A Woman’s Aim

by Jean Roberta

Keith and Samantha walked slowly through the park together on the day before her archery competition. The enchantment of youth was on them both, but this was only visible to onlookers of their parents’ generation.

Both had been identified as “gifted children” in the classroom where they had first met. For various reasons – Keith’s bike accident and Samantha’s family trip to Europe – they had finished high school later than the other fast-track babies. The summer after graduation seemed to both of them like the beginning of adulthood. It was a time when they stood on the edge of a cliff, waiting for their wings to unfurl or for their feet to slip.

“Race ya to the fountain,” Keith challenged Samantha, wanting to prove his superiority in some small way, and then chivalrously praise her effort. Instead of answering, Samantha took off like a shot, springing over the grass in her status-brand running shoes. She and Keith reached the fountain together, laughing and gasping. He didn’t dare admit that he felt a pinprick of humiliation.

Keith was tall, with the look of a thoughtful heir to a throne when he stood straight, which he rarely did. The sunlight gleamed on his uneven chestnut hair, his honest brown eyes, and the ripening muscles of his bare arms. As the son of a single mother whose boyfriend had left before Keith was born, he was well aware that he would always have to create his own image in the eyes of other people, and to find his own paths to success. The term “self-made man” was never an empty cliche for him.

Samantha’s long hair was the color of old brass, and it lifted on the breeze as she brushed it out of her eyes. She was wearing it loose as a favor to Keith, although she normally kept it tightly restrained and out of her way. Since early childhood, she had taken lessons in modern dance, gymnastics, tennis and archery. Relatives and family friends had shown her how to skate and ride a horse. She had the unconscious grace of an athlete, and a fine-featured face that looked aristocratic even when she was appalled to see pimples on it. Only the cynicism in her grey eyes made her look older than her years.

“Fast woman,” Keith teased Samantha. “You need to cool down.” He reached into the splashing fountain with a cupped hand and threw cold water at her chest. Her nipples hardened visibly until her T-shirt.

“Keith!” she screamed in delight. “I don’t need a cold shower.”

“Really?” he asked. “Then I’ll give it to you later, when you’re all hot and sticky.” He pulled her into his arms to nuzzle her damp hair and breathe in the smell of her scalp. He turned her face to his and kissed her deeply.

Samantha slipped her tongue between his teeth, and sighed when he touched it with his. He held her tightly, and lifted her off her feet. He liked to test his own strength. As usual, Samantha laughed.

She pressed her small breasts and a brand logo of tiger claws against the Celtic design on the T-shirt that covered his lightly-furred chest. Both of them smelled like fashionably-scented, environmentally-friendly laundry detergent and fresh sweat, and they inhaled each other’s fragrance like animals establishing a bond.

“Sam-an-tha,” he said into one of her small ears. “When do you think our first child will be born?”

“I don’t know, honey,” she answered. “When it’s time.” She felt the pressure of his hard cock against the centre seam of her jeans as he held her against him.

“You’re the only woman I want,” he reminded her. “I wouldn’t want to have children with anyone else.” She didn’t answer him in words.

Samantha’s period was due in a few days, and she hoped that sex would take the edge off the constant, subtle need in her cunt. She almost wished that the premenstrual languor below her energy would give way to cramps that would sharpen her focus and her aggression for the following day’s competition. She didn’t want to lose her aim.

“Come on,” Keith said, squeezing her shoulders and pushing her forward.

“I’m coming,” she answered. “Or I will. Probably.” She liked his sexual aggression more than he would admit to liking it himself.

Samantha didn’t need to ask where Keith was leading her. They had a cozy secret spot in the park, between a row of bushy Scotch pines and a tall hedge. They both believed that passers-by could never see them between the leaves, and that Mother Nature herself approved of their passion more than their parents ever could.

Keith, who liked explanations, sometimes wondered whether the landscape designers who had planned the city park had deliberately planted shrubs and trees in certain configurations to create privacy. He wondered whether the designers had tried out their own designs.

