Edgefield & Sutherland 02

Edgefield & Sutherland 2: Don't Fence Me In

San Francisco Chronicle | March 2, 1947

HELEN EDGEFIELD DIES; WAR HERO SON TO CARRY ON FAMED DETECTIVE AGENCY

Helen Edgefield, founder of the Edgefield Detective Agency and for twenty years one of the most successful private investigators in the city, died yesterday at her home in Potrero Hill. She was 42.

Ms. Edgefield, who made a citywide name for herself from the small agency she ran from a walk-up on Eddy Street in the Tenderloin, was known along the Embarcadero and at the Hall of Justice for cases the department would not or could not take, and for a method many officers often compared to the legendary Sherlock Holmes: close watching, a clean record, and what Ms. Edgefield herself often called "soft pressure".

That the city's ablest independent detective was a woman was a fact she never bothered to advertise. Associates said her true rise to prominence came during the war years, when so many qualified men were in uniform that clients who would never have hired a woman in 1940 had little choice but to do so by 1943.

Ms. Edgefield's agency, as well as her legacy, will continue under her son, Captain Jon Edgefield, who said last night that he would carry on his mother's work. Miss Ruby Sutherland, long associated with the Edgefield agency, remains with the firm.

Morning light cut through the blinds of the Edgefield Detective Agency in hard yellow strips that landed right across my face like it had a fucking grudge. My mouth tasted like an ashtray and cheap whiskey. I was on the couch in my shirt, one sock, my belt undone, and my pants twisted halfway down my hip.

I looked like I'd lost a fight with the furniture.

I sat up and the room tipped. Nice.

Ruby's voice came from the desk, calm as ever.

"You're late, Edgefield... which is pretty impressive considering that you live where you work."

I squinted at her. Cream blouse, gray wool skirt, red cardigan inadvertently buttoned wrong at the top like she herself had been moving a bit too fast to get here this morning. Auburn hair pinned back neat. Glasses already sliding down her nose. She was looking at me like I was a problem she'd solved a hundred times before.

"Good morning to you, too, gorgeous," I said. "What time is it?"

"8:40. We've got a client at nine." She flipped a page in that leather folder of hers without looking up. "An older gentleman. Separate matter from the Hargrove case. He sounded confused on the phone and I told him we'd see him. So... that gives you 20 minutes to stop looking like you slept in a dumpster."

I patted my pockets, found the pack, and lit a cigarette. The first drag scraped going down. "Have I ever told you that you're an absolute vision in the morning, Ruby?"

"Once or twice. But I'm still a vision who has to air this place out before a decent, paying customer even sits down." She finally looked at me. Those kind, green eyes. That small knowing smile. "And you reek of whisky, young man. Sit up."

"I am sitting up."

"You're tilting." She came around the desk. Her skirt pulled tight across those wide hips when she bent to pick my other shoe up off the floor. Thick thighs save lives, gentlemen. Soft stomach under the cardigan. Heavy breasts shifting against the blouse. My dick took an immediate interest and she knew it.

"You could be nicer to me," I said. "I am your boss, you know."

"You're hungover... and you drooled on the good cushion again." She set the shoe on the coffee table and started gathering yesterday's papers. "Nicotine isn't breakfast. Neither am I."

"Could've fooled me last night."

She shot me a look over the glasses. Playful. Warning. Fond. All at once. "Last night you were useful for about 8 minutes and then you started snoring, Edgefield..."

I grinned around the cigarette. "You like me."

She sighed. "I tolerate you out of the love I had for your mother... and because you have a pretty mouth... when it isn't running." She stacked folders, straightened the desk lamp, and cracked the window. Cool air and city noise gently trickled in. "Client. Twenty minutes. Well... eighteen now. Chop, chop. Put both shoes on and try to look like you run this agency."

"I do run this agency."

She sighed playfully. "You just sit in your mother's old chair with your feet up. I run it." She plucked an empty glass off the end table.

"And if this client walks in and smells last night on you, he will walk right back out and take his retainer with him."

I watched her move. Soft ass under the wool. The way her breasts pushed the blouse when she reached...

I crushed the cigarette in the tray.

