Role Reversal

"Yes, it is. I'm firmly on the road to spinsterhood, I guess. Genuine old-maidness looms pretty solidly in my future. Never have married. In fact, I've never even had a proper boyfriend. Hence, I suppose, the 'no roses' condition. Thank you again - it is truly a beautiful flower!"

Craig looked around, studied the furnishings again with a different filter. Having lots of gay friends and having internalized some of their sensitivities, he chose his words carefully. "Your place doesn't look like a gay person lives in it..."

She grinned and chuckled at him, not the least embarrassed or upset. "That's because I'm not gay, Craig. I'm sure lots of my acquaintances think I am, but I really don't care what they think. No, in fact my sexual interests have always been entirely heterosexual - none at all towards women. None whatever. Totally fixated on the male of the species, that's what I am. I just haven't had all that much practice. Perhaps I've been a bit of a scaredy-cat, or let myself be entirely too busy with teaching. Active avoidance, perhaps, driven by fear-of-failure? Or something. I certainly did come from a hyper-protective, thoroughly puritanical family and social environment."

She stopped, thought, continued. "Privately, Craig, I simply call myself a 'failed heterosexual' since I would LIKE to have and WANT to have such relationships, but they just don't materialize. Old-maid schoolmarm, that's me."

She set the vase back on the table, retreated inwards into silence. Craig respected it, let her think.

Abruptly she stood, held out her hand to him, said "True confessions continue. They can be hard to stop, can't they, once started? It's almost as if once an outlet is available, the telling becomes addictive. Come with me. I want to show you something I've never shown another human being - regardless of their gender or orientation!"

She led him upstairs, then down the hall, stopped before a closed door, the rearmost room of the house. She turned and took both of his hands in hers, looked up at him and asked earnestly "Craig, promise you won't tell, won't discuss, what I'm going to show you. Absolutely nobody, nowhere, never. Promise?"

Craig said "Of course I can make that promise. And I do - consider it made. But M&M, if you want the room, or whatever's in it, kept secret, maybe you really shouldn't show ME either?"

She shook her head, said "I have to show this to SOMEONE, sometime. And you are about the best possible candidate. I know, absolutely for sure, that I can trust you. Now isn't that silly of me? You could be a very genteel mass-murderer for all I really know."

She turned and opened the door, tugged him inside behind her. Two steps into the room, they stopped. His gaze remained fixed on her: she turned beet red, bit her lip and waved her hand to direct him to look about.

The room nearly floored him. A king-sized four-poster bed, covered with red satin sheets. On the bed, at the head, a yellow towel carefully laid out with three dildos, a tube of lubricant, the remote control for the TV, and two vibrators - one tiny, black and battery-driven, the other a massive plug-in "110v- AC special". Beside the head of the bed, on another towel on the white carpeting sat the little half-barrel of a Sybian, a sex machine Craig knew of and had seen in videos but not in person, the world's most expensive and undoubtedly the most effective "ride-the-bull" style vibrator ever - all fifteen hundred dollars worth. An all-glass-block wall faced the seldom-used city park that abutted the back yard. A short bookcase topped with a brand-new 60 inch flat-screen TV, set for viewing from the bed.

And on the wall above the screen, centered, hung a four-foot-wide, full-color O'Keefe 'flower-as-vulva' print in luscious reds and pinks. It was flanked by two near life-size blowups, well framed, of two men. Big, strong, well-muscled men, utterly gorgeous specimens, both standing, both naked and body-oiled to glistening perfection. Both were staring straight into the viewer's eyes. And both sported absolutely enormous erections, far beyond the norm. The man on the right was jet black: certainly the photo was a Mapplethorpe special? If so, where had she gotten it, and at what cost? The left-hand man was white, the print equally high quality, the photography a notch less good.

He turned back to M&M, who stood there, hands clasped behind her back, watching. She studied his face, then said "Go look at the shelves."

He did so - several feet of DVDs and video tapes, all exquisitely high-class, well-produced erotica. It was too good to be insulted as mere 'porn'. She seemed to own everything ever put out by a woman director, including Candida Royale's entire oeuvre. And all the genuinely good classics - Behind the Green Door, Devil in Miss Jones, the lot. The bookcase's big bottom shelf was filled with oversize photo books of nudes - mostly male - and straight erotica. Several shorter shelves were filled with erotic stories, collections, singleton volumes, ranging from paperbacks to obviously expensive old cloth editions. Not a single modern bodice-ripper in the batch. High quality or nothing.

