The Masters Project Book 8: Sabrina

The Masters Project

Book Seven (Sabrina)

by Robert Lubrican

zbookstore.com Edition

Copyright 2010 Robert Lubrican

Second edition 2026

License Notes

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Table of Contents

Foreword

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Epilogue

Afterword

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Foreword

This is the eighth, and final in a series of narratives concerning a research project done by the author for his Master's Program.

In all the other narratives, the story stood more or less alone. It was helpful if you read them in order, but maybe not critical. This one, however, must be read after the others. Just take my word for it. If you don't read the others first, it will be like picking up Lord Of The Rings and starting on the last chapter of the last book.

Not that I'm comparing myself to J.R.R. Tolkien. Far from it. It's just that most people are familiar with his work, and can visualize how important it is to have the beginning clear in your mind before you try to understand what happened in the end.

Bob

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Chapter One

One morning I got a call from Martha, of Fred and Martha, who I had interviewed for my Master's project. They were a couple that fit my hypothesis to a "T", looking so much alike after 30 years of marriage that you would have sworn they were brother and sister, born on the same day. This chapter isn't about them, though. They were a completely normal couple in every way and there was no hanky-panky between them and me.

But Fred and Martha had a neighbor, named Sabrina, and that's who Martha wanted to talk to me about when she called.

"Bob," she said, "I want you to hear me out on this. I know you only have married couples in your study, and Sabrina, bless her heart, is a widow, but we were friends with them for fifteen years before Brad died and they would have been perfect subjects for your study."

"I don't quite understand," I said.

"Well the thing is," said Martha, "If you saw the pictures of them around the house, you'd know they would have been perfect, and even though he's gone, may he rest in peace, I think you should still interview Sabrina. They were together for fifteen years or more, met in High School and married before they even graduated, and the resemblance is eerie."

What was eerie was Fred and Martha's resemblance, but then, these people never think they actually look alike.

"I'm sure she could answer all your questions, even though he's gone. I know you'd only get one side of things, but it might help your study." Martha was really pushing on this. If I'd have thought about it I might have suspected she had an ulterior motive, but she was a nice lady, in a solid marriage, and I didn't think she'd be up to anything. I thought she was actually trying to help. I didn't really think that data from just one partner would be of much use, but I told Martha I'd call Sabrina and see if she was interested.

"Oh she is interested!" said Martha excitedly. "I told her all about your project and how you interviewed Freddy and me. She said it sounds interesting." There was a pause. "I think she still misses him. She looked kind of sad when we talked about your theory."

"How long has he been gone?" I asked.

"I think it's been four or five years now," said Martha, sounding unsure, and a little embarrassed about not being sure. "He was sick for a long time."

"Okay, I'll give her a call. Thanks Martha," I said.

When I hung up she was still saying excited thank-yous and goodbyes.

I should remind you here, that this was more than a year after I had met Ralph and Tanya. I was, at this time in my life, actively involved sexually with Tanya, Lisa, and Gertie, once in a while. All of these women had me in their lives occasionally. Then there were the two most recent women I had become involved with, Micky and Susan, the lesbian couple. And, of course, there was my newly-found sister, Kathy. That mattered. You'll understand why later in this narrative.

Sabrina had one of those cultured voices, with excellent diction and a kind of clipped way of speaking, as if she were in a hurry to say whatever she had to say. But she didn't rush anything, or talk about how busy she was when I called. She just acknowledged that she had gotten interested in my hypothesis and would be happy to help if she could. We set a date for the first interview. I asked her if she could have some photographs available and told her about how long the first interview might take - things like that.

"I have all the time in the world," she said.

Sabrina turned out to be one of those women called 'statuesque'. She was thirty-six, and looked like she might be twenty-five. She had that naturally auburn hair that has red highlights in it when the light hits it just right and looks as shiny as the hair they show you on TV when they're trying to get all those twenty-somethings to buy Pantene or whatever. It hung straight and loose just past her shoulder blades. She had high, arching eyebrows that gave her a slightly inquisitive appearance, and high, prominent cheekbones that pulled the corners of her lips in a way that made her look like she was always about to smile. Her dark blue eyes, with gold flecks in them made you feel like she could see right into your brain. She was tall, over six feet, and had a classic hourglass figure. She met me in a silk blouse and those pants women wear that only go to their calves. She had what I call 'bullet breasts'. If you've ever seen the front bumper of a '56 Buick, you know what I'm talking about. They practically exploded off her chest, firm and looking like they were rock hard. These days that suggests those breasts are supported by a healthy dose of silicone, but breast augmentation was very rare back then. Her breasts were so firm looking I half expected a woodpecker to land on them any minute and begin searching for supper.

They affected the other kind of pecker too - the kind I had - a "woody-pecker". You know ... the kind that craves milk and gives cream? I have to admit I thought about supper too when I saw them stretching that lovely silk ten or so inches away from the rest of her body. I was already sure she didn't play golf. She couldn't address the ball ... because she couldn't see the ball.

In short, she was the perfect image of an Amazon warrior princess who had been brought to America and had tried to fit in with her drab surroundings. Just about any surroundings would seem drab when Sabrina was in the middle of them.

