DALLIANCE IN TARRYTOWN


     George Evans had taken the Friday off for Lunacon, but he did not
get up much later that morning than usual.   He got onto the highway
maybe fifteen minutes or a half-hour later than he would have started
work on a normal day.

     George had breakfast before he left, but he went through Maryland,
then Delaware, then the New Jersey Turnpike, and it came to mind that
he was liable to forget about lunch once he got to doing things at the
convention.  So he pulled into the Childs' Restaurant in downtown
Newark about eleven in the morning, ate, then took another hour to get
to Tarrytown.  This was a few years after the unions forced conventions
out of New York City.

     He had been asked, sort of, by Perdita Boardman about coming up
early to help move supplies into the consuite, so when he parked and
walked in he got right into lugging.  They needed him less than they
thought, so he sat around a while after.  About the time that he could
have checked into his hotel room, convention registration was going to
open, so he went there instead.

     Not so much to register - that took seconds - but to work there a
while.  A lot of people seem to think that is a dull job, but he never
had.  Part of it may be that he spent a couple of years in an
unemployment office, signing people up for checks, and while the
motions are much the same, the job is incredibly different.  You don't
have to deal with stupid or hostile people, or only rarely, and you
don't have frauds to deal with.

     What you do get are people who are happy to be in a line that
moves fast and a lot of smiling faces, with the female ones
particularly nice.   And of course for the time you are there you get
to talk, five seconds each, to people you recognize.

     It was better this year because the head of registration had not
been trained in Boston, so registration opened when people wanted to
register, not when the clock said it was supposed to.  George had never
understood NESFA.

     They started at quarter to two, and around three o'clock Mike and
Judy Goldberg were in front of him, with Jackie Spriggs, all just in
from Baltimore.  George had marginally known Mike a bunch of years
before through the mail, his wife for about five since they moved into
the area.

     Five years ago was also when the Baltimore club got restarted,
some months before George moved from New York to Washington, sort of
moved back since he had been brought up in Baltimore and Baltimore was
only fifteen minutes further than half the Washington club meetings.

    As you could probably guess from the name, Mike and Judy Goldberg
were Jewish.  Jackie Spriggs was black, rather tall for a woman, and
very cute and cheerful.  She had been coming to Baltimore club meetings
for a year now, or a little less than that since she had found out
about it at last year's Balticon.

     George had therefore met Jackie perhaps two dozen times since,
between the monthly business meetings (which were mostly social after
the first half-hour) and the social meetings (which often had a lot of
decisions made at them).  He talked to her probably at all of the
gatherings, but couldn't say he paid much attention to her.  She was
interesting to talk to and fresh meat, so to speak, for conversation.

     Since she just came in ar Balticon, she had not considered going
to Disclave eight weeks later, which was also six weeks after her first
Baltimore club meeting, where she first learned of the comvention.
Worldcon that year was at the other end of the country, and for some
reason now forgotten she could not get to the Philadelphia regional in
November.

     Boston was too far even for George as a usual thing, let alone
somebody new to things, do this Lunacon was her first out-of-town
convention.  Jackie was staying with the Goldbergs here, but she was
very happy to see someone else she knew, and she gave Gworge a very
bright smile when she spotted him behind the table.

     He worked at registration until almost five, getting three hours
there to add to the hour of moving consuite supplies, then got his
luggage and checked in.  He went into the dealers' room, not to buy
anything - he may have, he didn't remember for sure - but to look
around and talk to people.  The Gonzalez brothers almost always have
something interesting which he has to debate with himself whether he
can afford, Charles Miller is good to gossip with, and the Hendersons
often wanted to check his memory on a book or author somebody asked
about.

     Ned Brooks had come up with the people from the Atlanta worldcon
bid, and he had a table, and George probably spent half an hour behind
his table talking about strange books, of which Ned has very many.

     George left him a little after six (the room stayed open until
eight) and ran into the Goldbergs and Jackie Spriggs in the lobby.
Mike and Judy had not been up to Lunacon lately, and of course Jackie
hadn't been at all.  They asked if there was a place to eat nearby and
worth recommending.

