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From: rache696@yahoo.com (Rache)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2004 02:02:51 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: {ASSM} Little Birds (A Flattery) (M/F, Necro Themes, Reluct, Drugs, Sleepy Sex, Rom)
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Date: Sat,  7 Aug 2004 06:10:04 -0400
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Story codes: M/F, Necrophilia Themes, Reluctance, Drugs, Sleepy Sex,
Romance


Note: Copyrighted March 4, 2004 by Rachael Ross. Free for unlimited
public distribution to readers aged 18 and over. Intended for adults
only. All characters, locations, and events resemble people I know, in
the event they resemble people you know as well, hey...Maybe we know
each other too!

I borrowed a line from "Moby Dick" by H. Melville and a line from
"Hamlet" by W. Shakespeare. I did not pay either of them a royalty
fee, since they are dead and did not answer my emails. -rr


Little Birds (a flattery)
fiction by Rachael


=== 

I'm a 22-year-old woman, college educated and intelligent. I'm
reasonably attractive, outgoing, and well regarded. I've known my
husband since I was in high school and he is 10 years older than I am,
but that hasn't mattered to me in the least. Nor to him, I would hope.
He's an academic and well respected in his field. We both come from
good middle-upper class families and we were never abused as children,
or suffered physical or emotional trauma, we're very normal people.
We've been married since June and had decided to wait until I've
settled into my career before starting a family, but plans change.

We've always enjoyed a healthy sexual relationship, but it is what you
would term `vanilla' I believe. A few times when we dated my husband
and I would try very mild bondage games, being tied to the bed with
silk scarves, or being spanked rather gently, but for the most part we
enjoyed oral foreplay and straight intercourse. It wasn't great every
time, but I thought it wasn't bad. Something changed though, once we
were married.

These changes began with my husband telling me not to move so much
while we were making love. This was soon after our wedding; in fact it
was just about the last night or maybe second to last night of our
honeymoon. I'm very active in bed. I like to move and talk and let him
know when I like something or, much more rarely, when I don't. He
never complained about it before, and it surprised me a little. You
have to picture it I suppose, me on top of my husband, bouncing around
rather enjoyably, and then his strong fingers digging into my hips.

"Shhh...Don't move so much, okay?" He whispered it, like I was ruining a
good movie or something. I didn't say anything, but it did bother me a
little because I didn't understand it.

Perhaps a week later we were making love again and he'd positioned
himself so that I was on my back and he was next to me on his left
side. His right leg was between mine, while his left leg was
underneath us, so that we were scissored with his penis inside me. It
was very comfortable and I felt very good, but when I began moving,
just rocking my hips a little and moaning, he again asked me to stop.

"What?" I asked, a little breathlessly.

He put his hand on my stomach, pushing down slightly, not very hard at
all. "Please, just...just don't move, okay?"

"Ummm...okay." I said, but I was confused again. What was I supposed to
do if I wasn't moving? My body goes all by itself and even though I
tried, my hips were still rocking and my thighs wanted to press
together.

My husband was very still, just sliding his penis in and out of me and
all I could hear was his breathing. He had his eyes closed and for
some reason this angered me a little. But I didn't say anything and
whatever I felt that was good physically was lost. I just wasn't into
it anymore. So that made it much easier to lie there and be quiet like
he'd asked.

He ejaculated a few minutes later, pulling me hard onto him as he
emptied himself into me. When he came it was one of he best orgasms
he'd had in a long time, he was actually groaning and really driving
into my sex that time. Usually he stops moving and pulls out rather
quickly, but not this time. He kept thrusting as though he hadn't even
cum and despite my resentment it did start arousing me again. As soon
as I started moving though, that was it, he stopped and finally pulled
out, leaving me feeling very neglected.

I rolled over and pretended I was asleep when he tried to talk to me.

A few days later I'd cooled down enough so that I could actually bear
to bring the subject up. We were in bed and I knew he was horny
because he was rubbing my thigh as I lay with my back to him. He'd
slide his hand down to where my panties covered my sex and ass and
almost but not quite touch me there. "Are you going to tell me to shut
up again?" I asked him without turning over.

"I never told you to shut up." He replied defensively, taking his hand
off my leg with a sigh.

"What did you say then?"

"I...I just asked you if you could not move so much, if you...you could be
a little more quiet."

"And why is that?" I turned around finally, looking at him in the dim
light that came from our bathroom. "You just want me to lay there,
like...I'm asleep or something?"

I sounded angry because I was; unfortunately this usually gets him a
little mad also. "Or something...yeah." He sat up and stared down at me.
"I just...wish you'd try it once, it's not like I'm asking to fuck you
in the ass or something."

"Oh yeah, right. So it's either I `shut up and lie still' or I get
buttfucked?" I sat up too. "Fuck you!"

"I didn't say that!"

"But that's what you meant." I shook my head. "Okay fine, I'll be
quiet. In fact, I'll be so quiet that you won't even know I'm here." I
grabbed my pillow and left, going to the spare bedroom to sleep on the
daybed. "Happy?" I slammed the door behind me.

He brought me flowers the next afternoon, but it was another 3 days
before we traded apologies. I'd thought about it and maybe I was just
misunderstanding what he wanted. We went out to a nice dinner and
everything seemed to be getting back to normal. We had sex the usual
way, real dirty hard make-up sex, and it was great. I made a lot of
noise and everything.

