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So I had a dream the other night. I fell asleep over my keyboard, and some wonderfully wicked sorceress came along and put a spell on me. It was a little like that Kafka story, except instead of a moth on a windowsill, she transed me into a fountain pen. On a chain. Mounted on one of those tacky faux marble stands. When I awoke I found myself fastened to a veneer countertop in a bank, in a small midwestern crossroads town. It took me several days to divine this from the conversations of customers passing through - our countrys become so homogenized, what with the same stores and restaurants dotting every city. At the outset my days were not too bad, considering my new station in life. Of course, the long periods of monotonous inaction were occasionally broken up by brief incidents of harsh ritual punishment and humiliation. Impatient patrons standing in line would beat me against the counter, whip my chain rhythmically about, and yes, sometimes make me write bad checks.
Soon though, things took a turn... to the raunchy. It started with that young man with impossibly dark eyes who used me to jot dirty glish limericks on the back of his international money order. Then a bored thirtysomething woman in a business suit enlisted me to turn her book of check stubs into a silent porno flip movie. My virgin indigo ink - I never dreamed stick figures could do such things to one another! And then there was the hip goth girl with the nose ring, not long from high school, who felt Ben Franklin might look better in drag. (We tried.)Eventually these harmless time-killers gave way to more disturbing episodes. One quiet day a forty-ish divorcee, with grackle-black hair and thoughts just as dark, had me scribble an intricate revenge fantasy starring her ex-husband onto the back of his alimony check. Its a good thing electronic transfer is the thing now, or that would have been one unsettling slip of paper in his next statement. Together we turned him into a silent settee on the hardwood floor of his old bedroom, upon which she and her new lover ground out their lust nightly in ever more inventive positions. Another day, a retiree with a three-day beard plucked a loan brochure from the nearby plastic holder. An ominous agenda glinted coldly from his eyes as he reached for me. Before his turn at the teller mercifully arrived, we had made over that Pollyanna couple smiling vapidly in their new front yard into a scene from de Sades Justine. I couldnt help squirming in his hand as he bade me draw those stretch marks on her elongated nipples and traced the arches of her aching, tiptoed feet. I have to confess though, the ink in my chamber simmered strangely as I empathized with what was being done to her. The sight of that hook thrust rudely in her ass particularly made the spring holding my refill in place twitch. The interlude had me wondering just where this all might lead.Eventually it came - on a final, crazy, memorable day. The banking crisis had hit. Turmoil filled the air. The thoughtful folks at AIG had pocketed their fat bonuses, and people were decidedly nonplussed with the financial industry. On a sunny Saturday morning everyone in town had descended on the place, determined to move their money somewhere safe. Like a mason jar. The roped-off line stretched out the door and down the block. The clientele was fuming. Primitive emotions ruled the day. Someone broke out a legal pad, brusquely snatched me up and started venting some long-building resentments. Before I could even get my ink flowing smoothly, it had turned into a group grope. I was passed around, from man to woman and back again. A story was taking shape on the page - like the ones you secretly cranked out with your pals beneath the desks of high school history class. And it was not pretty. One unspeakable act was grafted onto the one above it, mob mentality ensuring that none of the authors need take ownership of the collective brutality ing beneath their hands. By midway down the second page, every employee in the bank - from manager to tellers to security guard - had been verbally stripped, bent over and tied to office chairs, desks and counters. Each in turn become intimately acquainted with one financial instrument or another, to the unbridled delight of the account holders. Collateralized debt obligations were forced upon the staff up and down the writhing pecking order. Deposits and withdrawals were entered over and over - manually, digitally, however you please - in a furious frenzy of fiscal fornication. Till finally, the bank clientele had expended the last of their toxic assets. A scattering of seed capital and other liquidity virtually matted the establishments once pristine carpet.It was a traumatic day, to be sure. One from which Im not sure Ill totally recover. The bank went under, of course, its furniture and fixtures dismantled and repossessed. I found my way - marble anchor, chain and all - to a business surplus warehouse, where now I sit. A funny thing has happened though as I wait here day after day, processing all of the curious energy that passed through me in that bank. I miss the dutiful, nonjudgmental channeling of all those baser impulses from anonymous passersby. To my surprise, I now find myself craving to once again be a medium for the unfiltered, depraved thoughts of a diverse and unpredictable multitude, all percolating with private perversities. To know their half-hidden fantasies, shameful and shameless, and be the verbal instrument that gives them elaborated .And so I am here. Waiting to be used. To please customers as they wait for the teller window of life to call them up. What is your private erotic nirvana-nightmare? Im taking orders. And doing my best to obey them. May I write you a vignette? Or shall we create some mischief together in prose? I cant promise a masterpiece, but I will guarantee you your moneys worth (ha!). FDIC insured up to 250,000 words.Update Just in case the above is overly cryptic, Im looking to be commissioned to write a vignette or even short story to bring to life (in prose at least) someones fantasy. You would supply the theme(s), perhaps some details youd like to see in it, and then I set myself to work. The only payment I would receive is - if you deem the finished product adequate in meeting your desires - the knowledge that reading it brought you some pleasure. Thank you in advance for allowing me to serve you in this way.
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The Flickering (for E - like everything else these days)
The woman I adore and share a row house with is right now on the couch with her lover. They've just finished the romantic dinner I cooked them, and a couple of empty wine glasses rest on an end table. I am dressed still, but neither of them has a stitch of clothing on. She is straddling his lap facing him, her hands clamped onto his collarbone, elbows resting against his chest for support. She is leaning into him, leaning into a diligently tendered, full-bodied open mouth kiss. I'm watching rapt as her head turns first thirty degrees this way, then that, and her adorable bare ass dances the opposite direction each time, like a metronome. She is painting a portrait of her desire into his mouth with the brush of her tongue using a palette of what must be vivid primary colors.
The only light in the room is coming from the wrought iron and red art glass candelabras on each end table, casting subtle micro shadows as the two lovers wriggle and undulate in the flickering crossfire. He has one hand on her right breast, grabbing voluptuously and occasionally crushing her nipple thoroughly. The other strong arm is possessively exploring and caressing the expanse of her back from the bottom of her rear end to the delicate Irish skin of her milky shoulders.
As I sit on the area rug in front of them, I notice she's moving differently now. She's thrust her pelvic region purposefully against his abdomen, this way and that as if searching for something. Faint begging sounds are coming from deep inside her, and finally his hand leaves her back to disappear between their bodies. Soon thereafter, she has stopped fishing and has started falling. The shadows on her thigh muscles whisper the story of the slow trembling descent. The begging has smoothed out into a long slow moan that makes clear what is transpiring between them.