     "Yes," he said, and led them down the road and under a bridge,
maybe a quarter-mile to a diner not visible from the hotel.  They
introduced Jackie there to their saying about conventions: you can
travel a thousand miles, but end up eating dinner with people you see
every week or two.

     And so they did.  They took their time over dinner, and did not
get back to the hotel until close to eight.  Jackie and the Goldbergs
went off to the program, and George got talking to people.

     Close to ten he went off to his room to change.  Now, he was not
involved with the Atlanta worldcon bid, but he knew people on it,
between those who moved there from places he had lived, those who lived
for a while around Baltimore or Washington, and just meeting,
especially working with, some of them at conventions from Arizona to
England.

     He was somewhat known for working as a bartender (beer and soda
usually) at Disclave, and he was asked about doing it at the bid party.
 He agreed, but wanted to give them more than they asked for.

     He changed into black pants with a sharp crease, a pale blue
pocketless shirt with ruffles down the front and at the cuffs, and a
black clip-on bow tie.  He slicked back my hair, used a little
magician's wax to bring his beard to a point, and showed up for his 10
to midnight shift looking every inch a caterer's bartender.

     He even put a tip-jar out, though the money went to (and was
marked for) the worldcon bid.  Got a fair amount too.

     Jackie Spriggs may well have been at the party before he was.  She
liked the idea of the Atlanta bid, since she had relatives down there.
In any case, she came over for soda not long after he settled in, and
they talked with frequent interruptions until midnight.

     Mike and Judy announced that as old married people (George's age,
a bit less in Judy's case!) they were going to turn in.  Jackie felt a
bit overwhelmed and decided to do the same.  He hung around the party
for maybe a half-hour more.

     On Saturday morning he had the buffet breakfast in the hotel, his
semi-obligatory one meal in the hotel, and went through the dealers'
room more carefully.  After he deposited his purchases in his room, he
saw and walked up behind Jackie, who was standing and studying the
program.

     She asked him a couple of questions about it, and decided that
nothing looked that great for a while.  George asked if she had been
through the Art Show yet.  She said no, that she had not even gone to
the one at Balticon, and was curious about what it was like.

     He answered in a few words: some published illustrations exhibited
on principle or for sale, some professional-quality artists doing what
they liked for once, a lot of amateurs looking for jobs, cash, or
recognition.  He offered to go through with her, and she accepted.

     They spent 90 minutes there, a lot of it listening to artists
shop-talk.  Jackie got a lot more out of that than he did, he thought.

     When they came out, she headed for a panel, and then the guest of
honor speech.  As did he, though a different panel, and he did not spot
her in the crowd at the speech.

     George went to dinner a bit early, because he had promised to work
on the masquerade.  He was going to be a runner, which really requires
no running at all, though sometimes fast walking.  He was going to help
people (run them) up the steps to the stage to show off their costumes
for the audience, and his opposite number, stage left, would help them
down.

     Now, he had only worn costumes a couple of times himself at
masquerades, but had been on staff at them more, and in the audience
more yet.  Moreover, he had been to the Lunacon masquerade at this
hotel, in the room they had it set for, and it got stuffy and warm in
there.

     So this year, he would be prepared.  He was going to wear a dhoti
and a turban.  The dhoti is that loincloth thing that beggars in India
wear in movies; real ones are one strip of cloth wound around, but he
was chicken and sewed it to an old pair of briefs.  The turban was just
wrapped up, but pinned with a huge gaudy pin.  With that and a plastic
cutlass he was set.

     Things went well, no real problems with getting people on or off,
and he was more comfortable than the audience.  Two-thirds of the way
through the first run, the next face up was familiar, though the body
was less so, or not as visibly so.

     Jackie Spriggs was wearing a mid-thigh skirt, a large ornate hat,
and a tight bodice with lacework under it that made her breasts high
and jutting.  She was without her usual over-sized glasses.

