The Other Katie

She got back into bed, he could feel the mattress sinking. He could almost feel her eyes on him, and then there was her hand, she touched his shin on top of the blanket. He realized she didn't want him to touch her now, she wouldn't have started so far off otherwise. She lifted the covers to get to his skin and touched his leg very nicely, exploring it slowly, moving to his toes next, slightly massaging the sole of his foot. He let her touch him, he didn't mind taking it slow and it was so arousing to just listen to her touch. She did it so well, and he loved her hands, her warm soft palms, her sensitive and gentle long fingers.

She moved upwards and he loved the way she moved the blanket off him, carefully and respectfully, not exposing his genitals until she actually reached them. She touched the insides of his thighs, then his testicles. It was just the right touch for it, she was careful because they were tender but she didn't tickle. He breathed out and felt himself get harder, not that he wasn't hard already.

She pulled the blanket fully off him, his other leg as well, and backed off to go through his other foot. He waited, and when he realized she was doing the exact same things on this side he got wildly expectant, and when she touched his testicles the second time he sighed and every hair on his body stood up. She was still gentle, and now she continued upwards and touched his penis. It twitched in her hands and she stroked it slowly, and then he felt the sudden and unbelievably sexy feeling of her hair flowing onto his hip.

She ran her soft, warm lips on the length of his shaft, following a vein, and as she got to the tip she kissed it softly. She didn't continue with it this time, she continued up on his abdomen. She backtracked to follow that trail of hair she'd explored earlier, and then she kissed his skin. He listened to the touch of her lips on his skin, her hair when it slid on his side, almost tickling but feeling mostly amazingly arousing.

He could've reached to touch her now but didn't. He had a vague feeling she needed to give him permission first, and he kept his arms at his sides. She kissed up his torso, and he felt sweeps of her body when she leaned over him, and it felt like she was naked. Once he felt her breast against him, her hard nipple poking his skin, and he sighed with pleasure, feeling his penis twitch. He was legitimely hard now, he wanted her so much, and he wondered how this was going to play itself out.

She settled next to him, moved one of his hands away from the way and pressed against his side, her silky skin against his, her nipples like small stones against his chest. And then she kissed him on the lips, gently, but with growing passion. He breathed faster, his heart was thumping, and it was pure bliss when their tongues met, he would have wanted to kiss her for hours on end.

He couldn't abstain anymore, he reached out and touched her cheek, caressed it gently as they kissed, and when she didn't object he thought it might be his turn. He let his hand slide to her neck, and he started to keel her over very slowly, giving her space to object, and as she didn't he let her on her back and kissed her for a while still before starting to explore her body in turn.

He kept the same slow and dreamy pace she had set, the same gentle and respectful touch. He let his lips travel her skin, tracked her collar bones and kissed the pit in between, touching it with his tongue. He searched for her breasts and kissed her nipples, and whether or not it was her breasts that made her want to not be seen she didn't seem to object to him touching them.

He went down her body, loving every inch of it and letting her know it through his touch, and he touched her with his hands as well, stroking her, feeling her shape, her wonderful texture. He kissed her navel, traced down from it with gentle kisses, and straight down over her pubic hair. He kissed over her clitoris softly, she twitched and whimpered at the touch and he got his confirmation that this turned her on as much as him.

He didn't lick her, he blew softly on her wetness, then kissed the insides of her thighs. He had a vague idea of kissing through her legs like she had touched all of him, with no clear idea of what to do once he would've done that, but she stopped him. She reached for him, put her hand in his hair and she said, out of breath and with a voice that was somehow smaller and more vulnerable than he would've expected, "Billy? Can you...would you please make me cum, like you did last night?"

Sure I can, darling, and hopefully harder, he thought. But he didn't say anything, just traversed his direction and got back to her pussy, and she spread her legs more for him to have space to settle between his legs.

He couldn't see but he didn't have to for him to know where everything was. He kissed over her clit again, soft, flat kiss over the hood, just to say hello, and then he went down. He felt the shape of her lips with his tongue, tasting her more profoundly than last night, he opened her folds slowly and decidedly with the tip of his tongue, and she was breathing more raggedy and moving her hips with his touch.

