Message-ID: <21101asstr$942462600@assm.asstr-mirror.org> X-Original-Path: not-for-mail From: "davinci" Subject: {ASSM} NEW STORY: "Jennifer" by davinci {M/F, M/F} X-Post-Date: Fri, 15 Oct 1999 20:08:21 -0400 Lines: 1000 Sender: rbeattie@sdn-ar-002ctstamp223.dialsprint.net X-Original-Message-ID: <7u8fmd$ibj$1@oak.prod.itd.earthlink.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: sdn-ar-002ctstamp223.dialsprint.net X-ELN-Date: 16 Oct 1999 00:08:45 GMT X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3155.0 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3155.0 X-To: story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us JMDigest-Score: good -14 Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1999 22:10:00 -0500 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: assm-admin Standard Disclaimer: This total work of fiction (resemblance to persons living or dead, purely coincidental) is not to be read by those who are morally or legally obligated to look the other way. This is a glimpse into the interior landscape of a fantasy world. In this fantasy world there is no communicable disease, no exploitation, no danger, and no one suffers wounds from which they will not someday recover. In other words, not like real life at all. All comments and criticisms enthusiastically and gratefully welcomed and appreciated. Dvflorence@excite.com Jennifer by daVinci “Who says I like right angles, These are not my laws. These are not my rules” -Ani Difranco Dear Jennifer, I am not sure why I write this now, after all these years. There are many reasons, I'm sure. I suppose I write this now for the same reason I always write: to make some sense of it all, to organize and codify, to describe and dissect. Perhaps I write this to make me feel better, to find balm for unnecessarily wounds, wounds self-inflicted for no apparent reason. There is no smoking gun here, no dagger to see before me. Just my own voice echoing within itself, constant re-evaluation...the second guess. Of course, this is a sexual matter, and where sexual matters are concerned you, Jennifer, are ubiquitous. Despite the years or the distance, you continue to be my sexual Pavlovian response. Not because of physical appearance necessarily, though that was impressive enough; but because of a sexual energy that transmitted itself through the synapses of my unique libido. I do not share the following paragraphs with you to make you envious or to hurt you. I know we are well past that point. Irrelevant anyway, considering your protected position, enshrined as it is in my sexual subconscious. I'm sure you'll figure that out as you read on. Where you are concerned, I have always been the guilty party. Our entire relationship, it seems, has been shaded in the gray erosion of my regret and recrimination. But because there is no one else here in this room tonight, I am allowed. No one here but my choir of voices and the keyboard. This noisy solitude liberates me. It allows me to revise the past, recreate it in a more palatable fashion. So tonight, if only for tonight, I get to be the indignant one. I get to be the wounded party. I get to be pissed off. Even if that indignation is a fabrication. Why? Because I can not evade the notion that somehow she was sent by you, a gentle reminder, a retribution. If that sounds crazy, well then color me crazy. You're the painter. Paint me a picture. What do you say Jennifer? Paint me a tattoo, some indelible mark of my own inadequacies, of my own cowardice. That's what you would say, isn't it? That's what you did say. You should know, as if you didn't already, that when you walked across water to some opposite shore, there was no one. And there was no one for a long time. Until Julia…and that is why I'm writing this; writing to you, or anyone who will read. Much of your eroticism was grounded in your frankness, your bluntness. The way you frequently went braless after you unmasked my fixation for your breasts, moving your upper body in slightly exaggerated fashion so I could follow the subtle sway of your tits, tracking them by the shape of protruding erect nipples beneath flimsy, diaphanous blouses or cotton turtleneck shirts. The way you would sit with legs crossed, so short silk skirts would elevate, allowing me glimpses of softly sculpted thighs. I remember this as part of the seductive process of convincing me to finger your clit secretly as we sat having coffee in an all night diner at 2:30 in the morning. When you climaxed, you bit my shoulder through the fabric of my jacket, pushing your hips up against my hand. This was not the type of person I was, not the type of life I had lived. I had to fuck you three times that night before my heart would stop racing and my cock would stop throbbing. You were the complete package; your life philosophy and work ethic as passionate and fevered as your lovemaking. I tumbled for you because of your integrity, your sincerity, your "realness". Because you were April, and I was November. Whatever you did, you did all the way, with unbridled energy and inexplicable aptitude. You hooked me right away. Despite my reticence or resistance, despite my marriage, despite my own sense of legitimacy, despite the fact that I refused to believe I could be hypnotized. Do you remember how it started? I was assigned to cover the opening at the Canning Gallery of your work and several other "rising stars." I had only been at the paper a couple of years then. Twenty-eight years old and a little tired of working in arts and entertainment. You were twenty-four years old but the age difference between us seemed immeasurable to me. You with your energy and vibrancy, me with my cynicism and fatigue. I felt a little less tired, a little less cranky, a little less cynical as I stood in the crowded gallery listening to you talk, hearing the incisive intelligence in the black and white eloquence of your expressions. I've never known anyone else who could speak as you do, with the poetic articulation of a D.H. Lawrence novel peppered with the bite of an Ani Difranco lyric. Immediately bewitched, I asked you for more time, continuation of the conversation, an interview. We went out afterwards, and spoke on the telephone several days that week. It wasn't until later, after that night, that I would think about your hips beneath the silk sheath of the dress you wore at the gallery, or the soft, pale flesh of your forearm exposed to me as you held your bourbon and water and spoke of the arrogance of misrepresentation, the presumptuous posing of the art community to reveal justification for its existence. "We exist…we just do the work…isn't that enough?" you said, "Why does there have to be any fucking reason for it?" It was a month later that we sat on opposite beds at a Hartford Ramada Inn. "I'm not sure how to start this." I said. "Start what...?" you asked teasingly. "Don't do that. Don't play at harmless games with me. There's nothing harmless here in case you haven't noticed." You laughed at that, mocking my melodramatic pretentiousness. "That's right," you said, "you're committing adultery, you'll burn in hell. This is serious business little boy...isn't it?" There was something discomforting in the tone of your voice, something domineering, something patronizing. But you were impatient with my moralizing. To distract me, or to return us to the primary motive of our time and place, you began unbuttoning your blouse, pulling the hem from the faded blue jeans you wore. You slid the garment from your shoulders, dropping it soundlessly to the floor. Leaning back on your hands, you thrust your chest out, tits straining at the fabric of the navy blue lace bra you wore. You kicked your shoes off and nudged at my calf with your bare foot. "Feeling guilty already?" you asked. "We haven't even done