4 comments/ 17480 views/ 2 favorites The Second Coming By: Adrian Leverkuhn Part I Henry Naismith walked confidently into the hotel lounge. His smooth muscled chest rippled under the freshly pressed white button-down Polo shirt that was his trademark. With sleeves rolled up two turns and just so, the stainless Rolex Submariner on his right wrist standing in bold relief on his deeply tanned arm, he seemed a man on a mission. Outside the cobalt smokey-dim room, through darkly tinted windows, Diamond Head glowed in dappled purple-gold hues, bathed in the fading light of a tropical sunset. The warm glow of the fading light wrapped around Henry Naismith as he stopped inside the room, his eyes sweeping like a piercing blue searchlight. Women cast appraising glances his way; men cast a wary eye, sizing up their competition. Henry Naismith smiled within his mind's eye, very well aware that his appearance relayed a much greater presence than his 21 years would have otherwise allowed. He casually surveyed the room, the single men and women at the long mirrored bar, the couples deep in conversation within the sheltering grasp of deep wine-red leather booths. It was, he knew, fairly early in the evening, perhaps too early for the type of woman he sought, yet circumstance dictated his actions. His parents demanded an early start to the day, tours to be endured, always a museum - and Honolulu was awash in museums extolling the Amerikan warrior ethos - followed by an early dinner and admonishments to get to bed early. "Sleep is the thief of time," his retired Admiral now Congressman father would bark. Henry Naismith would as always watch his parents as they walked away - always walking away - his eyes fixed on the ethereal elegance of his mother's receding form. Within the limited time frame of his Spring-break from Stanford University, he was determined to bed as many women - grown, mature women - as circumstance and opportunity would allow. Henry Naismith was dedicated to the proposition that fucking women was good, and that not all men were created equal. He cast his gaze around the room, taking in the receding hairlines and expanded waistlines of the men in the room, and smiled with the casual arrogance of his particular form of youth. He admired his father, his command over other men, and the easy surrender of a woman's charms that had claimed more than one man's fair share of broken hearts. And yet, at the same time, Henry Naismith despised his father, despised him for the casual ruin he had visited on his wife, the ruin his careless disdain and moral superiority, that his manicured Presbyterianism, had so relentlessly bestowed over the course of their statuesque marriage. His fathers's bestowals had crafted a shallow hollowness on the otherwise joyous and carefree soul of his mother; only the visible remnants of his mother's inheritance remained. And it was with his mother's stately elegance and refined demeanor that Henry Naismith had for the first time fallen in love. Moving slowly toward the kaleidoscope glow of the bar - with the vast array of noble spirits and with their carnival of folly beckoning - Henry Naismith made his way to the far end and sat on a tall mahogany stool. Several attractive women, girls really, obviously here on their school holidays, sat within easy distance. Appraising feminine eyes furtively sought Henry Naismith's glance, to little avail. He ordered a Tom Collins from the bartender as his right hand sought out Spanish peanuts in copper bowls lined up at casual intervals along the bar. The heady scent of Chanel hit Henry Naismith squarely in his soul. He felt a tremulous disturbance in the air, a ripple in the fabric of time as a wisp of clothing slithered across his outstretched arm. A faint shiver took him by surprise as his eyes looked ahead deeply into the mirrored reflections within the forest of rainbow-hued bottles; he measured the woman who appeared beside him as she made her way to the adjacent stool. His calculations made in a heartbeat, he instantly stood up and helped the woman into the - for her - awkwardly high stool. The woman cast an appreciative nod, and with quiet assurance thanked the handsome young man for his courtesy. Henry Naismith felt as though the air had been sucked from his lungsas he looked at the woman, so complete was his disorientation. He covertly took in the beautiful woman beside him as he re-took his seat. The woman wore a cream colored linen suit, adorned with a simple red rose, accented with bone colored stockings and very high-heeled pumps. Her fair skin was accented lightly by faint freckles, her face an angelic form that radiated simple confidence, and all crowned with simply ravishing strawberry-blond hair. She glanced down to the gleaming surface of the bar, her fingers softly appraising the highly polished wood, stroking the surface in a way that Henry Naismith found enchanting. Her fingers had not the inept carelessness of youth but, he thought, the studied countenance of refined experience. He could see the motion of her hand clearly in the mirror, and a faint smile curled his lips. His eyes drifted back up to take in her face; with a start he felt her eyes lock onto his. What he saw took his breath away. Her face - angelic was a word that did not do her face justice - was dominated by soft pools of blue-green light that were her eyes. Unable to look away from the overwhelming beauty before him, he simply nodded his head as if to say "Sorry, you caught me." She cocked her head to the side as she met his gaze, and returned the nascent smile that grew on the young man's face. Henry Naismith sat dazed by an elegance that seemed impossible in any woman save his mother. And so it was that Henry Naismith felt every fiber of his being come alive with electric desire. He felt his skin flush, sensed the hammering of his pulse in his throat and temples, and a warm moisture clouded his now softly clenched hands. His easy confidence gone, a broken dream in the heady aura of her eyes, he felt as though his ability to speak had evaporated in