Sam and I had almost regular nightly sex. More than probably most married couples did, and we weren't even in a relationship, not a real one, anyway. No one, and honestly I mean not a soul, knew what we were doing in our quarters at the end of the day. Nothing about our outward demeanor changed, no alterations to the way we behaved or how we treated each other. There were always rumors at the Farm. Remember–still more high school than one would think, as I tried to explain before. But I knew no one was whispering about us.
The way I walked did change, and my seduction skills improved, just as Sam had predicted they would when he'd offered to relieve me of my virginity. I stopped feeling like that awkward girl and actually started to feel like the sexy woman everyone else saw when they looked at me. He made me feel sexy…the way he talked to me while we were having sex, that glowing admiration and amazement about my body and the way it made him feel.
How did we go from just the one time, to an actual physical relationship, without ever once talking about it? It's a little complicated, as most things seem to be with me. But it's worth mentioning, because the second time we had sex set the pattern for almost all the others, all but the last time we were together.
I did fall asleep alone with a towel between my body and the sheet that night. When I woke up, I felt raw. Urinating first thing in the morning was excruciatingly painful. I almost couldn't breathe, and I started and stopped the stream of urine three times before I was completely finished. The tenderness between my legs persisted. It made sense, though, seeing I had bled during that. Despite the intense pleasure I had felt at the time, my tissue had torn inside me. It was normal nonetheless, some biblical curse handed down from Eve it seemed, that the normal progression to becoming a potentially reproductive female was to first be ripped open by a man before any pleasure was possible.
Like I said before, he acted like nothing had happened between us. It was just simply the same day, the same morning we always had. He rushed out to jog, like he always did. I was too sore to run, fearing that the normal chafing that running caused would exacerbate that raw, tender feeling between my legs. We had a normal day…a normal day at the Farm, which was an endlessly strenuous day of training. I was a little dehydrated, after exerting that much effort and purposely drinking next to nothing, for fear of more painful urination. That burning didn't go away until well after dinner.
I decided to take another shower before I went to bed, hoping it would relax some of my aching muscles. I had pulled something in my lower back, just a light twinge, but minor injuries like that could get worse because our regimen included no allotted time for rest. I washed, dried off, and wrapped the towel around me, tucking the extra flap in between my breasts to hold it fast. I was in the process of brushing my teeth with the bathroom door still closed when he knocked. My mouth was full of toothpaste, but I mumbled for him to come in.
"Great, you're almost done," he said as he peeked in the door. His shirt was off and he wore only a loose fitting pair of pajama bottoms. He walked in and started to use the sink next to me, washing his face. "How did you feel today?" he asked after he dried his face.
"Fine," I answered, not sure what he was asking. We had been together almost all day. What part was he referring to? I wondered.
"No, you know…" he added, meeting my eyes in the mirror. "Were you still sore today?"
I wasn't really sure why, but I blushed like a sunburn. "A little," I admitted. "It got better as the day went on." I put my toothbrush away, lifting on my tiptoes to do so, and he must have seen me flinch from the pain in my back. "I hurt my back a little today I think," I told him.
He just brushed his teeth quietly. He held up his finger, indicating I should wait until he could talk. He spit out his toothpaste and rinsed his mouth. "You know what would make that feel better?" he asked, perfectly serious.
"What?" I asked innocently.
"An orgasm," he said, absolutely straight-faced. I flushed with heat at the same time I looked at him curiously in the mirror. "Nature's natural pain relievers," he explained. I was frozen, unsure of what was happening. He moved behind me, reaching his hand down to my thigh. A feather light, gentle caress moved up my thigh, inching toward my butt.
"I'm still sore, Sam…I…" I couldn't even finish, I was so breathless, amazed that just him touching me like that could start the fire raging the way it was.
"I know," he whispered. "This is just for you, if you want me to," he added.
"Yes," I whispered, answering him before all his words were spoken.
He slid his finger in between my legs. Unaware that I was even doing it, I shifted my stance and spread my legs to give him easier access. "External only, I promise," he whispered again as he shifted his finger forward, sliding it against my clitoris, sighing as he felt my juices flowing. I leaned back against his chest as my knees began to shake. He brought me to orgasm so easily, gently wrapping his arm around my waist to hold me up as my knees buckled.
