Midsummer, by H. Jekyll				August 2000

Copyright by H. Jekyll.  Permission is freely granted to post 
on any site that does not charge for entrance, as long as proper
attribution is given. The story should not be read by anyone 
under the legal age to read sexually explicit stories, or by anyone
in a location where it is illegal to read such stories. 

Please send comments, inquiries, requests, and criticisms to:
h_jekyll2000@yahoo.com.  I do enjoy corresponding with like-minded 
people.  It is so nice to know one isn't alone in a world of normals.

I am indebted to my critic and editor Maggie McGee 
(DESERTSKIES_@excite.com) for wise counsel.

MF, rom, slow/deliberate
==============================================================

Midsummer 

H.  Jekyll


My love's hands are deformed.  They were deformed at birth.  If you see 
her on the street, or walk up to her at our library's reference desk, 
you will see that three fingers on her right hand are shortened and 
webbed, and her thumb is curiously shaped.  Her left hand is more 
affected:  all the digits are stubs, so that it looks something like a 
paw.  On its own your face will swing to her hands.  You won't notice, 
or will forget, her tired-looking eyes, always tired looking though 
green and bright, and though she never acts tired.  It will be at later 
meetings that you will realize that her eyes are the centers of 
galaxies of freckles, or that her lips are full and her mouth is 
friendly.  You won't be able to help yourself.  You'll try to look only 
sideways, in glances, but you'll miss the auburn hair that brushes her 
shoulders.  You might notice her breasts.  I did.  Her breasts are 
round, and they stand apart as though competing for your attention.  
Using only the library's poor reference collection, she solved a 
research problem for me before I officially started teaching at her 
school, and I noticed her breasts when I first saw her.  But there were 
her hands too.

I don't think she has any real limitations, but that isn't the point.  
Of course other children were cruel to her, and adults showed too much 
concern;  with the best of intentions they focused attention on her 
hands, so she was always an outsider, always the different one.  Oh, 
she developed an engaging way about her and was studious and competent. 
She even had boyfriends and was once a little wild, I think a little 
desperate.  Everyone liked her, but she didn't believe that any man 
could ever really love her, because she was a freak.  Well, she was 
wrong.

--------------------------------

The library is a quiet place where she can meet people on her own 
terms, where her competence shows through, and where she can help 
people.  Any library is holy to me, even a small one in a liberal arts 
college up in the hills.  It was an auspicious place for us to meet, on 
my third day on campus, my office just set up, I jumping into research 
as part of the plan to start anew.  The need for a reference librarian 
would give me a chance to learn something more about my new home and to 
talk with someone.  The department was pretty vacant, it being summer, 
and there was no one in my empty apartment.  

She was efficient and still warm and friendly, and I saw immediately 
the things she did to take attention off her hands -- long, loose 
sleeves, holding her left arm a little behind her, keeping her right 
hand partly closed.  I had written a book on stigma and the practices 
of people with stigmas, and I thought:  Don't mention the damned book!  
And don't stare, either at her hands or away from them.  We would get 
to them if we became friends.  

I thought:  Look at her breasts.  They're safe.  

We chatted for a bit, and I knew that she knew that I was trying to 
keep her hands from being a focus, and that she was resigned to it.  I 
can't just ignore these things when I first encounter them anymore than 
anyone else can.  You have to get past that first meeting.  But her 
face and her breasts helped.  

She had been reading a copy of "Snow Falling on Cedars" when I came in, 
and she had put it down the wrong way, spine up.  I asked what she 
liked most about the book:

"Oh, the description of the landscape.  I love the details of it, how 
beautiful and important it is, but I can't get past the irony of how it 
is finally just a setting for human conflict."

I told her I had read it mainly for the sex, and she laughed, her tired 
eyes crinkling and her lips opening.  She answered:

"Then you must have been disappointed, since it was mostly unhappy or 
unconsummated."

"What?  There's some other kind?"

After she laughed again, and looked around quickly to see if any rare 
summer patrons were offended by the noise, she talked about the issue 
of love between Japanese and whites in that period, and I said 
something enormously romantic like:

"Today Asian American women have the highest out-marriage rate of any 
group in the U.S."  

We sociologists do have the golden tongue.  But there was a spark, by 
God!  I could feel it and, tired as they were, her eyes showed it.  I 
leaned in toward her over the counter to talk.  I was already wondering 
what excuse I could use to come back, but the time wore on, I looking 
for any sign that she needed to get back to work, or wanted to, and she 
showing no sign of either, instead coming up with new topics when we 
finished old ones.  Finally I simply had to leave, and I must have 
forgotten to be concerned about her hands, because I just stuck out 
mine to shake hers.  Oh shit!  She had to shake it, of course, but I 
could see she was reluctant.  Her hand was soft.

