Pay in Gold

Dear Sophia,

You seem to be enjoying working out in Marin County. Your letter about your experience with the 25-year old student at the School for Social Expression certainly sparkled. It reminds me, though, of part of a much larger story, one that I have only recently uncovered. I need to get it down on paper, and I think that it will interest you, so I'll draft it and send you a copy. You know that I always value your thoughts, and so I will be interested in your comments.

-- Richard

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I think that I had mentioned Ela. On second thought, you knew that I was enjoying the company of a very special woman, but I don't think that I told you her name. She is working on a tv documentary for an independent production company, and came by my office to do an interview about my investigation of the Medicine Bow, Wyoming "space aliens" case. We had a wide-ranging discussion, as the diplomats say, and... I can see you laughing, but seriously... she is not originally from out West, but has really worked to understand it. We had a deep discussion about how people connect with each other in these wide open spaces and quickly came to agree that too often they don't do that.

The sheer distances between people and places fascinate her, and with the Pagan perspective that she described to me, I began to realize that she was going to do a great job of explaining in video how the land, the Earth, influences people in this region. The Medicine Bow case as an example fit perfectly into her needs, and as we talked, I knew that I was meant to help her project in some way or another. I agreed to contact my confidential sources from that research and ask them whether she could interview them. We discussed how that might be done, and we found ourselves increasingly excited over the contributions that I could make to her project.

Our voices raised, we became more animated. Her East Coast big city heritage came to the surface as she expressed her ideas so forcefully. It was getting warm in my dusty old Union Station office. I can't exactly explain it, but all of a sudden we just stopped. Stopped.

Do you remember when we were up on the Continental Divide and a storm front passed over us? One moment we were in mild, breezy weather and then we could feel the pressure changing and a new wind blew over us. That is how it felt. I could almost swear that the papers on my desk blew slightly askew, even though the window was closed.

We simply stopped talking and looked at each other for what seemed the longest time. I was looking deeply into her eyes when I caught a gentle, seductive motion. Her breasts were moving with her deep breathing; I remember realizing that I must be noticing them because they were firming up. Instinctively I lost eye contact and glanced at what I had already realized were her attractive curves. Ela's eyes moved with mine.

"I think..." I began.

"No," Ela smiled, "you feel," and she glanced down with a mischievous grin at the bulge developing in my slacks. I had not even been aware of it during our discussion.

"While we were discussing my project and your possible contribution, our collective subconscious, as you might call it, was at work doing what comes naturally." She leaned over to kiss me, or perhaps for me to kiss her. Somehow we both stood up, and as I started to say something that was supposed to be intelligent and germane to our discussion, this interesting, brilliant woman put her finger to her lips to shush me.

"You felt that fresh breeze, didn't you?" She said it in a low voice, but stated as a fact, rather than a question. "Sometimes it's time to stop talking and begin communicating."

Her radiant face and the warmth pouring from her as we inched closer together suggested a way of communicating that would be irresistible. Her nipples pushed forward to touch me, and yet I again found her eyes drawing mine. It seemed that I did not need to look at her now, but rather needed, needed, to look into her.

"The hotel where you live is close to here, isn't it?" she queried, again in that low, calm voice. I nodded. She must have read my erotic stories on-line, I realized, not just the scholarly papers to which she had referred. I took her hand and we headed for the grand old staircase like a couple of teenagers.

As we walked out of the Union Station office wing I looked up 17th Street toward the historic Oxford Hotel, and I could not help but think of our wonderful times together. Ela turned her face toward me and her eyes lit with comprehension.

"You have some beautiful memories invested in that building, don't you?"

How had she known that? At the time, I supposed that something about my hand in hers had given my thoughts away. In a flash, I was acutely aware of her hand in mine and that we were supposed to just be business acquaintances,

Before I could ask her about that insight, there was a sudden screech of rubber and the bang of metal meeting metal.

