Chapter 44: Greta And Strawberries Flambé

After a shower and changing into clean clothes, it was still a little early to leave for Greta’s place. I’d decided to bike there, so I could be a little vague about telling my folks where I was going.

I read for a bit, and then tried looking at the Italian books I’d bought. I still didn’t have enough understanding of the grammar to feel comfortable with it, to say nothing of the huge gaps in vocabulary. Oh, well, it’s a process.

It’d take me about twenty minutes to get there, so I prepared to leave. I wasn’t sure what might happen after dinner, but I made sure I had spare condoms, just in case.

I found a place to leave my bike where it wouldn’t attract attention, and chained it up. I climbed the stairs again and knocked.

“Tom, right on time. Are you always so punctual?”

“No, I’m not, you just caught me on a good day. Whatever you’re cooking smells great.”

“Nothing too fancy, just chicken and some risotto and a salad.”

“Considering what I usually eat, that is fancy. Thank you for the invitation, Greta.”

“Consider it payment for the tutoring, and the encouragement. Math has always been a little scary so I get intimidated by it easily. You took some of the fear out of it.”

“Can I help with anything?”

“Nah, it’s all prepared, and the chicken will be done soon. Sit down and relax. How about some wine? Cheap, but pretty good, I think.”

“Maybe half a glass. I’m not much of a drinker.”

She brought me my half glass, and topped off hers. She had a bit of a nervous edge about her tonight, I thought. She shouldn’t, considering she’s on her home turf.

I took a peek into her epicenter to see what she was nervous about, and what I might do to relax her.

There was just a touch of haziness -- probably the wine -- and thoughts about the food, wanting to make sure it was done right. Was the apartment clean, she was thinking, have I forgotten anything? She was thinking that she wanted to make a good impression. There was something about the tone of this desire that made me think that it wasn’t hers, that it came from elsewhere.

And don’t ask me how I knew that, I wouldn’t be able to explain it, it was just a suspicion without any supporting facts that I could recognize.

I looked around a little more, and way underneath everything else occupying her present thoughts there was also arousal and lust, layered with a sense of disapproval. Huh? What was that all about? Well, at least she was thinking about after-dinner possibilities.

“How’s the wine?”

“Tastes pretty good. I kinda wish I knew more about this stuff. I don’t have much of a -- what’s the word that wine buffs use? -- nose, maybe. I don’t have much of a nose for distinguishing great wine from good from awful, and some part of me wishes I did, even if I don’t drink that much.

“Maybe if I knew more about it I could appreciate it and enjoy it more. Can you tell a good one from a bad?”

“No, I’m not much more sophisticated about it than you are. I have a few that I like and tend to fall back on, like this one. Its main attraction is that it’s cheap and doesn’t taste like vinegar.”

I smiled. “Maybe you should do reviews, a regular column, ‘Greta’s Reviews: Good Wines For Poor College Students’. List the alcohol content, too, that’s important.”

“I’ll put that on my to-do list. Dinner’s about ready. Come and sit.”

The table in the small kitchen was just big enough for two, and the food smelled great. While she pulled things out of the oven and onto serving plates, I looked around the cramped kitchen.

There was a counter with a toaster and a small microwave, and some mail she hadn’t yet dealt with. The letter on the top was addressed to Greta Lindgren. I’d never known her last name, neither she nor Nancy had used it.

Greta sat me down, then served us both, and it looked as good as it smelled. I heard a door close and footsteps in the hall.

“Smells good, Greta, wish I could stay and have some.”

“Tom, this is my roommate, Cathy. Cathy, Tom.”

“Hi, Cathy. Nice to meet you.” I couldn’t see much of her, only her head was peeking through the kitchen door, but blonde-ish, nice smile, cute in a deliberately glamorous sort of way, a little too much makeup for my tastes.

“Have fun,” she said. “I’m off, back late.” And off she went, door slamming behind her.

“She seems nice,” I said politely.

“Nice enough, I guess. We get along, but I wouldn’t call us friends. She spends more time at her boyfriend’s than she does here. I don’t know why they don’t just move in together.”

