Passing Strange Ch. 02: Bad Romance

"Not to worry, Adam. Everyone hits a little rough patch now and then," Lazare assures his fraternity brother.

Lazarre Guidry is the Delta House's unofficial mentor to the lovelorn. Anyone with eyes can see that women fall all over Lazarre. Yet, he's never been known to brag or gloat about it.

"The god-damn second-coming of Elvis," his friends say. "But if you listen to Lazarre talk, you'd never know it."

"This patch is more like the freakin' Rockies," Adam explains. "Been dating Amber for six months and nada. Nothing. No touching allowed."

Adam Jones is a good-looking sophomore with a clear complexion, hazel eyes and shaggy black hair. But as Lazare knows, there's no predicting love.

"This does sound serious," Lazare begins. "You're saying she looks hot, but runs cold?"

"Exactly!"

"Six months! What the fuck do you talk about?"

"Her shopping trips. Her sorority gossip. Her dad's hunting trips, his advice and his pithy little sayings. Things like, 'The fly has no pity for the thin man.' Whatever the hell that means?"

"And you?"

"I listen. Or sometimes talk about the my life back in Massachusetts."

Lazare thinks for a moment, then produces a dog-eared business card from deep inside his wallet. "If I share this, Bro," he begins, holding the card in the air. "Do you swear never to reveal a word without my permission?"

"I do," Adam vows, taking the tattered card.

"Gifted Cajun psychic. Known her for years. Calls herself Lady Rowena. Effigies, charms, potions, spells, glamours. Spooky as hell. But they work. Man, do they work! Saved my bacon a couple of times," Lazare swears. "See her today."

###

"This is ridiculous," Adam tells himself for the third time, looking from Lady Rowena's card to the tiny Cajun cottage.

Adam often judges books by their covers. And Lady Rowena's place is a dump. Sagging roof, slanted porch and a tin can for a front door handle.

Still, Lazare has serious street cred. Adam has seen Lazarre hanging out with some of the hottest girls on campus. Adam walks onto the porch and knocks.

"Come in. It's unlocked," a voice calls from inside. Not any voice. A perfectly modulated, mellifluous, and sweet voice.

Adam opens the door. Deep in the shadows is a girl. A stunning girl with long black hair, emerald eyes that glitter with humor and intelligence. Not much older than some of the graduate Teaching Assistants at LSU.

"You are Lady Rowena?" Adam asks in disbelief. Not at all the old hag he expects. The cluttered interior, however, with its many melted candles, broken mirrors, worn Tarot cards, shattered crystals, corked specimen bottles, and leather-bound books is exactly what Adam expects.

"I am," she smiles. "And you must be Adam."

"You know my name?"

"Like it says," she replies, pointing to a buzzing neon sign that says, PSYCHIC. "Also, Lazare told me you might be visiting."

"Did he explain my... uh... problem?"

"No. But the leaves will," she says, handing him a cup of hot tea.

When Adam finishes, Rowena studies the bottom of the cup. "The object of your affection is not reciprocating your passion."

"In a nutshell."

Rowena studies him intently. "Can I trust you?"

"Lazare does," he answers. "You can too."

"Good. There's a simple solution. It's powerful and effective. But it can reveal things you may not like. And it's probably illegal."

"I'm willing to risk it."

"All right," Rowena says, walking to a cabinet and sorting through a box of Venetian vials.

Adam can see Rowena's figure clearly through her thin silk robe, and it takes his breath away. Rowena is even more shapely, more womanly, than Amber.

The psychic's figure is slim and willowy, her breasts full, her stomach flat, her waist narrow and her legs amazingly long and shapely. As Rowena bends to examine the vials, her glutes tighten into the kind of taut globes that Adam only sees in photos of Victoria's Secret lingerie models. He's been studying those a lot lately.

"You admire my figure?" she asks, placing a blue vial on the table.

"It's that obvious?"

"Quite. Along with your frustration. It's been building for months, if I'm not mistaken."

"It feels like I've been on 50 'first' dates."

Rowena smiles sympathetically.

"Listen carefully," she admonishes. "Take this potion and stir it into two drinks. You take one. Be sure your beloved drinks the other. Don't be alarmed if you fall asleep. When you awaken, you both will be in an amorous mood. But remember my warning. You may discover a part of her you've never seen before."

"I doubt Amber has dark secrets. But if she does, I can handle them. Anything else I should know?"

"No. I think you're ready."

"OK, then. Wish me luck." Adam pockets the potion and is almost at the door when he realizes he hasn't paid. "How much do I owe you?"

