Meg

They returned to watching the park.

His stomach growled half an hour later.

"Sorry," he said and made to get up.

This time, it was she who grabbed a hand. "Sit," she said. "It's lunchtime and I brought enough for two." From her backpack she pulled a bagel wrapped in newspaper and an apple.

"Enough for two?" he said dryly.

"With coffee, sure," she grinned. She broke the bagel in half and handed him a piece, then took out a pocket knife, split the apple into quarters and cored them.

He took the bagel and ate it almost delicately, taking small bites and chewing each one for a long time. Half the apple followed.

"Thanks again."

"So, can I ask you a personal question, Master Sergeant Will?"

His eyes whipped over to hers. "Who told you I was a Master Sergeant?"

"The little pin on your backpack with six stripes." And half an hour's research on the public library computers, she thought. That Silver Star had come hard.

"You don't miss much, do you? All right, shoot."

"Just two questions and the second hinges on the first."

He looked at her without blinking.

She took a deep breath, put her hand on his forearm. "This is going to seem weird, but there's a reason. Um, I know that you drink a bit. Do you do anything else? Drugs?"

"What?"

"Well, do you?"

"No. Too much shit in that shit, even if I was interested. I've seen too many..." His voice trailed off.

"Thank you," she said, softly. "So, right answer on that one. Second question - and how romantic is this? - do you want to move in together?"

"What the fuck?"

"Will, I mean as roommates. I'm not after your sorry ass." Meg pulled out a folded newspaper section from her pack and pushed it at him. There was an inked circle around one long ad. He took it, but kept his eyes on hers.

"There's a new subsidized housing project for vets, run by a non-profit group. It's supposed to be for couples, but that's nobody's business but ours. It's furnished and I can just about make the rent. With two, we should be able to do OK. I looked at it and it's better than the Y, so it's got to be better than the hostel."

He just looked at her.

"Will, please. Just come and take a look."

"You don't want to live with me, Angel. I'm not really housebroken. And my luck around women hasn't been all that good."

"There's no lease, Will, and no deposit, just weekly rent. You could bail at any time. And your luck is due for a change - I'm an angel, remember?"

She squeezed his arm, looked him in the eyes. "It's a big step for me, too, Will. But I promise to try."

He closed his eyes for a moment, nodded and stood up. She rose to stand in front of him. "There's one more thing. Can I ask a favor of you - just as a friend? I really need some help right now."

"What?"

"Will, I... I'm scared shitless about this, too. Would you be a friend and just give me a bro-hug? Please? I really need one."

Meg felt his arms go awkwardly around her. One tentatively started to stroke her back, stopping instantly when it touched her bra strap under her t-shirt. She rested her head on his chest. He smelled of man (and she suddenly realized how much she had missed that smell) and white soap.

After 10 seconds, she broke the hug. "Thanks, Will. You don't know how much that helped. Maybe I'll get through this day after all."

"Da nada. Let's go before I lose my nerve, Angel."

The apartment was tiny and not new, but was clean and had everything down to dish towels and a shower curtain.

"Angel," Will said, quietly so as to not let the agency representative hear, "it's nice, but there's only one bedroom."

"I know, Will, but the couch is a foldout bed. We can flip for the bed or do turnaround every week." She looked up at him and took his hand. "We've both slept in a lot worse and this is a step up for both of us."

"Angel, I..."

"Me, too, Will. I'm scared, too. But we have to start somewhere or we'll spend the rest of our lives bleeding out on a park bench."

"I snore."

"That's OK. So do I."

+

Meg opened her eyes to see the beginnings of sunshine around the curtains. They were old and ugly as sin, but they kept the darkness out and the privacy in. She listened, heard Will snoring quietly in the bedroom, found her foot and put it on. She got up, put the kettle on the stove and headed for the bathroom.

As she was washing her hands, she noticed the few male items by the sink. How long had it been since she had seen two toothbrushes in her bathroom? She smiled to herself and went out to make coffee.

Small as it was, the apartment had a balcony, just big enough for two adults to be on it together without taking turns breathing. She laid down a towel and was half-seated before she realized she was still only dressed in her panties. She went back inside and pulled on a hoodie before sitting down with her coffee and watching the shadows change on the buildings opposite as the sun rose.