For three weeks everything was peaches and cream. I'd pretty much
forgotten our argument and when I remembered it, I felt a little
embarrassed because it really had been nothing worth fighting over. We
had to go to a funeral though, for one of my husband's students. She
was from the area and had died in a boating accident on the sound. We
probably didn't have to go, in fact I would have preferred not to, but
my husband felt that he should. I'd only been to one funeral
previously, for my grandmother when I was very young.

The student in question was a girl of 20 and I didn't know her at all
except what my husband had told me. She was pretty and healthy and
just entering the prime of life and now it had been stolen. It hardly
seemed fair, but my reflections aren't really important here. It's
enough to say that I was saddened and sympathetic with the family. I
thought about my own family and tried to imagine what it will be like
when someone like my father dies, because it will happen someday. That
thought filled me more than any other; the sheer certainty of it was
like a great weight around my neck.

After the funeral I was ready to leave. The cemetery was nice enough,
like a park with well manicured grounds and a great many large and
ancient trees, and you could almost imagine having a picnic there
until the countless headstones and monuments forced themselves into
focus. Then you realized that hundreds, even thousands of people were
interred just a few feet down. It was not a very comfortable
sensation. I didn't like it and I wanted to go. But my husband would
not leave, he started walking away from the car and I had to hurry to
catch up.

"What's wrong? I want to go...let's go." I said, but he shook his head.

"Let's walk a little, okay?" He seemed alright, not depressed or
anything, and I was trying to understand.

"Okay, a little." I reluctantly agreed.

So he took my hand and we walked down a road that soon changed from
asphalt to cobblestone when we started getting to oldest part of the
big cemetery. It was a very nice day in late August. Still warm, but
not oppressive, and birds sang and squirrels ran from tree to tree.
There was nobody else in sight and it actually became quite enjoyable,
just walking like that.

We started looking at the gravestones as we walked, noting the dates
as they regressed through time, past the turn of the century. We
smiled at some of the names and shook our heads at the children. My
earlier discomfort had faded, perhaps because we were so far removed
now from the immediacy of that girl my husband had known. Far from her
gleaming dark coffin and the smell of uprooted earth, the sounds of
her family quietly weeping. These were people long since gone,
forgotten by their children's grandchildren, and tended by anonymous
men who were paid to care.

We stopped by a beautiful moss covered angel, peering towards heaven
with palms pressed to her breast. The marker beneath it was old and
chipped.

Claire Marie Hessel
October 7 1872 - December 19 1891

Beloved Wife and Daughter


"Claire Marie." I said. "That's a pretty name."

"Yeah." My husband's hand squeezed mine. "Let's sit down."

We sat next to the angel, in the shade on that cool lawn. "She was
just 19." I sighed and traced the lettering, getting the tip of my
finger smudged dark with dust.

"Barely even that old." My husband nodded.

"What do you think she looked like?" I wondered.

"She was pretty, with auburn hair, like yours." He smiled at me and
touched my hair. "But Claire's hair was longer, and curled just a
little as it lay across her shoulders. She had green eyes that were
bright and quick, and never still, as though she were afraid that she
might miss something."

"She knew her time was short." I whispered.

My husband looked into my soft brown eyes. "Her skin was pale, like
milk and her breasts small with rosy nipples that made her flush with
embarrassment the first time her husband-to-be had seen them." Then he
was kissing me. "But on her wedding night she felt no shame, for she
loved him passionately and offered herself without regret to his sweet
gaze."

He does that to me, my husband, he tells me stories as foreplay. I was
already growing wet and the dress I wore bunched easily around my
hips. I let my husband make love to me while Claire Marie slept below
us. I dug my heels into that soft grass and pulled him inside me,
pretending I was this girl, although I didn't know why. "Call me
Claire...say it...say it for me..." I whispered urgently as his heat speared
deeply into my womb. And he did, repeating that name over and over,
staring at her gravestone and joining my orgasm with his.

I felt guilty after that. After my lust had been assuaged and we were
walking back to our car, my husband's seed burning inside me, and some
I imagined spilled on the ground, seeping into the earth to find
Claire Marie. It was a sacrilege, I thought afterwards, doing that
there, in that place. I wouldn't speak with my husband, though I could
tell he was in a fine mood and willing to entertain me. I just wanted
to go home and take a bath.

That my feelings weren't clear to my husband became manifest a few
days later when he proposed we should go back to the cemetery
sometime, perhaps to bring some flowers for the girl. He'd left it
unclear if the girl in question was his former student, or our Claire
Marie, and I didn't ask further. I understood him to mean he would
like us to make love again in that place, and the thought of it
repulsed me thoroughly. Guilt rose like bile in my throat and I shook
my head, telling him that I couldn't, not again. He was disappointed
and I tried to explain, but my words were inadequate and we found
ourselves separate once again.

Soon thereafter came an episode that was to be repeated at odd
intervals over the next several months. It had been our custom to
drink wine with our weekend suppers, both of us enjoying the
exploration and growing passion of the amateur connoisseur. One night,
in mid September, I'd apparently had a little too much. Soon after
we'd finished our dinner I felt dizzy and weak. My body was languid
and my mind unclear, as though a great weariness had possessed me. My
husband carried me to bed and undressed me, but beyond that I could
remember nothing at all.

The next morning I'd awoken to find myself somewhat tender and still
damp from what had obviously been a long night of lovemaking. I felt
very anxious about this, not because I felt my husband had abused me
in some way, he was very emphatic about my willingness to couple with
him and I had no reason to disbelieve him, but because I simply
couldn't remember it. I wondered if this `blacking out' was a symptom
of alcoholism, or some physical problem I was unaware of. It made me
nervous and I considered seeing a doctor, but my husband dissuaded me,
saying it was probably just my body chemistry that night.

