As usual, a huge shout-out to my editing team. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. Thank you for all you do, HDK. My editors are PapaKilo14, Hal, Pixel the Cat, GeorgeAnderson and Olddave1951. Thank you, gentlemen, I love you all and you did your usual awesome thing. SBrooks103x is the remaining member of my team, but for the obvious reasons, did not edit.

I coauthored a story with GeorgeAnderson some time back and enjoyed the experience very much. When SBrooks approached me, looking for story ideas, I offered to coauthor this story with him. He has been a pleasure to work with, and I'm very pleased with our story. I hope to work with him again. He is a long-time member of my team, a dear friend and his work has been very valuable to me as I learned to write. I'm proud of his advancement as a writer; he was always a good editor.

From the coauthor: When Randi offered me the opportunity to co-write with her, to say that I was flabbergasted would be a huge understatement! I honestly couldn't imagine what my meager ability could contribute to her awesome talent. I give her full credit for coming up with the basic scenarios, and thank her for her support and patience as I did my best to flesh them out. She has always been my sweet inspiration, and I hope to have the chance to work with her again.

*****

The regular sound of the movement in the grandfather's clock outside our bedroom door and the soothing hiss of the rain on the tile roof made me snuggle deeper into the covers. I glanced at the alarm and it read 3:46. I couldn't imagine what woke me, but I was going back to sleep. I heard it again, the sound that must have dragged me from the warmth of my dream. I didn't identify it at first, but then I realized that it was the alert sound from my husband's phone. I slid over until I could hook his pants with my toe.

I pulled the phone from his pocket and pushed the mute button. I was almost asleep when I heard it again. He must have set it to go off on a timer when he had a text. Now I was perturbed. He wasn't moving, the sound of his heavy breathing telling me that nothing short of a bomb going off outside the window was going to awaken him. I sighed, reached down and snagged his pants again.

I knew his swipe pattern. I'd seen him do it a million times. The screen said he had a text with an attachment. Idly, I tapped the attachment. It was a picture and it changed my life. It was from someone calling themselves, "girlofyourdreams." I had thought, mistakenly, apparently, that I was the "girl of his dreams." Evidently, I had been laboring under a misapprehension. The picture showed someone's vagina, leaking cum, and the text said, "Can't wait until next time."

It was obviously some white chick. Evidently, some of those clichés are true. I knew one that wasn't. It had to do with size and Calvin sure gave the lie to that one. I eased out of bed, got dressed quietly and started working. I was as quiet as a mouse and in thirty minutes, I had him packed and his stuff in his car in the garage.

The house belonged to me. I owned it before I met Calvin and I had a prenup to protect it. I found my fighting sticks in the hall closet and went back up to the bedroom. He was snoring slightly and I gave him a love tap on the nose. He shot upright in the bed and I flipped on the light.

"What the hell, Sahara!" He held his nose. It dripped a little and I threw him the box of tissues. He staunched his drip and I tossed him his phone, striking him just where I intended. "You have a text," I told him as he groaned and clutched his groin.

"Shit," he said as he saw the message. "Listen, babe, I know this looks bad, but she kept coming on to me! I just... I finally just gave in. It was just one time. I'm sorry. It won't ever happen again."

"You're right about that," I said. "It may happen again, but not while you're living with me. Get up, get dressed and get out, Calvin. Don't call, don't drop by and don't send a candy-gram. Just disappear. I'll be filing tomorrow."

"Wait! Just let me tell you why."

I cut him off. "No, you're through telling me things. I'm telling you, now. I don't care why. Get up, get dressed and get out. You told me why last time and I forgave you. You were drunk; it was a mistake; it won't happen again. Well, it did. You're a stupid man, Calvin. Get moving."

"It's four fucking o'clock," he complained. "Where the fuck am I supposed to go?"

"I don't care where you go," I said. "Away, that's all I care about. Go find your slut. She's dreaming about you. Your ride on this train is over. Do you want me to break your arms?"

He took a look at the sticks and decided he should move. It was a wise decision. As pissed as I was, I probably wouldn't have stopped with his arms. He got up and went to the dresser. "Where's all my shit?" he asked.

"In your car," I told him. "I left you a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I suggest you put them on quickly. Your nuts are looking awfully tempting there."

He hurried. In ten minutes, he was gone. I was getting more furious by the minute. It's a good thing he wasn't here, or I would have committed several felonies on his sorry-ass person. I didn't need to do jail time, but he'd left some pictures and shit, so I visited my wrath on them. Finally, it was light enough to go out. I went for a run so I'd be calm enough to talk with my rock: my Mama. I called Mom at nine and told her what had happened. "You're better than that sorry excuse for a man, anyway, baby," she told me. "I never wanted you to marry that man."

"Well, you were right, Mama," I said. "You told me so, okay? You happy now?"

"No, baby, I'm so sorry." I could hear tears in her voice. "That's not what I was saying at all. I'm just saying I'm glad you kicked his sorry ass out."

"Thanks, Mama," I told her. "I'm sorry I was a smartass. I'm just a mess. I'm pissed off and I feel like I've been pissed on. How are you feeling, Mama?"

"I'm okay, baby," she said. "You want to come and stay with me for a while?"

I did, very much. So much that I sold the house a month later and moved in with her. Just me and my little mother, exactly the way it had been all my life, as if Calvin had never happened.

Six months later, I pulled out onto the highway and stopped. I had no idea where I was going, but I just knew it was away from Atlanta. Atlanta is a shit hole. I had been there all my life and I was heartily sick of it. My mother had passed away three days before. She was a little old doll, as healthy as a horse and as chipper as a sparrow. I never knew my father, but I heard he was killed in a robbery attempt when I was five. Mom told me she was feeling funny and then she clutched her head and collapsed. It was a massive stroke and she just kept having them over the next two days until there was nothing left. She was still breathing, but that was it. They told me we needed to remove the tubes and let her go. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.

There was nothing tying me there anymore. I went home after Mom stopped breathing and cried for four hours. I thought about getting drunk, but decided that was pathetic. I made her arrangements. She wanted to be cremated, and no funeral. Her ashes went into the burial plot she had picked out and I made the arrangements to put the house on the market, have all our stuff packed up and taken to storage and I pawned my engagement and wedding rings.

I had four suitcases and a bag in the back of my Super Bee. I'm a hot rod girl. My Super Bee isn't stock. It's a 2007 with the Detonator Yellow and Flat Black paint job. I swapped the engine out for a 6.4-liter hemi the year after I got it. It was making 470 horsepower out of the crate. It's over 700 now. I put a supercharger on it last year. The supercharger is a 145 cubic inch twin-screw IHI unit with integrated charge coolers, and makes 11.6 psi of boost. I love pulling up next to the Mustang owners and just crushing them at the stoplights.

I sat there for a minute and decided to head west. I put the throttle down, and thank God for traction control. I shot out of there like a scalded dog, and I was on my way. I didn't know where I was going to wind up, but it was going to be a hell of a ride.

I'm a writer. You may have read some of my books. I don't have a number one bestseller or anything, but I've cracked the top 100 three times. I didn't have to be anywhere special to do my work and I wasn't in any hurry anyway. You wouldn't recognize my name; I write under a pseudonym. My real name is Sahara Wright. I just turned 28 and I'm a graduate of Georgia Tech and Auburn. I have a Ph.D. in Education Administration and another in English. I've never used them, but there they are. I drove west.

I didn't know where I was going to end up, but I knew I'd recognize it when I saw it. I stayed in Austin, Texas, for five days. I really liked the area, but it was having growing pains and I moved on. I was running through Arizona on I-40 when I saw the San Francisco Peaks for the first time. They were mesmerizing to me. A Georgia girl just isn't used to something so spectacular. I pulled into the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff and they had a suite. It was beautiful, a kind of Retro French Provençal look, and I flopped down on the bed. It felt good so I went down to the lobby and looked around. It was nice. I wanted to check out the local scene so I asked around for a good place to eat. The people at the desk recommended the Cottage Place Restaurant. They got me a reservation and I tipped them. They gave me the address and I punched it into my phone's GPS. I loved the place when I got there, but they had reserved me this room with only my table in it. That wasn't what I had in mind at all, and I told the hostess I wanted to be around people.

She apologized and went away. When she came back, she had the owner and his wife with her. They seemed like a really nice couple. I told them I was new in town and thinking about staying. The woman apologized for putting me off by myself and told me she had an idea if I was up for it. I guess I was up for anything, so I told her to go ahead.

They left and in a few minutes, they came back with two women. She introduced them to me. Their names were Rosaline and Ellen Beck and they were sisters. Rosaline was this cute little brunette and Ellen was a tall thin blonde. She seemed very shy, but the owner asked if they could join me. They were both college students, and she told me they could tell me all about the town. I liked them right away.

We ordered before we had much chance to talk. I had a ribeye with green tomatoes and stuffed squash blossoms and it was delicious. They got a Chateaubriand for two and Ellen gave me a bite. It melted in my mouth and I wanted more, but my smoked ribeye was just as good.

They were going to Northern Arizona University and they told me all about the school. Rosaline talked a mile a minute, but Ellen didn't say much. I couldn't stand her being shy around me, so I wiped my mouth, got up and went to kneel by her chair.

"Ellen," I told her, "Do I look like I bite?"

She giggled nervously, "No, I think you're nice, Sahara."

"I am," I told her. "Do you not like black people?"

She looked horrified. "Oh, no! It isn't like that at all. I think you're beautiful, and I think I could like you a lot. I'm kind of... a nerd, Sahara."

Rosaline laughed. "Sahara, Ellen is really socially backward. Don't worry about it. Once she gets to know you, she's a blast. You just have to give her some time."

I looked up at her. "Okay, but you have to hug me," I told her.

She glanced around but there was just the three of us in that room. "You're embarrassing me, Sahara," she said. "Stand up and I'll hug you."

I did and she was kind of stiff. She tried to give me one of those awkward side hugs but I was much stronger than she was and I just squeezed her around until we had a good hug. I held her for an embarrassingly long time, and she relaxed and laughed. I kissed her cheek and she blushed. "I love little blonde girls," I told her. "Especially little shy ones. Now just relax and tell me a joke." I sat back down.

"Okay," she said. "Why do black men have bigger penises than white men?"

"Tell me," I said.

"White kids had toys to play with when they were little," she looked at me expectantly.

I burst into laughter. "Oh, my God," I nearly peed my pants. "I can't believe you said that, Ellen. You're amazing. That's a myth, you know."

"What?" Rosaline asked. "You mean that black men have bigger penises than white men?"

"Yeah, trust me on this," I told her. "Black men do tend to have larger penises when they're soft, just hanging there, but they don't grow all that much when they get hard. White men start out smaller but they grow more. I think you see more size variation in black men. Some of them are pretty small and then there are these freaks. They work in porn. They're rare. Huge isn't good, Ellen, unless you have a big, sloppy pussy."

Their mouths sort of hung open. "Well, I can tell who we need to invite to a party," Rosaline said.

I laughed. "I'm not a slut, girls. I just know lots of black girls and they talk about stuff like that. I'd love to go to a party with you, though."

"I don't go to parties much," Ellen said.

"Well, just the two of us can have a party," I told her. "Three, if Rosaline wants to join us."

"Are you going to be staying?" Ellen asked.

"I will for a while if you two will hang out with me," I said.

"What do you do?" Rosaline asked. "Can you afford to just stay here and not work?"

"I can work here," I told them "I'm a writer and I can do that anywhere. I have an advanced degree in education, too. I've never used it, but I could teach."

"Hey, Professor James is retiring at the end of the semester," Ellen said. "Maybe you could teach at school."

The idea was intriguing. I had never really thought about teaching, but the more I thought about it the more I liked it. "Will you take a class from me if I do?" I asked.

"I'm in Pre-Med, so I'm through with all my English classes," Ellen said. "Rosaline is in communications so she needs more English, she can probably take some with you. I guess I could take one as an elective."

We had a great time the rest of dinner and I invited them to go with me to a club. Rosaline was down, but Ellen wouldn't go. "I can't," she said.

"Why not?" I asked. "I'll take care of you."

"It's not that," she said. "Sahara, I can't believe you haven't noticed. I'm... different."

"I did notice, baby," I told her. "I'm different, too. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm black. I know what autism is. I don't give a damn. Do you care if I'm black?"

"No," she laughed. "You're different, Sahara. I like you, but I can't go to a place like that. It would give me sensory overload and freak me out."

"Okay, we won't go, then," I said. "Let's go back to my hotel. We'll play music and dance and have a drink or two. How does that sound?"

Rosaline just looked at me for a while. "Sahara, I think I'm going to fall in love with you," she said. "You are amazing! You're just gorgeous and you're a wonderful person."

I laughed. "Tell that to my ex-husband. He didn't seem to have a problem blowing me off."

"I'm so sorry," Ellen said. "He must have been nuts."

I just shrugged. "His loss," I said. "If he hadn't, I wouldn't have met my two little sweethearts, would I? It's an ill wind that blows no good."

"Hey, you liked Ellen's joke," Rosaline said. "What you just said reminds me of one. Do you know what the definition of oboe is?"

"Hit me," I said.

"It's an ill wind that no one blows good." She giggled hysterically. It was pretty funny.

They had come in a cab, so I drove them to the hotel. They fell in love with the Super Bee right away.

"Oh my God," Rosaline exclaimed. "I can't believe this is your car! I would be afraid to drive it. It might get scratched in the parking lot or something."

"It does," I said. "I use my cars. If they start looking bad, I paint them. There's nothing as useless as a car you can't drive, except a man you can't trust."

"That makes sense," Ellen said. "Let's go fast."

At the next stoplight, I turned off the traction control. When the light changed, we just smoked the tires and they were laughing and giddy when I backed off. I turned it back on and at the next light, I pinned them back into the seats. They were like little girls with a new pony. I loved being around them. When we parked, they came up to the room with me and they loved that, too. I put on some music, got drinks and we had a party. Ellen wouldn't drink alcohol, but Rosaline and I did. We didn't get drunk or anything, but we got a little buzzed. I danced with both of them. Ellen didn't want to, but we made her and she didn't seem to hate it once we got her moving.

It was getting late, or rather early, so I called them a cab and they went back to the dorms. I was off to a good start in Flagstaff. I decided to stay a while and see what happened. I went to IHOP for breakfast and I was getting in the car to leave when the sound of a serious cam lope through some Thrush pipes made me turn my head. I couldn't move. It was a 67 Shelby Cobra GT500. That meant it probably had the 428 in it. It had the red and white color package. When it parked, it was two spaces away. I had to see it.

I walked over and a guy got out. He made me weak in the knees. I'm a tall girl, almost six feet, but he was easily four inches taller than I was. He was white, with dark hair and fair skin and just gorgeous. He wasn't hugely muscled but he was big and obviously fit.

"I love your car," I told him. "Can I look under the hood?"

A big smile lit up his face and white teeth flashed. "That's why I have it," he said. "I keep showing the engine to smoking hot women."

I laughed. "You must be pretty lonely then. You meet a lot of women that are gearheads?"

"Just you, so far," he grinned. "I don't think I'll be looking for any more after meeting you."

He popped the hood and I admired that 428 and the Holley four barrel setup. It was all chrome and clean paint. He had headers and it was just gorgeous. "Fire it up for me?" I asked.

It was a beautiful rumble. "You had the horsepower tested?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's around 480," he said. "I'll bet you've never ridden in anything this fast."

I laughed. "You want to line them up?"

He looked around, but the Super Bee was behind a truck with a camper on it. "Sure," he said. "What are you driving?"

I led him around the truck and he saw the Super Bee. "Oh, my God," he said. "I love it, but it won't hang with the Mustang. That 5.7 hemi is a nice engine, but it just doesn't have the horses."

"The Super Bees came with a 6.1," I told him. I was playing him, but he didn't know it and I wasn't about to pop the hood.

"Okay," he said. "Follow me. I'm going to crush your heart though, and I hate to do that to someone who looks like you do. The loser buys breakfast."

"I've already eaten," I said. "Dinner for the winner and two friends; how does that sound?"

"Do they look like you?" he asked.

"What makes you think they're female?" I asked.

He laughed. "Okay, if they're not I've just got my work cut out for me. Let's go."

I followed him for about ten miles and we came to a small airfield. He got out and unlocked a gate and we drove in. There were two parallel runways and we each pulled onto one. He rolled down his windows and I did too.

"Third horn blast," he said.

I nodded and waited. When I heard it, he got a little jump on me. I expected that, because he knew when he was going to do it. He smoked the tires a little bit and I never saw him again. I didn't know where the quarter mile mark was, so I ran it up to 170 and then pulled it back down. The two runways joined at the end and I pulled up beside him and got out. He got out shaking his head.
"You suckered me," he laughed. "There's no way that huge hunk of iron ought to go like that. What's your name?"

"Sahara," I told him. "What's yours?"

"Merlin," he said. "Okay, Sahara, pop that hood and let me see that rocket."

Of course, when I did the first thing he saw was that big blower. He laughed and shook his head again. "Okay, Sahara, you got me. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Now, can I drive it?"

We traded cars and I loved that little pony right away. It was an antique, but it sure sounded sweet and it rode like a logging truck. When we got back to the gate, we parked and traded back.

"What's the top end on this thing?" he asked.

"I have no idea," I told him. "I'm afraid of it. I hit 170 there. That's as fast as it's ever been. Theoretically, somewhere around 210, but I'll never know."

"Jesus Christ, Sahara, that's some beast you've got there. Who built it for you?"

