The Fifth Plainsong: Hand in Hand

No question about it, I was lost in uncharted territory without a map or a compass.

I didn't know the first thing about seducing a woman and anyway Toddie was supposed to "fuck at the drop of a hat." I suppose when we got back to her apartment I could just drop a hat and see what happened but somehow I didn't think that was going to be enough to sweep her off her feet and into bed. The "Secrets of a Successful Marriage" book my dad had given me was a "how-to" manual, not a "how to get them to" guidebook so that wouldn't be any help either.

Desperate for at least a little breathing room to solve the problem, I resorted to the time-honored technique known to every man alive: "When in doubt, bluff like hell."

The third time I'd gone out with Debbie she'd told me she liked the difference she saw in me. "You're more self-assured than you were before. That's good. Women like confident men, confidence is sexy." At least that gave me a starting point.

With poise I really didn't feel I entered the fray. "Did I tell you about the special qualities of my watch," I asked Toddie. "It's state of the art you know."

"That's just an old Timex," she said dismissively. "You can buy one of those at Brown's Five and Ten anytime."

Shaking my head I said, "Not one of these. It uses alpha waves to telepathically talk with me."

"All right Jake I'll bite. What's your telepathic watch telling you now?"

"Well, it says you're not wearing any panties."

"Looks like you wasted your money then because I'm wearing panties. You know that because you saw me in them when I pulled on my shorts."

Frowning, I started tapping on the watch face. "Damn thing must be running fast again."

Toddie broke out a reluctant smile. "Ok you got me with that one but that doesn't mean you're going to get me into bed."

It was at that point my inner Mr. Spock asserted itself. Looking at it logically, Toddie not only was willing to sleep with me, she wanted to. Why else have me over for the weekend? At the same time, she needed to be different than Debbie so rather than racing right to sex, she wanted to come at it slowly, make me "seduce" her, an outcome she'd do her best to help me achieve. All I had to do was make a decent effort, keep from being a bigger jerk than I normally was and her natural impulses would take over. I could do this.

After hopping off the oak, I took her slim waist in my hands and lifted her up. "Let's walk up the creek to Mattson Bridge," I said as I gently lowered her down in the water, gently maintaining my hands on her abdomen even after her feet had reached the creek bed. "It's only about a half-mile away. Then we can head back to your place and figure out what to do about dinner."

As we strolled up the creek, I was careful to maintain physical contact with Toddie. Nothing overtly sexual, just casual touching to keep her aware of our bodies; brushing a fallen leaf from her hair and letting my fingers stroke her cheek along the way, rubbing her back between her shoulder blades, leaning forward when she talked to me then leaning back to answer, intertwining her fingers with mine and making as much eye contact as I could.

I reviewed our earlier conversation, especially her answers to the "Spanish Inquisition," looking for things I could work with to help set the stage for our lovemaking, starting with her penchant for dirty jokes.

"John's just graduated from clinical psychology and opens his first office," I started. "After some successful advertising he's astounded to have nearly 50 people wanting to be in group therapy. John decides to rent a big hall and invite the entire group. To break the ice, and to get the therapy started, John decides to ask a show of hands how often the attendees had sex. First he asks for a show of hands of all the people who had sex almost every night. A modest number of hands go up. He then asks, how many had sex once a week? This time a larger number of hands shoot skyward. John then asks how many had sex once or twice a month? Again, a few hands go up.

"After John polls his group a couple more times he notices one guy sitting off to the side with this huge beaming grin on his face but he also knows the guy hasn't raised his hand yet. So John asks him how often he has sex. The guy says, 'Once a year!' Stunned, John asks him 'Why are you so happy if you're only getting laid once a year?" The grinning guy responds, 'Tonight's the night!'"

The dirty joke fest went on until we reached Mattson Bridge, each of us taking turns, as before each trying to top the other. Along the way Toddie began to return my touches; letting her thighs rub for the briefest moment against mine, stroking the back of my neck, massaging the small of my back, her fingers sneaking just under the waistband of my shorts. Moreover, she smiled a lot, big smiles creasing a relaxed face, upper and lower teeth exposed.

