Them

"What are you doing?"

"Getting dry."

"I figured you went to exercise," she said. "I was really worried. You could have called; I would have come and picked you up."

"Two miles away when the rain started, so--," I didn't finish. The door to the bathroom was open. Hunter was right outside. I didn't care. I took off everything and wrapped the towel around my waist. Then, I said, "So, what do you do here for tornadoes?"

"Your bedroom is supposedly the safest place. Come on."

"Go ahead. I'm going to knock out a one-minute shower."

"What? No! That siren is a tornado warning, meaning there's one out there somewhere."

"I know. One minute shower. Seriously."

She sighed with exasperation and left.

I even washed my hair and used soap over my entire body in that minute; the Army teaches some valuable life skills.

"Wow. That was pretty fast," Hunter remarked when I came in the room, sitting on the edge of the bed.

Mostly dry, I climbed onto the bed and stacked my pillows against the headboard. Then I laid against them and sighed.

Hunter watched. "That's where you're going to be?"

"Where else? Isn't this the safest room? What do you do?" I asked, beginning to think Hunter might be genuinely afraid of storms.

"Supposed to get in the closet," she tentatively replied, glancing at the two sliding doors to her right, "until the sirens end."

"I'm not going to sit in the closet. I'm going to lay on this bed."

"And if the tornado comes here?"

I nodded. "I will cover us with all this bedding and these blankets and pillows, and I'll cover your body with mine."

She sighed, "Alright."

The room went eerily dark for the early afternoon. We laid side-by-side, listening to the rumble of distant thunder and the steady patter of rain.

"Isn't that awesome," I asked, "that sound--the rain and thunder?"

"I don't know why anyone would like it."

I rolled to face her. She glanced at me. "Do you forgive me for what I said?"

She nodded. "Let's not talk about it."

"But we're cool?"

"Yeah."

I took her hand. Clammy. Trembling. "Hey, you're not alright. What's the matter?"

She pulled her hand away. "I hate storms. Always have."

"Why?"

"Sudden. Loud. Threatening. Can hurt people."

I said, "I respect them--the big storms. Have to for the reasons you just said. They're dangerous, but they're also kind of beautiful. Storms are like--like a herd of wild elephants on the move."

Hunter turned to me.

I explained. "Best not to be outside. Best to be in a safe and secure place, but as those elephants approach and pass, you can't help but admire them for their size and power--that these giants actually exist."

Hunter took my hands and wrapped them around hers. "Keep me warm?"

I enshrouded us in the blankets and pulled her little body into mine, wrapping her in my arms. It reminded me of my childhood. I said, "As a kid, thunderstorms would come in the night, and I remember when a big bolt woke me, I'd leap out of bed, run into my parents' room, and literally dive between them into their bed."

"What did they do?"

"Dad would roll over, maybe mutter something, and rub my head a few times. Mom would scoot over and hold me until we were all asleep again."

Hunter murmured, "I just remember being alone in my room, wondering when the next crack of thunder was going to hit, waiting and praying for it to end. Dad--Darin--was gone for Army stuff or deployed overseas, and--." She didn't finish that thought. She sighed and said, "I just remember wishing for a miracle, wishing Dad would come home."

Hunter relaxed into me, and we rested in silence for several minutes.

"Sirens are gone," I said.

"Good."

The rain never got more intense than when it hit me during my race back from Mt. Scott. It continued, and the thunder rumbled far in the distance. "Wasn't such a bad storm this time."

"Yeah."

I snuggled into Hunter's hair and kissed her neck. "I like your whiskers," she said. I hadn't shaved in a few days. I kissed behind her ears and on her cheek. Sliding my hand across her chest, I took hold of a breast and gently squeezed it. My cock awakened.

"I love your tits," I replied.

"I can tell," she muttered, emphasizing the point with a booty wiggle.

"Do that again."

She did.

"Okay, I've got to check out this pussy and ass," I said, rising to my knees.

Hunter guffawed, but she didn't stop me. She let me strip off her sweatpants and panties. No argument, either, when I put her on all fours and shoved a bunch of pillows under her tummy.

"Oh, fuck," I whispered as I took in the sight. Her ass and pussy were there, exposed to my touch, to my every whim. Hunter's booty was a compact thing, but every bit feminine--a slight outward curve at the waist to create hips, and two creamy bubbles of smooth flesh.

