How We Touch 3
*Virtually Touching *
When demons come to plague our happiness, it is a sign of its solidity. Otherwise they would not mobilize against us in such frenzy. Often they force their way into our dreams, hoping to subvert our happiness, and turn the vehicle for wishes into a conveyance of dread.
Do they sometimes succeed in dislodging from place what had been firmly set by throwing us off balance? Yes. Can they fail? Yes, if the force that is the foundation of our balance can prevail and we keep our feet, like passengers with wobbly knees, descending from a ship, who find the earth still grounds them because of its incorruptible gravity.
Demons! How else explain the ache that cut through the fabric of Julian's sleep? Even as he was cradled in his lover's tender arms, after a blissful day, in his sleep he battled a blizzard of beating snow that kept him, suspended, as night fell threateningly, stranded on a hillside and unable to move his legs, struggling to regain his footing. He shuddered and stumbled and woke to a gray morning, still preserved in his beloved's embrace. They lay in an unkind draft coming from a window they had left open, when oblivious to anything but their mutual rapture, they drifted last night, vanquished by happiness, into sleep.
Julian slid from the bed and in only panties, hugging himself, as if he were a shy girl hiding her breasts from eyes she wanted to screen them from, but not for that reason, but to keep warm, he went and closed the window. In his sleep, Chris was snuggled in Julian's body warmth. Now that Julian had left the bed, involuntarily Chris raised his knees almost to be touching his chest, as if he had found the succor of womb warmth against the annoyance of the breeze.
Julian knelt at the bedside watching Chris in sleep extend his limbs the length of the bed once the disturbance of wind had stopped. Julian gazed on Chris and felt rise in him such tenderness, contemplating his delicate eyelids and the long lashes that fringed them, and gently kissed them without waking him. He slipped back into bed and took his place spooning him.
It rained all morning and, although it was the second of May, there was nothing inappropriate about making a fire, late that Sunday morning, in the grand fireplace in the library where Chrissie and Julia, looking and feeling very feminine in silk blouses, panties, stocking with garters, and satin ankle strap high heels, sat on a couch having coffee and turning over the leaves of a large sketchpad, looking at some of the drawings that Chrissie had done over the last half year.
"I'll be sixteen in August, and there's no reason for me to stay in school," Chrissie said, "no reason, except one."
Julia looked at her, with a questioning glance.
"You, silly, you're the only reason I have for staying in school. Otherwise, what has school got to offer me? A nasty lot of testosterone-bloated boys who have no idea what a real man is but think that sex is in their cock, and preen themselves on making life awful for people like you and me."
"What would you do if you quit school?"
"I'd go to New York."
"How? Why? What?" Julia sputtered.
Chrissie moved closer to Julia and put her arm around her.
"Promise me that what I tell you will be our secret. Nobody knows it, yet."
"I promise," Julia said.
"I sent my portfolio," Chrissie said, "to Julie Taymor."
"To Julie Taymor? And?"
"And she wrote back! Saying that if I wanted to come to New York! She would take me on as her apprentice!"
Julia just stared at her wide-eyed."
"She liked my work that much."
"Oh, Chrissie, I'm so happy for you."
"I was too, but now..."
Julia understood without Chrissie needing to say another word. "I'd die if I stood in your way."
"But I don't want to be without you," Chrissie said and slipped her palm under Julia's blouse and felt the warmth of her breast. She tucked the other between her thighs and brought her lips to Julia's mouth. Her tongue forced its way in, although Julia offered no resistance but extended hers into the cave of Chrissie's mouth and explored the great concavity of its roof.
"Will you come with me? You can complete high school in New York. If that's what you want to do," Chrissie said impulsively, although it was obviously something that she had been thinking about.
"Do your parents know?" Julia asked instead of answering directly.
"They know that I want to go to New York and that I want to do theater and film design. They said that if I could arrange something, they're not against it, and maybe they'd even help out, depending. Now, I have arranged something. What about your mother?"
"The sooner she is done with me, the happier my mother will be."
Chrissie pursed her lips and looked doubtful.
"Really," Julia insisted.
"That must hurt," Chrissie said, taking her hand in hers.
"Not much, not now; once maybe, but I'm a big girl," Julia said, almost tearing, but overcoming it with the mild self-mockery.
"Then you will come with me?"
"Yes."
Chrissie kissed her eyes, kissed them again, kissed them more with intense kisses, placed her palms upon her cheeks and kissed her mouth and did not stop. Julia returning swallowed her with kisses. They danced upon each other as sea waves break upon the shore until they were each fondling the other's cock with lips that parted and tongue that bathed it in devotion.
