Ashes of Camelot

Her body against mine felt strangely familiar but shouldn't it? I had slept beside her without any clothes on last night and cupped her breast in my hand. As the song finished she stepped back but I had hold of her hand and refused to let go. She looked down at her hand with a look of confusion and then I kissed her.

It was a kiss that had been brewing for the last few weeks but I was unprepared for the result as she pulled away and took three steps backwards and looked sideways. I froze and then a moment later turned and ran to my bedroom and slammed the door. I threw myself on the bed as the next track started and then I heard the door opening and Michelle stepped inside but left the door ajar as she put her back to the wall.

"You didn't do anything wrong but there are consequences to your actions and mine."

"I don't care about the consequences," I rolled over and looked at her, "I thought we agreed on a date a few weeks ago."

"We did and it was my fault for letting it go on, I just thought maybe you would think it silly and we would come back from our dinner and that would be the end of it but I seem to have started something I can't control."

"What do you mean?" I sat up slowly, "do you not find me attractive?"

"You are sweet in so many ways and yes I find you incredibly attractive but if we go further then you will have to make difficult choices in the future. This is not a country that encourages this kind of thing although we would get away with far more than men in the same situation."

"But they are my choices, difficult as they might be and they are mine to make," I looked past her as I went on, "this is not about some silly girlish thing, I don't know if Beebo and Laura are real and I don't know how we could carry on with this but I know that I feel something for you that I never felt for any man. It confuses me because I don't think of myself as being like you if you know, but I want to be with you even if we leave this place and find some tropical island."

"I see," she ran a hand through her hair, "I didn't know that."

"Your mother thinks we are living in sin but I think your father is right about happiness, we are responsible for our own happiness," I looked up at her. "Can you be happy with me even if we have to conceal our love?"

"I have been concealing my affairs for years, it was only revealed to Henry because we shared a bed and he wanted a normal marriage and I cannot blame him for that but we were both at fault. I was under pressure from my mother and anxious about my father. It is important for me to conceal myself lest I bring his reputation into disrepute," she knelt on the bed and looked at a picture of my parents on the nightstand.

"We do many such things to please our parents because it is the nature of our humanity I suppose, but as you have seen I disappointed my mother."

"But not your father, I wish my father was more like him," I fiddled with the top button of my blouse, "but how would it be between us?"

"If were to make love?" Michelle looked at me, "it would change things, assuming we found we were compatible. In our case we would continue much as we do now, being discreet is the key to staying free of controversy. We see them out on Sixth Street flaunting their sexuality by the way they dress but for us we do not take that path, it becomes our secret."

"Oh," I fell back against the pillows, "I hadn't thought of it like that."

"And do you," she cocked her head to one side, "want to go further or be content with merely flirting?"

"I am curious about how women make love," I replied, "and I feel something for you that I only felt for men before now."

I watched her crawl across the bed towards me, vaguely aware that I was entering uncharted waters and yet unable to move or cry out. Her eyes fixed on me as she leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips. It was a slow lingering kiss such as I had given to men in the past but that had been in places where we could be disturbed. It was something my mother had always warned me about, be in a place where you can be easily disturbed, it inhibits the man. Now I was alone with a woman on a bed and there was no way we could be disturbed unless by some calamity or Act of God. I closed my eyes a moment later and invited the kissing to continue, losing myself in the euphoria of the moment. This was not the same as kissing a man, there was none of the urgency and the hardness, this was sublime softness in all its magnificence. A finger traced daintily down the front of my blouse, exerting just enough pressure to make my skin tingle as she kept kissing me. I was aware she went past my breasts and onto my belly where she paused to tickle me. I quivered and moaned softly and then she gently brushed past my belt and onto my abdomen. I felt the slightest pressure on my genitals and broke free suddenly.

My head was swimming and I felt warmer than usual, my breathing was shallower as she kissed my forehead several times but kept stroking my genitals. I raised my arms with some intention to push her away but instead I put them on her back and felt the imprint of her bra. She moved down to my legs with gentle brushing movements and then swept her hand up to my face.

