© 1996

I could not concentrate on the lesson at first. I'd been put off by the subject: Anatomy. As a small child, I'd been forced by my father to memorize all of the bones in the body. And all of the veins and organs, the parts of the heart, the areas of the brain. I'd learned well, and at the age of seven could perform flawlessly for him at the dinner table. I learned everything he made me learn, but I hated it. I hadn't yet felt the stir of my own hormones, so that while I could explain completely the process of sexual arousal, I had no practical idea what it was all about. To me it was boring rote memory, reinforced by strong whacks upon my hand when I failed to live up to my father's very high standards.

No, I went into the arrangement with reluctance. I was trapped in my bed, victim of asthma so fierce that I could not be allowed outside the house. So said my doctor, and my nurse agreed, and my mother agreed. I had hoped to be left to my own devices completely, allowed to read and listen to music all day, but my mother insisted I carry on my education.

"What would your father think?" she asked, once again forcing her point by raising his specter like a sword. "You know he went to great lengths to make sure would get a complete education. And you know, without my education, I wouldn't have been able to get a job at all, and then where would we be?"

I'd heard this particular line too many times to pay it close attention. True, she'd had a fine education, and her skill managing people made her climb up the corporate ladder easily enough, but she never had time to spend with me. Instead, I was left to be raised by my old nurse, Moni Bruner. I was very happy being raised by Moni, who insisted I call her by her first name even though she was sixty years older than I when she began taking care of me. She taught me to read, to write, to play the piano, to speak German (her birthplace was Munich, and she only came to this country at the age of twelve). She insisted I have "frische luft" every day, which made me wonder why I wasn't allowed outside.

Sadly, Moni could not live forever, and though she'd given me many wonderful years and an even more wonderful education, she contracted pneumonia at the age of seventy-seven and before I could adjust to not having "frische luft" every morning, I was allowed to leave the house and attend her funeral.

Though I'd attended my father's funeral, I cannot in all honesty say that I'd been moved by it. I'd been only eight years old at the time, he'd never been close to me (I'd considered him nothing more than the evening meal tutor), and his passing seemed to mean only that I would be able from then on to eat in peace. I regret the cruelty of my childish heart, but I'd be lying if I pretended it had been otherwise.

Moni's funeral, however, aroused great emotion in me. She'd been my closest friend and for many years my only companion. When I was allowed to venture forward and view the casket, the calm lines of her kind face caused a pain in my throat that could only be relieved by a sob. The sob led to tears, and soon I was being led away from my best friend, back into my pew. I noticed, however, that the young lady leading me away - she, too, was crying - was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen. She remained at my side during the remainder of the service, and afterwards I was introduced to her formally.

Her name was Rafaela, and she was Moni's granddaughter. As I gave her my hand, I raised my eyes to hers and was suddenly moved by their liquid blueness, by the long, damp, auburn lashes. I could feel a strange sensation in my belly and below. These sensations, though puzzling, were not unpleasant. She looked directly into my eyes as well, and I felt as if I were viewing someone I'd always known. I could hear my heart beating in my ears, and for a moment I feared I would suffer an attack of asthma. What a curious response!

I had no small talk at the time, so I contented myself with the observation that I'd just lost my best friend. She smiled to hear it and confided that she, too, had just lost her best, her only, friend. Later in the day, I felt the same strange sensations in my belly when, following the internment, following a round of visits to relatives I hardly knew of (and didn't know), I was told that Rafaela would be Moni's replacement.

"What?"

"I thought it would be good for you to continue your study of the German language, son," my mother explained, "and Miss Traum is best fit to help you. Not only that, it's time you learned Spanish."

"Spanish? But what about Greek? Latin?"

"Better to learn something useful, Gordon. Next to English, Spanish is the world's most important language."

"What about Russian?"

"Spanish."

I would have continued to argue, but I'd learned long ago that there is no winning an argument with Mother. She's always right, and when she's wrong, she'll win by force.

"Besides," she added, "it's time you had a some experience of people your own age."

The opposite sex, as well, I thought.

I was surprised again to find that Rafaela did not open our studies with Spanish vocabulary. Instead, she gave me a copy of Grey's Anatomy and told me to master the parts of the body by 9 AM the following Monday, when our formal studies would begin. I reviewed the text idly, knowing that I could learn little from it, and as I mentioned earlier, I was decidedly bored by it. Still, I looked forward to our first lesson, and I thought Monday would never arrive.