"Ruby...."

"Don't."

I caught her wrist when she passed the couch and tugged. Not hard. Just enough. She made a small, surprised sound and then she was in my lap, skirt hiked up, warm weight settling across my thighs, her cardigan bunched in my hands. Soft. Heavy. Real. She smelled like perfume and coffee and rain.

"Edgefield--"

I kissed her. She made a noise against my mouth that wasn't quite protest. I put a hand in her hair and another on that full hip and kissed her like the hangover was her fault. She kissed back for a long moment... tongue, heat, the soft give of her mouth... and then she pulled back and put a finger on my lips.

"We seriously don't have time."

"I'll make it quick."

"You always say that."

"I'm a man of my word."

"You're a cad with a potential client who is on his way as we speak and is going to be sitting on this exact couch in less than 20 minutes." Her glasses were crooked. Her voice had gone a little breathy. "We are not doing that. Not this morning."

I nosed along her jaw. "Then meet me halfway. You know you help me think more clearly... after..."

I playfully smacked her ass and squeezed it gently.

She looked at the clock on the wall. Looked at the door. Looked at me. That familiar calculation. The one where she decided how much of me she needed to take apart so the rest of the day would still work.

"You are impossible," she murmured.

"That's not a no."

Ruby sighed through her nose, the same way she did when a ledger didn't add up but she already knew how she'd fix it. She slid off my lap and down to her knees on the rug between my thighs. The skirt stretched tight over that big, round ass of hers. She pushed my knees apart like she'd done so many times before and reached for my open belt.

"Shoes stay on," she said. "Shirt stays on. If he knocks early... you will just look like a slob... and not like you just had your cock in my mouth. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Don't 'yes ma'am' me while I'm doing this. It's unbecoming."

She freed me from the pants. She bit her lower lip. I was already hard, thick against the cooler air of the office. She wrapped one soft hand around the base... and just looked at it for a second. Hunger. Then she leaned in and kissed the head... slow... lips warm and a little sticky from whatever lipstick she'd put on this morning.

"Jesus," I muttered.

"Quiet. And keep an eye on the door."

She opened her mouth and took me in. Not all at once. Just the first couple of inches, wet heat, tongue flat along the underside while her lips sealed. She held there and breathed through her nose, glasses bumping my stomach, then sank deeper, slow enough that I felt every inch of her mouth stretching around me. Soft. Hot. Unhurried in a way that made the clock on the wall feel like a real motherfucker.

I dropped my head back against the couch and stared at the familiar water stain on the ceiling. One hand found the pin in her hair and didn't pull it out. I kept my hand steady there. I just needed something to hold.

She drew off with a wet sound and stroked me with her full hand, thumb rubbing under the head.

"You taste like whiskey," she said, almost amused. "Classy, Jon."

"You love it."

"I would love a clean office and a client who pays." She licked a slow stripe from the base to the tip and took me back in, deeper this time. Her heavy breasts pressed against the inside of my thighs through her blouse. I felt the weight of them. Felt her soft stomach against my knee. She made a small, contented sound around my cock like this was just another part of opening the shop for the day.

She sucked in a steady rhythm. Down, hold, up, tongue working the shaft. Spit gathered at the corners of her mouth and she didn't wipe it. One hand stayed wrapped at the base, squeezing when she rose, the other braced on my thigh. Every time she took me deeper her glasses slid a little farther down... but she didn't stop to fix them. The wet sound of it filled the quiet office. Street noise came trickling through the cracked window. A horn off in the distance somewhere. The clock ticking like it was definitely not on my side.

"Fuck, Ruby--"

She pulled off again, lips shiny, and pumped me slow. "Language. You need to be a gentleman in this meeting. And don't you dare come on the couch. I just got the smell out."

"Oh fuck. Where then?"

She looked up at me over the glasses, mouth swollen, calm as a church. "Where do you think, sweetheart...?"

She went back down and meant it. Took me until her lips met her fist, throat fluttering, eyes watering just enough to catch the morning light. I groaned and my hips jerked. She pinned my hip with that soft hand and kept the pace she wanted, not the one I wanted. Slow. Thorough. The kind of blowjob that felt like I was being... managed.