He looked back at her after quick-scanning the lot, managed a low, congratulatory whistle of pure admiration, and muttered "Wow! You, M&M, are a genuine connoisseur. Fabulous! You have things here that I've never even heard of, and I love these materials myself." He scanned her up and down with a whole new appreciation, both physical and intellectual.

She thanked him quietly, motioned him to follow, stepped to the wide chest of drawers beside the bed, opened the five-foot wide top drawer. He peered inside: red velvet lined, its bottom was covered with dildos of every imaginable size, shape, color. Plastic, glass, wood, stainless steel, what very likely was genuine ivory.

"Meet my toys. You might say, my hobby. Or passion, avocation, whatever descriptor you wish. This room, Craig, should answer your question about my sexuality. Here is where I spend every Saturday afternoon. Saturday mornings I go for my heavy walk, come home and shower, then come right here. This is where I was headed when you rang. If you'd arrived five minutes later, I'd never have answered the knock because I never, and I do mean NEVER, interrupt my Saturday afternoons." She paused, then sighed and almost giggled. "Although - if I were busy in here and if I KNEW it was you at the door, perhaps I might make my very first exception!"

Craig was at a loss what to think, much less what to say or do. M&M saved him by continuing as she stared into the drawer, almost musing to herself, just loud enough for him to hear clearly. "You asked about the ongoing "Miss" in my name, Craig." She looked up at him. "Well, let's get things out in the open, shall we? The real question is 'Is Mabel Mallory still actually a virgin at her age?' Isn't it?"

She paused, watching him closely, expecting embarrassment or judgment, but when she got neither, she continued. "Well, Doctor Craig, unfortunately, at the very least I'm pretty far down the pathway of lifetime spinsterhood - which sort of begs the question, doesn't it?"

She returned to her pensive self-musing voice. "It's a delicate business, virginity, in some surprising ways. The whole structure, the entire concept, depends completely on your definition, and no two people, much less entire societies or cultures, seem to agree. Is a person still virgin if she's been touched on the outside? What if a finger goes inside? What if it's a FEMALE finger? What if it's HER OWN finger? What if a finger goes into her bottom but nowhere else? If for some reason she's not a virgin after that, then certainly she shouldn't be one if she ever sucks on a man's finger - say, licking fudge as a child in the kitchen - after all, her sucking little mouth is simply the other end of the same damn tube, isn't it? Is a woman still a virgin if she's done anal sex but not vaginal? Today's fifth and sixth graders seem to think so - of course, their conveniently and intentionally ignorant parents might just disagree, if only they knew!"

She shrugged rather sadly. "Craig, I suppose by most technical standards I'm a virgin, even at my age. Probably forever. But that doesn't mean I have any unused or un-appreciated openings, or unused nerve endings amongst those that I can stimulate by myself. There are precious few "virgin" dildos in THIS room, believe me, by any cockeyed definition of the term. Not after almost forty years of practice." She sighed, finished with "I suppose a girl just has to take what she can get, and invent whatever else she needs. Usually it's a huge amount of fun that I have in here on Saturdays. But sometimes the magic just doesn't work, and then it's purely 'phooey'."

She looked at him for a long, silent moment and then whispered "Craig, you have no idea how much relief it is, how good it feels, to be able to show someone this room, to say something like that out loud. Thank you again."

He finally managed to command his muscles, and stepped towards her, stopped deep inside her personal space. She watched, didn't retreat. His hands rose as if to cup her face but didn't quite touch her, paused a millimeter short, close enough for her to feel their heat. For a fraction they simply stood there in a time suspension.

He tilted his head sideways - a gesture she remembered from class - and asked ever so softly "Permission to touch?"

She nodded, replied "Of course."

His hands - big heavy-muscled hands - closed delicately around her face. His face dipped as hers rose, and half a second later she opened herself to him, then attacked his mouth with a voracious heat unlike anything he'd felt before, as if she were trying to climb inside him. When they ran out of air and surfaced, she stepped back half a pace: worried that he'd broken some unspoken rule, he dropped his hands, stood there perplexed.

