Shane inserted the memory card of his digital camera into the hand-held photo printer and waited. In twenty seconds the prints would begin to appear so he settled back into the curve of the leather chair, sipping Absolut Mandrin from a plastic cup.

"Let’s see?" She leaned over his shoulder, peering at the images as they curled out of the printer. He handed them to her, one by one, without comment.

"I think you should take me, next time," she said softly, arranging the photographs in a single row on the glass table next to his chair.

He smoothed the edges of his dark mustache with his fingertips, thoughtful. He had a strong nose, jutting out from his brows hawk-like, with high cheekbones and full lips. The sun had nearly set over the city’s high rise sprawl and it reddened his fair skin, as if burned, setting off wild bronze streaks in his tousled black hair. She waited for him to say something, curling her toes in their hot pink flip-flops. It always made her fidgety just looking at him, so stunning, so perfect.

She moved to the matching leather chaise and said, helpfully, "I’d be a great model for you," as she slid deeper into its curve, nestling her bottom for a snug fit. She lost a flip-flop in doing so, exposing the back of her bare toes.

Shane downed the last of the Absolut in his cup and peered at her over its translucent lip. He didn’t want this conversation again. "It’s better if I travel alone," he said in a slight drawl. Predictably she looked away, upset. When he saw the beginning of tears on her lashes he took her ring-heavy hand and brought it to his mouth, provocatively rubbing her knuckles across his lips. "Saba," he murmured, using his pet name for her, from the little island in the Caribbean where he had first met her, "it is what works for me. It has worked for both of us, I think."

Tara, her real name, pulled her hand away in a fret and walked over to the in-set benches that lined his roof-deck. Staring down into the purpling haze of the streets below, pricked with twinkling electric lights, she considered her options. Burst into tears? Take a long bath, with the door locked? Or, just leave now, after unloading months of frustration with him all in one glorious outburst?

She bit her lip. None of her ideas were any good, they wouldn’t affect a man like Shane. Her mind recalled the photographs on the table, every one of them devoted to a woman, some beautiful, and all with one common detail: a casted leg, or arm. A few photographs were crowd shots, with the woman in the mid-distance, unaware that she had attracted his attention. Others certainly knew it and posed in various states of undress, even in the aftermath of sex, which always excited the voyeur in Tara. Of his three "regular" women, she was the one most attracted to his little photo project.

"At least take me to Rio next month. I know how to stay out of the way; I’ll shop. I’ll do… something… I know how to stay busy…" she pleaded unconvincingly, her eyes following the congestion of taxis up and down the Theatre District.

Shane refilled his little cup with ice and Absolut and eased out of the leather chair; as he did so his shirt fell open, baring his chest and abdomen. The cool air felt good on his body, it stirred something in him. He stood behind her for a moment, enjoying the sight of figure, made even more curvaceous in the purple twilight, and slid his hand underneath the loose drawstring at the waist to fondle the growing erection, pumping it in his fist till it felt urgent. "You’d be bored in Rio," he said casually, "and the shopping is grossly overrated, my dear."

He held the cup in his teeth as his hands rounded over her hips, possessively pulling her back into his body. Her whole body flamed with his touch, her tummy tightening with the familiar ache of need. His fingers splayed down her hips, found the side slits in the dress and scraped his fingernails over the silky skin of her thighs. At the "V" he playfully scratched her shaven mound, his thumbs teasing the exposed nub of her clit. Tara moaned, laying her head back against his collarbone; the plastic cup fell, soaking her breasts with the vodka as he sucked and kissed the back of her neck, deepening his embrace. He licked the outer rim of her ear, nibbled at the lobe, half-humming a few lines from Hendrix, "When I’m sad, she comes to me with a thousand smiles she gives to me free; its alright she says, take anything you want from me."

The first time he had seen her, singing drunkenly with the diver crowd at the Swinging Door tavern, it was a very off-key and off-color version of "Little Wing." He never could resist a woman who couldn’t sing a note. Little vanities like that made them so endearing to Shane; that and she had a sprained ankle, wrapped in bar towels and resting atop dripping ice bags on one of the stools.

As he expected Tara turned immediately about in his arms to "their" song, her hands flying down to his erection, stroking him to full length, but she wouldn’t return his kisses. "Take me with you, please," she begged one more time.

"Can’t." He pushed the thin black straps down her shoulders, marveling at the sheen of her skin, luminous and glittery from the lotion she used. It had an interesting taste as well, something like cinnamon. She shivered in a pseudo-orgasm from his handling, gentle but assertive, slow but systematic. His head dipped to her exposed breast and he flicked his tongue over the hardening nipple, toying with the small ring that pierced it. She began arching and writhing in his arms, breathy, begging him to suck it, make it hurt. He rubbed his chin, with its closely trimmed beard, over the nipple, biting it from time to time, before sucking down hard enough to make her gasp. She grabbed his collar and he felt her nails through the fabric. He caressed one nipple as he sucked on the other, waiting for that moment when she wouldn’t be able to resist him any longer and would sink down to the bench.