I clutched it with my hands and squeezed. Hunter flinched, but laughed. In quick succession, I kissed, licked, and bit one of those perfect little globes. Then I drew them apart and groaned at the reverse view of her vulva and its crop of hot pink hairs.

"Your pussy," I said, "is stu-fucking-pendous."

I gripped lower on her ass. My thumb tips were fractions from her labia. I pulled her open and kissed the hood of her clit.

She hummed.

I pushed my index finger inside of her lazily. Then I pulled it out, watching the flesh draw closed. I pushed it in again, mesmerized. I heard myself swear as I curled the tip and explored the slick textures inside of her.

Squeezing her ass with one hand, I drew my finger free and gulped at the sight of her wetness there, glistening upon it. Then I spanked her gently.

The desire to do something to her pussy gripped me. I put my finger back inside, gently fucking her, while I scanned the room. Was there something else here, I wondered, that I could stick in this pussy?

No.

Fuck it, I added a second finger and gazed as her body stretched to accommodate the two digits. When I pulled them out, I watched in silent awe as pink flesh sealed shut.

Almost twitching with excitement, I buried my face in her ass, licking, sucking, and kissing her pussy. I darted my tongue inside of her. I probed with it. My lips pinched and nursed. She tasted like women ought to taste.

I didn't even care what Hunter thought or felt.

Drawing back, I put my fingers inside of her again. Exploring for a moment, I noted the pervasive slickness, and I started in on fucking her with those fingers again. This time I plunged deep, grinding them, before pulling out and plunging again.

Her body took it, let it happen, wanted it. Those fingers went right in, all the way, every time. Even when my fingers were slightly off target, her lubrication channeled them straight home to her vagina. Right now, I realized, anything coming at her crotch would be guided into her pussy.

"Fuck," I whispered, stopping. "Three fingers."

"Oh, shit," she moaned.

Very gradually, I slid three fingers inside of her. Her body gave the new inhabitant a fresh, slick coating of her juices, and all three sunk deep.

Tight. Hot.

I pulled them out. She gaped for an instant, and then the pink wings folded shut. A honey drip of her fluids slid down the cleft and perched on the hood of her clit. I bent close and sucked on it.

Backing off, I put the trio back inside of her. Has there ever been a pussy, I wondered, so ready for fucking as this one, here, now?

Mesmerized by my diving fingers, I fucked her that way until her cries of pleasure awakened me to the fact that Hunter was having a massive orgasm. I didn't change anything. I was like a machine, and Hunter sang her ecstasy into the mattress, squirming and shuddering.

When she relaxed, I slid my fingers out. Pink of face and chuffing air, she looked back at me and smiled.

I said, "Yeah. Stu-fucking-pendous."

She laughed exhaustedly, relaxing into the pillows.

I stared at her pussy. My fingers absently explored my cock. "Fuck," I muttered. That thing could have served as an Olympic spring diving board. "Hunter?" I called, rising to my knees behind her.

She turned, grinning. "Hmm?"

"If I wanted to fuck you, would you let me?"

Her eyes found the cock in my fist. Her smile vanished. Something like fear replaced it. "Don't," she warned, scuttling out from in front of me. "No."

"Hunter, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to--."

She faced me on her knees. "I'm never going to have sex that way. Never. So, don't ever mention it again. Please."

"Why the fuck not, Hunter? You make it seem like I've made some horrific request of you, and it's not," I calmly pointed out. "Is it so surprising that a guy who fingered and licked your pussy asks you to fuck? Should that be some big, awful fucking shock?"

"No! I just don't want to, okay?"

"Fine, but tell me why. Your reaction is definitely not norm--."

Snapping to her feet on the bed, she hollered, "Because I will never do it! I will never have sex that way! I will never, ever become a mother! I don't care if you wear two or twenty or a hundred and twenty condoms! I will never let there be a cock inside me that way."

I rose to my feet in front of her. "Is this about fucking Nadine?"

"Shut up!" she screamed. "So what if it is? So what if I don't want to become her? Don't I get to choose who I want to be? I will never be like Nadine! Fuck her! I hate that woman! And I will become someone completely new, completely different so that I won't ever have to look in the mirror again and see her!"

Finishing, Hunter marched out of my room in tears.

I followed her.

Hearing my footfalls behind her, she turned to me and screamed, "No! Get away from m--!"

"Enough!" I fucking roared, and it felt like the entire house shook.

Hunter froze. Her eyes gaped in fear, and she crumpled to the ground, crying hysterically.

