Shannon and Evan Ch. 04

When Shannon woke it was light out, which was unusual. She had slept like a baby for half the night, and then woke up around 4:00 AM and slept poorly after that. She had weird, stressful sex dreams, the details of which were fading but she remembered that there were multiple big men and she was overwhelmed in a good way by their attention, but she was looking for Evan and couldn't find him. And her ex-boyfriend Chris was there (or maybe that was a separate dream?) but his penis was bigger than it should have been, and black - not black like a black man but like a giant black crayon.

:

Shannon lay in bed thinking about Chris for a while. Evan was gone. She couldn't hear him in the apartment so that meant he was gone to work, which was a relief. Shannon had thought about Chris less and less over her time with Evan. Her relationship with Chris had been bad. Demoralizing. It had made her less of a person and she still didn't know where she had found the strength to break up with him. And if she had the ability to break up with him, why did she let it go on for two years? Shannon didn't understand why she would even be thinking of this now. Chris was long gone and she was happy in her marriage with Evan.

Before Chris there had been her first boyfriend, Jacob. Jacob would have made a much better dream if she had dreamed about him. He had always been kind - really, the perfect, sweet first boyfriend and first sex. Then she lost him and tried to get back what she had with Chris, but Chris wasn't Jacob and that should have been obvious on the first date let alone after a year. Obvious to a girl who wasn't stupid and weak. Maybe she was still mad at Jacob.

She started dating Jacob in her junior year of high school. They had been friends for years, or at least friends at school. He had be in her elementary class as well, since the 3rd grade, so she was just used to him being around. They were both in the "smart" track at school and were together in all the AP classes. In her Junior year Shannon's parents had started to ask questions about dating that Shannon didn't want to answer. She didn't know what they wanted. They seemed to want her to date, and even brought up boys from their church group, but she also suspected it was a test where the right answer was to say she had no interest in boys.

She might have been punishing her parents a little when she asked Jacob to the Sadie Hawkings dance. Not only was Jacob not a member of their church, but he was Jewish. Shannon just wanted to go to a dance. She was a junior and had never been to one. They had an amazing time. Jacob was perfect. He was charming with her friends, and could actually dance, which almost none of the boys could. At the end of the night he kissed her on her doorstep, and she kissed him back, and he kissed her two more times and then asked her on a date. And that was that.

Shannon thought about how her sexual relationship with Jacob had developed. She was guilty and a little bit alarmed at having dreamed about Chris sexually. Thinking about Evan to push Chris out of her mind didn't work - it just emphasized the guilt. But Jacob was from a different part of life than Evan. For those first few months with Jacob he was like a new best friend with the amazing ability to not make her have to trade in her actual best friend, Tammy. Shannon was not Jacob's first girlfriend, and he had admitted that he had had sex before, but he never pushed Shannon. He was happy to hang out and join her friends group, and he was popular with her friends because he frequently showed up with single guys who were either nice like him, or whom he at least kept in line while he was around.

Shannon and Jacob weren't alone much, and when they were the only privacy was in Jacob's little '64 Volvo. But Jacob knew where to drive and park to make the most of that, and eventually Shannon was asking him to go "park". She loved what he did with his hands down her pants. At first she was intimidated by his penis. It was bigger than she thought it would be and she didn't know what to do with it, but Jacob was always patient and encouraging without pressuring her. Before long she was sucking him off enthusiastically and then when they finally had his parents' house to themselves for an evening she was the one who led the way to all the way. And that was perfect too. She had expected that it would hurt; she had heard that it would. But they had spent so many months with his fingers inside her gradually making her comfortable that there was no problem. Jacob had lubricant ready, and Shannon had been on the pill since age 14 for menstrual issues. Most of Shannon's friends weren't the type to talk about sex in detail; certainly Tammy wasn't. But when Kerry or someone would brag, Shannon would glow silently, knowing that she was getting all she wanted and that she was good at it.

