Rakehells

(the conclusion to "Marianne, a Friend from Germany")

After making love to Marianne Witmershaus, Ian Abercrombie always pondered her level of satisfaction. Did they fuck because she somehow still believed that after nearly 20 years her debt to him needed maintaining? Or was the exertion between them refraction of her husband's infidelities?

Marianne told him the couple had fallen out of love. They now shared "friendship." An "arrangement." She made it sound adult. Though often misplaced, who could truly parcel and ladle ardor at will?

Last of all, if she felt obligated to Abercrombie, did Marianne derive full measures of pleasure with him? Or did skillful faking and his male vanity willfully delude him?

It didn't help Marianne took lovers half his age. Men she acquired, used, then discarded in utilitarian fashion. Abercrombie remained her sole constant.

He recalled his own 20s. That vigor then seemed endless now.

Abercrombie laughed to himself. Other women he could screw and his conscience stayed vacant. Sexing Marianne mixed physical release with mental somersaults.

Every night of her visit they fucked. Still supple in his hands Marianne never flagged in responding to him. He could take her, abase her if so desired minus complaint. Both were aware of their unspoken compact. While the thought might've crossed his mind, both also knew he would never degrade her.

Despite the eye-opening dicey situations she'd led him into, Abercrombie ultimately respected her.

Marianne had nerves macho men should've envied. Better, she extended a sort of priceless loyalty.

Somehow Abercrombie was still awake. Marianne lay heavily against him, her regular breathing shallow upon his chest. After he'd exhausted them, gaining that shy sated smile bestowed only when her partner had melted her into that favorite mysterious state, Marianne dropped off to sleep.

Years ago, visits ago, Abercrombie asked how she'd appropriated the renowned male habit.

Drowsily, she answered, "Marriage."

He one-word tell all begged further questions. A bachelor, Abercrombie never knew where to begin.

Unlike Marianne, post-coital mania charged through him. Not just from being with her. Almost any woman. The act left him playful in a tactile manner. He enjoyed post-play banter, kissing, squeezing and caressing.

Sometimes such behavior surprised the woman. He'd lain with more than his fair share of partners who'd previously served as flesh and blood fuck dolls; accustomed to being pounded, happy reciprocation confused them.

Abercrombie's bedside clock read hours yet before dawn. He and Marianne lay entwined on a lake of churned sheets, their activity and closeness heating this mild night.

Over the years, across her visits, they'd developed a pattern. Eventually his nervous energy abated and he joined her in sleep. The following day Marianne would wake first, bathe, then prepare him breakfast. Coffee aroma more than rattling pots and pans woke him. For a man who considered coffee and Danish a well-balanced meal, Marianne's kitchen wizardry astonished.

Owing to her, Abercrombie had devoured "American breakfasts" late into afternoons. This diligence sprung from their first time together.

During that 1989 summer week, Abercrombie patronized Marianne's club twice. She let him monopolize her time. Once again there were questions about Boston. Tactlessly, she named a man. This Polish surname struck vague chords. The then reporter was more aware of the Pole's organization. In a general sense.

Abercrombie's answers mollified her slightly. When she wasn't posing onstage or culling the light midweek punters for those who might've accepted her perfunctory suggestions of amusement, Marianne sat beside him. She was of two minds. The first paid mechanical obeisance to him. She complimented him, squeezed his forearms, wrapped her fingers among his, stroked the insides of his thighs, and mustered less chilly expressions. Marianne ruminated in the second mind. These calculations erupted on her face.

Naturally Abercrombie wondered about her motives. Curiosity alone didn't allow him to accompany her into some unknown part of Hamburg. Having seen her without a stitch enough, the American felt at an advantage.

Away from the Reeperbahn, street lamps struggled against gloomy nighttime sidewalks. Her hard sole shoes scraped pavement. Theirs strides were long, shortening blocks to the apartment. All along the way Marianne latched onto his arm as if she verged on convincing herself of Abercrombie's essential value.

To her. Wherever that might lead.

Steps took them to a narrow walkup's third floor. Except for their footfalls and the stairwell's light timer clacking, her building was still.

The stairwell light switched off just as Marianne's key sawed into the lock. Irregularly spaced ankle-high socket lamps pushed into the apartment's dark. Umber puddles kept him from bashing furniture legs as well as guided him to her bedroom. There, Marianne snapped on a bedside lamp whose feeble lumens equaled those of the wall sockets.

