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Lover Come Home

By: RoseMontana



To V, from C

Letter 1

Day l

Sunday, warm

Dearest V

You are gone again on your necessary travels, but that leaves me alone again in our bed. I have nothing but desire, imagination and memories to keep me. I have decided to write you every night, using what words I have, to satisfy my need of you. My goal is a warmth between my legs, then a small pulsing of my vagina, as it asks for you, and, if I am good with the words of dreams and remembrances, some relief from my wanting. In short, I am going to write you erotic letters. Dirty letters full of specific details from our lovemaking and descriptions of what I want when you return to our bed. When I can throw away my pen and use my hands more wisely.

I will start with a cherished memory, the first time we kissed. I was not expecting it, we were old friends. Friends were for talk not for bodies. You were so insistent, your strong tongue forced my mouth open. How did you do that? I still think it must be impossible to be that strong, and yet you were. You held me against you so tightly that movement was impossible. I was shocked and unwilling to consider what was happening to me. I didn't kiss back. You knew what you wanted, and took it. It was almost rape, a forced entry into one of my openings. You tongue filled every crevice, every tiny corner of my mouth. I could do nothing but make small panting noises, back in my throat. Your tongue was hard and totally devoted to filling me up, joining me to you in an inescapable embrace. If you had not been holding me I would have fallen. I forgot everything in that time, who I was, where I was, even how to stand. You invaded me. My separate existence had ended. 

Later we would search for other ways to join. Fingers, tongues, mouths, even toes, seeking out all the places on each other's body where we could attach ourselves. Do you remember the day I tied my long hair around your arm, as I lay on your chest, sucking your nipples?

And another dear memory, after we first made love and we were both encrusted with semen, and sweat, and vaginal juices, and saliva. All that moisture helped us to slip and slide and pounce in our mighty desire to do everything all at once, all of the time, and forever. And we did. We were jointly sticky, with some tender areas of raw flesh covered with dry mucus. It perfumed us with something that smelled like lost hope and old fruit and fresh meat and evil orchids. 

What woman in her right mind would want to smell like anything else? Forget sweet bouquets or romantic essences. The real thing is mean and rank and intoxicating. It was our badge, bodies coated with the residue of a beautiful battle which we both had won. Later that day, even after I'd stood under a mighty shower, men looked at me in a crazed sort of way. Their senses knew what I had been doing and it made them heady.

So much for memory. When you return to my bed I am going to do the least I can do to drive you into heat. It will be your penance for leaving me. I will pull, very gently, each tiny hair around your penis, being very careful not to touch anything else. I will lick just the tip of your nipple, and then blow gently on it to dry the moisture away. That will cause a very slight contraction in your skin, which will feel like you are being crushed. I will take my right index finger, it has the longest nail, and with it trace slow spiral patterns on your chest. I will cover your eyes with my blue silk scarf and let you listen to me undress. I will bring my open mouth very close to yours, so we can share breaths. I will arrange my body next to yours, only a quarter of an inch away, so you can sense its rising and falling. I will open my legs wide, and ask you to look inside, but only to carefully describe what you see. Every fold, every color, every texture, all in clear detail. I will lightly brush your penis with the wild turkey feather I found in the woods. If you ask for more, I will not give it to you. But I will tell you a secret, something about me that you do not know, and could never guess. I will kiss the soles of your feet.  

Perhaps then you will force my mouth open again, to come inside me and become part of me again, over and over.

Good night, dear one.

C

Lover Come Home Ch. 02



Letter 2

Monday, warmer

Dearest V

You always say I am a passionate woman, but what good does that do me now? I am beached, out of water, out of air, out of everything that gives me reason. No idea, of course, when you will return, so I lie here wishing the soft hairs on your thigh were distracting me from my reading in bed. I can read Faulkner with total concentration. Then I'll move on to Joyce and Proust, the others I've always said I wanted to read but never have. Your leaving me will advance my literary understanding and appreciation. Passion on a page instead of in my bed is no substitute. Let the words rage and pant. I want life.

Passion is a curse if you are alone. It must have a direction. I look for you in the smells of your towel, the sheets, your dirty clothes. Like every lovesick teenager I wear your discarded shirt to bed. It isn't enough. I want you.

I think of our happier moments. Remember the time we made love in the master bedroom of a model house? It was in an outlying suburb. We had stopped to gawk. We wanted to know how other people wanted to live. One door in the odd, too new house was closed. We opened it to see what secrets it held. None of the other gawkers seemed to take any interest in this mystery. What we saw was a red velvet bedspread on a bed big enough to contain all the King's Army and all the King's Men. Too good to pass up. While the possible buyers of this baroque bedroom wandered past its door, too decorous or bored to wonder why it was closed, we beat the world land speed record for pants down and penis up. We laughed longer than we made love. But the red velvet was well christened. Making love can be funny even here in our not so big bed. Our bodies stick, our noses get in the way . Or sometimes are put away. Yours in my vagina, inhaling deeply, is another fond memory. My legs are up in the air, over my head, you are grunting like a dinosaur. Your hands are gripping my breasts like they are a lifeline to shore. Perhaps they are. 

Or, I am on my hands and knees, and swaying wildly, you are doing the impossible by trying to be both in back of me and all around me at the same time. How fortunate that I am agile and you are not given to discouragement. These are not elegant postures or moments. Only in books on Indian art do the contortions of dedicated, insistent love makers seem serene and beautiful. When we do it, our bodies are heaving, our hair is flying, our sounds are crazed.

Only your face is beautiful, just before you come. Its entire contour changes. The contours soften, there are no bones, only baby flesh, untroubled. With your eyes closed you look for an instant like the Ceylonese Buddhas hidden in the basement of the art museum. I go to visit them sometimes in the afternoon, to smile secretly back at them. Both of us are enlightened by our secret knowledge.

When you return I will kneel before you on the floor. With your penis in my mouth I will stroke and stroke and stroke. My tongue will keep up a rhythm that slowly builds. My lips will bend around the head, and gently pull and pound. I will look up to gaze into your eyes, to see them change. First glazed, looking only inward, into your own pleasure, then they clear when they see me watching. Our pleasure, what we make together, is deeper, but it demands that you yield your gaze into mine. Our eyes cannot touch but they can meet and join in a bond as deep as any penetration. You bend over to touch my face, and look more closely into me. My mouth still works but slower, more intensely. You do not need or want a great deal of movement now. You are hovering. We are together in that place where only we exist. Where we breathe the same air with one set of lungs, pump oxygen through our veins with only one heart, and feel the expanding energy in one set of cells. 

When you are ready (but not quite willing) to leave our one body, I will touch your chest with one hand. This will bring you back slightly to the world of chairs and beds and bodies. With my other hand I will raise my small hand mirror to your face. Then you too can see what your true self looks like. The face of a Ceylonese Buddha, who sees a world where we are one and chairs and beds do not exist. Seeing your face when we make love is all that I need to know. 

After you have seen your face, you can fill me once again. Your milky sweet slime in my mouth reminds me of my first oyster, frightening and wonderful. Then the endless time, present only when we gaze into each other's eyes, ends. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 03



Letter 3 

Saturday, hopelessly hot.

For V, gone, not lost, I hope

I feel so lonely, so bored, so forfeit. I will try not to say this again, in any other way. I know it is difficult to read this when you can do nothing to help me. 

Instead I will write about the areas I intend to explore when you come back to our bed. It seems appropriate that they be your perimeters, the edges, not the center. We should not return to each other's bodies with undue speed. It takes time and discretion to reacquaint ourselves with that which has been absent.

On the second night of your return I will touch only the margins of your body. More delicious punishment for your going, and more reward for your return. You will want to kiss, but I will not allow it. I will only run my tongue around your lips. You will want to grab me. It will not be possible. How will I be able to stop you? You will submit to my tying your hands with my favored long blue scarf. 

You will lie on our bed, face up, while I tie an end of the scarf around each wrist and then loop the scarf over the finial on the bed board. That leaves you diagonally across our bed, with a pillow underneath your head. To do this properly I will have to straddle your naked chest while I work on the knots. Old sailor on the seas that I am, knots are easy for me. You will be comfortable, but contained. You submit with a smile on your face. You don't know what is coming. 

I leave a fragrant wet spot on your chest when I finish tying you. Because of your bonds you cannot bend down to reach for that odor you find so appealing. Instead you must wait till the fumes follow the path of your chest hairs up to your nostrils. But it comes, eventually.

With the tip of my small finger I will trace the oblong shape of your armpit. Your hair is light, soft because it's never been shaved. But already it is shining with sweat. Nerves, exhaustion from thought not act, you too are moistening. It smells like you, only you, instantly recognizable only to me. Our smells together are private creations, we make only for each other. With my middle finger I steal some of that wetness, to place in front of your nose, and then in my mouth. Eating your smell, eating you.

But I am being unfair. You are not receiving your due. To balance our equation I take some of my moisture, from my short curly hairs , and touch it lightly to your lips. Your eyes close for the first time, as you concentrate on what my smell tastes like. 

Your breasts are next. I remember when I first discovered how sensitive they were. It was a slight wince on your face, as my hand brushed accidentally over them. Had they been neglected by your past lovers? Did you not know how wanton the skin there is? Or how much you wanted your nipples to be sucked and even bitten? Forget all the nonsense about breasts being only about maternity and milk machines. We know better. Yours are as wanting as mine. For sustenance, yes. For food, yes. But that food that sustains our need for one another. Our breasts do richly nourish each other.

