Honing The Talent
B Pascal
Chapter 34
I think the movement of the bed woke me. I opened one eye and Giulia was headed off to the bathroom, naked, her cute butt doing a little dance as she walked. I closed my eyes again.
The bed shifted again and I opened my nearer eye. She had her legs pulled up under her, leaning on one arm, looking me over. “How is it that you are so energetic so soon after collapse?”
I asked. She shrugged. “I suppose people react differently to sex. I feel really good now,” she said.
“You have drained me, left me empty, disposable. Is this true of all Italian women, or is it just you?”
“Italians invented love. Everything else is a pale imitation.”
“You may be right, given the way I feel.”
She moved in closer. “So, Carter, I think this worked out well. I learned some new English phrases, you learned some Italian, and now I feel relaxed, at peace, with a very nice—oh, what is the word? One of my classmates in English class told me. Oh.—a very nice buzz. I hope you feel the same.” I nodded.
“But maybe this is the time to say that this is the end of the lesson. I have things to do in the morning, early. And I did say this was a one-time offer, didn’t I? So perhaps we should say buon notte now. And I will add grazie for helping me out with my two problems.“
I was being dismissed. Well, not entirely unexpected. She had been quite clear about the terms, and I couldn’t very well renegotiate now.
“It will take me a few minutes to regain enough energy to move, but I will. And I was very happy to assist.” She lay down beside me, half turned toward me, one hand resting on my arm. I delayed as long as I decently could, then stretched and worked my way off the bed.
I was moving slowly, conserving my depleted stores of energy, but I found my clothes and got them on. I did the last knot in my shoelaces and leaned over and gave her a kiss on the shoulder. She patted my arm and closed her eyes with a hint of a smile.
In the hall, I found where I’d left my coat and gloves and zipped up as I shut the door behind me. It took me a few moments to get my bearings and figure out where I was, but it wasn’t that far away from campus and in fifteen minutes I was back at the dorm.
No surprise, Larry had not yet returned, not while there was still beer in the keg and a woman he had not yet hit on. Say what you will about him, he was consistent.
Just as well, I was tired enough that I wasn’t in the mood to hear him go on about how awesome the party was, and didn’t I feel better for having gone? Well, I wouldn’t tell him, but I did feel better for having gone. Not just for getting expertly laid, but also for having learned something new about language. I smiled at that just before I fell asleep, still dressed.
I didn’t even hear him come in, I was that tired, but when I woke in the morning he was face down in his bed, snoring. I found some clean clothes, took a shower, and then headed off to breakfast.
The details of my academic life start to get a little tedious, even to me, so I’ll skip a lot of that. Classes, exams, research papers, it got to be routine after a while. I had to be careful not to take it for granted. They were throwing a lot of stuff our way, and we had to assimilate it, understand it, if we were to pass the tests and thus stay in school.
And I was finding that I liked it here. I liked the challenge of learning new ideas to thing about, of seeing my understanding of things widen. It was fun, in a perverse kind of way.
Periodically I would get an email from Karen, filling me in on her school life. They were usually short, hurried notes, because she never had much time. The sense I took away from them was that, as intense as it was, how much she felt like a fish out of water, she found it challenging and exciting, and was managing to keep up. She was, she told me, both exhausted and exhilarated.
In one email she told me she’d been thrilled to get picked by the female CS professor she’d mentioned before to do some unpaid research work. It got her closer to the things she wanted to do, working with artificial intelligence, even though she was basically an unpaid intern, doing the tedious work no one else wanted to do. But she did it gratefully, watched and listened and read, and picked up a lot. I’d bet she’d be at the top of the list when another part-time paid position opened up. I was happy for her.
There is one school-related thing that had been poking at me since shortly after I arrived. I’ve alluded to it before, that strange feeling I’d gotten in my European History class with Professor D.
Even in high school I got what I had called an ’alarm bell’ that went off in my head when a teacher was thinking about me and about to call on me.
I’d felt it periodically in history class, especially after I showed some understanding of the historical context and an ability to extrapolate about the effects of events. Mostly this was my siphoning off his own knowledge of the things he was trying to teach us and feeding it back to him, but of course he interpreted it as insight and intelligence. So I found him periodically thinking about me in class while he lectured, and my feeling that tingle that indicated that the alarm bell might be about to sound.
I had initially thought that it might be some sexual interest, perhaps he had a thing for younger men. But eventually I changed my mind, deciding that it was some other kind of interest, but I hadn’t yet determined what the interest was. His mind was very compartmentalized.
That changed one Tuesday morning. I took my usual seat toward the front of the lecture hall, and he arrived shortly after, toting his battered briefcase. Once into his lecture, he was telling us about some of the plotting that occurred regularly over the centuries between the French and the English, and how it had evolved into semi-established offices on both sides working to ferret out secrets or sow misinformation. It was a kind of precursor to today’s intelligence agencies.
And there it was. I had been idly poking around his epicenter trying to understand how these practices had evolved and become institutionalized, when I saw my name in that context! And as soon as it occurred, I saw why it had come up, because the discussion of Anglo-French spying had brought up his knowledge of US intelligence, and I saw instantly that he had been involved on the periphery since he was a young Ph.D. wet behind the ears.
He didn’t think of the specific agency, because it was so normal for him, just people he worked with on occasion, rather than the institution itself. While not an active member, he sometimes wrote analyses of an evolving political situation for them and, more importantly, served as their lookout for new talent! He was considering that, with the insight I had displayed, I might be a good candidate down the road and perhaps he should effect an introduction to one of their friendly representatives.
I dropped down in my seat as if I had been punched. For years I had been making an effort to keep my talents out of any public awareness specifically because I didn’t want to inadvertently wind up on the radar of one of the clandestine three-letter-acronym agencies. And here was Professor D ruminating about introducing me to them directly! I needed to put a stop to this post haste.
It was still at the speculation stage in his head, so I had some time. I thought about it over the next couple of weeks, deciding that the best approach might be simply for him to decide that I was, after all, unsuitable. A possible person of interest who later proves to be not quite up to snuff.
After some thought, I decided that one of the requisites for any successful candidate would be a rigid belief in patriotism, a kind of “my country, right or wrong” ethos, and a firm conviction that capitalism, backed by a strong military, would ensure our country’s dominance. If he began to feel that I lacked some or all of those qualities, my luster would begin to tarnish in his eyes.
I had some skills in implanting ideas—well, let’s call them suggestions or feelings—suggestions in people’s minds. Nothing specific, since it didn’t work that way. The feelings I was able to linkcast were rather vague. In a sexual context, they were visual metaphors that provoked a certain kind of reaction, such as Avalanche, which gave the recipient an orgasm accompanied by a sense of falling, helpless, inundated by the noise, until they finally came to rest in a snowbank.
But this was of a different nature. I was going to try to convince him that I lacked some qualities that he desired me to have. This was something new I had never tried before. I needed to send a visual metaphor that suggested that I failed to meet some vague standard, which only he knew. I struggled with this as I tried to work through the possible downsides of each metaphor I came up with.
In the end, I decided to keep it ambiguous, to give a sense that, while intelligent and insightful, I was vacillating about my beliefs, that I felt that capitalism was failing people and the national leaders did not always have the people’s interests at heart. And in fact, I did tend toward those beliefs, as did many others, but it would take many conversations with him before he would come to see my inadequacies and we did not interact outside of class.
