A Natural History Of Desire

Shit, I can hear my fellow men saying, Joan will let you fuck other women! She's the ideal wife, you say, men? First, only a fool would say that. And second, there must be a reason why she's two times divorced, my friends. The guys she married weren't two-time losers. Furthermore, I knew that if Joan knew about my hands-on shenanigans at Kirsten's house she'd go crazy.

Messy, messy. Kirsten herself tried to pimp me out to her best friend Sandy a few years ago! "She hasn't had a date in a year," Kirsten said to me, as though she was estimating repairs on my car. "Carl, take her out and I'm thinking at minimum you're looking at a blowjob – maybe more."

Real funny girl. Well, Kirsten knows her friends, I suppose, but that was too weird even for me. I also had serious doubts about how boning Kirsten's friend Sandy would advance me toward my true goal, which was to bone Kirsten. On the other hand, it crossed my reptilian mind that whatever I might do with Kirsten's friend would inevitably become known to Kirsten, so I began to consider doing it, as a sort of audition, if you will. If my sexual feats were reported to Kirsten, and I had performed admirably, well – then Kirsten would hear good things, right? Would maybe want some for herself, right? The friend called, but I couldn't go through with it. "My heart belongs to you, not Sandy," I told Kirsten.

"She'd just want your dick, not your heart," Kirsten replied. Thankfully, I heard no more about it.

Perhaps it won't surprise you to learn that Kirsten saw a therapist. A real genius too. Long ago the therapist deduced that I was after Kirsten for reasons "going beyond" friendship. No shit. "Wow," I told Kirsten, "he figured that out, did he? Did he also see your tits and ass and figure out that you're a woman?"

"It's not a man," she said.

"Well, congratulations toherfor figuring out what I've only been telling you for six, seven years," I said. "Do you believe it now an expert's said it to you? When have I ever tried fooling you? Have I ever pretended not to be after you?"

"No."

"I might be causing you a problem," I said, "but I'm not your real problem."

"Oh, I know that," Kirsten told me.

"Your real problem," I went on, "is that you haven't fucked me."

"Check. Ten-four. Roger that," she said.

"I can solve all your problems, baby," I said in an attempt at a Barry White voice. "I got what you need, baby girl, I'm the love doctor and I can fill your prescription, baby baby, fill you right up, mama."

"Stop that," she said. "This is serious."

"THIS is serious, baby girl," I said, grabbing my crotch. "Let me show you how serious this is, baby."

In time I finally got her laughing. I'm not a big fan of therapy or psychology in general. "Mental health's only for the wealthy" I like to say to people if the topic comes up. It makes them so angry. But in all seriousness, too often analysis or therapy tells people truths about themselves that they in fact already know, without performing the really useful step of telling them what to do about it all. How to act. I think it is fairly easy to tell people what to think, but it's much harder to give them a clue how to act, because we don't get in trouble just with our thoughts. The actions proceeding from those thoughts are what cause most of the trouble.

All this preceded the time of my cat sitting escapades at Kirsten's house, and now I really thought I had gotten over the hump with her, so to speak. I thought her inviting me to see those shower pictures and encouraging me to make full use of them signaled a step forward (in my view it was forward) in our relations. Not to mention her gift to me of her own well-lubed panties. Didn't horny women use to throw their panties at heartthrob male singers? My goodness, what was I to think? It isn't like she just got me a bottle of scotch as a thank-you for watching the damn cat. A woman shows you naked photos of herself and gives you the panties that were hugging her ass yesterday – what would you think is happening?

I assumed that these gifts to me gave me also... certain rights and privileges with regard to the earthly frame of the lovely Kirsten. Chiefly among these, the right to tear her clothes off and fuck her thoroughly, repeatedly, and at my leisure. After my cat sitting adventures, that was just what I planned to make happen, and soon. It didn't turn out quite that way, though.

Not long after my week of cat sitting, in the eighth year of my would-be courtship of Kirsten, momentous things began happening. First, I lost my job. I had already moved on from the company where I had worked with Kirsten. Now, at the new job – the economic downturn, peaks and valleys in the business cycle - pick what buzz words you like. I lost my job. I tried for a while to find a new job in my area, but – the economic downturn, etc., etc.