Figuring the pump was primed by enough dirty jokes, I moved the conversation on to other topics as we walked back to her apartment, always concentrating on Toddie, what she said and how she was reacting to me, using her responses to gauge my next action.

Our discussion continued though dinner, a medium pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms and sausage from De Milo's, Toddie joking if we ordered a large we'd have to eat it on the landing. We washed the hot pizza down with cheap Chianti, the dry wine's rough bite cutting through the grease that was the hallmark of every Italian pie from De Milo's, thick enough to soak into the box and turn the cardboard transparent.

While I did what little washing up there was to do, Toddie stood next to me, her head cocked a little to the left, one foot behind the other with her hips ever so faintly pushed forward. During dinner she'd been running her hand up and down her glass of wine and now she was playing with the plastic bracelets on her arm, stroking them so they turned in small circles around her wrist. I decided it was time to try to move things forward.

When I was in junior high we had an annual Halloween Festival. Each classroom used for a different attraction. One might be a haunted house, while another would be turned into a miniature cider mill.

In seventh grade I'd been selected to be the gypsy fortuneteller, complete with an old red handkerchief wrapped about my head, a clip-on gold hoop earring clamped on my ear, and several teeth blacked out. I'd taken the job seriously, going down to the local library and checking out several books on divination and foretelling the future.

Mom thought I was taking things a bit too seriously. "It's only make-believe, Jake. Nobody will expect you to really be able to tell their fortune. It's just for fun." I never did get her to understand that, even with make-believe, the more realistic it was the more fun it was. I spent days pouring over two books on palmistry, not because I believed in it but because I wanted to do the best job of faking it I could.

My stint as a fortuneteller was a hit, despite the fact my "gypsy accent" was terrible and my "crystal ball" was actually a magic eight ball. Not only was I asked to do it again when I was in eighth grade but I made a return appearance in my freshman and sophomore years as well, finally retiring and returning my earring to Mom's jewelry box when I was a junior because it just wasn't "cool" to be having fun with seventh and eighth graders.

I suffer from a condition Dad calls "sponge brain." My mind soaks up some of the most esoteric trivia possible, often crowding out far more practical and constructive knowledge I might actually be able to draw on. Tonight though I was going to put some of that arcane information to good use.

"Ever had your fortune told," I asked Toddie, remembering her interest in astrology.

"Sure. There's a lady over in Casper who does charts and tarot card readings. I had my chart done last year and she's done a couple of card readings for me."

Alright. The door had just opened wide for me; now all I had to do was stride through.

"I'm a pretty accomplished palm reader. How'd you like to have me predict your future?"

Toddie gave a disdainful snort before answering my question. "Come on Jake you can do better than that. I show you my hand; you give me some mumbo-jumbo about how we're fated to sleep together and then we hop in the sack and fuck like rabbits. Please..."

In my most serious manner, I reassured Toddie this was no cheap parlor trick designed to fool her into sleeping with me.

"A lot of people laugh at palmistry, I don't. I know it reveals things about people and not only their future but also their past. Tell you what," I continued. "I'll make you a deal. You let me read your palm and if you think I'm just making things up, saying crap like 'people can't get to truly know each other until their bodies know each other, ' then you can throw me out of your apartment.

"We're going to talk about sex," I warned her. "It's a major aspect of anyone's personality but if I start giving you come-on lines instead of insights, well it'll be a sad and lonely bike ride home."

"What's the other side of the deal? If I don't throw you out of the apartment, you get to sleep with me," she asked skeptically.

"No, the other side of the deal is maybe you learn something you didn't know. Nothing else, no obligations of any sort. What about it? Are you game? I'll make it even fairer, I'll tell you how it works before I do the reading. That should help you tell whether or not I'm bullshitting you."

