The Devil's Sperm Is Cold (19 page)

He turned and smiled at her, his face filled again with the good humor that few people ever saw him without. “It sounds like it was fun,” he said.

Margaret hoisted herself out of the deep chair and walked over to him. Standing next to him, she was almost a full inch taller than he was. Although a world of complexity had kept the two of them from ever forming a permanent union, he had always told her that the real thing that made their relationship impossible was the fact that she was taller than he was.

Jack looked at the slender, lovely woman who stood in front of him. She was one of the most beautiful women he had ever known, and it was only by constant diligence that he prevented himself from becoming as emotional about her as she had been about Joan. But there were times when he just wanted to throw his arms around her and bury himself in her and pour out all the words and feelings which he had just finished telling her must remain within the individual, and not be cast upon others. He wasn’t certain whether his behavior bespoke a true manliness or a neurotic defense system, and he had stopped trying to figure it out.

“What’s the point?” he had reasoned. “I’m not going to change. And if I’m just a coward, then I might as well enjoy what I can of it.”

Margaret felt like a diver who had just burst from beneath the water, and was luxuriating in the simple fact of breathing. From the moment she learned that Joan had gone off with Manuel, she had watched herself sink deeper and deeper into the morass of negative emotions. And while at first it amused her to see herself so wrought up, a moment had arrived when the critical aspect of her intelligence was tied down by the raging jealousy and anger and she had become a slave to her own weakness. All through the process, a voice well inside her reminded her that this was only a temporary eruption, but it, too, was helpless to snap her out of her convulsion. It had taken a helping hand to bring her out of the murky depths.

She looked at the man who had given her what she needed, and was taken with a feeling that mixed gratitude with honest appreciation. She saw him continuing to stand apart, knowing that his desire could be sparked in an instant, but not wanting to intrude his lust into her chaotic state. Without a word she put her arms around his neck and pressed her body to his. Her embrace said many things, that she thanked him, that she liked him, that she was ready to give him whatever he might want. But this was all implied, for in her mind there were no thoughts, no distinctions—only the warmth of friendly contact.

“You’ll be all right now?” he asked, still not responding to his own desire and to her tacit invitation.

“If I stay here,” she said. “If I go back to my apartment tonight, I know it will start all over again, and by morning I’ll be a raving hysteric, and have to sedate myself to get through the day.”

He did not reply to her oblique request to spend the night, so she added, “It is all right for me to stay here tonight, isn’t it?”

“Only if you promise not to transfer everything you think you feel for that girl onto me,” he told her. “I don’t have the energy to deal with all that emotion for more than what we’ve just been through.”

“Jack, you have more energy than almost anyone I know. Why do you pretend you’re weak?”

She tightened her embrace and as she spoke she brought her mouth to his ear. The heat and motion of her breath sent a chill down his spine. His arms went around her waist and his hands slid over her buttocks. It was as though they had not been physically separated in all the time between their last contact. She represented his ideal form and when he held her it was like a sculptor running his hands over the statue that would always be too perfect for him to ever carve.

“If I fuck you, you get cut loose from her,” he said. “That’s what’s happening, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” she said. But she knew he was right. She had called him because she needed someone she could trust to get her out of her obsession with her involvement with Joan. And Jack had helped her psychologically, and now she wanted him to complete the operation. She needed to put the experience of his body between her and Joan, so she would have perspective on her relationship with the girl on all its levels. She pressed her pelvis against his, the heat of her cunt surging through their clothes to bathe his cock.

He lowered his head and licked her throat. His hands came up and pulled her torso forward, so that her breasts flattened against his chest. The breath was forced from her lungs and she sagged slightly against him.

“Remember when it used to be that people would feel passion, and the passion would lead them to sex? Now we crank ourselves up sexually and hope that we will generate some passion. What a long way we’ve fallen.”

“Who are you talking about?” she asked, her hips rotating.

“You, me, the species. Everybody. Anybody.” His hands now moved with a kind of relentless momentum, skimming her spine, cupping her ass, sliding up her arms and onto her breasts. She bobbed back and forth as he played with her. They were joined at the thighs and at their genitals, while above the waist they leaned back from one another.

