Erotic Fiction: Loving A Man

She had first met him in a bookstore in the university town where they both lived, waiting on line at the coffee bar. She was wearing an Pashmina scarf and he admired the colors in it. They ran into each other a few days later at the same bookstore; he was charming, but not quite. He was not practiced, he was trying. He was holding volumes about himself he was not reading to her. She opened them and read anyway.

A few times a week they would see one another in the bookstore. She looked him over. Looked at all of his details. She guessed he was about fifty years old, and so she asked him.

"Sixty"

"I thought you were about fifty."

"Flattery will get you everywhere," he said with what seemed a blush in his cheeks. "I guess you're about thirty-five."

"Forty-eight. Flattery will get you only so far."

He asked her what she did all day besides talk to sixty year old men in book stalls.

"I'm a writer."

"Of what?"

"Gay erotica."

He was blushing then.

"Are you actually blushing? Oh, yes. You're sixty. I almost forgot."

"I just didn't expect that."

"Neither did I when I started."

"You're not married?"

"Gays can't be married."

"Ah, yes."

"And you? What do you do all day?"

"Art History professor."

She didn't want to ask him if he was married, so she didn't. He wasn't wearing a wedding band.

They started taking a small table together in the coffee bar. She saw him glance around one day.

"Worried someone will see you, Professor, with a thirty-five year old?"

He sat back and looked at her for a long while.

"My wife. My wife. My wife. Thirty years." There was no complaint in his voice. There was longing, sorrow, need.

"You're sitting here with a gay girl who is wearing trousers and a tie."

"Yes, I am."

They sat at those little tables for the next few months, sometimes every day. They never arranged to meet, they just knew and would show up. They rarely missed each other.

He asked her if she was going to let him read her stories.

"Are you going to invite me up to see your etchings?"

"Yes."

When they parted that early evening, he bent down and kissed her cheek briefly, put his forehead against it. She lingered there, smelling oranges and lemongrass. She did not resist, nor return the kiss, but walked slowly away, looking back at him.

She went home, and when she got into bed, she knew. She just knew.

The next day, she wore a strap-on under her trousers. She walked the two blocks to the bookstore, where he was waiting for her at a table.

She sat down and he reached his hand toward hers.

She stood again, "Come with me."

He got up and they walked together to her apartment.

It had been snowing the night before; it was dark and still overcast. They did not hold hands. They walked briskly to her place, without question, nor pause.

They got inside and she lit some candles.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about romancing a man."

"It's nice."

She lit a fire in the fireplace; got a bottle of wine and two glasses. He said that was nice, too.

They sat there on the floor looking at each other. He started, "I am confused...I'm a man, I'm married, I'm in your apartment, and you're gay. But, I want you."

"I'm not confused. Surprised, but not confused."

She took his hand and led him into her bedroom, began to undo his belt, unbutton his shirt. He sat on the bed, leaning back against the headboard.

He took her face in his hands and said against her cheek, "I've never done this."

"Neither have I."

"I have dalliances with students. They are frivolous and I am empty."

"I know."

"I need, I need, I need."

She pulled his socks off, took his trousers off. Along with his boxers, everything went onto the floor.

"What do you need?"she crawled toward him.

"You. This. To feel something, to be moved again. To be undead."

She slid up over him, put his arms above his head, rested her hand in his hands. She opened her fly and took her cock out. She began to enter him. She could feel him hard against her belly. He began to pull her tie off, put his hands at the top of her shirt.

"Go ahead, rip it open." She pushed into him a little deeper.

He pulled her shirt open, tearing the buttons off, exposing her lean chest. Her black curls fell across his shoulder. She pushed deeper and took his shirt off, kissed his arm, his neck. She looked into his eyes and whispered, "You are incredibly beautiful."

He asked if he could wrap his legs around her, if he would hurt her.

"No," she touched her lips to his. "You won't hurt me."

He moved his legs and arms tightly around her and wept.

She trembled and wept with him.