BEAUTIFUL STRANGER

CHAPTER 1
Cody breathed a sigh of relief as he approached the tiny town of Backworth. After a hard day’s riding in unfamiliar territory, Cody was pleased to finally reach a place where he could rest for the night and have a wash, some good food, and a woman. Hopefully in that order. A man approached as Cody dismounted.
"Been usin’ him kinda hard ain’t you son?" he asked, running an expert eye over the weary stud.
"He can take it," said Cody, Giving the horse a gentle pat.
"Feed, water, rubdown?"
"Yeah. And a scoop of corn in his chaff. This here horse is mighty partial to a little corn."
"Corn’s extra."
"Who’s bellyachin'" Just tend him real good."
The grizzled old liveryman grinned as he took charge of the sorrel. "Horse lover, eh? All right son, you just rest easy. He’s in good hands. How long you plan to stop over?"
"Just the night". Cody gazed across the single rutted street of the tiny outpost of civilization towards the lighted windows of the Backworth Trailhouse. "Reckon I’ll find lodgin’s over there?"
"You bet. Tell Scarlett I said to look after you."
"Scarlett?"
"Owns the place. Good business woman - and good looker."
"She got a tub? I smell like a horse thief." Cody wanted to leave a good impression on this Scarlett woman.
"Sure, in back." The man’s eyes twinkled, he had given the fella the once over and thought that the kid in his tassled buckskin jacket might be to Scarlett’s liking. In fact, he was willing to place a bet. "Scarlett might even scrub your back if you ask nice boy. She’s partial to young robust lookin’ fellers like you"
Cody smiled and nodded. He hoped this fella was right. "I don’t know Mister, I’m a little tired," Cody said with the hope that his words would get back to this Scarlett person. In a small town like this, it was very likely that she would hear of his indifference and try to persuade him to change his mind. He liked women who saw him as a challenge. They were better in bed. This lady didn’t sound like a whore though, she was a business woman. She sounded like she knew what she wanted. Cody didn’t really mind either way. Even though it was against the Pony Express' rules, he like to visit whores.
"I better tend this horse," the man said and led the animal inside. "Don’t forget to tell Scarlett I sent you."
Night held reign over the Nebraska plains as Cody walked from the livery stable across the rutted street. There was a translucent quality in the air that was characteristic of Nebraska. If a man could bottle it and sell it in the cities, he mused, he’d make a packet.
A dog in the street got up at his approach, growled, shook itself then picked up its bone and skulked away when it realized that Cody had no intention of walking around it. He did give it a slight pat on the head when he walked by but there was no way he was going to move for a dog.
In the time it took the hound to resettle itself under the porch boards of a battered old building adjacent to the trailhouse, a breeze had come up bringing the coolness that had been denied to the countryside since early morning. Cody paused to unbutton his shirt and let the coolness of the wind caress his skin. He took off his hat and his dirty blond hair stirred lightly.
At times like this, Cody knew a strange, deep peace. He wasn’t the peace-loving kind, but he enjoyed the rare moments when he was without desires, needs, anger, laughter or emotion - just soaking up the stuff around him and feeling good all over.
A cowboy on a horse rode by quietly in the night, giving him a curious look. Cody slapped his chest boisterously and the man’s horse jumped skittishly. The cowboy swore and Cody laughed as he continued on towards the trailhouse. It was a tumble-down two-story building of clapboard and adobe with a bathhouse in the rear. Several horses were tied up at the railing, heads hanging hipshot and dozing.
Although Cody was hungry, he headed straight for the bathhouse. It was steaming inside and no one was using it. There was a sign which told the traveler that the cost of the services was fifty cents a bath, towels included, pay inside.
Cody shut the door and stripped, collected a towel and, climbing five steps lowered himself into a huge wooden tub. For several minutes he just lay there breathing out the weight of the world with the sudsy water up around his neck, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of it.
There was a bar of yellow soap in a holder. Cody began lathering his chest and shoulders while gazing at a picture on the wall depicting a vast and pinkly nude woman holding a cat in her ample lap. The picture reminded him of Mrs. Davies, a school teacher he’d had for many years. He’d always had a crush on Mrs. Davies. When he left school she had taken an interest in him and taught him many things that went beyond schoolbooks. A purist might have considered her to have been a little overweight, but not Cody. He remembered more wild nights with Mrs. Karen Davies than he did chance encounters with lots of thinner, prettier women since. She had taught him a lot of things about women, how to be attentive, how to kiss, and how to please them in bed. When her husband finally found out, he threatened to kill Cody unless he left town. Cody obliged and not long afterwards he came to Sweetwater.
