The Iron Maiden (19 page)

The days passed, and gradually he recovered. She helped him get settled in his desk chair to write his columns, and between times they debated politics and policies, but never with force.

“You are a remarkably savvy woman, Spirit.”

“My intellect is not in a class with yours.”

He shook his head. “You believe that?”

“I admire intellect.”

They exchanged life histories to alleviate the developing dullness of the wait. Thorley loved his wife, and would never leave her; his present separation from her was uncomfortable. Spirit still felt the pain of the loss of Gerald. But a pleasant tension was building up between them.

“I fear I am coming to appreciate you too much, Spirit,” Thorley said. “You are a woman like none other I have known.”

“I am an orphan Hispanic refugee, pirate wench, Navy officer, and unashamed liberal. Not much to like there.”

“I feel constrained to be honest. You are forbidden fruit, with its illicit yet powerful appeal.”

“Forbidden fruit is intriguing,” she agreed.

“More than intriguing. Spirit, I believe it is best that we end this arrangement, lest I embarrass you.”

She laughed. “You think you can embarrass a woman with my history?”

“I fear I can. But there is no need. You have tided me safely through the worst of my recovery, and I believe I can manage on my own hereafter. I am sure your brother needs your services.”

“My brother has an excellent wife, thanks in significant part to you, and an excellent secretary. He can manage for a time.”

“Surely so. But that does not justify my taking more of your time, however sincerely I appreciate it.”

“How long before your wife returns?”

“That is indefinite. Her sibling's demise is a drawn-out process.”

“Thorley, you are not used to being on your own. You are the original absent minded professor type: intellectually brilliant, but a duffer in minor practical matters. Things were piling up and running out before I came, and it's bound to be worse during your recovery. You do need someone, and I think that means your wife, or me.”

“This is an aspect of the problem.”

“I mean someone to cover your incidentals: spot shopping, laundry, dishes. You can't afford to hire a real houseboy, so I think I have to remain it.”

He smiled ruefully. "At this point you understand my finances better than I do. You are surely correct.

But I doubt I can afford you, either."

“I feel that my brother's obligation is not fulfilled until you are well and able to proceed with your normal life. I think you don't understand how seriously we appreciate what you did. Megan is Hope's life, and Hope is my life. Money is no part of this.”

He looked at the floor. “I know it, Spirit. I see I must after all embarrass you. The reason I can't afford your services is that your nature and proximity are causing me to become enamored of you. There can be no future--”

He broke off, for she had had to sit down suddenly. Why hadn't she seen this coming? They had been getting along too well. They were complete opposites politically and socially, but their practical closeness was another matter.

“I apologize for inflicting this embarrassment on you,” he said. “But I trust you will agree that a continuation of the present situation is unfeasible.”

She scrambled to recover her poise. “No. The apology is mine. I have been vamping you, forgetting that we are strangers. The Navy--when I was with Gerald--never mind. Somehow I lapsed into an unconscionable informality. My reflexes are not appropriate to this situation.”

“Unconscionable? Dear woman, now you are sounding like me! You do have a beautiful body, but that is not my concern. It is your competence and caring that stir me. I am no longer able to tolerate your presence in any attire without suffering foolish notions.”

“Thorley, you know what I am! It's not just a matter of being liberal. I have consorted with pirates; in the Navy they called me the Iron Maiden for my brutal efficiency.”

“They also called you The Dear.”

“I never should have told you about my song.”

“I do know what you are, Spirit, and it is totally at odds with my prior experience, and an education in itself. You have become The Dear to me.”

“I know who I love, but the dear knows who I'll marry,” she said, echoing her song. “Actually, if I could marry Gerald again, I'd do it. But I must stay away from him, for the sake of his restored military career and my brother's political career.”

“And I could not marry you either, for similar reasons. But if you do not depart, I shall wish I could.”

“What of your wife?”

“I do love her, and shall never leave her. That is why I must no longer be near you.”

