KOI 06: Symposium at the Drew House

Symposium at the Drew House

St Louis. Spring, 1973

Late in the spring semester, Alissa Scarlatti had her Jug Wine Seminar on Plato's Symposium. Debbie and I had come to know Lissa better than had any other undergrads at Grove.

Grove College was Alissa's first postdoctoral posting, and the contrast between Grove and her own - Ivy League - background quickly began to wear on her. To make things worse, her apparently rather remarkable romance with a prospective Nobel physicist blew up about two weeks before the Jug Wine Seminar.

Not one to whine, Lissa kept a stiff upper lip in class.

It was a full Mediterranean lip, below a rather patrician nose. Lissa's olive, oval face could be beautiful, especially when she let her hair down.

After the physicist walked out, though, her hair was kept pulled back in its more characteristic bun, and Alissa had taken to wearing the severe suits she'd started the year wearing, before the Grove students had amiably forced her to quit calling them by surname, and the Departmental parties had begun to soften her character and her features.

And in the days before the Jug Wine Seminar, Lissa's deep brown eyes had hardened along with her clothing. They showed a sort of desperately submerged pain.

The famous physicist was gone. The Ivy League career was over. Professor Lissa suddenly hated our town, and Grove had become a symbol of her defeat. She was twenty-seven, and that spring she had sent just one live resume out there into the academic Gulag.

The Dark Young Man knew of Alissa's sadness, and was deeply troubled.

Though he was in the theatre conservatory, and a dancer to boot, the Dark Young Man had adored Alissa since the first departmental party the previous fall, when she'd appeared among undergraduates for the first time in blue jeans and peasant shirt, her thick black hair flowing over her shoulders. For the Dark Young Man, Alissa Scarlatti was The Glory of the Mediterranean, the Birth of Venus, the Eternal Truth of the Classical Life she espoused. Late into the third departmental party, end of first semester, after Lissa and the physicist had left, the Dark Young Man had confessed his love to Deborah and me, knowing that we spent some hours every week with Alissa, in office and coffee bar.

"Dirk is cute," Deborah smiled softly as the Dark Young Man walked out the door, sick with love. (I've entirely forgotten the DYM's name, but I recall he looked like a Dirk, handsome with a refined masculinity not entirely obscured by affably fey slink.) "We should try to do something to help him."

Help him what? I wondered. The year wore on. Dirk's infatuation waxed and waned, Debbie and I drifted on Sunday afternoons, the Scarlatti romance foundered, and the Symposium Seminar approached.

The Seminar was to be the high point and practical conclusion of Lissa's Plato class. While it's a minor High Academic tradition to feast and drink while reading the Symposium out loud in its entirety, Lissa was content to discuss the dialogue in her usual fashion, while also exhorting her students to eat the cheese and drink the red "jug wine" she'd brought to the Drew House, a comfy College guest house which she'd reserved for the occasion. The Symposium "feast" scenario had gone over well at the ivied university where Lissa had been a Teaching Assistant. At Grove, maybe half the class showed up. Half the Plato class, and two academic couples who knew of Lissa's recent romantic disaster.

"I was hoping more people would show up," Alissa repeated more than once in the course of the evening. Gradually, her eyes softened with the wine. She was drinking a lot of wine, but drew the discussion to a satisfactory conclusion before waving us all down to the table of cheeses. All too much cheese, and more wine.

"I was hoping more people would show up." Alissa said.

Most of the students left quickly, though happy enough with drink. Debbie and I stayed seated at the table, with Lissa and the academic couples. The Dark Young Man sat brooding between waif-ish Debbie and a pretty, dark-eyed and rather muscular faculty wife. Dirk had spoken little that evening, but he was perhaps the only person at the seminar who had matched Lissa's drinking, glass for glass. The academic couples gossiped about anything but the local University's physics department, while seeming to try and gauge Lissa's state of mind.