Jacob went to Stanford and Shannon went to Cal State Northridge. CSUN was shooting way low given Shannon's grades, but there was a new experimental program that CSUN sent a promoter to their high school about. Five years and you graduated with a Master's in Business. They wanted to seed this program with good students and Shannon was offered a full ride. Her father was a mechanic and her mother didn't work, so this was just too good to refuse.

Shannon and Jacob were long-distance boyfriend and girlfriend for three semesters. Her parents hated that she was doing this, complaining that she was missing out on what could be her future Christian husband by being committed to this Jewish boy that she hardly ever saw. On the other hand, Jacob's family could not have been more welcoming. They even helped with plane tickets so the two could visit more often. Then Jacob started to get into the Jewish groups at Stanford. Shannon knew that was what was going to end it for them. She visited him and he took her to a Shabbbat dinner with his Hillel group. Everyone was nice to her and they had a nice time, but there were at least two attractive Jewish girls who were clearly interested in Jacob, and they had all the time in the world to work on him after she flew home. When Jacob broke up with her he was, infuriatingly, as kind and direct and honest as he always was. Shannon was a wreck for months, made worse by the I-told-you-so's of both her mother and her father. It was into this vacuum that Chris stepped to save Shannon and then systematically destroy her self-confidence.

And so in the morning light on her bed Shannon's mental review of her relationship with her first love, an exercise designed to purge Chris from her dreams and her mind, led back to Chris. An early version of Shannon might have stayed in bed and indulged in a depression day, but the current version of Shannon rarely gave in to that. She rolled out of bed and awkwardly stretched the kinks out of her arms, legs, and back as she made her way to the shower. The hot water made her feel awake and much better. Shannon thought about being productive and who she needed to call. She had a good acquaintanceship with a Persian real estate agent who sold mostly to Persians and rich Asians. Maryam had traded staging furniture with her before and Shannon knew she had a lot of gaudy baroque-type stuff that might work for the "French bedroom". And then Shannon's thoughts about that job brought back the image of the two huge black men and their huge penises.

Normally for Shannon stress and obsessive thoughts about her past were incompatible with sexual arousal. Evan knew this about her. If Shannon said anything about feeling stressed that was his clear signal that TV meant just TV. But standing in the shower, with the image of the black men, warm thoughts rushed through Shannon's brain. She didn't remember releasing the shower wand, and she didn't remember sinking down to lie in the tub. All she knew was that she had permission for this. Evan wanted her to be lustful. One hand pressed the shower-head between her legs and the middle finger of the other made slow circles with a nipple. Shannon closed her eyes and became that tiny girl that was in between the black men. She imagined their penises in her face. One pressed against the side of her face and the other - she felt the weight - tapped on her head.

Then they both started to move to her mouth, competing for her mouth. Usually when Shannon played with herself she didn't have active, visual fantasies. Usually she focused on her body and what she was actually doing for herself. But this time she lost her body - lost reality - and was overcome by the warmth of being wanted and used by those men. The orgasm built slowly and steadily and when it finally started to break Shannon was shocked by the intensity, shouting awkwardly and opening her eyes, surprised to be transported back to the shower. She tried to get up too quickly, as if to run away from herself, but she was still orgasming and slipped back, shuddering on the floor of the bathtub as the rushing showerhead she had let go of skipped around her like a crazy rocket.

Shannon had a long, lazy breakfast as she made speakerphone calls to try to get furniture for Graham Ashton. Maryam was happy to hear from her and said she would send photos later that day. Some other agents and stagers had nothing for Shannon and no ideas, but Shannon believed there was no such thing as a wasted call. If nothing else a call was a reminder to someone who might bring her business in the future that she existed. Shannon made calls with her sales contacts app open on her iPad. All business calls included smalltalk and Shannon updated her app with the electronic pencil with both business and personal details. If someone's kid was getting braces, it went in the app, with a reminder set for 2 or 3 months to ask how the braces were going.