Cody liked a pretty face. Rachel and Lou, for example, were very pretty but that’s not what made them women. Sure, beauty was no drawback. But it was the mystery, the magic and fire in a woman that attracted him. Mrs. Davies had her generous share of all those qualities.
Time slipped by and Cody dozed. The low fire under the tub’s metal base cracked comfortingly. From the trailhouse came the tinkle of piano music, a voice lifted in melodious song. He could have stayed there for hours, but he couldn’t ignore the grumbling in his stomach.
Cody got out and rubbed himself dry before going to the fogged-up mirror on the wall where shaving gear was laid out on a shelf. As he lathered his face, the muscles in his torso rippled in the misted light. Stripped, Cody was all chest arms and shoulders. His legs were long and lean, his hips narrow. Palming the steam from the glass, he picked up a razor and began to shave.
He was almost finished when the door suddenly opened and a woman came in, partially obscured by the pile of fresh towels in her arms. She went to the shelves and started putting away the towels in neat piles. Cody cleared his throat.
"What the....?' she gasped, staring at him through the steam. "Where did you come from?"
Cody had discarded his towel after drying off and there didn’t seem much point crossing the room to where she was standing to collect another. Cody had always been vain and knew he looked good so he decided to have a little fun with the woman and just went on shaving with his back to her. "Been here half an hour, ma’am."
"That no-account Ben," the woman muttered. "He’s supposed to tell me when the place is occupied. I’ll bet he’s in the barn with a bottle again."
Cody shaved his top lip carefully. Her reflection was indistinct because of the steam, but she seemed to be taking a good long look at him.
"You the maid?" he grunted.
"I own the goddamn place."
"Oh, he said turning to look at her, You must be Scarlett, then?"
"You need a towel," she told him. She wondered how he knew who she was. Surely she didn’t have that bad of a reputation? She hadn’t had a man in her bed for a long time.
Cody looked down at himself where the towel should have been, razor in one hand, brush in the other. "Not much doubt about that."
He thought he’d embarrass her, but was mistaken. She got a towel and crossed the room and coolly handed it over. She didn’t bother averting her eyes as Cody took his time setting the shaving gear down and hooking the towel around his hips. He stood staring at her in silence. She was breathtaking. Dark, buxom, and she carried herself with natural grace and pride like a lot of Spanish women he’d known. But she wasn’t Spanish, she was raven-haired and green-eyed. He guessed she was about Rachel’s age. Some said a woman only gets really interesting over thirty but Cody had to admit that he found them interesting at any age.
"Well, what do you think?," he asked cheekily.
"Of what?"
"Of me. You’ve given me a good enough lookin’ over to be sure you’d recognize me on a dark night."
She didn’t take offense. She’d been making her way in a man’s world too long to be easily offended. Resting a hands on her hips, she deliberately looked him up and down one more time to make sure he knew she wasn’t fazed by his remark. Then she turned for the door.
"I think you’ve got piercing blue eyes, full lips, strong shoulders, and a nice rear but we both know that don’t make a man stranger."
Cody grinned. "True Scarlett, very true".
She paused, "What are you called?"
"William F. Cody"
"Well Billy do you plan to stay around, or are you just passing through?"
"Just passing through. I ride for the Pony Express. I need accommodation for the night and a good meal. I’ve had a hard day’s ridin'"
"I think I can accommodate an experienced rider like you Mr Cody, she said, and I hope you have a good appetite."
She left the room leaving him wondering if the double meaning had been accidental. Cody was intrigued. She didn’t seem to be as easy to figure out as most women. She sure did arouse his curiosity and that was not all she aroused either. After a moment he went back to his shaving. He hadn’t been too impressed with this town at first glance, but it was starting to look more interesting.

CHAPTER 2
Meanwhile, Scarlett had gone back inside and was tending the bar.
"Why Scarlett!" a hairy regular declared, "you seem mighty sprightly and sparkly-eyed tonight if you don’t mind my sayin’ so."
"You can say what you like just as long as you keep your hands to yourself Donaldson," Scarlett replied, plonking a foaming glass of beer on the bar, "That’ll be ten cents."
Donaldson squeezed her hand as he paid, but that was as far as he dared to go. Scarlett Green might be the voluptuous object of desire to just about every lonesome plains dweller who made his way to her hospitable bar, but only a fool or a newcomer ever hoped to progress beyond a bit of cheeky flirting. For it was generally known that Scarlett set impossibly high standards where men were concerned, and it had been a long, long time since it was even suspected that some lucky man had shared her bed.