I closed my mouth, which I'm sure had been hanging open, and followed her into the living room. She settled gracefully into an easy chair, and I more or less collapsed into another, being a little weak in the knees because of this woman's impact. She crossed her legs with that fluid movement women can do that makes the moving leg look like it's floating.

I left my clipboard in my lap, for obvious reasons. This woman just screamed to make some lucky man's life incredibly interesting and happy and tiring. I couldn't believe she was alone. I doodled "Drop dead gorgeous" on my list of questions where it called for a basic physical description of the wife.

"So ..." she said.

Well, she didn't need to be a talker with looks like that. I could happily sit there for hours listening to her not talk.

"Oh! ... um ... yes!" I managed. I fumbled with my clipboard and almost picked it up off my lap. I didn't notice it then, but later on she'd tell me that my clipboard was sitting there at a slant, one edge of it being lifted off my lap three inches by what was obviously an erection underneath it. She was used to that, though.

I explained everything to her and she reached for a stack of picture frames on a coffee table between us. When she leaned forward, the cleavage she showed, while not all that much, looked like the Grand Canyon to me. I tore my eyes off that dark valley and looked at the picture she showed me of herself and Brad.

If she was the Amazon princess, he was the barbarian prince. He had been two inches taller than she, built like the rest of that Buick I was talking about earlier, and so handsome even I thought he was gorgeous. He had the same arching eyebrows and high cheekbones, though on him it made him look rugged. His hair was darker than hers, and browner, but his eyes had that same dark blue look to them as hers did. You couldn't tell in the pictures about the little golden flecks that just mesmerized me whenever I looked into hers.

Their pictures started in High School, with a photo of them ready for the junior prom, and you could see the resemblance between them, even back then. A series of later pictures, some of them taken by amateurs and some in a studio, confirmed that they kept looking alike as they spent the next seventeen years together. It turned out he'd only been gone for two years.

I started asking the normal questions.

She was attracted to him because she played volleyball and he played basketball. She called it love at first sight. Everyone had tried to keep them apart when it became obvious how serious they were about each other. Sabrina handled that little problem with the simple threat to get pregnant, if their parents didn't allow them to get married. She had to agree not to get pregnant after they got married, at least not until they graduated, which she was actually in complete agreement with.

They had lived with her parents until they graduated; he had worked for her father right out of high school; they had bought the house with help from both sets of parents, and had lived in it the rest of their married life. She didn't have to work because of his life insurance policy. He had testicular cancer, undiagnosed until it was too late, and which had caused them to be childless long past graduation. They had stayed active, running together every day - she still ran at least three miles a day - had lots of friends and were gloriously happy.

Until, of course, he died.

Since then she had spent vast amounts of time being a volunteer. She volunteered at school, at the library, at the local food bank, at the Red Cross, and for no less than three different churches. She had organized and run the local Crop Walk for two years. She helped sort through donations at the Salvation Army thrift store twice a week. It made me tired just listening to her describe it all.

She didn't fit in with all their friends anymore. They all felt awkward around her now. I mentioned what I had been told about the threat that divorced women are perceived to be and she nodded, saying that widows are perceived the same way. Several of her friends had tried to set her up on dates, but it hadn't worked out. She told me quite candidly that she either intimidated them, or they were vapid and uninteresting. She was thinking about going to college with an elementary education major and then teaching school.

My list of questions stared up at me accusingly. I had only asked the first five or six, and the rest of them felt neglected I guess. But I didn't think it was needed, or even appropriate, maybe, to ask the rest of them. Still, I didn't want to leave. I had only been in this woman's presence for forty-five minutes.

"I don't know if I should ask you the rest of the questions or not," I said.

"Why not?" she asked, sitting there regally, like a princess.

"They're kind of personal," I said.

"Do you ask everyone else these questions?"

"Well ... yes."

"Then ask." She really was a woman of few words.

I swallowed. "Um ... okay ... what was Brad's best sexual feature?"

She looked at me. "My, my, these are personal questions, aren't they?" Her eyes never wavered. "Are you going to ask what he thought my best sexual feature was too?"

My face felt hot. I nodded.

The princess in her might have been mildly offended by the personal nature of the questions, but the warrior in her loved danger.

"Brad had a chest and shoulders that made me weak-kneed every single time I saw them, whether they were covered by clothing or not," she said, her voice neutral. "I wanted to sleep on his chest, like it was a bed."

I scribbled on the paper.

"My best feature?" she put one sculptured fingernail to her chin. "I'd say that if he were here, he'd be trying to get his hands on Bernice and Rhonda even while you were here asking us questions."

I looked up, confused, and found her holding those magnificent breasts, one in each hand. Well each had a hand under it. Her hands couldn't actually hold them. Imagine a basketball player holding a basketball with one hand. That's sort of what it would have looked like if she had tried to 'hold' her breast. And she had warrior princess hands to go with the rest of her too.

"Bernice ... and Rhonda?" I babbled.

She looked down at them and that hint of a smile turned into a real one.

