by Cole Reid
“She can,” said Owen, “I suppose.”
“No supposing,” said Georgia, “Stand with conviction.”
“Why?” asked Owen.
“Because it suits you,” said Georgia, “And it’s sexy.” Owen paused for a second. He had trouble thinking of what to say next.
“What do you do here when you’re all to yourself?” asked Georgia.
“You want me to show you?” asked Owen.
“You can answer that,” said Georgia, “It’s your place.” Owen walked to his living room and looked in the cabinet of his TV stand. He shuffled through several vinyl record sleeves before finding one. The vinyl turntable was on the shelf above. He put the record on the turntable dropped the needle toward the outside and let it play. It was 1930s big band, no voice just instruments.
“Come with me,” said Owen. Georgia finished her Italian soda and walked behind Owen. Owen turned the light on in his bedroom and pointed to a long-tube Celestron telescope aimed at the window.
“I’m turning the lights off now,” said Owen.
“Like I said, it’s your place,” said Georgia.
“Ok,” said Owen, “Can you pull the curtains?”
“Of course,” said Georgia.
“Alright,” said Owen, “Let me aim this thing. There’s so much more out there to see than in this flat.”
“That’s the River Aire, no?” said Georgia.
“One and only,” said Owen.
“You really are right on the river,” said Georgia.
“Well,” said Owen, “If I wanted to make a quick get away, I reckon I could get a running start and open one of these windows and make it into the river.”
“You’d probably break your leg,” said Georgia, “But you’d make it, no doubt.”
“You’re a downer,” said Owen.
“I’m just saying water is a deceptively dense surface,” said Georgia, “The surface tension of water makes it like landing on concrete. And you’re eight floors up.”
“You’ve got to bring technical consideration into my fantasy,” said Owen.
“Well,” said Georgia, “You’re the one with the telescope. It seems you like both, a bit of the technical and a bit of the fantasy.”
“Touché,” said Owen, “Touché. Ok. Come look at this.”
“Ok,” said Georgia. She went to the telescope and looked through the eyepiece.
“Oh that’s nice,” said Georgia, “What am I looking at?”
“Vega,” said Owen, “It’s the third brightest star in our celestial hemisphere. We’re a bit lucky because it’s a relatively clear night. Maybe not clear enough to see some of the dimmer stars but Vega is a wonder. She’s so bright. We’re gonna scale up.”
“How do you mean?” asked Georgia.
“Well, Vega is the third brightest star,” said Owen, “Next, we’ll do Arcturus which is also out. It’s brighter than Vega.”
“You said Vega’s the third brightest,” said Georgia.
“Well,” said Owen, “If you want to count our sun as a star, then it would be before Arcturus and Vega because of proximity.”
“I suppose we won’t be stargazing the Sun,” said Georgia.
“You’re right about that,” said Owen.
“Ok,” said Georgia, “Let me see Arcturus.”
“Just a moment,” said Owen. He realigned the telescope.
“Wait,” said Owen, “No, that’s not it. Sorry.” He tilted the barrel of the telescope upward.
“Is that…,?” said Owen, “Yeah, that’s it. Come take a look.” Georgia looked
“Wow,” said Georgia, “I can tell it’s brighter than Vega.”
“If you could travel at the speed of light you could make it to Arcturus in your life time,” said Owen, “It’s about thirty-six light years away.”
“I’d be sixty,” said Georgia.
“If you lived you would,” said Owen, “It’s bigger and brighter than the Sun, which means it probably hotter.”
“Probably?” said Georgia.
“I’ve never actually been there,” said Owen, “It wasn’t in the Parliamentary budget.”
“That’s funny,” said Georgia, “Thank you for showing me this.”
“Let me show you something a little different,” said Owen.
“Go, go,” said Georgia. Owen put his eye to the eyepiece he angled the telescope to the right. He didn’t find what he was looking for so he slowly moved the telescope to the right. He thought he was in the correct portion of the sky. Everything went dark. He moved the telescope around and saw nothing. He took his head away from the eyepiece and saw that the curtains were closed. Georgia was standing near the window. She walked toward him without saying anything. She stopped about eighteen inches away from him and just stood. It was dark but there was faint light coming in from the living room window, and the music. It was just enough to see the silhouette of two bodies. Being shorter, Georgia had the better vantage point. She could look up and see an impression of Owen’s head and shoulders. He was too tall for her to position him while standing. She put both palms against his chest and pushed him back. He went back. She pushed. He went back. She pushed hard sending him to the bed. She lifted her sweater up over her head, which had the effect of a change of contrast. Her wintergreen sweater was even darker in low light. Her bra was white. Her skin was naturally tan but paler from the English winter. Owen could see her better without her sweater. But he couldn’t see her well. He blinked repeatedly for his eyes to focus in the dark. She stood over him pushing against his knees with her thighs. He could make out her arms. They folded behind her body then came forward. Her bra went limp and fell to her fore arms. She moved her arms through the straps of her bra with refined motion. And let it fall to the floor. It gave Owen an agitated feeling. His eyes were disappointed. The stark white bra was the easiest thing to focus on. Without it, his eyes struggled to focus on Georgia’s dark hair and skin. But the double curl of the soft light forming against her breasts made him focus, purely by instinct. Georgia held her right leg against the bed brushing her thigh against his. She brought her other leg up dropping her knee on the bed parading herself on top of him. She bounced up and down to let her breasts bounce. Georgia sparked a predatory instinct in Owen. He could see motion in the darkness. He rushed toward it. He grabbed her breasts leaving her small space to work. She began to unbutton his shirt. She pulled open his shirt and ran her hands from his chest down to his belt buckle. She acted as if she had no interest in the buckle as she ran her hands up to his chest. She gave his chest hairs a slight tug as she slid her hands back down.