--------------------------------

It was a dark wood house on a hillside.  Deep twilight.  The other 
hills stood out as blue-black shapes against the midsummer sky, and the 
shapes of trees were easy to make out.  Close by, individual leaves 
were lit eerily green with moonlight.  There were a few scattered 
houses in the distance, lighting the hills like large stars, and more 
were clustered down in the hollow.  Above were the real stars, and one 
or two feathery clouds framed the moon.

I was glad she was at the party because I didn't know many people yet, 
and because she was alone.  We were both singletons.  I'm sure that was 
planned by our hostess, to have equal numbers of men and women.  It was 
too soon for people to have started trying to set me up with single 
women, the game I hate.  I'd almost rather be alone.  She was well-
known enough for people to have stopped trying to set her up, so there 
were no pressures, and I could enjoy being with her.  

I circled the veranda, chit-chatting, learning the folklore of the 
school.  She drifted aimlessly over to ask about my research, and 
pretended to be interested in it.  We got drinks and went over to the 
railing, where we could watch evening mist sift out from the woods and 
set a backdrop for fireflies.  

There was a time when I would have gone on about my research until I 
had bored her completely.  Times change.  The moon lit her face while 
she told me about a grand sexual scandal that had led to the departure 
of a president a decade past.  It was a great story, but I could see 
individual eyelashes.  Even individual freckles showed, but not on her 
throat.  That was pure cream.  I had an idle thought about what she 
would do if I bent to kiss it on the line between shadow and light.  I 
thought:  Sweet cream lady, I could eat you with a spoon.  What would 
you do if I said that out loud?  Instead I asked:

"You think Puck is down in those woods?" 

"Robin Goodfellow?  Oh heavens no!  I'm sure he's off on some errand 
involving a changeling.  Oberon and Titania summer down there, though.  
It's a little known fact.  And nights like this are reserved for 
passion, surrounded by all their court of fairies."  

"In a *group* no less!  You know, I always lusted for Titania.  And in 
these woods!"

"Hand in hand, with fairy grace, will we sing and bless this place."

My, she knew her Shakespeare, or at least *that* play.  A lucky choice 
on my part.  Or was it?   By coincidence or not someone started a CD of 
Mendelsohn's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and we both suddenly had chill 
bumps.  We had to laugh.  Had someone been listening to us?  It would 
be too eerie otherwise, but the night had now gone mystical.  When we 
laughed we leaned into each other, and I kept the contact as long as I 
could without being crude.  She asked:

"You don't think that's an omen, do you?"  Her pupils were large now.

"Maybe a summons.  Maybe we should go down there to seek enchantment."

--------------------------------

But instead we were called in to play "Trivial Pursuit."  We resisted 
leaving the night, but it was okay, because we were teamed together, 
squeezed against each other on the floor around a tiled coffee table.  
We were a very good team, too.  

We were especially good because of our unique strengths:  she knew the 
answers and I cheated.  In the middle of the game I told her to watch 
me, then I picked up a piece of pie and put it in our token right in 
front of everyone, and nobody noticed.  We almost couldn't continue 
because she was laughing so much.  I did it again.  Folks were 
wondering what was so funny with us.  We were wiping tears and we 
leaned our heads together conspiratorially, and then we kissed.

It was just a quick kiss, not much more than a peck, but we looked at 
each other for a second, maybe two, before going back to the game.  I 
'fessed up to everyone about my conniving and put back the pie pieces.  

Sometimes coincidence deepens into magic;  things happen for some 
easily explained reason or no particular reason, and the world 
transmogrifies, changing itself into an enchanted garden where 
everything has special meaning and nothing merely exists.  It happened.  
For her next question my freckled librarian was asked the role Mickey 
Rooney played in the 1930s film version of "A Midsummer's Night Dream."  
We had to stop to stare at each other.  No one would believe it.  We 
hardly believed it either, but it happened just like that, and I felt 
my hair stand on my neck for the first time in years.  She shivered and 
gasped and I put an arm around her and said:

"Maybe we're already under a spell."  

