Part Twenty

Truisms still need repeating sometimes, to remind one that they are indeed true. For example: after a few good cleansing orgasms, women think far more clearly, while men find it hard to remember their own names.

No doubt there is some sort of evolutionary basis for this. Perhaps it’s prehuman, something lodged way back in the limbic system. Maybe it was necessary so that some Precambrian insect could munch contemplatively on the head of her still-twitching mate before injecting their offspring into his carcass.

Moira, of course, was well acquainted with this phenomenon, and took advantage of it to learn about Haywood’s inexplicable perfect-kinetic-pitch and about his hyperdeveloped pubococcygeal muscles.

“So how did you learn to lift a dictionary with your PC?”

“My what?” He had been lazily tracing a mandala into her shoulder, even as he spoke dismissively of his uncanny muscle memory, but at the question his index finger stopped moving.

“The pubococcygeus,” she clarified.

“The puba-cok-sigeus?”

“The Kegel…?”

“Oh, that,” he laughed. “That’s what that muscle is called? Say that word again?”

“Pubococcygeus. Where did you pick that up?”

He laughed.

“I’m thinking some older woman in your neighborhood?” she tried. How old ARE you, they both thought simultaneously.

“It’s so… dumb. When I was like thirteen or fourteen Tommy Lincoln stole one of his dad’s Playboy’s. I remember it well. Teri Peterson was Miss July and the women of Maui were the aperitif. We all gawked at the pictures like perverted little teenagers are supposed to do. But when nobody was looking I… I read the articles.”

“What?!” she laughed.

He blushed. “I read the articles. I mean all I knew about sex was that I knew nothing about sex. And Playboy was supposed to be like, the sex Bible, right? In retrospect, all of that stuff was pretty stupid. But… anyhow, there was this article about the Kegel exercise. Made it sound like unless you could clench and hold it for ten minutes at a time, you were NEVER going to satisfy a woman. So… so I started doing it. Thirteen, just getting hair down there, no idea when or if I was ever going to get laid, and I’m squeezing that thing all the time. In class. On the baseball diamond. After awhile it…” he laughed and actually blushed. She liked that. “After awhile it got to be like, a habit. Like some people bite their nails or fidget? I… well, Kegel.”

“How old are you?” she said.

“Does it make a difference?”

Not at this point. Probably not, she thought.

“How old?”

“I’ll be 21 in March.”

He felt a sudden slackness in her shoulders.

But he was right -- it didn’t make any difference.

“Listen,” she said, turning in his arms to face him on the cramped sofa. Their faces were inches apart. “I know you’re going to think I’m just a dirty old woman, but I think you have a lot of potential that’s being wasted right now.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that you have a certain… youthful exuberance which, when combined with that muscle memory of yours and your bizarre Kegel habits, is no doubt sufficient to blow the minds of these silly college girls. But youthful exuberance only goes so far. You need some training and discipline to take advantage of these gifts of yours.”

He stared at her blankly for a moment. “What are you saying?” he said cautiously.

“I’m saying I taught tantra yoga for a year when I was in Denmark. And I’ve published articles about the Kama Sutra. And lectured at a Jewish women’s club in London on the Iggeret ha-Qodesh. I’m saying… I can help you develop your gifts into something real.”

There was a pause, and then he exploded into laughter. “For a moment there,” he managed, “it sounded like you were offering to be my sex coach.”

She wasn’t laughing back.

“Wait, I thought that was OK, what we just did,” he protested, when it became obvious she was serious.

“It was OK. Are you satisfied with OK? From my perspective, ‘OK’ is a waste. I mean OK is what I was hoping for, and if I thought that was the best you could do you would be getting my customary pat on the head and boot out the door. You can do more than OK. Or you can let it go to waste.”

“You’re serious.”

“I’m a teacher, aren’t I? Irish folktales aren’t my only area of expertise. This is probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Are you interested, or do you want the pat on the head now?”

He didn’t know her that well – yet – but he knew her well enough to ask this:

“What’s the catch?”

“The catch?”

“What do you want from me in return?”

She chuckled and sat up and ran her fingers through her long hair. Her back looked almost silver and he suppressed a shiver at the memory of her spine beneath his fingertips.