She could feel the temperature change of his skin, as her hands moved over it. His exposed skin cooled off with his shirt open. His skin was cool. The buckle was cold. Georgia unfastened the buckle and the button under it. She peeled his pants down without bothering his zipper. It was more difficult for Georgia to tug on his pants fully zipped. But he could feel her work. She tugged hard and the zipper partially unzipped itself. She tugged hard and he could feel his pants catch on his tip. Each tug let him better feel himself getting hard. The harder she pulled the harder he got—the more his pants caught against the bulb of erection. The tension of horizontal pulls against his rising motion made him stand even harder. The tension wasn’t only external between his pants and his penis but internal between Georgia and himself. She got him fully aroused by barely touching him. It made him feel cheated. He couldn’t have been fuller if she touched him, but getting aroused without her touching him made him feel both full and empty. His erection wasn’t so useful without her touch. He could feel it but she needed to. He pulled his zipper to the bottom and his pants slipped easily into Georgia’s hands. Anticipating him, she undid her jeans and pulled them down along with everything else. She stood stark naked in so little light. She turned and drew back the curtain for the stars—precious light. As the light came in from so far away, so did Georgia. There was space between them, measured by the height of their te
nsion, neither could get over it alone. As Georgia walked from the window to the bed, Owen got up and stood over her. She could see him, not naked, clothed in milky starlight. He bent in toward her. She went for his lips but his head sank below hers. He grabbed her from the back of the thighs and lifted her up, sacking her back to the window. The impacts were simultaneous—one inside her, one outside. Owen pushed his way inside her so fast with such force that Georgia’s heart and breath altogether stopped. Her back hit the glass as Owen hit her bones. A sudden feeling of drowning came over her, the weightlessness; inability to breathed. She still couldn’t feel her heartbeat. It lasted a fraction of a second but she couldn’t tell if she was in her body or not. Her breath and beat were gone. She had trouble labeling the feeling. Her mind became hyperactive, looking for something to focus on. She found a rhythm—not hers—his. His force was one thing but his accuracy was another. He beat without missing a spot. He was powerful. She felt it the same time she felt her back pounding against the glass. She had no force to speak of. It was all him.
His thrusting reminded her of the cavity he filled. She started to remember herself. She could feel her heart again. It beat to the rhythm of his thrusts. Feeling her heart caused as much rupture as resuscitation. Air came up through her mouth and made an audible sound. Owen caught the sound as a signal and changed from thrusting to pounding. The skin of Georgia’s back began to pinch against the glass. Owen’s thrusts were so fast and repeated her skin had no time to reform before it hit the glass and came up then hit the glass. But she felt the same, out of body. She could label the pain but she couldn’t feel it, isolate it. There was too much of Owen to feel. Her body tightened around him—did whatever he did. She hadn’t realized it but she was forced to realize by contrast. Until Owen shoved her against the window, she had an arrogant complacency. It was buried deep inside her. She felt in control. She handled his seduction perfectly. Not even the Agency could train her to be as good as she was. He was more than twenty years her senior but she could control him like the opposite was true. She had been subconsciously patting herself on the back since Glasgow. But squeezed against the glass with Owen deep inside her, she didn’t feel like he was a notch on her belt. She felt like a notch on his.
“The glass won’t break,” said Owen.
“Break it,” said Georgia. The dare came over Owen. He pounded her against the glass as if for pain, not pleasure. But he couldn’t sustain his charge. He was forty-five years old. He began to tire. He tightened his grip on Georgia’s butt and reversed her.