"We'll help you clean up," I ventured on behalf of the three undergrads present.

"I'll be alright," Alissa smiled at the pretty faculty wife. "I think I'm in good hands, here." She looked over at me, and I was alarmed to see that her eyes had softened considerably. Lissa smiled at me with a soft grimness I'd seen from other women once or twice before, and automatically I glanced at Deborah. Deb was watching Alissa with some intensity.

Debbie and Dirk and I began to gather up the glasses and cheesestuff, and Lissa accompanied the couples out the door to their cars.

"Poor Lissa," moped Dirk as he brushed some crumbs to the thick carpet. "I wish we could do something to help her."

"Maybe we can," said Debbie, with unusual vivacity. Maybe it was the wine, but she was moving somewhat more broadly than was customary for her, and she swept alongside Dirk as he stood up from the table. Deb grabbed his arm and whispered something I couldn't hear.

"I couldn't do that!" yipped the Dark Young Man. "I... I mean, I just can't. I know!"

"What couldn't you?" asked Alissa, entering the room. She seemed relieved that the academic couples had gone, and was swinging her body rather like Debbie. She'd worn her hair loose and wavy that evening, and the grey kneesocks and loafers she'd put on that morning gave the grey flannel suit she wore a vaguely schoolgirlish look. Parochial girls' school, of course. There were just some continuities that Alissa the Classicist was trying to hold on to...

Her eyes swept to mine, as if just to make certain I was still there.

"Deborah was suggesting that I... seduce you!" said Dirk with a broad uncertain laugh.

"It would be a proper end to this glorious year you've had," Debbie said brightly, kiddingly, bluntly.

"God knows, God knows," sighed Lissa, as if just she and Debbie were there in the room. And she dropped to the sofa, kicking off her shoes, forearms over her eyes in exaggerated woe.

Lissa took a few easy breaths, eyes closed. Debbie was exchanging whispers almost coquettishly with Dirk, and I took a seat on the thick arm of the sofa farthest away from Lissa's head, waiting to see what would happen. I poured some chianti into four somewhat clean glasses on the table, and waited.

Then Lissa stretched easily, arms and legs straight, again looking strangely schoolgirlish despite her full young Mediterranean maturity.

Her eyes opened, to look at me. "You're right, I think," she said to Deb.

The Dark Young Man had sat down in an armchair not far from the sofa, in sight of Alissa. Debbie was crouched beside him, stroking his arm with a little more than mere playfulness. Her manner, I noticed, was not unlike that of her sister's in the photo albums. Bolstered by wine, Deb was mimicking Karen quite well.

"Proper end, you said?" Lissa's voice was fading. "Gives me an idea..." she slurred.

Dirk squirmed in his seat. But it was the kind of squirm made to adjust to a certain tightness of underclothing. Debbie let him go with a not uninterested stroke down Dirk's outstretched thigh.

I slouched to my feet to serve Dirk a glass of chianti. As I moved across our little stage, Alissa curled up from the couch to take a glass from the table. Her voice focused once again, she said,

"Lend me Rich for a while, will you, Deborah?"

Both Dirk and I stiffened a little.

"I've never had a redhead before," explained Lissa. "Dirk's beautiful, but I've had a few beautiful Dirks. First the redhead. Then Dirk." Lissa pointed at the two of us, as if directing responses in class.

Then she giggled, a little drunkenly, a little anxiously.

Debbie reached over to hold Lissa's shoulder.

"Maybe you should ask Rich," she said.

"I can't get those photos of you out of my mind," Lissa told me.

"Photos?" I asked, more confused than ever.

Debbie was suddenly embarrassed.

"Just snapshots, really," she muttered to me. Then, as if it explained something, she said, "You've met my sister."

I suddenly gathered that there was more to the arrangement of Karen's apartment than I'd figured.

Lissa stood up, looking loose and more athletically young than she'd appeared at any time before.