And gradually she builds into a rhythm. Ascending like the evening star in the candlelight and setting like a gibbous moon late in the night. Over and over. I sit on my haunches, transfixed. Due to the side lighting, there is only a dark cavern where their bodies are joined. They are fucking mere inches in front of my direct sight, but in complete and exclusive privacy. Only faint wet smacking sounds betray their plunging and withdrawing. She is making new noises now, mewing, whimpering cries. My own cock is pressing fecklessly against the spikes of its cage in response to a cruelly beautiful scene that would have made Torquemada proud. I haven't been inside of her in three weeks. Not since she had me bring her to climax without coming myself, when he was away on a trip.
And now, she has need of me it seems. A hand comes off of his shoulder and reaches around her back. She points lazily but unequivocally, an index finger quiveringly indicating the crevice of her ass. I comprehend. I lean forward and separate her cheeks as they continue their hypnotic bobbing regimen. I crane my neck back, thrust my face in between, and begin to lick. I am barely touching her at first as I work on matching her pace, but soon am able to do both at once with gusto. They are firm licks now to her rosebud, as my head bobs with her like a perverse version of a seventies disco freak.
And then I hear it, I think. A soft coo, mixed in and nearly lost amidst the other louder sounds she is giving to him in a nonstop symphony. I can barely pick it out of the melee, but I decide that it is mine. It is my sole payment for the two hours I spent preparing the glazed salmon, rosemary pilaf and tarragon string beans earlier. I've made out in the exchange like a bandit. And she is making out with him as I passionately make out with her gorgeous anus.
Her moans get louder and the rockabilly dance on his lap grows so furious I can barely get my linguistic two cents in now and then. She is screaming out her creed now. It is the stump speech of a hedonist demagogue... projected across the audience of the room, full of unrestrained hyperbole and conviction. She is announcing to both men in her life, with argumentative insistence, that they could not possibly know this feeling in a million years of being male. And then, her point apparently made, she gives it a few muffled parting reiterations before dissolving forward onto his shoulders, body limp as he once again holds her up, her lovely snakelike dark hair mingling with his in the dim and fickle light.
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(Sorry about the extra line breaks. It seems to be impossible negotiating the formatting quirks of this website.)
Being Him (tags: whipping boy, erotic transmigration of identity)
“I want you to be him.”
“Wha— You want what?“ Jeff uttered through the cotton candy cloud of distraction in his head. Lisa’s clothed body stood pressed against the back of his nude one, the rough denim of her jeans and cold belt buckle on his bare ass accentuating the everyday power she normally exerted over him. Her feathery dark brown hair maddeningly tickled at his broad muscular shoulders, warm breath flowing welcome over the side of his face as she talked. Her silken arms tangled delightfully in his as she pressed his hands up to the white plaster wall where, she explained, she would like them to remain.
“Just what I said. I want you to be him. I’ve watched you doing the improvs in class. You’re getting pretty good. You can pull it off. You’ve met him – that time out on the patio at Clyde’s. I’ve shown you some of the emails he’s sent me. You’ve read his infernally teasing texts. You know his ‘voice’. And you’ve heard the whole sordid story ad nauseum.“
Jeff bit his lip as he stared at the wall. The feel of this woman he desired so pressed against him was like a raucous cheering section at the ballpark. Running counter to that were nagging doubts that this was good medicine for the psyche of this woman he had come to care about. And truth be told, given her strong feelings of late about the guy in question, Jeff had some self preservational impulses on behalf of his body with respect to unleashing her pent up fury.
“Him” was a fellow named George. Lisa and George had had a fling, years ago now. A long flirty acquaintance consummated by a weekend tryst, followed by years of staying teasingly in touch after both had ostensibly moved on. Except that Lisa hadn’t. Not entirely. And in the last few months, the stepped up contact he had made with her was taking its toll. Stirring up feelings that had nowhere to play out. George was with someone. He liked Lisa, but in the way that one likes a flavor of soup so much that he saves it for a rainy day, stashed in the back of his cupboard. For months, until he thinks of it. Lisa was his can of Chicken Tortellini Minestrone. She wanted to be his daily meal. This was the reality. And he wasn’t being very gentlemanly about it, calling and writing her now and then and keeping her strung along. Recently he had dropped a deafening bombshell on her: he was engaged. Whether he kept in contact out of sadistic pastime or just was letting off “single man” steam she could not say for sure. But it was making her in turns sick to her stomach, wistful and angry.
Jeff had heard it all, she was right. They had struck up a friendship at the acting class they met in at the local community college. Over beers after class one night she spilled the whole tortured tale. He had sat and listened empathetically to her each time she had another run-in with him. A few weeks later, the beers let loose more confidences, and the two amateur actors learned that they both had a taste for kinky roles in the bedroom. Both being single, this led inevitably to some nonsexual BDSM play between them. It was nonsexual at her behest. Jeff adored Lisa and could not get enough of her. She in return liked him, enjoyed him, even at times adored him-- after a fashion. But that fashion, like the choices she pulled from her wardrobe each morning, changed with her interior weather. Jeff was okay with it; as long as he got to be in her life somehow, it was enough.
“Please? I want this. And you’d be great, I’m sure of it.” She was whispering hotly near his ear now as she spoke, using every unfair advantage that a woman who had a man firmly on a hook could.
He turned his head, hands still pressed against the wall where she’d placed them, and looked warmly at her. “Are you sure, Lisa? Maybe it’s best just to let it go. You’re going to have to eventually, I think.”
Lisa took a deep breath and her face grew serious.
“I need this Jeff. I want this. I’m so full of… feelings. I want them out.” She looked down pensively for a moment, as if contemplating a fork in the road. Then she looked up and, smiling saucily, added: “do this for me… and I’ll let your tongue go to some of those dark places it’s been aching to for weeks now.” She kept a flirtatious but determined thin smile as she locked eyes with him, inches away.
Jeff blushed. For a moment he was embarrassed that he’d spilled one too many secrets after third pints of stout at their pub near campus. A little too much detail about his predilections for submissive sexual service, or at least they were prematurely revealed. And perhaps he hadn’t been as cagey as he thought and she’d caught him eyeing her cute rear end too many times. A flurry of butterflies took flight in his stomach as he contemplated what she had just suggested -- and what would likely play out between now and then.
She was going to have her way by hook or by crook. He assented.
“So. It’s late at night, and you – George – have just shown up at my door. Keep your hands on the wall but do the speaking part. Okay? Knock ‘em dead Brando.”