"Ok, you're on but I have to warn you I'm a tough audience," a smile returning to her face as she gracefully gave in.

While Toddie lay sprawled across the daybed, I prepared the apartment for her reading, closing the drape over the front window, shutting off all of the lights, save for a single gooseneck lamp on the chest by the daybed, and replacing them with the soft shimmering lights from candles to give the room a necessary element of shadow and mystery.

To further develop the atmosphere I wanted, I lit a cone of sandalwood incense I had found on the chest, its soft woody smoke perfuming the room's air with the delicate scent of rose, jasmine and earth, shutting off the box fan to allow the aroma to linger. For my final touch, I tuned the small radio in the kitchen to the Bearskin Rug show on one of the local stations, a music program playing not rock but "tunes for lovers," mainly orchestrations of "sensuous" classical music. Satisfied by the setting, I turned my attention to preparing Toddie to be receptive to her reading.

Without asking her permission, I began removing all her jewelry; bracelets, watch, even the ankh around her throat because "their aura can throw off my perceptions." Nonsense of course, but I wanted to get her subliminal acceptance of the fact I was not only allowed but also encouraged to undress her.

"Everything matters in palmistry," I explained, giving Toddie a basic primer in palm reading. "The size of your hand, its shape, color, temperature and texture, they're all important indicators of who you were, who you are and who you will be. Even the way you move your hand while I do your reading reveals something about you. It's all very connected.

"The hand you use to write with is your dominant hand, that's the one that shows the actual manifestation and realization of the inner you."

I asked Toddie to give me the hand she wrote with. She held out her right.

"There are four major lines on your palm: heart, head, life and fate," I said, holding her hand cupped softly in my left. "The heart line shows how you feel, the head line how you think, the life line how much physical vitality you have and your fate line how chance and external events will affect your life."

As I explained the nature of each line, I gently ran the edge of my fingernail along their paths, eliciting a tiny shiver from Toddie.

"Beside the four major lines, there are two minor lines, the sun line and the love line, which is about relationships, not sex. On the edge of your palm, underneath your little finger are the mounts of the Moon and Pluto, which tell us more about your love life and relationships. Your Venus mount is underneath your thumb and it's all about your sexuality," I said an impious grin on my face as I massaged each of Toddie's mounts with my index finger.

"Clear deep and unbroken lines indicate strong predispositions in an area, lines that are criss-crossed, broken, faint show weaker tendencies. Raised mounts mean strength in an area," I finished, knowing she'd be lucky to remember a quarter of my explanation. Nevertheless, the fact I'd taken the time to give her the so many details would add an air of legitimacy to my findings.

Having finished my tutorial, I began my reading. I positioned Toddie on my left, turning her body at a slight angle to mine, squeezing her tight against me. With some longhaired piano music playing liltingly in the background, I took one last look into her eyes, her dilated pupils and slightly open mouth revealing her interest, before turning my attention to her hand.

For five minutes, I turned her hand this way and that, stroking and caressing it and making little noises of surprise, satisfaction and concern as I did so. Throughout it all I leaned unobtrusively against Toddie, delighted when she did the same with me, each of us adjusting our positions to remain pressed together. Without the air circulation the fan provided the apartment was getting progressively hotter, our twined bodies rapidly gaining a thin sheen of sweat.

Still holding her hand, I began to give Toddie her reading, starting with the shape of her right hand.

"There's four types of hands: air, earth, fire and water. You've got 'fire' hands. Lots of lines and very firm warm skin. People with fire hands are positive, confident and inventive, always willing to try something new or take the lead. They also bring those qualities to their lovemaking. The fact you have small hands relative to the size of your body shows you prefer action to worrying about what might happen later.

"The back of your hand is very delicate. That's a sign you're romantic and very sensitive to physical touch. The skin is smooth and warm, means you're warm hearted and that you enjoy sex just for the sheer fun of it."

