Ann Crouse

Runaround Stews

Chapter 1

"Hello, Ann. Hello you delicious cunt. Hello, mouth sucker."

"Who is this? Who the hell is this?" The sleep drained from Ann Barot's beautiful eyes.

"Ohhh, poor baby bitch! Don't remember the voice, eh? But do you remember sucking my big cock, lickin' it so smooth with that educated tongue of yours? Remember getting it up that sweet ass of yours? I remember your voice, Ann. I remember it from the way you screamed with delight every time I cornholed you, and the way you moaned at the sweet taste of my prick, mmm, you used to say how yummy it tasted. Know what else I remember? I remember them big tits of yours, especially those big wine colored nipples… when they'd swell up nice and hard. But don't worry, you little cock-hungry nympho, you won't have to remember, 'cause soon now I'm gonna let you blow me again, and then I'm gonna fuck you nine ways from Tuesday, and I'm gonna lick you like a slurpee, eat you until you die from the heat of it and…"

Ann hung up the phone.

Ann thought how lucky it was that her husband wasn't home. Or was it? If he were here, he might satisfy that damp little cloudburst in her crotch, brought on, she had to admit, by the both lovely and filthy language of the obscene phone call.

She stroked her bare breasts lightly and the nipples came alive. The caller was right, her nipples were unusually large, and they did have the color of wine to them. The stroking finger trailed down over her flat tummy and into the slightly creamed hole in the nest of soft crotch hair. She masturbated furiously, then forced herself to sleep. After all, she had to be wide awake for her biology class the next day. She would think about that, and not the sound of that monstrous voice.

The next day, in class, she thought again of the phone call. The voice had a familiar ring to it, and she told herself half a dozen times, no, it just couldn't be him. The rotten sonofabitch, she wouldn't put it past him, even after all this time. He'd be just that much of a bastard, she thought.

"Has everyone made the first incision on the dorsal side?" Professor Jacobs stood with his hands clasped behind his back, pacing back and forth between the laboratory tables where students sat clad in white smocks in her Biology 101 class.

Gradually Professor Jacobs sauntered in the direction of one of his older but prized students. "Ann, is everything okay here? Any problems separating the layer of skin from the muscle? Takes a steady hand to use the scalpel effectively."

"No, no problems, Professor." She gulped and swallowed hard as her deft hand sliced into the muscle of the artichoke-colored muscle ripping and tearing under the pressure of her graceful hand.

Professor Jacobs marveled at the woman's precision of movement. He'd taught at the University for twelve years, and never had he witnessed a female as captivated by the subject of biology as she. There was nothing this woman was frightened of. The professor, his index finger resting on his lip and one arm still clasped behind his back, recalled how enraptured and mesmerized she had been when a live snake was passed around the classroom, disproving the popular belief that snakes are cold to the touch. One student, he remembered, had fainted as Ann passed the snake entangled around her arm stroking its head, smiling.

"We have night classes with special instruction for those few students who excel in the field of biology and anatomy. Each student is given private lessons in dissection, just in case you're interested."

Ann raised her blonde head. "That's very kind of you, Professor. But you see I'm only going to school part time and I don't think it's really necessary."

Professor Jacobs removed his bifocals. He'd seen Ann from a distance, walking around the campus, books under her arm. She was, by any standards, one of the best looking women on campus. Once he had hidden in the bushes lining the football field, watching her with hungry eyes as the women's physical education class went through its ritual of exercises to warm up for their game of soccer.

She had stood with long well-developed legs and thighs, their golden tan set off appealingly by the blue gym shorts she wore. Her hips were slim and yet her buttocks stood out in an attractive way, for her waist was even smaller. Her breasts were her crowning glory; their voluptuous fullness topped her slender frame in a way that brought a pain of desire to his groin.

On countless occasions, Professor Jacobs had watched her through binoculars from the private seclusion of his office in the science building directly across from the field. His mouth would fall open as she bent and stretched her body in provocative stances, her breasts moving under her white gym shirt, the shirt unbuttoned and open at the neck, revealing the beginning of a cleavage that was golden tan and sprinkled with a fine film of perspiration. Two lovely mounds of flesh jiggled and rippled as she played goalie, bouncing the ball back to her opponents by the force of her slender foot.

