shaven, his jet black hair was greased into a disciplined mane, and he looked trim and professional in his dark blue Brooks Brother suit. But Saturday mornings he let himself lapse into what must have been his natural state -the swaggering frat-boy, ready to tap open the next keg. A day's worth of black whiskers accentuated the darkness, and the hardness of his eyes. His upper biceps were ringed with a thorny vine of tattoos - I never imagined that lawyers had tattoos.

==

While my wife was taking her nightly bath, Sean and I would sit in the living room and watch TV. From the very first day, he made himself completely at home. He'd sprawl on the couch, feet on the coffee table, cold beer in one hand and the remote control in the other. He flipped restlessly from action movies to MTV to ESPN to Ren and Stimpy cartoons. I should have said something, because I would have preferred C-Span or the History Channel, and also because when he finally settled on a channel he barely watched this stuff. Every few minutes the phone would ring. "Can I speak with Sean, please." Always a young girl's voice, and during the first few days I marveled at how many different ones there were.

He didn't care that I was sitting in the easy chair just a few feet from him. He'd tell the girls about his day, he'd talk about the partners in the firm. The size of their offices, the cars they drove. I didn't think he was going to be doing much pro-bono work - this was a young man attracted to the law simply because of the money and the perks it promised. And even though I was sitting there, he had no hesitation about speaking to these girls in the frankest, most intimate terms. His voice would drop into a low register, he'd ask them what they were wearing. There were long silences, punctuated by slight whispers that were usually about some intimate memory. He'd tell each one how much he missed her, and he'd tell each one exactly what it was about her that he missed. For one it was the smell of her hair, for the other it was the size and the hardness of her nipples. He'd spend about a half hour on the phone with each, until he got bored and ended the call, saying he had work to do.

I didn't like Sean. Such arrogance is unbecoming in a young men, especially one born to wealth and privilege. My parents never had the money for a four-year college - never mind Notre Dame - so there was an attitude about this young kid that rubbed me the wrong way. I had to go to night school and earn my Masters in Social Work, I wasn't courted by wealthy law firms like he was. He was a user. It was obvious from the way he treated these girls. For all the intimacy and affections of their phone calls, he would always turn to me after he hung up the phone and offer up some cheap sordid detail of his conquest. How he got one of them to do a three-way, or how another one never caught on that he was banging her sister.

I should have spoken up - but men never introduce a note of morality or guilt when sex is being discussed. I just sat there and listened, like one of the guys.

==

Looking back I suppose it seems so inevitable. Beth loved having him around. When Sean arrived home at night, he and Beth would sit in the kitchen and talk while he ate his dinner. They spoke for a long while, and I made no move to intrude on them. As long as Sean was eating, I could watch the news on TV. But even then I couldn't concentrate, because my mind was in the next room. She'd sit next to him at the table, I couldn't see them but if I turned the TV lower I could hear them.

Beth is a lawyer, an Assistant District Attorney for our county, specializing in white-collar crime. Not the least of our problems was the fact that she always made more money than me, even though in my mind social work is a far more demanding profession, and far more useful to society. Sean would describe the partners of the firm, he seemed obsessed with figuring out the political pecking order - who had the biggest office, who spoke the most at meetings. Beth had a lot of experience to offer him, and I could hear him asking her for advice, and listening carefully to her suggestions. In fact Beth did most of the talking, he seemed to hold back for her, giving her a certain deference as an older, experienced lawyer. And as a woman.

==

Beth and I continued out nightly routine. When she finished her bath, I left Sean with his phone calls and cartoons, and I'd go up to bed with Beth. Our nightly routine was unchanged. A romance movie, a glass of wine I was careful to keep chilled with fresh ice from the buck on the floor by our bed. And her pussy, so warm, so hot beneath the dark covers.

With hindsight it was obvious the presence of this visitor had shifted the subterranean channels of our affection. I'd burrow beneath the covers and find her pussy already hot to my first kiss, and already slick with the glaze it normally took many minutes of my attention to provoke. During those days I labored in a fruitful vineyard indeed. It took only a few minutes of tongue-teasing and carefully timed kisses before I felt the first tremors begin to shake in her body. And normally I needed to elicit only one or two thigh-clenching, crushing tides of passion before she'd summon me to sit beside her and reach her hands into my PJs. But these nights she was especially amorous. The clenching of her thighs was unusually strenuous; the moments when my nose was crushed seemed to be endless

I knew that the presence of this young man had made some change in her. I felt that the proximity of such a selfish, arrogant young man had convinced my wife of the true value of my love. I felt that she came to bed grateful that she had a husband who was loving and giving. A man who treated her with respect, and who was confident enough to love her with the patient, skillful attention that woman need so badly, and who had the patient skills that young men lack.

==

They say if you put a frog in a pot of water, and turn on the burner beneath it the frog will sit patient and still, not recognizing that death can come in the tiniest of increments. Such is the way it was with us. The routines were unchanged. Beth and Sean would be sitting at the table while Sean ate dinner. I'd be in the living room watching C-Span. I didn't notice the slow, imperceptible changes in the other room. The fact that they weren't talking anymore - they were whispering. I'd turn the TV as low as I dared - to mute it entirely would be too obvious - and listen to slight, indecipherable whispers and my wife's faint laughter.

I was able to watch almost all of Larry King before Beth went upstairs and Sean threw himself on the couch and took the remote. He still had his calls - there was always at least one girl that wanted to hear his voice, and listen to him ask her what she was wearing.

Like the other nights, he'd hang up the phone and tell me some sordid detail about the girl he just spoke to. But what began slowly at first, carefully and delicately - the way a fisherman prepares his bait - were the questions about Beth. He'd tell me casually that one week at school he had sex with five different girls.

How often do I get any?