anything yet." But that was my crime, my sin; the first of many. I wasn't feeling guilty. I wasn't pondering the actions I was about to take. I certainly wasn't reconsidering. I wasn't feeling remorseful. I wasn't feeling regret, or contrition. All I felt was myself hardening at the sight of you, leaning back on the bed. The sight of your breasts beneath their lace wrapping, the view of your flat, toned stomach, and the way the denim of your jeans rested lightly against it. I wasn't thinking about the betrayal of my marriage vows, I was thinking of running my tongue beneath the material at your stomach, of pulling the zipper down and discovering whether your panties matched your bra. I wasn't paralyzed by me, I was paralyzed by you. You laughed shortly and licked your lips briefly when you saw the tightness at my crotch. That didn't help. As I sat there in sexual paraplegia, you moved suddenly to kneel between my legs. In seconds, or so it seemed, you held my exposed cock in those artist's hands, stroking me. I closed my eyes, almost unable to endure any more. As your fingernails sketched portals of torture along my inner thighs and testicles, your mouth pulled excruciating suction along the full length of my cock. I heard you giggle softly when you felt my shaft contract and throb on your tongue. I couldn't help myself. I grabbed the back of your head and thrust my hips off the bed, burying myself in the warm moisture of your mouth. You pulled back off me. My cock slapped wetly against my stomach. Stroking me, you looked up and I saw in your eyes what I have since come to know as a dangerous potency. Perhaps I was too provincial, but I was astonished when you then wrapped strands of your long auburn hair around my cock, and I gasped at the newness of it, the uniqueness of you and the situation. I gasped in approaching orgasm. That's when you stopped. Standing before me you unzipped, pulled down, and kicked off both faded blue jeans and navy blue panties. Gone before I even got to know them. You stepped forward, pushing at my chest, forcing me to lie flat on the bed, my feet still planted on the burnt orange of the carpeting. Straddling my hips, you grabbed at my cock, positioning it to slide between the grip of your descending hips. "C'mon, enough of this playing around…I don't want to wait...I want you to fuck me!" you said firmly. Julia was everything you were not. She was not aggressive or overtly self-confident. Julia was demure. Julia was an innocent. You had long, dark, enraged, auburn hair, the color of summer. Julia was a pale, slim blonde. Though not 'voluptuous' your body seemed to have mass, to inhabit space. Your breasts, while not particularly large, were heavy and full. The flair of your hips sketched a curve from your waistline to the flesh or your thighs. You knew you were a walking wet dream, didn't you Jennifer? Julia did not see that in herself. She did not notice the men staring at her as she walked away from them. She did not detect the furtive glances at her legs. She wandered through her day apparently oblivious to the drooling men she left in her wake. You noticed every glance, every turned eye. Be honest, you encouraged it. Not so much exhibitionism, you did not desire the lascivious attention. It was more an amusement. You would virtually giggle at the awkward, adolescent advances of men who could think of nothing in your presence but the image of you; legs spread, shirt pushed above heaving breasts, hair disheveled, waiting for the deliverance of the wet lock. I was one of those men, so I know of what I speak. We had made love twice. I was sitting in a chair across the room, smoking, trying to catch my breath, to put some physical distance between the two of us, simply because you were too much. As our conversation turned to mundane trivialities regarding daily agenda's, you spilled some of the Chardonnay you were drinking. The string of liquid ran down your throat and onto your upper chest. I could not help but notice how you collected some on your fingertip, and staring at me across the imaginary Maiginot line I had constructed, brought the finger to your lips. "Come back over here," you said. "No…I can't…it's too soon," I stammered, knowing what you wanted. You laughed out loud at my feeble attempt to exert self-possession in the face of the most self-possessed person on the planet. Pretending to be the immovable force in the face of the genuine immovable object. "Oh I think you can," you said through a smile, "I can get you ready anytime. Do you know that? I can get you hard anytime I want. Do you want to see? Watch me. Watch how easy it is. I want you to watch me." I said nothing. I said nothing as you poured a little more wine onto your stomach and ran the liquid across your skin, making it appear slick and shiny in the dim light. I said nothing as the fingers of your left hand came to rest upon your waist and traveled downward towards your pussy. You smiled once more at me, then closed your eyes as fingertips fluttered around the inside of your thighs. You scraped fingernails across the juncture of leg and hip, the other hand busily massaging the nipple of your right breast. I felt my raw, ragged cock begin to stir against the inside of my own thigh. I resisted, not wanting it to be so easy for you. Yet I was helpless to look away, or to control my reaction to the gyration of your hips. Now you had the fingertips planted against your clit. You squeezed it between two fingers and moaned. The right hand left your breast, and spread the lips of your pussy to facilitate the insertion of a finger while the thumb maintained steady pressure on your now distended clit. In the tremble of real, or fabricated impending orgasm, you opened your eyes and smiled at what you saw: me, with swollen cock in hand, the head purple and hungry, despite the ache I felt in my testicles. You smiled again and jammed your fingers in and out of yourself. Your gasp of release amplified by a groan of triumph and satisfaction, fingers moving wildly over your pussy, hips frozen in elevated climax. Then it was over for you. Your body sagged back down against the mattress. "It's all right," you smirked, "I don't need you anymore. I took care of it myself." I rose from the chair, approached you with hard cock still in hand. I dropped to the bed pushing your legs apart at the knee and dove between them. My tongue moved in broad strokes the full length of your pussy, lingering at the apex of its travels to swipe forcefully against your clit. I grabbed at your hips with my hands and held them, squeezing, pulling you tighter against my mouth. I went at you violently, tasting the wine and your juices, wondering the entire time whether it was possible to love a woman so much you despised her. Jennifer, you did more than threaten my self-discipline, you threatened my very sense of self, and all underpinnings upon which that self rested. This wasn't just the simple act of performing oral sex, this was some naive attempt at validation. I worked your pussy with all the athleticism I could pull from my frenetically exhausted psyche, and I took shallow, limited consolation from the way your fingers raked my scalp or pulled at my hair; little comfort in the way I felt your pussy snap against my frenzied tongue in orgasmic tremor, the way you grunted out my name. I threw myself down on you, my hard shaft needing no guidance to find the wet fold of your pussy. I fucked you savagely, wanting nothing but my own release. You thrust up at me, wanting nothing but your own release. “Yes, just like that,” you moaned, “””keeping fucking me like that…” You wrapped your legs around my ass and hips and squeezed tightly, licking and biting at my face to taste yourself. It must have been that which drove you over the edge. You dug your