What did I do? What would any sane person do in that situation? The cat fled, squealing as if all the legions of hell were after it. Perhaps the Inquisitors had been right about black cats. I shut the bedroom door, leaned against it, and waited. Then it beckoned.
It was definitely an it. When it wasn’t definitely a he, or a she. Have you ever, on a melting August afternoon, ignored your mom’s yells (“Close the fridge!”) and just stood there, basking in the tingle? The angel, it glowed. Only it glowed heat so hot it froze you — or maybe it was cold so cold it burned.
I stepped over to the bed. The sheets weren’t on fire or covered in ice. I was. The angel never said a word, although later I would have sworn it was singing hallelujahs the whole time. My roommate never heard a thing. The angel drew me down to her breasts, the long white feathers dissolving into rose–pink skin. No pores.
Later, when my clothes had disappeared with a brush of angel wings (they never did come back), I brushed my nipples against hers, only to find the feathers had come back. It wasn’t until I sat, impaled, that I noticed he had pointed teeth.
My roommate didn’t even hear my screams, as I rode the angel’s hard body, locked in an embrace of biting teeth and engulfing wings. I don’t know what angel semen does to human flesh — the angel shifted right after my orgasm, gone out of me as if it had never been there at all. The breasts disappeared and reappeared at will. The wings never changed, though.
Tired, I struggled not to fall asleep, and it grinned is first grin as I watched it slowly dissolve into a tacky plastic crucifix on a blue–bead rosary. Then the rosary dissolved too.
You figure out why it came. Maybe it fell in love, or it’s a new kind of ad campaign, or I’m going crazy, or Lucifer’s gonna approach me with a real sweet deal and all the angel slaves I want thrown into the bargain. Me, I have to go to work in the morning, and if it weren’t for the feather–shaped burn mark on my chest, I’d put it all down to a momentary psychotic episode and try not to stress too much. As is, I’m just waiting for the men in white coats or some clearer instructions.
If there’s a God watching over me, wanting something from me, then It’s going to have to be a lot more convincing to talk me into joining Its side. But if you see Sister Agnes anytime soon, tell her for me... nah, don’t tell her anything. I don’t think her universe could hold an angel like that one. I do have a bit more hope for a God who’d create a universe that does. Maybe that’s all It wanted.
Dreams of a Lover
she leaned back in the wooden chair against institution
green walls of the college library, staring out through glass
doors into the thundering night, and my struggling.
wrestling the door open I dripped my way inside, only to be
told ‘sorry, we’re closed, we just hadn’t locked up yet’ from?
one of the night guards sitting next to her smiling.
but she rescued me, with a promise that she would lock up ?
when she left and an explanation for me. she an english?
graduate student who worked at the library on saturday nights.
shivering she saw me, and made me take off sodden sneakers?
and sweatshirt in an empty corner, draped over rickety
chairs, careful not to damage books that were both our hearts.
she wore grey skirt and white poet’s shirt, though she wrote?
no poetry only criticism, with soft chinese slippers in blue–
green to match her eyes and gold dragons.
miraculously we matched sizes and she insisted I wear the
slippers as we walked through the overhanging rows and
she listened silent while I talked of love and literature.
hours later, rain had stopped but she had me keep the slippers
as I went out into a breaking blue–gold dawn to match her eyes
every sharp cobblestone clearly felt a reminder.
this morning I awoke to a blue–grey silk rose on my windowsill?
to match her eyes; I keep it in a glass case streaked with rain
and my memory is all red–gold dragon strands falling on me, burning.
the smell of old books and desire is the greatest aphrodisiac.
The Ongoing Adventures of Gorgeous Gracie
Chapter 1 — In which Gracie loses her job... but finds a friend.