I watched her. Dark red hair still mostly pinned. Thick body folded neat between my knees. Blouse pulled tight across those heavy breasts. The wet circle of her mouth sliding on me. She hummed once, low, and the vibration went all the way up my spine.

"Cum for me, Edgefield," she murmured when she came up for air, voice rough now. "You're a good boy. I know you just need to get it out. We've got this meeting here soon, sweetie. I need you thinking with the correct head." She licked the tip, kissed it, and took me in again.

Well.... my hangover was gone. There was only her mouth, the clock, and the heat building at the base of my cock. She felt it. Of course she did. She sucked harder, hollowed her cheeks, twisted that soft hand on the downstroke. I gripped the back of the couch and tried not to make a sound a client could hear from the hall.

"Ruby--I'm--"

She didn't pull off. She took me deep and stayed there, swallowing me whole, and I came hard with a broken groan, pulsing on her tongue. She took it. All of it. Swallowed once, twice, kept me in her mouth through the aftershocks like she was finishing paperwork. Then she drew off slowly, wiped the corner of her lip with her thumb, and swallowed again.

"Good boy," she said softly.

I sat there wrecked, pants open, heart going a mile a minute like I'd just run down to the docks and back. She stood up with a little wince for her knees, smoothed her skirt, fixed her glasses, and tucked a loose piece of hair back into the pins.

"Two minutes," she said. She poured water in the sink in the corner and rinsed her mouth, then came back with my other shoe and dropped it in my lap. "Belt. Face. Cigarette if you must, but out the window. I will talk. You will look like you understand things."

I fastened the belt with clumsy fingers. "What case is this."

"A missing wife. Maybe. Or a husband who doesn't want her to be found. He was vague on the phone. I could almost hear your mother's voice in my ear. 'He's either lying or terrified, Ruby'." Ruby then opened the folder to a clean page, all business again, mouth still a little red. "Different animal from Hargrove. Remember that. Do not mix them up in front of this client."

A knock at the door. Right on time.

Ruby glanced at me, then at the couch. A faint wet shine still on her lower lip that only I could see.

"Sit up straight, Edgefield," she said. "It's time to get to work."

She crossed over to the door, hips swaying under that gray wool like nothing in the world had happened between the two of us just a few moments ago.

I sat up straight. Lit my cigarette.

The morning had started in earnest.

The knock came again, sharper.

Ruby opened the door with the same calm she used on her ledgers and on me.

An old man shuffled in. Seventy if he was a day. Thin as a coat hanger in a good navy blue suit that had surely fit him better in another decade. Liver spots on his hands. A hat he forgot to take off until Ruby gently lifted it off his head and set it on the stand.

"Mr. Bramble," she said. "Good morning, sir. Please come in."

Walter Bramble. That was the name in her book. He smelled like mothballs and fucking peppermints. He looked at the couch like it might bite him, then at me like I might be in charge... which was rich.

I stood up, still tasting Ruby on my lips, and put on the same smile my mom used to use when the men from the papers were watching.

"Mr. Bramble. Please, sir. Come on in and make yourself comfortable." I shook his hand. It felt like dry paper. "I'm Jon Edgefield. This is my partner, Ruby Sutherland. I believe you two have already spoken on the telephone, but I just want to assure you that anything you say in this office stays in this office. Have a seat. Tell us how we can help."

Dismissing the couch, he sat on the very edge of the client chair, knees together, both hands on the brim of the hat in his lap... even though said hat was already on said stand. Ruby took the chair beside the desk. I sat on the corner of it like I owned the wood. The clock ticked. My belt was fastened. I was a professional.

"You look young, boy," Mr. Bramble began. "You serve?"

"Yes, sir. Had to lie a little on the paperwork to Uncle Sam about my age, of course, but the Army didn't turn me away."

He looked skeptical. "What outfit?"

"32nd Division. Red Arrow. Luzon."

Mr. Bramble raised his bushy eyebrows.

I tried not to make a big deal about it. "Replacements. Villa Verde. Got there after Manila was already over."