Jeff closed his eyes, briefly letting the legislative body of apprehensions in his head have one last noisy parliamentary debate. He then moved on to conjuring up the man who had tormented his lovely friend so thoughtlessly these last few months. Using everything he’d learned in class, he dragged George into the room with them. He opened his eyes now, a new man.
“Hey there kiddo! Was just in the neighborhood and I noticed your light on.” Jeff faced the wall as he spoke the part.
“Hey kiddo?? What the hell are you doing, knocking on my door this late, especially after what you told me last week?” Jeff could hear Lisa unbuckling her thin black leather weave belt as she spoke, then slowly slithering it out of the loops in her jeans.
“Like I said… I was walking home and saw you were up still, thought I’d say—“
“George what are you doing here? I’ve told you what it does to me.“
“Heyyy, sorry. Thought it couldn’t hurt to just stop in and say…” Jeff heard the leather end of Lisa’s belt fall slack against the floor and a tinkle of the buckle end which apparently was in her hand.
“Couldn’t hurt. Couldn’t hurt. You thought it couldn’t hurt. Well buddy boy, I have some news for you. Things DO hurt. Here are some of the things that can hurt. It hurts to be an afterthought. It hurts to be somebody that someone takes out to play with over the phone every few weeks. It hurts to be strung along like a marionette. A lot of things… hurt.”
“Whoa. Sorry. Maybe I should just le—“
Suddenly a loud crack echoed around the room, and a quarter second later Jeff learned that it was his bare behind, in conjunction with the leather on Lisa’s belt, that had given birth to the sound. A sting spread across his right cheek.
“No, maybe you should stand here and listen,” Lisa corrected him.
“I—Okay. You sound upset. I’m so-HO-rry.”
A snapping crack punctuated his last word, cleaving it in half. A sharp slap of the belt across both of his buttocks.
“Upset? Yes. Now, any idea why I might be ‘upset’, champ?”
“I, uh, I guess it’s about… the news. That I… shared.”
“And what news was that, Mr. Town Crier?” Jeff let out a yelp as he felt the belt cut into the flesh at the top of his legs, belatedly appreciating her inadvertent pun.
“Um, the engagement. You’re upset that I’m getting mar—eeyee!“ The belt blazed a new trail, twice as hard as before, landing lower on the backs of his thighs.
“I’m upset that you apparently were getting very serious with… Fifi… but weren’t man enough to tell me. Instead you kept me on the line, thinking, imagining, being a FOOL basically.”
The word “fool” arrived accompanied by a red hot slash of the belt to his shoulder blade area. He hunched forward in pain, but held the wall and his footing. It was an article of pride for him, and he wanted to assure Lisa he was with her as far as she wanted to go with this twisted project.
Jeff caught his breath and braced himself before offering the required retort. “It’s Fiona…”
“Whatever the slut’s name is.” A diagonal slice rained hot lead from two to eight O’Clock across the middle of his back. Jeff was now twisting his body in shapes that aligned with the trajectory of the damnable belt. He was already doing quick calculations on what his back would look like, and for how long. He guessed that he wouldn’t be hanging out by the pool in his complex any time soon.
“I- I didn’t want to upset you by telling you.” Jeff had picked up that George had a classic male lack of assertiveness when delivering unwelcome news to a woman. He had been studying his character closely without realizing it over the past couple months as he listened to Lisa’s lamentations.
“So you thought the news would go down easier if you waited longer, eh? Meanwhile having intimate conversation with me in stolen moments, pulling in my heart again over the phone? I’m surprised you didn’t just wait till your wedding day and then text me a snapshot of her in her dress,” Lisa dished out sarcastically. A flurry of slashes drew a messy "Zorro" kanji on Jeff’s back, eliciting an ooh and ahh with each stroke of her leathery pen.
Jeff cringed and gasped, but fought for the wind to contribute something. “I—I’m sorry Lisa.”
“You are. You are one sorry ass. You don’t know the half of how sorry you look. Fifi’s gonna be horrified when she sees the black and blue note I’m sending home to her tonight.”
“Fiona…”
“Dance, puppet. Dance!” Lisa was slashing at Jeff’s calves and ankles now. He hopped from foot to foot with each strike, hoping that fit the bill.
“Here’s what I want to know from you George. If you can summon up the balls to be honest. What was that weekend at the Carlton, really? What did it mean?”
“Lisa… I’ve told you… we both wanted that. It was… it was mutual.”
The belt returned to his ass with a cymbal clash. “I know you didn’t KIDNAP me, fuckhead. I want to know what it MEANT. Was it just a lay? Just a three-day, Jacuzzi tub and room service-fueled FUCK?”
The F-word was punctuated by her hardest swing yet, followed closely by Jeff’s deepest groan as his rear end exploded in new depths of ache.
Jeff went mute for a moment. He knew that to back off now for his own flesh’s sake would mean Lisa was cheated out of the precious catharsis she was seeking. He had to venture onward. Pool season be damned.
“Lisa. You were hot for it. I couldn’t resist, the way you were looking at me those days. It was… a fuck. More than a fuck… it was a total fuckfest! It was an awesomely hot weekend. But… it was just… sex.”
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!” Lisa roared in sarcastic approval. “Balls. You FINALLY got some.” She laid into it now, with six straight full-effort blows to his already bruised ass. Whap. Whap. Whap! Whap. Whap! Whap!! No rest for her, or George's understudy, in between the compassionless strokes. Fifi was going to be looking at some pretty damning evidence every night for the next few weeks. And it served him right.
Jeff’s legs were trembling now as his breath turned to a sprinter’s pant. His body was writhing, his butt tracing circles out in the air that only egged Lisa’s libido on for more. His eyes were filled with water. In part for the physical pain, but mostly at standing so close to Lisa’s anger and hurt.
“Take your hands off the wall. I want you to turn and face me. “
Jeff did as she bade, sneaking in a stretching of his legs which had started to cramp slightly.
“Now spread your legs far apart. Wider!”
Jeff was in a low, spread vee now, and shaking still.
“Now bow to me. Bow like you’re begging for absolution.”
He bent forward at the waist, until he was looking at the floor.
“Now we’re going to teach you a little lesson. In vulnerability, and decency. I want you to reach back with your hands, grab those flaming red ass cheeks, and pull them as far apart as they go. NOW.”
Jeff did as she instructed, nervous about what she might have in mind.
“Now feel that cool breeze where you normally don’t? That breeze is called vulnerability. Your most tender and sensitive place is exposed to the vagaries of the heartless world. How does it feel, dipstick?”