I darted over. I took her in my arms and held her. "It's okay, Harper. It's okay. You are not her, and you never will be. Everyone who loves you knows this."

She turned and hugged me back, sobbing into my chest.

I caressed her head and held her tightly. I said, "I am so sorry for what you went through. You did not deserve it; you deserved love. You are not a bad person. You never were. You had the terrible misfortune of being the child of a woman with serious problems. It isn't your fault, Harper. It was never your fault."

"She hurt me!" Hunter sobbed angrily.

"She did."

"She--she hated me!"

"You only deserved love."

She cried in my arms for a long time before speaking again. Her voice had softened into hopeless mourning. "I can't be like she is."

"You never were. You are you, Harper."

"When people see me, they see her, and that makes me see her. In pictures, I see her. In the mirror--."

"Look at me, Harper."

She did.

"Do you see my mother or my father?"

Sniffling, she replied, "I don't even know them. How could--?"

"Right. Very few people ever have to know about--about that woman. You can look in the mirror and decide to see you--just you."

"Can I, though?"

"Changing your body is not going to change those old pictures, and even if you burned them all in a fire, the only way you can change what you see in the mirror is to change your mind about what you see there."

"But I can't get her out of my mind," she mourned.

"Then forgive me, but you're letting her win."

Hunter's face rose, and her bloodshot eyes looked into mine with astonishment. She opened her mouth to speak. Then, she closed it.

I nodded, saying, "You're letting her control the decisions you make about who you are. Fuck that. Overthrow the woman. Cast her away."

"How?"

"I don't know," I said, rubbing her back. "But every meaningful moment in life, I think, begins with a decision, Harper. You just decide."

It was then I noticed for the first time that I had been calling her 'Harper.' I wondered if it was because, in her terrible sadness, she seemed more like the kid I knew from before Hunter came along.

She didn't seem to notice or care.

I held her until the crying abated. I helped her up, and she took my hand. "Stay with me now--in my bed?"

I nodded.

"Only not to--," she didn't finish.

I said, "I know. I won't."

"Just to be near me."

I followed her inside. Through the window, the sky outside remained very dark. She led me to her bed, and we climbed in. She scooted her body backward into mine. She took my arm and brought it over her tummy. I pulled her close, and we lay in silence.

She broke it a few minutes later, saying, "You called me 'Harper.'"

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I didn't--it's okay."

Snuggling against me, I kissed the back of her head, and said, "Mention something to you?"

"Yeah?"

"With your body against mine this way--I'm going to get hard again."

She didn't reply.

I added, "Just wanted to mention it because, well, you told me--."

"I don't mind."

"Okay."

"How is it that you're so honest?"

I thought about it and said, "Honesty works."

She laughed for a moment--not ridiculing my response, rather appreciating its simplicity, it seemed. Over the next minute, neither of us spoke, but my cock rose and grew against her little ass like it was victorious.

"Fuck," she murmured.

"What?"

"Your cock."

"It's your fault."

She giggled. In the peace that followed, she asked, "How many people have you slept with?"

"Different women--females--or times I've fucked?"

"Different females."

"One hundred and ninety-nine."

A beat passed before Harper guffawed.

"What?" I asked.

Her laughter ensued. Haltingly, she explained that it surprised her that I kept track--that I knew the exact number. "But, seriously? Is that the number? One hundred ninety-nine?"

"Yes."

"Any males in there?"

"Nope."

"You say that like you're proud," she mentioned.

I laughed. "Maybe I am. I never thought of it that way. But, hey, if it weren't for us heterosexuals, everyone else is just masturbating until there's nobody left."

She chuckled. "Do you know how many times you've had sex?"

"I could guess."

"So guess."

"One thousand four hundred, give or take a hundred or so, but that number probably doesn't include times where we did it more than once. In fact, that's probably more like 'days when I got laid'--one thousand four hundred."

"Do you know how intimidating that is?"

"Why," I asked, "should my sexual experience intimidate you?"

She whispered, "You've slept with one-hundred ninety-nine different females. And I would bet it's safe to say that almost every one of them sucked your cock at least once. So, when I did it to you earlier, I was competing with almost two hundred people."

"Harper, there was no competi--."

"And it was my first time. It's like if I was baking a cake, then I was like some kid using an easy-bake oven and having Gordon fucking Ramsay taste it."

