Courtship for the Clueless

"But the question before us at the moment is whether you like that set enough to have it in the house even though I have a little history with the seller. What say you?"

She stopped and studied his face, then reached up to stroke his cheek. "Wait here, my darling. I'll be back in a minute." She walked back to the Hillstein Gallery, head up, back straight, bust out, legs criss-crossing like a runway model. She walked right up to Sharon.

"We'll take it, at the price you quoted. Half now, half on delivery -- which I expect is part of your gallery's service."

Sharon, who had been about to mention a price for delivering the Nouveau suite, saw flint in Tiffany's eyes, and understood if she bucked her on this, she'd lose the sale. "Of course. Please come with me." She led the way to an office area at the back of the store and filled out a standard sales contract. Tiffany handed over a credit card. Sharon processed it, made a notation on the contract, and handed contract and card to Tiffany.

"I assume you'll need a day or two to clear out the room where the set is to go. Please call me when you're ready to take delivery, and I'll make the arrangements."

"I'll just do that. And I owe you many thanks, as well."

"I beg your pardon?"

"If you hadn't been so nasty to Roger when you had dinner with him, he wouldn't have felt the need to stop in my bar, and we wouldn't have met. He is magnificent in bed, the best lover I have ever had, who takes me to heaven every time he has me. Outside the bedroom, he is the most thoughtful, caring man I have ever known. I'm proud to be his. You have no idea what kind of a man you missed out on when you casually tossed him aside. Your loss is my gain, and I thank you for it. Have a nice day." Stunned, Sharon watched Tiffany strut out of her store, a woman at the height of her powers and serenely secure in her position in life.

Tiffany rejoined her boyfriend and took his arm. "Done deal. As soon as we haul the old furniture off to Goodwill, we can call the gallery and have it delivered to our home. You're not mad at me, are you, sweetie?"

"No, just a little surprised at how quickly you decided to buy it, that's all."

She kissed him lightly on the lips, her tongue flickering. "C'mon, Roger. You of all people should know that once I make up my mind about something, I act. This is something for us, my darling. I want your house to be our home. Not just someplace where we eat and sleep and fuck, but a home, a place that's ours. Is that so bad?"

Roger found her words simultaneously alarming and reassuring: a guarantee that his lover wasn't going to run off on him as Kat and May had done; and an indication that once again their relationship had jumped to a whole new level. Apart from moving her clothes and cosmetics into the bedroom, Tiffany hadn't made a whole lot of changes to the house. Buying furniture together, never mind an antique living room set, was a statement of permanence. On balance, he decided after analyzing it for the duration between two heartbeats, he liked it.

"It's not bad at all. I generally like it when you surprise me, my sweet, but sometimes it takes me a minute to adjust. We'd better be getting back to the field. If I remember the brochure correctly, they will be presenting the trophies at four o'clock."

When they walked onto Legion Field shortly before 4:00, they saw a crowd moving slowly along the rows of cars. The judges were awarding the first, second, and third place ribbons in the various divisions. They joined the group following the judges, and watched as they placed the rosettes in blue, red, and white under the windshield wipers of the winning vehicles in the Classic Car and Classic Truck divisions. After the judges were finished, they walked to the Vintage division, and were thrilled to see blue ribbons adorning The Little Old Lady and Tiffany's F-3. She grabbed him by the hands and joyously spun them around.

"I hoped we'd win, but I didn't really expect it!" she declared, pulling him into a hug. "Our first car show, and we're bringing ribbons home!" Before Roger could reply, the loudspeakers clicked on.

"Ahhh, ladies and gentlemen, all owners, if you'll gather in front of the stands, we're ready to present the trophies for Best In Class. Come along, now, gather 'round."

"I thought we won Best In Class, that that's what the ribbons are for?" asked Tiffany as they walked towards the little balcony on the stands at the fifty-yard line.

"No, the ribbons are for first, second, and third in your division," Roger said. "Wendell explained it to me. The blue ribbon winners in each division compete against each other for Best In Class. It's you, me, and whoever won Best Vintage Restored in trucks and cars going for Best In Class. Four big winners, he said."