The binoculars were raised now despite the shaking of his trembling hands, as he focused on her long flowing hair reaching down to her mid-back in even swirls of waves. Her face was well tanned and exceedingly healthy looking, indicating she spent a great deal of her spare time in the sun. Her brown eyes were offset by high arched brows, giving her an appearance of intelligence and alertness that favored few women. The classic straightness of her nose ended in curving nostrils, introducing her full lipped red mouth which smiled a great deal of the time. He studied her chin now, as the ball slipped through her block and she grimaced at her error in judgment. What a firm jaw line she had! So determined and set.

Professor Jacobs sighed warily. No way could he make her even look at him, except of course to ask questions that he often had to consult textbooks for an answer. He had tried everything his shrewd intelligence could muster to find out more about this mysterious beauty. Once in desperation he snuck into the registrar's office under the guise of needing information on a failing student and flipping through the files of B's, found an "out" card in her place. Accepting this misfortune as an omen, he laid his binoculars and pretensions aside for a week, but the frustration kept him awake for nights on end. He would lie there, tossing and groaning all night beside his snoring wife. The image of her blonde hair blowing in the wind would not leave him to rest. She reeked of sex. Every time she moved he interpreted her motion as a provocative invitation to sex. The way she called him 'Professor Jacobs', so polite and husky-voiced. Above all it was her selectiveness, her concentration whether she was lighting a cigarette or kicking a soccer ball, an attention to detail that made him guess she'd been around. Nothing could distract her.

Professor Jacobs treasured a scrap of paper discovered under her desk in row 2, seat 4. Although it was only a curt message to a man named John, he kept it stashed in his desk drawer along with his assortment of pipes and tobacco, right next to the bottle of sherry and two glasses – just in case Ann Barot might consent to private consultation over her mid-term exam. He had the stage set…

Until, on a breezy fall day when he had followed her from the science building to the library, his hopes soaring with desire, she was intercepted by a tall, dark haired man who grasped her lovingly. The professor could sense his heart drop to his knees as he Blinked by the embracing couple who muttered something about 'going home and spending the night together for a change.' He watched them, his armful of test papers scattered to the wind as his lifeless arm dropped in desperation to his side, and they drove off in an embrace in a white MGB enshrouded in dust.

Professor Jacobs was not alone in his screaming need for attention from the lovely Ann Barot. To a man in love there is no torture as sweet as rejection,. and his mad pursuit. He purchased a telescope, telling his wife that he was tired of biology and wanted to turn to astronomy for inspiration. It was now the second semester and Ann's gym class was learning archery.

With his telescope adjusted to the stance of the bow and arrow sport, he could sit for a full hour with his instrument encompassing the high mounds of her breasts, even more accentuated now by the exaggerated pose of archery. The Professor had met Carol Nester, the thirty-seven year old gym instructor and he had thought her a bit kinky. She was a single woman with a butch-type haircut and a broad flat face; her posture was anything but stunning now as she stood with her heavy legs spread wide and her hinds on her barely evident hips. The wind blew through her hair, but it did not stir. Christ, does she use grease or what? thought the professor in disgust as this boyish woman blocked his view to instruct Ann on how far back to draw the shaft.

Word spread like a wild brush fire a few years back when a few of Carol Nester's students complained about her enraptured attention to her girls' hygiene. There was no excuse for not showering in her class. But no one could make a well founded objection because although she was constantly tempted and excited by the naked female bodies around her, she had never actually approached any of them.

Ann Barot had never exhibited modesty in the stuffy confines of the girls' locker room, reeking from the stench of sweaty bodies and athlete's foot powdered mats, and she stripped in front of Carol as if she were a professional, and stood brazenly naked before the bulging eyes of Carol, her heart pounding with lesbian desires.

"You… you're doing just fine, Ann," Carol congratulated her student on her fine performance during the first archery lesson of the spring season.

"Why, thank you," acknowledged Ann as she swept by in her naked glory, leaving her instructor trembling with itching hands.