I could only try. So I built a metaphor that connected those vague doubts and aimless suspicions with my name and face, and during a following class, when I again had his focus, I linkcast it to him. I did it only once, because I wanted to see how it had been received. I couldn’t see an obvious change, so I did it again at the next class, and a third time later.
And one day in class, when I was rummaging in his epicenter for the matrix to help me place the historical facts he had recently imparted, I felt his gaze turn on me and in his mind I saw... disappointment, a chance that had proven to be a false hope. And something that felt like a sigh, like ’Oh, well, maybe there’ll be someone else.’
And so I allowed my chance to be a latter-day James Bond slip by. And thanked my lucky stars that I had been able to do so. It set me to thinking about how to watch for signs in people who might not have my best interests at heart. In high school it had been bullies, the jocks who tormented the nerds. I hadn’t been able to turn their ire away from me, and I wasn’t yet sure why, but it was something to keep poking at, because it was likely to arise again in the future.
The weeks progressed, and the end of the term was now in sight. I saw it in the faces of others who began to have a panicked look when they realized how much they needed to assimilate for all their courses in the time remaining. I had been uncertain about my ability to keep up since my arrival, so I had been working extra hard at it and felt that I was mostly caught up.
Others, like Larry, had developed a hunted look as they tried to compress the preceding months of study into the remaining time in the semester. I even caught him studying once on a Saturday. I was going to say something, but I didn’t want to discourage the newly found habit.
But there was a balance here, too. You could be like some of the library nerds who, when not in class or sleeping, spent their time in the library studying until they were thrown out at midnight. They were back, waiting for the doors to open in the morning. That’s no kind of a life either, spending your days and nights with a nose in a book, pursuing a straight-A goal.
So, fairly regularly, I’d go out on the weekend and do something, a movie, a concert, I even went to a comedy club once. Just something to get me out of the dorm and remind me that there was life outside of school, things to think about that didn’t have to do with classes. Larry’s method for coping was frat parties. They didn’t do that much for me, so I tried other things.
The stress had been building up again, and I felt that I needed to blow off some steam, to clear my head. A glance at the student paper didn’t offer any suggestions for movies that appealed to me, and no concerts of anyone I recognized and liked. I’d done the comedy club recently and wasn’t in the mood.
I flipped the page and saw a half-page article on the regional meeting of CoMBA, the College Music Buyers Association. I don’t know why I decided to read it, maybe the picture of some band playing on a stage somewhere. Anyway, it seems that there’s a business behind the bands and singers who come to do shows at colleges everywhere. There’s a budget allocated to Student Activities Boards at every college, and they use that to hire entertainment for the students. The members of the SAB’s are student volunteers, guided by a faculty advisor.
I’d never given it much thought, but apparently finding the right performer for your school is hard. Mostly people only know the bands they know, the ones that are already famous and out of your price range. To find musicians who both fit your budget and might appeal to your audience was difficult. You couldn’t just ask them to come and audition. It wouldn’t be worth the band’s time.
So organizations like CoMBA served as a clearing house for performers who wanted to play at colleges and SAB’s who were looking for someone new and exciting. CoMBA would host meetings at various colleges in the region once or twice a year, SAB’s would come and listen to showcases, talk to the performers, maybe hire a few, and everyone goes home happy. At least that’s what the article assured me.
But the zinger was that part of the deal with ——— agreeing to host the regional meeting and use the space, was that we, its students, would be allowed to attend and listen to the various performers. And I saw a couple of bands listed that held some interest for me, so I said, “Okay, that’s what I’ll do tomorrow.”
So I spent Saturday finishing up an English paper, studying for a chem quiz, and reading some history. Not unlike Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. As much as school had me on edge, I knew I couldn’t slack off.
Partway through the afternoon, Larry came in—he’d been in the library, yes, the library, doing research for a paper that was due soon—and threw his books on the bed, then kicked his desk.
“That bad?” I asked.
“I know I’m supposed to be keeping up with my assignments, but sometimes you reach a point where it’s too much. You’re about ready to tear your hair out. I need to blow off some steam, or I’m not going to make it through the rest of the semester. Wanna come out and hunt for a party with me tonight?”
“Tempting as that sounds, no. I’m going to go to that CoMBA thing and hear a couple of bands, try to put school out of my head.”
“You know there’s no alcohol at school-sponsored events, right? Come with me and I’ll get you fixed up.”
“I think just the music is enough for me. But you have a good time. What am I saying? Of course you’ll have a good time. You always do.“
He shrugged, as if to say, ’Well, you can’t complain that I didn’t offer.’
It turned out to be a beautiful spring night. We went to eat dinner together and afterwards went back to the dorm to change.
“Last chance, Carter. Bacchus’s revels await. Join me.”
“I’m good, Larry. Enjoy yourself.”
“If I don’t show up back here tonight, don’t worry, I’m just stretching out the party as long as I can. See ya.”
He trotted down the hall to find his party. I was sure he’d have a wonderful time, he always did.
I waited till about nine, then put on a light jacket and went to the student union where the event was to be held. The larger bands would be in the big hall, and there were some smaller rooms where the newer bands and solo artists could strut their stuff. SAB members wandered in and out, some making notes on cards.
I found the bands I wanted to hear and I liked them. The sets were short, because there were a lot of groups hoping to showcase. One would finish, the next would start to set up, while the audience straggled off to hear other acts.
At 10:30 one of the bands I was looking forward to was on in the main hall, so I drifted down there. All the SAB attendees had little badges with their name and school affiliation, and to tell the truth it looked like the party had started last night for some of them and hadn’t yet ended. They were looking a little worse for wear.
Their problem, I suppose. I focused on the band on stage, which had a groove going on and I could see the audience moving along with the beat. They were good. I’d bet they came out of this event with a bunch of bookings.
“Oh, my God! Carter, is that you?“
I had to look around to see who was talking, because it was crowded. I saw her and did a double take. “Melissa Cooley? I don’t believe it!”
She ran at me like she was going to tackle me and jumped up, throwing her arms around my neck and hugging me tight enough to hurt a little.
“I’m amazed! You’re here? What are the odds? How are you? Are you on one of the Student Activity Boards?”
“No, I go to school here. I just came to hear some music. Melissa, get off my neck and let me look at you.”
She let go and dropped down to the ground. I put my arms on her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. The same glorious smile that I remembered, and with a couple more years on her she had developed into a stunning young woman. I could have predicted that when she was sixteen, which is when I last saw her, but the reality of it was something else.
So perhaps time for a brief sidebar, while I bring you up to speed. I’d known Melissa since we were kids on the same softball team. She was funny and sassy and smart and adventurous and we got along, in a friends kind of way appropriate for when you’re ten. At some point, she transitioned from softball-playing tomboy to a young woman who looked like one of those teen models gracing the covers of those beauty magazines like Elle you see peering at you from the newsstands.
When that transition happened, she fell in with a new group of friends, all girls, who reinforced each other’s belief that they were the most attractive and desirable girls in our school, and looked down on everyone else as not being worthy of them. Particularly the boys the same age as they were. It always puzzled me why she fell in with that crowd, because she never struck me as holding those prejudices.
When I had my accident and was recuperating for so long, she was one of the first to come up to me and welcome me back to school, ask me how I was doing. The old Melissa I always knew.
Her friends were careful to let her—and me—know that they did not approve of our fraternization.
They had apparently decided among themselves to approve each others friends, and I had not met the requirements. She ignored them, which earned her some reproving looks.