“How’s this for stargazing?” said Owen. He leaned his back into the window glass rocked his pelvis upward. It took less energy for Owen to lean against the glass than to hold Georgia against it but he couldn’t push as fast. Georgia could feel only light bumps against her pelvis but the motion of the wave she rode made up for the lack of force. It was then that Georgia could relax and take Owen up on his offer. He was tall but she could see over his shoulder, up out the window. He was right. She could see the stars. She rode the slow motion of his cycles feeling the starlight against her face. Her mind came back to her. She started thinking again. She thought about Owen, not just feeling him. She told herself he wasn’t big. He wasn’t small. He was good-sized. Forty-five years old but he didn’t lack a thing. The starlight ride didn’t last long. He tightened his grip on her again and waddled against her weight toward the bed. Georgia instinctively looked back over her shoulder in the direction she was moving. Owen dropped her back on the bed but held her butt to stay inside her. He lowered her waist down on the bed. Georgia could feel him slightly less full. Georgia understood. He wanted to finish. With tired arms, Owen unleashed the energy of his thighs. With Georgia flat on her back, he didn’t have to waste energy holding her up. He didn’t have to waste energy at all. He used what energy he had left to lift both Georgia and himself to the top. She could feel him get thicker. She recanted. He wasn’t just good-sized. Like a gentleman, Owen let Georgia go first. She reached the top a good ten seconds before he did.
Owen waited to release everything he had before pushing away from Georgia and pulling out of her. She held onto his waist but he twisted, breaking her grip. He crawled forward on the bed making sure he had enough space to extend his legs. He put his head on his pillow and exhaled. He lied on the bed with no cover before Georgia rolled over next to him bringing the top sheet with her. She covered them both. Owen turned over, flat on his back. Georgia found a comfortable position nestled next to him with her head on his chest. She felt the hyper-expansion of his chest going as far out as it could go, before retreating inward. Neither said a word. There was the sound of his breathing, the feeling of his heartbeat and the blessing of the stars.
•••
“That was a neat trick,” said Owen, “Closing the curtains like you did.”
“Just to get your attention,” said Georgia, “Or do you still have to think about being in the public eye?”
“Well,” said Owen, “Maybe, but not enough to keep the curtains closed, I like the starlight.”
“So do I,” said Georgia, “Besides the media don’t come after MPs who have left office. Do they?”
“Do you know what it means to be a former MP?” said Owen.
“I can’t honestly say yes,” said Georgia.
“It means feeling like you’ve left nothing but collapsed castles in your wake,” said Owen.
“Why?” asked Georgia.
“Because no matter what you’ve done, it stands to be undone as soon as you leave office, if not before then,” said Owen, “You’re no longer there to keeping fighting for your initiatives. And your own party won’t care once you’re gone, unless defending your policies is necessary to promote the career of some active party member. I suppose that’s the motivation for being the PM. That way at least you can be a former PM with rubble behind you instead of just an MP. The more exclusive the club.” Owen reached down for soft end of Georgia’s butt. Georgia played with his chest hairs.
“I suppose we’re all looking for an exclusive club in one way or another,” said Georgia.
“I suppose that’s true,” said Owen, “In the end, we build something to make it exclusive. We want it as our baby—pride and joy. But time will take it away when we’re gone. And if you believe Nietzsche, God is dead. So now we live in the world he created, as it comes apart. And he’s no where around to mend it.”
“Have you heard of Theo Bilder?” said Georgia.
“No,” said Owen, “Who is he?”
He was an Austrian soldier from Salzburg and minor writer,” said Georgia, “His works were quite novel but he went wrong by trying to popularize himself through claiming to have known Hitler before Hitler left Salzburg for Germany.”
“Why would he do that?” asked Owen.
“I can’t be sure,” said Georgia, “But I think it was about money. He had failing health in his last years and he never made much money from his writings. But he wrote a lot about Nietzsche.”
“What did he say about Nietzsche?” asked Owen.
“He said that God could not be dead because then all of creation would collapse. In a sense, God is life so if he dies, we all go with him.”
“That’s interesting,” said Owen.
“It gets better,” said Georgia, “He said God wasn’t dead but the Holy Trinity was. He said that Jesus had done his job and was relieved of all responsibility toward creation and since all sin had been washed away, the Holy Spirit could also be relieved of duty because God no longer needed to send messages by way of the Holy Spirit. So he said God replaced the Holy Trinity with what Bilder called the Trinity of the Mind.”
“What’s the Trinity of the Mind?” asked Owen.
“Ok,” said Georgia, “Bilder postulated three mental states that sum up the functions of the mind. The first state is Mind as a Tool. He says this is the mental state when you’re being creative or trying to solve a problem. The second state is Mind as a Weapon. This is the mental sta
te for plotting or scheming. He said that exploration is also included in the Mind as a Weapon state because exploration is literally an attack on the unknown. Science is a combination of Mind as a Tool and Mind as a Weapon because it combines exploration and problem-sovling.”
“What’s the last state?” asked Owen.
“This is where he got deeply philosophical,” said Georgia, “The third state is Mind as a Prison. He said this was the mental state predominant in fools and for those oversubscribed to a particular way of thinking or any particular religion.”
“Wait,” said Owen, “And you said that Bilder said God gave men this Trinity of the Mind?”
“Yes,” said Georgia, “The point of this new Trinity was to do away with religion because it was no longer necessary. This is why he said that deeply religious people have their minds stuck in a prison. Because religion is no longer needed. He said the final step in God’s plan was to rebuild the Garden of Eden where mankind and God would once again walk together.”