“It feels… open. And… I’m scared Lisa.” Jeff was talking to her as Jeff now, along with playing his part.
“Yesss, wide open! Now, wouldn’t it be nice if people respected that openness, and didn’t take advantage of it?”
“Yes Lisa.” Jeff wasn’t really sure how George responded verbally to Lisa’s direct challenges. He was reverting to his own voice, and a generic attempt to placate her.
“Yes. It’s a shame though. Sometimes people don’t respect your baring yourself and tread carefully. Sometimes, they just see a wide open wound and smell blood.”
Jeff shivered now, and it wasn’t the room temperature.
“Now count, pig. Count as I explore and toy with your vulnerable places. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep that defenseless opening exposed to me at all costs. No matter how much I hurt it. When I come back for more, I expect it unreservedly open to me. No protection for you.”
Lisa reared back and brought the belt forward. It traced a line straight down his spine, an exclamation mark dotted with the tip of the belt on the inside of his left ass cheek. That it missed the bullseye was little solace for Jeff as it stung viciously.
“One!” Jeff cried.
Lisa reared back a second time and let fly. She was finding her aim. This one landed right on target.
Jeff choked on saliva as he struggled the next word out. “Gll-twoo”. His head was nodding slowly as if trying to shake out the throbbing through the top of his skull.
“Keep that back arched and your butt out. You asked for all of this with the way you’ve comported yourself. Now act like you understand.”
Another swing, and this time the tip landed on the inside of the right globe. An angry red highway was forming down the midline of his back leading to the scene of the crime.
"Th-three."
Lisa leaned forward half a step now, and let fly another lash. This one was measured so that it lapped around through his legs and nabbed his dangly bits but good.
Jeff howled. It took nearly ten seconds before he could form a single word. "Foooour..."
"Oops. Sorry Fifi! Don't worry, I'm sure they'll work again in about a week!"
Jeff was sniffling softly now.
“Kinda sucks when people see your soft spot and just have a field day with it, doesn’t it buster?”
Jeff nodded. “Yes Lisa. It… really hurts. I’m… sorry.” He began crying at the final word.
“Not half as much as you’re gonna be.” Lisa let loose with a final salvo of leather hail to his sensitive crevice. She wasn’t aiming so carefully now, opting for the shotgun approach instead. She caught his hand with one of them, causing Jeff to howl and lose his grip until he managed to convince himself to grab the cheek and spread again two strikes later. He was sobbing fully now, his head hanging limp as remained bowed in her direction.
It was several minutes before Jeff realized that the hail of fire had ended. He was gathering his breath slowly but still looking at the floor. Soon he realized that someone else in the room was crying. He looked up to see that it was Lisa, sitting on the side of the bed. The belt was coiled in a heap at her feet.
Jeff looked at Lisa, his heart pouring out toward her. He struggled back to a stand, his cramped calves slowly remembering their skills. He went over cautiously, sat down beside her.
She turned toward him and hugged his naked bruised body. She was crying on his shoulder now. Jeff put his hand on her upper back, and stroked her gently.
“I just feel so mad at myself. For getting so sucked in, for so long… for so… little. And disgusted that I’m letting it bother me so much. I just feel so pathetic. I want it all to go away.”
Jeff offered some words of consolation and perspective. As hard as he tried to make them useful, they came out ringing empty and impotent as soon as they hit the air of the room. It just would take time, he tried to say. The heart moves at its own pace. We wouldn’t be alive if that weren’t the case. Its insistent autonomy giveth, and it taketh away.
After a long while, she had cried her fill for the time being. She wiped her eyes with the shoulder of her blouse, reached around Jeff’s neck with both silky arms and gave him a tight hug.
“I hope I didn’t hurt you,” she said.
Jeff looked at her with raised eyebrows and an wry grin, and she broke into a embarrassed smile. They both laughed at her perfunctory remark.
“I’ll heal. I’ll heal if you will,” Jeff said. He let out a huge sigh of tension which had built up during their savage improvisation. He asked her drily if she thought they could get class credit for this toward the final presentation.
Looking around her room he spotted his pile of clothes. He got up to head for them. Lisa grabbed his arm and said, “hey, are you forgetting something?”
Jeff looked back at her quizzically. She got up, turned her back to him, then hooked her thumbs into the sides of her jeans, pulling them down along with her panties in one purposeful flourish. Presently Jeff was staring straight at the prize he had been dreaming of for so long.
Lisa crawled onto the bed, and flopped down on her stomach. She parted her legs, reached back and peeled her ass cheeks apart invitingly. She looked back at him and winked. “Now be gentle about it. You know, this is one of my sensitive spots.”
Jeff did not have to be instructed twice. He dove in after her, showering her bottom and hands with lavish kisses, before meticulously getting down to the heart of the matter.
Lisa cooed appreciatively. “Get it in good and deep now, Georgie. You know that’s what you’re good for.”
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For E., who sometimes fears life is slipping away from her (use the harpoon gun, girl - it'll snag that sucker dead in its tracks).
Reverie
Of what life might be like
on the clasp end of the figurative leash
of a sexually selfish but socially adjusted
dictatorwoman
who is saying goodbye in the morning
as she heads out the door
but expects the house to be cleaned
and a candle lit dinner for two ready
for serving by Seven
because she's bringing home a friend
yes, the one she met last month
the one she told me about
with her eyes full of glitter
and a voice somewhat rushed
her chest visibly flushed
and I'm sure that I blushed
at this latest reminder
that my male pride
is her favorite seat cushion
there to support and comfort
and is even noticed sometimes
when she reaches down to adjust it
Yes, that friend
Oh and I'll be sleeping in the guest bedroom tonight
Because she thinks this may be the night
When all of his wordless questions
are finally answered
and innuendo gives way to in the end- oh!
And I may kiss her feet now
to thank her for being
without a trace of apology
exactly what she is
and that watercress and clover sprouts salad
with the pine nuts and olive oil
and freshly squeezed lemon juice
would be nice
and he likes Cabernet, she thinks
and maybe some soft Spanish guitar music
and thank you for pressing my lavender silk skirt
she says as she tousles my hair and then
a kiss to the forehead and
that sassy smile lingers in the foyer
like Cheshire's perfume
for minutes after the door closes |
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Ode to a Bud in Bloom
You ask me for the reasons
I prefer my lady's rose
to the one that grows out in the yard
sashaying as the June wind blows.
The mind churns and sifts; tributes jostle,
trading turns in line for your perusal.