“This is really good, Greta. I’m very impressed. I had no idea you were such a good cook.”

“My mother taught me, insisted on it, in fact. She thinks that a well-brought-up woman should be a good “homemaker”.” She said this last word with enough sarcasm that I thought there was a back story there.

“You don’t like to cook?”

“No, it’s not that at all. I do like cooking, it’s just that she believes that the only reason for doing it, in fact, for doing almost anything, is to please a man, to make him think you’re wife material.”

“Ah,” I said, “now I see.”

“It’s the way she was brought up, your purpose is to please your husband and provide a comfortable home, and babies, of course. She can’t or won’t accept that the rules have changed some since she was young.”

“So -- I’m just guessing here -- she taught you how to behave, how to dress, how to attract boys’ attention without being too ... forward, that sort of thing?”

“Yes, like that. It was infuriating.”

Greta had almost forgotten her dinner now that I had inadvertently opened that particular door.

“I’m sorry, Greta, I didn’t mean to pry. It sounds like you’re still pretty annoyed with the whole thing.”

She took some more wine. “I mean, I can understand her doing it when I was young. She was showing me something that had worked for her and helping me to navigate the whole boy-girl thing through adolescence. But when I went to college, I thought it would end. It didn’t.

“That’s why I have this apartment, for example. She didn’t want me living in the “unsavory” part of town where most of the student housing is, because there could be boys there up to no good, so she sprung for this place where I’m not exposed to too much of the wrong thing.

“She buys clothes for me, things she thinks would be appropriate for me to wear. They look like they belong on some middle school girl, buttons up to the neck.

“And that second truly awkward conversation about sex before I went off to college. Not the first one at twelve, where it was birds and bees and periods, but the later one about how sex is just for marriage and even then there are certain things that you never let them do because they’re disgusting. Those are her words.”

“Greta, she’s not the first mother who’s raised her daughter, or son for that matter, that way. People can get ... rigid about some things, especially if they were brought up in a religious home. They’re unlikely to change, and trying to change them is just an exercise in futility.”

“I guess she was. We weren’t particularly religious growing up, but that may have been more my dad’s influence. But she has certain fixed ideas and they’re like a personal credo for her. She waves them like a flag.”

“So why try to argue with her? Are you trying to get her to see your point of view? And may I have a bit more of that risotto?”

She gave me another helping, and said, “I don’t know that I am, trying to argue, I mean. We get to talking and the subject comes around to dating and relationships and it’s like it pulls her trigger. She’s off on her diatribe.”

“Maybe it would be best to just accept that you can’t talk about this with her. If it comes up, just smile and say something noncommittal, until you get onto some other topic.

“I think you’re going to have to make your own decisions about what you’re comfortable doing, relationship-wise and sex-wise. It’s really none of her business anyway. That stuff should always be your own decision to make.”

“I think I’m coming around to your point of view. I always thought I could talk some sense into her, she’s not stupid, just ... fixed in her ideas. But you’re right, she’s unlikely to change.”

I had another sip of wine. Her face was still a little tight. It was clear that her mother pushed her buttons. Maybe that’s where that tone of disapproval came from that I sensed in her epicenter.

“Tell me a little about where you grew up. Any siblings? What do you like to do?”

She had to pull herself back from where she was still arguing with her mother in her head. But she started talking about her background and the things she liked, which were all completely normal, almost boring.

She didn’t yet know what she wanted to do with her life, career-wise, but was enjoying her classes and being with her friends.

And she eventually finished the food on her plate, which I thought she’d forgotten.

She refilled her wine glass, then held the neck of the bottle over mine with a raised eyebrow. I made a “just a bit” symbol with two fingers and she gave me half a glass anyway.

I took another peek into her epicenter as she put the bottle back on the counter, and it was considerably hazier now, but the concern with making a good impression was mostly gone, and the arousal seemed to be stronger.

“Are you ready for dessert? I’m pretty sure it will beat pie.”

“Those are strong words, Greta, you’d better be prepared to back them up. ‘Beat pie’, indeed.”