Arrive it did, however, and with it Rafaela. My mother was away - attending a convention or something, always something - and she'd left me in Rafi's care, not that I should have needed any care at the age of seventeen. Monday, also, was the maid's day off, and the cook wasn't expected until late afternoon.

When Rafaela rang the bell, I jumped up to greet her. Earlier in the morning, I'd showered and shaved, paying extra attention to my toilet for a change. Afterwards I'd put on a pair of red silk pajamas over which I wore a black silk robe. A pair of black silk socks and leather house shoes completed my attire. I hoped I would please my new teacher.

When I opened the door, I was again bothered by that strange mixture of distress and longing - I would have said "desire" had I any idea what object I could have desired. Rafaela stood before me, her auburn hair swept back from her forehead, her lips a full rich pink, a pair of small dimples dancing on her cheeks as she smiled and offered me her hand. I gave her mine and invited her in. As she went ahead, I felt a distinctly unusual sensation in my penis as she walked ahead of me. She was wearing a dress of blue with a full skirt that allowed me to see her legs to the knee. Her legs were long and strangely arousing. My inquisitive eyes followed them from the blue pumps that made her ankles look longer and more beautiful up to the hem of her skirt as she walked ahead of me. She wore stockings of a darker shade than her skin, and I could hear them rubbing together as she walked. Her skirt flicked back and forth as she walked, and the movement seemed most significant, though I could never have said why.

I led her into the study and sat down on the couch with my Gray's on my lap. I expected her to take a place behind the desk, as Moni had always done; instead, she sat down on an ox blood leather wing chair that had once been my father's. She crossed her legs, and for an instant I thought I could see above her stockings to her pale thighs.

I felt unaccountably nervous, and when I looked up into her eyes, they seemed to be smiling at me. She crossed her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling. This caused me to notice the collar of her dress, made of white lace, and its cut, which allowed me to see the delicacy of her collar bones and the smooth curve of skin beneath her neck.

She began quizzing me about anatomy. For the first time in my life, I was thankful to my father for having quizzed me so carefully when I was younger. Even so, I several times became flustered and had to pause to catch my breath before continuing.

I couldn't know at the time whether it was intentional or not, but I wondered then if Rafaela had any idea how distracting her person was to me. Several times she bent forward to smooth or straighten her stockings, and though I knew I should look away, I found my eyes drawn to her long fingers, to the jewel-like tips (painted the same shade of pink she wore on her lips), as they travelled slowly up her legs. Once she stood and smoothed her stockings from the ankles clear to the dark bands that topped them, unclasped and then again clasped some kind of a hook I'd never seen or imagined before. By the time she was finished, I felt myself turning to stone and mush at once. That is, my penis felt like stone, my stomach mush. I feared she might notice and felt gratitude to the Gray's that sat as an unopened shield in my lap.

Even when she was not readjusting her stockings, she was damned distracting. I noticed as she lay her head back on the top of the chair with her hands behind her head that her breasts became more prominent. As she quizzed me on the reproductive process, I noticed a provocative point, an eraser's tip, grow upon the center of each breast. It seemed to strain against the thin fabric of her dress. I felt a completely foreign desire to reach over and sooth these pleasant little points with the tips of my fingers, but I contented myself with the stroking I could do only with my eyes.

As we discussed further the reproductive organs, all of which I could name and roughly explain (though I could not imagine them in action), she suddenly sat forward, leaned down and stroked both of her legs with her hands, running them upwards until they reached the hem of her skirt. I may as well have been hypnotized; I could not look away. She did not stop when she reached the skirt, and the stiffness in my crotch began to ache. I felt my face growing hot, and I chose that moment to look up into hers. It, too, was flushed and pink.

"You're so beautiful," I heard myself exclaim suddenly.

"Why thank you, Gordon."

"Could I... I mean... "

"Yes?"

Steadily she stared into my eyes. I found my eyes darting from hers to her rich lips (she let her tongue graze the surface of her lower lip for a second) to her hands, which continued slowly moving towards her center.

"I don't know why, but I'm experiencing the strangest sensations."

"Can you explain them using what we've just discussed in anatomy?"

"I'm not sure I can. I've never read of such symptoms."

"What are they."

"I couldn't say, Ma'am."

"I'm not your ma'am. Call me Rafaela."

I swallowed, trying to keep my throat from feeling so dry.

"Rafaela."

"Or, just... " she said as her hands reached the tops of her stockings, "Rafi."

"Just Rafi."

"And the symptoms?"

"It's too embarrassing. People don't discuss such things."

