Pulaski Square

What grabbed my attention were Caleb and Donna Davis. I saw them in profile, in front of a table that hadn't had the finish applied to it yet. The difference in the sizes of the two naked bodies was striking. Donna's body was encased from behind by Caleb's. He was so tall that the petite blonde's feet didn't touch the floor. Her leg that was away from me was raised and bent, the ball of her foot pressed into the edge of the table. Her nearside leg just dangled. Caleb was embracing her close, one hand cupping one of her breasts; the other palming her belly.

I felt a lump in my throat. He had taken me that last time this same way.

And there was no question that he was taking her. Her head was arched back into the hollow of his shoulder. Her farside arm was raised, the hand cupping the back of his head. A look of ecstasy was on her face. The only moving part that I could see in that compelling tableau of ebony encasing ivory was his plump buttocks. Moving forward and back, the butt cheeks clinching and releasing. He was fucking her deep—just as he had done me. She was loving it.

I stumbled away from the small building, embarrassed at intruding, even though I was sure they hadn't seen me. Blushing from what I'd seen—especially in relationship to having been in the same position with Caleb myself. The hot flashes I was experiencing were in want and need for that myself. But not with Caleb. I felt no need for Caleb. I wanted . . .

"Olive, is that you?" Martin was on the sidewalk, moving toward the inn when I emerged from the shadows. I hoped he couldn't see in the darkness that I was flushed and trembling.

"Yes, it's me. I wanted to talk to Emily, but her house is dark. She apparently isn't there or has retired already."

"Probably just saving electricity, the old biddy," Martin said. "I suppose you noticed she hasn't stepped up to help yet."

"Yes. I'm sure she will, though. She's probably just watching to see where her help is needed the most."

"I suppose," he said, his voice dubious. "Can I walk you back to your apartment?"

"Only if you'll stop in for a drink," I answered, without thinking. Oh no, I thought. I'm being too forward. He'll cut me dead.

"That would be nice, thank you," he answered.

We were sitting side by side on the sofa, drinking coffee out of mugs.

"You were magnificent in the meeting," Martin said. "I didn't know you could take command like that."

"I surprised myself a bit too," I answered. "But people stepped up so well—and quickly—to help."

"This is a wonderful thing you're doing for Muriel."

"I'm doing my part for Muriel, yes, Martin. We all are pitching in for Muriel. But, as for me, I'm doing it for you too."

He gave me a sharp look. I wanted to bite my tongue. I'd gone too far now; that was for sure.

"You look different these last few days, Olive. Like you've come alive. Your hair is down, and you're not wearing your glasses. I must admit that I—"

"I'd come to the conclusion that life was passing me by," I said, not knowing how I'd found the courage to say that. "I've decided I need to live more passionately—to experience more deeply."

He was sitting very close, his arm that had been draped along the top of the sofa lowered to my shoulder.

"Olive," he said. I trembled as he ran his fingers into my hair, cupping the back of my head.

"Yes, please," I murmured, and, as I wanted, as I ached for him to do he came in for a kiss, which I made as sweet and lingering as possible. I turned, moving my back to the arm of the sofa, and brought him down on top of me, my free arm embracing his back. I moved the arm toward the back of the sofa down between us and traced the line of his staff through the material of his groin with my fingers.

"Oh, Olive," he groaned.

Emboldened, I grasped him harder. And he answered by becoming harder. I unzipped his trousers, reached inside, gripped him, and began to stroke him slowly. He already was hard. He wanted me. He knew I knew he wanted me.

"Olive," he whispered again. "I never thought . . . if I'd realized . . . I've been such a fool—"

"Shush," I answered. "Take whatever you want from me. I want whatever you do to me. I want you inside me."

He groaned, reached under the hem of my skirt and pulled the material up to my waist. We both readjusted, but only briefly, as he glided my panties down and off my legs. I grasped his cock again as he cupped my maidenhead and applied pressure, rubbing the V hard and then moving his finger through the folds—one finger to my treasure, other fingers inside me.

I arched my back and moaned deeply. I needed him to know how desperately I wanted. It wasn't the time for the niceties of speech. "Fuck me Martin. Put your cock in me. Screw me. Fuck me now."

"But have you—?"

"Now, Martin," I hissed through clinched teeth. "It will be fine. It will be glorious."