fingernails into my skin, and I gasped at the pain. Now close to my own orgasm I moved faster in and out of you. But you wanted something different. "I want you in my mouth," you gasped over ragged breath. "No…" I muttered, not wanting to disrupt the approaching blindness. But you were not accustomed to hearing 'no'. You bit at my earlobe, and when I recoiled in surprise, you rolled us over so that you were on top, and in the process my cock slid wetly from inside you. I groaned in frustration, but you took me in your mouth, sliding your lips over my shaft, your tongue followed each contour of swelling vein, each arterial path of my blood engorged cock. Almost immediately, as pleasurable as it was, I felt orgasm drift away from me. So close to the edge, and now retreating. "C’mon sweetheart…fuck my mouth," I heard you say. I looked down to see your eyes locked on mine, a wantonness of expression only you could produce. I grabbed the back of your head and pushed myself into your mouth. You formed a tight ring around the base of my cock with thumb and fingers, pulling hard at my shaft. You bit down lightly at the head of my penis, and I felt your tongue flutter, in hummingbird quickness along the ridge where the head met the shaft. I opened my eyes long enough to look down at you, seeing the movement of your ass, as you rubbed yourself against the mattress, and I felt myself begin to swell and churn inside your mouth. "God Jennifer…yes…I’m almost there…fuckkkkkk….yeahhhhhh!" I yelled right before I felt the lurch of my balls, and my come streaming into your mouth, my very own Fourth of July. You took the first heavy ejaculate, before extracting my exploding cock in your fist, rubbing it’s length, and watching the stream of my semen fountain into the air and land on my waist and your throat. As I lay in exhaustion and astonishment, you climbed up my body, seeking out my mouth for a deep kiss. I could taste my come on your tongue as you tasted yourself on me. Your slick upper body slid against my chest and you rubbed yourself against me to drive the point home. I felt you hard nipples press into me and my cock gave one more death shudder. "Jennifer…I….I never…I’ve never been able to…." "You’re fantastic," you interrupted, "God…I love you." The words startled me so much, I fumbled to sit up. "What did you say?" I asked. "I said 'I love you.'" You looked at me as though it was the most natural thing in the world. Just making conversation. You smiled, kissed me lightly on the forehead and got up off the bed, walking towards the bathroom. I was left to understand all this. You were gone long enough for me to realize that I had been mistaken. I had thought that if I could somehow fuck you hard enough, come long and deep enough, that I would never have to challenge myself to accept that fact that I loved you too. That as a result of sexual exorcism, I would never have to look around that corner, never have to open that closet door. I had been using sex to put distance between the two of us, as crazy as that sounds. "Are you all right?" you asked, having returned from the bathroom. "Yes…fine…" "Are you telling me that no other woman has ever gotten you off with their mouth before?" you asked, climbing back into bed with me. "Yeah, that’s right," I answered absently, my mind on other matters. "Not even…you know…your wife?" MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE MY WIFE. Jesus Christ. What was I doing? How did I get here, to this place? What was wrong with me? "I’ve got to go, Jennifer…I’m sorry" I stammered, getting out of the bed and retrieving clothes from unfamiliar, unconscionable places. Places where my clothes did not belong. Places where I did not belong. "Uh oh…I said the ‘w’ word. My error," you said, trying to lighten, to rescue the moment. I pretended not to hear. "I didn’t mean to criticize. I was just…curious…that’s all…you don’t have to leave." "Yes…yes I do have to leave," I answered, perhaps a bit more curtly than I had intended. You said nothing after that. You just lay there, arms folded across your chest. I glanced at you quickly as I got dressed. You had done nothing to cover yourself up. I saw the faint outline of your ribcage, I stole glances at your hips and tits. I saw the vestiges of moisture between your thighs. Fucking Christ, I felt the ever-impending tug at my genitals again. I left as quickly as I could. You never said anything, not even as I walked out the door. Of course, I never said anything either. There’s something you should know. Afterwards, I sat in the car for 45 minutes weeping like a child. You had told me that you loved me, and I had not told you that I loved you. I had not spoken of my adoration, my admiration. I had not told you of the lump in my throat or the shortness of breath whenever I saw you approach from across the room, or watched you from a distance. My capacity for speech had been consumed by my sense of guilt. I had adulterated my marriage, and now I had adulterated my love for you. I was a cheater twice over. I left that evening without communicating how much I needed you, how much I respected you, how much I wanted you. For now and for always. We were sitting in Altomoeries, a family style Italian restaurant when you told me you were leaving the United States to live and work in Amsterdam. "I want you to come with me," you said. It wasn't a request, merely a statement of fact. I don't know what stunned me more profoundly. The fact that you were moving to Amsterdam or the fact that you wanted me to move there with you. "I can't do that. You know I can't do that." "Why not? You know you want to be with me. I want to be with you. Where's the uncertainty? Where's the question? Face it, we don't have any other options. You love me…not her," you said. "You can't give me one reason we shouldn't be together. Don't try to pretend we're about the fucking…it's more than that. I know it. You know it." I couldn't look at you. I stared down at my wine glass, twirling it on the tablecloth, spinning its base against the checkered pattern. Round and round the base of the glass traveled. 'Isn't that interesting,' I thought, 'the base of the glass covers exactly a 4 and 1/2 square area of the tablecloth …and what's with the blue on white checkered pattern? Shouldn't it be red on white? Isn't this an Italian restaurant? And this Chianti isn't really fruity enough for my tastes, it's awfully dry…this is going to kill you…you know that don't you? I really need to finish that article on the overpass construction for tomorrow, the woman you love is leaving, maybe the car simply needs some alignment work, did I remember to call Wendell about contacting Senator Harkinson, what the fuck was I doing…? "Are you listening to me!" you said forcefully. "Jennifer…I…I can't go. I can't do that to her. Her…her whole life is about me, about us. It would devastate her…she would never be the same." You just stared at me blankly, incredulously. Not unlike the way I felt I was staring at myself from afar. "Don't do this Chris. Don't make me walk out of here without you. Did you ever think I might never be the same?" Does it sound egotistical now to admit that perhaps you were right in thinking I had never acknowledged your need for me? Does it reek of conceit for me to confess that on that afternoon I was sure you could live without me, and equally sure that Marion could not? I ended up being unable to save either one of you, either one of us. You were an atheist in a foxhole, stubbornly maintaining the validity of your ideological, philosophical position; refusing to abandon conceptions of reality in the face of vulnerability or danger. I was some weathervane in high gale winds. I pointed in one direction after another, arbitrarily moving past compass points, pushed through the bearing of