the heat of her gaze. Magically, a Tom Collins appeared before him on the bar. He turned to look the woman directly in the eyes, hungry for the experience of the sight of her, and asked if he could buy her a drink. "That would be nice," she said, meeting his eyes with studied elegance. "What are you having?" "Collins, a Tom Collins," Henry Naismith whispered. "Sorry," he continued, "throats a bit dry." She nodded to the bartender, and smiling, asked for the same. Henry Naismith noted a faint french accent to her perfect English. He guessed she was in her thirties. Her breasts were perfect, her jewelry understated, her long pale finger refined yet elegantly polished. "I've not seen you here before," the woman said. "Have you been here long?" "Got in last night. Late. Here for a week or so. And you?" "Ah, I come here frequently as part of my work. Perhaps you should have some of your drink." He nodded, and lifted the tumbler to his lips. He noticed that as he brought the drink to his mouth she looked at his lips, that her lips parted and the faintest tip of her tongue came into view. He took a sip, of course with disastrous consequence. He coughed, nearly launching his drink, but caught himself as he felt the woman's delicate hand reach out to steady his grip. Now Henry Naismith felt himself burning with embarrassment, a cool bead of perspiration forming on his forehead. "Now that was pure fuckin' grace," he exclaimed before he could catch himself. He looked at the woman expecting to find reproach, but was surprised to feel her cool hand lightly stroking his cheek, followed by a damp cloth wiping the boiling shame from his forehead. She cocked her head once again as Henry Naismith's eyes returned to hers, and again he felt as though time had stopped. Her eyes widened, eyebrows arced slightly, the pupils of her blue-green eyes so large that to Henry Naismith he felt that surely all of his worlds hopes and dreams could within that gaze safely reside. "What are you thinking?" the woman asked. "You look so serious." She looked expectantly at the young man, her eyes now a mirror of his seriousness. "Is this a night for such seriousness?" Was there a trace of irony in her voice? Henry Naismith took another stab at the Tom Collins, this time taking a careful sip from the glass. He took an ice cube into his mouth, swirled it around with his tongue. He suddenly felt as though some infinite power had hold of his soul, that the depth in this woman's eyes was somehow a reflection of her pure lust. With this realization a gripping lightheadedness overcame him. 'How cool must this look,' he thought. He felt himself break out into a light sweat. "Let me help you to your room," the woman said, now obviously concerned. She motioned to the bartender, gave a room number, and stood up next to Henry Naismith. She took his arm in her delicate hand, and helped the young man stand. Taking the drink from Henry Naismith's hand, she placed it on the bar and asked the bartender to have several bottles of mineral water sent to her room. 'My room, her room,' he thought, 'what's going on.' He felt intoxicated not from liquor but from some subtle force that streamed directly from this woman's eyes into his soul. She steadied him with unexpected strength and walked him out of the lounge. A couple of men shook their head and chuckled. As Henry Naismith and the woman walked together through the magnificent old Hawaiian lobby he felt his composure return, a spring return to his step. As they gained the elevator, he took her hand in his. Somehow, someway, a perilous bargain had been struck, but by whom, and for what? "Thanks. I don't know what came over me," he said as they entered. She tapped the button for the seventh floor. "I would say," she said with no small trace of experience in her voice, "that you have a world class case of jet-lag." She had not refused his hand, and now she reached across with her other hand and caressed his forearm affectionately. "Would you allow me to take care of you for a while, or shall I take you to your room." "I'm feeling fine now. Really. Could we go to your room and talk for a bit." 'What was that about a bargain?' he thought. "Yes, of course. I think some water and a rest will see you right. And perhaps we'll find a thing or two to talk about." She turned to look him in the eye once again, and a smile creased her face. As she looked at the young man's face, with the force of her compassion evident in her every mannerism, she smiled broadly and laughed ever so gently. "What? What is it...what did I do now?" he asked. 'Yeah, they call me Mr Confidence,' he thought. "I was thinking," she began, "that perhaps I would like to know your name. What do you think? Should we go that far?" Henry Naismith puckered up his face and looked up at the elevator's mirrored ceiling as the door chimed and hissed open. It was his 'I'm gonna be funny now...' face. "Well, I dunno. I guess we could chance it. I mean, after all we've been through together..." He gave his best devil-may-care man-about town smile. Bond, James Bond would have been green with envy. "...My name is Henry, Henry..." he said. "I see," the woman said, with no trace of disappointment. "Well, Henry Henry, my name is Gabrielle. Rousseau. Gabrielle Rousseau. I am from France. A small city in the south...Avignon. Perhaps you have heard of it, yes?" Taking his arm in tow, the woman exited the elevator and turned to go down the hallway. They entered her room, a large corner suite bordered with windows on two walls and a balcony that wrapped around two walls of the suite. "Please, Henry Henry, make yourself comfortable," she intoned with a grin. "My father hates Catholics. Of course I've heard of Avignon. Just because I'm American doesn't mean..." "...That you are a barbarian. No, Henry. I suspect that perhaps you are far from being a barbarian." Room service arrived with the water and left after Gabrielle tipped the young waiter. Still Henry Naismith stood, looking out on the now dark void of the Pacific Ocean that lay beyond the glass walls. Gabrielle