And it was fine; it was glorious, as he placed a palm under the small of my back, raised my pelvis up to the angle he wanted, slid inside me, and began to pump.

We writhed together. He punched and I counterpunched. We exploded together, although I'd had a series of increasingly spectacular fireworks leading up to his tense hold, the jerk of his body, his exclamation of "Oh, holy shit! I have to pull out; I'm going to explode," and then his ejaculation, inside me because I tightly held him to me, crossing my legs on the small of his back and pressing in, not letting him withdraw until I had his seed in three strong bursts.

We'd been too spontaneous for a condom. I didn't care. Not only was this the fuck I wanted from the man of my dreams, but also the feel of him flooding me deep inside was like nothing I'd experienced with Caleb. If something came of it, I'd love that too.

This was the man I wanted. I wanted Martin.

And I knew he wanted me. I knew that from the expression on his face and the way his body shuddered and trembled and the way he groaned when, after we had had sex, I sank down between his knees, took his shaft in my mouth, and made him explode again.

Chapter Eight: Martin Lewis

I was angry and Leo could see that I was angry—coming to me out of the blue at the inn, telling me we had to talk. Coming to me only days before Muriel was taken to the hospital. We hadn't talked for years. There was nothing I had to say to Leo. He'd gotten a big slice of the Lewis inheritance. He had nothing to complain about. I just wished Dad had had something else to give him but property on the square. It kept the issue right under our noses. More than that, I wish that Dad had kept it in his pants—especially around Leo's mother. Dad must have known it would be a constant embarrassment to Muriel and me. Well, to me certainly.

Muriel. She'd never been with me on this—on Leo. "Family is family," she'd said. "He's as much Dad's child as we are. And his mother was a wonderful woman. You thought so too until you found out that she'd had a child by Dad. She never made claims on us. Leo didn't either, for that matter. Dad chose to leave the café to him. I'm glad he left something to Leo; it's not his fault he was born."

"But do you know what he is? What he does at the Club Copa?"

"Oh, good lord, Martin. This is the twenty-first century. Take a look at the Lewis genealogy one of these days. Some of our ancestors were rightfully swung from trees, not just attached to branches of the family tree. We've been in the South for generations. I'll bet that Leo's not the only black person who has budded on our family tree."

I had to remind myself that she didn't agree with me when Leo appeared at the reception desk of the inn and asked to see me in private. "I don't think Muriel is available to join us," I said. I didn't want to be double teamed here.

"I don't think it would be wise to include her either," Leo said. "I don't think she'd appreciate us talking about her."

"Talking about Muriel? You'd best come back to the office."

I could have fallen out my chair when he told me he'd come because Muriel was seriously sick—that she needed a new kidney. And didn't I know that? Didn't I know something needed to be done—now?

"God," I mumbled. "No, I didn't know. I didn't see it. I've been so busy. Tourist season and all."

"You haven't noticed that she's been looking ill?"

"I thought it was about Buddy. About Buddy leaving her and going to Memphis. I didn't want to intrude."

"Buddy's gone to Memphis to try to make more money—to help cover what it's going to cost to get a new kidney."

"What . . . what can I do? What can we do?" I looked up into Leo's face and saw it soften, relief to flood in. I'd used the word "we." I couldn't believe I was talking about Leo and me doing anything together. But this was Muriel. And I'd been such a fool not to have noticed that anything was wrong. "She didn't say anything to me."

"She didn't say anything to anyone but Jaivon and Tracy Patten—Tracy because she's a registered nurse and Muriel needed her help."

"Jaivon? Our porter?"

"Yes, Jaivon. He's been getting her medicine for her. And he's finally told others. And as far as doing something, we need to raise money—and fast. Emily Goodwin and I've been talking. We have some ideas."

He had told me of his ideas, which I thought were only a token approach, but I was in such shock that I couldn't think straight. All I knew was that I'd let him and Emily plan, but that I was off to the bank as soon as Leo left to see what could be done in the way of a mortgage on the inn.

And then, within days, all hell broke loose. An ambulance was roaring up to the door, and the EMTs were wheeling Muriel out on a stretcher. Jaivon was at her side. Jaivon, the young black hotel porter. He was the one who found her and whose hand she was clutching.

