Ambushed

The week before Thanksgiving she asked if I would be up for visiting her that Saturday for dinner.

"I am trying out a new winter stew, to fight the cold. Root vegetables, northern white beans, something hearty. I would appreciate your feedback, and your company."

"Of course, that sounds lovely."

It was drizzling late that Saturday afternoon, and I had taken too much time to consider what to wear. I contemplated swapping my regular blouse and skirt combination for something more special, but second guessed myself. "Just going to dinner with a new friend, no need for grand changes," I convinced myself.

My one concession to the occasion was my small amethyst jewel at the end of a silver necklace cord, my birthstone, a gift from my uncle Roger. It always made me feel special, somehow more sprightly, lively. I enjoyed fastening it behind my neck, then seeing it flash in the mirror.

Her place was a second story flat in Somerville, an older neighborhood with now leafless trees that probably was quite handsome with greenery in spring and summer. The back window looked out on a small yard with bare vine-stems covering the surrounding wooden fence.

She had set out a simple but elegant spread. She handed me a glass of red wine, "Barbera," she said. It was agreeable.

She wore a thin sweater, Prussian blue, with a black skirt shorter than I was accustomed to seeing, the pleated woolen fabric stopping just above her knees. After she had set the table and removed her apron, she looked like an extra from a Truffaut film in the early seventies.

Her black-and-white long-haired cat came over to investigate me, then walked complacently away. I was apparently not a threat.

"That's Ludwig," she said. "For Wittgenstein, not Beethoven," when I raised an eyebrow.

Her stew was excellent, one of those dishes that looked simple but I suspect was not. There was bread to sop up the residual fluids.

"You made this?" I guessed, holding a crust in hand.

"Yes, one of my habits acquired in the long winters in Vermont. If the weather is lousy and you've got all day at home, at least make some bread. Baking smells fill the house while you have a good read."

We had vowed to avoid linguistic-talk for the evening, but of course it didn't take long before word discussion intruded.

But family history edged in a few times as well, and we were just at a juncture appropriate for me to ask more pointedly some questions about Max when Rachel fixed me with an earnest stare.

"There is something else you should know. About Max."

I arched my eyebrows, I admit with some excitement. "Yes?" I had no idea what she might reveal.

"Remember I mentioned how he fell out of the tree?"

"Of course. That story is etched in my memory."

"How he was up there outside the window of a friend's house? Looking in the window of her bedroom?"

"Yes, that's what you said. He was prying? Hoping to see..."

Rachel looked at me evenly. "In some ways it is worse even than that. A fifteen-year-old young male voyeur, that is understandable, if not terribly politic or wise. But this friend of mine, Mira, she was the woman I was seeing."

I know I opened my mouth.

"Did Max know this?"

Rachel nodded slowly.

"And.... and was he perhaps hoping to see you there as well?" I felt my throat catch, as the possibilities spun out.

"I don't know, and have no way of being sure. I wasn't there. But..."

She paused.

"You can imagine this complicated my own..."

"Of course." My thoughts whirled and my words came out quickly. "I certainly can see you thinking that if you hadn't had this friend, if there wasn't a connection, that maybe your brother wouldn't have been in that tree, at that time, maybe this never would have happened..."

I paused.

"How horrible for you."

But now Rachel had provided a strong hint of her romantic inclinations, which while it didn't exactly surprise me, still put a focus on a domain I had not considered very thoroughly.

She turned the conversation, fairly casually, into a different direction, although the energy in the room had raised a notch, while we finished the meal.

After clearing the dinner dishes and putting food away, refusing my offer to help, she peeled an orange and separated it into sections, placing the bowl between us.

The stew, both earthy and filling, had possessed just enough spicy taste to make it memorable. It suddenly occurred to me the right adjective for it.

"Piquant," I said. "Your lovely stew was piquant."

"From the Middle French," she said, obviously pleased. "Did you know it also means a sharp stick or pointed object?"

