Chasing The Last Road To Stockholm

Summer took my arm as we walked back to the hotel.

As we walked, my White Knight spent time pointlessly wondering what she was going to do, and trying to convince me I could allow myself to go a little further without becoming hopelessly ensnared. The logical part of my brain, however, was shouting that as soon as we reached the hotel, I was going to simply pack her bags, shake her by the hand and wish her well with the rest of her life. I had a meeting in the morning, and was due in Nashville the evening of the next day, with a stop of my choice somewhere in between so I could get a taste of the real small-town America. I hoped it wouldn't be Lincolnville. My immediate future was clearly mapped out, and didn't include her on any part of that map -- not even in the margins. I decided that that was what I was going to do -- be tough! Break off whatever this was cleanly and clearly, give her the bags and some money, and say goodbye. Despite how good she smelt, there would be no more allowing her to pull that trig...

"Hungry?" I heard myself ask. What the fuck was wrong with me?

"I could eat," she said.

Cursing myself for my weakness, I checked with reception as to restaurants in the area. Annie-May was off-duty, but the night porter gave us a few recommendations, and suggested we try the restaurant next to the hotel. I ended up eating a really good trout, while Summer went all-in over seven rounds with something called a Mahi-Mahi. After my face must have showed my shock and horror, it turned out not to be dolphin, which is what I thought the waiter had said. Even so, I politely turned down an offer to taste anything called dolphinfish. Summer had no problems tasting my trout, however, and once again I had to rap her on the knuckles in order to stop her trying to snaffle the linguine from under my fish after she had ploughed through hers.

For a large part of the time, I'd watched her eat, fascinated by the unwieldy process of her cutting something with a knife and fork, then putting down the knife, transferring the fork to the other hand to impale a piece of the fish, and then starting the procedure all over again.

When she sat back after demolishing two portions of chocolate cake, to sip daintily at the brandy liqueurs I'd ordered, she raised the question I'd been struggling to pose.

"So, what are we going to do with me now?"

The question was simple and there was no shading in her tone to indicate a preference. Our dinner conversation had stayed strictly away from that, concentrating on the concert. I'd tried to entertain her by sticking two forks into bread rolls to make them dance, in imitation of Charlie Chaplin's famous scene. However, where he'd made it a charming interlude, I managed to flick one clear off the table onto the foot of a passing waitress who, to her credit, didn't turn a hair -- simply picking it up and bringing me a fresh one. She and Summer had giggled all the way through my stumbling, embarrassed apology.

Now we were at the nub of it.

"What do you want to do?" I asked. She knew what I meant.

"You're in charge," she said quietly. "You're the one who kidnapped me and brought me here."

I looked at my watch. "It's too late for you to hit the road at this time of night. I could see if they have a room open here..."

"No! I can't let you keep spending money on me all the time. Shit, I hate owing people for anything."

"Well, I'm not letting you wander the streets alone at this time of night. Maybe a taxi..."

"Again, more money! Stop it! I'll stay with you. You've already booked a room, so it's not going to cost you anything more."

I was a bit startled, and I heard the Knight chuckling in the back of my head. I opened my mouth and then shut it again. She leaned towards me.

"Just to be clear here. There's more chance of me checking myself back into that institute... nuthouse... whatever it was, than climbing into bed with you. You understand? Tell me you understand!"

"Rude, but clear. You weren't invited, so the warning was a little over-the-top. But clear."

"Just as long as we're clear." Despite her words, she seemed a little taken aback at my rebuttal, and lapsed into silence. I couldn't think of anything to say either, and the meal that had started with conversation and laughter, ended in a moody hush. I called for the bill, tipped twenty five percent just to make sure, and held her seat for her as she rose.

The trip back to the room was as quiet as the grave on a day the cemetery was closed and the grave-diggers and mourners had all gone on strike in order to watch England play Germany at football.

Despite my saying I needed to pee, she dived into the bathroom as soon as we got to the room, the lock being pushed across very loudly and the shower starting up once again. I was beginning to regret agreeing to this room-sharing, and then reflected that I hadn't actually agreed at all. I had simply been told what was going to happen. With my background, that didn't settle very well on me. Plus I really needed to pee. It had been a long time since conducting my last stand at the toilet and I'd drunk quite a bit of fluid since then.