“The usual vows. Obedience, silence, chastity. You need to do what I say. You can’t tell anyone while it’s going on, mostly because I suspect the school would frown upon it. And we’re going to have to get rid of that Johnnie you’re sporting, so that means nothing below the waist with anyone else. So if you’ve got your eye on some little girl back on the campus…” she said, and curled her head to look at him coyly over one shoulder. “But you seem like the monogamous type. Insist on liking the person more than the act, that sort of thing. Lucky for you I don’t have the same limitations.”

“Lucky for me,” he said. “And how long will this clinic last?”

“Depends on how hard you study,” she said. “But I’m on a plane back to Oxford at the end of June, so no longer than that.”

Perhaps on some level he still thought it was a joke. Perhaps he thought it was a way for her to invite him back without admitting that she liked him. Certainly the way she looked had a lot to do with it. And at least in part it was because she’d hit on a sore subject with him – the difference between natural gifts and hard work. Whatever the reason, he agreed.

“When do I start?” he said.

“Now,” she said, facing away from him and grinning. “Come around here and get on your knees. And if the thought of putting your face in that after the fact bothers you, next time you’ll think of it before the fact.”

The more squeamish readers will be spared the ensuing training montage. In its place, a few of Moira’s aphorisms, dispensed as a part of her devoted tutelage:

“The world would be a better place if someone could persuade the lesbians to offer classes teaching cunnilingus to straight men.”

“Why on earth would a girl fake an orgasm? To make him feel good? He feels good enough at that point, thank you. If he wants to feel any better, he should have to earn it.”

“Your fingers are the most dexterous part of your body, and your tongue is the most sensitive. Therefore never attempt anything calling for sensitivity or dexterity with any other part of your body, until you’ve figured it out with your fingers and tongue first.”

“I would write a book called How To Sexually Train A Man, but it would have to be the sequel to How To Sexually Train Yourself, and I don’t have time for two books.”

“Anybody can pick up a violin and, on his own, saw out Mary Had A Little Lamb. It takes a lot of really boring work before you’re ready for Mozart. So take that thing out and let’s play some scales.”

From his perspective it was essentially a naked martial-arts course; strenuous workouts combined with exotic philosophies. They both got clean bills of health and he had sex without a condom for the first time since splitting up with his old high-school girlfriend. She had a few complaints, mostly pertaining to his rather plebian tastes; he didn’t like binding or being bound, he didn’t like spanking or being spanked, and while he was a good sport about role playing, he never seemed to come up with anything good on his own.

In all candor, Preacher was not particularly imaginative. Of course it was hard to come up with a fantasy that could top “a year of high-end sexual discipleship with an incredible gorgeous older woman.”

The first turning point was Halloween.

Fells Point, in Baltimore, was the scene of a big annual Halloween bacchanalia, one to which Preacher and his friends had repaired the year before and one to which they had planned on going again. But an even bigger one was in the Washington neighborhood of Georgetown. However the District was a pain to get to, and a pain to park in, while Baltimore was much more accessible, so those Johnnies inclined to go out on Halloween usually went to Baltimore.

So Preacher proposed to Moira that they go to D.C. She liked the idea of a national day of masquerade. Of being someone else for an evening. And she was a little lonely, too; taking on an apprentice meant being a teacher long after the school day had ended. Surprising herself she agreed – provided she could pick out their costumes.

Preacher balked for a moment. He was rather proud of the high-concept costumes he’d assembled for his friends in the past. A white T-shirt with a large letter “i” drawn in magic marker for his friend Drew; he became a Black Eye. A clerical collar for himself; thus, “Preacher” Haywood. E=mc2 written on the seat of Nick’s bluejeans; that worthy went through an evening explaining he was a “smart-ass.”

Upon hearing these examples Moira was more determined than ever to choose their costumes.

Preacher’s was easy to assemble. Hers became complicated and expensive, but in the end she decided it was worth every penny.

A few boxes arrived at his house on Halloween morning. Boots. Dungarees. Hat. Spurs. Gunbelt. Much more Sergio Leone than Roy Rogers. Preacher put on his cowboy attire, including the spurs, and practiced his steely glint in the mirror. Sometimes he could go ten seconds without laughing.

Correctly anticipating both excessive alcohol consumption and insane traffic tie-ups, Haywood hired a limo for the night. His friends were insistent – costume, limo, ditching us, what’s going on? Haywood simply smiled and remained silent. He had a maddening knack for that.

He got in the back, had the driver go in the opposite direction of Moira’s house, circled around the town, and pulled up in front of her door fifteen minutes later.

