series: The Secret Admirer

Ron felt sweat trickling down his back, inside his shirt. Oh my God….this was unbelievable! It was also something that had occupied his most secret fantasies for years, but he’d never allowed himself to believe was even remotely possible…BOTH girls attending to him! He looked around, saw that he still had a half-finished soda on the coffee table, grabbed it and downed it in very nearly one gulp. The cool liquid helped a bit with the heat that was stifling him, but did nothing for the pounding of his heart, which threatened now to spring out of his chest.

The two girls weren’t gone for long. There was a musical tinkling of metal on metal…the ringing of fine, small bells or coins jingling, and the two girls came downstairs again…and Ron gasped as he saw them. Mel stopped at the stairs to dim the lights in the room slightly, looking at Ron and smiling. Then she came off the bottom of the stairs and stepped swayingly over to stand beside Angela. Mel wore a gold waist belt of coins and gauzy transparent blue harem pants. Up above, she wore her belly dancer top, similarly studded with tiny coins that jingled faintly with her slightest movement. Between the bra and the belt, which hung low on her hips, her lithe, supple brown belly was totally naked…and utterly gorgeous.

She had dressed Angela as a slave girl – wearing only panties with a gold waist chain just above the panty line, and no bra, but the shiny golden nipple pasties she had worn in the past for some of her most torrid dances for Ron. Now, on Angela, the outfit was devastatingly sexy – Angela’s hair hung down behind her back, nearly to her waist, long and silky and straight, and her eyes had been more heavily made up with shadow and liner, a bit of blush to the cheeks, and a light layer of sweat from her excitement made her entire pale

belly shine with gorgeous accents of light.

Mel started up the music again, then turned and took her place beside Angela, and the two girls began a slow, swaying dance routine…Angela stealing frequent glances at Mel to keep herself in step with the more experienced girl.

They began with the classic hip-rocking motions from side to side, which curved both their bellies in beautiful sweeps, navels stretching slightly as the movements went one way, then reversed to the other side.

After this, Mel began rocking her hips in a lateral figure-8, and Angela did a creditable imitation of this complex motion, keeping fairly in synch with Mel and leaving Ron completely hypnotized by the gorgeous, graceful movements of both their hips and bellies. Mel switched again to an even more complex dual figure-8, her  hips now rotating forward and back, as well as from side to side, and Angela studied this movement for a few

minutes while maintaining just the side-to-side figure-8 as she tried to interpret the movement pattern Mel was using.

Mel, meantime, used a half-step walk to carry herself forward toward Ron, and thrust forward with her hips with each step, leading her body forward from the waist, her belly and ribs following, then the rest of her, in a lazy slide step that finally brought her right up to Ron. Lifting her arms, fingers piling her hair up in a massed tangle of curls and strands, she began an languid series of undulations right in front of Ron’s face, smiling sexily down at him as she pushed hips forward, then rolled her belly upward in an agonizingly slow

curl of a wave from her hips rolling up to her ribs, where the wave would end…stretching her navel with delicious slowness as she watched Ron, her eyes never leaving his. The invitation was totally hot and completely awesome.

She moved back, just out of his reach, then looked over to Angela and nodded.

The pretty blond slave girl, having studied Mel’s more experienced movements carefully, began her own approach to the ‘sultan,’ her bare feet moving in half-steps and she carefully walked through the motions Mel had made, even managing a half-way decent dual figure-8 with her hips. When she got up in front of Ron, though, the undulation was something she couldn’t quite get the hang of, so she actually created a movement of her own which created a reverse curl of her belly, from the top down, but primarily sucking her belly inward so deeply that Ron was astonished at how far she cold pull in. Her navel must have been only an inch or two from her spine, on some of the deepest draws, and she gasped for breath a couple of times after doing it, which showed that she was far from mastering the technique.

The movement was still utterly sexy, and Ron loved it. Her own hands in her hair, Angela tried gamely to play her own little game of enticement with Ron, and managed to do a pretty good job of it. When she finished, she worked her way backward, until she was side by side with Mel again.

The two girls looked at each other again, smiling, and then cranked the dancing up several notches, by leaning in close to each other and, while still rocking their hips slowly and gracefully, performed another deep, passionate kiss…

Ron gasped as he watched. It was totally beautiful. The girls broke the kiss and both locked eyes with Ron, swaying together in time, and Angela reached out and down with her hands to begin slowly stroking Mel’s bare belly, and Mel put her belly into a series of slow curling waves that Angela followed with her hand, her palm riding the crest of each wave like a surfboard on the ocean. Long, smooth strokes from Angela’s lovely hands traced the undulating waves of Mel’s naked belly as it curved in sooo deeeeeeply, and Angela herself gasped at the sensuously delicious feeling of stroking that belly-wave, obviously becoming very turned-on by both watching it and feeling it happen under her hand.

Mel then leaned back from the hips, still rolling her belly in those deliciously erotic undulations, and gave Ron an even more exquisite view of exactly how deeply her tummy would pull in each time she sent a rolling wave up her belly.

Ron could not believe how good she had become at performing this intricate movement, nor

how she could continue to do it bent backward as far as she had gone. It was awesome.

What happened next was enough to drive him wild. He only barely managed to keep himself under control as he watched.

Mel slowly lowered herself to the floor, bending backwards again, coming down on her knees as she bent parallel to the floor…an amazing move in and of itself that required a degree of limberness Ron had never had in his life…and her belly sucked inward deeply, in a huge sweeping curve that arched down from her ribs, stretching her navel out into a vertical slit, down to her hips…and Angela leaned down, covering Mel’s navel with her mouth and kissing it deeply, then actually sucking on it…

Mel’s eyes closed and Ron actually got to watch reactions in her that he had formerly been the person to provoke in her, but had always been unable to see for himself, owing to the position of his face almost buried in her tummy.

Mel’s mouth opened, her eyes remaining shut, and her belly actually seemed to squirm in delighted pleasure as Angela sucked at her navel. It was obviously something that was an extremely erotic experience for Mel, and being able to see her like this, from this vantage point, was an enormous turn-on for Ron. Her hands came up to bury themselves in Angela’s beautiful blonde hair, as Mel literally pushed Angela’s face into her own tummy, encouraging her friend to new efforts on her navel. Angela’s cheeks came in as she applied

more suction to the navel, and Mel gasped, her hips shifting upwards and downwards from side-to-side.

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh—GOD!” she gasped, and Ron could see that she was becoming intensely turned-on by this sensation in her belly. “Ohhhhhhhh—OHHHHHHHHHHH!” Her hands swam in Angela’s hair, and Ron could almost imagine Angela’s tongue plunging deeply into Mel’s navel, probing in deeply and wetly, and the sensations that must have been giving his girlfriend. Mel’s hands came away from Angela’s hair and went to her own breasts…sliding beneath the coin-adorned cups of her top, and began playing with her nipples as her

hips and belly writhed and flexed ecstatically under Angela’s lips and tongue…

Ron couldn’t hold still. He almost felt like leaping off the couch and ravishing Mel right there, in front of Angela.

But there was more yet to come…and as much as his body cried out to join in with the girls, he remained where he was on the couch, his muscles trembling…

Angela raised he  head finally, coming up for air, and Mel smiled at her, sitting up, and the two girls kissed deeply again. That alone was enough to give Ron a spasm in his crotch. What happened next literally made him groan…

Angela leaned back in the same position Mel had been in, and Mel put her lips to Angela’s bellybutton as Angela’s tummy drew in deep…deeper…and then gasped as she felt the same things being done to her own navel that she had just been doing to Mel’s seconds before.

The blond girl’s eyes squeezed shut and her own hips bucked and jerked spasmodically as incredibly delicious sensations bathed her tummy, Mel’s cheeks hollowing out as she sucked deeply at Angela’s navel, drawing the flesh of her tummy up into her mouth…plunging her tongue into the depths of her friend’s navel and probing at it…

“Oh my GOD!” Angela gasped, putting her hands in Mel’s hair and pushing her friend’s face into her tummy. “OH GOD!” He legs were literally quivering, and her breasts jumped and shook as her torso shuddered under the ministrations of Mel’s mouth…it was an incredible erotic spectacle. Angela’s hands came up to her own breasts, cupping them and pulling at the gold pasties on her nipples…as her hips rocked to and fro, her belly sucking inward even deeper…her body giving in to the intense, deep desires gripping her viscerally as Mel worked lovingly at her navel with her mouth…

Ron was literally gasping for breath when the girls separated…and advanced on him together… It was Mel who bent down and opened his pants, then lowered herself onto him, her belly pulling inward deeply as she felt him enter inside the depths of her belly….and above and behind her, Angela’s arms came around and caressed beneath the cups of her top, stroking her breasts…then came down her sides in long, smooth strokes, and moved inward into her tummy….pressing in deeply…massaging her insides…pushing her belly in even deeper as she sucked in on it, shuddering, her hips moving up and down on Ron as she straddled him and made the most exquisite love to him…both of them crying out and gasping…. It couldn’t last more than a few minutes…both he and Mel were so intensely turned on, it was all they could do to prolong it for even that short amount of time.

And behind Mel, Angela had her own climax as well, her hand between her legs, crying out softly and finally leaning her head down on Mel’s shoulder, her hair falling softly across Mel’s bare skin…

It had been the most unbelievable afternoon in Ron’s life…an experience of a lifetime, one he would never forget. Once their threesome had rested together, all there on the couch, kissing, stroking and enjoying the beautiful afterglow of their intense passion, the most loving and beautiful bond had formed between the three of them. They were all lovers, now, and Angela was far more than a mere friend…

Dinner was a collaboration between all three of them, a delightful exercise in cooperation and sharing of delights – coconut shrimp in mango chutney sauce…an erotic experience in its own right, and they took turns feeding each other and laughing, enjoying the experience together…and after dinner, with Angela there, Ron proposed to Mel…

They had finished cleaning up, and moved into the parlor again. Mel and Angela were both still ‘in costume,’ having remained that way into the evening, which had helped make dinner a deliciously erotic experience, and now, on the couch, Ron looked deep into his beautiful girlfriend’s eyes and told her he had something to ask her…

The pensive look in her eyes…the way she bit her lower lip in a mixture of fear and delighted anticipation… were all so beautifully endearing to him. He had never known so much love for another person. He reached into his pocket and took out the small velvet-covered box, and Mel watched him, her eyes sparkling brightly, as Angela held her hand, grinning in complete joy at what she was witnessing…

“I’ve thought about this for a long time,” said Ron quietly, looking into Mel’s eyes again. She kept her eyes on his, and he could see the anticipation there, and the joy. “There isn’t really anyone else I’d want to spend my life with more than you.” He opened the box slowly. “Will you marry me, Melanie?”

She couldn’t stop the tears…she was laughing and crying at the same time. Angela covered her own mouth with a fist, tears flooding from her own eyes as well.

“Oh God….yes, Ron! YES!” said Mel, and flung herself on him, hugging him fiercely. They rocked back and forth for a time, hugging each other, and Angela gently stroking Mel’s thigh, so thrilled to be witness to this event in her friend’s life.

When they separated from their embrace, Mel put her hands out to the small box, but didn’t take it…only touching it with her fingertips in wonder. It was more than a ring…four pieces of jewelry glinted against the black velvet. Ron took out the ring, and took Mel’s hand gently, slipping the engagement ring onto her finger.

The earrings came out next, and Angela helped Mel on with the tiny and delicate diamonds, fixing them into Mel’s earlobes carefully. The last piece Ron took out of the box, and Mel’s eyes sparkled. He leaned down and pressed the oval shaped diamond carefully into her navel. It rested there and sparkled brilliantly.

She looked down at it, shaking her head in wonder, then leaned over to him and they kissed….the most deliciously, long and deep kiss they had ever shared. He could have stayed that way with her for ages…

For some time, they remained there, all together, sharing in the joy of the moment. It had been the perfect conclusion to the most incredible experienced of their lives. Mel was perfectly content just to lay there in his arms, and Angela just as content to sit there, her head resting on Mel’s leg, her arms around her friend’s legs, all of them simply content to be together…

But time drove them to sleepiness, and Ron realized he had to get the current draft of his script over to his editor for proof reading. Unfortunately, the email was down, so he ran off a hard copy and promised to be back as quick as possible, leaving the two girls still smiling brilliantly and talking together, as he drove across town to deliver the manuscript in person.

Carl was very appreciative of the effort, and delayed Ron nearly an hour with talk not only of the script but of his new knowledge of the shooting schedule – it looked like everything was a go on the project, and his enthusiasm was infectious. Finally, Ron managed to tear himself away and sped home as quickly as he could, trying to remain as legal as he could without violating half a dozen traffic laws…

When he got back home, the lights were dimmed. There was no sign of the two girls. He moved quietly through the house, up the stairs, and gently pushed open Mel’s bedroom door… …in the dim light from the hallway, he saw the two girls asleep together in Mel’s bed. Mel had changed into her short tank top and a cute pair of white thong panties, and Angela had on a short red t-shirt that had rucked up around her ribs, exposing her soft white tummy, and had on small pair of plaid boxer shorts.

