Can't Stop the Girl

"It's a long story. A very, very long story."

"Would that story have something to do with the black eye Dr. Stone got on duty yesterday?"

"Oh my God, did they come looking for me?" Annie felt all the dread of yesterday flood back.

Mrs. Goldstein laughed. "I'm sorry to scare you like that, Annie. No, no one's been by to look for you. My friend Ellie is a nurse at the VA -- I think you've seen her here a time or two -- and last night at the movies she told me the good doctor had been up to his usual tricks with a young woman dressed a lot like you, who was there to entertain the patients' kids. She vanished as quickly as she appeared, and somehow Dr. Stone got a black eye. He said he'd run into a door and made it clear he didn't want to talk about it. But Ellie knows him well enough to guess what really happened."

Annie sighed with relief, but still felt worried. "Mrs. Goldstein, I --"

"I don't want to know!" Mrs. Goldstein held up her hands for Annie to stop. "Whatever it was, I know that man deserved it. But he's not your toy thief."

"So I have discovered."

"I'm almost disappointed we can't say he's that big of a jerk. But evidently he isn't. There are rumors about the Baptist church being involved, if you're curious. But I do think you ought to let the cops do their job, Annie."

"How long have you lived in Park Meadows, Mrs. Goldstein?"

"All my life. Why?"

Annie nodded and otherwise didn't answer, and continued on her way downstairs.

The Baptist church...what could they have to do with it? The Greenes were members, and rather controversial members if the rumors were correct. Whether it was racial or because of Rhonda's leadership on the council when most of her fellow churchgoers were more of Sullivan's political stripe, Annie didn't know. Besides, Father Logan was still a much better suspect. She was too exhausted to concern herself with all that right then anyway, and as soon as she was home at last in her room, she all but tore off her clothes and got into bed.

It was a restless, dreamless sleep, but it was more sleep than she'd gotten last night. Annie thought it was a dream at first when she heard the rap at her door.

"Annie?"

Her eyes flew open to the dimness of late afternoon outside her curtains. "Yes, Mrs. Goldstein?"

"You have a visitor."

Annie's heart bounced into her throat yet again. The cops had caught on. Maybe they just wanted to ask her a few questions. Wasn't there some rule about arresting someone in her own home? Could she refuse to come out? That would only make things look worse. In terror she savored a few more seconds of the comfort of her bed and then got up. She pulled on her blue bathrobe and tied the sash a bit too tightly, and went upstairs to her fate.

The visitor was standing in the kitchen in his jeans and stocking feet, looking sad and uncertain.

"Daryle!" Annie's fright vanished in a nearly orgasmic instant, tempered only by a reminder that she hadn't even run her fingers through her hair and it must look ridiculous. "Am I glad to see you!" She threw her arms around him, not even thinking for the moment to ask why he was there.

"Well, thank you, Annie," Daryle said, returning the hug. "I'm sorry I didn't call first --"

"No! You're always welcome here!" She looked for Mrs. Goldstein to confirm as much, but she had already retreated to her television. "I'm really sorry I wasn't around last night, too. Is that why you're here now? More trouble with your mother?"

Daryle nodded. "Can we...I mean, maybe you could get dressed and we could go somewhere else to talk about it?"

"I have a better idea," Annie said, thrilling to the memory of his lovely body in the hot tub. "Let's just go to my room."

She suspected Daryle was thinking like she was, for his sad face brightened up quite a bit at the suggestion and he willingly followed her back downstairs. "Come on in," she said, flipping on the light switch and triggering all her twinkling Christmas lights. She pulled out her desk chair for him to sit on.

"Wow, it's like a boutique Christmas display in here!" Daryle exclaimed with an appreciative look around the room.

"That's the idea," Annie said as she shut the door behind them. "If my real Christmas can't be like a warm-fuzzy commercial, I can at least make my room look like one. Just give me a second to tidy up," she said. "No hard feelings, but I was napping."

"Sorry," Daryle said, though he made no attempt to hide his amusement at Annie's dress, tights and underwear strewn on the floor where she'd left them.

"Don't be. I had a really rough night last night and I needed to catch up on sleep, but it wouldn't do to spend too much of a weekday in bed, would it?" She realized her mistake even as the words were coming out, but it was too late.

"A really rough night?" Daryle asked. "I'm sorry to hear that...anything I can do to help? You've been so helpful to me, you know."