In five short minutes, Ann had showered and dressed in her casual attire-Levi's and a pink long-sleeved tee-shirt with "Oui" printed in bold black letters across her chest. Her hair was still a bit damp now from the shower and with a free hand she lifted her gold locks and ran her fingers through the baby soft waves, glistening in the sunlight of the warm April afternoon.

God, I've got two exams tomorrow, thought the lovely blonde strutting past the crowded library mall where countless eyes focused on her svelte form headed for the doors of the main library building. It's a good thing John won't be back from his flight to London until this weekend, she continued her thoughts, planning every minute of her busy day now that the spring session was well under way and her grades screamed for attention. Not that they were bad, she considered silently, especially for someone who hadn't been in school for four years.

Ann's life had taken a new course since her marriage to John Barot a year ago that May. Accustomed to the hectic life of a stewardess – maintaining two residences, one on each coast of the country – she found her new lifestyle surprisingly mellow and peaceful, especially now that she and John had purchased a house high on the winding road leading to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, just a half-hour ride to San Francisco. There was the sunshine and the cool mountain air to wake up to every morning instead of rushing to put on makeup and press up uniforms. Her country life was growing on her, and horseback riding and hiking were among her newly discovered pastimes, since John spent a great deal of time away now that he was flying internationally.

Ann was humming to herself now as she thumbed through the card catalog under 'subjects' for a speech she had to give next week on changing marriage patterns in the United States. Mechanically fumbling through the endless stream of cards entitled, 'marriage,' 'courtship,' 'divorce, rate of', she sighed deeply, wondering if she should spend so much time on her speech when her two examinations were a day off. Anyway, she reasoned to herself, if anybody knows about marriage it's me.

Her mind drifted off, her hand still clutching a card, as she reflected on her first marriage, which ended two years before she met John. His name was Paul and he was a test pilot for the Navy in San Diego where she'd met him on a weekend yacht cruise from Monterey to San Diego. It was truly one of those rare 'love at first sight' occurrences that you read about in thirty-five cent magazines at bus stations. His square shoulders and red perky hair, that always stuck up in a cowlick, peeking out from the back of his head beneath the strict confines of his Navy hat, and his merry blue eyes, so typical of the Irish, struck her dead.

It was a week she would never forget! They'd met on Saturday and on Monday she called her friend and fellow stewardess, Trudy, and begged her, "Please, please, please, exchange schedules with me. I've met this knockout of a test pilot. He's with the Navy and he's such a hunk. God, Trudy, wait'til you see him!"

With thoughtful consideration, Trudy complied, and that very day Ann and Paul flew in his private plane to Reno where they were married. The honeymoon was spent at the honeymoon suite of the Harrah, breakfast delivered every morning, lunch every afternoon and dinner every evening, while the newspapers piled up outside of their hotel door, completely ignored. For three days they didn't leave the room, not even to try their luck at the tempting machines that clinked and clattered in the downstairs of their love bungalow. Frank Sinatra was opening in the very building, but they did not stir from the honey sweet love nest of their bedroom.

It was now Thursday morning and Paul had to return to the Navy base in San Diego or go AWOL – neither a pleasant choice for a newlywed husband hopelessly in love with his Cinderella blonde wife, who purred her affection endlessly in streams of provocative lovemaking. But there was no choice, and with a freckled hand, he wiped the tears from her rosy cheeks, and bade his wife goodbye. He had to hurry now as the plane still needed some last minute repairs and a good check before he'd dare cross the desert, blasted with sand storms now sweeping the Southwest.

With trembling hands Ann packed her suitcase, the tears rolling down her tanned cheeks, dampening her honeymoon peignoir soiled from their three-day celebration of love and family hood. How she loathed going back to work, 'is there anything I can get you sir!' 'an aspirin for your headache, ma'am. Of course.' Smile, smile, smile, that's all you do when you're a stewardess, thought Ann securing the top button of her red blazer. I'm so tired of taking care of everyone's needs, she sighed, but now that Paul and I are married maybe I can live in one place and maybe, just maybe, even raise a family. Tucking in a blonde curl that escaped her red hat, she considered calling the airlines and telling her supervisor that as of that very minute her career as servile female was over – for good. God, it's only been four hours since Paul left and already I'm hopelessly lost without him, she thought, stroking on her curled thick lashes.

The telephone buzzed. "Hello?"