After entering their special place, Samantha and Keith hugged standing up, goading each other to be the first to sink down. He always reached under the waistband of her pants and pushed his fingers as far south as he could without unfastening any of her clothing. Then he would try to force his whole hand up under the snug band of her bra until she unhooked it to give him free access to her breasts. Her willingness to undress herself always looked to him like a thrilling sign of surrender, while it seemed to her like the raising of a theatre curtain so the show could begin.

“Keith,” she told him, “my nipples are really sensitive today. They want to be sucked.”

He grinned, and bent his head to catch one little pink berry between his teeth. He rolled it carefully, prodding it with his tongue, and felt it harden.

While holding her in place, Keith pushed his hand firmly down her flat stomach toward the damply matted hair of her oak-blonde bush. Samantha rocked her hips in a gentle salsa rhythm to encourage him.

“Baby,” he moaned in the timeless style of a lead singer in a rock band. He was both proud and ashamed of the steely flesh that wanted to burst the seams of his pants.

“Mm, what’s this?” asked Samantha, rubbing rhythmically against him.

“It’s for you,” he bragged. “Got your name on it, Samantha. Ya wanna see?”

She unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans, then gracefully knelt in front of him. He pulled a packet from a back pocket, ripped it open with his teeth, then handed it to Samantha.

She pushed his jeans and his clinging underwear halfway down his thighs, lifting his cock out of the way. Then she slowly rolled the condom over it to prepare it for her attention. “Show me it’s got my name on it,” she dared him, stroking it. She guided it into her warm, wet mouth.

A harsh laugh sounded uncomfortably close. “Uh,” Keith grunted. “Samantha.” He lowered himself awkwardly to the ground, his clothing bunched around his knees. Samantha let go of him, then crouched cat-like over his legs.

Samantha brought her mouth to his cock, and lightly held his balls. She licked, pressed and sucked him, glancing up at his eyes from time to time. She seemed to be mimicking the body language of an accomplished courtesan.

Keith was in delicious agony. He didn’t feel safe, but the momentum in his impatient flesh was unstoppable. Footsteps crunched on foliage just beyond the hedge, and he ignored them.

“I love you,” he gasped, erupting into the latex skin that protected her from him, and vice versa. Keith couldn’t imagine heaven apart from the moist, fragrant heat inside Samantha.

“What a pig,” remarked a nasal male voice above Keith’s head. His balls tightened immediately.

Samantha stood up and faced the intruders. They were two unhealthy-looking young men who wore the signs of social rejection all over them. One still had the pudgy build of an overfed child, and the other was too gaunt and bony for his height. The thin one had a pockmarked face half-hidden behind his long brown hair. He had a series of visible razor marks on one forearm. The fat one seemed to have a permanent look of derision on his face that was intensified by the ring in his nose--an obvious and desperate attempt to look cool. He had probably realized soon after the ring was inserted that it looked like self-parody, since it strengthened his resemblance to a farm animal.

Keith struggled to pull up his clothing and get himself into fighting mode as quickly as possible.

The young men were named Danny and Corbin, and they had been watching Keith and Samantha for years.

Release from high school into dead-end jobs hadn’t relieved them of the distilled bitterness that dated from their lonely childhoods. Samantha was the star of most of their masturbation fantasies, while Keith was the focus of their most violent conspiracies, since he had her. For the two outsiders, Keith and Samantha together represented the injustice of the world. Keith’s fatherless state didn’t inspire a feeling of brotherhood in them, but it did look like a chink in his armour, an excuse to call him the son of a whore behind his back.

Keith had no clear sense of the depth of hostility he was facing. Samantha understood it very well.

“My nipples are sensitive,” mimicked Danny, the fat one. “But baby, my dong is more sensitive.”

“You can’t give her what she wants, man. You try to keep her all to yourself, she’ll sneak around on you. You’re not in her league.” Corbin exposed several crooked teeth.