The two girls both lay on their backs, Mel with her arms, as usual, stretched above her head – Angela with one wrist tucked back under the pillow beneath her head, the other hand resting on her chest, almost cupping one breast. Angela’s tummy was a creamy pale white, a few moles dotting the skin here and there…and as Ron watched, she stretched in her sleep, her hips rocking slowly from side to side – an unconscious memory of her little belly dancing effort from earlier in the day, and her belly sucked in deeply as she sighed and smiled in her dreams.

Mel’s left hand came down and scratched her own tummy lightly for a moment, before she put it back up above her head, sighing gently. She shifted, then came over onto her side, and her hand came down and rested on Angela’s soft tummy…then gently rubbed her friend there, all unconsciously, but in a gentle loving stroking than made Angela smile in her sleep again, and stretch languidly once more, belly stretching and flexing under the gentle caress as Angela moaned softly, then turned on her own side, facing Mel, one arm going out protectively to rest on Mel’s hip.

The two girls now lay facing each other…very close, with Angela’s left arm over Mel in a protective gesture, unconscious but sweet…and their tummies were so close that, as they gently breathed out, their tummies would gently touch together in a soft kiss of flesh, then gently pull away as they inhaled…Mel’s darkly tanned and smooth tummy relaxing softly and coming out to softly kiss against the milky whiteness of Angela’s gently rising and falling belly…He watched them there that way for a little bit, before pulling the door shut and moving off to his own bedroom, smiling at the memory of two angels sleeping together…

For the first day or two, it was utterly common place to see Mel and Angela engaged in conversation, usually talking in low, muted tones, here, there…kitchen, poolside, bedroom, kitchen… Ron just kind-of ‘worked around’ them. The script was actually going really well – he was amazed at how easily the characters flowed onto the paper, how well the dialogue was working out. He showed the script to his agent, Artie, and got a ‘rave review’ almost after the first page was read.

What was missing was his free time with Mel – THAT was something he had to struggle to get used to. He had been accustomed to bouts of intimacy that had sometimes lasted through the night and into the morning, but Angela was soaking up literally ALL of Mel’s time for the first two days. Ron bore it stoically, citing to himself that, after all, the two HAD been best friends, in past times, and had a lot of catching-up to do…so he felt that he was actually giving them the space they needed to really make up for lost time, and to share

some special time together.

Then he began to notice nuances in their conversations. He’d walk by and they would fall silent for a moment, and he could feel their eyes on him, or they would giggle softly and he’d be left wondering just WHAT was going on in their talks. Obviously, he was becoming involved as a topic of discussion – the question was, what were they SAYING about him?

Finally, Mel came to him one afternoon, and ‘broke the ice,’ which was not really an accurate description of what was happening, but nearly close enough. She seemed apologetic and very concerned about him at the same time.

“You have been SO GOOD while I’ve been neglecting you!” she said, pulling close and snuggling into his arms. “Thanks for giving me space with Angela. We had a lot of stuff to talk about, and you were so cool to give us the time to do it.”

“Well, I’ve been pretty busy with the script,” he said, stroking her hair. He was keenly aware that her bare tummy was only millimeters away, separated from him by the layer of fabric in his shirt. “I knew you two had a lot to talk about, anyway, so no problem.”

Mel looked up at him, smiling. “Can we do a picnic this afternoon?” she asked. “I told her about Portage Park, over by the City Hall – I could fix us up a great lunch, and we could all have some fun today.”

“Yeah, I suppose I could take a break from the script – it’s going so well, anyway, that some time off might be good for me. You need me to pick up anything from the store?”

“Yes – I made you a list,” she said, and pulled a slip of paper out of her hip pocket. “Just simple stuff – we’ll do sandwiches and snacks, but we need the drinks and I need a couple things to make really GOOD sandwiches…is that okay?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just give me a couple minutes to change, and I’ll go get this stuff.”

She gave him a kiss and a snuggle…God, she felt so GOOD against him. “Thanks!” she said. “I’ll get started making some of the stuff – oh, and get some potato salad, too, will you?”

“Right!” he said. He looked over her shoulder. “Where’s Angela?”

“Oh, she’s down by the pool, working on a tan,” she said. “I’m going to go down and get her in a minute, anyway – I could use some help with the lunch.”

Ron nodded, pocketed the list and headed for the bedroom. He switched his usual, hang-around-the house grubbies for a nicer shirt and shorts, then headed out the door to the car and took off for the store…which was MOBBED. The weather had turned nice again, with no thunderstorms for the past few days, so everyone appeared to have the same idea – barbecue-time. Luckily, he played it smart and hit the deli first, scoring a pound of excellent roast beef and the potato salad, just ahead of the wave of shopping carts all gathering behind him with similar intent, then he side-stepped down the soft-drink aisle and grabbed a could twelve-packs of soda before heading for the auto-check-out.

Back in the car, he cruised past the park on the way home, just to check things out. There weren’t a lot of people there, which was a good sign – more likely everyone was staying home to do the Hibachi-thing, leaving public areas like the park relatively free. Excellent. A few more minutes, and he was back home, pulling into the driveway.

He found Mel and Angela upstairs, having already covered the kitchen table and most of the counters with stuff they were preparing. Both looked up as he entered with his catch, and Mel cheered.

“YES!” she said, peering into the bag. “God, the roast beef looks PERFECT!” She gave him another kiss. “Okay!” she said, looking at Angela, “we can do the sandwiches, now!” She looked back at Ron. “Can you get the pop on ice for an hour or so, before we go?”

“Sure thing,” he said, grabbing one of the twelve packs and hefting it onto one shoulder. “I’ll use the freezer in the garage – should be ready in half an hour.”

“Great – then we can get it into the cooler!” she called after him as he went downstairs.

The next hour passed quickly and they were loading the car up, Ron retrieving the cooler out of ‘mothballs’ in the garage and stocking it with ice before dumping the soft drinks in, then loading it into the trunk of the car. Angela and Mel both piled into the back seat like a couple of kids on an outing, laughing and joking, and Ron played ‘chauffeur,’ guiding the car across town to the park.

Once there, the girl took care of hauling the picnic basket, leaving the cooler to Ron (which, luckily, had a pull-handle and wheels) and they set up under a tall Royal Palm near the center of the park. Mel took care of spreading a large drop cloth over the grass, and then she and Angela set to unpacking and setting up lunch. Ron got himself a soft drink out of the cooler and settled back in a beach chair he’d brought with to watch them.

Mel was wearing one of her classic cropped t-shirts, and as she leaned forward, her tummy gathered into two or three soft folds in the middle, her deep tan looking terrific. Angela had opted for a blue halter and white shorts, her brief time in the sun so far having yielded very few tangible results beyond a ‘slight reduction in her blue glow,’ as she laughingly put it. Her own tummy was a bit leaner than Mel’s, very pale, and dotted with a few moles, here and there. She was wearing a floppy, fisherman’s style hat that her long blonde hair trailed out from beneath, looking very cute.

Ron watched as the girls set up their lunch – a major production, from the look of it. The roast beef sandwiches had a good deal of prep-work put into them, and then, besides the potato salad, there were pickles, chips, peppers and salsa…Ron was passed a ‘loaded’ plate by Mel, and settled back to enjoy a really wellthought-out picnic lunch.

Angela was talking about her own school, and how much the climate up there Virgina was different from Florida. Mel listened while she ate, and Ron appreciated a truly well-constructed roast beef sandwich, also listening, but simultaneously taking-in the delightful spectacle of Angela’s lean belly, which strained and flexed as she talked, laughed, and moved about. Seeing hers side-by-side with Mel’s had proven an interesting juxtaposition, and Ron was enjoying the comparisons and contrasts between the two. Once the main course was completed, the matter of dessert was broached, and Mel quickly pointed out that she hadn’t bothered with any preparation on this, since right across the street from the park was an ice cream shop.

Angela perked up at the mention of this immediately, and she and Mel got up and walked across the intervening lawn to cross the street and go inside, after ascertaining Ron’s order as well. Ron remained in the park, relaxing and pondering his script, while also comparing mental notes in his head on the qualities of each girl’s trim belly he’d had the pleasurable opportunity to study at length from behind the vantage point of his shades. He concluded that this was definitely an ‘apples and oranges’ situation, and it bore further examination…

as much as the situation would continue to allow him, anyway.

The girls emerged from the ice cream shop and came back across the street, walking slowly and still talking. Ron noted that the heat of the day was definitely upon them and waved at Mel to hurry up – before she was awash in both her and his ice cream, which she carried in both hands. She saw him and waved one of the cones but did not make great haste in re-crossing the lawn. By the time they got back to the picnic site, the ice-cream was definitely ‘soft-scoop’ consistency. Mel handed Ron his selection (butter pecan) while focusing on catching as many drips off the sides of her own (raspberry swirl) as she could, while Angela (rocky road) continued talking and waving hers about like a conductor

for an orchestra, seemingly unaware of the danger she was in. Both girls laughed at something Angela had said concerning the boys at her school, and then Mel was talking, and her own ice cream cone was similarly employed as a baton of emphasis for her own observations.

Suddenly Mel’s eyes went wide and she gasped, in a sudden inhalation of breath. Looking down, she saw a rather large drip of the molten ice cream had fallen off her cone directly onto her belly, which sucked in suddenly in a desperate effort to avoid what had already dropped coldly onto the skin of her belly. The long drop of ice cream flowed quickly into her navel, and she gasped and laughed, her belly still pulled-in sharply, the line of her ribs on both sides jutting out prominently as she held her tummy pulled in and scrambled to find

a napkin somewhere.

Her red-cropped t-shirt had managed to avoid any contact with the ice cream, but her

short denim cut-offs were in peril from an ice cream assault now from her tummy, as she reached for a napkin to staunch the dollop of ice cream before it got too far. She succeeded at last, and got the ice cream cleaned up, but not before she had shot Ron a knowing look – this would have been a perfect opportunity for the both of them, but Angela’s presence had made the prospect of Ron’s assistance in the matter something that wasn’t really possible – much to both their regret. Angela laughed, and began paying a LOT more attention to her

own ice cream cone, forestalling any similar potential mishaps on her part.

Finally concluding with the food portion of the outing, the girls and Ron fell into a conversation about his own work, which Angela found very interesting. With some prodding from Mel, he went into some detail on the plot and direction of the script he was working on, which met with a good deal of enthusiasm from Angela.

It turned out that she was also a Science Fiction fan, and appreciated a good story in that genre. While she and Ron talked about some of the plot angles of his script, Ron was partially distracted by noticing that a ladybug had lit on Mel’s tummy, and was slowly crawling along the surface, exploring the smooth, tanned expanse of her belly in a kind of aimless meander. He realized, with a portion of his mind, that the ladybug was in a highly enviable position at that particular juncture of time – doing something that he, himself would have found extremely enjoyable, to say the least. Mel eventually felt something from the crawling and looked down, arching her eyebrows in amusement, as she watched the ladybug traverse the gentle slope of her belly, moving up the narrow definition crease that marked the centerline of her abs, then down the arc of her ribs on one side, crossing the delicious little pooch below her navel and just above the waistline of her shorts, then meander inward and actually disappear inside her navel for a few moments. When that happened, Mel looked up over the tops of her sunglasses directly into Ron’s eyes, and she smiled, knowing fullwell that he had also been watching this slow journey of his own heart’s desire.

The ladybug finally emerged from Mel’s navel and came out into the broad, smooth valley floor of her inward-curved belly, decided the landscape had been explored, and spread her wings to fly off. Mel smiled as she vanished off into the grass. The conversation eventually went from scripts to movies, and Ron and Angela and Mel all compared notes on their favorite films. Quite a few contemporary movies were name-dropped, as well as a lot of the

older ‘classics.’ They finally wound up the conversation and decided to head back to the apartment, packing up the remaining food and gear and heading back to the car.

Once back at the apartment, the conversation resumed for a bit, and the topic of favorite movies in other genre came up. Angela had quite a repertoire of films from which to draw topics, but Mel steered the conversation to increasingly erotic film scenes – and finally the topic settled on sexy women in the movies. Quite a few names and scenes came up, and Ron noticed that both girls were spending quite a bit of time watching him and asking him questions. Then Mel leaned forward and smiled at him…

“I told Angela about your fetish, Ron,” she said, and her smile was both inviting and delicious. “It just sort-of came up, and she was interested.”