"Don't take all night in there," I called. There was no reply. Five minutes later, despite channel surfing once again in an attempt to take my mind off it, my bladder urged me to the bathroom door, where the shower was still happily burbling.

I knocked. Then I knocked again. There was no reply. Another knock was successful only in me being further ignored.

"Oy!" I yelled. "Get out of the fucking shower! I need the loo -- and even you don't need three showers in a day! Despite those horrible, noisome memories."

I kicked the door in frustration.

Five minutes later the door cracked open slightly.

"What do you want?"

I stared at the one eye I could see.

"What do I want? Oh, let me see now, hmm. Access to a loo would be pleasant, a shower I could use would be nice, or just being allowed into my own bathroom! How about that? Unreasonable?"

"I'll be finished in ten minutes."

"No, you won't," I said. "You'll be finished in one minute or you'll be on your arse on the pavement in two. You may be rich bitch in your world, but in mine you're just an impolite, often obnoxious goblin. Get your butt covered up and out of that bathroom. Now!"

The door slammed shut. I started a very loud countdown.

"Fifty-nine ... fifty-eight ... fifty-seven ... "

It went all the way down to three before the door opened and she exited in a mist of steam and exotic scents. She had a towel around her chest, another around her waist and a third on her head as the inevitable turban. She clutched a hand-towel, dabbing at her face and shoulders.

I looked inside. There were two more towels on the floor, sopping wet. And that was the sum total of towels. I was pissed off.

"You used all the towels, and just left them on the floor."

"And...?"

"What am I supposed to use?"

"Ring down for some more."

I stared at her. She sat on the far bed and began to look uncomfortable as the silence drew out.

"What?"

"I just realised. You're not a goblin. That would be unkind to goblins. You've promoted yourself to a hobgoblin -- the worst kind. Solid hobgoblin -- all the way through. Let me guess, you're an only child and have lots of servants. So ... some kind of rich-bitch?"

"What's your problem?"

"You're my problem, hobgoblin!" I spat. "You've been through a tough time, I get it. I don't know the details, but it's been tough on you. And I guess you had some sort of shitty upbringing where you weren't taught to share anything. But I wasn't brought up like that. If I wandered into someone else's house and simply emptied their fridge, or rearranged their furniture for my comfort, or used all their stuff without leaving anything for them, I would have felt my dad's belt across my arse. It's rude! Were you never taught that?"

"It's just towels," she protested. "Call down and ask for more."

"That's not the point," I said. "There are two of us here, and one of us is just thinking about herself, which pisses the other one off. It's called being selfish. So, you ring down and organise more towels while I go and spend an hour in the shower. Then do whatever you want to do."

I pointedly picked up my wallet, passport and car keys, showed them to her and took them with me into the bathroom, locking the door and then peeing with enormous relief, and climbing into the shower with a sigh of satisfaction.

It had been a fucking long day!

In fact, it had been a long year. I soaped myself up, and couldn't help remembering Summer doing the same thing alongside my car. Mr. Happy certainly enjoyed the memory. We shook hands.

Summer faded and was replaced by an image of Phoebe stretched along the back of the sofa, her naked body and glistening vulva open and ready for me to enter her. In my imagination, I paused to gently claw my fingers down her back, making her shiver, her muscled butt quivering with impatient pleasure, but she'd told me in no uncertain terms that she was too wet to wait any more for that long, slow, steady push into her; the swollen outer lips bracketing the inner lips, which were pink and smooth and so wet -- more than ready to guide me straight to her entrance and then accompany me inside. Whenever I drew back, they reappeared to do that duty all over again.

Phoebe faded and Summer returned to push her naked hips high and pull her panties on once again. That memory was locked very firmly in my memory.