He felt her body convulse, then fall away from him, looking flushed and wild-eyed. He smiled, watching her straddle the bench, waiting for him. He pushed her knees upward, off the wood panels, grasping her legs by the ankle. The other pink flip flop fell; she wiggled her toes, fidgety as ever. Shane blithely pulled at his drawstring and his pants slid down a couple inches, almost releasing his now swollen dick. Tara arched and panted with impatience. He positioned himself between her knees, his fingers kneading the back of her calves, moving lower and lower until he had each of her feet in his hands. Tara closed her eyes and starting rocking her hips about, mumbling directions. His fingers laced with her toes, squeezing them, tickling her instep. He let them loose and let her feet find their way to his penis, enormous as it rose from the dark nest of hair. She rubbed her toes flat along his shaft, trying to curl overtop the head. He smiled at her antics, taking one foot by the ankle and resting the back of the toes against his chin and lips. She smelled something like vanilla, but crisper, headier. He sucked the little toe into his mouth, adding the next one and the next one till he had four of them in his mouth, when he began sucking on them. Tara cried out in desire, rubbing and fingering herself, she forgot all about his dick, all she could feel was the wetness of his tongue over and between her toes. It made her delirious, made her come.

Shane squatted over her hips, letting the legs hang from either side of the bench, and covered her hands over her own breasts, pushing them together as he slid his slightly wet dick in between the soft mounds of her tits. He stroked back and forth, rocking from his heel to toes, his whole body tense, butt as tight as a fist, his balls ready to explode. The moment Tara opened her eyes and moaned again, watching the head of his penis ramming through the tunnel he had made of her breasts. It set him off, too, hearing her. He was heaving with the hot cum, splashing her cheeks and down her chin, smearing it over her lips as he moved closer to finish in her hungry mouth. Her dark lips closed over the head of his dick and he pumped again, shooting it down her throat in the last heavy spasms.

She curled against him, back on the lounge, and they kissed lightly, fingers interlaced. Maybe he should take her with him to Rio. She didn’t get in his way on that trip, his assignment covering the smaller islands in the Caribbean; in fact, she was the only good thing that came out of that assignment. Still, what she didn’t understand was that this was a business; for all his detours with women in the end it was about getting an article submitted and published, consistently. It meant endless connecting flights on charters that were often delayed or defunct and scrambling to get where he had to go. It meant being sent to destinations that were quite often more hype than reality due to local unrest or problems with weather and hordes of tourists. And since his niche in travel journalism was not making outlandish places appear accessible but making the commonplace seem new and exciting his frequent detours, pursuing certain women, put him outside the box of tourist itineraries and experiences. In short, he needed those little side diversions to write the way he did. What was he supposed to do with a woman he already had if he’s out there on the hunt for new ones? Even Tara couldn’t spend that much time shopping.

"I won’t get in the way," she murmured into his chest, reading his mind. "Send me home, if I do."

She just didn’t get it. "Saba," he began, patiently, sucking idly on her fingertips, "all we would do is fuck. I’d never get out of the hotel, like last time. I need diversions, as you know. I need different women, I like to slip outside of being me, with my perspective, and become them, for awhile, go where they go, like a shadow they don’t know they have. Well, not at first." A recurrent memory suddenly filled him, the escalator in Budapest’s Metro, again. The way she looked at him over her shoulder, anxious, wide-eyed, was he still there? When her eyes found him, behind the man bundled as if for an Arctic expedition, he saw the color flush her delicate features. He smiled his slow smile, and teasingly stepped aside, out of her line of vision. He knew she would wait for him, not far from the escalator, as if pausing to shop; they always did.

"You’re a stalker," Tara said, peeved, and moved over his legs so she could sit on his lap facing him. "A crazy stalker… what was I thinking, you can’t troll for them, can you, if I am there!"

"It’s a special kind of stalking, it’s called "research;" and, I am not ‘trolling’ for anyone. In this country we go to college for this kind of thing; we call it "journalism," and I’m paid very well to do it."

Tara ran her fingers around his full mouth, tickling the beard as it shadowed the corners of his mouth. He bit at her long fingers. His beard was trimmed to follow only the edge of his jawline. Leaving the cheeks soft and bare. "And," she asked, pouting, "do all journalists sleep with the people in their articles? I don’t think so." She leaned forward used her teeth to pull on his ear lobe. He felt her cold feet slide under his legs; it was almost enough to make him lose his concentration.

"You might be surprised," he said with effort, "if they’re smart, the ones they’re fucking aren’t the ones named in their stories." He let her work him into another semi-erection, hoping she’d get around to riding him before they got into another fight over Rio.

Tara used her closed hand in gentle twisting motions, spiralling it up and down his thickening shaft, telling him, off-handedly, "I don’t believe you."