I abstained from alcohol or several weeks, and thereafter limited
myself to a single glass with my meal. I'd almost forgotten it
entirely when the experience was repeated. Again I felt disoriented
and tired and my husband had to help me to bed. I woke up the next
morning very early and found myself still dressed, although it was
obvious that we'd made love again, several times judging from the
condition of my vagina and the copious amount of semen and other
fluids both inside and outside my body. I'd also awoken with a
headache, which was very unusual for me, and while I was in the bath I
decided I would see a doctor.

I told my husband this and he again tried to talk me out of it,
telling me that it was probably just the wine. He'd also woken up with
a headache, as though he'd drunk an entire bottle, rather than just
two glasses. He retrieved the bottle from the refrigerator and
examined the label before pouring what remained of the wine down the
sink.

"We won't be drinking from this vineyard again!" He said, putting the
bottle in the recycling can. "But I don't think we need to see any
doctors either, okay?"

I nodded and let him make my decision for me, hoping that it was just
tainted wine and not me at all. But I was thinking about blackouts and
now denial. I told myself if I started hiding airline bottles of cheap
chardonnay around the house I was going to check into a clinic.

One day shortly after that, my husband and I were walking downtown,
through the old University District. We were visiting a small gallery
where a friend of mine was having a show and I was looking forward to
it. My husband was somewhat less enthusiastic, but not terribly so, we
were both enjoying the day and being together. Even so I had made a
vague promise a few days before about making it up to him. We walked
down the street, close together with his arm around me, the other
holding an umbrella above us to ward off the autumn rain. I was
surprised when he stopped suddenly, turning us to look in a store
window.

"I know how you can make it up to me." He said.

I smiled, wondering what he was thinking. "How?"

"That." My husband pointed at a mannequin. "Let me buy you that
dress."

I looked at it through the window. The store was a vintage clothier
and the dress in question had to be from the thirties, or maybe even
the twenties. It looked like a wedding dress, all satin and lace that
was wonderfully intricate and woven through with small dark beads,
like tiny black pearls. In fact, the whole dress was black as night.
On the mannequin's head sat a black velvet hat with a narrow brim and
a black veil finely netted to cover the face. It was beautiful, but...

"It's black." I said. Shaking my head and laughing. "Who would wear
that? It's too Goth, even for this town."

"It's perfect." My husband breathed. He looked at me. "Please? Just
try it on, okay?"

I thought we were just playing a game; really it was kind of funny. So
in we went and found the girl who was clerking. She seemed surprised
we were interested in that dress. It's very expensive she warned us,
but my husband shrugged that off despite my sideways glance. I was
still worried about my student loans and the dress had a tag with 4
numbers on it, all on the wrong side of the decimal point.

My husband asked about the dress' history, but the girl didn't know
anything really. It had been bought at auction when an old woman had
died. Her estate was to be divided amongst her children, and they
apparently decided to cash in. My husband shook his head at that, he's
a social anthropologist and `cashing in' as the girl so eloquently put
it, is criminal to him. The dress had been in a chest, along with a
lot of other, lesser garments, and had been purchased quite by
accident. It is doubtful any of the children had even known of its
existence.

I needed the clerk to help me with it, which she did only after my
husband had assured the girl of our immediate and genuine interest.
I'm a size 4 and the dress actually fit me very well, it was perhaps
just a little long and a little tight around my tummy. It was supposed
to be worn with a corset, the clerk told me, but I could get away
without wearing one she thought. I was almost certainly a size or two
smaller than the woman for whom the dress had originally been made.
But our breasts were about right I supposed, though a corset would
probably help to fill out the bodice properly. It had herringbone
hooks hidden along the spine and a wide satin sash with a fixed bow
that wrapped around my waist and then pinned to the small of my back.
There were actually 3 layers to the dress itself, with a slip-like
interior of crinoline that had lost much of it's original stiffness,
surrounded by the fine silk material of the dress proper, and a layer
of lace over that, stitched at the waist and neck, and diaphanous in
effect; like wearing a shadow. It was beautiful and I stepped out of
the dressing room, letting my husband see me while I turned for the
mirrors.

My husband bought the hat for me as well and I felt both spoiled and a
little nervous as our purchase was carefully wrapped and boxed. It
seemed like an awful lot of money to spend on a dress I would never
wear in public. It was an extravagance; a decadent luxury and I
worried over it all afternoon. My husband, however was quite the
opposite, animated and charming with my friends at the gallery. He
lavished attention on me so that I was quite pleased when someone
commented on it, paying us the compliment of being truly lovers
amongst so many who merely had the appearance.

In a somewhat secluded corner, beneath a pleasant watercolor of potted
flowers in an old and cracked windowsill, my husband pulled me close
and kissed me deeply. He surprised me with his urgency, clutching me
to him as his hands moved down my back to my hips and further to my
ass, pulling me to feel his erection pressing between us.

"What's gotten into you?" I whispered, smiling and licking my lips.

"I want you." He replied simply and I looked around wondering if his
voice hadn't carried away from our little hiding place.

"What? Here?" I giggled and then he was kissing me again, exploring my
mouth with his tongue and making me moan as my breasts were crushed to
his chest.

"Turn around." He whispered, moving me with his hands so that I faced
the painting. He was lifting my skirt and I had to lean forward,
pressing my palms against the cool red brick of the wall.