poured two glasses, grateful that someone had sent along several slices of lime. She walked over to the young man, and taking his arm moved him toward one of the suite's couches. "Please, Henry, please sit." Henry Naismith sat. He handled the proffered drink, took a sip, and looked discreetly at Gabrielle. She sat in a chair that she had moved closer to the sofa...closer to Henry. She sat with elegant composure, her legs crossed, the toe of her elevated shoe describing small circles in the air. It was the first time Henry Naismith had seen her in her entirety, and he was again struck by the breathless beauty of this woman. He could feel all the world drawing into tight focus, the center of his worldview drawn tightly into the waiting depths of Gabrielle Rousseau's fathomless eyes. "What is it, Henry?" Gabrielle asked. "What is this look?" With evident concern she moved closer to the young man. "I'm not sure I can put into words what it is I feel when I look at you. To say that you are to me the most beautiful woman I have ever met, no, ever seen...that doesn't really seem to be the point. But you take my breath away. I don't know you, but that too hardly seems relevant. I look at you and I see my feelings...they become clear to me...I see my feelings. Does that make sense? Perhaps it is simply an expression of my desire for you, but when I look into your eyes something within me stops. Time stops. Time. Or perhaps...I don't know, maybe there's something eternal...a cycle. I don't know. But I have never, and I mean this from the depths of my soul, never felt like this before." He took her in again...the strawberry blond hair, the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, the luminous blue-green eyes. She uncrossed her legs; her stockings rubbed together, made a swishing sound as they touched, the sound drawing his eyes to her legs. Henry Naismith was then simply lost within the overwhelming beauty of Gabrielle Rousseau's legs, the flare of her calves, the height of the arches of her feet, the classic femininity of her pumps. Gabrielle Rousseau leaned back into her chair, and slowly lifted her left leg, placed it gently on top of Henry Naismith's right thigh. A subtle charge seemed to pass between these two people. The cycle had begun. Unknowing...lost. There was in that moment a pure measure of the eternal circle of life. Stardust...rebirth. Is it a categorical imperative that paradigms define the collective unconscious? Being...and becoming. Henry took Gabrielle's foot in his hand and softly caressed it, feeling the structure of her foot, moving his hand around her ankle and up her lower leg. He closed his eyes, wanting in the core of his being to memorize every touch, every scent of what was unfolding around him. He - with the lightest touch of his fingertips - gently arced his hands around her leg, the silk of her stockings imparting an almost orgasmic tingling in his fingertips. He slid down onto the floor, and supporting her leg, he kissed the side of her foot. He became lost in the leather-scent of the bone colored pump. He worked his tongue over her arch, breathing in the scent of her skin, as he massaged his hands into the muscles of her leg. Gabrielle at first looked at Henry as he lovingly tongued her foot, then her head arced back, her breathing increased, and she lost herself in the intensity of this young man's ardor. Her finger tips bore into the arms of her chair. Lost. She pulled herself out of her desire for a moment, and looking at Henry, she asked him to go into the bedroom. In a total daze, Henry moved away from Gabrielle's intoxicating skin, and sat looking at her - his breathing deep, sweat again lining his brow. "I don't want this to ever stop," he said, tears welling up in his eyes. Unknowing. Gabrielle came to him, placed an outstretched finger over his lips, and with the barest tilt of her head she gently hushed him to silence. Looking into the young man's eyes, she said, "Things are seldom as they seem, dear Henry. But this is a special moment, no? Perhaps this time shall live within us forever." Reaching down to him, she once again asked him to go to the bedroom. Henry walked into the room and went to the bed. "Take off your clothes," Gabrielle commanded gently. She took the clothing from Henry and folded the items neatly, pausing to smell the shirt. She turned and walked to the bed and directly knelt between Henry's legs, taking his penis deep into her mouth. He grew rapidly under the influence of her tongue, the light biting sensation as she teased his crown, the violent spasms that accompanied her fingernails as they raked across his balls. Reaching his full size, he smiled as he watched her struggling to accommodate his substantial girth in her mouth. Never missing a beat, she twisted her hand in a jerking motion under her mouth, spit and pre-cum building at an incredible rate, pooling on his pubic hair. Gabrielle worked on Henry's penis with a growing sense of awe. 'This boy is huge,' she thought as she swirled her tongue across and around the bulging crown of his cock. She took his sack in one hand and tickled it, with her other hand she began to lightly tickle his anus, all the while increasing the pace of her sucking. She was in her idea of heaven, a young man on her bed, his penis in her mouth, the anticipation of the coming flood driving her to ever greater need. Careful not to injure with her long fingernails, she slid one finger into Henry's puckered hole, and moved her other hand to circle the base of his shaft. As her pace quickened, she slid a second finger into Henry's ass and dug the fingernails of her other hand into the base of his shaft. Henry thrust to meet her blows, and Gabrielle felt the head of his' penis begin to twitch and swell. Moans soon spilled into the air, gentle and slow at first but quickly building in intensity. Gabrielle marveled at the amount of pre-cum the boy had spilled, giving more pre-cum than most men would spew when cuming. Suddenly, Henry's back arced and went rigid, an enormous flood poured into Gabrielle's waiting