     She had dressed as Belit the pirate, from Robert E. Howard's
"Queen of the Black Coast."  While Belit is described as lithe,
beautiful, all that sort of thing, Howard never actually describes her
skin color - but she is operating off the coast of Africa, and all or
most of her crew are black, so it made reasonable sense for a black
woman to choose.  Belit is also the only woman whom you are really told
Conan has sex with during the course of a story, so the interracial
angle might have been better not spelled out in the 1930s.

     Well, both the given and implied descriptions fit Jackie.  He saw
her and dropped to the floor, arms out, in a deep bow.  She thought
fast and placed one bare foot on his shoulder, striking a haughty pose.
 The audience who could see them cheered, as did the rest when the
emcee pointed them out, all to the confusion of the poor Deathstar
stormtrooper who had just gotten up there.

     Jackie got up easily, swaggered across and down, but when she got
to the photography area everybody wanted at least one shot of what the
two had done spontaneously.  So George got pulled off as a runner, went
half-blind from flashbulbs, and only got back to his post (somebody
substituted) in time for the last few entries.

     While the judges deliberated, a storyteller went up on stage, and
George headed for the back of the auditorium and from there to the side
room set aside for costumers, which had a video feed.  Jackie (and he,
often) got called out of the room by photographers enough that he never
heard enough of any the three stories told to follow them.

     They got word that the judges had decided, do he went back to help
the winners up.  Jackie was one, best novice for interpretation, on her
first entry in a masquerade.  She jumped, whooped, and kissed George.

     Things ran a little late, so he did not have much margin to get to
his room, change to normal clothes, and get to the movie room for the
sort-of shift he had signed up for there.  He had spotted one of his
favorite movies on the schedule, and felt that he may as well run the
projector since he wanted to see it again anyway.

     The movie was "Quest for Love."  If that does not sound like
science fiction, be assured you it is.  If you have never heard of it,
you have more company than you really should.  It is about a man who is
dropped into an alternate history, much like this one but without World
War II, and some other small changes.  He is married there to a woman
with a heart defect, easily curable here, he knows.  After she dies in
his arms, he comes back to this world and tries to keep her from dying
again.

     The movie was only a few minutes in, it was maybe 10:40, when a
chair was set down next to George's.  He looked over and there was
Jackie Spriggs, still in costume.  He figured that she must have come
here straight from the masquerade, though he turned out to be wrong.

     He told her in a few words what has happened so far - they were at
the point where the protagonist sees that day's newspaper account of
John Kennedy's major speech to the League of Nations, in 1968 - and let
her carry on by herself from there.

     It did not take much more of the story before her hand crept into
his, and by the end, around midnight, she was leaning on him and
happily sobbing.  He took his arm from around her as he raised the
lights for a moment and put on the reel of Mike Jittlov shorts.  His
replacement was due to show up soon.

     While he had seen the shorts 50 times before, Jackie was on her
third or fourth viewing, so when the next projectionist came, they sat
in the back.  As his arm circled her this time, he realized that she
had gone to her room after all, because the lacework bra was gone, nor
had she put another one on.  Not that he did anything much, just rested
the side of his hand against some nice yielding breast flesh, and felt
her hand hold him there.

     They went to a party or two, and soon Jackie darted across the
room to talk to Judy Goldberg.  Not long after, her husband Mike asked
how he was getting along with Irene, the woman he had been dating for a
while.  He answered, quite truthfully, that he had not seen her for
four months, that the last time she got mad at him it may have stuck.
He shrugged and said, "That is the way it often goes.  I noticed that
you had not brought her to parties lately."

     When Jackie came back, he and she wandered to another party, but
on the way she stopped and turned to him at the end of a hallway, near
the door to the stairs, and they spent a minute pressed together and
kissing.  And he urged her to more like that in the next few minutes.

     At that next party, she looked at him with her liquid brown eyes,
and as he brushed his fingers on her little curls, she said to him, "I
think I know how I want this evening to end.