"I built it myself," I told him. "I'm a pretty good mechanic. I had help with the blower, but I put the engine in myself. It's a 6.4 liter hemi, by the way."

"You run quite the con game, don't you?" he chuckled. "This has got to be about the baddest boy on the planet that's street legal."

"Yeah, and it gets more than 20 miles to the gallon if I keep my foot out of it," I told him. "It drops to four cylinders when I'm cruising."

"Modern miracles," he said. "It still doesn't sound as good. Where do you want to go for dinner and where will I pick you up?"

"You won't, and I want to eat Italian," I told him. "You're the local; you pick the time and place. I'll bring my friends and we'll meet there. I just met you today and I'm not sure about you yet. Is that okay?"

"Absolutely," he said. "I understand. I could be Freddy Krueger for all you know. I'm not, by the way. I'm a detective."

"Well, then I'm afraid I'll have to cancel that dinner," I told him.

"Why? Do you mean because I'm a detective?"

"Yes," I said. "I'll never go out with a policeman."

He laughed. "Well, it's a good thing I'm not a policeman, then. I'm a private detective, Sahara. What do you have against the police?"

"It's a long story," I told him. "Why don't we go back to IHOP, you can eat breakfast, I'll drink coffee and I'll tell you my tale of woe."

He ordered and I got coffee and I explained. "I don't know if you noticed, but I'm black," I told him.

"Yeah, I kind of got that," he chuckled. "You don't look very black to me though."

"Dad was white," I told him. "I don't remember him, but that's what Mom said. Anyway, black people don't have quite the same experience with the cops as white people. For instance, suppose you and I are with a group of hot rodders on a cruise. We're all in a line, the speed limit is 70 and we're all doing 80. There are a dozen of us. A cop sees all these hot rods and comes crawling up the line deciding whom he's going to pull over. Who do you think that's going to be?"

"Let me guess," he grinned. "It's going to be you, because you're black."

"You catch on quick," I pretended to admire him. "Do I need to tell you that has happened to me a hundred times? I've been pulled over because cops assume that since I'm black, I must have stolen my car. I've had my ID checked going to my mailbox because the cop thought I didn't belong in my neighborhood because I'm black. No, Merlin, I don't want anything to do with the police. I believe that they're as corrupt as the people they arrest. If you want to protect and serve, join the fire department."

He sat there for a minute, just eating his eggs. "Well, I'm not black, but I have the same thoughts about them as you do," he said. "That's why I'm in private security. A lot of the things I do bring me into contact with the police, and I probably know more about corruption than you can imagine."

"What does a private detective do these days," I asked. "Snoop around and get information on cheating spouses?"

He chuckled. "I don't actually do that myself at all, anymore. It was making me a cynic. I have a couple of old divorced guys who think everyone's a cheater anyway. They do all of that kind of stuff. I'm actually working on something now that you might like. I might tell you about it, but we don't have time this morning."

I gave him the hotel number, he gave me a business card and we agreed to meet at seven for dinner. As soon as I could, I called Rosaline and Ellen. I told them I had met a cool guy, but I needed wingmen to cover for me (wingwomen in this case). They agreed to go and I worked for a while on my computer. In the afternoon, I decided to check out the real estate situation and dropped by the university to check out the job market. The position was in the English Department, and they were very impressed with my resume. They didn't have a published author in their department, and I could tell the Department Head was very interested in me. I didn't know if it was my boobs or my resume he was most interested in, but I know how to handle that sort of thing.

I don't have huge boobs, but they look pretty nice. I work out a lot and I still have that sprinter's butt I had in college. I ran 400 meters and I was tenth in the nation. That probably doesn't sound that impressive, but out of 30,000 female runners, I was tenth.

I looked at a couple of condos, and it was time to get ready. I showered and put on a little white dress. It showed off my skin pretty well, and it was low in the neck and high in the hem. The girls looked very nice when I picked them up, and we took off. I told them about racing Merlin and winning dinner for us, and they laughed.

Ellen told me I was awesome. "I've never met anyone like you," she said. "You're just so full of life and you have so much fun."

She was sitting in the front with me and I pulled her over for a hug. "You're pretty swell, too, kiddo," I told her.

"Hey, what am I, chopped liver?" Rosaline piped up from the back seat.

We were stopped at a light and I turned around, pulled her up through the gap between the seats and kissed her. I put quite a lip lock on her and didn't let her go until the car behind us got impatient and honked. I let her go and she slumped back into her seat. Ellen was looking at me as if I had a third eye, and Rosaline was all flushed. I laughed for a long time.

"I think she's trying to shock us, Roz," Ellen said.

"She can shock me any time," Roz said.

We pulled up at the restaurant and Merlin was already there. I introduced him to the girls, and I could tell he was charmed. Ellen did her usual disappearing act, and Roz just blossomed. We had a nice dinner and Ellen gradually became visible again. She mostly talked to Roz and me, but she answered questions when Merlin talked to her. When we got ready to leave, he walked us out and asked me if I would go out with him the next Friday.

"I'd rather go Saturday and spend the day," I told him. "Take me to the Grand Canyon, and I'll go."

He agreed, we parted with hugs all around and the girls and I went back to my place. The girls really liked him and even Ellen talked about him some. We watched a movie on pay-per-view and giggled a lot together and I took them home.

I had a good week. I settled on a condo that was close to the University. I had been called in three times for an interview, and they offered me a contract. The money wasn't good, but it wasn't bad either. I would be teaching English literature, film as literature and creative writing. The school had a literary magazine and I would be the advisor. They told me that the Dean of Instruction would be retiring soon and hinted that I could have the job if I wanted it. Since my degree was in administration anyway, I thought that would be a good fit for me.

I went out with the girls Wednesday evening and we had a blast. Merlin took me to a shooting range Thursday afternoon and that was fun, too. I didn't have a gun with me since I had no permits in Arizona, but he told me it wouldn't be a problem. When I got the condo, I called the moving company and had them get my stuff out of storage and bring it out. The Grand Canyon had to be postponed, because I was moving into the condo. Merlin had a pickup and he and the girls helped me move in. We had a lot of fun arranging things and we sent Roz to get Chinese carryout while we finished up. We all watched some cheesy movie Merlin had rented and drank beer. Ellen even drank one and she sat by me in a big chair. I petted her and she seemed to like it. Merlin looked a little jealous but I stuck my tongue out at him and he laughed. Roz was getting pretty comfortable with him on the sofa anyway, and I don't think he minded having a very cute 20-year-old cozied up to him like that.

I invited the girls to spend the night when Merlin left and we all wound up in my big king sized bed for a sleepover. Ellen took me to church Sunday morning, and introduced me around. It was fun and uplifting and the condo seemed empty after I took them home. Oh, well, I'd been by myself before.

As I spent more time with Ellen and Roz, I noticed several things: First, of course, was how close they were, closer than any sisters I knew. I also never saw them with any guys. I don't just mean boyfriends; they never seemed to hang out with any men. I don't know what they did at school, but when they were with me, there was never the excited chatter about guys that you would expect from college girls.

On the other hand, they always seemed to be especially excited to see me, and even Ellen was coming out of her shell more, and seemed to be more welcoming towards my hugs. I began to wonder if there might be more to their relationship than met the eye.

Ever since I became aware of myself as a sexual being, I have been equally attracted to both men and women. It wasn't until Sex Ed that I knew that there was a term for people like me: bisexual. I was definitely attracted to both Roz and Ellen, but I was worried about upsetting the apple cart. I valued their friendship, and didn't want to scare them off, and Ellen seemed especially sensitive. I also had Merlin to consider. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I didn't want to mess up whatever might happen with him. I decided that I would be patient and see what developed.

The matter was taken out of my hands when Roz was at the library doing some research, and Ellen and I were lounging on my bed watching some mindless Rom-Com, while I was trying to multi-task, jotting down some notes for my next book. Suddenly, Ellen looked up at me and said, "You like me, don't you, Sahara?"

I was startled by her question, and babbled something like, "Of course I like you, and Roz, too."

"No, I don't mean like that," she said, "I know we're friends and all. I mean like the guy in the movie likes the girl."

"Um," I said, showing my brilliant command of the English language.

"Because..." she said, crawling sensually over to me, looking deep into my eyes, "I like you that way." Then she took my face in her hands, kissed me full on the mouth until our lips parted and our tongues danced together.

I'd had four women lovers, but I didn't know about Ellen, and despite her kiss, I was wary of pushing her too far, too fast. I hadn't expected shy, awkward Ellen to be so forward.

I needn't have worried!

As soon as we broke the kiss, she started a trail of very gentle kisses, like the touch of a butterfly, down my neck until she reached my collar. When she started to unbutton my blouse, I asked what must have seemed like one of the dumbest questions: "Are you sure you want this?"

She just laughed and said, "Do you see anyone holding a gun to my head?" as she caressed my breast over my shirt, before continuing her task of unbuttoning it.

I just sighed, put my head back and gave myself over to the moment. When she reached the waistband of my jeans I helped her loosen them to finish removing my shirt, then I pulled her shirt over her head, noticing for the first time that she hadn't been wearing a bra. She had lovely breasts, I guessed about a B cup, nice and firm, with a distinct perkiness to them. They had fairly small areolas that formed their own little miniature cones, with tiny pink nipples that were hard and erect.

Ellen quickly evened things up, removing my bra, gazing at my breasts with obvious admiration and desire. My breasts were a little smaller than hers, a full "A" cup, with larger areolas a little darker brown than the rest of my skin, with dark brown puffy nipples, like little Hershey's Kisses.

"Oh, my God, Sahara," she sighed. "You are even more beautiful than I could ever have imagined!" she said, as she leaned forward to take one of my nipples in her mouth, while softly caressing my other breast.

I gently pulled her closer, fondling a breast with one hand while gently stroking her back with the other. She began running her free hand up and down my spine, sending chills through my entire body.

I decided that it was time for me to take charge a little bit, so I gently disengaged, running my hands down her sides until I reached her pants. I quickly unfastened them and pulled them down, along with her panties. I couldn't help noticing how she smelled, and I breathed in the heady musky scent emanating from her pussy.

Her mons was totally bare, with just a landing strip above. I could see that she was excited, and her clitoris was already erect and peeking out. I leaned in and gave her a slow lick from the bottom of her pussy all the way to the top, feeling her shudder as I did.

I pulled back for a minute and quickly removed my jeans and soaking wet panties, and she grabbed my shoulders and pulled me in for a kiss.

"Wait," I said, "let me wash my face."

"I don't care," she said, "I need to kiss you, and I need to kiss you now!" and she did just that.

When we broke the kiss, Ellen continued to pull me up, pulling my pussy towards her mouth. I had given up resisting her desires, and moved up on the bed until my pussy was hovering over her face.

"Your pussy is just beautiful!" Ellen said. "I've never seen one totally shaved, Roz likes hers furry, she just gets a bikini trim in the summer."

She was very good, much better than I'd expected. She teased me, gently biting at my inner thighs and making me squirm. The teeth were replaced by feather kisses over my skin and she had me on fire. I could feel her little pink tongue, tracing the corded tendon up my inner thigh until I felt her breath, hot and steamy against my lips. The little tongue darted out, teasing the outer lips until I thought I would scream. She pushed it up inside me, licking away at the girl cum that was dripping from me. I was incredibly aroused and the thought of this sweet awkward girl making me feel like that was mind altering.

She traced a little circle around my clit and I was getting frantic, waiting for her to finally let me cum. I felt her slim little fingers cupping my ass and then the incredible sensation of her thumb, slipping into my dripping pussy from behind. My clit was throbbing as her tongue circled the base, fully erect and seeming to be an inch long. When she finally closed her lips around it, lashing the tip with her tongue, I went off like a bomb. Every muscle in my body went tense and then spasms of pure pleasure were ripping me apart. It was as intense an orgasm as I'd ever had and when she pushed one finger inside the clenching ring of my ass, it just started all over again.

She worked on my clit, sending pulses of pure ecstasy shooting through me and the thumb in my pussy and finger in my ass just trebled the sensation. I came like a bomb and rode it until I thought I was going to pass out. I was becoming oversensitive and I began to pull away. She tried to hold me there, but it was becoming almost painful to keep cumming like that and I twisted away to lay beside her, my head swimming and my pussy pulsing with the aftershocks.

As I came down from my high, I realized that I hadn't given Ellen an orgasm; I didn't think that the shudder when I licked her pussy counted.

When I started to move down her body, Ellen asked me what I was doing.

"I'm returning the favor!" I said with a smile.

"Please," she said, "You don't have to do that."

"I know, but I want to," I said, "It makes me feel good when you feel good, baby!"

Ellen seemed a little irritated. "Really," she said, "I'm fine, let's just enjoy the moment."

I was a little perplexed, but I didn't want to put a damper on things by pressuring her. I figured if this relationship was going anywhere, there would be plenty of time to figure this out later.

We cuddled together and I idly played with one little nipple while she stroked my belly.

As we lay in each other's arms enjoying the afterglow, I noticed the time and realized that Roz could be home at any time.

.

"Hurry, we've got to get cleaned up and dressed before Roz gets home," I said.

"Why?" asked Ellen, "What's the problem?"

"This!" I said, waving my arms at our scattered clothing and the rumpled bedding, wrinkling my nose at the scent of sex still in the air.

Ellen laughed! I couldn't believe it, she just laughed aloud! I don't think I'd heard her laugh like that three times since I'd met her.

"Why are you laughing?" I asked. "This is serious. What will Roz say if she finds us like this?"

Ellen gave me a strange look. "You really don't know, do you?" she asked.

"Know what?" I said, "I wish you would just tell me what the fuck you're talking about!"

Ellen got a little flustered but settled down, and took both of my hands in hers. "Sahara," she said, "If Roz came in right now, she would probably want to join us!"

Suddenly, a light bulb lit up in my brain! The unusual closeness I had noticed between Roz and Ellen suddenly made sense.

"Y... You mean that you and Roz, you and Roz are lovers?" I said.

"Yes, Sahara," she said. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Maybe I should explain."

"Yes, I think that might help," I said.

"Growing up, I had a very hard time relating to people," Ellen said. "Autism was still poorly understood, and often misdiagnosed. Roz and I were very close; she was my protector, keeping the bullies at bay.

"Then Roz hit puberty, and had the natural urges that went along with it. It was very hard on both of us. I didn't want to let go, and she wanted to go out and experience what every teenager did, but she felt guilty as if she was abandoning me. We went back and forth and up and down, sometimes one or both of us angry with the other, sometimes crying in each other's arms.

"A year or so later, I hit puberty and it seemed like things weren't twice as bad, they were ten times worse!

"A few months later, our parents went out. To this day, I don't know if it was just a night out or if they wanted to escape our squabbling. After a tense supper, we took our showers and we were still wrapped in our towels, when something set us off. I don't remember what it was; I'm sure it was something stupid. One thing led to another, our towels fell off and we were wrestling naked!

"As soon as we realized what we were doing we stopped and grabbed our towels, holding them in front of ourselves, panting; then Roz dropped her towel, reached out, grabbed me and started kissing me! As you can probably imagine, I was shocked, and started to push her away, until I realized, 'This feels good!' and started to kiss her back.

"This was all new to both of us, and we didn't know when our parents would be home, so we pulled ourselves together and cooled it." She looked up at me with those beautiful shy blue eyes. "Do you hate us, now, Sahara? Do you think I'm creepy?"

I gathered her lithe little body up in my arms. "No, baby, I think you're so beautiful and you're so special to me. I could never hate you. I love you, Ellen. I love everything about you. I've never known anyone like you. I'm surprised, yes, but not in a bad way. I don't think you're creepy at all. I promise. So you think Roz... she won't... she'll be okay?" I was drawn back to what we'd been talking about.
"You don't think she'll have a problem with this, with us?" I asked. "She won't be jealous?"

"If she's jealous, she'll be jealous of me," Ellen said, "because I got you first!"

"B... but why?" I stammered.

"Come on, Sahara, "Ellen said, "you have to know how hot you are!"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," I mumbled, "I try not to be too full of myself, so I kind of suppress it. You really don't think Roz will mind sharing you... sharing me?"

At that point, we heard Roz outside the door and Ellen said, "It looks like we're going to find out!"

The door opened, and Roz came in, looked at the room, looked at us and put her hands on her hips. "You little bitch!" she laughed, "You just couldn't wait for me!" She jumped onto the bed, wrestled Ellen away then looked at me with hooded eyes. "So, I see my little sister has spilled the beans," Roz said, "and it doesn't seem like you have much of a problem with it!"

"No, no problem at all," I said, "I've always been attracted to both men and women, but I have to tell you, I've never been with more than one person at a time."

"That makes us even," Roz said, "Because we haven't either! We can learn together."

"Ooh, that sounds like fun!" Ellen said.

"There's one other thing," I said, hesitating.

"What is that?" Roz and Ellen said almost simultaneously.

"As I said, I'm attracted to both men and women, and I've been seeing Merlin, and I really like him, and I don't know how he might react to this... this... whatever this is!

"For that matter, what about you two? Would you be jealous if I got into a relationship with Merlin?"

"I don't really know," Roz said. "We've never been in a relationship with anyone besides each other. Even when I would go on dates, we never really progressed to the 'relationship' stage, and Ellen was more concerned with my not being with her, than whom I was with."

"Speaking of that," I asked, "just how much experience with sex do either of you have, other than each other?"

Ellen seemed to withdraw a little, clearly becoming uncomfortable with where the conversation was going.