She put two bowls of ice cream on the table, then poured the contents of a bottle into another bowl, and applied a lighter to it. It burst into flames and she carried it to the table.

“Whoa! Impressive.”

“Strawberries Flambé.” She scooped some of the flaming strawberries over the ice cream and said, “Try it.”

I did. It was great.

“Better than pie?”

“Don’t talk crazy talk. But it’s really good. I like it. You don’t do stuff like this every day, do you?”

“No, I’ve gotta have a reason. I’m just as lazy as everyone else, but it’s fun to do if I’m cooking for other people.”

“Well, this whole meal was wonderful. I’m very pleasantly stuffed.”

I helped her clear the table, and since there were only a few dishes, we washed and dried them and put them away.

We took our wine into the living room. She sat on the couch and patted the seat beside her.

“This was really nice, Greta, thanks for having me.”

“You don’t have to go already, do you?”

“No, I was just thanking you for making dinner. I’m glad you asked me.”

“It was a small thank-you for the math help.”

We talked about math and other college subjects for awhile, and she asked about my summer job.

She demanded that I say something in French, and then something in Spanish, like she wanted me to prove it.

“I took some French in high school,” she said, “enough to complete the requirement, but I’ve forgotten most of it. Perfect example of ‘use it or lose it’.”

She swallowed the rest of the wine, almost half a glass, then put her hand on my arm.

“Tom, I confess that I had an additional motive in asking you. I’ve been thinking a lot about that night you stayed, and it’s been mixed up with my mother’s nagging, if that makes any sense. When we had sex it was so different than anything else I’d experienced.

“I talked about this some with Nancy -- that’s what prompted that first conversation we had with you about how you knew just what to do -- and I said to her it was like opening a window that had had the shade pulled down, I could see things I was never able to see before.

“I told you I had more orgasms than I thought possible, and they were really powerful, and in a sense it made me sad because I realized all I had missed out on with the other guys I slept with. By the way, my mother thinks I’m still a virgin.”

She smiled at the thought of having put one over on her mother.

“Anyway,” she went on, “I had this sudden revelation that there are all kinds of things that people do together that I know nothing about, that I’ve never thought of, because it was never discussed. Even my friends growing up were insulated, at least as far as sex was concerned.”

“But, Greta, surely you have friends now, here, at college, whom you could talk with?”

She shook her head. “I mean, I do have friends, and they do sometimes bring these things up when we’re talking in a group, but I ... I mean, I’m a little embarrassed to admit that there are certain things I’ve never done with a guy.

“And I’m sure there are things I’ve never even thought about, because no one’s ever talked about them to me.”

“What are you asking, Greta? Do you want to discuss these things so you can learn about them and decide what you might like to try? Is that what you want?”

She put her face in her hands. “I don’t know. I mean, there were some things you did to me that seemed so natural when you did them, but if my mother had heard about someone -- not me -- doing them she’d be horrified, scandalized. Like when you used your mouth and your tongue on me.

“Look, I’m not a virgin, you know that, but there are some things I’ve never done, even with other boyfriends. That’s one of them, because I could hear my mother’s voice coming out of my mouth when they tried. I don’t know why it didn’t happen with you, but it didn’t, and I liked it. No, I loved it.”

“It sounds to me like you’re already making your own decisions about what you like or don’t like, and they’re not your mother’s choices. And it makes me happy to hear that you liked what we did together. Am I hearing that you want to do more?

She was quiet for a few moments. “I think so. I really loved what you did to me. I wasn’t expecting it, and it overwhelmed me so I couldn’t do as much as I wanted. I loved the way it made me feel and ... I’m not sure how to put this, but I felt there were things still to be done that you didn’t do, things I might like. Or not. I don’t know yet. But I think I want to try.”

“Y’know, Greta, I never did ask you. Are you on birth control? I used a condom, of course, but they’re not a hundred percent effective by themselves.”

“For all the disagreements I’ve had with my mother about sex, this was one thing she did that was right, possibly for the wrong reasons.

