Thank You, Owen Addams

In the late summer of 1848, a hundred and twenty years before I was even born, a briny old fisherman named Owen Addams did me a remarkable favor. While fishing the tidal pools of what was then known as Pleasant Harbor Township, old Owen reached deep into the mucky banks off Harbor Cove and pulled out something the local Native Americans had known about for centuries; an oblong bumpy casing that looked more like a rock than the shell it actually was. As legend has it, Mr. Addams had almost thrown the muddy crustacean back into the murky waters from once it came before reconsidering and prying it open with his trusty pocketknife - one he had crafted with his own hands - to reveal a slimy yet appetizing morsel that would change the history of this sleepy seaside village, as well as my yet to be existent sex life, forever.

Over the next century Pleasant Harbor Township would grow to become the single leading exporter of Oysters worldwide, so it was only fitting that in 1948, the 100th anniversary of Mr. Addams discovery, a council would vote unanimously to re-name the city Owensport and held what would become the first annual Owensport Oyster Festival in his honor. What began as a simple one-day picnic would evolve over the years into a three-day extravaganza complete with arts and crafts, live entertainment, food, carnival rides and fun for all.

That's where I come in. A lifelong citizen of Owensport, as well as one who was fed and clothed by the oyster trade the first eighteen years of my life, I felt it my civic duty to volunteer my services to the good people who ran the festival and had done so uneventfully each September since I was a teenager. That is, until the year I met Sophie.

Over the years I had done everything at the festival from setting up tents to picking up litter, however, on that particular Saturday afternoon I found myself working in the ever popular beer tent, rolling kegs and pouring malted beverages for thirsty patrons. I was all of 22.

I had been standing at the taps for hours, bones weary, feet throbbing, sneakers awash with lager, when I observed in the crowd before me one of the most striking women I had ever lay eyes upon take her place in line and gradually make her way up to my counter. She was lofty and slender with a rolling tress of scarlet hair that fell well past her shoulders. Her complexion was dark, her eyes darker. Her features were arresting: high cheekbones, supple lips, slightly cleft chin - making her radiate out of the sea of uninteresting faces before me.

She wore a green and blue tank with matching wrap around skirt; brown sandals graced her feet. Her arms were firm and tan with numerous silver bracelets dangling from her slender wrists, contrasting pleasantly against here bronzed skin. Her right shoulder was adorned with a dime-sized birthmark; dark and mesmerizing, it held my attention longer than was courteous.

Finally standing before me, I did not need to look down at her ID badge to know she was one of the many artisans who migrate to Owensport each September to sell their wares; but I did nevertheless, to catch her name. It read: Sophie P., Exhibitor, Concord, NH.

For a second or two I said nothing, articulation subdued by this alluring woman's effect on my 22-year-old libido.

"Hello Sophie P., Exhibitor from Concord New Hampshire," I finally managed; sounding as awkward as I am sure I looked and felt. "What can I get for you today?"

"Gee," her eyes went to my ID, hanging from a chain around my neck, "Mark T., Beer Tent Volunteer. I think you can get me a beer."

I had been flirting with pretty beer drinkers all afternoon, however this dramatic beauty left me tongue-tied and all my smitten brain could manage as I poured her draft was, "Come here often?"

She smiled, taking the drink and leaving her three fifty on the counter. "Your gonna have to try a lot harder than that sweetie."

She took a long pull off her paper beer cup licking the foam from her upper lip, smiled once more and with a wink in her eye, turned away and vanished amid the human labyrinth of fairgoers before me as swiftly as she had appeared.

"Kevin," I called to the guy in charge of the beer tent that afternoon, "I'm gonna need a break."

It was a good forty minutes before things slowed down enough and making my get away, I headed immediately for the three huge arts and crafts tents that occupied the far side of the fairgrounds.

Two questions plagued my mind as I searched the crowded tents: first, why was I even pursuing this woman with whom I shared nothing except a twenty second conversation, and second, what in the world was I going to say to her? Before I could find the answer to either question, I found her.

The sign above her booth read Tainted Loves; Sophie was a stained glass artist. Hanging from various displays were some of the most beautiful arrangements of solder and colored glass I had ever seen. Sophie was doing business with a customer and I stood off to the side as not to disrupt her transaction.