"Why?" she asked, in a very small voice.

"Why what?" Craig replied.

"Why ask for permission? Why are you doing any touching at all? Especially, why the kissing?"

"Because I find you a very attractive woman. Because I'm so strongly sexually attracted to you atop everything else we share, even if there's been nothing whatever between us during my adult life. Because I'm so incredibly horny after watching your breasts. Because you brought me here and showed me all this. Because I genuinely LIKE you. Because you are obviously a consummate sensualist - that was anything BUT an amateur kiss, M&M. What more can I say?"

"To ME? You find yourself sexually attracted to me? That certainly seems rather unlikely! Hard to believe. Craig, I'm literally old enough to be your mother." She giggled briefly. "In fact, I'm just exactly twice your age right now. Fifty two versus twenty six. Doesn't that bother you? Certainly I'm not likely to even approach any young stud's version of an 'ideal sexy woman'. You being the young stud in question, of course."

Craig put on an exaggerated "exasperation" moue that made M&M smile. He raised his hands again to cup her face, and retorted "Nothing in the least odd about it. You are VERY attractive and very sexual - and sensual. And I like women! And if you're worried about approaches to ideals, well, M&M, were you to strip me right here and now, there's no bloody way I would approach or very much resemble Messieurs Black and White up there on your wall!"

He paused, choosing words carefully: "Real honest-to-god sexual attraction has NOTHING whatever to do with physical idealism!"

She reddened brightly.

Then he went on - "M&M, any permission to touch absolutely has to be reciprocal... and reciprocated, too!"

He took her hand in his, laid it palm-to atop his fully risen hardon, held it there until she cupped her fingertips tentatively around the shaft, making it clear that she wasn't going to instantly flinch away.

"If you want hard proof of that attraction, so to speak, well, here it is. What other reason can you invent for this condition of mine, if not me being aroused by you? Don't move that hand away! Frankly, M&M, what has age to do with this? Nothing at all! Hell's bells - if our ages were reversed, society would nod, grin and say 'There goes that lucky bastard with his new trophy woman!' and think nothing more about it. Why not have it the other way round on occasion?"

She didn't try to move her hand, but looked up at him and whispered "But really, Craig, doesn't this situation of ours, right here and now, strike you as rather strange? Aren't you uncomfortable?"

He just shook his head and told her "Yes on the strange, absolutely NO on the uncomfortable. In fact, it's quite odd to me just how COMFORTABLE it all seems. Do you want to stop?"

She bit her lip gently, shook her head. No, in fact, she didn't want anything of the sort. And now her fingers were anything but still.

He held her head again, and initiated a new kiss: it went on a very long time, and her fingers kept pace with their tongues. Finally he broke and slid his hands slowly, sensuously down the sides of her neck until his little fingers were beneath the edge of the collar of the robe. She kept her eyes focused on his the entire time.

From inches away he asked again, "Permission to touch?"

She nodded, then smiled and told him "THAT, Doctor C, has been already requested and granted. I don't remember imposing any conditions on the permission, Craig. You've been granted unlimited permission to touch - what and where and when and how you choose. So long as it's completely reciprocal, as you insisted a moment ago!"

His hands slid beneath the shoulder fabric: the slippery stuff didn't hesitate once it began to move. It slithered silently down to drape itself over the still-fastened waist sash, leaving her nude above. Craig's eyes never left hers, completely ignoring the opportunity to actually look at her nakedness, and his hands stopped, cupping her shoulders gently, as she suddenly shivered, then shook violently. He pulled her forward, wrapped his arms around her, hugged her to him: she returned the hug, but continued shivering and gasping as they pressed together.

He stroked the back of her neck, asked softly "What's the matter, M&M? Please tell me. Maybe I can do something to help? Maybe we should just stop, either for a moment or altogether. What should we do?"

She shook her head against his chest, took a long draught of air, and forced herself, somehow, to stop shivering. "It's nothing you've done, believe me, Craig. It's just that... well, I suddenly had this horrible flood of fears! Afraid my mind won't work right in this. That my BODY won't work right. That it'll all be a huge disappointment to me... not to mention to YOU! Afraid that I won't be able to please you because I don't know what I'm doing. It's like I suddenly have this chance, the ultimate wish fulfillment of several decades, and it just plain scares me that I won't..."