Roz hesitated until Ellen nodded the slightest bit: her okay to continue.

Roz began. "When I first began going out, it was the normal teen-age girl stuff, a little flirting, a little kissing, maybe if the guy was especially cute or nice, a little petting outside my clothes. It was always a little awkward when I came home. Ellen was angry at being left alone, jealous of what I was doing and curious all at the same time. As soon as she was old enough, I tried to set us up on double dates, Ellen's social awkwardness would frustrate her date, and he would usually drift off in search of other targets. Ellen would get upset and I would have to get my date to take us home.

"As I'm sure you can imagine, it didn't take long for word to spread, and I found it harder and harder to get any dates at all. Even if it weren't a double date, the guy would figure that I would eventually want to include Ellen, and my offers dried up.

"I think that's when our squabbles really started to take off. I was mad at Ellen, blaming her for my lack of a social life, she was still jealous and angry, but also sad and blaming herself for my dating woes."

"It was around this time that the fight I told you about happened," Ellen said. Turning to Roz, Ellen said, "I told Sahara about our 'wrestling match'!"

"Whew!" I said, "That's a lot to take in. I assume that neither of you has had sex with a man?"

They both shook their heads no.

"Well," I said, "I think we've got a lot to think about and sleep on, but right now I think that Roz is kind of overdressed, don't you, Ellen?"

Ellen and I ganged up on Roz, stripping off her clothes. She mock-fought with us, trying to keep us from getting her naked. I held her down and got Ellen to pull her jeans off, down over those gorgeous legs and off her tiny feet. Ellen began kissing her way up the struggling legs and I could see the look in Roz's eyes change. It went from playful to hungry in about a minute. I had her wrists pinned to the bed and I turned them loose, rolling off her until we were side by side. Her big brown eyes sought mine and her hand reached out, tangling in my hair.

Her lips were slightly parted and she pulled me toward her, her tongue flicking out to moisten those puffy lips. I had kissed her once before, but this was on another level. Her lips were full and soft and her gasps told me that Ellen was doing things we couldn't see.

The kiss went on and on and I moved my hand to the buttons of her blouse, popping them one by one until it was lying open and her lacy red bra was exposed. I felt the front and it had a catch there. I deftly opened it and it fell to the sides, exposing her to the air. I had to see.

I kissed my way across her cheek to her ear, nibbling as she shivered and then moaned, as Ellen worked away down below. Down the column of her neck to the little hollow where her collarbone joined her neck, and she shivered again. I kept moving lower and there they were. Roz had beautiful breasts.

She wasn't as fair skinned as Ellen, but she also had a tan and there were those olive-skinned mounds, paler than the surrounding skin, but still, darker than Ellen was. She had delicious looking nipples, little pebbles in the center of puffy areolae, begging for my lips. Her breasts were slightly larger than Ellen's, and I had to taste one.

I traced little circles around the nipples, making her areolae pucker and her nipples stand up like little mountains. When I took one nub in my mouth, I could feel her begin to tremble.

"Oh, God, Sahara, you're... Ellen... you're going..." The trembling grew stronger and I felt her beginning to tense as her orgasm approached. Whatever Ellen was doing was driving Roz wild and she bucked, her body bridging up off the bed as she came explosively, her cries filling the bedroom as she groaned out her pleasure. God, she was beautiful when she came. The spasms left her weak and trembly, and I slid my hand down her flat belly, pushing between her pussy and Ellen's face and slipping one finger into her. She stirred and moaned and I could feel the contractions of her silky walls as the aftershocks of her orgasm continued. I kissed those full lips and whispered in her ear.

"Let's make love to Ellen."

"She won't let us," she whispered back.

We'd see about that. I reached down and tangled my fingers in Ellen's silky blonde hair, tugging gently, and she slid up between us. I kissed her, tasting Rosaline's sweet juices on her lips. I felt Roz slide down and capture one of Ellen's nipples and I continued to kiss her.

She kissed me back, enthusiastically, and I pinched the nipple that Roz wasn't sucking before sliding my hand down to cup Ellen's pussy. To my surprise, she wasn't at all wet.

"You okay, Baby?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes, do you mean because I'm not wet?"

I kissed her again. "Yes, are you not turned on, Baby?"

"I really don't know what that means," she said. "I like what we are doing. I love making you and Roz feel good and I like to be loved on, but I don't really get wet like you guys."

That was a stunner, but I should have expected it, I guess. "Does it feel good when I play with your pussy or your nipples?" I asked.

"Yes, but it feels just as good if you play with my belly button or my ear," she said. "I like for you and Roz to touch me, Sahara, but I don't get like you do. You both have those orgasms and I love giving them to you, but it's never happened for me."

That nearly broke my heart. I was falling very much in love with these two and Ellen was the sweetest person I'd ever met. Life just isn't fair, sometimes. "Can we try to give you an orgasm?" I asked.

"Yes, but Roz has tried ever since we started making love," she said. "I think if anyone could, it would be you, Sahara. You're so gorgeous and I love you so much. You can do anything you want to with me, as long as I can do you, too."

It was a total fail. She enjoyed every minute of it and we did manage to get her a little wet, but nothing. This was going to be tricky and I needed to think. I also needed lube. The biggest reaction was when I was licking her clit and slipped a fingertip into that tight little ass. She gasped when I did that and seemed to respond a bit, but I didn't have any lube and that was going to keep us from exploring that angle until I could get some.

I did a scissor position with her and came like a bomb while I was diving for treasure in Roz's beautiful little muff. We slept, tangled up in a knot of satisfied girl. We made love again in the morning before they had to go to class and I was left alone in an empty house. I missed them, already.

They came over every night that week except Wednesday and we were forming quite a bond. I could easily see what was happening, and I knew we were falling in love. I imagined what life would be like with them as my lovers. Everything I imagined seemed like something awesome and beautiful. I had no intention of giving them up, but there was Merlin. I could see storm clouds on the horizon there.

We settled into a routine. I went out with him on Saturday night and the girls were all agog to hear about our date. I let him kiss me and it had been smoking hot. I wanted more.

Now that I was all moved in, Merlin and I were finally going to the Grand Canyon for that date we'd postponed. Merlin had obtained a use permit, and we were going to hike the Bright Angel Trail and camp by the Colorado River at the Bright Angel Campground. Merlin warned me that it would be an arduous hike and to wear durable comfortable shoes and that we would need to bring plenty of water, even though there were water stations along the trail.

Merlin picked me up in his Shelby, and I couldn't believe how much gear he had crammed into it.

"How in the hell do you expect us to lug all that down into the Canyon?" I said.

"Don't worry," he said, "It looks worse than it really is, crammed like that into my car. Once I get the gear situated and balanced between our packs, it won't be that bad."

We got to the parking lot at the trailhead, and Merlin pulled out the gear and started sorting things out.

Fortunately, we were both pretty big people and Merlin took a little more onto his shoulders. As we hoisted the packs onto our shoulders, they were surprisingly comfortable.

Merlin looked at me and must have read my mind. "Don't get too cocky," he said, "It's nine and a half miles to the campground, and tomorrow we're going to have to climb back up, so take it easy and don't be too proud to ask for a break!"

He had some walking sticks that we decided to use; some parts of the trail were pretty steep, and we could use the help to keep from falling on our faces going down and for some extra purchase when climbing back up.

I've done a fair amount of hiking in my time, but very little in terrain like this; I was a little taken aback, but said, "Don't worry, I will."

With that, we took big drinks of water and headed down the trail.

The first part of the trail wasn't too steep, and I was already amazed at the vista when we went through the first tunnel. When we got to the first switchback, we hadn't even gone a half-mile, but had already descended 300 feet! We saw families with young children turn around and head back to the trailhead while we forged ahead as the trail got steeper.

We went through the second tunnel at the three-quarter mile mark followed by more steep switchbacks.

Finally, after a mile-and-a-half we reached the first rest house and took advantage of the opportunity to get off our feet for a few minutes. We used the restroom and replenished our water, and just looked around, taking in the views with our arms around each other. I was amazed that we had already descended over 3,000 feet, with another 3,000 feet over the next eight miles to go. One thing for sure, this would be a good test of our ability to face adversity together!

We hoisted our packs back up and continued down into the Canyon until we got to the three-mile rest house. After getting more water, I was watching many other hikers heading back toward the trailhead. I was already getting nervous about the climb back tomorrow!

In another mile-and-a-half, we reached Indian Garden, and it was absolutely beautiful! There was a pretty stream and some actual greenery! We used the rest rooms again and had a nice lunch using the picnic tables there. After refilling our water bottles, I was beginning to have second thoughts. "Merlin, honey," I said, "This is a lot harder than I thought, do you think we should maybe head back?"

"Sahara," he replied, "I understand that this might be a little more than you bargained for, but you are a strong, tough woman, I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't think you could handle it. Please trust me, it will be worth it!"

"If you say so, Merlin," I said, "But it better be!"

We hiked a little over three miles until we reached the River Rest House and our first close-up view of the Colorado. I could hardly contain my excitement when Merlin decided he had to be a killjoy!

"I know this is a special moment for you, Sahara," he said, "But we still have a mile-and-a-half to go to the campground. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can make camp and relax."

I knew he was right, so off we went. It was an easy hike, walking along the river, then crossing over on the Bright Angel Suspension Bridge, stopping to take some pictures of the river along with some selfies, then on to the campground.

We checked in and grabbed a campsite as close to the river as we could get. We smiled at each other as we set up camp, I think we were both thinking of the fun we would be having later that night!

Freed from our heavy packs, we left the campsite just strolling around, holding hands, enjoying the scenery and each other's company.

Getting back to camp, we were ravenous and ate a hearty dinner before retiring to our tent. We had zipped our sleeping bags together and we stripped down, me to a tank top and boxers, Merlin to boxers, and slipped into the sleeping bag.

We were certainly tired from the hike down, and under normal circumstances would have wanted nothing but to go to sleep. However, these were far from normal circumstances, and we were not about to waste this opportunity to get to know each other more intimately.

Merlin was gently stroking my hair, looking lovingly into my eyes as he said, "Sahara, I have never known a woman like you! You are incredibly beautiful, strong yet feminine, and you know more about cars than most men I know!

"I know we haven't known each other that long, but I can feel myself falling under your spell. I think I love you and I know I want to make love to you, right here, right now!"

"Merlin, I understand," I said, "I feel the same way, but tonight? I feel so grubby from the hike. There are no showers here; all I had to clean up was the slop sink outside the men's room. I didn't even think to pack deodorant!"

"I don't care, Sahara!" he cried, "Hell, I'm just as bad! Your scent is arousing, I want to hold you, taste you, love you like you've never been loved before!"

Call me a mean bitch, but I couldn't help thinking back to my sessions with Ellen and Roz and thinking, "You've got a real challenge on your hands, Big Boy!" I wisely kept those thoughts to myself as I stroked his scratchy cheek and said, "I want that, too, Merlin."

I began the action by taking his face in my hands and giving him a gentle kiss on the lips, giving him just a little bit of tongue. I continued kissing down his neck, already picking up traces of his manly scent while my hands were stroking his chest. He wasn't overly hairy, just enough to show that he was a real man!

I continued kissing down onto his chest, tasting just a little of the residual saltiness from the sweat that he wasn't able to wash off.

When I reached his nipples, I was in for a bit of a surprise. None of the men I had sex with before were particularly turned on by nipple play, but Merlin seemed to get into it as much as any woman I have ever known. As he stretched his arms up I got a bit of a whiff from his underarms, and, strangely, it didn't gross me out, in fact, I lifted my face up and buried it in his underarm.

That seemed to get his attention. He pulled me up, and disregarding where I had just been gave me one of the most passionate kisses I have ever had.

He reached down and pulled my tank top over my head. As I raised my arms, I noticed another grooming issue: While I had shaved this morning, my hair grows fast; a razor was something else that I failed to pack, and I had noticeable stubble.

Either Merlin didn't notice or he didn't care, because he followed my example and just buried his face in my armpit, then gave it a big lick while his hands began to work my breasts and nipples. Just as I thought that things couldn't get much better, he moved his mouth to my nipples. While my nipples are very sensitive, I don't usually get very turned on by nipple play, but I was dangerously close to having an orgasm just from Merlin working on my nipples.

Then I thought, "Well, why the hell not?" and gave myself over to a sweet orgasm.

As I came down, I looked over to see Merlin smiling at me. "I've never done that before," he said.

I decided to be a smartass. "What, give a girl an orgasm?" I asked with a smirk.

"No, you bitch," he laughed, "I've never given one just by playing with her nipples."

"Well," I said, "I seem to be ahead in this game. Looks like it's time to even up the score." I pulled down his boxers revealing a very nice circumcised cock. While Merlin would certainly never star in any porn movies, it was definitely more impressive than Calvin's, once more disproving the myth.

I discarded Merlin's boxers and proceeded to attack his cock, licking up one side and down the other, stopping only to lick around the head a few times. As I stroked his shaft with one hand, I played with his balls with the other, sending chills through his body.

I shifted position so that I could take his cock in my mouth while continuing to play with his balls.

"Sahara," he moaned, "I'm not gonna last long if you keep that up."

I just smiled at him around his cock and gave him a sly wink. Him not lasting long was precisely my plan; I wanted him to last longer later on!

Merlin's moaning was getting more desperate, and he was shaking his head back and forth, when I unleashed my secret weapon. I got my index finger good and wet, and just as I increased the pressure with my mouth, I stuck my finger up his butt and he came like a racehorse. It was difficult, but I was determined to take his entire load in my mouth, and I did.

As his cock slipped out of my mouth, I made a point of showing Merlin my mouthful of cum before swallowing it with obvious gusto.

"My God, Sahara!" he cried, "I've never cum like that! You've drained me dry."

"I certainly hope not," I replied, "I've still got plans for that. But while he's recovering, why not put your mouth to good use," as I slithered out of my boxers and spread my legs wide in an obvious invitation.

You can say many things about Merlin, but he's no fool and he dove between my legs, grabbing my ass cheeks with both hands, alternately squeezing and stroking them.

While he was playing with my ass, he was kissing up the insides of my thighs, then all around my bare pussy lips. Sometimes he would gently lick around my clit, sometimes wrap his lips around it and suck on it, constantly varying the pressure. I won't say that he was the best at eating pussy that I ever had, but he was certainly one of the best men I ever had at it. When he stuck two fingers up my cunt, stroking my G-spot I almost took off, but he backed off, wagging his finger at me saying, "Uh, uh, I have a better use for that."
I wasn't sure what he meant until I looked down and saw that his cock had fully recovered.

He moved up my body and began kissing me, and I eagerly kissed him back, with no care for all my pussy juice on his lips.

While he didn't ram his cock home, he wasn't especially gentle either. He was just forceful enough so that I knew that I was being taken, that he was claiming me as his.

His cock felt just right, not stretching me painfully, but leaving no doubt that I was filled up.

Because of his earlier orgasm, he was able to last a long time, giving me two orgasms before I felt his building. I really wanted us to come together, so I started playing with my nipples, trying to build up to another one.

"Stick your finger up my ass," I gasped.

"What?" he asked, pausing in his fucking.

"Don't stop," I said, "But stick your finger up my ass, it will help me cum!"

He did what I asked, sticking his index finger all the way up my ass while pounding my pussy with abandon.

Just as I thought I couldn't take any more, I started cumming, just as I felt him shoot, filling me up.

As we came down, we lay there panting, looking lovingly into each other's eyes, then we gently kissed and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning, I gave a languorous stretch and smiled down at the still sleeping Merlin. I knew it was still very soon, but I could see myself falling in love with this man!

I thought about Roz and Ellen, and my budding romance with them. I was in a real quandary! Would they accept my being in a relationship with Merlin? How would he take my involvement with them? I couldn't even fathom the idea of all of us together!

Merlin began to stir, and I reached over to him expecting to continue what we had started the night before, but he, surprisingly, pushed me away!

"What's wrong?" I asked, "Didn't you enjoy last night? Don't you want to go again?"

"More than you can know, Sahara," he replied, "But we have a long hike ahead of us, uphill this time. We need to get an early start and get as much as possible done before the sun gets too strong."

I shuddered, remembering the hike down, dreading the hike back up.

We had a quick breakfast, drinking down a bottle of water, and broke camp. Refilling our water bottles, we hit the trail.

Except for a few more shots along the river and on the bridge, we didn't hesitate much, trying to cover as much distance as we could while the sun was still low.

As both the sun and the trail climbed, we took frequent breaks, making use of stops to take more photos of the spectacular scenery and each other. When we got back to Indian Garden, we took off our shoes and socks and lay right down in the stream, getting good and soaked. We knew we would dry off quickly in the heat. We dried off our feet, put our shoes and socks back on, and continued up the trail. We even took some selfies of us together with the canyon wall as backdrops. We had to stop once to let a burro train go by, waving at the tourists, feeling just a little jealous of their rides, then finished our climb.

The sun was already starting to set as we reached the trailhead, exhausted but still able to tease each other over who held us up the most on the climb up.

We took a few more pictures of the sunset before loading up the car and heading back to Merlin's place.

The first thing both of us wanted to was take a nice hot shower to wash the sweat, dust and grime off. Merlin kindly let me go first, but after giving him a chance to wash off, I got back in to give him a hand.

Once he was nice and clean I got down on my knees, took his cock in my hand and gave him a blowjob that I was sure he would remember for a long time!

After drying each other off with big fluffy towels, we slipped into his king-size bed, grateful for the firm but soft mattress after sleeping on the ground.