I will draw rings around them with my index finger. First the outer edge, very slight but perceptible. Then an exploration of each mound. Lightly. I do not want you to struggle at your bounds. Instead, I want you to relax into them, so that my scarf is your support, not your constraint. Your arms are raised over your head. Your body is laid open to me, ready for what may come.

Sensuousness has no ending, no resolution, no conclusion. On and on, we discover and explore, till like sleepy children we must rest.

Your nipples do not get as erect as mine. They are smaller, but become just as hard. It takes the most careful licking to keep them firm but soft. I do first one, then the other. then alternate between them. I am as careful as any cook, determining the correct temperature of her sauce. As soon as I feel them beginning to rise, I stop for a moment. They continue to rise, but I have returned to softly encircling the darker pink flesh that surrounds them. Finally you are just as we have longed for. Your flesh is warm, high, tightened. It wants, but it also knows that it is going to receive. Then I can safely take each nipple between two of my fingers and rub them every so slightly around and around. It brings endless satisfaction, with no release.

Come home and release me.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 04



Sunday, not a day of rest

Darling V 

I've never actually called you darling, probably couldn't without bursting into giggles. Too theatrical, though today it suits my mood. Have been dealing with spoiled brat reporters all day. Their laptops should be removed from their laps and banged over their heads. Then they should be given quill pens, and told to go write very slowly on paper they made themselves. Respect for effort. They have minds like mayflies, write with clubs, and think I should respect that. I do my "Lady Jane knows everything" routine, which always works with the poor insecures. I become impossibly arch and mention something devastating like,

"You made three comma splices in the first paragraph" in a faint, very faint English accent. 

They return to their desks like chastened children. Lady Jane is a hoot, I love being her when necessity calls her up from inside me. But she does dredge up my flair for the dramatic, so you are darling tonight, dear V. 

I go to court tomorrow for jury duty. Hope I get chosen for a trial. In college I made money by being a jury member for mock trials at the Law School. Easy cash and it convinced me not to go to law school. Too much minute detail not enough grand thoughts about Justice. 

To be a good juror prospect I am choosing my wardrobe carefully. I am aiming for sensible, slightly mouse-like, not hopelessly dowdy, with a small touch of feminine wile. I want to seem like a sane good bet and at same time charm the lawyers into wanting me around.

End of news, now to the good stuff. Our stuff. I am going to continue last night's theme, The Homecoming. Thinking about how we shall go about rediscovering one another makes your return seem closer.

On the third day, or night if you insist on waiting, we shall have to undertake a general inspection. You have been gone for more than a week. Even in that brief time, our bodies change. We will want to see and understand what has happened. I know you agree.

Obvious are the lengths of our hair and nails. Will you have had a haircut by some artistic Italian barber, or must I see to your fine straight locks? I remember you with long hippie hair, a pony tail even, years ago. Now you are tidier as befits your age and position. 

I might suggest a tonsure. Bald men are sexy. Something about that shiny flesh makes them look extra vulnerable which is always enticing. But you are already totally vulnerable to me and are hardly a monk. No tonsure.

My hair grows like a weed, especially in this hot weather, but it never gets cut. It just grows and dies, like us all. How gloomy my thinking gets when you are gone. 

Our nails are different too. Your hands are rather small for someone your size. The nails are square-shaped and flat. You see to them yourself, when I am not looking. They always seem to be the same. My nails are long and slightly pointed, the better to hold you with my dear. You are the sculptor in this household, so you are responsible for their shape. You take so long doing them, I sometimes get impatient. The wolf wants to eat Little Red Riding Hood.

Most peoples toes are ridiculous. They are either hunched over, like old men, or straight and tall, pretending to be fingers. I never felt I knew you until I had examined each of your toes. Odd where intimacy can lie, waiting to be discovered. You were shaking slightly, I couldn't tell with laughter or embarrassment.

My toenails seem to grow much slower than my finger nails, why is that? I still assume you know the reason for everything in the real world. Perhaps because you were a science student when we first met and I was consumed by Art and illusion.

We attend to each others toes when we take one of our joint baths. Clean, file, and cuddle. Maybe even suck. Our toes are prehensile too. So useful. Let your imagination wander around on this topic for awhile. 

During your inspection I will play detective and try to determine where you have been by looking for clues on your body. Tan lines can tell alot. If only one arm is tan, you've been driving. Are your legs darker? You've been in shorts and hence in a less formal arena. If the lines around your eyes are lighter, you've been outdoors alot, squinting in the sun, searching for some clues of your own.

Scars, bites, scratches, may mean something. I catalogue them carefully. You look me over carefully for bruises. My skin bruises easily. Have I fallen off a horse, or bumped into the corner of my desk again? Each must be kissed to make it well by my dear male mother. 

Now we move on to more intimate places. I search all of the hair on your body. You endure this like a small boy. Perhaps I will find ticks, like on my old dog. What I do find are new places to kiss. You have a small bump at the top of your skull. And some tiny hairs at your navel. The hair around your rectum is surprisingly soft. Mine is hard.

I know because I can feel your hand stroking it. That feels so good it is almost unholy. Did God mean us to experience this kind of pleasure? Did evolution lead us these intense feelings? Why?

Your hand is still stroking, but one finger is seeking. It is not hard to find what it wants. Inside me. The sweetest invasion. 

Silence.

Inspection completed. We are both found wanting.

C 



Lover Come Home Ch. 05



Letter 5

Wednesday, cooler

Dearest V

It finally rained last night, so loudly it woke me up. I went out and danced in it, like a heathen. No one could see me of course, except you, if you are in heaven or dreaming of me. 

You can't dance. No rhythm you say. In public we manage a horrible little box step. We are so boring. Our real dances are done in private. I especially like the one we do in the living room with all our clothes on and only my laughter for music. I throw off my shoes and step up on to your feet. You then whirl around while I hang on for dear life. With me standing on top of your shoes you are Fred Astaire. I am not Ginger, but a passenger on your body, madly enjoying the ride. 

I am a passenger other times as well, when I am on top of you. Your inescapable rhythms sending me flying up and down. Up and down, up and down, not a waltz or a polka, but a dance nonetheless. 

I like being on top. You are so much bigger than I am. You are a mountain, my own personal Denali. I climb to conquer but sometimes I slide and fall into deep crevices. Sometimes I only want to enjoy the view, but mountains guard their secrets well. Often it is just because you are there. The mountaineer's old saw is correct. I want you, good enough reason to begin an assault on the mountain. 

You often look bemused when I start. Sometimes you just lie back with your hands behind your head. Proud mountain, waiting for the one who will mount him. 

When you return I will start my next ascent. I will do it without equipment, base camp, sherpas, or oxygen. Pure, unaided climbing. The mountain wears only blond hair. I will come with only the ropes I can make of my hair and the crampons of my long nails. 

But I do have resources. My arms and legs are strong and agile. They can move with a speed that a mountain cannot match. They are also capable of acrobatic moves. The mountain is strong, but rooted to his world. The mountain best be beware, or he will be taken by a determined woman. 

First I will kneel in a prayerful attitude at his side. He smiles, knowing I am not submissive at all and this is a subterfuge. Mountains are wise. But he acknowledges the slight symmetrical gestures I make on his body. A light touch of a finger moves down each of his sides. Then down each arm, and inner thigh. I will do this several times, noticing the anticipation that his thigh feels when my finger floats down his arm. I sense rather than see a small quiver. Some of the lower mountain passes are beginning to melt. 

From these soothing symmetries, I will move on to more challenging routes. My finger is a dowsing rod, but it isn't searching for water. It seeks the places on the mountain that want to be touched. Often these are the almost forgotten areas, places so obvious that they can be overlooked by a climber. The place on your cheek just before your hairline begins, or the line straight down between your breasts that ends in a point of hair. My hand finds these locales. The places desiring attention, and attends to them. 

The mountain is being to make some noises, but low ones. The beginning of an avalanche? I must take care not to be engulfed, swept away.

Then I begin my true ascent. First I stealthily place one of my legs between yours. You barely notice. I am still kneeling, my hands are still exploring . Now I use my speed and strength for the first time, shaking the mountain from his ease. I bring my second leg in between yours, forcing your legs to part. Taken by surprise they move apart easily. The mountain's defenses are breached. An entry into your innermost valley has been found. You are a second or two behind me, still caught in the light touch floating over the hills of your wide body. Those seconds cost you. 

If I wished, I could now lower myself down to the surface of the mountain, my face in its deep valley. Then I could work my way upwards, using our sweat to ease the way. The summit would be quickly reached, and I could look down into your startled face. But I have done this route before, it is too easy an ascent. The serious mountain climber tries a new and different path every time she meets the mountain.

Oh mountain, I miss you terribly.

There is an obstacle. Kneeling between your legs I can see something tall, pointing heavenward. The tree of life on the sacred mountain? Heavens, no. It is a joy stick and I am the Red Baron. Grasping it firmly, making good use of its cap to make fine adjustments in altitude and speed, I begin to fly my mountain. He is now a plane with me at the controls. A Fokker perhaps, or a Sopwith Camel. The early planes must have been great. Totally open. Flying with the wind in your hair, and constant danger. Your controls are in my hand. We begin our journey. The plane (once a mountain but now ready to fly) and me.