She lit a cigarette and was suddenly surprised to feel an itch on the sole of the foot she no longer had. It had been weeks since the last time. She knew it would fade. In the meantime, she removed her false leg and massaged the stump. Sometimes that helped.

Will found her there soon after. He had a cup of coffee and settled down on the carpet just inside the door. "Morning, Angel."

"Good morning, Will. Sleep well?"

"Some."

Neither of them slept much. She was generally happy to hear Will snore as that meant he'd finally gone to sleep.

He noticed her rubbing her stump. "Foot hurting?" He knew about phantom pain.

"Just itchy. It drove me crazy at first, but it's going away."

"What would you like for breakfast?" Will had turned out to be a surprisingly good cook and she'd even put some weight.

"Surprise me."

It turned out to be instant pancakes. But Will had cut an apple into thin slices and fried them in butter and sugar until they were soft and browned and almost translucent before pouring them over the flapjacks.

"Yum! This is so good," she said. "Thank you, sweetie."

Her mouth full, she became aware of the man having frozen. She looked up. He was staring at her.

"Sweetie?" he said, his eyebrows raised.

The two of them had indeed been just roommates. There was a routine. If one cooked, the other did the dishes. Shopping trips were done together, carefully. They traded off the couch for the bed on a weekly basis and their few clothes shared the bedroom's small closet. (She had not told Will, but she liked to rotate pillows, too. She could smell him on the pillow for a couple of nights.) The apartment was, by unspoken agreement, spotless before either left for the day. Each had their own routine, although Will sometimes came to the park for an hour or two towards the end of the day. She didn't know where he went the rest of the time and wouldn't ask. There was an unstated but critical respect for each other's privacy. Visits to Hank's were now rarer and almost always together.

They had not touched each other since they had moved in, nor addressed each other by anything but their first names.

"Sorry. Will. Small joke about domestic life."

"It's not nice to tease the dumb animals, woman."

Her heart sank. His face looks so vulnerable, she thought. She started to touch his arm, stopped, pulled her hand back.

"I'm sorry, Will. I wasn't meaning to tease you. You're my best friend, I guess. It's just that this place has really made a change for me. It's easier. I feel better. And... oh, crap! I don't know where I'm trying to go with this. Trying to say thank you, I guess." She looked down, almost in tears.

Will leaned over, took her head in both hands and, very gently, as with a toddler, kissed her forehead. "You're welcome," he said. "There are times it seems to me like we're married."

She looked up into his blue eyes and time seemed to slow down.

He realized that his hands still held her head and released her suddenly. "Sorry," he said. He looked embarrassed and worried.

"It's all right, Will. Really." She moved against him and put her arms around his waist, rested her head on his shoulder. "See, the world won't end." She squeezed him.

Tentatively, his hands came up to her shoulders. One moved to hold her head against him while the other slowly stroked down her back. Suddenly, it froze, right at the point where he would have had to realize that he wasn't feeling a bra strap under her hoodie. She smiled to herself.

"See?" she said. "Still alive, both of us."

"Yeah, but we're hard to kill, Meg."

She lifted her head to look up at his face. "I suspect it will take more than just a hug to do that, soldier." She twisted out of his grip, pulled his face down to hers and gave him a light, chaste kiss. "Thanks, Will. We'll figure it out."

+

The four-story building was occupied almost entirely by veterans, some with their families. It made the building more of a community in one sense, but not a lot of friendships were made. You just knew that the people on either side could be depended on, to some degree, more than strangers. Or, maybe, you just knew how they were likely to react to things.

For some reason, it also kept street crime on the block very low.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, Will had from someplace come up with a Charlie Brown tree, small enough to fit on their kitchen table. Meg found a couple of strings of Mardi Gras beads at Goodwill and bought some gold-foil-wrapped chocolate coins and hung them on the scrawny branches. It was a sad little display, but to her it was one of the happiest trees she could remember.

She had spent a lot of time -- she had a lot of time -- thinking about a present for Will. Theirs was still a platonic relationship, although she was becoming increasingly aware of Will as a man, not just a roommate.