“Leave us alone, asshole,” responded Keith, now upright.

“Keith,” said Samantha, laying a restraining arm on his. To the amazement of all three guys, she slid through the opening in the hedge so as to stand closer to the two voyeurs. She discreetly reached into her pocket to ease her knife out of its sheath. She was never unarmed while she was dressed.

“You guys want to party?” she smiled.

“Samantha!” yelped Keith.

“You don’t own me,” she reminded him. “Corbin.” She caressed his name. “Are you the one called Philip Studly? Who leaves me messages inviting me to join the Six-Digit Professionals chat room?”

“Well, ya know,” he stammered, “It’s a good way to meet people. I’m planning to own my own business.”

“Don’t listen to this bozo,” advised Danny. “I just came along to make sure he doesn’t try anything stupid.”

“Conversation’s over,” announced Keith. “It’s time for you clowns to leave.”

“Stupid,” mused Samantha. “Like what?”

“Samantha,” whined Corbin. “Are you gonna let this guy tell you who you can talk to? Do you want him to run your life?”

“Oh Philip,” she told him. “A good man is so hard to find. I don’t want to be bossed around, but I want to be satisfied, you know?” She raised her arms and made a surprisingly obscene pumping motion.

“I could do that for you, mama,” responded Corbin. From the visible centre of his face, a tongue stuck out and wiggled in the air. In other circumstances, the sight would have been hilarious.

For a tense moment, she looked from one guy to the other as they each silently wished that the other would retreat or distract Keith so that Samantha would be unprotected.

Then everyone moved at once. Keith scrambled over the hedge to tackle Corbin, who braced himself for a fight. Danny threw himself on Samantha, and she instantly pulled out her knife. The impact of his weight buried it in his solar plexus. As he staggered in shock, she pulled her weapon out of him with the scream of a falcon in pursuit, and plunged it into his jugular vein.

Danny fell forward, carrying Samantha with him. She rolled before he landed on her. With great effort, she pushed and pulled her way out from under him, smeared with blood from her face to her knees.

Corbin tore himself away from Keith, and ran from the scene as though an army of female agents of retribution were after him. He hadn’t learned enough history to know their names on men’s lips through the ages: Furies, succubi, Amazons, Valkyries. What his mind didn’t know, his guts understood.

Keith felt numb, as though he had been pushed through a normally hidden portal into hell. “Jesus,” he babbled. He bent down and grabbed Danny, but was unable to turn him. “Omigod. Omigod. We have to get him to a doctor.”

“No,” said Samantha. “Someone else will find him. We have to get out of here.”

Keith panicked. “We can’t just leave him here, Samantha!”

“What can you do for him, Keith? Moving him would be the worst thing. Do you want to go to jail for this?”

Keith could hardly remain upright because he was racked with nausea. His mother had taught him to respect all living things, and although he disappointed her from time to time, he had never accepted the military concept of necessary casualties.

Danny remained silent and still as the pool of blood beneath him soaked the grass.

Samantha tugged at Keith’s hand, passing the warm red evidence of her guilt to him. “Do you want to be a victim of the legal system?” she demanded.

“Oh God,” he answered. Cold fear ran through his veins as he realized the danger that both of them were in.

“We have to go to your place. Now, Keith.”

A group of people was approaching on the concrete walk. Two children, who looked like preschoolers, skipped beside a woman carrying a baby on her back. Keith’s desire for self-preservation kicked in, and he ran with Samantha to the parking lot where they scrambled into his venerable Volkswagen. As the car pulled away, they could hear shouting in the distance.

While dodging traffic, Keith made an immense effort to think logically. Without logic, he believed, the world would fall apart. “Samantha,” he said. “You knew those guys.”

“So did you,” she reminded him.

“In school!” he protested. “I knew who they were, but I left them alone.”

“And I led them on, did I? Is that what you think? You think I invited them to come looking for us? Is that your point, fucking bastard?”