We fly to Shambala, over the Hump. We fly to Shangrai La with only our senses to guide us. We see distant horizons come closer. We rest in the clouds. We feel thunder. But finally, we get too close to the sun and crash, burning into ash and bone and blindness.

Darling, please. I need to see my mountain. I need to crash into the sun. I need.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 06



Letter 6

Thursday, weather OK, but sky is cloudy

Dear V

Here are the reasons I am glad you are not here. 

1. I get to take out the garbage.  Good men always take out the garbage. I think it is some message they get from their fathers. Or perhaps it is a male secondary sex characteristic, like telling puns. Women don't take out the garbage unless they are alone or stuck with a stinker man. But I like taking it out. It must have some obvious deeper meanings. Bad, unnecessary or discarded stuff is leaving. What remains is good, needed, wanted.  It might be coffee grounds, it could be old ideas. Anyway I am ridiculously proud of myself for having done the deed. Do you feel that way too? Is that why men take out the garbage?

It is, however, my only domestic deed. I'm living off the land again, like any bachelor. I eat if something appears and if it doesn't, I don't. The dust has settled and will not move again. I'm not home enough either to remove it or swish it around for another journey in the air.

2. I find I have strange energy. I hurl myself around, pillar to post, courthouse to pool, see friends, talk on the phone, long walks for Lucky, long books for me, and still I am not tired at night. Partly my old nervous energy returning. I am calmer with you than I am when I am alone.  I also have begun to realize how much energy it takes to be together with someone, as I am with you. Paying attention is like burning.  It creates and destroys at the same time. Without you I'm on a different plane of existence. It demands less of me so I have more casual energy to expend in daily activities.  It's like being young and stupid again. I'm thrashing about doing a 100 things at once all the while trying to convince myself that they are all important. Not being young, I know in my heart they aren't.

Here are some of the reasons I want you to come home. 

1. My body hurts. It wants you. It calls to you. It says touch me, take me, do not forget me.

2. My body needs. It has food and sun and movement. These are not enough for its continued health. It is beginning to wither, its hurts are cries for you.

3. My body demands. It gets angry, it wants to thrash out, it looks for help.

4. My body is all I have.

5. My body is you.

Damn my eyes. Damn you. Come home. Please.

More memories tonight. I ate out tonight with Michael (he sends his best). Something is wrong with him. He seems scattered and had none of his usual funny stories. 

Eating with friends is good, but I seldom notice what is going in my mouth when I do. Too interested in what is being said, the socialness of it. When I am alone it seems too much trouble to cook. Eating alone is just refueling. 

I only really like eating with you. When we eat together it is a kind of communion, though not the kind from our childhoods.  Did you think of cannibalism when the priest gave you the dry wafer? 



We share our food. I eat off your plate as easily as I do my own. But you always give me the choicest pieces.  You like to see me eat, I don't know why, but I can tell that you do. You especially like it when I am really hungry and lusty for food. Is it that you enjoy seeing desire in me, even for something other than yourself? 

We've never made love on a table, though I've seen it done in a movie. I can remember only a few kisses in a restaurant, after the cheese plate. Once or twice a toe may have slide up the inside of your leg, to tickle some sensitive part of your trousers.  And we have traded some wine, from your sweet oaken casket mouth to mine. Not seriously, though. Usually I giggle which results in dribbling.   

But in bed, in our long history, we have tried most of the food games that lovers imagine.  Remember the dessert meant for Thanksgiving dinner? The chestnut mousse was judiciously placed in various places to be licked up and eaten.  The obvious competition ensued as to who and what tasted better.  Much taste testing and comparison was needed. I think you won.  We dragged the mousse spattered sheets into the shower with us, and stamped on them like wine makers crushing grapes.  We were still slightly frenzied. Mousse ran off us in brown rivers, heading for some distant home where chocolate and vanilla and chestnut reign. 

This took so much time that the Thanksgiving turkey was cooked to dust and we wound up eating samosas and nam at the only restaurant open on Thanksgiving, an Indian one. The owner may have had nothing to be thankful for in his almost empty restaurant, but we did. 

The eggs and tomatoes were much more difficult to deal with. I remember buying them fresh from a farm stand, and coming home to contemplate what wonderful food we might make with their earthy smelling ripeness. Excep you said something outrageous that demanded that I drop the ripest tomato on your head. 

Amazing how easy it is to smash a tomato into someones face. Jimmy Cagney did it with a grapefruit but he was being mean. I was totally loving as I worked the soft inner parts into your cheeks. It gave you a nice blush.  After that it was glorious. No holds barred at close range. Tomatoes and a few added eggs make a great gooey combination. The slippery white binds the more viscous red stuff into ones hair and body in an almost sublime way.  Do scientists know this important fact? It took us a long time in the shower to find all the tomato seeds, and to scrub away all the yolk.  

More anon, all this remembered warfare makes me sleepy. I will fall asleep thinking of your rosy cheeks, and the seed I wish you were planting in me right now. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 07



Letter 7

Dear V

I have not forgotten that I started out by recounting the story of our journey together. How we came to find one another and crossed the divide from friends to something much more. I have been putting off the next part because it is a painful memory.  

But by definition lovers must be brave, so I will continue.

Finally the time came when we felt we could see each other again. It was to be dinner instead of our usual friends lunch. A sudden unexpected change in schedules had freed you. I had planned to go swimming that afternoon, but a self-created crisis precluded that. I now realize how impossible swimming would have been. Dense with desire, I would have sunk to the bottom of the pool like the clogged piece of soft meat I was. Just as well that I had to bend myself to solving a problem that needn't have happened. 

Once home I put on some clean clothes and waited for you on the front porch. I wanted to see you drive up and not have to wait for you to ring my bell. A few minutes saved for us. You had on what I knew was your favorite shirt, though I had never seen it before. Brown stripes. I wore my tiniest shorts, it was hot but I also wanted you to see my legs. 

We set off for a restaurant so out of the way and remote that the FBI under orders from the President could not have found us. When we finally got there even the waitress was surprised to see us. After what must have been years of waiting, her first customers had finally appeared. Strangely, I thought, she had on a skirt that was even skimpier than my shorts. Had she been waiting for you too, and was now horrified to discover that you already had someone?

Because you had me. I had determined to do anything you wanted. Run away to Zanzibar, take up ice fishing as a hobby, learn to ride a leopard. I was ready. Anything you wanted, even leave you, if that was what you deemed was necessary for your existence.

We talked at dinner about mystics, and how they managed to describe the seemingly indescribable nature of their experience. It did not take any wisdom to know what we were really saying. For the first time, we were talking in code. Friends just blather on openly. We were waiting to become lovers, so we talked about the ineffable thing that was awaiting us by discussing St. Teresa and Rose of Lima. In the meantime we ate, you with your usual enthusiasm. I moved the food around my plate. I didn't need food, I lived on the air that streamed from your nostrils and mouth.

You seemed perfectly normal. Perhaps I did too. But that is not how I felt. What was going to happen next? Where would we go after we left the restaurant? 

You drove, taking a strange route, through a part of the city I had never seen. We passed a prison. I told of a youthful incident, silly, but that caused me to spend a night in jail. You had an ancient brush with the law too, but refused to tell me exactly what you had done. I was surprised. Why after all these years of laughing over all our mistakes and foolishness, were you suddenly secretive about something unimportant, long ago, and faraway? Dumb of me, of course. Now things were becoming important between us and you wanted to protect yourself. From me, I wondered? What harm could I do? How naive I was. 

We returned to my house. You produced a bottle of wine from somewhere, and even a corkscrew, left-handed. You are always so well prepared. I relaxed, we now had something else to do. We would drink in the garden in the waning light. Perhaps we would get drunk, that would make things easier. I decided not to.

Out to the garden we went, lugging wine and glasses and ourselves.

You had things you had decided to tell me. Intimate things from your past that I felt no one else knew. They were not anything unusual, but they were meaningful to you. I accepted the intimacy of knowing them. And watched it get dark, though around us there seemed a glow of light, keeping us able to see each other. Perhaps it was the fireflies that beam their messages every night in that garden.

We did not finish the wine, excellent though it was. There were other ways to be drunken. You suggested we go back inside, and I numbly got up. I had been paying such close attention to your stories that I had lost myself. Obedience was all I was capable of. Way back in my head the thought came that you were going to go home and ........

but I couldn't get past what would happen if you went home. Would I simply go to bed, or die, or cease to exist, or all three? I followed you into my house like a puppy.

My courage has just failed me. I am either angry or jealous or maybe dead, but I cannot finish this tonight. Perhaps tomorrow.

C

PS. I love you. Damn your eyes.



Lover Come Home Ch. 08



Letter 8

Sunday

Dear V

I am not dead or jealous, just angry. I am going to punish you in this letter, and myself too for being angry when I have no right to be. You cannot help your travels, but I am royally pissed anyway. Last night I did something I do not like to do. Neither do you. We will both suffer by my telling of it. It seems appropriate.

I made love to myself. 

Like most people I learned how as a child. Put your hands down there and rub. That feels good. Not hard to learn. Or swing your legs hard when you're bored in school. If you hold your thighs close together that feels good too. Ever notice how many grown women still do it? Or find something that sticks out at about the right height, like the armrest of an upholstered chair, and work away at it. I abandoned this one when I grew too tall. By that time I was expert in other ways.