As tired as we were, we made sure we made sweet love to each other before slipping off to sleep.

Merlin had made arrangements to take the next day off so we were able to sleep in, but this time it was Merlin who woke up first.

I was initially disappointed that he wasn't there beside me until I heard and smelled breakfast being made.

I was dying for a decent meal, and padded naked to the kitchen to find Merlin in his boxers, frying up some bacon; I guess he was afraid of spattering grease!

I helped by getting the toast going, and poured myself a cup of the coffee that Merlin had already brewed.

Merlin fried up some eggs in the bacon grease and we sat down for a quiet breakfast, both of us thinking about the weekend and how our relationship had progressed. I had the additional burden of figuring out how I was going to tie the two halves of my life together.

I knew that, eventually, I was going to have to open up to Merlin about Roz and Ellen, but I was afraid. I had no idea how he would react; would he be jealous? Would he be turned off or disgusted? Would he want to play with us, maybe decide he liked one of them more than me?

Now, that thought truly terrified me! I was falling more and more in love with all of them, and to lose any of them would surely destroy me.

I just couldn't work up the courage to rock the boat and risk what I had, so I just pushed all thoughts of revealing my relationship with the girls to Merlin to the back of my mind and tried to stick with the status quo.

I knew I was probably deluding myself, but for a while, I thought I had the best of both worlds. I played with Roz or Ellen, sometimes both, during the week, and spent the weekends with Merlin.

Then, the other shoe finally dropped.

Merlin and I had been dating for a few months when it happened; Merlin asked me to be exclusive!

Although we had never spoken about it before, I think that Merlin knew I wasn't seeing any other men. He knew about my friendship with Roz and Ellen, but he thought we were just girlfriends; he simply had no idea just how close that friendship really was.

When Merlin asked me to be exclusive, I desperately wanted to say yes; but I knew if I did, I would have to tell him about the girls and that thought scared me shitless.

Merlin and I had talked about our sexual history and he knew that I had been involved with women, but he thought that was all in my past.

Finally, after a great date and a passionate session in bed, Merlin turned toward me and looked me in the eye. I thought I knew what was coming and I was right.

"Sahara," he sighed, "You know I've been wanting us to be exclusive. I believe that you want that, too, but something seems to be holding you back. Please, Sahara, I'm falling more and more in love with you. You have to believe that you can tell me anything."

"Merlin, you can't know how much I want to believe that," I said, "But I'm afraid that what I'm about to tell you will be the end of us, and that terrifies me."

"Oh, come on, Sahara," Merlin said, "I think I know you pretty well, I can't believe that whatever it is can be that bad. Please, just tell me."

"Okay," I teased, trying to lighten the mood, "Here goes nothing, I hope!"

Merlin gave me an odd look and I continued.

"You know how close I am with Roz and Ellen?"

He nodded and motioned for me to continue.

"Well, I'm afraid it's a bit closer than you realize," I said, "We're lovers, and we plan on continuing in our relationship."

Merlin just stared at me with his mouth agape, and I was almost going to crack a joke about catching flies before I realized that this was no time for jokes.

We just sat there staring at each other for a couple of minutes. Finally, Merlin shook his head as if trying to get rid of an idea that he just couldn't grasp. He got out of bed and started getting dressed.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" he barked. "I'm getting dressed, getting out of here, getting away from you!"

"B... But it's the middle of the night," I cried.

"So what?" he said, "That makes it just about perfect for the nightmare this night has become!"

With that, he stomped out, slamming the door behind him and I heard the roar of his engine as he started it up and the tires squeal as he sped off, hopefully not out of my life.

I just curled up on my bed and cried until sleep blessedly claimed me. I felt a little better in the morning. Roz came over while Ellen was in class and I cried on her shoulder for a while. I hadn't really delved into what I was feeling with Merlin with either her or Ellen.

I still had no idea how I was going to balance out all these conflicting emotions inside me, much less what I was going to do with the emotions they were all going through. I knew that I had fallen hard for Roz and Ellen and that Merlin had become necessary to my happiness, too. I just didn't know how to put all the pieces together.

"Roz, I'm going to lean on you here, and I'm trusting you completely," I said.

"You know I love you," she told me. "I can see that you're really upset about something and I want to help you in any way I can."

"Okay, I'm going to unload," I told her. "I'm very confused, Roz. I love you. That would be perfect if it were just you and me. I'd be yours for life if you wanted me. We have Ellen, though; the two of us have her. I love her, too. You love her and she loves and needs both of us, you, maybe, more than me. So, we all love each other. That's so special and so beautiful to me that I don't want to screw it up."

"So, what's the problem?" she asked. "It's Merlin, isn't it? What happened?"

I took a deep breath and felt as if I was about to jump off the edge of the Grand Canyon without a parachute. "I think I'm in love with Merlin." I said. "He, he asked me to be exclusive last night," I finally managed to get out, "I knew I had to tell him about us. I was so hoping that he would understand, that he could trust enough in our love to at least try to work things out." I burst into tears. "I told him I'm in love with you and Ellen and that's why I'm so upset." I waited for a reaction.

"What happened then, Sahara?" Roz asked.

"He exploded," I cried, "that's what happened! He wouldn't even talk about it; he just got dressed and left. He called it a nightmare."

She just sat there, staring at me with those huge brown eyes. I could see love there, but also pain, confusion, maybe a little anger. "Say something, baby," I begged.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "I won't pretend I'm happy about you being involved with Merlin, Sahara. I think we have something special, too. I thought we had a relationship between the three of us. I knew you liked Merlin and that you were dating. I don't know what I expected. I know you like men, too, but so do Ellen and I. Should we be looking for someone to bring in and change our relationship? Are you going to be having relationships outside of ours, that don't include us? I'm not sure I can live with that."

Every time I tried to speak, I just started crying again.

"Don't cry, Sahara," Roz said soothingly, cradling me to her breasts, "I can't stand to see you miserable like this. I'm here now, it will be hard, but we'll work it out. Everything's going to be all right."

"No! It's not going to be all right," I said, sitting up and pushing her away, "It's never going to be all right ever again," as I collapsed back down in tears.

Roz seemed to get it. Just then, Ellen came in, took in the scene and just stood there, not sure what she should do. Roz got up and went over to Ellen, filling her in quickly about what had happened.

"Don't worry, Sahara," Ellen said, now taking her turn consoling me, "We'll figure something out. You'll get him back, trust me."

I wanted so much to believe her, but she hadn't seen Merlin, seen the look of utter disgust on his face. I just rolled back over, crying into my pillow, wishing I could just die. As I fell into a fitful sleep, I could hear Roz and Ellen quietly talking. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but I was sure they were talking about me and my situation.

For the next couple of weeks, I was in a terrible funk. I could barely write; when I looked at anything I managed to write, I just had to toss it; it was less than worthless.

Ellen and Roz tried their best to get me out of the dumps, trying to seduce me, separately and together, and I tried, I really tried, to play along, and then I would see Merlin's face in my mind, his look of disgust, and all of my passion would just drain away.

Then, Ellen and Roz came up with a plan. I had very little hope that it would work, but I had no other ideas. It was either this or nothing.

We ruled me out right away; if Merlin had any inclination to talk to me, it would have already happened! Very quickly, we decided to go with Ellen. Despite his reaction to my announcement, Merlin was a gentle soul, and would be kind to Ellen. This was a big step for Ellen. While she had come a long way since we met, she was still kind of shy and withdrawn, and uncomfortable in social situations, especially without Roz or me as backup.

We chose a Friday afternoon, with optimism that if things worked out we'd have the whole weekend to play. Roz and I each gave Ellen a big hug and kiss for luck and sent her off to talk to Merlin while we got ready to do our part.

We had it all planned. Ellen would talk to Merlin; get him to, at least, discuss the situation with us. When she was, hopefully, successful, she would send us a text so that we would be ready for their arrival.

Roz and I did a quick pick up around the condo, then we each took a shower and shampoo (not together) and shaved down. I kept my bald pussy and Roz kept her full bush, though she did give it a light trim.

We went back to the bedroom and got into bed. We didn't want to get ahead of ourselves, but we did want to be warmed up and ready to go, so we started kissing. At first, they were just light, sweet kisses, but we soon were dueling with our tongues as we began caressing each other's breasts.

We were both becoming very horny, and I could smell our mingled musk as our pussies dampened. We needed to back off a bit, so that we would be ready for the big show.

Fortunately, we didn't have to wait too long for the text from Ellen, and it was good news! She and Merlin were on their way over.

Roz and I gazed deep into each other's eyes and took some deep breaths. This was it, all or nothing.

I lay down on the bed, positioning a pillow under my butt, angling my pussy up, and getting my head comfortable on another pillow, while Roz positioned herself over me in a sixty-nine.

We were almost overwhelmed by the sight and smell of our pussies, and we were both immediately soaking wet. We were eating each other out with gusto when we heard the front door open. We paused for just a moment, listening to Ellen and Merlin entering the condo, then returned to our most pleasant chores.

I half heard them come into the bedroom and heard Merlin give out a small gasp.

"Beautiful, isn't it," Ellen said, "Sexy even?"

I couldn't hear anything, but Merlin must have been nodding.

"Wouldn't you like to play with them," she said, "With us?"

If she was following the plan, Ellen was dropping her dress, revealing her naked form beneath. Merlin might have been a big, tough man, but he was still a man, and the sights in front of him had to be having an effect.

I chanced a glance over and saw Ellen pulling Merlin's head down for a passionate kiss while she was stroking his obvious hard on through his pants.

As she started to unbutton his shirt, I was thrilled to see him start to undo his belt and remove his pants.

Once he was naked, he turned to Ellen, I'm sure he thought he was going to be fucking her, but she wasn't quite ready for that yet. She gently led him over to the bed, placing him on one side while she stood on the other.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she repeated, reaching out a hand and stroking Roz's back and ass, encouraging Merlin to do the same. That smoking hot college girl just under his fingers was just what the doctor ordered. He seemed mesmerized by all the sensations when Roz disengaged from me, crawled to the edge of the bed, took his cock in her hand and began stroking it, before bending lower and taking almost its entire length into her mouth in one move.

I've often heard the expression, but never saw it before. Merlin actually went weak in the knees and seemed to be having trouble staying upright.

I shifted over a bit, giving Roz room to lie beside me, raising her knees and spreading her legs, crooking her finger for Merlin to come to her.

Merlin hesitated, looking from Roz, to me, to Ellen and back again. We all smiled and nodded our okays at him before he climbed up on the bed. As turned on as he had to be, as we all were, he didn't immediately ram his cock into Roz. He began by gently kissing her neck while gently massaging her breasts, then started kissing her on the mouth a bit more aggressively while having some more fun with her breasts.

By this time, Ellen had joined me on the bed and we spooned while watching Merlin and Roz.

Just before he penetrated Roz, Merlin looked over at me. "You're sure about this?" he asked.

"More than sure, baby!" I said. "I love you, we all love you. I know you love me, and it would mean the world to me, to us, if you could love all of us."

Merlin shook his head, trying to take this all in.

"You've given me a lot to think about, Sahara," he said, "But I'm not really in a position to think right now. Too much blood is going to the wrong head."

We all chuckled at his bad joke.

"If it's okay with everyone, I'd like to finish here, then we can talk."

"It's more than okay," Roz said, "In fact, you'd damn well better finish, I'm dying here!"

With that, Merlin plunged his cock deep into her sopping wet pussy while Ellen and I just cuddled together and watched, enraptured. I slid over, running my fingers up Merlin's legs, feeling between them, exploring their joining. He was probably very big for her. I knew she didn't have a hymen, we'd used enough toys and fingers to make that certain, but I knew that this was the first live cock she'd ever had. I could feel the inner lips of her hot wet pussy, pushing inside her as he plunged in and stretching outward in a tight ring as he withdrew. She was gasping and I heard her groan.

When I looked up, I saw that Ellen had moved forward and was now loving Roz's nipples, stretching them out with her lips and letting them pop free, sending ripple effects through her beautiful breasts. I cupped his balls, feeling them begin to draw up in preparation for an orgasm. I whispered in his ear.

"Cum in her, Merlin. She's safe, and she'll love it."

I nibbled on his ear and slid my hand between them, feeling Roz's erect little clit and pinching it, circling my fingers around it, hurrying her along. I could feel her tensing, the trembling in her thighs and belly, signifying that she was about to explode.

"Now, Merlin," I hissed. "Cum with her."

Roz gave a strangled groan, her body attempting to bridge up off the bed and then she became very vocal. "Oh, oh, oh my God, Sahara! I'm... Jesus, Ellen, it..." Her voice trailed off into an unintelligible half-scream as her orgasm tore through her. At the same time, Merlin made a groan.

"Tight!" he moaned. "God, she's squeezing all around me! Roz, God, Roz!" His movements became irregular and I milked his balls, feeling them contract as he pumped into her. It seemed like they came for minutes, but I knew that wasn't possible. I felt like a cat in heat, myself. I glanced over at Ellen and her eyes were shining, I cupped her pussy and played with her.

I was dying to taste her, and started to go down on her. "No, Sahara, wait," she pulled me up and kissed me. "We need to talk."

Roz and Merlin were locked in a passionate kiss and when it ended, he withdrew, reluctantly, it seemed, and rolled off to lie beside her. They were still catching their breath and I pulled on Ellen, coaxing her to crawl up and lay on top of him.
With Ellen's frank blue eyes staring into his and sandwiched between Roz and me, he wasn't going anywhere. We had to do it, so I broke the ice.

"Merlin, you do know that everyone in this bed loves you?" I asked him.

He glanced over at Roz and she nodded. His eyes locked on Ellen's and she gave him a kiss that made me weak. "I guess I do," he finally admitted. "I knew Roz and Ellen loved me, just as a friend, but I thought you were 'in love' with me, Sahara."

"I am," I told him. "I love you as a friend and as a lover, Merlin. Let me ask you something, do you have more than one friend?"

"I see what you're saying," he said. "I'm just trying to get my head around having more than one lover. Let me ask you something. Is this going to be like next month, Roz finds a guy she wants, or you do, or I find a woman?"

"Hey," Ellen protested. "What about me?"

He laughed and kissed her again. "I think whatever you do is perfect, Ellen. It's these two I'm worried about."

"Roz, what do you say about that?" I asked.

"I would have been perfectly fine with just Ellen," she said. "Then Sahara came along and we both fell in love with her, just like you did, Merlin. The difference is, we always knew we were going to share her. By the time any of us knew how our relationship was going to go, she had met you and she was falling for you. You hadn't made love yet, and we just sort of fell into each other. What did Ellen tell you?"

He chuckled. "She sort of gave me the business," he said. "She was... Ellen. She told me Sahara was miserable and she didn't appreciate me making someone she loves miserable. She said that neither one of you was any threat to me and Sahara being together, that you weren't trying to take her away from me, but you were starting to feel like I was trying to take her away from you."

"I told him that every one of us loved him," Ellen said. "I said that we were willing to share her if he was willing to share her, and himself, with us. I told him that we were all attracted to boys, too, and I... I..."

He laughed. "She kissed me and groped me! She took my hand and put it on her breasts. I know she doesn't like to be touched by anyone she doesn't love and feel comfortable with. That told me more than any words could have."

"I told him I wanted him to come home with me, give us a chance to show him that he could have Sahara and more," Ellen finished. "I told him I needed a ride, anyway. He brought me in the Mustang, Sahara!" I could tell she liked that.

"Back to what I have to say," Rosaline laughed. "I'm not looking for any relationship with anyone who's not in this bed. Not only am I not looking, I won't have one and I won't accept any of you having one, either."

Ellen nodded her agreement. "No, I don't want that either," she said. "Sahara?"

"I never dreamed I'd find anyone like any of you," I said. "Merlin, when you said you wanted us to be exclusive; I wanted to say yes, more than anything. I would have said yes in a heartbeat, six months ago. That was before I met Ellen and Roz. I love them, Merlin, don't you see? I love them just as I do you. I'll never give you up if you love me, and them. They're part of me, just as I want you to be part of me and part of them. Why should any of us have to give up any of the rest of us? We all love each other. I know they aren't as in love with you as I am, but they will be, if you give them a chance. You'll fall in love with them, too. Tell me you don't love them."

He shook his head. "No, I do, it's just..."

"What?" Roz demanded. "Don't tell me the thought of fucking two hot college girls and the hottest woman in the state doesn't turn you on?"

He laughed. "No, I admit that it does. God, Roz, you were fantastic." He reached down and cupped Ellen's tight little ass. "I can just imagine what making love to this angel will be like, and Sahara is the hottest woman I've ever seen. She rocks my world, too. I already love all three of you. Each one of you is special in ways that I'm just finding out. Won't you be like, jealous, or something?"

"How can you be jealous of someone you love?" Ellen asked. "I think you're afraid, Merlin. You think we're going to be too much for you to handle."

He laughed. "I think any one of you would be too much to handle!"

"It's a good thing you've got all three of us then and we're into each other," I said. "Seriously, though, I think we can all just keep it between the four of us, right? If one of us decided to do something else, they are free to move on. That's true in any relationship."

"Yes, I guess it is," he admitted.

"Listen, when I got here, I was hurting," I told them. "I was married to a cheating asshole. I divorced his sorry ass and then my mother passed. I came here looking for a fresh start. I'm not a cheater, and I don't think any of you are. Do you think it's possible to just love each other, look out for each other and see where the road leads?"

They all agreed that they were willing to give it a shot. Merlin apologized for the way he'd stormed out without really understanding, and Ellen slid off him and onto Roz. "I think you two need some make-up sex," she giggled.