mouth, soon followed by twitching spurts of thick, ropey cum. She continued to swirl her tongue around the head of his cock as she gently withdrew her finger from his anus. Still cum continued to spurt; Gabrielle swallowed as much as she could as quickly as she could, not wanting to miss one drop of the young man's seed. She jacked his dick with her hands as she sucked voraciously on the still hard cock. Suddenly spent, Henry moved to caress Gabrielle. He put his head in her lap and looked up into her now sad eyes. He wanted to say it, say to this woman that he loved her. It was stupid, pathetic, immature. It was overwhelming, wrenching, and very real. "Gabrielle," he said. "I need you to listen to..." Again Gabrielle placed a finger over the young man's lips as she hushed him. "Remember," she said, "things in this life are seldom what they seem. In time you will see this, know this. We are what we are." With these words she carefully placed the young man's head on a pillow and stood up. She walked across the bedroom, carefully keeping her back to the recumbent form. She slowly unbuttoned her linen jacket and the silk blouse beneath. A white bustier remained. She placed her jacket and blouse on a dressing chair, and reached around to unsnap the catch on the rear of her skirt. She then pulled down the zipper that ran down the back of the skirt and let it fall to her ankles. The young man rolled onto his side and with eager anticipation thought of what was to come in this night. He drank in the form of Gabrielle Rousseau, loved the essence of her being. The Second Coming All that remained for Gabrielle Rousseau to remove were her undergarments and her shoes. She stood with her back to the young man, resplendent in bustier, garter belt, panties, stockings, and shoes. With studied indifference Gabrielle Rousseau shifted her hips and slipped the panties down her legs. She stepped out of them as they crumpled to the floor, and let out a barely perceptible sigh. Gabrielle Rousseau turned to face the young man, and took a step toward him. In the blinding moment of this truth, the young man in an instant focused on the semi-erect cock that hung between Gabrielle Rousseau's legs, and in a furious instant was across the room. With violent momentum, his arms went for Gabrielle's armpits; he grasped loose flesh and lifted her from the ground and continued driving forward toward the bedroom wall. Gabrielle did not resist, she only looked deeply into Henry Naismith's burning eyes. He slammed Gabriel Rousseau's limp body into the wall with surprising force, then drove a fist into the woman's soft stomach. Gabriel Rousseau exhaled sharply, but remained otherwise passive. Henry Naismith opened his hand and with all the force he could muster slapped Gabrielle Rousseau hard across the face. The half-naked woman slid to the floor, gasping for air, tears blending with eye-makeup now running freely down her stinging face. The young man dressed hurriedly and returned to the slouched form. He balled his fist and raised it to strike, but a shattered impulse tore at his humanity, and he looked down on the fragile form beneath him. He lowered his face to hers and with tortured contempt stared at the vast ruin before him. "How could you do this? Why?" he spoke with nauseous contempt. The woman simply raised her hand to the man's face and gently stroked it. He could not look her in the eyes as he stood to leave. The young man walked to the door, and with pleading guilt in his voice screamed one last time at the woman. "Just what the fuck are you?" His voice tore through the vacant silence of the suite. He opened the door, and stepping into the corridor which had so recently seemed eternally full of promise, closed the door gently and walked away. In an empty voice full of hope the young woman said simply, "I am what I am." She looked at the empty form of the door, and wept uncontrollably as she doubled over in brutal pain. * Part II In the anguished days that followed, Henry Naismith quietly went with his parents to the Arizona Memorial and to pick pineapples. He stood in roiling water and took surfing lessons with his father, and he sat talking with his mother about her garden as she had her hair done . He played gin rummy in the hotel's cardroom with the geriatric set, and thought seriously about taking up shuffleboard.. He took his meals at his parents table, something that he had not done in years and something that, quite frankly, shocked all in equal measure. In Henry Naismith's quietude there dwelt an ancient loneliness which he was loath to confront. He looked upon his mother's beauty now as something suspect, and saw in his father's unrepentant competitiveness a core of devastating isolation. Bereft of his comfortable outlook, he failed to look at the women in the hotel, his drive to conquest crushed under the withering crush of his internal doubts. The beach, where mile after mile of certain stimulation called out in primal rhythms, was now silent - dead. He felt a void, an emptiness born of failed expectation, he felt abandoned within the certain realization that he had met a vital life-test, and his humanity had been found grievously wanting. It was in Henry Naismith's quiet search for some resolution to the dilemma of Gabrielle Rousseau that he came to understand something totally unexpected about life. In their headlong rush to embrace love, men and women cannot come to terms with love until they recognize and confront their acceptance of hate. In that simple way, he reasoned, love and hate are bound together in a continuous process of becoming and being, and in that deadly matrix fear, ignorance, and self-righteousness flourish when one's acceptance of pure love is rejected. Lost within his geriatric shuffle, Henry Naismith walked within the quicksand of his total realization that he had been, and was, a complete ass. With but two days left in his holiday, Henry Naismith decided to rejoin the human race, guided perhaps by his newfound understanding that he had to confront this failing of his humanity. He