Fred's Boxing Day

I lay between her spread legs and press in, and she watches me with her big blue eyes and a little smile. I pull from her and back in for another stroke, and my touch is gentle upon her, my penetration smooth and slow, and she gasps a little but pushes forward instead of drawing away. Another cycle in and out and she lets out a pleasured whimper. I find rhythm with her, slow and rocking, and she responds, her breath quickening as I move into her and out of her.

"Fred...oh Fred, I'm gonna come, please hold me--" and she wraps her arms around me, holding me still inside her, and I feel her squeeze and then strain suddenly up against me.

"Oh, ohh, ow ow, oh God...unhyes, oh...oh man, Derf..." She lays beneath me, limp. "Oh please, no more, I..." She trails off, staring vacantly at the ceiling, and I pull from her slowly and lay beside her.

After a few moments, I feel hands on me, removing the rubber from my softening tool, but those hands stay on me even after I hear it hit the wastebasket. Her fingers tease me into full wakefulness and she strokes with one hand, her other dropping to play with my bag of tricks. "It's really beautiful," she says in a wondering kind of voice, and I throb. "And it's mine."

"All yours, Em." I rock my hips in time with her stroking and I feel her hand pull away and watch it move between her legs, then dip under me, her fingertip right where a man doesn't expect fingertips to be, rotating in a circle. I stiffen. "Hey--"

"After what you just did to me, it's only fair," she told me, and pressed her fingertip until it popped into me. "Now you get to be my bitch, so lie back--" and she wiggles her finger around in a circle, widening me, "--and enjoy." She stops stroking me long enough to push me back on the bed and I realize my kinky girl is going to have her way with me. I find my own submission kind of exciting and raise my knees a little to offer her access.

She strokes me, but her fingertip doesn't go any further, just in and out a little bit, with a wiggle when she is inside me. I watch her face and see her grin that incredible sunshine grin, and I start to enjoy what she is doing to me.

I see her trying to open her mouth wide to suck me, but she can't without wincing in pain, so she sticks out her tongue and licks me all over before putting her lips to me and planting suctioning kisses all along my length. I feel my stiff cock jump in her hand and I gasp as she slides her finger deep into me, and forward, to some incredible place way up in me that almost immediately causes a pearl of come to appear on the tip of my dagger. Her tongue mops that up and her finger starts to press and rub, and I feel tingles all around where she's entered me and bolts of pleasure shooting up from where she touches me.

Emma leans over me with her sweet smile. "Like that, Fred?" she asks, and my only possible response is to explode. I feel my ass squeezing her finger and I feel her give me a tap inside as my first shot takes her along the cheek. Immediately she drops her head, her lips touching just the tip of my little man and sucking, tapping me gently up inside and taking every drop of me in her mouth.

Her swallow is audible. I feel her pull her finger from me and the sensation is both satisfying and disappointing. "You're incredible, Fred," she tells me. "Incredible Fredible."

I chuckle and take her into my arms. "I'm anything you need me to be," I tell her. "I'm your Fredible."

"You fucking massacred me last night...just what I needed...and today you still made me come." She wriggles. "I'm still sore as hell, but you're...so good to me. You know," she says slowly, "when you were in me, with no rubber, I didn't want to say anything, I just wanted to...feel you, inside me, filling me with your cock, I wanted to feel you come...in me." She sighs.

I think about this. If there was a woman alive I'd give a baby to, it's Emma. But we've been together two days and it's way too early to consider that. "You could go on birth control," I tell her.

"Yeah, and you could get a vasectomy..." Her sardonic smile is beautiful and I smile in return. "Birth control pills are bad for you, Fred. My mom was on the pill until she died of ovarian cancer."

"Oh, man, I'm sorry, Em."

"It's okay, Derf, I never said anything about it. But no pills for Em."

"Well, if I get a vasectomy, it'll probably shoot our chances of kids later." I realize too late that this might scare Emma off, if she doesn't want a commitment with me. But she doesn't mention it.

"They freeze it," she tells me. A beat.

"Chip off the ole block," we both say, and hug and laugh like crazy.

"You know, I could get an IUD put in...but can't afford that. No medical benefits at Jerry's."

"I think they put 'em in cheap at the board of health, but..." I pause. "My whole marriage, I was faithful to Carol, but I don't know how many men she fucked while she was with me. She was on the pill, so we didn't use any protection, and she probably didn't with anyone else; I might be carrying something."

Emma looked sad. "She's creepy, Fred. I'm sorry your marriage has ended...but I'm not, I'm better for you." She hugs me and lays her ear over my heart. "And you're perfect for me."

