From

The Secret of Geraniums

an erotic novella, 2020

[Middle of Part Two]

When she first cracked open her window for her lover’s entry, it was much colder than this, in December. She may have been reckless and impatient then but she was also young and gently formed. Her breasts were childish, her nipples on her young breasts soft and deep rose in color, and her hips were flushed with their first era of fullness. Her face was rounder and more innocent; the trials that sharpened her cheekbones had not yet come to her. She had only just lost her virginity.

She played around with what it meant to be a woman with a sexual body. She wore innocuous, incomplete skirts, and shirts where her breasts could not find themselves, and even in cold weather always had an eager, bare throat. As happened one day, slinging her backpack awkwardly over her shoulder, a young man a few feet ahead wiped out on his skateboard. His hair had been hanging about his face and after he fell he smoothed it back from his eyes. He was lean, wearing a red shirt and khaki shorts, and his hair was ebony-black. She arrested her walk. With his knees bleeding and laughter on his face he noticed her, and a sweet living pain was ignited in her chest. His eyes were recessed in an almost feminine Irish face, his nose gentle in slope, with a long mouth, and the deeply recessed, intent eyes like burning coals. Yet he had the start of what could be a full beard around his mouth, which startled her. She had only known boys.

Social propriety was not upheld with him or he did not care for it, for he stared at her without looking away, his mouth spreading into a long smile. She had to pass by him under this mortifying scrutiny. It was humiliating, her ill-fitting skirts where the line of her panties could sometimes be seen when she walked too fast, and the awkward, long arms she clutched to her chest. Though it was an agony that he would not break his gaze from her, this moment was a deep knife-cut into her life, which ignited feelings so consuming that her tone of living was altered. He would be her drug, from his ability to unlock those feelings. And even under her childish penumbra of embarrassment, an unconscious gratefulness rose in her eyes, and she dared look back at him. This startled him, and his smile faded.

They began to find each other. They were able to spot one another from far away on the rural college campus. She would see him walking down a path that ran flush through the towers and old houses with turrets, and the deep feeling of being really alive would flood her whole young body, and she must have looked like a helpless, overcome animal, her eyes wide and unprincipled, when he looked at her. There was no place, it seemed, where he could not find her, and stir her alive in that way. She was afraid that she was so acutely aware under his gaze that she lost her gracefulness. But she was mistaken; she was over-brimming with youthfulness, and the warm eagerness of her body was invisibly expressed to him each time.

In the afternoon of an October day, when the wind was sharpening, she was wearing too few clothes, and her arms were run with goosebumps. She took refuge on the stuffy top floor of a building used as a study hall with many tables and books along the walls. Stained glass windows remolded the light here through mouths of glass into deep reds, purples, noxious greens. A purple slash cut across her cheek where she was sitting with a book before her, and an undulating scythe of red stroked her neck. There was the sound of someone running up the stairs two at a time and he appeared with his black hair unruly and saw her sitting alone. His voice hit her in the chest.

“Hey,” he said, and she looked up at him with the eyes of a preyed upon animal. He had a very deep voice yet gentle in tone, her young Pan. “You fascinate me.”

She could not answer him; it was as if the very sea itself was filling her mouth.

“What are you reading?” he asked.

“Oh, for class… anthropology,” she said, and forgot to close her mouth.

He smiled. His teeth against his lips seemed sharp. He had his hand knuckle-down on the table where she was sitting. She felt desperately afraid of him, and alive, extremely alive beneath her fear. She knew this was desire, and though she was too overcome to speak, she met his eyes.

“What a strange girl you are,” he said, softly. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen.”

He tossed back his head, and she saw his white throat with the man’s Adam’s apple as he laughed. “What a child. I’m twenty-two.”

Then the other currents of life called for an interruption; a friend of his cried out his name and he broke her gaze and rapped on her table quick with his knuckles. “I’ll see you,” he said, and loped way.

After that, she knew his name. Elijah.

Part three

Rebecca had long been drawn to the darknesses no one would speak of. When she was twelve years old, her girlfriends had made her sit with them in a carpeted room before a projector screen while some masquerader of virtue, a newly grown man, seventeen years old, had delivered a sermon accompanied by cartoon imagery on the screen all about what needed to be repressed in order to be virtuous, and ensure one’s self of a blue, blissful beyond. Rebecca had tiger’s eyes even then; she thought this young man poisonous. She could see beneath what the others would not admit to themselves—though he terrified everyone with subduing language, he liked to gather the young girls around him in the church when they had sleepovers in summer, and take advantage of their trust to see their vigorous bodies in thin clothing, to touch their shoulders and their hands. In the stifling stillness of night in a locked church he could get one to crawl into his sleeping bag. And Rebecca was disgusted with this world of good that made perversion out of the deep throb of life. She rebelled by wearing her darkness plain in the light, abstaining from church, and smoking with the pierced and tattooed youths outside the gas station. She wanted to discover for herself why certain acts were called sins, and the sins seemed far less dangerous than taking an older population at their word.

