Circle Gold

"Oh...OH! Oh, God, Marcus, I am...I am...COMING...dear heavens, help me! OH!"

With that, she was gripped by a wrenching orgasm of seconds that seemed to go on forever. She dug her fingernails into his back, licked his face, thrashed her legs, and rose off the bed under him. Mark was now in the grip of his own loss, panting and gasping as he drove his shaft into her repeatedly in a desperate effort to find relief. With a full-throated shout, he reared back and lost himself into her depths, dropping down on his arms above her, continuing his savage thrusting until he ceased, completely exhausted.

In a tiny voice filled with satisfaction she said, "My, aren't you the most gorgeous animal of a man! You came out of my body, and now you are back inside of me. I am more blessed and honored than I can express. I want to tell the world, Marcus."

"What can I say to such a precious comparison, Lauren? That is the sweetest, most intimate thing you have ever said to me."

"Then I have one more, my precious son, my Mark. I am pregnant. I know exactly when you gave this child to me. I'm one month along and due next February. Thank you, owner of my heart. You have created life within me. I am so wonderfully blessed."

Without warning, Mark was seized with a passion and longing he had never experienced. It was if floodgates had been thrown open and every desire of which a man is capable suddenly gripped him. From where his arousal and his orgasm came, he never understood. He wasn't prepared for this accomplishment so soon after losing himself, yet it roared on with such a burning fury that he had no time to warn her or to cry out. In a rush of desire he spurted furiously into his woman, filling her with his oils, panting with a strange and beautiful desire and a happiness so deep that it seemed as if a great light had overcome him and he was sightless.

"Oh! Mark! What.....you have never done that to me. Does it mean that much to you, Lover?"

"Lauren, I am the happiest man on earth right now. You are really going to have our child? Really?"

"Ohh, yes, my beautiful boy. I really am. That precious little one is alive and well inside of me. I felt unspeakable joy when I conceived you, but Mark, there is something different about this time. I am filled with joy and happiness...it possesses me in a way different and even greater than my first. Thank you, Marcus. My son, my joy of living, my protector, my beloved."

She drew him down and kissed him tenderly. Then she turned over onto her side, brought her legs up to her chest and said, "Now, Angel, enter me and let me sleep with you inside of me. I am a tired lady and now you know why I need my rest." She giggled with the delight of a small girl.

Mark caressed her hole with gel, then effortlessly slid his engorged shaft into her anus. She stretched out her legs, sighed with contentment and went to sleep beneath the warm covers, enfolded in his arms and surrounded by his protecting body.

For the rest of the night Mark lay consumed with joy, excitement, pride and a longing to just talk with her about the little one who lived within her because of him. His heart raced with sexual arousal and he stiffened again. 'How long could this go on,' he asked himself. 'I am a father. So this is what it feels like! Oh, my sweet Lauren.'

To the darkened room he whispered, "Lauren, my Angel, thank you, thank you." Her soul heard every word.

Now completely exhausted, he pressed deeper into her body, welding himself to her soft bottom, laid his head against her arm, and slept the sleep of the blessed in heart.

Chapter 6

Heading Out

Lauren and Mark awakened at the same time. She lay quiet in his arms, still on her side and still filled with his swollen shaft. How he could have lasted the rest of the night, she hadn't a clue. In her mind he was simply heroic as a lover, as her mate, and as the possessor of her body and mind. The thought aroused her, seeming to shine a ray of the purest sunlight into her very soul, bathing her with a warmth that was inexpressibly sensuous.

She felt him behind her, his powerful form virtually one with her own, her hips and anal hole clinging tightly to the object that had slid into her hours ago, had lovingly caressed her tender tissues, had erupted with hot cream that further sweetened her cavity and had run out of her bottom to pool on the bed beneath her.

She felt possessed in a sense so beautifully erotic that it had begun to arouse her once more. She suppressed her desire, wanting to remain quiet with her son's shaft inside of her and filled with the happiness of having another life growing inside her belly. Her joy at his having exploded in a second orgasm when she told him of her pregnancy would live forever in her memory. He had fulfilled one of a woman's greatest desires when she had been made pregnant...her lover's own clear, sweet and deep joy at the news.

