My Young Painter
mf oral


My Young Painter

He was just one of the odd assortment of students, business people, and
housewives in my evening French class. I only got to know him a little
better than the others because after each class our paths coincided for a
few blocks, as I walked home and he to his subway stop. We got into the
habit of continuing our French speaking efforts as we walked.

"Et, maintenant, ou allez-vous?" I would ask, affecting the perkiest French
accent I could muster.

"Umm" He would think of something he could say "Je vais chez moi pour mon
diner."

"Oh, mais c'est tres en retard! Vous n'avez pas mange?"

"Non, et j'ai tres faim."

We'd walk on in silence for a while until we reached the cross street that
leads to the T stop.

"Au revoir."

"Au revoir, jusqu'a la classe prochain."

Since we never spoke English to each other, and our French was rudimentary
at best, he remained a stranger. The same was true for the rest of the
class, and this was actually one of the things I enjoyed about it, since I
like watching people and its easier to watch people that you don't know than
people that you do. I knew a few facts about each of them from their answers
to the little personal questions our teacher would use for in-class drill,
but the different ways they would struggled to answer in a foreign language
without making a fool of themselves were much more revealing. I had plenty
of material for idle speculation, which I would indulge in when the
spotlight wasn't on me. I'd picture the stiff man who always came in a
three-piece suit still wearing that suit as he meticulously waxed his car
every Saturday, sculpted evergreen shrubs in the background. Or I'd imagine
the recriminations as the couple from Reading, who didn't seem to be able to
let each other finish a sentence even when they didn't speak the language,
tried to settle who was responsible for the huge credit card balance.

About my after-class companion, I knew that he was a student at a local art
school, he was married but his wife was away, his weekend plans often
included skiing, his favorite restaurant was Italian. My first impression
was that he was shy and bookish--he was usually pretty rumpled--but he
emerged after a while as someone with an impish sense of humor, claiming,
for example, butter was his favorite breakfast food after the rest of us had
settled for the more conventional eggs, cereal, or fruit. Sometimes he would
try to make a joke that stretched his little bit of grammar past its limits,
whereupon he would reconfirm my first impression of him by sinking back in
his chair to scribble in his notebook, red rising in his cheeks. He was
amusingly, sometimes even endearingly, empathetic, wincing in embarrassment
as others stammered and struggled through their little phrases. He seemed
nice, but it never occured to me to think of him as anything but a pleasant
stranger. After we bid our weekly adieu I thought no more about him.

As I walked out of the building after the last class meeting, I saw that a
cold winter rain had started. My acquaintance was standing just outside the
front door, opening his umbrella. When he saw me he smiled. "Avez-vous un .
. ." He shook his umbrella to indicate what he was trying to ask, and I
nodded, taking mine out of my handbag. He waited at the bottom of the stairs
as I arranged myself. As we started down the street, he looked around, then
blew a disgusted sigh, puffing out both cheeks. "Pphww, Il pleut."

Despite the weather, I was in a good mood that evening, looking forward to
getting home to hang a gorgeous new picture I had bought from my best friend
and favorite artist. Besides which, I'm generally a cheerful
person--sometimes I'm even accused of being a Pollyanna. I had had enough
French for the day, though. "Well, that was fun," I chirped, "a good
diversion for a grim winter's evening. I think I'll miss it."

"Yeah, it was OK. I just wish I could actually speak French."

"I think you did pretty well. You were one of the quickest learners in the
class."

We trudged down the street in silence for a bit. My picture on my mind, I
asked, "Do I remember correctly that you're studying at the Art Institute? I
have a friend who finished a degree there a few years ago. She loved it once
she found the right teachers."

"Yeah, I guess I'm still working at that, but I think its gonna be OK. Who's
studio was she in?"

"Frederica Hernandez. Does she still teach there?" I queried.

"No, she's gone. I've heard she was pretty cool, though. What's your friend
doing now? Is she showing anywhere?"