Jaivon, who I hadn't really noticed much around the inn. I couldn't even remember when we'd hired him—or even what all of his duties were. I just knew that when something needed done, we'd call for Jaivon, and there he'd be. Just like the old days of Savannah, I realized bitterly.

For two days I sat in the hall at the hospital as they worked to stabilize her. Those days were a haze. What I did know, though, was that both Leo and Jaivon were with me there. The lesbian SCAD student, Tracy Patten from across the square also was there. She was the one running around, finding out whatever there was to know, and sharing what she could find with us. I was surprised to find that she'd been a nurse before deciding she'd rather be an art photographer. For now, she was an angel. And I'd never make disparaging remarks about her lifestyle again. I'm sorry to have to say I'd been hard about that before—just like I was about Leo.

The first sign of hope was the night Olive Odom called the residents of the square together to meet on money-raising schemes at the General's Café. And speaking of angels, Olive was magnificent at the meeting. It's like I'd never seen her before—literally. I'd been doing a lot of that—not noticing people I should have noticed—I realized. I resolved not to continue doing that.

Not only was Olive in full control when I'd always thought of her as passive and withdrawn, but she also was beautiful—radiantly so. Why had I never seen her before, never had seen her so "with it" before?

And she was doing this for Muriel.

It wasn't just that. Watching Olive was causing me to react in my body. I could feel myself going hard. I wanted her. That was a revelation. I'd been so busy with the hotel that I hadn't made any effort to pursue a woman in years. That doesn't mean I didn't have tensions. I just took care of them myself in the privacy of my bedroom.

I'd once been so randy and had enjoyed sex so much. Not even knocking up that little black sweetie, Shawna, had stopped me until the burden of this hotel had fallen on my shoulders. For the first time in years I felt the need for a woman. And I was directing that need toward Olive.

And then I had her. Or maybe she had me. It seemed that she seduced me more than the other way around. Who knew she could be so sexy and sensual and could take the initiative like that? Who knew that a sweet young women could give the blow job she gave me?

After the meeting I ran across her in front of Emily's house when I was returning to the inn. I wanted her so bad. She was flushed and beautiful; it seemed she was ripe for the taking. I offered to walk her back to her apartment, fantasizing that there could be more.

And then there was more, There was everything. Before I even was aware of it, she had unzipped me and was stroking my cock. I'd never imagined she could be like that. So beautiful and open to sex like that. Then I was inside her, bareback fucking her—totally out of control. Lost inside her, trembling at the feel of her shuddering under me again and again. And then tensing and unloading inside her before I could withdraw—before she'd let me withdraw.

I apologized to her profusely. But all she wanted to do then was sink between my knees, take me inside her mouth, her luxuriant hair cascading over my thighs, and suck me to a second ejaculation.

Never before had I been so lost with a woman. Never before, after we had moved the action to her bedroom. Even after, near dawn, I showered and left her apartment, my balls aching from our wanton coupling, I still wanted to just turn around and bury my cock inside her again. Wanted to receive another divine blow job. To give her that pleasure in kind as I did in her bedroom before she was writhing under me, begging for having my cock inside her.

The next morning, after Muriel was taken away, there she was, at the hospital, when I arrived. Leo showed up too. But Jaivon was missing. Even when I returned to the inn, looking for him to give thanks that never could measure up to what he'd done for us—what I'd learned at the hospital that he'd done for us, I couldn't find him. He was gone.

That day had been the first I'd been able to meet with the surgeon who had magically appeared to take over Muriel's case—to find her a kidney that matched and to perform the transplant. I thought the hospital had brought him in, but the administrator said they hadn't. They said I couldn't have found a finer surgeon—the best to be had anywhere in the vicinity of Savannah.

When I met with the doctor, I asked him both how he had come to take the case and, with trepidation, what his services would cost. It didn't matter what he'd say about cost—Muriel deserved the best and we'd somehow find the money for it—the whole square was behind this. Muriel and I truly were blessed by that.

Imagine my shock, though, when he said that there was no surgeon's fee—and that he came because Jaivon Johnson had asked him to.

"Jaivon's mother has been my family's housekeeper for decades," he said. "Three years ago, at our beach house, while Judith and I were at a cocktail party, our twin boys decided to swim out into the ocean on a surf board. They have a nanny, but she was busy changing the diaper on the baby. Dottie, Jaivon's mother saw the boys in distress in an undertow from the kitchen window. I don't know how she did it, but she swam out to them and brought them back safe. So, Mr. Lewis, when Dottie or any of her kin asks me if I can help a dear friend of theirs, I will do it—and not charge for it."