A large bed dominated the small room. One bulky bureau and vanity table further constricted those four walls.

Abercrombie assumed her closet doubled as an armoire.

She lacked space to stand a television. A radio-cassette player crowded her other bedside table beneath another lamp.

"Cozy," he said. It was too dark to notice whether she rolled her eyes in response. After Marianne got out of her shoes, she brushed by him to raise the window then draw heavy curtains.

Preliminaries finished, Marianne undressed.

Ordinarily this ought have incited Abercrombie. Yet having seen her naked already, coolly naked at that, blunted his eagerness. Fortunately for them her appreciation of him erased his unintentional slight.

Marianne's hands had roamed across his torso and extremities at the club. Clothing, light and loose as the fabrics were, nevertheless obscured.

When she pulled off his polo shirt Marianne took notice. With Abercrombie's slacks and boxers kicked side somewhere near his shoes and socks, even the room's dim light failed concealing the peculiar hunger in Marianne's eyes.

If at 19 she hadn't already been so practiced, Marianne might've gasped from anticipation. A purposely pursued active lifestyle would keep him bulked up and buff into his 40s. Or so he hoped then at 30.

She approached him deliberately. Brief as their acquaintance was, he saw a measure of hesitancy. Her hand reached out to his face. Fingers grazed along his cheek, lips, throat, into his broad chest's hairy meadow, down the Main Street of faultless stomach, poked through his pubic grove, where her tender grip rapidly turned his cock turgid.

Abercrombie grabbed and easily pulled her against him. Had she doubts, resistance, they fled in his strong embrace. From knees to mouths their bodies pressed together.

Marianne's lips and tongue were far livelier than he suspected. He thought she'd have been one of those frosty women who required thawing out before their kisses became heated. Especially if they had vulnerabilities needing cover as long as possible.

He took her to bed. Ancient springs and timbers squealed and shrieked beneath their every motion. He pulled himself off her mouth, lapping then nuzzling both ample breasts. What Marianne enjoyed better than his sucking her nipples were fingers exploring her labia.

Faster than Abercrombie expected Marianne became moist.

While rhythmically clamping his fingers in her secret recess, Marianne reached into a bedside drawer. She extracted a foil encased Pariser. Opening it, freeing the rubber, stuttered her beat. She nodded. Abercrombie understood her message. He shifted, allowing her space to affix the sheath.

The johnny bag was tight. Nor did it cover as much as he was accustomed. Abercrombie dismissed minor dismay when she disregarded the bad fit altogether.

Wide open thighs received him. Between Marianne's wetness and her generous slit, Abercrombie drove himself in easily. Long thick legs wrapped themselves behind his own. He tried using his forearms for support but her mushy mattress gave him no platform. Her hands skipped between his back and waist, forever a beat slower than his strokes.

The farther he pumped the more delightful her low aching sighs.

At times Abercrombie was deliberate, other times ragged. Just to hear the change in her cadence.

Somewhere close to climax, hers, Marianne surprised him. She determined the new notes; their emphasis and length.

Marianne jammed fingers in his ass crack. He seized from this rude burrowing, nearly propelling himself through her. His new depth clenched her body and scrunched her face. Sighs strangled in her throat.

Her goosing made him come harder than usual. Also sooner than he wanted.

For the longest time afterward Abercrombie's semi-rigid cock lingered in her. The last guest at a great party who desired to prolong the evening's merriment. She cradled him between legs flat upon the bed. Abercrombie angled himself so that much of his bulk shifted off her.

They remained silent. Searching looks and little kisses got their respective points across. Sleep overtook both.

Abercrombie awoke face down, alone, submerged in pillows. Daylight spilled past curtain edges. He roused himself into sitting position. Rough carpet instead of wood or linoleum met his feet. Reflexively he checked his wrist for the time. His wrist was bare. He must've forgotten he'd removed his watch before bed. Before Marianne.

His eyes adjusted. Among the women's things on the vanity sat his watch, wallet and passport. He reached over and fumbled with his wallet. In the billfold cash and cards remained unmolested. Items atop the vanity trembled from his tossed leather's landing.

In the vanity's seat Marianne had folded and stacked his clothes. Beneath the seat his shoes. Aligned.

Her neatness amused him. He'd always found gathering his clothes after such initial couplings forced good reminiscences. Something about strewn clothing clicked with random ardor.