"Oh, she's doing wonderfully! She had a show of prints at Harvard that just
ended last week. It was magnificent!" I get carried away whenever I talk
about my friend Sally's prints.

"Were those the figures in gray and brown?" he asked. I nodded affirmative.
"Those were nice, one of the better shows I've seen this year." I had met
enough art students to know that this was high praise.

"I've just bought one of her landscapes. I spent all weekend trying to
decide where to hang it. It's a lot brighter than the pictures you
saw--really something to cheer one up this time of year."

"She's really lucky to have a someone who cares about how its shown. Its
hard to let something go if you don't know where it'll end up. That's why I
don't want to be a successful artist. Having to sell things is a drag." He
said it as a joke, but I sensed some bitterness.

"Sally used to feel that way, too, but she got over it after she got her
first few checks. I'm sure you will too." I find gloomy artists a bit hard
to take. "You know, she's a very very nice person, and she knows a lot of
gallery owners around town. I'm sure she would be happy to talk to you about
the business side of things--she likes helping people to make the transition
from school to the real world." I immediately felt misgivings about so
cavalierly volunteering Sally's time. I always want everybody to be happy,
and it always seems to get me into trouble.

"Well, actually, I was kinda curious about her printing techniques after the
show. Would she talk to me about that?"

"Oh yes, I'm sure she'd love to tell you all about it. I'll give you the
number at her studio. Call her any weekday after one in the afternoon. She
usually doesn't answer the phone in the morning. Tell her I gave you her
number. Oh, wait, she just moved into a new studio. Hmm . . ." I tried to
rummage in my handbag while holding the umbrella.

"That's OK, I'm sure someone at school will know how to find her. Maybe the
alumni office."

We were standing on the corner where we normally went our separate ways. My
house, and therefore my address book, was only a half block away. "If you
don't mind a little detour, I can get you her number. My house is just
ahead, on this block."

"Um, sure, yeah I can do that."

We trudged on. He was scanning the old brownstones on both sides of the
street. "I've never met anyone who lived in this neighborhood before. It's
one of my faves. Even in this weather these houses are beautiful."

I started to effuse about just what a wonderful neighborhood it was when we
got to my door. "Come in. It will just take me a minute to find the number."
I slid off my boots, stepped into my house slippers, and had started down
the hall when it occurred to me how fun it would be to show off my new prize
possession. "If you want to see my new print, its leaning against the wall
just around the corner there. But if you don't mind, could you take off your
shoes first?" I get so tired of all the mud in winter.

"Yeah, sure, no problem." He started unlacing his shoes while I continued on
into the kitchen to get my address book. When I came back he was crouched in
front of the print. "This's even nicer than the ones in the show. I'm really
into the control she has over each edge--some totally sharp, some smeared
like this one. That's what I want to ask her about. I've just started
printmaking, and I can't deal with the way they teach it at school. They
should have hired your friend, not that idiot Goss." He looked up. "Is this
the wall you're hanging it on?" I nodded. "Cool," he commented approvingly.
He went back to studying the print. "I love the balance in this piece, the
solid black form down here against the diffuse blue and green up there." He
pointed out several other features and I nodded and passed on a few remarks
Sally had made to me about the work. I was thrilled to find someone I could
talk to about it, someone who's appreciation went beyond the insipid gush
"Oooo, pretty." His conversation was articulate and intelligent, and any
misgivings I had about giving him Sally's number faded.

After a while I realized my knees were hurting. We had been hunched over in
front of the print for at least fifteen minutes. "Look," I said, "if you're
not in a hurry, how about coffee or a cup of tea? I could use some warming
up."

"Oh, OK. Yeah, tea sounds great. I don't have to be anywhere."

I went into the kitchen and put the water on. I could hear him working his
way around the front room, pausing in front of the other pictures and
knickknacks, taking in the pictures of my husband and son, looking out the
bay windows. "Man, this is an incredibly cool place. I always wondered if
these old brownstones were as nice on the inside as on the outside," he
exclaimed, so I could hear in the kitchen.