She slid down and engulfed him. She seemed to have no gag reflex at all, taking him into her mouth soft, and keeping him fully embedded, even when he was, obviously, in her throat. She worked him diamond hard and tugged on my arm, urging me to climb aboard for a ride. That was something I was happy to do, and I rode him until I had nothing left.

He finished off in Roz again, and Ellen and I cuddled and watched him blow her mind and then his nuts in that smoking hot girl.

While Merlin and Roz recovered, Ellen and I showered, barely restraining ourselves from starting all over again. We then changed the bed linens while Merlin and Roz showered, and while there was some giggling, they were good and didn't get out of control.

We all cuddled around Merlin for a blissful night's sleep, and it seemed like I had just fallen asleep when I awoke to an empty bed and the smell of bacon cooking. I went to the bathroom, then padded naked to the kitchen, quickly realizing that I was rather underdressed.

Ellen and Roz were in their bathrobes at the kitchen table sipping coffee while Merlin was frying up bacon in his boxers. I just thought, "Fuck it!" got my coffee and sat down in all my glory. The girls just looked me up and down, barely containing their laughter.

"I guess someone didn't get enough last night, and must have wanted to get a head start this morning," said Roz with a smirk.

"Well, excu-u-use me!" I said, "I didn't get the memo that this morning's breakfast was formal dress."

"Now, now, girls," Merlin said as he put a plate of bacon on the table, "I think we're well past the modesty stage here," as he dropped his boxers exposing his impressive half-mast erection.

Ellen and Roz exchanged glances, Roz stood up and said, "I guess we should join the club," dropped her robe, and Ellen did the same.

We ate a remarkably normal breakfast, if you could ignore the fact that we were all naked, and went into the living room. Ellen, Roz and I squeezed onto the sofa while Merlin sat in the easy chair.

We sat in an uncomfortable silence, none of us willing to address the elephant in the room.

Finally, Merlin took the bull by the horns. "Well, ladies," he said, "That was certainly the most fun that I can ever remember having, but where do we go from here?"

We all looked back and forth at each other until I decided that I'd better speak up.

"Well," I said, "To call this a unique situation would probably be the understatement of the century."

A nervous laugh went around the room.

"I know this is a lot to hit you with in a very short time," I said. "Ours is certainly an unconventional relationship!"

I looked around the room at three heads nodding slowly.

"As much fun as last night was," I continued, "I'm looking for more than hot, kinky sex.

"I love you all, and feel that I'm falling in love with you all. I don't want to give any of you up."

"Neither do we," Roz said, with Ellen nodding her agreement. Merlin just sat there with a bemused look on his face.

"Ellen, Roz and I obviously have formed a bond," I said, "As have you and I, Merlin. The only missing pieces are you and the girls."

Merlin seemed a bit befuddled. "What can we do about that?" he asked.

"Dates!" I said to more puzzled looks. "I think you should take Roz and Ellen on some one-on-one dates to get to know each other better, without the rest of us complicating things."

There was a brief pause as I could practically see the gears turning in their brains, then almost all at once they were bouncing up and down saying that was a great idea.

Roz in particular was practically drooling. "Well, I certainly wouldn't mind taking him for another test drive," she said.

"Roz!" I said, "Get your mind out of the gutter! I'm not saying that sex is out of the question, but that is secondary, the primary reason is to learn about each other, see how compatible you are."

"I knew what you meant, Sahara," Roz said, "I was just teasing." She may have been teasing, but I noticed an evil glint in her eye.

We didn't discuss "play time" for the four of us. I decided to just go with the flow and let whatever would happen, happen. As Roz and Merlin went off, I assumed, to make plans for their first date, Ellen approached me nervously.

"C-can I talk to you, Sahara?" she asked.

"Of course, honey," I said, "You can always talk to me about anything. What is the problem, sweetie?"

"It's Merlin," she said softly.

"Merlin?" I asked, "What's the problem with Merlin?"

"Well," Ellen said, "It's not really just Merlin. I've never been with a man before. Last night was the closest I've ever come to having sex with a man."

"Oh, Ellen," I said, "I'm so sorry, I knew that, but I wasn't thinking. I knew you led kind of a sheltered life, but I somehow thought that you had some experience."

"No, none."

"Okay, Ellen, first of all, you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do or that makes you uncomfortable," I said. "If you want, I can talk to Merlin, explain your situation to him, make sure he doesn't inadvertently put undue pressure on you."

"Thank you, Sahara, I'd appreciate that."

"Second, you obviously got a crash course on male-female sex last night, but you're going to need more than that to become comfortable on your own with a man, especially when it's time for intercourse."

Ellen nodded her agreement.

"Let's try this," I said, "When Roz and Merlin go out on their date we'll have our own 'Sex Ed' class! You can ask me absolutely anything, and I will try my best to get you ready to have sex with Merlin, but only when you're ready. Meanwhile, you can go out on dates with Merlin, get to know each other, feel what it's like to relate to a man."

"Yes, Sahara," Ellen said, "I like that idea."

"If you ever feel that you would rather talk to Roz, or to both of us together, just say so," I said, "You won't hurt my feelings. Deal?"

"Deal!" she said, and we hugged on it.

Just as we broke the hug, Roz and Merlin appeared holding hands, Roz was blushing and giggling, and I think they were doing a bit more than planning! Seeing Ellen and me, they quickly let go of their hands, not as if they were fooling anyone, and came over to join us.

"Merlin," I said, "We've got some things to talk about. Why don't we go for a ride; I think we can trust these two by themselves for a few minutes!"

"Okay," he replied a little tentatively, not sure what I had in mind.

We got in my Super Bee, headed for the local park and sat down on a secluded bench.

"All right, Sahara," he said, "You called this meeting. What's on your mind?"

"It's Ellen," I said.

"Ellen?" he asked, "What do you mean?"

"Well..." I hesitated, "I'm sure you've noticed that she's a little different..."

"Are you talking about her shyness?" he asked, "Of course. Lots of people are shy. Why this big discussion?"

"Merlin, I'm afraid that it's a bit more than just being shy," I said, "Ellen is autistic."

"Autistic? I always thought that was like mentally retarded. I don't know if that is the correct term. She certainly doesn't seem that way."

"No, Merlin," I said, "The term you're thinking of is intellectually disabled, but autism is different. She's probably smarter than all the rest of us put together. She has a genius level IQ. People with autism usually have problems relating to other people; that's reflected in Ellen's shyness. The key thing for you to keep in mind is to go slow, let her take the lead as much as possible. Back off if she seems to be uncomfortable."

"All right, Sahara, I think I understand," Merlin said, "I know I can sometimes come on strong, I'll make an extra effort to ease back. Is there anything else?"

I took a deep breath before I continued.

"Actually, there is," I said, "Ellen has never been with a man..."

"You mean that she's a..."

"Yes, Merlin, she's a virgin," I said, "As a matter of fact she's only had sexual relations with me and Roz. For now, I suggest you try to put last night out of your mind. We may play like that again soon; it may be a while. I can assure you that between Roz and I you won't exactly be going without!"

"Okay," he said with a small smile, "But what should I do for right now?"

"Just take it one step at a time. Back things up a bit, as if you had just met. Take her out to dinner; go to the movies, walks in the park, things like that. Don't take her to clubs; the crowds and the noise are too much for her. Go slow on the physical contact, hold her hand, put your arm around her, and be ready to back off if she seems uncomfortable. Follow her lead."

"Whew," he said, "That's a lot to take in, but Ellen's a special woman and I'm sure that she's worth the effort. What about kissing?"

"Again, follow her lead," I said. "You're a bright guy, I'm sure you've had to decide when a date was ready to be kissed before, I think you'll figure it out. Who knows, she may take things into her own hands!"

With that, we got back in my car and headed back to the condo. Merlin decided not to come in, he wanted to go home and think about all that we said.

When I came in, Roz and Ellen were concerned that Merlin wasn't with me, but I assured them that we had a very good talk, and that he just wanted some time to take it all in.

"Now, my dear," I said, looking at Ellen, "It's your turn!"

Ellen gave me a bit of a deer in the headlights look, looking back and forth from Roz to me.

"Relax, Ellen," I said, "I'm just teasing you. Now, would you be more comfortable if Roz joins us, or would you rather start out just the two of us?"

"I... I think I'd like to start out just you and me, Sahara," Ellen said, "If you don't mind, Roz?"

"Of course I don't mind, honey!" Roz said, "I want whatever makes you happy and comfortable."

A short while later Merlin called, inviting Roz out to dinner and a movie and she accepted, giving Ellen and me the condo to ourselves.

After a light supper, we went into the living room and sat together on the couch, just relaxing until we were ready to begin. When the tension got to be too much I took Ellen in my arms and gave her a gentle kiss, then I began.

"Ellen, I know I don't need to explain the mechanics of man-woman sex to you, especially after Merlin and Roz last night!"

She blushed sweetly and gave me a small nod.

"Most of the sex with a man isn't really all that much different than with a woman, except that a man is usually stronger and they aren't as soft as a woman.

We began kissing and making out until things started heating up, and we moved into the bedroom, where we undressed each other and slipped into the bed.

"Besides the obvious physical differences, there are two parts of sex with a man that are not done with a woman. The first, obviously, is intercourse and the second is fellatio. You saw Roz do that to Merlin and you gave it a go. Do you remember that, Ellen?" I asked.

"Y... Yes," Ellen replied, "I don't think I'm very good at that."

"You looked like you were doing pretty good to me," I said. "Let me explain a few things about that. You know how good it feels when Roz or I go down on you?"

"Uh-huh," she said.

"Well, it feels just as good for the man when it is done to him, maybe even better, especially if you let him finish."

A look of horror came over her face, and I chuckled.

"Don't worry, Sweetie," I said, "As much as they may want to, most men worth having respect their partners too much to insist on it. Some women don't care to perform oral at all, and while their man may go along with her wishes, most men will resent it, especially if she expects oral from him. Our arrangement may actually help you in that regard, because both Roz and I love it, so if you really can't do it, we can help you out."

Ellen giggled at that.

"You never know," I said, "In time, you may decide you like it, but there will be time for that later. Before we go any further, I need to be sure; you do want to make love to Merlin, right?"

"Oh, yes!" she said, "Definitely. But I'm afraid."

"That's what I'm here for, baby," I said. "First, let's warm you up."

With that, I began kissing down her neck while caressing her breasts, slowly moving down her body until I was facing her sweet pussy. I was surprised to see some moisture on her pussy lips; until now, she had been dry as a bone. Maybe our proposed arrangement was exciting her even more than she realized.

I licked up one side and then the other, trying to add my saliva to her juices, and her labia parted a little and her clit started to peek out. I sucked on my fingers to get them nice and wet and gently teased her lips open while circling her clit with my tongue.

For the first time since I knew them, she was responding to vaginal play, and I continued my oral attack on her clit while continuing to probe a little deeper with my fingers. She didn't have a large hymen but I did notice her wince a couple of times. I leaned up close to her face and said gently, "Don't worry, Ellen, it's perfectly normal to feel some pain your first time. Would you like me to help make it easier for you when the time comes?"

"Yes, please, Sahara," she said.

I reached over to my nightstand drawer and got my lube and my smallest dildo. I lubed up the dildo and returned my mouth to her pussy to get her turned on again. I coated my fingers with lube and lubed her up as best I could.

I leaned back a bit and said, "This is going to hurt some, baby. Please feel free to pull my hair, beat on me, cry out, whatever you need, okay?" She nodded her okay, but I could see some tears in her eyes.

I resumed sucking on her clit while gently rubbing her labia with the tip of the dildo until I decided I couldn't put it off any longer and gently but firmly pushed the dildo home.

She gave a gut-wrenching moan while pulling my hair with one hand and beating on my shoulder with the other, but she soon settled down as I gently stroked the dildo in and out.

When she seemed calm enough, I got up and went to the bathroom to get a warm washcloth and clean her up.

I changed the sheets and we spooned together and fell asleep.

I never heard Merlin and Roz come in, but when I got up in the morning I saw them snuggled, still asleep, in the guestroom.

By the time I got out of the shower and put the coffee on, the others were stirring, and we were soon gathered around the kitchen table having breakfast. Ellen and I, by some unspoken agreement didn't share what we did, but Roz and Merlin apparently had a grand old time!

At first, I was concerned because Ellen seemed a bit more quiet than usual, and I was afraid that I had pushed her too far, too fast, but as the day wore on, she was back to her usual self. I was pleasantly surprised when she accepted Merlin's invitation to dinner.
I was careful not to get overly optimistic, but I was hopeful that we just might make this thing work.

When Merlin picked up Ellen for their date, I told Roz about my night with Ellen, and she could hardly contain her excitement. I had to calm her down, remind her that this was just a first step, and we didn't want to ruin things by getting ahead of ourselves. She reluctantly agreed and we had a simple dinner, before cuddling on the couch to watch some television, but neither of us had any idea what we saw.

We both nearly jumped out of our skin when Ellen closed the door and leaned against it with a goofy grin on her face. There was no way in hell that things could have gone so far so fast. We wanted to get the straight scoop from Ellen, but she was going to have to settle down first, so we sent her to take a nice hot shower and join us back in the living room.

We thought about opening a bottle of wine, then thought better of it: we needed to keep our wits about us, so we put on a pot of coffee while we waited on Ellen.

Ellen came into the kitchen wrapped in a fluffy robe, still with a glow on, and sat down at the table with Roz and me.

"Okay, Sister, spill," Roz said. "You obviously had a good time!"

"It was just wonderful!" Ellen replied. "I was so nervous, but Merlin was so sweet and patient. We went to a fancy restaurant with valet parking. Merlin was not about to entrust his Mustang to any valet, so we parked in a lot around the corner. He ran around the car to get my door and helped me out, and held my hand as we walked to the restaurant. I don't know how he knew it was my favorite, but he ordered chateaubriand for two. I told him I didn't drink alcohol, so he ordered us each a sparkling water.

"It was a little strange in a way. On one hand, it was a warm intimate dinner; on the other, it was so intense, he was gazing into my eyes as if he was looking right into my soul. If it had been anyone else, it might have been uncomfortable, but with Merlin it was just so warm and loving that I didn't want it to end. I wish I could tell you that we had some sort of deep meaningful conversation, but the truth is, I can barely remember it. It was mostly Merlin asking about me and Roz and our lives. I tried, but wasn't able to get him to talk much about his work.

"Eventually we headed back to the car. Merlin reached for my hand, but I wrapped it around his waist, instead, and he put his arm around my shoulders. When we got back to his car he opened my door and helped me in, then got behind the wheel. I felt it in the pit of my stomach when he fired that beast up, and as he pulled into the traffic he asked me if I was ready to go home.

"I think I shocked him when I said, 'No, let's go to your place for a while.' He gave me a bit of a double take, and then headed to his place. I turned down his offer of coffee, he put on some soft music, we just sat quietly for a few moments with our knees gently touching and my warm feeling returned.

"I'm not sure exactly what came over me, but I put my arm around his neck, turned his head toward me and gave him a kiss. I'm not sure who was more shocked, him or me, but as he kissed me back I could see what you meant, Sahara. It was definitely different from when I kiss you or Roz, but not bad different, just different. I could feel the scratchiness of his stubble, and while his lips weren't as soft as either Roz or you, it was still very pleasurable.

"After too few minutes I began to feel that I was losing control of myself, and if I didn't bring things to a halt I would go further than I felt ready to go. I reluctantly asked Merlin to take me home, and here I am!"

Roz and I just stared at each other, stunned. We never expected that Ellen would move this fast; we were sure that it would take months of gentle urging to get her anywhere close to this, and she went and did it on one date.

I noticed that Ellen seemed a little antsy, then I realized she had gotten herself all wound up with Merlin, and now she was nearly exploding from sexual tension.

I took Roz by the hand and walked over to Ellen. "You look like you need some help," I said, as I stroked the back of her neck. She was practically purring as Roz and I led her to the bedroom and relieved her of her clothes. We caressed her from both sides, and as Roz moved up to lock lips, I went down to make love to her sweet pussy.

I had never seen her so wet, and almost before I was ready she had her first ever orgasm. It wasn't earth-shattering or anything, but it gave me great joy to be her first. We were too spent to get cleaned up, we just spooned together, Ellen between Roz and me, and had a blissful night's sleep.

During the next few weeks, we became more and more comfortable with this foursome idea. We had just one more mini-orgy with the four of us, more or less the same as the first one, but we could tell that Ellen wasn't entirely comfortable; we put most of our energy into getting Ellen comfortable with the idea of sex with Merlin, and were careful not to push her.

Despite the success of their first date, we knew it couldn't be that easy, and it wasn't. More than once Ellen came home from a date with Merlin in tears. It wasn't anything that Merlin did; she was just frustrated and horribly awkward. Merlin took my advice completely to heart, and was very careful not to push her too far.

No, the problem was Ellen herself. She desperately wanted to make love with Merlin, but was also terrified of the idea. Even though they were taking baby steps, once in a while Ellen would push herself a little too far out of her comfort zone and would break down.

It would sometimes take hours with Roz and me comforting her before she would be able to get to sleep, and Roz and I would question the whole enterprise. We dated and played in various configurations, and Roz and I didn't play together with Merlin if Ellen was home; we didn't want her to feel pressured or left out.

About two months after she brought Merlin back, Ellen decided that she was ready to try again. She still wasn't sure if she was ready for intercourse, but wanted to see just how far she could go.