When all the owners were in front of the tribune where a stable stood with five trophies on it, the event organizer began announcing the grand winners. The Stutz Bearcat they had admired won the Antique Class, and the Prewar Class was taken by an immaculate 1937 Rolls-Royce Phantom III with a Mulliner body. Then the judges got to the Vintage Class. Tiffany gripped Roger's hand tightly, tension radiating from her.

"In the Vintage Class, the prize goes to ... the Dodge Dart Super Sport!"

Roger stood thunderstruck as the crowd applauded, and Tiffany gave him a gentle push towards the stairs that led up into the stands. The judges handed him the trophy with a smile and a handshake, and motioned him to join the other two winners off to the right. Bemused, he didn't hear who won the Classic Class. But he did notice one trophy, with a silver topper instead of the gold tone metal on the trophy he was holding, still stood on the table.

"You've heard the winners we judges selected. But we of the Alabama State Vintage Automobile Association, Northwest Chapter have always felt that those who come to our shows deserve a say as to which car at the show they like the most, and so we created the People's Choice Trophy. This year, it goes to ... the 1951 Ford F-3 pickup truck!"

Tiffany's squeal of delight could be heard over the applause. She bounded up the stairs and over to the tribune, accepting her prize and pulling the chief judge close for a kiss. He harrumphed, face red with embarrassment, but nevertheless looked pleased. She joined her lover, face glowing with the pleasure of her win.

The five trophy winners were photographed first as a group, then individually, and then next to the winning vehicles. Finally it was done, and Roger walked to where Tiffany was posing with her award and a bunch of teenage boys, one at a time, as they had their pictures taken with the People's Choice winner.

"Thank you all for the attention, fellers, but my boyfriend here deserves my attention, too. You'll have to excuse me." She slid in under Roger's free arm, snuggling in as if she naturally lived there, and turned an adoring face up to his. They kissed, and the clicking of shutters was loud in their ears as the teenagers took a few last pictures before turning for the gates.

"So what happens now?" she asked as they were left alone.

"I asked. The cars stay here overnight; security will be patrolling the stadium. Tomorrow the show opens at 9 AM, and we are expected to be here a little before that to put our trophies and ribbons out on my car and your truck. The roof is the usual spot. When the show closes, we drive them home. We can put everything in The Little Old Lady's trunk for tonight."

She rubbed lewdly against him. "And after we lock up the prizes, stud?"

"After we lock up the prizes, my precious slut, I intend to take you back to the hotel room we reserved, order champagne, undress you, and then ravish you until not only can't you see straight, but you're so worn out you can't even stand up. Interested?"

"Very. Let's hurry."

18.

A few days after the car show, Roger and Tiffany were lazing over the breakfast table with second cups of coffee when the front doorbell rang. He got up, returning a couple of minutes later with a pair of letters from the Alabama State Vintage Automobile Association addressed to them, certified, return receipt requested. He handed Tiffany hers while he used his table knife to slit his envelope open.

"I expect yours says about the same as mine," he said after quickly scanning it. "It's an invitation to the ASVAA's annual Best In Alabama car show. Places are offered to the trophy winners of the four state chapters' shows in each division, plus the People's Choice winners. The winners of each division, excepting the People's Choice cars, will go on to represent Alabama at the big United States Vintage Auto Association show out in Las Vegas in August. Here's the information on how to fill out the entry forms and pay the entry fee. They want a reply by the end of the week."

"And one thing more," Tiffany added. "Look at this: 'Please provide a PowerPoint presentation, without sound, on a flash drive to work on a computer explaining whatever you would care to share about your vehicle, with a time limit of six minutes. Computers will be provided.' I've never worked in PowerPoint. You, darling?"

"No. That's presentation; I leave that to Irina and the people in her office. But considering the ubiquity of the Office Suite in business today, I bet that at least one of the Impossible Mission Force is proficient with it, Marti most likely. Let's give her a call. If she can't help us, I bet she knows someone who can."

Marti got back to them between classes. She was indeed schooled in PowerPoint; one of the art courses she had taken junior year was in the artistic use of the software. She promised to stop by after school to read the specifications for the presentation, discuss what she would need to create them, and at Roger's insistence, settle on payment for her work.