--------------------------------

We walked under the moon.  It wasn't too late yet;  the party wouldn't 
wind down for awhile.  We talked about nothing in particular, just 
wanting to be in the magic.  We put arms carelessly around each other's 
waists and walked touching hip to hip, chatting.  I didn't feel nervous 
with her.  A gravel path led down through a meadow and into some trees.  
We passed some other people who were out there, said hello, and went 
through the trees.  On the other side a wooden bridge crossed a little 
stream, from which the mist rose especially high.  We walked to the 
center of the bridge, to where we were in the mist, infused with the 
sweet night smell of it, and we paused.  She leaned back against the 
bridge rail and then I stepped in and kissed her again.

This kiss didn't just happen.  Everything was progressing so quickly, 
because of the night or the fairies or just the time, and it simply 
seemed right to kiss, so before I stepped to her I knew I was going to 
do it, and she was already waiting.  We kissed long and sweetly.  I 
caressed her cheek with my hand while we moved our mouths softly over 
each other's, so softly we barely touched.  We pulled back to look, 
eyes into eyes, then went back to kissing.  Her breasts were soft 
bumpers against my chest.  

I put my hand back to her face and used my thumb to feel how soft her 
mouth was, and she bit it gently, held it in her mouth with her teeth 
while she licked it, and then she sucked it completely inside.  I used 
that hand to lift her head, and I bent to kiss her neck like I had 
wanted to do earlier.  I went further, down to the indentation where 
her neck meets her chest.  Her chest rose and fell like the swells of 
the sea:  deeply.  I could feel her heart beating.  By then my hand was 
out of her mouth and she licked my ear slowly, circling to its center.  
When we rose we returned to kissing again.  We moved our tongues 
together, back and forth, sucking each other in turn, breathing into 
each other's mouth.

I was completely aroused, caught in the night magic, in her magic.  Her 
breasts moved against me and I wanted to kiss them and caress them and 
then move down to her hidden magic, between her legs.  Oberon whispered 
to me to do it.  I almost did.  I should have.  Instead I thought:  
this is going too fast, don't push things, don't scare her.  So I 
played safe.  I took her hands instead.

As fast as lightening flashes the enchantment was gone.  It was the 
same scene, but everything was different.  She stiffened when I took 
her hands, jerked them away, held them just behind her back for a 
moment before bringing them out to her sides.  She looked both sheepish 
and frightened.

"I'm sorry.  You're sensitive.  I wasn't thinking."  What could I say?  
You can't apologize your way back into the magic.  We both tried.  She 
said:

"Oh no.  I was just so silly."  

She put her arms around my waist and we hugged, but something was 
wrong.  We kissed, a little kiss.  We weren't comfortable together.  
The moon was just the moon and the night mist was just water.  After a 
few moments she said that she really had to get home, and I walked her 
back up the hill to the party.  I did kiss her good-night.

--------------------------------

It is a family curse that I often don't sleep, so in that one way the 
night was like all other nights.  Those events.  They were a puzzle, 
something just beyond my grasp.  How had I been so suddenly taken with 
a woman, and so powerfully?  I had been infatuated several times, and 
in love.  I knew them well.  This was familiar, it was like 
infatuation, but not.  What was it?  I recalled dropping acid in 
college, and how the experience was something like smoking very good 
marijuana, though no one would ever confuse the two.  This was like 
that.  I wouldn't confuse it with infatuation.  Perhaps I really was 
charmed?  That would be okay.  The heart has its reasons that Reason 
knows nothing of:  I didn't need to know the reason.  

I kept remembering the whole evening, one part in detail, then another.  
It always ended with the crashing end, where we had both suddenly 
awakened to ourselves.  Ah damn.  Damn.

Outdoors, then, to walk around the campus.  Two a.m.  A lovely campus, 
a lovely night, but no magic.  Ending at the library.  Don't do this, 
idiot!  So, across the Commons, past the Union, along residential 
streets.  

A still night.  I had seen one car and no people.  A few windows had 
lights behind them.  I came to a lake and walked all the way around it 
on a bike path, listening to my footsteps, some crickets, and one or 
two night birds.  There were only the night creatures and me.  I 
thought:  here you are, alone again, your natural place in the world.  
The lake was covered by a low, flat mist.  In places I could run my 
hand through it.  It came away just a little damp.

Finally back to my apartment.  I found my old Shakespeare, turned to 
the plays.  There was the line she had quoted, by the fairies.  I read 
the whole play, then went to the sonnets, the ones that explore regret.

The sky was starting to brighten, just a little.  I thought I might get 
on the web and go to a porn site, to get some pleasure at least.  It 
might help, but I just didn't have the heart for it.  Oh to sleep, 
perchance to dream.  What was that?  Hamlet?  I slept.