Jack’s cock began to swell and harden even as his mind grew cold and clear. With physical energy and intellectual sharpness, he lacked only the involvement of his heart to make him complete. He looked at Margaret. Her eyes were closed and she was already sinking into the first stages of her sexual swoon. She was so superb in her simple being that Jack’s knees momentarily buckled. But he stiffened his legs to support her.

“Maggie,” he said. She raised her lids halfway and looked at him through veiled eyes. Her lips were curved in a mysterious smile.

“If we could love each other, if we could just love each other. Do you know how simple all life would be? Do you know how different all existence would appear before our eyes? All these things we do? Our jobs, our sex, our intrigues…without love, it’s all grotesque.”

Like a sliver of steel she cut into his soul with a single glance. Her voice was like wind across frozen tundra. “Then love me,” she said. “Love me if you can, if you will. Because I am too weak to sustain it. And if you show the way, I will follow you.”

Outside, a car screeched to a sudden halt. There was no thud, so Jack knew that the brakes had been put on in time. And the narrow escape from whatever accident had almost taken place on the street below reminded him of what was going on in his own body. The effect of Margaret’s impact had taken its toll, and he was sliding into the very pit he had just dragged her out of. He laughed to himself, a mirthless sound.

“I keep forgetting my limitations,” he said.

She covered his mouth with hers. Her lips were soft and warm. Her tongue, the tip of temptation dancing behind the moment. He responded automatically. And in an instant, they were deep in a hushed embrace, blending and merging into that space which is given by the god of sex to soothe poor humanity in its painful search for love.

“Oh fuck it,” she whispered into his mouth. “There’s this. We have this. Let’s drink the wine that’s in our cup and not go chasing after things that may not even exist. Sex is ours. Let’s give ourselves to sex.”

They moved easily to the bed that lay, still unmade from the morning, at the far corner of the large room. They did not speak or look at one another, but walked with their arms around each other’s waists toward the altar where this sacrifice would be consummated. They went slowly, as though in a ritual, a priest and priestess of pornography, having accepted that they would never know the love they desired except through the vehicle of sex. That, for them, there was no love apart from sex. And that sex itself was no guarantee that love would flow. They could only go so far themselves. They could make themselves naked, give themselves to one another in the ultimate embrace, and let the spirit of sex take them up. And if they were honest and strong and brave, and if the unknown factor was moved to smile upon them, then something would enter their hearts, and they would melt with the feeling that gives life its only meaning, the feeling, the experience, that some call love, and some call god, and some call truth, and some call beauty.

“Wait,” said Margaret as they stood at the edge of the bed, “I have to pee first.”

“Mood breaker,” Jack complained as he disengaged.

“It won’t take much to get back into it,” she told him as she turned and walked off toward the bathroom.

Jack let the bathrobe fall from his shoulders and, naked, flung himself on the bed, bouncing a few times on the mattress. He let out a few grunts of exuberance, letting loose the tension energy that had been accumulating, and lay still for a few moments, collecting his attention within himself. It was so easy to be drawn out into that strange vibration which was neither his nor Margaret’s, but something they concocted between them, and then be left wandering in that ghostly space, dependent on her for his own awareness. And if she were careless, she could pull away and leave him gasping for identity.

“It’s called being ripped off,” he said to himself. “And I mustn’t let myself get ripped off.” Speaking to himself was his surest means of finding his balance.

Margaret undressed in the bathroom, shedding her clothes quickly. She flushed the toilet, although she had not had to urinate. She, too, needed to pull into herself for a few moments. The swings were very rapid, from heavy emotionality to stark cerebrality, from flickers of sensuality to a sense of cold isolation. She, like Jack, was caught in a process that they would both see through to completion. But it was a function of will and necessity, not a spontaneous delight.

