The Book of Ruth: Eating Out

But six months was enough. I loved her fantastic body and subtle mind and chimerical moods. Well, the moods got complicated at times. Like the time she stripped naked and ran into the Mt St Helen's crater because she wanted to be melted by lava. Or the time she entered a STRATEGY game festival at Reed College and nearly won by blatantly cheating.

We staggered home from a Hallowe'en near-riot at an ivy-covered 'cottage' (a rather large one) near Reed. Many smokes and drinks flowed. Many masques and minimal costumes and public gropings and mouthings. Neither Lupe nor I quite got fucked by masked personages -- but it was close.

A taxi delivered us to my front door. We crawled into the house, out of what clothes remained, and into the hot tub. The ready pot of Mayan coffee-plus-mezcal kept us afloat. We snuggled in the steaming sudsy water.

Lupe repositioned my hands on her bulging breast and comforting belly.

"Ran, I must move on," she murmured.

"I know, querida, I know." Her hands moved mine on her flesh.

"You are such a wonderful man! I won't say you're too good for me, oh no, 'cause I deserve only the best." She giggled. "And you are the best!"

Her hands pushed mine again, circular motions, soft rubbing, gliding over skin as creamy as almost-ripe Fuerte avocado flesh.

"Ran, I am going to have your baby," she whispered.

"I know, querida, honey, I know." I dug-in my fingers gently.

"Randall Orson van Ronk, I will ask no support from you. Dave's settlement provides well for me. Pregnancy was all my idea, not yours. I will move -- no, not back to San Diego, too many there know me, but to Tucson, that's a great place -- and I will have your baby, your son. I will name him Orsono after you. Raul Orsono Viscanzo, after my grandfather, too. And I will start a school. I don't know yet what kind of school. Maybe a training seminar for politician's wives, eh? You think that might do well?" She giggled again.

"I think if you teach as well as you fuck you'll be the bomb," I growled.

She slapped my cheeks, then replaced her hands atop mine. Our fingers intertwined. I felt her shaking, heard her sob softly.

"This has been the best time of my life, stinky." Stinky? Did she know that was Ruth's old nickname for me? Well, maybe I did sweat a lot. "Yes, the best time, sí. But we don't... I mean, we aren't..."

I moved my hand from her breast to wipe tears from her eyes and stroke her flushing cheeks. My other hand stayed on her belly to feel my growing son.

"You may not want my support, querida, but I can give money to my little son Raul Orsono, sí? A college fund at least. A father's gifts at least, unless you remarry soon enough that he knows that guy as Daddy. You can't deny me this." I poked her navel.

And I turned her face to mine and kissed her deeply. Our tongues danced. Hy hand moved from her navel to her dark landing-strip and fluffy lower lips. Her fingers directed mine inside her. Her other hand stroked my rigid cock.

We eventually escaped the cooling water, and rinsed and dried, and adjourned to bed, and fucked and sucked and slurped the whole of that haunted night. Ghosts howled in the darkness. Or maybe that was merely a night-wind in the trees. Speculate as you will.

That was our last night. The morrow was All Saint's Day. I drove the lovely Lupe to the airport that afternoon.

.

-- Thanksgiving 1994 --

I was once again at cousin Doug's apartment block in Venice West the day after Turkey Overload. The family womenfolk were ruthlessly (pun intended) hunting down Black Friday bargains. The usual less-than-scantily-clad tenant girls promenaded the heated pool. Doug had been here almost twenty years now. With all this eye candy available, I could not blame him.

"Look at that micro-thong. Why does she even bother?" Doug had cured himself of his nasty-sweet alco-pop fetish. Scotch-and-soda filtered through the still-bushy moustache, once merely blonde, now pure white. His shaved scalp gleamed sweatily, a happy lounge lizard in a poolside lounge chair.

I had taken care to have cases of black Moza beer shipped up from Guatemala City. I sipped cautiously and tried to keep my eyes from bugging out.

"Yeah, I've never seen pubes shaved like a spiderweb before. She must have had a great Hallowe'en. Wonder what she does for Christmas?"

I had received much sympathy at the family dinner -- especially from Doug's little sister Jocelyn. Her partner Lara, a frighteningly beautiful redhead, was happily bouncing their (my!) infant daughter Ashleigh -- damn, could they not think of a better name? -- and did not really pay is attention. All my kin expressed shock and sorrow. I held my chin up. I had to man on.

That was yesterday. Now, Doug and I continued drinking and babe-watching.