"C'mon," she whispered. And without waiting for reply, she turned to walk toward the Drew House bedrooms.

*****

Okay, so I was twenty-two and almost a college senior; I felt like I was a lusty nineteen again! and without looking at the others, I followed Alissa into the rear of the house.

I stooped to pick up her jacket, skirt, her blouse, her warm, large-cupped bra, all dropped in the hallway.

Did Grove security guards make regular stops at the Drew House?

From the doorway, I saw that Lissa had already crawled between the sheets of the double bed. The lights were off in the room, and somewhat drunkenly I decided to leave the door open for the stray light it afforded.

"I really didn't ask you," said Alissa comfortably. "Do you really want to do this?"

In answer, I slipped to the bed, and removed my pants and shirt. Lissa's olive hands reached out to take the clothes, stroking me where she could.

"I've always liked freckles," she sighed, as I moved under the covers.

We made love well, if at first a little heavy with drink and unfamiliarity. The light sheets were kicked off the bed early in the loveplay, and Lissa's knee socks, which she had left on, were half-fallen over her round brown calves as she waved her legs preparatory to the first coming.

I think we were both laughing at something, at any rate we were both psychically prepped, as the upward hump of the climax approached, and the room's lights suddenly flashed on. There was a flash over above the roomlights.

Did Grove security make regular stops at the Drew House?

At this point I was momentarily beyond caring. There was a quick second flash, and giggles from the two at the foot of the bed.

The distraction seemed only to help Lissa and me wake to our orgasm, which turned the hump as Lissa arched her hips to press her firm belly into me and take my deep squirm, her legs straight to either side of my straining legs, her arms clutching into my heaving back. I came long, and afterwards Lissa's sex grabbed without dissatisfaction at my relaxing organ.

There were several more flashes, obviously camera bulb flashes. I draped myself lightly over Alissa. I caught movement at the corner of my eye. Lissa was fully alert.

"So how'd we look?" she asked.

"Pretty, very pretty," Debbie said softly, and pulled her hand down Lissa's soft olive arm.

Lissa and I were now open on the bed. Debbie and Dirk had both stripped to silk panties and bikini briefs, respectively. Dirk's body indicated its interest in our demonstration. The straps of Deborah's camera slapped professionally against her small, flat breasts.

"Now what?" said Lissa cheerfully. "Maybe you should ask Rich," said Debbie. My glistening member had not softened too much. As if in response to the unspoken suggestion, I let it flip once or twice, and there was laughter.

"Dirk shouldn't have to wait much longer," directed Deborah, brushing her silk-encased bottom over his straining briefs. Looking somewhat self-conscious, but not much, Dirk grabbed her over her breasts and thrusted into her hip. Debbie aimed a shot in the general direction of my crotch and the camera flashed.

"If I'm not mistaken, there's a tube of K-Y in my purse," said Alissa. "It's an old High Academic custom, after the ceremonial reading of Symposium, to..."

"Only at Cambridge," interrupted Deborah.

"I've been talking this over with Dirk," said Deborah, "and I think we have everything set."

Dirk slipped off his briefs. "I'm set," he observed.

It was strange indeed, but for some time now the atmosphere between the four of us in the Drew House had been remarkably free and easy, despite the relative oddity of events and the speed of their development. Debbie's direction may have had something to do with it. She was clearly in charge as she shooshed the Dark Young Man to the bed, waving Lissa to the middle and me practically off the other side. Deborah held her camera ready.

" 'Dirk's First Woman'," Deborah announced.

"Lissa, you're going to be Dirk's first woman."

"God, it figures!" A soft laugh. "No, I'm happy," said Alissa with a touch of seriousness.

"Should we leave for a while?" I asked. Dirk was still standing up, leaning a bit stiffly against the head of the bed, eyes closed. But the light and publicity hadn't seemed to affect his strong erection.

"Don't let it get around," Dirk said, eyes still closed, "but I'm not altogether unused to situations like this."