the wind. Small craft advisories…I was a very small craft indeed, nothing like the titanic vessel you navigated through iceberg riddled currents. It was that night I decided to escape, or try to escape into work. Instead of going home as I should have, I went to work. I have no idea what I expected to do when I got there, but I had let you go, and there was nothing left. It was that night that the whole Garrett firestorm began. Stephannie Garrett was seventeen years old, was the daughter of wealthy foreign exchange trader Joseph Garrett who had recently relocated his family here from Dallas. Stephannie had chestnut colored hair and green eyes. Stephannie Garret was on the swim team and worked on her school’s literary magazine, and one other thing, Stephannie Garrett was dead. Her head had somehow slammed against a stone outcropping…several times. It was 1:28 AM when a neighbor walking his dog found the body. It was 1:34 when that neighbor called the police. And it was 2:15 when I drove through the affluent suburb to cover the story. I was the only one available. Even I’m better than no one at all. I covered the story for seven months. They never solved the case. The leading suspect was Gavin McCallum. Gavin was 18, lived down the street from Stephannie, and was considered to be her pseudo boyfriend, though opinions varied on this. He claimed he had walked her home at 11:00 and she was fine. For awhile police even suspected Trenton McCallum, Gavin’s 16 year old brother, but he had been with a friend and had not returned home until 9:15AM the following morning. As pitiful as this may sound, the Stephannie Garrett murder accelerated my career, probably because of the energy with which I examined detail, dug in every gopher hole, went through every garbage can. With all the investigation, all the interviews, all the physical evidence, we knew Gavin had done it, but it could never be proven. It's been ten years since I lost you. It's been six years since I lost Marion. Her exhaustion was what, I believe, finally flipped the switch in her body and mind to send out the message "enough…finally…enough" Marion's voices convinced her that it was truly time to surrender to the cancer she had been fighting for what seemed like a very long time. Cancer, the Bubonic Plague of the twentieth century. The “cool lips of September” as Rickie Lee Jones sang. I don’t think I ever realized how many people loved Marion until the funeral. How much of a fucking asshole can one man be? I’ve pushed the envelope on that count, haven’t I Jennifer? The woman whose funeral we were all attending was universally loved and respected, and for good reason. Jennifer, anyone else reading this would say: “Oh I get it…his wife was terribly sick, that’s what drove him into bed with another woman.” That’s bullshit. Marion didn’t fall ill until two years after you left for Amsterdam. The height of my self-indulgence might have come during the ceremony when I thought that I must have thrown away all karmic credibility accrued by my association with Marion one piece at a time, one piece for each time I had made love to you. During my formal remarks at the funeral I told the story of how angry I had been one evening when, upon returning home, Marion had told me she had given $50 to a man who had come to the door claiming car trouble. He had left his name and address, which turned out to be completely fraudulent. Marion was embarrassed by her gullibility. But upon further reflection, all she had seen was someone in trouble, someone that needed help, help she was willing to give. Yeah, maybe she had been duped…but we are what we do. Where does that leave me? Marion was gone, and the whole world, it seemed, had inexplicably fallen asleep. Then came Julia. Julia of the short knit skirts and the loosely buttoned blouses that fluttered around her diminutive breasts. Julia of the white stockings, or black stockings, or navy blue stockings. I remember the stockings…more about that later. You never met Julia. I don't think you would have liked her. She was just the type of bourgeois dilettante that raised the ire of your smoldering cynicism. Her father was CEO of a major communications conglomerate, I'm not going to tell you which one. You would have smirked with disdain at her flirtatious innocence, her short blonde ponytail, and especially her pretensions about becoming a 'serious journalist'. You would have patronizingly flashed contempt at her with your flame-thrower eyes every time she giggled at a joke, or arranged her hair in such a way as to raise her arms above her head, drawing her small breasts tight against her chest. But there was a genuine sweetness to Julia you would have too quickly discounted as a factor in her considerable sexual charm. "Everyone wants to fuck the Homecoming Queen," you would have said. If relationships are a product of time and place, then how could I, a 38-year-old widower, escape the allure of this 22-year-old newspaper intern? How was my anemic immune system supposed to resist the notion of having an interest in this Lolita sorority cheerleader with the lithe musculature and the mouth-watering hips? Is this bothering you Jennifer? How many men have you had since me? You see, I'm not supposed to have any right to be envious or hurt. You're standing on the moral high ground. I threw you away, let you leave. How could I possibly muster the indignation over the possibility that you would find other men, and not maintain the ridiculous monastic vows I found myself unconsciously obeying? I will not be as melodramatic as to tell you I got sick to my stomach every time I thought about you with another man. I will not indulge in self-pitying sensationalism by describing the ten years spent in sexual exile because the woman I wanted most, the only woman I wanted, was the woman to whom I had the least claim…the woman I had abandoned out of spinelessness. So gag your self-righteous superiority for the time being, because I am not, at the present moment, whining out my regret at the numerous mistakes I have made. I am merely reporting the facts, merely providing you a narrative of what transpired as a result of the events of that November evening when Julia and I shared a late dinner. We were both leaving the Winslow building simultaneously. I was tired and hungry. She was tired and emotionally distraught. She had endured yet another argument with her Californian fiancee. "All we do is fight," she had said as we waited for respective available taxis. "It's the distance, the separation…it's hard on him." I flagged down a cab and offered it to her. "We can share it, can't we?" she offered. I responded that we could, but that I would be little help with the fare, seeing as how I was only traveling seven blocks. I was ravenously hungry, I explained, and felt the need for a barbecued spare-rib fix, immediately. She said that sounded delicious…and so I asked her to join me. It's as simple as that Jennifer. It's as innocent as that …really. She had been at the paper five months by then. We were co-workers. She was working community interest stories. It brought us into contact. I was managing editor. I had worked city desk and had provided her with a number of contacts. A professional relationship, that's all it was. I can swear a solemn oath that I never once noticed how her tongue would frequently emerge from the moistness of her alluring mouth to lick her upper lip. It never occurred to me to catch a glimmer of the shoulder strap of her bra as she twisted or bent over to tap the keys of a word processor. Unlike the other men, I never watched her delectable ass sway as she walked down the hallway wearing that light red sundress. And I certainly never thought once, while we were having dinner and talking for three and half hours about her