By late July the seemingly endless days of summer were discernibly shorter and Sean found himself singing Joni Mitchell's URGE FOR GOING. He couldn't remember all the words, only the sad joy or Schadenfreude of a benign season beginning its descent to autumn, but each time he saw the birds in chevron flight he wished he were heading in the same direction, except Petra had moved into his apartment, although they lived together more as brother and sister than lovers.
Their exclusion of the outside world reminded Sean of ENFANTS DU PARADIS with Petra recast in the male lead. She rarely left the apartment other than to shop or gamble at the Spielhalle. Sometimes she would return with a roll of DMs thick as soup can and other times she would have to beg money for groceries.
Worried that she was withdrawing within herself, Sean bought her a stack of his favorite novels in German. She thanked him for the diversion, but only look at the covers before falling asleep for obscene lengths of time. He couldn't say anything, having used the same technique more than once. Sometimes it cured the soul and sometimes it didn’t deter the descent into emptiness. Thankfully the phone never rang and neither of them spoke about their pasts, present, or futures. They slept together very closely, which is always a good determinant of how your lover feels about you, except neither of them ever mentioned the word 'love' nor did they exchanged even the slightest caress.
Their relationship was more like a marriage in which each person had lost interest in the other, though Sean had never been granted the pleasure of knowing Petra and the days began to feel like they were a record skipping its track, although he probably would have been just as bored anywhere else in the world.
Consequentially Sean drank more than he should have and told himself he had a good excuse for the excess. Driving home drunk from the nightclub became a life or death challenge, until Petra took away his keys. This was as close as she came to demonstrating how much she cared for him and he appreciated the meager offering of concern.
Sunday night was usually an off night for Sean, but he had told Jonny he would work for him. One scrap with the police was his limit and his aborting the trips to Geneva meant he would need all the nights he could get to earn enough money to start a new life in Paris. There was little time to waste, for Jonny Werth warned that once school started, the club would lose the students during the week, which would dramatically cut into the profits. Sometimes the only way you can ensure being paid is to pay yourself and Sean began glomming several hundred Marks each busy night. Kurt's stiffing him at the airport left Sean no other choice.
That first Sunday night barely a hundred people came into the club and no more than thirty at one time. Sean sent the staff home early and intended on doing the same once the place had been set up for tomorrow. He counted the receipts from the two bar registers, while the Iranian busboy swept the floors. After stashing the money in the safe, Sean poured himself a Calvados.
He calculated how many nights remained till he could leave Hamburg, then divided them up into hours, then fractioned the numbers into the percentage of his life those days would be. One-thousandth of his existence seemed a small sacrifice, until he considered the purgatorial passage of the days, hours, and minutes.
He was about to reward himself for having worked seven days, when the front door flew inward and slammed against the wall. Both the busboy and he jumped, thinking this might be an armed robbery. Instead a disheveled Kurt Oster entered the club and went straight to the bar, where he poured himself a whiskey and drank it down in one gulp. The German leaned against the bar and asked, "What are you doing?"
"Working."
"I can see that, but you supposed to be in Geneva tomorrow."
"I told you I wasn't going. Don't you remember that." Obviously Kurt had never believed Sean's saying he wouldn't go.
"I have been depending on you for this. You have no idea how important this is to me." Kurt's face tensed up, as if his spine was being twisted like a rubber band, but Sean casually took a sip of his drink before answering, "I'm not going and that's final."
"That money has to be picked up Monday." Kurt exclaimed shrilly, as his fingers fumbled with a pack of matches. He was on a binge and out of touch with everything, but what he imagined to be important.
"Then go yourself." That was the perfect solution to Sean.
Kurt poured himself another drink.
"After all I did for you. You do this."
"I had no choice."
Sean expected to hear the words 'you're fired' next, instead the German downed his drink and poured out four huge lines of cocaine.
"You should slow down, Kurt," cautioned Sean.
"Slow down. For what? I ask you for what? So you can turn your back on me." He slammed the bar and mumbled repeatedly, "I can not believe this."
