New York, New York

Making progress down the crowded aisle of the train was difficult. Sam and Amy had to weave around people stashing luggage in the overhead racks and removing jackets and over-coats. When they found their seats, Sam let Amy in first so that she could have the window seat. There was a rattling in his suitcase when he placed it in the elevated storage area. "The textbooks they gave me," he answered to her questioning gaze.

Plopping down in the seat next to her, Sam double-checked his ticket and then commented, "When we get to the hotel, am I expected to carry you over the threshold?"

Amy motioned for him to leave his seat and she climbed out of hers after him. Pointing towards the end of the car, she said, "Let's go out there for a minute."

Unsure what she wanted, he shrugged and eventually was standing on the platform between their car and the next one. "Listen," she said as she stepped out there with him, closing the door behind her. "I know you were only trying to make a joke and you seem like a nice enough guy, but we are going to be cooped up with each other for a considerable time. We need to set some 'ground rules'."

She lifted her left hand, waggling her fingers to draw attention to her rings. "Like I already told you, I am engaged. Engaged to a great guy who is putting his life on the line for this country. That's the reason I enlisted. I wanted to do more for the war effort. But..."

She stared up into his face, her eyes flickering left and right, trying to 'read' him. "We are not going to become boyfriend/girlfriend. This is a job. And if you have any other ideas, let's get off the train right now and tell Major Billingsley."

Holding his hands up with palms facing outwards, Sam surrendered to the ****. "O.K., O.K. I got your point. Going forward, no more boy-girl moon-June remarks. O.K.?"

She nodded and said O.K., but as they started to re-enter the car, Sam chuckled. Of course, Amy asked why and Sam said, "You just flashed your ring finger at me that had an engagement ring from one guy, and a wedding ring from another." Referring to the gold band issued by the O.S.S. through Captain Avery.

"Yes," she replied, sliding open the door, "And neither of those guys were you."

Following her back to their seats, Sam thought, 'So this is what a fighter pilot feels like when he is shot down in flames.'

***** ***** *****

A few hours later the couple caught a taxi from Grand Central Terminal to their hotel. As per plans, their room was already paid for and all Sam had to do was to sign the guest register. "Write your name with a flourish, Professor Drake," Amy said in what would seem to the desk clerk as the good-natured banter between husband and wife, but was actually her way of reminding him of their 'new' identities.

The bell-hop reached for Sam's suitcase, but the alleged Professor would not surrender it. Instead, he gave the bell-hop a buck, letting him know that he was not being cheap... just eccentric. The young man touched his finger to the round, brimless cap he wore and returned to his station near the end of the front desk.

"I didn't want to arouse suspicion by the banging around of the books," Sam whispered to Amy as they headed for the elevators.

"Good boy," she replied.

The room exceeded their expectations, both in size and view. Thankfully it had two twin beds, because Sam was not looking forward to having to sleep on a couch. "Well, Mrs. Drake," Sam began, but immediately held up his hands, "now don't get offended. I was just going to ask if you were ready to storm the barricades at Macy's."

The mention of their government financed shopping spree made any anger from Amy impossible. Working her elbows back and forth like a chicken doing a dance, she replied, "Ready to shove my way through the crowd."

When they exited the cab that took them to mid-town, they decided that it would be best to just split up. Each person to make his/her purchases, and meet back at their room. As expected, Sam was finished well before Amy and was sitting on the couch, his shoes off, and reading the Daily News when Amy returned. Her arms were overflowing with packages and bags, and she was followed by a bell-hop pushing a luggage rack.

"Here, I'll take care of him," Sam left the couch and fished into his right, front pants pocket for the stack of folded singles he kept there. When the bell-hop had off-loaded Amy's purchases and departed, Sam surveyed the plunder. "Captain Avery will probably have a fit when he gets the bill," he snickered.

Amy's eyes at first went wide, and then she scowled as she snatched up a pen and sheet of hotel stationary, scribbling furiously. Sam read the paper she handed to him.

'How do you know the room is not bugged?'

When Sam slowly nodded after reading the message, Amy tore it into small pieces, dropped it in an ashtray, and set fire to the paper with a match from a book with the hotel logo on the cover. Returning to opening the packages, Amy announced in a normal, friendly voice, as if nothing had happened, "I am going to try to catch a Broadway show. Want to join me?"

"Naw, you go ahead," he told her. "I think I'll go out and have a drink or two."

She nodded absently, her attention totally focused on all the 'goodies' she had purchased.

Sam did not go to the hotel bar, but instead headed out onto the streets, strolling through the bustling pedestrian traffic as he just wandered aimlessly along. He had been in New York City before. Several times before. It had always been crowded, but now with the war going on, it was positively bursting at the seams. Passing by a nondescript bar, the noise within caught his attention and he ventured inside.

It was a typical, local watering hole. A long bar of dark wood lining one wall, booths against the other, a juke box in a corner. The place was crowded and the juke box was blaring. Several couples were dancing in the middle of the room and most, though not all, of the men in his age group were wearing uniforms.

'Bellying up' to the bar, he had just gotten his Bourbon and water when a thirty-something woman stumbled away from the make-shift dance floor, laughing happily. Or drunkenly. Or both. The soldier she had left behind was holding a bottle of beer and he did not look very stable on his feet. Seeing that his dance partner had departed, he shrugged and headed towards the bathroom. Or latrine, to use his jargon.