Ron swallowed, not sure whether to be embarrassed or flattered. The issue was resolved for him by what Angela said next. 

“You know,” she said, “I think that’s just SO erotic! I know that, back at my own school, a LOT of the guys are into girl’s tummies, too, but they just get so embarrassed about any kind of talk amongst themselves about what turns them on, that you never hear anything about what they really like – you only get these little clues along the way: sometimes you’ll catch a guy watching your belly while you talk or move, and you’ll just KNOW what’s on his mind!” She leaned back in her chair. “Mel thinks I’ve got a really nice belly,” she said,

and she looked down at it, smiled a little, then slowly inhaled, her chest pushing out, and drew her belly IN, deep, into a deep concavity below her ribs. Unlike Mel’s deeply tanned tummy, Angela’s was very pale, with a few moles here and there, and her navel was more round and deep set, but wide enough to allow Ron to see the bottom of it, where the flesh was dimpled and crinkled. 

She smiled and looked at Ron. “What do YOU think, Ron?” she asked.

Ron was mesmerized. He looked at Mel, who was smiling approvingly and nodded, and he swallowed. “I think it’s gorgeous,” he said, managing to keep his voice from shaking.

“Thanks!” said Angela, smiling at him. “I think a lot of the guys in my classes think so, too. Although I don’t think it’s anywhere NEAR as pretty as Mel’s!” She looked over at Melanie, who smiled, arched her back, lifted her hands and put them behind her head, then slowly pulled in her own belly into a bronzed arch of flesh, sloping back inward from her jutting ribs in a huge sweeping curve down to her jean shorts, her navel a dark almond dip in the center.

Ron shifted uncomfortably in his chair and swallowed again. “So Mel tells me she’s been taking Belly-Dancing lessons for you,” said Angela, smiling prettily at Ron. “I asked her about it, and she taught me some of the movements – would you like to see?”

“Let’s put on some music!” said Mel, jumping up from her chair and stepping over to the stereo. She pulled out a CD and popped it into the player, then came back over and stood up opposite Ron on the other side of the coffee table – she waved to Angela to get up. “Come on!” she said, “I’ll walk you through the moves again!”

Ron blinked, able to only watch, as the two girls stood side by side, and the slow strains of middle eastern music began to play from the stereo. Next to each others, the two girls’ beautiful bellies began to move, first the hips alternately rising and falling on left and right, then both girls began swaying at the hips, hands up behind their heads and in their hair, as they gently rocked their tummies to and fro, navels stretching deliciously from side to side…each of them watching the other, at first, then looking down to their own tummies…and finally to Ron, both smiling, and Ron watched avidly at this unprecedented sight of two perfectly beautiful women practicing slow, sensuous belly movements in time to the music, right before his eyes.

Mel switched cadence to the music as a new piece came on, and now her hips began to pitch forward as her belly curved in with a slow reverse undulation…and Angela did the same, actually managing to parallel the move quite a ways before her lack of technique failed her and she relaxed her tummy and laughed.

“No, here…it’s really easy!” said Mel, setting up her hips again and lowering her hands to rest them on her hips. “Try it again, but pull your rib-cage back as you pull in near the center and get up toward the top – like this!” She pushed her hips forward and repeated the undulation, ending the curling wave of her belly at the top just under the ribs. Angela took in a breath and duplicated the movement perfectly, smiling in delight as she finished up in a perfect replication of Mel’s effort. “Okay, now let’s put it together with the hip thrusts,”

said Mel, and she synchronized her hips to the beat while moving her belly inward to pace with the melody.

Ron swallowed again desperately as before him, two utterly luscious bellies rocked and swayed, then curled inward on the drawn out pitch near the center of the melody.

Mel looked into his eyes, smiling knowingly. He grinned back. She knew this was driving him absolutely nuts, and she was enjoying it. So was Angela. She was watching Ron and could see the reactions he was having to their dancing efforts, and she had a lovely blush on her cheeks. Both girls were showing off their beautiful bodies for his approval, and his approval was total and enthusiastic.

“Now, here’s something he REALLY likes,” said Mel, and she stepped around the coffee table and hoisted one leg over to straddle both of Ron’s legs, then repeated the highly sexy undulations and hip-rocking scant inches in front of his face, leaning forward and letting her breath hiss in between her teeth as she repeated the slow belly curl and drop right before his eyes. She arched her back, pushing her belly forward, and smiled as he came up off the couch and pressed his face to her tummy, kissing her navel deeply. She sighed in

pleasure at the gesture, stroking the back of his head with her hands, pressing his face deeper into her tummy, relishing the feeling of his tongue in her navel. Then she pulled back, stepped off, and took a couple steps back, nodding to Angela. “Go ahead!” she said. “Try it!” She grinned at Ron. “Do the same thing for her you just did with me, Sweetie!” she said, nodding her approval.

Angela stepped forward, around the table, and put one leg up and over to straddle Ron’s legs, her hands on the back of her hips, as she repeated Mel’s moves. She looked down at Ron, smiling tentatively. “It’s okay, isn’t it?” she asked. “I just want to feel what it’s like…”

“Sure!” said Ron, not quite believing where his pulse and blood pressure were at in that precise instant.

Angela inhaled, her hips gently rocking, then repeated the slow belly curl, pushing her hips outward toward Ron and running the smooth flesh of her pale belly inward in a deep, sensuous wave that ran from her hips to her ribs. She leaned forward, and Ron pressed his lips to her navel and gave her belly a deep, probing kiss…his tongue pushing deep into her navel. Angela sighed and closed her eyes, and almost unconsciously, her own right hand went behind Ron’s head and gently stroked his hair, encouraging him to press deeper into

her tummy. When he broke the kiss, she opened her eyes and looked over at Mel.

“Oh my GOD, that felt so GOOD!” she said quietly, smiling. “No wonder you’re so into it with him!” She looked down at Ron and bent to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. “That was completely awesome!” she said. “Thank you!” She looked at Mel. “I’m just going to have to try that with my next boyfriend!” she said.

She smiled at Mel, then at Ron…and both of them could see the bright blush in her cheeks…Angela was obviously turned-on by this whole scene…and what Mel said next nearly sent Ron’s blood pressure through the roof. Mel leaned forward, her head nearly touching Angela’s, smiling quietly. “I think that the sultan would appreciate some entertainment from the entire harem, tonight,” she said. “You’re welcome to join us, you

know.”

Angela looked up in surprise…and Mel leaned forward, closing her eyes, and gave Angela a very pointed and direct kiss right on the mouth. Angela moaned softly, closing her own eyes, and fell entirely into the kiss…still moaning in pleasure…directly over Ron.

He swallowed with great difficulty, and shifted uncomfortably at the tightness in his jeans that had suddenly become intolerable.

His heart pounded in his chest unbelievably. This was quite possibly one of the most erotic things he had ever seen. Mel broke the kiss finally and Angela gasped, opened her eyes, and blinked them rapidly.

“What’ll I wear?” she gasped, smiling beautifully. Mel reached out and took her hand. “Come with me!” she commanded, then looked down at Ron and smiled knowingly. “YOU wait right there, my lord!” she said, smiling and arching one eyebrow. She ledAngela off upstairs, the two of them not giggling now at all, Angela looking wonderingly after Mel as she allowed herself to be led away…

The thump of a car door closing out in the driveway pulled Ron away from his pondering over the script he was working on for his next movie. Which was good, since he’d hit a brick wall with one scene, in particular. He looked back over his shoulder and down the stairs.

“Mel!” he called. “I think Angela is here!”

He heard a yelp of delight from downstairs, and smiled to himself at Melanie’s natural exuberance over the arrival of her best friend. Angela and Melanie had been best friends all through high school and right into college. Now that they were in Grad School, however (Mel in Architecture, Angela in Medical Technology) they were in separate schools – Mel still in Florida, while Angela was doing her own Internship up in Virginia, so a get-together like this was a major event.

He heard Mel’s flip-flops smacking on the stone tiled floor of the downstairs hallway as Mel ran to the door…followed almost immediately by twin squeals of delight and the voices of both girls talking simultaneously – a trick he still couldn’t fathom. He decided to hang up the script for a while and come back to it later. Angela’s arrival was a welcome diversion.

The two girls came into the house still talking, though now there appeared to be brief intervals in the dialogue of one or the other. Each carried one of Angela’s two bags, and both were bent on imparting as much information as possible in the briefest amount of time. Angela was holding forth, momentarily, on her own particular campus and curriculum, as well as the kind of guys she had been dating over the past six months.

Ron came down the stairs and Angela swept over to him and gave him a hug. “Ron, there you are!” she said. For a minute I thought you weren’t here! How’s the writing going?”

He smiled. “Pretty good,” he said. “The studio liked my first draft, so they gave me an advance against the rest of the script. It looks like we might have gotten Howard Falkyn to play the lead.”

“Oh, he’s HOT!” said Angela, giggling and pushing her sunglasses up her nose. “Do you suppose you could introduce us?” She and Mel both laughed and Mel elbowed her. “Ang! he barely knows Ron!”

“Hey, well, you can’t blame me for asking!” said Angela. She laughed again. Ron was completely captivated, however, but her attire: like Mel, she’d opted to wear low-slung jeans

and a belly shirt, hers white with embroidered flowers to Mel’s own dark blue halter top, only her smooth tummy was a creamy white next to Mel’s nut-brown belly. She had deferred from having her navel pierced, thankfully, so her ‘jewelry’ consisted of the natural adornment of her own navel, which was round, as opposed to Mel’s vertically  almond-shaped navel, and possessed a charming rim around the top that looked perfect for

placing a finger beneath. Ron smiled, making sure it was only his peripheral vision that took in this delightful sight. The rest of her was almost equally distracting: her hair was a mass of blond streamers cascading off her shoulders and down her back, and her top barely contained her gorgeous breasts, which strained against the fabric SO nicely and offered a top view of her generous cleavage. She had obviously dressed for sun, and he almost though it would be a shame to ruin the beautiful milky complexion of her skin.

“We’ll set you up in the guest room,” said Mel, dragging her by the arm across the kitchen. 

“Do you want to go out for dinner? We found this GREAT Italian restaurant!”

“Oh God, no!” said Angela, flashing her huge smile and laughing. “Keep me AWAY from Italian food! I’ll blow up like a blimp in a matter of HOURS…!”

“Well, there’s a nice Thai place not far off,” said Mel as the two trooped up the stairs. “Or we could go over to this really nice Oyster bar downtown…” Their voices faded as they hit the top of the stairs and went down the hallway.

Ron shook his head, chuckling, went and got himself a soda out of the fridge, then sat down at the kitchen table. Oh well…the hellos were out of the way, anyway. The script was going well, and Mel had her best friend in to visit for a week…things were going pretty well, overall. Now if he could just get the sight of those two lovely bellies, side-by-side, out of his mind, he might be able to concentrate enough to get some more writing done later on…

The best thing about having Angela visit, he began to realize, was that it actually helped to create time for him to work. It was quite some time that the two spent upstairs talking, leaving him plenty of time to scrawl notes for the script on the pad of paper he kept next to his place mat at the kitchen table. His mind was only half on the script, though, as he smiled, recalling a chapter of history in his life that had centered around Mel.

The two of them had met at college, as undergrads, but under the most unlikely of circumstances – helped together thanks largely to the efforts of one of Ron’s online chat buddies who happened to be an ‘expert’ at romance, and who had guided Ron’s pursuit of Mel to finally getting them together at the campus library. It had been the first time Ron had actually pursued a girl, and he’d been stunned by the success of it – something to which he had been unaccustomed. Mel had been shy and bookish, thoroughly intent on her studies

for a career in architecture, and had been flattered to have been so avidly pursued by Ron.

Their dating had continued and intensified throughout college, until they both realized that moving in together was really going to be the only option that would satisfy their craving for each other – so that had come about in their Junior year. They had more or less reached the same conclusion independently of each other, and Mel had been thrilled when Ron had suggested it. So, that weekend they moved all of Mel’s things from her dorm room into Ron’s apartment, and then had celebrated by spending the rest of the weekend in virtual seclusion, pausing only to go out for meals, and falling much deeper in love with each other.

Mel, as it turned out, loved the fact that Ron was ‘obsessed’ with girl’s tummies, having always regarded her own as one of her best features, and she went to great lengths to ensure that hers was more or less on constant display for his benefit whenever they were together…which was now virtually all the time, unless one or the other was at class or work.

Ron learned that Mel had preferred since childhood to sleep with her tummy bare, in fact, and typically wore cropped t-shirts to bed along with her panties, and her favorite position for sleeping was on her back with her arms either stretched out above her head, or tucked back beneath the pillow her head rested on…leaving her tummy exposed and open to Ron’s delighted attention.