“I went with her to the doctor and got a prescription for birth control when I was sixteen, and I’ve been on it ever since. I think she agreed to it because she thought some high school or college guy was going to get me drunk and ‘have his way with me’, as she put it. And she didn’t want me to get pregnant. Nor did I.”

“Good. Greta, for what it’s worth, I know a lot of people who are going through the same thing as you, trying to figure out what they like or don’t, what turns them on or not. And maybe they’ve heard about some of the things you haven’t, but that doesn’t mean they know anything about it or that they’ve tried it.

“It’s a little scary for everyone, their first time at trying something new. Me, too, by the way. There are things I don’t like to do that some girls like ... a lot. You have to draw your own lines in the sand.”

“Really? What are some of the things you don’t like doing?”

“Truth or dare, huh? Well, I don’t like hurting people, even if they really want me to do it. There are people who get off on being abused and spanked or whipped, and it is just a turn-off for me. There are other people who get a sexual thrill from being humiliated and degraded, and I think that’s just dehumanizing. I can’t.

“But at the same time, I think everyone’s got the right to choose what they want to do, sexually, provided it doesn’t hurt them or hurt others. Everybody’s got their own kinks, I don’t have to like them or share them. Nor do you.”

“I don’t know what I like or don’t like because I’ve never tried them. I’m a grown woman and there are things I’ve never done or thought about. How screwed up is that?”

“First, stop beating yourself up. You were -- no disrespect to your mother -- you were brainwashed, she convinced you that her way of looking at life is the only way.

“It’s no different, I suppose, from having a parent impose their political or religious beliefs on you, not allowing you to make up your own mind.

“But now you’re asking questions, which is the first step to deciding what you like.”

I could see some of the doubt transform to a kind of resolution or determination, as she thought about that. While she was thinking I linkcast her a Foundation image and channeled a feather on her clit. I also linkcast a feeling that only she could make up her mind about what she liked, that her mother had no business in her sex life.

“You’re right, Tom. I have to decide what works for me. One of the things that worked last time were those amazing things you did with your tongue. Can we do that again?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” She smiled.

She shut off the living room lights and took my hand to lead me to her bedroom. I was so looking forward to seeing that incredible ass again. She had no idea what she was carrying.

She turned around and put her arms around my neck, then pushed her mouth onto mine, grinding rather hard while I rubbed my hands up and down her back. I pulled my mouth off hers and lowered my hands to her butt.

“Greta, do you trust me?”

“You haven’t hurt me and you seem like a gentle guy, so yes, I trust you.”

“Okay. If I’m going to show you some new things, you may get a little frightened by the idea. I mean, you’ve got a lot of years of conditioning to overcome, right? So if there’s something you really, really don’t want to do, either now because it’s too new and strange, or ever, because you think it’s awful, just say no, stop.

“And because ‘no’ is such an easy word to say to get out of an uncomfortable situation, I want you to use a safe word that means no, but won’t occur to you naturally. Then I’ll know you really mean no, stop. Have you got a safe word you like?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, how about ‘elephant’? I don’t think the word has ever come up in any conversation we’ve had, so it will have a special meaning here. ‘Elephant’.”

“Elephant,” she said, trying it on.

I started unbuttoning her blouse. “Use that word if you want me to stop what I’m doing. But I’d ask you to think about it before you say it. Ask yourself if you want me to stop because I’m hurting you, or because you find it degrading, or whether it’s just because it feels strange and new. If it’s the last one, give it a little more time.”

I pulled her blouse out of her waistband and slipped it off her shoulders, then reached around and unhooked her bra. Yep, they’re still gorgeous, and the nipples were sticking straight out now, so I leaned down and sucked one and rolled the other between my thumb and index finger.

“These are just spectacular, Greta. I love your boobs.” I licked and fondled them some more, while she leaned into me.

I was getting a mixed sense from her. She was proud of her breasts. She’d done the subtle comparison with other girls and she knew she was near the top in any ranking of boobs, but she still had that nagging voice that said ‘nice girls don’t flaunt themselves’, so she was a little embarrassed, too.

