A Friend Seduces A Friend

Seduction. It's a word with bawdy connotations these days—the Internet teeming with sites on how to get more women in bed, promising the would-be seducer varied fulfillments of a monotonous urge. It's as if these men want to do the most animalistic thing they can without breaking the law. More women, it doesn't matter where, it doesn't matter how, and it really doesn't matter who. Don't get me wrong, I'm a flesh-and-blood man myself; I count porn among my entertainments (not the degrading kind, of course), and I'm no stranger to lascivious thoughts upon seeing a particularly nubile woman out on the street. I know that if the chemistry is right, I can approach that woman, and we can have a drink, and one thing can lead to another; but I'm not going to be chauvinist enough to think upon it as a conquest, to label it seduction as though I had achieved a victory of ego. No, sex is sex—and seduction, well, I define it like this. One part pent-up longing, one part hope against hope; a broad sweeping gesture of desire on a canvas quietly washed with awe. It is the shape erotic love takes sooner or later.

Love is another word sullied with careless use. The Greeks distinguished four varieties of love, the greatest of which was agape, or disinterested charity, a word then appropriated to describe the Christian spirit of universal love to the point of self-sacrifice. I admit to having been moved by Guido Reni's painting of Jesus in his Passion, or by Sydney Carton's walk to the guillotine for his Lucie Manette. But somehow I believe that love ideally won't involve suicide, but rather ought to foster a mutual partnership for as long as is fruitful; and the tales of agape and self-sacrifice strike me as strangely cold and bloodless. You would suggest that chastity implies truer love? To hell with vaunting this notion of purity—this notion of dying from afar because one has forbidden oneself to make a move, to touch one's beloved. I refer you to John Donne: "Loves mysteries in soules doe grow, / But yet the body is his booke."

Seduction is not entirely a conscious act; though the man be the mover, he is moved himself. What it means is intent waiting. Listening. Not hesitating to respond.

She is waiting just inside the door, behind the pane of glass that lets passersby see the diners closest to the street. I have loved her since college, though we are now two years from our last passing through those ivy gates, and working in the clean grey town nearby: an adjustment to adult life that has replaced schoolboy days without fanfare and has yet to feel quite right to me. We are meeting for dinner, though only as old friends; we have never dated—she has never seemed interested. Who knows what factors determine a woman's attraction to a man: his chances to make a good living, and whether he is socially respectable, and whether she can imagine herself bringing him home to her parents, her trusted arbiters. For a man to love a woman is so much more simple; it is almost a command written in his genes, a two-word command: Choose One.

I chose her because she is brilliant. She is brilliant the way Iris Murdoch was on the night she met her husband-to-be, when after hours of conversation they simply knew. I feel that I knew, as well, although I must carry the knowledge alone like some Prometheus. She was one-of-a-kind, thoughtful, poetic, wise, and I dare not do injustice to her by comparing her to a flower, or a bird, or a statue of Venus, because she frankly surpassed metaphor. I skipped the admiration stage and fell directly into love.

I don't have any real idea of her feelings, or potential for feelings, or lack thereof; neither do I know if I could pass muster in her mind as a possible husband. All I know is how much it means to me to see her, to spend time with her, to interact and feel the potency in my lifeblood as we talk.

And we have another dinner, and we have another conversation: she is well, something frustrating happened at her job recently, her sister is pregnant and coming into town with her husband for a joyous visit. I look at her when she says the word "pregnant." I almost hold my breath, listening for embarrassment, for any tremor accompanying the concept as she is telling it to me. But I still cannot tell.

"Well, tell her my congratulations," I say.

"I've got to say that I'm a little envious," she responds. "She's only been married about a year. And she's only two years older than I am. I...this sounds silly, but I've actually started wondering when my life is going to move forward."

"Tired of the single life?" I keep my voice within the joking range.

She smiles, an oddly small smile for a joke, and falls silent. She falls silent! For a while we both sit there, neither of us speaking.

I reach across to where her hand is playing with her napkin. Skin brushes skin.

And then she clears her throat, removes that hand to take a sip of water from her glass, and says as if nothing had happened, "You know, I heard the funniest thing the other day."

Was it nervousness that made her retract? Surely there was something there in those moments; and so the chase of seduction, a dance from time immemorial, begins. It is beginning tonight.

"How about you tell me the story on our way to the movie theater after this?" I say, and signal to the waiter to bring our check. She pulls out her wallet to pay her half, and says, laughing with the spontaneity of it, "Alright."

I hold the door for her as we exit the restaurant, and listen to her Thank You. At the theater I look over the movie choices and pick something just right for setting the mood without being too cheesy.

We're sitting in our seats, the room is dark, and I edge my foot up against hers. The shoes meet and stay adjacent. I don't dare do more, but just leave it there; and occasionally, to make the point, I move my foot away to stretch the leg a little bit but then restore it quite purposely to its original spot. It's a good sign, I think, that she doesn't move that leg at all, not through the entire two hours.

"Hey," I say as we emerge into the cool night after the movie. It's the moment of truth: I have to catch her here, or else she goes home, and I can't bear to lose the momentum, even as slow and unsure as it has been tonight. Is there a platonic way to get her to come to my apartment? I don't dare make it an obvious advance, as I couldn't bear the risk of having her turn away, or worse, having her say she's tired and leave me wondering as to whether she's just making an excuse. So: "Hey, you know what would be really fun? Do you want to come over and play some video games? Y'know, relive the college days a little?"

"Yeah!" she says very quickly. And then in that utterly casual tone, like in the restaurant when her hand moved away, she goes on: "I haven't seen your apartment in a while. I'd forgotten that you had X-Box all set up."