For three days thereafter, all of us—everyone on the square—searched for Jaivon. But he was gone.

After meeting with the doctor and visiting Muriel, who was so hooked up to machines that she couldn't do more than raise her hand a couple of inches to acknowledge my presence—which was enough—we went back to the inn. We. Olive was with me. She stayed with me at the inn, in my bed, that night and most of the succeeding nights. We fucked like neither one of us had had a yesterday nor could count on having a tomorrow.

Despite the tension and exhaustion, the sex was great. Who would have known that the Olive I once had known—and overlooked and dismissed as too virginal—could willingly and enthusiastically give such great head?

I was smitten. I was hers.

Chapter Nine: Tracy Patten

It was touch and go there for Muriel for a while, but she pulled through—at least for now. At first I almost regretted she had. I had worked with kidney-failure patients before. It was a terrible, long, painful way to die unless you could get a transplant. The Lewises were well off, but I had a good idea how much it would cost for a kidney transplant, and I knew how hard it was to find one and then acquire it, even if you could afford the operation. And your surgeon would have to be first rate, which meant your surgeon would be astronomically expensive. Just bad news all around.

I knew she was running out of time. I think Muriel knew it too and had decided not to fight it—just to drift away. I'm not sure she understood the pain involved in that, though.

But in that she underestimated the regard the residents had for her—and for each other despite all the foolishness we got involved in in our tight little community. She also had underestimated the determination and the capabilities of her neighbors. Soon, even sooner than I'd thought possible, we were well on the way toward making a sizable dent in what the transplant would cost—and with each passing day her surgeon said she was becoming better prepared to endure the surgery.

Her surgeon. Wasn't he a godsend? And there all because Jaivon Johnson—the young man nearly everyone had been treating as invisible—and that some, I knew, had taken full advantage of—had the necessary connections and called on them. Muriel couldn't have had a better friend. None of us could.

And now Jaivon had disappeared. Just did his angel bit and left us. Did we send him away because of our indifference to him—treating him no better than his ancestors had been treated in Savannah three centuries ago? God, I hoped not. Muriel certainly hadn't. And he'd shown his appreciation for that.

But why did he leave us? I wondered. He couldn't take the attention his service surely would bring him?

While this tragedy had descended on Muriel and the square, my own world was soaring. I almost felt guilty that, in the midst of all this travail and worry, I was euphoric.

Late in the evening on the day the ambulance came for Muriel Roberts, I returned to Pulaski Square—to the apartment I shared with Donna Davis. I was walking slowly around the square from the inn, where Martin Lewis had left me off, toward our apartment. I didn't quite know what to say to Donna. I knew she wasn't fully mine—that she was bi and even that she was being fucked regularly by the landscaper, Caleb Freeman. I even suspected she'd been having it on with Mark Vaughn. She certainly couldn't stop talking about how much he looked like a young Paul Newman.

But she'd been so luscious and pliable, so accepting of my needs. And I had admired her so much. I wanted to be like her—no, I wanted to be her. In my insecurities, I tried to be her.

But now there was someone else for me—someone who touched me deeply in ways Donna never had. What could I do about Donna?

As it turned out, I didn't need to do anything. When I entered our apartment and went into the bedroom, it wasn't Donna who was waiting for me—it was Kathy Kimbel, who I'd left earlier in the day, intending to tryst with her, when I had to accompany Muriel to the hospital.

Kathy was lying there on her back, naked, stretched out on top of the sheets, wide awake, her eyes bright with welcome, her perfect little V and the trimmed pubes beckoning to me. She opened her arms to me, and without a question, I sank down between her legs, buried my face in her cunt and feasted on her, as she arched her back, grabbed my head in her hands, writhed under me, and moaned to the ceiling of the dark room.

She only put up with this for ten minutes or so before she was struggling to sit up, reaching down to grab me under my arm pits, and pulling me up onto the bed—not up to where our lips could meet, but turning me, signaling that she wanted me to continue doing to her cunt what I already had been doing with my mouth and fingers, but showing me that she wanted to do the same to me.