"He named them," she said. "I thought it was the silliest thing. I mean they're just breasts. Every woman has them."

I didn't know what to say. I was speechless. She had to know that she had a chest a lot of women would later pay thousands to reproduce. I began to think maybe she was fishing for a compliment. Then I thought that was unlikely. Compliments probably schooled around this woman like those tightly balled up masses of fish you see on the nature channel, swimming in blue waters above some reef.

Still, on the off chance that she was looking for a man to appreciate her, I ventured a token compliment.

"Well, as a man, I understand perfectly why he might feel the need to pay homage to ..."

I faltered. I couldn't say 'a set of knockers that leave me breathless.' This compliment was getting too personal.

"uh ... Bernice and Rhonda," I finished lamely.

She looked up at me, still holding her breasts. "Men do seem to notice them a lot," she said.

Talk about your understatement of the century. My babbling 'compliment' hadn't fazed her.

"How many boys did you date before you met Brad?" I asked on impulse.

"None," she said. "I wasn't allowed to date. But our parents knew each other from their bridge club. His mom asked my mom if he could take me out for ice cream and my mom said it was okay." She smiled, having already told me about the furor their relationship had caused in their families. "As I said, they wanted to change their minds later."

"And since he ... left?" I asked.

"Just those two times I told you about. One was for a dinner date, and the other was to a movie."

I realized this woman didn't actually know much about men. From the time she was seventeen to the present day she had only been around one man enough to really get to know him. I could also see that, by comparison to that man, the rest of us were left looking a little pekid.

I looked at my next question. It was about whether she masturbated or not. I couldn't ask it. 'What turns you on' was after that, and I couldn't ask that one either. Asking her if she'd ever cheated on him, or he on her just seemed sacrilegious.

"Well ... um ... I guess that's about it," I said. My voice cracked a little and I had to clear my throat.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, out of the blue.

"I could eat something," I said. I didn't want her to go to any trouble. Actually, I didn't want her to go anywhere.

"I've got some leftovers in the fridge," she said. "Would that be okay? I'm positively starving."

If she looked like this starving, I didn't think I could take it if she got healthy.

"Um ... sure," I said.

I followed her to the kitchen. It was just an automatic impulse. I didn't want to let her out of my sight. She accepted that without any comment and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table for me. I sat down and put my clipboard on the table, since it was no longer needed to cover the fact that I was rock hard. She went to the fridge and opened it, bending over to peer inside it. That, of course, put her buttocks on display.

I thought my head would explode.

I looked down at the clipboard out of pure self defense and started searching frantically for some kind of question to ask her.

She pulled several things out and transferred them to the counter. She started putting things in the microwave, or transferring them to plates. Looking over her shoulder she said "There's a bottle of Coke in the fridge, and glasses up there." She nodded her head toward a cabinet. "Would you mind getting those ready? I'm going to just faint if I don't eat soon."

I stood up like springs in my legs had suddenly been released and the table moved an inch as my hardon hit the edge of it. I winced and suppressed a groan, remembering how almost the same thing had happened at Micky and Susan's house the night I had the best birthday present I ever got.

I found myself standing, half bent over, staring at the lump in the front of my pants and wondering if it would look completely stupid if I took my clipboard with me to the fridge to get a bottle of soda. I settled for adjusting things, and then sidled to the fridge like a crab, sideways. As I went to get the glasses she told me there was ice in the freezer, and told me she wanted hers without ice.

"I like my soda like I like my Scotch," she commented, taking something out of the microwave and putting something else in. "I like it chilled and straight."

My opinion of this woman went up even more, if that was possible. I loved Scotch the same way. I couldn't afford it, but I loved it.

She brought plates to the table and set them down about the same time I put two glasses down, filled halfway with ice cubes. She got silverware out of a drawer and handed me a fork and spoon. She sat down and I realized my boner was on display, so I dropped onto my chair. She calmly dumped the ice cubes from her glass into mine, but didn't say anything. I just sat there feeling stupid.

I don't even remember what we ate. It was delicious, like lots of leftovers are, but I can't remember what it was. I was eating steadily and not talking when she reached over, snagged my clipboard and slid it over to where she could read what was on it. I started to reach for it, but it was too late. I couldn't just jerk it out from under her eyes while she read what I'd written.

"My goodness these really are personal questions!" she said. She looked up at me. "You didn't ask me all these questions."

You know how people with food in their mouths wave their hands around and nod and try to communicate without saying anything? I did that. I felt really stupid too. Finally I swallowed. Then I had to take a drink to wash it down.

"Why didn't you ask me all the questions?" she prodded.

My face got all hot again. "Well ... uh ... I guess it just seemed like ... I don't know ... like I would be prying," I finished.

She took a bite, her eyes still on the page. "You asked everybody else these questions, didn't you?"

This woman was perfect. She could eat and talk at the same time!

"Well ... yes," I admitted.

"Then you should ask them to me too," she said firmly.

She reminded me of the Senator's wife, who had just wanted to be normal, part of which was being treated like everybody else.

Then, just like the Senator's wife had done, she answered the questions before I could ask them.