I laughed. "No, of course not. Your French etymology is far more advanced than mine."

"I wonder if this is another bit of evidence for Whorf? That so many French words are elegant, sensuous? A lushness of language to describe food, enjoyments, taste?"

"That since the French are so attuned to the senses that their language and words reflect those aesthetic qualities?"

"But see, that is the flaw of Sapir-Whorf," she said. "It is chicken-and-the-egg. Did the French language develop those words as a result of innate characteristics? Then it is not the words affecting the thinking. Or the other way around? How would you test this?"

"Remember we talked once about how the Victorians were so averse to naming delicate items explicitly -- anatomical parts, bodily functions?" she went on. "It is interesting to consider the extent to which aversion to items is handled by language, not using clear words but oblique ones. And a reflection on gender bias too. All those Victorian slang-words regarding sex? And so male hetero-dominant. Speaking of the fifty-words-for-snow business, I bet there are fifty slang terms for 'penis' and nowhere near as many for female parts in the Victorian canon."

I laughed. "Of course. I am sure you are right."

"Have you read much Victoriana?"

"Only a little, the usual classics: Hardy, Collins, Austen."

"Not much real slang there. Victorian pornography now, there is something. Ever read 'My Secret Life' aka 'Autobiography of a Pervert'?"

"No, never even heard of it."

This was the second disclosure made tonight, an unusual twist to my new friend. Vintage erotica was stowed away in her attic of interests?

She continued. "The names for the male organ listed in that book, my goodness. Our hero's 'rod.' His 'peggo, sword, battering-ram.'" She rolled her eyes. "That tells you something about how a Victorian male viewed the world."

Her eyes met mine. "Female nether parts? You are aware of Victorian slang for them?"

"'Quim' is the only one I remember. So much nicer than most of the modern slang, often with such nasty connotations. 'Twat.' 'Snatch.' And of course even that horrid Middle English word 'cunt.'" I am sure I made a face.

"I like 'quim,'" she said thoughtfully.

She looked at me. "You know you are doing things to my own quim at the moment."

I froze open-mouthed, quite taken aback. I looked away, sure my cheeks were growing red.

This hint was no longer subtle. And could not be ignored. I turned back and looked carefully at her.

She reached for a section of orange and very deliberately, somewhat messily, eyes on me the entire time, eased it into her mouth. I stared as she languidly bit into the flesh, sucked the juices from the section, ravished the morsel of fruit in front of my gaze.

My breathing was a bit uneven. I put my wineglass down.

"Rachel, is this a seduction?"

"I don't know. What do you think?" Her smile was enigmatic, challenging.

Her lips were soft, evenly formed. Her chin was pointed, Hebraic? Her gaze however was the dominant feature, fixed entirely on me, waiting for my reaction. I wanted to look away but couldn't.

"To start a seduction involves intent. To begin something means a conscious reaching," I said.

"You know how beginnings are troublesome. They say the universe began with, what do they call it, the Big Bang?"

"Right," I laughed. "A particularly male phrase, it could not be anything else."

"But not all beginnings are so apparently clear. Stories don't always begin in the beginning. Novels -- they can begin all over the place. Where does a thought come from? From something before. What was before that thought? Another. When do you reckon the first part of the circle? Upon first consciousness?"

Her lips hovered in a near smile.

"So I awoke this morning to launch a seduction upon you, Amelia Coolidge, and I owe the process to that first thought I had today? What do you think?" I think it was maybe the first time since our introductions that she had called me by name. We hadn't needed to do that during our succession of conversations.

I didn't know how to respond. We just looked at each other. The whole room felt still.

"So this seduction? Is seduction only a one-way street?" She took another orange section.

"I saw you stop and watch my Frisbee match back in September. You appeared to have some interest."

I started. I was not aware that she had seen me then, and she had exhibited no awareness of my presence.