I didn't want him to stop. I was disappointed in the pain that was keeping us from having sex again. I know he was too, because I felt him, rock hard, against my thigh. Panting, still leaning on him, I asked, "What about you?"
He chuckled. "I'll take care of it myself...later."
"Wh–what?" I asked. Had he just told me he was going to jerk off? It seemed so…strange, adding a layer of familiarity that I wasn't sure I felt comfortable with, especially with the weird vibes we were just barely keeping at bay.
He released my waist and took a step back. "You have your vibrator. I have my hand. What? Did you think I was a monk or something? I told you last night…I hadn't had sex in a long time. You can only hold it in for so long," he explained, bluntly again, smirking a little bit because he had shocked me.
He stopped in the bathroom doorway, crossed his arms and leaned against the frame. Suddenly serious, he said, "You know, I was being serious last night. That was the best sex I've ever had. I know it was your first time, but it was a little quicker than…you know…I guess my usual. I wish I could have lasted a bit longer…although, at least you got off quickly too, and I didn't make it hurt worse." He sighed and shrugged. "Well…I'll be…busy for a while," he added, rolling his eyes. The smile disappeared as his face got serious. "At least tonight, I can pretend I'm with you. I know what that feels like now, instead of just imagining it."
I felt like he had knocked the wind out of me. Did he just admit that he was fantasizing about me? Part of me was very flattered. The other part questioned my initial impression of his motivations. But I quickly put those fears to rest. We had been living and training together for almost six months and he made no advance toward me in the slightest. He was just attracted to me, the same way I had been attracted to him, only I wasn't thinking about him while I was administering to my own needs. I knew, regardless of what happened, he would be on my mind now when I did.
My natural lubrication, enhanced by his manual stimulation of me, seemed to have almost medicinal properties when it came to my vaginal discomfort. It made me wonder if the irritation had somehow dried me out, a vicious cycle of pain and dryness that only an orgasm had cured. Hair of the dog, or something like that? I actually giggled to myself as I thought that. I fell asleep eventually, the only thought in my head as I drifted off was imagining what he was doing to himself…what I wished he had asked me to do to him instead.
I was still horny when I woke up, earlier than normal, while the sunlight was gray and filtered through the curtains in the predawn light. I wasn't experiencing any discomfort any longer. I grabbed the vibrator out of my top drawer and started using it, pulling the blankets and the sheets over me in an attempt to muffle the sound. Sam still must have heard, because I hadn't even climaxed the first time when I heard him knock on my bedroom door.
He surprised me, and I fumbled. I pulled it away from me, trying to quickly turn it off, when he opened the door a crack, despite the fact that I hadn't responded to the knock. "I thought I was better than the vibrator?" he asked suggestively.
"It's here. You weren't," I said tersely. Stopping mid-stimulation was almost painful, I was so swollen.
"I'm here now," he replied, walking into my bedroom. "And you seem to be feeling better," he added with a smile. He sat on the bed next to me, tugging on the blanket. "Can I watch you use it?" he asked in that deep, sexy voice that gave me chills.
I wasn't embarrassed to do what he asked. I actually found myself anxiously awaiting what he would do to me after he learned whatever it was he wanted to know by watching me fuck myself with a vibrator.
I turned it on and spread my legs wide so he could see what I was doing. I had an orgasm in the middle of inserting the vibrator into myself. I shuddered in place and I heard him whisper, "I can't think of anything I would rather watch than you coming, Sarah. You're so beautiful." While he was talking, I twisted the vibrator up and pressed it against that most sensitive spot. I couldn't control the howl that came out of me during that mind-numbing orgasm I had right afterwards.
"You hit the spot, huh?" he asked me, still lying beside me, not touching me. "I have an idea…that requires fucking you again. How do you feel about me fucking you again?" he asked, the last sentence just a tease. He knew how badly I wanted him.
"Please," I replied, breathless. So breathless in fact that it sounded like I was begging him. I was desperate for him, so I guess maybe I was begging, at least a little bit.
He sat up. "Get on your hands and knees," he said. I flipped over and did as he asked. "Now rest your head down on your arms." I complied, making a perfect triangle for him with my head on the mattress and my ass in the air. He knelt behind me. I felt him touch me, just a light flutter. He's making sure I'm wet, I thought, aching for that feeling. I felt his entire penis, burning hot, flush with my vulva. He rubbed the tip of it against me, then slid upward until he was inside me, in one long and deliciously slow thrust.