"Yes, I masturbated sometimes. When he was at work and I missed him, sometimes I did that. Now, when I'm missing him a lot I masturbate more. I'd say I do it ... I don't know ... twice a week maybe?" She looked up at me like I knew how often she masturbated. I was blown away. She went on. "That's when I'm not missing him so much. It comes and goes. When I'm missing him I probably do it four or five times a day."

I had this sudden image of the Amazon warrior princess lying on a bed, naked, her hand busy between her legs. I almost squirted in my pants.

Her finger moved.

"I never cheated on him. You have to write that down. I want that in here for sure. And if he cheated on me I never knew it."

Actually, that comment brought some intelligence back into my brain. The way she had phrased that was so odd. She was almost violent about her not cheating on him. But the possibility that he had cheated on her wasn't, apparently, a horrendous idea. Her off-handed statement that if he had, she didn't know about it, was so different than her attitude about her not cheating on him that it caused me to think again. I took a breath and felt much better suddenly.

Before I could ask her about that she had gone on.

"What turned me on the most I think was having sex," she said. Her finger was back at her chin. She looked up. "That's silly. It's more complicated than that. What I meant was that the first time we had sex he didn't have a rubber, and I was terrified that I would get pregnant. He took me parking after we had ice cream and I got so excited that I let him ... and anyway I was horrified when it was over and couldn't eat until I had my next period."

"You had sex on your first date with a boy ... ever?" I asked incredulously.

She nodded. "I couldn't resist him. He was so strong and handsome. His kisses left me weak and his hands felt so good on me. I would have done anything he asked."

"But you had a period," I said.

"Yes, and then it was suddenly like it was the most fabulous thing that had ever happened to me in the whole world. I was madly in love with him. He asked me out again and our parents didn't mind. They didn't know about the parking, of course. Or maybe they did. He had a reputation. But anyway, every time we went out we did it again and I got terrified again, but it was so wonderful that I never even tried to get him to do anything ... you know ... to protect me."

"Did that have anything to do with you getting married? So young I mean?" I asked.

"I don't think so. Well, our parents suspected, of course. But by the time we'd been going together for six months I knew I'd marry him. We were only allowed to go out once a week, and sometimes, of course, we couldn't ... you know ... so even though I was worried about it I didn't let that stop us. And then, after we got married we used protection until we graduated. Then we tried to have a baby right away. It was funny, in a way. What had terrified me before became the most favorite thing for me. I think trying to make a baby was when I was the happiest I've ever been."

She had gotten a far away look in those beautiful eyes. They came back to me. "I don't want you to think I wasn't happy at other times. I was. I couldn't have asked for anything else in the whole world to make me any happier."

She stopped. I realized that her voice had been saying one thing, while her body had done another. Those beautiful eyes were wet, full of tears about to spill out and down over her perfect prominent cheekbones. The thought of seeing the warrior princess cry was almost too much for me to take and I felt tears in my own eyes.

"Except a baby," I whispered.

I didn't mean to say it out loud. Honestly, I didn't. But I was overflowing with emotion. Being around Sabrina was like that. She didn't display a lot of emotion, at least not when I first met her. Later on that would change, but in the beginning she somehow transferred all that emotion to whoever was with her. I was a wreck, physically and emotionally at that point. I felt like I was the one who was empty and lonely and alone. I voiced what she couldn't, even though I didn't mean to say it out loud.

But I did say it out loud.

She heard me, and those tear-filled eyes locked on mine. I blinked and felt my right eye overflow, the tear trickling slowly down my cheek. I think my emotion let her show a little of hers just then. Her beautiful face twisted and scrunched as she tried not to cry, but then she let it loose. Her hands came across the table to mine and I gripped her hands much too tightly as my female side cried with her.

"Yes," she whispered back.

It wasn't a sobbing jag or anything like that. We just both felt her loss, and the loss of something to remember him by when he was gone, some part of him that would grow into an adult and carry on for him. There were tears, and we just let them roll down our cheeks, as she told me about the disease that had taken him.

They didn't know it, but it had already ravaged his testes when they first met. She couldn't have become pregnant by him if she'd have let him have sex with her five times a day every day of the year. It was extremely rare in a male so young, which is why nobody ever noticed it. His testicles didn't swell up or anything like that. When, both as a teen and then later in life he felt pain in his lower abdomen, he thought it was related to all those times he got a knee in the groin during a game. By the time it got diagnosed, ten years into their marriage, it had already metastasized. They fought it for years, but eventually, he lost that battle. For the last five years they hadn't even been able to have sex, partly because he had an unrealistic fear that he could somehow 'infect' Sabrina, and partly because things just didn't work well in those later years.

What can you say to a woman who has gone through that?

Eventually she said "Thank you," and withdrew her hands from mine. I didn't have the faintest idea what she was thanking me for. I wasn't really hungry any more either.

She was, though. The Amazon warrior princess had been through the wars, and had emerged alive, leaving the destruction behind her. Life goes on for those willing to live it. She was looking at the clipboard again, and I saw her finger slide up to where I had neatly printed "Drop dead gorgeous". I winced, but she didn't say anything and her finger drifted back to the rest of the questions I hadn't asked her.