The Sweetheart's perfect pleasing pulchritude
is apt to tease the eye, it's true
But it has no hidden depths to plumb
with nose or tongue or thumb
or any other hardy implement of love.
Were I a butterfly, perhaps-- but I am not
And so that well-regarded rooted prize
falls short in nourishing appeal.
If my fingers were to touch the petalled folds
of the blushing bauble in the courtyard,
tell me: Would it coo or moan, or sigh, or
soak in one bare hint of my desire?
My lady's earthy bud, when grazed in tender toil
or kissed in reverent pilgrim's prayer
resonates in vibrant, mutual murmur
that is bantered 'tween blossom and feeder.
More, the garden rose - so free in demonstration
Shows off its fleshless fuschia feat
to birds and bees and bugs
and every bustling busybody
who happens to brush by.
My love's, though, lies ensconced in walls
Her hidden, hallowed corridor--
Library of longing for the privileged soul
who, drawn by dark forbidden intrigue,
would arrive in humble study.
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(courtesy tags: M/F/m, spanking, unauthorized use of antique items, liberal appropriation of classic art as jack-off fodder, oblique Clinton reference)
Brush Strokes
It was an art history lesson the likes of which had probably never echoed through the halls of any of the country's finest schools. Dee Dee sat slightly askance on the corner of one of her padded straight-backed dining table chairs, dark-stockinged legs crossed and holding the remote control as her old slide projector hummed and glowed a few feet hence. She and Michael were working their way through tray 7A of her old collection from undergrad days, and it was bringing back a steady, gentle stream of cherished memories. She recalled how she'd studied these nightly with Victoria nearly three decades back. It was in that rundown apartment they'd shared on Wisteria Street during an eventful, passion-spiked week leading up to her AH407 final and subsequent graduation. Her roommate had sat with her through the endless pageant of color, light and form, despite having completed the same class the year before. How life had inched past and flown by in the many years since then! She wondered if her old friend, wherever she might be now, recalled those final days at school as fondly.
Dee Dee's thumb summoned the next picture, and she gasped quietly to herself at Manet's "Luncheon on the Grass". A person in the room would have been forgiven thinking it was she who had the vibrating plug inside of her. But that was Michael's distracting burden to endure as he stood attentively a couple feet away from her, facing the screen. She had dryly joked as she inserted it and switched it on low that it would simulate the "buzz" of a milling crowd in a gallery room at the MoMA, thereby providing him a more credible "museum" experience there in the living room of her three-story brownstone. He stood barefoot with legs spread, naked in fact save for a collar, on the oak hardwood floor of the majestic hundred-year-old room. The fingers of his hands were interlaced behind his neck, elbows pointed outward, shoulder blades visibly punctuating a trim, smooth back beneath a nicely-defined pair of arms and well-developed shoulders. A barely-perceptible sheen of sweat glinted on his forehead and dampened his short dark bangs as his eyes trained determinedly on the projector screen.
The subject of the painting brought to her imagination, iconically at least, her own life since coming to New York last summer. A woman, luminously nude yet unashamedly casting a thin, pensive, even confident gaze towards the foreground, as if contemplating some pleasures to come later in the day. Two fully-clothed men sat with her: one more passively by her side, companion-like, politely but only partially listening to the other, who seemed to be holding forth authoritatively on something. A thin cane rested in the left hand of the man doing the talking as his right one gestured, perhaps making a point about the unclothed woman with them. His casually outstretched legs straddled her personal space as she sat beside her mute partner, as if subtly asserting a degree of ownership over her, or at the very least, welcome and unfettered access. Dee Dee wondered if perhaps the woman was thinking about him using the cane on her later that afternoon. A picnic basket had been well-picked through, its leftovers now spilled amongst the woman's apparently discarded clothing. In the background, gracefully waiting, was another younger woman, gossamer-clad and amiable-looking, her relationship to the group somewhat amorphously defined at present. That would be Dee Dee's friend Nadia, she supposed, whom Ephraim had played with since before she'd met him.
She'd given Michael his usual thirty seconds to take in the painting. "Well? Getting harder now, I think." Michael had tentatively pleased her so far by fairly cruising through the Impressionists with only a handful of corrections.
He stammered. "Uh, I... oh... um, Ren- Renoir?"
Dee Dee picked up the eighteen inch antique clothing brush that had rested in her lap and reached back, affording herself the full openness of the chair she was perched on. She then sharply and swiftly brought the business side of the wooden implement around to land it hard and squarely upon his buttocks. Michael jumped and sucked in air as the crack echoed throughout the room, unprepared despite having taken several similar to that already in the past half hour.
"Mmm. Colors really aren't saturated enough for Renoir. Too crisp as well. I thought we'd gone over that," Dee Dee instructed flatly.
"Oh! Uh, uh- Manet! Manet?" Michael excitedly offered.
"Very good!". Dee Dee reached out again and this time lightly ran the smooth wood around on his rear end, soothing the recent sting just a bit. Michael flinched in surprise nevertheless when the cold surface touched his tingling skin.
Michael was a math professor on the faculty of a local community college, and he'd proven to be a delightful museum companion for her in the weeks since she'd been seeing him. Cultured in his own way, he was well-read on a variety of subjects, and had frequently suprised her with new ways of looking at things she had long appreciated. Like when he pointed out the presence of the Golden Ratio in the works of artists like da Vinci or Dali - or in the proportions of some of the old buildings around the city. But as much as she enjoyed trapsing through the city's cathedrals of art with him, the man definitely had gaping holes in his familiarity with the master works. She was addressing those deficits now with regular afternoon lessons.
The bucolic picnic scene on the screen gave way to one she had looked forward to teasing him with. "L'Origine du monde", a less famous work from the 1860s that was too scandalous even for the Parisian public at the time. It was a large close-up of a voluptuous nude female form, legs splayed languidly, with a generous muff of dark hair covering her sex, but with vaginal lips clearly showing. The relative obscurity of the artist would ensure some exercise for Dee Dee's right arm. Truth be told, she was encouraged by his progress, but also itching to give him a good paddling.
Michael's eyes visibly widened at the sudden frank image displayed so large in front of them. Dee Dee smiled at having shocked him.
"A little porn from the 19th century. I thought you'd like it."
Michael stammered and then stopped. He truly had no clue. Dee Dee knew that would be the case, as the painting hadn't even been shown publicly until just two decades ago. Ineffectually, he commenced throwing out a slow march of sacrificial names.
"I just... don't... Boticelli."