Ruby smiled and proudly stepped in. "Our Captain Edgefield here was a replacement on the Villa Verde Trail, Mr. Bramble. His sergeant went down and he bravely ran the ridge twice under fire to get two men out. They gave him the Bronze Star. He is too modest to say that, so I am saying it for him. He's just like his mother that way. We're all so proud."

Mr. Bramble nodded. "Thank you for your service, son. Helen Edgefield was a legend in this town. Such a looker, too. Like a movie star! And so, so clever. I was truly very sorry to hear about your mom, kid."

"Yes, sir," I said. "Me, too."

Ruby and I exchanged a look. She reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze of support.

There was a pause. "It's my wife," he finally said. Voice small and certain. "Beverly. She's... she's been stepping out on me again."

Ruby's pen hovered. She was listening intently.

"I see," I said. "That's an ugly thing to carry, sir. How long have you suspected?"

"Years." He nodded hard, like the word needed help standing up. "She started coming home later and later. And now it's just... not at all. And she won't look me in the eye at breakfast..."

"Does she say where she's been?" Ruby asked.

"She doesn't say much to me, Miss Sutherland." He gave a little laugh that had no joke in it. "Beverly always did keep her own counsel, though. Even when we were first married. I was never enough man for her. 1912. June. She wore white and her father hated me."

"1912," I repeated. "That's a long time to keep a secret, Mr. Bramble."

"She's clever." He leaned in. The smell. Fuck, I hate peppermint. "I think it's a man from the bank this time. Or the one who used to deliver the ice. She always liked a man with strong arms, my Beverly..."

Ruby wrote something that was probably not "the ice man cometh". Because that sounds more like something I would have written. Because it's hilarious.

"When did you last see her at the house, Mr. Bramble? Together. Same room." I asked.

He frowned at the question like it had been poorly built. "She has the good bedroom. I leave the lamp on so she won't stumble. She hates the dark. Always has."

"Sure. And she sleeps there?"

"Well." He looked at the blinds. Morning light cut his face into strips. "She hasn't slept there since the service. But that's just her way. She gets very particular... especially after people make a big fuss like that."

The office got smaller.

I glanced at Ruby. She had gone very still. Her pen stopped, eyes soft.

"The service," I said carefully. "Which service is that, sir?"

"The funeral." He said it the way other men said Tuesday. "October. 1946. Everybody came. Even her sister from Akron... and those two hadn't spoken since Pearl Harbor. The flowers were too much. I told them that. Beverly would've hated the lilies. She always said lilies smell like an apology."

1946.

It was 1949... almost 1950.

I opened my mouth. Closed it. My charming smile felt like it had been nailed to the front of the wrong house.

"Mr. Bramble," I said, and my voice cracked like I was fucking 16 again. "Beverly. Your wife. She--"

"She's seeing someone." He nodded again, fierce and fragile. "A wife doesn't stay out like that unless there's another man. I want his name. I want to know where they go. I want you to follow her and bring me proof. I'm not a violent person, Mr. Edgefield. I just want the truth. A man deserves the truth."

Ruby set the pen down without a sound.

I looked at the floor. At my two shoes, finally a pair again. At the ashtray. I put my cigarette out.

"Sir," I tried. "I think there may be some... that is, uh, the funeral you mentioned--"

"She looked peaceful." He smiled at the memory like it was a photograph he kept in his heart. "I told her I'd keep the lamp on. I have. Every night. She'll come around. She always comes around. I just need to know who she's with in the meantime, you see... so I can... you know... try to talk some sense into her. Like I always have... like I always done... she always comes back home to me eventually..."

My tongue sat in my mouth. I had no idea what to say to this poor, sweet old man.

"Mr. Bramble, I don't know how to--"

He reached inside his suit jacket.

The stack of money hit the desk with a fat, indecent sound. Rubber band. Worn bills. More than a month of honest work. It sat there between the blotter and Ruby's folder like a dare.

The office went quiet enough I could hear the radiator tick.

I stared at the money. I stared at him. I stared at Ruby with my whole face asking what the hell do we do with this.

Ruby folded her hands in her lap. Soft. Full. Calm as rain.

"We'll take the case," she said.