She considered for a minute, then spoke sadly. “I think it is too late.”

“Perhaps it is. Perhaps I was already too far gone before I realized it. But at least now you understand why you must return to your brother. I would not compromise you any farther, or embarrass you by--”

“Thorley, I meant too late for me. I thought I was staying with you because of loyalty to my brother, and being informal with you for convenience. Now I realize that I was already on that slippery slope. I admire your intellect and your integrity of philosophy. I was vamping you, unconsciously.”

“No, you were merely being natural. I am the one who--”

“Come off it, Thorley! Against all superficial logic, we're attracted to each other.”

He frowned gracefully. “Spirit, you are not making this easy. We must separate.”

“Not until you can make it on your own.”

“I shall have to make it on my own. You know why.”

“I think I must remain with you until your wife returns. Then I shall depart without fuss or recrimination, and we will not see each other again. The job will have been done, and our private feelings need never be known elsewhere.”

“You offer an infernally tempting compromise. But is it right?”

“It is not right. It is necessary. And maybe it is not wrong, if we don't act on our foolish feelings.”

“This will be difficult.”

“We can do it.”

“We must do it.”

But it turned out to be harder than they expected. Spirit's emotion, once realized, did not retreat, it expanded. She had a hunger to love and be loved romantically. She had catered to that hunger without realizing it, and now was trying to brake a ship that was falling into the sun.

Thorley's wound was healing, but it remained awkward for him to change the bandages; he was not competent in incidental medicine either. So she did it. The wound was high in the inner thigh, and she had to work around his genitalia. This did not bother her, but she knew it bothered him. Now she noticed something. “My touch does not arouse you.”

“At least I am spared that additional humiliation.”

“I think you are avoiding the issue. Can you be aroused?”

“I fear not,” he said heavily. “The burn seems to have rendered me impotent.”

“Then my job has not yet been done, regardless.”

“You are not responsible for my sexuality!”

“My responsibility is to leave you in the condition I found you, before the debate. I know something about sexuality. I should be able to help.”

“But we agreed not to act on our feelings.”

“Let's reason this out,” she said. “If we did what we would like to do, we would exchange expressions of love and desire, then embrace and kiss and have sexual intercourse.”

“Unfortunately true.”

“But we are not doing that. We are addressing a particular problem. I have a responsibility to you that must be completed. I have had experience in stimulating men to sexual performance. I will draw on that experience to stimulate yours. I will not do any of the forbidden things.”

“Your logic seems impeccable, but I do not understand.”

“I think the heat of the laser did some partial damage to certain key nerves. It may be that the main ones have been destroyed, but that peripheral ones can take their place and in time restore your capacity. We need to encourage that reprogramming.”

“I still do not understand what it is you propose to do.”

“Bear with me, then.” She completed the bandaging, then took hold of his penis and massaged it. It responded by expanding and hardening. “The mechanism is there, just not the line to the brain. Try to locate that line.”

“Obviously you have expertise, as you indicated. But I confess I have no idea how.”

She backed off and stood before him. “Think what you would like to do, if you could. Try to react.” She removed her shirt, and then her bra.

“This falls into the arena of forbidden expression.”

“This is not romance. It is therapy. What would you do with my body, if you had no constraints?”

“I would kiss those marvelous breasts.”

“Think lower.” She drew off her skirt and panties, then turned in place, doing a small hula dance.

“Spirit, you torture me!”

“Precisely. React.”

But he could not. She got down and addressed his member again. “Maybe if we take you through the process, it will encourage the nerves.”

“Process?”

She took his member in her mouth and worked on it until it swelled to full proportion. But it would not respond beyond that. “Let's give it a rest,” she said after a while. “I'll try again this afternoon.”

“You are amazing, but this is useless. The connection is not there.”

“We shall remake it.” She got up and dressed.