had the time to himself as his father had political commitments, and ever the politician's wife, his mother left as well to go on various fence-mending tours with the congressman. The beach beckoned, but in a different voice. No siren's song called through swirling mists. Coming in from a long walk on the beach in the middle of the afternoon he passed the lounge - that lounge - in which he had met Gabrielle. He walked in, took a quick look around and, on seeing no one, chuckled to himself and walked off to the elevator. He had no idea if Gabrielle was still in the hotel, or for that matter, still alive. He felt a bitter lack of resolution when he thought of her, however, and knew that if he got the chance he would try to explain himself, his recent journey. An apology, he felt, would be an empty gesture. He came down to the lobby again on his way to dinner, and chanced to drop into the lounge once again. In the off chance, he reasoned, that she might return to the scene of the crime. And she had. Henry Naismith first noticed the strawberry blond hair. Not at the bar, but in a booth at the far end of the lounge. Facing the beach, her back to the comings and goings in the lounge, she sat alone with a small salad and an iced tea perched precariously on a pile of spreadsheets and file folders. He felt unsure of himself for a moment, unsure of her motives should he appear before her. He went to the bar and picked up a Mai Tai. As if the simple cliche of a drink could restore some sense of propriety, he looked at the drink with frank contempt. He walked to her booth and without stopping sat across from her on the far side of the booth. He winced as he made out the fading remains of the welt he had planted on the side of her down-turned face. She made no move to recognize his presence, rather she seemed genuinely absorbed with the facts and figures arrayed before her. He sat for a moment, and decided to speak up when she dropped her pencil and abruptly closed her eyes. She rubbed her temples, her jaw; it was obvious she was still feeling his "emotional outburst" in a brutally direct way. Her eyes were still closed as she rolled her head to the right and left, extended her neck back as far as she could, and hunched her shoulders. She rubbed her closed eyes; they watered as she rubbed them. "My God in Heaven," Henry Naismith quietly cried. "What have I done to you." With that, Gabrielle's head seemed to sway, then she brought her eyes down until she looked squarely into Henry Naismith's grimacing face. A faint smile crossed her face, she nodded her head faintly. "Ah. So here is my dear friend Henry," she spoke slowly, quietly. "Perhaps now he has had time to think and now wishes to kill me, no?" "No."'How can I meet her gaze?' "You wish then to ridicule me, humiliate me. Perhaps just to scream at me?" "No."'If I deny her eyes I deny my humanity.' "So, what is it my dear friend Henry has to say to the poor wounded Gabriel, or should I say Gabrielle? I was named for an angel, you know; a fallen angel perhaps, but an angel nonetheless." Her ironic countenance eased, replaced by the gentle smile and kind eyes Henry Naismith had been first mesmerized by. "What, Henry? What?" And for Henry Naismith the effect was again instantaneous. His chest constricted, his breathing became difficult. Time seemed to evaporate into meaninglessness. He started to speak, then stopped, conflicting emotions visibly dancing across his face. He remained completely captivated by the total femininity of her being, the oceanic compassion that swept across her face. He began to talk to her, talk of his empty meanderings through the shallow, almost empty corridors of his soul. He explained his almost total sense of betrayal on feeling her secret need. He cautiously crept through the shoals and reefs of his violence, feeling in himself an almost total cowardice. He approached his thoughts on the dualities of love and hate with real fear. Fear of knowing where this course could take him. 'So,' he thought to himself, 'we cannot come to terms with love until we recognize and confront our acceptance of hate. If I have found love, and cannot accept that love because of the hate that lingers within my mind, can I ever truly love? Will my life, like my father's and my mother's, stand as a vainglorious monument to the desolation of the spirit that grows in the fertile soil of hate's garden?'Henry Naismith fought the growing conflict; he began to openly weep. "I was going to tell you that I love you," he said. "Oh, when was that? Before you saw... me?" "Yes," he said. "Before. It was the simple realization... I am so ashamed of myself." "Oh? Ashamed? Of what? Of accepting the appearance of reality. Am I not a man twice your age? Did I not - rather successfully, I would say - try to seduce a much younger man? Take advantage of a young man's innocence? Did I not enjoy myself? Are you such a fool as to believe in love?" Gabriel's words stung Henry's soul to the core. He wept openly now. "How do you go through life? Do you, ah, are you a man, or a woman?" "Yes, I am." "Yes, you are...what?" "I am, dear Henry, what I am? I am what you see, not what you feel or believe. I am either that which you love, or that which you hate." "So. You enjoyed yourself? What did you enjoy? The success of your deception?" "No, dear friend, never a deception. What did I enjoy? The look in your eyes as you looked into mine. Mine...my eyes. Not a man's eyes or a woman's eyes. I enjoyed the possibility of love, when I know that for me love can never exist. And I very much enjoyed the way you responded...to me...physically. I have not dared to harbor the illusion that I will have a constant companion, a love that will last forever. But the thought of you, oh well, I can not dwell on the impossible." "Oh," Henry said. "Why not? Is it so hard to love?" "For you, dear Henry, perhaps love will be possible. In time. For me, I have walked upon love's precipice before, but I am not sure that I could relate to you the complexity of my feelings. With me, dear Henry, love is no simple