c h a p t e r 7
The Electric Adventures of
A Novel of Erotic Satire
Chapter 7
c:/notes/gwen532
It is fitting that I first glimpsed Guinevere Romanelli the same morning I first sat down at a computer terminal. It was Introduction to Computers, a morning class in my first semester. The course was touted in the university promotional material as ``cutting edge,’’ for no reason other than that it had to do with computers. This was before personal computers had become as common as television sets, and just using the word – computer – could still get attention. I’d seen them, of course, but I’d never used one, and had not the slightest inkling of how much the dawning computer age would eventually change my Inner Life. The classroom was in the basement of one of the older buildings on campus, a perpetually cold room with row after row of the big, clunky biege desktop computers in vogue at the time.
(I would go on to fail that particular course – me, Mr. Internet Sex – but that’s not as ironic as it sounds. One, the course’s main focus was on teaching ``dos’’ language, something which, in today’s computer world, would be about as relevant as teaching Latin; and, two, my failure had less to do with the class itself than with the fact that, for most of that semester, I was still spending my nights at Benny’s and my mornings recovering from those nights.)
I arrived early that first day of class in the drab, windowless, freezing room, a room that had one huge advantage for a voyuer like me, one that struck me immediately: Here it was, early fall, still warm outside, meaning my female classmates would still be dressed lightly, having not yet unpacked their fall sweaters; upon arriving in Introduction to Computers, they would find themselves suddenly cold.
I watched them enter, one by one, seeing my theory wonderfully realized. The first woman who entered was a short, moderately busty blonde in a dark blue concert t-shirt (Van Halen, I think). She stepped into the room, looked around, put her hands on her arms and visibly shivered. A moment later, as she took her seat, I caught sight of the first of many protruding nipples I was to see that morning. Her’s were short but wide, and began straining against the blue fabric of her shirt even before she had finished the process of sitting.
Delighted, I spent the next ten minutes watching my new classmates arrive, discreetly ogling the softly swelling upper halves of the female ones, all of whom had dressed lightly, all of whom had nipples (isn’t life beautiful?), and all of whose nipples were quickly jutting out through their light clothing as the cold air of Introduction to Computers hit them.
There was a tall, athletic-looking redhead with small breasts, whose sharp little nipples were placed near the outer edges of them; a black woman with long, full breasts, whose long, thin nipples appeared to point downward, hanging off the lower curve of her fleshy orbs like dripping honey; a short-haired blonde with almost no cleavage but puffy nipples and areolas, all clearly visible through the striped fabric of the sleeveless top she was wearing. (``Oh, Jesus!,’’ that one muttered, to no one in particular, as she stepped through the doorway, rubbing her suddenly cold arms, while I ogled her bulging areoli.)
One woman, a heavy brunette with small but well-shaped breasts and flat-topped nipples that stood up like soldiers seconds after she entered the room, self-consciously put her hands over her nipples – right over them – then sat down slightly ahead and to the right of me. After sitting, not realizing the perfect angle she was at in relation to me, she put her hands back down, apparently thinking she no longer had an audience. I had a rear-side profile of her left breast, the square top of the nipple standing out in breathtaking relief against the light red stretch-top she was wearing, almost close enough to touch. I watched in fascination as the nipple swelled, then deflated and almost disappeared, then swelled again, straining against the fabric so tightly that, at some moments, I could make out the dimpled flesh around the base of the nipple. I adjusted my growing erection, settled back into my seat and prepared to spend the next 90 minutes not paying attention to the instructor (a graceless male, with no other characteristic that I remember).
c:/notes/notes-G7
That’s when Guinevere arrived.
How can I explain to you what this woman does to a room when she walks into it? You know how there are some people who have something in the face – a certain look, a kind of intensity or shine – that can’t be captured in photographs? Guinevere’s body is like that. Her body is pretty, healthy, well-shaped and all that, but the aura she brings into a room with her is more than the sum of those parts. In all my years of diligent research, I’ve yet to find a single moment in even the most creative, explicit, wanton, earnest pornography that could duplicate the erotic ozone that is produced when Gwen strolls, fully-clothed, into a room.
Her face was oval-shaped, slightly dark, hair shiny light brown, breasts a fluid thirty-four-B, body a tad heavier than the usual male-brained ideal of beauty, but heavy in the right places, accenting her curves. She had slightly exaggerated hips, substantial thighs, shapely and tan, and a spectacular rear-end (though no more so than Beth’s, who I hadn’t met yet at this time). When Guinevere walked (I determined on that first morning), she swayed a tiny bit more than was strictly necessary, but she didn’t overtly swing her hips like a clanging bell as some sexually aggressive women do. Her breasts were firm but not cartoonishly so, as is often the case with women of that age (She was twenty-one that morning we met in Introduction to Computers; I was nineteen). Her eyes were green and penetrating; maybe that’s it. Photographic science can’t capture the sexual electricity of the woman you know as Gem, and I fear my written words aren’t doing the job, either. You just have to trust me on this: Conjure up the most lithesome, most sensually inviting, most utterly electric sexual creature you can imagine, and then imagine a little more. That’s Guinevere.