Grace Fitzpatrick looked down her glasses at the student sitting in her office. It was difficult to maintain the proper distance and respect between herself and her college English students, but the prim outfits she wore and the glasses she didn’t need helped. At least she hoped so. She would need all the help she could get to retain her composure in front of this muscled football jock whose gaze kept drifting to her chest. She tried to hide them as much as possible, but Grace did have unusually large breasts, and there just wasn’t that much that she could do about them. She tried not to look down, hoping a button hadn’t come undone. They often did.
“So, Pete, it’s been a full week since I assigned that memorization and analysis to the class. It was due Thursday and you didn’t show up to class. It’s now Friday. Where is it?” She endeavored to look stern, but her glasses kept slipping off her elegant nose, and she had to push them up with a delicate pink–nailed finger.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Miss Fitzpatrick. You see, I was helping a little old lady across the street on my way to class, and a car came barreling out of nowhere and hit me. I cracked several ribs and broke an arm, so I had to miss class. I haven’t been able to write, so I can’t hand you the assignment, but I memorized my analysis as well as the scene. Would you like to hear it?” Pete smiled up at her, the light catching his perfect teeth.
Grace was stunned. She had expected some tawdry excuse and a request for an extension. She had thought that all the bandages swathing his massive body were from a football injury. To realize how noble Pete’s actions really were almost caused her to swoon. But wait — first she had to hear him recite.
“Oh. All right. Go ahead, Pete. I’m listening.”
Pete sat up straight in the wooden chair, opened that wide–jawed mouth and began to recite. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day...” Grace was awed by the power in his voice and the obvious time and energy he had put into his presentation. She had been standing by her desk, but as he continued, she sunk down to perch on the edge, not realizing that the motion caused her cream–colored skirt to slide up her thigh, exposing a few more delectable inches. Pete continued to recite, and Grace’s heart was captured in a quick flutter as she gazed at that large, firm mouth moving so commandingly. When he finished, there was a long moment of silence.
“Very, very good, Pete. And the analysis?” This was the true test, since the boy might only have been blessed with great talent, but little brain. Grace could never truly love a man who was not as intelligent as she. He began to speak, addressing the problem of despair with what was clearly a razor–sharp mind. Grace ran her little pink tongue around her seashell lips, her heart rate beginning to climb. He cited references, proving not only that he had done his research but had understood it. Grace suddenly realized how overheated the room was, and undid the top two buttons of her blouse, opening the way for his eyes to fall on the tops of her delectable breasts. Pete continued steadfastly, moving from exposition on the historical aspects of the question to analysis of the motivations of Shakespeare in writing the piece. Grace crossed and recrossed her legs, trying to ignore the burning heat between her thighs. He finally moved to a resounding critique of the secondary sources, reaching heights never before achieved by one of her students, and Grace was lost!
She flung herself off the desk and into his lap, dropping hundreds of tiny kisses all over him as she ripped open his shirt, sending buttons flying. Her chest heaved and her own buttons flew off. Her immense breasts popped out of the brassiere that was simply incapable of restraining them and Grace grabbed Pete’s head and buried his
still analyzing mouth in the creamy mounds. His mouth kept moving, sending delightful shivers through her. Grace straddled him, her slim skirt sliding up stocking–clad thighs to reveal the cream lace garters that were her one indulgence. Her soft breasts pressed against Pete’s hairy chest, and her fingers worked quickly to undo his pants. His stiff erection slid out smoothly, and before Pete could say historicity, her bare virgin cunt was swallowing his cock.
He pierced her in one vigorous stroke, and Grace moaned in pleasure as they began sliding smoothly in sync. Pete’s mouth moved skillfully over her nipples and his fingers were somehow laced together behind her back, helping her move up and down on his lap. Her velvety cunt milked his cock, and Grace’s nails dug into his powerful back under his shirt. Pete hammered into her, slamming her up and down on his rigid cock. Her first–ever orgasm came quickly, and she buried her face in his massive shoulder and bit down hard to keep from screaming as the fiery waves engulfed her. A moment later, Pete’s own orgasm erupted, sending waves of cum up into her still–shuddering cunt. He let out an animal groan, momentarily unable to speak, and the two of them relaxed into a shuddering heap on the sturdy wooden chair.