"Thank you, Daryle, but it's really better that you don't know."

"Nothing to do with the stolen toys, then," Daryle said.

"As it turns out, no." Having deposited her clothes in the hamper -- though she was still thinking of burning them to get rid of the memory of Dr. Stone's touch -- she now set about making her bed. Leaning over to tuck the sheets in, she was aware that her breasts might be on display now and again, but then Daryle had already seen them. "Just a really..." she paused to consider how to reassure him that it wasn't a boyfriend or anything like that, then wondered did she really want to dissuade him from that anyway? It wasn't as though he'd be in town long; just as well that he expect any fun they had would be just that -- fun. "Yeah, it really doesn't matter, Daryle. But I did get a new lead on the toys. Two in fact. Do you know anything about a Father Logan?"

"Oh God, Annie, you don't want to mess with that bunch of misfits!" Daryle said.

"Then you have heard of him?"

"Yeah, bunch of puritans, hate everything about Christmas...oh, I see what you're thinking!"

"And I read they meet at the community center," Annie said.

"Who's the other one?

"Mrs. Goldstein just told me this afternoon, something about the Baptist church?"

"Doesn't surprise me," Daryle said. "Some of those folks are just awfully strident about their one true way. But I don't know anything about them. Couple of friends from high school were members, but I haven't kept in touch."

"Do you have a lot of friends from here you're still in touch with?" Annie sat down cross-legged on the bed and let her robe fall away to expose most of her legs; she was tickled at the exposure.

"I've called most of my old friends to see if we could meet up," Daryle said, shamelessly admiring Annie's legs, which she didn't mind at all. "Most of them aren't home from college yet, a couple are in the army and won't be coming home, and -- I don't know -- I met this one guy, Chris, we were pretty close last year, but he's like a different person now. All about college this and college that and no more kid stuff, and it's like he's a different person. Six months and everything is different!"

"Oh, I remember that well," Annie said. "I mean, most of my friends from high school didn't even leave town, they either went to college locally or they didn't go at all, and when I got back for my first Christmas it was like I'd never known them. Heartbreaking, I remember."

"And if your family was anything like mine..." Daryle looked near tears again.

Annie nodded sympathetically. "It was a very lonely Christmas. I hate to think you're going through the same. But if I can help, Daryle?" She smiled, hoping he would take the hint.

"You are helping. Thanks for listening. And the other day with those two jerks...well, that took guts!"

"I just saw it as beating them at their own game. They think gender is everything, and it isn't. Besides, Daryle..." She reached across and squeezed his knee playfully. "It was worth sharing that with you. You have a beautiful body, you know."

"Thanks! I can't imagine women ever find us as beautiful as we think they are, but, thanks!"

"Oh, we do, Daryle. Breasts lose a lot of their novelty when you have a pair of your own, you know."

Daryle laughed. "Yours haven't lost their novelty for me yet, I'm afraid."

"I'm glad!" Annie replied, joining in on the laugh. "And the feeling is mutual." She stood up and turned her computer on, and clicked on her favorite Internet radio station. "Hope you don't mind more Christmas music," she said. "These days it's easier to put up with it than to fight it."

"All too fitting with the way your room looks," Daryle said as the music started in.

"Let's dance," Annie said, offering Daryle her hand.

He looked doubtful, but he did stand up and let her lead him to the space just inside the door, the only empty space in the room big enough to dance in.

"Now, relax, Daryle," she said. "Just put your arms around me and don't worry about your mother or the toys or anything out there in the real world."

"Feels good," he admitted as they swayed gently to the music.

"For me too!" Annie said. "Sure could've used this last night, I'll tell you."

"Whoever you were with."

"Whoever I was with." It broke her heart to keep the truth to herself. But it had to be done.

"I'm sorry, Annie." He stopped and drew his arms back. "I know you've got your life here and I've got to go back to California in a few weeks anyway, and it isn't fair for me to barge in here like this when you've probably got a boyfriend anyway."

"It's okay, Daryle!" Annie exclaimed. "I'm glad you're here, and I'm not asking you for anything else. I'm sorry if I pushed you too far the other day with the hot tub, but you know, if you want to have a little fun..." She saw no need to finish that sentence.

"If I want to? Well, of course I want to! I just didn't want you to think I was only after that, or using you or anything."

