For many days, Catherine found her mind drifting back endlessly to this conversation. In fact, it was a bit of a reality check when one morning in a rather unusual non-‐sequitur her husband asked “We’re not having any more kids, right?” seemingly wanting to dispel any fears that the recent marked increase in sexual activity in the house was not hiding some dark purpose on her part. This had the perverse effect of imposing upon him a period of abstinence which he misinterpreted as punishment for his remark whereupon he proceeded to convince himself and then her that if she did want more children he would be thrilled and if she didn’t, well he would be thrilled too, and generally made an ass of himself. Catherine did not want more children, she simply wanted to be able to observe him during his little death, but she could only tell him the first part.
Michel for his part alternated between mild bemusement and pronounced amusement. The bemusement stemmed from the realization that it would be rather difficult for a woman to find out what pleasure is like for a man. Straight men do not talk about sexual pleasure. They have been known to talk about sexual acts, over and over until they are blue in the face, but not about their pleasure, and not even to themselves. Michel remember this odd episode in high-‐school. They had just learned the definition of the words endothermic and exothermic in chemistry, and having pondered them a while, he asked a friend in the course of casual conversation if he’d noticed that ejaculation seemed, as counterintuitive as that may be, to be endothermic at the level of the balls. “Impossible” exclaimed his friend dismissively which surprised him into repeating the experiment with several friends with similar results. Why did these young, healthy and sexually active heterosexual young men not touch their own balls during an orgasm? To start with, they were clearly missing something though admittedly it is a delicate matter requiring some care lest some very unpleasant sensations occur, but there was clearly pleasure to be tapped into there, in holding them just right, in a loose fist, during the repeated cannon fire of the orgasm. But secondly it implied limits to their self-‐awareness that he did not feel bound to, and this still amazed him. Were men supposed to assume the gift of orgasm as being sacred, being wholly formed, as if god-‐given and never to be questioned or studied? Was this the one area where men were not supposed to distinguish themselves from the primate brethren? He soon retraced this thought given that bonobos appear to be much more in tune with their sexuality than that. The pronounced amusement stemmed from visualizing Catherine pleasuring her husband every single night just to watch him ‘die’.
The growing bond between them was fed by the pairing of his joyful openness and of her willingness to follow anywhere he led because the places he wanted to go to were always wonderful, surprising. She shared openly with him in reciprocal bliss.
“Dearest Michel, Friday evening finds me gardening in the backyard when my daughter unexpectedly announces that she is going out for a few hours. Carpe diem -‐ seize the day, or in this instance a few hours. The evening is warm and humid and I am very grateful for the air conditioning that greets me as I re-‐enter the house. Before ascending the stairs, I seek a cold drink in the form of a frozen daiquiri (I keep a container in the freezer for just such occasions). The icy mix is heaped into a martini glass. I grasp the stem and carry it up to my bedroom along with the front section of the newspaper. While the ceiling fan lazily swirls overhead, I remove all of my clothes and linger a moment before the large mirror. Au naturel, glass in hand, bed in background. My skin is cool and slightly damp from the outdoor air. I pull back the sheets and stretch out to my full length. I begin to relax as soft jazz and the chilled rum work their magic.
Imagine now that you have taken the place of my husband. You come into the room and find me reading the newspaper. I am totally nude except for the paper, which has been strategically placed to beckon you closer. You stand by my bedside and begin to remove your own clothing. It is no surprise to me to find you fully erect. You slowly remove the pages from my hands and gaze hungrily at the sight of my naked body. Starting at my toes, you let your fingers gently travel along the side of my legs, my hips, my torso, skimming the very sensitive area around my breasts, up over my shoulders, to my neck and lastly my face. I shiver in delight. I roll onto my stomach so that my mouth is level with your cock. You stand absolutely still -‐ waiting expectantly for the warm and slippery touch of my mouth. I feel and hear your sigh as you allow the resulting sensations to wash over you.
Do you think we might arrange a few minutes to talk this week before the week-‐ end?
Yours,
Catherine” She very much appreciated the way he weaved their relationship through their correspondence, as if composing an ornate and delightful piece of chamber music, both of them weaving counterpoint, occasionally introducing new themes while using leitmotifs for depth.
“Dearest Catherine
allow me to continue satisfying my obligations with the following piece.