Seeing me, she offered a surprised but pleasant smile, one that seemed to say, "Don't go anywhere. I'll be with you in a moment."

By the time she finished I was busy admiring a particular piece of hers composed of blue, yellow and orange glass that suggested a sandy beach at sunset. She approached me from the side and the sunlight streaming through her artwork illuminated her skin.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

I turned to see a prism of color dancing across her exquisite face. "It's beautiful," I replied.

"Thank you. It's actually one of my favorites," she said standing close enough that I could detect the subtle bouquet of her perfume. "So, are you here as a customer or did I forget to tip you or something?"

"I'm not sure why I'm here," I admitted.

"Well," she said, returning to the chair she had set up in back of her booth, "Let me know when you do."

Sophie was not the type of woman I was accustom to. Unlike the local flair, I could tell she was not easily seduced by bad one-liners and counterfeit bravado. She had neither the time nor patience for sophomoric games of cat and mouse or my small-town apprehensions.

"How long are you in town for? " I finally blurted out.

"I'm leaving tomorrow night, as soon as the festival closes," she replied not looking up from the newspaper she had begun perusing. "I have to be in Charleston early Tuesday to meet with a dealer who is interested in my glass."

"Can I see you tonight then?" I had never been so bold but knew this was my only chance.

Looking up from her paper, she reflected a moment. I noticed her bite her lower lip ever so slightly. God was she beautiful.

"My trailer is down by the water. It's blue and white with New Hampshire plates," she said. "I close up here at eight, you can meet me there around nine...if you like."

The out of town artists had built their temporary city of trailers and motor homes - as they did every year - on the southern most rim of the fairgrounds, overlooking the shores of Harbor Cove. From her directions, I easily found Sophie's interim residence.

Her trailer was set up at waters edge, adjacent to the very spot old Owen Addams had dredged up his famous oyster. Tiki-torches flickered and a bamboo table with two matching chairs was set up on a makeshift patio with candles and two empty wine glasses awaiting my arrival.

"Have a seat, Mark T., Beer Tent Volunteer," I heard from within the trailer. "I'll be out in a sec."

I sat down, the first time I had been off my feet in well over ten hours, and enjoyed the soothing sounds of tranquil waves lapping at the shore and the distant hum of unseen motor boats somewhere out in the harbor. For late September the air was rather warm, another New England summer clinging desperately to life before succumbing to autumn death.

Sophie exited her trailer, a bottle of Shiraz in hand, and took the seat next to mine. She had changed into a white peasant shirt accompanied by a pair of faded cutoffs, her dark hair tied back in a thick crimson mane. Under the iridescence of torch and candlelight she looked twice as beautiful as she had when I first rested eyes upon her.

"I'm glad you decided to stop by," she smiled, filling our glasses. "Your just in time for the fireworks."

Our attention turned to the harbor and for some time we simply sat there, enjoying the calming peace and salt air until stillness was replaced by the noisy eruption of firework cannons.

There is something hauntingly beautiful about the sound of fireworks over the harbor; the way the thunderous reports so eloquently reverberate off the waves and through the serene vigilance of reeds and sea grass. Add to that the vision of gauzy facsimiles reflected in the brackish water and it is one of the closest things on Earth to true magic.

As the heavenly performance continued, dousing us with fleeting dapples of pinks, violets and greens, I asked Sophie about herself. She told me of life on the road selling her stained glass at festival after endless festival up and down the eastern seaboard. Concord was home and there had been a time when she maintained a small shop there but she now chose a nomadic existence, living out of her trailer for nine to ten months of the year, returning home only for brief periods before packing up and repeating the arduous routine all over again.

"It must get lonely," I said.

"Why do you think I invited you here?" she replied.

And with that, she rose from her chair, taking my hand in hers and led me inside.

Her trailer was compact but well organized: a small kitchen and living area up front, a makeshift workshop for her stained glass behind that and finally, in the rear, her sleeping quarters. The lighting was soft; brightly colored scarves adorned the ceiling and the windows were made of stained glass creating an illusory almost dreamlike atmosphere. The spicy bouquet of incense lingered in surreal clouds. She led me to the back where we stood facing one another at the foot of her small bed.

