Chapter 2

And here we were in her apartment. Sitting at the kitchen table, facing each other. The translucent gauze curtains billowed in the soft breeze and the lights were dim. Mid-summer street sounds provided soothing background accompaniment. Our voices were still and we sat there with our heads hanging down like a couple of shy teenagers on their first date.

This was the critical moment, and all at once I couldn't meet her gaze, couldn't do what needed to be done. Then I felt a cool hand on my cheek, and she clasped my fingers with hers, pulling me over to whisper in my ear:

"Come, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humor, and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?"

"I would say that was a direct quote from Shakespeare's 'As You Like It.' And, as it happens, I haven't had terribly much luck with Rosalinds."

She laughed.

Amelia's hands were large for a woman's, with long, dextrous fingers. Her touch was firm and confident. I noticed her well-groomed but unpolished nails as she helped me out of my clothes.

"Behold the man. You are a beautiful specimen, Casi. Here, this will keep you snug as you wait for me to freshen myself." She handed me a well-worn blue velvet bathrobe, then slowly walked off in regal splendor, still fully clothed.

There was soft music playing somewhere. A woman sang in a darkly sensuous smoky voice. I wandered toward the source of the sound, over by the far wall. It was Nan Moravia doing the definitive version of "Love is Pain."

You touched my soul
It brought me bliss
My tears began
With your soft kiss

Exquisite taste in music. Fine equipment, too. The clear "milky" tones of an old-fashioned tube-type MacIntosh amp and full-size Acoustic Research AR-3A speakers did the song justice. Might even put to shame the 300 watt per channel SWTP "Supertiger" system I had been planning to put together. All of it, the choice of music and the hardware, even the ambience, earned my seal of approval. For whatever it was worth.

I heard water running, then a wedge of light from the half-open bathroom door split the darkness. Rhythmic footsteps approached. Amelia placed a finger across my lips before I could open my mouth to speak. She took my hand and laid something cold and shiny into it. It was a metal squeeze-tube with a vaguely camphor-like smell. I strained to make out the label in the dim light: "XE-41 Industrial Strength Recreational Lubricant (certified safe for internal use)."

"Use this. It is a special-purpose emollient. Spread it liberally on the appropriate portion of your anatomy. Apply all you consider necessary, then a bit more. To spare you possible embarrassment, I have already prepared myself. Perhaps on subsequent occasions we can dispense with artifices." She was wearing nothing.

Amelia kissed me softly on the lips, and her breath smelled of cloves. She kissed me harder, then her tongue darted into my mouth. Her hand dropped down behind me, caressed my hind cheeks, squeezed my right one, and I felt a fingertip delicately probe my anus. "This is your secret flower... yes, also men have the capacity for pleasure there ('So, what else is new?' I thought). Possibly we will have occasion to explore this matter further."

She turned around, and in one abrupt flowing movement bent forward and lowered her chest to the bed, surrendering herself to me. I suddenly knew exactly what she expected.

Hands, my own trembling hands found the large round globes of her ass, caressed, caressed them hypnotically. She pushed her behind back against me, shoving me backwards a step... and I braced myself on her wide hips, and I took her unto me. I pressed the painfully throbbing head of my engorged penis against, then into her secret place, her hidden jewel, her hole, her asshole. I sank, slowly sank into her -- no resistance, just a deliciously liquid slide into a hot, hot slippery-walled tunnel. Her pulsing mystery pulled me in, gradually swallowed me, engulfed me, and I was home. Home at last.

And I remembered... Remembered all the times when I had been on the receiving end. How it had felt. How it had felt with a man's dick pumping into my own ass. That feeling of being spread open, stretched, opened up, then filled. The thrusting within me, the slippery-sucking friction against my own insides...

And then I was with her again and we were caressing each other's bodies, endlessly caressing, hungrily touching and caressing, compulsively, hypnotically devouring each other with our hands, just our hands. It was raining, and a fine mist came in through the bedroom window. And she was singing for me. "Tuo saver al tempo e l'età contrasta... "

I drifted into dark, formless sleep.