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<td align="LEFT" width="1" rowspan="3" valign="BOTTOM"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#CCCCCC">..</font></td>
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<td align="LEFT"><b><font face="Georgia">The Midnight Session</font></b></td>
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<td align="RIGHT"><b><font face="Georgia"><a href="bios_m2z.shtml#Staples" title="click for author info">Philip Hickey</a></font></b></td>
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<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">I. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy arrived shortly before midnight. <br>
<br>
She parked her old Volvo on an adjacent side street and hurried
up Doctor Ghiger’s driveway through the icy November rain; the
slippery crunch of autumn’s confetti beneath her boots. <br>
<br>
Ghiger, who had been watching for her arrival, greeted her at
the door and ushered her inside. Although it had been more than
two years since she and Ghiger had concluded their sessions, he
appeared much the same to how Lucy remembered. His broad shoulders,
angular face and infinite, slate gray eyes; he was dressed in
a pair of open-toed sandals, expensive black slacks and a loosely
buttoned, linen blouse. <br>
<br>
For a moment, standing in the dark threshold, Lucy was sixteen
again: resentful and angry, unimaginably lonely. Her forearms
dressed in bandages, concealing the latest attempt to surrender
her grief beneath the white truce flag of a straight razor. <br>
<br>
“So good to see you, Doctor Ghiger,” she said as they embraced,
savoring the familiar weight of his body against her, the scent
of his flesh so close, however brief. She held him for a long
moment, perhaps too long, before he pulled away. <br>
<br>
“You too, Lucy. I barely recognized you coming up the drive,”
he said, smiling, delicately touching the shorn side of her head.
<br>
<br>
“Yes… this is new,” she said, blushing, rubbing the prickly texture
of her newly shaven head. <br>
<br>
“Got tired of the purple spikes, eh?” <br>
<br>
Lucy laughed, “Yeah, I guess.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">II. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">With pleasantries exchanged, Lucy followed Doctor Ghiger down
the familiar marble-floored hall to where the corridor forked:
to the left lay the psychologist’s office suite, to the right
stretched the entrance to the rest of his home. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">In the six years that Lucy had been Ghiger’s patient, never once
had she ventured beyond the hall and his office quarters, to see
how he existed beyond the small room. To know where the good doctor
ate his quiet meals, where he entertained his guests with expensive
wines and cocaine, and where he laid his body (and those in his
company) to rest at night. She often wondered if the rest of his
home was adorned as sparsely as the suite; with an almost Oriental
affection for interior décor: stark white walls and minute, if
any, decoration. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Something about the “preservation of the doctor-patient relationship”
and the “confidences of the union,” Ghiger had once explained
to Lucy regarding her forbiddance to the rest of his home. However,
truth be told, the junction of pupil and therapist, Lucy knew,
had born fruit far from traditional affinities; well beyond any
stark lines of ethical codes. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">III. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The office suite, like Ghiger himself, appeared much the same
to how Lucy remembered, smelling of sweet potpourri and salt.
Hardwood floors and an Eurasian rug beneath a black leather sofa
and the doctor’s matching armchair. A large bay window revealed
the darkness of the night beyond his home, coiled black and wet.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“You could’ve parked in the driveway, you know,” Ghiger said,
smirking, “No need for secrecy these days, Lucy.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She smiled in return, “Old habits, I suppose, Doctor.” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Atop the small, oak desk in the corner of the room, Ghiger had
set a pair of glasses beside a bottle of red wine. He poured the
glasses half full and offered one to Lucy as they sat. Lucy, forever
the patient, on the dark sofa; Doctor Ghiger in the adjacent armchair.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“To old habits,” they toasted. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">IV. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“I have something to show you,” Ghiger said after a while, standing
up, “Please help yourself to more of the Cabernet if you like,
just remember…” </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“’…Too much wine, like naiveté, dulls the senses.’” Lucy said,
stealing the words off his wine-red lips. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Exactly,” the doctor smiled, proudly perhaps, and disappeared
into the hallway. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy sat for a long while in the empty room, sipping the last
of her wine, bathing in the fragrant aura of the suite. So many
sessions over the years spent in this very space, she thought.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She savored the way the dark flesh of the sofa still held her
body, warmly protecting her secret delicacy: as fragile as a baby
bird. How it embraced her shape with the familiarity of lovers’
palms, flexing and whispering with her movements. The inkblack
fabric cupping her hips, coolly enfolding her shoulders and spine.