He pushed his tongue inside her, feeling her hot slick internal surface with his hot, slick tongue. He wound slowly upwards again, softly sucking on her lips, and when he got back up he started to coax her clitoris out of its hood, teasing it to flood full of blood and respond to him. It did, and in response to her arousal he got more insistent, touched her with more pressure, faster. He put his hands on her hips under her buttocks and held her in place, against his face, and she grabbed his hair with both hands, hanging on to his curls but not pulling or guiding him in any particular way.

Somehow her path was different this time. There was no grinding against his face, she got higher and higher but she didn't take initiative, she was almost timidly following his stimulus. But she came, and her orgasm was strong and pure and intense. This time he fed the flame, pushing her a little higher every time she got back down a notch, until he thought she didn't want it anymore. And then he moved back up, next to her, to be able to hold her.

She curled into his lap and he held her, smiling as he tried to get her hair so it wouldn't be under him or her or anything. She always swept them aside with seasoned gestures but he felt like he was tangled in a spiderweb, it felt like her hair was everywhere and he was afraid he was pulling on it accidentally, especially now that he couldn't see. But it wasn't that long until she said, "Can I have you inside me?"

"Of course you can," he said huskily, his penis twitching at her words, eager to get to it.

He touched her side, trying to guess how she wanted it when he couldn't see her expression. They moved, close to each other's body, mutely searching for the position, and it ended up being a very traditional missionary. She wrapped her legs around his hips and he searched for his way inside, nice and slow. She was tight and tighter still now that she had cum already, and he pushed deeper just a little bit at the time, slowly, spreading her fluids on his shaft, letting her get used to him inside her. It felt like she was sucking him in, her hot slick silky void was pulling him, and he kissed her neck, her ear, her lips.

He got inside her, all the way, and they felt it up for a moment. He kissed her, as if to ask for permission, trying to estimate the level of her arousal without getting to scout it from her eyes. He started moving, slowly building it, keeping a steady rhythm but slowly accelerating.

She stayed with him, he could feel it, and they got quite close already, together, they were sweating and breathing hard into each other's neck, mouth, when suddenly he realized he didn't know if she had the birth control device still in her, and he tried to stop. His rhythm was so primal now that his hips almost didn't obey his brain, and he said hoarsely, "Wait, honey, Katie, awwgh oh my God, please stop for a second."

Her movement seemed to be almost as hard to stop as his, and even after she did they both twitched and quivered together, it was so close already. With a pang of regret he thought they might've cum together if he hadn't stopped. He lifted his face from her neck, it was instinctive to face her even with the blindfold, and said, "The, the thingy, do you have it on?"

He couldn't even remember the word, he was so aroused, so lost in his lust already.

"What if I didn't?" she asked. "Would you stop now?"

She squeezed him a little and he moaned and arched his back to keep himself as deep as he had been, to not let her marvellous squeeze push him out. He thought he'd cum right then, but he didn't, not quite yet, and he said, breathlessly, "Yeah if you wanted me to stop."

She reached for his blindfold and lifted it off him. He squinted his eyes in the brightness of the sunlight, tried to focus on her eyes and interpret her expression. Her eyes were dark and deep, she looked like she was open to her soul, and she said softly, "I have it on."

"Did you have it all night? Are you supposed to take it off already?" he asked, wildly confused, it was so difficult to think being this aroused.

"It's alright," she said and moved, nudged his pelvis with hers, "Please just get back to it."

And so he did. He looked into her eyes and started moving again, his penis seemed to sigh with relief that he didn't try to stop. He got quite rapidly to the rhythm he'd had, and still he looked at her eyes, there was now something so intriguing in them. He was panting and so was she, she was meeting his every thrust, and then she came, her eyes glossed over and she let out that otherworldly small moan.