     "I want to spend the night with you," she said to him, there in
the middle of the party.

      He looked at the chocolate-colored face she turned up to him, at
the broad smile on it, into the big brown eyes behind her over-sized
glasses, and let himself picture for an instant those tight curls of
hair pressed down on a pillow as his body lay over hers,

      "I would honestly have to say, Jackie, that I would not have
imagined hearing you say that.   I don't know quite what to say to you.
  I hope you are not offended if I say that I have never thoughr about
you that way -- or anyway not for more than a second or so.

     "I suppose that you may just be more -- well, decisive -- about
such things than I.  Or that you know me better than I do you."

     Her curls bobbed.  "Yes, I think I do know you better than you do
me.  You have paid no more attention to me than to a half-dozen other
women in the club -- you are polite and kind to all of us, and
attentive to all the single women, but not to any in particular.   You
are just friendly and nice.  That made me pay attention to you, because
that it less common than I would like.

     "I do know about you, because I have asked.   I have asked the
people who have known you for years, and I know about the women you
have been involved with --"

     "Well, there are one or two you probably don't know about..."

     "Were they very different?  I doubt it.   You have treated all of
them well, as far as I can find.  Except for -- two whom you wanted to
have nothing to do with, and that speaks well of you, since they were
sluts.

      "I want a man who would be good to me, and I decided to get hold
of one.   If things go no further than tonight, it will be a very good
night, I am sure.  I have not gotten any reports on how you are in
bed," she smiled again, "but I am willing to take my chances there,
with a strong slim body like yours.  But George, you haven't said yes
or no..."

     "Ouch.  In all honesty, Jackie, I am hesitant.  I probably am
taking things too seriously, but... I am not sure if, with the way the
world still is, an interracial marriage is not a lot to ask a woman to
go through.  I am stubborn enough for it, but are you?"

     "My dear George Evans, I was propositioning you, not proposing!"

     "Yes, but I have a lot of trouble being casual about such things,
and want to worry in advance."

     "Yes.  You are definitely taking things too seriously."

     "Well... God, I can't possibly look at you and say no.

     "But I would have to warn you that me may not be able to do very
much in any case.  I had expected to sleep alone at this convention, so
I did not bring any contraceptives."

     "Probably another point in your favor, that you were not on the
prowl for a woman.  That is not a problem - I am on the pill and from
your reputation you would know about any diseases.    We can act
natural!"

     They stayed and talked a while, but every time that he was far
enough away from her to see her body in that pale blue dress, he got an
erection, and she kept catching him looking at her and grinning.  Every
time he was close enough to see her face he wanted her, and Jackie kept
looking at his erection.

     After a while, she put her fingers to his lips, then tugged on his
hand.  She led him to the elevator and said, "Wait here."

     And he did.  When she came back out from a car, she had a shoulder
bag with her.  They walked around the corner, holding hands, and down
three floors to his room.

     When the door closed behind them, she dropped her bag and he took
Jackie into his arms and kissed her, lightly at first, but her tongue
soon crept into his mouth and his big hands moved up from her small
waist to circle around her ribcage and touch at her spine while his
thumbs went under her bra and lifted her breasts a bit.  His hands
rested on her back where it was bare and pulled her to him, then
gradually went up to touch and gently raise her breasts, then undo the
knot that held her bodice closed.

     Without the support of the costume bra, her breasts might not be
quite so startling, but she did not need support there, and they were
much more interesting with nothing at all covering them.  Beautiful, in
fact, with smooth brown flawless skin and black nipples raised for him.

     Her brown eyes grew wide at the passion that his tongue showed and
he broke away to take her glasses off and set them on a dresser, then
stared at her face before kissing her deeply once again.

     The next time he raised his head, she lowered her hand to hold it
around the erection that had been pressing against her.  "Yes," she
hissed, "that is easily as big as it looked!"

     "This has been a long day," he said to her.  "Even without - our
emotional state recently.  I think it would be a good idea to cool off
by taking a shower together."