Belting back her shot and pursuing it with a beer chaser, the woman suddenly seemed to notice Sam and looked him up and down, her eyes squinting. "So where is your uniform, Mac?"

"Four F," Sam said, feeling somewhat embarrassed despite the fact that he was actually on-duty right now and about to travel to a warzone. "Irregular hear rhythm."

"Yeah, right," she snorted and nodded to his feet. "And tell me those aren't G.I. clodhoppers you are wearing."

Shoes! Sam had forgotten to buy shoes. First thing in the morning he would have to return to Macy's and pick up a couple of pairs. To distract the woman, he asked her if she wanted to dance. Taking another swig of her beer, she staggered back out into the center of the barroom, tugging him by the hand.

For the next hour, they rotated between the dance floor and the bar. The soldiers and sailors fed a steady stream of nickels into the jukebox, so the music never stopped. "There's a lot of women in here," Sam commented at one point as he and the woman leaned against the bar.

She scanned the room, as if seeing it for the first time, and slowly nodded her head. "Yeah. Most of them are Victory girls like me. We know how lonely you dogfaces can sometimes be but we don't want to volunteer for the U.S.O.'s." She crinkled her nose. "They don't serve booze at their soirees."

Eventually, Sam told her that he needed to be heading out and again she looked him up and down, obviously appraising him. Finally she leaned in closer and asked in a low voice, "Wanna go for a walk before you return to base?"

At first he started to ask where, but then he realized that the woman really was a khaki-wackie, albeit a bit old for the role. Sam dropped a buck on the bar for a tip and the woman grabbed up her purse. "Be back in a bit, Joe," she called over her shoulder as they left the crowded bar.

They did not make it to the corner before she was shoving him into an alley. "Come on," she jerked her head towards the end of the backstreet. Once they had gone in what she considered far enough, she gripped Sam's face between her palms and outstretched fingers and began kissing him repeatedly on the lips. Sam responded in kind, wrapping his left arm around her waist and groping her full breasts through her clothing.

With one hand holding the back of Sam's head as she pressed her open mouth against his, she dropped her other hand to his crotch, rubbing over it, feeling the burgeoning lump.

"Let's see what we've got here," she said, breaking the kiss and falling back against the brick wall. Her hands quickly unbuckled and un-zipped him, and soon she was standing there leaning against the building behind her with her hands full of an impressive erection. Warm, and throbbing, and firm in her grip. "Ooo, a nice one," she grinned up at him, her eyes blurry from the ****.

Hiking up her dress, she shoved her panties down past her knees and, holding onto the waistband, lifted first one foot and then the other, stepping out of the undergarment. Sam reached in between her parted thighs, stroking his finger-tips over her hairy bush. The woman closed her eyes and let out a long sigh when he slid his middle finger into her damp snatch. She wrapped her arms around his neck when he began to 'finger fuck' her, holding onto him for support. Her knees were flexed and her stockings clad legs trembled. "Oh, shit!" she gasped as he plunged in and out of her, her coochie getting wetter and wetter. "OH SHIT!" she yelled, her legs shaking uncontrollably and her knees almost buckling.

Quickly she clamped her mouth onto his, shoving her tongue into his mouth as she shuddered through her orgasm.

Her head leaned back and her arms fell to her sides. It was only Sam's hand between her legs - his finger still buried up inside her pussy - that kept her from collapsing onto the pavement. After several moments, she opened her eyes and ran a hand through her wavy, collar-length hair. "Oh, shit. That was nice."

As she regained more of her composure, she stood up straighter and moved her feet further apart. "Alright, baby," she gasped, "You wanna fuck me now?"

She pulled her dress back up around her waist, and held it there with one hand, while with her other she helped Sam guide his hard-on to her wet, dripping, waiting hole. He was able to slide it in with one long smooth stroke, and as before, the woman went crazy. Rolling her eyes and mumbling obscenities, she thrust her hips back and forth as Sam nailed her standing upright against the wall. Shifting her weight to her left leg, she lifted her right foot and wrapped her leg around his waist, trying to draw him inside her as deeply as possible. Driving his cock back and forth within the woman's pussy, Sam fumbled with the buttons of her bodice, opening it and pushing her bra up over her breasts to bare them. He lowered his head while bending forward from the waist, drawing one taunt nipple into his mouth while rutting with the woman like two stray cats in the alley.

Soon, she was gasping and bucking again, her nails digging into his shoulders as her lips once more sought out his. He was not far behind, and as the woman started to buck and thrash about when her orgasm swept over her, Sam grunted loudly and began to unload into her cunt. He wondered if this was the first load she had taken today, or if others before him had fucked her like a bitch back in this alley.

When the two had calmed down, the woman standing with both feet on the pavement, Sam's sperm oozing down the inside of her thighs, she again ran her fingers through her hair. "That was nice," she said, "Thank you."

"Oh, my pleasure," he replied, pulling up his pants and closing them.

"Yeah, I know," she giggled.

When she tried to step back into her panties, she lost balance and nearly toppled over, but Sam caught her in time and held onto her shoulder as she hiked up her drawers. Once the two of them were more or less presentable, Sam took her by the hand to lead her out of the alley. He couldn't very well just walk away and leave her there.

"Coming back inside?" she jerked her head towards the bar down the street but Sam told her that he had to get going. "Are you going to come back tomorrow?" she asked. He said maybe and began to walk away. "Listen, what is your name?" she called out after him. For some reason he answered with 'Bill'. "Mine is Edith," she shouted towards his departing form.