Those early nights had been almost impossible for him to get any sleep. Mel, on the other had, suffered no lack of sleep whatsoever…her eyes shut in splendid innocence, her tummy gently rising and falling below the valley of her ribs…and Ron, poor Ron, absolutely worshiping that gorgous tummy…sometimes gently stroking it with his fingers, barely a whisper of a touch, but sometimes enough to make her smile in her sleep…other times leaning over to gently kiss her navel and then lay his head softly on her tummy, almost as if

it were a living, breathing pillow…and feeling his heart melt as she would sigh, smile, and put a hand to his hair in her sleep, holding him to her soft tummy as though it was the place where she most wanted him to be. It was heaven.

And over the months, they had grown closer and closer together all the while, sharing their lives and becoming true lovers in every sense of the word. Mel was the first girl who’d been completely open and above-board with him – seemingly possessed of no guile whatsoever and honestly interested in him as a person. And he had come to completely adore her – arranging his schedule around hers and building his life around her, something which she realized a lot of guys would simply not have done. It was a mutual fascination between the two of them. And before long they had realized, at some point, that they were hopelessly in love with each other.

After graduating and taking the job with Universal, Ron had realized that this relationship was the most important thing in his life. He should have been completely thrilled to be picked up by the studios as a script writer, but instead all he could focus on was the fact that he was finally going to be able to earn enough money to keep things comfortably solvent for both of them…and that he wanted to marry Mel more than anything in the world.

This was the point where he stopped taking notes, called upstairs to Mel and Angela that he was going out for a bit, and would be back soon. They called back, Mel asked him to pick up some snack food for later. So he’d gone uptown and actually stepped into a jewelry store, for the first time in his life. 

He moved along through the store, taking in the glittering show inside the glass cases, and realizing that he could easily drop as much here as he could have ended up spending on a vehicle – before the sales assistant took pity on him and came over, smiling.

Of course, the fact that she, too, was stunningly gorgeous, helped quite a bit. She took in his budget, his career and his priorities within the first few minutes of talk…then she focused on asking him questions about Mel. That had been the easy part – he was so enthusiastic about Mel that the sales girl couldn’t help but smile, partly in amusement, partly in affection at his obvious fixation on his girl.

She privately found herself envious of this girl she hadn’t even met, so devoted was her boyfriend here in front of her. AND she managed to retain her professional detachment and consider the details of Mel’s personal appearance as Ron described her in great detail.

She shook her head, realizing that this girl was extraordinarily lucky. She considered all the factors Ron had brought in with him, and guided him to a beautiful diamond ring in a silver setting…accompanied by three other matching diamond pieces. The ring was petite enough to look terrific on Mel’s finger, and the whole set was significant enough to remind Ron that this was an investment every bit as important as a new car…probably even more so. He wrote out the check and blinked at the number of zeros after the first number…but he had no qualms about parting with the money, considering what he was gaining as a result – in fact, he’d never felt so light-hearted about dropping a large sum of money in his whole life.

The drive back was just as exhilarating, and after a quick stopover at the grocery store, he headed back to the house, lost in reminiscing again…

“So,” she had asked him one night, as they sat side-by-side, watching the television, “tell me what it is you find so fascinating about tummies!”

The question was a valid one, but he’d never had it asked him in quite such fashion – point-blank and up front. It took a few seconds for him to get a grip and recollect the exact circumstances.

“Well,” he began, his own hand resting on her tummy, and her hand on his, “I was about thirteen, this one summer, and my older sister had some of her friends over for a sleep-over. They were up really late, of course, and were really excited, so by the time they got to sleep, they were pretty tired-out.

“I got up to get some water, and I was walking by the room where they were sleeping. There were, I don’t know, maybe six of them in the one room – a lot of them had brought their sleeping bags over and were, like, camped out on the floor of my sister’s room next to the bed. It was mid-summer, so it was ‘way too hot for those kinds of sleeping bags, so a lot of the girls had opened up their bags and were just sleeping on top of them…and when I walked by the room, I leaned in real quietly to take a look…Two of my sisters friends were in the bed with her, and they had all gotten so hot from sleeping together that they had thrown all the sheets off of them, and my sister’s one friend, I think her name was Janice, had her shirt rucked up around her ribs, leaving her tummy completely bare…and I just couldn’t stop looking at it: it was so soft, and so beautiful…she had this perfect little bellybutton…and she was breathing really deep, so it would suck way in while she was exhaling, and I could see the lines of her ribs up at the top as it sank down…I don’t think I’d ever been so turned on in my whole life, up until that point.”

Mel had looked at him thoughtfully as he explained this whole story to her, and she smiled.

“So, that’s why you like it when I pull my own tummy in,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “and why you are so in love with watching me breathe!” Her excitement and delight were tangible – after all, she’d just learned the most direct way to turn her man on, from his own admission! From that point on, her efforts had been directed with single-minded purpose to literally driving him crazy. She had gone and picked out an array of sleeping clothes that typically left her tummy widely exposed, everything from open-front camisoles to inexpensive halters and panties, all of which left her tummy wide open for his viewing pleasure…and what pleasure that had been! She would put on a little show for him whenever she had the opportunity, and once she had begun taking belly dance classes, the shows had become very skilled, very direct, and very intoxicatingly delicious to watch. Ron could recall dozens of different times where she had literally driven him to the brink of cumming in his pants, and had then made a show out of spending the next hour or two teasing himeven further, until she had made such terrific love to him that it had left him gasping…He smiled as he pulled into the parking lot of their apartment complex. He knew that the next week was going to be even more fun than usual.

…He just didn’t know HOW MUCH more…

He gasped, his head falling back on the cushions, and she smiled knowingly…tenderly…and reached down to caress his face, her wrist bangles chiming softly by his ear…her belly rocking hypnotically before him…navel stretching, pitching…yo…yaww…yo…yaww…oh God, it was the most exquisite sight! Never before had he felt such consuming desire.

She sensed his deep need, and bent to kiss him, belly bending, curving forward as it pulled in…their lips met and tongues entwined…deep inside, her tummy muscles squeezed him gently, rubbed…caressed…

Straightening slightly, she reached over to the small bar-fridge on the floor beside the bed, belly curving over and arcing in a magnificent arching of flesh and smooth skin. He could hear her take something out, the door closed. She straightened up…and he laughed along with her at the sight of a small tub of ice cream. She dipped into it with a spoon, took some, and fed it to him.

He took the gift and closed his eyes. Peaches and cream. Utterly delicious…and soft. She must have set some aside outside the freezer, to soften, for just such a moment as this…

She took a small bit of the ice cream on the spoon again, and this time lowered the spoon…to her navel. The small dab of ice cream filled her navel as she pulled the spoon away, and she reached forward, taking his hand in hers…and pulled him up, as she pitched her body back at the hips…unconsciously fluttering her tummy in desire…while their hips remained locked together in cosmic union…and her breasts jumped and quivered.

He bent forward, his hands behind her sides now, pulling her up toward him, and his lips covered her navel completely. The ice cream was in his mouth again, but his tongue disposed of that, quickly, then plunged into the depths of her belly button, probing, exploring…finding every last vestige of the sweet cream she’d placed there.

Gasping, her eyes rolled back in her head and closed, her body quivering, as his tongue did the most exquisite exploration of her navel she had ever felt before…and her hands unconsciously came up and pulled the golden disks off her nipples…revealing their erect stiffness in her desire. His own fingers found them immediately, and she gasped as he rolled them between his fingers, feeling them grow harder…and her belly sucked inward as she gasped.

Deep inside her tummy, he felt the muscles squeeze him powerfully, and he gasped in reply, lifting his head. She smiled, spooned another small mound of the ice cream into her navel, and then watched as the now-softened cream began melting almost immediately, a small white trail of it coming down the curve of her belly from the navel…

He was on it immediately, taking up all the molten trail and then plunging lips and tongue back onto that delicious navel. She gasped again, this time as his lips closed over the navel and he sucked at it, drawing it upward into his mouth…her belly stretching as her navel went entirely into his mouth, where his tongue speared deeply into the elevated cup of her navel and his lips squeezed and worked at it. She gasped and groaned… “oh my GOD!!!” …and her rhythm to the music broke for the first time as her body began to act of its own volition. The sensations were taking over, and she was finding herself unable to resist the powerful pull of her own desires, now.

He released her navel from his lips as her belly pulled in….in…and she gasped again…as he gasped as well, her innermost belly muscles now gripping and caressing him in powerful waves. He pressed a thumb into her navel and pushed there, pulling an answering gasp from her again, and his hips pushed up as he thrust deep inside her. He could feel the entrance to her womb as he pushed against her, and her gasp was loud and deep.

“Oh GODDDD, Ronnie!” she shook her head from side to side as she felt her innermost gates breached…and acquiesced. She was not as large as other women, and her inner temple smaller…they both felt him now as he pushed inward into her innermost belly’s secret place, and she sobbed with joy and total abandon as she was violated deeply within. “Oh GOD yes…oh my God!” Eyes closed, her belly suddenly sucked in so deeply that her ribs became a shelf above the steep curve of her belly’s inward plunge…he pushed both his thumbs deeply into her navel, and she put one fist to her mouth, biting it as he pushed in deeper. Her hips rocked and writhed beneath him as they felt him enter the depths of her womb…and her entire body shuddered, but most deeply in her belly – an awesome quivering now as the last of her secrets was plumbed.

His hands came up and stroked her breasts again, circling the nipples and then pulling and stretching them, as she moaned, completely penetrated. Now her own hips came up to strike his own, her body calling out its savage need to be violated again, and again. She welcomed him, embraced him, and he felt the rippling waves of her inner muscles squeeze, and relax, squeeze, and relax…

She put her hands to his collarbone on either side of his throat and pushed, coming up off the cushions, and they reversed positions again, and she covered his mouth with her own, her passion full upon her now – a savage lioness, in fierce pursuit of her own quarry. He answered her kiss with his own raging desire, and their tongues met in their own passionate caress.

She broke the kiss, raised her arms and braced them on the headboard above his head, to either side, and there, before his face, the belly again…now glazed with sweat, but moving again, just for him…now a licentious and shamelessly beckoning writhing gripping it. The hips began rocking from side to side again in that complex figure 8, but deep inside, that motion translated into the most awesome strokes and grippings he had ever felt. It was beyond belief. He pitched forward and pushed his face into her belly, kissing the navel…sucking on it…plunging his tongue into her depths again and feeling her belly shudder as she gasped…

The thrusting of her hips intensified, and his own thrustings answered her. She threw her head back, face up toward the ceiling, eyes closed, and yelled in a prolonged moan of agonized desire… “Oh…GODDDDDDDDDDD…oh my GODDDD…” Her head came down and she shook it from side to side, her mouth open, eyes closed, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes and running down her cheeks now, as her body cried, seeking release for the awful desire consuming it. “…oh darling!…” she moaned, “….oh GODDD…..make me cum….oh dear GOD Ronnie, make me cum!….ohhhhh….”

He forced his tongue deeper into her navel as their hips crashed together over and over, and she groaned, her belly pulling inward and curling uncontrollably…a mad, passionate dance of terrible desire and yearning now, as her body struggled with its effort toward a climax. He put both of his thumbs into her navel and pressed…deeper…deeper…and suddenly she froze…her hips pressed tightly against his own, every muscle in her body locked, frozen solid…..her mouth wide open, her eyes clenched shut……he felt a single tear drop from her cheek…to splash on his chest….

Her whole body shuddered deeply, and it was like a cord had been cut somewhere deep inside her, as suddenly wave upon wave of her climax washed over her, and she shrieked…

“OH MY GOD…OH MY GOD…AHHH…AHH—HAAAAAAHHHH!” She laughed, she cried, and deep inside her belly, her innermost muscles clamped down hard on him in a desperate grip…and his own body shuddered and spasmed as he suddenly climaxed in response…and they both felt the warm, wet jets of his own love pouring out of himself and into her…

She hung poised above him, head slowly shaking back and forth, as the ultimate release engulfed both of them…her body bucked…once….twice…three times…four times….as she held her breath in her throat, unable to even scream, as bolts of inner lightning shot through her from crown to toes…and her belly and womb were gripped in the warm whirlpool of orgasm.

She uttered one final soft gasp…and collapsed atop him, her warm breasts pushing against his chest, both their bodies slick with sweat…every muscle in her body trembling with exhaustion. He heard and felt her exhausted breath rasping by his ear…and his hands came up and hugged her body to him, then gently caressed her naked back…loving her…and she sighed….

“God, I love you,” she whispered softly into his ear, unable to move her poor little body, now weak with exhaustion. “I love you so much.” Her hands were in his hair, fingers tousling it gently, and she turned her face to his and kissed his cheek tenderly. “You make me feel so good,” she murmured. He felt her tummy pull inward a little again, against his own. She smiled against his face. “Did you like my little tummy-dance for you?” she asked.

