Amateur Gods (Ltd.)

So that's where she let them ride, let them wave back and forth on the end of her leg like a nylon flag, beige semaphore to signal the joy of her heels bouncing up and down off Tony's ass while he fucked her deep, stabbed, plumbed and rode her welcoming cunt to the rhythmic sound of its wet kiss around his cock.

The table creaked beneath them. It's a new table, but they were fucking hard enough to make the joints sigh as arthritic as any antique.

Emily started this high pitched mewing sound, a frantic, closed-lipped sort of hum. Think of a misplaced kitten, trapped in a cupboard, or closet, or locked outside in the rain, pleading beneath your window.

That's what Emily sounded like on video.

Tony was grunting, breathing hard, his cock like a battering ram, Emily's orgasm the gates he would breech.

And Emily came making this high pitched sort of wail, an air raid siren during the blitz, and Tony had this choking, almost gargling sort of sound while you saw the buck of his ass and shudder of his thighs and knew he was gushing the bounty of his balls into Em's grateful cunt.

Don't judge me too harshly when I admit I watched most of that video with Keith plowing me deep and hard from behind. There was simply something magic about the two of them together. The energy was infectious. I remember my first orgasm that evening was watching Tony and Emily in post coital repose amid a bed of wrinkled documents, and afterward, my head down at the foot of the bed, my spent, used pussy still up in the air, I thought "This is it. These two are just so right for each other. They're in it for life."

In retrospect, maybe I was drawing on the contentment Keith and I feel, and projecting. Still, there's a side of me that can't give up, even if Emily and Tony have.

She got a fat offer from one of our rivals, an older, richer company that had cash to spare when Keith's brainchild was just a struggling little upstart. I don't know what transpired between Emily and Tony but time and our choice of business wasn't kind to their separation. As Keith and I successfully propelled our company into the fore of the marketplace, Emily's new employer became increasingly more paranoid about her dalliance with Tony.

For the record, Keith and I weren't particularly exemplary with Tony either. Ours is a competitive business, obsessed with internal security, and we sat down with Tony on several occasions to discuss the ever-changing landscape of what was confidential, what he could talk to Emily about in private, what he couldn't.

In the course of one of those conversations, Tony let something slip, something Emily would have preferred to keep out of our side of the court, an upcoming contract with a hotelier.

And yeah, Keith and I used it, snatched one of the other camp's prospective clients out from under their nose, a lucrative gig that pulled us out of the red when we really needed it. The other guys would have done the same to us, given the chance. In our game, the playing field may be level, but rarely is it congenial.

Tony started taking long lunches; calling in sick. The grapevine told us Emily was leaving the office to cry in the lady's room, outside in her car. I'm not sure our indiscretion actually caused the ruin of their relationship--probably just one in a host of injuries--but it certainly didn't help.

So, fair enough, there's some guilt there. Getting those two back together would take a load off my conscience.

The day after I e-mailed Emily, she called. I laid it out about the hotel deal, apologized as best I could. She listened but said nothing. I asked her about the party.

Emily: I'm not sure that's such a good idea.

Me: Yeah, Hon, but I'm not sure it's a bad one either. There's a certain someone who shows up for work here like he's just left a funeral. Just left Ground Zero. Guy wonders in like he's just survived a plane crash.

Emily (after a pause): Really?

Me: Seriously. Listen, we love the guy. We're very concerned. We're concerned about both of you.

Emily: A certain someone never calls.

Me: Uh, Em? Admittedly I'm getting mostly one side of this story, but didn't you rip him a new asshole a while back?

Emily: He deserved it. He's the one who let the hotel thing slip, and seriously, who's to say he didn't do it on purpose? He was really angry with me for leaving, never understood why I did it.

Me: You know he's not like that.

Emily let that one lay. She let me ponder the full brunt of a long silence where I could assume the little sniffles I heard were allergies or something else.

Me: Em? He's not like that. He's goofy sometimes, sure, but I've never known the guy to be cruel. Vindictive.

After a while longer she tried to change the subject. I could hear the strain in her voice, though.

Emily: I'm not sure I even blame you guys for exploiting the hotel thing. Business is business. Wish you hadn't, but...

Me: How are you holding up, Hon?

She managed to laugh a little. Then she was crying, perennial flood gates bursting off their hinges.