After talking to her to reassure ourselves that she was ready, we made our plans. I went to see Merlin to clue him in and remind him to follow our lead, while Ellen and Roz started the dinner preparations.

It was a tense dinner as we tried to keep things as normal as possible, even though we knew this was about as far from normal as you could get. After dinner we sat around nervously, nobody wanting to make the first move. Finally, it was Ellen who stood up and said, "If we're going to do this before I die of old age, I think we had better get started!"

The rest of us stood up and followed Ellen into the bedroom, where Roz and I undressed Ellen while Merlin got undressed. As Roz and I got undressed, Merlin and Ellen stood there staring at each other, the heat simmering between them until Ellen took the big step up to Merlin throwing her arms around his neck and laying a passionate kiss on him as he reached around her to grasp her tight little butt.

This was a big step for Ellen; as far as I knew this was the first time she and Merlin were in bodily contact while naked. Roz and I just sat nervously on the bed, one arm around each other, the other hands clasping each other.

Merlin released one of her butt cheeks and began caressing a breast and teasing her nipple while he lowered his mouth to Ellen's other breast as a small moan escaped from her lips.

Roz and I shifted a little as Merlin and Ellen stretched out on the bed stroking each other gently. I looked at Merlin's rock hard cock with concern; it was definitely larger than any of the dildos that Roz and I had used on Ellen.

Ellen reached down and touched his cock for the second time, and began gently stroking it. Merlin must have been on a hair trigger, because he suddenly shot all over Ellen's hand and belly. She was momentarily taken aback, but then brought her hand in front of her face to examine it. She gave it a small sniff, then a tentative lick. She made a bit of a face, then shrugged her shoulders, wiped her hand on the sheet and resumed kissing Merlin.

Merlin went back to kissing down her body, spending a long time on her luscious breasts. Roz and I were getting so turned on by the scene in front of us that our pussies were dripping, but we didn't want to take our eyes off Ellen and Merlin so we just played with ourselves while Merlin worked his way down to Ellen's pussy.

Ellen's head was thrashing back and forth, and I didn't think that she would be able to hold out very long, and I was right; she had the biggest orgasm that I had seen her have, and it set both Roz and me off and we exploded.

Roz and I lay down next to Ellen, gently stroking her hair as she came down, telling her how well she did. I glanced down at Merlin's cock and it was still hard as steel. He got up on his knees and moved between Ellen's legs, spreading them wide as he began to position his cock at her opening.

Ellen suddenly sat up with tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry, Merlin, I'm just not ready!" She buried her head on my shoulder and began crying.

"It's okay, Ellen," he said, "I understand." He was gently touching her shoulder and wincing as she flinched away. "I think maybe I should go home now." He gathered up his clothes and left the bedroom.

"Wait a minute," Roz said, rushing after him.

I could hear them going into the other bedroom where Roz made sure that Merlin wouldn't go home with a bad case of blue balls. I cuddled and comforted Ellen, while the sounds we heard left no doubt Roz was enjoying her mission of mercy. I heard the front door close and Roz came back to bed and we both held Ellen as she fell asleep, still snuffling.

In the morning, Ellen came shuffling into the kitchen with her eyes still red from crying. Roz and I both tried to comfort her, telling her that it was all right, that Merlin understood and that we all still loved her, but she resisted.

"No!" she said, "It's not all right. I've ruined everything!"

"You did no such thing," I said, flicking my eyes at Roz, hoping she got my message. I think she did, because a moment later she was on the phone, and few minutes later Merlin was at the door. Ellen sat in her chair like a frightened rabbit, wide-eyed and ready to flee.

Merlin walked over and knelt down beside her chair, but she couldn't meet his eyes until he reached up and gently turned her face to look at him. He gently wiped away her tears with his other hand.

"I... I'm s... so sorry, Merlin," she sobbed, the tears starting up again.

"Shh, sweetie," Merlin said, "You have nothing to be sorry for. We all knew this was going to be a process, probably a slow process, and I can be as patient as I need to be. I love you, we're all in love with you, and would never ever hurt you or ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable."

Roz and I nodded our agreement and Ellen launched herself into Merlin's arms, crying again, but this time they were tears of joy.

I was losing that spiraling out of control feeling as we wrapped our heads and hearts around this crazy-to-anyone-else situation. As we all got more comfortable with it, and each other, I realized I had been neglecting my writing. After a fairly intense spurt of work, I had put the finishing touches on my latest book and submitted it for editing.

I knew it would be a little while before I would get the edits back, so I decided to brainstorm ideas for my next book. Unfortunately, my brainstorm was little more than a sun shower, until a lightning bolt of inspiration struck me: Merlin!

Merlin was always very reticent about his work, but I got the impression that it involved some sort of industrial espionage. I made up my mind that he was going to open up at least a little bit to me, at least enough to plant a seed of inspiration.

While the girls were in school, I invited Merlin over to lunch and explained what I wanted to do. He was still reluctant, saying that it was too dangerous, until I convinced him (wink) that we could make it work.

Merlin explained that his client needed a security clearance to keep their government contracts. Someone was trying to breach their security in a way that would cost them their clearance.

He didn't know if it was simply a competitor seeking an advantage, or enemy agents. The former, while not without risks, should be relatively safe. The latter, however, it could become a real life or death situation, and he didn't want me anywhere near that.

It took some doing, but I got him to agree to take me on a ride along, just to get a flavor for what he did. I was surprised when he pulled up in his Mustang.

"What are you trying to do, be subtle?" I said. "I thought that we'd be using one of those nondescript sedans you see in all those detective shows."

"Yes," he said, "Everyone always thinks that, so who would expect someone undercover to be driving a car like this?"

He had a point; I grabbed my camera and iPad, got in the passenger seat and we hit the road.

He started out driving through some of the scummier parts of town, just to give me a little "flavor" he said. Quite a few heads turned as they heard the rumble of the exhaust, but nothing seemed suspicious.

As we approached the headquarters of his client, I saw Merlin tense up. "What's wrong, Merlin?" I asked.

He took a deep breath and pointed out a man leaving the building heading for the parking lot. "That's one of our prime suspects," he said. "We're pretty sure he's involved, but we haven't been able to pin anything on him.

"We've searched his car and his apartment, but haven't found anything yet. I want you to keep your head down; I'm going to follow him, see if he leads me anywhere useful."

We followed him to a warehouse district. I was concerned that Merlin's car might attract too much attention here, but he was hyper-focused on his task and didn't seem worried.

Merlin's target pulled up to a warehouse. "Take down this address," barked Merlin, "325A Harrison Ave."

As I finished typing, just before Merlin pulled away, I saw the suspect look at us suspiciously and speak nervously into a cell phone. A moment later another car pulled out from behind the warehouse and seemed to be following us.

"Merlin!" I said, nervously, "I think we're being followed!"

"Don't worry, Sahara," he said, "I'll lose him."

Merlin threw the car into a hard left turn and stomped on the gas. I looked back and saw the other car make the same turn, but Merlin made several other turns, seemingly at random, and in just a few minutes the other car was no longer in sight.

I consider myself a pretty strong person, but I have to admit that I was shaking like a leaf.

Merlin glanced over, and the asshole chuckled! "Now maybe you'll see why I didn't want to get you involved in my work."

I wanted to slap that silly grin off his face, but I was still too shaken as he pulled up in front of the condo to drop me off. I wanted him to come in, but he said he had some work to do, and took off.

Just as Merlin pulled away, Roz and Ellen pulled up. They could tell that I was shaken up and wrapped their arms around me in concern,

"What happened?" asked Roz, "Did that asshole break up with you, with us? I'll kill him if he did!"

"No, no," I said, "Nothing like that. I asked him to show me some of what he did, and it was going pretty well until someone started following us."

"What?" they both exclaimed.

"Yes," I said, "But Merlin pulled off some fancy driving and got away from them."

They helped me into the condo, and we just cuddled on the couch for a while until I settled down. None of us felt like cooking so we ordered in some Chinese, then crawled into bed and drifted off to sleep.

The next Tuesday, Merlin called me to see if I was available for lunch. Well, I was always available for lunch with him, so I met him at Chili's. We had a nice conversation and a nice lunch. I asked him how the case I had done the ride-along with him on was going.

"It's a little weird," he said. "I think they should just fire the guy, lock him out of the systems and move on. They seem to think he already has some secrets they want back. I'm closing in on some things. He's been in touch with a buyer, and it looks as if he's ready to make a move. I've been putting some pressure on the buyer. I'm pretty sure if he tries to make a deal, the buyer will sell him to me. We'll have to see how it works out."

"I had no idea these corporate espionage things were so complicated," I said. "How could 'secrets' be so valuable?"

He thought for a minute. "Suppose you're writing your new book," he began. "Let's say it is going to be a runaway best seller and you expect to make millions. Think about how your rival could make out if he could steal the draft copy of your book, sell it and maybe get a movie deal or something."

"I'd cut off his balls," I told him.

He laughed. "Yes, I believe you would. Remind me never to steal your book, Sahara."

We finished eating and he asked for a ride back to his office. His Mustang was being serviced and he had taken a cab to meet me. I was happy to hang onto him as long as possible and we were about halfway back to his office when the Super Bee notified us that he had an incoming call. We had paired the Bluetooth a week earlier so I could call him, hands free.

He answered and the voice on the phone sent us into a tailspin. "Merlin Ansel?" the voice asked.

"Yes, who is this and what can I do for you?" he said.

The voice was, obviously, heavily disguised, and sounded like a robot. "You're working on a case for Adams Industries," the voice said. "You are going to drop them as a client. If you don't, we have your girlfriend and she'll be the one to pay the price."

The call disconnected and when I stopped at the next light, I looked over at him. "I thought I was your girlfriend," I said. "They don't have me, so what the hell, Merlin? You know how I feel about cheating!" I was sort of pissed off, and sort of scared at the same time.

"Yes, I do, and I feel the same way," he snapped. "The guy is nuts," he snapped. It's obviously some kind of bluff. I'm not backing off an inch. I think the buyer must have tipped our guy. Shit! Now I'm going to have to make some fast moves."

He was visibly shaken, and so was I. "What are you going to do?" I asked.

"I have no idea," he said. "The first thing is to make sure you're safe. They may not have you, but they might try to snatch you."

I parted my thighs just enough to show him the little .380 in my thigh holster. "He laughed. "That won't be any fun for them," I said.

We pulled up in front of his office and he got out, walked around the car, gave me a kiss and squeezed my breast. "I know you're tough as hell," he said. "I want you to go home and wait for me, okay? Do it for me, Sahara. Just let me feel secure about this, okay?"

I started to agree, when the phone sounded again. It was Roz. "Hey, baby," I said. "I'm on my way home. Just about to leave Merlin's office. You need anything?"

"Sahara!" she was crying. "Ellen didn't come home from school at 1:30 like she was supposed to. I've been texting her and calling her, but she isn't answering. What should I do?"

I was frozen with horror. I looked up at Merlin and he was as white as a ghost. He leaned into the car. "Hey, honey," he said. "It's me. Don't worry, Roz, Sahara and I will go get her. You know how she is. Sometimes she doesn't notice her phone buzzing. We'll bring her home."

We managed to get Roz calmed down and he told me to wait a second. He ran into the office and came back out carrying a bundle under his arm and a box in his hands. He threw the box in the back seat and opened the bundle. There were two flak jackets in it. He handed me one.
"Put that on," he said as he got in.

"My God, Merlin," I could hardly speak. "Do you think they have Ellen? Is she your girlfriend that guy was talking about? Merlin, what are we going to do? I'll just die if anything happens to our baby! Please, we've got to do something!" I was practically yelling and I could feel myself starting to panic.

He took my face between his hands. He held me there for a minute. "Get a grip on it," he told me. "I don't know anything and neither do you. We are doing something. She may have just stopped off at the bookstore or for a cup of coffee. We're going to that warehouse and if Ellen's there, we're going to get her back. Can I count on you?"

I took a couple of deep breaths. "Yes, but it anything happens to that girl..." The more I thought about the possibility that Ellen was in danger, the more I was ready for some mayhem.

"Nothing is going to happen to her." he insisted. "Now let's get moving."

We flew through the streets, squeezing every erg of horsepower we could get out of the Super Bee. He opened the box in the back seat and took out four pistols. They looked big. He screwed silencers on the ends and loaded a dozen clips.

"You shot these with me at the range," he said. "I know you're a good shot. If it gets nasty, don't miss."

"I've never shot anyone!" I yelled at him. "I've only shot targets. I don't even know if I can!"

"What if they're going to hurt Ellen?" he asked. That settled it. I decided I could easily shoot someone who was hurting Ellen.

As we approached the warehouse, he told me to slow down. We parked about four blocks away and made our way into the alley. We moved in the shadows as much as possible, taking advantage of dumpsters, differences in the buildings and any cover we could find. We must have been about a block away when two guys passed the mouth of the alley. We could hear them talking, but couldn't make out any words.

Merlin hissed at me to get my attention from across the alley where he was behind the wall of a building that stuck out a bit farther than its neighbor. I was crouching behind a foul-smelling trashcan and he made hand motions for me to stay put.

Shit! It had to be here. It smelled as if someone had cleaned fish and put them in that garbage a week ago. I knelt there, trying not to retch. I kept motioning to him to move but he just kept telling me to stay put. I knelt there for what seemed like twenty minutes, becoming one with the miasma and the two guys walked back by the alley.

As soon as they were out of sight, he motioned for me to come over. He pulled me into the cover with him. "They're walking a patrol," he said. "We'll move down by those barrels and take them out next time they come by." He sniffed. "Jesus, Sahara, you smell like shit!"

If I hadn't needed him, I'd have killed him myself. We hurried down to the barrels and crouched behind them. At least they didn't smell like rotten fish. "What do you mean, 'Take them out'?" I asked. "Did you mean kill? We can't kill them, Merlin! Jesus Christ!"

"No, I didn't mean kill them," he said. "That's not what we're trying to do, anyway. If they die, I don't give a shit, do you? What if they've got Ellen in there? We'll injure them and make them talk. You take the one in the brown coat, okay?"

I stared at him. "Are you nuts? He's as big as a house! Dude will eat me for lunch. I'll take the other guy."

"That one looks dangerous," he said. "Big guys don't usually know how to fight. People are afraid of them and they never get in fights. Beat him with your gun. You can do it."

I was glad he thought so. The guy looked about nine feet tall. When they came back, we let them get a little ways past us and slipped out behind them. I hit my guy in the back of the head with the butt of my gun and the other guy must have sensed something because he bounced away as if he had springs in his shoes. My guy dropped to his knees, and I kicked him in the nuts from behind, as hard as I could. He let out a wheezing scream and pitched over on his face, his lunch spewing from his mouth.

I looked back at Merlin and the other guy and saw that they were still fighting. The guy was hurt; evidently, Merlin's first blow had got him on top of the shoulder and hadn't done him any good. His arm was hanging loose, but it hadn't affected his feet. He jumped up in the air and kicked Merlin in the chest. He went reeling back into the wall of the building and when he bounced off, the guy kicked him in the thigh so hard Merlin's leg buckled and he went down. I shot karate man in the ass.

He went down as if he'd been hit by a truck and he stayed down. The sound of the shot was muffled, but still pretty loud.

"Damn, Sahara, why did you do that?" Merlin got up. "I was going to take him."

I snorted. "Yeah, you were going to beat on his feet with your body until he surrendered, right?"

He gave me that rueful grin. "He knew kung fu or something," he said. "We need to get them in the alley and get down there before someone misses them."

His guy was unconscious and Merlin dragged him off by the heels. Mine was curled into a fetal position, holding his nuts and moaning. I grabbed his foot and tried to drag him. Damn, the man weighed a ton! By the time I got him in the alley, his weight had doubled to two tons.

Merlin pulled a roll of duct tape out of his jacket pocket and trussed them up like Christmas turkeys. The kung fu guy wasn't going to be talking any time soon. That left the mountain. He wasn't listening.

"Listen, asshole, we don't have time to fuck with you," I told him. "You want me to stomp your nuts again?"

He listened, but he didn't know anything. He claimed that he was just a security guy and he'd never been inside the building. He said he hadn't seen a girl and I started feeling better.

I still don't know what happened. Maybe they were supposed to check in on a schedule or something, but by the time we got to the warehouse there were three of them outside. Merlin got one of them with his first shot but the other one was hunkered down behind some concrete steps and the other was scurrying toward a white van. I thought we could ignore him and we ducked into the doorway of the warehouse, keeping the other guy pinned down. It was a mistake.

One of us, I'm not sure who, got the guy behind the steps in the foot. He screamed and rolled out. Merlin shot him. I was still focused on him and I heard Merlin shout. "Run for the back, Sahara!"

I didn't argue, I just ran. He was right behind me and he threw himself on top of me when we got to the back wall. Then, everything went black for a while. When I woke up, Merlin was climbing to his feet. I looked at the front door where we'd come in and there was a gaping hole. There was a guy with a green tube outside, lying on the ground. The building was on fire and I could hardly see.

"What the hell?" I said. At least I think I said that. I couldn't hear a thing. Merlin didn't even look at me until I grabbed his arm. He looked at me and I mouthed, "What happened?"

"RPG," he mouthed back at me.

So that was it. Our missing playmate had gotten himself a rocket launcher from the van, and had managed to blow himself up while setting the building on fire. I'd done the same thing many times myself, but only in video games.

My hearing started to come back and it was hot! It was getting hotter all the time. I could hear the flames crackling now.