Once those panties were in place, her image was replaced by a memory of Alice, a leggy brunette who had drawn me into her life with her tragic, liquid eyes, and into her bed with her remarkably firm tits. A messy blow-job, which was cut short, was replaced by her kneeling between my legs with her tits pressed firmly against and around my cock, her saliva providing more than sufficient lubrication as it slipped and slithered up and down between them. I had cum against her chin, throat and chest, and she had growled very convincingly in pleasure at her success. Of course, that pleasure would only last until she remembered her ex-boyfriend, and she would be drawn back into the cycle of moping and weeping for him. I'd heard that she switched to moping and weeping about me after I left her.

Sad Alice's eyes were replaced by Summer's tits as she drew that crop top down over them, covering all and concealing nothing. I loved that blouse. In turn, those perky little apples were replaced with Dinah's big, beautiful, bouncing babies -- a pair of breasts that should quite rightly be sculpted to be shown in the Louvre. Hers were bigger than Alice's by far, and yet the dark-haired girl had been so much better at using them. Dinah's trick was to use them to attract a guy, find a place that was at least semi-private and then fuck him righteously well. My problem was her doing that trick when we were supposed to be an exclusive couple. Seeing her bent over the stove in the kitchen at a house party we went to while at university was a pleasant sight -- especially as her naked tits flopped back and forth with wild abandon. Most unpleasant was the sight of some guy I'd never seen before ploughing into her from behind, groping those humungous hemispheres whenever he could find the time.

Mr. Happy didn't like that memory, and softened to my touch. We don't like sharing our toys. We don't play well with others, apparently.

Rosalynn was proof of that -- tall, slim and dainty with an air of fragility about her -- and yet a tiger between the sheets. During her time on coke, she had introduced me to the joys of anal sex, which I hadn't really given much consideration to before. Ros' slim body, tanned with no tan lines, stretched out on crisp, clean white sheets, looked like a model from a photographer's studio, or a fine artist's easel. She would look over her shoulder at me, give me a little wink, tell me she was all ready, and then raise her hips. The butt would seem to widen as her vulva came into view, both that and the little pucker so nearby glistening with lubrication. She would wait until I'd squeezed the head of my cock inside her, pause for a long moment, and then slam her hips back, forcing every millimetre of me into her. From then on it was a non-stop rush as she squeezed and massaged me throughout each thrust until both of us would come, shouting and laughing at the pleasure.

Ros would do that for her dealer as well, to pay for the heroin she injected into herself when she found she needed the rush no matter what.

In comparison, Phoebe's mistakes seemed almost mild, until you considered I wasn't married to the others.

Mr. Happy was now Mr. Mournful, so I switched back to memories of Summer. It hadn't been 24 hours, so they were still fresh and bright in my memory.

Those perky nipples that I imagined nibbling upon, the round breasts against my palms, my cheek against her belly, my hands squeezing her butt, my tongue on her cunt and clitoris, a finger cautiously exploring that sweet little puckered exit, my cock in her hands, her mouth, her belly.

An image of her eyes fixed firmly on mine suddenly came to the fore and stayed there, along with the memorised taste of her lips. I was helpless against those, and within moments, my cum baptised the walls of the shower while I panted with heaving lungs at the incredibly powerful orgasm those memories had caused.

I leaned back against the shower wall, my chest heaving.

Fuck me, I was as daft as a brush!

¬¬¬*****¬¬¬

Alphabet woman

(Looking for an Alpha male)

Alpha ray purse

(No beta man just an Alpha on sale)

Alpha Centauri girl

(Gonna fly you to the stars, all the way)

Alpha wave slave

(He'll keep you in chains, all the lonely, long day)

Alpha Beta Games (B. Lake)

¬¬¬*****¬¬¬

ZERO HOUR +20

I came to, the soft buzzing of my phone alerting me that it was time to get up and prepare for my meeting with the record label execs whose offices were nearby. It was just a meet-and-greet, but Lappies reckoned it might open a few doors, and have them consider buying the rights to some of my songs, for bands on their label. What the hell, it couldn't hurt.

I twisted to reach my phone and turn off the alarm, when I realised my other arm was pinned down.

I turned back and was confronted with a mass of red hair that spilled across the adjacent pillow and half my chest. It smelt wonderful.

As quietly and gently as possible I pulled my arm -- which at that moment felt more like a lump of clay that had spun off the potter's wheel, rather than an appendage that was still attached to me -- from beneath her neck. Summer mumbled and muttered and curled up tighter.