He wasn't that far behind, he tried to slow down to let her orgasm without pumping in her but the feeling of her clamping around him was too much. He moaned and pushed his face to her neck when he came, pulsing deep inside her, wave after wave of bliss surging in him, through his penis into her. She was still pulsing as well, it felt like they nudged each other higher and higher, and he hadn't ever cum like this before. He kept holding her and she held him, and he thought about the blindfold. She had taken it off but it didn't necessarily mean she wanted to be seen now, and he kept his face to her neck even when he finally pulled out of her and moved to the side.

They were quiet for a long while. When he recovered a little he turned to gather her in his arms, and she cuddled close to him and they stroked each other's skin lazily, tenderly. When her back started to feel cold he reached for the blanket and wrapped it around them.

Later she amazed him when she got up to go to the bathroom. He didn't remember to not look and kept his eyes on her as she got up, and then he remembered and said, "Sorry."

"Sorry about what?" she asked, lifting her hair from the back of her neck and letting it flood back down in a dark curtain of hair.

"For looking at you," he said.

"Oh, it's alright now," she just said as she went, and he was left puzzled but not very bothered, way too satisfied to be very bothered about anything.

--#--#--#--#--#--

They had their go at a relationship after that. He was still with Carole at the time of their first lovemaking, and she had her own things going, but gradually they shed them and gravitated together. Had a go at it together.

It was good, and the sex was always good, but eventually they couldn't make it work. Their lives pulled at them too strongly in different directions, and he found Susan and she married David. Over the next decades they weren't in touch all that much but on some level they always knew what the other was up to, they were in the same scene after all.

--#--#--#--#--#--

In 2020, a year that had felt so distant in their youth he remembered reading science fiction novels about it, they were nearing eighty years of age but were both still active in their performing careers. There came a spring of a viral pandemic that shut half the world down and so they had to cancel their tours as well. He followed the news and social media, called with his kids and grandkids, there were rules of social distancing and he didn't meet with them in person.

One night he was checking on one of his grandkids on Facebook and suddenly there was Kate's face in front of him. She had an account just as he did, probably managed by some of her underlings, and this was a video of her singing to soothe the troubled world amidst this ordeal. Now the social media platform algorithms were suggesting it as a content he might want to see. It turned out to be true, he watched it multiple times, and it made him think about her.

And just like telepathy, a week later his manager called and said she had reached out for him, asked for him to call her. He didn't think very long, this felt like some sort of guidance, and so he called. It was a little difficult to talk over the phone, and being old stubborn oafs that they were they decided to meet in person. Knowing everybody would object they didn't tell anyone, and one day he drove over to her place.

She stood in the yard waiting. He got out of the car and they smiled at each other, taking in all the wrinkles and sagging skin and gray hairs of each other. And then, without discussing it, they hugged each other tightly and at length.

They walked around her garden until they got to a gazebo. They sat there on the cushioned rattan garden furniture, drinking iced tea, it was already warm even as it was still spring. Her garden was beautiful, a little wild, it looked somehow really much like her.

"Listen, Bill, there's a story I wanna tell you," she said.

"Oh?" he said. "What's it about?"

"You and me," she said.

"Oh, okay," he said. "At least I know the characters."

She laughed, he smiled, and for a minute it was like it had always been between them. Or not always but when it had been good.

"I don't know if you've followed my interviews or something, I haven't exactly kept this in the dark," she said, "But I've been diagnosed with multiple personalities. You familiar with it?"

"Yes, from books," he said. "Really?"

"Yes, I had a trauma in my childhood that apparently ripped me apart," she said. "It's not the story I wanna tell you. But it turns out I do have multiple mes inside me, with different setups of characteristics, and in me it's luckily so mild that I don't get amnesia or anything when they alternate. I'm so accustomed to it by now it's mainly just like taking a different approach to things. Thinking of things from different angles. Not that I was always so well adjusted.

"But, so, the main characters are the singing Kate, as I call that one, and the mischievous Kate, closely related, and then there's this little girl Kate who's vulnerable and timid and wary of everything. She's shown herself less frequently now that I'm this old. Or well, she's rarely manifested herself anyway, she's too timid for that, but she's essential to all the others. And this is a story about her. And you."