She would make it public with great pride, joyfully identifying her son as the father. She would be even more sexually insistent, more needful of Mark, and she knew he would satisfy every one of her desires. She would develop a gorgeous belly, and she would pose nude for erotica until she fell down exhausted. She longed to feel her baby kick. She wanted to be "as big as a house," she had told Ashwynde. She would wear PRISM's new lines of pregnancy dress and she wanted to show off nude in public.

Lauren suppressed a chuckle at the thought of someone reporting "a big, pregnant naked woman running around on the beach," and realized that she would have to display herself at work, at gatherings and in public with discretion. But, oh, would it ever be fun! She knew that the agonies of morning sickness lay ahead, but she would endure even that in the knowledge that she was bearing his child and would give him the gift of a lifetime.

"Lauren, I know you are awake...I can sense you even if I can't see you. I remember every word, every breath, everything about last night. You make my joy complete, Mother."

Sleepily, she replied softly, "You have blessed me, Marcus. I have no words to say as we get up and go on with what we have to do today. But know this, my angel son, I am yours forever."

He gently withdrew his penis from her hole, then felt her with his fingers to see how distended she was. Her anus was quite enlarged and he knew that she would have to allow it to return to its normal size before she could comfortably move on in the day. He tenderly circled the inner edge of her hole with his finger, then whispered, "You are a big girl."

"See," she remarked when they got out of bed and stood, "Yes, I am a big girl back there. Now I can feel it running down my legs and I'm not bathing for anything! It feels so sexy, so...delicious. So you are going to have to make breakfast for us, Lover, and you'll have to put up with a naked woman lying on your deck lounge until what you did to me closes up! Oh, yessss!"

She laughed merrily and, naked as the day of her birth, she pranced out of the bedroom into the kitchen while her son shook his head in wonderment, watching this gorgeous female strut about the house, make coffee, then glide onto the front porch. She stood there in the morning sunlight stretching like a cat, a goddess burnished with gold, surrounded by a massive cloud of silver hair reaching to her thighs. All that remained for completion of the picture was a host of worshippers bowing before her. It was a picture of beauty and sensuality, an image that he would recall for always.

Mark turned, strode over to the kitchen area and began breakfast. Sweet Virginia ham, fried eggs, large deli muffins with butter, orange juice and of course stiff, hot coffee in large stainless travel mugs for the hike ahead of them. He wore a blue chambray shirt, khaki denims belted with a nylon utility belt and hiking shoes.

As she had promised, his mother went out to lie on the lounge in the gathering heat of the day, enjoying the meal her son brought to her on a tray, waiting for her bottom to regain its normal shape. In two hours she was prepared to get dressed and went inside to do so. Mark was in their bedroom getting their pistols and harnesses out of the concealed storage space. He kissed her and left the room.

Lauren reappeared shortly thereafter as ready to go as she could be. He made that observation because, whatever the job at hand, his mother could dress in a burlap sack and still be stunning. Today she wore a tight, black racerback top that gathered her great breasts for support and forced them upward into soft mounds threatening to escape. Her nipples, already firm, pressed through the glossy fabric. She wore a short, close-fitting, belted and pleated gray skirt, and he knew without a doubt that there was nothing beneath it but her majestic black bush. Hiking boots over gray calf-length socks completed her outfit.

"Lauren, while I finish this, would you please look in that storage closet outside on the deck and get out that three-wheel utility caddy with the big wheels. You can unfold it and lock it easily. We'll use that to carry our stuff."

"What's 'our stuff'?"

"A metal detector, water, a shovel, food and a padded ground cover."

"Why would we need a padded ground cover?" she asked innocently, not looking at Mark.

"Lauren, Princess, just guess...gimme a BWAG. I know you've got it in that gorgeous head of yours."

"All right, Marcus. You are doing it again. I'll bite. What's a BWAG?"

"That, my lover, is your best-wild-ass-guess." He stood back, watching her and expecting just what he got.

"Mark! Stop it! You do that just to get me worked up." She broke into a smile and laughter.