"Well, then," Annie said, and without further ado she untied her robe and cast it off on her bed. Now dressed only in her cat's-eye glasses, she held up her arms again. "Another dance, kind sir?"

"Oh, my." Daryle gave her body a long and appreciative look, and then did accept her invitation to continue dancing.

"I don't, you know, Daryle," Annie continued as she whirled about naked in his arms. "Think you're using me, I mean. I know you better than that."

"Thanks, Annie. If you don't mind my asking, are you always this...free? I'm not judging! I'm just, you know, curious."

Annie laughed. "No, and more's the pity. Really, I've just been lonely lately, and feeling overdue for some fun. And with the cold weather and the bad news, all the more reason to have some fun, you know?"

"Is that why you joined us in the hot tub?"

"No," Annie said. "That was to show those guys they couldn't scare me off that easily. Besides, Daryle, I...well, I wanted a look at you!"

"I'm glad you got one," Daryle admitted. "But, this feels kind of unfair, me being fully clothed..."

"Unfair? No, erotic!" Annie exclaimed. "It feels wonderful for me!"

"Wow, Annie," Daryle said. "I had no idea..."

"No offense, Daryle, but you are only eighteen. There's a lot about women you just haven't had a chance to learn! But if you want to learn..." She unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans, while he gazed happily down at her fingers at work.

While Annie made fast work of his pants and boxers, Daryle pulled his sweatshirt and t-shirt off. With them out of the way, he went to work gently on her breasts. "I do wish I could've helped you out of your bra," he said.

"You can help me on with it later," Annie offered. "But for now..." She wrapped her hand around his hard cock and gave an appreciative stroke.

"Oof! Feels so good!" Then he placed his hand over hers. "Wait a minute, Annie, aren't you on your..."

"Aunt Flo left this morning." No need to tell him she wouldn't have let that stop them anyway.

"Good timing." With that, his hands were back on her breasts and he leaned in for a kiss, which she happily reciprocated. His rubbing soon had her delightfully wound up and dying for his touch down below. She was disappointed but not surprised that he kept his hands above her waist; inexperienced guys were so often like that! But she settled for his touch where she did get it for a few delicious minutes, rubbing his back and his cock and kissing him intensely.

When Annie couldn't wait any longer, she swung him around and gave him a gentle push back onto her bed. Enjoying the sight of his wide eyes adoring her, she climbed atop him and, taking him firmly in hand, guided him inside her wet, hungry pussy. "Merry Christmas, Daryle," she cooed, just before she closed her eyes and began grinding eagerly into him.

"Merry Christmas!" he gasped. He gazed wide-eyed up at her and clutched her hips in both hands, rocking in rhythm beneath her. "Ohhh, so good!"

"Yes, it is!" Annie said, closing her eyes to savor the wonderful sensations she'd been pining for all those months. The horror of yesterday, the bad news about the toys, the memory of Rick...none of it quite vanished, but in that wonderful moment Annie didn't care. For a glorious instant, it was all about clutching Daryle lovingly inside her -- was she his first? It wouldn't do to ask, but she guessed he probably wasn't, as his gentle pushing and caresses up and down her side weren't the work of a virgin.

Neither was his appreciative encouragement as Annie lost herself deeper in the moment and her joyful moans rang out through the room. "So beautiful!" he gushed between grunts of his own. "Don't stop!"

Annie didn't stop. She did realize too late that she should have taken her glasses off, for as her rocking got more intense they slipped down her nose and, after a particularly intense hump, they toppled off. "Oohh!" she laughed as she watched them land harmlessly on his chest.

"Awww," Daryle teased. Before Annie had the presence of mind to retrieve them, he picked the glasses up and put them on himself. "Wow, what a view!" he said as he tried and failed to focus through the blurry lenses. "Hope you can still see me without them."

"Not as well as I'd like," she cooed. "But I can certainly feel you all I want!" On that note, she squeezed her pussy tighter around him and he yelped in surprise and pleasure. "Never had that before, did you?"

"Never!" Daryle said. "Do it again!"

Annie did as he asked, and then went back to rocking hard into him until she had him whipped up to the edge of an orgasm. Sensing that he was nearly there, she picked up both his hands and placed them on her breasts, and he flicked at her nipples and drew her over the edge just before he joined her in screams of joy.

When Annie settled herself beside him, Daryle took her glasses off and replaced them on her. "You look so adorable wearing only those," he said.