"I couldn't imagine living anyplace else," I called back.

I brought in two cups of steaming tea, as well as some cheese and crackers
and lox. I had a feeling he didn't eat before class, and it was now a little
after eight o'clock.

"Please, have a seat," I said, placing a cup by the armchair and motioning
for him to sit down. He did so without a word, still looking around, then
picked up his cup to blow on it. I sat on the sofa. The picture that had
animated him a minute ago was now behind his back. To get things going
again, I fell back on convention. "So, how did you decide to become a
painter?" I asked.

I needn't have worried. With a little prompting he described how he had
spent his childhood painting and drawing but how, for practicalities sake,
he had studied biology in college and had then taken a job at a big
pharmaceutical company, a job he gave up when he realized that he would
never forgive himself if he didn't try to make it as a serious painter. He
also talked about the period after he quit his job, when he traveled with
his wife, who worked in international aid, and the struggle of trying to
paint as they moved from one place to another. As he grew more comfortable
with me, his dry, sometimes sarcastic sense of humor surfaced, no longer
crippled by French. I asked a leading question now and then, but mostly I
just enjoyed listening. It seemed like forever since I had had a
conversation with a man young enough not to be in my generation but enough
older than my son to seem like an adult.

After an hour or so, there was a lull. "Well, I've gone on long enough," he
said. "I'm sure there's nothing more fascinating than my life story, but I'd
like to eat some of this salmon." He piled some cheese and lox on a cracker.
"What kind of work do you do?"

The question caught me off guard--I had just been thinking how interesting
this man's life seemed compared to mine. "Oh, I'm just a doctor's wife. Our
son has just started college, so I collect beautiful things for the house, I
work part-time for the Red Cross, sometimes I take a class or two."

"You'll have to do better than that," he said, through a mouthful of cracker
crumbs. "How did you and Sally meet?"

"Oh, my, we go way back. We went to college together." Having someone else
to talk about made things easier. I described how we had both gotten married
in college, and how Sally had divorced ten years ago and then gone back to
school, and how proud I was of her.

"So what'd you study in college?"

"I was a history major. I passionately love medieval history. Oh, lord, in
those days I dreamt of spending my life in old monastery libraries in
Europe. Actually, that's why I was in the French class. Now that my son is
gone, I'm thinking of going back to school, so I need to try to resurrect my
languages. It's truly horrifying how much you lose in 20 years."

"So I guess these aren't here just to impress people," he said, pointing to
my medieval manuscript facsimiles on the coffee table.

"Oh, no, no. Those are my inspiration. I'm determined to get the credentials
so I can study the originals someday." In truth, my plan to go back to
school was just forming. This was the first time I had talked to someone as
if it would actually happen.

"That sounds cool." He picked up a reproduction of a medieval book of hours
and started leafing though it. "I'm really into medieval art, into what came
before and after realism in European art. These are so stylized but they can
be incredibly intense without being about the artist's ego. There's a
modesty in them that I want to get to in my own work." He stopped on a group
of mitered bishops and saints. "Like this one. What's going on here?"

I got up and walked around the back of his chair and started to explain the
iconography of the picture he was looking at. It was small, so I bent over
to point out some details. His musky smell drifted into my nostrils with the
warm air rising off his body. Our hands brushed. The hairs on the back of my
neck prickled. It dawned on me that what I was having a conversation with
was flesh and blood, a human body, no, more than that, a male human body. I
noticed the vague bulge that the bottom of the book in his lap was resting
against. I faltered as the proverbial ton of bricks fell. "You see here,
ummm, the, ummm, hands folded in the saint's lap, as opposed, um, to the
other figures . . ." As I continued to babble I looked at the wedding ring
on his finger. My husband's behavior had long ago made fidelity a non-issue
in our marriage, but somehow I hoped that my new friend and his ambitious
wife could manage to treat each with more dignity. It didn't seem right to
take advantage of her absence. Men, I knew, didn't have a lot of will
power--somehow that always fell to us. I went back to the sofa and sat down.
But I needed to know more.

