"Adrienne…" Her mother's tired voice, separating each syllable of her name, rising up at the end in warning would result in cascading giggles through chubby fingers and inevitably the wide-eyed horror of the chase, the capture and the punishment.

But even the humiliation of a red, stinging bottom would not stop her stalking. She would watch her mother, plump thighs spread on the toilet bowl, belly quivering, the wipe of the brown furred gash with the pink paper. She would watch her brother, fingering his pee-pee, playing with the pinched tip and the hairless empty sacs of skin that hung below.

Daringly, she followed her third-grade teacher out of school, into the parking lot. She slunk into the back seat of her car when the teacher placed books and papers on the passenger seat and fumbled for the dropped keys at her feet. Huddled on the floor, feeling the thrum of the drive shaft under her cheek on the puppy-pee smelling carpet, Adrienne rode home with her teacher, creeping out of the unlocked car in the darkened garage long after dinnertime.

But the thrill of the hunt enraptured her fully as a teenager. Brett the bastard, Brett the unfaithful, Brett the pubescent hero who captured her imagination and taught her what the space between her legs was really for. Hurried encounters on the cracked vinyl seats of his Chevy, the faded floral upholstery of his parents couch and once, daringly, in their bed.

"Hurry," she would whisper in mock terror in his ear as he heaved and grunted above her. "We'll get caught."

Brett the bastard, who used the constant promise of discovery as an excuse to evade her satisfaction. "It takes too long, Addy," he would say, shaking his head in pretend sympathy when she guided his hand to her aching center. "They'll catch us."

Brett the unfaithful, who had time a-plenty to pleasure her best friend, with his hands and with his mouth. Those same twisted thin lips that he would never place on her, Addy, not where she wanted it most.

She suspected him of infidelity, and in the hot haze of teenage jealousy followed him one night, in black jeans and black sweatshirt, her bright hair caught under the dark cap; the spy, the wronged one, the sick and heartsore one.

She remembers well. How the thump of her heart drowned out her soft footfalls on rain soaked streets. She followed him, flitting in and out of doorways, a vampire child in black merging with the shadows, dodging the shimmering pools of street lights. It was too easy. Brett the arrogant never looked back, just walked with purposeful stride to his assignation. The dark dead-end alley, that cliché of spy stories, the garbage bins, the metal fire escape, even, she saw, the flick of a rat's tail.

She waited, hidden in the shadow of a fire escape and watched in clenching horror as her friend approached. Brett the betrayer grabbed her friend around the waist, his mouth descending to claim, his hands moving to her breasts.

It was fast and it was urgent. It was heated. It was everything she never had. She watched as his mouth moved on soft, white breasts, biting and sucking with fevered urgency, his hands popping buttons, curling down into lace panties. She watched her friend rip open his fly, free his cock, wrap her small hand around the shaft and stroke it rhythmically. She saw the thrust of that cock, repeatedly into the hand, the clench of the buttocks, the guttural cries of completion and the spill of the seed over the hand, over the cloth and onto the ground. Brett the selfish dropped to his knees, flaccid cock drooping out of his pants and put his mouth to her friend. She saw the blonde head roll back in ecstasy as he slurped and suckled her, the howls of release echoing in the empty alley.

Adrienne's hand was down her own pants, snaking into her sodden panties, parting her curls with a delicate finger to probe up, into the heat and moisture of her own arousal. She watched, panting in short gasps as Brett the philanderer drove his renewed hardness into her friend, thrusting and grinding, pressing her back against the wet stone of the alleyway, pumping into her with the short, hard spurts she knew so well.

She came when he did, her flickering finger and the sight of his urgent thrusts driving her over the edge into the silent spasms of release.

They passed her as they left, hand in hand. She turned her face from them so that its pale oval wouldn't give her presence away. She didn't want them to find her here, jeans undone, panties twisted and soaked with her juices.

She followed them other times. Compulsively into their secret hideaways in bleachers and alleys, in drive-ins and park bushes. It was too easy. And it was better than Brett the uncaring ever was.

She has always followed people, slipping through the shadows in their wake, pattering on soft-shod feet in and out of darkness and pools of light, daring them to turn and see her. Now she follows strangers. It is an altogether different proposition, fraught with risk and the dangers of discovery. She has a sixth sense that tells her when someone is just sliding off to be alone and when they are off to meet a lover or a husband. She cannot define it; maybe it's the release of musk and pheromones into the air, maybe it's that yeasty smell of arousal; maybe she has become so attuned to the gestures of secrecy that she knows them without conscious thought. Whatever it is, she is rarely wrong.

Adrienne waits outside the glass monolith. An office building like many others, nondescript in its conformity of sleek and soulless design. Her latest vicarious lover works here, and he will be leaving soon, leaving to meet his lover. She wonders what he tells his wife, what apologetic story of work and deadlines he will weave to cover his deception.

She watches him leave, striding into the windblown street, head lowered, dark trousers flapping around his legs. The colors of fall surround him; russet leaves, pumpkin-orange candy wrappers - and Adrienne's fox-red head as she slipstreams in his wake.

He enters a church. It is unlocked at this hour, although later it will be barred against the homeless who will sleep under its lintels. She slips in behind him, creeping into a pew in the middle, falling to her knees on the hassock and peering through laced fingers at her prey as he hesitates, looking around him before he slips into the vestibule at one side of the altar.