relationship problems, what it would be like to see her cross her arms and slide the red and white striped sweater she was wearing up and over her delicate shoulders. So it came as quite a surprise to me when I found the two of us in my apartment; Julia straddling my legs, sitting on my lap, and felt that tongue I spoke of earlier running itself over the surface of my teeth and exploring the interior of my mouth. Of course, in Julia's defense, she had consumed more than her fair share of the two bottles of wine we had with dinner, she was distressed and frustrated with her fiancee, and I had the whole tragic "widower" thing going. These convergent factors, I'm sure, could be used to excuse her behavior. Astonished Jennifer? No more so than I, I can assure you. How dare she be so forward, so wanton, the little privileged sorority slut! Her sexual forwardness was an outrage! I was both insulted and humiliated, how dare she treat me like a sexual object! But God how I wanted her. I know you're a great fan of irony Jennifer, so let me tell you that a large component of my desire for Julia were my memories of you. I was as aroused by the nubile blonde, now grinding her hips onto my lap, as I was by the possibility of recapturing that electrifying anticipation, the undefined horizons of the lost continent a new lover potentially provides. What if Julia was like you...I could have it all over again. If I could feel for her what I had felt for you? This was stupid, of course. Julia was nothing like you. But forgive me when I tell you that as I tasted the remnants of Clos Du Bois in Julia's forceful kisses, and felt her fingers scramble at my zipper I lost interest in metaphorical parallelism. After Julia had liberated my cock I felt inclined to return the gesture and began to slide my hands beneath the skirt she wore, exploring the inner surface of her thighs. The tightness of her skirt impeded my efforts. My fingertips could not quite reach what they could indeed almost feel, the moist warmth at the juncture of her thighs. Julia cut out of our dancing tongues and heavy breathing, “I have an idea,” she said. She stood up and effortlessly pushed her skirt down her hips, stepping out of it and tossing it aside. Somehow her panties had traveled with the skirt and I caught a glimpse of blonde curls, before she moved towards me. I lifted my hips and slid my own trousers down my legs a bit before she was once again straddling my lap and I felt the contact of her pussy rubbing my exposed cock. I reached down to swipe the head across her clit and could feel her moistness bathe it. And then, in that one unforgettable moment we have all experienced (some fortunate to experience many times) I felt the soft, wet envelope of her pussy swallow me into her and we both moaned with the initial penetration. That first moment, both the beginning of something, and the end of something. Julia began to move on top of me, a subtle bouncing with a twitch of the hips. I looked down to see that point at which we were joined. Her legs were muscular but still unqualifiedly feminine, the muscles flexed against my hips. The inside of a woman’s thigh, by definition an irresistible token of intimacy. “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she said, somewhat breathlessly, pushing herself faster along my length. She began to sweat lightly with the exertion, and perhaps in response, pulled her sweater off, leaving her above me wearing a thin cotton tank top. I had never seen Julia’s hair not perfectly arranged; so it was stunning to see her pull the clip from her hair and watch it fall around her shoulders, a blonde autumn. I reached out almost immediately for the swollen nipple of a braless breast I could clearly see beneath the fabric. I held the breast in my palm, flattening it against her chest, and watched the other breast shudder slightly with the gravitational pull of her movement. Her lower body fell onto me and remained there, embracing all of my swollen thirst within her. She thrust her hips forward and back half a dozen times and groaned, digging her pink polished nails into my scalp and shoulder. I looked into her face and was somewhat surprised to find her staring into mine, eyes wide open. Her face had a stunned, possessed look, but what really got to me was the bright blue of her eyes. Bright like new fallen snow on a clear day. I had never seen eyes that blue. I held her head in my hands as she rode through her orgasm, determined she would not turn away and rob me of that deep, profoundly moving blue. I felt her body sag against me when it was over. She kissed my cheek affectionately as only a seventeen-year-old cheerleader at a Junior Prom could do. “God Chris, I didn’t expect that,” she whispered. “I don’t think I expected any of this,” I replied. “You’re not wearing anything…don’t come inside me,” she panted. “Can older guys control themselves?” she asked. “This older guy can,” I replied “…I think.” I reached down to rub her clit between my fingers and she began thrusting against my hand and cock almost immediately. Though she still wore her cotton tank top, one of the shoulder straps had slid off, exposing the top of a sloping breast. The nipple escaped over the top of the fabric, both fragile and unabashedly erotic. I bent my head forward to kiss it, fascinated by its texture and shape. I thrust my hips off the chair to match her tempo. “Yeah, just like that,” she gasped. I held her ass in one hand. It felt wonderful to me as I followed its rise and fall. I searched out her eyes again, but she had thrown her head back this time, so my gaze fell upon tensed neck muscle and constricted throat instead. I heard a high pitched keening as she broke the rhythm of our movements, her hips spastically convulsing against mine. Despite my advanced years, I was ready to drop off the precipice at any minute…the “little death”. Go ahead Jennifer, ask me. I know you want to. Was she as skilled a lover as you? All right, since we’re being honest I’ll tell you the truth. Julia was not the sexual artist you were (and still are, I presume). You had innate grace and finesse to compliment your vigor and delicious lasciviousness, the decadent artistry in all that you touched. Julia had none of that blood and guts sexuality, but I must admit that she did an admirable job in compensating with youthful energy and guttural vocalization that almost made my knees tremble. And she was, don’t be too hurt by this, extraordinarily beautiful to watch during lovemaking. I had asked Julia to turn around and, assuming the same position she had taken before, yet in reverse. Now she slid up and down my cock with her back to me. I stared at her. I stared at the sculpted angles of her shoulder blades, stared at line of her back, the vertebrae slightly visible. I watched her ass fall onto my pelvis and I kissed the back of her neck through the blonde waterfall of her hair. I felt Julia begin to tremble again and thrust harder, faster. When her orgasm flooded the two of us, she bent forward at the waist and swung her head from side to side, fingernails digging into my knees. She shook there, in that position for a moment before falling back towards me. Holding her by the waist I lifted her slightly and pulled out, my cock slapping wetly against her stomach. Almost instinctively she reached down for it. I held a stiff nippled breast in one hand and lay the other against her very flat, very toned, very young abdomen. She raised an arm and wrapped it around my neck as she stroked me obscenely into the blue winter of my utter content. Julia felt guilty about our encounter. I could tell, I recognized the signs. She was engaged to be married to the temporarily displaced Ryan. Presently in San Francisco, and frequently nothing but an ephemeral ghost here on the streets