Toddie raised one eyebrow high as she said, "So far all I'm hearing about is sex. Should I get your bag for you or is there more to this?"

"Toddie, I told you there'd be some discussion of sex. You're a very sexual person, that comes thorough loud and clear in my reading but there's more and not just about sex."

"Such as," she asked pleasantly but with a skeptical tinge in her voice.

"OK, there's your head line. It's separated from your life line showing real enthusiasm for life and you're confident in how you're living it.

"It's a shorter line than the others. Means you're intelligent but more intuitive than reflective. It swoops down towards the heel of your palm, again confirming you're imaginative and creative. There's several places where it's 'islanded.' Islands in your head line are another sign of sensitivity."

I watched as Toddie unconsciously nodded in agreement. So far, so good.

"Your head line is broken in one place very close to the heel. That shows something happened when you were young that changed your way of thinking. There's also a cross in about the same place indicating a crisis around that time. Your head line isn't the only place this shows up but we'll talk more about that later."

Toddie sat a little straighter as I made this pronouncement, letting me know I was on the right track.

"You've got a very deep fate line. Events control your life more than you do, even though you don't necessarily like it that way. You've got several breaks in the line indicating changes in your career or location. The good news is it says you'll have the help of others to achieve the success you want."

A quick look at Toddie's face showed an amused interest in my reading. Time to take it up a notch.

"Close to the heel your fate line touches your life line and then separates. This means you put someone else's interests ahead of your own for a period in your life. As close as it is to the heel, I'd say it was as a child, maybe a teenager but not later than 14 or 15."

Once again Toddie stiffened, a sure tell there was something there, something worth exploring further.

"The lines separate again, so you regained the control you gave up. With all the other signs I'd say there was some sort of childhood trauma, maybe even involving your parents."

Her eyes narrowed as I made my last statement, another indicator something had happened when she was a kid, although I still didn't know what. Whatever it was, it could still put Toddie on edge all these years later.

"Your fate line has some breaks higher up toward your fingers. These breaks would indicate troubles ahead but they're very short so you'll easily overcome these difficulties." The change of subject and the positive reinforcement of her abilities caused Toddie to relax again. "At least one of them corresponds with a change in career or location."

"You have a very interesting life line. It's deeply etched and well formed which says you're enthusiastic about life and put a lot of effort into living it to its fullest. It leads outward so you're bold about life and exploring life's possibilities. In some places it's doubled so you have an active sex life, not that there was any doubt of that," I said moving still closer to her. "And it also swings wide around your Mount of Venus meaning you have an expansive and giving nature in matters of love.

"The heart line is all about your emotions and how they're expressed, including love. Yours is very long; shows you got a lot of emotion in your personality. It's curved so you're sentimental, intuitive and you openly express your feelings. It's deep so you're comfortable with your emotions. It's deeper than your head line which means your heart rules you more than your head.

"You've got dual forks in your heart line. Means you long to establish deep and lasting relationships but you have problems letting go of your independence. The line touches both sides of your palm. That tells us you've had and will have a lot of different relationships. You've got quite a few spots of puffy redness that indicating periods of great passion.

"I can also read several breaks in your heart line, so you've had some disappointments in love and friendship, one of them fairly recently, I'd say within the last three months or so.

"In some places the line goes upward meaning you're flirtatious by nature but three times it dips down, again that's a sign you've had some troubles in the past but the upward swings show you've put them behind you.

"There's an island close to the heel of your palm and your head line. Remember when I read your head and fate lines I saw you had had some childhood problems. This island tells us it left you with a feeling of being unloved or abandoned. Putting 'm all together I'd say it was some trouble between your parents. Maybe they even separated and you had to choose which one to live with or they chose for you and chose wrong. I can't be sure about that without reading their palms as well but I can tell something happened and you never really got over it."

For the first time, I saw Toddie nonplussed. Pulling entirely away from me, she got up off the daybed and asked skeptically, "Who told you about my parents? What did they tell you?"