"I remember you said in class that your wife is away for, what, five
months?"

"Uh-huh," he answered absently, still studying the picture.

"That must be awful. I can't imagine how I would deal with it if Fred went
away for that long," I lied.

"Yeah, I wish I could say that I get used to it. I mean, I knew this is what
it would be like when we got married. I'd never ask her to give up her
work--its too important to her. Its who she is, who I married. But, yeah, I
won't try to be a tough guy and pretend its not hard for me. I hate it every
time she goes. What about your husband--is he gone a lot too?" He was
looking out the window.

"Well, he's an important surgeon--he goes on consulting trips for a few
weeks at a time, oh, about once every two months."

"So he's gone as much as my wife, but its more spread out. That seems like
it would be better."

"Its fine. I'm used to it now. It gives me the space to do things I couldn't
do when he and Mitch were home all the time."

"Hmm." He leaned back in his chair and looked at me. "You don't really sound
like you miss your husband very much."

I had to laugh. "You've seen right through me. How devastating." I watched
him hungrily slide a glossy mound of pink salmon into his mouth.
Impulsively, I said, "Hey, its time for my evening glass of wine. I'm
working on a delicious bottle of Chardonnay. Can I tempt you?"

"Yeah. Consider me tempted."

I went to the kitchen to fetch the bottle and a couple of glasses, mulling
over the connotations of our last little exchange, which I, Mrs. Willpower,
had initiated. When I got back he was looking at a book of photographs of
Gothic cathedrals. We traded stories of traveling through Europe, not only
of cathedrals but of Texans ordering lunch from rude French waiters and
harrowing train trips and Italian village hospitality. From his stories I
was getting more of a sense of his wife and of their relationship. After a
bit of wine, I decided that it was strong enough to weather a little
dalliance on his part. What did she expect, anyway, leaving this delightful
little package of pheromones for five months at a time? I had pulled out a
picture album from one of our trips, to show him my favorite cathedrals,
which had necessitated him moving over to the sofa.

"You were an awesome family," he commented, flipping through pictures >from
a European trip we had taken when my son was still golden-haired and my
husband hadn't lost his football-player physique. The distance between us,
initially polite, was narrowing as I pointed out details of the various
cathedrals in the small snapshots. His warmth and the smell returned with a
vengeance. Our hands brushed more and more often. The cathedrals and
cobblestone streets ended abruptly, and there was blue sky and sandy
beaches, and me in a ridiculously revealing bikini.

"My, oh my. Where was this taken?"

"St. Tropez." I felt my face flush. I blubbered "how I wish I could have
that woman's body again! Why didn't I enjoy it more at the time? I was
always so self-conscious when we were at those French resorts, but Fred
insisted that I wear the latest thing."

"I'd say you do have that woman's body." I could practically hear the wheels
turning in his head. "Its been hard for me to believe that you have a son
going to college. I guess these pictures prove it." I felt some movement
where he had slyly stretched his arm along the back of the sofa a while
before. Fingers were stroking the nape of my neck. Lips appeared at my ear.
"Your husband may not appreciate what he has, but I do." The lips moved down
to my neck. An arm was draped across my waist.

I tried to protest. "Uhhhhm. Something tells me that your wife does
appppreciate, um." At the word wife he stopped. I took a deep breath. "Does
appreciate what she has, and wouldn't appreciate me appreciating it also."