"You decide once you're satisfied," she says with a smile.

"I'll be back?" he asks, glancing at the PSYCHIC sign.

"Of course you will, Adam," Rowena replies, green eyes flashing. "Of course you will."

###

Adam waits in the lounge of Amber's sorority house for almost an hour before she finally sweeps down the staircase. One long look at her pert breasts, slim torso and long legs and his annoyance fades like mist on the bayou.

"How do I look?" she asks, doing a slow pirouette.

"Good enough to eat," Adam replies, his eyes fixed on what is clearly the outline of a thong under the fabric of a skin-tight Carolina Herrera cocktail dress.

"You are so crude sometimes," she says with a frown. "I found this on sale in New Orleans, marked down to only $2,000."

"You have a knack for bargain hunting," Adam replies, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "And speaking of eating, we're an hour late for our reservations at Juban's."

Adam is used to Amber's frequent shopping sprees and routinely showing up 30-minutes late. It's all part of the Southern Belle mystique. But tonight's wait is a new record. "What happened?" he asks.

"Oh, my dad called," she says, waving her hand dismissively. "He's feeling lonely."

"He's not the only one," Adam pouts.

"Come on horn dog," Amber says, taking Adam's arm. "Don't know about you, but I'm ready for Juban's cornmeal oysters and blue crab cakes."

From the smoked salmon empanadas through the cornmeal oysters and the blue crab cakes, Amber reels off details of her latest shopping trip to New Orleans, followed by salacious sorority gossip, and finally her newest grievances about schoolwork interfering with her social life.

"Can you believe I had to miss Alexander Braithwhite's tea party? Professor Straub wouldn't give me an extension on the English Lit term paper. Bet he's an atheists. A lot of college professors are, you know."

Adam listens with half an ear and rolls Rowena's blue vial between his fingertips. He hasn't said a word since the smoked salmon arrived three courses ago.

When Amber departs for the restroom, he empties the vial into their second round of Hurricanes. If the potion has a flavor, Adam can't detect it in the sticky-sweet combination of dark rum, passion fruit syrup and lemon juice.

"To my beautiful Amber," Adam raises his glass in a toast. "You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how."

"And just who would that be?" Amber asks, taking a long pull on her drink and giving him her best Scarlett O'Hara imitation.

"Your knight in shining armor," Adam replies. "You will be mine... You will be mine... All mine!"

"That sounds familiar," Amber says, leaning across the table to give Adam a peck on the cheek. "But it does make a girl feel wanted," she adds, draining her Hurricane. To Adam, her pale blue eyes seem slightly unfocused with a fleeting hint of vulnerability.

'Amber Williams vulnerable?' Adam asks himself. 'I must be hallucinating.'

"Did I ever tell you my dad always says, 'It's best to ignore both flattery and insults'?" Amber asks, showing early signs of inebriation as she rises unsteadily from the table.

"Once or twice," Adam replies. Or maybe 20 or 30, he thinks to himself.

Outside Juban's, Adam helps Amber into his Toyota. As she struggles with the seat belt, the little black dress rides up over her hips. She is wearing a thong. It's small, tight and black. Just like her dress.

When they reach the Delta House, a couple of brothers who are hanging out in the lounge smile knowingly at Adam. Amber wobbles up the stairs on unsteady Jimmy Choo heels. She tumbles onto his bed and is asleep within seconds. Adam stretches out beside her, and is out before his head hits the pillow.

Around midnight, something moist and warm nuzzles Adam's cheek. Then a hand wraps around the back of his neck and slippery wet lips lock onto to his mouth. A moment later, Amber murmurs appreciatively as her tongue glides between Adam's parted lips. Tongues dart and swirl, probe and explore in a erotic dance that electrifies Adam's senses.

Adam opens his eyes. In the darkness, he can see that Amber's eyelids are closed. Her left hand cradles his head. Her right arm stretches across her torso to her exposed pubic bone where her fingertips vanish inside the black thong.

His heart reverberates like a bass drum as his fingers find their way inside her bra and wrap around an already engorged nipple. Amber emits a satisfied moan and thrusts her tongue deeper in Adam's mouth.

"This can't be happening," Adam says to himself as his fingers aggressively pinch and roll Amber's nipples. With his free hand, Adam cups her ass cheeks and pulls her tight against his body. His cock pulses against the back of her hand and Adam senses Amber delicately fingering her clit.