Evan tried to call her during a call and she tapped the automatic text response to him that she would call him back in a few minutes. When she got free she made herself a second latte and examined her weird feelings about calling Evan back. With Evan things were almost always comfortable. She even felt comfortable and secure fighting with him, which took a long time to get to after Chris. Now she was feeling an odd nervousness which she associated with the butterflies of dating. She wasn't really afraid of anything with Evan, but she wanted to make the best of whatever was happening. She picked up the phone and tapped speaker off, and then put it back down on the table and tapped it on again. She called Evan.

"Hey, babe!" Evan answered, sounding chipper and busy.

"Hi, what's up?"

"I'm at Reynard knocking out a few little things." Reynard Street was their fourth flip-house. It had been Shannon's idea for Evan's company to partner with her to do flips. At the time the company was in trouble, which was how Evan got to buy in to a piece of it. His boss had asked Evan if he'd be willing to take 5% ownership instead of being payed for a few months. Evan expressed concern, more for Bob than himself, and hid his eagerness at the opportunity. Shannon and Evan ran numbers all weekend and then on Monday Evan offered Bob two-hundred thousand cash for 34% of the company - one-third, rounded up.

Both Shannon's and Evan's parents were lending them money to make this happen. It was a severe undervaluation of the company, but Evan thought they had a chance, and it wasn't insulting to Bob because it was obvious they were scraping to be able to come up with it. Bob talked to his silent-partner brother and came back with a different offer for Evan to accept a smaller piece in return for not getting paid for a longer time. Evan was ready with his counter. He would work for free for six months, but Bob had to take the 200k for 34% or Evan would use the 200k to start his own company. This was a total bluff. Shannon and Evan had both figured that Evan couldn't start a viable business with that amount.

But after a couple days talking to his brother Bob said yes. Evan threw himself into his work and in the following six months, in which he got one-dollar paychecks to avoid the accounting issues of not having paychecks at all, Evan was more productive than he had ever been, and happier working than he had ever been. When the six months were over and he started getting paid again the company was still in deep, but looking up. Then Evan pitched Shannon's plan of helping them remodel and flip a house she had picked out. She would do all the work for free, and Evan would get ten percent of the profit, if any, as a bonus. It was a quick four-month flip and Evan's ten percent was over twenty-two thousand. They were now working on flip four, Reynard street, and Shannon wasn't working for free any more.

"Are we still on track for April?" Shannon asked.

"Ahead." Evan said. "You'll be able to list middle of March if you want. And I've got nothing left that's dirty to do on the inside after this week, so you can start staging. This carpet padding is the best. We should put it in the apartment. I'm lying down on it now and it's like a bed."

"Lying down on the job, huh?" Shannon said, through a spoon of Honey-Nut Cheerios.

"Well, there's nobody here to see. The crew is all at the Baker job."

Shannon took another spoonful of cereal. "Well then you don't need pants on, do you?"

"I guess not."

"Off, then!" Shannon chirped. Phone sex when Evan was alone at work was something they had done a few times, beginning in their honeymoon phase a year or so ago. Shannon always felt like she was terrible at it, but on the other hand it was pretty easy to make Evan happy.

"OK." Evan said after a moment.

"Are they off?"

"Yes."

"Underwear too?"

"Yes. How about you? You're at home right?"

"Uh...yeah. But no. I just played in the shower like an hour ago." This was an unusual report. Shannon didn't masturbate often and Evan usually had to ask to find out when she did.

"Really?" Evan asked happily.

"Yeah. You know, it's a good shower-head. As good as my new toy."

"Were you thinking about anything?"

Shannon considered how she should answer. Evan always asked this whenever he found out that she had played with herself. She always told the truth, and he was usually disappointed because the truth was that she was just thinking about what she was doing. Apparently masturbation for Evan always meant some kind of narrative in his head. He even suggested narratives for her, which she tried diligently, but it was usually just distracting and she found herself going back to the basics most of the time. The basics meant either using her toy on her side or on her back with her propped up on pillows so she could get a better look at what she was doing. This last part was Evan's influence and she felt that he should be happy with his success at encouraging that change in Shannon. She didn't used to like looking at her vulva. There was a lot going on down there, with her big clitoris and big labia hanging out, that she had wished since puberty was simpler and neater. She saw Tammy's once and it was just a cute little cleft in a cute little mound and this is what Shannon thought a vulva should be.