“Every time I think I have the measure of you, you take the measure of me,” he said. “I have never encountered a woman your equal, all aspects considered.”

“You haven't met some of the women I have known. But you do know Megan.”

“She is unparalleled in her area of expertise, which is broad. But she could not do what you just did.”

That was true. “She was never a pirate wench.” But Spirit was flattered. She had made it a point, among the pirates, to learn exactly how to please men, and that knowledge had served her well among the pirates, and in the Navy, and with Gerald. Now, with luck, it would enable her to restore to Thorley what the laser attack had taken. But she wasn't sure; she had never before tackled physically derived impotence. Could she get the key nerves to reconnect? Suppose she failed?

She went about her business, keeping house for Thorley, feeding him lunch, then reading and critiquing a draft of his latest column. He did several drafts of each, struggling for up to an hour on a single not-quite-perfect turn of phrase. Eloquence came naturally to him, but he lifted it to the status of art by working hard at it. She admired that too.

The cat approached her. She picked him up and stroked him. “Thomas likes you,” Thorley said. “This, too, is important.”

“Thomas brought us together.” For it was Thorley's concern for his cat that had made her first call necessary.

Then it was mid afternoon. “I will address you now,” she said as he sat in his chair.

“Must you? I find this procedure discomfiting.”

“I must. I am trying to stimulate regrowth or repositioning of nerve functions. There may be no seeming progress at first, but in time you may get a twinge of response, and then we shall know it is feasible.” She opened his trousers and reached inside.

“Your words make sense, but it distresses me to allow you to degrade yourself in such manner.”

“One day we shall debate what is degrading about acquiescent sexual performance,” she said, and put her mouth to his member. She sucked on it as it swelled, but could not rouse it to further accomplishment. Still, she must be stimulating the essential nerve paths.

Three days later he reacted. “I felt a twinge!”

“Wonderful!” She kissed the tip of his member. “Can it stand alone?”

It seemed not. But the next day the twinge was stronger. In several more days she was able to make it swell without touching it. They were definitely making progress.

Then it leveled off. The arousal would go to a point, but not progress beyond. She seemed to come close to swallowing his member, but it would not perform.

“Enough of this child's play!” she said. “I'm bringing in the first team.” She stood, tore off her skirt and panties, turned around, and carefully sat on the member, guiding it in. “Go go go!” she cried, clenching her vaginal muscles as her bare bottom made full contact with his lap.

And it erupted. She felt the pulses, and rejoiced; she had at last brought him to climax.

When the throes of it eased, she lifted herself, then fetched a cloth and cleaned up the two of them. “You did it,” Thorley said, amazed. “You completed the process.”

“There is farther to go,” she said, pleased. “You must be able to do it all yourself.”

“But you overstepped the boundary.”

Then she remembered. “There was not to be intercourse. Oh, Thorley, I'm sorry. I didn't think--I just got so frustrated with incipience--”

“Perhaps there was no other way. To me, oral activity is not--not completely natural. I had an emotional reservation that stifled the culmination. When you--Spirit, I'm glad you forgot. At least you were innocent of evil intent.”

She had to laugh. “And you were not?”

“I was not innocent. I should have warned you before you did it. But temptation overwhelmed me.”

“Then we are both at fault. I think we had better reconsider our program. Shall we eliminate the restrictions and have a full affair?”

“Again, you tempt me wickedly. But where is the justification?”

“To restore your full sexual capacity. Then there will be no remaining debt.”

“But my wife--”

“Would she be satisfied if you lost your potency during her absence?”

“She would prefer there to be no change.”

“When she returns, I will go, and it will be over. You will have your full potency for her benefit. She will have lost nothing.”

“That is perhaps how it must be.”

“We are agreed.” She glanced sidelong at him. “May I do the honors?”

“What can you do, that you have not already completed?”

“I can speak the unspoken, and do the undone.”

“Do the honors,” he agreed wryly.

She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. “I love you, Thorley.”