"Please, no! Someone will...oh!" My husband had freed his penis and he
pulled my panty to the side, actually ripping the fabric with his
fingers. He rubbed the crown of his erection across my sex and I felt
the excitement rushing through me. This unexpected encounter with so
many friends and strangers nearby was intoxicating suddenly. Any
moment one of them could come around the corner and..."Ahhh...yessss" I
hissed as his hardness penetrated me, stretching the humid folds of my
sex. I pushed back as desire coursed through my veins.

We made love quickly, with my husband's arms wrapped around my breasts
and his chin over my shoulder, breathing hotly into my ear as he
thrust into my womb wit short quick strokes. I was panting and biting
my lips, telling myself to remain quiet despite my almost primal need
to release the energy that overwhelmed my senses. I had one orgasm
after another until I could barely stand and my husband was forced to
hold me up. It was the best in a long time and I was grinding myself
back against him until finally even that desperate motion gave way to
stuporous ecstasy. I was limp and powerless in my husband's strong
arms and soon after he too began to orgasm, shooting his seed deeply
inside me. He kissed my neck and cheek, holding himself within my
quivering flesh until the moment slowly passed and we were able to
arouse our sensibilities.

My husband straightened himself and fixed his appearance, smiling
happily at me while I tried to do the same. I giggled and felt myself
blushing furiously. I looked around with the realization, or at least
the hope, that I would never know if anyone had witnessed our immodest
passion. I had to remove my panties, they were ruined and I used them
to clean the wetness spilling down my thighs. It was barely adequate
and I felt him still inside me, a warmth that would betray itself the
rest of the day as it sought escape. I looked around, holding my damp
panties, which now smelled strongly of our union. I did not really
want to put them in my small purse. My husband took them from me with
a chuckle and laid them unceremoniously on a piece of rather mundane
statuary.

I laughed at him. "You're bad!"

We left the area slowly, but deliberately, and I avoided looking at
the other people as they circulated for fear of seeing recognition in
their eyes. I held my husband's arm tightly and questioned him again.

"What was that all about?" I whispered, looking quickly away as a
waiter approached to offer us champagne.

My husband took two glasses, thanking the young man, and handed one to
me. I drank half of it quickly. "Didn't you like it?" He sipped his
own drink and we wandered into another section of the gallery.

"I...yeah, I loved it...but..." I shook my head. "It's that dress, isn't
it?" I felt like something important had suddenly become clear.

My husband nodded, tilting his head as we walked so his mouth was
close to my ear. "I've been wanting you ever since I saw you wearing
it." He gave me a small hug with his arm around my waist. "I kept
seeing you in it and...and I couldn't wait."

I felt his sperm still inside me, and the wetness cooling on my thighs
as we walked. I lifted my face and looked around brazenly, suddenly
hoping that someone would give me a knowing smile. I was flushing hot
all over and I felt a little confused at being so...horny. I wanted him
again, right then, but not right there. I asked him to take me home; I
wanted to wear my new dress. I did not have to ask twice and if our
apologetic goodbyes were clumsy and hastily given, neither of us
cared. We retrieved our coats and our packages and our umbrella from
the cloakroom and waited breathlessly in the rain for a taxi.

That night I wore the dress for my husband and I felt somewhat
self-conscious at first. This was someone's wedding dress, I reminded
myself, it was a dream come true as only a woman would understand it.
My own wedding dress was wrapped in plastic. Once in awhile I would
look at it and smile, even open the bag and take a small breath of it.
I wondered if the owner of this dress had ever done that, and what she
would think of our little scene.

My husband made love to me, fully clothed, both of us. I might have
protested that the dress could get stained, but he'd allowed us no
other choice. He wanted me in that black dress, lying on my back with
my legs together and my hands clasped over my breast. He positioned me
like I was modeling for a painting and it was clear that this pose was
exactly as one would expect from someone dead. I did as he asked but I
wanted to question him. What was the purpose of this? What did it
satisfy in his nature to see me that way? I thought I was finally
gaining some understanding of why he'd asked me previously to lie
still and be quiet. It was frightening to me, despite my love and
trust for him, to be treated in this manner.

"Do you think about me...being...dead?" I asked him finally. He was
sitting on the bed, touching me, touching the dress and looking at me.

"Wha...what?"

"The dress, the way you want me to lie here, not moving, not
talking...I'm dead, right?"

"No...no, you're not. I...I...just want to look at you first."

"Making love in the cemetery."

"That was...different."

"I am dead." I closed my eyes and said nothing more. I could not tell
you why I did it then, though I have my suspicions now. My husband
couldn't hide his secrets from me, they poured out of his eyes,
begging to be heard. He wanted a dead woman to love; I would be that
woman for him. Perhaps only that once, or perhaps as many times as he
wished, I didn't know.

He shook me gently, calling my name and I ignored him. He tried
talking to me, explaining that I'd misunderstood his intentions. He
paced the room slowly and sat back down. I ignored that too. He told
me he loved me, but he was speaking to a dead woman.

My husband made love to me then, as I said before. He was slow and
deliberate and his kisses through the fine lace of my veil nearly
beguiled away my resolve to be lifeless. His touches were sensitive
and only with difficulty did I make no sound of pleasure or protest;
allow no movement to betray my intentions. I let him mold me to the
shape he desired, spreading my legs and lifting my dress, exposing my
bare sex to his kisses first and later his turgid penis. He made love
to me for hours it seemed, holding himself back when he came close and
shifting his attentions to prolong our adventure.