Keith gripped the wheel. “I never said that. I’m not the kind of guy who would--.”

Samantha was still drunk on rage, and she looked frightening. “They were stalking us both, idiot, and you weren’t watching your back. You don’t reason with an enemy--you outwit him, Keith! You let him fall by his own weight. If you don’t protect yourself, you don’t survive. Didn’t you ever learn that?”

“What if you killed him?” Keith felt infected with guilt. Protecting Samantha had been his job, and he had failed.

“What would he have done if I hadn’t fought back?”

Keith pulled into the parking lot behind the apartment building where he lived with his mother. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry, but don’t you feel any regret for what happened? Not a bit?”

Samantha stared at him. “The other asshole got away,” she pointed out. “That’s what I regret.”

As Keith walked into the apartment, it looked to him like a haven of peace where he would never again belong. To his dismay, his mother Diane was home. “Mom,” he said, wishing he could wipe the alarmed look off her face. “We need help.”

“We need to take a shower and change clothes,” Samantha explained. “We’ll explain later.”

Diane was a small, quick woman with tired eyes in a delicately lined face below a short cap of greyish-brown hair. She didn’t lose her cool easily. “What happened?” she asked.

“We were attacked,” answered Samantha, “but we’re okay.” She was familiar with the apartment, and she herded Keith into the bathroom.

Once the door was closed, the smell of body fluids and extreme emotions filled the small room. Samantha opened the window. She pulled off her clothing with dispatch, and left it in a messy pile on the tile floor. Then she helped Keith to pull his pants down for the second time that day. She deliberately teased his cock, coaxing it to rise.

“Samantha,” he muttered, embarrassed.

“I need you, baby,” she told him. “Don’t let this shut you down.” She rubbed her hair against him like a friendly cat, gently running her fingernails down his thighs. “I’ll wash you.” She reached into the bathtub to turn on the tap. A stream of water poured from the showerhead.

Samantha no longer seemed to be giving off sparks of rage, but her energy still felt electric. Keith followed her into the shower, and wrapped his arms around her. The hot water massaging his scalp and shoulders seemed to revive him. The constant sensation reminded him that he and Samantha were still free and alive. He pressed his mouth against one of her shoulders and nibbled her with his teeth.

The lingering desperation in Keith made his cock as hard as a lifelike replica on a stone statue. He guided Samantha’s hands to the tiled wall, showing her how he wanted her to stand. “You want this, honey?” he asked, sliding two fingers between her legs and into her wet cunt from behind.

“Ohh,” she answered.

Keith held her by the hips, and pulled her sleek bottom further toward him. Then he guided his swollen shaft into her and pressed himself against her as though his life depended on it.

In a flash, Samantha pulled him out of her, gripping his flesh so hard that her fingers almost met. Red fireworks exploded behind his eyeballs, and he wondered if he would pass out from the pain. He clenched his teeth on a howl.

“Never put it in me like that!” she told him, trying to keep her voice low. “Do you think this is a good time to make a baby?”

Hearing her ask the question made him realize that it really was what he wanted, regardless of the circumstances. As zealously as she protected her own body and her own life, he wanted to stake a claim on them both. He didn’t know how to convince her that love was driving him harder than a macho lust for power. He didn’t know how to convince himself.

Keith felt trapped in a small, steamy room. Wherever he turned, he faced a wall.

He stepped out of the shower to search for a condom in his pants pocket. He found one, and brought it with him under the water.

He resumed exploring Samantha with his free hand, stretching her cunt with three fingers. He was not gentle, but she didn’t complain. In a remarkably short time, his cock recovered from its ordeal, and became stiff enough to be suitably dressed.

“Safe as hell,” Keith promised, guiding his shaft into her wetness. “You satisfied?” Working up a steady rhythm, he reached around her to squeeze her gently bouncing breasts and torment her nipples with both hands.