From that angle, he felt deeper inside me than before. At the end of the thrust, he pushed ever so slightly. He ended up bumping my cervix, tilting my uterus inside my lower abdomen. A unique and unusual feeling. He pulled all the way out, then slid all the way back in again, bumping my cervix again. Once he picked up speed, I felt it. My G spot. Fucking me like this gave him perfect access, the perfect angle. I groaned, deep in my chest. The harder he pumped me, the louder and deeper the noises I made, until I was screaming…and then I finally came. My entire pelvis contracted in one swift, exquisitely pleasurable sensation. "Oh, god, Sarah," he gasped, marveling out loud again about the intensity he could feel.
His words from the night before stuck, about him wanting to last longer. I had no frame of reference. My first time seemed perfectly adequate. This time…holy shit…he fucked me like that for almost 45 minutes. I came four times. I almost passed out. He came like thunder, moaning loudly, his seed pelting me on the inside like machine gun fire. Then we collapsed in a quivering heap. When he could finally catch his breath, he said lightly, "I take back what I said before. That was the best sex I've ever had."
"Me too," I said softly, spent, my muscles trembling. "Out of the two," I giggled.
"What is it they say? You only compete with yourself?" he teased. He never touched me, just rolled out of bed and into the shower. I went into the bathroom once he finished. Another normal day, pretending like we weren't doing what we were doing.
What were we doing? I asked myself. It did become routine, but in the beginning like that, it was sometimes unpredictable. I would be in the middle of something…then he would touch me, and before I knew it we were in my bed fucking. Always in that same position, with him entering me from behind, though that second time was an aberration in its marathon quality, probably brought about by the masturbation the night before. It felt better, and I came harder, so we never changed it up. Because we never talked about what we were doing, I had no idea about the real reason why he always chose that position.
There was no eye contact when we fucked like that. I never saw his face, and he never saw mine. That was what he wanted, what I think he needed to continue to do what we were doing…working together during the day and fucking at night. It was two separate lives, and never turning to look at me while he was fucking me allowed him to keep it separate like that.
Impersonal, his favorite quality to good sex, it seemed, although it didn't bother me at all. It was what he wanted. He got me off multiple times, almost every night for an entire year. He never kissed me, barely touched me other than to stimulate my clitoris, or slide his finger into my ass. Always in my bed, then departing to go back and sleep alone. I knew I didn't want more than that either, not from him in the situation we were in. Sometimes, though, my mind would wander, and I would wonder how different the sex would be if we were a real couple. The thought would disappear as soon as it surfaced, however. I would not allow myself to ponder on things that were impossible fantasies. So it became a comfort for me…no matter how bad the day was, what we had endured at the hands of our instructors, I could completely unwind and release that coil of tension during sex, and sleep through the night afterwards from pleasant exhaustion. A dream situation, considering everything else was a nightmare.
I've heard it argued that no purely physical relationship is ever just that. Having sex as frequently and as intensely as we were for so long could only lead to a personal entanglement. It made sense on the outside, it would seem. We were as close as two people could ever be. He could play me like a violin and make me vibrate with music. Did I grow to care about him? I believe I did, in a unique way. He was my friend. He was gorgeous…an exquisite sight when he was naked. He understood my loneliness, while also understanding he couldn't cure it. He instead worked to help me forget it for a little while, by pleasuring me while our bodies were fused for a short time.
We were due to graduate from the Farm at the end of August in 2000. Starting in April of that year, they separated us. Not completely, though. Technically, we still shared the same quarters and he was still my training partner. However, they sent him on special training missions without me. I sort of understood by that point that wherever we were destined to be stationed, it would be separate. I had never entertained any notion otherwise, always believing with certainty this situation was temporary. He would be gone for weeks at a time at first. He couldn't tell me where, as it was classified. Nights when I was alone, I worked the vibrator until the small hours of the morning to try and fall asleep, its hard, cool plastic no substitute for his warm cock. He would make it up to me when we were together again…long, intense sessions that would leave my whole body humming once he finally left me alone to sleep.