It was at that moment that the Senior Faculty Member swung open the door of their shared office and walked in.
“Ms. Fitzpatrick! I am appalled!” The poor old fellow looked as if he were about to have a heart attack, and Grace momentarily regretted that it hadn’t been the handsome Junior Faculty Member who had walked in. She was beginning to wonder what else she had been missing in all the years that she had kept herself untouched.
“I can explain, sir,” she said hastily.
His face turned purple with indignation, and he positively sputtered his next words. “There can be no explanations for such outrageous behavior. I shall see to it that you never teach again!” With that, he turned and stalked out of the room, leaving the sweat–soaked pair entangled on the chair.
Gracie shrugged and turned back to Pete. “Well, it doesn’t look like I’ll be able to give you grades for much longer — but I probably have a day or two before all the forms are filled out. I think that performance definitely rated an ‘A–’; why don’t we see whether you can manage an ‘A’? A little louder, this time.” With that, Pete enthusiastically started once more, and the sound of voices reciting Shakespeare echoed through the hallowed halls of the College.
Hymn
It is Thursday.
I will be pagan.
Thin white shirt covers
my always naked body.
Stand in front of my mirror
and for a moment only watch
the momentary rustle in the breeze
the lifting fabric over breasts
as I
exhale.
I feel earth mother today.
Hands slipping down my ribs
to encircle waist
rising to caress a breast
carrying the shirt with them
so that a long curving expanse is revealed
to the intense gaze
hands in worship.
Swaying to no music
rhythm in the flexing of thighs
rising to support a body
on tiptoe
a leg extending
up
and up
to touch Her face
a dance of praise.
Seasweet scented waters
smoothed across the altar
of my body
incense without fire.
The burning is all inside me
in the quickening of a heart
in the tensing of muscles everywhere
in the blinding of suddenly closed eyes
in the shuddering.
And I am singing
Gloria
as I fall.
A More Congenial Spot
The twins were born minutes apart, the female at 12:03, the male at 12:12. Their father hadn’t been able to make the event, being on duty in the Philippines at the time. No one from the immense horde of relatives had come from their scattered homes to the Denver event, so the mother had no one to prevent her from indulging her whims. When the nurse asked her what she wanted to name the children, Mrs. Smith–Riley replied, “Guinevere and Arthur.” They were doomed for life.
Both of them took after their mother in appearance, with clear, almost translucent skin, flaming hair and deep green eyes. Those ethereal good looks were to be very useful to Art, who discovered at age ten that his lifelong passion was to be the theatre, his dream to be a Shakespearean actor in London. He and his sister would hide in their cluttered attic, and he would declaim monologues while she brandished a fireplace poker as a makeshift sword. Luckily for her, she quickly grew bored with the theatre, and lucky for the theatre as well, since she had all the dramatic talent of a block of wood. Gwen channeled her passion into living, living dangerously, and Art became the shy, silent type, only coming alive on stage. Then they went to college.
Not much changed there; they just became more themselves, somehow. Freed from the restrictions and tempers of her rather arbitrary mother (their father had died ingloriously in a barroom brawl years before), Gwen went to college and raged. She’d chosen the University of Chicago, rather an odd choice; but it turned out to be a school well–suited to her brilliant mind and headstrong ways. Not a place that had many rules about its students’ social lives... nor really cared if they had them at all... It left Gwen, when she wasn’t excelling in her Psychology classes, free to spend her time in lewd and lascivious pursuits.
Stories were told about her on campus, legends almost. They said that she had taken on all of Alpha Delt and lived to tell the tale, that she had seduced every TA she had... to the point where they fought to get her assigned to their section, and that she considered it a personal slight against her honor to become friends with a virgin and let him, or her, remain so.