It makes me happy to hear it.

"Em, I need to tell you something..." She raises her head and looks at me. "...I don't feel like bowling today."

"WHAT?!" she yells. "Don't feel like bowling?! Are you some kinda SICKO?! IT'S OVER!" I must look totally confused because she starts laughing. She hugs me.

"Fred, it's a game. Don't take it so seriously. I'm too sore to roll anyway, and I gotta tend bar tonight."

"Mm." I'm reassured. "I need to take care of things today, too--"

"Carol?"

"No, but I need to call the landlord and let 'em know I'm not renewing the lease." I grab my cell phone, then drop it. "Let's shower."

"Emma's butt rule," she says brightly. Lube, and shower after.

"Kinseck Valley Apartments, this is Sue."

"Hi, this is Fred Duncan, number 217."

"Hi Mr Duncan, how can I help you?"

"My lease is up February 1st, and I won't be renewing."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Was it something we did, or didn't do?"

"No, nothing like that. I've separated from the wife."

"Oh, no! I'm sorry, Mr Duncan."

"No worries, it's for the best. I don't know if she intends to continue the lease or not."

"I see. When would you like to arrange a walkthrough for your security deposit?"

"That's like three hundred bucks, huh?"

"Yes sir."

"She's changed the locks, I can't get in."

"That's in violation of the lease."

"...Really?"

"Yes sir. We'll drill the locks out if needed."

"Can we do it today?"

"Correction: I may have to deal with Carol again."

Emma looks tense; she's still waiting for the other shoe to drop on my abrupt breakup with Carol. "Do you want me to go?"

"I'd love you to. I have to do a walkthrough of the place at four for the security deposit."

"Oh no!" Emma's dressed now, she put on the same pink outfit and she looks both childlike and sexual in it. "I have to tend bar at four!"

"Can you go in late?" She shakes her head.

"I won't do that to Danny, it's Friday and he's Catholic."

Danny's gay, and I ponder the concept of a gay Catholic but I don't even wanna fly that plane. I'm pretty sure I'll need a stiff drink after dealing with Carol again... "I'll stop in Jerry's when it's done, if you like," I say.

"You better, you live here and I work there." She points out the window; she doesn't look happy. "Fred--"

I take her in my arms. "Yes, baby?"

There's a long pause. "Nothing...just..."

"Carol is no threat to you in any sense of the word," I tell Emma. Just yesterday, Carol had met Emma, and picked a fight with her. Now, Carol's a tall woman at five-ten, long arms and legs. Emma's about six inches shorter than that, in perfect proportion, so shorter in the arm and probably forty pounds lighter. And she'd beaten Carol silly.

"I'm faithful to a fault," I continue. "I never cheated on Carol, not even after I caught her cheating the first time. I went home...er, back to the apartment, asked her how Cleveland was, and she lied to me so smooth, it was easy for her. I knew right then we were done. And then I was available, and I called you first. Immediately, in fact." I held her at arms' length and looked into her blue eyes and solemn face. "You've got Fred around. Get used to that. And you better not regret it, even when I blow stuff up and spill shit." She begins to smile. "Even when I throw gutters all night." Now she giggles, a tinkly little giggle like a music box and signature Emma.

"I know, Fred, but it's way too sudden and I'm way too happy--"

"Too happy? You thought you were gonna get fired this morning."

"That's my fault, I forgot that Jerry's solid." She looks a bit ashamed at that.

I look at my cellphone, it's not even ten. I look out the window and see kids starting to play in the snow. My ankle feels better if still sore.

"C'mon," I tell her.

I hold Emma's hand as we walk through the snow to my car, remembering the treacherous ice lurking beneath the snow. There's a field across the road from Jerry's with a swamp in it, and I see a bunch of kids with hockey sticks choosing up sides. We watch.

"Did you play hockey when you were a kid?" Emma asks me. I nod.

"Sure, it was cheap." Emma laughs.

"I never played it, and I know nothing about it," she confides in me.

"What? A sport you don't excel at?" I tease her. "Let's play, so I can win!"

Emma laughs. "I'm a quick learner, not a quick loser."

"That kid," I point at the biggest kid on the ice, "whatever team he's on is gonna win as long as he's playing."

"Um, bash him in the head with your stick?"

I stare for a second. "You're either Tonya fuckin' Harding," I say, "or you're cut out for hockey."

Her musical laughter seems to glitter like ice crystals in the freezing-cold air.

"That was a joke, Fred," she responds.

"No it wasn't," I answer. "It's a real option."