That first morning in Introduction to Computers, she was wearing leather sandals, loose khaki shorts and a slightly tight, light-yellow spaghetti-strapped top. I am not exaggerating when I tell you she might as well have been standing there in the classroom doorway topless, her long, stiff nipples were that visible. Guinevere’s nipples are perpetually hard anyway (I didn’t know this at the time, though I know it very well now) and the frigid air of Introduction to Computers brought them out even more.
c:/gwentxt1
Find a thin fabric, say, a man’s undershirt – do it right now – and push a pencil eraser against it from the other side. Push hard, so that you can see not just the shape of the eraser, but its actual surface texture and color, right through the fabric; that’s how visible Guinevere’s flawless nipples were that morning.
c:/notes/gwen0
As soon as I saw her, my half-hard erection grew so quickly to full size that it startled me, like it had recognized the moment quicker than my brain had. Her nipples were so explicitly visible that I assumed she would immediately cover her breasts, as the heavy brunette had done, as any woman, I assumed, would do. Instead, she did an amazing thing, the most amazing thing I’d seen since the yuppie woman in the strip bar used her pant zipper as a volume knob for the gawking male crowd: Guinevere looked around the cold room, at the silently staring students, rubbed the palms of her hands together, made a ``brrrrr’’ sound of someone who is cold, looked directly down at the two perfect pencil erasers jutting insistently through her shirt, and said, loudly enough for the back row to hear: ``Oh, my. Hell-lo!’’
c:/textdocs/adm23
JaneyX: how many women you fucked, alvin?
Alvn: eight
Gem4U: lol! You little virgin!
JaneyX: You, gem?
Gem4U: lost count.
MinniMous: triple digits, I bet.
Gem4U: Alv, what number fuck was i?
Alvn: 7th. Or 8th.
JaneyX: ???huh???
Alvn: Depends on how you count it
Alvn: i fucked beth first. and last. Gem was in between
MinniMous: so beth was 7, gem was 8
Alvn: but i THOUGHT about fucking gem first
Gem4U:
c:/gwennotes/gwn5
Guinevere’s performance immediately divided the students of Introduction to Computers into those two general categories of humanity: sexually open and sexually closed. Knowing Guinevere as I do, I understand now that dividing the room had been the whole point There was no way to stay neutral on that question – sexually open or sexually closed – not with an elastic young woman standing at the front of the room loudly making reference to her own protruding nipples.
Men, as a whole, automatically and oafishly fall into the former category; every man in the room, including the graceless instructor, laughed dutifully and lustfully at the joke. (How thoroughly predictable and uninteresting men are.) Women could be in either category, and usually keep their categorization discreetly hidden, but they would have to identify themselves in the first moments after such a shocking development.
The heavy brunette pretended, incredibly, not to have noticed the display (sexually closed). The black woman raised her eyebrows and one corner of her mouth, in an amused little smile that said this isn’t exactly what she had been expecting to find in her first morning class of the semester (sexually open). The athletic redhead stared stonily ahead, and I thought I saw her give a disapproving little roll of her eyes (sexually closed). The short-haired blonde looked as if she was going to leap out of her seat and hungrily attack Guinevere’s granite nipples at that very moment (sexually open – sexually gaping). I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a sudden and intense look of lust on a woman’s face, ever, for either a man or another woman, than I saw in the short-haired blonde right then: staring directly at Guinevere, eyes wide, mouth slightly open in delighted shock, the look of someone who has, for an instant, seen possibilities she never before imagined. A moment later, the short-haired blonde quickly put the face away and looked down at some suddenly urgent work on her desk, apparently realizing that her lust for a fellow owner of breasts was becoming dangerously obvious, but she couldn’t put away her puffy areolas; they remained swollen and, I’m sure, unbearably sensitive for the rest of the class (I know this because I checked on them frequently during the next ninety minutes).
As for Guinevere – well, her little bomb had exploded nicely. Still standing there, displaying her marquee nipples, she smiled around the room in response to the last shards of laughter. Then she slowly – oh, so slowly – walked to her seat, making not the slightest move toward covering the virtually bare breasts which she had just all-but invited every set of eyes in the room to examine.
The stony-faced redhead shook her red head almost imperceptibly (very sexually closed). The short-haired blonde continued staring down at her desk with such intensity that it appeared as though she must have discovered some new form of life there; I think she was afraid that if she looked up again she wouldn’t be able to stop looking. I know I wasn’t able to stop. This strange, explosive, electric woman (I didn’t know Guinevere’s name yet) had issued what I took to be an open invitation – ``Hey, everyone, look at these!’’– and I wasn’t about to decline. I watched her as she strode, nipple-first, to a desk at the far side of the room and languidly poured herself into the seat, still smiling that self-satisfied little smile that I would, much later, get to know so well.
c:/notes/guenvr54
As she landed there, she randomly looked over at me and, for a moment, we were mutually staring. Instinctively, I looked away, then, two seconds later, looked back at her again, expecting her to have looked away (you know how it works) but she was still staring at me, impassively. I fought the impulse to look away again, and instead stared right back at her, across the rows of boxy beige computers.