"Sweet man of sacred angels! How could you?" Dee Dee cried, beside herself with glee. The brush, ready in her hand now, drew back and came crashing unceremoniously onto his ass. Michael jerked and let out a high pitched grunt. His own member, having partially engorged, relaxed and re-swollen countless times during the afternoon's session, bobbed to life again following the blow. He eyed the picture again, stalling for time, trying to let the latest sting dissipate.
Dee Dee caught on, and would have none of it. She needed to get going soon too. Time to speed up the rules. "Ten seconds."
Startled, Michael glanced quickly at her with a momentary glare.
"Um, Geo-orge-uh something, Georges...?"
"Pichard? Nope." Another shot soon rang round the room, accompanied by a yelp. Michael's rear was starting to faintly glow now. This greatly pleased her highly-refined sense of color and composition. It was also doing welcome things between her legs.
Michael was working harder now. Some of their conversations were haltingly filtering back now. "Oh, who was... guy you told me about at dinner, the S and M one... Abril, Avril?"
"Not bad. Sorry." Whack! Michael grimaced hard, then writhed in place in the blow's aftermath in the contorted, primitive gyration of an aboriginal tribesman celebrating the coming of the Goddess. To his credit his feet remained in their positions and he kept his hands touching behind his head, though barely. Eventually he straightend up again. His bottom was the hue of melted raspberry sorbet.
Dee Dee stroked the side of his face gently, pleased that he'd readied himself for another try, hopeless as it clearly was. He made a pffissing sound as the building tension eased out through a pair of exasperated lips. Taking two deep but ragged breaths, he recommitted his clasped fingers for the balance of today's tutoring session. She raised her eyebrows again and looked at him expectantly.
"I just have no-- oh hell, Goya." His body sagged visibly in resignation as he readied for the next payment upon his flesh.
Dee Dee laughed. She had to make this one especially hard. The Spaniard would have been amused, no doubt. The sound was so loud this time that she worried momentarily for her neighbors. Surprisingly, Michael's vocalization was replaced by a silent, stretched-open-mouthed mime of pain as he did another slow motion 1970's boogie-in-place. His cheeks had saturated to a full cherry now. Pantone color chart #1935, Dee Dee guessed.
"Come on my sweet. I bet you've even jacked off to this one on line."
Michael was breathing marathon-heavy now. He was clearly at this point only focussed on his throbbing behind. The licentiously taunting feminine sex looming up on the screen was no longer a question to be answered, but rather a victorious, mocking observer and sisterly accomplice to his Mistress in the lesson she was delivering.
"Time's up!" Dee Dee got up out of her chair for extra leverage and made the last one a whole body modern dance move worthy of a Saturday night gig at Lincoln Center. A veritable melodramatic Japanese martial arts lunge, with fluid, operatic beauty. It was a fitting cymbal clash finale in the fading daylight of today's session.
Michael cried out anew and found yet one more way to grind in place, as tears at last spilled onto his cheeks. He sobbed quietly a few times. Dee Dee noted this with some relief. She didn't want to leave him without a release of at least some sort, as she went off to take her own of a more directly orgasmic variety with Efraim.
"That's Gustave Courbet, my gallant neophyte. I thought you little boys knew all the French porn."
Michael's head hung as he began to catch his breath and regain his composure. Gustave Courbet. He'd remember the name.
Dee Dee stood with him now, caressing his ass firmly but kindly with one hand, both smoothing over and massaging in the hurt from the brush. She sidled up close to him now, teasing him with her petite and ever-tempting 50-year-old body. She stroked his cock absently with her other hand and spoke softly into her prized sub's ear.
"You're improving with each day, my dear. We'll make an art historian out of you yet. Might take a few years."
He turned his head slightly, wary of the last comment but proud that she felt he was picking things up.
"I have to go now. I'm already late for Ephraim."
He nodded, looking down again. She had told him earlier of tonight's date with her master. He was well aware of her other needs and how this man met them, and was quite fascinated by the arrangement, in fact. Still, the primal male in him registered that evolutionary flush of shame and jealousy that she was about to spend an evening giving herself so utterly and submissively to another man.
"I'm leaving the books I told you about on the coffee table, love. I want you to study them tonight. I will think of you from time to time, perhaps, in between... things. So, if he decides to slip a Dutch Masters cigar up my ass to work me open to receiving him there I want to think of you getting into Rembrandt van Rijn's masterful use of darkness and light."
Michael glanced over at the coffee table as she spoke and thought he spotted a dark, foreboding cover with bright title print.
"And if I have my nose buried in Ephraim's pubic bush after he's forced himself into my throat, I want to think of yours dutifully buried in the one on Florentine artists of the Renaissance. I'll be quizzing you tomorrow on that."
Michael closed his eyes, letting her words soak in and getting intimate once again with the burn. His own member had never been in her mouth other than for a quick tease.
"And if he deigns to favor me by coming inside my vagina, why, I doubt I'll be thinking about you at all. Just the same, there's a fabulous volume of Georges Braque and the cubists there that you'll want to take a look at too."
Michael drank her in again with incredulous, but clearly captivated, eyes.
"Now, help me put on my corset."
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Ever find yourself perusing profiles, and you come across one where the HTML is broken, so it's all a gibberish-looking spew? It could be the old-ish browser I've got on this computer. But since I've been getting up to speed on web development of late, I started sifting through one just now. And... found myself getting turned on. Just look at these tags (I believe they're CSS) and imagine what that webpage had in store for me (delimiters changed to get it to show up here).
[w:SnapToGridInCell/]
[w:TrackMoves/]
[w:WrapTextWithPunct/]
[w:UseAsianBreakRules/]
[w:DontBreakConstrainedForcedTables/]
[w:DontGrowAutofit/]
For those unfamiliar with CSS, it's pretty much what it looks like. Some sultry Asian domme was going to lock my leash to the bars in her cage and watch my every move from her seat on the couch. Then, apparently bored with that after awhile she would come in and wrap me in cellophane and poke needles in me. And then subject me to some unnamed ancient Eastern torture, and if I didn't break she'd have her goons strap me to a table and leave me till I thought better of my willfulness.
Damn. Technology is so sexy.
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Another one. Comments (positive or negative) always welcomed.
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The Service
Caprice shifted her weight slightly on James' back as the woman sitting on the human setee to her left leaned over to hand her the sacramental wine glass. Keeping her gaze politely on the man speaking at the front of the room, she accepted the vessel before rebalancing herself on the lithe and supple but sturdy male sweating away beneath her.
