Vanishing Laura

"Now, isn't that a honey?"

"Yep, a classic Corvette. Ridin' in style," Reba said. This was her two-hour shift in running foot patrol down the mid-island section of Delaware's Fenwick Island, south on the Coastal Highway, and then over to Bunting on the ocean side to come back up. She always stopped here at Fenwick Gifts in the middle of her rounds to share a cuppa with the shop's owner, CeCe Collins. Being able to take her time and being encouraged to stop and converse with the local merchants were the only perks the policewoman was able to enjoy of the community council's decision to get the cops out of their patrol cars and on foot on the street. Reba, short, muscular, mannish, and bitter-chocolate black, stopped here for CeCe, not the coffee. Not that CeCe was responding with more than her usual smooth friendship and the glowing smile she blessed everyone with who came by her shop.

"I was referring to the hunk who unfolded himself from that sports car and is entering the Island Diner," CeCe said, with a tinkling laugh.

Reba liked CeCe's laugh. She liked everything about the voluptuous, late fortyish woman with the curly and flowing auburn hair and a style that allowed her to bring off hoop earrings and spike heels. But Reba also had known that CeCe was speaking of the hunk, a cowboy in the city, complete with checkered cotton shirt covering a lanky, yet muscular, torso, worn jeans, and cowboy boots. Reba gauged him to be maybe in his mid thirties, carrying himself confidently, and, despite the Western garb, reeking of New York City money. Coming south for a quieter beach, no doubt. A writer or something?

"OK, you're right," Reba said, with a sigh. "He's one hunk all right. I think he's rented that two-bedroom ocean-front bungalow back of us on Bunting. The one that's holding out against those condos eating up the waterfront on either side. If so, he's well heeled. That house goes for nearly two thousand a week. That's where he's living unless there are two silver, late-sixties Corvette convertibles being parked on Bunting. I saw that car in front of the bungalow on my last pass on foot. A little young for you, though, isn't he?" Reba tried not to make her voice sound hopeful.

"I like them younger. I'd like any man that good looking between my thighs at the moment. It's been a long, dry spell—at least for what I like. Fact is, that he's already been in shop, so I've already met him. Nice baritone voice to go along with the rest of the package. A little arrogant—well, more than a little—but he gives the impression he can back up what he promises."

"He promise you something, did he? You turn a flirt on him when he came in?"

"I tried putting on a little charm, yes."

"He buy it?"

"I think so. I sure hope so. He engaged in a bit of innuendo, which, of course, I pretended not to understand."

"He buy something?" Reba liked to sleuth the people who came into her town, but she also wanted to get CeCe off the subject of men—and of a man that hunky, in particular. That wasn't a subject that interested Reba, and she didn't like to think that it should interest CeCe either. Maybe knowing what this dude was interested in buying would provide a key to him—a good reason to dismiss him.

"More like selling. He's an artist. Cal du Pont. Said he makes furniture mostly, but he brought some matted charcoal drawings to show me. He's very good. I took some on consignment and they're up on the wall. Gave me the shudders, he did. I've been thinking of him a lot since he came in."

Reba would have liked to do something to make CeCe think of her a lot too, but the competition here deflated her. She'd seen the newly added charcoal drawings in the shop. Nudes. And quite sensual. She wasn't winning any battles of attracting CeCe's attention here.

"Du Pont? In Delaware? With a name like that—"

"I know. It must be a sin to be that luscious looking and have a name like Du Pont too—he's probably rich as Midas. He certainly carries himself like he owns the world. And, as you say, if he's living in a separate bungalow on the beach, he's paying top dollar in rental."

Reba opened her mouth to say something, but just then a car had pulled up in front of the shop and a fine-looking young woman with strawberry blonde hair was leaning over to the passenger window and gesturing.

She thought it probably was someone just passing through Fenwick Island and looking for directions to Rehoboth Beach, which was impossible to miss, as the single highway up the coast led straight into it. But a beautiful young strawberry blonde is a beautiful young strawberry blonde, so Reba moved out toward the car. As she did so, though, she couldn't help but notice the dreamy look on CeCe's face and that she was touching herself intimately as she sat in one of the rockers on the gift store front porch.