He finds it surprisingly easy to gather Amber's dress around her narrow waist, exposing her bra and thong. Next he succeeds in unclamping her bra, and Amber's soft breast spills into his waiting hand. Their kiss deepens, if such a thing is possible, and Amber's breath comes in ragged bursts.

Amber strokes Adam's cheek with the back of her hand. "Mmmmm," she murmurs. "Your beard feels so good. Always has."

'Aways has?' Adam wonders as he tears open his shirt, sacrificing the buttons for the instant gratification of naked skin on skin. To his amazement, he feels Amber's hand withdraw from her thong and begin unbuckling his belt. Another quick peek through half closed lids reveals Amber's eyes are still tightly closed as she drifts in a twilight realm somewhere between sleep and consciousness.

Adam lifts his hips as Amber adroitly slides his pants and briefs to his ankles. Adam hooks his fingers under her thong and Amber reciprocates, lifting her hips and ass off the bed so the thong slithers past her hips and along her legs. When it stops at her ankles, she pulls her knees to her chest and plucks it free.

"What do you think?" she murmurs, holding the very wet crotch panel over Adam's nose.

"I think I've died and gone to heaven," he replies with a deep inhale.

"But we're only getting started," Amber whispers, leaving the thong over Adam's face and taking his cock into her fingers. He feels her lips nuzzling against his ear, gently nipping his ear lobe at the same time she fondles his cock. Her fingers are like feathers, her strokes are long, slow and practiced.

Lazare's phrase comes back. "But she runs cold." The truth seems contrary. When she wants, Amber knows how to run hot. And not like some innocent, fumbling ingenue. That thought fades with as spasms of pleasure reverberate up and down his spine. It takes all his concentration to reach between her legs, drag his fingers gently over her slippery labia, and bury one finger in her vagina while the other hand search out her clit.

Amber moans in his her ear and her hips begin to undulate in time with his finger as it plunges in and out of the liquid velvet glove of womb. Her tongue swirls in his ear, then traces a path downhill across his stomach and abs until he feel her hot breath on the tip of his cock. Her grip tightens ever so slightly as her pace accelerates and her lips wrap around his cock head.

Adam's tongue follows a similar route, with a short detour to suckle on each nipple. As he nears the hot mess of her pussy, he begins lapping the pungent liquid from her naked pubis, where her fingers left a slippery wet trail. Then his mouth moves between her legs, where juice has formed tiny rivers flowing down her inner thighs. With his head buried between her thighs, he almost missed her next comment. "Your prick is so big tonite," she whispers as she withdraws her lips for an instant.

Adam's fingers press harder into her trembling erogenous zones at the compliment and when it returns to his cock, her mouth glides faster and further down the shaft. The sensation is so exquisite that Adam almost ignores the one strange word. "So big tonight." But why "tonight?" Amber has never seen or touched his cock before, except for a couple desultory brushes against the outside of his pants. But that thought, too, fades into oblivion as Adam's cock twitches with the first signal of an onrushing orgasm.

With his last bit of conscious willpower, Adam slows his pace. Amber immediately matches, working carefully but less insistently with lips and fingers. "Lazare, old buddy, she can run hot if she wants. Way hot," Adam thinks.

Even before the thought fades, Adam recognizes there's a problem with the logic. If he were writing code, there would have to be an extra line. "If Love Potion X, then result Y." Was Y an uncomplicated hot new lover? Or as Rowena hinted, something infinitely more complicated? A rabbit hole where he didn't want to go?"

Amber senses her partner slowing. Was it just a moment's reprieve to savor the pleasure? Or was she losing him? Sometimes her love daddy could be like that, fickle and coy at just the worst time. Interest waning just when it should be gaining. Nothing new, and she knows the answer. "Tongue," she whispers loudly. Then goes to work with her own tongue, swirling and leaping against the delicate skin under his cockhead.

A fresh rush of erotic energy jolts Adam from his reverie. His body yearns for release. All these months of frustration coming to fulfillment. His hips thrust on their own accord. His cock glides in and out of Amber's waiting lips.

Now she has him, Amber thinks, bobbing her head to match his thrusts and stroking his ass cheeks with her fingers moving inexorably toward the crack between them.

Coming from Amber, the single word "tongue" carries all the weight of a hypnotic suggestion. At first, he licks the outer labia as his fingers glide between them with increased urgency. Even in the darkness, he can see the glistening folds of her inner labia spilling out, and he eases the tip of his tongue into their furrows. Amber responds with a series of mewls and gasps. Soon her hips are moving also, grinding against his tongue and fingers.