Today's service was about precisely that - service. The sense of fulfillment that the giving of one's self - to a friend or stranger - can bring into one's being. But the concept of service, she apprehended as the tall dark-haired man went on, was not at its core merely a transactional one. There was not strictly speaking a giver - someone who relinquished something in its passing - and a receiver, who now held title to the scarce commodity that had been transferred. Oh, it could be that, on a superficial level - as anyone would have concluded last night in Caprice's bedroom. Her slave had begged - and she had granted him favor - to forgo his weekly orgasm and in its place spend the precious moments they had before needing to be asleep coaxing a third climax out of her.
But something bigger, wider, and more pervasive was happening when a person served another, today's communion leader intoned. And both parties participated equally in the manifestation of it. "The act of service becomes a thing of general value in itself", he continued, "held then by both to marvel at afterward, until the question of who was the producer and who the consumer of the deed becomes sublimely confused, practically indiscernable, and ultimately immaterial. It is an act of worship they jointly perform for the delight of the Universe. A present signed by both of them from their own respective positions, released to the ether, yet never quite dissipating completely."
Caprice listened raptly, fondling the glass unconsciously as she rested it on her bare thigh. Finally, at a pause in his words she remembered with chagrin that there were others waiting to partake. Lifting the fragile grail toward her lips, a familiar sharp strong salty aroma wormed its way into her awareness. She tilted the container back as the man up front elaborated with touching, humorous and titillating examples of how one person might be servant to another. As he expounded on the underappreciated and vital role the pleasure-receiver played in this Creation of Service, her open mouth began to greet the slowly flowing, pungent white slurry that had only moments earlier simmered within the balls of the man speaking. Staying mindful of the parishioners yet to come, she let just enough slide luxuriously onto her tongue to bathe the front half of it. It was the first time she had tasted this particular speaker's holy emissions, and she savored its rich, persistent quality. As she brought the chalice back down she regarded him again, her eyes newly informed by her taste buds. She might just have to investigate this man's thesis a bit further, she mused. Perhaps acquire a deeper knowledge of that tart sustenance he had to offer as well. Maybe, she would even invite him to take the riding crop to her as a prelude to that exploration. He was excruciatingly handsome, and she was intrigued by what he had delivered to the gathering today.
Caprice reverently turned to the congregation-goer to her right and passed on the offering receptacle. Absently cleaning her lips with her tongue as she turned back to face the speaker with a coy, purposeful smile, she ran a hand lovingly through James' sweaty, spiked hair as he continued to stare obediently at the floor. It was then that she noted the moistness between her bottom and his back was no longer solely James' earnest, perspiring devotion.
Yes, this would be her new home on Sunday mornings. Having worked her way through seemingly half the places of worship in the city, Caprice had at last found fellowship in a spiritual gathering quite well suited to her.
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I wrote this for someone on this site. Perhaps others might enjoy it.
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Three Rivers
Catherine turned and offered her best flashbulb smile as she gracefully proceeded through the door he held open for her. Le Mont was one of Pittsburgh's top restaurants -- an elegant stronghold of continental cuisine atop Mt. Washington that boasted breathtaking vistas of the city below. It was the first time he'd brought her here, the venue where so many of his high-level business discussions had taken place over the years. She hoped that wouldn't make it feel like a night of work to him. For what she sought to give him was anything but that: a sensual respite from such rewarding but stressful concerns.
The Maitre d' greeted them cheerfully. "Mr. Lindstrom! So nice to see you again. We've saved your table over by the windows. I hope that will suit tonight?"
"Oh. Yes Alex. Wonderful. I'm sure that will more than do."
Craig lightly cupped his hand around the small of Catherine's waist, implicitly bidding her go first. The brief warmth of his touch through her thin cotton dress sent a shiver to her stomach that danced for lingering moments in concert with her gathering hunger. The couple followed their host through the labyrinth of tables. It was Catherine's first visit here altogether. She'd often told Will she wanted them to try it, but to date they hadn't made the trek. Both she and her husband were professionals and quite comfortable, but Will's frugality always seemed a stubborn hurdle for her to overcome - despite the power agreement that otherwise prevailed in their relationship. But such a hesitation would be foreign to the man who now followed her closely through the dining room. As they wended their way toward their table she peered around, drinking in the dark wood, crystal and candlelight, like a woman too long parched for some genteel extravagance.
Their tuxedoed escort deftly slid Catherine's chair back and she obliged him, self-consciously smoothing her dress underneath her as she sat. Thus situated, the man left them to the substantial menus he had placed in front of them.
"Like it?" Craig asked, smiling at her genially.
"Oh--" she looked around, "the place. Fabulous. I'd-- heard it was like this. But seeing is another thing. And... what a view!"
Craig smiled, turning to the city below that was already twinkling at them in the dying twilight, and nodded thoughtfully. He had no doubt become accustomed to it, and she wondered if he appreciated her reminding him anew what a striking picture it was. A waiter arrived before long and briefed them on the specials of the evening. "May I bring either of you something to drink?" he quizzed after the conclusion of the monologue.
"A glass of Cabernet?" Catherine tilted her head slightly as she inquired. Immediately chagrinned, she silently chided herself. She was telegraphing it again. That vague uncertainty that hid inside and only emerged when Craig was around. The subtle, off-balance sensation she acquired when she was out with him. After nearly seven months of accompanying this man, of having turned into his reliable, de facto "cortigiana onesta" - as the Italians used to call it - she still felt intimidated at times. It's not that she deemed herself unworthy of him. Well-read and well educated, she had never failed to hold her own in their conversations, whatever the topic. And that he admired and was moved by her feminine charms was regularly in evidence. A woman could tell those things -- no matter that she was dealing with a man who arguably was the most formidable and cagey mergers and acquisitions negotiator east of the Mississippi. Certain male responses were, after all, hard to conceal. Still, reminders of her subordinate status to him always seemed just an arbitrary happenstance away. A party they attended filled with Pittsburgh's high society, where she would hang on his arm as a nearly mute decoration amidst the movers and shakers. A chance encounter they'd have while out on the town with someone he knew well and she'd read about in the Tribune-Review. Or some other casual evidence of just how much the man had conquered in his time on this sphere. These occurrences invariably would leave her dry-mouthed, and wet elsewhere.