"Thank you. You look lovely wearing nothing, you know." She reached over and grazed his chest playfully. "So can we say this won't be such a lonely holiday for you after all?"

"I'm quite sure we can!" Daryle said. "But I'm sure sorry we haven't found the toys. But, Annie, can we...you know, do this again? Before I go back?"

"I insist!" Annie grinned, and she kissed him on the lips, happy to have something other than the toys and the past two days to focus on.

The stench and the sting of Doctor Stone didn't go away, but the joy of Daryle's tender touch -- and the growing confidence that she really wasn't going to be arrested -- helped a great deal as Annie went back to work on Tuesday. There was plenty of work to catch up on, enough that Annie nearly forgot all about her plans to learn more about Father Logan. But she did remember at lunchtime, and brought her microwaved soup back to her desk to read up about him.

She got so engrossed in the purple prose and flamboyant illustrations on his website that she forgot all about being discreet. And so it was that her colleague, Kevin, saw what she was looking at when he walked past her desk. "Been talking to Paula, have you?"

"Huh?!" Annie looked up at him, and instinctively reached for her mouse to close the browser, only to remember it was too late.

"Paula. From archives. She's in with Father Logan and his little cult. Isn't that how you heard about him?"

"Uh...yeah, of course," Annie said. "Of course. I always thought Paula was a little weird."

"A little weird!" Kevin repeated incredulously. "Seriously, though, Annie, I'd be careful if I were you. I think Paula has a crush on you. If she thinks you're also interested in Father Logan..."

"Oh, yeah, I wouldn't want that." Annie closed the browser. "Thanks, Kevin. I guess I've seen enough."

So Paula had a crush on her? Annie knew the company archivist was gay -- her mushroom haircut and fondness for black jeans and no-bullshit attitude with the men of the office made that hard to miss -- but she'd had no clue of anything beyond that. Except of course that she also knew she was a fairly strange person. One only had to listen to one of her coffee break tirades about consumerism and the patriarchy and the commercial-military complex to know that. Annie had always steered clear of her, and she was even more inclined to do so now.

But the toys...

Annie swallowed hard and stood up. She picked up an empty binder from the stack under her desk and walked off to the archives.

Sure enough, Paula's face gave a flash of delight when Annie walked in. The mousy brunette covered it over with a poker face almost immediately, but Annie knew what she'd seen. She forced a smile. "Hi, Paula," she said with the same charming tone she'd always used on shy guys in college.

"Got some records to put away, Annie?" Paula asked, nodding at the binder under her arm.

Annie set the binder on Paula's desk and opened it to show it was empty. "Nope," she said with a grin.

"Oh...okay! Might I ask why you're here, then?"

"Well, Paula..." Annie leaned over the desk, letting her breasts brush up against the top of Paula's monitor. "I was a little curious about you, actually."

"Were you, now?" Paula said it to Annie's breasts rather than her face, and she pushed her chair back so as to get a better look -- and, Annie guessed, to give her a better look at her body, which was clad as usual in black from head to toe. Tight jeans, men's dress shirt, boots.

"Yes." Annie wished she'd rehearsed the next line, but she managed to get it out without wincing. "I've been thinking about visiting your church."

"Really?" Paula relaxed, and Annie could tell she was hooked. "Good for you, Annie. So many people think Father Logan is a monster, but he's only trying to get back to the real teachings of Christ, you know?"

"Speaking of which, Paula, is he okay with...you know...us?"

"You mean you're --" Paula couldn't hide her delight. "I mean, no, Annie, he's pretty homophobic. But what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

"Then why do you like him?"

"I'm only an economic conservative," Paula said. "Father Logan gets that you can't solve the world's problems by throwing money at them. Or Christmas presents."

"Oh, surely you don't mind Christmas presents?" Annie pushed.

"I could do without them. I mean, it's all so patriarchal, you know? A man gives his wife a diamond bracelet for Christmas, then he thinks he's entitled to all the blowjobs he wants for the rest of the year. And it's all really about the stores selling us more junk anyway. You should hear Father Logan explain it, he's a lot more articulate than I am about the whole thing."

"Well, you'll just have to take me along next time!" Annie managed to say.

"Next time is tonight," Paula said. "He holds meetings every Tuesday and Thursday. Why don't we go for a drink after work, and then head over there?"