Much later I used to watch old, pierogi-shaped women in a public bathhouse. The water jet in the hip bath was their undoing. The look on their faces was always one of pure bliss. Did their men know nothing? A water jet better than a man? But finally I tried it and it wasn't half bad. Certainly easy. 

Hard is coming on a horse. It isn't just their big brown eyes that make little girls love horses. The rocking motion of riding and the angle at which the saddle spreads your legs makes it a natural to get yourself well and truly rubbed. But it takes skill not to fall off when you come. 

When one is older, more sophisticated, and more needy, one turns to mechanical devices. I hate them. Too much of a good thing. Speedy and totally without feeling. Even the armchair loved me more than the god damned things I've tried. I don't come, I go off. Like a rocket aimed at the ground. 

You, of course, are above all this misery. You find anything but the real thing, lovemaking not fucking, to be ridiculous and unsatisfying. 

I cannot imagine you masturbating. I've never asked what you did as a little boy. Did the nuns tell you your fingers would sprout long hair if you did? Did you believe them? I think you did nothing, just kept your serious nose in a book, fantasizing adventures with you as the hero. 

I used to try to pretend that someone else was really doing what I was doing to myself. I would finger my breasts, stroke my thighs, fan my pubic hair in as seductive way as I could manage. No luck. No suspension of disbelief. Other women may be able to imagine phantom lovers, but I know better. It was me doing the stroking and the fanning and the fingering. Finally I stopped the faux foreplay forever.

Instead I start with the clitoris, where good things usually end. I find it with my index finger, covered with Vaseline. Vaseline smells like false feelings to me. But I use it because it helps. Whatever gets you through the night, like the rock and roll singers scream.

The goal is to get it up and running, so to speak. It took me only a few seconds last night. Just round and round with my greasy finger and up my clitoris came, bigger, rounder, poking its head up asking for more. You know what it looks like, what it tastes like, what it feels like, what it smells like. Me, I just know when it is throbbing. Your knowledge is deeper than mine. But when the bang bang starts, I go on to other things. My vagina, which is empty, but not for long. Three fingers go in easily, so I try for four and succeed. This is just low rent as far I'm concerned. But it works. I don't even need anymore Vaseline. My damn body can't even seem to tell the difference between my fingers and your penis. 

My thumb is still free, so I put it to use massaging the clitoris again. It's the clit, not my clit, I refuse to consider it as really a part of me. It has its own life, I don't try to tell it what to do. 

Does it come? Yes. It's more like an electric shock than an orgasm, but it comes, and goes. Good riddance. In need of some human contact, something that feels like home, I clutch my ....what? There is no good word for it. Snatch? Box? Pussy? Ugly words all of them, and I know no others. I hang onto myself like a dying woman, and fall asleep.

Punishment completed. Making love to myself is impossible. It takes two to make love. Anything else is just a hope not a truth. I won't try it again. 

Anger gone, loneliness back.

C.



Lover Come Home Ch. 09



Letter 9

Monday. Subdued, after the storm.

Dear V.

Tonight I choose to remember contentment, not longing. And anticipate the future that will contain again what happened in the past. 

Feeling unclean, I await another bath, like those you often give me. You do everything, run the water, adjust the temperature, see to the soap, and finally take my clothes off. And since you are large, and I am small, it is an easy matter for you to lift me up in your arms and gently place me in the tub. My arms are around your neck, your hands slide down my back, and then my ass, and finally my legs, so that I am sitting just so in the water. I reward you with a small kiss, before I let go of you, for being so careful. 

But this is serious business. Cleanliness is next to godliness. 

First a general soaping, starting with toes. You attend to each one, and the spaces between. There are brushes and clothes and scrapers for this sort of things, but you never use them. Your hands know my body, so the slightest brush of dirt is instantly felt. My legs are easy, long expanses, muscular from sports. 

You wisely skip my genitals. There will be time for those latter. Though you always do a meditative small scrub of my pubic hair. I like your workman-like attitude. You take your job seriously.

My torso is next, and it has several problem areas. Under the breasts for instance, which are heavy and have a darkened space underneath them. And around my nipples, which are large and slightly bumpy. Dirt could be lurking in these places, but you dedicate yourself to the task, an intense look of concentration on your face. Then, of course, there is my belly button. Since I haven't worn underwear in years it often contains bits of lint from my clothes. Your fingers are long, but only the little one is small enough to fit in the tiny hole. A visual inspection is necessary, before you make the small circular motion to clean inside it.

Then you hold my arms up, one at a time, and wash each armpit with the bar of soap. This is usually done very vigorously. I don't know why. Then the arms, again long and muscular from my athletic life, and finally each finger. You rub my thumbs longer than my other fingers. Again, I don't know why.

Neck and face are exercises in care. I have knotted my hair up out of the way. Everything is exposed, as it should be. Your hands fit around me neck easily. Your fingers can do my ears while your thumb massages that point just in back of them. Your hands are soapy and wet, so it is easy to run a finger carefully around the inside course of my ear. A tug on my earlobe springs me from the sleepy little corner my mind has crept into. I always smile at this, it is part of the ritual. 

You don't wash my mouth out with soap, though you might because you are thorough and I do occasionally talk dirty. But my nose is lathered. How do you always manage to keep the foam out of my nostrils? You trace the line of my lips with your finger, but this is purely for the sake of form. How could my lips have the slightest wisp of dirt? I get kissed so often. Eyes are done the most carefully of all. I know to close them lightly, not to scrunch them up. 

What you call rinsing, I call splashing. I splash too. Why should I be the only wet one around? Then it is back to the serious stuff, now with my razor. Once again my legs are lathered, one at time. You hold them with one hand while you run the razor expertly up and down. You do it every day to yourself, why shouldn't you be an expert? It doesn't take long. My armpits are more troublesome. You insist on holding each arm high, straight up over my head. The angle is right, you say, and it tightens my skin the most. It is the look of concentration on your face that I adore. 

Now the serious rinse. Somewhere in this time you have pulled the plug so the water is almost gone. I never catch you doing this, it must be when my eyes are closed. You've set the movable shower attachment perfectly, so it can now rinse away all the loose body hair and leftover foam. Sometime in this operation you manage to accidentally on purpose get me square in the face, close up, with the shower water. I sputter but I like it. I'm already wet. Somehow I also manage to get you wetter. Usually it involves kissing, but it can be splashing or a combination of both.

Finally my long hair. You gently undo the ribbon that holds it and catch it as it falls. The movable shower gets it wet, though my face is saved this time. Then the shampoo and lots of foam. Now is the time the true artist in you emerges. Long pliable hair filled with soap is agreeable to almost any imaginable shape. You have the ideal material to work with. My coiffures rival Marie Antoinette's. Or the most ribald punk maidens. You barely pay any attention to me, as you labor away creating sculptures of hair and soap. You mumble-laugh to yourself. I have become the best toy in the whole world. What more would I want to be? I sit quietly in my tub while the act of creation overtakes you. When you have found the most perfect of forms, perfect in silliness that is, it is time to wash it away. Nothing lasts, even art. Your sculpture flows down the drain with the soap bubbles. 

You get the small towel and expertly wrap it around my hair, making a Carmen Miranda turban. Then the big towel around me, while swoosh at the same time I get picked up out of the tub, just as I was once placed in it. In your arms I get carried to our bedroom for my final drying off. You do that, like most things involving me, very expertly.

Please come home soon, I am unclean, soiled, grimy and in need of you. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 10



Letter 16

Day 18 

Wednesday morning, haven't been out yet

Dear V

I didn't write because I went to out to dinner last night with M. Too full of meat juices when I got home to make any sense. Also unwilling to continue our story again. But of course, I can't escape you. You were in my dream. 

We were making love in the straight forward manner. Nothing fancy . I think this is as difficult to execute as a perfect, rare, char-broiled prime piece of beef. Both demand the right raw materials, complete attention to detail, great timing.

We began with the simple act of undressing each other. 

We are formal people, so we do this in the traditional manner. First me, then you, standing up straight and tall in our bedroom. But in my dream we were in the center of the Pantheon in Rome. I know you've never been there, unless perhaps you are sightseeing there now. The temple is absolutely huge and perfectly circular. Its dome has a 50 ft. hole in the center which gives the generally musty interior a single intense beam of Italian sunshine. It made your pale skin seem golden.

You chose to come at me from behind. Your hands around me unbuttoned my blouse, and slipped it off, kissing each shoulder as it became free. My skirt zipped up the back, it quickly dropped to the marble floor. I slipped out of my shoes and was free. Just another statue, but not of stone. From behind you capture me with your long arms, one crossed over my breasts, the other smashing my hips into your pelvis. 

Were the popes who are buried in the Pantheon looking on in frank interest, or embarrassed astonishment? Was Michelangelo, also interned there, simply disgusted? They chose not to speak.

When you let me go I turned slowly to let you gaze. You always enjoy looking at me. It takes me prisoner as no chains ever could. Once in your sight there is no escape. You own what you see, and that sharp focus misses none of my crevices, or surfaces. 

Men are more difficult to undress. This time I chose to unbuckle your belt, whip it from its secure place around you, and strike the floor with it. Indiana Jones in a Roman temple. It sent us flying to Central Park. Perhaps the loud crack angered the popes, dislodging them from their meditation on bodies and free will. 