He was a good man, she considered. Neat, quiet, considerate, he even left the toilet lid down. He'd trimmed his beard into a goatee and moustache and still kept his hair short. She had found he had almost a fetish for cleanliness when it was possible. Laundry was his job.

What to give a man who has nothing?

It wasn't going to be expensive, that was for sure. She'd cut up the last of her credit cards over a year ago and had skipped meals to pay it off. It had taken a long time.

Something truly special, something he would remember. And something that wouldn't cost more than fifteen or twenty bucks... Yeah, right.

The other problem was that she didn't want to embarrass the man she loved with a gift if he hadn't got her one. She thought he was going to, but...

Wait.

The man she loved? Had she really just thought that?

Yes.

Face it, girl. You love him. And it's not rebound or last-chance, either.

And that made the choice more obvious.

+

Christmas Eve came. They'd bought a turkey -- a small one -- some potatoes, carrots and canned cranberry sauce. It would do.

Meg waited until after midnight. She'd dozed, but hardly slept properly.

She arose quietly and shed her panties, brushed her teeth. Again.

Here goes nothing, she thought.

She eased into the bedroom. Dim light through the curtains showed the double bed, Will asleep and snoring quietly on the left hand side. She slid under the sheet behind him, taking off her leg as she did. In the cool room, Will had warmed the bed and she was grateful to snuggle up against his back. She threw her arm over his chest and tried to slow her breathing. Eventually, she dozed off.

She came awake suddenly when she was violently thrown to one side in a flurry of bedding. Will had her pinned to the mattress, a knife she could only feel against her throat.

"Um, hi?" was the best she could do, her voice squeaking in the shadows.

"What the hell?" he said as he recognized her and pulled the knife away. "Angel, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Um, delivering my Christmas present?" she whispered. "I'm sorry, Will. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Like you're frightened? she thought. Good thing I peed before coming in here.

He suddenly realized she was naked and pulled away from her as far as he could.

"Jesus, Angel, what...?"

"Will," she said softly, "it's Christmas. And I didn't have anything else to give you."

She noticed he still held the knife in one hand. Where does he keep it? she wondered.

She caught her breath, slowly reached out and took hold of it by the sides of the blade. "May I have that, please? I won't hurt you. I promise."

He let go of the hilt and, keeping it well away from him, she rolled over half on top of him to drop it on the floor beside the bed on his side. Her breasts slid across his chest as she did so; she could feel the hair on his chest against her nipples.

Lifting herself above him, she said softly, "I'm not much, Will, but I'm all I've got to offer."

She could see his eyes in the darkness. His hand came up and gently touched her cheek. "Angel, I..."

"You're a good man, Will," she interrupted, putting a forefinger on his lips. "I love you. You don't have to say you love me. I don't care. Tonight, I just want to make you as happy as you have allowed me to become."

There was a long pause and then his hand slipped from her cheek, slid across her shoulder and down her side to come to rest on her bare hip.

She moved closer to him and leaned in to kiss him softly. "It's OK, Will. We can do this. Just kiss me."

His head came up and her lips melted against his. He rolled back on top of her, his free hand sliding from her hip down her thigh before returning up to cuddle a breast. She could feel her nipples harden, moisture between her legs.

His weight came down on her and his lips closed hard on hers. She felt his tongue probe her lips and opened to welcome it and him. Her head filled with his masculine scent and her heart began to race. Her fingertips traced the embroidery of scars over his shoulder blade. She'd almost dropped her coffee the first time she'd seen them; now they were familiar, almost something the two of them had in common.

Her hands swept down his back to hold his buttocks and she felt his hardness on her stomach. His fingers mounded and played with the firmness of her breast, pulled gently on her nipple. His tongue circled hers, flowed into the corners of her mouth and, leaving, traced tenderly up her jawline and down her neck. She could feel it follow her collarbone and shivered.

She tried to reach his manhood but it was trapped between their bodies, so she settled for sweeping her hands up and down his back.

His roaming lips reached her other breast. He nibbled her nipple, nipped softly with his teeth, his tongue swirled around and around. Her nipples on fire, her hands pulled his head into her.