"Yeah. I guess so. If she knew she'd be pissed. But I can still love her
and, um, appreciate you for a while. Not for too long. As long as you don't
have long-term designs on me. Do you have a basement full of lonely husbands
stuffed in boxes?" The fingers and arms and lips went back to work. I think
he knew that I was only offering token resistance. I turned my head so that
our lips met. His hands wrapped around the back of my head and pulled my
mouth into his. On his breath was the tang of the salmon I had watched
enviously a while before. Sitting side by side was no longer tolerable. I
nudged him up as I slid my legs onto the couch and then pulled him on top of
me. Now I was able to wrap my arms around him as we kissed. I sent my hands
on a little expedition. Yes, nice thick hair. Uh-huh, ears, furry neck,
bristly chin, cheekbones, soft, rubbery eyelids, eyebrows, yes, back to all
that hair. Look at me, my fingers seemed to be saying, like kids in new
snow, I'm playing in all this hair! His hand was exploring new terrain as
well--up and down my back, then tentatively across my buttocks and onto my
thigh. After a while it returned, coming to rest on my ribs. Feeling that
its trip was not complete, I nudged it over a few inches to place it on my
right breast. One of his legs found its way between mine, and he sent his
tongue deep into my mouth. Shivers went down my spine as his fingers traced
the outline of my electrically charged nipple. His mouth moved away from
mine, across my eyes, down to my neck and chin, and then to my ear. My
earlobe was gently nibbled. Warm breath tickled against my eardrum. It said
"I think its time for me to take your clothes off."

I found an ear of my own, whispering "I think its time for me to take you to
my bedroom." I rolled on top of him, straddling him, pushing him into the
sofa cushions as I ran my hands up and down on his chest. I though about
what it would be like to straddle him with no clothes intervening, and that
gave me the energy to stand up, take his hand in mine, urge him off the
sofa, and lead him to the staircase. He balked as I started climbing the
stairs. "Do you have any condoms?" he asked.

I hadn't thought about this. My tubes were tied years ago, and anyway sex
hadn't been much a part of my life for a while. "Uh, I'm not sure," I
answered. "But its safe, I think."

"No, we need to use one. But its not a problem." He went to the foyer, where
he had left his briefcase. I heard a zipper, and he came back with a small
cardboard box.

I couldn't suppress an exclamation. "You little devil!" How is it that all
men are such cads? I felt a pang. Please lord, I prayed, let me hang onto my
last scrap of detachment with this one. Let me enjoy him and laugh about it
later.

He played innocent. "I've been carrying these around for a while. It gave me
a feeling of independence -- I didn't expect to actually use them." He
climbed up to stand on the stair below me so our faces were level, placed
his hands on my waist and looked solemnly into my eyes. A corner of his
mouth twitched and then rose in a sly grin. Our noses touched as he said,
softly, "after every class I'd get weird ideas about following you home,
like some lost puppy. It seemed like a safe fantasy. I guess that proves
what they say about how you should be careful what you wish for." I turned,
taking him by the hand and led him into my bedroom.

I started to unbutton my blouse. "Oh, no, no, no, no, Madame," he exclaimed,
in a fake French accent. "You must allow me." Sitting me on the bed, he
unbuttoned my blouse, slid my arms out of it, and draped it over a chair. He
then stood, leaning over my shoulder, and explored the bra straps on by
back. "Mmm, c'est un probleme," he muttered.

I wanted to be helpful. "Its on the front," I said.

"Oh, mais oui, so it is." He unclasped and removed the bra, put it on top of
the blouse, then knelt in front of me, gently tracing the contours of both
breasts with his hands. He leaned in and brushed my nipples with his nose,
then his lips. He teased them with his tongue. Involuntarily, I arched my
back, took two fistfuls of hair and pulled him to me. He took a nipple into
his mouth and it was as if I had been plugged into an electrical socket. My
scalp tingled and I rocked slowly back and forth, holding his face firmly to
my breast. Heat rose between my legs. When I released him he sat at my feet
and removed my slippers, kissing each instep. He stood up and indicated for
me to do the same, unzipped my dress, dropped it to the floor, knelt in
front of me and peeled off my panty hose. He pulled my naked body to him and
ran his nose through my pubic hair, taking a deep breath, then rose to his
feet, pulled back the sheets of the bed and motioned me in. "Madame could
get cold." I watched him undress. A patch of fuzzy chest hair emerged as he
unbuttoned his shirt. Delicate feet slipped out of his socks. Under his
pants his underwear was straining to contain its awkward cargo. He carefully
stretched the elastic outward so it would clear his penis and then slid his
shorts down his long lean legs.