Central Park is filled with the usual suspects, none of whom pay any attention to us. Why I don't know, because you are wearing a long cape with golden epaulets. I find it immensely attractive, though please don't get any ideas when you get home. This is a dream. Only Freud and the witch doctor knows why you were wearing it. I prefer you in old tweeds and baggy khakis. 

We walk around, holding hands, till we get to the Zoo. The damned cape is swirling around your otherwise naked body. Still no one human notices. However, the animals are watching us. They come out of their houses and cages in pairs. Noah is not there.

The cape and popes and animals are not a distraction to us. They are only observers, voyeurs we apparently can not see or don't care about. 

I lay down in the grass, and spread my legs open. You want more, necessarily so. You are so engorged with your own desire that you must spread my lips wider apart than I can manage. Your fingers are well practiced at this. The head of your penis goes in without hesitation or difficulty. Between my legs is a smooth sided tunnel. The rest of your penis plunges in, heading for some faraway much desired destination. My lips close over the base of your shaft and we are joined. 

Greed or something like it, in animal form, overcomes us. Now we both want more. I wrap my legs around the small of your back. You retaliate by taking my mouth. It disappears inside you. I reach up to grasp your neck but your hands are quicker and stronger than mine. You take them and hold them out from me, from us. We are cross-shaped in the grass. 

Meanwhile the animals are hooting and roaring. The lions are edgy but the hedgehogs are furious. The otters are sliding around each other in some marine version of the Rockettes. The elephant is trumpeting, poor fellow he has no mate. The eagle offers to help but this is not his story. It is ours.

The loud and vulgar animal sounds become so raucous that to escape them we roll up into a ball and roll down the hill into a movie theater. 

My dreams are always Technicolor, cast of thousands, see the world sort of things. Inconvenient as hell when all I really want is a dream of reality, you and I making love in a simple place in a simple way. 

Anyway, there we were in an old fashioned red velvet and plaster gilt sort of movie palace. We are on a chaise lounge on stage, with the movie playing madly behind us. I can't see anyone in the audience, in fact I don't see the seats at all. Like all dreams, the extraneous details are simply absent. Unneeded, so non-existent. 

The movie is a mixture of everything I've seen, Gary Cooper gives way to Buster Keaton who disappears into Daryl Hannah. Your cape is mercifully gone. We're still joined but you are kneeling and have pulled me up so that my knees hug your sides. We are moving, but at some pace that slows and hastens according to the tides. It has nothing to do with me, or you, it seems, but is fated like the waxing and waning of the moon. Your eyes are closed, concentrating every part of your body, soul, heart, mind, on me. I close my eyes too. I can't bear to watch what your wet finger is doing, rubbing that small glowing spot in front of me. The feeling is too intense to see. 

The actors on the screen continue in their starring roles, 30ft. high and full of store bought emotion. Horses whinny, people are blown up, Burt Lancaster kisses Deborah Kerr in the surf. We, you and me, small but real, continue to move. 

Finally, you reach down, wrap your arms around me, and pull me up on to you. You are still kneeling but now my legs slip around you again, my arms are around your neck. I am off the chaise, the only thing my body touches is you. Our rhythm is now very steady, very clear, very loud. 

My face is side by side with yours. Your left ear is pressed into my right ear. I can hear your blood pulse. We pound on. Is the rhythm your heartbeat? We pound on. This will never end. The world will die if your penis stops striking. The tides will not know when to come and go. The oceans will take over the land and never recede. 

The actors continue, but at a slower pace. Dirty Harry's bullets take five minutes to dispatch the bad guy. A simple scene with a speeding car moves at glacial speed.The car will never get to its destination.

But we get to ours. The final thrust is an bomb placed deep inside me. The shrapnel goes up my back bone and lands in my brain. I would scream if I could, but at the point of no return one is speechless. I feel you collapse in my arms, you who were ruling the world just a minute ago. But then simultaneously I am falling into you. There is a moment of perfect oblivion, we are merged and murdered at the same time. Dead and gone from our one body we have nothing left to give or to feel. It is over.

We slide down together, still wrapped up as a single package, panting and dissolving into sleep. That is the way it should end. No words, no your turn my turn, no trips to the toilet. And it does, except, I open my eyes for an instant to see your face before I sleep.

Humphrey Bogart is leaning down from his screen, all 30 ft. of him, with a serious and slightly confused look on his face. Ingrid Bergman breaks the silence by saying, in a Swedish accent, how much she enjoyed our performance. I am too sleepy to respond and you have wisely kept your eyes closed so you don't have to deal with this Hollywood intrusion. Peter Lorre is laughing, and insisting we are the best ever and will we repeat this again at the matinee. Sidney Greenstreet gravely asks if we will be serving luncheon afterwards. 

I am almost grateful to wake up. Goodnight dear.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 11



Thursday, warm but bearable

Dearest V

I return, like a ghost to her old house, to our romantic story.

After dinner, and wine, and watching the fireflies in my garden, you said, "Let's go inside." Odd that I, who am so sensitive to double entendres, did not notice this one.

I nodded humbly, and headed for the back door. 

Still following, I found myself in my kitchen. You turned, took the glass out of my hand, and hauled me up into your arms. This time, a month or more after our first kiss, I kissed back. Gave as good as I got. Hard. 

This time my arms were around your neck. God, it felt good to be there. I hung on for dear life, or death, and gave back every thing you had given me in the months of phone calls and intimacy that had passed between us. 

But sense returned somehow, as I whispered, "Can't we talk about this?" 

I needed the verbal assurances. The physical ones were plain. 

"If we do this it will ruin your life." 

In answer, you grabbed me from behind, swept my hair from the side of my neck, and began kissing me again. I found that my body was rubbing up and down yours. Easily, going up on tip toes, first left foot up, then down, then right foot up, and down, leaning in towards you. C the cat. 

When you released me, I shot off toward the front of my house. Talk seemed imperative though my body knew what it wanted. You followed, slowly. We sat side by side on the sofa. Silence. You had no words. I had a question. 

"What do you want of me?" You always take my questions seriously, whether it is one of the heart or why the toaster is malfunctioning. That alone is reason to love you. Your answer took some time. 

"I want to be part of you. Do you understand?"

To join physically, yes, but did you mean in other ways also? Did you want to leave yourself behind, to become part of me? Lose more than the name you are known by? Lose everything? Only later, when I relived this night for the hundredth thousandth time, did I realize that I hadn't understood. 

No matter. It was what I wanted to hear. I shifted to face you. I was leaning up against your legs, they felt like my own. But I left that easy place, lifted my leg, rose up, and came down astride you. I put my arms around your neck to steady myself. You looked astonished. Had you never had a woman ride you before? 

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. One sometimes forgets to.

My vagina was open and separated from you by only two layers of pitiful clothing. One yours, one mine. It knew what to do, surrounding the hard, khaki-covered mountain beneath it. You were captured, you couldn't escape.

"Every nerve ending is....., " and then you stopped. 

Ever the scientist, you began trying to describe what had happened. Give it a name, genus and species, and you think you understand and can control it. A fools game. You quickly gave up.

We sat there, me on you, just breathing. Then a kiss, hard, while at the same time I pressed down hard on the mountain between your legs. I got a little dizzy, had to lean back away from you. You looked calm, but said nothing. 

A few more kisses, some addled words, I can't remember what they were.

I do remember thinking that this must go on for months. We will kiss for a few days. And only then begin to touch, ever so experimentally. A week perhaps. Then our clothes should come off, but I will want to look at you for days. So much to see, and then long days of simple exploration. Basic science, beginning research. I did not see us making love for months. There was so much preliminary work to be done. Lust demands instant attention. This was not lust. You were going to be my lifetimes endeavor. I did not want to rush. 

You too seemed content. I think you were inside each of your nerve endings, listening to the pistons explode, watching the explosions rise to the heavens, feeling each burst of each atom extinguishing itself. You are good at paying close attention. 

I, of course, was losing it. I tried to hold all of you in my arms, a clear impossibility. You are twice my size. Giving that up as a lost cause, I starting kissing the side of your face. Small hummingbird ones. Then I had to know what your hair felt like, so I ran my hand around the back of your head. Immediately I wanted to kiss you again, but this time your hands came up to hold mine, and finally forced them downward. A new experiment? You held my eyes as you held my hands down. What was happening?

I evaded you by curling up on your chest, tucked into it like a child. Rest. You allowed me this. But finally I had to know. Why had you stopped. What was happening?

I reached up, searching for your eyes. When I found them you said what every woman wants to hear.

"If I stay with you tonight I will never leave."

But you did and you have.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 12



Friday, fall in the air, finally

Dearest 

Yesterday's letter was hard, though I am committed to telling you, as I never have, my side of our story. When you come home, will you please tell me yours? We can then laugh and cry at how our same story differs. Our misperceptions, misreadings, misunderstandings. And then it will be our story too. I want nothing separate from you.

Today's letter is going to be a good one. The following is a memory, for us to enjoy again. Isn't the mind and time wonderful? We can live our lives over and over, if we so desire. Nothing is finished, over with, or gone, as long as it is not forgotten. Time comes back to us, like the waves on the lake, if we remember.

Remember that first winter together when I caught some wretched illness and was like a zombie? I knew for the first time what old age must feel like. I had no strength and parts of me hurt for no apparent reason. Everything was an effort.