“You are completely beautiful,” he said, kissing her in return. “Where did you learn to do that?”

She smiled again. “My beloved Sultan inspired me to learn it for him,” she said. “I want him to find my tummy the most beautiful in all the world.”

“It IS the most beautiful in all the world,” he said, and his hand went down to caress her flank along the side of her belly. “You are the most beautiful woman in the whole world.”

“And YOU,” she murmured, “are my love.”

The studying that night was on a subject other than Design.

Ron Coleson parked his car outside his apartment and sat still for a moment in the driver’s seat. He had an exam coming up later this week, and study was the order of the evening. Luckily, he’d managed to land a 3D design class that would make things much easier for his career plans.

He looked up at the windows of his apartment and smiled. Of course, the main enhancement to – and main obstacle to – his fulfillment of those plans, was waiting for him upstairs. He crossed the driveway and went in the breezeway, climbed the stairs and pulled out his key, opened the lock, pushed open the door.

The music was the first thing he heard. Almost immediately, he knew…he was in for a major diversion from his homework. The next thing he noticed, as he pushed the door shut, was the scent. Sandalwood incense gently filled the entire apartment. There was no mistaking it. His arrival had been prepared for…he was awaited.

He set down the small briefcase and looked around. The main room was empty. This particular apartment had been chosen by him for its roominess – there were plenty of places to explore, but he figured the bedroom would be the very first and best choice.He stopped at the doorway and smiled. A beaded curtain hung there – part of the new mood of the room. He parted the beads quietly with one hand, stepped through.

Melanie had arranged the room like an Ottoman Sultan’s fantasy harem. The ‘bed’ was a futon on the floor, covered with scattered cushions all over the place, some in heaps and piles, some distributed randomly over near the low divan against the far wall. The music came from here…quiet and hypnotic, and with definite middle-eastern overtones. He found Mel immediately – she was on the bed, cushions gathered about her, and she was asleep.

She’d probably only gotten back from the college herself an hour ago. She’d been up late last night cramming for an Architectural Design exam (she was in the middle of her third Trimester,) and had figured a nap would be the solution to the sleep deprivation she’d had to go through. She was on her back…her lacy-edged crop-top riding up past the sharp curves of her ribs, and her shorts had been left unbuttoned and partially unzipped…leaving the most delicious looking expanse of smooth belly, her stretched almond navel the perfect center of a gently rising and falling patch of utter delight. She’d obviously had him in mind.

He quietly came over to the bed, dropped down onto the cushions, and leaned over her belly. Inches above her, now, he could smell the distinct aroma of peaches and cream coming from her tummy – the body wash she used when showering. Her lithe tummy sank in deeply as she exhaled in her sleep, the arch of the ribs above accentuating the concavity of her gorgeous belly, her navel slightly stretched.

He lowered his head, put his lips gently to her navel, and rode upward with her belly as she inhaled…his tongue tasting the utter glory of the rim of her navel, then gently dipping into the depths of her, savoring the taste of peaches and something warmer and sweeter.

In her sleep, she felt the caress of lips and tongue, moaned softly, and stretched…her arms going up above her head, her legs crossing, her belly stretching out and sinking into a deeper concavity, her navel stretching into a tight slit. Ron lifted his head and watched the glorious spectacle, feeling such love and desire in his heart that he could barely breathe. Her eyes opened and she smiled at him.

“I was waiting for you,” she said, “but I got so tired…I had to sleep.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “It was the perfect greeting.”

She smiled again, and exhaled deliberately…and her belly sank in…in…a deep well, curving down from high arched ribs to jutting hip bones…Ron shivered in deep excitement.

She looked up at him, reached up, stroked his cheek…then put a hand to his neck.

“Come here,” she said simply.

The kiss was absolutely exquisite, and Ron knew that, unless she showed him some mercy, which didn’t seem likely, he was done for the day with any studying he had planned.

She was still moving, and expertly transposed their bodies, rolling him back down under her onto the futon, burying him back amidst the cushions…and her hands worked carefully and surely, opening and dislodging, removing his clothes with expertise and relentless intent.

She looked into his eyes as she slid his pants off him.

“I want to see you completely,” she said, smiling gently and kissing first one eyebrow, then the other. “I want to see your every reaction.” She tossed the last of his clothes aside, then pushed up and off of the cushions, stepped over to the curtain and through it, leaving the beads swinging and clattering gently.

“I’ll be right back!” she called. “You don’t move!”

He waited, and even without her presence, he felt the excitement building inside him. Though the wait seemed forever, he knew it was only a few minutes. The curtain parted again and she stepped through into the room…and his heart jumped.

She had chosen a gold swagged belt, dripping with coins, and the gauzy harem pants that still showed her bare legs dimly through the sheer fabric. Her feet were bare, but above the low belt line, inches below her navel, the real show began: A bright gem gleamed, deeply buried in her navel….and above…she had chosen not to wear a top, but the nipples were covered by golden pasties, leaving her lovely breasts naked, their soft curves rising up off her chest gloriously……and her hips began to work, rocking slowly in time to the slow, sensuous music, as she slowly approached him…the right hip coming up gently, the belly bending and curving inward at the bottom, then a slow, rippling wave riding upward from the gold belt as her belly did an agonizingly slow undulation…the pangs of birth, translated into exquisitely torturous and languorous motion, now a sensual writhing of desire.

Now the reason for the choice of the slow, sleepy music revealed itself, as she drew closer, step by step, her hips slowly rocking in a complex figure 8, her navel pitching and yawing, her belly curving, stretching, contracting and then dipping inward in that maddeningly slow wave…now beginning at the lower pelvis and proceeding up her belly, the navel like a tiny boat dipping down into, then riding up upon, the crest of that glorious wave of tanned flesh…the wave proceeding up to crest at the shoreline of the arch of her ribs…then an echoing wave, beginning there, and moving down the belly to her hips again. It was the most brazenly delicious sight he’d ever seen in his life, and his body responded immediately.

She’d practiced that move, more than any of the others in her belly-dancing class, because it not only gave her stomach muscles the most intense workout of any of the dance movements, but it also did something completely wonderful inside her…and this other benefit was now about to be demonstrated.

Still moving in time to the music, the belly still pitching and yawing slowly and sleepily to the slow drumbeats and languid string melodies, she put a knee on the bed and settled her weight there, hands up and behind her head, breasts gently swaying and bobbing in a counterpoint to the rhythm rocking her hips, and came toward him on her knees, not missing a beat as she straddled his hips, belly gently rocking now, right before his face, and she slowly settled herself down on his hips, gently impaling herself on his now-rampant manhood…and uttering a completely delicious sigh that blended into a soft moan as he felt her slippery inner walls engulf…and then moistly grip…the shaft of his manhood.

And then…she began a second set of motions, her knees flexing and relaxing, as her belly rocked, curled and twisted mere inches before his face, her beautiful breasts directly over his face, while deep inside her belly, inner muscles worked and flexed…gripped him, stroked him, relaxed, gripped again, squeezed…and the most exquisite sensations caressed him, deep in the depths of her innermost belly…and he felt himself growing harder inside her…wondering if he might not actually touch the inside of her very navel, deep within her belly.

It was the beginning of something entirely new in his life. Something that was terribly exciting. Melanie was completely unlike any other girl he’d ever met. She was, for one thing, almost devoid of the snappy contempt most women seemed to have for guys in general: she was genuinely sweet and very considerate of his feelings, sometimes putting them before his own – something he adored about her. Add to that the fact that she was a fan of comic books (her current favorite was ‘Aria’, a specialty ‘art comic’ that was produced by a very small publishing house) and a killer competitor at video games (she knew ‘HALO’ inside and out) and Bobaxxfett was beginning to think the Universe had set him up for a major fall.

But it didn’t happen. A lot of the time, they’d be sitting quietly in his own bedroom (the door left open at his Mom’s insistence) and just talk, or play games on his PS-2 (she loved DRAKAN: ANCIENT’S GATE) or look through his comic book collection. She’d bring him over to her dorm she shared with Angela (who would conveniently have studying to do elsewhere) and they’d play on her X-Box or watch TV together.

After a week of this, he was so overcome with the situation, he had to contact his online chat friend about it. He waited for a time when Melanie was not around, and then poured the whole story out.

“So she’s your ‘dream woman,’” said the chat window back to him. “It would appear you have chosen wisely.”

“But I can’t believe it,” he typed back. “It’s like, it’s just too good to be true, you know? I keep thinking ‘something is going to go wrong.’”

“Keep thinking that, and it will,” said the chat window. “Our thoughts and beliefs shape our reality as strongly as anything. 90% of everything that happens to us is created by us. The other 10% is circumstance. Believe nothing will go wrong, and nothing will.”

“I don’t know if I can believe that.”

“Oops…my online girlfriend just came on….”

“Okay…bye…” he typed glumly.

He didn’t know if he could believe in believing in it. But it eased his expectations of doom, and…much to his surprise, nothing bad happened. In fact…some really good things began to happen. She had known, of course, about his fascination with her tummy. They were getting along really well together. So it should have come as no surprise to him that she wanted to encourage that…but it DID surprise him, anyway.

The first incident focusing his awareness more sharply upon HER awareness took place three days into their ‘relationship.’ The had been watching television (the movie had grown boring) together in her dorm room, and it was getting late, and it was hot outside, and the air conditioning wasn’t working….the last problem Mel had solved early by switching to a white peasant top, the sleeves off the shoulder and ruffled, the bottom ending in a light fluff of fabric at the bottom of her ribs, showing a large expanse of her smooth tummy. Almost before he knew it, she had fallen asleep.

He lay there beside her for some time, looking at the beautiful innocence of her face, before turning his attention lower. A thin gold chain of tiny links adorned her waist, and had slipped to a few inches below her navel, an inch or so above the top of the low-cut shorts she was wearing. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her tummy for a while as she lay tangled in the sheets, then he very carefully moved his body until his face was scant inches above that lovely tummy. A light crease down the middle traced a line from her breastbone to the top of her navel. Twin creases down the sides emphasized the soft toned look of her belly – there was muscle there, but supple and softened by the soft flesh around it. The most lovely white expanse of female flesh he had ever seen. Up close, he could easily view her completely adorable navel, and he lowered his face until his lips brushed her tummy and he kissed her bellybutton.

She inhaled sharply and he jerked his head up and back…but she didn’t awaken. Instead, the most delicious transition occurred: her tummy sucked inward deeply as she stretched and moaned a little, her bellybutton stretching until it was a mere slit in the smooth concavity of her belly, and then a gentle ripple rolled down her tummy from ribs to pelvis as she relaxed her belly again….the sleepy stretch concluded.

He bent to kiss her navel again, this time provoking no response from her: she was deeply asleep, her tummy slowly rising and falling again. His lips lightly brushed the rim of her bellybutton, just slightly, and he lay back on his side once more and simply watched her. She was completely beautiful to him.

The next time was MUCH more obvious.

He arrived at her dorm room to find Angela already gone and Melanie greeted him at the door wearing….oh god….wearing that gauzy white peasant top…and low-cut jeans. Her belly, lovely and white and smooth…perfect…lay exposed before him, her navel a dark almond oval in the center of that beautiful expanse of smooth white skin.

She smiled – as much at his reaction as at seeing him, and opened the door. “C’mon in, Ron!” she said, smiling invitingly. As if in a dream, he stepped through the doorway and she shut the door behind him…and then turned and gazed levelly into his eyes as one hand lightly touched his chest…and she pushed him backward carefully, her eyes never leaving his, until he felt the edge of the bed against the back of his legs, and sat down, gazing directly now into the beautiful, mysterious depths of the most gorgeous navel he had ever seen.

Melanie smiled and turned to walk over to her dresser, where she stopped to pick up a book of matches…and lit first one candle, then a second candle, then a small cone of incense. The fragrant smoke began to drift around the room, carrying a scent of sandalwood. Next, she stepped to the window, and closed the curtains. Darkness filled the room, broken only by the soft glow of the candles on her dresser, amplified by the mirror mounted on the wall above the top of the dresser..

She went over to her stereo, and he saw her place a CD in the tray, then she pressed a couple of buttons, and soft music began to play…the alien strains of middle eastern music,…but not the typical fast and happy rhythms of the kind of middle eastern music he’d heard before: this piece was soft, and slow, and very romantic.

She walked over to the mirror again and her step was light and careful, and she was watching him…her dresser was against the wall to his right, facing his left…she carefully wrapped her hands in her hair, twisting it up in bunches in her fists and lifting them up to the back of her head…and her hips began a slow, side-to-side rolling motion….which did the most indescribably beautiful things to her belly that he had ever imagined.

