“But still.”

“It’s a different business, and if we have to I’ll sub-contract that type of work out to any number of shops that can do it. So if we had say, a thousand tee off blocks to do. Yeah, we’ll sub it out. Even if I just make two bucks a block, it’s just a phone call away.”

“So if we’re getting a hundred bucks a piece for the bench carvings, how much is he getting for them?”

“I don’t care,” I said, “we’re good with the hundred bucks right?”

“I guess.”

“You can’t over think this.”

“What if someone came in and handed you a piece and said, make me a copy. How would we do it?”

“Ah, it’s called a pantograph. We have one right over there,” I pointed to the rarely used corner of the shop. “It’s pretty slow though, but for one or two copies, it’s perfect.”

Caitlyn and I agreed that it would be mutually beneficial if she broke off the carving work an hour earlier than me so that she could get started on dinner. We were still going to split the six grand.

I stayed in the shop for an extra hour. We had made good progress in that first day. As usual I did a fifteen minute clean-up before locking up.

As soon as I stepped in through the door I could smell roast chicken. Caitlyn was dressed in black sweatpants and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Immediately I saw the nipple and nipple ring imprints.

My cock stirred.

She was wearing fuzzy pink slippers. Somehow fuzzy pink didn’t seem to go with the whole Goth persona.

“Smells great Caitlyn! Do I have time for a shower?”

She stepped up to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, kissed me on the lips and said, “Welcome home Doug.” She broke the embrace and ran off giggling. “Yes you have time for a shower,” she said from the kitchen and giggled again.

As I showered I thought about how Caitlyn looked when she first came to the interview and how she has slowly been changing to the point where she’s wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and pink slippers. She no longer wore all that black make-up, the funny jewelry was gone, even the black fingernail polish, gone. Her hair was still black and the nose ring still in place. I wondered if she was shedding all that consciously or through benign neglect.

“I don’t know about you but I’m beat,” I said as I came down the stairs dressed in t-shirt and sweats, “hungry and beat.”

“Well dinner’s almost ready,” I heard from the kitchen, then her head popped around the corner, “I hope you’re not too tired,” she said smirking.

I know I was grinning.

It’s as if there were two Caitlyns. She would never say anything like that in the shop. For some strange reason the image of the Whistling Swans logo came to mind. Two birds entwined at their necks, mirror imaging each other. Was that Caitlyn? Two halves to make the whole?

Was I like that too?

I certainly liked the shop half Caitlyn.

And I was certainly looking forward to dinner, then fucking the hell out of the house half Caitlyn.

At that moment I realized I was onto something really good. I had to be careful not to blow it.

Dinner was roast chicken, roasted potatoes with rosemary, roasted parsnips and Brussels sprouts all smothered in a tangy gravy that had just a hint of tomato to it. She also made a side salad with what she described as homemade Russian dressing.

The chicken was done to perfection. The whole dinner was.

“What do you do, in your idle time?” I asked as we ate. “When it’s just Caitlyn Progue?”

“I masturbate incessantly. What do you do?”

The house half Caitlyn never let up.

“I watch TV.”

“Porno?”

“No. News mainly.”

We regarded each other silently for a moment and then each took a bite.

“You don’t want to know about me.”

I know I stared at her for a moment. What a daft thing to say. I sliced a piece of chicken.

“Of course I want to know about you. I want to know everything about you.”

Her face turned to me in a most peculiar way. She reflected for a long time before picking at her salad.

“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” she said finally.

“Tell me what?”

“What I do in my spare time.”

Now my curiosity was definitely piqued. I scratched my chin. “Let me guess.”

She simply smiled at me as she took a mouthful.

“Embroidery?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She chuckled with food in her mouth.

“Sumo wrestling? Chinchilla farming? Competitive tiddly-winks? Oh, I know what it is, you have a yeast collection.”

She grinned, nodded her head and swallowed.

“Come on, what is it?” I pressed.

“I reinterpret early Christian music to synthesizer, sometimes it involves transcribing from old tablature.”

My expression must have said it all.

“Mainly medieval and renaissance.”

I know I was staring at her in disbelief.

“de Machaut, Tallis, Hucbald, Ockeghem. One of my favorites is Caterina Assandra. She was a Benedictine nun, Italian, she wrote a number motets and then, of course, there is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, but his works are a bit more challenging. He really did define early Catholic music.”