--------------------------------

Everyone tells me it is common for people to have that experience, to 
have been open and free with a special one, then the next time to be 
shy.  We were like that, remembering the kissing and the caressing and 
the moonlight, but caught in the fluorescent lights and Formica-topped 
library tables.  Surrounded by the knowledge of nations, neither could 
think of much to say.  Saying and thinking were different things, 
though.  I kept wondering what she looked like naked.  I knew this game 
my mind played with me, knew that it made talking harder and that I 
should concentrate.  But no.  Thoughts slipped in, asking myself what 
sounds she made when she fucked, wondering if she would like the things 
I liked, while we hemmed and hawed about office hours and some 
professor I'd have to meet.  We said nothing about the kissing.  
Finally she invited me to dinner in desperation.

It was the same there at first, even in her ancient little house so 
rich with history that it had an historical plaque on the front porch.  
Even with a yard that had been converted mostly to shade gardens, which 
made it a much better candidate for fairies than the house last night 
had been.  The house gave her something to talk about, and the cooking 
gave her something to do.  Me?  She let me open the wine.  

She had decorated the house to fit its age, and it had that aura, like 
the old and spooky house of my grandmother, that I had loved as a 
child.  I sipped Cabernet and leaned on the kitchen counter while she 
prepared the salad and checked the pasta and told me about all the 
families who had owned it before it became hers.  I appreciated the 
house, and I liked her histories.  It was nice to watch her be 
domestic, wearing an apron and puttering in the kitchen.  

Could she go on like that if I were to play with her body?  I had quick 
flash images of fucking her on the dinner table, of smearing the butter 
all over her body and licking every bit of it off.  My mind was playing 
games with me again.  When she showed me through the house, and we got 
to the bedroom, I saw us doing spoons naked under the comforter, the 
window open on a chill Autumn morning, watching leaves fall like snow.

She had candles everywhere.  We ate in a room lit by candles in antique 
lamps while something other-worldly played, something by Arvo Pärt.  
Finally, with the second bottle of wine, the evening began to shine for 
us and conversation became natural.  The candlelight flickered on her 
skin.  When she moved quickly I almost saw ghost images following her.  

At some point I made up a little haiku about her house and its 
atmosphere.  I did it off the top of my head.  Haikus are so easy.  All 
you have to do is count the syllables, and it impresses people.  It 
impressed her, but she snapped back with a naughty limerick.  

"Whoa!  Poetic one-upwomanship."

I almost went with something from Andrew Marvel's "To His Coy 
Mistress," but I couldn't remember enough of it.  I can't recite that 
many poems, and before I could stop myself I had done the limerick 
about the man from Nantucket.  As punishment she made me wash the 
dishes.

Later we sat on her quaint porch swing and held hands, her right and my 
left, while we talked and joked.  The time came to get up, and I 
hesitated, not sure.  Should I be aggressive?  But she took over 
matters.

"Men!  Do we women folk have to do everything for you?"  She wrapped 
her arms around my neck and pulled me down to kiss.

--------------------------------

Lying naked in her bed, eating her softly, filled with the taste of a 
woman again after a long time gone, watching her undulate by 
candlelight.  

She had made this so easy.  After we'd kissed we had simply walked to 
her bedroom together, not talking, just looking at each other, back to 
our route, then again to each other.  When she had let me strip her, I 
had been careful of her hands.  It was an odd thing, but I didn't care.  
I would have recited the catechism to her if it would have paved the 
way.  When she had stripped me, she had used her right hand and her 
teeth on my buttons, my fly, and my belt.  Oh, it was good.  She had 
shifted herself so her right side was more to me.   It hadn't mattered 
but I'd noticed it.  

Her head was back and her eyes were closed.  I played with her breasts 
while I ate her.  The word "luscious" came to my mind, but whether I 
meant her breasts or her pudendum I don't know today.  Both were a 
little plump, a little over-ripe, perfect.  She was a quiet lover, 
showing her passion mainly in sighs, only occasionally with little 
growls.  Her right hand lay on my head;  her left was beside her head, 
under the pillow.  

I watched her move as I sexed her, watching her body respond to her 
pleasure, knowing what she must be feeling to move like that.  She came 
right to the crest, and I slowed down, just breathing on her sex, to 
let her slide back into a trough so I could prolong this and make her 
high again.  I love watching a woman inflamed.  