I won’t detail how it came about, other than to say that at some point she had decided she wanted to experiment further with sex and I was her chosen lab partner. If I was willing, she insisted. Foolish question. I would have swum through a congregation of alligators to make that happen.
I swear that I did nothing to convince her that she wanted my bod. It was her decision entirely.
The opportunity presented itself when her parents went out of town for some social function and she was supposed to spend the night at one of her girlfriend’s houses. She had a friend cover for her and we had her house to ourselves.
She was the first woman I’d ever gotten past first base with, and I considered myself extremely lucky that she had chosen me for her first. But here’s the thing. She was nervous about pregnancy, not yet on birth control and she didn’t completely trust condoms, so she had decided no dick in pussy. We did almost everything else, enthusiastically, but no straight fucking.
That was something we were supposed to get around to when she finally got on birth control, but before that happened her mother got sick, and her father moved the family suddenly to California where there were medical facilities that specialized in treating the disease that afflicted her mother. It was sudden, and it felt like a body blow when she told me. She was gone shortly afterwards and, though she had promised to, she never wrote.
“Carter, I just can’t believe it! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about you.” The band had moved on to a high energy set closer and the crowd was getting raucous. Melissa was having to shout to be heard.
Finally she shook her head, leaned up to put her lips close to my ear and said, “I can’t shout any louder. Let’s find someplace quieter.” She took my hand and led me out to a hallway, where the closing door cut the noise level by half.
“Do you remember, Carter? That Friday dance in high school? We had to leave the floor for the same reason, we couldn’t hear each other. Then we had that talk in the physics lab.”
“Yes, I remember. How could I forget?”
“Carter, I thought about you and Cleveland so often. I was going to write and then life got in the way. My mom died soon after we got there. It hit me hard, and it just knocked the legs out from under my dad, he was walking around like a zombie. The hospital was supposed to help her, but it turned out to be too late.”
“Oh, Melissa, I’m so sorry. I wish you had called or written. I don’t know what I could have done, but you shouldn’t have had to go through something like that alone.”
“I couldn’t really. I was having a hard time dealing with it, couldn’t talk about it. Finally I decided I had to just force myself to be ’normal’ or something, because my dad wasn’t coping well. So I wound up doing most of the cooking and cleaning, and oddly that kind of routine helped me through it. My dad eventually came back from where he was hiding. He still misses her, but he’s gone out on dates a couple of times since then, so there’s hope for him.”
We talked a bit more, then I suggested we go to the cafeteria and sit rather than standing here in the cinder-block hallway, as romantic as it was.
“Okay, I gotta go get my coat. Did you know they had a coat checkroom here? Some classy place you go to school, Carter.”
We retrieved her coat and went to find coffee and pie at the chuck wagon. I found that she was attending one of the California state universities, and had been talked into joining the Student Activity Board by one of her roommates. This was a trip paid for by the school to suss out possible acts for the next school year. There was a regional conference closer to her school but some kind of scheduling conflict had dictated that they fly across the country to attend this one. Her school had put her up in a local hotel close to —————————.
“So I don’t remember you being a scholastic whiz, Carter. You were a pretty good student, but maybe not Ivy-league good. Did you bribe your way in here? Did you find incriminating pictures of the Dean?”
“I found my rhythm eventually and figured out how to navigate the school system. I also found that I had a talent for math and languages, so everything worked out. There are smarter people than me, and I’m actually not sure why I got in here, but I did and I’m keeping my head above water. And you?”
“Well, my grades suffered for awhile after my mother died but I got back into the groove finally.
I chose my school because it’s actually pretty good academically and since I’m a California resident I get a hefty break on tuition. My dad’s doing okay salary-wise, so he’s able to handle it. I got a bit of financial aid, too.”
We traded info on interests and possible majors, talked about the friends in high school we knew in common, and what they were up to. I didn’t mention Karen, because I didn’t think they knew each other back then.
She leaned back in her chair and smiled at me. “Oh, Carter, I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you. This is weird, but you’re one of the things I visualize when I think about the happy parts of my life in Ohio. I close my eyes and you’re kinda drifting around in there. I should have written you after I got past my mother’s death, but by then I was feeling really guilty about not having written in the first place. The more I thought about it, the harder it got.”
“Please, Melissa, it’s fine. I know why you couldn’t, and I’m happy that you came out of it okay. Really. It’s so nice to see you. You look wonderful. Well, you always did, but more so now.”
“You’ve changed somehow, Carter, I don’t know quite what it is. You’re confident—you always were, now that I think about it—and you have a presence about you, like you can look inside me.”
If she only knew. She blushed a little, which was unexpected. “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but one of the things that made me saddest when we had to leave so suddenly was that we never got to follow up with our... what? Experimentation? Anyway, that time we spent at my house, I think I alluded to how eye-opening it was. It kind of knocked me for a loop. It was way beyond anything I had expected, and I was really hoping to find out what it would feel like when we finally had real sex.”
“I was kind of a neophyte then,” I said, “fumbling my way through it. I was afraid I was going to be a disappointment to you.”
“Are you kidding? I know I told you then how powerful it was, how it made me feel like my whole body was vibrating. even if we didn’t go all the way, it was still amazing. I’ve thought a lot about this. It reset my expectations for what sex could be. We girls used to talk about it all the time, what it was going to be like when we finally did it, like any of us had a clue.
“And, by the way, some of my crew finally did admit to us that they’d done it with their boyfriends, after denying that they were ever going to let them get past first base. And when we asked them how it was, I could see it in the way they responded that it had been a disappointment.
’Oh, it was... really nice’, they’d say. ’It felt... okay.’ Yeah, sure. I could see it in their faces, it was a letdown.
“I was the only one who knew what it really could be like. And I didn’t tell them, by the way, because I knew they wouldn’t believe me, they’d think I was making it up. Plus, they leak like a sieve. Word would be all over town ten minutes after they’d left.”
“Oh, how I miss high school. Not,” I said.
“Exactly. Anyway, my point is, you showed me what it could be like, if a guy knows what he’s doing. Or even if he can only follow instructions. That, Carter, was what I had been hoping to get out of our little experiment, and it worked like gangbusters. So thanks.”
“Well, we Boy Scouts are always looking to perform good deeds in the neighborhood.”
“I hope they gave you a merit badge for that. You deserved it.”
She took another sip of her coffee, probably cold now. “I don’t know if you want to hear this, but in a way it finishes the story. So after we left Ohio and I had started at my new school, I finally met a guy who was cute and intelligent, and we started hanging out. Eventually, one thing led to another, and he was my first, as far as real sex went.
“It was kind of a disappointment, like my friends had had, but it was mostly his inexperience, him not quite sure what to do, so he’d just try things he’d seen in porn movies. I thought a lot about that afterwards, and I also thought about how we’d talked when we were together and you told me that I had to be an active participant, directing what I’d like more or less of.
“It took a bit of convincing before I could get him to stop doing that porn thing, get him to slow down, to make him realize that it’s not really the dick hammering me that gets me off. It went against everything he’d thought he’d learned up till then. He finally agreed to do what I asked him to do and I showed him how to do some of the things you’d done to me.
“And once he learned how to do those things, we got along pretty well. He could get me off most of the time and it felt good.”
She was wanting me to say something positive here, but the truth was that I was really jealous of that guy, whoever he was, disappointed that it was not me. Then I thought, well, if she hadn’t left and we had wound up together, then I probably never would have met Karen.