Apart from herself, Adrienne the irreverent, the church is now empty. She waits, head bowed in mock penitence until she hears the swift tapping of purposeful heels, hurrying down the aisle. It's Wednesday. It's five o'clock, time for an illicit quickie. Hail Mary, mother of grace.

The heels fade into silence, entering the vestibule. Adrienne imagines the soft kiss of greeting, the rustle of hands moving over crisp business linens, the sigh against the exposed neck. She waits, counting her heartbeats. Too soon and she risks discovery. Too late and she misses the heated foreplay, the bites and gasps.

On silent feet she approaches the wooden door. Her gut clenches as she oh, so slowly pushes the door open. She offers a prayer of gratitude to whoever has kept the door so silent on its oiled hinges. A dart, a duck, a flurry of skirts and she's in, holed in like a ferret, tucked behind the stacked music stands and trestle tables. One hand burrows under her skirt and into her panties in hot anticipation of what is to come.

She spreads her legs, and dips between them. Through the stalks of table legs and dusty surfaces she can see them. His mouth is already moving on bared breasts, the dark business suit hanging open as the infidel gropes with pale hands. A pinch of the rosy nipple, puckered and erect, quivering in anticipation. The open mouth on her breast.

"No marks," whispers the woman, then stifles a scream as he bites. A rosy bloom on the soft skin. The woman's nipples grow hard and the hot, sweet smell of arousal coils lazily into the room.

Adrienne's fingers circle her own sex, around and around, slowly, oh so slowly, touching the tender lips with careful fingers. She mustn't come too soon. She watches through drooping lids as the man lifts the dark skirt, bunching it in a large hand. Slender legs come into view. Higher, he drags the skirt higher, sliding it over quivering thighs, the rasp of linen on nylon sending sparks of static leaping into the charged air. Adrienne fancies that they could ignite in the heated tensions of the room.

The skirt is around the woman's waist now, as she leans back, arched over the stacked chairs. Her lover drops to his knees and pulls stockings and panties down and off in one swift movement. His mouth drops and latches onto her, sucking on her open flushed sex.

Adrienne sees the golden hands spreading the creamy thighs, sees the shining moisture as he plants his face deep into the pungent crevice, slurping loudly, swallowing, and sucking. Her own finger dips deep into the cream of her sex, and she brings it to her own mouth, tasting the salt and sour. She fixes her eyes on the man, and mimics his pistoning tongue with her own finger.

The woman's orgasm is sudden. Her upper body jolts, jolts again. The little death. Her mouth forms an O, rosebud pale, funeral rose pink.

The man rises, undoes his trousers, freeing his shaft, shiny and taut with tension.

Adrienne can almost feel the silky smoothness of it. She can imagine the slippery moisture oozing from the slotted tip. She is circling with two fingers now, slipping easily in and out of her own sodden sex, wet to the wrist, the tops of her thighs sticky and sweat-filmed.

He positions himself and plunges in, a smooth, sliding thrust, all the way to the hilt. The woman's hands delve down the back of his trousers, grasping his undulating buttocks, dragging him deeper and closer. She wraps a slender leg possessively around the back of his thighs, rubbing catlike over the expensive suit.

Adrienne plunges in and out with matching rhythm. Her breathing seems loud and erratic in the sepulchral room, but she knows from experience that they will not hear her. Their inner worlds are building, tension deep in the pits of bellies is consuming them, the gasp of the watcher in the shadows will go unnoticed in the sweet release of climax.

Adrienne comes, shuddering through her orgasm, mouth trembling open, eyes wide, struggling to control the timbre of her breathing, struggling to fill her lungs quietly enough to avoid discovery. She spirals down from her peak, still fingering the damp curls, touching her swollen lips with a gentle finger. She likes it when she comes first, then she can see their conclusion, unhampered.

They are nearly there. She watches as the thrusts get shorter, urgent, shuddering, spraddle legged thrusts, and then the fractured moment of climax as his thrusts become short, deep spurts. His head falls onto the woman's neck and he lies and pants for a moment.

They never indulge in the tender afterplay of lovers who truly care. The man raises his head, kisses his partner once on the lips. Then he lifts himself off, his penis damp and flaccid and tucks it away in his pants. His partner stems the gush of semen down her thighs with her fingers, catching the viscous fluid and bringing it to her mouth.

Adrienne closes her eyes momentarily, vicariously enjoying the grassy sour taste of freshly spilled seed. She wonders if they each shower before returning to their homes, or do they tell their partners that they are sweaty from the gym or the office? She wonders if they will make love to their own partners this evening after this, their irreverent encounter. There is nothing sacred about this sex.

He kisses the woman again briefly, then dresses and strides away without a backward glance. From her hiding place, Adrienne the shadow child holds her breath as he passes, then resumes watching the woman. The woman gazes after her lover, momentarily wistful. Then she wipes herself with her nylons and pulls on her panties. She takes a new pair of nylons from her bag and smoothes the creases out of the once crisp executive suit. A slash of funeral rose to the kiss-crushed lips, then she leaves, striding past the stalker in the shadows.

She has always followed people, slipping through the shadows in their wake, pattering on soft-shod feet in and out of darkness and pools of light, daring them to turn and see her.