Simultaneously, my long-suffering gal pal Joan, presumably tired of suffering at my cruel and dictatorial hands, moved herself and her daughter to a new city, for a new life, either away from me or with me if I'd take the plunge and go. Or not. I don't know. Joan said both things. It was as confusing to me then, as it is now, is the truth about it. She moved. It is what it is. In employment desperation, sort of, and now lacking a steady date, I dusted off my hitherto-unused bachelor's degree in English, and took a job teaching in South Korea. My pursuit of Kirsten being of necessity a back-burner item at the time, I phoned my goodbyes – and was immediately begged to come and see her outside her place of work. I did, and was treated to some sincere-looking tears and a long hug. That was my last sight of her for a year.

(As an aside, and to provide yet another glimpse of the true-life weirdness I trudge through daily, my last memory of girlfriend (or ex-girlfriend) Joan was of my short visit to her new northern California home on my way out of the country, and the sight, on a morning when Joan was at work, of Rachel, her 19-year-old daughter, coming to the door of Joan's bedroom, where I was still in bed, and asking me where I thought a tattoo would look good on her, and helping me with my advice by removing her nightgown to show me a naked body much like her mother's, wide-hipped, flat-chested, and bushy-pussied, but younger, even tighter, probably hotter, and apparently ready for action. "I hear the sounds my mom makes when you fuck her," she told me. I groaned and turned away and told her that she needed to think before she did anything permanent like getting a tattoo. You can't take back a tattoo, I told her. Much like fucking your girlfriend's daughter – you can't take that back. So I didn't do it. In two days I was in the far east.)

I spent a year at an institute in Seoul, South Korea, teaching English to Korean business people and college students. Let me tell you about those hot little women over there! Wow, baby! Actually, I never touched one. It's odd; they're all very - similar. You get so used to melting pot Western societies, then you go to Asia, and the melting pot does not exist. Seoul is a huge city, an international business center, but many were the days that, aside from my fellow westerner teachers, I never saw a non-Asian person. The women – slender, long dark hair, hot designer clothes – are consistently beautiful and available by the scores, on the streets, in the stores, on the subway, on the buses, and you know you should be turned on by them, but somehow you aren't. I wasn't, any way. Don't know why.

I went to Korea mainly because I needed a job, but once there, being five thousand miles away from my real life became like a purging experience for me. I was away from almost everything familiar, and I turned this into my strength. If I'm going to be away from everything, dammit, I thought, then let's really be away from everything. I became a sort of celibate semi-recluse – easy to do in a foreign city where nobody knows you. I read a lot.

Momentous thing number three, or is it four, from that year: Kirsten left her husband. This happened while I was in Korea.

My year's teaching contract ended at last, and although I was asked to stay, I was ready for the good old U.S.A. again, and I came home. Not then urgently needing to get a job – you can make a ton of money teaching English overseas if you're willing to work all the time, and I was willing – I planned to spend a few months just relaxing and catching up with my friends in California.

Not surprisingly, foremost among these friends was Kirsten, whose marital breakup I had joyously read about in the series of letters she sent to me in Korea. It seemed she had come to an abrupt decision to get divorced, and that was in process when I came home. She had moved out of the conjugal home and rented herself a condo in Santa Barbara to live in while the divorce was in the works.

I was naturally extremely eager to see the unattached version of Kirsten, so I contacted her as soon as I was settled back in town. I called her at work and announced my presence in Santa Barbara. She immediately said she would arrange to leave work early. It was a Friday and we agreed to meet at a local microbrewery downtown. I arrived and took a seat at the bar. It wasn't long before somebody walked past behind me, a woman, I could tell by the sound of the shoes. I looked around at her back and knew it was Kirsten; that walk was unmistakable, but the hair was kind of dark blonde, not the usual brown.

"Kirsten?" I said out loud. She stopped and turned around. Kirsten, all right. With a new hair color, and maybe a new makeup stylist – her makeup was perfect, lighting up her huge green eyes and the full red lips. Subtle, but you could see it working for her, you know? She had a close-fitting summer skirt on, hemmed slightly below the knee, and a low-cut loose top, cut like a man's vest, which left her bronzed belly, shoulders, and arms, bare. She couldn't have worn that to work, I thought as I drank in the sight of her. Did she put it on for me? What beautiful skin. No bra, either – I could tell that right away. She looked like divorce agreed with her. I felt like a man who was lost in the desert for a year and finally found the oasis.