"Does penis size really have an effect on marriages?" she asked, one long nail pinned to the question about whether the couple was happy or not with the male's penis size.

"I don't know," I answered truthfully. "Men seem to think so, and women deny it so much that you have to suspect that it means more to them than they'll admit. I've only had one couple say they weren't happy."

"Who?" she asked automatically. Her cheeks went pink. "Oh, sorry, you can't talk about that, can you?" I had told her in the beginning that only first names or numbers would be used in my paper, and pseudonyms if the participants requested it.

"How would you even know if you were unhappy?" she asked.

"You only had one sexual partner in your life ... right?" I cringed as I added that 'right?'.

It didn't faze her. She nodded. Then her brows went up. "So some people do cheat on each other," she said.

It sounded like a silly thing to say. Of course some people cheat. But she grasped intuitively how that could affect a relationship, even if the other partner didn't know about the cheating. She just said it in a way that made it clear she understood.

"I was always happy with him," she said. "Of course I have no idea if he was normal or not. He was abnormal in ways we couldn't see, I mean." She frowned a little. Even that looked beautiful on her face. "What an interesting thing to think about," she said.

I wasn't going to pursue it. But she did.

"You've been asking me personal things. Can I ask you something personal?" she asked. Her finger was still pinned on the penis size question and I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my gut.

"Fair is fair," I managed.

"How big is yours?"

Now let me tell you, while a lot of guys talk about how big they are, I honestly don't know that many guys who will admit to having measured it. I mean if you're huge, that's one thing. Championship fish always get weighed and measured. But nobody weighs or measures the average fish that gets caught. If you think you're pretty average, you might not even want to know how long it is. I've always been a fan of those who say "It's not how big it is ... it's how you use it."

"Oh ... average, I guess," I tried.

"That doesn't tell me anything." She pouted a little. Her nose wrinkled and her lips made a little moue. I wanted to look at her forever. Man she was gorgeous!

"How big was he?" I tried.

She held up her left hand ... the one that wasn't pinned to the penis size question by that long, slim finger. She held her thumb and first finger apart. Maybe three inches.

"Soft or hard?" I asked in a strangled voice.

"Hard, of course," she said. "When he was soft I could hardly find it. It kind of sucked up into him. We found out that was part of the defect he had when he was born. His testicles didn't descend normally. They thought he was a girl when he was first born. Just for the first few seconds, I mean."

"Oh," I said. I was cringing inside again. My balls hurt. I was suddenly seized by the idea that just being in the house where a man with testicular cancer had lived and died might somehow affect me. I shook it off. I was smarter than that. Still, I was shaken.

"So, how big is yours?" she asked again.

"Soft or hard?" I gasped. It was a reflex question.

For the first time she got a dangerous look in her eyes, like she was about to be unhappy.

I held up a hand. "Sorry," I said, clearing my throat. "I'm just a little uncomfortable talking about this with ... someone like you."

She pouted again. "I'm not going to ask to see it Bob," she said. "I've just never thought about that and I'm curious. That's all."

I couldn't decide if that made me feel better ... or worse. Had someone plopped me on Santa's lap at the mall just then, and had he said "And what do you want for Christmas, young fellow?" I'd have probably said I wanted Sabrina to ask to see my penis. Then again, the knowledge that this vision of beauty wouldn't be judging my phallus any time soon helped me to relax a little.

"I guess maybe twice that long," I said.

"Twice?" she said. It wasn't a gasp, but her eyebrows rose again and it was clear she was perturbed.

"Maybe," I said.

"But it stuck out just like his used to!" she said. Her cheeks pinked up again. "I mean when you got here. It was kind of bulging. Not that I noticed or anything." Her voice trailed off and she looked miserable.

"I'm sorry about that," I said earnestly. "Really. I didn't mean to offend you. You're just so ... well, you're a really nice looking woman Sabrina." Now I felt miserable.

She blinked. "Oh, you didn't offend me. That happens all the time. Men look at me and then they bulge. I know that. I just felt ashamed for noticing it."

I perked up a little. "Well gee, I mean that's pretty normal I think. I kind of noticed you too."

She actually smiled. "You're talking about Bernice and Rhonda. All men notice them. They all get excited about them too."

She was so self assured. She was gorgeous, and she obviously knew it, but she wasn't all hung up on her looks like a lot of beautiful women were. Her being beautiful was like her having breasts. Women had them. She was good looking. So what?

"So can I ask you another personal question?" she asked.

"Sure." I was feeling much better.

"If you're so much longer ... and you're average ... how come when he got excited, his pants looked like yours when ... (she blushed again) you got excited?"

In my own mind I knew the answer to that. When her husband had an erection, it stuck straight out and pressed against his pants. When most men get an erection, it can't stand straight out. It bends. Sometimes ... like now ... painfully.

So, with my newfound courage that she wasn't dismissing me as either a pervert or some kind of unprofessional researcher, I told her what I thought.