Working in nightclubs Sean had dealt with enough of emotional breakdowns to recognize Kurt was crumbling over the edge. He waved for the busboy to leave and Sean asked, "What is wrong, Kurt? It's not the trip to Geneva."
Kurt ignored his query and inhaled the cocaine. The German coughed, then sputtered, as the narcotic accelerated a bongo beat through his arterial system. His eyes closed and his jaw clenched tightly, as if they had been wired shut. Suddenly Kurt grabbed his chest. Pain spread across his face like a pond's cracking ice.
"Mein Herz." Kurt muttered before he keeled over.
Sean caught him before he hit the floor and laid him out on a banquette. The German's face was bloodless and his breathing was shallow. Sean was no doctor, but understood that cocaine has a funny way of taking years, if not forever, off your heart. Sean picked up the phone to call 22-8022, the emergency number for a doctor.
Kurt struggled to sit up and said, "No hospitals."
"This isn't the first time this has happened?" Sean felt the stricken man's wrist. His pulse was weak and irregular.
"My doctor has told me to stop drinking, drugs, and smoking." Kurt vainly labored to catch his breath. "Maybe I should listen to him."
"Next time maybe you will."
Watching another person on the brink of death, while you're feeling in good health was an eerie sensation.
Twenty years ago Sean had been swimming at Nantasket Beach outside Boston. The waves were small, but a vicious undercurrent dragged a young boy out over his head. Sean grabbed the boy before he was swept out to sea. All it had taken to save a life was reaching out of his hand. Tonight was no different. He ignored what Kurt had said about no hospitals and dialed the police. After explaining the emergency, they said they would arrive in three minutes.
Sean picked several packets from Kurt's pockets and dumped them in the trash. Hearing a siren, he returned to Kurt, whose skin pallor had shifted to the gray color of old men's underwear.
This would be close.
Sean rapidly explained Kurt's state and the ambulance crew went into action. Both medics lifted him onto a rolling stretcher. While one strapped an oxygen mask onto Kurt's face to facilitate his breathing, the other assured Sean that the club owner would live. "At least for tonight."
The accompanying police asked a few questions, but the medics told them to hold off the interrogation, till the man recovered. They turned their attention to Sean, but he merely said, "Ich weiss' nights."
Before they could demand anything else, Kurt's eyes fluttered open and the stricken man struggled to tell Sean, "Bury me in Paris."
Sean hushed him, saying, "You're not going to die."
"But if I do, make sure they take me to Paris. Pere-Lachaise cemetery," Kurt spat out the instructions with difficulty. "Spread my ashes over Chopin."
"Shut up," Sean said, as the medics strapped Kurt to a stretcher and carried their patient out to the ambulance.
Riding over to hospital at full speed with the siren blaring, Sean reflected on how his evening had switched to gears and told himself, "Never a dull moment."
The hospital was a temple to German order and cleanliness. The police again asked questions. Sean suspected they were stalling for the blonde police officer from the airport to show up, but the two uniformed officers finally returned to their duties after Sean's fifteenth "Ich weiss' nichts."
An hour later a doctor came out and said they were holding Kurt overnight for observation, due to the arrhythmic beating of his heart and advised Sean to go home to sleep. Having seen what came of disregarding sound medical advice, he left the hospital.
Ten minutes later he was back at the apartment in Mittelweg. Petra lay in bed, faking being asleep. As he took off his clothes, she said, "You're later than normal.
The accusation in her voice intoned that she suspected he had been with another woman. A woman being jealous was a novelty for Sean, so he told her what happened to Kurt. She did not seem surprised and said, "He should take better care of himself. You must be tired, but take a shower first. You smell like an ashtray."
He was too exhausted to argue.
When Sean returned to the bedroom, the dawn was lightening the eastern sky. He climbed into bed without noticing that Petra had changed the sheets and was now naked. He discovered the latter before the former. She rolled over and drew him closer than they had ever slept before. "Don't ask any questions. I want to feel you next to me. Do you mind?"