Abercrombie stood, walked stiffly to the bedroom door. He stretched before opening it and stepping into the hallway. Percolating coffee teased his nose.

Towards the apartment's rear Armed Forces Network Radio as well as kitchen noises greeted his ears. He detoured into the bathroom before entering the source of activity.

Flaccid as he was, the rubber still encased him. The stubborn thing off, a relievedly long piss followed that valiant latex into the toilet. Emptied to the last drop, Abercrombie padded into the bright clean kitchen.

Marianne heard his footsteps. She stood above the stove, where slices of ham were beginning to sizzle in a skillet. Between rear burners a bowl held two eggs. Coffee fogged the glass pot.

The domestic scene gladdened him almost as much as last night's sex. He closed behind Marianne and wrapped arms around her waist. He smothered the nape of her neck in kisses and ground his pelvis against her denim-covered ass.

In English, he asked, "All this for me?"

"Must be. You Americans don't know muesli," she replied.

Abercrombie lifted his hands and gently palmed tits. Beneath her short-sleeved blouse some dessous marvel elevated then projected what his mouth recalled as soft and succulent. Marianne twitched her ass sideways. The rubbing stirred his cock along her denim's rear seam.

He absently wondered whether he'd get a pre-brunch blowjob.

A rattling newspaper derailed his thought. Marianne heard it too. She looked over her shoulder at him. He was familiar with the grin on her face. A social lapse had been committed. The grin prelude to rectifying it.

She said, "Please meet mother."

Abercrombie followed her sightline to the kitchen table. Located where it was he might've seen it peripherally had he not been so intent on Marianne and food.

Sitting at the table Frau Witmershaus. She acted unperturbed. She had been reading the paper. Mention of her name lifted her eyes off newsprint onto him. Perhaps she had watched him traipse in and spoon her daughter. However, until acknowledged the older woman might've been considered an observant piece of furniture.

The guest played it straight. A wise and worldly face gave her allure. He guessed she was on 40's other side. In the part which smart men still found interesting. One saw she passed her build onto Marianne.

He peeled himself off Frau Witmershaus' daughter and presented himself. Had she been a typical American mother, mere awkwardness would've been his least problem. His nakedness, in the kitchen of all places, ought have prompted reactions running the gamut from hastily averted eyes or unnecessary embarrassment to shrieks. Followed by swoons.

Assuming Frau Witmershaus aware of Marianne's promiscuity, he also assumed such meetings occurred more frequently than not. Besides, the mother behaved like she'd seen plenty of live ones!

In German, Marianne introduced him. She added he was the Ami from an earlier discourse.

Frau Witmershaus replied, "You said he was fit. Fit!? This slab of meat is quite a specimen!"

Abercrombie took steps toward Frau Witmershaus and extended a hand. She looked him up and down so hard he wondered how she hadn't licked her lips. Her handshake meant business. She didn't let it linger, though.

Frau Witmershaus said, "I think I see what caused all that racket last night. Big and circumcised! Where do you find them? And how can you tell with their pants on?"

Marianne laughed. Abercrombie smiled timidly enough not to reveal his proficiency. The daughter must've neglected sharing that. Otherwise mother might've been practiced a tad more circumspection.

Frau Witmershaus folded the paper, left it on the table and stood. A fuller version of her daughter, certainly. More to get lost in. She grabbed her purse off the table. After another leer, she jokingly cautioned Marianne against cracking the plaster downstairs.

Frau Witmershaus was leaving to see her mother, the daughter's grandmother, in the altersheim. Marianne bade her own mother to convey her love. A mother-daughter peck on the cheek, maybe the older woman intentionally brushing Abercrombie hard, and she departed.

While Marianne busied herself over the stove, Abercrombie sat himself at the table. He picked up the newspaper and started skimming the front page. Unrest in the East. The ominous kind harkening back to 1953, 56 or 68. Although the new Soviet leader Gorbachev intimated being a different kind of Russian despot, how long until he resorted to the tried and true of sending tanks to crush all foment roiling the Eastern Bloc?

Deciding not to spoil this afternoon with likely confrontation elsewhere, Abercrombie instead reverted focus on Marianne.

"You listen to AFN radio?" he said. "All they play is weak cheese tunes."

Marianne brought the coffee pot, cup and saucer to the table. While filling his cup she answered.