“I’m glad it worked out for you, Melissa. Are you two still together?”
“Him? Oh, no. That probably didn’t last more than six months. He was cute and had some smarts, I’ll give him that, but he was a little shallow and maybe a bit possessive, too. It got to a point where I wasn’t enjoying being with him and told him so. He left, telling me I’d never find anyone as good as him. Did I mention that he was a bit full of himself?”
I smiled at that.
“So nothing steady after that, though I’ve been seeing a guy at school now who I like. You?”
“Me? I kinda played the field for a couple of years after you left. I met someone later and we were an almost-couple through senior year.”
“What does that mean, almost-couple?”
I explained about Karen’s parents’ frowning on us seeing each other exclusively and forcing her to date others.
“I can almost see that,” Melissa said. “It’s a time when we’re changing so much and we need to experience other points of view. Hard to do that if you’re seeing only one person. You seeing anyone now, at school?”
“No one serious. It gets pretty intense here, academically, so free time’s an issue. I’m still in touch with Karen and we see each other when we’re home. I still don’t know if she sees us as exclusive.”
“I see.” She picked up her coffee cup automatically and sipped it, then spit it back into the cup.
“Ugh. That’s past its use-by date, for sure.”
She looked at me for a few moments, then put her hand over mine. “I wondered, Carter, after I’d moved away, what we might have become, you and me. You seemed to get me, you were smart and funny and respectful and insightful, and you knew just which of my buttons to push. I wondered if we would have turned into a couple. My girlfriends, maybe you remember, they didn’t think anyone was good enough, and if any of us expressed an interest in someone at school, they were pretty routinely shot down.
“I used to lay awake in bed at night thinking about this, what would have happened if I had said I was going to go out with you, be a couple. I know they didn’t approve of you, they told me so on numerous occasions, and you know what? I didn’t give a damn what they thought. I would have told them to go to hell. By that time I was pretty much done with them trying to control my life.
Anyway, that was right around the time that all that stuff with moving and my mother happened, so it was a moot point. But I still wonder.”
“There are times, Cooley, also often late at night in bed, when I think idly of people in my past, and you come up more often than most. So, yeah, I wonder what might have happened, too.”
“Well, who knows what the future might bring?” She stopped and looked at her coffee cup again, then remembered what it had last tasted like.
“I wasn’t quite truthful, Carter, before when I said I sometimes wondered what it would have felt like when we finally had real sex. In fact, I wondered about that a lot. I still do. When I think about that weekend the thing I remember is the kind of chemistry we had together. At least it felt that way to me. Like you knew just what I wanted to have done to me at that exact moment. It really threw me for a loop. It made me feel so good. And I can only imagine what the real thing would have felt like.
“I mean... nuts, I’m having a hard time with this, thinking about it doesn’t prepare you like you think it will. I mean, I think about this a lot, enough that I’m starting to wonder if I’m developing some kind of fixation or something. I would like to know what it would feel like to make love to you, to do the things we couldn’t the first time. Is it weird of me to have carried this around with me for almost four years?”
“You’ll have to ask me after I’ve gotten my Ph.D. and I’m qualified to make such judgments, but I’ll tell you that I often think about you, too, and what it might have been like. So maybe not so weird. Or else we’re both weird.”
“Well, that’s a relief then, two weird people. Carter, if this is too much, just tell me. I think I need to experience what it is that we missed. If I can do that, then maybe I won’t have to keep replaying those ’what-ifs’ in my head.”
I looked at her and remembered a long-ago fantasy just before I fell asleep one night, of having run into Melissa again and the both of us falling into bed. But that would never happen, of course.
Until now.
“I would be happy beyond words, Melissa. You were always someone very special, and I always regretted that we could never follow that plan through to the end.”
“Here’s the problem, though,” she said. “I’m in a hotel room with three other girls from school.
Zero privacy, and they’ll be furious if they get locked out when they’re ready to crash. So I think that option’s out.”
“I’m in a dorm,” I told her, “one roommate, but he’s out partying tonight and told me he intends to make it last as long as he can. But there’s no guarantee that he won’t walk in on us. We kind of joked at the beginning of the year what we were going to do if one of us needed some privacy and agreed that we’d put a sock over the outside doorknob as a signal. But I don’t know if he’ll remember that if he’s drunk.”
“Limited options, and yours is the least bad. I’d suggest getting a hotel room, but I know for a fact that every place around here is sold out due to the conference. In fact, we almost wound up having to stay at the local YWCA, but for a last-minute cancellation and a reservation clerk who felt sorry for us. Even so, it’s four of us packed into one room. So, if we wind up in your dorm room it can’t be that bad. Can it?”
“I’ll just push the Chinese takeout containers under the bed. It’ll keep the rats occupied.”
“You always were kind of a sweet talker. Lead the way.”
We put on our coats and dropped off the dishes at the busing station on the way out. It was still a bit chilly out at night, even if it was nominally spring, and she put her arm through mine and pressed close to me as we walked.
In the dorm I nodded at the guard behind the desk who recognized most of us by sight now.
We took the elevator up—I normally walked up—and I led her down the hall. There were a few people who glanced at us as we passed, and I could almost read their minds: “I know where you’re going.” Let them be jealous.
“This is me.” I opened the door—we seldom locked it, though we probably should have—and motioned her in. She looked it over carefully.
“Not bad, Carter. Just two of you, you said? There’s three of us in my dorm, and it gets a little crowded sometimes if you know what I mean. Is this your roommate’s side? He’s got a daring fashion sense, I see.”
She was looking at one of Larry’s Hawaiian shirts tossed on the chair, and as she looked I suddenly realized I had Karen’s picture on my desk looking out at us. Maybe that’s not the right thing to set the mood when we’re about to go at it. I took a step over and made to straighten up the desk, putting her picture face down so it wouldn’t show. Also, I suddenly got this weird feeling like Karen would be watching us if it were standing up.
“Cleaner than I imagined a guy’s dorm room would look like, Carter. Is that sexist of me?”
“Yes, but I forgive you.”
She snorted. “Give me your coat, Melissa. I’ll hang it up.”
Larry and I each had a tiny closet which I seldom used, except for things like jackets, so there was room for hers. She stuffed her gloves in a sleeve and handed it to me.
She came over and put her arms around me, resting her head on my shoulder. “Life’s strange, huh? I thought I’d never see you again, Tom, and then fate rolls the dice and we wind up in the same place at the same time. Weird.”
“Yeah, it is. You know what I’m finding odd now? How nervous I am, like it’s our first time all over again, and I’m hesitant, like I’m going to make a mistake or do something that will upset you. I don’t know why I should feel like that.”
“I think that’s highly unlikely, but I’ll cut you some slack if you do. How ’bout we sit down?”
We found a comfortable position on the edge of the bed, while she ran her hand over the side of my face, inspecting it, memorizing it. “You know one of the things I remembered most about you? Talk about tiny, meaningless details. One of your earlobes is just a little larger than the other.”
“In my entire life, Melissa, you are the only one to have brought that to my attention. Bizarre, but thank you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want you to go through life thinking that you were perfect.”
“I certainly won’t now.”
She smiled at me and then we were kissing and it felt like no time at all had passed since I had done that last. I was so wrapped up in kissing her that I forgot all about the other stuff I usually do, preparing women for what was to come.