She pulled at my head and made a sound of impatience.  I took her sex 
in my mouth entirely, sucking her and licking her clitoris.  In only a 
moment her sighs turning to those growls that began softly and became 
louder.  Her body went rigid and she started to buck against me, and 
then her right arm started flicking up and down almost spastically.  I 
was buried in her, my face pushed into tightly curled hair, but I 
watched and I saw everything:  her face, her twitching arm, her closed 
eyes.

Afterwards she lay spent for a bit.  I moved up to her head and stroked 
her hair and gave her butterfly kisses.  My prick was like a dog 
waiting to pounce, sitting pretty but wanting the treat.  The dog won't 
wait forever.  Her breathing finally slowed and became normal.  She 
opened her eyes to look at me and got a puzzled look that turned to a 
smile.  She pulled a couple of pubic hairs off my face.

"Oh my poor dear," she said, "I hope I didn't give you splinters."

"I just needed more fiber in my diet."  

"You said a mouthful."  

There was more, equally inane, bedroom banter.  We thought we were 
being cute and creative, and basically I think you had to be there to 
appreciate it.  I'm glad no one was.

She ended the conversation by rising half up and pushing me down to my 
back, then moving to crouch over my hips where she could look straight 
down at my penis.  I knew she was going to take me in her mouth.  Yes!  
She knelt right at it and held the head up to her mouth, red mouth and 
bright red cock, then looked me in the face and said:

"Oh my love is like a red, red rose."

For a second I thought I was supposed to return an appreciative 
chuckle, though what I wanted more than anything else was for her to 
move down and swallow me.  Which she did right then.  She was on my 
left side, kneeling, and her hair fell across her face as she started 
sucking me.  She grabbed my prick with her right hand and pumped it up 
to her mouth while she moved her head downward.  Her left hand was 
folded somewhere under her.  I wanted to see my prick in her mouth 
while I was feeling it, so I brushed her hair back.  

She was sucking and doing something with her tongue that brought me up 
awfully fast, so I used both hands, one to grab my penis, the other to 
stop her head.

"Wait, wait."  I was panting.  "Stop.  I'm almost coming."

"I know, darling."

"But you don't have to ..."

"I know.  Now lay back down like a good boy."

Of course I lay back down.  I didn't have to be gentlemanly for her, so 
could just experience what she was doing to me.  She stopped for a 
moment, breathing on me, a lot like I had on her, pumping me very 
slowly, and then she started again.  I held her hair back again to 
watch her suck me.  I wanted to feel where my dick went into her, so I 
reached my right hand out to where my penis met her lips.  Deep in her 
mouth she was wet and hot and I could feel her flesh moving over me.  
It was happening.  Soon I forgot to watch, and my hand fell away from 
her hair, but I kept my other hand right at her lips, where I could 
feel my dick slide in and out of her mouth, and I felt her mouth with 
both my dick and my hand as she brought me up and over.  When I started 
to come she sucked and pumped until I was milked completely dry.

--------------------------------

In the shower I soaped her first.  I stood behind her to soap her, and 
reached around to feel her slippery breasts move rubber-like through my 
hands, her nipples big against my palms.  When it was her turn she 
worked my prick with soapy hands, and Lordy if it didn't start to grow.  
I washed her underarms, her pussy, the tight crack of her ass, then she 
did me, returning to my penis after everything else was soaped.

It was time.  I said:

"I want to wash all of you."

I held her forearms, pulled both hands out, and kissed her left hand.  
I tried not to show that up close I suddenly found it grotesque.  I 
hadn't expected that.  Just for a second I wondered how long it would 
be before I could become accustomed to it.  She didn't like any of this 
at all, and averted her head.  She didn't jerk her hands away this 
time, but it wasn't good.  One step too far, I thought, but I decided 
to brazen it out: 

"I want all of you."

She spoke without looking at me.  "Please.  It's awfully hard for me.  
I don't want you to see it.  Or to touch it."  She nodded toward her 
left hand.

"I let you see how scarred up my legs are."

"That's different.  Scars on men are okay.  Also they're, how to put 
it,"  and here she did smile a tiny smile up at me, "alluring to me."

"Well, there's something about you that's alluring to me.  You come as 
an alluring package."  

But I let go of her arms and didn't press the issue any more.  Instead 
we wrapped arms around each other and hugged.  Her slippery belly was 
against mine, and again I felt her slippery breasts, though with my 
chest, and again they were rubbery and malleable, and I could feel her 
nipples easily.  We kissed.  My penis was half erect, busy being 
tickled by her pubic hair.  

"I'm sorry," she said.

--------------------------------

I hadn't yet fucked her and wanted to, not perhaps as much as she 
wanted me to, but enough.  My poor penis wouldn't obey though, and 
wasn't going to get more than half cocked.  There are only so many 
things you can do and so much time you can use before the end becomes 
obvious.  