"Oh," she said, and came to me. She gave me a long hug and a long kiss, right on the mouth. I wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, but not desperate-tight. She raised her arms to get them around my shoulders and this raised the hem of her blouse, and so I was able to get my arms and hands around her bare waist. I don't think I ever felt anything as good as that warm brown skin. I could feel her big breasts pressed against my chest, and her thighs pressing against mine.

"If I get to kiss you every time I leave the country, I'm going to have to do it more often," I said when we finally let go of each other a bit and stood slightly apart.

"Don't go away again," she said with some emotion. I think she was really glad to see me. I think that despite the separate sets of motives and desires that gave our relations such a bizarre quality, at bottom I think we were both just happy to see each other. I think she simply liked me and I liked her.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said.

"Then here's your reward," she said, and gave me another kiss. To be precise, a big long kiss, and then a bunch of little soft smoochy ones all over my mouth. Mind you, these weren't tongue kisses, but the woman knew how to use her lips, believe me.

"We have a lot to talk about," she said as we sipped the beers we ordered.

"I don't want to talk, I just want to look at you," I told her.

"Oh, you're probably used to all those sexy little Korean girls you were teaching," she said, laughing. " 'Oh Mr. Carl, you teach me, I suck you!' "

"It wasn't like that," I said, and it was true.

"Why not?" she asked. "You were a totally single guy, you could have anybody you wanted, and you say you never did it once?"

I had told her this in letters but I could tell she didn't believe me. I didn't care. "I was saving myself for you," I said, semi-seriously.

"We've got to talk about that," she said, smiling but in a more serious tone.

"Is your divorce final?" I asked, trying to see just what her situation was.

"Oh no, not for a while," she said. "I'm giving him the house, he's giving me the money, it's not too bad between us, but it takes time."

"I thought you'd sue for custody of the fishing boat," I said. This did not get a laugh.

"But you're free," I half asked, half declared. "You're single now, right?" We were sitting facing each other, and she took hold of both my hands, put them on her knees and held them there.

"I can do whatever I want," she said, and it sounded as much like she was informing me as it sounded like she was reassuring herself. "Now - do you remember the promise I made you, before you left? You know, about if I ever was single again?"

Of course, I knew exactly what she meant. Hadn't I replayed her words in my head a million times: "Carl, I promise, if I ever end up single again you and I will have a date – and I do fuck on the first date." That's what she said, word for word, and I never forgot it. Those words fueled my fantasy life all the time I was in Korea. Of course when she said this I just figured I was being too forward with her, which, considering all the sex talk and cock-teasing that had characterized our friendship to date, would have been hard to do – yet it had occurred to me when she said it that I was pressing her too hard and she threw out that promise just to settle me down, figuring no way was she ever going to have to deliver.

Funny old life; now, here she was, gorgeous and single, and here I was, straining at the leash. Still, I prepared myself for disappointment.

Still holding my hands, she leaned over close to me. Her loose top sort of fell away from her body, and I saw her bare breasts inside her shirt. They hung down low and were swaying ever so slightly. It was a mesmerizing sight. She knew I was looking. "Today's the day, sweetie – will you go on that date with me today?" she said in a low voice. "You like my big titties? You can suck them, you can play with them. You can fuck them, too."

My head was spinning.

"You'd like to fuck my tits, wouldn't you?" she breathed in my ear, then stood up. "You can think about it while I go pee," she said, and made her way through the bar to the back.

It was early evening and the after-work crowd was thinning out in the bar, in the lull before the dinner and nighttime crowds began to get active. When Kirsten came back from the Ladies, she put her arms around my neck from behind and kissed me all over my neck and face. She smelled so good, so different, not perfumy but something more elemental. I sniffed her while she nuzzled my neck.

"Like my perfume?" she asked me. "I just put it on especially for you."

I inhaled the scent. I thought I must be imagining, but it really smelled like the panties that she had given me over a year ago.