of Hartford. For Julia, Ryan was more "out of touch, out of sight" than "out of sight, out of mind". Our relationship was a manifestation of two points colliding on some elastic timeline. My advantages lay firmly rooted in the fact that I was conveniently there, and that I was conveniently…uh…convenient. When Julia told me once that she loved Ryan a lot more when they were together than when they were apart, I would have laughed out loud had it not been so grossly inappropriate. As in everything else, you were completely forthright about your sexual appeal. Julia was less so. In fact, she went as far as to feign denial or ignorance. You never had to be convinced of your beauty or sensuality. You held those truths to be self-evident. However, one evening I found myself uncomprehendingly having to argue with Julia over the extent of her desirability. It was an argument with interesting consequences. It began harmlessly enough with a joking reference I made to how distracting it could be working with her, my eyes, as well as most of the other eyes of the most of the male employees in our hallowed branch of the fourth estate, constantly drawn to that point in the room where she resided. She rejected this notion, accusing me of throwing out frivolous flattery. "Oh come off it Julia…are you telling me that you've never noticed that your desk is always apparently on the path of any destination to which they happen to be travelling? This has never struck you as odd in any way?" "I just thought it was coincidence," she offered. Incredulously, I assured her that it was no accident, that I was fully aware of the libidinous interests of my male co-workers. She pushed for details, pretending offense, but displaying a hint of excitement and interest. "Maybe I should dress differently, more conservatively," she said. To be honest, it would be hard to imagine Julia dressing more conservatively than she already did. Not that it would matter, I told her. It would only give freer reign to the imagination, the most potent of all aphrodisiacs. She asked whether I had been among the number of leering men before our relationship had begun. This of course was a delicate situation. We had only been involved with one another for several weeks. What did she want me to say? No Julia…I respected you too much as a journalist and a person to be attracted to you sexually. No Julia…I think I speak for all men when I say that I find that kind of objectification an insult to all women…besides, you’re not my type…your breasts are too small. No Julia…I never really noticed. You see I’ve been a little distracted by the death of my wife whom I betrayed when I fell in love with another woman and then lied to her about it. You would have been proud of me Jennifer. In that tenuous moment, with everything hanging in the balance, I decided to become you. I decided to be honest. "Yeah…I was one of them. And by the way, I leer at you more now," I said. A smile spread across her face. She was delighted that she had aroused me from afar. Pleased with her abilities. Interested in my responses to her. "Tell me," she whispered, "tell me what you used to think about." So I did. I told her all I could remember, all the scenarios, all the fantasies, all the observations on all the outfits in all the seasons and situations. Images I had indeed entertained and toyed with, images I had mostly seen come to fruition. She listened to me, provoking me with friendly harassment whenever I stumbled or seemed to be unwilling to deliver full disclosure. "Does the real thing…I mean the fact that we've…been together. Does that dilute the fantasy?" she asked with pensive concern in her voice. "No," I said, "there are still a lot of fantasy's left." She smiled and kissed me quickly. Another winning answer I suppose. If this were a game show I'd be rolling in new appliances and cash prizes. Julia stood up and walked slowly to the couch on the other side of the room. She lowered herself, and now in recline looked pointedly at me. "Christopher…I want you to do something for me," she said. "Anything for you my love,” I said chivalrously. "Show me. Show me what it was like…before…when you used to think about me." "What do you mean?" I asked stupidly. "You know," she prompted, an evil smirk on her face, "Show me. I want to watch you…please." I knew exactly what she meant now. What made me think of that? "Julia!" I chirped in mock indignation. She giggled that California blonde giggle. "C'mon…do it for me. I want to see you…here, maybe this will help," she proposed. She was wearing a light yellow Oxford shirt, which she now proceeded to pull from the hem of her green plaid, knee length skirt and unbutton from the bottom up. Her midriff revealed first, then the white lace of her bra. She flashed an ensconced breast at me before pulling the shirt back around her. Julia was playing a sexual game…and enjoying it. Enjoying the spontaneity of it. Enjoying the uniqueness of it. I'm sure you could understand that Jennifer. She urged me on. "Do this for me, then I'll do something for you…" "And what, pray tell, will you do for me young lady." "You said there were lots of fantasies left…maybe one will come to you." I didn't have time to tell her that I usually had eight queued up on standby whenever we were together. For at that moment she sat up and began to roll her pantyhose down her legs. She dropped them to the floor and resumed her reclining position on the couch, now with knees up. The fabric of her skirt slithered down her raised legs and I caught a glimpse of her pantied covered crotch. "But if you don't want to…" she teased, "It's all right. I understand." She straightened her legs again and smoothed her skirt over them; only the calves and bare feet remained exposed to me. That was what I stared at as I unzipped my pants and reached in to pull out my cock. I could have sworn I heard Julia groan in satisfaction as I did it. "Yes…" she hissed as she saw my cock begin to harden in my hand. I closed my eyes as I jacked off in front of Julia. I hope this wouldn't be considered cheating (that which I am famous for) but I didn't recall any distant pre-Julia fantasy. I didn't have to think back any farther than the night before; the night before, as the street threw light into the room and I watched Julia in front of me on hands and knees. She looked so wantonly raw in this position as she levered her ass back and forth jamming herself against me. I felt the fluttering twitch of her cunt as she climaxed and followed her down as she collapsed, flattening herself against the mattress. She had barely recovered from her seismic quake when she over her shoulder at me and through clenched teeth said, "Now.