"I think a seduction is more like dancing. There is a leader, one with the footwork that initiates the movement, but if their partner, who follows, is clumsy, or inattentive, then there is a mess on the dance floor." She seemed confident in her analysis.

She placed the orange piece in her mouth and slowly consumed it.

"How do I dance?" she asked.

Her eyes sparkled.

"How do I lead? Or do I lead?"

The wine had seeped into me. I have to be careful, it does not take much. Her eyes were upon me.

The events of the evening up to then had been crystalline. The rest became a bit of a mosaic, like an impressionist painting viewed up close. Each individual event distinct but somehow non-relational, non-linear.

I recovered enough to pose another question to her.

"How did it happen for you to notice me? I am quite sure of the exact moment."

"Two things. That question you asked in seminar. I thought it intelligent, provocative. Not so much the content of the question, but the intensity and manner with which you posed it."

"Herman didn't answer me very well."

"Yes, I noted that too. But there was no other student, not even impossibly learned Claude, with his insouciant smirk, who would have asked that question, in that particular way."

We stared at each other.

"You said two things."

She nodded slowly.

"What was the other?"

She looked out the window.

"When you raised your hand. To ask the question."

"I believe this is normal behavior, at least in Herman's' class." I was faintly annoyed at her obliqueness.

"I could see just the barest hint of hair. Poking from the short-sleeve of your blouse. Dark armpit hair."

She looked at me. I could feel my face reddening.

"And this is remarkable? Plenty of women ... surely you have spent enough time in Europe, or perhaps Latin America?"

"No. it was your hair. And your hair, combined with the expression on your face. It told volumes."

She reached for another orange section.

"An American woman who does not shave can be saying many different things," she continued.

"Right," I laughed. "She might not care much about her appearance."

"Or she is defiant of norms. Perhaps there are other things more important in her life. The list can go on a long way."

"So what was your diagnosis? Am I the defiant type?"

She looked at me evenly. "I saw that you had earrings, lovely delicate ones. I had never noted them before. It seemed unlikely that it was just carelessness that prompted your unshaven armpits. And then after your earrings, I noticed your ear, and then your soft, inviting neck."

I took a deep breath. "And perception, whether linear or elliptical, goes from one thing to another..."

She smiled slowly. "You are perceptive yourself."

She finished her orange, another slow, deliberate ingestion, looking at me the whole time, and stood up from her chair.

"Amelia, please come with me." This was the second time she had called me by name this night. She gestured at the table. "Clean-up can wait until tomorrow."

I rose. She took my hand and led me to her bedroom.

We stood face to face at the side of her bed and looked at each other.

"I always am so awkward the first time," I confessed.

She nodded. "That's fine. We'll make it good."

She began to unbutton my blouse, a long sleeved white affair. I have to say that each button that got undone sent shivers through my body. Her attention was calm, methodical, far more confident than I ever would have been.

I felt the room's cool air on my nipples as she eased the cotton fabric off my shoulders.

"Ah, no pesky brassiere," she said, with some amusement. "Wish I could do that more easily."

"I'm not very big," I managed.

Her eyes traveled my chest, and I found that my nipples were erect.

"You're lovely," she murmured.

Kneeling, she paused at my waist, and with my cooperation, she eased each of my shoes off, and then my skirt.

All that was left were my panties, hardly daring, plain but black.

She pressed her face into my still-covered quim. My quim! The word came to me unbidden.

Rachel's face was up against my sex, and she inhaled. Then I felt her fingers on each hip-side of the fabric, sliding my last covering off, leaving me standing and quite naked save for my amethyst, aware of the still air of the room over every section of my body.

I reached out to begin her unclothing but she shook her head, instead arranging me on the bed. She stood next to me and carefully removed her own clothes, in front of my unresisting eyes.

Her blouse, then her bra came off, and her breasts emerged, round, firm, her dark nipples like stream-smoothed pebbles against her pale skin.