"Oh," she said simply. "I guess that makes sense." She giggled suddenly and finally the hand that had been pinned to penis size came up off the page and covered her mouth. "Sorry," she said. "I don't think I'll ever be able to look at another man without thinking about that."

I looked at the fingernail that had been pinned to penis size. It was right beside her lips. All sorts of unwanted thoughts assailed my mind. I think I might have even groaned.

"Oh, it's not all that bad," she giggled again. "After all, you guys look at our breasts. Why can't we look at your ... at you?"

When she said 'breasts' my eyes ... quite naturally, in my opinion ... went to hers.

"See!" she laughed. "Now, you stand up. I get to look at you!"

Well, that wasn't happening. I was already back in bad shape again.

"You said you weren't going to ask to look at it," I tried.

"I'm not asking you to take it out," she laughed. "I just want to see what your lump looks like."

"No," I said, trying to muster a shred of dignity.

She wagged a finger at me. It was the finger that had been pinned to penis size. "Not fair!" she pouted.

"I have to go," I croaked.

"Oh," she said.

I don't know how women do it, but they can say that word with more emotion than twenty sentences. Her face was part of it. It fell. You read about how faces fall, and that's hard to envision in your mind. Her face hinted at heartbreaking sadness, and her voice sounded like a kid who opens a present, expecting to find the latest cool toy, and finds a pair of socks instead.

"But you haven't asked me all the questions," she complained. "Can you come back later?"

"Yes!" I seized on that. I would have seized on anything to get out of there before I managed to make this woman frown again. If she'd have said "Couldn't you walk in front of a bus for me?" I'd have blurted "Yes!"

"Good," she said. "I want to be treated just like all the others.

Naturally, the first "others" I thought of were Tanya and Lizzie and Rachel and Lisa and Nikki and Gertie and Jane and Micky and Susan and Kathy. I got light-headed. I was afraid I'd have to actually crawl to the door.

I reached for the clipboard, but she snatched it up.

"I'll just carry that to the door for you," she said sweetly.

She took a couple of steps and waited for me. I swear those little gold flecks in her eyes were glittering. There I was, with a major boner, which would clearly show as soon as I stood up. The woman responsible for that boner, not counting my reference to the previous women Sabrina wanted to be treated "just like", was standing there and it was obvious to both of us that the very first thing she was going to look at when I stood was ... my 'lump', as I believed she called it.

I did not want to stand up.

On the other hand, it felt like all the blood in my brain was slowly being sucked into my penis, and if I didn't get moving I'd probably just pass out. It was tempting, but waking up with Bernice and Rhonda hovering over me might actually cause an injury of some kind, so I bit my lip and, trying to be as dignified as I could, stood.

I couldn't even stand up straight. I had to lean forward a little, or make an adjustment, and I'm here to tell you, touching my manhood was the last thing I was going to do in front of this woman. At least the front of my pants were dry. If I so much as put a finger on my little buddy, there would be a catastrophic deluge of wetness there. Besides, my balls hurt something fierce.

I hobbled towards her.

She stared at the lump.

"I have to tell you Bob, I think you might be bigger than you said you were."

I couldn't help it. I covered my cock with both hands. Worse than that I pressed both hands against it. Her laughter tinkled in my ears, a warm, honest, joyful sound ... that of a woman who has received something like that as a compliment instead of getting pissed off by the crudity of a man.

At least I got outside before she saw the results.

I had been right about not touching it because it might go off if I did.

Chapter Two

By the time I got to my car I already felt much better. I got in and drove straight home, pressing the clipboard, which I don't even remember her handing to me, into service again as I went from the car to my apartment. The deluge had eased the pain, though I now felt sticky and cold and wet and juvenile. I didn't even know what to call it. It wasn't a premature ejaculation. If anything it was closer to being a vicarious orgasm, if there is such a thing.

I put my wet pants on top of the washer and took a shower. I looked at the clipboard but couldn't get interested in starting the process of putting all that data into some organized form. I think I stared at the wall a lot.

I had to masturbate … again?

I didn't sleep all that well that night, though. It's kind of weird and troubling to be jerking your bone practically unceasingly ... lusting after the wife of a dead man.

I guess I got over it though. I didn't call her for several days. I didn't know what to say to her. No woman had ever made me actually cum in my pants before.

Being Sabrina, she called me. It didn't completely unnerve me like I thought it might. Maybe the time that had passed had let me get my perspective back.

She didn't tell me who she was. She didn't have to. I don't know if she just knew that, or if she just did that with everybody. As I learned later, she really didn't have many friends, and didn't talk on the phone all that much.

"So when are we going to finish?" she asked.

I suppressed my thoughts about the possible innuendo in that question. She wasn't that kind of woman, even if I wanted her to be. "I'm free about any night," I said. "Evening," I corrected myself. I thought nasty things when I put Sabrina and "night" together. Is 'innuendo' a communicable disease?