We watch the kids begin to play, and she sees I'm right, the other kids make way for the giant one. We can't see the puck from here but it's obvious to me he has it by the way his teammates all follow him down the ice, and as he's raising his stick to shoot, a player from the opposing team barrels into him. The kid gets up holding his head and a couple other kids lead him away. One of the opposing team's kids sits down in the snow and another kid--the one who nailed the big one--starts walking away, head down.

Emma looks horrified. "What the hell do you call that? Isn't that against the law?"

"That's called a match penalty for trying to injure," I tell her. "It's not against the law in hockey, just the rules. If you go to the mall and beat someone over the head with a stick til they bleed, you get four years for assault, but do it on the ice, you get four minutes for high-sticking."

"I thought you were fuckin' with me! What happens for four minutes?"

"You can't play," I say.

"That's it?"

"Well, no," I tell her. "During that four minutes, your team is short one man, and they have to bust ass to keep the other team from scoring. And believe me, four minutes is a long-ass time in hockey."

"That is fucking brutal," Emma tells me in a wondering voice. She looks up at me, and I see interest glitter in her starry blue eyes. "Show me."

"I will," I promise. We check that the big kid is okay and back on the ice, and we turn and walk toward the car.

"Oh, no! Shopping?" Emma looks at the grocery and then back at me; she's pouting and it's so damn cute it hurts to look at.

I stare at her. "You don't like shopping? You sure you're female?"

"You're not sure yet?" She grins at me. "I just...don't like doing that stuff, that's all."

"We'll have fun," I tell her, and remember our first meal together--pasta I could barely scrounge out of her empty kitchen. "I'll show you how to BUY FOOD. You need to know that."

"Aw, fuck you," she teases, and when I open my mouth to reply, she shakes her head. "Oh no, Fred Duncan, you leave that thing put away. Trying to kill me?"

"Just make you happy," I reply.

She caresses my cheek. "You do that just fine, you don't have to prove yourself."

"I know I don't. But you...just make me hot. Just you, being you."

She grabs me and holds tight. "Thanks, Fred," she whispers in my ear, then pulls away. "Try to contain yourself til I can walk, okay?" She grins again.

"Hey, I can't walk either," I remind her. We link arms and I walk her slowly into the store, favoring my ankle just a little.

Emma grabs a shopping cart with a runner wheel; I shake my head. "Don't we need one of those?" she asks, confused.

I demonstrate the bad wheel. "Watch the wheels," I tell her. "People run these things over all the time, remember that half of 'em don't run right anymore." I wink at her and get another cart with working wheels.

Produce first, and I get some bananas, oranges, two heads of lettuce and some carrots. Emma approves, until I get two loaves of bread and a big bag of pasta. "We need more pasta," I told her, our private joke about how she'd said I'd have to work Christmas Eve's pasta off her.

"Fred, I'm gonna get so fat!" Emma was actually dismayed and I held her.

"Don't worry, baby, I'll eat it all."

"No you won't, that's the trouble, if you cook anything like you did on Christmas Eve I'll eat like a pig!" Emma did the supercute pout again.

"I'll save you, I'll feed you carrots until you're not hungry anymore."

"Can you make them taste like those noodles?" She sighed. "Fine, get what you think we need, Derf."

So I get a six-pack of beer, some bottled water, cans of soup and vegetables, some razors and a toothbrush for me, a tube of pretty lipstick for her, paper towels, bar soap, trash bags, and enough other crap to fill the cart.

We roll to the checkout and manage to get a cashier with no wait. I'm already swiping my card while she fumbles in her purse for cash and I see her driver's license drop to the floor.

I drop and pick it up before she sees. "Emma L.," I say. She sees me looking at her license and makes to snatch it but I pull it away.

"Oh c'mon, Fred, I hate that picture!" It's really not a bad picture, as driver's license pictures go; she looks sort of baffled in it. "I look unhappy in it."

"Everyone looks unhappy in 'em, they do it on purpose."

"Why would they do that?" she asks, skeptical.

I grin at her. "When you got a cop shining a flashlight in your face through your car window to compare it to the photo, you aren't happy. So your face matches the picture."

Emma is silent for a moment. "You know, Fred, that makes a perverse kind of sense." I hold out her license and she takes it gently from my hand. I take the receipt from the checker and wheel the cart toward the door.

"What's the L. for?"

She smiles a little. "Lynn. Two N's, no E. Emma Lynn Grossberger. That could be a real pretty name if only..."

"If only it wasn't Grossberger?" She nods. "Like, Emma Lynn Duncan?"