“On synthesizer?” I asked trying to stay in the conversation.

“Yes a microKorg coupled to a MIDI keyboard, but I just picked up a used Triton on eBay. It’s all hooked into a dedicated laptop that runs Cubasis. Most of the work is done in the laptop.”

What?

I must have looked stunned.

“Do you remember the movie A Clockwork Orange?”

“Yes, Stanley Kubrick with what’s his name?”

“Malcolm McDowell.”

“That’s right. He went around beating people up and raping women, all dressed in white. Funny eye make-up thing. Beethoven’s Ninth. Yeah, I remember it.”

“Do you remember the theme music?”

“Yeah, I remember it. Harrowing music.”

“It’s Henry Purcell from Funeral for Queen Mary as reinterpreted by Wendy Carlos, back then Walter Carlos. It was done on an early synth. Purcell wrote it in sixteen ninety five.”

There was more to this girl than meets the eye.

“Why early Christian?” I asked.

“Hah! Very simple. A couple of reasons I guess. Number one my piano skills aren’t that great. Two, it’s a period from which very simple yet powerful melodies survive, polyphonic voices are established together with very basic point, counter-point and let’s see what else… there aren’t any copyright issues and I guess, it’s because the music really plays on the heart.”

“On the heart?” What was this girl talking about?

“Yes, classic Greek and Roman artists imitated and beautified what they saw in nature, but it really was just an extension of architecture. Their whole society was based on pleasure, power and riches. But humanity was ignored, class-prejudice was universal, the rights of the individual virtually non-existent. Social position and wealth was everything. So when the Christian message came along, a message of humanity, of comfort to the individual soul, it fell like dew upon the spirits of the oppressed, and like fire upon the heads of the oppressors. It gave hope and comfort into the hearts of those who suffered under tyranny, and awakened dormant yearnings for love and a truth that was true and noble.”

Who the hell was sitting across from me?

“Art was transformed accordingly. It tried to realize the Divine. Painting, with its representations of the Christ, tried to show inner revelations. The painter began to strive to express the emotions, the soul, in the faces of his subjects, and beauty of form was to become a secondary consideration. The longing for a future existence, for expression of the inner life of man, was to find its most sublime utterance in music, for that alone could express the craving for the unknown. The greatest religious musical works of later years are the outgrowth of the earliest Christian period, and the influence of Christianity is in large part responsible for the emancipation of music from the domination of the other arts.” She smiled at me as she held her fork in the air.

I was stunned. “Did they teach you that in art college?”

“No, there I just masturbated incessantly.” She grinned at me, still holding her fork in the air.

Two swans.

“Are you going to want dessert? I have some ice cream,” I said.

“No, just sex. How about you?”

“I’m good with sex.”

We cleaned up after dinner and went straight upstairs. I went to the washroom, she went into my bedroom.

She was naked, spread eagled on the bed. She lifted her head and grinned at me. I pulled my tee-shirt off and tossed it onto the floor. My sweat pants followed. My cock sprung out ready to go. Her grin widened.

“So, Miss Progue,” I said smiling, “what would you like to do?”

“Lick my cunt to make sure it’s all wet and stick your cock deep down my throat and I’ll make sure it’s good and wet. Then fuck…me…silly.”

It sounded like a plan. I got into the bed and lowered my hard cock to her mouth as my mouth founds its way to her pussy. The aroma of her pussy pulled me in. My lips, tongue and nose collided with her wetness. Rings bounced off my nose as I inhaled and tasted her delight. I couldn’t get enough. Only then did I become aware that my cock was deep down her throat. I had to pull myself off of her pussy to see my balls resting on the side of her nose. There was a gurgling noise and she pushed my hips up. I could hear her gasp for air as I saw my cock emerge completely covered in saliva. It had little bubbles on it and a string of spit reached down to her lower lip.

“Fuck me!” she gasped.

I rotated on the bed. Her legs were wide open. I pulled a pillow out from under the sheet. She lifted her hips off the bed and I slid the pillow in under her bum. I couldn’t help but take one more good lick before I climbed on top of her.

She guided my wet cock into her sopping pussy. I slid right in.

“Auuugghh,” she gasped. “Fuck!” she panted, “That feels so good.” She took a deep breath, “Ohhh.”

With my weight on my forearms I pounded my cock into her open pussy with fury. Deep full strokes were met with squeals of delight as she fucked back. I could feel the back of her hands hitting my chest as she tugged at her nipple rings.