     "Yes!  Though," she bubbled, " I don't see how getting each other
naked is going to cool us down very much.  But I want very much the
chance to get a good look at all of you and run my hands over your
body."

     Jackie unbuttoned my shirt, interrupting herself to play with his
chest hair.  With it off and set on the dresser, she investigated his
arm muscles.

     "The better to hold you with, my dear," he muttered into her hair.

     "Oh, I've got a big bad wolf now, have I?  I at least like the big
part.  The arms are certainly nice, but I have been thinking much more
of the hip muscles and how they would feel being driven against me."

     All he could do was give her a taste of it by lifting her body to
force his covered erection to her panties, as her legs wrapped around
him.
     When he set her down again, sliding as if into her, she loosened
his belt and lowered his trousers, to show the end of his rigid rod
peeping from the top of his briefs.  Her hand dipped to gather a drop
of liquid from that end and bring it to her mouth.  He watched in
fascination as she smiled at him and licked her lips.

     "Definitely grade-A man," she whispered.

     When she was gathered into his arms again, George's response was
to unfasten the catch on her skirt and let it drop in a little pool to
the floor, leaving her in panties almost the shade of the dress - as
well as flawless chocolate-brown skin, which George held at the waist.

      As she stepped out of the pool of the skirt, George picked it up
and set it aside.

     "We should start running the water," he said softly as he tugged
her hand toward the bathroom

     "You have me wet already," she responded.

     When he tested the water with his hand and found the temperature
right, he took her panties down, as she did his briefs.  She grabbed a
shower cap.  He took the soap first, to go down her back and press her
nude body to his.

     Her wet hand went to his erection and grazed the length.  "That
feels so good against my stomach, and it almost seems to go up to my
belly-button.  I  only wonder how much better it will feel when you
have it that far inside of me."

     His hands now moved to soap her breasts, and then her face.  She
took the soap then, to work on his armpits.  As she reached up for
that, he took the chance to tease her a bit with his fingers by
caressing her labia.  She stumbled against him with the sudden peak of
arousal.

     As her left leg raised in that stumble, he lowered his shaft, so
that it was flat between her legs and pressing its length to her there.

     George moved his hips gently back and forth, parting her labia but
only with the upper side of his erection, in no position to enter her.
Jackie panted and tried to change the position to change that fact.

     She moved back and dropped her hand to put the end of his slab of
meat to her opening, then got the head into her beyond the outer lips.
But that was as far as she could manage, so that she only succeeded in
wedging herself open without the impalement that she so desperately
wanted.

     "I think that we should finish washing off," George said.  "The
rest can wait a few minutes."

     "Not many, I hope.  I want you very much.  I want you to make me
come over and over, I want you to come in me, and I want you to do it
all over again in the morning!"

     "Your wish is mine.  And if I do not wear you out, I hope you
would not object to another session in the middle of the night."

     "I am certainly willing to keep that option open for you - along
with my legs," she saud.  "But feel free to wear me out."

     They quickly finished bathing, but at the end Jackie bent from the
waist to slide her mouth over his upstanding shaft and take some inches
in, hollowing her cheeks with a powerful suction while the shower
rained on her head and shower cap.

     They toweled themselves rather than each other, having become
impatient, Jackie somewhat more so.   As George walked back out, he saw
that the covers on the bed had been pulled back, and that the only
thing now on the sheets was five foot ten, light brown, very female,
and smiling at him.

     "Fancy meeting you here," he said to her.

     "Oh, I don't think I want anything too fancy," she replied.  "Not
until we take the edge off, certainly."

     "Yes, only the usual variations," he said as he lay beside her.
"I want to get to know you first, as thoroughly as I can."  And his
hand gently cupped her head.

     He lay to her right side, his right hand at her ribs, and kissed
her.  Soon his right hand cupped her left breast, then her nipple, then
he moved his head so that his lips could find her there.