"Not at all." Sean tried to kiss her, but she turned her head, so he had to be satisfied with her smell across the separating inch of frustration. Since he fell asleep in seconds, he had to consider himself a happy man.
Several hours later Petra rolled out of the bed and put on her coat. She studied the man under the covers. He was breathing peacefully and his hair was sticking up on one side. She bent over to smooth it down, and he responded by turning over on his side. She stepped back and covered her mouth.
This was supposed to be a job, her sleeping with him, even without the sex, but she had got much closer to the American in the last weeks than she ever could have imagined that first day they met and she could not put her finger on why she should feel any emotion for this man.
Maybe they were more similar than she could admit and she was scared for him, for no matter how friendly Kurt Oster seemed on the surface, Petra had seen first-hand how treacherous the club owner could become should anyone cross him. She contemplated warning him about what Kurt had in store for him, except she was just as ignorant of the future as he was.
The mumbling on the American's lips and the flutter of his eyelids informed Petra that he was entering a deep dream state. She wondered about what, then cursed herself for even caring. She left without shutting the door, hoping the feeling in her heart would go away. She would not be so unfortunate.
Sean rolled from side to side, as the dream world gathered strength.
In a bedroom he finished making love to a woman. Sirens again. The woman got out of bed and dressed in a uniform. That of an Air Force officer. She apologized, saying she had to go. He watched her drive off and soon B-52s filled the air over the plains, their jets drowning out the sirens, until the planes vanished into the overcast. The wind blew across the high prairie grass. He was calm, until the first mushroom cloud pocked the horizon to be succeeded by an ever-closer series of holocaust flowers towering over the plain. He smelled the searing heat before the white flash incinerated him.
The bells of St. Johannis ringing out the noon hour woke Sean with a start. His hands shook with fright. That was the third time he had died in a dream. Being superstitious, he called out to Petra. If he told her the dream, then they wouldn't come true.
She did not answer and her side of the bed was cool. She was gone and he leaned over to breathe in her scent. A fragrance close to apples and hickory smoke. The telephone ringing disrupted his reverie and Sean thought about ignoring it, then picked up the phone, asking, "Who is it?"
"Boy, you're in a good mood." His sister's voice came across without any transatlantic static.
"I had a rough night. Where are you?"
"I'm in Frankfurt, sitting in a hotel. I have to take a deposition from an Army colonel on Monday." Anne Coll had been working as a lawyer for the Defense Department, ever since graduating from Law School.
"You want me to fly down for a visit?" Sean asked without any enthusiasm, since he was in no condition to see family.
"No, I'll be too busy. I called, because a friend of mine from the Justice Department showed me a file about a FBI investigation in New York. You worked at a place called the International, right?"
The mention of the nightclub in front of which Johnny Fats had been killed woke him up for good.
"Yeah, I did."
This is against policy, but your name is mentioned often in this report. People have been arrested recently. Police too." His sister discreetly omitted any accusations of his guilt.
"I did nothing wrong."
"Do me a favor and never say that in a court of law. Nothing sounds more guilty to a judge."
"What should I do?"
"Stay out of the States for six months. I won't tell Mom about this."
"Thanks, I appreciate that." He mentally saw Johnny Fats' body in the snow and Victor Malensky's execution as clearly as if it were on the television.
" Sean, try and stay out of trouble." His sister's voice sounded smaller.
"I will." He told her he loved her and hung up.
Sean went out on the terrace. Clouds etched across the boreal blue sky were reminiscent of Maine. He turned to his left. One of the working girls on next terrace was servicing a naked fat man. It wasn't a pretty sight, so Sean retreated inside.
He left his apartment in time to see another man exit with the other girl. She smiled at her neighbor, but the man was flustered to have been caught at the call girls' flat. Sean smiled back, then used the stairs to leave the building.