My head turned so fast the hangover suddenly remembered itself.

She looked at me. Then she winked.

Just once. Small. Wicked. The same wink she used when she'd already done the math, but I was still counting on my fingers.

Mr. Bramble sagged with relief.

"Oh thank God," he whispered. "Thank God. She's a good woman, you understand. She just needs someone to bring her home."

Ruby smiled at him, gentle as a hymn.

"Of course she does, Mr. Bramble," she said. "Why don't you start from the beginning. Tell us about Beverly."

--------------------

The door clicked shut. Bramble's hat was gone from the stand. The stack of bills was still on the blotter, though, looking even bigger now that the old man wasn't there.

I stared at it.

Ruby didn't. She was already writing in her folder. Date. Name. Retainer received. The same neat handwriting she used on everything else.

"Ruby?"

"Mm."

"He's looking for a dead woman."

"I heard him."

"Then why the hell did we take his money?"

She set the pen down and looked at me over her glasses. Morning light cut her face the same way it had cut his. Soft. Steady. Not sorry.

"Because the rent is past due, Jon," she said. "Because the phone company just sent a second notice. Hargrove is the real payday for us. But we can't investigate Hargrove if we can't eat or buy a cab across town."

I sat on the corner of the desk. The wood was still warm.

"So we're stealing from a widower."

"We're banking with him." She tapped the bills with one finger. "You have no credit, Edgefield. You're 20. The banks look at you and see a boy in his mother's chair. They look at me and see an unmarried woman who should have gone home to somebody by now. Nobody is writing this agency a note. Your mother used to do this all the time when work dried up and the honest cases paid us just in thanks. She called it a bridge. We take the bridge. We cross it. We pay it back with interest... and maybe even a little peace of mind for Mr. Bramble if we can manage it."

I lit a cigarette.

"Hargrove's the payday," I said.

"Exactly. Why is taxpayer money leaving this city through a private pier instead of the public docks? City Hall and the port authority are sitting on this. But we can't just kick down Hargrove's door. This isn't Luzon. Soft pressure, remember? We lean on the man who sees every hull after dark."

"The night foreman."

Ruby winked at me. "Thomas DeWitt. 39. Lives alone. Two-story walk-up on Berry Street, south of the Channel... last block before the water. Boarding house across the way on the even side. Second floor front looks straight into his kitchen and the sitting room where he never even bothers to draw the curtain. If anybody's visiting him off the clock... union man, Hargrove's errand boy, somebody from the pier, whoever... then we'll definitely see the shape of it."

I knew Berry. Mud and rail and the smell of the basin when the tide was out. Cheap rooms for men who worked nights and slept through the bells.

"You want to rent the room across the street."

"I already called. I spoke with a Mrs. Kline who confirmed for me that she has the front on two. She thinks we're an aunt and nephew from Sacramento visiting the city together. You'll carry my bags. We watch DeWitt after the shift change to see who might be paying him a visit. Soft pressure."

I looked at the money again. Then at her.

"Mom did this?"

"All the time, honey." Ruby didn't even try to dress it up. She counted the bills once, squared the stack, and slid it into an envelope. "Not because she liked it. But because the bills didn't care how she felt about it. Neither did the landlord. She ran the numbers the same way she ran a tail. What do we have? What do we need? Who can float us until the next case pays?"

She stood, smoothed her skirt, and picked up Bramble's cash like it was just another folder. "Consider it the Bank of Bramble. It's just temporary, babe. We crack the pier, we pay the old man back, and if there's any kindness left in it... we tell him something true about Beverly that isn't a lie he already believes."

I put the cigarette out.

"Berry Street."

"Berry Street. Pack a clean shirt. We leave this afternoon. DeWitt's off at midnight. I want us in the window before he turns his lamp on."

She opened the door to the hall. City noise came in with the cooler air.

I took the Hargrove folder off the desk, tucked it under my arm, and followed her out.

--------------------

By the time we arrived to check in, old Mrs. Kline had already left for the day. Instead, a young, attractive, and rather busty blonde stood behind the counter. Mrs. Kline's niece. She looked like she had already decided we were lying.