"It's my own scent, if you know what I mean," she hissed in my ear. "Do you like it?"

I was speechless for the moment.

"I stuck my fingers in my pussy and rubbed it on my neck," she whispered. "What do you think?"

I know I'm repeating myself, but, oh, what a girl. Luckily, the bar was almost empty but I didn't care any way; I leaned my head back and kissed her all over her neck, and I licked her behind her ear.

"Can you taste it?" she asked. I grunted uh huh and drew her face around to mine, and this time it was a tongue kiss, long and deep. And she kissed back, sometimes delicately, then hungrily and almost violently.

She sat down and ran her fingers through her hair. She smiled at me. "It's not the first time you've smelled this particular perfume," she said. "Not the first time you've tasted it either, if I can believe what you told me."

"Believe it," I said.

"Of course now it's quite fresh, isn't it, Carl," she said.

"I want more," I answered. I felt like Oliver Twist. More, please. Oliver Twisted, more like it.

"Oh, more you shall have, dear sir. But today I can't give you a souvenir like that other time," she told me. "Do you know why?"

She answered her own question: "Because I'm not wearing any panties. I'm completely bare under this skirt and blouse," she added.

"Prove it," I said.

She looked all around the place to see who might see. There was no one. She was sitting with her knees crossed, but now she raised her upper leg so that her ankle was now resting on her knee, opening her thighs wide. As always, the woman was no liar. It was too dim in the pub to see much, but there was no doubt about the nicely trimmed thick bush between her legs. Perfect for a traditionalist like me. The Brazilian is a nice look but not my favorite. I like a little mystery down there.

"I'm going to eat that and then I'm going to fuck it," I told her.

"Oh," she said, "I like a man with a firm plan of action."

"A plan's not all I've got that's firm, baby," I said.

"Ooh, good one," she told me. "Good banter."

That's one of the things I liked about her – she would always know when I was saying something that could be serious but wasn't because no way would I ever be the kind of dork that would talk that way. I'd be other kinds of dork, sure, but not that kind.

"So, are we on? Is it a date?" she asked.

"Oh yeah."

"Ah!" she said suddenly, "But there is one small snag in our evening."

"Huh?" I said, with a sinking feeling. I was afraid she would say something like yes, my estranged husband wants to come along and watch, or some other deal breaker of a comment.

"I have to wait here for a friend of mine from work," she said. "He made a bunch of copies of stuff I need for my lawyers about the divorce. I would have done it myself but I left work early today and I'm off next week."

"How long will it be?" I asked her. "There are certain things I'd like to get started on." I said this with a leer at her chest.

She laughed and said, "Don't worry – only a half hour or so, so I think we can amuse ourselves that long."

"Can I ask you something?" she went on. "Remember all that stuff you said you did in my bedroom that time, with the shower photos and all – was that true?"

"Kirsten," I said, "again: every word was true – and I'd do it again."

"God that's hot," she said. "If you had been freaked out by my gift and all I would have died of embarrassment. I'm so glad you liked it."

"I loved it," I said. I did, too.

It was getting dark outside, and the bar was empty and dim. The bartender topped off our beers for free – he was probably enjoying looking at Kirsten as much as I was – and we both swiveled around to face the bar, sitting next to each other. As I sipped my beer, I felt Kirsten's hand sliding across my leg to my crotch. I instantly began to get hard. I shot a look at Kirsten and she was calmly sipping her beer. Her fingernails ran lightly up and down the length of my penis, which was inching its way further down against my thigh as it got harder and longer. I was wearing boxers so there was really nothing to inhibit its growth, and soon my entire manhood was lying against my thigh at full length.

As well as she could through my trousers, she wrapped her hand around it and gave it half a dozen slow, firm, full-length strokes. I gulped in a breath. Her arm felt strong. A few more of those and I would have a spot on the front of my jeans to match the one I left on Kirsten's pillow. I put my hand over hers and said, "Let's save that for later."

"Yum," she said. "It feels nice. I wonder if I can fit all that in my throat?"

Now there's a woman who just knows how to say the right things.

"We'll just have to do our best," I said, "and if that doesn't work, why, we'll just soldier on and find another place for it – wherever that may be."