Eventually, some part of me woke up and remembered, so I linkcast her Foundation and Rowboat, and channeled a feather on her clit. I felt her sink into me with a little whimper while her tongue tried to find my tonsils. I couldn’t recall if I even still had tonsils.
One of my hands had worked its way up her side and was squeezing her left tit and she made a sound in her throat. I hadn’t planned on doing that, it was just there all of a sudden. But it still felt great and in an instant it brought back the memory of the first time I had done that. And right then I decided I needed to see the rest of her, right now.
I fumbled at her shirt, a long-sleeve pullover, and pulled it out of her waistband, then slid it up her body. She let go of my lips just long enough to get the shirt over her head. I tossed it in the direction of the desk chair.
I nibbled my way from her lips, over her chin and down her neck, working my way down her chest. When I got to her bra I kissed that parts of her boobs that peeked out the top of the bra.
My mind wandered just for a moment as I marveled at the things we are able to store in the brain without even realizing it. I remembered very clearly the way she smelled, I recognized it as soon as I got close to her skin. It was wonderful and very erotic, mostly because, I think, I associated it with our first time.
I gave myself a mental kick to bring me back and I focused on what was right in front of me. I reached behind her, and this time I got her bra open on the first try. See? Practice makes perfect. I slipped it over her arms and again tossed it in the general direction of the desk chair.
Melissa had never had large breasts, but they were firm and perfectly shaped and suited her to a tee. I wrapped my lips around one and kneaded the other, while I linkcast some increasing arousal in her direction.
She was making noises that sounded like partially formed words, but nothing that conveyed a specific meaning. Her hands started pulling at my shirt, trying to find the buttons.
“Melissa, I need to see the rest of you again PDQ. Just sit there for a minute.” I dropped down to my knees and got her shoelaces untied and the shoes off her feet. I ran my hands up the outside of her legs, then took her hands.
“Stand up. Just stand there while I get the rest of this off of you.” She stood there in her stocking feet, legs slightly parted, while I ran my hands over her bare skin.
“I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but you have gotten even hotter since I last saw you. You always were gorgeous, but you’ve turned into something beyond that. How is it that you don’t have scores of guys chasing you?”
“Who said that I didn’t?”
“Right. My bad. I shouldn’t expect some of them to come pounding on the door, should I?”
“I think we’re safe. That only happens in California.”
“Oh, speaking of door, I was going to...”
I trotted over to the dresser and found a clean pair of socks and pulled one out. I opened the door slightly and slipped the sock over the knob. Fortunately, there was nobody in the hall or I would have gotten some clever remarks and catcalls. I closed the door and turned the lock, I think the first time I had done that.
“Now, I was right in the middle of something, let’s see, what was it?...” She reached out and punched my arm, smiling. “Oh, of course, thank you.”
I fell to my knees and leaned in to kiss her stomach, adding a bit of tongue around her navel, while my hands found the belt to her pants and undid it. I found the clasp holding it together and loosened it, then slowly pulled the zipper downwards while my tongue followed a couple of inches behind. She put her hands on the back of my head and closed her eyes.
I reached up and got my fingers in the waistband and slipped her pants over her hips. They fell to her knees. She was wearing white panties with a little lace edging around the waist, and right now she looked so sexy that I had to stop and gaze for a moment.
“Lift your left leg, Melissa.” She did, and I slipped the pants over her foot. Then she did the other one, and she was almost naked.
“How had I forgotten that? I mean, not the big picture, but all the little details that made you so amazing, like the way you have of putting more of your weight on one leg, and that little look of surprise you have. It just makes my heart jump.”
“Stand up, Carter. My turn.”
She started with my shoes, and had them off in no time. She tossed them in a corner. Then she stood up, finished with my shirt buttons and pulled it off me. She leaned in and kissed my chest from the neck down to my waist, pausing every so often to sniff. At least that’s what it felt like, and I remembered she had done that the first time, too. Like she was storing the memory of my smell away for recall at a later time.
She had my belt undone and my zipper down in seconds and I watched her pull my pants down to my ankles. My dick was poking at my shorts, making a tent of them. She found the bottom hems and while she looked me in the eye, she tugged them down and over my dick.
“Still in the same place, I see,” she said, as it stiffly waved patriotically in front of her. “Nice to know some things never change.” She leaned in and gave the tip of it a kiss. I didn’t intend to but I choked. “Crap,” I thought to myself, “why do I always forget the cum block till the last second?” I set it before she went any further.
“Lift your leg, Carter.” Oh, right, my pants. I’m not going anywhere while they’re still wrapped around my legs. I lifted my left and she pulled them off, then did the other.
“Why don’t you go sit down there? Get comfortable.”
I sat on the bed, leaning on my arms extended behind me. She knee-walked toward me on the linoleum floor, which must have been uncomfortable, but she took no notice. She took hold of my dick with her thumb and two fingers.
“I’m remembering the first time I did this. With you. I was so nervous, afraid I was going to do it wrong. You remember I told you my crew sometimes practiced on carrots and sausages when we were alone, criticizing each other’s technique and making suggestions?”
“I remember how hot that image got me. Anyway, it sure seemed like you had learned the lesson well. I remember how aroused it got me and how much I had to fight off cumming in your mouth within the first ten seconds.”
She was still stroking my cock. “I was a little scared of it. I found the idea of it exciting, I’d seen it done in pornos, but we could never seem to get the hang of it when we practiced, like we were always about to choke. And I really didn’t want to do that. I was afraid you’d think poorly of me.”
“Think poorly? Melissa, I was so overjoyed that you were willing to do those things with me that it would have been nearly impossible for you to do anything I wouldn’t like! It felt wonderful.”
“Well, I was still scared of it. I had to force myself not to pull away when you finally came in my mouth. Some part of me wanted to, but I told myself, ’No, that’s not what adults do. Get used to it.’ So I did, and it was actually all right after the panic left me. My first time tasting cum.”
“I remember that I asked you about it, after I got over my heart attack. I’d never felt anything like that, it was amazing.”
“So, anyway, I’ve had some opportunities to practice, so I may have gotten a little better. You let me know, okay?”
She leaned forward until it was right in front of her. She seemed to be examining it, deciding on a plan of attack perhaps. Then she moved in a little and licked it from bottom to top, tongue dancing back and forth. I heard myself catch my breath as she moved downwards again.
She did that a few more times, still stroking my dick with her fingers. Thinking back, our first encounter occurred before I had really found out how to use my talents with any finesse, even before I had found I could keep myself from cumming. All I had were some crude images that stimulated orgasms. So this concept of specific induced feelings would all be new to her.
I linkcast both Boner Bliss and Spitshine to her. I didn’t know if she had yet learned how to take a dick into her throat. She’d said she’d practiced, but I didn’t know the specifics. But I did know that she’d never gotten a rush from having a dick in her mouth, or sensed being on the edge of orgasm if it slipped into her throat. I was curious to see how she’d react.
Right now what she was doing felt great. She now had her other hand cupping my balls and squeezing them gently. She moved her mouth to the top of my dick and slid her lips over the tip of my dick, letting her tongue flick over the frenum.
“Oh, Christ, Melissa, that’s perfect!”
She raised her eyes while her lips were still wrapped around the top of my cock, and looked at me. I don’t know how I could read her eyes, but they said, “You think that’s nice? See what this feels like.”