And that, fittingly, is how Gwen and I spent the first few moments of our first day in the Computer Age: staring silently at each other across a roomful of electronic machinery.
c:/my documents/electric597
In my science fiction short story ``
c:/gwengwen6
In that initial moment of electricity between Guinevere and me, I imagined briefly – and wrongly – that I had found a kindred spirit, a sexually obsessed woman who was signaling her obsession like a bird call, a female me. Of course, on that first day, I didn’t have all the information at my disposal, I only had half the story. I know now that Guinevere’s sexuality was – how can I put this? – predatory. She was sexually predatory in the way that many men, but few women, are sexually predatory.
That’s the difference between me and Guinevere, though I had no way of knowing that on that first day. As I’ve explained to you, my sexual obsession with women rests largely in my mind, and in theirs. ``just THINKING about it – thats ENOUGH 4 you,, isnt it??’’ Guinevere once asked me, perturbed, years later. It is the wrong question; it assumes that fantasy is less valid than reality, a premise I don’t accept.
But she was also right about me: Thinking about it is, often, all that I need or want. Call me what you will – pornographer, philanderer, heathen, bad writer, all true – but I’m not a predator. The woman you know as Gem was – is – sexually obsessive, that much is undebatable (and, currently, a matter of Congressional public record), but she’s not a female me. Not by a long-shot.
c:/scifinotes/areoli000
The Areoleans (that’s what the aliens from the planet Areola were called) had a sun that was pink.
c:/my documents/electric597
After her memorable first impression on me, I seldom saw Guinevere during the rest of that semester. The strippers at Benny’s helped me miss the majority of the morning meetings of Introduction to Computers, and Guinevere (no sterling student herself) wasn’t at most of the few classes that I did make it to. I had recognized her as sexually open, part
of a hidden little sub-set of society – one of us – but that didn’t mean she’d give me time of day, and I didn’t ask for it. I masturbatorily fantasized about her occasionally, opening my mental file on her when I was in the mood for a storyline involving an exhibitionist fellow student with hardwood nipples, but I certainly didn’t predict her role as a future catalyst for my Inner Life.
Similarly, sitting in the frigid air of Introduction to Computers on those occasional mornings that I made class, I completely failed to comprehend the future importance of computers to that Inner Life. How could I have known then that the glowing-green words on my dark screen – that jumbled assortment of colons, slashes and ugly codes, clearly the product of lumbering male brains – would evolve into the most important sexual tool since photography? I’d have scoffed if you had told me then that the humming machines in front of us would eventually tie together Inner Lives throughout the world into one global Inner Life, a massive and continuous forum of shared desires and perversions, humanity’s biggest orgy. If you’d have told me that those random glowing letters in front of me would one day spell doom for the forces of sexual repression – that they would allow secretly exhibitionist housewives to lift their shirts for millions of secretly voyueristic viewers, that they would empower shy and homely spinsters to brazenly seduce hoards of faceless men, that they would unlock and liberate hidden sexuality in a way that nothing before ever had – well, I’d have liked the idea, but I wouldn’t have believed it. Certainly, if you’d have told me that computers would one day make me rich and famous – a reluctantly rich and famous pornographer – I guess I’d have thought you as unstable as JaneyX.
Having completely failed to appreciate the significance of Introduction to Computers – or of Introduction to Guinevere – I finished out that sorry semester, began the next one, and was helplessly watching my college career collapse when I met Beth late in my freshman year.
c:/bib quotes/thessalonians1:6-9
. . . He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power . . .
c:/mydocs/atheist meet
It was at an organizational meeting of a student group called Campus Atheists, in the basement of the Student Union, and how I ended up there had less to do with atheism than with voyeurism. There is no God – obviously – but I’ve never felt the need to debate the point with those who imagine otherwise, nor to gather in groups with those who agree. Religion, like politics (and economics, and current events, pop culture) doesn’t hold my interest one way or the other. Religion is what it is, an ancient fairy tale designed to comfort people who can’t stand not having all the answers to life’s big questions. I believed that then, as I do now, but it wasn’t a belief that would drive me to gather with other atheists to talk about our atheism – except for the fact that a woman named Lily had placed an ad in the student newspaper that morning announcing the meeting, and the notion of a woman named Lily organizing a group of fellow non-believers pulled some kind of sexual trigger with me. This isn’t as odd as it sounds.