"The shits, man. The wife and the best friend. The worst fucking cliché." Doug inhaled more S&S. "And then you had Loopy, and now you don't. Any idea what you'll do now? Got got any hot prospects or even warm ones? And are you ever gonna divorce the skag?"

I shook my head. "Not a clue. No hot ones. And I have no reason to start a divorce. We can't get at each other's money and we each have enough. Lots of her art is still in Oregon; she doesn't seem desperate for it, so whatever."

I sucked more Moza. It is a much better black cerveza than Negro Modelo or San Miguel Dark. "I think I'll go back to work. Consulting on hard commodities beats sitting around moping and doping." Another sip. "I get calls from the Philippines and Bolivia, Puerto Rico and Spain. I could follow up, see what shakes out."

"Well, if it's anything like back when you worked with Jill, you'll have a girl or ten in every port, you dawg. Hey, what about Jill? Any-"

I held up my hand. "Forget my sister. She's off the radar. And speaking of sisters and radar, Joss has us in her sights right now." I glanced at the incoming blond bombshell; she looked to have been dipped in black lycra. "Hey Joss, how went the shopping wars? And where are Lara and Ash?"

Jocelyn straddled my lounge chair facing me, plopped into my lap, kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my chin.

"You are still just the cutest cousin ever," she purred. "The shopping went great but the loves of my life are busy in the bathroom right now. You do NOT want the details."

She pecked at my lips, stood, swiveled over to Doug's chair, plopped in his lap, and slapped his cheeks.

"And you ain't too bad for a big brother, even if you ae defective." He grunted inquisitively. "Yeah, I said defective. You can't keep a woman for more than a month, maybe two. Hope it's not bad genes." She ostentatiously examined his legs. "Bad jeans, maybe. Somebody better set you straight on fashion or you'll die alone, wanking-off in your Willy Wonka wheelchair."

She stood and twirled. Yes, that was a visible cameltoe!

"Gotta run, boys. Ash likes to nurse around now," she pushed at her bouncing bulbous boobs, "and these gals won't wait. Ta ta."

She flounced off. All eyes in and around the pool left whatever bare flesh they were watching to follow her skintight figure. A collective sigh arose.

"Fuck me," Doug groaned, "little sisters can be pure poison, hey?"

"Big ones too," I muttered. I cracked another Moza. "Especially big ones."

Did I still blame Jill for Katia's death? I guess so. Did I still resent how she and Gabby raped me? Fuck yes. Was I still under my big sister's spell? I dunno. I did not want to find out.

.

-- Winter Holidays 1994-95 --

I did not need to work so I abstained, and dawdled. I drove my Lexus down from Portland rather than flying even though Doug's place was mere minutes from the LAX airport. I was in no hurry to return. I cruised.

First I cruised to San Diego to look up Ruth and Rachel's still-MILF-y mom Deborah. Deb's husband Avram was out of town for the weekend. Deb shunted her (my!) twins to trusted childcare and we fucked like frantic ferrets.

"Ran, honey, I'm so sorry about Ruth, I had no idea..." my mother-in-law lamented while my spent cock remained inside her.

"Don't worry. She said she'll see me sometime. She just didn't say when."

I cruised up to Anaheim. Deb's daughter and Ruth's big sister Rachel was in town from New Orleans for a few days with her banker husband Ferdie. Their (my!) son was left at home. Ferdie was busy in some cash-grubber confab at the Disneyland Convention Center. Rachel and I stayed busy in bed.

Well, sometimes in bed. Sometimes on a table or couch or chair or ottoman or balcony or park bench or car seat or wherever.

"I always knew my little sister was nutz. I just didn't know how nutz," my sister-in-law confided after swallowing a load of my hot cum.

"You think I'll apologize for her stress? Hey, I'm fucking stressed too! Ah, forget that. C'mere -- I need to lick your pussy some more."

Rachel at 34 (same as me) and Deb at 52 were splendid tennis-toned specimens of Shapiro womanhood -- fine legs, firm butts, hourglass figures -- tall, dark, aquiline, radiant, sharply gorgeous. Ruth, now 28, would age like them if she stayed in shape.

Was I doing the Shapiro gals to get back at Ruth? Probably. Deb and Rachel likely figured that out -- and did not care. They had loved my cock for a long time, over a decade and a half.

Did I feel regret for cuckolding their husbands, for fathering kids for them to raise? Hey, I had been fucking these gals since long before those guys appeared. It was not my fault if they could not satisfy their women.

Did we make any more babies? I dunno -- that's their concern, not mine. We always fucked bareback. We all liked it that way. Condoms are for strangers.