She was round my age. 22 or 23, maybe. Blue cardigan over a faded homemade dress, her ledger open like a weapon. The lobby of the Berry Street house smelled like boiled cabbage and coal. Which still beats the fuck out of peppermint in my book. Through the front window you could see DeWitt's building across the narrow street: two stories of dirty brick, second-floor windows dark as shit. Ours would look the same from his side. That was the whole point.

"Aunt and nephew," she said, tapping the page. "Sacramento?"

"That's correct, young lady" Ruby said, pleasant as a song. "Just a few nights. Mrs. Kline said the front on two was free..."

The niece looked at me. Looked at Ruby. Looked at the 20 years between us and did the arithmetic out loud with her eyebrows.

"Uh-huh." She took the cash all the same. "No cooking. No visitors after 10. Bathroom's at the end of the hall. You share it."

"Understood," Ruby said.

On the stairs I muttered, "She hates us."

"Oh, she's fine." Ruby didn't look back. Her gray skirt pulled tighter and tighter across her ample ass with every step. "Smile less, though. Nephews don't normally look at their aunts like they're planning to bend them over the furniture and fuck them silly."

"I'm a very devoted nephew."

"Is that so? We'll see. Right now, you're just a menace with a hard-on."

The room was what we paid for. Iron bed, one chair, a scarred table... and a window that took up a sizable portion of the far wall. I dropped our bags on the bed. Ruby went straight to the window, stayed a half-step back from the pane, and pulled the thin curtain until there was only a slit remaining.

DeWitt's kitchen lit up first. Bare bulb. Sink. An unattractive man in his stained undershirt and work pants moving like his back hurt. Thick through the middle. Thin on top. He started making coffee and didn't bother to curtain a damn thing.

"Line of sight is clean," Ruby murmured. "We're dark. He can't see us, but we can most definitely see him."

"Romantic."

"Practical." She glanced over her glasses. "Soft pressure. Haven't you been paying attention to anything I've been saying? Or were you too busy staring at my ass on the staircase up here?"

We set ourselves up for the stakeout. Binoculars on the windowsill. Notepad. Two sandwiches wrapped in wax paper. Ruby's folder. I killed the overhead light and left the bathroom light on behind a cracked door so DeWitt wouldn't see our silhouettes. The street below was wet and black. A streetcar moaned somewhere toward Third.

Ruby took off her red cardigan and hung it on the chair. Fuck, she looked hot.

I came up behind her.

"Ruby..."

"We're working."

"Come on. He's making coffee. Coffee is not a case."

My hands found her hips. She let me for about three seconds... soft waist... the heat of her rising through the wool... then she caught my wrist. Not hard. Just enough to remind me who was really in charge.

"Work first," she said. "Then you can be a cad."

"You like the cad."

"That's because my cad thinks more clearly after he's come." Her mouth tilted. "Don't make me regret saying that out loud."

A knock carried faintly across the street. Not ours. His.

Ruby went still. I went still. We both leaned in to see what was happening.

The woman who stepped into DeWitt's kitchen did not belong on Berry Street. Not in that building. Not with him.

25, tops. Wavy dark hair like she'd just stepped out of a fashion magazine. Coat open over a slinky black dress that knew exactly what it was doing. Jesus. Those legs. She had the kind of body that would certainly make most dock men forget their own names. She said something we couldn't hear. DeWitt said something back, small and eager. She laughed once, low, and set her purse on his table like she owned the place.

She also set down an envelope.

"That is not a union man," I said.

"No." Ruby's voice had gone softer. Interested. "That is a very expensive favor."

They talked while they both standing up. Her hand on his chest. His hand hovering like he couldn't believe he was allowed. Then she kissed him, and the kiss was not shy. DeWitt backed up until his calves hit the couch. She pushed him down. Climbed onto his lap. Her dress rode up. He got his hands on her and she let him... guiding, slightly impatient... already pulling at his belt.

Ruby's breath changed as I stood behind her at the window.

"Look at her," she whispered. "God, Jon. Look at her. What a goddess."

"I'm looking."

"You're looking at me."