Gently, she lifted a hand to my face and caressed her way down my cheek to my lips where she traced them slowly with two fingers, her dark brown eyes never leaving mine. When she pushed her fingers passed my lips, I kissed them first before allowing them within my mouth where I began sucking them tenderly.

Her wet fingers left my mouth before trailing down my chin and I instinctively lifted my head to feel Sophie's warm, wet mouth adhere to my throat. Her hands were busy in my hair, pulling my head further back to exposes as much flesh as possible while she fervently kissed, sucked and licked my receptive neck. The colors of the scarves on the ceiling, combined with the sporadic blaze of fireworks through the stained glass windows began to swirl into one as I slowly became besieged with sensory overload.

I closed my eyes from the dizzying display and concentrated on the sensation of Sophie's mouth on my trembling flesh. The sound of impassioned moans and hungry kisses filled my ears as the soundtrack of rolling fireworks continued magically in the background. Pressure mounted within my khakis as I rapidly became engorged.

Embracing Sophie for the first time, I consciously felt my way down to her ample bottom, supported nicely within her tight shorts, and slid my hands deep into the pockets, drawing her nearer until my now fully erect penis pressed against her from within the confines of my pants. She responded by bringing her hands to my shirt and tearing the two sides apart sending plastic buttons sailing through the air and skittering across her tiled floor.

Her mouth left my neck and she pulled me even closer, our lips meeting for the first time in a heated open mouth kiss. Her lips tasted of wine, as did her velvety tongue, which found its way deep inside my mouth. Her shapely buttocks felt amazing as I kneaded them through tight denim; hips grinding, my cock nearly tore out of it's fabric prison as our kissing became that much more intense.

She brought my hands to her breasts: warm, soft and braless beneath her cotton shirt. Her nipples were hard and I began rolling them tenderly between my fingers.

Mouths parted momentarily as she pulled away and I could do little but gaze upon her loveliness as she lifted her shirt over her head before resuming our embrace, my exposed chest prickling with excitement upon making contact with hers. The sensation of her naked flesh on mine was enthralling, the stiffness of her dark nipples contrasting with the downy softness of her luscious breasts.

Our mouths found one another's once again as we, at the same moment, reached for and fumbled with each other's pants. Her shorts fell to the ground first - mine, belated by the fact Sophie had to navigate my trousers over the protruding obstacle that was my engorged cock. Her silky panties now the only barrier between us, she pulled me to her bed where we fell into each other's arms in a tangle of limbs, skin and lust. Sophie moaned amorously between searing kisses, crimson nails biting into my backside, daring me to tear my way through her flimsy panties and plunge deep inside.

Outside, the fireworks continued while inside, they began.

My mouth found her right shoulder and the sexy birthmark that had demanded my attention hours earlier. Her skin, damp with perspiration, tasted wonderful and I savored every salty inch: across her shoulders, over her breasts and down to her trembling belly.

As my lips and tongue surveyed her lower torso, Sophie managed to remove her panties and I soon felt her hands in my hair directing me to the musky treasure that awaited me between her willowy legs. The sweet scent of incense that had filled my nostrils was replaced by the even sweeter aroma of womanhood as my nose brushed against her tender clit and I parted her labia with my eager tongue in slow, deliberate licks. Sophie tasted as astonishing as she looked and I relished her delicate folds while she urged me on with a chorus of erotic moans and whimpers. Her hips responded to my obedient mouth in gyrating thrusts and I, like a rodeo cowboy, had to hold tight to her delicious thighs or risk being thrown off the small bed.

When I tasted and felt the first humid surge of buttery girl-cum I focused all of my attention on her blazing clit, filling her quivering pussy with first one, then two squirming fingers. Sophie's cries of passion became so intense they nearly drown out even the fireworks boisterous ensemble.

Resuming control, but still in a passionate frenzy, Sophie reached for me and I brought myself up to her mouth, mine dripping with her nectar. She sucked and licked my sticky lips and tongue, taking obvious pleasure in the essence of her own juices.