She washed her face and hands, barely dried them, and stepped out into the large room. Her body was black in front of the light behind her and cast an elongated shadow in the irregular quadrilateral of white that was flung from the bathroom door onto the floor. The effect was highly unreal, and Jack appreciated its aesthetic qualities as he lazily stroked his cock and mentally girded himself for the ordeal of sexuality that lay ahead.

Margaret walked to the bed, slid forward, and without any other movement, covered Jack’s cock with her mouth. Her hair fell down on his belly and over his thighs. He took his hand away and let her have the already erect cock. She began by swallowing it entirely, letting it slide over her tongue and into her throat. She held her breath and did not move for a very long time, the velvet tip lodged in the tiny passage, the sturdy rod stuffing her mouth, her lips lost in the curl of his pubic hair. The heat built slowly, and when it reached its peak, Jack clenched his buttocks and lifted his hips off the bed, thrusting his cock symbolically deeper into her throat. Physically, it could go no farther, for she had gulped its entire length.

She pulled back slowly, and as she did her tongue licked the underside of his cock, which had begun to throb. She continued until the purple head was at the tip of her lips, and she kissed it repeatedly, wetly, and then lapped it with broad rapid strokes of her tongue. She held it in one hand and smacked it against her mouth. And then, taking a deep breath, she swallowed it whole once more, this time going very, very slowly, so they could both feel the long, exquisite passage of his slippery cock into her beautiful mouth. He raised his head to look down at her. The light was splashed across her back, throwing her ass into high relief, the twin mounds gleaming and the deep crack between lost in dark shadow. Her legs were kicking slightly, a gentle scissors motion, as her cunt rubbed against the bed. Her face was indistinct, and he could barely make out the shape of her delicate lips as they stretched wide to encompass the base of his thick shaft. The sight of her being fucked in the face was as exciting, if not more so, than the sensations of having his cock pulsing in her throat, and when she pulled back the second time, again licking and kissing his cock as it slid out of her mouth, he almost came, and had to clutch the pillow behind him and tense his thighs to hold back the bubbling sperm which threatened to explode out of him without warning.

“Come around this way,” he said. “I want your cunt.”

She rolled her legs over until her crotch was at his face and they were curled into one another. She took his cock once more, only halfway into her this time, and just held it there. She rested her head on the bed and let his cock throb gently on her tongue, lost in the pleasant regressive delight of drifting off into reverie with the breast-surrogate between her lips. Jack hooked his hands over her thighs and reached around and under to slip his fingers between the cheeks of her ass, the tips reaching her cunt. He applied a small bit of pressure and her legs parted. Her cunt opened to his eyes. It was already wet, and the uncanny smell assailed his nostrils. His cock warm and wet in her mouth, his body comfortable on the bed, he put his face between her thighs and slipped his tongue into her waiting pussy. She twitched once and then closed around him.

They lay like that for a long time, not moving, simply feeling. Their breathing became full and natural, and the smells and tastes of their bodies became nothing more than a part of the environment, and not something to huff and puff over. Perhaps they came close to falling asleep, but it did not matter, for they were a single closed circuit. Occasionally he would adjust his position and bring his lips forward to suck the excess juices that dripped from her cunt lips, or she would squirm and press her breasts into his thighs and curl her tongue around his cock, which now lay three-quarters hard in her mouth. They were both able to forget each other and pay full attention as they brought activity to a minimum and receptivity to a maximum.

Finally, however, the basic biology began to make its demands. Their bodies could store up only so much electricity before their separate charges had to be discharged and neutralized. They started to writhe, each pushing into the other. Jack’s cock got stiff again and filled Margaret’s mouth completely, and he began to lick her cunt steadily, his tongue at first covering the outer lips with broad strokes, but then curving inward, darting between, tasting the sweet mucous of the inner lips and the sharp wetness of the center. And then he was inside, his fingers pulling her hole apart as his tongue slid into the hot cavity behind. The inside of her cunt was a succulent receptacle of her body’s excretions. It was odd that a man should be so powerfully drawn to a woman’s fluids, yet he sucked them in vigorously, revelling in the taste and texture of the slimy secretions.