It had been a while since I had been able to observe the implausibility of
male anatomy in its fully upright position. How could such a thing be so
appealing? It flopped around as he turned to slide into bed. It seemed to
need a hand, so I gave it mine. It was silky smooth to the touch, radiating
heat, a fabulous, exhilarating hand warmer. His mouth dropped open and he
seemed to stop breathing as I experimented with all the ways I could wrap my
hands around it, squeeze it, stroke it. I reached around to grab a fleshy
cheek and pulled us together. Our lips locked again and our hands ran
rampant. Skin! Skin! Skin! Why, I wondered, does there have to be more to it
than the miraculous feeling of two naked bodies pressed together? Couldn't
we just enjoy this warm, friendly intimacy and forego the moist violence of
thrashing genitals? The swollen penis pressing against me, though,
proclaimed in no uncertain terms that I would not be allowed to linger in
purgatory for long. He shifted me onto my back and planted soft kisses over
my face, my ears, and my neck before returning to my breasts. I felt a
finger slide teasingly up the inside of my thigh. Up and down a few times
and then some playful loops through my pubic hair, then tracing out the
shape of the moist slit between my legs. My whole body shuddered. Gently but
insistently folds of skin were pushed aside as he searched for and found the
bull's-eye. I gasp and press back into the mattress. Finger strokes send
tentacles of pleasure up to the back of my neck and down to my toes. There
is movement, rustling under the covers, I feel sandpaper whiskers brush
against the inside of my thigh, and the finger is replaced by a tongue. As
he sucks on my distended vulva a charge spreads over my entire body, and my
mouth, my hands and arms and skin cry out for contact, for substance. I pull
him back on top of me, wrap my arms around him again, squeeze him against
me, run my hands up and down his smooth back. I smell him and taste him and
taste myself on him. His cock makes a searing impression in my soft belly.
He slides off of me onto his side, props himself up on an elbow and looks
into my eyes. "I'd like it if you would, uhhh." He closes my hand around his
penis while running his tongue lightly over my lips.

Pushing him onto his back, I straddle his legs and sit back on my heals to
contemplate his dick. As I start to fondle it I flash back incongruously to
the model rockets my son used to build. I never understood their attraction,
but fingering his fleshy, volatile projectile, sensing its pent-up energy,
the half-comic, half-tragic striving of every erection for its brief,
explosive glory, I begin to understand. I bend over to take it into my
mouth. Its heft is just as satisfying in my mouth as in my hands, and I'm
also rewarded with a new, salty taste. I take it in and out, run my tongue
over the tip. I hear him gasp, feel, with my hands, the muscles in his ass
pull taut. With just a stroke of my tongue I send him into gasping spasms,
and then I release him. I feel powerful, knowing I have the master control
to every nerve in his body in my mouth. He pulls on my hair, he twists, he
moans. I show him no mercy. I sense him going over the edge, pushing up, the
muscles in his stomach stand out, his penis straining against my grip. A
sweet taste explodes into my mouth. He writhes a few more times as I finish
milking him, then his body goes limp and his arms drop to his side.

I lie on top of him, and he folds me into his arms, murmuring "I think I
must be dead now." I pull the covers back over us and let him trace
curlicues up and down my back. Though he's lying inert, I'm pleased that
there still seems to be a substantial bulge between our crotches. I prop
myself up, smell his hair and fondle his earlobes.

Enough lying around sweetly! I blow down his ear. "Hey, mister, every good
death deserves a resurrection." He grunts, but also starts to show signs of
life. He rolls us over onto our side, pulls our mouths together and reaches
down to take a handful of my ass. I investigate and find that his equipment
is indeed still serviceable.