…now you…come for me Chris." She grunted each time I bottomed out inside her, I loved the feeling of her ass against my stomach. I thought about pulling out and rubbing myself off between the cheeks of her ass and that, of course, led to my eruption into her, pouring out all she had created in me, so much so that I could almost feel it splashing against the inside walls of her pussy. As I remembered that orgasm, I could feel myself begin to twitch. I opened my eyes to see Julia staring at me intently. Her left hand was toying with an impossibly erect nipple through the fabric of her bra, and she was moving her hips in a circular motion. The skirt had ridden up and I could see the soft, young flesh of her inner thigh. I stroked myself faster, heading towards my own destination but unsure how far Julia wanted me to take this. "Julia," I managed to choke out through gritted teeth, "I better stop this…before…" "Come here," Julia said, demanded really, "come over here…." I stood up and walked, as well as I could, over to the couch. I stood over her and she reached up to stroke by swollen cock. I fought back a groan as I felt her soft, light fingers on me. She took her hand away. It went directly to the point on her skirt where her legs met at the torso. "Do it!" she hissed, "get yourself off, think of me and get yourself off…I want to see you come!" I grabbed myself forcefully and stroked frenetically, my eyes glued to the writhing, partially clothed blond journalist lying on my couch. She took the hand that wasn't pressing insistently against her clit and lowered one of the bra cups, further inspiration to my fevered state. The nipple was swollen and distended, a pink that was almost red against the pale flesh of her small breast and I had a gnawing impulse to bend down and bite at it, to take it between my teeth. I never got that far, for when I thought of how that nipple would feel between my teeth, I felt my testicles seize and lurch and felt the come rocketing up my fisted shaft. "Jesus Julia…I'm going to come." "Yes…yes…come all over me, c'mon…do it!" Semen cannoned from the head of my prick. As though I had mistakenly stumbled into some professionally produced pornographic film, cum fountained out of me and rained down upon Julia. Gleefully satisfied Julia with no immediate need for an umbrella, a little girl joyfully playing in the heavy weather. She rubbed the viscous liquid onto her upper chest and throat. I collapsed atop weakened knees and started kissing her, tasting myself on her skin. She sighed contentedly. Through chuckles of triumph she turned her head towards me, then suddenly got off the couch and stood before me. Her disheveled, wrinkled clothing now awesomely erotic. The sight of her slick upper body, desperately fighting to regain her breath prevented me from softening completely, even after my orgasm. "You're turn now…" "I thought that was my turn," I stammered. In June, Julia went to visit her father for three weeks. I remained on the eastern seaboard editing young reporter’s work with extreme prejudice and little sensitivity. I met her at the airport upon her return and sat in her apartment with great anticipation as she unpacked. “I met a friend of yours,” she said. “Well not so much a friend, someone you interviewed in the late 80’s, he was from here, from Hartford…at least that’s what he said.” “What was his name?” I asked. “I actually don’t remember exactly, I’m sorry. Wait…Taylor?…no, Talbot. That’s it. Talbot something. I think it begins with an R.” “Talbot R. huh? Great, all of a sudden we’re in a Kafka novel.” I said absently. I have to admit I really wasn’t paying attention all that well. “What were you talking about when my name came up?” “Hate to break it to you Mr. Murrow…you’re name didn’t come up, the Courant came up, and the city. There was some murder, and he knew someone.” Now I was paying attention. “What murder?” I asked. “A girl, somewhere in Orange.” “Talbot Raihlander?!” “Yeah…that’s right. What an asshole, constantly trying to look down my shirt…I’m beginning to notice now thanks to you,” she said as she pulled a white knit blouse from her suitcase. I averted my eyes. Talbot Raihlander had been Trenton McCallum’s alibi. “He was talking about Stepahannie Garrett’s murder in 1989.” I said. “It was big news. You were in sixth grade, so you probably didn’t read my byline on that.” “Yeah…you won the Pulitzer for that didn’t you? Anyway, this guy was pissed.” “About what?” “About having to lie for his friend,” Julia said, totally oblivious to the import of what she was now telling me. “Lie about what Julia?” I said, my tone suddenly serious. Julia didn’t miss the tone. She halted her unpacking and looked at me. “None of it made any sense to me,” she began. “All he kept saying was ‘ten fucking thirty…I drove him home at ten fucking thirty.’ He said something about his friend seeing his brother feeling up this girl that his friend had a secret thing for. That’s all he said, that and ‘how about another drink sweetcheeks’.” I could have laughed out loud... Trenton McCallum had no alibi. He was home, watching God knows what, by 10:45. No wonder we could never prove that Gavin murdered Stephannie Garrett. He hadn’t. “Can we go out and get something to eat?” Julia asked. “I’m weak in the knees with hunger.” I was a bit weak in the knees myself. This is how it ended Jennifer. We were at yet another restaurant and Julia was trying to explain to me that she had not seen her father at all, that she had been in San Francisco auditioning for a local anchor job, which they had offered her, which she was going to take. She smiled as she confessed a harmless game. And she was right. Ultimately, it was a harmless game. I knew you had flown east. I knew she was going to fly west. I knew who murdered Stephannie Garrett. I had all the answers, didn’t I? Or perhaps it didn’t quite end there, but ended instead when I drove her back to her apartment. Perhaps it would be more fitting to play up to your awareness of the significance of sexuality. Julia had said bluntly that she wanted to make love one more time. Whether this was a mercy fuck or not I do not know, and I do not care. We never know when it’s the last time, do we? We never see the fade to black coming until the fading to black is fading to black. Had I known that our last union was the finale, what would I have felt? What would I have done differently? Anything? Would our final experience have been any different had I known? In The Stranger, Mersault says “if something is going to happen to me, I want to be there.” So I went home with Julia to be there, one last time. As I drove I thought of you…I don’t know why. I did everything slowly that evening. I suppose that was part of knowing. I unbuttoned deliberately. I unzipped thoughtfully. I told Julia to stay clothed as I disrobed. I soaked in the room, Julia’s bedroom, as I pulled clothing away from myself. She was wearing a navy blue skirt over navy blue pantyhose with a white button down shirt; a nautical theme for a watery evening. Were we supposed to cry? I didn’t bother to cry that evening. I have cried too much, I think, a bad thing for a man. Even for a man that has been too much the little boy. Julia lay back on her bed watching me undress. As I got closer to full southern exposure, she reclined back, waiting. I came to her completely divested, and she welcomed me with open arms. She had transgressed, betrayed me, or so she thought, and I had forgiven her. But it was I playing the penitent one, naked as I was, aroused as I was. My desire oblivious to any emotional subtext. Julia loved the reprieve of the governor’s hard cock. My plan was to map every inch of Julia’s body. I pulled her shirt from the waistband of her skirt and unbuttoned it from the bottom. I saw flashes of yellow somewhere in read-only memory. The crisply pressed fabric felt stiff against my skin. I had unfastened three buttons when I stopped to run my tongue into her navel. I climbed her body to rub my aroused cock against her bared midriff and feel her tongue offered in deep kiss. She tasted like scotch and peaches. I removed the shirt first and then slid her skirt down her legs, leaving her in navy blue pantyhose and pale pink bra. I spread my body on top of hers; pushing my cock against the nylon of her pantyhose and kissing erect nipples through the material of her bra. Julia began to moan and pushed her hips up off the bed at me. I kneeled between her legs and hooked my arms under her legs to pull her lower body into collision with my own. My cock speared up between the two of us, and I could feel the crotch of her pantyhose grow moist and warm. Julia leaned on her elbows and I watched her small breasts rise and fall with her breathing. I leaned forward to release the front clasp of her bra. The material parted, exposing her chest. I went at her breasts with my mouth and licked a line from