Adam nears that place of no return. His body on fire. Spasms of heat rushing up and down his spine. Stomach aflame with desire. He replaces his fingers with his tongue, probing gently at first between the muscled walls of Amber's slippery vagina. Her hips grind against his mouth. Her scent and taste are overwhelming, urging him to completion.

Amber, too, is dancing on the edge. There's just on thing she needs to take her over. She knows Daddy can do it. His tongue on her cervix. It never fails. She presses from her diagram, compressing her womb. "Deeper, Daddy! Deeper," she pleads.

Even before he hears hear words, Adam knows what Amber wants. His lips compress her swollen labia, pushing the to the side. His tongue snakes between the walls of her steaming chamber. In and out. Deeper and deeper. Her hips flail and grind against his mouth. Her hands and fingers urge him on. And then the tip of his tongue finds the spongy wall at the end of his quest.

Amber explodes in series of contractions that begin in her torso and end with the muscles of her womb squeezing Adam's tongue, his proxy swollen cock, deeper and deeper. His real cock throbs and pulses and even in mid-contraction, Amber somehow sucks him deeper, and traps his cockhead against the roof of her mouth with her tongue.

His first ejaculation sprays against the back of her throat and Adam feels her gag reflex kicking in. It's much too late to withdraw. Amber chokes on the second rope of cum too. She never expected so much. But by the third, she is swallowing like she usually does. Her chest heaves and torso still shudders with little aftershocks. It's been a long time since Daddy was so inspired. So passionate. "Oh, Daddy," she sighs when Adam's cock finally does with from deep in her throat. "You know you are the only one!'

The last thing Adam actually remembers is the tip of Amber's finger pressing gently into his ass hole, her vagina contracting violently on his tongue, and the most powerful orgasm of his young life overtaking him with pent up ferocity.

Amber is asleep. Her breathing constant as a clock. So much for afterglow. His shrinking cock is nestled against her cheek, puddling cum.

Something gnaws at the back of Adam's mind. When it breaks through to his consciousness, it's a tidal wave of confusing facts and words, as dark and fetid as bayou water, sweeping him into to the rabbit hole.

Amber is no blushing virgin. Probably closer to pro. Disquieting, but also kinda neat. How many times as she done this? Dozens and dozens. Maybe hundreds. And what about "Daddy?" A generic term of endearment? Like "Babe."

Adam isn't so sure. What about the $5-grand shopping trips? A "Sugar Daddy, maybe?" Adam isn't so sure about that either. Not given the way every third sentence glorifies her real daddy.

A power wave of nausea washes over Adam. He barely makes it to the toilet, where after a thorough purge, the remains of his seafood dinner swirls down the drain. Rowena was so right. This is more than he can handle.

Adam washes his face with one end of his only towel. He soaks the other in warm water with one intention — removing ever possible trace of their fervid lovemaking. He starts with the little puddle on Amber's cheek, then moves carefully down her torso until her reaches her naked pussy. Wiping away the last traces of spittle and girl-cum is easier than he expects.

Dressing her is not so difficult either. The thong is soggy, but not soaked. Amber obediently lifts her hips and Adam takes one last, longing look at her pink pussy lips and the dark gap between them before sliding the thong in place. The bra is tricker, but again, Amber lifts her torso compliantly and Adam maneuvers it over her tits and manages the snap. Thank god it's strapless. Not so with the black cocktail dress, but somehow he succeeds with that to, examining it carefully for tell-take cum stains.

For Adam, the rest of the night is a dark funk. When Amber awakens about 9 and gets her bearings, she's angrier than a injured hornet. "Adam," she yells. "You didn't take me back to the sorority house! I can't go back like this now. What will people think?"

Adam rummages in his closet for a pair of cargo shorts and a clean blue polo shirt. "You'll be invisible in these."

"My heels won't," she frowns.

"I'll drive you. Nobody will notice bare feet."

"I suppose not," she says, grabbing his clothes and rushing to the bathroom. Amber takes a long pee and notices the sticky wetness in her thong. "Did we make out last night?"

"The usual," Adam says to the bathroom door. "Then you passed out. The Hurricane's, I suppose. Anyway, I didn't want to take you back in that condition. Unconscious."

"Oh. Good move. You are forgiven," she says over the flush.

"But I'm never forgiving your daddy," Adam says to himself. "Not ever. Not for you. Not for me."

###

"It's an old Southern tradition, I'm afraid. Poor daddies do it. Some of the rich ones too," Rowena says. "A Cajun psychic is half seer, half pseudo psychiatrist. I've seen it too many times."