She slid it in until it was a couple of inches deep, then bobbed up and down, the tongue never stopping. “Oh, fuck, baby, yes! Do that!”
I wasn’t just acting for her benefit, it really did feel spectacular. I could tell she was doing this not just because it was part of foreplay, but because she really wanted me to feel good.
While I still had some self-control and her focus, I found the link and walked it up to her epicenter. I hadn’t learned how to do this before she moved away, so this was the first time I’d tried it with her. I wanted to see how she was reacting to this.
Her mind was organized, there seemed to be no clutter. The space felt, I don’t know, perhaps peaceful, like a space she was comfortable living in. There was a sense of happiness, too. It was hard to be too specific about these things, because it was composed of images, colors, smells, emotions, things that are hard to define precisely, but that’s what it felt like.
And I was picking up something else, too, a sense of surprise, something unexpected but pleasant. I watched a bit. Suddenly I realized it was coordinated with what she was doing to me, that the pleasant feeling increased when the dick went deeper in her mouth. I’m not sure why I should be startled by that, it’s exactly what Boner Bliss is supposed to do. I suppose I was surprised because I was distracted. What she was doing to me felt really good.
I gave her some feedback to let her know what it felt like. “Jesus, baby, like that. Deeper, go deeper, please!”
And here’s where I started to pick up some hesitation. She was still nervous about dicks in her throat. She’d done it once to me, that first time, but she’d never really told me the specifics of what it felt like, other than it was her first attempt and she was afraid of choking.
She’d had cocks pushing at her throat since that time, but never all the way due to that fear of gagging. But that’s what Spitshine does, it replaces the gag reflex with a sense of happiness and contentment, that she’s pleasing her partner. So I wouldn’t force her, but I’d give her feedback to let her know that she was making me feel wonderful. So with a combination of words, gasps and moans, I let her know just that.
In her epicenter she was responding to it, happy that she was making me feel good, and wanting to make it feel better. She overcame her normal reticence and pushed a little deeper. I felt the tip of my dick push into her throat and linkcast her a Mineral Spring image, which was a surge of pleasure but not yet an orgasm.
I felt the surprise in her mind when that feeling hit her, a feeling of ’What the hell was that? That’s new.’ She pulled off and took a breath, then wrapped her lips around it again and pushed down. Another Mineral Spring. Positive reinforcement.
I put my hands on the side of her head, mostly for tactile feedback, to let her know I was loving what she was doing. She pulled off to take another breath and looked at me. I looked her in the eye and said, “Melissa. Just fucking amazing.”
This she took as a challenge, I don’t know why, but I could feel it in her epicenter, which was looking a little disheveled right now, as if things had not been put away properly. She took another breath, closed her lips over my cock and pushed down. And this time, when she felt the tip push at her throat, kept going. I got the sense that this was the first time she’d tried that, and she was afraid of what was going to happen.
There was no gagging, since I’d made that go away, and on top of the feeling of contentment, I linkcast her a Shiver and she moaned. I could feel her shake a bit. It wasn’t in all the way, but almost. She kept the dick where it was while she let the feeling wash over her.
Finally, the desire for oxygen won out and she pulled off with an audible pop. She looked like she’d just walked away from a car accident. “Damn, Carter. I’ve never felt like that before. That was really a... surprise. I mean, it was good.”
“Cooley, that was incredible, it felt so good. Why do I always feel so rushed with you? Not that we’ve had a lot of opportunities, but there never seems to be enough time to do all the things I’d like to do with you. I’d love another couple of hours of that, but right now I need to map your body with my tongue, so I’ll remember it. Switch places with me.”
She stood up and before she could position herself on the bed, I pulled her panties down over her hips. She stepped out of them and once again I marveled at what a glorious ass she had. She got comfortable and lay back on the bed with her knees over the edge.
I put my fingertips on the inside of her thighs and urged them apart. I started on the inside of her left knee, licking and kissing. I remembered clearly the first time I had done that, because her knees, especially the back, were so sensitive. I almost got kicked in the face when I tried to lick the sole of her foot. I’d had to grab it with both hands while I licked, while she screamed for me to stop. When I got her toes in my mouth, though, she moaned and collapsed into the bed.
So I was careful not to touch those extra sensitive places. I felt her relax as I moved away from the knee and go higher. I know what she wanted, but I intended to make her wait. I got as high as her crotch and detoured up her hip, over the top of her pubis, and down the other hip. I worked my way down to her right knee, where I chanced a tongue on the underside. She gasped and stiffened.
But it was just teasing. I started north again, a little more quickly, and this time I went directly for her slit. As soon as I got there she put her hands on the back of my head, perhaps to keep me from getting away again. I got my tongue busy trying to push its way in, and in just under a minute she was making soft mewling sounds, her hands pulling at my hair.
I wasn’t just making conversation before, I was feeling rushed. I knew she had to be back at her hotel before her roommates panicked, so we didn’t have that much time. I’ll have to move this along, as much as I wanted to draw it out. I brought my hands up her thighs and extended my thumbs to pull her labia apart. When I did, it exposed the pink inside. When my tongue found it, she went nuts.
“Fuck, yes, Carter, right there, don’t stop.” I knew she was desperately searching for her first orgasm and where she wanted my tongue to go, but too much too soon would leave her depleted. I kept my tongue going and linkcast her a Summer Breeze. She arched her back and said, “Oooooohh.” The SB’s are here and then they’re gone, leaving a nice feeling in its wake.
So I kept it up, licking her slit and occasionally trying to tongue-fuck her pussy, and every couple of minutes I’d send another Summer Breeze. I did that as long as I could until my tongue said, “No more.” The constant movement of my tongue was giving it cramps. By now she had her fingers wrapped in my hair and it was starting to hurt a bit.
I flicked my tongue back and forth slowly, working my way higher, and just before it hit her clit I lowered my right hand and pushed two fingers into her pussy. fucking it. When my tongue found her button and started massaging it her voice went impossibly high until it disappeared, then came back moments later with a shout. “Yesyesyes, do that, fuck, yes!”
Her body shook for ten seconds or so, then went completely still. Her hands pushed my head away from her pussy, and I reluctantly pulled my fingers from her cunt. I kissed my way up her body, pausing at all the interesting places, until I reached her mouth, where I leaned in and sucked her tongue. She was still half out of it, but I felt some response.
I had forgotten how soft her skin was, how nice it felt under my hand, so I let my hand wander over her body, pausing here and there to squeeze or stroke a bit harder. When I got to her slit again I was surprised how wet it had gotten. It was quite slick under my fingers. I would have liked to play with her pussy some more, but now I had this clock running in my head, and a little voice saying, “She has to get back to her hotel. What if Larry gets back drunk and starts pounding on the door to get in?”
I was making a large problem out of a small one, but my mind is weird like that sometimes. But the basic facts were true. She did need to get back sooner or later, and Larry would be back sometime in the not too distant future. So I made a decision. I wanted to give her a couple more orgasms with tongue and fingers, and to play with her ass, but I wouldn’t be able to do that and fuck her, too, in the time we had. And the real point of this, from her perspective, was to find out what us fucking together would feel like, so she could banish the ’what-ifs’ from her head.
So I played with her pussy for a couple of minutes more, until she was pushing into me, then stood up and found my pants. I pulled a condom out of my wallet and put it on. I looked at the bed, and her eyes were open, watching me roll the condom onto my dick. One hand was playing with her clit. I had a sudden flashback at how embarrassed she had been the first time I’d asked her to do that for me so I could watch. I had finally had to agree to masturbate while she did it so that she wouldn’t feel uncomfortable about it.