A motorist in her 50's had glanced at we pedestrians blocking her way and for an instant lost control of her car. I would have said that we looked like any professional colleagues walking briskly toward our hotel, but perhaps she spotted something else. Her car smacked into the hotel's guest services limo, denting bumpers. Ela and I never really noticed that at the time.

In our conscious selves, we WERE those professional colleagues, and in hindsight, I think that I also thought on a conscious level that we were those mature humans who know that we can confidently handle sex and the enjoyment that it brings, but would be trying to downplay its deeper significance. You know how much more is truly involved – we both have enjoyed talking about it and doing it – but it seems like the academic in me still tries to categorize Deep Meanings as just another file folder. We talk about it in conferences as if it is just a whitewash over our real needs that are in the Biological Science folder.

So, we were caught in that emotional storm front and I, in any case, was still trying to objectify it. But, as Ela might have said, we were spiritually dancing like two dry leaves caught up in that swirl. The doorman snapped to attention and hurried to invite us in. Still just being colleagues, Ela and I chatted about something meaningless as we waited for the elevator. And as we did, the young woman behind the desk turned red and began breathing heavily. When Ela's knowing glance drew my attention to the clerk's natural response to our magnetism, I told myself that the air conditioning must not be working.

We would have been alone in the elevator, but at the last minute a guy in his twenties dodged the closing doors and threw himself between us. He was clutching a bouquet from the florist's up the street. He hadn't really noticed us as human beings, just as obstacles to avoid hitting with the bundled flowers in his rush. Now he looked at Ela's glowing face and their eyes locked. I caught a glimpse of her nose wriggling cutely as she took in the testosterone scent that he unwittingly radiated.

"She's special in her own way, isn't she?" Ela asked in that low, calm voice.

"Uh, yeah, ma'am... Like she's very important to me." She had interrupted him in mid-thought and made him a part of her world at that moment. He looked at me as if to say, "What the hell am I doing carrying on a conversation that starts in the middle like this in an elevator of all places with people who are my parents' age?" I shrugged my shoulders as if this happened all the time.

"What is your name?" The elevator was stopping for his floor, but Ela continued as though she owned time and could slow it down at will.

"Roger."

"What is your special one's name?"

"Ashley!" The elevator was stopping. Ela touched his arm.

"Roger, of course, you two are going to have lots of fun now, but you are also going to let Ashley feel how important she is to you." It was sort of a command, but said in such a nice way that it seemed to be a matter of fact. Ela glowed as she said it, and only then did she release his gaze. His eyes dropped with the same instinct that had pulled mine down over her breasts, and Ela sighed silently as he took in the view of stressed fabric that covered her excitement.

Roger sucked in his breath, perhaps drawing in our own sensual pheromones, and almost leaped out of the elevator, caught our eyes in the hall mirror, then stopped for a moment as the elevator doors began to slowly close. He turned toward us, grinned, and trotted off down the hall like a man with a powerfully important message to deliver. Ashley would be deeply pleased, we could safely assume.

I looked at Ela quizzically, impressed and charmed at the same time. It only increased my fascination. And it strengthened my determination to know her completely.

We were in my room as if transported there— I don't remember how I got the key in the lock, the light on, all the little things one does when entering a hotel room, even a hotel room that is so lived in. Even in this hushed privacy, we said little, the warmth radiating around us intensifying as we began to touch.

Ela glanced around the room, noting the papers and rough drafts and scholarly quarterly publications piled on the table and the desk. It was as she had imagined, I suppose—clean, but not neat. She saw the little picture of you in the frame on the desk, whispered something sweet sounding—prayer like—a thank you?—but said nothing that I could make out.

Our kisses and tender stroking made it essential to get our clothes off. When Ela removed her bra, a flash of understanding penetrated my hormonal fog. There was something about the way that she did it that was different.

You must remember me discussing my days with the coeds at the University of ____________ before I found it prudent to leave and before you taught me the joys of being with a woman my own age. It was wonderful when their bras came off, but there was as many kinds of body language associated with that as there were shapes of beauty.