She looked out her window and saw the cowboy coming up her walk. The sensual experience of fitting into her own costume combined with that square-jawed, broad-shouldered cowboy at her door almost caused her to cancel the evening out in favor of a night in. Almost. After what she’d spent on her own costume, though, she felt obligated to go show it off.

Plus, she reflected, she looked so good in it, it really wouldn’t be fair to stay home.

Preacher came in the house, took one look at her, and said:

“The painting.”

In the heart of Annapolis, on Duke of Gloucester Street, there was (in those days) an art gallery specializing in fantasy and science-fiction art. Moira was of the opinion that this sort of art was to art what military music was to music, but the place did a relatively decent business trading in works by the Brothers Hildebrandt, Frank Frazetta, and the like.

While she’d seen the gallery while walking from campus to her home, she mostly ignored it. Until Preacher sent her in there to see a particular Boris Vallejo painting.

The painting was of a horse-sized white tiger. Except since it was a Boris Vallejo painting it was actually of the scantily clad woman sitting astride the tiger. She wore some sort of metallic bikini and some sort of gauzy translucent gold cloak and sandals that laced almost to her knees.

Perhaps this is standard riding attire when one harnesses a tiger.

Strapped to one bare hip was a long, curved, and excessively bejeweled dagger, stuck into a long, curved, and excessively bejeweled scabbard. A brass diadem sat in her mass of flowing and apparently prehensile crimson hair, her skin was as a snowdrift, and her eyes a vivid emerald.

And no doubt: the endangered-species-riding warrior-priestess bore a striking resemblance to the Preacher-Haywood-riding college professor. As Moira stood there staring at the painting the fat man who ran the gallery waddled over and looked at her, and the painting, and her.

“Can I have your autograph?” he asked.

She gave him one with a bored sigh, as if this happened all the time.

(One of Preacher’s friends had actually told him about the painting. Everyone at St. John’s knew about it before she did. It was sort of de rigeur for everyone to traipse in there and look at it that first semester, until it was sold to an anonymous buyer.)

So this was an obvious choice for a costume.

She actually had to hire a dressmaker for the miniscule lamé bikini and wrap. Because Moira (unlike Boris Vallejo subjects) existed in a dimension wherein there were both laws of physics and laws against indecent exposure, certain minor compromises had to be made. The laws of physics took precedence over the man-made laws, of course. In her prop room there was a replica kirpan and a copper circlet which could be modified to serve as dagger and diadem. Add spray-painted thongs to a pair of sandals and voila! Marginally street-legal warrior-priestess, sans tiger.

The act of putting on such an outfit titillated Moira to no end. This was compounded by the sight of her star pupil swaggering up to her door in spurs.

“No matter what they tell you,” Moira said, “every girl in Ireland dreams of coming to America and riding a real live cowboy.” He put his hand on the small of her back and gave her a deep kiss.

“Careful,” she said, “this thing will pop off if my nipples stick up too much.”

And laughing at the freedom of being someone else for an evening, they walked arm-and-arm down to the limo.

The driver tried not to close his fingers in the door when she sat down.

The sidewalks of M Street were packed when they arrived. Angels and vampires and nurses and presidents, school girls and inmates and monsters and athletes, drinking and dancing and laughing… there were a few other cowboys but nobody even remotely like Moira.

As usual. But with semi-transparent clothes.

Her outfit got them admitted directly into even the most crowded clubs. They danced to INXS. They danced to Kraftwerk. They danced to Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. The bars smelled of bodies and beer and the noise was deafening. When they sat at the bar he would put his hand on the sweat-slicked skin of her leg or brush a finger along a rib and she would feel things move inside her.

A woman in a pirate costume followed them to three different bars and finally when an Adam Ant song came on Moira agreed to dance with her. When it was over Moira leaned forward and gave her a long lingering kiss on the lips. A man sitting next to Preacher put his fingers to his forehead. “I think my vas deferens just exploded,” he said. Preacher was drunk enough that this sounded funnier than it really was.

Later Moira insisted that he dance to The Fixx with a young man who fully expected – and received – the same reward afterward. Moira turned to the costumed woman next to her proudly. “I taught him that,” she said, eyes shining.

“Makes me sick to my stomach,” the witch sniffed, stalking away with her broom under her arm.