He was hungry, but not up to sitting down with the bright smiling people in the cafes, so he wandered across Mittelweg to the Imbiss stand on the corner of St. Johannis. He ordered a plate a Bratwurst and French fries, then leaned against the counter, as the thick-armed cook sizzled up the long sausage.
Weariness swirled over him.
For all intent purposes he was sleepwalking, except in a dream he would have been meeting a woman, the only woman he could think about, however she wasn't there. One more month in Germany. He could make one more month in Hamburg, but only just.
Once he finished eating, he paid for his meal and crossed the street, wondering where he should go. He had seen everything in Hamburg there was to see, so he decided to visit Kurt, since the hospital was only across the lake and he would have liked visitors, if he were sitting alone sick.
He went to the Alstersee. The small sailboats glided across the water, their bright spinnakers filled by a strengthening wind carrying a soft summer fragrance across the lake's ruffled surface. A pair of swans rose from the water and took flight. Mothers gathered their children for their families' Sunday picnics. He could have had three or four children by now, but he was childless as far as he knew. Everyone told him it was never too late, but he didn't feel like that this afternoon.
The ferry took him from Fahrdamm to Uhlenhorster. The hospital off Auguststrasse was only several minutes away by foot. The reception desk informed him Kurt Oster was located on the sixth floor. Sean rode the elevator with two strapping orderlies, who appeared more apt at securing an insane person with a straight jacket than dispensing TLC.
As with all people who are healthy, Sean had a strong aversion to hospitals and he blamed that on the smell greeting him on the sixth floor. No matter how much anyone cleaned, the wards retained that aroma of antiseptics, unwashed bodies, decay, and uncollected lunches. As he walked down the corridor, patients scrutinized Sean with all the animosity reserved for those in health.
Kurt was in a private room.
His eyes were covered by sunglasses and his reddish hair was greased back. A newspaper lay unopened on his lap and he wore a terrycloth robe, reminding Sean of Joseph Cotton in the solarium scene from CITIZEN KANE. The German smiled upon seeing Sean, "My boy, at last a friendly face and thank you for last night."
"You don't have to thank me." Sean surveyed at the battery of machines surrounding the bed. The one with the red LCD monitored Kurt's heart rate and its numbers fluctuated between 110 and 112. Sean's heartbeat normally ticked at 70.
"No, last night was close. The doctors said that if I had gone home, then I would have been in the morgue, instead of a hospital," Kurt stated with all the solemnity of having survived a near-death experience. He rests his head on the pillow, for all his energy had been drained from the effort of speaking. "Now I have to change my life. Next time could be the last time. I really owe you my life."
"I told you me that already." Sean told Kurt, "All I did was make a telephone call."
"Yes, but in this city many people would have let me die."
The German labored to breathe and the red numbers climbed to 115.
"You come from the middle-class. I grew up with no manners, no education, and no father. You knew your father, right?
"Yes, but I thought I was adopted," Sean joked to lighten up the mood.
"All you bourgeoisie think that when your family is not as rich as the people next door." The number on the machine dropped with the German's icy envy and Kurt continued, "My father deserted us after the War. My mother remarried to a butcher. A man with no class and no skill other than for tearing apart animals. We lived by the river, the Hafenstrasse, my friends were the children of whores from the Reeperbahn. Our heroes were pimps. We ran errands for them. That was my education. That and beatings from my stepfather. You can imagine what kind of a beating a butcher can give?"
"No," Sean replied, seeing the reading on the machine descend below 100.
"Drunken beatings with a strap. I would run away and the police would take me right back for another beating. I swore to kill this man, when I got the chance." Kurt's hands tightened their stranglehold on the sheets. "I was fourteen, already tall and strong. The school called up and told my mother that I was causing trouble. We all did."
A plump nurse entered and asked Kurt, "Wie geht's?"
Kurt signaled he was fine and she left to check on her other charges. The reading of his pulse collapsed to 91.
"My mother did not have to tell this man about school, but she did. He raised his fist, but I am ready. I stab him once in the stomach. He screams. I stab him two more times. In and out. My mother screams. He falls to the floor. I can not stay, so I steal all the money in the house and run away."