As I sat on the bed, I could only stare at her and shake my head. She looked like a normal twelve-year-old, dreaming of things both childlike from her past and a mysterious adult future, not the grown woman who had given me the silent treatment the previous night. When I'd cracked open the bathroom door after sluicing away the sweat, worries, troubles and semen of the day, I'd found a small pile of soft white towels waiting for me. The rest of the room was in darkness. I'd dried off, hung up the towels, searched around by the light of my phone until I found a pair of shorts, then crawled into bed.

"You could at least say thank you," her voice had drifted over from the other bed. "For arranging fresh towels for you."

"Go to sleep, Summer," I kept my tone conversational.

"A thank you isn't a lot to ask for, you know!"

"Go to sleep, Summer."

"Common decency, that's all. I'm just saying."

"Go to sleep, Summer."

"It's not much to expect..."

"Shut the fuck up, Summer." My voice was still carefully neutral.

There had been a noise suspiciously reminiscent of a raspberry, and then a soft giggle.

Sometime during the night she'd moved over to my bed in order to use my arm as a neck rest. The way it felt, at the same time she may very well have pounded it into a shape that was more comfortable for her.

When I got out of bed and looked down at her as she slept, she looked all pink and lovely, and for a moment I had the urge to touch her arm. I shook it off with difficulty and headed for the bathroom. I had to think about the events of the night. Sense and nonsense were once again warring in my head.

Despite the dead arm, and the agonising tingling when it came back to life, I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and then dressed quietly. I wrote a quick note explaining I'd be back in a couple of hours, but to order room service if she got hungry. Heh. If she got hungry?

I headed down to the reception, wished the ever-smiling Annie-May a good morning -- who arranged a taxi for me in return, and left for my meeting.

After all that travelling, in the end it was a bit of a let-down, to be quite honest. I had no clear expectations of what I thought it would be like, but I'd hoped for a little more than a well-carpeted suite of offices, with cubicles of worker bees droning quietly in the background on phones or computers.

The label execs were nice enough and, although they offered tea, we shared a pot of coffee as we went through the little introduction dance of polite chit-chat, and got down to business. I presented them with a show-reel on DVD that Lappies had knocked together for me, and the four of us watched it, as various well-known music stars serenaded, crooned or belted out my songs on various videos they'd produced. The suits were a little more enthusiastic at that point, and I could almost see the little dollar signs circling their heads, like old-time cartoons.

They in turn presented me with one of their DVDs, and we watched many of their stable of singers and bands do pretty much the same thing that mine had. It gave me a good idea of their individual styles and ranges, which meant that I could tailor songs specifically for them, and that was one of the main points in me being there in the first place. All good then.

Finally, we were through, and with promises of keeping each other in mind echoing between us, I made my way back to the hotel, my mind more occupied with Summer and her presence in my bed that morning, than on the pleasant hour or so of business.

What had she indicated by crawling into bed with me?

It wasn't for sex; that was for sure. She was dressed in a tee-shirt -- one of mine, now I came to think of it -- and a pair of loose-fitting jogging pants. I couldn't remember buying those at the mall, but I suppose I must have. There was no way that Debbie would have presented that rather ratty looking item amongst her array of dazzling creations.

Was it for comfort? Warmth? Security? All of those, or some other mysterious reason? Perhaps it was indeed to torment me, and live up to my nickname for her.

I shook my head. How the hell could I know what was going on in the brain of a woman I'd met less than twenty-four hours earlier? Or any woman if it came to that? I wasn't stupid, but when it came to women, I was thicker than two short planks. My Knight simply threw me into the fray willy-nilly. It certainly didn't provide any great insights, or anything else I could usefully wield in my fight to save the princess in the tower.

I flashed back to Phoebe at school. She hadn't been damaged. So why...

It suddenly came to me. Other kids sat with her at school, but they always approached her in a group, not on their own.

My mouth actually dropped open.

They were afraid of her -- too afraid to be alone with her to face that incredible temper if they did or said the wrong thing. That's why she was always either alone or in a group -- and why she had no real close friends.