I linkcast her a sense that her body was a thing of beauty, and she was right to show it off, to have people admire it.

I stood up and said, “Greta, I’m going to get undressed. While I do I want you to take the rest off for me. Show me your body.”

It was surprising to me how much difficulty she had with this.

She was a little shy about it, but she did it. I had already stripped down to nothing and she had only gotten down to her panties.

“Turn around, Greta, let me see your ass.” Still shy, but she did it, a little embarrassed. “Now bend over a little at the waist with your hands on your hips.” She didn’t see where this was going, because she didn’t know what a glorious butt she had or why guys would be interested in it.

“Oh, my God. That is the single best ass I have ever seen, in pictures or in person. Greta, that is just stunning.”

She still didn’t understand, but she was pleased.

“Slide your panties over your ass and down to your knees. No, stay bent over like that.”

She did it, again a little hesitantly.

“Damn. I almost came right now, watching your ass. Just beautiful. Come up here on the bed with me.”

She stepped out of her panties and came to the bed, a little shy but very turned on, I could feel. We lay on the bed and I pulled her into an embrace, nibbling on her ear and neck, and talking to her.

I rolled her on her back, and got my face close to hers, running my hands slowly down her side to her hip, and up again. “You really don’t know what you have, do you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t know the effect your body has on guys. You must have seen guys on the street looking at you?”

“Well, sure, but they do that to all girls, looking at their breasts and their behind.”

“Yeah, I suppose they do, checking each one out, rating them on some scale only they know. But the ones like you, those are the ones they score as a ten. Because your boobs are wonderful, and only exceeded by your ass. You really don’t know how sexy you are.

“I think your mother or somebody said to you once that you shouldn’t think about things like that, it’s improper and vain. But I’ll tell you, Greta, it’s ones like you that guys talk about with awe amongst themselves.

“It’s sexist, absolutely, and it’s crude and maybe even degrading to reduce a woman to her body parts, but it’s been a fact of life for millennia. You’ve got a gorgeous body.”

I kissed her some more, pressing my body against hers, and touching every part of her that I could reach. She was much more hesitant, only occasionally brushing a hand lightly against my dick.

I reached up and took one of the pillows and brought it down and folded it in half. “Lift your butt, Greta, so I can slide this under. Thanks.”

I leaned in and gave her pussy a kiss, which made her catch her breath.

“You wanted me to do more of this, right?”

“Oh, yes, please, it felt really good.”

“Okay, I will. But I want you to be a little more of an active participant this time, Greta. I want you to give me some feedback, to tell me to lick fast or slower, or move lower, whatever you think feels good. I want you to tell me what to do.”

“But you did it so well, why do I need to?”

“Because you can’t be passive in this, there are two of us and we need to tell each other what feels good and what’s almost right but not quite, and what doesn’t work at all.”

I looked up at her and she looked terrified. “What’s wrong, Greta?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never done that before, I’m not sure what to do.”

“I think you do, but you’re a little nervous about it.

“Try this. Keep it simple to start. Say, “Tom, eat my pussy,” or “Lick my clit.””

She almost had to force the words out. It was cute in a way, or would have been if she were fourteen, but she was in college and this was all new to her.

“Eat my pussy, Tom.” It was so quiet, I almost didn’t hear it. But I moved down and started moving my tongue from her labia to her perineum, where I again got that frightened ‘No, not there’ reaction in her head.

But she was responding to the tongue, her breathing getting a little heavier. I added a thumb rubbing her perineum, and changed the feather on her clit to a feather on her G-spot.

I started pushing my tongue into her cunt and heard her gasp, and her hands landed on the back of my head. “You like that, Greta?”

“Oh, yes, more like that.”

“Then say, ‘Fuck me with your tongue, Tom’.” I waited.

“You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am. This is part of making love, telling your partner what turns you on, what you like. If you don’t do it, they’ll never know. It’s part of the language of sex. Say it.”

Again she hesitated, but this time she said, a little louder, “Tom, fuck me with your tongue.”