Reba had the sinking feeling she'd already lost to this Du Pont dude in the Corvette. She was hating him already.

* * * *

He didn't know what had awakened him. Perhaps it was the stirring of the women lying in bed beside him. Or maybe the music. It wasn't loud, but there was something familiar—disturbing—about it. It seemed to be wafting in from the condo building next door, reaching him because he hadn't shut the sliding glass door to the deck out onto the ocean when he and Gail had come in from watching the sunset on the ocean from the backside. The sun set somewhere behind them as they faced the ocean to the east, but it still gave a spectacular display of color on the water. Cal never tired of watching the changing colors of a sunset on the water. It was this as much as anything that had brought him here to the beach when he had to consider where to escape.

Cal dragged himself out of the bed—Gail had provided quite a workout; early twenties and obviously in the gym a lot—and padded to the open door to slide it shut and cut down on the sound. But when he got there, he recognized what the song was and couldn't tear himself away. It was being sung by a woman, with a low, sultry, haunting voice.

" . . . the face in the misty light . . ." interrupted by the sound of a large wave surging on the beach and then returning. ". . . The laugh that floats on a summer night. That you can never quite recall . . ."

He began to sweat, but he couldn't pull himself away from the open door. He let his eyes sweep the tide line and that's when he saw her, walking the surf line slowly, from south to north. The sweep of her hair—strawberry blonde, he could tell in the security lights beaming from the condo buildings on either side of his bungalow—her walk, the curve of her hips and belly, the smudge on her left breast where he knew a tattoo to be. It was her. Walking the beach at night in the nude. It couldn't be. But it was.

Laura.

"Cal? Come back to bed."

"In a minute," Cal said, turning his face back to the interior of the bungalow. He quickly looked back at the beach, but she—Laura—was gone. She could never have been there in the first place, of course. And now she had vanished. He looked south down the beach over the beach supplies storage bin of the condo next door and then back north. She had been walking the surf line—slowly—in the nude. She still should be there. But she wasn't. But that was because she no longer existed in this world.

"Cal?"

"Yes, yes, I'm coming." He slid the glass doors shut—the music had stopped anyway—and padded back to the bed.

He was angry—and confused and frightened—and he took the anger out on Gail, the waitress from the Island Diner, as he attacked her body with his. Gail at least initially liked him angry, as he buried his face in her muff, spread her labia with his tongue, rubbed her clit with his nose, and feasted on her, letting his tongue travel down to her ass as well. With a laugh that turned into a growl and then a deep moan, she clutched at the hair on his head with her fists, threw a leg over his shoulder and wrapped it behind his neck to keep his head close in between her thighs, and arched her back. Cal relentlessly worked between her folds, his hands going to her breasts and kneading and squeezing them and thumbing her nipples hard as Gail exploded again and again for him.

He rolled her over and rose up to cover her from behind, burying his face up under her chin, grabbing her hips and raising her pelvis to him.

"Oh god, oh shit," she cried out. "I don't think . . . not that . . . oh, fuck! Oh god, Cal!" Whatever came after that was muffled, as he clamped a hand over her mouth and nose, making just catching her breath priority over the sensation of his thick dick working its way into her ass passage and fingers burying themselves up into her vagina.

It was a chore getting inside her, but this was why he liked it. He could tell her other passage was slack, well used. He craved tightness, the feel of grudgingly yielding walls. She obviously was a virgin to be taken this way, gasping and writhing in his strong grip and the controlling of her breathing, taking his time to coax the walls of her channel to give in, soften and expand, reluctantly but inevitably, to his sinking, throbbing thickness. But give in they did. By the time he was all in, she had lost the will to struggle and lay there whimpering, as, nailing her to the bed with just his shaft, he loosened the pressure on her face, raised up on his knees between her thighs and inert body, his hands going to tweaking his own nipples, and began to slow pump her—before increasing the speed, stepping up the rhythm. Pounding her ass hard.

She felt him stiffen, jerk, and come in the bulb of the condom deep in her ass. She assumed he'd withdraw then, but he didn't, staying inside her, both of them focused on his dick going flaccid, long and thick enough to fill her in that channel even when soft.

"That was nice," he whispered in her ear, as he lowered his chest onto her back. "I know you want it up the cunt, though. And you'll get it there in just a few."

