Student Body, Sample 6 |
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From Chapter 20
But it had never been just about sex, Rick knew. That, perhaps, had been the incredible beauty of the affair—and, of course, the danger of it, too. Ah, how they had fit! Oh, yes, physically they had fit like some wonderful jigsaw puzzle of flesh and blood and bone. Open lip to lip, rolling tongue to tongue, hairy flat chest to mounds high and fair and silky-smooth, fluttering belly to belly, mm, and inside, too, pistoning naturally within something so supple and snug and which, though already deliciously lubricated, always welcomed another half-dozen gouts of salty gray slipperiness delivered in the most heartfelt manner possible... Energetically, eagerly, repeatedly, they played out the effect of Aristophanes’ creation myth of the four-legged, two-headed creatures whom the challenged Zeus hewed in two, and in their passion they strove to make themselves one again, and whole. Over and over and over they had done it.
But they had fit together mentally, Rick realized almost at once, emotionally, spiritually. In a way, when he looked into Lauren—the true self of her, the reality that gleamed somewhere behind those soulful dark eyes which he so longed to transport, and cherish, and revere—he saw the qualities he liked about himself, only better, without the flaws that he knew he possessed. Lauren was intelligent and quick-witted, and because she was pursuing roughly the same course of education that he had, the two shared countless common points of reference. To begin, “I met a traveler in an antique land—” or “The world is too much with us—” or “I have been one acquainted with the night—” or “O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown—” Why, this brought not a look of puzzlement but a wise nod, perhaps a crooked smile, or a clever bastardization of the familiar lines which should have followed. How pleasant and easy it was!
Yet the companionship ran far deeper than a facile tongue and an easy quip. In class, whether teaching or taking, or sometimes in conversation with others, Rick had to labor very consciously at tolerance and equanimity, for he knew that one of his main failings was his short temper and lack of patience with anything or anyone that chanced to strike him just wrong. With Lauren, though, somehow he felt he never had to do this, for there was not anything she said that he did not like, or that annoyed him, or grated. She was impish and sparkling and mischievous, yet underneath it all was a deep calm whose equilibrium made him feel grounded, too.
She was not marred by the self-centered flashes of intemperance which he himself sometimes betrayed with others, nor, to his inexpressible appreciation, did she possess that shrewishness which at unexpected moments flared in his own wife. When Anna was angered, there were times that she simply would not be satisfied, and no matter how unreasonable her demand, she absolutely refused to recognize her own illogic. One could attempt to explain, to offer alternatives—but when she was in the wrong mood, nothing seemed to penetrate, and it always struck him as childish and base. Lauren, however, while sensitive and emotional at times that occasionally surprised and touched him, was never patently unfair, and even when she disagreed with something, she at least listened to reason, different though her own conclusions might remain. It took Rick a while to put his finger on this quality about her, but it was this reasonableness that made her so very easy to like and, really, respect as a person.
Yes, in a way that was confusing, and difficult to define, even for someone as relentlessly inquisitive as Rick, he had always admired the girl so very much. Even when she was merely the best student in his class, she had been something special. But now... He loved her smile, and he loved her easygoing attitude, and he loved her laughing impudence. Simply talking with her was a joy. Walking with her was a joy. Being with her was a joy. He loved every moment of it, from the desperately heartfelt sex to the casual, comfortable little conversations about absolutely nothing that mattered. Yes, for they were young and alive and in...well, he concluded rather uneasily, in a, um, in a situation that just made them both so, so happy. Sometimes, when no one else was looking, simply taking her soft hand in his and seeing her smile back without expectation or demand or question could make his adoring heart beat like nothing else.
