The Professor & The Dancer

Fit the first

Professor Thalia Cachonda stretched luxuriously. Her lean body, toned from years of dancing, felt fine. She wiggled her toes, spreading them wide. A few moments before, as she fought for orgasm, they had been curled tight, her toes cramped. Now her body was liquid; her mind a mess.

She liked to lock the door, tilt back in the old oak office chair, brace her bare feet against the huge mahogany desk she had bought at the Antiques Emporium in Sandwich, and really go at it. She kept a powerful "Lelo cruise" handy for occasions like this. Usually, two fingers of her left hand clamped the toy against her clitoris. The middle two fingers of her right hand dug deep into her vagina, churning and tugging at her g-spot. Sometimes, if a faculty meeting had been particularly inane, or her students infuriatingly, it took her quite a while, until her hand ached and her legs quivered. She only knew she was going to get it when her belly muscles started popping and her ass clenched. She didn't try to stop her moaning anymore. Usually, she put on a world music recording, or something from her collection of women's call and response dances, initiation chants, or 'birthing songs' and let that accompany her cries. The powerful sound of women's voices in harmony helped. She could feel their passion.

This time the thorough 'wank' she had given herself didn't entirely help her state of mind. On a midsummer Friday evening she should have been relaxed and happy. The summer term was in full swing and her annual dance project was supposed to be coming to fruition. Meet some fellow profs for a drink. Connect with one of her circle of friends-with-benefits and arrange a rendez-vous. Take in an outdoor dance concert.

Her passion was dance and performance art, preferably in public places, creating borderline outrageous "arrangements," a term she had borrowed from the artist James McNeil Whistler. She wanted to 'paint' an experience on the consciousness of her audience; something that would change them; rub her body, and those of her chosen dancers up against their psyches. Make them leave the performance space uncomfortable, a little damp, itching for touch, aching for release.

It was work the university only tolerated, but the students adored. They filled her classes. And she got grants from around the world to "do her innovations." An anonymous patron had paid for a new rehearsal and performance building. So she pushed the edge. She got the faculty talking. She staged dramatic scenes she knew would shock her conservative immigrant Filipino parents. She liked to do works about sex.

But now she was angry. Someone had betrayed her. She had built an ambitious work encompassing elements of Japanese butoh, African line dance, taiko drumming, hip hop break dancing, and Tibetan style chant. All this with costumes evoking colorful vulvular and phallic creatures and video of huge pink and lavender jellyfish projected on the nearly nude bodies of her dancers.

She was furious at her lead dancer, Antoine. He was graceful, gay, elegant and Asian, perfect for the work. She rarely had to tell him anything. He felt her next piece, sometimes before she knew what it was. He invented moves that took her breath away, that turned her on, that sparked questions she could never answer.

But he was gone. "A family emergency." Probably a lost lover suddenly found and in danger of hurting himself. She screamed.

"You are such a consummate bitch to ditch me this way! You know your value!"

He had kissed her as though he meant it and then turned on his heel. She let him go with a wistful hug.

And now she had nobody, or almost nobody. She had herself, and she could try to carry the piece solo. But it would be so much less. Besides, she wanted that energy. She wanted the smell of man-sweat. She knew none of her other dancers were up to it. They were cowards. They just didn't have 'it'. She wanted to feel strong hands pushing and pulling her body. She needed the secret orgasm she conjured in the middle of each piece. She needed it now. Her body was full of restless tension and the funk of need.

She was out the door into her Mini Cooper before the sweat dried on the desk. Overdrove Route Three all the way to the Cape. Snatched a few supplies for dinner. Off to the two room cottage she had named "Barre Relief"at the edge of a marsh in Woods Hole, hidden by tall plumed reeds, and just a tiny walk from a small pebbled cove. The general public rarely came here; it wasn't the fashionable stretch of the shoreline. Still, she had a tacit understanding with certain grad students who were welcome to crash if they needed a respite. Sometimes they came and what happened there was nobody's business.

The house had the 'unopened' smell vacation places get when they are closed for a while. She hadn't been down since she started crafting her opus. A quick gin and tonic with a big slice of lime and a joint by the harbor would smooth her out.