"Emma Lynn Duncan is a beautiful name. I've known it was beautiful since I met you, in '06. I told you, if I could see myself with a guy, I tried his name on. Yours fits best." She smiles, and she's blushing a little. "I'm sorry, I don't want to be forward, or anything, it's just I used your name at the lanes and they're going to remember it--"

"Nah, they'll just remember the "Bowling Nurse" part. But you can use my name for publicity purposes, Miss Duncan."

"Mrs," she says immediately, then hides her face. "Oh shit, I blew it didn't I?"

I have to smile at her, she's a little girl sometimes. Sometimes she's an athlete. Always she's all woman. And she's all mine, my Emma Lynn Grossberger. Duncan.

"You're in such a hurry, babe. You've had that name for a long time, you can wait a little longer."

"I'm sick of waiting to be Mrs Prince Charming," she tells me.

"Well, what if you get a nice name and decide you don't like the guy it's attached to?"

Emma looks at me like I'm crazy. "There is only one, get it? one? guy I would even think of taking a name from now. YOU. And I don't get tired of Frederick C. Duncan, the name or the man." We're at the car now, and she helps load bags. "I know, sweetie, I understand, your last marriage just ended and you probably don't want to get into another one. Maybe ever. I love you, Derf, and if I can be with you, I don't mind being Grossberger forever." She grins that awesome grin. "No pressure."

"A rose by any other name would still be great in bed," I told her, "and I'd love her just as much."

Something she'd said this morning was deeply affecting me, I realized; she'd worried that Jerry would find the money she'd left him and feel bad that he'd chewed us out. It revealed a lot about Emma, that she was really kind and thoughtful. I hadn't thought selfless people really exist, but she didn't seem to do much for herself. She loves me in a non-creepy kind of way, and even though we've done some weird things in bed (and on a pool table) we're still comfortable with each other. And yes, I decide, I'll marry her. But not yet.

We embrace, and her lips meet mine and they're warm in the cold air, and our faces steam up with our breath and our tongues twist and my head spins and she's warm against me in her little pink outfit and her blue coat and we kiss until I pull away, rocking on my heels a bit.

And a shopping cart runs hard into my ankle, my bad ankle. For a moment I can't see; I can only hear a voice--Carol's--and feel waves of nauseous pain rolling through me from the point of impact.

"Whoops, look out, real people comin' through!"

I can finally find breath to scream, and I do so, collapsing against the car and sliding to the parking lot. When I can see again, Emma is standing over me. "Are you okay, Fred? Can you walk?"

"No, no way," I croak. I can't even feel that foot through the wall of ankle agony.

"Then you wait right here for me." I watch her take off at a sprint toward the rapidly receding figure pushing the empty shopping weapon.

"What the FUCK is wrong with you?!" I hear Emma scream; I can see she is right in the person's face...it is Carol. "You just FUCKED up his HURT ANKLE!" Carol evidently asks her what's wrong with it; Emma keeps yelling, and this time she has a finger pointed in her face. "None of your FUCKING BUSINESS! But even if it was fine, you just slammed his ankle with a cart for NO REASON! That's FUCKING MEAN!" Carol spoke again, and Emma started spearing her in the chest with her finger. "NO! MINE (stab) now, he's DONE (stab) with you, and I (stab) will help him with his ankle, I (stab) will help him with ANYTHING (stab) HE (stab) NEEDS (stab)!" Carol is backing away, and I see Emma's face is pale except for her cheekbones, which are rosy. Emma presses toward her, keeping her finger on Carol's chest. I slide up the car to see better, and I can hear better too. "You wrecked his LIFE (stab), you wrecked his ANKLE (stab) AGAIN (stab), and you will wreck him NO (stab) MORE (stab) you WRETCHED LITTLE TINY PERSON!"

I see a grocery clerk poke his head out the door. "I'm sorry, do you think you can take that language somewhere else?" he asks, and Emma rounds on him.

"I'm terribly sorry, sir," Emma tells him in a sweet voice. "I was trying to talk to her in her native tongue."

"FUCK YOU CUNT!" Carol yells.

"HEY! I said enough!" the grocery guy yells at Carol. Emma walks toward the car, waving to him, and the clerk waves back with a wan, resigned smile.

Emma has that effect on people; they generally like her. Carol has the opposite effect: they sense The Enemy and try to burn her at the stake.

"I'm sorry, I lost control of myself," she tells me apologetically as she gets back to the car. But I know there was nothing selfish in what she'd done; she was defending her man. And she had not called Carol a dirty word once in the whole tirade.