thing." "Do you think that this was a simple thing? Are you blind?" he blurted. "So it is through your feelings for me," she continued through his interruption, "that you have come to feel the weight of the complexities that attend me. I have tried to love before, dear friend, and love has always failed me." She hesitated, gathered her strength. "I could once again believe in the power of prayer if I felt for just one moment in time that you could truly love me." Henry Naismith's lack of conviction fell like shattered rock on the scarred remnants of her being as he rocked within the flow of her words, bathed in the hidden warmth of her offer. "What I have done to you," he hesitated on the precipice, felt the swooning power of his vertigo building, "Could you ever love me?" She looked at the young man across from her, the vapid beauty of his youth transforming before her eyes with the strength of eternal resolve. She shrugged her shoulders, which caused her to wince from barely concealed pain. "Perhaps, sweet Henry. I can not believe that it is beyond even God's power to grant me the power to love. Free will? Can I choose to love you, Henry? I could try, I suspect. But I am so tired of pain." Henry Naismith looked at the assorted piles of paper on the tabletop. "So what it all this?" he asked. "I have been having problems with suppliers. I own a company that makes soap; many of the materials we use come from Polynesia. I must resolve a dispute, preserve the honor of my friends, create a compromise where all parties can walk away happily." "Oh, is that all," Henry said with mock sarcasm. "I thought surely you were off to save the world." "I would be content, dear Henry, to save your world." He felt the assault of her words throughout his being, he shivered in the enormity of her challenge. Gales of conflict seemed to gather around the crystal shards of his doubt, tear at the embers of his hatred. With no simple measure of resolve, Henry Naismith reached across the table and took Gabrielle Rousseau's hand in his. He looked deeply into her eyes for a fleeting moment, then stood up from the table. He started to walk away, but stopped, returned to her table. He saw the tears building in her eyes, the trembling of her lower lip. "Will you be in your room tonight?" he asked. "Yes, dear Henry. I must gather my belongings." "Are you leaving soon?" "Yes. Tomorrow." "I see," he said. And he did see, could now for the first time in his life see the utter truth of love ripping across Gabrielle Rousseau's wounded face. He bent to lightly kiss this woman on her forehead, then turned and walked out of the lounge. * Part III Henry Naismith sat on a chaise lounge just off the beach, a glass of mineral water balanced on his knee. He watched the sun set through vast towering clouds pregnant with rain; listened to children play in the nearby lagoon-shaped pool. The intent rustle of the sensuous tradewind blew through the palm trees high overhead, the subtle warmth of the breeze lifting his hair in errant flows. Henry Naismith felt alive, totally alive. It was with heightened senses that he listened to the sunlight, watched the currents of wind as they pushed their way into the vast machinery of life. He looked down at his watch, noted the hour, felt the butterflies of his doubt banging away in his gut. 'There is no more room for doubt in my life," he thought. He balanced the hopes and dreams of his parent's aspirations for his life against the dreadful consequences the choice to make Gabrielle a part of his life would have for his family. It was an overwhelming choice. And despite his intense attraction to Gabrielle, he could with complete certainty say that he was not attracted to men. Women fascinated him, every little nuance, the emotional vagaries a puzzle to be worked out. Watching a man walk along the beach filled him with nothing; watching a beautiful woman walk by was cause for celebration. And then he would think again of Gabrielle and this peculiar nether world she inhabited. But whatever world Gabrielle had staked out for herself, it remained a mystery; did he want to join this woman in her journey? As he thought and rethought these complex issues, a simple realization would hit him squarely in the pit of his stomach. Like an echo, the force of Gabrielle's being would penetrate all his doubt, render it meaningless in its breathless rush to completion. In such a state, Henry Naismith rose and walked back into the hotel. He stood before her door, listened intently but heard nothing. He tapped lightly on the door. Nothing. Several moments passed. He thought he heard a motion inside the door, and jumped a bit when he heard the chain coming off the door. The door opened enough to admit Henry Naismith, total darkness beckoned. Without hesitation he walked into the room. He could see a candle on the bedside table in the other room, but little else. A hand, Gabrielle's hand, took his in turn and led him to the balcony. Two chairs faced each other, waiting. Henry helped Gabrielle into a chair; she seemed unsteady, and she wrapped herself tightly in a blanket. She shivered slightly. Henry took off his jacket and draped it over Gabrielle's thighs. He sat down across from her, leaning ever so slightly forward. So far not a word had passed between them. She took his hand again and held it to her chest. After a moment she raised his hand to her mouth and kissed it, forgiving his hand its role in her pain. She took his index finger into her mouth and gently sucked on it, playfully nibbled on his fingernail. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he watched her mouth at play, felt a stirring in his loins. She lightly clamped her teeth on the proffered finger, and with tongue swirling to keep it wet, raked her teeth up and down the finger. In the distance Henry could make out a symphony of ragged lightning bolts in the vast thunderclouds. Were they an echo of the lightning that danced inside his head? Again, she took her foot - this time bare - and placed it on his lap. Her foot slid forward this time, however, and the sole of her foot came to rest squarely on his cock. She leaned back, removing his finger from her mouth, and began to slowly massage the growing cock through Henry's clothing with her foot. Henry too leaned back, released his inhibitions, felt the contradictions within his arousal, and gave in to the warmth that spread from his groin like a wildfire. Gabrielle lifted her other foot, and placed it directly in front of Henry's face. He again supported her foot with his hands, and gently took one of her smaller toes into his mouth. He swirled his tongue around each toe, and he marveled in their cool, clean smoothness. He leaned forward a bit and ran his tongue slowly up the bottom of her foot, tracing little swirls and eddies across the smooth contours of her delicate arch. He heard her hands grasp the slight arms of the patio chairs, heard her mutter "merde" under her breath. He laughed gently, and took in the soft sweet scent of her foot. When he was certain he could stand no more, he removed Gabrielle's foot from his lap, and carefully lowered her other leg to the patio floor. He stood and held out his hands. Clutching the blanket tightly around her, Gabrielle slipped Henry's hands in hers and let him lead her to the bedroom. Holding her gently, he lowered her blanket-bound form onto the bed. He removed his shoes and his necktie, and lay beside her. He slipped an arm under her neck and rolled over to face her. There in the candlelight was her face, awash in the amber glow of some ancient past. He bathed in the light of distant rhythms, soaked in the radiance of her eyes, felt his soul cry for release from the opium of custom and tradition. Her eyes, her face, were the essence of the feminine. The beauty of her face, her form, held all other thought in abeyance. The contradictions welled up from deep within, however, colliding with the reality of her beauty, the ledges of his uncertainty, the unexpected horror of his assault, and of her pain. With a cathartic shudder he burst into tears and buried his face in her soft hair. He was racked with deep sobbing, his body shook in uncontrolled release. As he fought for control he breathed into her ear, barely getting out his pleas for her forgiveness, his sorrow for her wounds, for causing her such pain. She pulled his head from her neck, and holding his head in two hands, slowly began to kiss and lick the tears from his face. This only produced more pronounced sobbing, and she held his head more tightly in her hands, kissed his face with ever more tenderness. Gabrielle's mouth penetrated the young man's grief, and awoke in him a ravenous passion. Not wanting to hurt her further, he gently responded to her mouth with his. Their lips lightly sought out each others, contact was brief. She opened her mouth slightly on one kiss, let her tongue slip forward to the edges of her teeth, ready to let Henry in. His lips found her open mouth, and he slightly parted his, letting the tip of his tongue find it's way to hers. As their mouths opened, each bathed in the warm breath of the other, hand moved gently into hand, soul danced with soul. The Second Coming She broke contact and rolled away and free of the blanket. She bent over Henry's legs and unbuckled his belt, released his pants, and pulled them to the floor. His boxer shorts flew across the room in short order, landing on the television set. She unbuttoned his crisply starched white Polo shirt, and tossed it to a nearby chair. She quickly took Henry's cock into her mouth, this time with total ferocity. Her mouth danced on his cock, the same flood of pre-cum began to flow. She took a palm full of the fluid and smeared it over her ass, then raised herself over his now fully erect cock. She gently maneuvered his penis onto the entrance to her anus and in one swift motion impaled herself mercilessly on his cock. They both gasped in wild rapture. Gabrielle took Henry's hands and placed them on her breasts. She could make out Henry's appreciation and awe as he commented on her breast's perfect shape. She was lost now in her lust, however, and began to alternately grind her pelvis in wild gyroscopic motions or ride up and down Henry's massive cock. Her eyes closed, she was concentrating on the sensations that grew from her belly outward when she felt something new, a pleasure somewhat unexpected. Henry's hands had found her penis, and he was now stroking it vigorously. He began to thrust his cock into her ass with more urgency, and Gabrielle willed herself to return to the here and now. She raised up from Henry's cock and in one swift motion scooped a massive wad of pre-cum from the tip of his cock and wiped it gently over his anus. She lowered her face to his sack and took a ball into her mouth and gently sucked on it as she worked a finger slowly into Henry's tightly clenched asshole. She spit onto the hole, and worked another finger in. As the sphincter relaxed she worked her fingers deeper into the silken chute; presently she cupped her hand and slid the four fingers of her forehand into Henry's anus. With her free hand she began to slowly jerk his cock. As Henry began to fade in and out, she removed her fingers and positioned herself over his writhing form, and in another swift stroke, plunged her cock deep into Henry's bowels. His eyes wild, she resumed jerking his cock furiously as she piled ever deeper into his ass. She could feel his cock in her hands growing as her own orgasm built with unusually rapid intensity. She concentrated on the rhythm of her thrusts, building to the perfect pitch, and sank into the bliss of her own impending orgasm. "I want you shoot it in me," she heard him say. "I want you in me. I want you to love me. Shoot it in me, now!" This sent her into a completely wild state. With cataclysmic intensity her orgasm built in the small of her back, spread into her groin, then down her legs. She had never in her life felt anything so massive, or so wondrous. Her thrusts peaked at a furious pace, and her orgasm exploded, sending more cum than she could ever remember having shot deep