"Did you kill him?"
"No, he survived and I hitched a ride south through Germany to Switzerland, then to the south of France, settling in Nice. It was a good place for someone like me to be." Kurt hinted at the entire scale of crime available to a young man on the run. "I would go to the beach and pick out my victim. Once they went to the water, I sat and put my towel over their bag. After a few minutes I would stand up with their bag hidden underneath my towel."
"How long did it take, till the police caught you?"
"This was late spring, 1968. All of France was in revolt. The police were too busy to notice a young thief stealing tourists' wallets from the beach."
"So you got away with it?"
"No, I see this bag. No one around. So I do what I always do. When I get up to the promenade, a blonde man in a black suit stops me."
"Was he the police?"
"No, no, he was something else entirely." Kurt paused for a second and took a sip of water, then rested back in the bed. "This mystery man was involved in many fields of crime; forgery, theft of luxury cars, counterfeiting. He told me he had been watching me as had all his friends. When I didn't get caught, he figured I had luck, which he considered sometimes better than talent. I was finished with the small time, because he took me under his wing. For once in my life I learned something worthwhile. He was a sorcerer, knew where to go, when, what to wear, what to say to whom. I considered him my real father."
Kurt stopped and the red numbers on the machine had dropped to normal. The story explained the past, but not the present. Despite all his talk about being legal, his friendship with Cali proved an unwillingness to abandon his criminal dealings.
"So now what?" Sean asked in his role of confessor.
"I will obey the doctors' advice. No drugs, no drink, no smoking, plus a vacation. Total rest. I was thinking of taking a month's holiday in Brazil."
"Brazil?" Sean tried to conceal his disbelief. Kurt's heart wouldn't last a week of the country's notorious debauchery. "You'd be better off at a Swiss spa?"
"They are too boring. I will go to a quiet beach. I would love to take Vanessa, but....." Kurt was unable to finish whatever was behind the 'but'.
"It hasn't really been that long," mumbled Sean mumbled.
"She is playing me for an idiot. I was crazy to fall in love with her." Vanessa's absence getting to Kurt visibly exhibited itself, as the EKG reading climbing to 120. "I went to her house. Knocked on all the doors. What could I have been thinking?"
"You're jumping to conclusions."
Kurt had fallen hard for someone else's wife.
Sean prayed he was never fool enough to try the same thing.
"Until you see her again, you can't be sure how you stand. Has she said she loved you?"
"Yes." The numbers on the display rose to 122.
"Then there's no reason to think that has changed, right?" Sean was completely aware at how fickle the heart can be, but Kurt was in no condition to hear that dire truth. There was no harm in a little lie, in fact it probably did more good than the truth.
"No, I guess you are right." Kurt saw the value of his reasoning and the EKG reading descended to 115. "Listen, I understand why you do not want to go to Geneva, but these next two pick-ups are very critical to the future of my life. Once I get them, I can quit Hamburg and I will taking Vanessa with me."
"That's a big move," Sean commented, for leaving town with another man's wife always is.
"One I have been contemplating for months."
"What about the club?"
"Cali owns the club. I am just the front man."
"Shit." He might as well kiss his bonus money good-bye, because asking Cali for his percentage was different from getting it from Kurt.
"I am sorry, but that's the way it is. You do the trips, you get paid. Two more trips. That is all. I am not trying to put you in jail, but this money will let me start new with Vanessa, otherwise I would not ask this of you."
Sean should have refused Kurt's offer, but he was as big a sucker as the German. His sister's news this morning had reinforced his having to stay away from New York and he could only do that with money in his pocket.
"I'll do it, but if the police stop me, yours is the first name I'm giving up."
"I would not have it any other way." Kurt had no idea exactly why the American changed his mind; his confession of love for Vanessa, his story of his father, last night's close call, but he was grateful for whatever it was. He wasn't half bad a person and Kurt felt guilty that the American might be left holding the bag in two weeks, though he would feel worse, if he called the whole thing off.