"Of course I do, Mom," he snickered. "It always works and I love to see you play like you're insulted. And I treasure every minute of it, too."

"You really have fun with me, don't you?"

"Lauren, it is one of your most endearing traits. Never stop, Honey. The ground cloth is for us to use when we are through. I'm going to screw your gorgeous legs off out in the middle of the trail."

She touched her tummy momentarily, appeared to listen to something he couldn't hear, then said, "It's a great idea. I checked with little Esther in there, and she said, 'Mom, go for it!'"

"Aha! So you and our daughter are already ganging up on me, huh?" he grinned broadly.

"Bet your life, my boy. Get used to it. You gave her to me...and oh, God, Marcus, I am so thankful to you. What a beautiful gift you placed inside of me." Her face took on a raunchy, sexy cast as she said, "Just think of all those precious millions of little guys roaring around inside of me looking for a babe to nail. And one hero in the bunch got her. I wish I could tell you how heavenly it is to be pregnant. And by you."

With that she marched out to get the three-wheeled carry-all they would use to haul their equipment on the trail and into the woods. Mark estimated that the spot they were seeking was at least a mile down the faint path that began not far behind the house. He shrugged into his Jackass shoulder harness and inserted his Rock Island .45 pistol, then helped Lauren as she fitted a nylon utility belt about her waist, slid onto it her small-of-the-back holster and pressed in the Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum revolver he had given her for her last birthday. He inserted a loaded thirty-round magazine into the well of the Anderson AR-15, chambered a round, pushed the selector to 'safe,' then pressed the barrel into a low pocket of the buggy on its front and secured it to the vehicle with two Velcro strips. His final addition to their load was the metal detector. He strapped it to the side of the carriage.

"Well," she announced to the forest around her, "Don't we look ready for anything! Let's go, Angel."

"Roger that, Babe."

The trail was often dim and bumpy, and for that reason they were glad the buggy had ten-inch spoked and rubber-tired wheels. It easily moved over the dips, sticks and humps of the old trail.

Lauren tied her fall of gray hair into a giant pony tail that bushed out behind her, caressing her shoulders and glinting dappled silver in the sun's early morning rays. To Mark she looked ageless. Her kinky silver-gray hair made her look young. She held her head high, taking in the sights and sounds of the Tennessee woodlands.

A woodpecker hammered vigorously halfway up a dead oak, working for insects; two crows circled overhead, their raucous 'caw-caws' loudly talking to each other about something they'd spotted on the ground ahead. The heady scent of honeysuckle mixed with the faint grapey smell of kudzu bathed the morning in a sweetness that resurrected images of the Old South and memories of childhood. Crab grass, that staple curse of humans everywhere since Eden, and Johnson grass lined the trail, mixed with stands of Goldenrod, ragweed and Queen Anne's Lace.

A silence lay over it all, softly enfolded by the rising heat of the day, broken by the whistle of a circling red-tail hawk on patrol, bird cries and every now and then the rustling of something in the brush. Mark and his mother felt a kinship with this beautiful, empty land and let its waves wash over them as if it were some invisible sea.

Mark was determined to focus on the task ahead. He was excited that he and Lauren could be together for a lengthy period of time doing something that was their project alone. His heart swelled with joy that Lauren was pregnant with his child and try as he might to keep his mind solely on the treasure hunt, he could not ignore the woman walking next to him. An aura of mystery, beauty, and burning physical desire clung to her. It was so palpable that he could almost see it.

The fact that she was his mother always raised the level of sensuality in their oneness to delicious highs. They were lovers, they were best friends, they were confidants, they were mates. For her, Mark was the culmination of longings she had held for years. He was beauty incarnate. When it began she didn't know, but her yearning and need for her son burned within her like a furnace. That furnace, oddly enough, did not consume what she was and possessed; rather, it seemed to generate new affection and need that she showered upon him. It was more like a fusion reactor that created new fuel for her love.

Mark, as a man, experienced a different aspect of this oneness with his mother. The very thought of it alone aroused him intensely, deepening his commitment to love, protect and provide for her. He was repeatedly amazed that she adored him as her mate and would have married him in a second, had that been possible. The courtesy and gentleness he showed to her reflected his upbringing, and often she would smile when she recognized something he had done that she and his father had taught him years before.

