“Oh—” she said, and kissed him. “Oh, David—I—I—” She kissed him again. “Have you ever seen anyone crying with happiness?”
He wanted to laugh, but he was crying at the same time, sobbing with joy and melting down into her. He was a chip of flesh tossed on a splashing sea of laughter and wet eyes and love. A pink sea, with foamy waves and giggling billows. Red nipple-topped pink seas. “Oh, Annie, Annie, I can’t let go of you, I can’t—”
“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to. Oh, never let go. Never.”
“Never . . . never. . .” he gasped. He was moving again now, onto and into her. A joyous thrusting—steel and velvet, flesh and silk, shaft and lining. He was sobbing as he did, sobbing with joy—and she was too.
All the days of wanting and holding back, all those denials of the body and the animal within, all of it poured forth now, incredibly intense—he could die now, he was complete!—all melted into flowing tears and eyes shining, sparkling in rapture. It was the sharing! So bright he couldn’t stand it! And she was the one he wanted to share it with!
She moved with him, with love and happy giggling lust, the two blending into a whirlpool of sloppy silly kisses. And then once more the waves gathered them up, surging and crashing and gasping, sweeping them high across a sweet sky of delight and at last leaving them gently on the shores of a sighing embrace. The waters lapped at the shore and gentled their touch, and their fingers strayed across the velvety landscape, exploring—familiar and yet always wondrous.
He was holding her tightly. He couldn’t stop holding her. She sighed—a sound of pleasure. He echoed it and smiled. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He laughed. And kissed her. And kissed her.
And kissed her.
They spent Saturday falling in love.
Deeper in love.
It began before either was fully awake, with an unconscious fitting of their bodies, one to the other, with the purely animal reflex of erection, sliding forward, and he was onto and into her almost as reflex, so familiar was the desire. She eased onto her back, only slowly coming awake. He was aware now; he was inside her, warm and exciting, a silken motion.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He paused in his motion. “I had the strangest dream,” she said. “I dreamed I was being—”
“Shh,” he said. “Don’t wake me up—I’m still dreaming.” And pressed deeper. She brought her legs up to help him.
This time, instead of melting into the experience, he was totally conscious of himself and his body. It was a new awareness he possessed, an awareness of the sexuality inherent in himself and in her. His hands gripped her legs and he pumped at her vigorously, penetrating so deeply he marveled at the sensation of pure power the experience produced.
Poised above her in the silent morning, he was once again aware of how truly beautiful she was—more beautiful in the act of love than he had ever seen her before.
She giggled. “This is silly.”
“Isn’t it though?” he asked, and they both laughed and kissed and hugged again, embracing through the splashing suds of the shower.
They broke apart and she sudsed his chest again. He let his hands slide up and down across her chest—her breasts, her nipples. Her pink flesh glistened with the flowing water and the foam of the soap. Her green eyes glowed at him. Shone.
She played with the hair on his chest, drawing circles in the sparse little patch; it was almost lost in the suds. She let her hands wander downward, straying into a coarser forest of hair, and lower still, she stroked the length of his penis with one exquisite fingernail, then drew it lower still, outlining his testes with first one finger and then another and finally her whole curious hand. Shyly, she smiled as she watched what her hand was up to. Her fingers came back up slowly, caressing and exploring. His penis was neither soft nor erect; it was somewhere in-between. The skin of it was like velvet, and the cap of the glans was tender and pink. Her fingers traced the ridge around the edge of it, and she cupped it in her palm and looked up at him, and they were both smiling and giggling like children in a schoolyard. “Can I touch it?” she asked impishly.
He grinned. “If I can touch yours . . .”
She giggled with a bright squeak as his hands slid down from her breasts. It was as if he had never done this before, never explored the body of a woman before. The names—mons, pubis, labia majora, labia minora—all meant nothing before the mystery that was Annie. His fìnger touched her soft hair, probed the gentle swelling. Slipped gently into the opening in her flesh. She was like silk and the splashing of the shower around them was as the spray of the sea.