On the campus, at last, she was able to investigate lust, and to live for it. She had never felt so complete in her life as when she met Elijah; he drove the light of her soul. But his absence plunged her into a level of cold that was frightening. He became, in her consciousness, her sun; she rose in the morning for him. At eight o’clock she lingered on the path between the buildings, and again at four in the afternoon, when she knew he would pass. And when he saw her, maybe he looked for her—no, he certainly expected her there—for he reached out once and grabbed the end of her skirt, up against her thigh and said, “you follow me around, don’t you?”

Her eyes looked as large as lamps but she said nothing. And with his sharp teeth gleaming in the flickering lamp light of November he laughed outright like a hyena, a drawn out, rolling laugh. After he had touched her skirt and walked away, her thigh burned. She ran off the path, down a backway, where there was a nest of trees and crouched down under an ash. Her heart was throbbing. She put her hand under her skirt where her panties covered the crux of her throb, and found the fabric wet. Her heart thrilled, rose and expanded, to have become someone’s slave.

It is hard to say for certain what made her this way. The typical road, mutual placidity, a banal following of laws, treating one another well, marriage followed by pregnancies followed by retirement plans chilled her blood. It is hard to say. She would meet danger and violence before she was able to examine her sensitive roots of self in peace. But she is seventeen here, untried; her few sexual experiences were quick, hesitant, without orgasms. She had not known passion, and for passion, she thought, she would meet the devil himself at the crossroads. And maybe she did. She could not do schoolwork and fell behind. All day long she dreamed of him, her heart palpitated in empty rooms where he had once been. He was a senior and had a house off campus, a little white house, at the edge of a field, and she would not dare go too near, but she went running along a path that way, in little shorts in the deepening cold of November, and a sweater over her young breasts. As she passed she would scrutinize the house to see what lights were on, to catch a glimpse of his shadow.

Sometimes she felt ill after seeing him and would smoke weed to calm down. Her friends—all boys—often smoked her out, and they liked having her around in her uncouth clothing, and because she took little highs from them, touching their shoulders and their stomachs while her body vibrated with laughter. She tried sleeping with one or two, but her heart failed her; she could not reconcile her easily accessed sexuality with her hidden away, deep heart—that frightened her. So she did not rope any of them into a relationship and they genuinely liked her as a friend, being aloof, yet unabashedly sexual, and wearing her little skirts around them.

But she never spoke of Elijah, not to anyone.

December, snow had fallen and gone; bleary, the sky was weakening as a bandaged eyelid, then the night was more alive, more chilled and radiant. A party in the woods at a house where there was cheap vodka and beer in cans, and the red dancing sprites of lit cigarettes sucked on by young mouths. Rebecca was a little drunk. She left to walk through the woods with a companion, one of the boys her age. At a hillside he tried to grasp her hand which she might have let him take, in some amusement, if she had not seen, like a dark-winged angel, in a black t-shirt and hat, but otherwise unsuited for the weather, Elijah, walking alone with his hands in his pockets. And her heart and nerves were jolted. She covered her face with her hands.

“What is it?” her friend asked, “should I walk you home?”

“No… no, I’ll go on my own. Goodnight.”

“Ah, damn, all right. Goodnight, I guess,” the boy said and sheepishly tried to kiss her. Her sight was blocked when the boy leaned in and she ducked away from him. When she looked for Elijah again, she found, like a wild deer, he had already disappeared.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Rebecca said, and fled from her friend. She ran down the hill to a road that led to her dorm, as if fleeing a shadow. She opened a back door, stamped down the warm hallway, and shut herself into her little room. It wasn’t much to speak of. A twin bed, cheap furniture, and little lights strung up with tacks around the window. She was on the first floor, and her window faced a downward slope and the road. She shoved open the window to feel the cold air and rested her arms on the sill. The wind moved the dark sentinels of the trees, and a singular lantern shone at this bend in the road when she saw her Elijah walking down the path, casually looking around.

She expelled her breath and shoved the window up higher which made a definite sound.

He saw her.

“Hi,” she said.

He laughed, maniacal as ever, and easily loped the hill, not taking his hands from his pockets.

“Hey my beauty.”

“Hi,” she said again, defeated, pliant.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

“Open this more.”

She pushed on the window frame until it reached its hilt. Spry and youthful he dropped inside, landing on his feet like a cat. She had backed away, fallen back on her bed, and sat there, tremoring, sitting up erect.

“I know where your window is now,” he said.