She stood up, her hands still clutching the hem of her dress. Her eyes never left mine, though mine left hers to look at the terribly disturbing curves of her legs, their muscular calves, the long slender ankles. And above, most unsettling of all, the whiteness of her thighs above her stockings.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Teaching you more about anatomy than you could ever learn from Gray's."

"Oh," I said and gulped. I was excited but afraid, but I couldn't say what, exactly, caused either emotion. It had something to do with the way her legs came together, with the way her eyes seemed to invite me to come closer, with the perfect idea of two such legs coming together, with the plump beauty of her thighs, with the nearness of her hem to the place where her legs came together.

"You won't need the book for this part of the lesson."

"Huh?"

"I said you can put the book aside."

"Oh no, I can't.

"Why not?"

"Why? Well, you know those symptoms I was telling you about?"

"Yes."

"I mean... "She came closer slowly. She let her skirt fall and leaned forward. I could see the swelling of her breasts where her dress fell forward. I had the distinct impression that she wore no brassiere, and this thought caused my aching penis to twitch and grow even harder. She reached down to the book, pulled my hands from it, and lifted it slowly. I tried to put my hands over my bulge, but she slapped my hands and told me to put them behind my head. I did as she demanded. She reached down to the belt of my robe and tugged gently. The knot came undone. She dropped it and put her right hand to my cheek.

"You're very handsome, Gordon. Has anyone ever told you that before?"

"No, not really... " I stammered. "Isn't it time, uh, for... "

"It's time," she said as her cool hand made its way down the left side of my neck and took hold of my robe. By now I was in a painful agony, and she seemed determined to complete my shame by pulling my robe completely open. I closed my eyes, embarrassed deeply, feeling the coolness of the air against my thin pajamas as she pulled both sides of my robe open.

I heard a quick intake of breath and opened my eyes to see her leaning forward, her lips moist, staring directly at the obvious bulge showing through the thin silk of my pajamas. I was lucky the swollen head hadn't peeked through the fly.

"How fine a specimen we have here," she said.

I looked into her eyes and again saw a hint of a smile there. Her face had not lost any of its flushed look, and the way she licked her lips made my erection tingle and ache.

"Tell me what you are feeling," she said.

"I feel embarrassed."

She stepped back, placed her foot on the coffee table, and began smoothing her stockings.

"What else do you feel?"

"Pain."

Her hands made their way past the knee to the top of the stocking. I felt I could watch her repeat the movement endlessly. I also wanted her to do whatever came next.

"Pain?" she said, gazing at me from the corner of her eyes. What a beautiful sight she was, her leg exposed almost to the crotch, her hair pulled back behind her ear but falling forward behind onto her nearly bare shoulders, her eyes staring at me with a look I'd never seen before.

"Yes, my penis seems to have swollen."

"Yes," she said as she raised up, leaving her leg exposed, and stretched, pushing her hair up from behind and then lifting her arms towards the ceiling. "And that's painful?"

"Yes."

"Is that all? Does it not feel pleasurable?" She fanned her face with her hands for a moment. She then let her hands fall to a button beneath the lace of her collar. She kept her eyes on mine as she slowly undid it.

"The pleasure is almost too intense. I feel I should do something, but I have no idea what."

"And your breathing?"

"My breathing?"

"You're having no symptoms of asthma?"

"None whatsoever."

"I thought as much."

I began to remove my hands from the back of my head.

"Don't move. I want you to learn desire."

She began a series of movements that left me almost weak with what I was learning. First she stretched. Then she moved her pelvis in a circular motion - again, it was suggestive of something most important that I couldn't name exactly - then she undid another

button.

"Do you like what you see?"

"Oh, yes, very much."

In fact, I'd never been so excited by anything in my entire life.

She went to the stereo on the bookshelf and put on a jazz channel. She began moving to the soft sound of saxophone. Occasionally she'd bend forward, and I could swear I could see her breasts, though the light was dim within the blouse of her dress. I did notice the points I'd noticed earlier remained, growing even more turgid if anything.

She came towards me. I instinctively began to lower my arms, but she still would not permit it. She began unbuttoning my pajama top, and as she leaned forward to do so, I could see her breasts rising and falling beneath her dress. I couldn't quite see their nipples, but I could see their fullness, their whiteness, and they moved me. She noticed and smiled, continuing to undo the buttons until she could pull the shirt completely open. Then, without warning, she began kissing my chest, beginning at the neck and slowly making her way down towards my navel. She complimented this with her hands, slowly stroking my arms as she pushed the sleeves of the pajamas aside. She pulled my arms forward and stripped it from me completely. Then she placed each of my hands back beneath my head.