-----

I cruised out to Palm Springs. Juanita Fernandez tooka winter break from Washington, D.C. where her husband Alonzo was busy advising Federal Reserve policymakers and tending their (my!) daughter. Juanita had nearly become my mother-in-law. If only her step-daughter (and lover) Katia, Ruth's best childhood friend, had not been killed...

"Do you have a curse on you, Randy? Why does this shit happen? Ooooh..." I tried not to think about shit while my cock was embedded deep in her anus.

"That's philosophy or theology or something. Above my level. Oh fuck, do that squeeze thing again. Of fuck, oh fuck, Juanita, where did you learn that? Holy shit..."

Damn, I missed the threesomes with Juanita and Katia!

I cruised back to Santa Monica and stopped at our old family home that Mom (I mean Nina) still owned. I did not visit and fuck Nina, not because I did not want to, but because she and Bobby and their (my!) kid were vacationing in Cabo San Lucas. That is in Mexico, my forbidden zone.

I crashed in my old bedroom. I swam in the very private backyard pool, right where Jill and Gabby raped me. I recalled years of love here, and betrayal.

I was not alone; a couple of girls from cousin Doug's nearby Venice flats accompanied me. That girl with the spiderweb pubic-hair cut -- wow! Her red-haired girlfriend was another wow. For one night, anyway. Well, the next day and night, too. And the next. But one debauched weekend was enough.

Enough? Did I actually say that? I must be getting old.

I was deep inside the redhead. Her lanky legs were wrapped around my waist. We lay sideways between the spiderweb-girl's open thighs. Our tongues worked together to chase the spiders away. A lick here; a lap there; got'em! Ahhh...

From the old home I cruised up the Pacific Coast Highway in this pre-Christmas season aiming for university towns. Why those? For the culture, of course. And good places for jogging and fitness training -- I stay in damn good shape. And for the sex. Interesting sex.

My Hallowe'en-to-Thanksgiving time after Lupe left was lean, lonely. This fortnight after Thanksgiving saw me get plenty of sex, varied sex, new and old sex, tasty sex. No such a smörgåsbord of sex for too long. I liked it. I had another three weeks till Old Christmas, the end of the holiday season. I intended to make the most of it.

College towns are great for hunting. Older grad students and younger faculty wives are great targets. I scored regularly. I won't bore you with details. Most hookups were pretty similar depending on time of day. Afternoon fucks are fast; evening fucks, discreet. Overnight fucks are rare but tiring. And a few are strange. I recount one of those in the story DOUBLE YOUR PLEASURE.

You may think college towns empty-out over the holidays, say at least for the fortnight after the Winter Solstice. Nope. Opportunities diminish but do not disappear. People are left behind or have no place to go. This is always The Loneliest Time Of The Year for somebody.

And I could heal that loneliness. For a night or two, anyway.

Hot nights in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. A scenic drive up the gnarly Big Sur coast with a hot overstay at Eselan. Real hot nights in Santa Cruz. Pretty good nights in San Francisco and Berkeley. A long drive up the Redwood Highway, then more hot nights in Eureka and Arcata in the heart of California's Golden Triangle. (Major cannabis cultivation, folks.) Yet more steamy nights in Eugene and Corvallis.

And then I was home. Or what passed for home, anyway.

.

-- Easter 1995 --

Ruth learned of her infertility one year ago and left two weeks later. A year of Hell for me. Even with Lupe and all the other women I tried to fill my life with, it was Hell.

I tried to revive my business; I could not concentrate. I tried volunteering for charity work; I could not cope. I tried staying drunk and stoned; I could not stop remembering and I only got fat. I tried Zen Macrobiotics (mindless starvation); I thinned-out again but I still could not forget.

I filled my bed with women; it was a bedfull of empty sex. I used to like empty sex. That was before I decided I loved Ruth. Ain't life a bitch?

I filled my time with make-work. I now have a nicely redesigned garden and yard; they mean nothing to me. I wrote a pile of stories and articles, and filed them all away. I tinkered with various gadgets and found I do not much like tinkering. I did not bother trying casino gambling; I am not so stupid.

I tried many small things that I forgot about the next day. Well, keep that up long enough and at least my days would be filled with something.

What days? Why bother?

I was not clinically depressed; not quite. Close enough.

I had not heard from Ruth for a year -- nothing since that note taped to the refrigerator. I heard occasional word from others that she was indeed living with my old ex-best-friend Dave in that secure condo in Mexico City.