Emily: Me? I'm a fucking train wreck. Can't sleep, I've already ate myself into another dress size, and I'm working my way up to another. I've started smoking again... I mean, things are fucked. Don't let this get out, okay, but I tried going out on a date the other night, and halfway through the meal I was thinking of Tony and just started crying. Guy I was with felt he'd hooked up with an escaped mental patient, I'm sure of it.

End of the night, I couldn't find the keys to my place. I ended up calling a locksmith, and when I got my ID out to show him it was my house, my keys had been in my purse all along. Fifty dollar service charge to find something that should have never been lost in the first place.

Me: Listen, give me a chance here. Give me a chance to set this right. It'll never be easy between Tony and you, given who you work for, but there are things in life worth fighting for. I've just got this feeling Tony and you are one of them.

Emily (trying to collect herself): I haven't given any thought to a costume.

Me: I'm e-mailing you the web address of a really cool site. Expensive, to be sure, but you're not worried about that because you're sending the bill to me... No, I won't take "No" for an answer on that one. Consider it a finder's fee for the hotel thing, and seriously, end of the day, you decide you just can't go through with this, wear the costume to somebody else's party. I mean it.

Emily got the URL.

Emily (skeptical; curious): Amateur Gods?

Yes, I may have bandied that website around the office. I was fond of it even though I had reservations about Venus D'Antoinette's judgment. Given my doubts, I decided to give myself an out by renting winged Marie-A, also, and then let Keith be the judge.

Don't think I wasn't on pins and needles going Botticelli for him. I'd solved that little conundrum around my nipples by painting my aureolas a shade of Lancome lip gloss that matched the silver starfish. From a distance, the edges of my nipples looked like part of the costume. Up close, of course, it was me exposing that much more of my boobs, but by the time you were there, you realized I was essentially naked anyway, not even a flesh toned leotard between me and what might be this year's most talked about scandal.

One of the things I hadn't noticed online was this glistening ointment I was supposed to spread on my skin; make it look wet and shiny, just out of the surf. Marvelous stuff, actually, the way it set and wasn't sticky or greasy, and it held a property like gold glitter; little stars winking in and out of view as I moved.

It also had a distinct odor. Call it roses mixed with the smell of the sea, but one might also judge it as perfume over the rich scent of intense feminine arousal. Look like a Goddess, smell like a pussy. That seemed to be the trade off.

Maybe no one would notice.

I gave Keith no warning, just emerged out of our bedroom in all my mythic, minimalist glory, and the poor guy just sat there holding his sports section, wide-eyed, slack jawed, and—mark this moment on the calendar—speechless.

"It's too much, right? Don't worry I've got something else, but... I don't know..."

Keith wrinkled his brow.

"Hon, you're just sitting there. Say something."

"Turn around," Keith said, and by now I suppose I was rose-petal pink with embarrassment, but I did a quick pirouette, got the piece de resistance au derriere out of the way."

"Listen," I said. "It was just a whim, a crazy idea. This probably isn't right for the people we work with... Where are you going?"

"Stay right there," Keith said.

"What?"

"Don't move a muscle."

A moment later he returned with a camera and said, "Just when I think I've seen you as beautiful, drop-dead-sexy as could be, you decide to push the envelope even more. I need to get a picture of this, just in case you chicken out, Halloween night."

After pictures, he fucked me hungrily. He bent over the kitchen table and nailed me like I'd joined The Army and was shipping out tomorrow.

The anecdotal rule for throwing a party goes something like this: If more than half the people you invited show up, consider it a success. Cross the finish line at 50/50, and you need to re-evaluate your talents as a hostess, if not your popularity, but with as little as 51/50 you take the bragging rights.

That night I got everybody, and there was a trend of sorts. I couldn't be absolutely sure Amateur God's LTD. was the source for all the costumes present, but it certainly looked like it. There was definitely nothing off the conventional retail rack.

Just to name a few; what I remember the most:

Frankenstein showed up in all his macabre, Victorian glory--Omar Kasal, a jeweler who owns several stores we maintain security systems for.

His bride showed up via Brenda Thornton from accounting, micro mini up to her plump little ass, not to mention cleavage you could hide your lunch in. And why hadn't I noticed her fondness for jewelry before tonight? Rings, bracelets, a necklace. She had some commendable pieces--or so Omar told her.