I asked if she had a vibrator.  Of course she did.  So we made spoons 
and I put my little cockette into her.  She held the vibrator and 
brought it all the way down to where it touched both of us, touching 
the base of my penis and brushing my balls.  The vibrations were 
intense and flowed all the way up to the tip, enough that they made me 
tense up.  They helped me grow, so that I could move in and out of her 
without slipping out, and I could fill her better.  My hands were free, 
allowing me to play with her body while she moved the vibrator.  She 
roused quickly and I raised up to watch her face.  I wasn't going to be 
able come, but she didn't need to know that, and I got to watch her as 
she got closer and closer and started making those growls again and 
came beautifully.

-------------------------------------

I dozed.  When I woke she was asleep, half curled and facing me.  The 
blinds were open and the light was enough for me to be able to see her.  
I watched her sleep for awhile.  She was breathing so deeply it was 
almost a little snore.  

I moved closer to her and put my face on her cheek, lightly, then moved 
up and kissed her forehead through her hair.  I didn't want to wake 
her, so I lay still with my face in her hair and touched my hand to her 
cheek.  I caressed her arm just below the shoulder.  Her breathing 
stayed constant, the only sound in the room.  That empowered me to move 
my hand to the hollow where the flat area at the front of her hips 
starts to swell out to her belly and the skin is exquisitely soft, and 
I moved the backs of my fingers over her there, my fingertips just 
barely touching her hair.  I did the same thing to the front of her 
breast;  her nipple was almost flat now.

Almost without a break in her breathing, she said "Hi" in a sleepy 
little voice.  I pulled away just enough to see her face:  she was 
smiling a sleepy little smile that matched her voice, and her eyes were 
barely open.

"I'm sorry," I said in just over a whisper.  "I didn't mean to wake 
you."

"Oh that's okay," in that same voice.  She yawned, then swallowed, 
opening her mouth twice while she did it, like a small child.

"Go back to sleep, love."

"Okay."  She yawned a second time, then she snuggled up to me until her 
head was touching my chest, and she was asleep again almost 
immediately.

I placed a hand on her shoulder and lay as still as I could, watching 
her sleep.

--------------------------------

So went the weekend.  She woke me early and we walked into town under a 
red sky, to a little breakfast place that had sections of the "New York 
Times" spread around for people to read.  I wondered how they got it 
out here.  We sat outside under an awning to eat, and she kept glancing 
up from the book reviews to catch me looking at her.  A mourning dove 
cooed softly about being alone in the world.  

She wanted to show me everything, and dragged me all over town.  I was 
happy to go but needed sleep.  After lunch we went back to her house 
and fucked softly with the blinds open, so that I could see her sweet 
body clearly while we did it.  It excited her to think that a neighbor 
might see something and it excited me that she got excited.  When we 
were finished we lay together on our sides, face-to-face, me still in 
her.  Our legs were braided together.  My left arm was under her head 
and I held her tightly to me with my right, and I kissed her face all 
over while we murmured.

I fell heavily asleep, so heavily that I didn't even notice when she 
rose.  I slept for hours while she sat in her rocker beside the bed and 
read.  Finally, in the evening, we collaborated on dinner, nothing much 
really, just being domestic together, desperately in love and not 
wanting the time to end.

None of this, nothing, prepared me for what happened when I walked up 
to her in the library on Monday.

--------------------------------

Something was wrong, I could tell it before she knew I was there.  Her 
posture was off, stiff, and her face was like a mask.  What was it?  
What had happened?

"Why didn't you tell me about your book?"  Her lips were tight.  Her 
voice was tight, too.  Suddenly her expression made sense.  I knew 
exactly what was coming.  She'd found my book about stigmas, and she 
thought she was a project of mine.  How to respond?

"My book?  What do you mean?" 

"You know exactly what I mean!  How could you?"  Her eyes had some 
tears in them, that she was trying to get past.  

"'Practicing Stigma'.  Did you really  think I wouldn't ever see it?  
What was I, more data for you, for your next edition?  Maybe about how 
girls with messed up hands try to deal with men?"  

She was more hurt than angry, but she was angry enough.  I couldn't get 
past that, knew that it wasn't possible until time had passed, but knew 
that I had to try, to start.