“Pull your legs up onto the bed, Melissa. That’s good. Spread your legs apart a little more.
Perfect. God damn, you look so hot right now, I don’t know how long I can last.”
Actually, I was good for as long as I wanted to go, thanks to the Cum Block (patent pending), but she didn’t need to know that, she only needed to know how sexy she was.
I got onto the bed on my knees and worked my way up. I suddenly realized that I should send her one more image, Glow, which made her perceive my dick as much larger than it was. Actually, it caused the muscles in her vagina to contract slightly, making the interior smaller. It would make her feel completely filled up.
As I did that, I took my dick in my hand and rubbed it up her slit and against her clit. I heard her suck in her breath through her teeth when I did that. “Jesus, Tom, it’s so sensitive now. That feels so good.”
I teased her a bit more while I watched her, seeing the feelings play over her face. That’s enough, I finally said, and moved my dick down until it was right at the opening, then pushed slowly in. She gasped. “Oh, fuck, Tom, go slow, it feels really tight.”
Yes, it did. That’s what Glow was for. But I took my time. Her pussy would expand enough to take me in when the muscles relaxed. For now I just pushed in an inch or so, then slid it out. Her breathing picked up, got a little shallow, and she closed her eyes.
It’s time, I can’t put this off too long. This time I pushed in until I was buried about four inches deep. “Oh, Christ, Carter, it feels like you’re huge. Did you get bigger since I went down on you? Go slow, please.”
So in and out, slowly, not going much deeper. I could feel how tight her cunt was with the muscles contracting, but I could also feel them relaxing a little. She was really wet now, her breath catching in her throat. I kept up that slow, steady movement, and started linkcasting Mineral Spring and Summer Breeze alternately. Neither of them would make her cum directly, just give her a rush and set her up for later.
“Jesus, Carter, whatever you’re doing, it’s fucking amazing, it feels so good.”
“Baby, it’s taking all my willpower to keep from cumming right now. Your pussy is incredible, it’s like it’s made just for my dick.”
I’d been at it for ten minutes or so, and my lower back was beginning to complain. I made a mental note to look into yoga or something similar, maybe that would help.
I was going to have to change position soon, but maybe it was time for her first. I prepped the usual wave-breaking-on-the-beach image, not a big one,—and I was really going to have to come up with something different soon—and linkcast it to her as I tapped her clitoral hood with my fingers.
She called out desperately, “Oh, fuck, oh, fuck, I’m cumming, Tom, oh, yes!” She held her breath, then let out a shout, followed by a series of grunts, while she grabbed at my arms.
I slowed down to nothing while she wound down. And there was the look on her face that had struck me so powerfully the first time we had been together, a look of peace and contentment and complete relaxation, all care gone. The first time I had seen it, it made me think that this is what we must look like in heaven, with all worry banished. It had almost brought me to tears.
While I replayed that in my head, she started to move again. She gave my arm a squeeze, and said, “And now I know what it feels like to make love with you. That was really nice, Tom. Really nice.”
“Well, thanks, but that’s not all of it. We just started. I know you have to leave soon, but we’ve got some time yet. I’m pretty sure I can guarantee it’ll get better.”
“You didn’t cum? I mean, I should have been more focused on you, but you kind of did a number on me. You didn’t cum?”
“No, but it was touch and go for a minute there. I know this isn’t PC, Melissa, but I’ve got to say, you’ve got an amazing pussy. It was doing things to me that were making me nuts. I don’t know how I didn’t cum already. So let me take advantage of that while I can.”
She did as much of a shrug as she was able, lying on the bed, and I asked her to pull her knees back. I got my arms under her thighs and leaned forward, putting my weight on my arms. Her knees were pushed back almost to her shoulders, and my dick was poised above her pussy.
I pushed slowly in until almost all of it was inside her and she drew a deep breath. “I can’t tell you how many times I thought about this, Melissa, both before and after you left Ohio, what it would feel like to do this to you. I know it was a fantasy, especially after you went away and I knew it would never come true. But it was still fun to dream about, and now I get to make it happen.”
Now I started pushing into her hard and fast. I hadn’t been lying, I had fantasized about her. It happened less often after I met Karen, but Melissa still cropped up in my dreams every once in a while. So I pounded into her pussy while I watched her, suspended above her, reading her face.
Her eyes had gone wide, perhaps a little overwhelmed at the reality of it, trying to process the sensations and the emotions, all mixed together. I started linkcasting a Summer Breeze every couple of minutes, and she would let out a breathless “Yes! Yes!”
My hips were working automatically, as if my mind had become detached. I found the link between us and walked my way up the thread to her epicenter. What had been neat and structured, calm and peaceful, was now chaotic, pillows tossed about, papers flying around the area, a sense of tension, happiness and a feeling of impending joy.
The tension built up, I could feel it in the atmosphere in her epicenter, and her real voice said, “I’m so close, Carter, it feels so good, make me cum, please, I need this.”
This was the fallacy I often fell into, the idea that women just needed four or five powerful orgasms to set them right. But in truth it could be overwhelming, leaving them exhausted, too drained to feel anything. There was a balance, one I was still searching for but hadn’t yet found. But in Melissa’s case, given the short time we had, a couple of strong orgasms should leave her tired but happy.
I prepped another of the waves on the beach, this one somewhat larger, and farther away, so she could see it coming, and linkcast it to her. I could see on her face the exact moment she knew it was coming, and watched her as it approached. She started talking to herself quietly.
“Oh, yeah, that’s it, keep doing that. A little faster, uh-huh, yes.”
When she squeezed her eyes shut I just started pistoning my cock into her as hard as I could, and she told me what was happening. “Fuck, yes, like that, almost there, baby, harder, harder. Do it! Do it!”
Again, she tensed and choked off her monologue, her body vibrating, until she yelled, “Now!
Do it now! Yesyesyes, don’t stop!” Her fists were pounding my shoulders, because they had to move somewhere, it wasn’t personal.
It didn’t last that long, they never do, but it looked like she enjoyed the ride. Again she collapsed, completely inert, while I was still hammering into her pussy, more momentum than anything else. Eventually I stopped and pulled out slowly. There wasn’t much room on the bed, but I wormed in next to her and put an arm around her.
My dick was still hard, but I knew it would get soft soon without some stimulation. She was out for almost ten minutes, I guessed, and I almost dozed off, but I spent the time memorizing her body again, admiring parts that I had shamefully forgotten.
She awoke with a start. “Oh,” she said.
“Welcome back. You were fun to watch.”
“Jesus Christ, Carter. You remember earlier when I said you knew just what buttons to push that first time we got together? You’ve still got it, and maybe you found a few new ones, too. That was pretty intense. I usually don’t cum that hard.”
“I think I’ve said this to you before. You look so beautiful when you cum, it’s like hearing angels sing. Is that a mixed metaphor? Anyway, it was a privilege to watch.”
“Well, I’m not sure I’ve got the energy to try that again. You wiped me out pretty good.”
“You’re going to leave me hanging? That’s not fair. I think there are laws against that. If there aren’t, there should be.”
“I don’t know what I’ve got left, Tom. I could give you a blowjob or a handjob, will that work?”