The path behind the cottage followed a stream along mossy, shell-scattered banks where crabs scuttled, to a small delta, a sandbar beyond a shallow pool, sandpipers dodging waves in the distance.

She stripped to nothing but her raspberry bikini underwear; she perched on a large, rough, erratic boulder. Striking one of her two kitchen matches on the stone she fired up the joint and leaned back, elbows on the granite; letting the summer heat enter her, soaking into her beautiful bronze skin. It was the ideal place to sit with her hot feet in the chill water and smoke one of the two doobies she permitted herself on any given day. The stream talked as it met the waves. In the scrub oaks back of the marsh bluejays quarreled. Over the water gulls screamed. She gave in to her favorite motto, "In this exact moment I have no worries or cares."

The joint was turning to ash when she heard a splash off to her left. Something in the tide pool between the sand bars. She shaded her eyes against the setting sun, red-gold near the straight line of the horizon. She found herself holding her breath. Down in the water a pale, muscular form moved. What was it? The sun put the shore in silhouette. She wondered for a moment if it was an athletic woman, because of the graceful shape of the hips, but then she made out the narrow waist and the lithe, well-built shoulders.

She was looking at a man, or part of a man, half under water. He was lying on the warm sandbar perhaps thirty feet away; strong legs, and magnificent round buttocks, perfectly naked. After a while he rolled over. Cupping his hand casually in the warm tidal drift water next to him he rinsed off his privates. Gently, he fondled them and his penis began to rise, transforming from a soft lump to a stiff shaft that caught the gleam of the sunset. He began stroking it in earnest. The motion of his hand danced; faster, slower, gentle, rough. He body was not still. It rose to meet the strokes as though he were fucking the sky. His voice was not quiet; sometimes calling out in a hungry moan, sometimes growling. He spoke to an invisible lover, demanding release.

"Ride me! Ride me now hard! Come on now! Take it in. As deep as you can. Feel it, now. Give it to me! Come on! I want it! Please, give up, now, please, now!"

She saw the head of his cock stretch tight and shiny and then a fountain of cream spurted high.

Her vagina clutched tight until it hurt and then released in a wave of flutters. She hadn't had a good enthusiastic roistering for nearly six months. And that one had been a quickie between talks at a conference in Tahiti on "Non-verbal Mating Rituals." It wasn't even with an islander, exactly, just a talky woman from Australia, and they were both hung over from the welcome dinner the night before. She had discovered that a combination of raw oysters, Bloody Marys, and hard, sweaty sex was a fine hangover remedy.

The tide slowly covered the man in front of her.

She flicked the dead joint into the sand and then sat, doing nothing; watching the sun paint the water in Van Gogh strokes of gold, orange, and lavender. A small intermittent breeze touched the back of her neck and brushed her nipples though the silk; (she always insisted on real silk), turning them to hard maroon buttons. She resisted the temptation to cover up or even cup her hands over her boyish breasts.

The man in the water barely moved. Carelessly, she stood and walked to the edge of the water behind him and dipped her toe in. It was warmer than the air. So she slid in gracefully and glided next to the man, settling beside him on the sand. She hadn't realized how large he was. He barely turned his head to give her a tiny smile, then returned his gaze to the now silver light dying on the water. They lay side by side like that until the first stars appeared above Buzzard's Bay. Occasionally, their legs slid against each other.

When the tide began to fill the pool with cold water and the wavelets slapped their mouths, they stood together as if a signal had been given, though neither said a word. She was suddenly chilled, and, knowing this, he wrapped sleek, strong arms around her. They stood like this in silence, feeling the water splash their legs, the grains of sand pulled from under their toes. Her nipples pressed into his smooth chest. He thickened, very large, against her belly. Something released deep in her. Her sex was very hot.

The current tried to knock them down but he held strong and she held onto him. Thalia had an idea.

"Pick me up."

"Excuse me?"

"Pick me up, and if you can, lift me over your head."

"You sure? You're wet and might slip."

"Take a chance, I'm up for it."

"Okay, you asked for it."