into Henry's thrusting ass. She was aware only of drifting, her hands holding Henry's ankles high over her head. Through this haze she gradually became aware that Henry was furiously jerking his own cock, and that her own cock, far from limp, was of its own accord beginning to pump again into Henry's now sloppy asshole. Her balls began to slap his ass as she lost complete control of herself and erupted into a frenzy of thrusting motion. Henry's wailing brought her momentarily back to this world, and she looked down in time to watch his first arc of cum fly up over her head toward the headboard. She bent her head down just in time to catch several ropey blasts with her mouth. These she rolled in her mouth, savoring the taste, the texture. As she let his huge load begin to slide down her throat she felt her second orgasm build with incredible urgency. As she drove her cock ever deeper into Henry's ass her body arced again in complete spasm; she released her second load deep into Henry's now completely wrecked asshole. She bent down to quickly suck some of her cum from his ass, and was surprised to feel her mouth fill rapidly with her cum. She crawled up to Henry's waiting face, and thrust her mouth into his. It seemed as though their tongues danced for hours. * Part IV He sat on her balcony, staring up into the heavens. Despite the lights of the city, he could make out the faint fuzzy form of the Orion Nebula. His old friend from childhood, the nebula was a constant in his life. Now he looked up with a mixture of resolve and uncertainty. It felt as if all ties with his youth were severed, as if his parent's hopes and dreams were little more than scenery. He sat very still, the cool tradewind not unpleasant on his nearly naked form. He wore his dinner jacket, nothing else. The biggest questions in his head remained. What does she want...are we ships that pass in the night? What do I want? Am I ready to turn my back on my family, my friends, and declare myself an outcast? A light flicked on in the bedroom, and he heard Gabrielle going to the bathroom. Another shock, he thought, my girlfriend pees standing up. He shook his head as a sly grin came to his face. She called his name, and asked him to come back to the bedroom. She sat on the bed, pensive yet radiant. If anything, she seemed to have become more girlish, and she seemed happy. This made Henry Naismith very happy indeed. On the bed before her were travel documents, her ticket on Air France from Los Angeles to Paris, her ticket from Honolulu to Los Angeles. She was, so to speak, laying her cards on the table. "So, Henry," she said. "Yes. So, indeed." "What have we here. Shall I leave now. Give you a kiss on the cheek and say goodbye." "I'd be happy to listen to your thoughts on the matter, but to me things are very clear." "Indeed. Please tell me of this clarity. This would interest me," she said. "Yes, this would be of true interest to me. But let me tell you something before you begin." On his assent, she continued. "I am 41 years old. Make no mistake, Henry, there are profound differences between us. I will never leave France. I am a woman, and I am a man. I live as a woman, I have since I was a very young age. This is not a confusion for me." Her accent was markedly more french, her English was somehow getting more disjointed. She nodded as if to reassure herself. "But I know something very important. Love is very rare indeed. What has passed between us has been very special. Nothing like this, this tenderness in me, has ever happened to me. I have lived my life as a realist. Some would say a cynic. I think I am smart enough to know that this thing you and I have shared, this will never happen to me, perhaps us, again. We have a start, you and I, but from here I must listen from you. To you. Please, now tell me of your clarity." Henry Naismith examined his nudity, ridiculous as it was cloaked in his black cashmere dinner jacket. Looking up into Gabrielle's eyes, he mustered his courage and began. "First," he began, "I must apologize to you for my foul behavior. You did nothing to deserve such violent contempt. Second. You have completely turned my world inside out. I have abandoned every cherished notion that I ever had over the past few days. I could never in my wildest dreams have imagined or conjured up someone like you. I must repeat to you what I said before: You take my breath away. Third. The thought of being away from you is the most painful thing I have ever contemplated in my life. The thought of not going to sleep beside you at night, of not waking up beside in the morning, fills me with a painful hollowness that I am not sure I could endure. Fourth. I love you. I completely and totally love you." He looked at her directly in the eyes. "Am I clear. I love you." There were tears running down the woman's cheeks, but she nodded her understanding. She opened a file folder and handed the young man two airline ticket envelopes. "Would you please come home with me?" she asked. The tickets were in his name. But, how? The young man looked at her, looked at the circle of love that was completing itself before their very eyes. He reached into the jacket, pulled out a small black ring box, and flipped open the lid. The woman took in a sharp breath. He took out a simple white gold band and placed it in the upturned palm of her open hand, and closed her fingers around the unbroken circle. "I will stand by your side forever, Gabrielle. I will fly home with you. I ask only one thing. I ask only that you love me forever. I ask that you love me until the stars vanish from the heavens." The woman fell into the young man's arms. Her feelings of fear and loneliness withered in the pure light of Henry's acceptance of love, his decision to abandon fear, and ignorance, and hatred. She looked up through her tears into his eyes. No further words were needed, really. She felt new. She felt unafraid. She felt unashamed. "I love you, Henry Henry," she said. But he was already curled up on the bed beside her, deeply asleep, a faint smile etched on his face.