Jackpot. My hunch about some trouble between her parents had been right on.

"No one told me about your parents," I responded, my voice heavy with sincerity. "I really don't know anything about your parents other than what your palm reading told me, that and what little you told me while we were playing the game."

"Swear to me that's true Jake," Toddie asked, a hint of tartness in her request. "That you didn't know about them before you came here."

I had no problem honestly swearing to Toddie that no one had told me anything about her parents, reminding her that we'd really only met about seven hours earlier, and that all of my knowledge came from my reading.

The secret to a good con is always letting the mark con themselves. While my fortune telling wasn't a total hoax, since most of what I was telling her was accurate, I didn't feel the need to reveal my reading itself was hooey, a clever concoction of vague generalizations she could adjust to fit her own self-image and experiences.

Which of us didn't feel unloved at one time or another as a kid? Propping the whole act up was the specific information she herself had given me. That's how real fortune telling works; you don't tell the customers about themselves, they tell you.

"God, maybe you weren't putting me on when you started this whole palm reading business," she said, looking at me as though I was a guru who held the key to spiritual enlightenment.

"I thought it was just a clever way to get into my pants, you'd spin me a story about how destiny had brought us together and we'd be foolish to fight against the fates. But my folks, I've never told anyone here about what happened with my folks and yet you look at my hand and you know what happen. Shit, you're making a believer of me Jake."

The other secret to running a good con is not to take the mark too far. It was time to reel in Toddie a little without destroying too much of the illusion.

"Look, the fact is I really don't know what happened with your parents," I told Toddie. "Your reading didn't tell me specifically what went on, only that something did and roughly when it occurred.

"Like I said, all this stuff ties in together. By themselves, individual lines and mounts don't tell us much. Put them together, see where they reinforce each other and you've got a reading. I guess from your reaction, my reading was pretty accurate."

Toddie put her hands, fingers laced together, behind her head, and began running them from her neck up to the crown of her head and back down again, turning the ends of her fire-touched hair into a bird's nest of snarls.

"Yeah, pretty accurate," she said, "right down to the reason. I was 14 when my parents separated.

"Look Jake, do you mind if we don't talk about it. It was sort of a bummer back then. And I need a flashback thanks. I'm just glad you got it from your reading and not from some town gossip.

"So," she said, perhaps a shade too cheerfully, "what other mysteries of the unknown are you going to reveal?"

"The next secret is that you need to relax and regain your center," I told her. "Take a deep breath and let it out slowly. That's right," I said watching her closely. "Now do it again and then one more time.

"Feel better? More relaxed? Good, now cuddle up next to me and I'll finish the rest of your reading."

Toddie scooted over on the daybed until we were again skin-to-skin. This time I put my arm around her shoulders, allowing my hand to drop down along against her ribcage, still well away from the flat expanse of her chest. Even with my palm resting lightly on her body I could feel the pulsing of her heart.

"Well then," I intoned trying turn to the reading away from her parents and back to sex, "your sun line is deep and full. That's a signal you have a real talent for making friends and the self-confidence to make the most of your abilities and achieve success.

"Your love line confirms the facts your other lines revealed. When a love line is light and fine with many breaks like yours is it means you've had more casual affairs than deeply committed relationships."

"That's certainly true," she said in a self-deprecating tone. "Anything else?"

"Yeah, there's still your mounts. Your Pluto mount is raised above the center of your palm, so you have a great resiliency about you. It's not always going to be easy for you but you have the ability and the determination to rebound from life's difficulties. That's important Toddie." I said offering her positive reinforcement. "Remember your fate line said you'd overcome all your troubles and there would always be friends who would stand by you and help you. Your sun line and your Venus mount agree."

I gave her a moment to digest this.

"Your Venus mount is very fleshy and firm, indicting a love of pleasure and a very strong sexual nature. You've got prominent horizontal lines across the mount which means your lovers find you charming," Toddie giving me a genuine smile when she heard that, "and you've got a crescent shape on that mount meaning you are very seductive as well as a triangle which indicates you've had at least one extramarital affair, something we both already knew."