"Ann? This is the desk. We have a call for you. Please hold on for the connection."

Ann cradled the receiver to her heaving chest; maybe it was Paul and he had decided to go AWOL and they'd romantically fly his private plane to Sweden and bask in the sun for the rest of their lives. Her reverie was broken by the flatulence of a deep voice.

"Ann Bailey. I have a notice here in my hand," he belched out every word, "that you are the recent bride of Paul Bailey."

"Yes," she stammered.

"He's had an accident. His two-engine plane took off from the runway but one of the engines failed…"

"Is he all right?" Ann anxiously screamed into the phone.

"Afraid not. Plane went up in flames. No survivors."

The receiver dangled by its curly cord for three hours before anyone from the hotel thought it worth inspecting. Delivering the ordered luncheon of cheese plates, cold cuts and cantaloupe, the bell hop knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked louder and waited. Still no response. "Goddamn it!" he muttered. "Are they still in there making love? Never seen anything like it." He fumbled for a key thinking that if anyone was in there they certainly wouldn't allow their happiness of bedtime pleasures to be interrupted for the questionable delight of dried up contents under the silver dish on his cart. He stuck the key in the lock. Still no response. With a brisk movement the door was opened and, backing in, the bell hop pivoted with the cart, his back still to the bed purposely.

"Miss!" he screamed. Christi Hope this isn't another suicide, he thought as he lifted the head of the blonde woman whose wan face clearly showed an expression of grief even in her helplessly unconscious condition. With a splash of ice water from his cart, Ann was brought back to life once more but against her will.

Straining, she rose on one elbow, then, with the bell hop inches away the stark reality of her miserable life hit her like a gust of Arctic wind. "Ohhhh, God, help me," she repeated with blankly staring eyes. "He's dead… Paul… is dead… dead…"

It was over. Her happy life as wife and lover to her Irish darling was over. It was like a dream, a six day dream. He was gone and there was no sign of him as she scanned the room for affirmation of her past husband's existence. Yellow walls lined with Picasso paintings and Dali sketches smiled back at her mockingly.

How she managed to leave the empty cell of that room was an unsolved mystery to her, even a year later. An even greater enigma to the pale figure of the blonde stewardess, thin and visibly ailing from the shock of her loss, was how she returned to her routine of `thank you for flying with us' `here is your coat, sir', and the endless stream of meaningless innuendoes that cramp the life of an airline stewardess.

Trudy, a true swinger who used to laugh and giggle incessantly at the lewd behavior of the drunken first class passengers as they slithered their hungry fingers up her tapered legs to the top of her slim thighs, convinced her to get out of the four walls of their shared Boston apartment and start acting like the young and beautiful woman she truly was.

Reluctantly, Ann followed her roommate to singles bars, where they would sit conspicuously alone sharing bottles of fine French wines and packs of femininely slim cigarettes, ogling the steady line of blurry-eyed drunken males stumbling as they sought the acquaintance of the two lovely women. But it was a bore, and Ann returned to her library of Hesse and Jung, seeking an inner truth that she was convinced lay hidden in the wisdom of their words. But words couldn't fill her vacuum of dead love and Ann searched the extreme for something to plug up that hole of loneliness that ate away at her heart like a growing seed of destitution.

Trudy, her savior during this most horrid of times, took her recalcitrant roommate along to parties, sailing in the Boston Harbor, even for drives to up-state New York in hopes of bringing her back to life. Finally, even Ann could not tolerate her apathy for life and forcing her self into submission, began accompanying her brown-haired, brown-eyed friend to parties, risquй parties. There is no one more jet-set in their mentality than those who work for airlines, and Ann was soon to find this truth for herself.

"Comin' along to the party tomorrow, aren't you?" Trudy asked, pressing her black spaghetti strapped crepe dress. Ann raised her head from the newspaper she was reading and studied her friend for a brief moment, thinking I wish I could be more like Trudy, so free and aggressive, downright sexy in her provocative approach to the opposite sex. But there had been some suspicious occurrences lately in their Boston apartment, a few too many phone calls demanding arrangements for exact times and exact meeting places – all too formal and carefully planned for casual affairs. One evening not too long before Trudy had snuck in the house unaware that Ann was still awake after a trying flight from San Diego where a thunder storm had delayed their flight twelve hours. Carefully Trudy had unlocked the door and, with her back to her roommate, tip-toed unseeingly into the bathroom. There was something strangely unnerving about Trudy's behavior and Ann put down her book and strolled into the bathroom where Trudy was running ice cold water over a washcloth for her eye – her black eye, as Ann soon discovered. The secret was out.