Art lived a very different life at Northwestern. He was silent in his required classes, never speaking unless pushed, never volunteering anything. Like his sister, he had no trouble with exams, and wrote complex, witty papers on the correct way to tie up your hose in the Renaissance, and the symbolism of color in Ibsen. But he had few friends, and no lovers. In Northwestern’s vibrant theatre life, he was a presence only on stage, and all attempts the female drama students made to befriend him were met only with bewilderment and flight on his part. He became more and more technically skilled, more and more passionate on stage... and far lonelier elsewhere. He told none of this to his sister, who found little time in her busy social life to visit him. So things remained until the end of their senior year.
It was June 9, 1994, their mutual day of celebration. Twenty–one today, and classes were over and graduation was imminent. Their mother would be flying into Chicago in the morning. At 8 pm the twins had only a precious few hours left to themselves. They’d wound up back at Gwen’s apartment after a raucous tour of her favorite campus hotspots, such as they were. Art rarely drank, but tonight was a special occasion... birthday, coming of age, and graduation all at once. The champagne was flowing freely and he was well past the tipsy stage. At that moment, he was standing on her bed, muddy shoes and all, reciting the monologue he hoped to play in London that summer: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...” It was almost painfully appropriate.
“I think you should shut up,” Gwen bellowed, over the rising chant “and get laid! You’d be a lot happier.”
Art’s voice suddenly cut off, and he peered at his sister from behind thin glasses and strands of hair. “And what makes you think I haven’t, oh sister mine? Just because I don’t trumpet my conquests to the world doesn’t mean I don’t have a nice piece of ass stashed away somewhere.”
Gwen laughed. “Dear brother, you wouldn’t know a nice piece of ass if it came up and bit you.” She walked towards him, waggling a forefinger at him to emphasize her point as she said, “You... are... a... virgin. Just admit it and then we can do something a
bout it. I have some nice friends I could introduce you to... open–minded girls with a taste for redheads. And I promise they’re good in bed.”
Art blushed scarlet, and suddenly lost his balance, plopping down on the bed. He quickly regained his composure, and reached for his champagne glass, downing its contents before remarking, “Well, maybe I am. A virgin.” He blinked owlishly at his rapidly advancing sister, whose forefinger was now pushing his chest, so that he fell backwards on the bed.
Gwen crowed in triumph! “I knew it! Little brother, you have no secrets from me. Now what would you like? A slim brunette, a curvy blond? A virgin would be hard to find, but I can guarantee you disease–free.” She sat on the bed next to him, counting women on her fingertips.
“Ah, big sister, how could any maiden compare to you?” Art proclaimed hastily. “I remain chaste only because I have not yet met the woman who could compare with you. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thy eyes are nothing like the sun’s! Hark! The fair Ophelia! To be or not to... oof!” Art’s words dissolved into laughter as his sister furiously attempted to pummel him into silence.
Gwen tickled his stomach, his armpits; she pulled off his muddy shoes to tickle his feet... and that was suddenly too much. Art grabbed her wrists and pushed her backwards across the wide bed. He fell forward against her, pinning her body beneath his own, using his weight to full advantage against the suddenly scratching, wriggling mass beneath him.
Gwen slid her wrists up, still firmly grasped in his, until she had her fingers around his throat. Her knees pressed his arms against his body, so he couldn’t use them to full effect. Her fingers began to tighten. “Give it up, little brother” she panted. “You know I always won our wrestling matches.”
Art couldn’t quite speak, but he could still move. Suddenly he rolled heavily sideways, landing on his back with Gwen above him. In the confusion, he managed to twist away from her constraining arms, and pull her fingers away from his throat. He held her arms crucified away from her body. His long legs wrapped around hers, pinning her dangerous knees. Then he said, “The last time we wrestled was five years ago, big sister. I believe you are now in check.” Art laughed up at his sister’s helplessness. “What are you going to do?”
Torn Shapes of Desire Page 6