"Tell me what pleases you," she whispered.

That took me by surprise and I blinked but finally managed to tell her I liked her touch.

"It's gentle."

"And the kissing?"

"That too," I looked into her eyes as she ran her hand through my hair, "I am afraid I might not please you."

"Pleasing you is what pleases me," she reassured me and started inching her fingers under my collar, I raised my head and kissed her on the mouth and at the same time rubbed her back. She moaned and lowered herself until she was lying beside me with one leg in between my legs, one hand moved back and forth behind my collar. She left my mouth and kissed each cheek in turn and then returned to my mouth and parted it in a soft sensuous kiss that seemed to last forever, I moved my hands down to her belt and dug my fingernails into the serge material. A moment or two later I felt the top button pop loose and she parted the collar and broke free.

I exhaled heavily. Michelle smiled and kissed my throat whilst gently stroking my front. I looked to one side and opened my eyes as she kept kissing my throat and neck. I knew I could make it stop but I had no power to stop it even if I wanted to. I clamped my legs around her leg tightly as I arched my back slightly and felt coolness as she undid another button and resumed her stroking of my front and kissed me passionately again and something broke inside.

There is talk about the line we cross when one can back out without losing much face and the point where to stop becomes impossible. I crossed it without knowing it. One minute she was kissing me and stroking my front and I was thinking I could stop this whenever I wanted, and the next I just wanted to be naked and have her inside me. I forced her upwards and stared into her eyes. My breathing was ragged and she had this hesitant look in her eyes and I feared I had upset the intimate moment. I raised my head and kissed her with passion while I undid her collar tie and when it was hanging loosely I fell back against the pillow and smiled.

"I fear your tie is undone."

"So it is," she smiled and hooking her finger behind my button, inched it through the hole, "but so is your button," she brushed her fingers down my front and tugged playfully at the belt, I winced slightly and she kissed me again with a passionate kiss that left my mouth soon after and traveled down my front. Her hand moved to my left breast and cupped it gently at first and I groaned as she began to massage it. Her touch was soft at first but became firmer as she rubbed her thumb over my hardening nipple. I reciprocated by grabbing her breasts and massaging them, taking courage in the effect it had on her.

Another button popped loose and my bra was exposed and her kissing and touching became more pronounced but without the intensity I would have expected. This was pleasuring for the sole purpose of pleasure itself. I would have expected to be disrobed swiftly but unbuttoning my blouse took an inordinate amount of time and by the time it was open to my belt she was astride me and rubbing her genitals against mine. My back rose and fell rhythmically in time with her movements and finally she sat up as it to admire her work of seduction.

"You feel good?"

"Better than good," I undid my cuffs and resting my hands on her legs stared longingly at her as she unbuttoned her blouse to expose her bra, I felt as if we had become one person for a moment and then the moment passed as I moved my hands up her legs to her softness. She looked down in mild curiosity as she unbuttoned her cuffs.

"See, I have the same as you."

"So it seems," I giggled and tugged at her belt.

"Undo it," she murmured.

I didn't need any second urging as I undid her belt and she inched the blouse out from her trousers and let it hang loosely about her.

"And the rest," she undid my belt, "carpe diem, as they say," she pulled my blouse free from the skirt and undid the last button, "just one little button and a zipper."

I undid the button and slowly unzipped her and she rose slightly and let the trousers fall past her buttocks. A few moments later she grabbed my hands and pulled me to a sitting position and kissed me again.

"Sex is but a dance between two people without shame," she murmured.

Our dance began in earnest when she undid my skirt and I pulled the blouse over her shoulders. Her mouth descended on my shoulders with soft biting kisses and I pulled my blouse free and tossed it to the floor. She pushed me onto my back and began a slow exploration of my body with her mouth and hands, removing my bra first and savoring my breasts and nipples, then down my belly to my navel and finally my genitals. There was some hesitation before she pulled my pants over my hips but when I was fully exposed to her she started working me to arousal with her soft kisses and tongue. A teasing digit slid inside me and I bit my lip.