Part of the reason she had went along with Evan's preference for her to grow her public hair long was that it covered her up so she didn't feel self-conscious about Evan watching her lips hanging out as she walked naked in front of him at home. But then Evan slowly cultivated her confidence in her body through his constant worship of it. He didn't just love her breasts, which was something she expected as normal since high school, but he loved her big, weird nipples. And he loved everything about her "orange" and couldn't get enough of playing with it. His love was infectious and now she loved her orange too, for the first time in her life, so she liked to look at it when she played with herself and admire it the way Evan did.

"What?" Shannon asked.

"Were you thinking about anything when you played?"

"Oh. Yes."

"So? What were you thinking about? Evan asked again. He expected and enjoyed a little bit of resistance in these situations.

"Recent events." Shannon leaned back a little in her kitchen chair.

"Like last night?" Evan was hoping that Shannon had replayed their sex in her mind, as that was all he had been doing since the night before.

"No. Last night was great though."

"So, what recent events then?"

"First, you tell me," Shannon said, "what's going on with your penis right now?"

"Nothing special," Evan answered. He was equally capable of being a pain in the ass.

"Nothing special is going on? Or...it's not a special penis?" Shannon asked slyly. This was new.

Evan breathed into the phone a little before he answered. "I guess it's nothing special."

"Are you holding it?"

"Yes."

"How are you holding it?"

"I'm making a ring with my thumb and finger and pumping it."

"Good. That's what I want you to be doing with it."

"Now will you tell me what you were thinking about when you played in the shower?" Evan asked urgently and Shannon smiled at the sound of his intensity. She picked up the phone and turned speaker off.

"First I want you to tell me why you would think your penis is nothing special. But you have to pump your penis slowly while you talk to me. One pump only for each word you say."

"OK," Evan said, slowly pumping his penis one time.

"So tell me."

"I...guess...it's...nothing...special...because...it's...not...very...big."

"Hmmm," Shannon said. "Interesting." She was enjoying this and starting to reconsider if it was too soon after the last time for her to get her orange going again. This experiment was also easier on the phone. "Is that really what you think about your penis? That it's 'not very big'?"

"Yes."

"Really. So it's not very big so it's just, what, regular big then?"

"No."

"You know if you give me one-word answers then you only get one penis pump at a time. You want to pump your penis more, don't you?

"Yes. I. want. to. pump. my. penis. more."

Shannon was loving the sense of control she felt. It was always Evan who initiated phone sex but she was thinking that she was going to start making at regular thing. "So tell me then if you have a regular big penis but just not a very big penis?"

"I. don't. have. any. kind. of. big. penis. My. penis. is... small."

"Hmm. Oh really? How long have you known you've had a small penis?"

"I - always - knew - I - had - a - small - penis - but..."

"But you never told me it was small before. And you let me tell you it was big before and you never said anything."

Evan paused for just a moment before answering. "yes - I - wanted - you - to - think - it - was - big..."

"But I don't think that any more, do I?"

"No - you - don't - think - that - any - more - do - you?"

"That's cheating. No excessive or redundant verbiage just so you can keep pulling on your penis."

"OK."

"Why don't I think you have a big one any more?"

"Be - cause -"

"Wait! Are you pumping on each syllable? It's the word rule not the syllable rule!"

"Sorry."

"Why don't I think you have a big one any more?"

"Because - you - saw - really - huge - ones - at - the - porn - movie - house - and - now - you - know - how - big - they - can - get - so - you - know - that - mine - is - small..."

"Good. Right. OK, you don't have to stop pumping now. I know it's hard for you to stop pumping your little penis while I'm talking."

"Mmm," Evan responded, speeding up.

"So yeah," Shannon continued, "seeing those huge, black penises was really surprising. And educational I guess. And I'm thinking that there are probably every size in between. Like a lot of sizes in between you and those guys, right?"

"Right," Evan said, and Shannon could hear that he was almost panting.