And wanting so much to give, so much to help, I slid my hand down,
Down over velvet belly and thick, silken hair to where my fingers became wet and slippery.
And my other hand moved down gracefully curved back and buttocks to push her robe up over her legs, smooth and taut, to feel her there, to find the opening, to slide down into the opening, deeper and deeper.
And her back arched.
And her head pulled up away from me.
And her mouth fell open.
And Susan screamed.
Screamed for us both.
Screamed because it had been so awful, and because now, at last, it was over.
Screamed in the joy of release and the relief of accepting love with no conditions.
Screamed in final surrender.
Screamed and sobbed and moaned for seconds that seemed like minutes, and minutes that seemed like hours as my hands in front and in back moved rapidly to give her more, and more.
And I wanted to give her everything.
And have her do it for the both of us.
And again her head collapsed onto my shoulder.
And her body relaxed, dead weight upon me.
And her breath came again, hot and sweet in my ear, slower and slower until it was regular.
And she said to me, "I'm so tired."
And I stroked her hair.
And I patted the soft firmness of her behind, like a baby.
And she cried and held tightly to me.
And I could feel such love in her touch.
And I heard a strange noise.
And it was somebody else crying.
It was me.
Light always filled my bedroom differently on a Sunday morning. Pity that so few people use Venetian blinds any-more. They do such beautiful tricks with light and shadow, black and white lines on the ceiling, marching across the room, unperturbed by fixtures and pictures, covering all with the same striped benevolence. The room was always cheerier, brighter on Sundays, warmer, as heat from the rising sun filtered between cooling metal slats.
Susan lay between my legs, her head on my naked belly like a light, velvet ball on a fuzzy floor, arms around my waist, hair falling in ebony streams down my side and tickling slightly when I breathed. I stroked her hair, barely touching. The covers lay rumpled at the foot of the bed, where her orgasms had thrown them.
I looked down upon her with feelings coursing through me that I had never known. I felt like her husband, her father, her lover, and her friend, all at once. I wanted to do everything with her and be everything to her. Like a child in a toy store, I wanted to take them home and play with them, all at the same time.
I watched her breathing deeply in relaxed sleep for an hour. She sighed and drew her knees up between my spread legs into a semifetal position. Soon she stirred, turning onto her side and opening her eyes. Then she jerked up, startled, not realizing in her awakening where she was. I caught her head and touched her cheek lightly. "Shh, it's okay, baby. You're home."
She looked at me sleepily, love coming like light from a beacon, and moved up to put her head on my chest. I could feel my cock, hard and ready against her belly, and I tried to think it down because I didn't want it hard, not just then. But it was useless; the feel of her upon me was too good.
"How long have you been up?" she asked.
"About an hour. I love to watch you sleep."
Her arms tightened about me. "When I first woke up I thought I had dreamed it all, that I was still home alone and sterile in my own bed."
"It's real this time, Susan, and it's going to stay real. I can't let you go again. If you hadn't come over last night, I don't know if I would have made it."
"I know," she-whispered, kissing my chest and nuzzling her cheek back and forth over the hair. "I tried so hard. I'd stand in front of a mirror and give myself lectures on how you'd ruin my life, and why should I take a chance on giving up everything for some kid who's six years younger than I, but it didn't work. I spent most of my time crying and missing you. I dared not even look at you in class, and then after, I'd go to the teachers' John and cry until it was time for the next class.
"I dated men I wouldn't even have looked at before I met you, just so I could get out, so I wouldn't have to be alone, so I wouldn't have to think about you. But it was no good, because I thought about you anyway.
"I don't know. I guess I just wanted to be near you. I thought about going over to talk to you after class, but I chickened out. I didn't trust myself."
“Then what made you come over?"
“I don't know that, either. Dating men who have nothing to say, who treat you like a potential lay instead of like a person, men with slobbery lips trying to shove their tongues into my mouth, fighting off hands that always seem to be trying to get at my breasts. But that wasn't it. I guess I just loved you too much, and I finally reached the breaking point.
"I kept thinking about what we said that night at the Cliff House, about what you told me. You were right, you know. I wasted almost two months of our lives, two precious months, and made us both miserable in the process. I never knew what missing somebody so much could do to me. I suppose I just had to find out."
I folded my arms across the soft wool of her robe and smoothed out the wrinkles over her back. "Do you realize that we didn't even kiss last night? We didn't even say that we loved each other?"
She raised her head to look at me. "Did we have to?"
"No," I said.
"Well, I'll tell you what I do have to do," she said.
"What?" I asked, not understanding.
"I have to pee so bad I can taste it."
We both laughed, and Susan jumped out of bed. I ran downstairs for the Sunday paper and when I got back I could hear the shower running. I peeled off my judo pants and went into the bathroom. I could make out her silhouette through the opaque-glass shower door, long, lean lines of dark. I opened the door to a welcome of hot steam. Susan took me into her arms, and there, in the wet and the steam, we kissed, really kissed, for the first time. Soft, soft, lips, slippery from moisture upon mine, my cock pressed hard against the opening between he-r legs, unable to spring up. I felt her all down my back, gliding around my side to the front, and down to grab me gently.
I moved back a little and Susan took full hold of it, a guttural noise of pure sex coming from her throat as she began sliding her hand back and forth along the length of it. The thought that it was her hand, Susan's hand, moving on my cock, timid at first, and then with more assurance, was almost too much for me.
I took her face between my hands. "Let's get out," I said, kissing the tip of her nose.
We slowly dried each other off, rubbing and patting with loving strokes of the towel, kissing and holding and touching.
Susan was beautiful, tall and lean, like a lovely, passive tigress. She brushed her teeth with my toothbrush and as she leaned over the basin to spit I could see the -tangle of dark, curling up between her legs from behind, her leg muscles narrow and taut, with no stretch lines and no girdle indentations. Her feet, like her hands, were narrow, long, and delicate. Her waist indented only slightly before flaring into her hips. The small bumps of a well-formed spine protruded slightly from her back, flanked by smooth, lovely shoulder blades. Funny, I had never thought of shoulder blades as being lovely, as a matter of fact, I had never thought about them at all, but Susan's were lovely. I found myself wanting to run my tongue over the sensitive texture of them, to kiss her behind the knees, the calves, all the improbable places that men never think of when they think of making love to a woman. And again, as I had remembered hundreds of times in the past, I thought of Mora teaching me that a woman is so much more than just two tits and a cunt; full of delightful cracks and crevices, expanses of sweet skin, yielding fields of flesh that the average man prefers to find neither the time nor the inclination to discover.
Hand in hand, we went to the living room. Susan looked-at the furnishings, the paintings, the wall full of books, the record cabinet. "I knew it would be like this," she said. "It's just like you, almost the way I'd imagined it to be, Twentieth-Century Intellectual Smartass."