I would have to gather all my strength just to walk to the living room in the morning. It seemed to take me a long time, I was so wobbly and weak. To sit in the sun for the rest of the day was worth it. I would just sit there, gathering up the sun's strength like a stone. When you came home you would carry me back to bed, feed me hot soup, and worry over me abit. It was only a bad winter flu, I would recover eventually. 

On the third or fourth day of my illness you came home so tired that you crawled into bed with me. Whispering the day's injustices and difficulties, you stroked my face and then my breasts. Slowly, I did the same to you. I was burnt with fever, you with the world. 

You were different. Instead of feeling your skin, or the warmth of it, or your desire strengthening under my hand, I was touching something else. My fingers, the palm of my hand, were on you, but not only on your body. Your skin was a thin shell that covered a damaged, tender heart. My hand had become a passageway. Can I say I felt your soul? I have no words to describe how I knew this, or what it really felt like. Your body was still familiar and warm, as always. But I was in touch with something other than your physical self. Not emotions, not attitudes or opinions or ego. The bedrock. The bones of your existence, came up and touched me, my bones, through my fingers.

Perhaps it was the fever. 

Your hands slid down my body and began taking its measure. Like a blind man, your hands were memorizing my waist, the roundness of my hips, the flatness of my thighs, the length of my legs. Finally, with all that knowledge, you decided to devote yourself to one small part of me. The researcher, looking for an area to become expert in. 

The inside of my leg became your area of specialization. Your hand moved up and down, changing the angle or the hardness or the direction of each stroke by just the slightest amount. And as I had read your heart by the way your skin felt in my hand, I knew you too were touching something even more private than my so-called private parts.

When your finger circled my lips, my lower lips, I began to shudder. I was sweating with fever and icy with anticipation. My body seemed to implode inside itself. I came so suddenly I was taken by surprise. There was none of the usual tightening, tension, heart beat. I just opened up and came, in your hand. My body, my self, which had been disappearing a moment before, arched up, pulsed, and came flowing out.

Now I understand why big flower paintings are said to be sexual. The Georgia O'Keefe ones. It isn't the obvious thing that they look like genitals. When I came that night I felt like my entire being was unfurling like a flower, and blooming out of my vagina. Nothing was left inside, nothing was closed or was only a bud, not yet ready to be seen. I had opened. 

I could see your face only faintly, my eyes were glazed. I was ready to sleep, to fade away. There was nothing left, I thought.

You thought otherwise. Your hand, that just a moment before had cupped over my vagina, holding it steady in its cataclysms, began to search again. Again, around the lips, and just a little inside, around my body's bud, the one that vibrates. 

I was too weary to be astonished, or even say anything. I could only open my eyes to look in your face with an unspoken question. Your unspoken answer was a soft smile of confidence. You knew what you were doing. I should let you do it.

I did. And came again. A rolling wave, high but not crashing. I just rode to shore on its edge, floated in, but did not reach land. Instead, I was swept out to sea and then came again. The new wave was lower, but longer. And when it ended, another wave took its place. I just rode them, a surfer or a swimmer, part of the wave. 

Later I wished I'd been able to count, but that clearly was impossible. The waves were all there were for me to do and be. They and I came and came and came. 

I remember trying to speak, and being unable to say what ever question I had. You knew the answer, 

"That's the way it's supposed to be." 

And it is.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 13



Letter 20

Day 21

Saturday, at the lake

Dearest

Have gone to Lily's empty cottage. Drove up early this morning. 

Am sitting on the porch, looking at the people swimming in the lake. They come in so many shapes and sizes. The variety in human bodies fascinates me. Lions and wrens and beavers and ants all look the same. Only our best friends (Lucky sends his Woof) and us seem to come in so many different forms. Or perhaps this is a failure of my perception, and lions and wrens are infinitely varied, but only to each other. 

The swimmers on the lake are certainly different. And all are beautiful. Big noses, warts, fat stomachs, everything. Life, in all its forms, seems good to me, and beautiful. I know, you think I am Miss Pollyanna in a Big Bad World. But I have eyes that can see. 

This morning when I was taking a short cut through the woods, I found a couple making love. They didn't see me, so shamelessly I stopped to watch. It was not erotic or exciting in any way. Mostly it looked sort of silly. Hard to imagine why they were so involved in that funny tangle of arms and legs. Their clothes were getting all twiggy, and they both looked a little the worse for wear. I watched like one would an anthropological movie of some exotic people doing something tribal and remote. And finally I tiptoed away, to leave the pair to their odd, unappealing endeavor.

Shaherazade has promised sexy letters and here she is instead writing about other people's bodies, not ours. I have become a voyeur in your absence. Glancing at the world, living vicariously. I see it as a visitor might from a different planet. When I am with you the world swirls by, the light shines on us, though it also illuminates the stuff around us. We live in a realm of light. The world is us in it. We give it our presence, and it speaks to us. Without you, I am in the shadows. The world goes on, but not for me, for itself. I wonder which is the truer view, with you in the light, or by myself as a solitary observer at dusk and dawn. 

I am not saying this right. But I am not the same way as I am when you are with me. Life is different at its core. But the bodies are always beautiful. Even when they are twiggy in the woods, doing something strange that involves thumping and moving up and down and wiggling.

I am menstruating. My mind is sort of on thud. My body is heavier than normal and feels like a divan. I am sitting on the porch, a divan on a chair with a thud inside. Hum. 

Most women don't like the monthly business, judging from all the awful names for it. We called it the curse when I was a teenager. But I always liked it. I didn't mind that I'd wake up in bloody sheets (my Mom did the laundry), or that I had to wear a thick heavy pad between my legs for a week (tampax were for married women only), or even that I would occasionally leave an embarrassing spot on a chair. 

Bleeding never makes me feel like I am dying, or injured, though I have heard women say that it did them. And I am never sick or discomforted or out of sorts. The truth is I never feel more female. It feels like what it really is, cleansing, purifying, starting the cycle again. Mother Earth, once a month.

The real Mother Earth must be making love all the time. She must, she's so fertile. I'm always amazed at the maple tree out front. In spring it rains down thousands of seeds. One medium size tree. Mom is trying to make sure, shorten the odds. I wonder if she has orgasms. Maybe that's what hurricanes and volcanoes really are. 

I don't often come when I am bleeding, but making love then satisfies some elemental part of me that has no name. It is on some primal level of female. It is what the Earth does. Continuously, forever, always. Or life will end. Simple as that. And you as male, seem to understand that. You do your part. 

Have you noticed that when I am bleeding we make love in a very different way? We never laugh or tease, as we often do. We are always serious, deliberate. We take our time. Each plunge is deep but slow. You hold yourself up, away from me, so that we can look into each others eyes. We do not kiss or caress. The music is from a drum, not an orchestra or a jazz band. 

And afterwards we look like we've committed an ax murder. Who has been killed is uncertain. We are both marked by my blood. I think of it as initiation marks. We have been through a rite. Lovemaking as sacred activity. The blood has joined us, like little boys and Mafia men slice their fingers. It makes a bond, with your semen, that mixes to make us one. Is that why "making it" is a euphemism for sex? 

What a strange letter this. Full of swimmers' bodies, lovers' tangles, a world without you and bleeding as a bond. If it doesn't make any sense, please understand. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 14



Dearest Damn V

Come home now. This an order. I am tired of waiting. I mean it, though I know I cannot make that demand. You will come when you can, and we don't make impossible demands on one another.

Though if we hadn't, we wouldn't be together now, would we? You would still be embedded in your family, I would be somewhere else, still thinking I was happy, but still searching. Our love story would not have continued. But it did. I continue its story for both of us.

We sat on my sofa one summer night. I was facing you, straddling you, kissing you, finding you, holding you. We were going to become lovers. The preliminaries were over. I remember you saying, 

"You are such a passionate woman." And I told you the blunt truth about all lovemaking.

"Don't you know we are all different with each person, each lover?"

We said other things too, but I've forgotten most of it. We were just talking to hide our fear and guilt. Mostly we just hung on to one another, at least as I remember it.

Finally you said, "If I stay the night, I will never leave you." 

I wanted to hear only the last part of that sentence. I slowly raised myself from your lap and sat quietly beside you. Chill in my heart. 

I had tried to warn you what would come. Your life as you knew it would end. Women always know. Your family, friends, colleagues, would all be shocked, hurt. She would be crushed. Pain for everyone, and you would be the cause. I probably would be blamed also, though that hardly mattered to me. But I wondered if I was capable of seeing you through the pain that our becoming lovers would cause. 

I repeated the mantra again, "This will ruin your life."

And you said, "Don't say that. It means this is wrong."

And then you said, "You are not worth my family" 

I could not answer that. 

What I remember the most was how differently our minds worked. We considered adultery in two totally different ways.

I was perfectly mundane in my assessment. I saw only the real life results. I frankly never considered the morality of it. If we became lovers it would leak out of your pores, and your family, yours, hers, would be devastated. 1+1 =*)(*&6^ Your wife's grief would be unimaginable. I didn't try.

Whatever we did had to be totally your decision. You were going to suffer the consequences. I had no one to consider but myself. I would be a bystander at the wreckage. I had only to accept whatever it was you decided. It was like a geometry equation. Once I had realized this, I just lived each day without thinking further. 