Clearly the man had lifted some weights. In one smooth motion Professor Cachonda was swept out of the water and pressed toward the sky. No one had ever lifted her like this. One of his huge hands circled her thigh just below her ass. The other palmed the middle of her back. She relaxed and lay there, her pebble-hard nipples pressed against the sky.

"Thanks, you can put me down now."

It wasn't an entirely smooth descent. Her back slipped off his palm and for a moment she was hanging head down, her mouth just below his crotch; but then a second later she was cradled in his arms and he was striding through thigh-high water a short way down the beach to where he had his towel. There he gently set her down and tenderly patted her dry; although she would have been happier if he had rubbed more vigorously. But it stopped most of her shivering. She allowed herself to be a bit rougher as she dried him. From a rucksack he took a thermos and offered what turned out to be strong Irish coffee, still warm.

For some reason, neither of them felt a reason to speak; but after a time she led him up the path to the cottage. She knew she could have taken him right to her bed. She was a cat in heat. There was fire in her intimate skin and she was eager to arch her back in invitation; straining her haunches upward and open, an invisible tail switching this way and that, a hungry yowl growling in her throat. Have him jam into her and explode in a few moments after he had thoroughly reamed her out.

She also needed to eat him, gobbling her way down his hard belly, brushing her lips and cheeks and tongue on his trail of belly hair. Her mouth watered for that thickening mushroom. She ached to swallow it until it caught at the back of her throat and stopped her breath. She wanted to drink the urgent juice she could pull from him.

But first she needed food.

A thick fillet of bluefish, freshly caught, was in the fridge. She warmed it with her hands and then rubbed it with olive oil, a bit of chili powder, fresh garlic, salt and pepper. She sliced zucchini lengthwise and oiled it too. Thick slabs of purple onion. A salad of romaine, chunks of freshly picked beefsteak tomatoes from the truck garden beside the house, a few leaves of endive, croutons of toasted pumpernickel with a splash of parmesan.

She hadn't asked his name yet. As she cut, chopped, and sprinkled she watched him expertly lay a fire and start it burning, first yellow tongues of flame around the twigs and dry pine branches and then eagerly eating the oak and maple he fed into it, his hand fearlessly wading into the fire.

When it was roaring he went to the tiled cabinet and took out plates, glasses, knives, forks, and napkins and carefully laid them out on the French farmer's table. He made two candles appear from somewhere and anchored them in the antique block and tackle in the center. He plugged his iPhone into the speaker system and the strains of Nora Jones's "Don't Know Why I Didn't Come" drifted through the cosy room.

She was pleased that she needed to go outside to grill the fish and zucchini. It was cool. A breeze was coming off the water. Her nipples tightened until they ached a little, but she didn't want her sweatshirt. She watched him through the sliding door as he prowled the books in her library. He picked up the Mapplethorpe and she watched carefully to see if he would be aroused by the homoerotic pics. He leafed through the book with interest but she could tell it wasn't his thing. Not gay. Not kinky.

Very young. Too young, really. He probably had never sported a beard. His skin was fresh and clear. No fatigue or world-weariness around his eyes. She suddenly felt her age, touching the bit of grey appearing at her temple; a bit of crepe on the elbows. Soon she would never need worry about conceiving a child.

She shouldn't sleep with him. Not tonight anyway. She would fight it. She would fight herself. She might even have to fight him. But she would make a dance with this man, even if he had never danced. She knew she could train him, like a mustang stallion. The thought made her sex tighten. She made a mental note to use the randy bitch cat she was feeling as part of some new choreography; the dance she would build around this new dancer.

And she would touch him as she was sure he had never been touched. She would arouse him and make that arousal the heart of a dance that drew on Maasai leaps, Butoh stillness, hip hop audacity, Martha Graham line embedded in costume and set pieces that would shock, inspire, and inform. Her goal was nothing less than convincing the world that humans are beings deeply embedded in nature, and despite our transcendent minds, we move to the rhythms of nature's call and response, a rhythm so deep it pulses in our very DNA.

The smell of freshly grilled fish pulled her stomach into the present moment; and she brought her feast into the "banquet hall."

They could have chatted all through dinner. They didn't.