"Do tell," he said, helping himself to more iced tea, he was interested now.

"Remember when we first had sex?" she asked.

"When we first made love," he corrected. "Sure I remember. It's a good memory."

"It is," she agreed. "So you remember how we did it in the night, and then again in the morning?"

"I do," he said. "Oh, the youth."

They both smiled, equally amused and sad.

"So, in the night it was mischievous Kate," she said. "She always got most of the action, anyway. But by morning it was in those days often the small Kate that had taken over, waking up with insecurities and self doubt and fears of what the day would bring. And so it was then as well. But the way you loved me that night was so tender, so good, that you reached even her. And so she was intrigued by you, and even she was horny in our youth I guess."

"Yeah?" he said, remembering back, her words warming his mind. "I remember the blindfold."

"Yes," Kate said. "The small Kate is so afraid of being seen, being found, she couldn't have you look at her while making love. And it could've been the end of it, sexual arousal suppresses her if nothing else does. But you were so nice about it, you understood her so well, you came up with the blindfold."

"Oh," he said. "Well I just didn't want to upset you. Or hurt you."

"Yes," she said. "And you didn't. She was brave enough to touch you, and you were so perfect in returning that touch that she stayed and made love with you. You really reached her that day."

He didn't know how to respond. He remembered looking into her eyes after she had removed the blindfold, how he had thought he could see into her soul, how it had made him feel fierce tenderness and love towards her.

"I'm happy it went that way," he said. "I take it I was her first?"

"And last," Kate said. "She never did that with anyone again. Not even you."

He thought about it, surprised but flattered, details of that night coming to him. He understood it better now, the duality he had sensed in her, then and afterwards, during their relationship.

He wasn't bothered by this revelation of her mental fragility, but briefly he was worried to hear he had been the small Kate's one and only, like how small was small essentially? But no, that wasn't a child he'd been with that morning, the memory was so strong now he was absolutely certain. And Kate had phrased it so that it sounded like a really fond memory to her, too.

He was silent for a while, immersed in his memories, refining them in the light of this new knowledge, and she didn't interrupt him. It was one thing about her, she had always had a sense of him thinking, she knew when to interrupt and when not, and she wasn't irked if he sank into himself when thinking about something.

"Is she like there?" he asked. "Can I talk to her?"

"Well I can't change by will, but she'll hear you if you talk to me," she said. "It's all getting closer together now anyway. And we all have the same memories."

"Can I hug you?" he asked.

They got up and hugged. He held her to him and stroked her hair, she was so familiar in his arms even when she was this old woman now, they settled into each other the way they had always done. He was really gentle now, he remembered her now so vividly, the insecure and endearing young woman she'd been that morning. He held her head against him and stroked her hair, it was short and silvery gray now as opposed to long and dark but it was her, all of her was still her.

He spread his fingers to cover more of her back as he held her against him, and then he said, quietly and really gently, "I love you baby girl, thank you for staying with me that day, I hope it was good for you. I hope I did right by you. I'm sorry I couldn't make it right for you every day of your life. That I screwed it up and haven't been with you, taking care of you."

She made a small sound and grabbed him tighter. When she lifted her head up to see him he thought there was a hint of her in her eyes, the same look there had been that morning, and he said, "Thanks for telling me that. It means a lot to me."

"Yeah," she said. "I don't know why I wanted to tell it to you now. It just came to me, I didn't plan on it when I wanted to call you earlier."

"She wanted to tell it to me now," he said gently and still kept her close. She looked at him, solemnly, and then pressed her face back to his neck and let him hold her.

"I'm sorry, too," she said.

"Sorry about what?" he asked.

"That we screwed it up and didn't stay together. There's something you understand so profoundly about me I don't know how it is that I can have let you go."

"Well I left you, right," he said, sorrowfully. "I think we both know the mistakes we've made. But I do love you, I want you to know that, every one of you, I always did."