He could feel her inner muscles squeezing him through latex, milking the juice out of him. “Cat in heat,” he called her between thrusts, trying to conserve his breath.

Samantha laughed, pushing back. “Nothing wrong with it,” she told him.

He didn’t hold anything back. Samantha seemed to welcome his release, and he felt calmer after his last spurt. His cock shrank, and he let it slip out of her. It hung in its bag, resting for the next bout.

Keith approached her clit with two demanding fingers. He pinched and stroked it until he suspected that she couldn’t take much more.

He turned her to face him, and pressed her back against the cool tiles. He bent down, accepting the pelting water on his back, spread her lower lips apart and fastened his mouth between them. “Ah!” she gasped. He held her most sensitive organ between his teeth until he felt her tension erupt in spasms.

“Keith? Samantha?” They could hear the tremor in Diane’s voice under her fierce effort to control it. “You have to come out here.”

They dried each other off with the tenderness of lovers saying goodbye before a long journey. They were grimly amused to realize that they had nothing respectable to wear. “Mom?” called Keith. “Could you bring us clean clothes?”

Diane entered the bathroom and felt tears pricking her eyelids when she saw Keith and Samantha flushed, clean and modestly wrapped in towels like grownup babies. Diane offered her son a favourite pair of khakis and one of his newer T-shirts. She loaned Samantha a skirt and blouse that looked large enough to float decently over her young curves. None of the three could avoid thinking of prison uniforms.

Keith had his arm around Samantha’s shoulders when they walked into the front room where the police were waiting. Someone in the park had identified Keith’s license plate number. The suspects, as they were now defined, submitted to arrest without a fuss.

During questioning, Samantha told the two officers: “I have an archery competition tomorrow.”

The sergeant answered, “You won’t make it.”

On the following day, Danny died in the hospital, and the charge was raised to manslaughter. Samantha never forgot his ability to throw off her aim even after his death.

Samantha’s father, who owned a chain of sporting-goods stores, posted bail and tried to keep the case out of the media, but Samantha was destined to become a legend in her lifetime. She was described in a true-crimes magazine as the Deadly Huntress, and the name stuck. The article hinted that she fought with a knife so that she could cut off body parts and keep them as souvenirs. Keith was described as her trailer-trash accomplice and as further evidence of her perverse tastes.

The trial was held in another town, and was generally said to be as fair as possible. The defence made good use of computer records confiscated from Corbin and from Danny’s parents. Keith was acquitted, and Samantha was sentenced to two years less a day.

While she was inside, Keith promised to wait for her. He offered to prove his loyalty by legally marrying her before her release, and then by organizing a public celebration afterward. Samantha advised him to date other women instead.

Years later, he married a woman who looked like Samantha, and they had a son and a daughter. His broken heart never completely healed, and it gave him an appealing air of sensitivity.

By the time Samantha was sent away, she already had a largely female cult following known in the media as Sam’s Army. When Diane came to pick her up on her last day, smiling young women stood outside the prison, holding signs that said, ”Welcome Home, Samantha.”

Diane herself said, “Honey, you did what many of us only dreamed of. Never apologize.” Samantha stayed with Diane until she found her own place. Despite the difference in their ages, both women had the same shoe-size, so Samantha gave Diane a pair of running shoes that were almost new, and Diane considered herself blessed. The two women have remained close friends ever since.

_______________

email Jean Roberta

Jean Roberta is a woman of a certain age who teaches English at a Canadian prairie university and embarrasses her friends, relatives and students with her erotic writing and opinionated editorials. Her erotic stories have been widely published in anthologies such as "Wicked Words 3" (Black Lace, UK), the "Best Lesbian Erotica" series (Cleis Press, USA) and "Shameless" (Seal Press, USA) as well as websites and print journals. Her lesbian novel, "Prairie Gothic" is available from Amatory Ink (www.amatory-ink.co.uk).

A Woman’s Aim
© 2006 by Jean Roberta