The temperature in the room increased rapidly together with the sound of our grunts.

I ground my pubic bone into her clit angling my cock side to side within her pussy, partially withdrew and then slammed back down, over and over and over.

Clearly she loved a good hard fuck.

I kissed her open mouth sending my tongue deep inside. She seemed to really react to the kiss. When I pulled away from the kiss I could see that Caitlyn’s face was red. She was breathing hard and her face was sweaty and wet.

I jammed her with my cock while establishing a breathing rhythm. In, out, angle to side, to the other side, up, down, fastball to the cervix, slow internal rotation, grind on the clit another fastball to the cervix. All the while our eyes never left each other.

I could see she was losing her mind.

And her body. Her belly started bouncing. Her thighs shook uncontrollably. She continued to twist and pull at her nipple rings.

I kept slamming my cock into her with full force.

“Aauughh,” her head jerked forward as her pussy clamped onto my cock almost forcing it out. I pushed right back in. “Auuugh,” she clamped again and gasped for air, this time I held my cock deep inside her. “Auughhhah!” She let go of her nipples and pulled the back of my neck towards her, causing her head and neck to be lifted up. She jerked again gasping for air. My arms strained but I kept on fucking her. I could feel her contractions continue. Her face was red, contorted, wet. Her nose flared and her teeth were gritted together.

I kept fucking her hard. My chest was heaving. My heart was pounding. I kept on going and she kept on contracting.

“Ohh fuuuck!” she yelped, “Auuugh!” her body jerked forward, again almost popping my cock out of her. “Nauugh,” she gasped as I pushed it back in through tightened pussy muscles. “Ooohhh!” she jerked again pulling herself up to my face.

I plunged my tongue into her opened mouth as her hips shuddered below me. Our faces almost slid across each other. Our breath hot.

I felt my cock swell.

“Auughh,” she clamped down on my cock again and shook.

That did it.

I exploded inside her. My sphincter tightened. My hips spasmed out of control. My cock was enveloped in a warm wetness. Her continued contractions seemed to draw every spurt out of me.

I’m sure my face wasn’t a pretty sight. Our mouths were open exhaling hot breath into each other’s face, eyes locked on each other’s.

I collapsed on to her with my full weight. Our chest heaving against each other as the last contractions rippled through Caitlyn and the final spasms rocked through me.

Our hearts were beating wildly. It seemed a million degrees in the room. We were sweating like pigs.

“Feed me,” she said.

“What?”

“Put your cock down my throat right now.”

I pulled my glistening and still hard cock out of her. She trapped her vagina with the fingers of her right hand. I rotated around on the bed and lowered my cock into her open mouth.

She sucked to all the way down deep throat and then with her left hand pushed my belly up and gasped for air.

Holy shit!

She did it again, savoring the cum on my shaft and sucking whatever she could from my hole. She pushed me up and away. I flipped off, my legs landing on the floor next to the bed. I was perpendicular to Caitlyn. My head on her knees.

I watched as she cleaned her pussy out as she had done before, licking her fingers clean. She dug deep inside herself to get everything she could. It was clear to me as I watched her, that was no act, she loved it.

“Wanna taste?”

“No it’s okay.”

She jammed a soaked finger into my mouth anyway and pulled away giggling.

What a fiend.

With Caitlyn, sex does not involve a box of tissues.

I got myself onto the bed and we both lay there trying to cool down. I kissed her cum drenched mouth. “Thank you,” I whispered.

“Doug,” she whispered back, “thank you, you’re the best.”

We stared at the ceiling for a while.

“Where did you learn to deep throat like that?” I asked.

“In high school,” she replied.

“Lucky guy,” I said.

“On a banana,” she said.

With incredulity, I’m sure, on my face, I asked her slowly, “You used to suck off bananas in high school?”

“No, we used to tease the boys at the next lunch table. It would drive them nuts.”

“I’m sure it did,” I chuckled, trying to picture a table full of school girls jamming bananas down their throats.

“Then we’d pick out one of the ruder boys, point to him and say ‘this one’s for you’ as we popped a French fry into our mouth.”

“No wonder you didn’t get dates.”

“Ah, they were a bunch of assholes anyway.”

I turned down the covers and fixed the pillows as Caitlin went to the washroom. She returned, naked, brushing her pussy hair with her fingers. She shocked me by nonchalantly asking, “Do you want me to sleep here with you or in the other room?”