"Okay. I'm looking at both. Don't fence me in." I slid a hand up under her skirt. Thick thigh. Bare skin. No panties. She was already wet. "You must really like her."

"I like that this stakeout is already paying dividends." Ruby's fingers tightened on the windowsill. She didn't stop my hand. "And I like what she does to you. Say it."

"She's gorgeous."

"More."

"I... love her little waist. Her big tits. Her long, tanned legs. Those lips. Seriously... she could walk into any hotel in this city and have a man buy her dinner just for sitting down." I dragged two fingers through Ruby's pussy lips and she made a sound she tried to swallow. "And she's letting this disgusting night foreman put his hands all over her."

"Soft pressure," Ruby murmured. "Hargrove's version."

Across the way the woman sank down onto him. DeWitt's head dropped back. She rode him slow at first, coat still half on, that beautiful body rising and falling in the cheap yellow light. Out of his league wasn't the half of it. Hand to Christ, she looked like she was doing him a favor and performatively enjoying the act of charity.

Ruby reached back, wrapped her fingers around my cock through my open fly, and stroked once. Slow. Assessing.

"You're already this hard," she said, almost amused. "From that girl across the street and your hand up my skirt. Fuck, that's hot. Come here..."

She lined me up herself. Just like she had done a thousand times before. I pushed into her in one long stroke. Tight. Soaking wet. That familiar heavy heat closing around me until my hips met the soft give of her ass. She braced both hands on the windowsill and let her head drop for a second, then lifted it again so she could see.

"Fuck," I muttered.

"Watch her, Edgefield." Her voice had gone breathy and precise at the same time. "Watch her. The way she takes him. Like she could do this in her sleep. I'd watch you fuck a beautiful girl like that, you know. I'd sit right here and tell you exactly where to put it."

I started thrusting. Short. Deep. The floorboard under us creaked. Across the street DeWitt had her on her back on the couch at that point... one exquisite leg hooked over his back, pounding away like he was afraid she'd disappear if he slowed down.

"He's trying so hard," Ruby whispered, almost fond. "Look at him. That little cock. His grateful face." She pushed back to meet a thrust. "You're thicker. Longer. You fill me up with that big dick and he can barely--oh my goodness--barely keep her interested. Look at her. She's what you want, isn't she. Say it."

"I fucking want you--"

"Fuck me, Edgefield." She clenched around me. "Fuck your Aunt Ruby. Faster. Don't you dare look away from that window. I want you to watch her while you use me."

I grabbed her hips harder and fucked her like that window was the only thing holding the building up. Wet sounds echoed rhythmically through the room. Her big ass meeting me. Heavy breasts swaying free underneath her undone blouse. She kept talking because she knew exactly what it did to me.

"She's so pretty, sweetheart. She reminds me of your mother. That mouth. Those tits. Imagine her on her knees for you... and me standing behind her... telling her how to take your cock. Imagine me kissing you while you--" Her voice broke. "Oh God. Don't stop. Please, Captain. Watch her. Give it to me while she's still fucking him on that couch."

DeWitt's girl arched. Mouth wide. Silent from here. He came... jerking, spent, already looking like he might have to apologize.

Ruby reached back and gripped my wrist.

"You're so much bigger than him," she said, wrecked and sweet. "So much bigger. Fill me up, Edgefield. I want it. Every drop. Good boy. That's it--right there--"

The door opened.

I was already coming. Buried to the hilt inside Ruby, shooting rope after rope of hot jizz into her wet eager pussy, groaning against her shoulder before my brain could even catch up with the light from the hall.

Mrs. Kline's gorgeous niece stood illuminated in the doorway with a stack of towels and a look that had finally gotten what it came for.

Ruby didn't pull off me. Couldn't, not with me still throbbing inside her... her skirt bunched at her waist... my hands locked on her hips. She turned her head. Glasses crooked.

"Oh my goodness, Captain", she moaned. "That's it. Fill me up. I'm coming, sweetheart... Aunt Ruby is coming with you..."

The niece's eyebrows did the arithmetic one last time.

"Dirty birds. I knew you two weren't really aunt and nephew," she said calmly.

But she didn't close the door.

TO BE CONTINUED