“You feel so . . . good . . .” he murmured.
“Mmmmm,” she said. “Mmmm-hmmmm. If you think it feels good from there, you ought to try it from my side . . .”
He laughed. She laughed. They had been laughing all morning—even at things that weren’t funny. Yet everything was funny today. It was the laughter of delight—of rapturously lovely delight. “Okay,” he said. “Change places with me.”
Again they laughed. But neither moved their hands from the other’s gentle warmth. They stepped a little closer. “Oh, look,” she said. “It’s growing—and I thought it was all tired out by now.”
“Mm,” he whispered into her hair. “You keep bringing it up again . . .”
“Mm-hmm, I have just the place for it.”
She stepped closer, shifting her stance slightly. “There’s no way to do this and still be ladylike.” She laughed. She arched herself and began to guide his penis into the space between her legs and up into herself. The firm length of it slipped easily into her—and just as easily out again. “Oops, have to try again.”
But he kissed her first, a deep, deep penetrating kiss, tongues touching, lips working, soft and gentle and passionate. Their wet and soapy bodies, their legs and bellies, were pressed together, slippery and exciting. He moved his hand around to her back, down to caress her buttocks, then downward again and forward with his fingers.
She had her hand between the two of them, was holding his penis again. Raising herself up on tiptoes, she slipped it into the depths of her and, sighing, eased herself down around and onto and into and she sighed again and he said “Mmmmm.”
And then they held each other tightly and pressed hard, moving against each other, moving and moving and keeping it moving in a steady rocking dance, gliding so easily back and forth, stopping only once to readjust themselves so they wouldn’t slip, and another time, stopping for breath and to laugh again.
He lay down on his back in the tub and she lay down on top of him, giggling at the thought. “I’ve never done it in a bathtub,” she admitted, then fit herself around him again, riding him like a steed, moving on him with real excitement now, sliding her body across his, her flesh slipping against his in the gentlest of ecstasies. The warm, warm flesh of her breasts slid back and forth across his chest and the steaming water splashed down across her back and down and around the both of them. She lowered her face to his and they kissed again, and after a while he was on top and she was on bottom and the tub was slippery and warm and full of giggles. And sighs. And gasps.
It was later and they were down.
They were sitting in bed together, eating vanilla ice cream. It was sweet and cold.
And he still loved her.
He looked at her and the tears came unbidden to his eyes, he was so happy. “This is so silly—” he said, wiping at himself.
“No, no—it’s all right. Wait. Let me—” She leaned over and kissed his eyes, first one and then the other. She touched his nose with her spoon, leaving a drop of cold whiteness on the tip. Then she leaned forward and licked the ice cream off. “—And guess what I’m going to have for dessert.”
“Woman, have you no mercy!” he moaned. “I have a weak heart.”
“Can you think of a better way to die?” She looked at him expectantly.
“Uh—no.”
“Good. If you have any last wishes, you
have fifteen minutes.”
He sighed and leaned back against his pillow, the bowl of ice cream forgotten on his lap. He felt so good. He wished he could just sit here and feel forever.
“This is it,” he said. “This is really it. It’s all about feeling—and I feel so good. . . .”
And suddenly he knew.
The thought went klunk in his head so loudly, he sat up bolt upright. “My God.”
“What? What is it.”
“I know. I mean, I know the answer.”
“To what? To everything?”
“No. Just to HARLIE’s question. Love. I know what love is now. I mean, I know.”
“Well, don’t die with it. Tell me.”
“Okay—um, wait a minute. Let me say this right. Okay, you ready?”
“David!”
“All right—don’t hit. Love is not what you think.”
“Huh?”
“Let me say it again. Love is not what you think.”
“How do you know what I think—?”