Okay, it is as odd as it sounds. But it wasn’t unusual during that time in my life for me to end up sitting in meetings on non-sexual topics for sexual reasons. This was after I had expelled myself from Benny’s, and was beginning to understand that I would soon be expelled from college, and was frantically seeking a life partner. In furtherance of that goal, in those waning months of college, I attended lots of non-sexual meetings I wouldn’t normally have attended – not because I was no longer interested in sex (please) but because I was no longer interested in sex that has been kept within its usual settings. Even now, it’s difficult to explain what I was trying to do.
c:/adamnotes/miscnotes/yppy
All I know is, I kept pondering that yuppie woman in the strip club.
c:/mydocs/atheist meet02
In the space of less than two months, I attended probably twenty different meetings, among them: People for Peace, Campus Business Club, College Democrats, Young Republicans, College Libertarians, Campus Socialists, Radio Club, Poetry Club, Botany Club, Cooking Club, and Students United for a Free Tibet. In each of them, I paid scant attention to the non-sexual topic at hand and focused instead on the female members of the audience, when there were any (I was out the door from Radio Club five minutes after the meeting started). The topics were non-sexual, but that didn’t make them irrelevant to the Inner Life. The woman I was looking for, I knew, lived her life in a sexual mist; it permeated non-sexual aspects of her life in the subtle but thorough way that morning dew wets the land. In the audiences of the various meetings, looking at the women, I took in their bodies, their faces, their voices, their views on politics, peace, botany, whatever, gleaning all the information I could about their Inner Lives from these non-sexual topics.
c:/wikipedianotes/areoli02
In anatomy, the term areola, plural areolae, (diminutive of Latin area, "open place") is used to describe any small circular area such as the colored skin surrounding the nipple. It is most commonly used to describe the pigmented area around the human nipple (areola mammae).
c:/notes/colmeetings3
Generally, the women in Students for a Free Tibet were the least sexual, from what I could tell during my nightly prowling of campus gatherings; they were obsessive about their cause, and it is possible that one obsession prevents any other from taking root. The Botany Club women, on the other hand, were sexual dynamos, I sensed.
The only meeting that yielded fruit (before I met Beth) was the Young Republicans, where I met Erica, the tall, curly-haired orgasm-faker who damaged my back. I pursued her after the meeting because I thought I had seen a sexual spark in her as she seconded a motion calling for a return to family values in
c:/notes/pornpaper
``Lights, Camera . . . Sex!
-- The Psychology Behind
Modern American Adult Films’’
by Linda McDougal, PhD.
from Thinking About the Process of Thought
(Page 247)
. . . was based on a theory put forward by Freud, while the black vibrating dildo clearly represents the power of modern sexuality over traditional societal restraints.
Another example of this phenomenon can be found in the film ``
These sex acts comprise a total of 71 minutes of the film. The remaining 16 minutes are spent on plot, character development, etc.
The following scene, between the buxom red-haired corporate raider and the muscular young stockbroker in a Wall Street office, is typical:
Woman approaches Man’s desk as Man is busily tapping at a financial calculator. Both are in business suits.
Woman: ``Did you get those figures I asked for?’’
Man: ``I’m working on it. But do you really think we’ll get away with this?’’
Woman: ``You let ME do the thinking. You just work out those figures.’’
Man (stands up from desk): ``These aren’t the only figures I’m interested in!’’
Woman (unbuttoning her blouse): ``You are already being well-compensated for your work. But I guess a little . . . incentive bonus . . . is in order.’’
Music comes in. Woman climbs on desktop and strips to stockings and heels as Man watches. He removes his pants, then begins to remove his tie.
Woman: ``Just what do you think you’re doing?’’
Man: ``Is something wrong?’’
Woman: ``This is a business office. We require ties to be worn at ALL TIMES.’’
Woman sits on the desk, opens her legs, grabs Man’s tie and uses it to pull his face toward her toward her midsection.
Woman: ``Now – as your employer, I order you to explore my assets!’’
The scene then progresses for the next nine minutes through cunnilingus; fellatio; vaginal penetration in the standing, straddling and missionary positions; and closes with the Man (still wearing a tie, but nothing else) ejaculating onto the Woman’s breasts.
Since this culmination of sexual activity is clearly the point of the scene from the beginning, the question again arises: Why bother with the rest of it? Why create a movie set, put the actors in suits, write a script and spend almost two precious minutes in fully-clothed conversation? Why not merely start the scene with the two performers naked in a bed and move immediately to the sexual imagery? . . .
c:/collegenotes/atheist notes/notes98
About twenty students attended the Campus Atheists meeting that night, including five men and two women who were there to heckle on behalf of Christ. My first look at the atheists in the room was encouraging; they were majority female, which shouldn’t have surprised me, women being the more generally intelligent of the two genders.
That’s not to say that I made any assumptions about those women’s Inner Lives
merely because they were atheists. It is often true that Christians and other religiously damaged people are sexually repressed, because they frequently believe that God demands such repression. (They’re usually unaware, it seems, that the Christian obsession with stamping out sexuality was mainly invented long after Biblical times, by sexually deranged Medieval saints like Augustine and Aquinas, closet perverts who laid awake at night terrified that someone, somewhere, might be feeling pleasure.) But I have never been foolish enough to assume that religious sexual repression works in reverse, that atheism is a precursor to sexual openness. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen any evidence of that. Rational rejection of religious myth isn’t, in itself, enough to guarantee a rich Inner Life.