The front of the building was a raging inferno and there was no way we were going back out that way. There was a stairwell off to our right and we made for it. I was still woozy as hell and Merlin wasn't much better.

We climbed up to the second floor and the fire had spread up the front of the building. We'd be fried before we could get out the windows up there, and there weren't any in the back. When we got to the third floor, there were two windows in the back. It was five miles to the ground. Merlin was looking around as if he'd lost something.

"Merlin, we've got to get out of here," the crackle of the flames was all around as I was getting ready to kick out the window. The three-story drop was better than being roasted alive.

"I thought I heard a voice," he said. I listened, but the roar of the fire and the sound of glass breaking as I kicked out the window, quickly drowned whatever it was. "Ellen's in here," he told me. "Wait under this window."

"Asshole, you're going to die in here," I said. "We don't even know if she was ever here. There's no one alive in here. We need to get out. I'm not going to explain to Roz why you're a cinder in this shithole."

"Stay down there," he told me. "I may find something I need you to catch." He kicked open the door into the hallway. The heat nearly killed me. I picked the glass out of the window frame, crawled through, hung down as far as I could and dropped. I started rolling as soon as I touched the ground but it was a hundred-mile drop and the bottoms of my feet hurt.

After it was over, he told me what happened. "I heard it again; it was a woman's voice from down the hallway," he said.

"'Someone help me, I'm trapped!' It was faint and she was clearly in trouble. I pulled my jacket over my face and ran down the hall. The flames licked at my clothes and I could feel my eyebrows crisping. I put my shoulder hard into the door and it opened about a foot. I could see a figure cowering inside. She had a bedspread pulled over her and she was huddled in a corner. 'Ellen,' I called. She peeked out from under the bedspread, and it was her. I was incredibly relieved and scared to death at the same time. There was a beam cracked somewhere overhead and the whole doorjamb was sagging. I wiggled around until I got my chest between the door and the frame and my arms against the frame. I pushed with everything I had. I'm a strong guy. I won't brag about my bench, but I lift with the big boys and I don't wear a shirt.

"I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head before I felt that door give. Damn the people that built that place! Why couldn't it have hollow doors? Failing that, why didn't it have a stronger structure? Well, I guess an RPG into the place hadn't helped. The door gave, groaning nearly as much as I was and I shouted at Ellen. 'Follow me and I'll get you out of here.'

"She wrapped herself up in the bedspread and we made a dash down the hall. It was as hot as the seven gates of hell, and I thought I was going to pass out. She wasn't going to make it and I had to drag her into the room. I slammed the door behind us and dragged her over to the window. I looked out and thanked God that you were still there.

"'Climb out the window,' I told her.

"She shook her head fearfully. There wasn't time to argue so I just took her and leaned out the window. You know what happened after that," he said.

I did. "Sahara," he shouted. "If you drop her I'll kill you myself!"

It seemed like two hours had gone by when Merlin finally appeared at the window. His clothes were singed and ripped, but he was holding Ellen. "Are you ready?" he asked. Talk about a dumb question.

"Hell no, but what choice do we have?" I could see his grin three stories away.

"Here she comes!" He pushed her out the window holding her wrists, then let her fall. He told me later that letting her drop was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life.

I didn't drop her. She hit me like a piano being dropped on me and I heard her cry out. I dragged her out of the way so Merlin could follow. The door behind him exploded and it was time to go. He dropped and rolled off to the side. He got up limping, but he didn't think anything was broken.

"We've got to get the hell out of here," I said, trying to pull him to his feet. Ellen was rocking back and forth in pain and I could see that her leg was probably broken. He wasn't walking too well either, but we dragged the three bodies to the door and threw them inside. He picked Ellen up and we beat feet toward the Super Bee.

Ellen and I were both crying and I felt bad for her. She couldn't understand what had happened. I hardly knew myself. We began to hear sirens and two police cars, an ambulance and a fire truck roared past. I sat back with a sigh. I had a minute to check Ellen and other than her leg, she seemed to be okay.

"Did you kill those men?" she asked.

"Yes, I'm afraid we did, baby," I told her. "They were trying to kill us. You may have noticed that they tried to blow us up and destroyed the building."

"What are you?" she asked Merlin.

"I'm a security contractor, Ellen. Do you know what that is?" he asked.

She nodded. "You're a mercenary."

"Hey, that hurts my feelings," he said. "Such a dirty word."

"We didn't intend to kill anyone," I told her. "Roz called us and told us you were missing. We got a phone call, telling us you'd been kidnapped. We came to get you and they tried to kill us. One of them got outside and got that RPG. He got off a round and blew himself to hell. I'm very sorry. She needs a doctor, Merlin."

"I know a doctor that will fix you up," he said to Ellen. "He won't tell anyone and it won't cost us anything. Sahara can drop us off at the office and I'll take you there, okay?"

She looked uncertain, but she nodded.

"What the hell happened back there?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "This was supposed to be a simple job. Just get the computer he had stolen back. The guy's name was Rick Carpenter, and he was a thief. He stole valuable things and sold them. There was no way he could crack the encryption on that computer, but he didn't know that. The computer belonged to my client, but I have no idea what was on it. It was just a laptop. My client wanted it back badly and they paid me a lot of money to get it. Carpenter thought he was tougher than he was. He and two of his buddies are now turning into cinders back there in that burning building. Where in the hell did he get an RPG? I have no idea what he hoped to accomplish by taking Ellen. Maybe he was using her to get me to back off."

I took them to Merlin's office and helped him get her into one of his Suburbans, and then I called Roz. I told her Ellen was with us and that everything was okay, then Merlin took off with Ellen and I headed home.

Merlin knew a doctor who owed him big time. Merlin got his daughter out of a bad situation a couple of years back and it was time to call in that favor. He was with a patient when they arrived, but when he was done with her, he took them back. Merlin explained the situation and he got his PA to come in and do some x-rays. It wasn't a bad break, and there wasn't a lot of swelling. He put a small cast on her and got her some crutches, then Merlin brought her home.

It was easy to tell that Ellen had never tried to use crutches before. Her mobility was very limited and they made their way slowly to the Suburban. The crutches were collapsible and they fit in the back so they weren't flopping around back there.

When they got home, Rosaline and I were waiting. We helped Ellen inside and she had some difficulty.

They sat down and I got some juice for Ellen and a beer for the rest of us. Roz took her away and helped her bathe. She looked as cute as a month-old kitten when she got back. Her silky blonde hair was starting to fluff up and she looked fresh and clean. We talked for a minute and she never took her eyes off Merlin. I wondered what she was thinking.

Merlin and I got our turn in the shower, and I could finally wash that fish stench off me. I didn't know what could get it out of the Super Bee; I'd have to look that up on the Internet. We didn't even play around like we usually would, we just held each other, glad to be alive. When we rejoined the others, Ellen stood there on her crutches for a minute, and when Merlin sat down, she asked Roz and me to join her in the bedroom.

We wondered what she wanted, and were concerned that something was wrong. I asked, "Is everything all right, Ellen?"

"I...I think so," she said, "There's just something I need to talk to both of you about."

I turned to Merlin. "I hope we won't be long, you'll have to take care of yourself for a while," I said. I reconsidered when I saw his goofy grin, "Just don't take care of yourself too well."

He gave me a fake pout, picked up his smartphone and began playing some game.

The three of us went into the bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed, Ellen between us, and Roz and I each holding a hand.

"Okay, Ellen," Roz said, "What's the problem, Sweetie?"

"It's not really a problem..." Ellen started.

"Then what is it?" I said, a little impatiently.

"Take it easy, Sahara," Roz said, "Give her a chance!"

"I'm sorry, Honey," I said, "Go ahead, take your time."

"Well," she said, "I'm not sure, but I think I'm ready to make love to Merlin!"

Roz and I exchanged meaningful glances, and I took knelt in front of her, taking both of her hands in mine.

"Ellen, that's wonderful," I said, "but this is a big step, so you really have to be sure."

Roz nodded her agreement as she hugged Ellen to her breast, giving her a gentle kiss on her forehead.

"But I've never felt like this before!" she cried. "How am I supposed to know?"

""I guess you're right; there's no real way to know for sure. You just have to go with what feels true to you and hope for the best."

"But how do I... what do I do?" she asked.

Roz and I laughed, and Ellen started to get upset, then Roz said, "We're not laughing at you, Ellen! Men are pretty simple. You've heard the expression 'You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink'?"

She nodded her head yes.

"Well, you lead a man between your legs and the problem will be getting him to stop 'drinking!'"

We all laughed at that, I wondered what Merlin must be thinking.

Ellen pulled herself together, Roz and I helped her up onto her crutches and we returned to the living room.

Ellen hopped over to him. "Move your hands," she said.

He opened his arms and she eased herself down on his lap, dropping her crutches and wrapping her arms around him. He looked at me, asking if it was okay. I nodded and he gathered her in, kissing the top of her head. She squirmed around a little and got comfortable. I looked at Roz and she gave me a wink.

They whispered together for a moment, then Merlin stood up with a little difficulty, holding Ellen in his arms like a baby and carried her into the bedroom.

He gently laid her on the bed and began to undress her, slowly, kissing her lovingly as he went, while Roz and I just stood at the foot of the bed with our arms around each other, getting all misty-eyed.

"Ellen," I said, "Would you like us to leave?"

"N... No," she answered, "I'm still a little afraid and you and Roz give me strength."

We smiled at them. I would not interrupt this beautiful moment again.

After he tenderly disrobed Ellen, Merlin moved back up to her face, giving her sweet little kisses while gently stroking her cheeks and neck. I knew that Merlin was a caring lover, but I was seeing a side of him that was gentler than I had ever known possible.

His patience as he slowly worked down her body was wonderful and excruciating at the same time. I could tell that Ellen was getting anxious as well, she was thrashing slowly side to side in her need, when Merlin suddenly flipped her over, ignoring her needy pussy.

Ellen started to protest until Merlin straddled her body and began to give her a sensual massage; gently stroking her neck, then more forcefully kneading her shoulders before slo-o-owly making his way down her back to her tight ass. He was good at this! The bastard had been holding out on us, and we were definitely going to be making up for lost time!

Ignoring Ellen's protests, he rolled her back over and returned to kissing her face while gently massaging her breasts before, once again, making his way down her body.
He kissed his way down the graceful column of her neck, making her shiver and make sounds like a kitten. Stopping where her neck flowed smoothly into her shoulders, he tickled the little hollows, giving her goosebumps. Her eyes were tightly shut and she was arching her back, trying to get more contact between her nipples and his chest.

He trailed kisses down her upper chest and it was easy to see that her need was mounting. As he licked and nibbled the sides and underswells of those gorgeous breasts she kept shifting, trying to get him to take her nipples into his mouth. He avoided them, sucking and licking everything but those amazing little pink nipples.

"Please, Merlin," her voice was husky with desire. "My... my nipples, please, Merlin!"

The path of his lips up the side of her left breast was agonizingly slow and I began to feel lightheaded as I watched. My panties were soaked and I could feel Roz doing a slow writhe against me. When he finally latched onto her nipple, her eyes shot open and the startling blueness was blazing with a cool fire. She arched her back and her head twisted from side to side.

I was afraid she was becoming overwhelmed and I took a step toward them, Roz staying pressed against me. She noticed my motion and her eyes flew to my face. She held out her hand toward me and Roz and I knelt on each side of the bed, holding her hands as she squeezed the life from them.

"Roz... Sahara... I... I'm running away!" Her voice was a groan of ecstasy. "Merlin, it's so... so... so good!"

He must have spent five minutes on those little nipples and Ellen was doing a slow dance, her face, neck and shoulders becoming flushed with her arousal. We stroked those slender white arms and Merlin began to move downward again, across the flatness of her belly, dipping his tongue into her navel as her stomach fluttered in and out with the heaviness of her breathing.

I was sure that he wouldn't ignore her pussy again, and I was right. She was more than ready, so Merlin didn't waste any time before diving into her.

Obviously, I couldn't see, but from Ellen's reaction, his tongue was doing its job and it felt as if she were going to break my fingers. I could tell she was building to a peak, still nervous, but as ready as she was going to be.

Somehow, Merlin had managed to shed his clothes, and as he crawled between Ellen's knees, I swear his cock looked larger than ever. I was afraid that she wouldn't be able to handle it, but Merlin was so gentle as he eased into her, her soft moans were obviously of pleasure.

She released our hands and her slender arms wrapped tightly around his back, his moving body between her thighs.

When he was fully inside her, slowly rocking back and forth, I turned to Roz and nodded toward the door.

We went into the guest room and just sat on the bed fully clothed, kissing and stroking each other until we heard the sound of their orgasms. Ellen's sounded like nothing we had ever heard from her before; we hoped that was a good thing!

The shower was running and it had to be Merlin so we went back into the bedroom. There she lay, with Merlin's cum running out of her and a smile on her face like we'd never seen before.

We jumped up and pulled her back on the bed between us.

"How was it, honey?" I asked. "Are you okay?"

"I'm much, much better than okay," she said with a wistful smile. "I never dreamed that it could be like that!

"Roz, Sahara, please take this the right way. I love when we make love, it is so loving and special, and I would never, ever want to give it up.

"But the feeling of being filled by Merlin's cock, so hard yet soft, and then being filled by his cum, it just sent me to another level. You aren't upset with me, are you?"

"Of course not, sweetie," Roz said, "We love you, and want whatever makes you happy."

I nodded my agreement, then hearing the shower still going, I gave her a kiss on the cheek and said, "I think Merlin might need some help washing his back, why don't I take care of it?" I left my precious sisters cuddled together on the bed, and went to show our man just how proud I was of him.

The next morning Ellen seemed depressed, and I couldn't figure it out. She should have been flying high! I tried to talk to her about it, but she shut me out and I didn't want to push it.

While Ellen was in the spare room studying, Roz came over to me.

"Sahara," she said, "Did Ellen seem off to you this morning?"

"That and a half!" I said, worried, "but I couldn't get her to open up to me!"

"I had problems with that, as well," Roz said, "I was able to pry out a couple of bits of information. Ellen is desperately in love with Merlin..."

"So?" I asked. "We're all in love with Merlin."

"Yes, but with Ellen there are complicating factors. Before you and Merlin came into our lives, Ellen was never 'in love'. Yes, she loved me, but despite our sex play, it really wasn't significantly different than sisterly love.

"Then, first you, and then Merlin came into our lives, and opened the door to a whole new world. I was prepared for it, but Ellen really wasn't. I know it didn't seem like it, I barely noticed it myself, and I've known her all her life, but she was walking a very fine line.

"When she was kidnapped, she nearly lost it. It was only the thought of the three of us that kept her from just retreating totally into herself.

"When Merlin came smashing through that door it seemed to her like he was Superman coming to rescue Lois Lane. She's gone from love to full blown hero worship, and she doesn't believe that she is worthy."

"That makes me nuts...sorry, poor choice of words." I said.

"That's okay," Roz said, "I know what you meant. We're going to have to tread very carefully and talk her through this."

"Of course," I said, "I'll help in any way that I can, just tell me what I should do,"

"Just follow my lead and your heart; I'm sure that you'll do fine!"

We went to the bedroom and Roz knocked gently.

"Go away!" Ellen said.

"Please, Honey," Roz said, "Sahara's with me; we just want to talk."

"I can't," she said, sobbing, "Please leave me alone."

"Ellen, please, it's me, Sahara. I can't leave you like this."

She didn't say anything, but I could hear her snuffling and her feet shuffling towards the door.

The door opened slowly, and there she was. She looked so miserable, like her dog had died. I tried to give her a hug but she backed away, avoiding my eyes.

"Ellen," I said, "Why won't you let us help you? We love you and..."

This just started a new wave of tears and she buried her face in her hands.

Roz and I took the opportunity to go to her and sit with her at the edge of the bed, wrapping our arms around her, feeling her shuddering sobs. We refused to let her go until she settled down enough to talk to us.

"Ellen," I asked, "What's the problem? You were so happy after you and Merlin made love. We all were."

"I-I was," she said, "A-and I felt so wonderful waking up in his arms. Then I realized what I was doing and I was so angry with myself."

I was puzzled. "Why were you angry with yourself, Sweetie? You and Merlin had done something beautiful, you should have been happy!" Roz nodded her head in agreement.

"Don't you see?" she sobbed, "He's your boyfriend, you're my best friend and I was stealing your boyfriend. I'm a terrible person!"

"Baby, you've got it all wrong," I said, hopefully reassuringly, "I thought we had this all worked out. All of us, you, me, Roz and Merlin, we love, are in love with each other, share each other. You can't steal what you already have!"

She gave a shuddering sigh and seemed to settle down a little bit, but Roz and I kept holding her until she fell into a fitful sleep. We stretched her out on the bed, covered her and quietly returned to the living room.

After closing the bedroom door, we both leaned against the wall and slid down until we were sitting on the floor.

"Whew," Roz said, "That was intense!"

"Tell me about it!" I said. "Do you think she'll be okay?"

"I'm not sure. We've never been in a situation like this; I've never seen her like this!"

"I think we need to get Merlin over here," I said. "This certainly involves him, and maybe he can help."

"Good idea." Roz said.

She got up to call Merlin, and I put the coffee on. I had a feeling we were going to need it.

In just a few minutes, I heard the distinctive rumble of his Mustang's exhaust and soon after there was a knock on the door.

Roz let Merlin in with a big hug while I put out the coffee and we all sat down at the kitchen table.

"Okay, ladies," Merlin said, "What the hell is going on? All Roz would say is that there was some trouble with Ellen. Is she okay?"