“I started belly dance lessons this week,” she said quietly, still moving her hips in a horizontal figure 8. “I wanted to show you what I’ve learned so far.” She was quiet for a few moments, her hips still rolling to the music, and he felt a terrific tightness in the front of his jeans. “Did you know,” she said, still moving her hips, “that in belly dance, they call the navel ‘the eye?’” He watched as her navel rolled into different shapes….

‘OHHHH’….’UHHHH’…..’OHHHH’…..’UHHHHH’….and agreed with the ‘eye’ analogy privately….while feeling his heart banging in his chest.

She turned away from the mirror and approached him, until she stood directly before him, hands still up behind her head, wound in her hair, and smiled. “I was surprised to find out that I could always do one of the most complicated moves they teach,” she said. Her hips stopped rolling, she closed her eyes and exhaled consciously…and as he watched, hypnotized, her belly pulled in at the top, just under her ribs, and then rolled like a wave down the length of her belly in a sinuous curl, slowly, just like a wave on the ocean, stopping at the top edge of her jeans. It was a reprise of that sleep ripple he had seen a couple days ago as she lay dozing, only greatly amplified here…and far more beautiful. She opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Was that nice?” she asked.

“That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” he said, white as a sheet, and the tightness in his jeans beyond belief.

She smiled and began rolling her hips again…evidently as far as she’d gotten with the basic instruction….and moved forward, standing between his legs, her belly inches from his face….belly gently swaying from side to side, navel stretching and yawing as her hips traced a figure 8….then stopped, and that delicious wave rolled slowly down her belly again, navel riding the crest of the wave like a dark surfboard….it was too much,…it was utterly delicious…

Her hands left her head, allowing her dark hair to cascade down over her shoulders…and he felt her gentle touch on his face as the hips resumed rocking…belly gently swaying….fingers on his cheeks, coaxing him forward…forward…his lips touched the dreamlike softness of warm skin, still moving in time to the music…and the fingers coaxed, caressed….glided behind his head through his hair, gently pushing him forward…and he closed his eyes and pressed his face into the heavenly softness of her belly. Warm and so soft…so soft….her belly rocked softly against his face…and his lips found her utterly gorgeous navel and kissed there, tenderly loving the most beautiful belly in the universe….she sighed, and unable to resist, his tongue came out to push deep into her navel…and her hands pressed against the back of his head, pushing him in, inviting his penetration of her body at this most delicious point of entry. He tasted her for what seemed the first time, as her whole belly shuddered, the hands coming around to caress his cheeks again…stroking along the line of his jaw…

His own arms went around her rounded hips and butt, hands pressing behind her, pushing her belly against his face, as he licked and sucked at her navel. Her hands reached down and caressed his back, as she uttered a deep, soft moan of desire, then went to her own top and pulled it up, exposing her beautiful breasts….

He was on those too, licking and pulling at the nipples, which grew stiff and hard under his lips and tongue….then back to the belly….oh, god, the belly…that most beautiful feature of her whole body. His hands came up to pinch and roll her nipples as his tongue penetrated deep into her navel again…and her whole body shuddered, pressing against him in her desire….her belly pulled inward, in…IN…her ribs arching sharply outward over the concavity of her belly’s sinking deep into her body, the reflex, the reflex of desires fulfilled, as she shuddered, her breath coming in sobs now…and he realized his hand was inside her jeans…his fingers caressing the soft petals of the flower between her legs….and she stiffened, her body spasming…and cried out softly…once….twice….three times….as her climax overcame her……

She fell to her knees before him, tears flooding from her eyes, and her face fell against his arm as she quietly gasped for breath and lay there for a few minutes…he stroked her hair gently, awed at the amazing beauty of a woman in climax…then she lifted her head to gaze into his eyes, and she smiled gently…..

“Now you,” she said.

It was like a dream. She pushed him back down onto the bed and straddled his body with her own…her hands working open the front of his clothes….then her fingers on his skin….warm, so warm….and then, her hand dropped out of his sight, and he felt her grip him THERE….and her hand was so warm…so warm, and ALIVE…she was looking into his eyes again, and as her hand worked carefully, gently and very knowingly, he felt his heart melting at the sight of this beautiful girl, smiling gently into his eyes, while her hands and body made love to him….

She did not remove her jeans, but confined her ministrations to his needs to her hands….and skilled hands they were. She may not have done this very much before, but she knew enough to know what and when and how….

Then, she fell back and pulled him up….he was over her….she on her back, her hair a dark cloud framing her face….and her hand still worked upon him, gently….as she sighed, and pulled her belly in…IN…sucking inward, drawing her belly into a smooth concavity again….and pulled him down until her hand had guided the end of his manhood into the soft pocket of her navel, when he pressed inward, pushing into her soft belly…her hand stroking gently and surely….and closed his eyes and shuddered as his hot love shot forth and filled the cup of her navel, hearing her soft sigh in his ear….his body clenched and trembling as jet after jet filled her navel to overflowing…..and her fingers of her other hand came up to caress his face again….the beautiful, full lips upon his own, kissing passionately as he shuddered through his climax…

He woke up in her arms, both of them laying together on her bed…the candle still flickered dimly in the darkened room, but he could see by the underside of the curtains that it was still daylight out. He lay there, motionless, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her breath…and knowing that he would never be able to let her go…never….

**********

“I’m in love with her,” he typed. “I am totally, hopelessly in LOVE with this girl.”

“This doesn’t sound exactly like a complaint,” replied the chat window. “Was there anything else?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you obviously don’t need ME anymore,” replied the chat window, “and a SMART lad would be devoting all his time and attention to his new lady-love, anyway. Here’s a last bit of advice: put her FIRST in all your plans. Off you go, now: there’s a good lad.”

“Wait, wait!” he typed frantically, and felt Melanie’s hands on his shoulders as he sat staring at the screen of his computer in his bedroom. “Wait!”

“What?” The chat window stared back, maddeningly blank.

“Thank you.”

“Ah…..you could have done this all by yourself, you know. All I did was give you a bit of moral support. That’s all anyone in your situation usually needs. You’ll be fine. Get on, now.”

The chat window blinked, and the message popped up that his friend had gone offline. He sat back in his chair, sighed, staring at the screen.

A warm hand gently caressed his cheek. He closed his eyes.

“Hello?” appeared the line in the chat window. The name beside it and an unfamiliar string of letters that seemed a meaningless jumble. “Is she moving?” asked the chat window. Melanie stared at the screen.

“Hello, Cyrano!” said Korinne, grinning at the screen. She looked at Melanie. “Here’s his advisor,” she said. “Wanna chat?”

Melanie looked at her, then back at the screen….and slowly sat down in the chair before it. Carmen returned, puffing slightly.

“He’s gone,” she said. “He ran out the entrance leading toward the arts building.” She paused, hands on knees, and lowered her head. “He runs fast,” she observed to no one in particular.

“Hello,” Melanie typed.

There was a pause.

“Ah….Melanie, I presume?” said the chat window.

“How did you know?” she typed.

“Your handwriting is different,” replied the chat window. Dawn stifled a hoot of laughter.

“Who is Bobaxxfett?” typed Melanie.

“Ah, well,” said the chat window, “I really couldn’t tell you, since I don’t really know him myself. We only met online a few weeks ago, here in IM chat. I can tell you a few things about him, that’s about it.” Melanie looked at Korinne.

“This doesn’t seem fair to him,” she said.

Korinne shrugged. “How fair is it to give you gifts and vanish without even saying ‘Hi’? This isn’t really violating his rights or anything. HE ran, after all.”

The chat window was talking again. “I understand you’re interested in architecture,” it said. “Are you at all familiar with the work of Louis Sullivan?”

Melanie blinked and began typing again. “He was in Chicago, right?” she typed.

A brilliant architect,” said the chat window, “and a master craftsman. Tragically, he died penniless and forgotten, but some of the best buildings in Chicago were created by him.” Korinne nudged her.

“Ask about the book,” she suggested.

“He bought me a book,” Melanie typed. “Why?”

“Ah,” said the chat window, “that is probably because he is very fond of you. He’s been watching you for nearly a month, now.”

Melanie bit her lip, then typed. “Is he ugly?”

“No, I don’t think so,” said the chat window. “Actually, he comes off as being more overly self-conscious. He lost his last girlfriend for trivial reasons and I think he’s searching for a deeper meaning to the rejection, when the truth is that she was a rather shallow girl.”

Melanie stared at the screen thoughtfully. Then she typed. “Tell me about him, please.”

The chat window flickered, remained blank for almost half a minute, then…

“Well, where do I start?” it said. “We met online indirectly at first, through a common-interest group…”

Melanie looked up at Korinne, who nodded, then returned her gaze to the screen. The chat window continued as she watched, fascinated, and a small smile began to form on her lips…

Next Day

“…I don’t know,” Melanie said, pulling her shirt front down slightly as she, Korinne and Dawn walked across the campus. “I feel like I’ve been a peeping tom or something, prying into his personal life.”

“You ARE his personal life,” said Korinne, swatting at her hand. “Leave that alone,” she remarked. “You have to get used to the feeling, and that’s not going to happen if you keep pulling it down.”

“I’m cold!”

“It’s 80 degrees out,” said Korinne. “You’re just feeling a draft in an unfamiliar place.”

“What if he doesn’t like it?”

“Cyrano said he loves that sort of thing,” said Korinne. “You’re doing something he likes, okay?”

Melanie looked up pensively as they approached the library.

“What if he’s not here?”

“Oh, he’ll be here, all right,” said Korinne. She looked up at the library building and grinned. 

“He can’t resist: he knows you’ll be here.” Dawn chuckled.

“I’ll bet he’s really kind of cute,” she said. “I can’t wait to actually see his face!”

“One thing at a time, okay?” said Korinne. “Let’s let our femme fatale have a shot at him first.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” said Melanie as they climbed the steps. “I don’t want him to think I’m trashy or something.”

“Girl, right now, you are his obsession,” said Korinne. “You’re on a pedestal: get used to it.”

Long straight black hair that hung down to her mid-back, Melanie had taken the time to adorn it near the top with a silver comb piece in the back which bunched it together slightly. Her face still bore the usual glasses, but she’d opted for the thin metal frames this time, hoping they’d be less obtrusive. The lip gloss she’d chosen was a subtler pink, and a slight amount of blush to the cheeks…VERY slight, helped make her more comfortable with the look.

The showpiece was the ensemble: at Korinne’s insistence, they’d gone to the local mall and picked her up a set of ‘dangerously low’ Levi’s jeans, the kind that buttoned down the front, and a light, airy cropped top which displayed a part of her anatomy Melanie was not used to displaying: her belly. Actually, she had a lovely, smooth belly – navel NOT pierced – but she hadn’t put quite the effort into hunting boys that many of her peers had, which made her a bit unsure of the entire scene. The high top she wore still felt strange and…exposing. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life.

“I feel like a piece of meat in a supermarket display case,” she’d murmured to Korinne after trying on the jeans and top.

“Mel, that’s what you ARE, technically,” Korinne had told her. “Men are primarily VISUAL, and without eye-candy, their attention wanders. If you want to reel this boy in, you have to bait the hook with something more substantial than promises.”

In the library’s main room, they headed for what had become ‘their table.’ Smack in the middle of the main hall, under the lights, no cover whatsoever…

Carmen and Angela were already there…Carmen waved enthusiastically as they approached. Melanie wanted to sink into the floor.

“God Mel ! Who are you and what have you done with our sweet nerdy Mel?” said Angela amazed looking at Melanie in awe as she sat down opposite her across the table.“you look like a rock-star’s main squeeze!”

Korinne shook her head – too late. “Enough,” she said. “Showtime.”

Carmen leaned over the table. “Check your line of sight,” she said. “I made sure the section on Hawaii was all the way over to the left side of the rack. I don’t think he knows how we spotted him the last time.”

Korinne sneaked a glance to her left, nodded, and opened one of her books before her. “Chapter One,” she whispered. “Melanie phone Cyrano.”

Melanie took a deep breath, put her fingers to the keys of the computer terminal before her, and began typing. Beside her, Dawn watched.

“Okay, now back out of that,” said Dawn. “Now, click up there. Set the protocols to ‘firewall, no proxies.’ Okay, now ‘apply.’ Click ‘okay’ there. Now log in.”

Melanie typed her new online nickname, ‘Ayesha,’ and waited. Her homepage appeared. She clicked onto the IM channel, and the chat control panel appeared.

“He’s there,” she said.

Korinne turned the page. “Tell him ‘good morning,’” she said.

Melanie clicked on the name, then typed a greeting.

A line of type appeared in the chat window.

“Ah, well, good morning to YOU,” it said. “Interesting online name you’ve chosen.”