"Well, maybe I just might. Where is this one? Chicago?"

"God, no!" Trudy laughed vivaciously. "San Francisco. One of the pilots, he's a real swinger, they tell me. Ann, I mean really," she set down her iron to remove a roller pick that stuck mercilessly into her tender scalp. "He used to be a mechanic and he's got some tricks you wouldn't believe! Anyway, that's what Sharon tells me, remember her?" Trudy's eyes rolled back in her head in reverie. "Anyway, we'll be going for a cruise in his yacht – under the Golden Gate Bridge and everything! Oh, Ann, you have to come!"

"Mmmmm, maybe. I'll see how…" She reconsidered. "Yes, that sounds just like what the doctor ordered."

It was that evening in San Francisco that Ann was to meet the man who would change the direction of her life from a soul-searching existence to one of unequaled debauchery. His name was Mike Boston.

Ann's dreams were broken now by Professor Jacobs, busily, clawing through a card catalog a few feet away, his eyes burning a hole in the back of her head. God, I wish he would leave me alone, she thought silently, scratching down call numbers in her notebook with a dull pencil.

"Mike Boston," she whispered aloud. Heads turned. Her thoughts returned once more to a yacht party in San Francisco two years ago.

It had been a pleasant evening, a bit too cool to her liking, but Mike had conviently stashed an armful of fur coats on board just in case any of the carefully selected females felt a chill. Mike was a pleasant man, not at all like an airplane impression of the handsome forty-ish trickster. Somehow it didn't follow that anyone with a meager job such as his could make enough money to throw lavish parties even one night a year, let alone once a month.

But she was soon to realize his evil depravities: true, he did work for the airlines, but he had been a pilot who had lost his license for smuggling diamonds in from Australia, and it was from the sale of illicit goods that he could afford any high class call girl who struck his fancy. Trudy was one such who now occupied that dubious distinction.

Ann had drunk too much that night, and the vertigo of the rocking motion of the boat combined with the wine, left her a helpless mass of putty. But what did it matter? Who cared what she did? Her drinking increased with intensity and before she could grasp for support, darkness overcame her. When she awoke she was in an apartment, alone except for the moaning and groaning of provocative lovemaking a few feet away on the bed. Must be Trudy, she reasoned, up to her tricks again.

Oh, my head, she moaned silently. God! what have I done to myself? Ann's feeble hand was pressed to her aching forehead when she felt a strange pressure on her arm. Opening her eyes, her vision grossly distorted from the alcohol coursing through her veins, she barely focused on the image of a dark haired man with a high forehead and close-set eyes framed by heavy bushy eyebrows. His straight nose ended in a small bulb, very attractive, she noticed in her state of acceptance. His heavy dark hair ended at his ears where scrubby looking grey sideburns took over, leading to his cleft chin. His full and sensuous mouth formed words she could not understand, and, recognizing the depravity of her state, he motioned with a crooked finger for her to follow.

Limply, Ann rose to her feet and after staggering a few feet, kicked off her shoes with a hearty laugh, but quickly stifled her sounds, remembering her girl friend Trudy making mad passionate love with an unidentified man on the bed. The stranger beside her guided her wobbling body through huge sliding doors. "Shall we go into my living room?" the stranger beckoned with an extra tug on her arm, warning her there was no alternative.

Ann couldn't prevent an involuntary intake of breath at the sudden flamboyance of her surroundings as she stepped down, nearly falling on her face, into the sunken living room. "My God!" she looked around in awe, "it's like a terrarium." Every inch of the spacious living room was covered with plants, hanging plants, potted plants, flowering plants, cacti, even blooming perennials.

Everything in the room looked like it had come from a museum.