Her burst of fearfulness completely changed Craig's developing approach: he'd already thought through a long program of gradually increasing sensuality and intensity, aiming to concentrate on exploring nerves and sensations in places that she undoubtedly could never have addressed by herself - nibblings combined with suction, fingers dancing inside her. But the fears seemed to demand something quite different, something to quell them en masse, quickly. More detailed explorations could follow, once she was happy with herself again.

He stopped her: "Shush! M&M, I'm sure those fears are perfectly normal, but NONE of that is going to happen. Believe me. Trust me! It really isn't all that difficult, you know - there's a hell of a lot of instinct going for you. M&M... in this we are going to have to go right back to our role-reversal, just like old times. Can you do that - let me be the teacher again?"

She nodded against his chest, then sniffled shortly and sighed. "Thank you, Craig. Yes, I'd like that very much. I was always perfectly comfortable being your student, and this simply HAS to be easier than the physics and chemistry you taught me!"

She looked up and smiled, wriggled her chest against him and said "Boobs! The Wicked Witch's very own boobs, from seventeen years ago! Maybe, just maybe, you can get a little fantasy fulfillment of your own? You were very polite just now, about not looking when you slid the robe down. Want to see? Please, indulge yourself. Please DO - indulge ME! Look!"

She stepped back, watched his face with concealed anxiety as his eyes dropped, scanned, then focused firmly on her chest.

His expression of delight evaporated her anxiety like water splashed on August concrete.

"M&M, they are beautiful! Much, much nicer out here in the open and in person than hidden behind fabric. Lovely shape, texture, beautiful skin. Positively mouth-watering nipples. I like the way they hang, how your body and gravity have come to such a nice agreement."

He squatted slowly, dipped his head towards a nipple, and there was a rushing, roaring in her ears as she held her breath, waiting.

He stopped, breathed on the nipple: she felt it crinkle.

Her mind screamed in an agony of anticipation and need "PLEASE! NOW!" She almost said it aloud, but didn't.

Craig spoke into the half-inch between his lips and her breast: "One last question, M&M - just to be a responsible adult about all this. How about periods? I have the necessaries in my shaving kit in the car..."

She squelched momentarily the roaring need in her brain, put a finger under his chin, tilted his face up so they could see one another and shook her head. "They stopped three years ago. If you say there's no other reason, then we needn't bother at all. In fact, all modern sex-ed materials be damned, I'd much rather go without - if that's okay with you. Please?"

He nodded, leaned forward and inhaled her breast, nursed. She almost fainted as the sensations extinguished the "please". He alternated between left and right. Then, when she felt his fingers on her belt and knew she was going to lose the last vestige of her cover, she tapped him on the forehead and he looked up at her, his mouth completely filled with her breast, the nipple and areola flattened between his wriggling tongue and palate. Exquisite sensations flooded her brain with a rosy glow.

She reddened - a bit of minor shyness striking as she warned him, "When you eventually do get me naked, Craig, you're going to discover that I have a personal fetish. I hope you don't mind, but it's something I got from my movies and reading... I don't allow any body hair below the nape of my neck. None. I hope you don't mind. I know some men prefer their women furry, but..." Then she giggled as she muttered "I was this way, all clean-shaven, even way back before you knew me! Wouldn't you like to have known THAT back then! Or maybe it wouldn't have interested you to know..."

He released her breast, laughed and said "M&M, you are simply wonderful! You could not have picked a way to please me more. That's precisely how I prefer things - lots more accessible nerve endings, and lots of pretty skin to explore. I love naked female armpits and crotches - they are simply gorgeous." Then, after a moment, he told her "Me too - I'm also completely shaved. Which you are going to find out for yourself pretty shortly."

Craig finished undoing the belt-knot, and let the robe slide to the floor.

She stood there as he stepped back to study her - no man had ever done such a thing before, and the experience was both exhilarating and embarrassing. Then he closed with her: "You are a beautiful, beautiful physical specimen... and though you were attractive in your robe, I personally think you're much prettier naked than clothed. Of course, that's just a personal prejudice, you know. But there certainly are women in the world about whom that is NOT true!"