"I read to children at the library on Tuesday nights," she said. She didn't have a problem using that word. "I practice with the choir Wednesday nights," she said. "I play the piano," she added for some reason. I had no reason to think that her singing voice wasn't just as beautiful as the rest of her. Her speaking voice was. "Then there's the shelter on Thursday night," she went on. "Do you have a date Friday night?" she asked. "I wouldn't want to keep you away from your special girl."

"Um ... I'm kind of too busy to date," I said. That sounded lame.

"Oh."

There was that word again. But this time it was a completely different sound. Even though I couldn't see her face, I could hear the kind of thing that I wanted to be approval of my non-dating status in her voice. I imagined all kinds of reasons why she might be happy that I couldn't get a girl to go out with me. Despite all the (let me be bold here) sexual prowess (pertaining to me) I have recorded in these narratives, women my own age didn't seem to be drawn to me like bees to honey. Or mosquitoes to tender skin. Or flies to ... well, the analogy breaks down in there somewhere. Suffice it to say I was not too busy to date. I just didn't. okay?

"So are you too busy Friday night?"

I had to get a grip. Her use of the word "night" had set me off again. Still, if I was the bee and she was the honey, everything was working exactly like it was supposed to. Despite my misgivings about ending up half crippled again, I said Friday night (I actually forced out that actual word - I was so proud) was fine.

"Okay" she said. Even that word sounded glorious coming from her throat. "Be there at six. I'll feed you. I love to cook."

Before you go thinking that every time I say a woman fed me I jumped her bones, that's not true. Lots of the other women I interviewed invited me to dinner. It's just a normal natural time to sit and talk, and that's what the vast majority of the interviews were all about - sitting and talking. So don't get ahead of yourself here. It was just supper.

And then we'd ... finish.

I was already a wreck.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

 

I wore a jock strap Friday night. As I was putting it on I wondered how Brad had managed to hide his infirmity in the locker room. I didn't know what the medical term was for his condition, but I knew that, if it was observed by other boys, he'd have gotten a lot of shit about it. And he had to have known how different he was from other boys. You can't be in any kind of locker room and not find out how you rate in this world. I decided that it didn't matter. He was gone, and I couldn't find out. What was more important was that he never let on to his bride, and, at least until I came along, she had been happy with what he had. I felt like I had soiled his memory somehow.

Bernice and Rhonda met me at the door, firmly ensconced in a loose sweat shirt. She grinned at me.

"I decided to take it easy on you tonight," she said.

She looked down. No lump. I felt inordinately proud.

"Well!" she said.

I cannot believe how much a woman can say with just one word!

She laughed again and slapped my shoulder. "I'm just teasing you," she said.

"I wore a jock strap," I blurted.

I almost turned around and left in shame. I was helpless in the presence of this woman. I was mostly miserable in the presence of this woman too. I couldn't look at her face and bent my head to fix my eyes on her feet, which were bare ... and beautiful.

Damn!

I saw her hand before I felt her fingers under my chin. She had to dig her fingernails in to get me to lift my face. She suddenly looked very serious.

"Bob, come inside. I'm sorry. I shouldn't tease you. You've been trying to be a perfect gentleman and I appreciate that."

She reached for my hand and I stumbled inside. I could smell food. Everything in this house looked or smelled delicious. She didn't take me to the kitchen though. She took me to the living room. She sat me down on the couch and then sat, angled toward me, far enough away that her knees didn't touch mine.

"Bob," she said.

I think I looked at her out of the side of my eye, like a little boy who's been caught with his hand in the cookie jar and is waiting for the lecture.

"I had a good time when we talked last time," she said. "I don't get to talk to very many people. I know I'm good looking. I don't try to be, but it's just there. And most people won't talk to a good looking woman. Some men do, but quite often the only thing that's on their mind is what they can get from her. I liked talking to you Bob. I'm normal. I get lonely sometimes. I need human interaction just like everybody else. That's why I volunteer so much. I get to be around people. But they still won't talk to me. You talked to me Bob. Can't you do that again?"

The earnestness in her voice cooled me down. I could understand how that would happen to her. I had trouble talking to her too. I looked at her. She had a real frown on her face.

"I feel helpless around you," I said.

"Well, maybe we can make it so you don't," she said back.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Will you at least try?" she asked. "I promise not to tease you any more."

"It's not the teasing," I said. "Okay, well the teasing is part of it, even though I didn't think you were teasing, I mean ... I don't mean I thought you were intentionally ... I mean ... see, I can't even say a complete sentence," I moaned.

"You're a sweet, sweet boy," she said, reaching out to touch my knee.

Boy! Boy? What the hell was she talking about ... boy! I was a man! In a sudden rush of something I can't even describe I was instantly ... in control of myself. I can't describe it any better than that. She was only ten years older than me, and looked like she was my own age, but she thought of me as a ... boy. Talk about the wind being taken out of your sails. And I didn't even have a sail up!

I looked at her fingertips on my knee. They didn't incapacitate me! I was a man! Regardless of what she thought, I was a man, and I was in control of my own destiny! I squared my shoulders and sat up straight. I started to stand up and she stood with me. Bernice and Rhonda were right there, inches away, and I still felt strong and proud.

Then she took my hand and I looked at her face and there was the Amazon warrior princess, holding my hand to take me to the kitchen and my knees got weak.