I was not immune, though I found perverse pleasure in denying my
emotion the release it craved. I would tremble with impending orgasm,
and wrestle great battles to control it. I was at war with myself
while my husband flooded me with sweet pangs of pleasure. His
attention was my enemy and I was rigid with the effort to resist him.
The wetness between my legs, the hardness of my nipples, and my
breathing, the speeding and slowing of my lungs lifting my breasts,
all gave me away. But those were all nothings compared to the wonders
of being dead.

I imagined the walls closing in around me, changing to virgin white
satin, plush and perfumed. I was in a room just big enough for my body
to lie eternal. I felt the pillow under my head, and the roses wrapped
in baby's breath clutched to my breast. My eyes were closed and my
skin was pale and soft as the petals of a lily. I could no longer feel
my husband on top of me. My nipples stopped burning and my clitoris
ached no more. My lungs held their last breath jealously and my heart
slowed and finally stopped. Everything was quiet now, finally and
forever. I was alone.

My orgasm exploded and I let out the breath I was holding, coughing
and panting. I wrapped my arms and legs around my husband, pulling him
to me as I wept. I was cumming so hard I thought I should never be
sane again. All reason deserted me. Clarity was gone and a riot of the
senses stole through me. I was alive again, and wanting and needing
more than I ever had before. I'd died for my love and he'd brought me
back, like a dream. My husband responded immediately, not asking me to
be still or quiet, but tearing the veil from my face and kissing my
lips, my cheeks, and my eyes. We twisted and rolled and made savage
love to celebrate our life. I understood.

"I thought you were dead." My husband breathed, smiling and cuddling
me the way I like.

"I was." I whispered. "And then you brought me back."

"I don't know why I like..." He searched for a word. "...that. I just
do."

"I know." I hugged him. "I felt so lonely for a moment. I was trying
to convince myself that I was dead and for just a second it felt like
I was." I didn't know if I could explain this. "I felt nothing at all
and my heart...it stopped, I think."

My husband looked at me.

"What?" I asked giggling and feeling foolish.

"I don't want you to die." he said finally.

"I know that, we're just...pretending, right?" I kissed him.

Whatever epiphany I'd experienced that night hadn't totally convinced
me of what we were doing however. I'd found excitement first in the
discipline of `dying' and then again when I was able to abandon that
effort and be `saved' in a manner of speaking. It was tempting to use
the word resurrected, but I feared such language. My husband's
experience was different, I thought. I wasn't sure his idea was so
dissimilar, but there could be no salvation for his lover. I suspected
that he would love death itself, if he could; that he had loved me
during our role-play seemed incidental.

My husband and I performed this role-play several times over the next
month, adding little things like candles and flowers in a seeming
effort to turn our bedroom into a funeral parlor. Our `scenes' became
ritualized and at times I found the effort tedious or humorous or even
uncomfortable, like soaking in a bathtub full of ice water for 20
minutes so that my husband could experience the lifeless chill of my
form. Or painting my body and face with a thinned solution of some
theatrical skin whitener, only to find it did not wash away as easily
as promised.

By this time it was nearly the end of October and I joked with my
husband that I at least had my costume already. We were going to
attend two parties; my husband's department head was hosting the
earlier and less interesting one. My old sorority was giving the
second, many of who I was still very close to since I'd only gotten my
degree the previous June. But it would be at the first that I met
someone very interesting.

She was older, a humanities professor from Bonn, with a rich German
accent. She spoke to me with a remembrance of the girl's funeral
several months prior. She'd seen me there, but I was somewhat
embarrassed to confess that I did not recall very many of the faces in
attendance that day. My husband had taken the opportunity to play
university politics, and I found myself alone with her on an antique
settee, sipping my drink as we spoke.

"I was there today, at that cemetery." She told me. "No, not to visit
anyone. I was doing rubbings of some of the markers there."

I had to ask her what rubbings were, being unfamiliar with the term.

"It's using charcoal to capture the marker, like using a pencil to
copy a penny into your notebook when you were a child." She smiled at
me as if I were still a child. "I use onionskin, instead of a notebook
of course."

I nodded. Of course, I thought. "Why would you do that?" I asked.

"Because they are beautiful." She smiled. "Would you care to see
some?"

"I...I don't know." I wasn't sure what she was asking me.

"Of course you do." She touched my knee lightly with a wrinkled hand.
"I have them here, the ones I did today. I'll be right back."

I sat there watching the people around me, waiting and wishing my
husband would come rescue me. I had no opinion then on the substance
of this woman's enthusiasm, although it struck me as slightly odd. I
understood a little of what she was saying, there had indeed been
several markers that I'd found pleasing both aesthetically and
emotionally, but I didn't think I wanted to take them home with me.

The professor returned with an artist's portfolio, an old worn leather
case of generous proportion. She sat beside me and opened it slowly.
She'd put her rubbings in plastic sleeves, after treating them with an
aerosol of some sort that artists used to prevent smudging. She
explained the process briefly as the first of her rubbings was
removed. She handed it to me and I was surprised by my own reaction.
The slanting shades of gray, lighter here and darker there, rendering
with perfect imperfection the headstone of a man some 42 years old and
dead a hundred years. The cracks and bumps, the very texture of
passing time was revealed to me.

"There is a serenity there, captured in the art, wouldn't you say?"
She was looking at me as I studied her rubbing. "Not the calm of a
still life painting, which is artificial and boring, but the very
essence of the thing itself. Do you see it?"

I nodded. "Yes, I do see it."

There was motion in that art; the rapid movement of the charcoal
across the paper was captured as clearly as anything else. But the eye
was drawn beyond that, to the object, and then beyond that as well, to
something more.