"I want to show you something," Chris said later that evening. They had changed to teenage boy drag. He took Julian's hand and led him to the back staircase at the end of the long hallway and took him up to the third floor. It was a spacious loft fitted out like a sumptuous bordello; it was furnished with antique sofas, velvet-covered divans, leather chairs, Persian carpets, long tables, low tables, side tables with crystal vases. Chrissie threw a master switch. Deep tinted damask curtains decorated the windows; pendant from the ceiling crystal chandeliers were glistering. The standing lamps and table lamps had bases of wrought brass and globes of blown and colored glass fitted within a spider's web of leading. They gleamed like stained glass windows.
"What is this?" Julian gasped in amazement. "It looks like a whorehouse you'd see in a movie."
"It's my parents' workroom," Chris said, pointing to a bank of computers in an alcove. "Don't you like it?" It wasn't a real question. The answer was a foregone conclusion. How couldn't you like it? Before an awestruck Julian could say anything, Chris kissed him and then turned away and threw open the doors of a vast oak armoire. Julian gasped and gaped. Within was a collection of the most erotic costumes Julian might ever imagine.
"We may look, but we may not touch," Chris said, waving his index finger.
"Where are we?"
"You've heard of Rod Ranger and Laura Rope?"
"Who hasn't?"
"My Mom and Dad!"
"What!"
"I told you my folks were software developers?"
"Yeah,"
"Well, the software they develop is `Rod Ranger and Laura Rope.' They make up the plots, and they create the costumes, and dress up in them and act it all out here. It's their studio. There are cameras in the ceiling that automatically track and shoot from several angles, so everything they do is on video and then they use that as a model to generate the computer images that you see.'"
"You mean those characters are images of your parents?"
"And of me, sometimes."
"You?"
"In one of the stories, a beautiful sorceress turns a boy into a slave girl. First she seduces the boy and makes him surrender himself to her when she has him in the throes of passion. He begs her to transform him into whatever shape would please her most."
"Your mother seduced you?"
"She nurtured me and she taught me the art of being erotic. I'll show you."
"The art of being erotic?"
"Everybody has sex," Chris began to explain, "most people without much pleasure or satisfaction. There's a lot of wanting and not much getting, a lot of desire, or pretense of desire, without much gratification. That's what sex is about. And generally sex is defined from a male point of view, centered in and on the cock. My mother's idea of real sex is not that. It is eroticism. The ideal of eroticism is surrendering and receiving – in other words true femininity. It doesn't matter what biology you have. Femininity is an attitude of being. You have to learn it – through sexual touching."
"The way you touch me."
"The way we touch each other, without fear or hesitation, surrendering to each other in submission to the power of our love."
"And still, I think there are depths in you that I have not yet touched," Julian said.
"I will take you all the way to the deepest depths, but," Chris smiled, "beware: there is no bottom. You will always be on dizzying heights."
Julian said nothing but brought his open mouth to Chris' and pulled kisses by the roots from the depths of his throat.
Chrissie connected several cables that hooked up two computers to each other and the familiar image of the fiercely feminine Laura Rope appeared. Her hair flamed in its Irish red, her eyes, jade green, shone imperious. She stood, a frozen image, legs akimbo in her signature metallic black bra, bikini, open-work stockings, and stiletto boots, with a ruby colored garter circling her left thigh. Her gaze penetrated the viewer's. Her lips were full, luscious, painted with ruby lipstick, the same color as her garter. Her eyes were heavy with desire, and fringed with violet lashes. Her eyelids glittered with violet sparkles.
Chrissie touched a computer key and the figure came to life. The camera backed away and showed a beautiful naked boy – it was Chrissie – with a chain around his waist and circling round the base of his ballsac -- reclining like an odalisque upon a sofa with a fur under him. His eyes were open wide and blank. The avatar Laura stood before him, haughty. The avatar Chrissie rose and handed her one end of his chain leash. She gently pulled on it and his genitals stretched slightly away from his body. She cupped them in her palm and kissed him maddeningly on his open mouth. He knelt before her, his forehead touching the tips of her boots, his hands crossed, open palms, behind his back.
With his tongue he kissed the way up her boots and reached her thighs. With each hand he held her legs, beautiful columns to support him and buried his face in her thighs and kissed his way up to her woman's cunt, to his mother's cunt and worshiped it with devout kisses until, inflamed by his devotion, the avatar Laura grabbed him by the hair and pulled his mouth to hers and like a mother bird rewarding her young with what she had foraged, rewarded him with endless kisses.
Julian could not watch without his desire flaring for Chrissie. He pulled him nearer and pulled down his jeans. Underneath his boy drag, he was wearing only a frilly pair of skimpy fuchsia panties. Julian rubbed Chrissie's stiffening clit and brushed his lips over Chrissie's, and blew his breath inside his mouth. Chrissie moaned and swallowed each draught, and grew more desperate in lust. He burst, and the spreading stain of love fulfilled soaked his panties.
"Julian, my exquisite beloved. I love you. My life belongs to you," he whispered. "Be mine, forever."
Julian kissed him softly, lingering on his lips. "I am," he said.