The Swedish sofa sumptuously designed like a pair of huge red lips looked inviting and she plopped down on the softness of its sensuous form. Beneath her was a zebra skin rug artfully placed under the glass and silver metal table where a Wedgwood vase was crammed with poorly rolled cigarettes. Her eyes traced the smooth outlines of the marble fireplace that covered the entire wall, its brown streaks glistening in the sparkling light of the crackling fire, reflecting the blues and reds of its warm blaze. Through Ann's hazed eyes she spied twinkling lights in the distance. "Oh, you have a view!" she anxiously jumped to her unsteady feet.

"Do you like it, my dear?"

"Lovely, yes lovely." Her trembling hand cling to the heavy red velvet drapes attractively framing the wide veranda of the window. "Is this a Victorian?" she muttered in amazement. "Must be from the high ceilings." Ann raised her eyes to the high ceiling, decorated with crisscrosses of wood beams.

"I'm rather proud of it, myself," he admitted with no hint of modesty. "Why don't you sit down and have a drink with me?" he smiled crookedly.

"Oh, no thank you," Ann touched the back of her slender hand to her aching forehead. "An aspirin and a glass of water, no… coffee… please," she said politely, not forgetting her etiquette ingrained from two years of riding the skies.

"Nonsence," he growled teasingly; "how about some juice, and an aspirin," he added coolly.

He motioned for her to sit back down on the huge red lipped sofa that smiled across the room at her. "Have a seat, and I shall return immediately."

Ann sat stiffly, reassessing her situation. She was in a strange town, in a strange house, with a very strange man. With a deep heave of her chest, she scanned the room for a telephone. If nothing else, she could call her stewardess friend, Janie, and stay overnight at her apartment which she guessed was not far away. But before she could gather the strength to search for the hidden instrument, Mike had returned with a tray in hand.

"I'm sorry, but I neglected to introduce myself," he said with merry eyes. "My name is Mike Boston. Please call me Mike." A hint of animal desire in his eyes made her think she might not be leaving the confines of Mike's lovely trap.

"And I am Ann, Ann Bailey."

"Are you married, Ann?"

"No, no, I was… for a few days and then…" her voice trailed off into inaudible mutterings.

"I see," he said knowingly.

He was standing in front of her then, a drink in each hand. "Here we are, Ann. This will make you feel much better. Take a joint also, it helps this time of day."

Arm's red tipped fingers grasped the sweating glass, filled with ice and orange juice and the small cigarette on the table. Tilting her head she took a deep swallow and grimaced at the taste of alcohol polluting her fresh orange juice but the marijuana cigarette made her feel better. "It's a habit of mine, too," Mike said, his eyes studying the sensuous outline of her mouth and the way the smoke curled out of its soft-rimmed opening.

With a deliberate movement, he sat down on the couch beside her, patting her nylon-covered knee in mock affection. Then, sensing her almost simultaneous recoil from his unwanted touch, he withdrew his hand and smiled.

"You are a friend of Trudy's, is that correct?" His eyes refused to leave the red outline of her lips.

Ann felt a knot in her stomach, tightening mercilessly into a ball that kept growing, feeding on her fear and confusion. It had been eons ago since any man had actually made a pass at her, or was it since she'd let him?

He leaned back on the sofa and studied her proudly postured profile over the rim of his glass. "Tell me a little about yourself, Ann. How long have you been rooming with Trudy?" And then, as if to shroud his questioning probings with ignorance, said, "I don't know the girl personally myself, but. I have friends who are well acquainted."

"A… about three years now," stammered Ann, now fully aware that something was astir as his stubby fingers reached for the pale blue Wedgwood vase and offered her a marijuana cigarette. "Oh, no thank you," she politely refused, "not when I'm already halfway there from the alcohol."

"Do you mind?" He lit one of the oily looking cigarettes. "I find it excellent for sex." He lifted his busy eyebrows and his dark eyes looked right through her. "Do you enjoy sex, Ann?" And seeing her nervous response as she wrung her trembling fingers about the glass, continued his probings. "How about a stag film? Have you ever seen one?"

"No… no thank you, Mr. Boston…"

"Please call me Mike, always."

Ann swallowed hard. There was no way out of this den of iniquity and she knew it. Oh, God I wish I were back in Boston, she thought silently.