"But I'm still going to be your first woman?" asked Alissa. She dropped a hand to scratch with curiosity about the base of Dirk's thick brown member. She pulled open its uncircumcised hood with her fist, and it surged.

"You are beautiful," said Dirk, with terrible earnestness.

I slipped off the bed and over to Deb, who was pointing the camera at the pair. Dirk fell into bed, drunkenly, dreamily.

Lissa climbed astride Dirk, losing for the moment any interest in High Academic Tradition and its unnatural lubricants. I found a seat on a stained old silk-upholstered armchair in the corner of the room next to the left bedpost, facing Alissa's upright body. She'd already popped Dirk up her womanhole, and they bounced together, beaming with happy pride.

The wine, wet, and exhibition had an effect on me that settled in a hard knot at the base of my prostate, and I was relieved on a purely physical plane when gamine Deborah danced mincingly to my side of the bed, angling for a dramatic snapshot of Lissa's satisfaction.

I slipped Deb's panties to her knees and stooped to slip a cooling tongue kiss into the top of her rear cleavage as she kicked herself naked. I tasted her familiar skin, a bit salty with perspiration.

Deb's little bottom bobbed lower, seeking my lap. Suddenly, the pair on the bed moaned in unison, and Dirk sat up to embrace the rearing Lissa fully, kissing her deeply even before she had adjusted to the new position.

Debbie gasped with delight at what was appearing through the viewfinder, and snapped. She sat back against me in the chair, hard, seeking a wider angle, and I slid effortlessly into her joyful vagina. My rod had been hard but seemingly nublike in my lap; it telescoped as Deb pressed onto me. Snap went her camera. Snap went the muscle around my dick.

Dirk threw himself heavily on top of the suddenly yelping Alissa, whose face had turned into a stiff mask of erotic intensity. I could feel the thrill that surged through Deborah's body as she snapped, and snapped again. Dirk plunged into Lissa's body fiercely, and Debbie dropped her camera into the hollow of her lap and relaxed against me.

"Roll's finished," she said.

The hard little knot in me had pulled itself along my rod and was at a point of almost mechanically releasing itself inside Deborah. Deb adjusted her light weight and played me easily, rocking on my lap and the balls of her feet as I stroked her thighs, hips.

"Oh god, Alissa, I'm there!" cried Dirk. And the two on the bed erupted again in rough activity, while Deb and I gently rocked.

They calmed on the bed, and Dirk rolled aside somewhat quickly. Their sleepy gazes rested on the two of us, and Deb's rocking sped up a little. My knot slipped in a queasy tickle, and I lifted Deb and myself off the chair as I half-came into her, then squeezed the flow short.

We carried one another to the bed, me behind Deborah, and Lissa pulled her legs back quickly to give Deb's head and shoulders some room. Draped over the bed, feet on the floor, we finished. Deb's camera was pressed awkwardly between bed and her lower belly, but she made no complaint as I pounded out the last of the heaviness into her rubbery, if not especially responsive, hole.

When it was over, we'd all sobered up a good bit.

"Does Security make regular stops here, you think?" somebody asked.

"Let's scoot," said Alissa Scarlatti, suddenly taking charge.

Deb and I removed ourselves to one of the bathrooms to dress.

"She'll take Dirk home with her tonight," said Deb. "She wants some of that Oxbridge Tradition."

"You sound jealous," I said. "Of whom?"

Damn, but the Dark Young Man was a lot better looking than me.

"I'm happy for them," said Deb, when I dropped her off at her father's door. But in the course of the short drive home she hadn't looked all that happy.

*****

The following week, Lissa accepted an appointment to a deanship at a tiny, eccentric, but well-regarded liberal arts college in the Southwest. Two weeks later, Deborah graduated from Grove College. Alissa Scarlatti, Dirk and I looked on. Later, late in July, Alissa moved to her new job.

Debbie Minton moved with her.