Mentally crossing my fingers, I went for the gold.

"You're an interesting and intriguing sex partner, very creative in how you make love or at least that's what your raised moon mount means, while the raised penile mount in my pants indicates that I hope to have a chance to find out whether that's true or not. That part of my reading was very uncertain."

My eyes focused on her as I waited anxiously for her reaction. Had I been attentive and charming enough to win her over? Forcing myself to breathe slowly, I sat still, a plaintiff waiting the jury's verdict.

"I think you've earned your chance Jake, more than earned it in fact," she responded, the corner of her mouth lifting in a wry smile. "Is my reading over now?"

Keep cool, I reminded myself even as a wide smile illuminated my face. Don't spaz out now.

"Not quite, I left the most interesting piece of the reading until last."

"More interesting than my 'strong sexual nature, '" she asked twirling her hair between her fingers.

"Well maybe not that interesting," I said, obviously running my eyes up and down her body, "but interesting all the same and with great application to tonight."

Without giving her a chance to speak I continued, "Earlier I told you your hands indicated you were a 'fire' person but there were also traces of an affinity for water. Unusual since water extinguishes fire but they were there or at least I think they were. If you wouldn't mind I'd like you to help me find out, sort of an experiment. Of course it'd be solely in the cause of improving my palmistry skills."

"Oh, of course it would be," Toddie said playfully. "And just what would I have to do in your little 'experiment?'"

"Not a lot, just let me immerse you in water and see what happens."

"Come on Jake, I don't want to walk back to the creek just so you can dunk me. I've already been baptized, thanks just the same."

Taking her hand in mine, I raised Toddie's thin body off the daybed. "No, I had something far closer in mind. The shower at the end of your apartment should do just fine and it's a two-fer, we get to test my findings and get clean at the same time."

Our mouths met in silent agreement, our warm breath scented by the Chianti and pizza. Hands moving with ardor, we stripped each other of clothing, discarded garments marking the trail to the shower. As we moved, I could feel her heat radiate through my skin, my dick throbbing as though Toddie already cradled it in her palm.

Water running in the shower behind us, I slid my hands down her ribcage, hooking my thumbs over the elastic band of her panties and rolling them downward, careful not to catch any of her public hair in the fabric. But there was no thicket to snag, just pale white flesh with only the barest hint of red stubble visible, her crotch a wheat field just after harvest.

My complete astonishment at seeing Toddie shorn smooth stopped me dead in my tracks and brought an amused laugh from Toddie.

"Usually I'm hairy as a goblin down there but I thought I'd be 'creative, ' so I shaved it a couple of weeks ago. You like?"

I told her I'd never seen anything like it before, my admission bringing another tinkling laugh from her.

"And just how many unshaven pussies have you seen then," she asked. "I'd put the over/under at one."

Ruefully, I admitted she was right. "But I do like the way yours looks."

"You better because it's a bitch to live with. If I don't shave every day it gets itchy, and if I do I get razor burn."

"Poor baby, want me to kiss it and make it better," I asked with a leer in my voice.

"We'll get to that later, Jake. Right now I'd like to take that shower. It's getting pretty hot in here since you turned the fan off and this steam isn't helping. I'm starting to feel a little dizzy."

As small as the bathroom was, it didn't take long for the billows of steam rolling out from the shower to fill the area. I was feeling a little dizzy myself, although whether it was from the steam or the sight of Toddie's no longer bearded clam was a toss up.

Either way the steam was condensing on the other surfaces in the bathroom, creating a slick film of water everywhere. I turned on the small exhaust fan and then gestured to Toddie to precede me into the shower. "After you, my lady," I said, holding the plastic shower curtain open.

"Thank you, kind gentleman," she replied in a mock simper, placing the tip of her left index finger under her chin while bobbing her head to one side.