It was a miserable failure.  Sometimes you can see what's important in 
life dribbling away, can know it's happening, and know you should stop 
it but not know how.  The words, the sentences come later.  Oh they're 
there in abundance after the fact, showing up after the battle is lost, 
asking 'why didn't you use me?'.  You stand in a world that just 
moments before had been solid, secure, and experience an epiphany of 
desolation.  The room seemed darker, and I felt myself grow smaller as 
I listened to her build a case for my guilt, a case I couldn't dispute.  
It was just so complicated.  Finally she dismissed me, said:

"Please, just go away.  I don't want to hear anything you might have to 
say."  

She waited until I started to leave, then turned away.

Trudging out, finding a path between the stacks, trying to be manly, 
trying not to be weak, failing, I finally turned and half shouted:  

"You're wrong.  You're wrong.  That book had nothing to do with us.  It 
didn't.  It just didn't."  

She never turned back to look at me.

--------------------------------

I was sitting on a concrete bench under a dogwood, near a little 
fountain.  The fountain has only a weak string of water that scarcely 
bubbles into the pool.  This is a tiny square formed from two old 
buildings and two old enclosed walkways.  Only a small door and a low 
arch lead to it;  they are connected by a sidewalk, and there are 
stepping stones to the bench.  The ground is covered by moss instead of 
grass.  It is a good place to be alone.  I've never seen anyone use it, 
not even the squirrels who otherwise panhandle for food.  I stared into 
the fountain until it grew dark.

--------------------------------

Hollywood gave me another chance.  She wouldn't see me, so I walked to 
her house and stood on her porch passively, for hours, ignoring the 
fact that she ignored me, until she couldn't stand the tension.  I had 
seen this in a movie, and I didn't know what else to try.  Probably she 
would have talked to me after awhile no matter what, but it must have 
gotten me points as an eccentric.  Or a stalker.  

She gave me five minutes and said that after that she would call the 
police, which I think she would have done.  So, I quickly apologized 
about the book.  Then I told her I could prove that none of that had 
anything to do with her, if she would come by my apartment.  She 
wouldn't agree, so I told her that if the weekend had meant anything at 
all her she owed me this one thing.  I had seen this in a movie, too.  
It seemed a better line than anything I could make up, and it worked.  
She would come.  And I?  I had seen "Animal House" and had decided that 
it was time for a stupid and senseless gesture.

So, when she got there I pulled out a pair of modified gloves.  I had 
sewn the fingers down so that the wearer would have to close her hands 
into fists to get them on.  The gloves were long enough to reach her 
upper arms.  I had fitted Velcro straps along them to hold them on 
tightly.

"Well?!"

"Well, you're so sure that your hands are everything.  So cover them.  
Put these on."

"That's idiotic!  What do you think you're trying to prove?" 

"Now just do this for me.  You'll see in a minute, or you can walk out 
of my life."  

As I said it I wished that I hadn't added that last part.  I wasn't at 
all prepared for her to walk away, and suddenly I realized how stupid 
this really was.  Nevertheless, I took the gloves and pulled one up her 
left arm, then the other up her right.  She tried to push her hands all 
the way through, not realizing the nature of the gloves, and she didn't 
figure it out until I had strapped them on securely with the Velcro 
straps.

"Now, you're just like any other woman who is bound for pleasure."

She grew irritated, angry.  "You think I'll wear these just so you can 
have your fun and not have to look at my hands?  How does that make me 
like other women?  They wouldn't have to wear them for you!  I'm not 
going to humor ...  "

"Oh no.  Wait.  If you'll just turn this way..."  

I fastened the gloves together, then quickly lifted her, and put the 
straps over a hook above the door.  She wasn't heavy.  She had to stand 
partially up on her toes to keep from hanging by her arms.  She looked 
up and pulled at the gloves and for a moment was stunned.  

"You see, any woman at all who was going to experience helpless sex 
would need to be fitted like this."

I pulled her to me and kissed her.  Her breath rushed in and out.  She 
pulled at the fastenings, struggling.  She screamed at me:

"Let me go!  What are you doing?"

"Wait just for a minute.  No, wait.  Okay.  I won't hurt you.  And I 
won't do anything you don't want.  I'll let you down in a minute.  
There's a point.  Just let me make my point.  Please."

She quieted, standing bound with her hands pulled over her head, as odd 
a situation as I'd ever been in.  I knew she wanted me to be able to 
set things right, and that she thought I was crazy.

"You hate your hands.  You think you are polluted, right?  I don't know 
if I can make you think I accept your hands, but listen."

I started in my best reciting voice:

	"Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,
	That they behold, and see not what they see?
	They know what beauty is, see where it lies,
	Yet what the best is take the worst to be."

