Fonding and Permission Ch. 03

Back in his room, Felix once again found himself starting his computer. He was not sure why. Uni work was unlikely to happen today, nor did the wild outback of the internet lure him, now that Theresa had reached out to cloak him in her warmth.

He remembered someone telling him that women were small and weak, needed his gentleman's protection. But it had been him nearly crying into her shoulder yesterday morning, as the miracle of her brittle strength had filled his arms. Only last night had shown it could be the other way round, too. Now she was like mother and daughter in one, protector and protected. It averaged out to a sister, a complete sister, an undreamt-of counterpart waiting out there all these years for him to recognise her. And he suddenly felt pity for his true sister, his parents' other child. She still had her place in his heart, didn't she? Treasure her too, Felix. She will last.

Felix thought back to his online pleasure hunts. He imagined Theresa discovering that his teenage internet adventures were still going strong. Were they defensible? He shied away from the thought of having to argue the point with her. He was sure she would understand, but less sure her face would still shine for him quite as easily afterwards.

But he had opened the search engine, and a moment later he understood why: he had come to assume that it would find him anything he wanted, but realised it was about to fail him when his fingers, reflecting his longing, asked for Theresa. He asked the question anyway ...

Teresa -- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

He looked disapprovingly at the lack of an H. Surely wise old Wiki ought to know there was only one proper way to spell that word. He glanced at the info-box, thinking it would be nice to know more about her name.

Derived from Greek θηρεσία "huntress" ... a familiar name for Άρτεμις (Diana), the hunt goddess

Goddess was only fitting, of course, but he had never thought of her as a huntress. There was too much violence in that. He could tell her so tomorrow night. Perhaps she'd be touched ... Silly boy, he thought, trying to impress your sweetheart. He tasted the last word and beamed, tickled by his confession that that was what she was: his sweetheart; his sweet huntress, hunting him.

But the name was not all he had been after. Stupid, really, not to have added her surname straight away, when there must be hundreds of thousands of Theresas. "Theresa Liegestütz" was bound to narrow the number of hits a bit ...

There were no results at all.

That was satisfying too, in a way. But perhaps her family at least was known to mankind. He entered just Liegestütz and searched again.

English translation of "Liegestütz". That didn't sound helpful at all. He hadn't even realised her name actually meant anything. Odd, though, that he had never bothered to check ... Mildly curious now, he clicked the link and found himself redirected to a German-English-dictionary.

Liegestütz - masculine noun.

Masculine? Theresa? The Germans clearly didn't have a clue. He read on all the same.

A press-up (British) or push-up (American). So she was Theresa Push-up? He laughed, remembering Darren's reluctant compliment and Alice's frank confirmation, You do have a decent set, and much fresher, his own hands' memories of their last night: the sweaty weight of her breasts in his palms; how they had risen and sagged as he she let him knead them; how her nipples had hardened between his thumb and index finger ... she had let him be her living push-up for uncounted minutes ...

And then, without warning, a heavy, shapeless thud struck his consciousness like the tremor of a distant but powerful quake reverberating up through a dozen walls and floors from some cellar of his memory. It rose through his skin, raising its hairs, and he caught his breath, mystified, afraid.

Something had just happened in him, something full of meaning but frustratingly incomprehensible, like a huge shape moving behind frosted glass ... He looked sharply about the well-lit room of his immediate thoughts, peered out into the nearest corridors, but saw no hint of whatever had made the many-storied mansion of his mind tremble just now. He sat alert, waiting for the association to sharpen. But the echoes were already dying away ...

What had he been thinking of? Theresa ... her breasts ... a push-up --that was it! That word had done it all by itself. But he could not guess why. He sensed it had a third, hidden meaning to him alone ... but he could see no further into the murk.

He ran it through his mind again. Push-up ... Push-up ... But it teased out only a feeble afterquake now. It seemed to be losing meaning with each repetition, as words did ... It was no use. It was slipping away, whatever it was ... But how strange.

The moment had come and gone, swift, silent and surreal as the night of a solar eclipse or the unsettling power of a dream. It was almost hard to believe it had ever happened.

His disappointment fading, he read to the end of the translation, but there was nothing more of interest there. He closed it dully, returned to the Wikipedia article on Teresa, meaning to close it, and took in the very first paragraph.

The name may be derived from the Greek verb θερίζω (therízō), meaning to harvest.

The eclipse rushed back with a speed that made him gape. What on Earth was his head playing at? Harvest. That had cast the spell this time. Where had he last heard the word? His father and he had discussed declining harvests and veganism this morning ... But no, that memory had quite the wrong feel to it ... He felt that some momentous insight of an entirely different kind was just around the corner. He sat quite still, trying to concentrate.

Harvest, he thought. Push-up ... Harvest ... Push-up.

The words touched and sparked like a pair of live wires, and the memory neither had been able to rouse alone surged up from its chamber and burst through the doors in a thunderclap. He heard himself gasp as if drenched in cold water as an outrageous question streaked across his mind. And out of nowhere he had her second name that he had failed to guess in art class.

The question wound up to a siren blare as he strung the three translations together, feeling them fall into place with the lethal elegance of a guillotine:

Theresa Virginia Liegestütz

Harvest Maiden Pushup