And now and then he had had these crazy, disturbingly vivid pipe-and-slippers daydreams of coming home to that little apartment over on Gunson, not furtively and at unpredictable intervals like he was already doing, but simply and happily, day after day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yes, making love without guilt, nuzzling into the soft skin behind her blood-warmed ear, fuzzy and kissable and fragrant with the cloying hint of that familiar perfume which always roused him so, whispering at last all the things he had never dared say, finally holding back nothing, nothing— Putting his arm possessively about her tapering young waist in broad daylight without fear, savoring the supple hip that rolled reassuringly beneath his palm, and feeling so tall and strong and proud— Ah, and waking up with her every morning, tousled and lazy with the sun coming in through the blinds, without hurry, without reservations, the situation commonplace and oh-so natural--
For after all, he thought to himself sometimes, very secretly, and yet telling himself in the same instant that he was not really thinking it, such an idea was not completely unheard-of, was it? Why, Dr. Richards had done the same thing, whispered a tiny voice like the pulpy gnawing of a worm within the rotten apple of his mind. The professor had done it just like the man from the next valley over in Ethan Frome, and as easily, without ever looking back— And at the sweet, impossible, unforgivable notion Rick’s heart ached with the yearning, and the shame...
And then he had to stop--had to. God, for it could not go on forever, could it? And it was not just that he could not afford that train ticket from Starkfield to the all-absolving “West.” His wife, his curly-headed little toddler who babbled and laughed, and petted the lordly black cat like such a great big careful boy...and now two more tiny infants on the way. These things meant something, something very important, something which he knew he loved--knew it.
Anna had her faults, but he had his. The thought of truly being without the oh-so familiar woman, completely severed from the sight of her face and the sound of her voice and all the old routines, for ever and ever and ever, was, somewhat to his surprise, still absolutely crushing. And the idea of poor little Eric standing in the deeply indented cushion of the old green couch in Spartan Village with his round babyish chin upon the soft hands folded on the window ledge, looking forlornly out at the end of the day and asking where Daddy was, while Anna tried so hard not to cry... It was heart-rending.
Why, even haughty Prometheus, to whom they had attributed the sentiment that of all the stupid, too-few-legged providers of cat food and removers of cat feces in the world, Rick was perhaps the most faintly tolerable and thus at certain times almost might approach being worthy of stroking such a grand cat as he, would feel the lack. The beast most likely could not remember his own feline mother anymore, but he remembered Rick—Rick whose strange hands though foreign and furless nevertheless had cradled the shivering kitten so gently upon his lap while Anna drove them home, Rick against whose very face he often had slept, Rick whose moving pencil provided entertainment while the paper beneath provided an obvious nest below the warm lamp on his desk. Yes, the grand sultan of 1525G would stride confusedly back and forth through all the familiar rooms of the place, the tip of his puffy tail twitching restlessly as his walnut-sized brain attempted in vain to discover whence had gone the old man who, perhaps because of the fuzziness of his own chin, knew how to scratch so well underneath the regal feline jaw. The thought struck Rick somehow as inexpressibly sad.
And those mysterious womb-wrapped twins, creeping inexorably up the evolutionary ladder from mere bundles of dividing cells, through flippered almost-fish things and big-headed monstrosities with eerie blank eyes, to something finally beginning to approach humanity...well, he and his wife had brought those creatures into being most purposefully, had they not? It had been an act of love, not just in the sweating mechanics of it, but in the very notion as well. It had been a promise to themselves, to their past and their future, to the trusting babies-to-be. Soon, after all, Anna would be lying in a hospital bed, sweaty and limp and utterly exhausted, and yet as she blinked down at the tiny swaddled bundles the nurses had placed upon her lolling bosoms, she would smile the age-old smile of maternal pride, of triumph against entropy, of the love of one for another and of both for these.
And despite the pain through which the woman in her snippiness and her moodiness and her crushing lack of desire or even interest put her suffering husband every day, unknowing, still Rick should be there, should he not? Why, surely, even in her worst fitfully tossing nightmare Anna had never imagined that he would not be standing over that hospital bed and smiling down at them all in a quiet sort of awe. To think of walking away from everything that this double-conception represented...
For Lauren, whom he cherished above so much else, he would have done anything, anything. But not— Not the thing which Rick knew, thankfully, that his sable-haired darling would never, ever ask...