His free land left her other breast and slid softly down her torso, caressed a hip bone and moved south into her sex. Two fingers slid between her legs, tracing down on the outside of her lips, then slid back up inside. She sighed in appreciation, tried again to reach him.

"Will," she pleaded, "let me..."

"Hush, woman," he replied. "I'm busy."

She could feel her arousal soaring higher and higher as he played her body. From time to time, he switched breasts with his mouth, but his fingers below continued to slide through her silky wetness, not yet penetrating, but slowly fueling her lust. She tried to wiggle her hips to play to his length between them, but the leverage was wrong and she only had one foot to work with.

Damn! she thought. I was supposed to be giving him a gift, but he's doing all the work.

Then, It's been so long!

Finally a long finger slid inside her depths, followed by a second. Her cries became louder and longer and, when they began massaging her G-spot, she came, shuddering, mewing like a kitten.

Then, "No! No more, Will. Give me a minute -- please!"

The fingers withdrew and Will rolled off her to one side. She lay, panting and drained. She could see his teeth grinning in the dim light.

"Oh, god, Will," she said between gasps. "How did you do that?"

"Just inspired, I guess," came the reply.

He had slid over to one side and she grasped his shaft, velvet over oak. She slid her thumb over his slit and felt a slipperiness, spread it around and around. He stiffened beside her.

Suddenly, what Meg wanted more than anything was to taste him. She sat up, too quickly for his arms to catch her, wheeled into a kneeling position at his side and began softly but quickly sliding her hand up and down his length, barely touching it. Beside her, the man stiffened, his breath speeding up.

"Damn, Angel," he hissed in his pleasure.

She tightened her grip, pulling the skin with her hand, faster and faster, fondling his balls with her other hand.

His hand caressed her buttock, trying to reach her sex, but his arm was not long enough. After squeezing her cheek, it moved on and started playing with her dangling breast.

Meg leaned forward, took his head in her mouth, rolled her tongue around and around. His cock jerked and twitched. Closing her lips around him, she began to suck lightly as she teased with her tongue and pumped with her hand.

"Angel..." he cried in the dark. Smiling to herself, she sucked even harder, took as much of him into her mouth as she could, began swallowing as his passion erupted.

When he finished, she lay down beside him, her head on his thigh, one hand lightly playing with his now-deflated man-toys.

"Damn, girl," he said softly. "That was amazing."

"See?" she said, smiling to herself. "I told you we'd both survive." His hand swept her head, gently, lovingly. They both dozed.

Will came awake with to warmth moving over his groin. Meg had started again. He could feel himself stiffening. He rolled towards her, grabbed her legs, gave a mighty heave and the girl was shifted to lie on top of him, one knee on either side of his head.

He leaned up and kissed her lips, glorying in the musky woman-dew he could feel on his face. As he licked, probed and nibbled, he could feel her body reacting to him, feel her strokes on him changing, heard her begin to moan through her full mouth.

Meg was as turned on as she had ever been. What she had intended as a gentle gift had turned into something quite different, quite extraordinary.

She pulled out of his grasp, spun around. Grasping his cock, she brought herself to it, lowered herself onto him. His hands came up and grasped her bum. She grabbed his shoulders and rolled to one side, bringing him with her. Instinctively, he continued the roll, winding up still seated inside her, but now on top.

"For God's sake, Will," she moaned huskily. "I need you now! Don't make love to me --fuck me, Will. Hammer me!"

Will began to pound, his veined length plunging in and out of her sex. Her cries grew louder and louder as their stomachs slapped into each other. Her nails dug into his back and she shouted words without meaning in her joy. With that, Will came himself, his organ pulsing inside her, holding her body hard against his.

He rolled to his side, clutching her to him. They lay together in the darkness, still locked in place.

Meg came down from her orgasm high slowly, feeling the joy in her groin slowly being replaced with a feeling of utter contentment, a peace she had not remembered she had felt.

"Merry Christmas, Will," she whispered to him. She put her head on his shoulder.

His right arm squeezed around her and his left gently stoked her hair. "I can't promise you where this is going, Angel," he said softly, "but I promise I'll try."

"Good enough for me, Will. Long roads don't matter, so long as there's somebody by your side."

Gently, his hand slid over her body in the darkness, his fingertips sighing love in the night.