Then her shoes, skirt and drawers, all done slowly, for my benefit. Her legs were muscular, strong and taut. Her groin triangle of hair was dark, symmetrical.

She settled in next to me and our arms went around each other.

"Okay?" She asked.

"Perfect," I murmured. "Perfect."

The first kiss was not endless, just felt that way, a slow opening, lips touching, grazing, and then a slowly intruding tongue, insistent, exploring, and my mouth became a new world with a new navigator.

Then her head resting on my chest, I felt it rise and fall against her weight.

She turned me on my front, and kissed my neck. Her tongue became a pointillist paintbrush on my skin. It darted along my body, little damp, soft nudgings. Then the sensation of her breasts against my back, I could feel her erect nipples against my skin. She dragged them along, two Euclidean parallel tracings, tongue prodding me at the same time.

On my front, my crossed forearms cradling my head, eyes closed and fully alert to touch, Rachel traversed my body. Little darting tongue touches, like some crazed and methodical Singer sewing machine, doing a systematic zig-zag stitch along my body, touch points a few inches apart. The sensation was unworldly, as her tongue poked and prodded. I imagined little damp marks of Rachel's efforts dotting my skin.

Down one side to my toes, then up an inner thigh, which fired off now rampant nerve endings, down the other inner leg, toes and up my flanks. She paused to dot my bum with a greater density of tongue-dabs, and while hovering and fluttering that delightful little locus of sensation at the base of my spine, she let a finger drift underneath me, surely to gauge my arousal. The damp slick feel of her finger satisfied her, and in fact I nearly climaxed right then, a shudder of anticipation jolting through my body.

But then up again on the other side, and she carefully eased me onto my back. This time, she was a bit less systematic in her tongue probing, lingering to nuzzle my armpits, smelling, stroking my head-hair, amazingly her tongue just avoiding a tickle-reflex, but only just. My limbs were becoming restless underneath her efforts.

Tongue all around my nipples but not on them, similarly up and down my flanks and legs, my inner thighs crying out with trembling pleasure, but not to my sex either, except for a brief face-graze over my fur.

My nipples and sex felt like solo dinner guests at a three-star restaurant, watching everyone else get served first while they languished in abandonment. Which made their first encounters with Rachel's agile tongue all the more dramatic.

I shuddered when her tongue first flicked my left nipple, then felt a soft set of lips enclose it. Arousal shot through my body. I was now seriously oozing.

I could not endure much of this overwhelming nipple attention, and Rachel paused at my face for a long kiss, a more teasing, prolonged affair than our first.

"Okay?" she queried.

I could not speak, only moved my head up and down in assent.

A slow descent to my sex. Unbidden, I spread my legs. She nibbled inner thighs and I turned my head to the side, crossed my arms in front of me, hugging myself tightly.

A slow trace up one labia side, down the other and my hips were pressing back into her face. She knew enough not to tease further, and plunged her tongue up me, nosing my sex with pressure.

I exploded.

The first wave came noisily, I found myself repeatedly uttering her name "Rachel." She pressed on, tongue doing lovely things while my hips quivered.

After the first tension subsided, she nursed wetly a bit, then pulled another smaller wave of pleasure from me, my hands now down holding her head, as through constricted lips I murmured her name over and over again.

Finally a third mini-wave, and I was spent. She lingered, pressing her face into my wet fur, caressing my mons with one cheek, then the other.

When she came up for a kiss, she smelled of me. I held her tight for some time.

"Give me a moment, for you," I finally whispered, "you've taken much out of me."

"No no," she spoke back, "you should sleep."

My eyes grew wide.

"All is good," she reassured me. "I am a morning girl. It will be best if we resume tomorrow. After some rest." She held my hand. "More daylight for seeing... and this way I can think of you all night."

Her smile was sufficient.

I slept with her own soft sex fur pressed against my bum, her arm around my shoulder and touching my chest. Unconsciousness came swiftly, my body tingling off into exhausted silence.