I had snoops on retainer in D.F. keeping an eye on them but with little to report. They went to guarded public events; they were seen. No wild parties; the USA Trade Rep might be screwing around with a married woman but she was just another foreign puta and nobody really cared so long as he otherwise acted respectable. She had some involvement in art management. She had a dog and a private gym membership and her own security goons. Lo siento, so sorry, señor, she is doing nothing noteworthy.

You know the saying. It is always darkest before dawn, right? No; sometimes it is darkest just before you sink into the lightless abyss.

-----

Monday morning after Easter in mid-April 1995 was cool, damp, and windy, as usual. I sat in the breakfast nook sipping generic coffee, eating a generic donut, and playing generic Sudoku in the morning newspaper. (Maybe I was stupid enough for casino gambling. I mean, shit, Sudoku?) I wore a track suit and sneakers because those were easier than choosing anything else. I had no plans for the day.

The doorbell chimed. I expected nobody. Maybe some fucking door-to-door solicitor? Maybe the SOLICITORS WILL BE FED TO ZOMBIES sign was not clear enough. Maybe if I ignored them they would go away.

The bell chimed again. I sighed. What else to do? I may as well go see.

I trudged to the door and peered through the spy lens.

I saw Ruth dressed in jeans and flannels.

I froze. A whole fucking year! A year with no word, and now she comes back with no word, no warning, nothing. What the fuck! What the...

I stayed frozen. I tried to decide whether I loved or hated her more. I had not decided much lately; I was out of practice. What to do, what to do?

I saw her reach for the doorbell again and then drop her arm. She turned and walked back toward a taxi waiting at the curb. She carried a small duffel.

No! I could not let her leave again. I yanked the door open.

"RUTH! RUTH!"

Ruth turned and looked at me. She dropped her duffel and stood stock-still.

I ran out to her, to within a foot of her. Not quite inside her aura. Not touching. Not quite.

"Ruth! What...?"

She leaned into me. She gripped me.

"Oh Ran, I... I..." Her face twisted into a grimace. "Honey, I'm home..."

Her face collapsed in tears. Mine, too. We held each other. The taxi left.

-----

I brewed a pot of Chiapas coffee -- I still had some of the good stuff -- and toasted the remaining generic donuts, the best I could do on short notice. Ruth sat on the cushioned dinette bench in her usual spot. She had pulled off the heavy outer flannel. Her form was outlined in a thin gray sweater. A slimmer form than I remembered, and she looked so wan, so weak.

"Thanks for letting me come in, Ran. I-"

"We are still married, Ruth. This is still your house, your home. Of course you can come in! I haven't moved any of your things. I redecorated outside a lot, and all sorts of petty crap, but-"

She gestured fiercely.

"Ran. Randall Orson van Ronk -- shut up. Ran, this isn't easy. It's not what you think. It's worse. Ran, I came home to say goodbye."

I froze again.

"But..."

"No, Ran, I am not going back to Mexico, or Los Angeles, or anywhere else. I am not going anywhere on this green earth, Ran."

Ruth nibbled a glazed donut and sipped the coffee, good coffee which I had dosed with generic tequila, not having anything better. She looked down, then up into my eyes.

"Ran, the medical news we got a year ago -- the tests missed something. We didn't know it then. I felt nothing but my emotions. That's why I left. I ran to Dave because-"

It was my turn to gesture violently.

"Don't tell me. Say nothing about Dave. He no longer exists for me."

Her eyes stayed on my face.

"Okay, fair enough. Ran, I... oh fuck, I can't tell you, then. But now... Ran, it was just a couple of weeks ago. I started bleeding. I went to the best Ob/Gyn in D.F. She ran tests and more tests. Ran, my babymaker was more damaged than we knew..."

Oh fuck. I had a very bad feeling.

"Ran, I just found out two days ago. I have a uterine cancer, a sarcoma, really really rare. I really am one in a hundred million!"

Another twisted smile quickly faded.

"Sarcomas are rare and hard to detect, not like many carcinomas. This one had almost no symptoms until I reached the most advanced stage."

I blinked. "Most advanced...?"

"Ran, it's fully metastasized. It's all over inside me now, all the way up to my lungs. Ran, I might have a month left. Maybe. Maybe a lot less."

I felt numb. "Less than a month?"

"Ran, I didn't want to die away from home. As soon as I found out, I came home. You are all I have ever loved in all my life. I belong here. I belong to you. Ran, I'm so sorry for freaking out a year ago, sorrier than you can ever know. Ran, I..."

Her voice broke. She caught herself.

"Yeah, Stinky, this is where I belong, for the rest of my life, forever..."

She started to slide from the dinette bench. I caught her. I carried her into the living room, to her favorite couch. Fuck, she hardly weighed anything!

She was asleep.