He didn't sleep on the foldout. He slept in her bed, his large lithe arm across her waist. But he didn't churn into her. His mouth didn't find her tight purple nipples. Those long fingers didn't dig into the beautiful groove that flowed from her tailbone between the tight sienna hills of her buttocks to that maroon swelling lightly crowned with a matte of tight black hairs.

He did kiss her, gently, respectfully on each eyelid at the end of dinner. Their mouths met and they breathed together. Their tongues conversed without a sound.

They both slept very well.

The next morning he served her Eggs Benedict. The Hollandaise sauce was perfect.

In a few words she discovered that he was indeed a student at the University with an interest in Anthropology and cooking, thus the perfect eggs and the knowledge of her summer place. Had he danced? He had been in some musicals in Middle School, High School. He did yoga and tai chi and Aikido. He couldn't possibly replace her coveted lead dancer. But he had something else; a simple, raw enthusiasm, a masculinity that radiated from his large body and amazing, amazing buns. He would do fine.

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Fit the Second

She called the company together and explained the situation; how the Antoine was gone; how she wanted to use the opportunity to create a whole new dance; how she had discovered this raw new talent, Ariel; how the new choreography would be more collaborative. She would be relying on them for new ideas. But she had a basic outline. She divided the dancers into two 'villages', five strong men in each, plus her new recruit in one of them and a fierce African woman dancer in the other. Six young women in each.

"Listen now," she whispered, "You are going to help build this dance. It happens in a time of coming of age, of youth proving your strength, of finding your power, to attract, to enchant, to win. It is a feast day when two rival villages meet. You want to steal someone from the other village to be your mate. Perhaps you are strong enough to attract more than one. You want to show the other side that you have greater strength, greater pull. There will be no violence, but the men will wrestle-dance the other men as the women watch and cheer. Then the women will wrestle-dance other women as the men call out. The 'winners' will choose their mates and do a mating dance. Oh, and it is not essential that mates be of the opposite sex."

She gave them some days off; told them to exercise, think about ideal partners, while she worked with Ariel alone. She needed the story to contain their unspoken attraction, the young prince and the strong queen. She also needed to bend him, literally, to the shapes and forms she saw in her mind. She wanted the dance to hurt. She wanted to feel some pain; to have him push and twist and crush her in ways that stretched her body to the limits. And she wanted to hurt him, to force him into moves that made him groan and cry out. With him she wanted to begin and end the story; a daring story; one that would blow the stuffy minds of faculty and administration; one that would excite her students; one that might get her fired.

Their rehearsal days were difficult, because, after all, he was a greenhorn in more ways than one. At first he was awkward, clumsy. Sure, he could lift her above his head, with one hand under her crotch. She choreographed a dance phrase where he did just that as she wriggled and struggled to get free. He could lift her by her hair, and she made a dance-phrase that looked like that, though she held his wrist as he did it. He could crush her onto the altar in the middle of the 'village' so that she could not move. But she had to teach him to allow her to squirm free and mount his back and seem to scratch his eyes. He could pin her thighs against her chest, pull her sweating leotard aside, and thrust into her all too easily, spilling a gush of seed from her. But of course she didn't let him do that at all, though she wanted to, if not in the hot, locked, mirrored rehearsal room, then on her good old oak desk, clearing it of unmarked papers with her sweating body, or on the California King four poster in her top floor apartment, making it walk the room until she, he, and the downstairs neighbors shouted. No, all that had to wait.

But it wasn't like dancing with Antoine. He had been disciplined, strong but careful, creating beautiful lines, joining her in what 'looked like' a lusty pas de deux, yes, his hands all over her, but never 'inappropriate'. After all, she wasn't his 'flavor'. But this one was different. It was hard to stay cool and detached. If she concentrated, she could work herself up until the passion was authentic, letting it loose in carefully designed moment of release.

But this one, this Ariel budded with raw lust and she had to chill it some. Real sex was sloppy, often jerky, chugging away until nature's triggers tripped and the wet explosions happened. She was devouring his lust; but she still wanted a dance, a very good dance that mated with the music and created magical images, and then made the audience dampen their drawers, scooting home to do the natural second act.