After Sean said he could take a later flight to Frankfurt and connect with Geneva, Kurt said, "They will let me out tonight. Murah is out of the country. I will pick you up in Geneva."
"You?"
I will be outside at 8."
"If you say so."
"100%, I'll see you in the morning."
None of this made sense, but nothing had for months.
"Have a good trip. Wir sehen uns im morgen.""
Sean left the room and passed the same group of patients in the corridor. Their mood had visibly worsened and his had sunk to their level. His sister had warned him not to get in trouble, but that was his mission impossible.
The air outside was colder. The wind had picked up and the trees whipped their branches through the air. Sean pulled up his collar and hurried over the ferry station serving the Aussenalster. He caught the next boat and went to the stern. The ferry's wake spread an arc of turbulence on the pond's white-capped surface. The boat rocked from side to side and parents grabbed hold of their children.
Sean remembered the time his Irish grandmother had taken his older brother and him to Nantasket Beach by ferry. A tempest had struck during the passage across Boston Harbor and his grandmother clung onto them, as the clown meant to entertain them slid across the ship's polished floor in his over-sized shoes. As funny as that had been then, the recollection saddened him now. He wished he could be a kid again, but no clicking his heels would get him back to 1958.
From the Fahrdamm stop, Sean wandered away from the pond. At the far side of the park a Porsche convertible rolled up. Petra put down her mobile car phone and asked, "Where are you going?"
"Home, then to Geneva," Sean answered truthfully.
"So you changed your mind again." Petra said without any condemnation and motioned for him to get in the car.
She was dressed in a plain white cotton shift. Her black hair had grown out to cover her face. While she was hardly the essence of purity, a new spirit had recognizably been reborn in Petra. It was an illusion that Sean bought wholly. Once he was in the car, Petra stepped on the gas and the Porsche sped away.
"So you saw Kurt today?" Petra firmly grasped the wheel
Her right profile was to him, so its eye socket flattened into the cheek and the upper lid sagged down.
"Yes, he will live."
"Only if he is careful." Petra pulled a strand of hair to mask her face. She had brandished her scars as a symbol of her long-awaited revenge, but lately had found herself paying special attention to her make-up.
"Kurt is going to Brazil for rest," Sean informed her.
"With Vanessa, yes?" She turned the car onto Milchstrasse.
"I keep forgetting what a small town this is." Sean thought about how nice being somewhere tropical would be and asked, "Why don't we go on vacation?"
"Where?" Her revenge, which had been everything to her, paled beside the idea of being happy.
"I want to go somewhere warm, exotic, and for a long time."
Petra had plenty of whore friends, who set off around the globe for years to purge their previous lives. "Wouldn't you get bored?"
"Bored. I'd love to be bored. I've had enough excitement to last me a lifetime. Being bored on a beach sounds like paradise to me."
"What about India, my friends told me about a place on the Kerala Coast."
"Wherever you want. I'm ready to go in two weeks. Just pack. We can continue, as we have been. No pressure. Just friends," Sean lied, for he had enough friends to last him the rest of his life, but no one to love.
Petra had used up all her restraint and would no longer be denied by his delusion that she simply wanted a platonic relationship with him. At the next red light, she leaned over and kissed him on the lips, catching Sean off-guard both with the kiss' unexpectedness as well as its intensity. When the light changed, the car behind them beeped their horn as much for the romantic display as the delay in traffic.
"I shouldn't say this, but I love you," he confessed boyishly.
"More than a few men have said the same, Sean and meant something else what they said. What exactly do you mean?" The Porsche stopped by the curb before his building. Petra made no move to get out. She wanted his answer first.
He wished his daydreams about such a moment had better prepared him for his response. He stared into both her eyes, "No, I wanted to smell you, to feel your warmth without reaching out."
"You mean like this." Petra leaned across the car, the fragile spoor of her fragrance wafting across the console.