I dived in again, sticking my tongue in as far as I could, but not very far because it wasn’t a very big tongue. I knew she wanted me to go higher, but I was teaching her to ask for what she wanted, so I waited. She was tugging at my head, urging me higher, but I resisted. She was grunting, and I could hear the frustration in her voice.

Finally -- it took way longer than I thought it would -- she said, “Tom, lick my clit. Now, I need it now.”

That’s what I wanted to hear. I licked my way up, then started darting my tongue onto her clit, as lightly as I could. She was pushing my head in with her hands, but I wouldn’t let her force me to lick harder. She had to ask.

It took her several minutes. The cultural conditioning was so strong that she had to overcome years of aversion, both to the words and to the concept of asking for what you wanted sexually.

“Tom, lick my clit harder, oh, please, don’t tease me, do it.”

I dived in with all I had. This time I wanted the orgasm to be hers. Well, maybe I’d tweak it a little, but it would be hers to initiate. I looked into her epicenter and all her nerve endings were firing, she was right on the edge.

I wasn’t very good at this, but I moved my tongue as fast as I could along one side of her clit and I could feel her stiffen, all her muscles tense, and the cry start from way down deep. The cry reached a crescendo, ending with a shouted “Yes! yes, oh God, yes!”

Her hips shook and her body vibrated for several seconds, then collapsed onto the bed and she gasped for air. That one was all hers.

I crawled up and wrapped my arms around her, caressing her, telling her how beautiful she had looked when she came. It took her a couple of minutes to recover. She squirmed down until our eyes were even and looked at me.

“Jesus, Tom. That was like an explosion. It made me soar and float.”

“I can honestly say I had very little to do with that, other than providing some mechanical stimulation. That was mostly you. You were directing your own orgasm, telling me what you wanted.”

“That was harder than I thought. Those words were not allowed when I was growing up, I got punished if I said one accidentally.”

“Yeah, I can understand being corrected if a word like that was used in everyday conversation. They’re words which should only be used as the language of love, of sex. And there they make perfect sense, it would sound really odd if you had to use just clinical terms when telling your partner what you wanted. It makes way more sense to say something like, ‘Fuck my pussy harder’ than ‘Insert your penis into my vagina with more vigor’.”

She laughed out loud. “I want to write that book. Sex Conversation For The Well-Bred Couple.

“I’ll buy a copy. I’m always trying to improve myself.”

“Okay, I’ll make a note of it. But really, it’s still hard for me to say those words. I don’t think I even know many of them.”

“Homework, then. What slang words do you know for vagina?”

“Oh, I don’t know, this is embarrassing. Pussy. Snatch. Cunt.”

“Good start. Also, muff, twat, box, slit, cooch, quim, nooky. I’ll bet there are several dozen others. Say them.”

She did, reluctantly. I said, “Put some of them in a sentence, like you were directing me what to do.”

“Fuck my cunt. Lick my box. Put your dick in my pussy.”

I laughed. “Now that’s hot, I like that, it sounds natural. How about slang words for penis? Which ones do you know?”

“Well, dick, of course. Oh, and prick, we used to say that in middle school and think we were very daring. But we girls only said it among ourselves, and only when we were alone.”

“There must be five hundred different words for penis. Some other common ones are cock, and tool, johnson, chub, dong, Mister Happy -- that’s my favorite -- stiffy, pecker, wang, schlong, it goes on. You get the idea. They’re crude and rude, and they serve a purpose.

“They’re normally used only intimately, between people who are making love. Even that term is one step removed from the act itself. Only people who really care about each other are making love, everyone else is fucking.

“Things become easier to say with repetition. This is the language lovers speak to each other, it’s a shorthand that tells each other what we want. It shouldn’t be embarrassing here, only if we were to say it in polite company.”

I had been stroking her back and her ass very gently as we talked, nothing erotic, and now I linkcast her the Rowboat image to set her up for a heightened state of pleasure. I looked in her epicenter again, and she was considerably more relaxed, and much of the alcohol haze was gone.

She was enjoying the glow that remained after her climax, and was slowly beginning to get comfortable with the “dirty” words.

But the underlying voice of disapproval was still there in the background.