“I’m sure they’d be wonderful, but I still don’t know what it would feel like to cum inside you, and I don’t think that’s a chance I would like to let slip by. You know what I’d like? I’d like you to get on top and let me fuck you. That shouldn’t take much effort for you, if I do most of the work.”
You looked dubious, but eventually nodded. “Okay, I’ll try, but I think I’m going to collapse soon. And it’s your fault.”
“Guys always take the blame. Okay, we’re used to it.”
She punched me on the shoulder, then pushed me onto my back. With some effort, she found a comfortable position and got herself positioned above me, and as I watched her I was transported back almost four years, as if we were still in her bedroom, that same look of anticipation on her face, of trying something new.
She reached under her and found my cock, and held it in place as she settled down onto it. I heard her catch her breath as it entered her, again feeling like it was too big to fit. She dropped down very slowly, by millimeters, until it was all in.
“It’s almost too big, Tom. It feels enormous. Go slow, okay?”
I’d said I’d do most of the work, but now that it was in her, she was moving around, grinding on it, lifting her hips to slide it out, then settling down again. She started a slow rhythm, and I pushed in, too. How could I not? It felt great.
But she was right, we needed to end this soon. So as I slid in and out, I sent a Mineral Spring every few minutes, just to hear the soft “Oooohh” that she’d make. I thought about how I’d like this to end. I really didn’t know what her triggers were, since we hadn’t spent that much time getting to know each other back then, so I arbitrarily chose Fireworks for her, and Freight Train for me.
By this time she had worked up to a medium rhythm and it felt pretty damn good. As soon as I released the Cum Block, I was pretty sure it would be only a matter of seconds before I went off. I picked up the pace, which made her open her eyes. “I’m pretty close, Cooley, won’t be long now.”
She set her mind to it and fucked me with a purpose. I sent her another Mineral Spring, then linkcast the images I’d prepped, hers tied to the onset of mine.
Damn, this felt so good I hated to make it end, but I heard that Robert Frost poem echoing in my head, especially the lines, ”But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep...” So I released the Cum Block and, sure enough, it was just seconds before I felt it start to build up in my balls.
“Oh, fuck, baby, I think that’s it, I’m gonna cum...” I started pounding her pussy as fast as I could, as she made a high-pitched sound in her throat. The freight train was screaming around the curve, whistle shrieking, roaring into the tunnel. And then my load was shooting up and I was emptying out inside her. I could hear only the sounds of the train echoing off the walls of the tunnel.
Above me I could see her, eyes closed, saying something I couldn’t hear, and I could almost watch the fireworks show play out on her face as each mini-orgasm hit her. She was pushing her arms into my chest rhythmically as she tried to keep from falling.
And when the fireworks suddenly ended, she grew still and lowered herself carefully onto my chest and wrapped her arms around me. My head was still spinning. Sometimes I take these visual metaphors too literally. I felt like my ears were ringing. I might have to rethink some of these to make them more subtle.
We both fell into that warm afterglow, and I closed my eyes and probably slept for a couple of minutes. I knew this because I could feel my limp dick still inside her and the condom leaking. I shook myself awake and, as gently as I could, rolled her to the side while awkwardly trying to hold on to the end of the rubber.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and asked myself, “Now what do I do with this?” Finally I remembered having bought a sheaf of three-hole notebook paper that had been wrapped in plastic.
I got up and dug it out of the wastebasket and deposited the condom inside, carefully placing it back in the wastebasket. Later I’d take it to the end of the hall and place the contents in the trash bin.
I went back to the bed and arranged myself quietly by her side, up on one elbow, watching her sleep. She looked exactly as I remembered her from the first time we fell asleep together, and it made me just a little bit sad that I’d never been able to be a couple with her in high school. I think she would have made me happy. I eventually found that, and more, with Karen, but this fell into the ’things that might have been’ bin and some part of me regretted it.
She took that moment to return to consciousness, stretching, then slowly opening her eyes. She just looked at me for a minute, thinking about something or many things.
“What time is it?” she asked. I looked at my desk clock and told her. “I should probably get going before my peeps freak out. But I’ll tell you that right now I couldn’t care less.” She moved closer and put an arm around my waist.
“That was something else, Carter. I was thinking, while we were making love, about our first time together. Also our last, for that matter. And I was thinking about other guys I’ve been with, too. Wondering why it’s so different with you. I mean, it’s usually fun with other guys, I pretty much always have a good time, but I never cum more than once or twice.
“Except with you. With you, it’s one after another, some small, some are big, and sometimes you keep me hanging, waiting for one to arrive. That last one? The one where I collapsed into a stupor? No one’s done that to me before. It was amazing. It was like a string of firecrackers or something, one after another, it left me breathless, helpless.
“I wanted to know what it would have been like, except now I think I may have set myself up for disappointment, because I’m pretty sure my boyfriend isn’t going to improve that much.”
Now I felt bad. I was trying to make her feel good, because I cared about her and I wanted to share that kind of joy with her. But I always forget that other guys mostly don’t have the skills to get women to that level. And it was only because I had that gift that I was able to, well, manipulate them.
“Melissa, it was such a joy to find you again and finish what we started. It made me so happy.
We always did have a kind of physical chemistry between us, and I know you’ll find that with someone. But remember, sex isn’t a one-way street. You can tell your guy what gets you going, and what doesn’t, for that matter. You can experiment and maybe find some new things that get your engine racing. Work at it, find out what works. Don’t be passive. You deserve it.
“I want to say one more thing before you go. You were always someone special for me and tonight was one of my fantasies fulfilled, and one I’ll think of often. I hope you’ll think of me, too, every once in a while. Maybe you could write me every so often, let me know what’s happening in your life. I’ll give you my address when I get up.”
“Okay, Carter, I’d like that. I’ll keep an open mind about the sex stuff. I know we can get better at it if we try, but damn! it’s so much easier if you know there’s a guy who can get you off like that. A shame you’re on the other side of the country. Make sure you get in touch if you’re ever in California. I’ll give you my address, too.”
We talked a few minutes more, but when the clock passed 1:00 am, she finally said, “I’ve really gotta go.” She scrambled over me and found where her clothes were scattered across the room.
She got dressed and I got up to find my clothes.
“You don’t have to get up, Tom. I’ll be fine.”
“Nah, I don’t think so. It’s late, and I’ll walk with you. Where’s your hotel?”
She told me, and I insisted she take a cab. Between the two of us, we had enough cash. I looked up the number on our bulletin board where Larry and I kept notes to ourselves and each other, and she put on her coat. I opened the door and saw the sock dangling from the knob, and tossed it back on my bed.
I dialed the cab company from the hall phone and they estimated ten minutes, East Gate. I walked her down the stairs and out into the cold April air. We passed a few drunken revelers on their way home as we made our way to the main street.
The cab hadn’t yet arrived so we talked while we waited. She had an afternoon plane, but she still had to pack, and she knew she would face an inquisition from her temporary roommates at the hotel, and was wondering what she wanted to share with them. If anything.
“I know they were all joking how they were going to hook up with some random college guy if they found the right after-party and the right amount of alcohol, but I’m not sure they did. Well, I’ll have to think about it on the way to the hotel.
Just then the cab pulled up to the curb and waited, patiently. She reached up and pulled me down for a long kiss. “Carter, I’m so glad I ran into you again. This made the whole trip worthwhile. I have to run. Don’t forget me.”
She jumped into the cab before I could answer, and all I could do was wave at her as it carried her off.