He rolls away from me, I hear some box-opening noises before he returns with
a condom. "Any volunteers?" he asks, tearing open the foil. After I
delicately roll it on he climbs between my legs and slides down to take a
few mouthfuls of my stomach and then a breast. Fingers dance on my thigh
again, and then on my vagina and into it and up to my clit sending magic
tentacles of pleasure snaking through my body again. I briefly wonder how
the people who write chewing gum commercials would describe this sensation
("its cuntilicious!") but he's perched over me now and I can feel his
fingers spreading me. He penetrates and I yield, welcome, engulf. He fills
me, starts moving slowly. Every part of me is engaged. My mouth finds his
mouth, his ear, his neck. My hands pull his hair, or caress the muscles in
his arms or back, or fondle his balls and the shaft of the penis that I'm
moistening. My breasts wait to be kneaded like bread in his hands. My cunt
contains him. I shift with him, pushing into the impact of his slow, firm
thrusts. With an inexorable rhythm, he pumps me full of electric pleasure,
rising, rising, still rising, a flooding river pushing against its crumbling
levees. My levees burst, but the rhythm persists, I clasp him to me,
pressing against him with all my strength, he's my life raft as I thrash in
the seething waves of a warm ocean of ecstasy. He speaks. "I want to turn
you over." I can only groan. He withdraws and rolls me onto my stomach,
lifting up on my hips so I'm on all fours. Kneeling behind, he plants his
cock deep inside me again, deeper even than before. My arms buckle. He keeps
a firm grip on my hips, rocking me into him as he thrusts. A brusque hand on
my ass pushes me down onto my stomach, his weight is on me again, he wraps
his strong arms around me, grabbing both my breasts like handles. His
thrusting accelerates, teeth sink into the soft skin of my shoulder. I arch
my back pushing my ass into him, striving to take him as deeply as possible.
His embrace is almost suffocating. I twist against his grip reaching between
my legs to find his balls, as he drives desperately into me, groaning, my
hand clasping the pulsing contractions between his legs as his cock labors
to fill me with his seed.

A curtain of stillness fell then, as if we had suddenly emerged from a
reverberant tunnel into a vast, empty space. In the stillness I became aware
of familiar sounds-- the swish-hiss of a car stopping at the corner, the
oblivious, plodding tick-tick-tick of my clock. I could hear his panting
breath now, feel the flutter of his racing heart against my back. I lay
spread-eagle under his bulk, limp, rubbery as a jellyfish, though a warm
energy still coursed from my crotch to my tingling extremities. After a
while his vital signs subsided, he started to lift himself off me, to
withdraw, then leaned down to softly kiss the back of my neck. He carefully
removed himself from me, easing over onto the bed at my side, then wrapped
his arm around my waist and urged me to roll against him. We lay in silence
for some time, fingers aimlessly brushing. I wondered how long I could
manage to stay blissfully suspended between the selfless fucking that had
come before and the inevitable crashing-down of the real world, the having
to put clothes on and go places and talk to people as the same old me as if
nothing had happened. The having to find some psychic space in which to put
this young painter pressed against my naked body so that life could go on. I
was aware of the fragility of the bubble that was protecting me from facing
all this, but I was determined to hang on as long as possible to the
luxurious glow. I knew there would be time for consequences later.

As it happened, the spell was broken in the most mundane of ways, by urgent
messages from my tea and wine-filled bladder that could not be put off or
rationalized away. Easing myself off the bed, promising "I'll be back in a
minute," I padded down the hushed, dark hall to the bathroom.

On my return, I found him gingerly working the condom off his half-erect
penis.

"Mon Dieu!" I exclaimed, "il y a un homme, mmm . . ." trying to remember the
French word for naked, then improvising "sans les vetements dans ma salle."

"Oui," he replied, smiling sheepishly, "et j'ai tres faim."