the base of her throat to the top of her ribcage. She let herself drop down onto the mattress as I pushed harder and faster against her covered pussy. “God Chris, let me take these off…please” she pleaded as she pulled at the waistband of her pantyhose. I rubbed the head of my cock over each nylon-sheathed thigh before rolling the pantyhose inside out over legs and off her feet. Looking down at Julia at this moment was quite the experience; I have to tell you. She had removed the bra from her shoulders and now lay there with one hand on her forehead, almost shielding her eyes, and the other thrown back on the pillow upon which her head lay. I watched the musculature of her abdomen twitch and admired the fine sculpture of her rib cage. She still wore the panties that matched her recently departed pink bra, but we were making progress, I was getting there. I, somewhat abruptly, pushed her over so that she was lying on her stomach, and I lay on top of her this way. She pushed one arm beneath her, raising her upper body off the mattress slightly. Again, I kissed the back of her neck and the top of her shoulders. Her panty covered ass felt excruciatingly good against my cock. Moving off her briefly I kissed each shoulder blade and ran my tongue beneath the elastic of her panties where it lay against the small of her back. After that I was ready for more, and I sensed that Julia was growing somewhat impatient as well. I returned to blanketing her body with my own and slid a hand down to her waist. She lifted her hips, giving me room to operate, and I pushed my hand into her panties, feeling the downy blonde of her pussy. I used the heel of my hand to molest her clit as I inserted a finger into her pussy. She grunted in satisfaction and began to fuck my hand. I bit at an earlobe and smelled the freshness of her hair. It smelled slightly of coconut, but made me imagine maple syrup and October, the eternal autumn. My metaphorical meandering was interrupted by Julia reaching back and pulling at my hair as she flailed through climax. Her ass pushed into my stomach as her hinges came off, and I felt her cunt snap at my finger. When I rolled off her she rotated to face me, a faint smile showing through the post-orgasmic lethargy. I kissed her suddenly, trying to capture that smile so it could be safely kept on my lips. I managed to make love to Julia three times that evening. Not a record breaker for us Jennifer, but let’s try to maintain reasonable standards of accomplishment. This did not happen last evening, but I remember several things quite well. It’s my journalistic eye for detail. I remember how Julia slid the miraculously omnipresent condom (since our first time, both of us maintained a generous supply) over my cock with her mouth. A cliché, but a wonderful one. She laughed with genuine joy as she swung a leg over my prone form and, holding my cock, slid herself down over it. When she smiled, she looked like a blonde Neve Campbell. You would say she was a little girl…but she was a beautiful little girl. I remember the feel of my cock in her mouth. No. Don’t think that. She couldn’t get me off that way, though not through lack of effort. But she used her teeth in such a way that made me shiver. And when I told her she had to stop, she smiled that teasing smile and stroked my length until I exploded all over her stiff nippled breasts and her marble throat. And I certainly remember our last time. We fucked slowly. Somewhat tired and somewhat sore, but still willing and able. I had feasted with lips and tongue on the raspberry sherbet of her pussy. Her hands ran through my hand and gripped at my scalp as I took long, languid swipes across her clit. I had slid my hands beneath her ass and when she came I pulled her into my face, glorying in the suffocation, unable to breathe, but nor caring. She lay there, looking drunk, strung out with fatigue. I was exhausted myself, but I had to do this. I slid up her body, and resting on one elbow, slid into Julia for what I knew would be the last time. Too tired for anything athletic, we ground against each other subtly. “I’m kind of sore, not too hard, okay?” Julia said, her voice cracking and raspy. “Do you want me to stop?” “No…no don’t stop…just gentle…just keep doing this, I can come again if you just keep doing this,” she said. I was hardly moving at all. More side to side than in and out. Occasionally I would flex inside her and I saw her bite her lower lip. I summoned what little strength I had remaining to rise to my knees, pulling Julia’s doll-like body with me, she seemed feather light in my arms as I held her, and I began moving us just a little faster. I heard Julia moan, the sound almost as if it were coming from a distance, though I could feel her breath on my neck as her head lay on my shoulder. “Julia,” I muttered, “Tell me…tell me when you’re there.” I felt her head nod on my shoulder, and then a few moments later heard her inhale sharply, then an infant’s cry. “Now Chris…now” Julia stammered. I could feel the flutter and pulse. When I sensed she was deep within her own orgasm, could feel her hands slightly gripping my shoulders, I wrapped my arms around her back and waist and embraced her tightly, to encircle her. The last thing I remember as my cock recoiled and discharged, was the flutter of her fingertips on my arm, the smell of her hair, and the sound of resolution that came from deep in her throat. I slept for a couple of hours, then at 5:15, retrieved my clothes and drove home. I didn’t wake Julia before I left. I didn’t need to say goodbye. She knew as well as I did that we had already said goodbye. I’m sorry for telling you all of this in such graphic detail. I’ve been carried away. I felt tremendous affection for Julia, tremendous hunger for Julia…and later, tremendous gratification. But Julia was not you. So, you win in the end. Feel better now? I have been driven by the wanting; the wanting to be wanted. So you know what I’ve been thinking about? The great love’s of my life. The great mistakes of my life. Which of my foibles do I regret the most? Who did I truly love? Who do I miss the most? I miss you, of course. I miss the power of your presence and your confidence. I miss the softness of your skin, and the fullness of both your body and your mind. When I’m around another woman who wears the same perfume as you had worn, I smirk with indignation and contempt. I am somewhat embarrassed and uncomfortable in the knowledge that I don’t miss Julia all that much. I seem to have moved on from that rather too quickly. The sex was all we had in common really; subtract that and we were eternally stuck in Sartre’s waiting room. Though someday I may think of Julia’s eyes and sigh deeply, thinking of the crisp redemption and retrieval of freshly fallen snow, and the blue fall. These are how things tumble together in my head. This evening, as I write this I feel as though I miss Marion the most. I miss her innate sense of what was the right thing to do in any situation, I miss the fact that she refused to skip a single inning of any broadcast Yankee’s game, I miss the comfortable flannel of our time together. I miss her unconditional love and affection (though I suspect even Marion would have been tested had she known the true “conditions”). So in the end, the woman I ultimately loved the most was the woman I most frequently took for granted. It serves me right. The final irony. I did not lose…I abandoned. I would laugh out loud if it were not so grossly inappropriate. What's left of my love, Christopher All comments and criticisms enthusiastically and gratefully welcomed and appreciated. Dvflorence@excite.com -- If you enjoyed this work, take a moment to email the author. Your comments are their only payment. 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