"Okay." He closed his eyes. His balls felt full already. She straddled him, planting her legs on either side of the lounge and lowered her velvety lips onto the head of his penis, flicking her hips toward him as she forced him into her deep. They both groaned, locking hard.

"Take me," she repeated, "with you." She rocked in rotating motions, squeezing her butt every time she rose up from his penis, as if trying to pull it out even longer than it was, like his boner was taffy.

He could barely breathe, trying to keep her down over his dick, both hands at her waist and thrusting madly. After a moment, covered in a fine sweat, he told her, firmly as possible, "I am not having this conversation now."

Tara smiled at him, arching back, lifting up her full breasts and pinching her own nipples, flicking at her ring in the dark aureole. It drove him further to the edge. "Remember this?" she asked coyly, taunting, and drew her nipple out so that the breast made a cone shape. He remembered. They had gone down to DC to visit Cheryl and ended up a threesome for the weekend. Cheryl had laid overtop Tara, rubbing against her body, pulling on her huge breasts fascinated while Shane fucked Tara, his long dick thrusting past Cheryl’s butt cheeks and into Tara’s tight pussy.

"Take me along," she moaned, losing her ability to focus. She was deep in the memory too, re-living the shower with Cheryl, soaping her body, eating her out in the heavy stream of water while Cheryl went down on Shane. Tara became disoriented, thinking the thrusting of his penis was the massive double-headed dildo she used with Cheryl, when they made Shane watch, tied to the bed. It was true that Tara wanted Shane anytime, but Shane with another woman gave her ultimate satisfaction. She didn’t care if they had some plaster cast on their arm, or their leg, if they were on crutches; he did something to these women, got them all juiced and mad for sex, made them ready for anything, even something they’d never ever tried before. "Take me," she bleated out one more time, unable to raise off his dick anymore, simply riding him hard back and forth, back and forth. She sunk her teeth into his shoulder wanting to taste blood.

Shane winced, though not from pain, "I’ll think about it." They were wet, sliding against each other, her breasts swollen from his kneading and squeezing. He so wanted to suck one entirely into his mouth, which was impossible with Tara. He remembered Cheryl’s lean body writhing under Tara’s constant sucking at her small breasts, ones that did disappear into your mouth. They had Cheryl tied to the bed that time, in her full leg cast, the result of a hiking mistep. He was content to play with her toes, sucking on them with the same need Tara had with Cheryl’s tiny, rosy nipples. Suddenly, he came hard and didn’t hear his own screaming.

"Take me, take me, Shane," Tara pleaded, coming with him, "I’ll come through for you, I swear it. "We’ll do them together, oh baby…"

She slumped against him, head swirling and exhausted. He stroked her back, running his finger up her spine. Why not take her along? "We’ll see," he told her.

"I promise."

"We’ll see."

Although cool, it was a beautiful night, without stars, and air was delicious. After awhile it roused them to take in the city in its neon haze. He stretched and watched Tara slowly gather herself, smoothing out her dress, getting up with a wobble as she stood with her back to him, looking out on the crisscross of streets below. She seemed almost drunk and held onto the railing as if she might slip over the edge any second. Suddenly, she settled down, her head tilting to one side, unaware that he was talking to her.

The street below was cut with all sorts of confusing shadows, created by the modern excesses of skyscrapers, but across the street she could see a couple as they exited from a white stretch limo, their door held open by the hotel’s concierge.

"What is it?" he asked her, now curious himself. When she didn’t answer he grunted and heaved himself off the leather chaise to find out. He sidled up next to her and watched the same scene as it unfolded. His eyes narrowed, riveted to the sight. "Get the Nikon, will you?" he asked her in a business-like tone, the leisurely drawl evaporating.

He chose his spot, checking the angle with the small scope he kept on the roof-top, and took the camera from Tara without losing his sight-line, adjusting the telephoto lens with a quick motion at the wrist. A stream of shots reeled off, capturing the whole sequence of the woman moving so slowly from the limo to the hotel’s draped walkway. She clearly favored her right side, the tell-tale glint of white at the foot nearly made him dash out his own door to get to her before she disappeared into the hotel.

Very nice, he thought. He could tell that this one traveled in the big money circles. And, while it wasn’t unusual to see gorgeous young women with much older men Shane had the gut feeling that this woman was his daughter, something about the way he held onto her elbow, protective, not grasping. He wondered what kind of evening event was so important that he would jeopardize his precious daughter with her very new cast.

Tara linked her arm with his, thinking the same thing. "Want me to find out?" she asked him, "I can find out who she is. Let me do this, then you’ll take me, like you promised."

He looked down at Tara, tilting his head to one side, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Oh sweetheart," he drawled, "it’s going to take more than getting her name for me to convince me to take you to Rio."

"Like what?" She bit her lower lip and stared into his face, darkened by the night.

She could see his familiar half-smile, however. Shane patted her hand, in the crook of his arm, and whispered, "what do you think I want, hmmm?"