The Strange Story of Mr. Black and Ms Gray (14)

Part 14 of an original tale that delves into the unexplored realms of the human mind. Hired by her lover to find a raven haired beauty, Benjamin Bering must avoid the local police as well as the agents of a nonexistent government agency who are after him and the woman. There are just two problems. The woman is in a coma and her body has been stolen. (Part 1 can be found HERE.)


The Elusive Butterfly of Lust
She shoved me the last five feet through the open bedroom door and quickly depressed the lock button on the knob. She made a growling sound like that of a tigress and pulled her blouse out of her slacks.

"You afraid someone might walk in on us?" I asked in jest.

"Uh-uh," she asserted, "I'm making sure no one walks out on me!"

She reached up under the back of her blouse and unsnapped her bra. She then performed that one skillful maneuver that has never ceased to amaze me. She removed her bra without unbuttoning or removing her blouse, the act completed with it magically emerging from one of the sleeves. She pursed her lips as she teasingly loosened each blouse button one by one.

She then turned her attention to the buttons on my shirt. After shoving the shirt over my shoulders she touched her lips upon my bare chest and with her tongue traced a circular path around my left nipple. She pushed me backward until I was sitting on the bed. With every move she made the material of her open blouse moved to and fro allowing me brief glimpses of first one and then the other ample breast.

She knelt down and yanked the shoes off of my feet, not bothering to untie the laces. In a heartbeat my socks were lying next to the discarded shoes. I closed my eyes as she next busied herself with the snap and zipper of my slacks. With the skill of a surgeon and in a mere thirty seconds she had stripped me down to my undershorts.

I shifted myself until I was fully lying on the bed. I looked up at her while she stood there, her eyes moving over the whole of my body. A pleased look came over her face and her eyes widened. She beamed, "Well now, I've finally gotten a rise out of you!"

When I spoke she was startled, so intent her concentration as if she were willing what was happening to me. "Hey! If you don't get out of those clothes right now, I'm going to get up and rip them off!"

She turned and walked over to the bathroom door and said, "Let me freshen up just a bit. ...And do wait up for me."

Moments later I could hear the shower running through the door she had left ajar. It must have been an open invitation, if I chose to accept it. The thought of her bare body under the cascading water and me joining her in there was tempting, but I decided it was her show. She'd been the aggressor and I was content to lie back and take it like a man. Hell, I was like any other red-blooded male when it came to dreaming about being with a younger woman. I was sure she was probably twenty-five at the least and I was forty. Fifteen years that difference wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

I closed my eyes and visualized her emerging from the bathroom, as naked as the day she was born. Then again no, she would come out with a towel wrapped about her. Those special points of interest, both north and south, almost but not quite visible. There were those wanton lips smiling with promises of the pleasures yet to come.

Yes! She appeared before me wrapped in the towel. She stopped by the end table and turned the 3-way bulb to its dimmest position. She let the towel slip from her body onto the floor, thus leaving her bathed in a contrasting composition of pale light and shadow. The vision was breathtaking.

Something was different ... Her hair hanging loose upon her shoulders was a dark brown or sable and not of a sandy color. She crawled onto the bed and paused in a provocative pose, a knee upon the sheets and the other leg extended with her toes still touching the carpeted floor. When her lips grazed my abdomen and her hair began to tickle my flesh, I forgot all about color.

It was eight years ago. My hair was thicker then and I sported a Van Dyke beard. I was on an assignment working on a story about drugs and the night club scene. The music was so loud I thought the fillings in my teeth would fall out of my mouth. Like an overcast sky a layer of cigarette smoke was hanging above the massive room. Unmistakable, the wafting scent of marijuana amid the cloud cover was prevalent.

Then I saw her out on the dancing floor. I couldn't turn my eyes away from her. Stunning in a sexy little black dress, her indefatigable movements on the floor had me mesmerized. The song was some heavy metal number, perhaps Aerosmith, though I wasn't certain because that kind of music wasn't my cup of tea. The number was rather long, probably an album cut, but her frenetic pace did not falter until the last guitar riff echoed about the club.

Her partner nodded at her and walked away apparently too tired to go another round. As for her, she appeared not be winded in the slightest. She stood there for a moment looking about the place. I thought for a moment that she'd made eye contact with me, but she turned away. I followed the sensual sway of her body until she was standing before the edge of the stage. She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted to the lead singer of the rock band. He leaned forward, nodded and gave her a thumbs-up gesture.

The waitress had just delivered a drink I'd ordered for what seemed over an hour earlier. I paid her and handed a fiver to her as a tip. When I put the glass to my lips I looked up and there she was, standing at the edge of the dancing floor pointing in my direction. Seeing that she had my attention, she then motioned with an index finger for me to join her on the floor. I raised a hand and shook my head. I liked to dance, but I couldn't dance to her type of music.

Again I tried to take a sip of my drink, but a hand on my arm prevented me from doing so. She stood before me and said, "You don't want to dance with me?"