Their acceptances went into the mail the next day. A FedEx package addressed to Tiffany arrived just after she headed off to work. When she opened it after arriving home from The Bird & Bottle in the wee hours, it turned out to be the proofs for the Alabama Auto Honey calendar. She set them aside to be read when she was not tired the next morning. After reviewing them, no mistakes were found and she called the two partners, advising them that she was releasing the calendar to the printer and to expect both the shipment and the printer's bill shortly.

A week before the Alabama State Vintage Automobile Association show in Montgomery, Tiffany handed Roger something she had torn out of the Montgomery paper. He read it. It was an ad for an adult prom, scheduled for the same Saturday as the ASVAA car show. He looked up at his lovely lover.

"I never went to my Senior Prom," she said in reply to the question on his face. "It was on Friday of graduation week, after that damned gossip show 'Who's Doing What To Whom' broke what happened at the baseball team's party and I'd broken up with Clete as a result of it. I didn't have anyone to go with, and I wasn't about to go by myself and be ogled by the boys and sniggered at by the girls. It was something I'd been looking forward to the whole time I was in high school, and I didn't get to go." An old sadness washed over her face.

Roger knew a cue when he heard one. He got down on one knee in front of her and took her hand, looking up into her eyes.

"Tiffany, would you do me the honor of allowing me to be your escort to the prom?" She pulled him to his feet and kissed him soundly, not minding at all as his hands cupped her buttocks and held her tight against the erection hidden by his trousers.

"Yes, my love, I will. You know, I still have that prom dress tucked away. I wonder if I can fit into it? I weigh about the same as I did back then ... but in the meantime," she said, twining her arms around Roger's neck as he picked her up and started for the front stairs, "I can rehearse for the post-prom fuck-a-thon I'd planned on."

On the morning of the car show, they drove their restomods down to Montgomery to the convention center and checked in, turning over their thumb drives with the presentations Marti had worked up for them to the ASVAA representatives at check-in and picking up the owner's badges that granted them complete access to the site. The Association would position the cars and get the displays up and running on the computers; the owners had no further duties to perform until the time came to present the trophies on Sunday. This being so, they repaired to the Hyatt Montgomery, where the Adult Prom would be thrown that evening, spending the day relaxing and napping until it got on towards nightfall.

Roger changed into his tuxedo in the bathroom, struggling as he always did to tie his bow tie by hand. Donning the vest that fit under the tux jacket, he slipped his feet into his patent leather dancing pumps and came out into the room.

"What do you think, darling?"

Tiffany pirouetted and took a pose as his eyes widened. She was wearing a white silk underdress slit all the way up to the hip on the left and a scoop neck that would have placed her tits at risk of jouncing out had they not been firmly supported by the white leather corset which both narrowed her waist and propped her boobs up on a shelf. The overdress was made of ruby red and clear glass beads that complemented her well. Freshly manicured toenails peeped out of her high heeled sandals, and her hair had been done up by the hotel's beauty parlor in a classic style.

"I admit the corset helps smooth the lines out, but you have no idea how pleased I am that I can still get into my prom gown after all these years."

"You look ... incredible," Roger said respectfully.

"Thank you, my darling. Come over here, and I will put your boutonnière on." She pinned a red rose through the buttonhole and picked up the wrist corsage, slipping it into place on her left arm. She took his hand.

"I was sad I missed my prom back then, but you were worth waiting for. Tonight will mean much more to me as an adult with a lover who cares for her than it would have as a teenage girl dating a varsity jock who, as he proved, didn't really give a damn for me. You are so worth the wait, honey."

"I'm pleased you think so. You're so much more to me than just a horny slut who wants to see and be seen by her homegirls. I'm proud to be your escort for your prom experience. Let's go down to the ballroom and meet the others."

The ballroom was about three-quarters full. They got themselves drinks from the bar and went looking for their friends. They found the Toombses, Wendell, and Irene Crowley, his date (who Tiffany recognized as the hospital clerk who wouldn't tell her where Roger was on the day of his accident) sitting at a table handy to the dance floor, and they began to party hearty. Dinner was filet mignon, and the dance music spanned seventy-five years, hitting the old standards as well as some quite respectable and danceable country & western suitable for two-stepping and close-dancing.