Laurie Timons and Walt Iverson were a pair of swashbuckling pirates; he looking like he'd just escaped from the caves beneath Disneyland, she the picture of what pirates might fantasize about, those long lonely nights at sea. ("ARrrrr... Bare 'dem titties all the way, you wanton strumpet!")

Me? I was the object of male adoration, not a little female jealousy, the focus of "Oh's and Ah's" wherever I wandered. The eyes of everyone I passed followed me. Seriously, I left a room and could feel the adoration all over my bared bottom. A prospective client Keith invited—a very gothic, almost menacing take on Batman-- flirted with me so outrageously that I had to laugh out loud and point out that I was married to his host.

By way of consolation, I was able to point out that a very daring, black vinyl Catwoman (Courtesy of Kathleen Villablanca, another prospective client we'd invited) had just shown up twirling hand cuffs around her index finger as if no less than begging (daring?) some capable hero to get it over with and arrest her.

And Tony showed up, predictably late, and he was sporting this absolutely gorgeous renaissance get up: The broad, floppy hat with one feather; the red tunic with a coat of arms; the sword looked real. He was alone for the moment, looking very nervous and out of place, so I took his arm and led him about, asking him about the costume.

"From the site you gave me," he said.

And we talked some more, and then someone told me Geraldine and Christopher Pope had just shucked their gladiator and slave-girl costumes to go swimming. I've no problem with people using our pool, of course. That's what it's there for. Thing is, it's October, and the invitations I'd sent out said nothing about bringing a swim suit.

On the way there, Keith and I crossed paths.

"Hey," he said, "Where's Tony?"

"I left him by the buffet, why?"

"Emily's out in the back yard watching the Popes fondle each other in our pool. By the way, how in the world did you persuade her to do Juliet to Tony's Romeo?"

"What?"

"From what I've heard, they're both sporting these costumes like they just stepped off the stage at The Globe. Shakespeare all the way. Put Emily up on the balcony and have Tony recite to her. I'm not the only one whose made the connection. Everyone who's seen it says the same."

I didn't think about this for long.

"Okay, let's do this," I said. "Drag Emily away from water ballet, and tell her I need to see her at the buffet. Tell her it's important. I'll reconnoiter and make sure Tony's still there.

Keith wanders off humming Matchmaker from Hello Dolly, I try to avoid actually sprinting back into the dining room where I find a lot of people who still love my costume, but not Tony. I ask several people.

"Who?"

"Romeo," I say, taking a chance, and suddenly everyone's seen him by the buffet, or wandering around, but with regard to his present location I get lots of shoulder shrugging, polite smiles and shaking heads.

Keith shows up alone.

"She was gone when I got back. Someone said she was talking about going home."

"Shit. You go that way, I'll go this. I'm going to go get my cell phone, give Em a call."

With nary a pocket in my costume, I'd decided to leave my cell in a drawer in the kitchen, check up on it every so often. Once there I gave Emily a call, then Tony. Neither of them called back, so I took my cell in hand and resumed asking people and found out that Keith was right. People who had no idea who Emily and Tony were had certainly seen Romeo or Juliet going this way, or that, but never Romeo and Juliet.

I wandered, following leads that didn't pan out, and then my cell phone finally chirped a text message from Emily. One word: "Upstairs."

The party was downstairs, of course. I'd purposely left all the lights off on the second floor to dissuade people from going there. Apparently some people read between the lines better than others.

Up the stairs, into the dark, the sounds of conversation and laughter at my back, a spooky sensation came over me, an incongruous sense that the stairs and dark environs beyond were suddenly someone else's. I'll liken it to the feeling you might have when you first wake in the morning after a dream so vivid that the reality of your own surroundings seem strange and alien.

I stopped at the top of the stairs, was about to call Emily's name, but there was something that stopped me, and a slight noise from my own bedroom, second door to the left.

At first neither of them saw me. I have to assume I was just as visible in the half-light coming through the window from the patio below, but neither Romeo or Juliet acknowledged the presence of Venus standing in the doorway, watching them, listening intently as the soft, wet sound of their kissing somehow drowned out the racket from downstairs.