"Well, forget no more," I say, playing along with her just-friends tone. There'll be time for sexual tension later. And actually, once we start playing Starcraft, it really is just-friends for a while. Told you I was still a boy at heart.

Until I see that she and I are sitting on a couch together, having had dinner, having seen a movie....

Sooner or later every quest reaches its end. A road is finite in length, an ocean can be crossed, and even the rainbow concludes, or else there'd be no pot of gold. I have told you that I loved her; love is not something whose existence you admit, like the six quarks or Kepler's Law, and then leave alone.

We put down the game. I look at her. I make sure to look good and hard at her, as though she is Medusa's antithesis and I must look at her in order to be turned into something soft. She looks at me back.

I say her name, quietly. She says, "Yeah?" I leave a silence, and then say, "Come in here." With that, I walk toward my bedroom. She follows me in, and then I close the door. She watches it shut.

"Look at yourself in the mirror," I say. The natural condition is to approach from behind, and as she stands there, a little perplexed by what I have asked, I stand behind her. She begins to turn her head to question me, but I nod toward the mirror: "No, keep looking at your reflection."

Slowly my hands alight on her shoulders, rub decisively down the outsides of her arms, and cease their descent when they clench in on either side of her waist. I lean my head until my breath is on her ear. I whisper, hotly: "I have a confession to make."

She is unused to this level of physical contact, but it is sinking in as to what the night has been and where it is going, and her voice is hushed when she asks "What?"

"I have wanted you—for years." An intake of breath on her part, and I continue the auricular onslaught of mine. "For so long, I have dreamed about taking you to a warm place where we could be alone, just like where I finally have you now, by the grace of fate." She stands so softly in my hold. "I have dreamed of doing this"—flicking her earlobe with the tip of my tongue—"and doing this"—laying the gentlest kiss on the side of her neck—"and this"—running both my hands up to cup her breasts....

She is shaking, with a gasp as if I've hit home. I release her and she wheels around, we kiss, and as soon as I am certain she is kissing back, I urgently press her down upon the bed, my body on top of hers. When we stop for air, I touch her between her legs, wanting her to know that this will be no makeout session, that this is going all the way. I need to press on quickly, to preclude feminine reservation; I am bent upon ravishing her, to say what I cannot say in words.

"Spread your legs apart." She parts them hesitantly; I wedge them wide apart and lodge my body between them, angling my knees to hold hers at antipodes. She is flailing and off-balance; I take advantage, peeling up her shirt, undoing her bra, and wetly mouthing her nipples. "O," she moans, "O." I back away from splaying her legs in order to take off her pants. Short order is made of the underwear, and my licking takes the panties' place as my hands shove her legs apart again. She is wet. It is going as I had hoped. She is also keening like a siren, and I haven't even done very much yet—it must be the emotion....

Then I leap up and divest myself of my own clothing, but am surprised to find her mouth on my penis within moments. I am standing facing the bed and she is crouching on it, in a kneeling bent-over position, and as she takes me in her mouth, her eyes peal upward pleadingly, as if to say, "Can't you see what I am saying?"

I knew by now, all told, that she loved me too, and with my own face I sought to signify "Yes." Urgently now I wanted to throw her down for a coupling which would seal it off. But she wouldn't budge; she only sucked harder, intent on proving a point. And yet there came a point when her body overruled her mind, and that emptiness must be directly filled....

It was then that she weakened, and I slipped out of her mouth and pushed her almost violently so that she fell over backwards, and I followed her like a sycamore collapsing on its own shadow, given no other option by the lumberjack. "Huh-huh huh-huh huh-huh": we were loudly panting until each exhale-inhale heaved with vocal vibration. I slipped into her, wet and warm, and shoved the sword to fill the scabbard; she squealed her joy and continued to moan as I moved inside her. The symphony of pants, gasps, squeaks, and groans was a more sumptuous feast than Beethoven's music. I rammed madly: I couldn't stop now that I had my prize. She must keep moaning.

"Aw, aw, aw!" she cried.

"Ungh!" I grunted savagely, thrusting and thrusting as though my hips were possessed.

"AH-w, AH-w, AH-w!! Oooow! Ah, ah, AAAAhh!!" And then I had a joy probably unparalleled by even Magellan upon his circumnavigation of the world. I had reached the limit of my own planet, this planet of flesh whom I was fucking in my bed, and perhaps she was actually a star, because planets don't have supernovas, exploding in every elemental color.

I had the indescribable elation of watching her come by the force of my own dick. Hanging on to my own come for dear life, I withdrew and turned her over while she was still in aftertremors, quaking as I made her balance on hands and knees. Fucking her from behind was even more exquisite—for us both, as I gathered from her moans' metamorphosis into screams. More than ever, I felt like primeval flesh-and-blood man, but with one very key advantage over all the other lust-crazed men out there, one thing that made all the difference: I loved this woman blood and bone. I—love—her!

"I—love—you!" I chant, one word for every thrust. "[Thrust] I [thrust] LOVE [thrust] YOU!" It makes her madder, crazier than ever. All her energy is going into vocalizing, leaving her body weak as it takes my insistent lovemaking. She is one long teary moan, heart bursting, head bursting.

And then, as e.e. cummings phrased it, we "achieve the togethercoloured moment," showering down bedazzled, flight of consciousness, leap off mountain, utter release and final satisfaction.

So you can see what I mean when I simultaneously assert and question my agency in all this. On the one hand, I'd had my eye on her for years and then I maneuvered her back to my apartment and got her to lie flat on her back taking my dick up her center. On the other hand, something beautiful happened...and when love comes into town, as miraculous as the first railroad engine emerging on the prairie frontier, we are all really just passengers.

I love her still.