We start out sitting at a small table, sipping a little champagne perhaps, I clothed, you not. I’ve laid on the table the soon-‐to-‐be familiar purple velvet sleeve with the black satin blindfold in it. I’m in no rush for you to put it on as we chat, but eventually you are ready. The game is one of contrast and pleasure. Two simple objects…
…ten short contacts with your skin, just strategically placed. The point of the blindfold is to increase the intensity of the sensations by making them unpredictable. The goal is to see how still you stay throughout the exercise...
… and therefore the challenge is to see how well I read you. That you do not know what the two objects are might have allowed us a guessing game had I not chosen the obvious.
The first contact is a fleeting and soft caress to your right shoulder blade, from top to bottom, just a few inches. For a moment you think of fabric perhaps but the second contact makes you realize it can’t be, a gentle rolling of something definitely very soft down your inner left thigh, but it is so close to tickling you that staying still takes away the fleeting sensation.
Third contact. A yelp for sure, but do you move? In the small of your back, that sacred spot, the piercing sensation of something very… cold! And the drop of water that rolls down the middle to nest itself at the top of the opening… a tell-‐tale sign, really. Yes, an ice cube.
Fourth contact, the ice again, this time on your left nipple, short still. Fifth contact, the right nipple, but this time, the ice cube circles it several times, leaving it gleaming in a thin sheet of ice water..
Sixth contact, something cups and presses against your left nipple, still numb from the cold, moving in a very soft circular motion. I bring it closer to your nose and the unmistakable aroma of a rose wafts to your nostrils. Seventh contact, the ice cube at the base of your neck, briefly, eighth contact, the rose against your forehead, back and forth, slowly.
; Ninth contact, the ice cube, slowly down your spine, from neck to buttocks. Tenth contact. My hand between your legs, palm cupping your groin, fingers wet and cold… but not for long! Yours,
Michel”
He liked to turn her compliments about his prose into a discussion of the references that so easily drifted into it. Movies, books, music, stories and legends from around the world inspired them both and sometimes it was she who surprised him with something he did not know.
“Dearest Catherine:
Your short day and the time difference will not allow me to do justice to the medium, but I wanted to confirm your suspicion about the Mickey Rourke flick. I am off to the Wednesday edition of the local farmer's market: all 'organic', where the best chefs come to stock up. I haven't been there in ages (not usually available on Wednesday mornings...). If you write back (I am hopeful, of course), do forgive me if you do not see my reply until your return from the holiday break.
Yours,
Michel”
“Dearest Michel,
That sounds like a wonderful way to spend your morning. It makes me think of Isabel Allende's book 'Aphrodite' which is filled with stories about the love of food and the food of love. I would highly recommend it if you have not already read it. As a matter of fact, I think I might have to delve into it again myself.
Yours,
Catherine”
And so as he read Allende, she watched 9½ weeks. This of course led to rather feverish sex with her husband, as she had had to watch the movie in his company, and it was after this that she started to feel a subtle shift which at first only puzzled her mildly. During her first affair already there had been a marked change in her marital sex life, well, a dramatic increase mainly. But this had not been an unqualified source of pleasure mainly because it was in good part inspired by a thorough misunderstanding of her husband’s motivations and reactions to her sudden advances after years of neglect. This time, however, there was not only a renewed increase in the frequency of marital sex, but also an undeniable change in the quality. She was finding out that there can be many distinct layers of inhibition carefully wrapped around one’s quest for pleasure in sex, and this of course by discovering that she had shed yet another: she was now letting free reign to her curiosity and fascination with her husband’s body. Or, rather, a man’s body. She was not in any way shedding the natural need for the greatest intimacy with a sexual partner as a prerequisite for the act, but absorbing the fact that there were two men in her life. Michel often took care to distinguish between himself and his gender as a whole, but because of their very tenure, his descriptions of male pleasure carried a universal tone to them which she inevitably projected onto her husband. Erection was a case in point. Since her husband rarely if ever initiated things, she had the luxury of planning her sexual encounters with him and varied the approach so as to observe his erection under different conditions. She came to him after his shower, after dinner, woke him in the middle of the night, and she unashamedly observed him and his erections to his obviously great delight. She wanted to master the subtleties of endowing the final inch, even if only on her circumcised husband; she wanted to decide if she would do it or have her husband do it for himself, and other such variations. Much of her experimentation amounted to delineating what was caused by the man in him and where the difference between he and Michel laid. And as things progressed, she was more and more interested in the pleasure that she was giving him rather than in giving him pleasure, just as she grew more interested in the pleasures that he did or did not give her rather than in him giving her pleasure.