Damn she was a good looking woman!

I got my knees working by the time we got to the kitchen. The food was already on the table. I decided, by pure force of will, that I had to do something to even the odds a little. I sat down. She sat across from me.

"Can I say something?" I asked.

"Of course," she said.

"I am a man," I said. I didn't yell it or anything, I just said it. "And you are an astonishingly beautiful woman. You're a little older than I am, maybe, but I'm still a man. I find you so completely, overwhelmingly, unbelievably gorgeous that I say stupid things and cannot control my own body, but I'm still a man."

I had to take a breath. That almost smile on her lips was getting perilously close to being a grin, but her eyes still looked serious. I had to go on before I lost it.

"I don't want you to think that all I can think about is the fact that you are a complete stone fox, who, in a reasonably good world should have given birth to ten or fifteen perfect babies, but the fact of the matter is that biologically I probably won't be able to suppress that kind of thinking. Still, I am a man, and I promise you that I will do my level best to behave in a professional manner ... to the best of my abilities ... " I ran out of words. I kept my head high by pure force of will.

"Thank you," she said graciously, all traces of smile gone from her lips. "I apologize for calling you a boy." There was no pout this time. She was honestly unhappy. She was unhappy that she had hurt my feelings. I didn't think about that, though. All I thought about was that she was unhappy.

I had wounded the Amazon warrior princess.

I felt like trash.

"I acted like a boy," I mumbled.

"To the contrary, Bob, you acted like a gentleman." Her eyes were still serious. "I meant it when I said that most men won't, or can't talk to me. I knew I was having an effect on you. But I have that effect on all men. Most wives hate to see me coming because of it. Friends I've had for years won't even invite me over any more. Now that Brad is gone they all see me as a threat. But you didn't act like most men who want things from me. You are a man Bob. You're a real man."

I wanted to wiggle like a puppy whose master has just praised it.

"Ten or fifteen, Bob?" she asked, without losing a beat.

"Beg your pardon?" I asked. I wasn't thinking too well yet. I was working on it, but hadn't gotten there.

"You said ten or fifteen babies," she said.

The memory of what I had just blurted out began to penetrate the fog my brain was wrapped in. Had I actually said that? My memory slapped me up side the head.

"Oh shit Sabrina," I moaned. "What did I just do?"

That didn't help anything. Now I had cursed in front of the Amazon princess.

"You made a perfectly wonderful speech and put me in my place, as you should have, and said that if the world was reasonably good I'd have had ten or fifteen babies."

There wasn't anything wrong with her memory. Of course, come to think of it, there wasn't anything wrong with anything about her.

"I'm really sorry about that Sabrina," I said. "Like I said, I have a hard time thinking clearly when I'm around you."

"You made that perfectly clear," she said. Her hand reached out and touched mine and then withdrew.

Where her fingertips had brushed my skin I felt alive. Everything else felt like if I looked in a mirror it would be gray and hard to see.

"But Bob, I think ten or fifteen might be a little excessive," she said, as if we were talking about the price of stocks.

Maybe it was the fact that she was so calm about everything. Or perhaps it was because she didn't just throw me out because I leered at her and got a major boner from the instant I saw her to the time I stumbled out of the house. It could be that her willingness to talk about intimate things fed my fantasy that there might be the tiniest possibility that in an alternate reality this fabulous example, of all that could be suggested by the simple word "woman", might someday be interested in me as a man.

For whatever reason, her casual attitude about my having blurted out something so personal - a whole bunch of personal things, now that my memory was functioning again - helped me calm down again. It was a real roller coaster ride when I was around Sabrina. But the coaster was climbing for the present, and I could lean back and breathe and think, instead of being consumed by terror and glee and the breathlessness of those hundred mile-per-hour dips in the ride.

I looked at her. Her face was calm and peaceful, with just the slightest hint of some kind of yearning in her gold-flecked eyes.

"Dozens," I said. I winced mentally, but drove on. "If I'd have been honest I'd have said dozens."

She laughed. It shocked me to the core. Her voice was deep, but her laugh was unrestrained and had lots of soprano tones in it. It was just delightful on the ears.

"Maybe we should just stick with ten or fifteen after all," she said smiling widely.

She lifted one leg like a ballerina and her bare foot, with its crimson painted toenails, flashed into the air.

"Surely we don't want me barefoot and pregnant all the time." She smiled at her little joke.

The first thing I thought about was her use of the word "we". I felt the coaster start to go over the top. I wasn't ready to be helpless with the ecstatic terror of another drop.

So I told her how she had affected me, and what I had thought. I just blurted it out. My memory of all the things she'd said that, in my twisted mind, could be taken more than one way, was crystal clear, and I just told her about all of them.

"So you see, it wasn't you teasing that did anything," I said when I was done. "The male mind wants to think along those lines ... wants there to be something there that will feed his ego and make the beautiful woman always want him and all that crap. We men torture ourselves with thoughts like those. The fact is that I didn't know you were teasing me until you said something. Everything before that was something I manufactured in my male brain."