Later I realized you had thought we could be lovers with no one knowing but us. You were sure that you could disguise yourself. And you could live with the deception. You had always had secrets; this would be another one. Who knows what is in the human heart?  

But you are pure of heart. You are.

"If I stay with you tonight, I'll never leave you" meant simply that you had to leave before you become incapable. In the middle of a kiss you had come to the truth of the matter. What you wanted was me, not your wife. An affair was not enough. But you could not live with the pain that a murdered marriage would cause. Your only choice was to go while you still could. And you did. It was a simple equation for you too. 2-1= 0. 

I remember saying, "It is a measure of my regard for you that I am more concerned about your life than I am my own." 

I don't speak like that. No one does, except maybe in some 19th c. novel. I had created Lady Jane, a character of impeccable standards and total rigor, to get me out of the chaos of myself. She was born out of brute necessity. Thank god for 19th c. novels and her presence somewhere inside me.

I got us glasses of ice water, and then offered to show you to your car while I walked the dog. Formal, polite, correct. If this was your decision then I would live by it, just as I had said I would.

Mostly I just wanted this to be over and you gone. I had become a small round pebble, not a woman. Some part of me thought that if you weren't there perhaps this had never happened. And I would be the same person I was two or three months ago, before you insisted on kissing me. But I didn't blame you. I have never blamed you. And I didn't want to ruin your life. 

When you tried to kiss me on the street I struggled away. Good-bye. No antiseptic kisses. No more passionate kisses either. Nothing was the future. Lady Jane had to walk the dog.

These are tiring memories. I slept soundly that night, exhausted. I probably will tonight too.

Your swimmer in the high seas. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 15



Monday night, in bed

Dear V

Drove in early this morning from the lake to get to my temporary job, the trial. The stately manner with which it proceeds, punctuated by long pauses, is beginning to get on my nerves. The lawyers and judges are constantly having little private conversations about what is allowable and what isn't for us delicate jurors to hear. Of course I want to know the stuff they don't let us know. 

Why, if we are to decide the fate of the defendant, shouldn't we know everything? How he brushes his teeth might be relevant. And I want to get to ask questions. The lawyers don't ask the right ones. Lady Jane has decided that in her spare time she will try redesigning the justice system. (for new comers, Lady Jane is the letter writer's alter ego). I know the other jurors are frustrated too. We do not know the rules that govern how this most serious game is being played. 

I have picked up a copy of "Crime and Punishment." Maybe it can give me some help in the sticky issues of monstrous crime by human beings. I'm having a hard time with this. Forgive (though not necessarily acquit) because they know not what they do or because they are helpless to do otherwise? Or stick with free will and shudder at what someone can conceive of doing?

At lunch with most of the jurors (a couple always go shopping, the men tend to hide), we started up on the Seven Deadly Sins again. I brought them up last week as a sneaky way to discuss some of the issues of the crime without actually getting into the details. The SDS turned out to be too medieval to do the job. But I think some of the jurors got my drift, because they are now trying to invent a modern set of Sins. The old ones just don't seem so sinful anymore.

To make it interesting, we decided to buy lunch for anyone who proposes a SDS that we all can agree on. The maybes go on a list for further discussion. 

I couldn't resist suggesting Not-Nice as an all purpose one. To show how jurorish we have become it was not hooted down but considered thoughtfully. Finally discarded because a SDS should not a be negative act. No mind games either, you can think the worst and be sin-free. Action is all. I'm not sure I really believe that.

I also tried Perversion, thinking of the dog buttering story, but no free lunch there either. The word is too tricky for our modern sense of morality. Best definition from one of the jurors, "Anything that is really Yucky."

It is remarks like that one, which I sort of like, that I think keeps the male jurors at bay. 

This led to other jurors suggesting Necrophilia and Cannibalism as worthy candidates for SD Sindom. The sweetest looking juror (lace collar and pretty flowered dress, rosy cheeks) shot them down with a faint smile.

"Well, after all, Necrophilia doesn't really hurt any one. And if the person is already dead Cannibalism might save some farm animals from being killed. Good source of free protein too. Think how that would help the starving countries." I couldn't tell whether she was being Jonathan Swift or pronouncing stark common sense. The lines are definitely getting blurred.

After that there was a prolonged silence. But then the hunt for modern sins continued. None have been found yet. The usual suspects are on the list. Violence, Intolerance, etc., but they seem too easy or vapid.

Went swimming afterwards as usual. I have lost four pounds and my arms look larger. Come home and lets arm wrestle. Lets just wrestle. I'll let you win.

After swimming, I had dinner with Michael. Heard more of the story of his breakup. Chas has never been faithful, it turns out, but always discreet. M knew but accepted it. But suddenly, one day (or night) he couldn't anymore. Simple as that. 

I always saw that marriage as a very traditional one, regardless of the fact that both are men. M the wife, C the big bread winner. M did everything but cut C's meat for him. Whose meat will he cut now? M needs to love more than he needs to be loved. I don't worry about C at all, though he is the one sent packing. He will always attract someone willing to shoulder the chores. 

M's leaving him is brave, and he obviously thinks he must have another sort of life, but he looks terrible. His whole being seems to be sagging and shrinking. 

I felt nothing when you left me to return to your marriage. Lady Jane was simply numb, standing in the street with her dog. I went into the house to bed and slept soundly. Exhausted from emotion. The next day all I could do was lie on the sofa watching hopeless TV. The soap operas and talk shows were soothing. All those problems. What a gift those programs are to the truly miserable.

The day after that I went home. Blessed family. They knew something was wrong because D called me in the middle of my soap opera watching and I burst into tears. God bless her. She simply said, "We love you. Come stay with us if you want."

When I got there they said nothing at all. Showed me the guest bedroom, the new towels, the full frig. With cheese and crackers and beer on the porch I told them our story. The suspense would kill them before they would ask why I was crying in the middle of the day. 

My dear brother said only, "I always liked him. Can you salvage anything?"

So like him. Laconic and looking to make the best of any situation.

D asked the moral question, "Could you have lived with the consequences had you not stopped when you did?"

"Yes."

I think that shocked her a little. She is married to my brother, any attack on a marriage hits close to home. My brother is more worldly, and this is not his first marriage. His world is more fluid. He has been the "attacker." 

To her eternal credit her love for me superseded her feelings of discomfort with my words and acts. She always has something to teach me about love. P is a lucky man as well as my brother. 

We never mentioned you or us again. I was a guest who didn't eat or sleep much. Who seemed distracted and sometimes had to try hard not to cry. Lady Jane appeared a few times to save me. Conversation returned to what is normal for us, books, gossip, food, trying to figure out what the clues in the world around us really mean. Life went on. What is that line you like so much?

Wherever you may be, there you are.

Here I am.

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 16



Tuesday, late

Dear V

I find it hard to write tonight. I never thought you would be gone this long. My sexual body is beginning to shut down in self defense. It is like being starved for food. After awhile one is no longer hungry and forgets about eating. Until, of course, it is too late. 

What will it take to wake me up? How will you feed this poor starving woman? Milk toast and tea like an invalid? No. Comfort food? Mine are meat dumplings and sour yogurt. Starving is only a metaphor anyway, and I prefer to make love when my stomach is empty. You fill my body perfectly. I do not need food when we can taste each other.

Gifts? Traditionally one returns from far away bearing presents. Not a tradition for me. It seems like appeasement or replacement. Besides, what would you give me? A sapphire broach? A good book? I want nothing with a bow around it. I have one of everything I need. There is only one.

When you return you can feed me things for my heart. I want to listen to music together, the M spiritual masters.... Mozart, Marley and Van Morrison. I want to walk in the woods. The wild grasses smell something like you, but more winey and with less stormy sky in them. I need laughter too. Can we watch Mr. Hulot's Holiday for the 1004th time?

Maybe just one or two meat dumplings, for old times sake.

And then the serious business of waking up our sleeping senses can begin. My ears are now ready to hear you murmur how deeply you want to kiss me. And my mouth is ready, open and ready. First you, then the dumpling, my dear dumpling, and then you again. My nose appreciates the various flavors of your skin, after having sampled the grasses. My eyes have followed Mr. Hulot on his vacation, they are now ready to gaze into something more serious. And finally the final sense, touch. Where will you touch my sleeping skin to begin its slow awakening to feeling? 

Around my ears? It is such a silly out of the way place, yet you seem to like tracing the oval curves. 

The back of my neck? It can be neglected, hidden by the long fall of hair. But you seldom forget it. You take my hair in one hand, gently twist it up and away, and then begin kissing. You begin or end wherever the mood strikes, but no small section is overlooked. Is my skin warmer there, insulated by my hair? Is that why you occasionally blow across my neck, to cool me?

Or my collar bone. You stroke it thoughtfully, does it sing some soft sound under your fingers that only you can hear?

Or that little fold of flesh just above my breasts and near my arm pit. It has no name, but it yields to your touch.

Or the palm of my hand. I feel like a Princess from Nalanda, or some other exotic realm, when you kiss the palms of my hands. 

Or will you begin with my belly button. Such a funny name (is there another more serious one?) for the place where our life began. Once severed from my mother, I drifted aimlessly, feeding wherever I could. Until you came to anchor me again. You know that secret. Is that why you like to put your tongue there? To show me again that I am safe from harm, not alone, and surrounded by love.