     He kissed her between her breasts, then below them, moving
downward until she gasped as his goal became obvious, and gasped again
and louder as his tongue parted her labia with on long slow lick.  He
dropped down to worship her, very differently than at the masquerade.
For one thing, she soon had both feet resting on his back instead of
one.

     He forced his tongue into her as far as he could, then moved back
up to circle her clitoris and sucl on it, back down to lap at her for a
while, into her again with his tongue, then sucking hard with his mouth
to draw her juices out and at the same time make them flow more.  Over
and over he did all this, until the small chocolate body shook in
orgasm.

     "Sweet Jesus," she cried.  "Nobody - nobody has ever made
me do that before, not with their mouth!"

     "Glad to be of service," he said as he smiled and wiped his
mouth.  "I don't know if it is just you or your arousal tonight,
but I have never had a woman react so quickly to my mouth before, or
come so strongly from it."

     "However things go from here, this has been an incredible night
already.  You have given me so much," she touched his erection,
"and you have more to give than I have ever had before."

     He raised an eyebrow in smiling doubt.

     "No, it's true," she said.  "I don't want you to think I
have ENORMOUS experience - I am choosy, or I would not have chosen
you - but you are bigger than any man I have seen before.  Not by so
much that I would be afraid to have you inside of me, but enough that I
want to have you stretch me wide and deep.

     "And soon," she whispered at the end.

     Jackie sat up and knelt over him, taking him into her mouth again,
this time without the strong suction but going deep until almost the
whole of his engorged penis was glistening with her saliva.

    "It seems like I have wanted to have you in me for a long time,"
Jackie said softly, "though it can't have been more than a day since I
first seriously thought about it.  But I have been attracted to you for
months and... wet for you since the masquerade.  And the way you are
pausing there is driving me crazy.  I want to feel you moving in me so
much!"

     "I want you," he said as he moved over her naked and eager
body.

     "See you and raise you," she replied.

     "You raised me a while ago," he said as je fitted himself to
her entrance.  "And here is the payoff."

     "Oh," she cried, "it's a big one!"

     He slid smoothly into her, feeling her walls move apart, taking
several strokes to move completely in to the point where he could
imagine that no man had ever gone before, though the long slow sound
she made as he entered her almost made him.  It did not take many more
strokes before he could feel her grow tighter yet and clamp down in
orgasm.

     George slowed then, but built her up again until her muscles
spasmed anew and he knew that her (now-infertile) womb was as open and
ready to receive sperm as it could ever be.  That thought, sensible or
not, made him drive harder in than before for a moment.

     She was slower to respond now, after one oral and two penile
orgasms, but after another fifteen minutes of caresses and fondlings
and slow long even strokes he could feel the tension gather in her
small brown body and he sped up to meet her in her fourth sexual
release of the night, pouring his semen out and driving in until their
bodies ached a little from the shock of the collision of hips.

     "You are not just the biggest, but the best," she said as she
dropped off to sleep.

     There was no reprise in the middle of the night, but after they
awakened and after separate trips to the bathroom, she climber across
his hips and sank down, his hands helping to raise and lower her body
until he felt the delicious pressure of her coming.  Then she jumped
off to take his shaft into her mouth and he felt a powerful suction
milk his seed, shooting deep into her throat.

     They showered again afterward, but this time their bodies where
only mildly aroused.  But they dressed and ate breakfast - her shoulder
bag had a dress for the day.

     Jackie left him at noon, when he was on a panel on the dangers of
book-collecting, and met him at the end.  He checked out of his room
and took his luggage to the car, with Jackie helping.  She asked him
then if he would mind a side trip to Baltimore to take her home.  All
in all, she said, she would rather spend this time with him than the
Goldbergs.

     George agreed.  They carried her bags down then, and at four in
the afternoon, as the convention ended, they left.  Assuming a stop for
dinner and reasonable driving speed, he should have reached home at
eight or nine at night.  You may not be too surprised that he barely
made it to work the next morning, tired but happy.

     He spent many more nights in Baltimore, but a year later Jackie
was offered a promotion across the country, and she found someone else,
and married him.