Chapter 17

"Karla, let's carry on. Some problems cannot be solved while sitting down. Besides, I'm getting hungry and thirsty."

Without a word, she got up and started walking along the trail, her dejected bearing sufficient proof of her desolate state. I used her silence to try and formulate answers in my head, without much success.

Eventually, I spoke again. "Karla, some of our best thinkers have pondered this question throughout the ages: Why were our reproductive tools coupled with our excretory organs? I can't find an answer either. But perhaps it could have been so done to ensure that cleanliness and hygiene would be a determining factor for success at procreation. If this was the case, the idea failed on a grand scale. Many people behave like debased pigs. The aberrations are endless, and the sheer beauty of the act, that grandiose togetherness, got lost entirely in most instances.

"Then take people like your parents. They are the truly unloved ones, with the diseased bodies and warped souls, the cold hearts, their withered feelings coupled with twisted minds. You need to leave them behind.

"I don't know much about your everyday environment. But for once, try to break out of it. Go somewhere where you are completely alone, in nature or in your home. Take off your clothes and get to know your body, intimately. Feel the texture of your skin: on your arms; your thighs, front and back, inside, outside; your stomach; your buttocks; all planes of your face; your neck; your breasts; explore your fingers and toes and between your legs. Feel for the sinews and muscles underneath. Live your body! If you run your hands over your body, susceptibly, you will feel sensations, different all the time, which will tell you much about yourself. Where it is nice to be touched, and where it doesn't feel so good. Rough and smooth, soft and hard.

"Also get to know your secretions, their smells and taste. One very hot summer, a long time ago, I saw two small children running around naked, playing happily. The little girl would grab hold of the boy and lick the sweat off his face and his chest. They had great fun taking turns. It was not disgusting to them, they followed their instincts. Their bodies lost salt, it felt and tasted right to replenish it this way.

"You know, of course, that your sweat smells different all the time, depending on the type of exertion, your cycle, your health and so on. But it tastes differently too. Try it and remember it. Get to know yourself and store this knowledge. This shall be the key to yourself. A key which you can then share with Helmut, if you wish.

"Come to think of it, there is another reason for the improbable placement of our sexual pleasure centres: it wouldn't have worked anywhere else on our bodies! Don't you agree?"

I don't know what results I expected from my lecture. As we crossed a low ridge, a shallow basin opened up, a small glade really, enclosed by huge oaks, beech trees and tall shrubs, which ran right up to the edge of the mountain range. It was not on our way, I wanted to stay on the path. But Karla decided otherwise.

"Let's go there, Berthold, I want to try out what you have told me, now. There's nobody here to disturb us. And it's so beautiful."

Alfred's and Elise's admonitions were loud and clear in my mind. – Whatever we do, nothing sexual at all should happen between the two of us. – We were doomed, I knew it.

"Karla, please, listen. You should do this on your own. Not here, not now, not with me around. Please."

But she would not listen. Her eyes pleaded with me, I surrendered. The glade was very nice and isolated. After a careful overall scan she went right to a small rocky outcrop, turned around to me and said. "Over here, Berthold. Sit. I want to do this exploration now. Before I chicken out. And I want you here because I shall be able to gauge myself through your eyes."

I could not follow her logic, was too stumped to think properly, too much of a coward to run away. I sat down on a fallen tree and wished that Alfred hadn't taken away my smoking habit, wished that I had a strong drink to hand, wished to be elsewhere, wished...

Without haste she stepped up to the rock formation and started to take off her clothes, folding them neatly and placing them on the ground beside her. She hadn't been wearing all that much, some sturdy shirt and shorts, sensible underwear. She was naked soon and stood up, facing me and the sun, not more than a few paces away, much too close.

Whether she was aware of it I couldn't tell, but Alfred had done a lot for her body. All traces of her pregnancies were gone, her belly and buttocks trimmed down and taut, the still small breasts fuller and firmer. Her face did not show any of the earlier tiny wrinkles. However, in general her body was still the same. Slightly too narrow in the shoulders, a bit too wide and too flat in the hips. No actress material, yet an attractive mature woman all the same.