Some speculated that because Scarlett was so strict, she just wasn’t interested in men. Yet it was impossible to lean on her long bar in a pleasant alcoholic daze and watch the sensual movement of her hips and she walked and see the perspiration gather in the cleft between her ample breasts without being aware that there was a passionate, hot-blooded woman made for loving and just waiting for the right man to come along. But unluckily for the regulars at the trailhouse, none measured up.
"She’s sure got a special glow about her tonight," Donaldson confided to the liveryman that Cody had met earlier. "Wonder how come?"
The liveryman, who was so old that he could remember meeting Abe Lincoln, indicated towards Cody with his cunning eyes. Cody had just ordered a meal and was digging in. "I have a hunch that he is how come," the old man said. "In fact I have five dollars that says he will bed her tonight."
"No way," said Donaldson, looking at Cody eating. Watching Cody wolf down his food was not the most attractive site and Davidson refused to believe that Scarlett would go near him. "You’re on".
If Cody was aware of all the attention he was attracting, he didn’t show it. He poured water down his throat and listened to a man prattle on about the difficulties of getting a twenty-horse team across the prairies in the rainy season. Cody tried to listen attentively but he was distracted by Scarlett. She hadn’t served him dinner but he could tell that she kept glimpsing in his direction. When he finished his meal, he went over to her to try his luck. There weren’t any whores in this establishment, besides, he wanted her. "Thanks for the meal Scarlett, it was delicious. Did you cook it?" he asked, giving her an intense stare that usually made ladies flinch with pleasure. It didn’t have the desired effect.
"Oh because I’m a woman I must have cooked it right?"
Cody knew from his experiences with Lou that it was pointless to argue such points. "Yeah well, tell the cook it was great," he said and walked away.
Scarlett was afraid she’d been too harsh and had scared him off, so she decided to tease him a bit. "I wouldn’t know if it was a good meal or not. I haven’t eaten yet. I don’t really get hungry until about two in the morning - after the bar closes." A customer called and she moved away. "Excuse me."
He stared after her, his face expressionless. What had she meant by that? Was it some kind of invitation? He usually knew the games women played but this one was a little different. He had a feeling that he’d made some kind of impression in their very casual meeting in the bathhouse, and he sure as hell had been aware of her behind the bar all night long. But she had a really serious look that was at odds with the way most women acted when they were trying to let you know they were interested. He glanced at the wall clock. Ten after midnight. Maybe he’d check her again around two. His eyes seemed to change color as he stared at his glass. They always did when William F. Cody started getting that funny, familiar feeling....

CHAPTER 3
Cody stood silently by his trailhouse window looking out. It was two in the morning and the last roaring drunk had either hit the hay or climbed on his horse for the ride home. The only sign of life in Backworth was the same dog he’d met on his way from the livery, prowling silently down the rutted stretch of trail that passed as the main street.
Cody turned his head at a faint sound. He was stripped to his pants, his torso dark in the glow of the low-burning lamp, his bullet scars looked pale, almost mauve in the light. His blue eyes were on the partially opened door. Would she come, or was he kidding himself? Maybe she expected him to go to her? He wasn’t against it, but he didn’t know where her bedroom was and if he’d misread the signs then she might just as likely scream the place down.
Suddenly, his head cocked to one side. He was sure he heard a soft step. Friend or foe? To be suspicious was his natural instinct. He ran in to his fair share of trouble. He told himself it always paid to be sure so he went to the bed head and hauled the .45 from its holster. A shadow fell through his doorway. He lifted the gun then lowered it again as the door eased open and Scarlett stood there in the hallway, the light was behind her and she was wearing a flimsy nightgown that not only highlighted the shape of her breasts but looked easy to remove. She raised her arms as if to surrender and he dropped the gun and used the opportunity to lift the nightgown over her head. She was standing before him naked and he was speechless. She had ample hips, a narrow waist and large breasts, just the way he liked it. But what grabbed his attention was the burning desire in her eyes. They glittered like a prowling cat as she stood before him with her breasts rising and falling to the rhythm of her breathing. They stood face to face and he was aware of the delicate scent of perfume and warm female body. She moved in a little closer but held back, waiting for him to take the initiative. William F. Cody was never slow at doing that. He expertly removed his pants and then cupped her heavy breasts in his hands. They were perfectly formed and tipped with crimson. Her stomach moved gently as her arms went around him.