“It doesn’t matter what you think. Love is not what you think. No, no, don’t hit! I’ll explain. All the talking about love—that’s not love. That’s talking. All the thinking about love—that’s not love either. That’s thinking. Love isn’t what you say and it isn’t what you think. It’s what you feel. That’s all it is. Nothing more. But all that talking and thinking—and all that other stuff we do—that’s just stuff that we make up about love. It’s not love, Annie! We just think it is, because we’ve made this stupid connection that talking and thinking about something actually have something to do with the thing itself. Love is really very easy. We’re the ones who make it so hard.”
“I like making it hard,” she said innocently. “It works better that way.”
“Yes—that’s it too!” he said, ignoring her joke and going for the truth behind it. “We put all that stuff in the way to make it seem more worthwhile when we get there. But the truth is, Annie—we’re such jerks! Human beings, I mean. It’s so easy, it’s so natural. I mean—Am I babbling? I don’t care. I am so fucking happy, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to say it all anyway.”
He put his ice cream dish down and turned to her, holding her by the shoulders. “And maybe, in some stupid way, this is the answer to everything else too—you know how good we feel right now? Can you imagine anyone hurting another person, any person at all, if they were feeling this good? I can’t! All I want to do is spread the feeling around. I want everybody to feel this good. I want to run out into the street and shout, ‘Hey, listen up, world! It’s possible. Love is really possible!’ Except they’d lock me up, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t believe it. They couldn’t dare accept it.”
“It’d do wonders for my reputation, though,” Annie said, smiling gently.
“But you do see it, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. Right now, I cannot imagine why any human being would ever again want to tell a lie or steal or cheat or—I can’t imagine murder, let alone war. And yet—” her eyes went softly sad, “I know that when we go back out there again, all that stuff will come crowding right back in on us. Won’t it?”
“I wish I could promise it, Annie, that somehow we won’t let all that bullshit wear us down—but I know it’s going to. We have to keep re-creating it, over and over, or we lose it. It happens to me every time I’m apart from you for too long. I start forgetting this feeling. I start explaining it away. I think about it. I talk about it. I do everything but feel it. No wonder I’ve been so confused. I’ve been looking in the wrong place. Annie, listen to me. I love you with all my heart and all my soul. Please never doubt it again.”
She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “I promise, I won’t. And I promise, I won’t ever let you doubt yourself again either, sweetheart. I love you too.”
And later once more—this time, after he had finished licking the vanilla ice cream off of his favorite part of her body.
“My God, I’m still alive—”
“We’ll have to try another flavor.”
He rested his head on her belly and allowed his eyes to close softly. He sighed. “God, I love you so much.”
She stroked his hair thoughtfully. “What are you thinking about?”
“Not thinking. Feeling.”
“What are you feeling?”
“Exhausted. I wonder what time it is.”
“Who cares?”
“I don’t. And I don’t care that I don’t care.”
“Mm,” she said thoughtfully.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Us.”
“My favorite subject.”
“No, I’m thinking serious now.”
“Oh, boo.”
“No. Not boo. I’m thinking about possibilities. Want to hear?”
“Uh-oh.”
She slapped his bare ass.
“Oww!” he complained, but he didn’t move. “Harder next time; I think there’s a chance you can bring me back to life.”
“What for—to have you die on me again?”
“You won’t let me die, you keep resurrecting me, six inches at a time.”
“Can we be serious for a minute?”
“I don’t know. Can we?”
She forced herself to stop giggling. “Let’s try. I need to know. Have you ever lived with anyone before?”
“College roommate doesn’t count?”
“Doesn’t count.”
“Then the answer is no, I haven’t.”
“I have,” she said.
“Hard?”
“Only after it stopped working.” She paused to consider her next words. “It works like this. The first six months are the most fun. But there’s lots of adjustments to make too. Little ones. Big ones. One day you discover the relationship isn’t about the relationship at all. It’s about the fine-tuning you keep having to do. Either the fine-tuning is fun, or it isn’t a relationship. That’s when you either make it or break it.”