Yes, I had memorized it just for this.  For a moment she went 
completely slack, stunned again.  I kissed her again during this.  
Then, her tired eyes grew a different look, but a complicated one, as 
though she were between states of mind.  She started struggling a 
little again, but laughing too.  Not a sweet laugh.

"So I'm the worst?  That's what you think, wee Willy Shakespeare?"  But 
I was ready:

"No.  No, you're the best.  Listen again."

	"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
	Thou art more lovely and more temperate."

I kissed her again, and yes she did kiss back a little, but she also 
laughed again, this time a laugh with some possibility of happiness in 
it.  When I stepped back to look in her eyes, I could tell that she had 
decided that maybe it was okay to make a point this way.  She leaned 
out to me to kiss, stretching in her bonds, then said:

" I appreciate what you're trying to do.  I really do.  But that last 
couplet was written to a man."  

But there was a hesitation, so that it took her two tries to say the 
last sentence.  Perhaps that was because I started unbuttoning her 
blouse in the middle of it.  She twisted back and forth, but not 
seriously, and her look turned to that of one who was beginning to 
enjoy the game.

	"By heaven, I think my love as rare
	As any she belied by false compare."

She stood quietly while I finished her blouse and reached around to 
unfasten her bra.  She had nothing to say to this.  I raised the bra 
and bent to kiss her breast, to take her nipple gently in my teeth and 
give a little bite.

	"Let me confess that we two must be twain,
	Although our undivided loves are one."

"That doesn't mean what I think you think it does."  

She had a hard time saying it, with the little gasps she was making.  I 
slipped her skirt down off her hips to the floor, and then her panties.  
I ran my mouth all the way down her front, ending at her pubic hair.

	"I like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
  	of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
	over parting flesh...  "

"That isn't Shakespeare, you cheater."  

She was breathing faster.  She pressed her pussy out to me.  I put my 
arms between her legs and spread them and put my face up into her and 
sucked on her.  She groaned and pushed her pussy harder to my face.  

I let her down, unfastened the straps, and slipped the blouse and bra 
to the floor.  I wrapped both arms around her waist and hugged her to 
me, and she put both of hers around my neck, and we put our mouths on 
each other and feasted on each other.  Her eyes looked almost feverish.  

I wasn't done with perversity.  Though it was in a good cause it was 
making my prick hurt, but it had its own magic, my magic, and it was 
working.  I wouldn't let foolish consideration disenchant our world 
again.  I told her:

"Lie on the bed and stretch out all your limbs."  It was my first bit 
of non-poetry in awhile, but I couldn't think of a line that said just 
that.

She spread herself out, looking me in the eyes, moving seamlessly 
between wantonness and anxiety, not sure at all but wanting to see this 
through.  She hiccupped.  I tied her softly to the four bed posts, then 
began tickling her body, licking her, then going back to her mouth.  I 
took off my clothes, while she watched.  I squatted over her abdomen 
and pushed her breasts together and moved my penis back and forth 
between them.  Ahh.  Then I said:

	"Lady, shall I lie in your lap?"

She had an inspiration:  

"My darling, sweet man, will you please shut up and fuck me?"

--------------------------------

We are lying in her bedroom, the dark broken only by the moon, the 
stars, a street lamp, occasional headlights, and the five candles we 
had lit.  It is the best we can manage, and it is enough because we are 
together.  Early autumn here is cool.  Her house is open and while 
there seems to be no breeze the drapes move just slightly.  Her bedroom 
overlooks a creek, so we are serenaded by frogs and crickets.

We could watch leaves swim to the ground, one here or there, but we 
aren't watching leaves.  We're playing serious games, I, on my back, 
looking up at her, she kneeling over me, my penis in her hands.  She 
holds me erect in her right hand, and with her poor left she rubs up 
and down my shaft, then around the head.  Her left hand is especially 
soft.  She leans further down to take me in her mouth and excite me, 
and I close my eyes.  After a bit I make a noise and move up into her 
mouth.

"Oh no, darling, don't move.  Remember, you're mine tonight."  Her 
tired eyes shine.

I love her not because she will take my penis in her mouth.  Yes, for 
that too.  Also, though, because she trusts me with her hands.  Oh, too 
because she's smart and pretty and has large, lovely breasts and 
freckles, and she knows poetry, and ... well, let me count the ways.  
Right now I love what she is doing.  I hold my ass tightly to the 
mattress while she moves her wet mouth up and down my prick and pumps 
me with her hands.  We don't wonder if we are being watched by court 
fairies.