"Melville wrote, `It is the thing behind the thing, I chiefly hate.'
And so Ahab was damned." I looked up to see the woman staring into my
eyes. "But we do not hate, you and I, we embrace it and so we are
saved."

"I...I don't understand. Saved from...what?" I tried to remember that
story. Ahab hated God, didn't he?

"Saved from fear."

"I do not embrace...death." I challenged her. "If that's what you mean."

She smiled at me. "What did you see a moment ago, in here." She patted
the rubbing I held in my lap. "Did you see death?"

"No. I saw...I don't know...Life." I decided.

"Exactly." She was quietly triumphant. "I have a gift for you then, to
celebrate embracing life." She thumbed through the dozen rubbings in
her satchel and removed one, laying it on top of the one I already
held. It was Claire Marie's marker.

I looked at her. "You saw us?"

"Quite by accident, I assure you." She was smiling again.

"You have the wrong impression of me, madam." I pushed the rubbings
back at her.

The old woman ignored them. "You did not think so a moment ago." Then
more softly she said, "I envy you so many things, do not wait until
you are my age before you find the courage to accept who you are."

"And who am I?" My voice was a whisper.

"A very special person." She tapped the rubbings with a crooked bony
finger. I looked down and saw a key sliding down the plastic into my
lap.

I opened my mouth to ask her what it was for, but my husband appeared
just then, smiling and looking curiously at the rubbings I held.
"Professor, how nice to see you again." He offered, watching as she
closed her portfolio and I tried to give her the rubbings once more,
but she assured me they were both mine now.

"And you professor." She finally acknowledged my husband. "Your wife
is truly a marvel, take care of her, ja?" She did not wait for an
answer, but walked away leaving my husband shaking his head.

"She was on my doctoral review board." He made a face. "Merciless."

I handed him the rubbing of Claire Marie without a word, but kept the
key for myself.

"She gave you this?" I nodded "Uhhh-huh..." He looked at it closely. "I
like it."

"So do I." I smiled. 

In the weeks that followed I replayed my conversation with the old
woman many times over in my head. I did not have a fascination with
death. I was not a fetishist, of some sort. There were no secrets to
which I was privy, no hidden world or serene divination to which I
could aspire. The professors words seemed contrived and angered me,
although I did not understand why this should be so. And at he same
time I had taken the rubbings to have them matted and framed. My
intention was to hang them in our bedroom, but I placed them instead
prominently displayed in our living room. I felt like a criminal who
leaves clues at her crime, begging to be stopped before she can act
again.

I had declined my husband's earnest desires to reprise our sexual
games. I took my dress to a cleaner who specialized in such garments,
caring for each individually by hand. It was a slow process and
required several weeks, and even after it was ready I continually made
excuses not to claim it. When my husband would ask me about it I would
grow angry, asking him in turn if it were the dress, or myself with
which he was enamored.

We engaged in sex the normal way, when we did it all, and I was vexed
by inability to achieve orgasm. I would practically force my husband
to go down on me before I would allow him penetration, but I was
frustrated despite his best efforts to bring me release. Even
masturbation, which I engaged in regularly during my bath, was
unsatisfactory. I could conjure no thought process, or fantasy, or
emotional connection with anything external. I felt alone and isolated
and my mood suffered terribly from it.

My husband and I shared Thanksgiving alone, declining invitations and
resisting the wishes of our respective families. I did not feel
festive and my husband was restless as well, both from the spiritual
malaise I suffered, and his own frustrations. He seemed convinced that
my depression had not come from my interest in death, but from my
denial of it. His arguments were passionate, but they did not
persuade, and I would not listen.

Thanksgiving evening I blacked out for the third time in as many
months, although it had been very nearly 2 months since the previous
episode. I remember sitting down to read a manuscript after our
dinner, sipping my second glass of sherry, and finding myself unable
to focus with my mind as well as my eyes. The words swam in front of
me and my thoughts drifted. I had peculiar dreams, vulgar dreams in
which I was ravished by strange men in animalistic fashion. I awoke
very early the next morning, my back to my husband's chest. We were
both naked and he had an erection pressing between my thighs. I felt
damp and I reached between my legs to feel my labia distended and
puffy. It had apparently been another good night of coitus for us,
though I had once again no memory of it.

I called my doctor the following Monday, determined not to inform my
husband lest I change my mind. She is an Ob-Gyn, not a general
practitioner, but I trust her and I needed that more than anything
else. She was able to get me in that very afternoon for a
consultation. Her first suggestion upon hearing my story was to get a
physical, which I resisted at first, but finally agreed to and I let
her give me a referral to UMC. It was, as she told me, the best she
could do given the limitations of her clinic and staff. In the
meantime though she would draw some blood and take a urine specimen
and forward the lab work along with my patient history to her
colleagues at the University Medical Center.

You can imagine my surprise a week later when my doctor called, asking
me what drugs I had been taking in the days prior to my appointment. I
told her what she already knew, the only medication I was on were the
birth control pills she'd prescribed for me and some vitamin
supplements, also recommended by her. I sat down as she told me there
were traces of a sedative in my blood, a type of tranquilizer most
commonly used in veterinary medicine. Mixed with alcohol even a small
amount could have the effects I'd described. She gently probed to find
out if I'd been with someone other than my husband on any of the
nights in question, intimating that this had appearances of a kind of
`date rape'. I assured her that I hadn't, but I'm not sure she
believed me. She told me her lab had found no indications of STD's in
any case, although I should call her office if I had unusual discharge
or noticed anything out of the ordinary. I found the entire
conversation humiliating.