Already spent, she lay there, turned onto her back, her eyes pleading and slitted, mouth slack, and moaning in a deep alto when he came up off his knees, hovered over her, split the folds of her labia with a thick, hard dick, and fucked her deep and fast. His hands went to her throat, his thumbs digging in under her chin, forcing her head to bend back, her eyes to bulge, and a low gurgling sound to come up deep from inside her, as with a thrust and shudder, he filled the bulb of another Trojan Magnum and Gail gave him one more jerky explosion.

He had come straight to her station at the counter of the Island Diner that afternoon when he'd entered, pausing only briefly to get the lay of the land. Gail, a carrot-top redhead was behind the long luncheon counter. Young—early twenties—perky and slightly punky, with a lip ring; focusing on Cal immediately when he entered and showing her interest; on the skinny side, with fried-egg breasts; but athletic looking, her slim build set off crisply by the starched uniform. The other waitress, Phyllis, evidently working all of the tables alone, was older and looked slightly harried. Her black hair was done up in a bun. She would have cleaned up well enough, but once Cal focused on that carrot-colored hair, he made a beeline for the seats at the counter.

She had straightened up from where she was down on her elbows in front of a guy sitting at the counter when she'd seen Cal at the door to the diner and watched him coming toward her. Cal could tell, from long experience, that he could have her if he wanted her just from the change of expression from what she'd been giving the other man she was addressing as Frank and then gave him. A long mating dance obviously wasn't required.

The guy at the counter—Frank—had been paying his bill and stood after he and Gail exchanged a couple of words and brushed past Cal on his way to the door. He saw Cal, of course, but didn't make eye contact with him. He hadn't missed Gail's change in interest. Cal took a stool next to the one that had been vacated.

"New here, hon?" Gail asked. leaning over the counter and giving Cal a pretty good look down the cleavage of her uniform. She was wearing a red, lacy, uplift bra—not that she had much to lift up. In Cal's experience, red bras were worn as a "yes" signal for men, not because the woman loved them all that much. Whenever he'd cupped a pair of tits in a red bra on a woman, he'd known he could have his dick inside her in less than ten minutes.

"New to Fenwick Island, but loads of useful experience," he answered.

"I wouldn't bet against that," she said. "Need time with the menu?" She asked this as, assuming correctly on his wants, she poured him a cup of coffee.

"No, I'm a fast shopper."

"That certainly is good to know," Gail answered. She took his order.

When she came back with his meal, he smiled and said, "Thanks, little darlin'. You give good service."

"I'm known for that, yes," she said with a returning smile and a steady look. He reached for her hand after she'd set the plate down and was rewarded with a little shudder that both of them were aware of. Both of them knew what they were talking about here.

"Yep, new here and just getting settled in. I give good fuck too," he said, retaining her hand. Although she gave a little jerk, she didn't pull the hand back.

"My, my, you're sure of yourself, ain't you? A real fast talker."

"I give it fast and deep. When do you get away from here?"

"I get away from here when someone says he'll take me to New York City, sugar. I've always wanted to go to New York. So close and yet so far."

"I can take you to heaven. That's north of New York."

"Funny, the guy who left when you came in said somethin' like that too—that he wanted to take me somewhere north of New York, Boston to be exact—but he didn't put it as eloquently as that." She gave another shudder and a smile as she pulled her hand from his grip. When she came back with the bill, though, all she said was, "Four o'clock. I get off at four."

"You going to let me take you home with me, little darlin'?"

"There ain't nothin' on my social calendar after four."

Once having Gail back in his bungalow on the ocean, Cal was delighted to find that she was a natural carrot top or at least did a complete dye job of it. He was obsessed with redheads of all shades. Gail was delighted to find that he was an expert in what to do with labia, a clit, and a vagina with lips, teeth, fingers, and dick. Not so much what he did with an ass, but he hadn't asked her opinion of that.

He spent the evening ravishing her on his bed overlooking the ocean through sliding-glass doors, and Gail enjoyed being ravished as she'd never been before. He was insatiable and fast loading and she was yielding to this handsome, forceful urban cowboy with the big dick. Most of it was good at the time.