But it had never been just about sex, Rick knew. That, perhaps, had been the incredible beauty of the affair—and, of course, the danger of it, too. Ah, how they had fit! Oh, yes, physically they had fit like some wonderful jigsaw puzzle of flesh and blood and bone. Open lip to lip, rolling tongue to tongue, hairy flat chest to mounds high and fair and silky-smooth, fluttering belly to belly, mm, and inside, too, pistoning naturally within something so supple and snug and which, though already deliciously lubricated, always welcomed another half-dozen gouts of salty gray slipperiness delivered in the most heartfelt manner possible... Energetically, eagerly, repeatedly, they played out the effect of Aristophanes’ creation myth of the four-legged, two-headed creatures whom the challenged Zeus hewed in two, and in their passion they strove to make themselves one again, and whole. Over and over and over they had done it.
But they had fit together mentally, Rick realized almost at once, emotionally, spiritually. In a way, when he looked into Lauren—the true self of her, the reality that gleamed somewhere behind those soulful dark eyes which he so longed to transport, and cherish, and revere—he saw the qualities he liked about himself, only better, without the flaws that he knew he possessed. Lauren was intelligent and quick-witted, and because she was pursuing roughly the same course of education that he had, the two shared countless common points of reference. To begin, “I met a traveler in an antique land—” or “The world is too much with us—” or “I have been one acquainted with the night—” or “O ’Melia, my dear, this does everything crown—” Why, this brought not a look of puzzlement but a wise nod, perhaps a crooked smile, or a clever bastardization of the familiar lines which should have followed. How pleasant and easy it was!
Yet the companionship ran far deeper than a facile tongue and an easy quip. In class, whether teaching or taking, or sometimes in conversation with others, Rick had to labor very consciously at tolerance and equanimity, for he knew that one of his main failings was his short temper and lack of patience with anything or anyone that chanced to strike him just wrong. With Lauren, though, somehow he felt he never had to do this, for there was not anything she said that he did not like, or that annoyed him, or grated. She was impish and sparkling and mischievous, yet underneath it all was a deep calm whose equilibrium made him feel grounded, too.
She was not marred by the self-centered flashes of intemperance which he himself sometimes betrayed with others, nor, to his inexpressible appreciation, did she possess that shrewishness which at unexpected moments flared in his own wife. When Anna was angered, there were times that she simply would not be satisfied, and no matter how unreasonable her demand, she absolutely refused to recognize her own illogic. One could attempt to explain, to offer alternatives—but when she was in the wrong mood, nothing seemed to penetrate, and it always struck him as childish and base. Lauren, however, while sensitive and emotional at times that occasionally surprised and touched him, was never patently unfair, and even when she disagreed with something, she at least listened to reason, different though her own conclusions might remain. It took Rick a while to put his finger on this quality about her, but it was this reasonableness that made her so very easy to like and, really, respect as a person.
Yes, in a way that was confusing, and difficult to define, even for someone as relentlessly inquisitive as Rick, he had always admired the girl so very much. Even when she was merely the best student in his class, she had been something special. But now... He loved her smile, and he loved her easygoing attitude, and he loved her laughing impudence. Simply talking with her was a joy. Walking with her was a joy. Being with her was a joy. He loved every moment of it, from the desperately heartfelt sex to the casual, comfortable little conversations about absolutely nothing that mattered. Yes, for they were young and alive and in...well, he concluded rather uneasily, in a, um, in a situation that just made them both so, so happy. Sometimes, when no one else was looking, simply taking her soft hand in his and seeing her smile back without expectation or demand or question could make his adoring heart beat like nothing else.