I suppose I should have said: "It's none of your business." But I was tired of listening to his nightly locker room talk. I said I have sex almost every night. And I have to admit it was gratifying to see his eyes open in surprise, It was nice to show a younger man that I can handle women too. So I added: "She has no complaints."

That opened the door. He wanted to know everything about her. And it was with some pleasure and pride that I discussed my wife. Beth is a beautiful women - even though she's in her early forties, the workouts have kept her body suspended in time. And she takes excellent care of herself in other areas. She dresses well, partly because her profession demands it, but more because of a natural vanity that she's always had. It's a part of her that I've always found attractive. Sometimes in the mornings I'd stand outside our bedroom, just so I can watch her primp her hair and apply makeup with the care of an artist. That was the image I would hold of her during my day, the bright look in her eyes, her delight at her own beauty. So I told Sean all about her weekly manicures, the tanning salons, the health spas. Of course, as a man he got right down to the essence of things. Were her tits real? Is she a natural blond?

Yes and no, I answered without hesitation. So it seemed like the most natural thing in the world that he should ask for even more explicit details. Is she shaved down there? "You like shaved pussy, John?" I could see from the way that he pulled himself up on the couch that this was an aspect of her that was of great interest to him. "First thing I do with a girl is make her shave."

"No," I said. Even as I said it I could feel a sense of pride. Pride in my lovely wife, a woman that was just perfect for me. And so I added: "She's really, really hairy. She isn't a natural blond, she's covered with lots and lots of dark hair." It felt good to offer him some details of her delights, Just enough to show that even though I had gray hair, and had my best years long before spring break parties, that I still got plenty of pussy. I suppose I told him more than a husband should, but I'm sure I didn't tell him enough that he could guess the reason I knew her pussy in such exact, such precise detail.

==

For all my resentment over his attitude, and his presence in my house, there was no denying that things were great between Beth and me. I felt like I was at my best, she was so responsive those evenings. I'd burrow my lips into the thicket of her hair, I'd pull my tongue ever so softly along her slick lips, and the moaning would start. I felt like an artist - even after one of her thigh-clenching orgasms I'd lay there, feeling her muscles and nerves settle again, and it was like I knew exactly where to kiss, where to start blowing a small thin stream of hot breath to make her want to start all over again.

==

"She take it up the ass?"

I was shaken out of my false bravado. This isn't at all appropriate, I thought. But I realized I had encouraged Sean's boldness, after all the past few nights I had told him all about Beth. I described her pussy in the most intimate detail, giving him a mental image of the way it responds to excitement. The way her lips swell, and her clitoris gets large enough to poke out of her hair like the dome of a volcano. But there was such a raw crudeness in his question, and his mouth had a sneer.

"Hey, C'mon here. This is my wife, not some street whore."

"You mean you've never. . .?

"She's not interested."

"Jees." He sat back on the couch, and studied me. "How long you been married?" he sat back there and studied me, a puzzled expression on his face. Like I was Amish or something. "Hey man - if any hole is off limits, that girl's history."

I wanted to say something. I should have said something, but I just looked at the TV. Howard Stern was on. I mean - how can you explain to a young man what years, and years of the same . . . pussy . . . will do to you. Pussy does something to a man, it's the secret portal to her moods, and after a few years you learn that her moods work inside you like the pull of the tides.

"Well -- just try a few months with the same woman . . ." I started to speak, but realized I would sound angry, as if somehow she wore me down. But that wasn't it at all. It wasn't even close, because how could I make him understand how utterly . . . insane I was with love for her. How when you really, really love a woman, the need for closeness becomes so desperate that it is she, and not you that sets the terms for your intimate life. It is she that allows you to approach and taste the fruits of her gates. No we've never done that. I knew her well enough to never ask.

"No fuckin' way I'll ever get married," Sean said.

I surfaced from my thoughts. He wasn't even looking at me - he was busy flipping channels again. He wasn't interested in my thoughts, my experience as a man.

"I'm going to bed," I said. I got up from the chair, started up the stairs when the phone rang.

"Can I speak to Sean, please?"

Back I went to the living room, he didn't look up from the TV - I just placed it in his outstretched hand.

Ah, the certainty, the blind power of youth!

==

Beth wasn't tired that night. When I went into the bedroom I saw her sitting in her Queen Anne's chair, brushing her hair. She didn't look up from the TV. She just took her glass of wine from me, and re-positioned herself in the chair. She leaned back, pulled her nightgown up, and spread her legs, resting her knees on the arms of the chair. I sat facing her on the floor at the base of the chair. I leaned forward and began to kiss her. She was already wet.

"You know what?" she said. I looked up. Conversation between us was so unusual at those times. "I wanna get shaved."

I felt my heart leap. "Why?"

"I don't know." There was just the hint of a smile on her face. Her lips were swollen. "Maybe I just feel like . . . a different look."

I should have asked her why she spoke of the texture of her pussy as if it was just another fashion adornment - something to make "a statement" - like it was just like a gold belly chain or the color she chose for her toenails. I looked up at her - she seemed to be waiting for me to pursue the matter further. She even raised her eyebrows, inviting a further question.

I didn't want to discuss it. I walked into the bathroom and filled a basin with water, adjusting the faucets to ensure the water was warm to the touch.

It took a long while. I needed to be careful at first, both because my hands were shaking, and also because her hair was so thick and full - it was like hacking through the tall, spindly reeds of a swamp. We didn't speak - the only sound was the faint scratch of the razor as I cleared away all the hair that I loved so deeply. All the while she looked at me, studying my reaction, and I knew she must have seen the look of calm wash over me. Sometimes surrender brings an unexpected serenity. When I cleared away the last of her hair I became lost in wonder. This was a strange new woman that I'd never seen before, yet I knew her so well.