“Sweetest friend, To end our weekend, my husband and I went out for Sunday breakfast and a walk along the canal. We decided that there was still time to get home for a little ‘morning delight’ before our daughter returned from her part-‐time job. The sun floods our bedroom. It is so easy to shed my clothing in this warm weather. (Just think of what I might be doing if I lived in California!) My tanned limbs contrast nicely with the pale smoothness of my breasts, belly and buttocks. We stand naked before the mirror and I turn my head to gaze upon the sight of my long, lean body pressed up against him. I kneel at his feet and begin to slowly lick his cock. It needs little encouragement.
After a time I lead him to the bed. His mouth tends to my breasts while his fingers begin to stroke my opening. I gently push my husband, who slides down the bed to bury his face in my cunt. I believe I have already told you how much I enjoy this particular action. And here is where you come into the story. You are watching from a nearby chair -‐ an avid student, eager to learn all you can about how to pleasure me. My gaze moves from him to you and back again, seeing myself as you are seeing me, my legs spread wide, my hands across my chest, fingers caressing my nipples. I know that your cock is hard and throbbing, as is his. I think about how you will take me when it is your turn and I can hold back no longer. Waves of pleasure swamp me as I surrender to the orgasm.
Yours,
Catherine”
Michel clearly had some understanding of the magnitude, at least, of the effect he had on her but felt no shame or guilt given how much she affected him. He did know that the art of creating fiction when shared yields fantasies that easily enmesh themselves with the reality shared with those around us. He had read Stendhal and others who were enthralled by the sensual dimension that could accompany such escapades and marveled at how lucky he was to experience such things. He continued to take her places, sometimes ahead of one of her own trips with her husband, injecting himself into her daily life even more.
“Dearest Catherine,
A slight change in setting for today. Something more akin to where you will be going next week, but further away, to avoid the crowds. Not a beach in Mexico but an island, in the pacific. One of those little islands in the Marquesas. We are walking on the beach, hand in hand, naked. It is a small cove nested at the foot of the steep jungle-‐laden hillside. We arrive at the northern edge of the cove where a palm lazily leans over the gentle waves, almost horizontal, its trunk at shoulder height. We have been here before, and I fall a little behind as you reach the tree and position yourself, bent at the hips, hands on the trunk now slightly above your head, legs slightly apart. I just stand there for a moment, taking it all in: your back, your buttocks, your legs and that spot I so like, behind your knees. The afternoon light is playing in your hair, and I would just stand there and stare if it weren't for the insistent wiggle of your butt reminding me to my obligations.
I stroke myself into a full erection as I gently massage your buttocks and vagina with the palm of my hands. You are wet and ready. I just love that little stifled yelp when I finally penetrate you, as if it were a tremendous surprise every time... There's something magical to cupping your breasts in my hands while I fuck you from behind, taking your nippl
es between thumbs and forefingers, gently squeezing, turning. I close my eyes and listen: the surf, birds, your heavy breathing. I caress your belly, your back, with an occasional loving caress to your backside, and I ride you a little harder, the back and forth in you more persistent, more abrupt. But already I let out a sigh of surprise: I am on my way. I pull out, you turn and kneel. I burry my fingers in your hair as you take me in your mouth just in time for me to explode. Soon enough the orgasm is complete and each of its aftershocks is pounding me deeper into the state of torpor that must follow. I crumple to the sand. You are laughing and lay yourself next to me. I embrace your body with mine using up the last bit of energy remaining, my body shaking uncontrollably in spasms. This is bliss.
Yours always,
Michel”
She’d had of course the occasional fantasy about being with two men at once, but it had been upon occurrence only a fleeting thought not met with much real interest, but an object of curiosity. This was quite different. At first it was the presence of Michel in the room as she made love, but over time it changed. Not that she was taking on this very male trait of dissociating the act from the partner, but in fact she was, through her melding of the two facets of her life, substituting one partner for the other in the very act. The substitution was neither clear nor permanent nor even equal in intensity over time, sometimes changing from one moment to the next, and while it might be unjust to see this characterization as anything but a reflection of the law of averages, when the sex was good it was often at the very least dedicated to Michel.
The Pleasure of M Page 5