I laughed, and she did, too. Finally, I said, "Maybe some guys compare blowjobs. I don't. The minute a woman puts her mouth on my cock, all I am thinking is that I'm amazed and grateful she's willing to do that."

"Amazed and grateful?" Harper repeated. "Are you saying you've dated people who haven't sucked you off?"

"Sure."

"How many?"

"As a percentage? I'd say ten-fifteen."

"One in ten wouldn't give you head?"

"Didn't give me head, more like," I explained. "Some might have, but we didn't get a chance. A few simply wouldn't."

"Even so, I'm surprised."

"Why?"

"It--." She stopped herself.

"What, Harper?"

"I guess I just always thought it was sort of standard."

"That sucking cock is SOP for heterosexual females?"

"Yes."

"For most, it is, but you were going to say something else--before. What was it?"

"No," she complained. "Don't make me."

"Then forget I asked. No big deal."

Harper sighed. A moment later, she said, "I was going to say that it's fun--blowjobs are fun."

"And I am so glad there are females in the world who think the way you do, Harper. I love when a woman sucks my cock."

"If I had a penis, would you still let me suck on yours?"

I thought about it. "Gosh, I don't know. Have to be there. Maybe because it's you."

"Would you suck on mine?"

"No. Sorry. Just being--."

"--honest. I know," she said. "Why not, though? I'd still be the same person inside if I had a cock."

I shrugged. "Just how I'm made. I don't want another dick anywhere near me. I love pussy. I fuck pussy. I want pussy."

She said nothing to this.

I went on. "And there's another thing, too. Did you have to read Romeo and Juliet ever?

"What? Yeah. Sophomore year."

"Remember the line 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'?"

She nodded.

"So to me that's like saying what we name things doesn't matter to the thing and vice versa, right?--the thing doesn't get changed by the name. See what I mean?"

"Right. I read the play, and I'm not stupid."

"Sorry," I said. "I was lecturing there, wasn't I?"

She nodded.

"Anyways," I said, "it's not true. Shakespeare was wrong."

"How so?" she asked.

"If we called a rose--say--a 'skunkfucker,'" I explained, "then no one is giving it to their sweetheart for Valentine's Day."

Harper didn't respond for two graveyard-silent seconds, and then she burst into laughter.

"What?" I asked.

Haltingly, she giggled, "Skunk--skunkfucker?" Then her uproarious mirth continued.

I let her simmer down, finally adding, "Same thing if your last name was 'Candyass.' If you're Candyass, then I'm sorry, Harper, but I think we can safely rule out politics for you. There'll be no Senator Candyass, President Candyass."

"Yes," she laughed. "Fine. I agree, but what's your point? How does this all relate to letting me give you a blowjob when I have a possible future dick?"

"Point is that what we call a thing matters, the name influences the thing. And it's the same the other way around. If the thing, itself, changes, then it isn't what it was called anymore. It isn't its name."

"Exactly," she said. "Which is why I wanted to be called Hunter. The name changes as the thing it represents changes."

"Right, but those changes--the name and yourself--all amount to a different you. You said you're the same person, but you won't be. Harper--or Hunter--with a penis and balls becomes something else. They will fundamentally change the person you are. How can they not alter you, right? The new material between your legs will send shockwaves throughout your body and your mind. You will not be 'still the same person.'"

She considered this in silence.

I said, "I want Harper. I want Harper's pussy and her tits and her beautiful little ass. Yes. I want her fat, pouty, thick lips to kiss. I want those drop-dead sexy eyes to look at me. I want Harper's incredible mind at work in interesting conversations. I want her honesty and her generous heart. I want to hear her laughter. I don't want another person."

I turned to her, and she was staring at me expectantly.

I pulled her to me, kissing her deeply.

When she pulled back, she whispered, "Harper," as if trying it out again. Then, she asked if Harper could give me a blowjob.

I nodded, rolling onto my back. Harper climbed over my legs, and with aching anticipation on her face, she slowly pulled the bedding down until my cock sprang free.

"Oh, shit," she whispered, grabbing it. Her head sank between my legs, and her lips and tongue sought out my balls hungrily. It was not long before my entire scrotum was awash with her sticky saliva. She finished by alternately sucking each testicle into her mouth and giving them a tender sluicing with her tongue.

Leaving my scrotum behind, she licked the shaft from base to tip, gaping and moaning throughout, before closing her lips over the knob. Her fat lips crawled down the first few inches and lugged back up. Down and up. With a pop, she drew back and muttered, "You don't know how much I love this cock."