"Yes. The music is insipid. I listen for the jockeys. Their accents. Words they use. I read somewhere foreigners in America watch soap operas for the same reason."

Abercrombie granted that was true. She continued.

"I studied, I took English in school. All very formal. Distant. Like listening to the BBC. Proper. Plumy. American English is quick and warm. Because I like that it's easier to learn. To speak and improve."

Marianne returned to the stove. Asking how he wanted his eggs, she cracked and fried them.

He watered his coffee with cream and sugar. The condiments surprised him. Common as they were in the States, he'd become inured to requesting them there in Europe. Was this available for all Witmershaus guests or did they share an American affectation?

Abercrombie sipped his coffee. Despite the additions it was still a large expresso. If he wasn't awake before ...

She set a healthy plate in front of him. Buttered toast crowded hand-sliced ham and two eggs sunnyside-up. From his left he unfurled utensils wrapped in a cloth napkin. Marianne sat across from Abercrombie, watching him clean his plate.

Among mouthfuls, he said, "Your mom handled, uh, the strange naked man in her kitchen well. Better than any mother I can think of. Especially my own."

"Strange naked men anywhere outside of closed doors doesn't happen often here," Marianne said, grinning. "Not often enough. It helped you're handsome. Also, she likes men still. Or men still find her attractive. They chase her. She's only 42. Still active."

Abercrombie nodded. "That's good to be."

Plate cleaned, cup emptied, Marianne refilled the latter without his asking. Steam rising above the brim again, Marianne resumed her seat. Abercrombie chose this moment to broach remuneration. After all, he figured, she'd come across last night and put out further with brunch this afternoon. He hoped to exhibit enough tact in crossing her palm and not be crass in doing it. Abercrombie could've been as offensive as he wished. Any suggestion of marks for pleasures rendered and received insulted her. But good.

Stone replaced Marianne's warm demeanor. Cool fervor hardened her voice.

"I should pour coffee in your lap. The night before I told you I'm not a prostitute. I'm a businesswoman. We were together because I thought we could enjoy our company. A whore, Ian, would've fucked you in an alley, not cooked you food."

He retreated miles. He offered sincere apology. His effort gradually pacified her. Nearly returned to Marianne's good graces, she requested a favor. How could he refuse?

"It's very simple, really," she said. "We must see a man."

The man to see was Marianne's boss Lothar. Sexed, well-rested, fed, later showered (she even produced a new spare toothbrush), Abercrombie prayed she wasn't dragging him into some dispute which might evolve into an international incident. An embarrassing one at that. The sort which would've caught his newsroom colleagues' attention. Though most of them had trouble differentiating Kenya from Kansas, they were able to manifest great amounts of malice when it came to demolishing another's career.

Yet Abercrombie was beholden to Marianne. She had obliged him to walk her walk.

Daylight painted her eyes the same hue Impressionists used for shadows cast on snow. He thought the vampire hours she kept ought have given her skin pallor. Rather under an afternoon sun a warm tone enhanced her flawless complexion. Resolute as she appeared, natural light softened her features.

A cleaning crew aired out the club. Marianne exchanged morose greetings with the staff. Abercrombie followed her down a circular stairway into the establishment's dark bowels. She led them to one of several doors marked "Privat." Knuckles rapped the sanctum's door. They barged in without invitation.

By his name, Lothar, and the image it conjured, the boss wasn't much. Actually he might've been considered a lot. A lot of suet Abercrombie finally decided.

Watery blue eyes looked out from a round head. Under oily blond curls a nose mashed onto his face. Lothar had blubbery lips. He reminded Abercrombie of a 50-year-old who started letting himself go at 20. Fat rolls tumbled beneath Lothar's tight button down, where they doubtlessly lopped over his belt and padded his ass.

Cocaine lines chopped and reflected on the mirror blotting his desk lost their importance when he saw who crowded the doorway behind Marianne. Abercrombie reflexively closed the door. Lothar's mouth gaped. Below a furrowed brow his eyes widened. He stressed his seat further by leaning back.

Lothar's obvious question would sound the same in any language. Marianne gave her demand.

"Lothar, we need a new arrangement. Your 'bite' leaves me crumbs. I work harder for you than I do for myself! And as you see, I have a man now. He likes nice things. I like giving him nice things. How can I keep him happy when you snatch so much from me? A better arrangement will make him happy."