"No, more like this." Sean pulled her close and kissed her again. He had kissed hundreds of girls and women, but nothing makes you forget the heartache of an old love faster than the first kiss from a new love.
She backed away, her cheeks flush, then took his hand in hers. He stroked the fine fur at the back of her neck. The third kiss lasted, till he ran out of breath. Vanessa nuzzled his neck like a stray cat seeking a new home. Every romantic song he had ever heard was playing simultaneously in his head. Sean regained his breath and asked, "Are you sure about this?"
"Get out of the car." Petra ordered and Sean obeyed her command easily. When he reached the sidewalk, Petra drew him close and pressed her body against him. She was not wearing a bra or panties under her dress. All the pedestrians and car drivers were watching them. Neither of them could have cared less.
Petra dragged him past two businessmen on their way upstairs to the other side of the terrace. They tried to get into the elevator with the couple, but Sean pushed them back, saying, "Nicht mit uns."
Inside the elevator Petra lifted her dress, revealing moon-white thighs above the gartered sheer silk stockings. Her hand dipped below her waist and rubbed the downy brown hair between her legs, then Petra arched her neck back, inviting him to strangle her.
Petra had been celibate the last year and her body tingled with anticipation. His hands encircled her throat, the thumbs pressing on her larynx, inhibiting her breath. When he eased up, Sean tasted her neck with a kiss. They were on new ground and totally unprepared for whatever came their way.
Sean pulled the brunette inside the apartment, then tore at the dress, so the buttons popped onto the wooden floor. Her breasts billowed from her bra, their brown nipples thick as uncut cigars. She was wet, but to prove it, slid a finger between her legs, then rubbed the slick female moisture on Sean's lips. She stuck her finger into his mouth and whispered, "It is too light."
After stripping off his tee-shirt, Sean drew the heavy curtains and plunged the bedroom into dusky shadows, so Petra's white body was an inky female silhouette in the center of the bedroom. Sean's hands separated the rounded cleft of her buttocks, pulling her close, so her breasts flattened against his naked chest. The fabric of time dissolved with a breathless kiss.
Petra fought to not hurry him, as she had the legion of men she had fucked throughout her career as a prostitute. Her eagerness to have him naked ignored her self-imposed inhibition and she expertly unbuckled his belt with a single deft gesture. She unzipped his fly and licked her palm, then encircled his cock with her hand. Her fingers floated up and down the lubricated shaft. Her thumb glided over the hooded head of his penis and spread the slick pre-semen around his meatus.
Sean wanted more and carried her to his bed. She lay supine on the white sheets. He shucked off his jeans and kneeled between her thighs, Petra bent her head down and took him into her mouth. While one hand cupped his balls, the other snaked across his anus. Sean shuddered with delight and threw back his head, as Petra's tongue slithered over the thick vein under his member.
After a second he reciprocated and she sighed with the first lap on his tongue against her swollen labia, then swallowed his cock, till the head lodged deep in her throat. Both hands cupped his testes and her fingernails clawed at the base of his penis. He arched his back, as the cum spurt into her mouth. Petra swallowed the hot gush without gagging, then released his withering cock from her mouth, moaning lasciviously, "Lick me."
She came within minutes, screaming like she was being skinned alive. If it was an act, then he was a good audience and bought a second orgasm as a curtain call.
They lay in a tangle of limbs. Each exchanged tender caresses without speaking, because words were a danger to people so accustomed to silence. Petra lay her head on his thigh and inhaled the musk from his groin. He actually smelled good unlike all the other men and recognized she was in trouble.
Sean Coll had sated the desperate hunger that she had been starving seemingly forever. Maybe it was his not being a 'Freier', but she wanted him again Her lust for him was all so sudden and she hated to think what could have caused it, especially since she had never been in love with anyone.
She told herself to not say those words, because they would change the way they were forever. And her being with him was even worse, for she was breaking one of the first rules of being a whore.
You never fall in love with a customer.
Nothing she could do could change that fate and nothing in her wanted her to either, as she told him what he wanted to hear.