I stammered a bit and tried to tell why I had declined. I finally said, "Besides, I'm a slow dance man."

She smiled and replied, "I thought so. That's why I asked the band to play a slow number just for me."

I took a quick sip of my drink. She had me dead to rights. How could I say no? I tried not appear so obvious that I wanted nothing more than to dance with her. I stood up, offered my elbow and said, "In that case, who am I to decline such an offer from a lovely young lady?"

Once on the floor I placed an arm around her waist and raised my other hand to receive hers. However, she pulled my hand down and positioned it around her back. She crossed both of her arms around my neck. "Your way is old-fashioned. Nobody dances that way anymore. I don't like to call it slow dancing. It's close dancing."

I nodded trying not to show embarrassment at my 'old-fashioned' way. I heard the opening notes of the song and recognized it right away as one more of my generation. "Bread ... Make It With You ... Great song and an excellent choice, uh ... I'm sorry. I don't know your name."

She hesitated and the answered, "Imogene...And I hate it."

I was caught up in the excitement of her beauty and the contact our bodies were making as we moved to the music. She looked into my face when I responded, "Imogene? That's a lovely name. I have fond memories of that name. My mother was Imogene." It was a lie of course, and despite our age difference I felt compelled to make a good impression with that lovely creature.

She tightened her arms about my neck and moved her lips next to my ear. She began to sing along with the chorus of the song, "And if you're wond'ring what this song's leading to ... I want to make it with you. I really think that we can make it, ...boy."

We smiled at each other after her obvious substitution for the last word of the lyrics instead of the correct one. "Funny, I said, "I could've sworn that word was girl."

"I would have put your name in there, but I don't know it," she cooed.

I hesitated, remembering my assignment and not wanting to tip my hand that I was a reporter. Lest my name be recognized, I gave her my little used middle name, "I have a name that I hate also. Believe it or not ... It's Ball."

She looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, "My, it's certainly an unusual name." She giggled and added, "But I like its implications."

From that point on every minute seemed to fly by, until minutes became hours. How many of those minutes and hours together were spent at that club or in the hotel room later, I cannot say. As much energy as that girl had shown on the dancing floor she had plenty more, more than enough left when it came to love making. It was all I could do just to keep up with her. I had never had sex that intense before that night or since.

I've always regretted that I never hooked up with her again. I had no choice but to throw away the bar napkin on which she'd jotted down her address and phone number. I was separated from my wife at the time and she wanted a divorce. She had long suspected I'd been fooling around, and that napkin would've given her some hard evidence. It was ironic however, that that night at the club and the hotel with that girl was the only time I had been with another woman since we'd been married. However, I'd felt justified since we were living apart, but I didn't want her to suspect or to know about that sordid one night stand.

It was late, or early depending on one's perspective, when I got dressed and left her asleep on the bed. I had an article to write and I had a deadline I had to meet if I wanted to avoid another reprimand from my boss. I left her a note on the vacant pillow next to her.

Imprinted in my head, even more so than the wild uninhibited sex we'd enjoyed, there was one indelible image. We'd both explored and touched with our hands and our lips every inch of our lovers' bodies. It was on one such expedition that I'd found it. It was high on the inside of her thigh - a tattoo ... of a brightly colored butterfly!

Oh, how I had tried to find her over the next few months. I had returned to that club night after night. I had visited other clubs. I gave descriptions of her and asked about her, but I never saw her again. I finally gave up my search for her, but I could never shake the memory of the elusive butterfly of lust!

I opened my eyes and stared in blank silence at the ceiling. I lie there and pondered the impossible odds that another woman would come into my life wearing a similar tattoo, and in the same place on her body, in a place where it could be seen from only intimate proximity.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed as images of butterflies began dancing about in my brain. I bolted out of the bed and almost toppled over as I struggled to get into my pants. There were no sounds of running water emanating from the shower, which meant Susan was probably drying herself. I was driven however, by a faint image. "It can't be. It just can't be," I muttered as I sped out of the bedroom.

Fumbling with the buttons of the television remote I was hoping I was mistaken. It had to be a residual memory from the strange dream I'd had back at Rosie's house. The frozen image of Michelle looking over her shoulder reappeared on the screen. I ran the disc backwards in slow motion. Reaching the desired scene I clicked the pause button.

Michelle and Michael had just realized they were no longer in their own bodies. I played in slow motion their ensuing movements. They were scrambling to get to their feet. Michelle swung a leg into space to disengage from her position astraddle the man beneath her. I paused the disc and froze her image in a most revealing state. I could see something, but it was too small to discern. Zooming in on the image I was aghast.

Dropping the remote I approached the screen. My nose was almost touching the surface of the flat screen. My eyes widened and my jaw went slack. There, just in view, next to the tangled curls of jet black hair was a butterfly!

"It must be after the nectar," I said under my breath.


(To be continued Friday 1/16/09, with part 15, Did A Butterfly Flutter By?.)