"I went to see my doctor last week." I was eating salad and looking at
my husband.

"Oh? Why?" He looked genuinely puzzled.

"I had another one of those spells, last Thanksgiving. I blacked out."
I talked with my mouth full. "You put me to bed, remember?"

"Uh-huh, you didn't tell me you didn't remember anything. I
thought...uh, I thought everything was fine."

"I didn't want you to worry."

"Oh."

"Don't you want to know what the doctor found?"

"Yeah, of course I do."

"She found some animal tranquilizer in my blood." I laughed and shook
my head. "Can you imagine that?"

"But how...how would that...get there?"

"Mmmm..." I swallowed and stabbed the fork in his direction. "She has a
theory on that. She asked me if I'd been with any strange men. Someone
who would drug me and then do all kinds of very bad things to my body
while I was out of it."

"Oh, uh..."

"She even ran a test to see if I'd gotten a social disease or two." I
laughed again. "Can you imagine, getting a phone call like that? I
told her though, `Nope, no strange men in my life, just my husband and
I trust him.' I told her that and I hung up the phone."

"Well, um..."

"So now you tell me. You tell me just what the fuck you did to me!" My
voice wavered on the edge of a scream.

"I wanted to play, that's all. I didn't want to hurt you, or
anything...it was just playing. The first couple times you didn't
understand and then...then this past month you've been on some `oh, this
is so evil' kick, which I don't get at all, by the way..."

"Oh, don't you blame me!"

"I'm not blaming you, okay. It's nobody's fault. It's..."

"What? Nobody's fault? It's your fault! You drugged me! You...raped me!
You don't think that's your fault?"

"I didn't mean it like that, yes. That's my fault and I'm sorry. I
just needed some...something from you and you wouldn't give it to me."

"So you took it. You drugged me, raped me, and stole whatever it is
you need. What, I wasn't dead enough for you? I was quiet enough for
you to get off on, is that it?"

"No, please, it's not like that, I love you okay. I'm sorry."

"Stop saying that. You don't love me. You're not sorry. You're just
sorry you got caught. Don't you ever say that again."

"No, that's not true. I love you so much; please just give me a
chance, okay? Let me...let me show you."

"Show me what?"

"I, uh...I taped us. On the camcorder."

"You did what?"

"I thought maybe...someday...you'd like to...to see it. Please. I love you,
just...just wait and give me one chance, okay? Please?"

In my defense I will say that I had spent much of that afternoon
looking through our wedding album. I was trying to see if there was a
discernable difference between the man I married and the man who was
coming home that evening. I was angry, confused, and hurt, to be
certain. But then there is love. Where does that end? I did still love
him, although I am certain for many people that would be irrelevant
even if true. Those people would not understand my story.

"You are trying to kill me. Inside...I'm dying. Is this what you want?"

"No, no. I want you to...understand. That's all. Let me show you."

I watched the television in silence. Alone. The way my husband had
been alone. My body was not me and I felt angry that he couldn't
understand that. He'd used me as a masturbatory tool, that's all. This
talk of love and sharing, I shook my head; it just didn't exist
without consent. That's what it was, I realized, an issue of giving
versus taking. I asked myself, `If he'd asked me to let him drug me
and make love to me as he desired. To record it so we could share the
experience together later, would I have said yes? Or no?' I had no
answer to that and it bothered me because now I never would.

There were three tapes, one for each night I'd been drugged, and they
were all very similar in content. Only the props had changed. In the
first I was completely undressed, the second clothed as I'd found
myself in the morning, and the third time my husband had dressed me in
the black wedding gown, removing it when he'd finished. In every
instance he was gentle and tender, and I couldn't help but compare
what I was seeing to what I'd experienced with him during our years of
lovemaking. Was he more or less passionate when I'd been drugged? Did
his love for me gain expression, or was something lost with my ability
to respond? I found myself worrying this over in my mind, as though I
were watching him with someone else, a different woman. I was becoming
jealous of myself and that seeming contradiction drove me to the edge
of tears. I could see myself on the screen, but it wasn't me. It
wasn't me.

A range of thoughts filled me then, from the insane desire just to
give him his wish and kill myself, to the irrational dream of
`winning' him back to me. I could leave him, I thought, and that was
surely what he most feared. But so did I. I'd built my life around
this man, around the love I felt for him. The thought of waking up
alone filled me with dread, even if alone really meant with someone
else; I couldn't bear the idea. I was in a room with no doors or
windows, no way out...

I sat there with that metaphor. The television turned off. Crying in
the darkness. I sat there feeling sorry for myself. Pity is the
absence of hope, hope is the refuge of failure, failure is the lack of
reason...A place with no doors. No windows. No escape. Imagine it. Where
would you find such a place? If you cannot escape it is because... you
are already outside. If you have no word for slavery, you will never
know you're a slave. If you have no concept of freedom, you will never
know you are free. My mind was running circles, trying to find an
answer that lurked just beyond the veil of reason... It was there, like
a name on the tip of your tongue. Woman thy name is vanity. Pride
goeth before the fall. Think of something else and the answer will
come unbidden. It is the thing behind the thing, I chiefly hate.

"Come with me, now." I said.

I walked into the den where my husband was sitting. He looked up,
surprised to see me dressed in the black wedding gown. I wore the hat
with the veil down, my hair pulled back severely and knotted. I'd
painted my face white and my eyes black, my crimson lips pouting. I
didn't wait, but moved to the car, sitting in the backseat erect and
patient as a statue. It was December and cold, painfully so as
midnight approached.