Overall, it was not uncommon, even for those young women who thought of themselves as experienced, to be a bit apprehensive or uncertain. And then they were wonderfully amazed at how much more sensitive they were to my touch than they had expected. That made sense, given that their experience was with hot, eager young men, but they would only begin to truly understand that as we prepared each other for my entry. To Ela, this simple act was bringing her closer to an experience that would restore her soul as a part of creation. In other words, it was a given that she would enjoy this time. Of course, I did not completely realize that then, but I sensed it in the way she responded as she held each breast to my lips for kisses. She was confident, in an attractive way, that she would enjoy my touch, even before my lips grazed the soft skin approaching her nipples.

We had talked almost all day, so it wasn't just lust, although in the end there was enough desire to have swept us both away. We just really clicked. When my hands swept into her panties over her hips, they were ready for my embrace. Somehow we found ourselves on the sheets nude, as prepared as though we had known each other much longer.

Did I tell you that I decided to try Viagra? You know how special those second or third times are, but the great irony is that as a man gets older, he should understand that more and more, and I want to assure that. I do love to see that sweet smile that forms on a woman's lips when we wake up in the morning after special middle of the night moments.

So, Ela and I found ourselves becoming more and more closely attuned to each other with each turn in bed. She's in our age range, and she worries about her weight, mentions her white hair from time to time, mentions gravity in the same sentence as her body, and then turns absolutely sexy and none of that matters. When I feel her heat radiating as she presses against me, and when she nuzzles her lips over the smooth skin just inside my collar, my body starts racing to catch up.

Of course, she knows things about herself and men that none of my coeds knew -- or perhaps they each learned one or two things, but Ela seems to have several life times' worth of sexual and psychic knowledge. And, of course, as you well know, that brings up the best in me.

One early morning a few months ago, things all came together.

You know how it is just before dawn, when my room gets light enough that you can kind of make out shapes, and the birds are chanting for the sun to come up? I was in Ela for the third time that night, and I could just make out her shape becoming more beautiful. Her breasts had already swollen in response to my lazy touching, before she had eagerly come down on top of me. Her nipples were outlined erect in the predawn light. My hand moved slowly and gently over them, and I cradled her hips with the other, enjoying the same curves that she had worried about earlier. She took my beckoning penis and caressed her hard button with it for an exquisite moment, and then as I reached fullness, this wonderful messenger of the Goddess spread herself over me and drew me in.

You must remember how I would tenderly enter, pull back, and then move deeper as we felt each ring relax. Ela greeted me with a sweet, little sigh and then a welcoming gasp, followed by an enthusiastic deep breath that pushed her breast up as I filled her completely. Her alluring moist heat and pulsating opening signaled her readiness to accept my energy and all that I desired to give her.

Ela opened her legs wide for me, pushing my manhood to her cervical opening, and with my hand pulling down on her hip I could feel the electric charge on her body. She did most of the moving, floating into the glory of her femininity. Her mouth watered -- I had raised my head to kiss her – and she moved instinctually over the full length of my erection, savoring the response. You know full well how much I enjoy being in the middle of a woman's orgasm, whether I'm coming or not, but this one caught up both of us.

She shivered and moaned in a kind of ecstasy that I have rarely seen, and swept me into a delicious climax with her.

Of course, by this point in my letter, you are wondering what the point is. You wouldn't be surprised by any of this, because you've done it with me quite wonderfully yourself. You know, if you weren't out there, and were right here instead, I wouldn't be writing at all, just murmuring. You and I would be doing the same thing. I want you to remember how we felt together, because that is the best way for you to understand what I am about to reveal.

The unusual thing that requires me to explain how perfect everything was is that as she reached her climax, she began sighing in German-- something about the "hoehepunkt" and "du bist suess" and so forth. I don't know German well enough to concentrate on an orgasm and take notes or translate at the same time, so I really was not a very detached observer. In fact, I guess I was sort of an attached observer, as I was thinking about what in the world she was saying in a foreign language. It threw me from my typical Tantric orgasmic delay and I exploded joyously, deep within her.