Despite Beth’s shining good looks, I cannot honestly say that I identified her immediately as a candidate for spousehood when I enter the meeting that night. I noticed her – you can’t walk into a room and not notice Beth, not with those eyes, that hair, that shape – but I noticed her only in the distantly appreciative way a person might notice art. Her hair was, then and now, truly artful, straight and silky, a bright and sunny waterfall cascading gently off her head. Her small breasts pushed firmly through the light blouse she was wearing. I’ve already told you about her rear-end.
I had never been particularly attracted to blondes (especially after discovering, through Benny’s, that they tend to have thinner, less pronounced pubic hair than brunettes), so it was with some surprise that I found myself mentally undressing her. But I didn’t look at her and see a future spouse. Not until she spoke.
It was about ten minutes into the meeting that I heard Beth’s voice for the first time. The meeting’s organizers were discussing the possibility of starting a campus newsletter to promote atheistic philosophy, while the Hecklers for Christ hissed warnings and quoted scripture. They were getting loud about it, too. Some of the more rabid atheists began responding in kind. One, an older male wearing a t-shirt that showed a crucifix with a red X through it and the words ``Think For Yourself,’’ suggested, in increasingly belligerent tones, that the Christians should be expelled from the meeting, by force if necessary – to which the Christians responded by somberly staring straight ahead, visions of martyrdom on their minds.
The older male atheist, infuriated by this, walked right up to one of the Christian hecklers – a thin woman with short, dark hair and unusually heavy eyebrows (and, I immediately determined, thick black pubic hair shaped in a narrow, elongated triangle with a rounded top) and began berating her, calling her a mindless sheep, questioning her Biblical knowledge. I’d seen a few atheists like this one before: Loud, confrontational, more well-versed in the history and writings of Christianity than are most Christians (on the theory of knowing one’s enemies). They’re right, but they don’t interest me. There is no God (obviously), but I’ve never understood the need of some atheists to dwell endlessly on that simple fact, to preach about it and seek converts and persecute those who won’t be converted – to, essentially, turn their atheism into a religion. The other Christians rose to her defense, shouting back at the male atheist, issuing stern reminders about eternal damnation and the campus open-meeting policy.
It was starting to look like I wasn’t going to find what I wanted at this meeting; there was obsession all around me, but none of it even remotely sexual. Watching the older male atheist berate the dark-eyebrowed Christian woman, I mentally rolled my eyes and was thinking about leaving the meeting, when Beth stood up, cleared her throat loudly enough to interrupt the Holy War going on in the far corner, and said: ``Let them stay. They need to hear this.’’
c:/bethsvoice
I liked her voice. Initially, it was that simple.
c:/wikipedianotes/areoli41
The reason the color of the areola differs from that of the rest of the breast is that the areola roughly delineates where the ducts of the mammary glands are. Careful inspection of a mature human female nipple will reveal several small openings arranged radially around the tip of the nipple (lactiferous ducts) from where milk is released during lactation. Other small openings in the areola are sebaceous glands known as
c:/documents/ath-meet2
The atheists and Christians all fell silent, surprised that this wispy blonde woman with the notably shapely hindquarters was apparently going to take command of the situation. Beth stepped forward, her face a combination of diplomacy and determination, and directly addressed the Christian woman with the dark eyebrows.
``Why aren’t you Hindu?’’ Beth asked the woman, throwing a little curve of confusion to everyone, me included.
``I’m Christian,’’ the woman responded, after puzzling over the question a moment.
``Right, I got that part,’’ Beth said, showing that tiny, ironic smile that would later help me fall in love with her. ``Lots of people in
``What’s your point?’’ demanded one of the other Christians, a graceless male.
``You are Christian for all kinds of random reasons, having nothing to do with God or truth, having everything to do with where you happened to be born and how you were raised,’’ said Beth. ``Even those of you who chose Christianity, instead of being born into it, chose it because of the prominent Christian influences in
``What is your point?’’ the graceless male Christian demanded, again.
``Isn’t it obvious?’’ said Beth, her disarming smile a little wider now. ``Your religion isn’t the `right’ one any more than your language is the `right’ one. The fact that you’re Christian isn’t about faith or Truth; it’s about dumb luck, an accident of birth and geography. Had you been born in
``I wouldn’t,’’ the male Christian retorted.
``Yes,’’ said Beth, ``you would. And you’d be just as sure that Judaism was the only `right’ religion. Don’t you see? Apply sober logic to your religion – to any religion – and it falls apart.’’
``You’re wrong,’’ the dark-eyebrowed Christian woman said, dramatically. ``We’re not Christian because of our parents or society; we’re Christian because our faith tells us it’s right.’’
c:/micsnotes/web notes/slate542
. . . Say you’ve decided to write a pornographic novel. Something really shocking. Problem is, it’s early in the 21st Century, and the Internet has already peeled back pretty much ever last piece of modesty surrounding humanity’s ageless obsession with sex. Merely undressing yourself – or your woman, or your man, or a large group of your friends and neighbors – isn’t going to shock anyone today. What’s a pornographer to do?