As they snuggled on the dance floor while the band's vocalist crooned a song about how the wife stuck at home missed her truck driver husband, Tiffany looked at Roger and asked, "You went to your prom, didn't you? How did it compare to this?"

"Well, I'd say the couples here are more comfortable in their skins than we were as teenagers. Jean Shepherd recounted his fictional, or at least humorously exaggerated, prom-as-rite-of-passage in 'Wanda Hickey's Night Of Golden Memories.' Mine was certainly that for me.

"I went with Carol Buckley. She was the daughter of my judo instructor, the MP sergeant I told you about, and one of my usual partners on the mats because we were about the same height and weight and Sergeant Buckley believed in coed training. You could call her an Amazon if you wanted to; five feet ten, long-legged, small tight butt, close-set C cups with really impressive cleavage, honey brown hair, and hazel eyes. She still had some teenage puppy fat so she looked plush in the arms, thighs, and tummy, but she was toned, not overweight. We weren't officially boyfriend and girlfriend, but when the kids in our social circle went out as a group to go bowling, or to the movies, the beach, or anything like that, somehow we always gravitated together. It was sort of understood that I was her guy and she was my girl, but we never really discussed it.

"After one of these get-togethers, we'd find ourselves someplace where we had some privacy, especially if Carol was driving her mother's Aerostar with the third row of seats removed and a couple of blankets on the floor. She was the first girl that had me go down on her, and the first to sixty-nine me, and to let me titty-fuck her. It didn't surprise me too much when she asked me to take her to the prom. I had the feeling that she was planning to give me and us a good farewell sendoff. I knew she'd enlisted in the Army and had orders to report to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri the day after graduation for basic training and then Military Police school.

"So we went to the senior prom at the Marriott Grand National, had dinner, danced for awhile, and slipped away to our hotel room as soon as we discreetly could and locked the door. We turned the lights down, and Carol initiated me into the rites of Eros."

"So she was your first?"

"Yes, she was. I wasn't hers -- she told me she'd been sexually active since she was sixteen -- but she was the first girl I ever had sex with."

Roger flashed back to that prom night.

*****

Carol had gone into the bathroom to change out of her prom dress while he got out of his tux and into a bathrobe from his overnight bag. He popped the cork on the champagne he had left cooling in the ice bucket before they had gone downstairs and poured it into the two flutes he'd brought for the occasion.

"Roger, honey?"

Carol was standing there in a transparent black silk robe, her hair brushed out and her lipstick renewed. She was holding something in her hand as they walked toward each other. Suddenly they were in each other's arms, passionately kissing and fondling, her pussy lewdly grinding against his rigid cock as one hand locked on his head to control the kiss while the other found his prick and stroked it. To Roger's embarrassment, he shot his wad the moment Carol's fingers closed on his rod. He flushed, mortified at his body's betrayal. She saw it and chuckled gently, not laughing at him, but understanding.

"I thought we should start out with you titty-fucking me," she said, her hand continuing to move gently along his cock while she showed him the bottle of lube she held in her other hand. "I figured that if I could bring you off that way, we could make your first time last longer, long enough for both of us to cum. But that ship has sailed; you took care of the problem of the guy cumming too fast for the gal to make it too. Just relax, baby. I'll get you ready for me." She kissed him again and brought his hand to her breast, rubbing the nipple against his palm and sighing at the feel of it.

She popped the cap on the lube and dripped a little of it onto his shaft. She spread it all over his dick, paying special attention to the head. He moaned and pulled her to him, french-kissing her as her hand tightened on him in response. Breaking the kiss, she pulled the robe off his shoulders, dropping it to the floor. Stepping back, she twirled her way out of her own peignoir, tossing it onto the other bed, the one Roger hadn't turned down. She came to him, lifting her boobs, offering them to him. Obediently, he put his arms around her waist and suckled them, hearing her sharp intake of breath as he did, hearing her moan in her turn as he nibbled them and swirled his tongue around her hard nubbins.