Afterward, as we were listening to the non-negotiable demands of the birds outside of my window - "we want the sun up or else!" - I trailed my fingers between her cooling breasts, and asked as gently as I could: "What the Hell was that German stuff when you climaxed?!" It was driving me crazy with curiosity. "You never said that you spoke German."

"I don't," she whispered sweetly. Her throat was a bit dry from heavy breathing, and a whisper was easier. "What gave you the idea that I speak German?"

"You spoke it when we climaxed."

"No, I didn't! You must be remembering someone else." She shot me an eyebrow-raised glance that was given away by her accompanying laugh.

"Uh, well I'd swear that you spoke German just when you were on the brink. I had my hand on your hip, and I felt your orgasm building, and then you were talking in German. Very good German, I'd say, too-- but kind of old-fashioned or formal, now that I think about it."

"Dear Professor, you're supposed to be thinking about how wonderful we were together and planning to do it again as soon as you recover."

"True... and I am. But my subconscious can take care of that."

Sophia, you remember how I taught you to let your subconscious handle things for you. I did the same thing-- I inhaled the rose-like scent of her hair, let my eyes sweep over her charmed body and let myself think good things about how beautifully she lay there-- mentally told my balls to begin their preparations to offer more special gifts to her. I felt a surge in my tired sacs that told me the message had been accepted by my subconscious, and with it on the job, I could concentrate on figuring out Ela's story.

Ela had been silent; then we both started to talk at the same time. It turned out that she was doing the same thing as I-- filing away this wonderful moment, letting her gaze fall boldly over me, enjoying the weary nods of my relaxing penis, and reveling in the man-smell that surrounded her. She had looked down at her vagina which had been so hungry, now sated for the moment, and mentally recorded the beauty of the sparkling moisture on them. The "dew of the morning" is what the Bible writer called it, she remembered, and it was as beautiful now as in that ancient time.

The ancient time! That was what she tried to talk about at the same instant as I spoke. We fenced with each other for the moment, as each thought that what we had to say was urgent. Then we laughed and she yielded-- not really a concession, because she had psychically figured out that I was asking her to tell me what she had planned on telling me.

"If you don't remember speaking German, what do you remember? And has this happened before?"

Ela laughed and licked her lips in anticipation of my reaction.

"It must be from another life that I haven't uncovered yet."

I raised a quizzical eyebrow.

"I am Vhyirmat," she said calmly. Her nude breasts rose and fell for a moment, her eyes changed color and the muscles of her face shifted in a way I can't explain. I took the information in. "And I have had many lives."

I cleared my throat while I thought about this. For a time, I couldn't think of anything to say.

"How do you mean?" I finally got that brilliant question out.

"Reincarnation-- you've heard of it, yes?"

"Yes." What else could I say? I nodded encouragement, as she explained. A cascade of pieced together past life accounts described a woman of great power within the context of the societies in which she had lived her lives. This power had been expressed in different ways, but always she had understood the need to hold onto her role in creation through expressing her healthy sexuality. While her sisters had fretted about whether to do it or who to do it with, or thrown themselves at money or the ancient equivalents of modern jerks, she had confidently selected men in each time who recharged her spiritually, as well as emotionally.

+ Sometimes, as a temple priestess, she had simply pointed to a handsome youth in the crowd, and his friends or family had pushed him forward toward the honor of joining her on the couch behind the golden screen. And, when the Goddess had been satisfied with his offering, he left with much knowledge that would please other women.

+ Once, it seemed, she had played a part in bringing together young lovers whose families had forbid them getting together. Ela remembered the young man's joy when he came to her and behind that screen found his lover serving as her assistant. And she remembered how beautifully her assistant applied her teachings as Ela looked on, knowing that she would now be linking herself to the same universal force represented in her as Vhyirmat.