Why, undress God, of course . . .
c:/documents/ath-meet2
``Ah, faith, the great shell-game,’’ Beth, still smiling that disarming smile, said to the dark-eyebrowed Christian woman. ``You know what `faith’ means? Just think about the definition for a moment. It means, `Believe what I say, no matter how incredible, and don’t ask any questions about it.’ You wouldn’t buy a car that way, but you’ll live your whole life that way?’’
``What about you?’’ demanded the graceless male Christian. ``You have a belief, too. A belief in atheism. What makes you so sure your belief is right and ours is wrong?’’
``There’s no such thing as `a belief in atheism,’ ’’ Beth answered, sending the atheists in the room (me included) into another brief lapse of confusion. `` `Atheism’ is merely a word we use to describe those who don’t believe the patently unbelievable. The word really shouldn’t exist at all, when you think about it. It’s only in the field of religion that you get a special word assigned to you if you don’t believe things that obviously aren’t true. No one here believes in Santa Claus, but you wouldn’t describe yourself as `atheistic’ on the Santa Claus issue. It would give the Santa Claus myth too much credit if you assigned a special word to those who don’t believe in it.’’
``Believing in God and believing in Santa Claus are not the same thing,’’ breathed the Christian woman, quaking at the analogy.
``No, they’re not,’’ said Beth, her little smile on full throttle. ``Believing in Santa Claus is fun.’’
The atheists – me included – erupted in laughter at that, not mean-spirited or victorious laughter, but the real thing. A little laughter escaped from some of the Christians, too, I noticed, before they shut it down and returned the stone to their faces. Beth continued smiling, but was careful not to laugh; her voice and demeanor remained eerily conciliatory throughout the exchange, even as she methodically and mercilessly dismantled what the Christians understood to be Truth. They couldn’t get mad at her, couldn’t even effectively debate her, not while she was wearing that shield of a smile. No one said it, but the outcome of the battle was clear. After an awkward silence, the atheists took their seats and went back to discussing the newsletter. The vanquished Christians milled around near the back of the room for awhile, whispering to one another, apparently debating whether to launch a counter-attack. Then they began drifting quietly out of the room.
c:/micsnotes/web notes/slate572
. . . Can anyone who has read this book – and who has even a passing acquaintance with the beliefs and traditions and culture of so-called ``mainstream’’ religion – really have any doubt at all its pages are, in fact, the blueprint for a new kind of worship? That its anonymous author chooses kneel before breasts and vaginas and areolas and estrogen instead of stars and crucifixes seems, in the end, to be an almost irrelevant distinction – or sometimes no distinction at all, depending on just how minutely you choose to psychoanalyze the sexual underpinnings of faith. (Remember – that wasn’t a burning tree that spoke to Moses!) . . .
c:/bethnotes/atheistmeet
Beth had controlled the moment, and it was that, I think, that made me decide that I had to meet her. She had controlled the moment in the way Mrs. McCormick had vanquished Father Lovett at St. Ignoramus that day, before inviting me to stare at the subtle swell of her breasts; the way the yuppie woman in the strip club had controlled the moment while torturing the crowd with her zipper; the way Guinevere (whose name I didn’t yet know) had controlled the moment while displaying her rigid nipples in the doorway of Introduction to Computers. It was irrelevant that Beth had controlled a moment that wasn’t particularly sexual. The very essence of my belief in a potently sexual Inner Life is that it is heavy with non-sexual components – that true sexuality rests on a foundation of other characterists and talents, including, perhaps, the ability to stare down a group of foggy-minded religious fanatics while smiling. Though the confrontation was non-sexual, I decided, it must indicate a sexually interesting Inner Life. What else could explain the erection I suddenly experienced while watching Beth vanquish the Christians?
c:/bethnotes/atheistmeet2
``I’m Adam Schakowski,’’ I said, when I caught up to her in the hallway after the meeting.
``Hi, Adam Schakowski,’’ she said, smiling politely and making me feel a little foolish about my formality.
``I just wanted to tell you, that was great,’’ I said. ``You really put them in their place.’’
``I’d rather believe I gave them something to think about,’’ she said.
``Well, yes, that’s – that’s what I mean.’’ It was going badly. ``I liked the Santa Claus analogy,’’ I said, impotently, a moment later.
``Thanks,’’ she said, sizing me up.
We had coffee that night at a diner just off campus, and ended up wandering into a second-run film house and catching half a movie. Afterward, we went back to the diner and had more coffee and talked about life, the nature of the universe, politics and religious myth. We agreed on just about everything, including the issue of cream but no sugar. She noted, with that same calm, prodding smile, that I was arranging the silverware and condiments on the table in a precise square as I was talking. So I messed them all up and asked her if that was better.