My husband peered inside before settling behind the steering wheel.

"I want to see Claire Marie."

"Wha..."

"Don't talk. Just drive." I stared straight ahead for the 40-minute
ride.

The heavy wrought iron gates at the entrance were closed, but there
were two smaller pedestrian gates on either side of the great red
brick fa�ade that arched across the road.

"Park here, we'll walk." 

I got out and walked to the small gate on the left side, feeling the
cold wind through the dress and resisting the need to shiver. There
were lights, of antique gas lamp design, and it was enough to use the
key the old woman had given me over a month before. I did not know
before that moment what the key was for, but what else could it have
been? The big brass padlock opened easily and heavy gate creaked open.

If my husband was surprised, I could not tell for I refused to look at
him. "Lock it behind you."

I waited while he did as he was told and fell into place a half step
behind me. It was a dark dark night and it felt as though it might
rain, or even snow, at any moment. The leafless trees creaked and
groaned and I felt...different. In the car I had been cold, but here,
now following a path I could barely see towards a goal I didn't
understand, I felt a warmth spreading inside me. My blood was on fire
and I flushed as the asphalt turned to cobblestone. The moon suddenly
appeared and disappeared, behind fleeting clouds and I bathed in that
pale light.

"Are you cold? You must be freezing..." My husband had decided to speak.
"Here..." He tried to put his jacket around my shoulders, but I shrugged
it off.

"You don't feel it, do you?" I asked him.

"What? Feel what, honey?" He was worried; he never called me honey
except when I was sick.

"That's why you do it. Why you need it."

"I don't...understand." He was putting his jacket back on and hurrying
to catch up.

"I thought I was trapped...inside. Trying to get out." I saw the angel
waiting for me. "But all the time it was you." I stepped off the road
and onto the grass, pausing to kick off my shoes and walk barefoot on
that frozen earth.

"Wait, don't...you'll freeze to death." He was picking up my shoes, his
voice concerned as it should be.

"No, my love." I sat below the angel in a fleeting halo of moonlight.
"I won't die. Not tonight." I smiled up at him. "Join us here, lie
with me and we will comfort you. I understand now. I forgive you."

"What do you mean? I don't...." He looked so lost standing there, I
reached up to take his hand and pull him down to me. "You're freezing!
Please, let's go... It's too cold for this."

I felt hot all over, as though the sun itself were trying to burst
through me. "I thought you were trying to save me. That your
tenderness was meant to comfort me. But that isn't it at all is it?
Claire Marie knows what's on the other side, so does that old woman
who gave me the rubbings, who gave me the key to this..." I gestured,
looking around with wonder. "...place without windows or doors. The
thing behind the thing, my love, I have seen it. I have embraced it
and tonight I embody it. Join with me, and be freed."

I lifted my veil, exposing my lifeless face and dead eyes. I'd stopped
breathing long before and my words left no clouds hanging in the air,
the way my husband's did. The moisture from his lungs crystallizing in
the cold moonlight, giving proof to his life.

"I love you, we need to go home now...you...you're scaring me." He
whispered, resisting my hand as it slipped behind his warm neck,
pulling his mouth to mine. "N-No...No! Who are you?" He leaned backward,
narrowing his eyes as if trying to see past this simple guise, but he
was incapable. That was why he needed me.

"I am your wife." 

I kissed him then, forcing my tongue past his lips and into his mouth.
I had my arms around him, pulling him down with me, so that his body
was against me. His chest pressed against my breasts, his heart
beating against me even as his hands tried to push us apart. But his
need would overcome his fear, I felt it, I sensed his desire to be
freed of it. I spread my legs on that cold winter night and he entered
me slowly, with a tenderness that made me weep frozen tears. I was
burning through and through, but my husband felt only the empty chill
of death.

"Oh, God!...You're so...cold!" he whispered, trying to pull back as his
stiff member rebelled it's intrusion. "It's like ice inside
you...please, darling, we need to..." I kissed him again.

"Shhhhh...Make love to me." I sighed, kissing him again and wrapping
myself around him, pulling his member back inside me with my legs and
hands. "Ohhh...yess..." I hissed. "Inside me...there...push my love...fill me...."
I urged him with my lips and eyes, thrusting my body up to bring him
deeper.

My husband began moving with me then, his fear and trepidation giving
way to love and the physical expression of it. I gave him my passion
and he offered me his warmth, until the two were mixed and
inseparable. He filled me and brought me to wonderful orgasm so that I
gasped and drew a breath, exhaling finally a minute later with a
wintry cloud. My heart beat once more and blood flowed through my
veins, carrying warmth and life through my limbs.

"Oh, my love...my love...you've done it..." I sighed, kissing and pulling
him tight. My sex clasped around him, desperate to pull him ever
deeper. "I live again..."

"I love you...I love you so much..." He replied, over and over in time
with his thrusts until I felt him cumming, his seed flooding hotly
into my womb. He held himself there, kissing me with his hands on my
face, touching me. "I'm so...so sorry." He was frantic with his urgency
to be forgiven in that splendid moment. "...never...I swear...never again..."

I shushed him and smiled. I wanted to hold him and enjoy the feeling
of his sperm settling into my fertile womb. I'd been off the pill
nearly a month, and my period had come and gone. I was ovulating and I
knew, as we lay there wrapped in the warmth of our love that I'd
conceived. I could feel it, a new life sparked deep in my body, the
thing behind the thing waiting to be born again. I fervently wished it
would be a girl; midnight had passed and it was December 19th. I had a
name already picked out.

End
Rache696@yahoo.com

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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