"No touching," she said, and I heard myself begin to object, but she placed a finger to my lip - I kissed it for some reason - and said, "Not yet, anyway."

That caused another thrill to race through my belly and fill me with even greater longing. I knew then what I'd wanted most of all, which was to touch her, to touch her everywhere.

She again moved back and began dancing, slowly unbuttoning the final buttons on her dress. It buttoned all the way up the front, so that when she finished, she had to hold it together to keep from showing me everything.

I wondered how far this would go. I'd never before experienced the strange mixture of emotion and longing that I experienced then. Nor had I ever seen a woman disrobe. I hadn't even seen a picture. I tried to understand it. I wanted to see her. I wanted to touch her. I wanted to kiss her all over her body. I couldn't imagine what any of that had to do with the reproductive process. At the moment, I was only sure that I couldn't have been more excited.

"Have you ever seen a woman's breasts before?"

"Not really. Only in anatomy books."

"And did they move you?"

"No. I viewed them simply in their biological or anatomical aspects. I had no idea they could be so... "

"So what?" She had the edges of her dress in her hands. She put them together and began to lean forward so that I could see almost all of her breasts. She leaned forward and back in time to the music.

"So arousing."

"Ah, yes," she answered, putting her hands into her dress and touching herself. "Yes, they are quite aroused. Would you like to... "

Not believing she'd actually show me, I assumed she wanted to know if I'd like to touch them. I bolted forward and put my hands out, but she stepped back out of my reach and warned me not to leave the couch or remove my hands from behind my head.

"No touching, as I told you already."

"You said, 'Not yet.'"

"I could say, 'Not ever.'"

"Please don't."

She contented herself with dancing for a few moments, still teasing me by showing me much of her breasts, all but the nipples. Once she turned her back to me and leaned forward to adjust one of the straps of her shoes. As she did so, the dress fell open in front. Just imagining her nakedness made me wild. She seemed so vulnerable and beautiful. How I longed to be able to see her, to touch her, to protect her.

She shifted a bit, and I noticed that I could see all of the backs of her legs, all gleaming with the silk of her stockings, from the slim ankles to the muscled calves to the dimpled knees to the bands of black at the top of her stockings, to the swell of her white thighs. I could almost see the juncture above the thighs. Then she leaned forward a bit more, pulling the dress up from in front, showing me the white lace of her panties, stretched tightly across the roundness of her bottom. I could see through the lace, could see the flare of her hips, the groove of her bottom. How I longed to remove the panties, to place my aching hard penis along that groove, to feel her movements in that most private place.

Before I could complete the fantasy, even in my imagination, she raised back up and stretched again. I could see her dress fall back into place and cover her from behind completely. I noticed, however, that the light from the window made it almost transparent, and I could see how perfect her figure was as she continued her sensuous movements from side to side. She gripped the dress again and pulled it to its widest extreme, allowing me to see how willowy was her waist, how suggestive the flare of her hips, how long and fine her legs.

As she began to turn around, I hoped she would continue to hold her dress wide, but I was disappointed. She pulled it back together and continued dancing. She raised the dress almost to her crotch, danced a bit while staring me in the eye, then raised it a bit more so that, just for a few seconds, I could see the dark triangle of her pubic hair showing through the whiteness of her panties. Her movements forced my attention on that special spot as she moved her hips from side to side and even hunched them forward and backward in a motion that suggested much that I wished to know. As suddenly as she'd begun, she let her dress fall again and began coming closer.

She bent forward and blew against my chest, sending shivers through my blood to my brain. I could feel my penis twitching. I was, indeed, learning desire.

"Are you going to come?" she asked in a whisper.

"Come?" I'd never heard the term before.

"Oh you sweet wonder. I've never dreamed of such innocence. I think you actually could shoot off without being touched."

"I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Ejaculate," she said, laughing as my face became very hot. "Have you never done so?"

"Only in my sleep."

"And what did you dream?"

"I wish I could remember. I only know that I awoke each time with a dreamy memory of this same painful ache and a sticky liquid splashed against the insides of my pajamas."

"Would you like to do it now?"

I couldn't answer, my blushes were so intense. Until she'd mentioned it, I hadn't myself realized that I wanted to do exactly that. But I dare not confess a dreaded secret, one I was sure would spoil this amazing morning: I wanted to stick my penis into her from behind and ejaculate there.

"You would, wouldn't you?"

I blushed as she smiled at me. I felt certain she could read my mind. She ran the tips of her fingers across my chest. I could barely stifle an urge to laugh, though she wasn't tickling me exactly.