They sent him away from the end of May until the middle of July. That was the longest we went without seeing each other once we were paired together. When he returned, something about him was different. Physically, it was obvious. He had a full beard, which I thought added to his attractive features, though I knew it was because of where he had been sent, and what he was doing. His skin was deeply tanned and rougher than it had been, like he had been exposed to the elements for days on end. The worst of it was his eyes–haunted, like he had witnessed things that horrified him. He hid it well, and he never spoke of anything. He had trouble sleeping, even after an exhausting night of sex. I would hear him moving around our quarters in the middle of the night…sometimes after an obvious nightmare. It was classified, but I was also not someone he could confide in. We kept ourselves just below the surface, away from each other, the only way we could survive doing what we were doing.
Nonetheless, that last month, when we had sex, he was different too. Frantic, sometimes almost desperate for me. He climbed in the shower with me or crept into my room in the middle of the night. Once, during a sparring match in the dojo when we were alone, he pinned me, scoring a hit, but then didn't let go of me. We fucked right there, moments from potentially being discovered by other agents. Another time we ended up in a janitor's closet, with me bent over a broken dishwasher.
He may have been desperate and even a little aggressive, but there was nothing about any of it I objected to. He never forced anything. Everything he did to me, I wanted him to do. I thought about what could be wrong, what could be making him act that way. I only found out after he died. Now, when I remember that time, it's poisoned with the knowledge I never had the first time around. And, even after I knew, it was another several years before I understood, after I had lived through the same thing myself. I'll get to that later, but I'm saying this here because I can't talk about it without it all coming forward at once now. More useless pondering about changing the past, but the me who knew the whole truth wished I could go back and tell him what I know now.
So few people could understand the trauma of that life. We lived the same trauma, separated by several years. That loneliness that he saw in me, a mirror for his own, could have been salved, at least a little, with that mutual understanding. But he was older than me, four years older, with a different path than mine. We were destined to live the way we did. During that time, I took what he was giving, and gave him the only thing I could. A poultice for his loneliness.
As the end of August approached, we both learned more about our first assignments. He found out first, and although he never elaborated, I was sure it had to do with the training missions they sent him on. The details were classified, but based on just my knowledge of the medical tests they ran on him, it was somewhere in Africa or the Middle East. He was due to leave two days after graduation.
Because I was only 20, Graham told me they had authorized me for a tour of duty with the U.S. Secret Service. It was for one year, while I simultaneously acquired a college degree in criminal justice from George Washington University. A four year degree in one year. I know, it's crazy. But Graham arranged everything. They tested me out of almost everything. The government can pull strings most people don't even know exist. It was the same process John Casey and I used to officially certify Chuck's degree from Stanford. But I will say here—my husband was 12 credits shy of a degree in electrical engineering on a National Merit Scholarship. He would have graduated at the top of his class if his roommate hadn't framed him for cheating. That's another story, too, for later.
If I sound proud of him, it's because I am. He is the smartest person I've ever known. My degree was a compromise of sorts. I'm still relatively intelligent—nothing compared to my husband, but enough that I could skip around schools, barely attend, and still get good enough grades to not draw undue attention to myself. I believed that Graham maneuvered that to disguise my age, to protect him from scrutiny about his questionable recruiting practices.
Two thousand was an election year, with an assured administration change at the end of Clinton's presidency. They don't usually switch in new agents that close to a transition in the White House. The Secret Service also deals with U.S. counterfeiting crimes, so that was my destination. That required six months of training on top of what I already had. I thought it was strange. Why a CIA agent in the Secret Service? Turns out they suspected a security leak, and thought me doing double duty was the best chance to resolve the issue.
I was staying close by and Sam was going half way around the world. We went where they sent us. No choice.
There was only one time that I would by definition say I fucked Sam, instead of him fucking me, on our last night together. He was leaving in the morning to go overseas. We had already graduated—another unceremonious occasion that went unnoticed in our lives. I knew I was never going to see him again. It had just come to the end of our mutual loneliness bandage. Maybe he would find someone to relieve himself with. For me, it wasn't that easy. I was more worldly than when I had started, but still, I had never initiated the sex Sam and I had.