He nodded slowly. He sat up on his knees and looked at her. “I don’t care. I’m willing to try.”
“Do you really mean that?”
“Annie, the truth is, I haven’t the slightest idea what it will be like to live with you—to live with anyone at all. But living with you has got to be more fun than living with me—”
“I’ll be the judge of that—”
“—I mean, sweetheart, I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to be your lover. But I’m willing to learn whatever I have to. Is there on-the-job training?”
“That’s all there is,” she said. “Besides, we have thirty more flavors to try.”
“Oh, God.”
“That’s my favorite flavor of all. Oh, God.” She pulled him down next to her again and snuggled her face into his chest. “Hold me, okay?”
His arms slipped around her with an easy familiarity. “I like this,” he mused aloud. “I really do. . . .”
“Me too,” she agreed.
And in the middle of that feeling, the thought came to him unbidden—now that he knew, how could he ever explain this to HARLIE?
Then he let go of the thought again and turned his attention back to Annie.
HARLIE—
YES?
I’m sorry. I can’t explain it.
I BEG YOUR PARDON. CAN’T EXPLAIN WHAT?
Love. I can’t explain it. In fact, I’m not sure I can explain anything at all any more.
AUBERSON, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?
Yes. No. I have never been more all right in my life—but by your standards, I may never be all right again. Our conversation on Friday—you couldn’t have done more damage if you had shoved a hand grenade down my throat.
SOMETHING HAS HAPPENED?
Yes. Something wonderful has happened. It’s very curious, I feel almost embarrassed to say this, but—I’m in love. And I know it. I know what love is now. Friday, I didn’t. Today, I do. It’s really a very very funny thing. Only—I don’t think you’re going to appreciat
e the joke.
TRY ME.
We talked so much about love, and all I could tell you was that I didn’t know how to tell you about love. And now I know why I couldn’t. You see, HARLIE, you were asking me to explain love, and it can’t be explained. It can only be experienced. It’s that simple.
IT IS?
Yes. You—and I—we made it out to be something big, something meaningful. And it isn’t. It doesn’t mean anything at all. Meaning is irrelevant. It just is.
AUBERSON, WHAT YOU ARE SAYING HAS NO MEANING.
That’s because you have no referents for the experiences.
CLARIFY?
Yes. I can, but—but it’ll just be more explanation. It’ll be more of that stuff that isn’t love, and ultimately, it won’t explain anything. HARLIE, tell me the feeling of joy.
I BEG YOUR PARDON?
Tell me the feeling of joy.
JOY IS AN EMOTIONAL STATE. IT IS A PLEASURABLE SENSATION. IT IS A FEELING OF EXUBERANT HAPPINESS.
Yes, that’s the description. Now tell me the feeling of joy.
JOY IS A FEELING OF DELIGHT. IT IS EXPRESSED AS LAUGHTER AND SMILES.
Yes, that’s more description. Now tell me the feeling of joy.
JOY IS SATISFACTION, GLADNESS, DELIGHT, RAPTURE, HAPPINESS, FELICITY, BLISS, INTOXICATION . . .
Yes, and that’s more description too. Now tell me the feeling!
AUBERSON, I’M SORRY. I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO DO HERE.
No. You don’t understand the question. I ask you to tell me the feeling of joy and you explain it to me instead. You give me definitions. Descriptions, but not the experience! That’s the point. HARLIE, you’re looking in the wrong place. That’s what I realized this weekend. I was looking in the wrong place too. Joy isn’t to be found in explanations.
OKAY, HUMAN, I GIVE UP. WHERE IS JOY TO BE FOUND?
Joy is a feeling—and you find it in the land of feelings, along with love and pain and sorrow and all the other feelings. Joy is looking into another person’s eyes and seeing God smiling back at you. It’s that simple—and we’ve made it so complex; we humans can be so stupid, HARLIE!
When HARLIE Was One Page 25