Or will you take one of my legs in your hand, lift it up, point it at the ceiling, then bend it down so that my knee is on my chest, and then once again raise it upwards. I know what you are doing. You enjoy seeing how limber I am. You like to play with the muscles and tendons, as the ballet master plays with his dancers. You like being in control of my body. I do not lift my leg and point it to the heavens, you do. What you want, my body will do. You decide, and my body fulfills. you command and my body obeys. "With my body I thee wed," says the marriage ceremony. So true. 

Or perhaps you will just kiss the inside of my knee. Another totally inconsequential place that has meaning for you and me. Raise my left leg up, bend the knee downwards, then lift the lower part of the leg up again, and kiss the exposed inner knee. While you are kissing that inner place, your fingers might run up and down another inner place. 

Or, maybe you will find that elusive inner knee in a different manner. While starting to undress me, you drop down. On your knees before me you raise my skirt, and soon my knee, my thigh, my center, are yours. 

Sigh 

Awake, starving, and ready. 

C



Lover Come Home Ch. 17a



Wednesday, fall coming

Dear V

Continuing our story, I feel like you are coming closer to home. 

I stayed with my brother & D until their genuine old fashioned happiness began to nibble at my soul. I will not bore you with my suffering. I wondered a lot about yours. You had secrets to keep. 

I did what I do when I am sick, I wallowed. I wallowed in you. Listened in my head to every word you had ever spoken in my presence. And like an adolescent, looked for clues to a future in those past words. 

By the end of my stay I could have written an Encyclopedia of you. I was going to spend every moment with your memory. What else could I do? You were gone from my life. While you were going on inside me, my body sat like lump on P & D's sofa, or was carted around on errands in the back of their car. Domestic life. 

Lady Jane, my new found inner voice, slowly began to assert herself. First she announced, in a gentle but imperial way, "Nothing bad EVER happens to Lady Jane."

I wanted to believe her, even with her put on upper crust accent. 

She then told me to get a job (I was freelancing then, fairly successfully), clean out all my closets, consider buying a horse, take up gardening as a hobby, eat more red meat, wear more black, and read more history. For starters. I may have been a lump, but she was a brick. Going through the window of my heart, intent on breaking my grief. When I got home I began with the want ads and my closet. Later I started going to a livery stable.

I never expected to hear from you or see you again. Maybe a Christmas card, because your wife sends them routinely. Maybe I'd run into you one of your brothers, as I had in the past. 

I thought a lot about what I really wanted in life. It had always been my practice to try not to want anything. Not out of any oddball asceticism, but simple common sense. I might get it. Better to accept what the world offered me, then to desire something ill-suited or second hand or possibly dangerous. I certainly didn't trust or know myself well enough to make any blindingly good choices. But it seemed the right time to think about what I really wanted. Or needed. I didn't think that this was going to get me my heart's desire. Otherwise you'd have flown in on a magic carpet. 

What I want now is that Tabriz. I am feeling light hearted/headed tonight. I would like to play one of our silly games. Something to disguise the fact that you have been gone, more than three weeks. 

Not the one I always win, "Can you make airline reservations on the phone while I am..........!" You can never get past "I must be in Washington Thursday morning" before you lose your concentration. You are too easy. I on the other hand (yours) can get to Washington any Thursday I want by turning into Lady Jane and steadfastly refusing to believe that you are really removing my clothing, beginning with my best silk underpants. I always win. No fun. Games must have even matched players to make them interesting.

One of my favorites is "V the Cave". You may not have known you were playing this one. When you are lying in bed I cuddle up next to you. That's not uncommon. But when I am playing Cave the goal is to get you to curl around me so that I am completely enclosed by your body. You are the Cave in which I am hiding. 

Points are awarded. If you remain stretched out for more than a minute, I lose a point. If your knees come up to shelter my bottom, I get a point. If your arms completely surround me, I get another point. If I wiggle down into a smaller ball of woman, you are sometimes inspired to try to contain me by completely covering me with your giant's body. I get another point for that. I also get a point if I can make you laugh while I am in the Cave. But Caves can be serious. I also get points for every kiss from the Cave. If any part of me can be seen by a pair of eyes staring down from the ceiling, points are lost. Usually I lose track of the score.

Hide and Seek is fun. Our version demands mandatory lovemaking on the nearest available surface immediately after having been found. That odd man who sits on shoes would always hide in the closet, wouldn't he? I never hide in the bathroom; the tile is too hard. My favorite place is in plain sight. Losing the game fast means winning faster too.

I also like Postures. The goal is to discover how many ways we can make love that do not involve lying down. I think our record is in the twenties or maybe even thirties, though again it is hard to keep track of the different new ones and add them to the old ones. Scoring gets as tangled as we do. 

One of my favorites is you standing with my legs around your hips. My arms around your neck hold you close to me. You cradle my ass while you thrust. Another one is face to face, on our knees. That one is always a slow, elegant dance. African in its rhythm and simplicity. Or standing up my left leg stretched out, supported by your right hand. I hold on to your shoulder with my right hand while your left hand explores my crack, now so conveniently open and available. I got the idea for this one looking at a Tibetan painting. Compassion, the male deity, holds Wisdom, the female, that way. Art teaches us many things.

Come home and find me soon, dear Cave, sweet Wisdom, and I will never let you go to Washington on Thursday again.

C 



Lover Come Home Ch. 18



Thursday, clear

Beloved V

I've never written the word beloved before. One more thing that you have called forth from within me. 

Swimming is my new pleasure. Not as good as you but what is. I use my mask and snorkel, so I can see beneath the surface and not worry about breathing. The water supports and encompasses me. It enters all my openings, but so completely that I cannot feel it as separate from myself. It is simply me, extended forever. I used to think I was a person contained in a sack of flesh. Now I imagine that I am a large body of water, with indeterminate banks. You come to swim, and fish, and do nature studies, and find new species and fossils. Or perhaps you are the water, and I am the swimmer. Water is a world with no up and down, only around and over. 

We sleep like that too, around and over in each other's arms. But you are a light sleeper, and I am a bear. My sleep is so intense that I barely move. I know that you sometimes wake up in a panic beside me. I am so quiet. Could I have died in the night? The lover's dread is always present. Absence of any sort is a kind of death. 

You reassure yourself by bringing your head close to mine, to feel the light breeze of my breathing. Horses greet one another that way, by breathing into each others nostrils. Sometimes you do too, greeting me in the night, relieved that I am alive. But I am living in another land, journeying in my dreams to somewhere else. Maybe even to someone else. Are you jealous perhaps? Or simply lonely? You do not scruple at trying to bring me back to you from the path of my dreams. 

The lightest tickling is your usual beginning. How do I know? Because sometimes I am not really asleep. I am playing my version of the game Sleeper Awake! The rules are simple. If the sleeper shows she is awake, she loses. She must keep her body still, except for only the slightest of sleepy motions. She must pretend to prefer her dream land to the real world. A few soft sleepy sighs are allowed, but nothing more. 

The rules for you are different. You must not do anything to disturb my dreams. There can be only the most subtle of indications to my sleeping self that a better world awaits me awake in our bed. Nothing as obvious as a kiss is allowed. You must be totally circumspect. From your distant shore you must somehow influence my dream path so that it returns home to you.

The light tickles are a good beginning. I am not a school girl, not outlandishly sensitive to even the threat of a tickle. No, the brief joggle of my skin, down my ribs, across my stomach, brings only the tiniest response. You are only announcing your intentions. I remain asleep, but my dream may have a very different ending.

A clever choice on your part is to brush the light hairs on my arms. This seemingly is a step back. My skin is no longer being touched. But hair is embedded into a deeper layer of the body. You are coming closer.

You have even been known to whisper things into my ear while I am sleeping. Your breath is warm. My body feels it. My mind hears the warmth of your words. I'll not repeat what I've heard you say. But we know.

Dreaming becomes more difficult. 

Then you do something diabolical. You stop. I sleep on my back, like a pharaoh. You lie beside me, and watch. How can I sleep when you are watching me? Is that all you want? Just my existence next to you? Even if I am faraway in the world of dreams? Your pleasure in my distant presence in our bed makes any dream an ordeal. I want to wake up and join you.

But that would end the game. So I continue to slumber. 

Finally, you decide to act. Cunning. Have you known all along that I am shamming and you are playing a double game? Are you the master mole in the spy game? I do not know. But I maintain my artful sleep while you lick the inside of my arm. Clever. Not an obvious erotic place. Only you know how delicate that makes me feel. How precarious it makes me. I cannot control my breathing anymore. It starts to sharpen. 

Sensing victory you act more boldly and put your hand on my stomach. Palm down, fingers spread, I am held in place by you. The sleeper quivers abit to give notice that her watcher may have been hasty. Her dreams must not be disturbed, only satisfied and finally completed. 

But the hand remains.

Now the game is more difficult. It is hard not to laugh, not to reach for you, not to take your hand and move it further downwards. But I do none of these things, only dream on.

You begin humming. Tuneless. Helpless. Do you even know you are doing it? How can I maintain my purposeful quiet when you are humming to yourself? It reminds me of the dwarves going off to work in Snow White. You are happily looking forward to a long day mining gold, while I must stay home like Cinderella. Mixed metaphor. I am no Snow White. You are certainly not a dwarf. Or Walt Disney. Oh damn. I woke up. And you are not here.

I cannot continue this letter. Lost my thread. Game over. Come home and go swimming with me. 

C