Her mouth never leaving mine, she rotated her body until my cock settled nicely between the tight folds of her plentiful bottom. I wrapped my arms around her and once again felt her supple breasts fill my palms. She lifted her hips and I felt my cock gliding ever so slowly through the warm cleft of her buttocks until it reached her still smoldering pussy.

I penetrated her effortlessly.

A noisy moan erupted from the lower regions of my vocal cords as I experienced the delightfully damp folds of Sophie's pussy envelop my aroused cock and draw it deep within. She too let out a throaty bellow that was muffled slightly by the pillow she had buried her face in. Like stormy ocean waves, Sophie rhythmically rocked her hips back and forth while I rode each undulation out, uncertain if I was the captain of this amazing voyage or just a passenger along for the bumpy ride.

The fireworks nearing their finale - rowdy explosions and brilliant bursts of color occurring more frequently and with mounting intensity - my new lover and I were quickly approaching a splendid climax of our own.

Sophie's breathing became swift and strident, as did my own, and I held firm to her shapely hips, matching each of her thrusts blow for pulsating blow, our bodies colliding in ever-increasing arpeggio with the deafening slaps of black powder against balmy September air. A deluge of color flooded the trailer as Sophie's nearly perfect body appeared to change shade from ruby to sapphire to gold like some sort of psychedelic mirage. I would not last much longer.

Pyrotechnics pummeled the skies above Harbor Cove while 500 feet below, Sophie and I did the same to each other's bodies. It was hard to discern which detonations were authentic and which were merely occurring within my exhilarated brain as a miraculous orgasm finally surged between us in intense bolts of sexual electricity.

Sophie drove her body on to mine as if to receive as much of my climax as possible and I collapsed on her, shear pleasure draining every bit of energy my spent body had left to offer. When my bare chest made contact with her moist skin she instinctively turned her head to accept my lips in an open mouth kiss.

"Ohhhhh, Mark," she sighed between lusty kisses, giving me the vigor for a few more penetrating thrusts into her spasming vagina.

Outside the fireworks concluded leaving the skies empty once again, sulfury clouds and ringing eardrums the only evidence that they were ever there at all.

We fell asleep in each other's arms and were not awaken until a dazzling September sunrise blazed into Sophie's trailer through the serenity of stained glass. Without saying a word we made love once again, unhurried and tender, lacking the clamor, but not the passion, of the night before.

If I hadn't fallen in love with Sophie already, I did then: gazing into her soft brown eyes as we made love, kissing her beautiful face and mouth. I was wise enough to know that Sophie would not share these feelings but foolish enough to tell her anyway.

"I love you," I said as we lay together, the bickering of seagulls the only audible sound.

"You don't love me Mark," she said with a laugh. "You love the fact that you just slept with a stranger and now you can go brag about it to your buddies in the beer tent."

She was wrong but I did not, at that moment anyway, have the words in me to prove her otherwise.

"You should be going now," she said after a period of silence. "Your lucky I even let you stay the night."

"I'd rather stay here with you."

"Honey, I have glass to sell. Don't you have a beer tent that needs you or something?"

"Forget the festival," I said embracing her. "Let's just stay here in bed all day."

"The sex was good Mark," she said pushing me away, "but my glass pays the bills."

She rose from the bed and began getting dressed. Admiring her nude body in motion was like watching gazelle on film: graceful, elegant, spectacular.

"Your wrong, about what you said," I stated from the lingering warmth of her disheveled bed.

"Mark...please...I..." She looked as if she were about to say something else but instead ended with, "Just go."

I did not need to be told twice; I dressed in silence and left.

I eventually found myself back at the beer tent where the crew had already begun assembling. It was a very long day. For sixteen hours I worked, trying unsuccessfully to erase the memory of Sophie; my body at the taps but my mind remaining in her trailer: enfolded within the console of Sophie's embrace, bathed in the placid projections of stained glass light. I half hoped that she would again appear in my beer line but that did not happen. I thought of going to find her but knew that was not a smart idea either. As I said, it was a very long day.

By the time the moon rose over the fairgrounds I could think of little else apart from the mysterious artist whose bed and body I has shared the night before. Once the crowds had dispersed and my obligations to the beer tent were fulfilled, I would take one more chance.