Yeah, the party in my back yard was dialing up. Several more people had joined the Popes in the pool, I'm sure of it. (All that money for a costume, just to shed it midway through the evening!)

Then Tony lowered his head slightly to kiss the side of Emily's neck, and don't ask me to explain how I felt a sense-memory chill on my own throat, tingly, delicious, electric.

More to the point, as Tony bowed, my eyes and Emily's met over the top of his head, and I might swear she saw what I saw, two star-crossed lovers locked in passionate embrace, and I was explicitly aware of how I must look to her, standing there in the soft, dusky light, the glitter in my hair sparkling, the glistening sheen of my skin.

A moment of mutual clarity.

She looked at me, partially obscured behind Tony, one corner of her mouth arched in a devilish smile, and she somehow knew I struggled with an impulse to close the door, leave the two of them in privacy, or...

"Stay," she said, her voice low, musky, somehow Emily's and yet not.

"This is yours," she added, and I was momentarily confused because she was simultaneously sliding her shoulders out of her gown, lowering her renaissance bodice. In answer, her plump, little breasts seemed to recoil and bounce free from behind the descending fabric.

She was talking about the situation, however. "This," as she put it, was her reuniting with her lover.

Tony, in a trance, beyond caring whether anyone watched, followed Emily's lead and made it clear her breasts were now the only thing important. He locked his lips to her nipples, noisy, ravenous, the soft popping of his lips as he sucked, released, sucked again...

Emily relinquished my gaze, took a deep, shuddering breath, leaned her head back, dark hair falling over her shoulders and behind her. She started saying something, mouthing it under her breath. I couldn't hear the three words she recited, over and over, solely for Tony, but I knew what they were.

What were my hands doing up by the starfish on my tits, at that moment? These were my hands, to be sure, and yet they weren't. They weren't the hands of Tony's boss, Emily's former employer, and yet the nervous, warm flood of pleasure they delivered was all mine.

I suddenly wished Tony would look at me while I took both my breasts and stroked them from base to top, those ornamental starfish dancing about as if caught in the current of a breaking wave. Surely both he and Emily heard my quick intake of breath, my own shudder of pleasure, but neither acknowledged.

And in my mind, I saw this big, golden coin flipping end over end, slow motion in the darkness, and I was simultaneously dreading the way I knew it was going to land, and yet hungry for it.

And two big, powerful, male hands reached from behind me to push mine aside, knowing, greedy hands that weren't willing to share.

."Indy," I said, leaning back into Keith's embrace, the warm musk of his cologne, the adrenalin rush of feeling his cock getting stiff through his trousers.

Yes, that gorgeous fucker was swelling as Keith pressed it into the furrow between my ass cheeks, and I could feel it growing.

Quickly, impatiently, Keith wanted to bare my breasts, took both the star fish in his hands and pulled. The adhesive behind the ornaments was just stubborn enough. Keith had both my tits stretched by my nipples, extended as far as they were going to, and it was just painful enough to be delightful before those trinkets relinquished their grasp of my swollen flesh with soft tearing sounds, one after the other.

Keith tossed them aside, not caring where they fell, and rewarded his own effort with big, selfish handfuls of me.

And we both watched, gave into the bawdy spectacle of Emily finding the bulge in Tony's Elizabethan pant leg, her hand coursing over and squeezing its tumescent shape like it was new sculptor's clay to be kneaded and firmly coaxed into the desired shape.

Resting his head on my shoulder, kissing me on my cheek, his warm breath against my neck, Keith couldn't hide his delight when Tony's own exploration beneath Emily's heavy skirt revealed she'd chosen a daring nod toward period authenticity by forgoing panties. Indeed, with Tony methodically rolling and tucking the fabric of Emily's dress up about her waist, it seemed rather obvious he was putting the sight of Emily's bare sex on display.

And yes, mark the surprise! Indeed, Emily's dainty little clam was now hairless, shaved as clean and smooth as any aspiring porn star, the delicate fold of her labia like garnish around her yawning cunt, and on that cue, I'll assume, Keith's left hand now released my breast to explore a trail down my belly and tug the half shelf covering my sex.

I broke our embrace long enough to slide faux kelp down over my thighs and then gently kick my last piece of clothing off my ankle. This done, I now turned toward Keith and shoved my lips against his, indulged in long, breath-sharing kisses.