I pointed my finger down to the right side of the bed. She smiled and slipped in under the sheets.

“Cuddle me,” she whispered. I did. Occasionally I flipped a nipple ring.

“Do you want me to shave my pussy?” she asked.

“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.” I answered.

She didn’t answer.

Her right arm was lying atop the cover.

“What is that a tattoo of?” I asked. Whatever it was it was very ornate and intricate. It was my first good look at it. Every other time I saw it, I guess I naturally just tried to look away.

“There’s a unicorn, birds, vines, leaves, flowers.”

“Hmm, I can see.”

“I drew it myself.”

“Did you tattoo yourself?”

“No,” she chuckled half asleep, “I know a really good tattoo artist. She followed the drawing exactly.” After a few moments she whispered, “Do you like it?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to lie.

I could see her eyes were shut and she was drifting off to sleep.

I lay there trying to figure Caitlyn out. The outer girl with the Goth look and tattoos and brash attitude was all a cover for an insecure girl on the inside who never seemed to live up to everyone else’s expectations. But that inner girl was brilliant. And a sex machine. Kind and sweet and generous too.

It occurred to me that she bought all the groceries. I didn’t even offer to pay for half and she never asked for a contribution. That was something I would have to fix in the morning.

She was, however, shedding that outer layer slowly. I wondered if I could transformer her completely like Rex Harrison did to Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady? Pygmalion indeed. Could I turn her into just an ordinary, self-confident woman? All she needed was encouragement and the chance to succeed. That and maybe a couple of quick jolts to the psyche.

*

The next day, Saturday, we busted our asses on the bench rail work. I couldn’t believe how fast she was. I did the jig cut out work and she did the final carving, quick sanding and a thick layer of background paint. I could hardly keep up with her!

I asked her to find the grocery bill. I insisted that I was going to pay for it all.

She knocked off an hour early to make dinner. The Caesar salad was marvelous. The Spaghetti Bolognese with whole button mushrooms was superb. It was just what we needed. That a bottle of Sangiovese Italian red wine.

Unfortunately sex didn’t happen that night. We made the mistake of turning the TV on while cuddling and playing with her nipple rings, hoping to make it clear through to Saturday Night Live. We didn’t make it. She woke me up in the middle of the night with the TV playing to itself. SNL had come and gone. We missed it.

We stumbled off to my bed and crashed. We both slept well that night.

*

By three thirty on Sunday we finished the bench rails. Carved, sanded and painted. We just needed the paint to dry and then to paint the eyes, beaks and feet. An hour’s work, max. We’d done it just under forty one hours. We were ahead of schedule on the rest of the work. It was a beautiful day outside. We needed a break.

I was a little worried too, that Caitlyn would simply pack her things up and go home to her parent’s place. I really didn’t want her to go.

“Caitlyn,” I said, “let’s do something. Let’s go for a walk or something.”

She smiled at me, “Can we go up the mountain?”

“Absolutely, let’s clean up and let’s go.” I looked at her safety boots. “Unless you have proper hiking boots, I suggest you wear those.”

She looked down to her feet. “I’m okay with these, I guess.”

It really was a nice day for March. Caitlyn changed into a pair of cut-off blue jeans. Really cut off. It was a first. I’d never seen her wear anything but black jeans, aside from the sweatpants.

Off we went. We each had light jackets on with a can of Bud stashed in a pocket. Travelers.

Up the trail we went. I pushed Caitlyn’s not so big bum up as she was in front of me on some of the steeper parts. I still thought it was a sexy bum. I even groped her crotch a few times, much to her delight.

When we got about a half way up we had to sit down to catch our breath and pop open the cans of beer.

“This is great,” she said, “you can see for miles.”

“It is lovely, isn’t it,” I said.

We just sat there enjoying the view, the afternoon air and the beer.

She stood up and walked over to a half dead pine tree. “I can climb this,” she said.

“No don’t.”

Not listening she climbed it anyway. Not a long way up, only a few branches.

“Caitlyn, don’t do anything stupid.”

“What?” she answered standing on a dead branch about six feet off the ground. She held on to another branch above her. “Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

“No, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine,” she started to bounce up and down on the branch. “Look I’m fine.” She still held on to the branch above her head as she stepped further along the branch and bounced even more. “I can see…”

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