She would always make sure to relate these stories in detail to Will when she got home. She wasn't the overtly henpecking or complaining type - she found such a transparently disempowered style merely sad, and to be avoided. Instead, she reveled in calmly and pleasantly sharing her latest discoveries about Craig's prowess and reputation in the community, as if talking about the beautiful weather they'd had during their outing. Though Will was a man of no few intellectual talents himself - and she admired him for them - he was not born with the acquisitive gene Craig possessed. Will had always insisted that he was comfortable with this in himself; he simply saw little need for outward displays of his accomplishments. He valued his creative and mental pursuits, he said, for their own intrinsic worth, irrespective of external regard or adulation. (Though he'd had a few impressive ones, they were in such specialized and low-profile arenas that few knew of them.) But that he now found himself with a woman who was more than intrigued by this other, more extroverted flavor of success caused it to retake front and center for him, disturbing the previously unruffled peace he had negotiated with his innate style. And grudgingly, in their long spirited conversations on the subject, Will had been compelled by Catharine to admit that the world was shaped (and moved forward) largely by the great ambitions of men like Craig Lindstrom. Ambitions of which he himself was comparatively bereft. And here of course was the kicker that trumped all of the elaborate rationalizations Will could construct in the ongoing defense of his ego: Mr. Lindstrom's "acquisitive gene" was busy expressing itself of late by pouring copiously into his wife's open and very appreciative vagina. That she was on birth control only marginally salved his exposed wound in this area.
"I'll have the Shiraz", Craig informed the waiter. Such casual certainty. It was a subtle thing, Catherine noted, but it registered on her nonetheless. She thought she felt the beginnings of a moistness between her legs now, and she wondered if he would know. It was the same matter-of-fact tone, she realized, that appeared on the other end of the phone line whenever he would call their house very late in the evening to let her know that her presence was required. She would then hurriedly change from the faded sweats and old t-shirt she typically wore during her relaxed evenings with Will into something tastefully sexy, carefully put on makeup, and be ready. Then she would walk confidently to the living room where the silently churning Will sat, trying his best to appear nonchalantly engrossed in his scientific journal article. Standing in front of him and lifting her dress with one hand to reveal an utter lack of underclothing, she would then wordlessly hold out the spritzer bottle of perfume. This part was symbolically difficult for Will, and that delighted her. She would stare directly into his eyes with that familiar thin, satisfied smirk that hotly gloated of their respective stations in the triad at hand. She'd raise an eyebrow at him then and cock her head slightly, as if to say, "well?". Gingerly, like a man who'd been handed the hara-kiri knife for yet another go at the ritual gutting of his masculine pride, he would accept the bottle from her. Spreading her legs apart and gripping her dress now on each side, she would raise it higher, revealing her nether region in all of its tender, soft, unbearably fetching glory. She would usually be trimmed neatly and meticulously. "Craig prefers me that way", she had bluntly clarified to Will awhile back, knowing full well that her husband favored a more natural look. Will would invariably soften then in resignation at the sight of his wife's bared, unapologetically unfaithful midsection. Biting his lip, he would apply a mist of perfume to each of her inner thighs. "And one right above..." she'd quietly remind him, and he would comply.
As the waiter left the table, Catherine returned her mind to the dining room, fighting the urge to wax further into reverie about the life that had evolved around her in the span of just a few months. She wanted to be completely present for Craig. Looking afresh into his eyes she smiled at him. He was handsome, to be sure. It wasn't just his success as executive vice president at PPG Industries that made him attractive to her. Deep, studiously dark eyes, a strong nose and a confident, perfect smile were all framed by a magazine-photo pair of silvered temples. Eight years older than Will and twelve Catherine's senior, the relationship had just a hint of a paternal air, yet not enough to get in the way. He was just this older, distinguished corporate captain of a man, she mused. And she was his. Sexually, romantically, intellectually. Any way he desired her, in truth. She nursed no longing to run off with him however. She cared for, admired and enjoyed Will on too many levels. And besides, the overall situation seemed, well, darn near perfect. Her feelings for both men were quite genuine, just very different. And Will, beneath the sullen brooding he sometimes descended into despite his noblest efforts, was also getting exactly what he had sought for so long. She knew this because of their occasional heart-to-hearts in which he would confess - sometimes tearfully - that although the latest humiliation she had dealt him had hurt deeply, their relationship was exactly as it needed to be. She would comfort and soothe him then, stroke his hair and face, talk softly to him. Sometimes however, when she was feeling particularly cruel, she would also make him thank her for hurting him, and ask her to promise not to hesitate to do so again whenever she felt like it. It was at times like those that she surmised the arrangement was about as complete as a woman with her particular desires could ask for.
The wine arrived and their dinner orders were taken. Craig launched into a dizzying installment of his latest adventure in aggrandizing his company's assets. A fine glassware manufacturer in Ohio that was ripe for gobbling up had finally agreed to be purchased. Its potential market value was underrated in his estimation, and would be further strategically facilitated by a contract PPG already held with a raw materials supplier. It was a no-brainer - though of course no one had seen the obvious synergy of the fit before he had. Catherine listened raptly to the story through the silent arrival of the Chateaubriand and Salmon Wellington. She was proud of having followed all the intricacies and maneuverings featuring the countless parties and various posturing of the stakeholders in his most recent victory. That was, after all, her duty - as much as was the panoply of carnal pleasures she regularly provided him.
They ate in restful silence, letting the food and ambience wash over them in a sensuous foreplay of the evening to come. As she savored her sumptuous melting fish, her gaze drifted again to the view below. Downtown Pittsburgh truly had come to reflect a world-class city in the two decades since the architectural Renaissance of the eighties was rolled out. And the compelling beauty of the now darkened rivers, flickering as they did in the lights from the city and the moon, played upon her similarly bejeweled eyes. The Ohio, the Allegheny and the Monongahela. Their names sang together for her like poetry, and she played with their arrangement to see what novel feelings might resonate from the mental sounds. It dawned on her finally that she was playing too, in metaphor, with the configuration she had arrived at in her life. For Catherine was, she decided, the Ohio. And the other two rivers in her life - Craig and Will - each fed her from different directions and with distinct gifts that collectively gave form and life to her unfathomably complex waters. One, a larger, bolder, rushing torrent of tidal energy superficially drove her currents with the relentless train of forceful waves it brought her. The other - thinner and less obtrusive in flow perhaps - nevertheless supplied her with the dark, chaotic undertow that stirred places long untouched that lurked deep between her banks. She was the confluence of these two men. But as such she felt larger than either of them, in any way that mattered to her soul. She smiled. The "big creek", the Seneca had called her.
The dinner and dessert had been dispensed with. Craig settled up with the manager himself, tipping the waiter generously, as was his way. Reaching across the table for Catherine's hand when this was done, he asked in that self-assured voice that always rendered moot the need for an answer, "shall we go?”.
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| Age: 30 |
| Augusta,
Maine |
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