“Korinne picked it for me,” she said. “She’s the literate one. She said it sounded like…a belly dancer’s name.”

“VERY literate,” remarked the chat window. “Ayesha….the name from H. Rider Haggard’s SHE, being the name of ‘She who must be Obeyed..”

Melanie glared over at Korinne, who gave her a puzzled look.

“I may change that later,” Melanie typed.

“No problem,” replied the chat window. “So, what’s on the agenda today? Do you surround him and tie him to a chair?”

“I just want to meet him,” she typed. “I told my friends to leave us alone. Will you help?”

“Of course,” replied the chat window. “I love playing matchmaker. The fact that you two are already so close only helps matters along.”

“I don’t even know him yet,” she typed.

“I meant geographically,” replied the chat window. “He’s probably less than 100 yards away from you right this moment.”

“Are you chatting with him?” she typed.

“Yes, but he’s at a different terminal. I think he’s…upstairs?…from you.”

Melanie’s eyes swept the railings of the floor above: the central hall had a clear view to building’s internal roof structure, since the second and third floors above had been left open directly above the main study area. There were stacks up there, of course, and internet terminals…but now the search was going to be more difficult.

“So tell me more about him,” she typed.

A brief pause, then: “He sees himself as a ‘geek,’” said the chat window. “This isn’t necessarily a pejorative, not in this day and age, when the most successful man on the planet is a ‘geek.’ He blames this, in part, on the recent break-up with his girlfriend. Actually, I think she was more interested in pursuing someone else. However, he is resigning himself to a life alone.”

“That’s sad,” she typed. “Is he sad?”

“Hmmm…at times,” said the chat window. “The feeling I get is that he is trying to accept the loss of his last girlfriend as inevitable, his status as a ‘geek’ as inevitable, and is looking ahead toward a rather cloistered future in which most of his sexual life is spent alone with magazines.”

“And you don’t know what he looks like?”

“No, but my experience suggests he is far more critical of his looks than the actual reality of his appearance admits. This is a common affliction of youth…and humans in general. We are always our own worst critics. For example: I’ll bet you ‘dressed’ for him today, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“Just call it an educated guess. So, you feel FAT, right?”

“Not really…”

“Oh come on: you feel like a COW, sagging out over your beltline…admit it!”

“How did you get to be so smart?”

“Good genes. It’s a family curse. What color top did you choose?”

“Light blue…it’s a lace-front.”

“Ah….adjustable…” The chat window paused. “Versatile and very foresighted of you. Perfect. The blue is also a good choice. Ready for some choreography coaching?”

“What?”

“He’s left his terminal and he’s watching you right now.”

Melanie felt a warm blush spread over her cheeks, down her throat and over the top of her breasts…

“Think of me as your dance coach,” said the chat window. “You know he likes girl’s tummies: here’s your chance to be his little belly dancer. First, talk to your friends….you’ve been at the terminal and need a break.”

Melanie looked over at Korinne.

“He’s watching us right now,” she said quietly. “Cyrano says to give him a show.” Korinne nodded, closing her book.

“That’s perfect,” she said, and looked at Carmen. “Don’t you agree, Carmen?”

“Oh, yes!” said Carmen, leaning forward, excitement in her eyes.

“Now,” said the chat window, “being at one position at a terminal is cramping – you need to yawn and stretch…and make it a nice BIG stretch: straighten your legs out and really reach above your head….”

Melanie bit her lip slightly, but put her best effort into the yawn and the stretch…leaning far back in her chair, her butt sliding forward as she straightened her legs and tensed the muscles…and for good measure, sucked in her belly slightly. Her navel stretched into a tantalizing dark slot in her smooth belly as she did this.

Korinne smiled.

“I just felt a change in the room,” she said. “Did anyone else notice it?”

Dawn shrugged. Angela nodded, though. “I sense tension,” she said. “Something feels like…I don’t know…like there’s this charge in the air…”

Melanie returned to her seated position. The chat window flickered again.

“If you did that right,” it remarked, “I rather imagine he’s having a hard time remaining standing at the moment…he’ll probably want to return to his study carrel….but he’ll be torn between that and continuing to watch you, hoping you’ll do something else.”

“Something with my belly?” Melanie typed.

“Yes, essentially,” replied the chat window, “however you have a number of options as to exactly what to do.”

Melanie coughed. Her belly tightened and pulled inward involuntarily.

“That was good!” said Carmen, nodding in approval.

Melanie pressed her lips into a thin line, thinking, then, slowly, moved her hands to her hips, placing the palms flat against the upper sides of her butt…and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and expanding her chest. Her tummy sucked in deeply, becoming a smooth, concave expanse of creamy flesh, the navel stretching luxuriously.

“Oh….my….god….” said Angela, watching. “I think you probably just made him cream in his jeans.”

Korinne was nodding in approval. “I think we’ve gotten his full attention now,” she whispered.

Melanie sat back up slowly and put her fingers to the keyboard again.

“I just leaned back and took a deep breath, and sucked my gut in,” she said.

“Ah – I’m sure he’ll like THAT!

“Is he back yet?”

“You mean to his terminal? One moment…” There was a brief pause. Then: “No, he doesn’ t respond: I would guess he’s still watching you, and probably smitten with desire right about now.”

“How did he feel about us chasing him yesterday?”

“He is convinced you don’t know who he is, still,” replied the chat window. “I have not informed him of your knowledge or of our conversation after he abandoned his terminal. He did return later to close down his IM chat logon, after you had left. So far, he is unaware of our association.”

“When he comes back on, can you keep him talking? I want to surprise him.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I imagine he’ll want some advice on what to do for his ‘next move’ with you.”

“What next move?”

“He was planning another gift – a book on Frank Lloyd Wright, I believe.”

“That’s too expensive – he shouldn’t spend so much money on me.”

“Really? How sweet of you! He’ll appreciate that…but he’ll still want to get it for you.” Melanie frowned.

“Ah…he has returned,” said the chat window. “I will delay him. You may make your move when ready.”

“I’m going in,” said Melanie, standing up. She resisted the instinctive urge to pull her top down in front again.

“You want us to cover the exits?” asked Carmen.

“No…just wait here,” said Melanie. “I don’t want to scare him away again.” Korinne nodded.

“Go get him!” she said. Melanie took a deep breath, and headed for the stairs.

The second floor was a quick study…she was able to walk the whole circumference around the central well in about two minutes, finding nothing unusual, but stopping to check a few of the guys who were on internet terminals in study carrels. Nobody fit the description, so she moved on up the stairs to the third floor. She was about halfway through walking around it when she spotted a carrel far down an aisle of books…and the guy occupying it struck a strange vibe in her. She walked quietly down the aisle, her feet barely seeming to touch the carpet, and as she drew closer, she saw the IM chat window open on the terminal’s screen. The guy was typing and she moved up to look at the screen.

“How do I tell her that she’s so cute she makes me want to hold her forever?” he was typing. Melanie’s heart did a little flip/flop as she read the words. She looked at him….the dark hair was unkempt, but not bad looking. The glasses were a little nerdy. The clothing…well, that could be changed. How to DO this? Hmmmmm…

She frowned, momentarily puzzled, then a smile crossed her face. Her thumbs went to her front pockets and pulled down…exposing more belly. She stepped up closer, checked her position, then cleared her throat. He jumped as if he’d been shot and whirled around…to find himself facing her belly. Her navel was poised inches from his face. “I wanted to thank you for the book,” she said, smiling.

He was about her age, and the chat buddy had been right: he wasn’t really bad looking. A little neglected…the hair could be neatened up a bit, but maybe she liked it this way….and the glasses needed upgrading to a new style. His eyes were as big as saucers and he stared at her belly momentarily before his eyes shot up to her face. She smiled gently.

“That was really nice, what you did for me,” she said. “It helped me finish my term paper ahead of schedule.”

“Uh….sure, no problem,” he said, his voice coming out a bit strained and, she noticed, slightly scared. Time to put that to rest.

“I was wondering,” she said, “if you could help me out with some of my other studying. Finals are still going on, you know.”

“Wha – what subjects?” he asked.

“Well, I’m taking English Lit., Trig and Mechanical Drawing,” she said. “Can you help with any of those?”

“Maybe the English Lit,” he said, still looking up at her…with something now looking almost like worship in his eyes.

“That’s great!” she said. “Maybe you could come over to my place: I’m rooming with three other girls in a house off campus.” She put her thumbs in her front jeans pockets and leaned back against the metal shelves behind her, unconsciously pulling her belly in. His eyes got wider. “Do you know anything about comic books?” she asked.

He blinked and swallowed.

“Sure!” he said.

“Good, because I’ve got some old ones I’m thinking about selling,” she said. “I don’t know what they’re worth, so I need an ‘expert opinion.’ They’re mostly old Legion of Superheroes. You know the title?” He nodded.

“I need the money to pay for the X-Box I want to buy next week,” she said. “Anything you can tell me about what they’re worth would be great.”

She smiled and…much to her delight…he smiled back.

“Hey, want to come meet my friends?” she asked, cocking her hips to one side – a move that put a delicious crease across the center of her stomach. “They’d like to meet you, too, and they’re all really cool.”

“Sure,” he said, not looking at all sure, but seeming willing to face anything now that he was known to Melanie.

“Great!” She looked around, and glanced at the screen. “You might want to close down your chat window,” she observed. “I don’t think the librarians would appreciate finding that running.”

“Huh? Oh…right!” He turned to the machine, typed a quick “Bye!” and logged off.

“So…my name’s Melanie,” she said, putting out one hand. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Ron,” he said.

“Ron…nice name,” she said, smiling. She put out a hand. “Come on!”

He reached out, took her hand…and stood up…

Twenty four hours stretched interminably. Back in her dorm, Melanie was quietly going nuts, her mind running in circles around her mysterious ‘secret admirer.’ Was he —tall? Handsome? Not likely? Probably shorter, according to Korinne’s profile…maybe wore glasses….probably quiet and bookish…he might be into Science Fiction or Fantasy. Melanie looked hopefully up at her wall poster of Anakin Skywalker – which her friends were constantly teasing her about –but she didn’t care: she still thought he was hot… All of these things were buzzing around in her mind, which made studying impossible: not that she needed to anymore, though – the gift book had supplied more than enough material for her term paper.

She sighed and fell back on her bed….the bottom edge of her shirt riding up on her ribs as she folded her hands behind her head. She looked up at her ceiling and tried to picture this mystery man….

Across town, BobaFett was online, chatting with an old friend.

“It was so perfect!” he typed. “The timing was perfect, no one saw me, and she was totally blown away by it! I stayed and watched and she couldn’t let it go!”

“You seem to have her attention now,” came the reply. “What is your next move?”

“I was going to try to leave her a note,” he said. “I’d really like to meet her, but not yet. I just wanted her to know I think she’s really cute.”

“Well, if finals are next week, then you still have time,” came the reply. “She’ll probably be there again tomorrow. Will you ‘strike’ again?”

“Yes!” Fett typed. “Twice in the same week! It’ll drive her crazy!”

****************************

In the library, Korinne was pretending to read her book, but was actually looking up at regular intervals, scanning the room.

“Will you stop that!” said Carmen, smacking her hand. “You’re going to blow the whole operation!”

“Relax, Carmen: this isn’t Mission Impossible,” said Angela, keeping her eyes on her own book. “Korinne, do you see anyone suspicious?”

“They’re all suspicious,” Korinne said. “That’s the problem.”

Dawn was tapping at the keys of the terminal next to Melanie’s.

“Okay,” she said, “basically I’ve set up a window straight into the server’s message logs, which means I’m monitoring all the traffic into the server. Mostly it’s requests for books. This,” she pointed to one line of numbers, “is your mystery man’s terminal: 392. We’re at the same table we were at yesterday,….”

“…so it stands to reason that he’ll use the same terminal,” said Korinne. She was barely able to see the terminal in question – it was tucked out of sight back behind the geography books in the reference stacks, but she could just make out the screen of the monitor: they had gone into the stacks and arranged the books so that Korinne had a clear view of the targeted terminal.

Melanie was completely nervous and found it almost impossible to study anything. She wanted to keep looking up, but forced herself to pretend to read, turning pages she hadn’t even glanced at. It was nearly a half hour before Dawn spoke quietly.

“Korinne, what do you see?”

Korinne glanced up, then back down at her book.

“Someone’s there,” she said. “There’s a head blocking the screen.”

“Oooohhhh!” said Carmen. Korinne smacked her hand. “Shut up,” she suggested.

Dawn watched her own screen. “There’s a server request from 392,” she said. “…and here comes our Cyrus protocol. Yup…this is our man.”

“Ooohhh…let’s go see what he’s like!” said Carmen.

“Carmen, you move your fat ass and you are toast,” said Korinne.