"I’m starved Cody, it’s been so long...I thought all the men were gone..." He moved towards her and molded his body against hers and her lips tilted to receive his mouth. He kissed her softly, he knew he was a good kisser, he started with her bottom lip, then top lip and rotated between them gently, occasionally flicking in his tongue. He then kissed her fully on the mouth and she gasped. Cody suddenly wasn’t interested in mere kissing. He placed one powerful arm around her waist and the other on the back of her thighs and lifted her off the floor. She dug her white teeth into the column of his muscular throat as he carried her across the room. He threw her roughly on to the bed. She sank deeply into it. It was incredibly soft, unlike Cody who was, at this moment, just the opposite. He climbed on top of her, supporting his weight with his elbows. Their mouths met once more but this time it was more frantic. His moist lips were at once cool and impassioned, his tongue a probe that sent a succession of electric impulses through her nervous system. Her hands moved down his hard back and she tried not to scratch him as he gently suckled and nibbled her nipples which sent a shot of lightning to her quivering insides. She instinctively grabbed for his penis which was bigger and harder than any she had touched before and she tried to shove it inside of her, gently at first, then with reckless insistence. Cody wouldn’t have a bar of it and was enjoying teasing her. Mrs. Davies had taught him well. Scarlett would just have to wait. After all she had kept him waiting and wondering until 2am. It took every bit of self-discipline he had not to enter her immediately. He removed his mouth from her breasts and bombarded her with licks and kisses on her stomach and hip bones and finally, her vulva. He smelled her scent and he wanted her so badly. He gently slid his long tongue onto her clitoris and rotated it around. She was begging him to enter her. He nibbled her gently and put two fingers inside her. She was very wet and fully aroused. His head was locked between her legs in a vice-like grip and the scent made him heady. He gently moved his way back up until his lips reached hers once more. She could taste herself in his kisses. She could feel his manhood pulsating and she wrapped her legs around him. He slowly entered his penis into her but stopped half-way and she moaned, waiting for all of him. He withdrew from her and repeated the movement several times, each time sliding in just a little deeper. She was pleading and crying with urgency.
"Please, oh please I need you inside me, let’s not play anymore games!" He withdrew once again, enjoying his power but the next time he entered her, she was ready. She placed her hand on his buttocks and pushed down with all her strength at the same time thrusting her pelvis upwards to meet his full length . They both moaned loudly and Cody felt as though his entire body was entering hers. He could hold back no longer. He attacked her with a fire that lifted her to greater strengths, greater demands. It was like a battle in which there was no loser. The battled ebbed and flowed, suddenly roaring to new crescendos, and just as suddenly receding.
Exhaustion claimed them. They slept fitfully, and with wakefulness came another climbing surge of passion that carried them to even greater heights and left them dizzy with the pleasure of it as a heedless night wind hissed unnoticed through the old buildings of Backworth in the remote world beyond the window, the only reminder that something besides the two of them even existed was the sound of the dog howling at the moon. She finally spoke. "Billy, I never was more right about a man. I’ve waited a long time for this."
"It takes a woman to make a man, and you sure are a women," he looked at her and nudged her nose with his, "What’s a lady like you doin’ here anyway?"
"You," she said cheekily. She just loved word games. She snuggled close. "Would you worry if something happened to me?"
"Yeah," he said - and was surprised to realize he meant it. He normally didn’t feel such attachment to his conquests but he felt comfortable with Scarlett. He felt good.
"Well, I can look after myself," she said, "always have." Her voice was getting drowsy as her face rested on his shoulder. She fell asleep like a tired child and Cody held her in his arms until the crimson ridges of dawn began to climb in the sky beyond the window. He guessed this was what it must feel like to hold your wife in your arms. No, it wasn’t like that because he was going to leave her here and never see her again. He felt a sting of regret already. He rose silently and dressed without disturbing her. With boots and gunbelt slung over his shoulder, he paused at the door to look back. For a moment, he felt real tenderness. He fumbled around in his possessions for a copy of "True Tales of the West", a dime book he had recently written about himself and the other riders. He was so proud of his publication, that he never went anywhere without at least one copy. He placed it on the pillow and kissed the air above her cheek so as not to wake her. "Good-bye Scarlett," he whispered softly. Then, with an act of will he left the room. By the time he reached the stairs he had his gun buckled on and put on his boots, rifle over his shoulder and went out into the new morning. He smiled as he breathed in the cool morning air. He went to the livery where his horse was waiting.
"Did you have a nice night Mister?" asked the old liveryman. He received no reply but the smile on Cody’s face said it all. Besides, he and Donaldson had snuck back into the trailhouse around 2:30am and the sound of Scarlett’s moans had settled their bet. Cody paid him for his services and went on his way.
It was about midday when he realized he hadn’t yet paid for the room or the bath. Scarlett had already considered that point herself before deciding that the night had been payment enough. It wasn’t often that a man like that came into town. She sat down in the bathhouse and started to read the book he had left her.

THE END

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