She was sitting just inside the sliding-glass windows of the dining end of the living room space when Cal came out of the bedroom the next morning, toweling his head off from the shower he'd just taken, clad only in nothing at all. He moved comfortably in the nude. Of course, everything he had going for him in that department, as far as Gail was concerned, backed up his right to be proud.

He stopped when he hit the door from the bedroom into the living room and took the view of her in. As naked as he was, she was perched, more than seated, on a breakfast chair, one leg curled under her buttocks and the other leg bent, with an arm wrapped around that and holding an apple she'd found in the refrigerator and had taken a couple of bites out of.

"Stay just like that," he said, noting that he was struck by the play of the morning light reflecting off the sand of the beach and back into the bungalow's dining space. "I'll be back in a minute."

When he returned, it was with a light blue silk jacket, which he draped around her shoulders—not hiding her nakedness, but giving more texture and color to her pose. He stood back; moved a bit from one side to the other as, looking amused, she held her pose.

Eventually, he said, "I want to draw you that way."

"You drew all of these nudes on the walls and bunched up over there behind that chair?" Gail's voice was laced with surprise and awe—and sudden recognition.

"Yes, darlin', I drew all of those. It's part of what I do. I made that chair you're sitting in too."

"And you fucked all of your models?"

"Yes, darlin', I fuck all of my models. They don't model for me until I've fucked them."

"Guess you like redheads, huh? They're all redheads."

"Yes, that's why you're here. That and because you're gorgeous. And I want you to hold still like that until I tell you to move, so I can draw you too. What's your last name, by the way?"

"Stanley. But why do you ask? You keep some sort of brag list?"

"Something like that, yes. Your name will be indexed with the drawing."

Late in the night, it was déjà vu all over again when Cal woke to the strains of music coming, presumably, from the condo building next door. He gently moved Gail's arm from across his chest and padded into the living room, through the dining area, and to the open sliding-glass doors out onto the beach. The sex had been mostly good for him the second night, but she'd balked this time at the anal. He didn't like his women to deny him anything he wanted, but he hadn't demanded it of her. It meant, though, that there would be no third night.

Again, the song was being sung in a low, ethereal voice.

". . . Those eyes, how familiar they seem . . ." A wave hitting the beach overtook the song, and then, ". . . but she's only a dream."

"Laura," Cal whispered.

This time the shapely, red-haired nude was walking the surf line from the northern, Rehoboth Beach, end of the sand toward the Ocean City, Maryland, beach to the south. Her walk, the shape of her hips, the flare of her buttocks, the flow of the strawberry blonde hair reflecting highlights from the sunrise, the V trim of her curly bush, the tattoo on her breast, the puffiness of her labia. Laura.

"Laura," he repeated, with vehemence now. He strode to the fireplace in the living area, grabbed up a poker and, naked, slid through the open door and onto the deck.

But, as before, she was gone and the music had stopped. He turned and moved back into the bungalow and over to the fireplace, turning on the track lighting over the fireplace as he did so. He stood there, studying the charcoal drawing of the nude hanging over the fireplace mantel.

At length, a growl rumbled up from his belly, he spat out the name—"Laura"—once more. He had been put on edge, and it made the frustration of Gail denying him what he'd wanted surface. He felt like having anal sex, and, by god, he was going to get anal sex. In anger, gripping the now-forgotten poker hard, he turned and moved back toward the bedroom door.

* * * *

Monday morning was a rush day at the Island Diner, and Phyllis looked like a wreck when Reba walked in. Witnessing Phyllis rather testily tell Jack, one of the two cooks on this shift who had been pulled away from the kitchen every five minutes to try to deal with the customers sitting at the counter, where the hot sauce was kept, Reba tried a smile and said, "Shorthanded today? Where's Gail?"

"Gail is probably somewhere north of New York City, according to Gail," Phyllis countered, unsuccessfully trying on a smile of her own. She knew the local police officer well—intimately, in fact. This just wasn't the day for pleasant chit chat.

"Is there an English translation for that?" Reba asked.

"Gail called Sunday to say she might not make it in on time for her next shift. She said she might be somewhere north of New York this morning. She always was saying she'd go to New York with whatever guy would take her there. She must have found one that would. Leaving us in the lurch here, of course. But that's Gail for you. Easy and flighty."