He habitually thought of her as his wife, and in their daily interaction they lived and worked as spouses would, laughing, arguing, discussing, planning, touching, making love and going about. Then the other reality that she had given birth to him, that he was the man in her life, emerged to possess him once more.

The fact that she was one of the most stunning, sexy in the rawest sense of the word, and hot women he'd ever known added icing to the cake. That she was his senior by several years never occurred to either of them.

She was quietly sensuous as she strode along, her breasts jostling with the motion, her cleavage so pronounced that it seemed with any effort her babies would escape from the straining racer top. Already the bra-top had shifted so that both her nipples were almost visible. Her thighs rippled with the muscles laying beneath her skin tightening, then flattening. Her calves were powerful from the exercise that characterized her life discipline. She wore something that smelled like a citrus fruit. Mark knew that beneath the short skirt she was bare.

She laced her arm through his at a broad spot on the trail, affectionately touching her head to his shoulder, staring at him, then once more gazing about at the forest. The area was extremely large and few people had been here. There were no strips where tall yellow and white pine had been logged out. Instead, there were the deadfalls of old trees and brush in a woods completely untouched.

"The Knights of the Golden Circle had an effective command structure, Princess. It was started by a Virginia-born doctor named George W. Bickley, and its purpose supposedly was to unite a circle of countries in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean with the southern states to form a nation that would carry on after the fall of the Old South. It included a variety of odd groups, notably one known as the Copperheads. These were northern Democrats who opposed the Civil War and wanted an immediate peace agreement with the Confederacy.

"It was a strange, angry time filled with flux, violence and acts so brutal that what I'd call a 'latent memory' lives on today in the people of the South."

"How did Carey know that there might be something of their treasure caches buried around here, Mark?"

He was pleased to note that she was genuinely interested and caught up in the spirit of their search. "There once was a town about several miles down a mostly-forgotten trail that continues on the other side of the road from our house back there. That trail, Angel, is the extension of the one we are on. In Carey's research he found in some old Tennessee land records mention of riders from outside the area who were on some kind of mission. They passed through what is now that ghost town and rode on down this trail.

"Carey actually went out here looking for something, anything, resembling the information and pictures he'd turned up. What he found on a rock wall was this," and he stopped pushing the cart to remove a piece of folded paper from a zippered pocket. He spread it out; on it Lauren saw pictograms of a star, two bird shapes, several circles that interlocked, three arrows that all pointed to the left, some random numbers, and wavy lines under all of these symbols. To Lauren it almost resembled ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics she'd seen on a stele in a museum.

Mark replaced the paper and they continued down the trail. Lauren was becoming more excited in view of the fact that what they were looking for actually had some concrete evidence and information about it and this area.

As the morning wore on the temperature rose and humidity enveloped them like a blanket, still, unbroken by any breeze rustling through the forest. The location for which Mark searched, signaling where they must turn off the trail, proved to be much farther than just a mile. By the time the sun reached overhead at noon both were perspiring. Lauren re-tied Mark's pony tail to get the wave out of his face, then they sat down on a rock beside the path.

"Lauren, how about a drink?" he asked as he withdrew a quart of bottled water from the cart.

"Oh, yes. Thanks."

With an old tee shirt he wiped his forehead and neck, then gave it to his mother. He watched with interest as she dried her face and neck, then wiped her breasts and cleavage. That effort brought her hard nipples out into the open. Since her top was cut low anyway, it had comfortably repositioned itself, having been pulled downward by her belted skirt; she made no effort to cover them. Her top looked as if it had always been designed to do just what it accomplished now...showing off her amazing chest.

Chapter 7

A Delicious Interlude

"Do you realize, Lauren, that you make it impossible for me to go on...without first messing around with you?"

"Mark! How could you think such a thing!" she exclaimed with delight. She stood, faced him, and straightened her posture so that her pointed breasts stood out in mountainous relief. She grinned with delight as she stared at her son, still seated on the large, flat stone.