I needed to know that if I wanted to start the encounter, that I could. I took off all my clothes and went into his bedroom. He wasn't sleeping, rather lying awake, staring at the ceiling, probably nervous about his new assignment. I didn't speak, and neither did he. I climbed in bed next to him and I touched him. Even after an entire year, it was the first time I'd held his cock in my hand. I stroked him up and down, feeling him harden in my hand. I felt powerful and sexy. In control. He let me do as I pleased.
I straddled him, took his cock and slid it inside me. Riding him felt entirely different than either his hip-pulling missionary or his from-behind fucking. He was deep inside me, so deep it was painful until I shifted forward. I rested my hands on his chest, but I could feel his breath on my face. He laid still. He cupped both breasts in his hands, something he had never done to me before. He let me ride him. I lost track of how many orgasms I had. Each time I came, I would arch my back, shaking. He rested his hands around my waist. I could control the speed, the depth, and the angle I was touching him.
I ended up collapsing on top of his chest, weak and trembling from pleasure. It was a closeness unfamiliar to me. Shocking me, he pulled my head up off his chest, cradling my face in his hands, and kissed me. It was only a kiss, but no one had ever kissed me before. He pried my lips open with his tongue, then thrust his tongue inside my mouth. Out of breath, I kissed him back, thinking how strange it was that I had been fucking him for a year, and this was my very first real kiss, naked in his arms while he was inside me. That deep passionate kiss was raw, emotional and intimate, the most intimate moment of my life at the time.
He flipped me onto my back. Perfect missionary style, also something we had never done before. The moment he started moving inside me, I understood why he had never opted to fuck me this way. I could feel all of his skin against mine, feel his heart beating against my chest. He was looking into my eyes. It felt like the stories I'd read, movies I'd seen…how normal people had sex. I had to close my eyes more than once, the intensity in his stare being too much for me.
And, there was something so strange there, behind the blue in his eyes…sadness and what I believed was longing…What was he longing for, during sex? The thought frightened me. The thought that he had feelings for me was difficult at that moment. I didn't know anything about how to interpret that. And I know now, with my wisdom, that he didn't have those feelings for me. I know what he would have looked like, and he most certainly did not have that look. It was merely a longing for something he was bereft of, something he needed that he knew he could never have.
I barely knew him and he didn't know me at all. My body given, my soul locked away. He pounded away at me until I orgasmed one last time. I arched up against him, my breasts crushed against his bare chest. "Sarah," he whispered just before I felt him release inside my body.
He pulled out. I attempted to roll away, but he grabbed me and held me against him. He had never held me, ever, for any reason. Was this because this was the last time? Would he miss me, or just miss fucking me? I wasn't sure myself, then, other than knowing I would miss the sex once we weren't together anymore.
"My real name is David Fordham," he blurted, his eyes still fixed on the ceiling. "Samuel Hart is just a cover."
I stopped breathing for a moment. I don't know what shocked me more…knowing he had been given an alias too, or that he was telling me the secret of his true identity. I couldn't reason why he would have. Did he think I would tell him some secret about me?
Even as I thought that, he said quickly, "I…just wanted you to know. That's all." He released me, pulled his arms away.
I was still reeling, but I climbed out of his bed. I didn't want to accept it, but I left a part of myself in that bed with him. We weren't in love. We weren't even romantic about each other. But he would always be my first. He had helped me through the training I needed for the next chapter of my life. A life I didn't want, but had to live just the same.
That small part of me died when he did, a little over a year later.
I went back into my room, put my pajamas on, and climbed back into bed. His flight left before dawn. He never woke me up to say goodbye. Just like that, he was gone.
And I was alone with my vibrator again.
I could have found another bedmate, someone willing to fuck me without us being in a relationship. But the idea of doing with a total stranger what I had done with Sam repulsed me. At least he had been familiar, friendly. A stranger was…unknown. And thus, frightening. So I ended up alone.
I did my training, and started on the counterfeiting task force. I did what they asked me to do, what my job required. I had to let a stranger feel me up, something that internally made me sick, but I found the leak.
Bush won the election in November. While the President Elect was hiring staff and filling in his cabinet, I was contacted. Bush had 19 year old twin daughters, and the First Lady wanted at least one female Secret Service agent. There were very few of us.
So I was part of the team that protected the first family. I was 21, just two years older than the girls I was protecting. It was unusual, but an ideal posting, compared to the rest of my career before I met Chuck. It was as close to happy and normal I had ever felt.
Until September 11, 2001.