“My ass isn’t as fat as yours!” said Carmen, only slightly offended.

“He’s logged in,” said Dawn, “but he hasn’t done anything yet. Wait….” She watched the screen before her carefully. “Oh Ho….he’s logging into Yahoo,” she said. “And there goes the IM chat protocol. He’s talking to someone else.”

Korinne nodded thoughtfully. Melanie looked at her.

“What?” she asked.

Korinne shrugged. “It sounds a little bit like Cyrano de Bergerac,” she said. “The young suitor is seeking counsel…perhaps with his mentor…”

Carmen was literally squirming in her chair.

“I can’t stand this!” she complained. “I feel like I’m going to explode!”

“Have another peach danish,” Korinne advised. “You can put us all out of your misery, then.”

Dawn was frowning.

“He’s not doing anything with Cyrus, yet,” she said. “It’s all IM chat….which is a neat trick in itself, since the campus server is supposed to have a firewall blocking IM chat. This guy is good…” Angela was watching Melanie.

“You could just go over and introduce yourself,” she said.

Korinne shook her head. “He might bolt,” she said. “You’d never see him again.”

“I think we need to get up and move away from the table,” said Carmen. “That’s what we did yesterday!”

“Yeah, but it has to look natural,” said Korinne. “What would pull us away from here?”

“Other than a bunch of guys,” said Angela.

“Let’s go get a snack!” said Carmen. “The machines are over by the lounge!”

“Perfect,” said Korinne. “We can watch the table from there. Mel, you stay here. Dawn, can you keep that channel open and fix it so he can’t see what you’re up to?”

Dawn nodded. “I’ll just minimize it and run a browser request for a book,” she said.

“Okay,” said Korinne, standing up, “let’s go get your danish, Carmen.”

The girls left their books and moved toward the vending machine room, which had several table in it. Snacks were not allowed in the main library, so they would have to remain there until finished with their food.

Melanie resisted the urge to look back behind her.

“I feel like I’m walking away from a buried treasure,” she muttered.

Angela nodded. “I know what you mean,” she said.

Once at the machines, it was Carmen who spotted their man.

“He’s there!” she hissed, glancing out through the glass wall and turning to look at Melanie.

Melanie glanced sideways, but her view was blocked by a passing student.

“What’s he like?” asked Angela.

“Short….glasses…..kind of thin…dark hair…”

Korinne nodded. “Classic Geek,” she said. “Probably stays up reading comic books all night.”

“He’s leaving something!” Carmen hissed, looking over Korinne’s shoulder. “There he goes…he’s gone!”

“Okay, back to the table,” said Korinne, finishing her small coffee. “And keep quiet, all of you.” This time, it was two roses….and a note.

Dawn brought up the messaging log again. Melanie had the note open and was reading.

“What does it say?” Carmen hissed.

“Carmen, you are about as subtle as a cement truck,” said Korinne.

“It’s personal,” said Melanie, folding the note. She slipped it into one of her books.

“Ooohhh…you can’t DO that!” said Carmen. Melanie blushed and looked at her.

“…’for the fair lady…and the hopes she will favor me with a smile one day,’” she quoted.

Korinne looked at her. “I can see the screen,” she said. “That means he’s watching you.”

“Ooohhh…this is just like a stalker!” said Carmen. Korinne nodded.

“Here’s your big chance,” she said. “Flash him a nice one.”

Melanie blinked, then lifted her head, and beamed. Nothing happened, of course.

Melanie dropped her smile and glowered at the table. “I feel like an idiot,” she muttered.

Angela shook her head.

“Don’t,” she said. “I think you just made his day.”

Korinne nodded. “He’s at the terminal again.

Dawn nodded. “He’s there, all right.”

“So NOW what?” asked Carmen.

“Well, NOW,….” said Korinne, “it’s up to Mel. This is the perfect time to get the drop on him: just walk over there.”

Melanie shook her head, then nodded, then looked at Korinne.

“Do you think he’s safe?” she asked.

Korinne nodded. “He’s probably miserable and thinks you’d never give him a glance,” she said. “Kind of like Phantom of the Opera…”

“That’s so SAD!” said Carmen.

Melanie stood up, and began walking back toward the geography section.

“He’s gone…!” said Korinne behind her suddenly. “The screen…I can see it again!”

Dawn blinked at her own screen….”but his IM chat window is still open,” she said.

“He saw her! He’s onto us!” said Korinne. “Mel, get to that terminal before someone else does!”

Melanie turned and ran back through the stacks. At the back of the row, she came to an empty internet carrel…the screen still flickering…and on it, was a small Yahoo chat window….Behind her, she felt the presence of her friends.

“…his name is Bobaxxfett?” she said.

“That’s a Star Wars character,” said Korinne. “He’s probably a Sci-Fi freak.”

Spring term finals were coming up fast, and the Miami/Dade University library was crowded with students, all searching for books on their subject, or else already hunched over them at the many tables and carrels that lined the walls and main floor of the library. The overhead lights looked down on a scene being played out at colleges around the world, but none seemed so significant as that happening right here…not to the lurker in the stacks known as BobaFett.

Study was not exactly on his mind. He was moving slowly, purposefully through one set of stacks of reference books, but his gaze was directed not on the books, but through them…

The object of his attention sat square in the center of the main library floor, at one of the study tables, surrounded by four of her friends. They had come to the library to study together, but she was really the only one of the group actually serious about study. The others seemed more interested in preening for the nearby table of boys, who seemed more interested in the girls than in studying.

She was different. Fett had seen that immediately. She was bent over her books and actually reading them, and doing her best to tune out the mirthful undertow of her friends who surrounded her. It had taken some maneuvering, but with a bit of luck and a pocket telescope, he had learned her name was Melanie….and that her subject was architecture….

Now he waited, having actually left the library for a ten minute span to move quickly  off-campus and return again. She had still been there, but now something else was needed. It was going to be necessary to get her to move away from her books for a short amount of time. That was going to be a problem. Yes, she was a serious student…and that meant that she was firmly embroiled in her subject at the moment. If a table full of eligible boys couldn’t distract her, how was he going to get her to leave her place for the few precious moments he needed, and then return?

The answer turned out to be surprisingly simple. The study tables were also occupied by internet computer terminals…and she was dividing her time between books and the internet. Over the past ten months or so, Fett had taken the time to study the architecture of the library LAN, and had learned that, while the terminals all maintained communication with the web via a central server here on campus, it was possible to send a message from one terminal to another, via a WAN chat program called Cyrus. Cyrus had been developed by another Miami-Dade student who was graduating this year, and whom BobaFett had met online in a campus chatroom. He had been glad to share his little invention with someone willing to give him cash for it, and now Fett literally had the run of the University terminals…provided he knew the LAN-assigned number of the terminal he wished to reach.

That was something he had found out by accessing the System Manager’s layout of the University library…the terminal numbers were all printed on the master schematic.Melanie was sitting at terminal 419, and Fett now had a message window opened that would pop up a LAN message window on her screen.

He moved back through the stacks to his own machine, over by the Geography section of reference, having satisfied himself that she was still there…and that her friends were still distracted by the table of boys next door. Moving quickly on the keys, he entered his message: “…additional material on Mies van der Roh is available in the discussion room lobby, where a lecture was held earlier this morning.” Perfect. Now, to see if she would take the bait…

He was up again and moving through the stacks…a man on a mission. He reached his observation point and waited. The other girls were engaged in an animated discussion (in lowered tones) with the boys at the next table. Melanie still poured over her book before her…and on the screen in front of her was now a bright blue Cyrus message window…

Three of her friends stood up and went over to the next table to be a bit closer to the objects of their attention. The remaining friend was now sitting largely with her back to the table. Melanie turned a page of the book and read on a bit, then looked up at her terminal screen…and froze…Fett felt his heart pounding. This was it. THE moment.

She read the message, then looked around the main room of the library in momentary confusion, shrugged, stood up, and began walking toward the discussion room near the back of the reference section…

Fett moved out slowly, but in a straight line…acting as if he had just found the book he had been seeking and was now looking for a spot to camp and read. Between the tables, all the way up to her spot…where he carefully set down his little gift in passing, completely unseen by her friends, hung a right and another right, doubling back on his course, and headed back into the stacks…

Melanie returned with two magazines, which Fett had planted outside the discussion room deliberately with her in mind – Architectural Digest, featuring works of Mies van der Roh, and Fett watched, exulting inwardly.

She stopped at her place and looked down, blinking. There was a color photo book on her subject, the architectural work of Mies van der Roh, and a single fresh rose laying atop it, along with a card. She picked up the card and opened it.

“For a fair lady…a small gift,” it read. Hardly a small gift: the book itself was priced at thirty dollars. The card was unsigned. She blushed slightly, and began looking around the main room again. There was no sign of anyone doing anything out of the ordinary……except for the pair of eyes watching her between geographic reference books, two stacks over…

Perfect! Perfect! Fett broke off observation and moved to his terminal, shut down Cyrus and returned the screen to the blank message window of the Campus browser. He picked up his books and moved out of the library….

Melanie was confused, but in a happy and simultaneously annoyed way. Somebody obviously was studying her, and having someone interested in herself was both flattering and interesting…however, this person was a mystery….and, much to her annoyance, her friends were clueless.

“You didn’t see anyone?” she asked Angela, her best friend, who had remained at the table.

Angela shook her head. “But I was talking to Mike,” she admitted. “I had my back to the table.”

“So what happened?” asked Korinne, walking back over to the table. “What made you get up and leave in the first place?”

“This message,” said Melanie, nodding at her terminal screen. Her friends clustered around her and read the message window.

“Hey, that’s a Cyrus window!” said Dawn, the only computer science student of the group. “Somebody Cyrused you! “What’s that?” asked Melanie.

“Cyrus is a targeted chat application Doug Freund wrote for his term project last year,” said Dawn. “He wanted a way to chat with other terminals on campus, even though it’s not supposed to be possible, so he designed a client-server protocol that fools the server….”

“…yeah, yeah, tekkie-tekkie,” said Korinne, laughing. “So what does it mean, Dawn?”

“It means that Melanie has a secret admirer,” said Carmen, the last of the group. “AND he’s a tekkie, like Dawn.”

Melanie smiled, a little bemused. “So how do I find out who he is?” she asked.

“It might be a she, Mel,” said Korinne, wincing as she took an elbow from Angela.

“Well, Cyrus always leaves an address for both ends of the chat message on the server,” said Dawn, sitting down in Melanie’s chair and hitting the keys rapidly. “All you have to do is go into the message logs for the past hour or so and look for a Cyrus signature.” She hit enter and waited…a list of times and terminal addresses came up, along with request messages. She pointed to one that had a .cyr suffix. “There’s your secret admirer,” she crowed.

Melanie squinted at the tiny numbers. “That’s just a string of code,” she said. “That’s not him.”

“True,” said Dawn, “but he sent the message from terminal 392, and he did it less than ten minutes ago.”“So he might still be in the building!” said Carmen. “Ooohhh! This is exciting! It’s better than watching SURVIVOR!”

“No, he won’t be in the building anymore,” said Korinne, shaking her head. “He’s gone, Mel.” Korinne was the Psych major. “He’s not going to stick around: guys who do stuff like this never do.”

Melanie looked at her, pouting slightly. “Why not?”

“Because he’s probably a wallflower,” she said. She got blank looks and went on. “It’s an ancient term for a geek,” she said. “He’s probably not very good looking and he doesn’t want to be seen. He just likes you and wanted to give you something.”

“You mean he doesn’t want me to see him?”

“Probably not. He’s probably terminally shy and not very good with women.” Melanie frowned.

“Well, he’s certainly got my attention,” she mused.

Angela was smiling. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?” she said. She looked at Carmen. “She’s a total softie for shy guys.”

Melanie glared at her, but only mockingly. “I think it’s sad,” she said. “This guy is probably really sweet…and he’s probably really lonely…”

“Oh, he’s lonely all right,” said Korinne knowingly. “But he’s found a way to deal with it.” She looked at Melanie. “This is the equivalent of a kiss,” she said.

Melanie blushed again. Angela shook her head.

“Nice going, Korinne – you just set the hook,” she said, watching Melanie. Melanie ignored her, looked at Dawn.

“Is there any way of finding out who this guy is?” she asked.

“Well, you can download Cyrus off a floppy,” said Dawn, “so he probably took it off the machine as soon as he was done. The best way would be to see if we can trace him while he’s doing it.” She looked at Korinne. “Do you think he’ll try again?

Korinne shrugged. “Impossible to predict,” she said. “But if we repeat the circumstances identically tomorrow…”

Melanie nodded. “Okay, so we all meet back here tomorrow, same time?”

“Okay by me,” said Paul at the next table.

“Yeah, and take a shower before you do!” said Carmen, laughing at him.