And now and then he had had these crazy, disturbingly vivid pipe-and-slippers daydreams of coming home to that little apartment over on Gunson, not furtively and at unpredictable intervals like he was already doing, but simply and happily, day after day, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Yes, making love without guilt, nuzzling into the soft skin behind her blood-warmed ear, fuzzy and kissable and fragrant with the cloying hint of that familiar perfume which always roused him so, whispering at last all the things he had never dared say, finally holding back nothing, nothing— Putting his arm possessively about her tapering young waist in broad daylight without fear, savoring the supple hip that rolled reassuringly beneath his palm, and feeling so tall and strong and proud— Ah, and waking up with her every morning, tousled and lazy with the sun coming in through the blinds, without hurry, without reservations, the situation commonplace and oh-so natural--
For after all, he thought to himself sometimes, very secretly, and yet telling himself in the same instant that he was not really thinking it, such an idea was not completely unheard-of, was it? Why, Dr. Richards had done the same thing, whispered a tiny voice like the pulpy gnawing of a worm within the rotten apple of his mind. The professor had done it just like the man from the next valley over in Ethan Frome, and as easily, without ever looking back— And at the sweet, impossible, unforgivable notion Rick’s heart ached with the yearning, and the shame...
And then he had to stop--had to. God, for it could not go on forever, could it? And it was not just that he could not afford that train ticket from Starkfield to the all-absolving “West.” His wife, his curly-headed little toddler who babbled and laughed, and petted the lordly black cat like such a great big careful boy...and now two more tiny infants on the way. These things meant something, something very important, something which he knew he loved--knew it.
Anna had her faults, but he had his. The thought of truly being without the oh-so familiar woman, completely severed from the sight of her face and the sound of her voice and all the old routines, for ever and ever and ever, was, somewhat to his surprise, still absolutely crushing. And the idea of poor little Eric standing in the deeply indented cushion of the old green couch in Spartan Village with his round babyish chin upon the soft hands folded on the window ledge, looking forlornly out at the end of the day and asking where Daddy was, while Anna tried so hard not to cry... It was heart-rending.
Why, even haughty Prometheus, to whom they had attributed the sentiment that of all the stupid, too-few-legged providers of cat food and removers of cat feces in the world, Rick was perhaps the most faintly tolerable and thus at certain times almost might approach being worthy of stroking such a grand cat as he, would feel the lack. The beast most likely could not remember his own feline mother anymore, but he remembered Rick—Rick whose strange hands though foreign and furless nevertheless had cradled the shivering kitten so gently upon his lap while Anna drove them home, Rick against whose very face he often had slept, Rick whose moving pencil provided entertainment while the paper beneath provided an obvious nest below the warm lamp on his desk. Yes, the grand sultan of 1525G would stride confusedly back and forth through all the familiar rooms of the place, the tip of his puffy tail twitching restlessly as his walnut-sized brain attempted in vain to discover whence had gone the old man who, perhaps because of the fuzziness of his own chin, knew how to scratch so well underneath the regal feline jaw. The thought struck Rick somehow as inexpressibly sad.
And those mysterious womb-wrapped twins, creeping inexorably up the evolutionary ladder from mere bundles of dividing cells, through flippered almost-fish things and big-headed monstrosities with eerie blank eyes, to something finally beginning to approach humanity...well, he and his wife had brought those creatures into being most purposefully, had they not? It had been an act of love, not just in the sweating mechanics of it, but in the very notion as well. It had been a promise to themselves, to their past and their future, to the trusting babies-to-be. Soon, after all, Anna would be lying in a hospital bed, sweaty and limp and utterly exhausted, and yet as she blinked down at the tiny swaddled bundles the nurses had placed upon her lolling bosoms, she would smile the age-old smile of maternal pride, of triumph against entropy, of the love of one for another and of both for these.
And despite the pain through which the woman in her snippiness and her moodiness and her crushing lack of desire or even interest put her suffering husband every day, unknowing, still Rick should be there, should he not? Why, surely, even in her worst fitfully tossing nightmare Anna had never imagined that he would not be standing over that hospital bed and smiling down at them all in a quiet sort of awe. To think of walking away from everything that this double-conception represented...
For Lauren, whom he cherished above so much else, he would have done anything, anything. But not— Not the thing which Rick knew, thankfully, that his sable-haired darling would never, ever ask...