"Well, yes and no," Roz said.

"Yes and no? What the hell does that mean?" His voice was sharp with his worry.

I said, "She's not sick or anything, but she's upset about what happened between you two..."

"Why? What did I do?"

"Relax, Merlin," I said, "It's not anything that you did; you were absolutely perfect, but Ellen has gotten it into her head that she's stealing you from me. We're going to all have to re-explain our relationship to her, and we're going to need your help."

There was a pregnant pause, and then Merlin said, "Well, that certainly complicates things."

"No shit, Sherlock!" Roz said, "Why do you think we called you over here?"

"No, no, that's not what I meant," he said as he pulled a blue velvet box out of his pocket and opened it to show us a beautiful diamond and sapphire engagement ring.

As Roz and I stared at it, speechless, he continued, "I was planning on asking her to marry me tonight, and I wanted to talk to you to first, to make sure you were all right with it. I think I should probably hold off for now."

"Yes," Roz said, "Holding off is probably the right thing for now; I don't think that Ellen is emotionally ready for something like that. I believe that I can speak for Sahara that we are cool with that, when the time is right."

I agreed, then asked, "Just out of curiosity, what made you choose Ellen, rather than Roz or me?"

"Well," he said, "I don't consider myself some great psychology expert, but I thought it might help her to have a sort of anchor."

Roz nodded her head. "I didn't think we'd be moving this fast, but that would have been my suggestion as well."

"Tomorrow's going to be a big day," I said, "I think we should probably get some rest."

They both agreed, and after taking care of our bathroom routines, the three of us climbed into the master bed. Except for a little titty-grab, we behaved ourselves and fell into an exhausted sleep.

It seemed I had barely fallen asleep, when I was awakened by a tight little body cuddling up to me.

"So, are you three holding out on me?" Ellen asked, looking a little down.

"In case you forgot," I said, "You kind of laid quite a load on Roz and me yesterday, then you kind of flaked out on us."

"I know," she said, "I'm sorry."

I turned and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "There's nothing to be sorry about. This is an intense situation for anyone, and as soon as these two get their asses out of bed and we get some coffee and breakfast, we're all going to hash it all out."

Ellen lowered her eyes and I said, "It's not your fault, baby. We all moved into this kind of fast; we obviously should have talked things over more, and we're going to address that situation today."

We had a leisurely breakfast, partly because we were enjoying the good food, but more to put off the difficult conversation that was to come.

After clearing the table, we could put it off no longer, so we took our beverages of choice and moved into the living room. Roz and I sat on the couch with Ellen between us. Merlin moved an easy chair to the other side of the coffee table.

We all glanced around nervously, nobody wanting to open the discussion. I finally decided that since I was the one in the middle of this, this, whatever "this" was that I would have to step up and take charge.

"Ellen, Honey," I began, "Do you remember when Merlin and I had our break-up and you brought him back here?"

"Of course," she said.

"Tell us what happened."

"Well," she began tentatively, "I was upset that he'd run out on you and made you cry, and I told him so. A lot, and not very nicely." She gave Merlin a rueful little smile, then looked back to me.

"Then I noticed he wasn't saying anything back, he was just sitting there looking sad, with tears running down his face. I felt awful, like I'd been kicking a puppy dog, so I ... I just had to go over and hug him. I know it wasn't like me, but I had to. I asked him what was the matter. He told me about how he met you, and about racing your cars, the whole story, and how the more he got to know you, the more he fell in love with you. He told me how he wanted you to be each other's one and only, for ever and ever, and he finally told you that night. Then you told him the three of us were lovers.

"He wasn't upset because you're bi, Sahara. It wasn't even so much that you were already in a relationship, though he was upset that you hadn't told him. He felt like you'd led him on.

"What really hurt was the loss of his dream of living with you. I could tell how much it had meant to him, and I could somehow ... I don't know, feel his loss. His pain. He was grieving, you know? I held him and we cried together." She paused for a moment. Her voice grew stronger and more confident as she told her tale.

"I told him how much you loved him, and I asked him if he could take a big risk on a different dream, one that involved all four of us. He wondered how it would work, and I told him we didn't really know yet, but we loved each other enough to try to figure it out. I, well, gave him a little sample to help convince him." She blushed prettily, and Merlin gave her a tender smile.

"I could see it was hard for him, but he agreed to try it. Then we came back here."

In the silence, Merlin came over and knelt before Ellen and me. He took one of each of our hands, and held them between his big paws. I stared, marveling at the joining of the contrasting hands.

"Ellen, did you feel that you were coming between me and Sahara that night?"

"No, but now..."

"Are you willing to take a big risk on a dream that involves all four of us?"

"I just don't want to betray you, Sahara. I know you love Merlin and I feel like I'm coming between you."

"That's not true," I said. "Tell her, Merlin."

"No, it isn't," he said. "Ellen, it's just like you said that night. You couldn't come between us if you wanted to, and all of us know that's not what you want to do. You're part of what Sahara and I have together. She and Roz are part of what you and I have together. I know she'll never give you up. If I want her, you're part of that. If I want you or Roz, I get the package deal and I just happen to think it's a hell of a package."

He turned to Roz. "Tell Ellen how you feel about me," he said.

She blushed a little. "I'm in love with him," she told Ellen. "I'd sell my soul to the devil to keep him."

Well, I hadn't known that, not really, but it made a lump come up in my throat and I could hardly speak. That's what I had been hoping for, and here it was, just like I'd dreamed. I took Roz's hand and joined it to Ellen's, Merlin's, and mine.

"See, honey," I said. "None of us are going to be happy without the rest of us. You can love Roz and me at the same time, why can't you accept the fact that we all love you? There's no you and me, there's us. All of us are in this together and if you're unhappy, all of us are unhappy. Do you understand, baby?"

"Yes, I understand," she said.

"Well, okay then," I told her. "I think you ought to drag Merlin off to the bedroom and fuck his brains out."

She turned beet red. She couldn't look at him. He stood up, walked over and picked her up like a baby, gathering all that gorgeous sweet girl up in his arms and carried her off into the bedroom. The sounds she made had me going nuts and Roz and I spent the next hour doing our best to turn each other into quivering jello. Well, chocolate pudding, in my case.

Three months went by and things had returned to our normal when Merlin came over to take Ellen out to dinner.

While Ellen was finishing getting ready, Merlin pulled out the ring box and showed us the ring again.

"If you ladies think that she is ready, I'm going to pop the question to Ellen tonight!"

"Oh, Merlin," Roz said with tears in her eyes, "She's probably as ready as she's going to be."

"Good luck!" we said together.

Merlin quickly put the ring back in his pocket as Ellen came into the room. She was absolutely stunning, a real vision. She was wearing a classic little black dress ending just a few inches above the knee, sparkling with sequins on the lower portion with a modest v-neck showing just a little cleavage. As she spun around Merlin almost lost it when he saw that it was nearly backless; she was obviously not wearing a bra.

Her hair was in a simple up-do and her make-up was nicely understated.

As Merlin picked his jaw up off the floor, he held out his arm and Ellen took it as they went out. Just before closing the door, Merlin turned and gave us a sly wink. It was all that Roz and I could do to restrain ourselves until they were gone before falling into each other's arms crying tears of joy.

We wanted to go to the bedroom and "celebrate," but decided to wait for the big announcement.

We heard Merlin's Mustang pull up earlier than we expected, then Ellen ran through the room in tears, straight to the bedroom and slammed the door. As the door was rattling on its hinges, Merlin came in, looking shell-shocked.

Roz and I were angrier than I ever thought possible; we jumped up and started beating on Merlin.

"What did you do?" "What did you say?" "What kind of man are you?" we were screaming, never giving him a chance to reply.

Somehow, he managed to get an arm around each of us, yelling at us to be quiet as we were kicking at him. When we finally ran out of steam, he tossed us onto the couch.

"Are you ready to listen to me?" he asked, "or do want to continue with your tantrum? Because if you do, I'm outta here!"

As we caught our breath Roz said, "Go ahead, Merlin, I guess we owe you that much."

"Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence!" he said.

Roz and I looked at each other guiltily. "We're sorry, Merlin," I said, "We're really on edge, but I guess you are, too. Please, tell us what in the hell happened."

Merlin sat down wearily, put his head in his hands and let out a big sigh.

"As you know," he said, "I was planning on proposing to Ellen tonight."

We both nodded.

"We got to the restaurant, and things were going beautifully. The atmosphere was romantic, the meal was fantastic and we had the most delightful conversation. The trouble began after we ordered dessert. I had my hand on the ring box in my pocket and was just getting ready to kneel beside her and ask her to marry me. I even had the violin player standing ready to serenade us. Suddenly, with no preamble, Ellen says, 'Merlin, let's get married!'

"Needless to say she took me completely by surprise, and she must have misread my expression because she burst into tears and ran out of the restaurant. I recovered my wits, threw some bills on the table and ran after her.

"I found her on the ground next to the car and got her in, then headed here. I tried to get her to talk to me, but she just curled up crying facing the window. As soon as we pulled up here she ran into the condo, and here we are."

We all just sat there in a state of shock, then realized that we had to see to Ellen.

The door wasn't locked, but we didn't want to barge in, so Roz gently knocked and Ellen let her in.
Roz led Ellen out and sat beside her on the couch. This time, I sat on the easy chair on Roz's end of the coffee table and Merlin sat on the opposite chair.

It was hard getting the story out between her sobs, but the gist was that Ellen still thought that she was betraying Roz and me, especially me, by wanting to marry Merlin.

On an intellectual level, she was able to understand that we were all in love with each other, but she just couldn't seem to grok it emotionally.

As Roz and I sat back drained, unable to come up with an argument to convince her, Merlin got out of his chair and knelt on the floor in front of Ellen.

"Ellen," he said, "Do you know why I asked you out tonight?"

She looked puzzled. "Why, I thought it was a date. We go on lots of dates."

"That's true, Honey," he said, "But this was going to be a very special date." He pulled the ring box out of his pocket and showed her the ring. "Tonight I was going to ask you to marry me, but you beat me to it," he laughed.

Ellen took the ring and looked at it in awe, then got all weepy again. "But what about Roz and Sahara?" she asked.

Merlin reached into another pocket and pulled out another box. "That's what these are for." He opened the box and showed Ellen two matching rings that were similar, but not identical to hers, and told her that they were for Roz and me. "Would you like to give them their rings?" As she reached for them, he said, "First, you have to take your ring."

She held out her shaking left hand and let Merlin put her ring on. He then gave her our rings and she knelt before us in turn, placing our rings on our left ring fingers. She then turned back to Merlin and with tears in her eyes launched herself into his arms saying, "Yes, Merlin, yes I'll marry you!" Merlin had been kneeling, and ended up flat on his back on the floor with Ellen on top of him, still in her little black dress. I don't think he minded.

I moved over the couch, hugging Roz and whispered, "Looks like we have a wedding to plan!" She just gave me a big smile.

We decided on a July wedding. Ellen didn't really have a preference and I think she was so frightened at the idea of standing up in front of people that she really wanted nothing to do with much of it. Roz, Merlin and I all thought it would be much less traumatic and less likely to overload her if the wedding was outdoors.

Flagstaff has a lovely garden called The Arboretum, with a beautiful wildflower area and we got permission to use it, if only the wedding party was going to be in the meadow. I thought the girls' parents might like to attend; other than them and the people who worked for Merlin, we weren't having many guests. Merlin's parents were gone. He had a brother, but they didn't keep in touch. Roz and I were bridesmaids and one of those bitter old men who worked for Merlin was his best man.

His name was Carl, and he wasn't all that thrilled with the idea of Merlin getting married, but I think he fell in love with Ellen the moment he met her. I didn't blame him a bit; I was in love with her, myself.

We had a blast shopping for our dresses. Well, Roz and I had a blast; Ellen was just along for the ride. We weren't all that interested in wedding dresses, and Ellen certainly wasn't. We got matching dresses we thought we could wear at nearly any formal occasion. They were yellow mermaid with open backs and off one shoulder, with a silver ribbon running diagonally down from behind the shoulder, across the front and ending at the other hip.

We modeled for Merlin and I thought the man was going to have a heart attack. He gathered us all in for a group hug. "My God," he said. "I think I must have died and gone to heaven! I can't believe how hot you all look!"

Ellen blushed, Roz giggled and I was my usual smartass. "I remember not too long ago you were all pissed off about us," I shot at him.

He looked suitably chastened. "I'm so sorry about that, Sahara." He pulled me in and nearly bruised my lips. "I was an idiot! The only thing I worry about now is my health. I have no idea how I'm going to keep up with three smoking hot women, especially since two of them are ten years younger than I am."

"You can't," Roz said. "It's a good thing we love each other. That's your only hope of survival." He laughed, but she was right. I'd never found a man who could keep up with me, much less me and two more horny women.

Ellen wanted them to write their own vows and Merlin was as helpless as a week-old puppy. Roz and I wound up giving him most of his ideas. For some reason, he kept deleting the "I promise to obey" line we kept putting in.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and Ellen was radiant. Merlin and I got to meet their parents for the first time. June and Albert were as charming as their daughters. I don't think Albert had a clue what was going on, other than Ellen was getting married, but June let us know right away that she was onto our little secret. It turned out that she had always known about Roz and Ellen, and she could tell by the way Ellen wrote about me in her emails that I had joined the circle. She fell in love with Merlin the first day they were in Flagstaff when he picked her and Albert up and took them out for breakfast.

The ceremony didn't last long, the minister was, mercifully, short, and the kiss was everything I'd hoped it would be. There was a limo waiting to whisk us away and we checked back into the Little America Hotel, the place I'd stayed when I first got to Flagstaff.

We had champagne and roses delivered, and a fondue with pineapple, strawberries and sweet cherries. We put on some big band music and took turns dancing with Ellen and each other until she complained about being dizzy. Merlin scooped her up and carried her to the bedroom, Roz and I trailing along. He stood her at the foot of the bed, and we fumbled with buttons, zippers and hooks until all four of us were naked. We eased Ellen down onto the bed on her back and I had an idea.

"No one move until I get back," I said. I dipped all the different kinds of fruit in the chocolate, put them on a plate and went back to the bedroom.

"You rotten cheaters!" I couldn't believe it. "I told you not to move!" They were all on the bed and Roz and Merlin looked up at me, guiltily, from where they had been feasting on Ellen's nipples. "Get away from her," I said. "You don't get any of this! Tell them to get away, Ellen."

She got each of them by an ear and pulled them up. I moved in, lodging a chocolate coated cherry between her gorgeous little pussy lips and taking a strawberry and a chunk of pineapple I fed her half of each.

"Yum," she said. "Got any more ideas?"

I took the half strawberry and pineapple chunk and rubbed them on her nipples, smearing them with chocolate and juice from the fruit. I did the same with my nipples and fed her one. She nibbled and sucked until the flavor was gone and I did the same to her. She was getting very turned on and I slipped down to claim my cherry. Roz moved in as I vacated and they started playing with the chocolate and fruit. I was really getting into devouring Ellen's cute little clit when I felt hot breath behind me, blowing on the fire burning between my thighs. Merlin's tongue pierced me like a knife, causing me to groan into Ellen's juicy depths, making her moan, in turn. I felt Roz's head beside mine and we took turns, trying to drive Ellen wild. She was straddling Ellen's head and all I could see was the fan of her pale hair on the bed.

Merlin's lips left and I moaned in protest. It was quickly replaced by rising pressure and then his amazing cock was sliding into me, filling me with heat, stretching me in that familiar way. I swear to God, it felt like every time he entered me, he was bigger than the last time.

I was wet and ready and he embedded himself deep inside me in one long, smooth, slow stroke, robbing me of any ability to think coherently. All rational thought fled and there was only pleasure, beautiful bodies, soft lips, and hard cocks until I slept, content and secure in the arms of my loves.

Epilogue:

The day that Klabin was born, we were all at the hospital, holding Roz's hands. She wasn't in any pain, thanks to the epidural, and when that beautiful little girl gave a gasp and a squall, there wasn't a prouder group of people on earth. She had that dark complexion from Roz and Merlin, but her hair, and there was a lot of it, was as white as cotton. I thought she'd look like a darker Ellen when she grew up. Sloan was playing over in the corner, but when she heard her sister crying, she came toddling over and Merlin knelt down with Klabin so Sloan could get a good look at her. The contrast between the little dusky girl and her half-sister was beautiful.

Sloan looked up at me with those huge green eyes. "I love her, Momma," she said. I snatched my daughter up and squeezed her tight.

"Yeah, me, too, baby," I said.

It has been five years since that day in the meadow. I think the four of us are even more in love than we were that day. I've been working at the University and I got that Dean of Instruction job for which I had been hoping. Ellen is doing biomedical research at the university hospital and Roz is working with Merlin, keeping the business running smoothly. He promised to stay away from those industrial espionage jobs, and we're pretty sure he's keeping his promise. He's a sneaky bastard, though, and we have to keep a close eye on him. Roz being there keeps a lid on his foolhardy bravado. He's got a family to take care of now. I think he gets it. I know I do. I don't know about anyone else, but we work. It just seems natural for us and I'm looking forward to watching our children grow up together. Ellen makes an awesome aunt, but she doesn't think she wants any children. She's happy loving the ones we have. She's just as sweet as the day we met and Roz, well, she just keeps getting hotter all the time. Sometimes I feel a hundred years old. Then I surprise one of them looking at me and the love just glows in their eyes. I guess we all found ourselves in Flagstaff.