We learned that she was a year older than me, and that we were both
c:/wikipedianotes/areoli41
The size and shape of areolae is also highly variable, with those of sexually mature women usually being larger than those of men and prepubescent girls. Human areolae are mostly circular in shape, but many women have areolae that are noticeably elliptical.
c:/bethstuff/meaninglife5
The movie we saw was The Meaning of Life, a British comedy that conveyed what I considered to be a healthy skepticism toward religion. Beth’s agreement on that point was obvious and complete, a fact that delighted and, perhaps oddly, stirred me. A kindred spirit, I thought, at least in terms of religious doctrine. And so perhaps in more earthly matters as well? Still, I reddened a bit there in the dark theater as the ensemble danced around singing a song about the biblical inadvisability of masturbation (``Every sperm is sacred / Every sperm is great / If a sperm is wasted / God gets quite irate’’), but Beth laughed easily at it, and then I did too. We ended up singing the lyrics together, laughing our way through them, as we walked arm-in-arm out of the theater. I couldn’t remember ever laughing that freely with another person. It felt so – normal.
c:/notes/earlybeth86
We had two more coffee dates, then a lunch date, then two dinner dates before I kissed Beth for the first time. It was a classic kiss-on-the-doorstep thing in front of her off-campus apartment building. I felt like I was auditioning. I apparently got the part, receiving a second kiss at the end of the next date, and a sliver of tongue after the next one, and at the end of the one after that an invitation to come up for a drink.
Inside her apartment building was the smell of stale beer and pot in the hallways and young voices vibrating from behind doors. Somewhere, the Violent Femmes stuttered on a stereo. Beth’s apartment was adorned with poster-board pictures and worn college-student furniture. As we stepped in, she called to a back bedroom: ``Gwen? You home?’’
``No,’’ came the answer.
Beth smiled innocently at me and said: ``Sorry you can’t meet my roommate. She’s not home.’’
``Guess I’ll have to meet her next time,’’ I called to the bedroom, trying to stay with the script. Beth liked that. She gave me a look that said I was doing okay so far.
Beth went to the cubbyhole kitchen to look for some wine that she thought might be there, while I studied the posterboard pictures. One was of a woman in a big, flowing skirt riding a bike, which made me wonder about the mechanics of such a thing. I was still wondering when I turned around and saw Guinevere standing in the bedroom doorway, staring at me.
c:/lyricfile/montypython/scrdsprm.doc
Let the heathens spill theirs
On the dusty ground.
God shall make them pay for
Each sperm that can’t be found. . . .
c:/collegenotes/gwen44
She was wearing green sweatpants and a sweatshirt and white sweatsocks, and her brown hair was up in pins. She looked like she had dressed with the intention of appearing as un-sexual as possible. It wasn’t working. I recognized her immediately as the woman who had displayed her marquee nipples to the class in Introduction to Computers, and who had done so much more in my fantasies, and now she was standing here in front of me, clearly trying to place me. Even under the frumpy, hanging green sweats, I could make out the frantic curvature of her body.
``Have we met?’’ she asked.
``Um,’’ I said, suddenly picturing one recurrent fantasy in which the woman in front of me slowly lowers her moist vagina over my open mouth while pulling frantically on her own stiff nipples. ``Yeah. I think. In computer class. Last semester.’’
``Oh, right,’’ she said, nodding her head and smiling – a crooked, mischievous smile that I would later come to know well. ``I failed it,’’ she added.
``Me too,’’ I said, wondering if she remembered our first meeting, and her announcement to the class (``Oh, my. Hell-lo!’’) and the long stare we had had together. But I was already beginning to understand that this woman had long stares with a lot of men, probably engaged in long stares every day. I searched her eyes for some clue that she remembered, and I didn’t find it. What I saw instead, again, was that electrically sexual mist that I had seen on that first day. I hadn’t been imagining it; it was really there.
I was still marveling at the mist when Beth stepped back into the room holding two tumblers half-filled with pale-red wine. ``Adam, Guinevere, Gwen, Adam,’’ she said. She handed me one of the tumblers, then asked Guinevere: ``Want some?’’
``Of Adam?’’ Guinevere answered, in mock confusion. Then: ``Oh … you mean wine … oh, sorry …’’ And we all laughed.
c:/notes/chat094
Gem4U: remember the first time we met?
Alvn: the apartment in college.
JaneyX: was
Gem4U: total fukking dork
Alvn: o thank you gem
Gem4U: noticed his cock right away tho
MinniMous: i never noticed it in h.school (sorry alv)
MinniMous: maybe you grew in college?
Gem4U: maybe you wernt looking in the right place,
Gem4U: i sure was
c:/notes/gwen21
The three of us sat for probably three hours on the shabby furniture, drinking the pale wine out of the tumblers. I was in sexual heaven, sitting with two of the most disparate examples of feminine beauty I’d ever encountered, one bright and shimmering, the other dark and carnal. Heaven and hell, I thought; the best of both. I almost couldn’t believe they were friends, let alone life-long friends.