She said nothing, tremoring. Curious feelings cut into her body all at once—triumph, awe, fear, pure joy. He could have forcibly taken her, saying nothing, giving nothing, but he treated her gently, as some masters treated their slaves gently, and this appealed to her even more.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He crossed to her and she was thrilled with herself for having called to this man, this secretive cat, with his white hands and ebony hair. He kissed her mouth and her body ebbed into the deeps of living servitude, a state of deep arousal. She panted when he withdrew his lips. He was looking seriously at her, studying her. Then carefully he had her raise her arms and take off her shirt.

“Very nice,” he said when he saw her breasts and took the warm little mounds in his hands. She moaned. He began to suck on her neck.

“What were you drinking? Vodka cranberry or something?”

“I think so,” she said.

He laughed again, like knotted up silk. “Take off my shirt,” he said.

She obeyed him, her hands flying to his waist and pulling up the fabric. He lifted his arms and she drew his t-shirt over his head.

Then she faced his chest that was crossed with black hair, more abundant than she had seen on any man naked with her, running down his center so fiercely it frightened her. She tentatively touched these curls of hair. His hands ran down her back, slid under her and cupped her butt. She still had on her little skirt.

“That’s nice,” he said.

She felt a kind of paralysis; he was older than her, and she was afraid her devotion to him was very childish and would overwhelm him. She was trying to stay placid, only rubbing her hands on his chest. But he was exploring her whole body with his hands and her breath began to betray her. He climbed onto the bed and towered over her. She faced the hard denim low on his hips, where dark hair escaped from the top.

“Let’s see you naked,” he said, and pushed her gently down. He yanked the skirt down her long legs and over her feet. He peeled away her panties, though her thighs remained pressed tightly together. She was experiencing waves of fear beneath pleasure, like a porous lake bottom, a vulnerability that had no end. If he spoke harshly to her or walked away, she felt she would pass out from the pain. But his deep voice never strayed from gentleness. He worked at kneading her fear away to shape the white arousal, the white deposit of her trust. His hands roamed all over her body, fluttering over her pink nipples, pressed her belly, grazed the round protuberance of her clit, and touched the wet closed lips of her pussy. She began to relax; she could not contain her feelings and slowly she let them show. A white fluid escaped from where she held herself tight, and marked like froth the purpled entrance of her vagina.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her, and gently parted her legs, and her pussy lips parted. He saw how fresh and pink she was and lowered himself to slip his tongue into her. She gasped. No one had ever done this to her before. A deluge of fluid was freed from her depths and flowed into his mouth. It was her indivisible sign of love for him, this white river, while he licked and stimulated her, suckled gently the flower-like, pink rim of her entrance.

“You taste good,” he said, and raised himself. He unbuttoned his jeans and sat down to pull them from his legs, and stripped off his underwear.

“Open up for me…” he said.

He obliterated her, consumed her; the most dangerous of loves. He commingled with her soul lying curled deep in her pussy like a sleeping animal in its den. She would let him into this place, opening her legs wider, when she saw the darkness of his penis spring up erect, lifted high and long towards her. He plunged his fingers inside her, and she felt her breath incomprehensible and her mind lost. With her juices on his fingers he gripped his cock and ran his hands up and down and gently stroked her vagina open with the round head.

A moan escaped from the depths of her.

“Yes, baby,” he said, and he entered just barely her tight damp interior.

“I’m obsessed with you,” he whispered.

And then he sank into her as a knife into butter. She was so wet and he filled her up completely. He started moving his hips and soon fell into a steady rhythm of penetration, while she clung desperately to him.

Now he was groaning in her ear and in some violence moved his long cock in and out of her. She was obliterated, and barely moved, but then again her receptivity reveled in subtlety; she did not need to move, but surrounded him utterly, invisibly, and brought him to the brink of orgasm.

“Oh god,” he cried, and suddenly stopped. He wanted to try her on top before it was over. He pulled out his cock, threw himself down on his back and had her mount him. Immediately he felt her hesitance. She positioned herself cautiously on top of him, but hardly knew how to rock, as if she did not want to see her flushed naked nipples, her breasts in animation. He had to coax her a while.

“You don’t know how to have sex, do you… poor girl. Don’t think. Relax yourself, that’s it, that’s it, baby…”

He lay his head back and closed his eyes and she was able to stare down at him unceasingly. His quick breathing encouraged her and she began to more naturally rock.

“Off,” he cried, harshly, and she yanked herself off and watched his come spurt from his erect penis and cascade down the shaft where it pooled amid his black pubic hair.

“You should learn to swallow that next time when I pull out of you.”

“Okay,” she said meekly.

“Here, lie down.”

She laid herself flat against him, rubbing her face into his shoulder.

“You didn’t come,” he said.

“I don’t really know how…”

He laughed, and this laugh, maniacal and magnanimous as ever, was her favorite sound on earth.

“I love how young you are.”