She stood very upright and looked straight at me. I dared not look away, was afraid of shaming her and held her eyes when she lifted her arms high over her head and started by smoothing out her hair. Then it became a ritual, excruciatingly erotic but with no explicit sexual overtones. She did exactly what I had told her to do, her eyes following her hands as they travelled the length and breadth of her body, more quickly here, slower there, hesitating often, the lightest of touches between her legs with her right hand while her left explored her lower back, might even have strayed into her cleft. She spent quite some time on her ears, stroking and kneading softly, before running her hands down her flanks, the inside of her thighs, the backs of her knees. In places, the results of her explorations seemed to surprise her, as when she touched and felt her toes, all at once with both hands and then each single one with careful, unhurried movements. Her face carried a wondrous expression when she straightened up again and just stood there, head held high, her eyes huge, a smile starting to form at her lips. – She had not touched her vulva.

She stepped up to me, reached out with both hands...

"Let's go to that restaurant now, Karla, I beg of you!"

She just smiled some more, touched her hand to my face and got dressed. We hardly spoke till we reached the country inn.

The inn was all we could have hoped for. It was quiet on this working day, with only a few of the many tables occupied by mostly elderly couples. I was still disturbed by Karla's actions and didn't feel like speaking at all. Karla must have felt this since she didn't talk a lot either. Only when we were on our way back after a delightful lunch, she squeezed my hand and told me what had made her act like she did.

"Berthold, the way you told me to do this, I could have done it anytime. It would probably have worked just as well. But I needed to see myself mirrored in your eyes. You pretended to be my doctor and you seem detached. Still, you are a man and you do look on women with practised and evaluating eyes. Don't deny it, there's nothing wrong with that. I was certain that your eyes would tell me the truth. That's why I am very happy now. But, Berthold, will it work for real? These sex things. Just thinking of them, some aspects still creep me out. What will it be like when Helmut and I try again?" She blushed very heavily. "This oral fetish of his?"

I pondered over this till it occurred to me to ask about her previous experiences. "You did tell me that you had some companions before Helmut. What about those encounters? Was it love or lust, or just curiosity, hormonal overload? What did you feel then? How did they turn out?"

Karla was startled and, apparently, embarrassed by this new direction. "Berthold, my first time was terrible. It was messy and hurt a lot because I was so dry there. Thankfully, it was over in a couple of minutes. I did not much like the boy before, and certainly even less after. The others, two, were not much better for me. Or, perhaps, I was wrong for them, too. They also wanted me to do things, do things to me. Loathsome, foul things."

From the map, I knew of a small spring quite close to our route and led her to it. "Karla, wash your hands."

Bewildered, she did as told. I made her stand in front of me and unbuttoned her pants. Stunned, she suffered this in silence, only her eyes telling of her torment.

"Touch your vulva, insert one or two fingers into your vagina. Do it, now!" She trembled all over but complied again, in stops and starts.

"Enough, give me your hand."

I had to grab her hand quite forcibly against her frantic resistance, brought her fingers to my mouth and licked them, one after the other, looking at her while I did this, never allowing her to turn away. Tears streamed from her eyes, mucus from her nose. A sight to behold. I only let go when all fingers were wet from my saliva.

I rearranged her panties and pulled up her shorts. "There, Karla. You had a shower this morning, you are clean; the walk was a bit strenuous at times, some perspiration. The taste and smell are tangy, a little sharp perhaps, genital, salty; but certainly not odious. That's exactly as it should be. You are strong, clean, healthy. – If you don't like any of this, you don't have to do it, ever. But remember, tactile and haptic sensations are part of our bodies, tastes, sounds and smells too. So don't condemn people for delighting in them while enjoying sex. When you are with a man, your man, you will notice that these sensations differ all the time. Moods are important, stress situations play a role, health, harmony of mind and soul: in fact, we project ourselves through them.