``Freud’s sexual theories were tainted by his own sexism,’’ Beth posited at one point. ``It’s like trying to diagnose some mental illness when you suffer from it yourself; how could you trust your own conclusions?’’
``Freud was a fag,’’ Guinevere opined. ``I could have turned him, though. Did I ever tell you about that fag I turned? …’’
``I’m not talking about his alleged latent homosexuality, Gwen, I’m talking about his sexism.’’
``Did it just to see if I could. Rocked his world, man. I bet that fag still jacks off when he thinks of me.’’
``God, Gwen, you’re such a slut.’’
``And your point is?’’
And so on. They acted progressively more like giggling school girls with each swallow of the wine. Their friendship seemed to consist largely of Gwen attempting to shock Beth and Beth refusing to be shocked. Inevitably, I found myself picturing them both, together, with each other and with me.
c:/lyrics/blstrSun/violentfemmes
let me go on
like a blister in the sun
let me go on
big hands, I know you're the one.
c:/mydocs/gwenbeth03
To this day one of my most enduring fantasies begins with that afternoon in Beth and Gwen’s apartment, and ends with the three of us in bed. As you might recall from chapter nineteen.
c:/mydocs/gwenbeth04
Alas, that part of the book was fiction. (Sorry.) Carol, my agent, sent me a rapid-fire, cheerfully impatient email during the editing process suggesting that such a scene would make the narrative ``hotter,’’ and since I had already constructed it in my head, I figured what the hell.
c:/mydocs/gwenbeth07
Where it ended in reality was with Beth announcing she had to get up early the next morning, and that the wine was going to make it difficult enough already, and she’d better call it a day. I stood up, carefully adjusting my erection in an attempt to hide it from view. (I failed, Gwen informed me, years later.)
``Oh, Adam, I wanted to lend you that book,’’ Beth said, stepping toward the bedroom. ``Hold on a second.’’
Guinevere watched Beth walk into the other room. Then she looked at me, smiled, and said flatly: ``Four dinners and she still hasn’t let you fuck her?’’ She looked plainly at my crotch, then shook her head as my mouth dropped open. ``That’s Beth,’’ she said. ``I’d have fucked you dry by now.’’ Then she turned and walked into the kitchen to look for more alcohol.
c:/bethnotes/breakfastchampions
The book Beth lent me was Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut. The author draws pictures to go with the story, including a line drawing of a vagina.
c:/misc/biblestuff/moses-bush/exodus3:2
And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed . . .
c:/mydocuments/collegebethstuff04
Beth finally did let me fuck her (to use Guinevere’s subtle vernacular), after our fifth dinner. It was in her apartment (the fucking, not the dinner). Gwen was out somewhere – ``Fucking,’’ Beth theorized – and we had the place to ourselves. It was understood that this was the night, so a thick heavy tension hung over dessert and the walk back to her building. I wasn’t particularly anticipating fucking her. I was very much anticipating seeing her naked. I’ve told you about her shape.
We sat on the couch and kissed, we drank wine, we kissed some more, I felt her small firm breasts through her blouse and she let me, we drank more wine, we kissed some more, I slipped my hand between her legs and she let me, we drank more wine, I unzipped her jeans and slid my fingers down and felt hair, too short but soft and lovely nonetheless, and we kissed some more. There was no hesitation on her part; it was understood that this was the night. She was giving herself to me, something I knew she didn’t do lightly (unlike Guinevere, who, I had already deduced, gave herself to someone new every other night). Beth’s eyes told me this meant something to her, and I knew it meant something to me.
I lifted off her blouse and then her small bra and then pulled her left brown nipple into my mouth for the first time, and she let me. We slipped onto the floor and I tugged her jeans down and she let me and I gently parted her thighs and she let me, and I lowered my face toward her neatly trimmed vagina and she clenched her thighs and held my head away from her for a moment, and then a moment later she let me.
c:/notes/cunn3
Many women and some men probably don’t understand it, the appeal of having one’s mouth clamped over a woman’s open vagina. If you’re one of those who doesn’t get it, I’m not sure I can explain it to you. It would be like trying to explain the color blue to someone who was born blind. Personally, my favorite moment is that early one, when the tip of the tongue first parts dry surface skin and slips into deep hot wetness. It’s like that first moment when you set your foot into a warm welcoming bathtub on a cold night; that first sip of steaming coffee on an icy morning. Could you define that pleasure to someone who had never experienced it?
c:/misc/biblestuff/moses-bush/exodus3:4
. . . And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, ``Here am I’’ . . .
c:/mydocuments/collegebethstuff72
Beth made a point to lock eyes with me at the moment I slid my body into hers that night, and I can honestly say that that’s the moment I fell in love with her – nestling inside her body and looking into her eyes.
c:/mydocuments/collegebethstuff73
``I love you,’’ I said afterward, in the dark. She was so silent for so long that I thought she’d fallen asleep. Just as I was debating whether saying it had been a bad idea, she whispered: ``I love you, too.’’ And she rolled toward me and laid her head on my chest, and spilled one hot tear onto it.
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