Moira was astonished by this. The fact that Preacher would do that, in a crowded bar, just to delight her… the next song was something slow and dreamy by OMD – Joan of Arc, maybe – and she pressed herself against him and the danced, and they kissed the taste of another boy and another girl from one another’s lips.

Finally, drunk and exhausted and more than a little horny they met their driver at 2 right where he had dropped them off. There was a minor incident, just before they got to the car; a drunk man who couldn’t let Moira out of his sight. Preacher put his hand on the man’s shoulder and talked to him quietly and walked a bit away from Moira and whatever he said must have worked, because the man thanked him and went on his way.

“What did you say?”

“That he had other options.”

On the way back they chuckled and kissed and groped one another in the back of the limo. Somewhere just outside of Bowie Preacher insisted that the driver stop at a convenience store so he could buy a six pack of Seven-Up.

That was Preacher’s thing. Seven-Up. He claimed it was the only thing that could properly rehydrate him after sex. He kept some in a mini-fridge in his room. Called it his favorite pericoital refreshment.

He went into the deserted store and after a moment Moira managed to reposition herself into her costume and followed him. When she entered the man behind the counter partially swallowed his gum and started coughing loudly. She walked up to the cash register.

“I guess you get all kinds here on Halloween night,” she said, leaning onto the counter to give him a better view. He managed to disgorge the gum and nodded weakly, his face red.

“What do you know about that guy back there?” she said, indicating Preacher with her head. He was sticking cold 7-Up into a cardboard carrier that had hitherto held Bartles & James.

“Ah, uh,” the man tried, shrugging.

“He looks like he could show a girl a good time,” Moira breathed coquettishly. The man spit his gum into the trashcan, showing a briefly lucid instinct for self-preservation. He nodded imperceptibly, unwilling to blink.

“You look like you have some experience in that department, too,” she cooed in a low voice, staring at a point just a few inches down from the clasp on his Sansabelts. By this time any attempt at communication would have provoked a cerebral accident, so the man simply stood, red and paralyzed.

Haywood walked – clomped, OK-Corral-style – up behind her and put the drinks on the counter.

“Hey, cowboy,” Moira purred, without turning around. “Find everything you were looking for?”

Without any expression he stepped forward a bit so that his crotch pressed against the gauze covering her buttocks. She could feel the warmth of his hand on her leg and she straightened up from the counter quickly and felt her right breast – it was always the right one, with that outfit – wriggle free. Not that she cared. Preacher nuzzled her neck and the breath from his nostrils curled in one ear and he lifted his fingertips to her lips. She took them in her mouth and moistened them and he slipped them down between her legs, unimpeded by the admittedly insignificant presence of her costume. He knew exactly where to go, and how fast, and how hard, and she could feel the swell of him against her back and while his other hand held that spot under her jaw and even with her eyes open the room turned dark and purple spots seemed to explode before her eyes and her hands, still resting on the counter, made tight fists when she came. It took no time at all.

Preacher still didn’t change expression. Just took his hand out of her pants and reached for his wallet. “How much?” he said to the cashier, drawling slightly and nodding toward the soda.

Moira held herself up with the counter.

“On… on the house,” the man said hoarsely, his eyes the size of saucers.

“Obliged,” Preacher said, nodding. He picked up the six-pack. “Ma’am,” he said to Moira, touching his hat with the same two fingers in a perfectly practiced gesture. He turned and walked out of the store and off into the night.

Moira watched him disappear into the darkness of the parking lot, and then turned to the clerk and slipped her breast back into the costume.

“I’m going to have to shop here more often,” she said, grabbed a Zagnut bar off the counter, and walked out giggling.

The clerk watched her go. When his legs would move again he raced to the back room to pop the security video out of the machine.

When Haywood and Callahan managed to stop laughing she went down on him in the back of the limo. That reminds me, she thought, I’m going to have to teach him how to suppress his gag reflex. Preacher tipped the driver extremely well and they staggered laughing into her house and they didn’t worry about technique or lessons for the last few hours before dawn.

He’d internalized them well enough by that point that they didn’t have to.

They didn’t realize it was a turning point until later, of course. The next day was a Sunday, he made her breakfast, and they resumed their textual analysis of Vatsyayana.

But on Tuesday he went to her office before class, and saying very little, pushed her skirt up over her hips. They fucked just for pleasure. And that was when they knew Halloween had changed things. A little.

Those who were in class with them an hour later detected absolutely nothing at all out of the ordinary.