There was some discomfort at first but nothing like what I had been led to expect, I gradually accepted more and more of her finger and she judged my readiness with expert intuition. Her tongue lapped my moist lips and teased my clitoris while she kept probing me until finally a second finger slipped inside and I gyrated under her skillful manipulation. Slowly but surely she brought me higher and higher until I only wanted release and when I started to climax I grabbed her leg tightly as my passage closed around her fingers. The waves of pleasure flooding through me were like nothing I had ever experienced and indeed I let forth with a string of expletives that would never have crossed my lips had I not been under the control of some otherworldly force. I felt as if was floating in some other dimension. When I finally came to my face was wet with tears and I held her tightly and kissed her passionately. My body was wet with sweat and I knew then the meaning of the words, the two shall become one, in that moment we were one person.

My first attempt at pleasuring her was clumsy but she was so patient, directing and showing me how to move my hands and what to do next. I am not so sure it was as pleasurable for her, as she had to work herself to climax but as we lay in each other's arms a little while later I felt as if this was what the poets tried so hard to show.

We lay awake talking for some time before finally falling asleep and awoke to a rapidly changing world. The first change was obvious. I had fallen madly in love with a woman but the second change was bewildering and frightening. At 11:21 A.M Jack Ruby assassinated Lee Harvey Oswald. I was in the garden at the time watering the flowers when Michelle came out, her face was white.

"They've shot him."

"Shot who?"

"Oswald. He was shot at the Dallas Police headquarters a few minutes ago, they've taken him to Parkland."

"What the hell is going on?" I turned around splashing water on my feet, "how can someone be shot in broad daylight, at police headquarters?"

It was the biggest story of the day, especially when they announced he'd been pronounced dead just after one o'clock. By then I'd seen the footage and felt a growing unease at the manner of Oswald's execution. How could a gunman have slipped in amongst so many policemen and no one was the slightest bit suspicious? I carried that unease to bed that night and we lay in bed together and talked about the two murders. Michelle was by far the wisest. She'd spent a lot of time in France where such things were far more common and her diagnosis frightened me.

"This will be covered up. There will be an investigation, a congressional inquiry but in the end they will find some scapegoat. Their murderer has been murdered so there is no chance he might talk. I have seen this before, governments cover their asses all the time. Keep the people calm, or as the Romans decreed, panem et circenses."

"Panem what?"

"Bread and circuses," she translated, "keep the people entertained in case they realize you are all crooks and throw you in jail."

It was a term with which I was vaguely familiar and over the next month I heard it repeated several times. There was to be a commission to investigate the assassination but the scales had fallen from my eyes and after the Christmas break when I returned home I found her packing.

"I am leaving next week for Stockholm. My father took a post there and he thinks I would like it there," she reached for my hand.

"He also thinks you might like it there as well. Things are different there, the people are much more forgiving and liberal."

"I don't speak Swedish."

"Neither do I but we could help each other," her grip tightened, "I mean it, this is not something I saw myself doing now or in the future but there is a chance that we can live our lives undisturbed by bigots and do gooders."

There was more to the conversation but as she farewelled the staff at Austin High I was submitting my notice to the principal. Acting on Michelle's advice, I put out the story I was going to England for a long holiday. George seemed a little sadder when he heard the news but thankfully he didn't pursue me when I finally left.

I sit here in a New York airport with some of my worldly possessions and my precious manuscript and if all goes to plan then I will stay in Stockholm or Paris, wherever she decides is best and if not, then I have my manuscript. I am not a writer in the tradition of the Beat writers but Michelle has read most of it and thinks it a fine start to a novel.

"But you will have to change your name," she insisted, "all good writers change their names."

I played around with several names but after discarding Beebo and Jacqueline I finally settled on Laura Gates. Michelle was touched I chose her surname as part of my pen name.

My journey into the future continues.

Laura Gates. January 15th, 1964.