She thought of how it had drank of her over the years, feeding
from the bittersweet oils that both her heart and flesh had spilled
between its cushions. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy wondered if it remembered her taste as she did its touch.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She recalled how she had been sitting in the very same space the
first time she had told Doctor Ghiger about the dreams she’d been
experiencing. Dreams of the most explicit nature, nearly every
night. She remembered blushing as she explained the licentious
details: the dreams of frivolous orgies held in huge banquet halls,
spilling red wines and semen. How, in these scenes, she would
take lovers by the twos and threes, often both men and women at
once. She would often wake, Lucy had explained, teetering on the
cusp of an orgasm, her bed-sheets moist with anxious sweat, her
flesh aching. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy remembered Doctor Ghiger’s cautious expression, the squint
of his ash-gray eyes, almost bottomless. He had sat in his leather
armchair, watching her like a chessplayer contemplating his next
move: calculating the distances between spaces and how he might
cross them. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">V. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy raked her fingers over the cool fabric, remembering the sensation
of the dark leather against her naked body. How it would grow
slippery, like the morning’s dew, with her sweat: glistening against
the arch of her spine, collecting behind her knees and in the
valley between her breasts. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy touched herself, feeling the taut ache of her nipples, erect
through the paper-thin fabric of her blouse. She slipped her hand
between the buttoned seam and fingered the cold weight of the
silver ring embedded in her breast. She tugged softly, teasing.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Silent, Ghiger appeared in the threshold, startling her and causing
Lucy to jerk her hand back, proving, she imagined, all the more
obvious. She wondered how long he had been standing there. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger crossed the room without a word, holding something behind
his back with both hands. He took a seat beside her on the sofa,
appearing like an eager parent on Christmas morning. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“My God, Doctor…of course,” she said as Ghiger presented a small
wooden chest and set it in Lucy’s hands. Oriental calligraphy
marked the polished cover. She ran her fingers over the familiar
etchings carved beneath the Indian-ink characters: impressions
of twin hermaphrodites in assorted states of copulation. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">For a long moment, Lucy was embarrassed: wondering how it was
that she’d forgotten about the music box that had proved such
an integral role in her and the Doctor’s sessions? How had she
not remembered the talisman and its emollient hymns? The sweet
melodies that it had played for her: mending the diseased fissures
in her heart with its chimes; liberating the dormant pleasures
of her flesh. Moreover, if she’d forgotten this, what else did
she not remember? </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“You’d forgotten?” the doctor asked, knowing her concerns (as
he always had) before she revealed them. Appearing something of
ashamed, Lucy nodded yes. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Not to worry, Lucy,” he said, appearing strangely pleased, “true
music, like magic, does not care to be remembered, only to heal…”
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy contemplated his words for a moment: not completely understanding,
but feeling better for them. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Shall we begin?” Doctor Ghiger asked and opened the lid. Inside
the tiny organ came to life and the song began. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">VI. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The music brought Lucy’s flesh to life: goose-pimpling her skin
and causing her hair to stand on meager ends. The air of the suite
became haunted with something invisible and coarse like static
electricity, as if before a vicious lightning storm. An unconscious
curtain parted in the fabric of Lucy’s mind as she felt her muscles
gasp with delight, the sinew of her bones drawn taut like vines
in the sun. She could hear her blood squirming in its rivers,
giddy. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">At first, Ghiger only kissed her. He leaned forward, the fabric
of the sofa whispering beneath his weight, and softly touched
his lips to Lucy’s. Frugally, as though this was all he wanted;
all he’d ever wanted. Lucy savored the gravity of Ghiger’s mouth
upon her own, warm with the taste of wine and fever. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">For a moment, Ghiger pulled away, studying Lucy’s face with a
surgeon’s scrutiny: as though he had something of profound importance
to tell her. Instead, he just smiled, acknowledging with his ashen
eyes the burning in Lucy’s cheeks, blushing to the brilliance
of ripe plums. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“Far too long, Lucy…” Ghiger whispered against the backdrop of
the chimes: the psalms of fairies. Lucy watched him stand before
her as the ritual unraveled. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Button by ivory button he loosened his linen blouse, revealing
his robust, chiseled chest and lithe abdomen, his nipples the
color of raspberries. Well-sculpted shoulders, taut with the concourse
of faultless definition, sinewy with the root-work of veins. Often
Lucy had wondered how vigorously Ghiger worked his body, with
both weights and strict diet, to preserve its magnificence. A
man in his mid-fifties, she supposed, with a physical symmetry
that men half his age could only envy.</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Cautious and mute to Lucy’s audience, Ghiger slipped off his sandals
and unbuttoned his slacks, parting the metal teeth of the zipper.
He slid them down to his ankles and off his naked feet, folding
them in a delicate pleat and placing them on the end of the sofa.
Something warm and electric ignited in Lucy’s belly, stealing
her breath. She shuddered as she felt it writhe within her, impatient
as a child. Itching her nipples from the inside out, fluttering
in her bowels, prickling her loins: feather-light. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">His ballet near complete, Lucy watched as Ghiger slid his shorts
down over the defined arches of his pelvis, revealing the hairless,
swollen flesh of his cock: fleshy, pink cordage intertwined with
braids of vein. Lucy imagined the red heat of his member against
the cool fabric of her fingertips, aching and raw. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">No matter how many times Lucy had set her eyes upon Ghiger’s cock,
its glory never failed to steal her breath. She had come to acquaint
herself with its many proportions. How, like no other organs,
it was constantly in a state of reinvention: a circus contortionist
of assorted displays. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">For at one moment it was a hulking erection, standing like nobility:
engorged with aching fuel. The bulbous head cocked almost piously,
the shaft embroidered with the girth of bloated veins. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">And the next minute it was deflated and defeated. Retreating into
itself like a turtle’s head, slinking into the wrinkles of exhausted
flesh. Bashful as a child clinging to its mother’s thigh, weeping
the residue of its efforts. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Between these two polar contradictions, there were many states
of evolution, both in its arrival and in retraction. Lucy found
these amazing in their continuum: like the blossoming of a flower
in a time-lapsed film. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As Ghiger stood before her, he was semi-erect. His scrotum, pink
and shorn, hoisted itself discreetly, protecting delicacies. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As the music box played, they exchanged places. Ghiger took to
his armchair; Lucy stood before him and undressed. Her blouse
came off without effort, unfastening the seams and slipping off
her bare shoulders. Falling feather-light to the floor and revealing
her pert, apple-shaped breasts. The salmon-colored points of Lucy’s
nipples were poised erect, dangling silver hoops. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger gasped a breath of longing, shivered. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy loosened the zippered seam at her hip, allowing her long
black shirt fall to her feet. Beneath she wore a pair of black-lace
panties and the polished leather of her combat boots, laced like
corsets from her ankles to her knees. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger’s eyes revealed his excitement; his body nodded its agreement
as his cock stiffening, throbbing and full. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy took two steps forward, poising above Ghiger, savoring the
advantage. She leaned down and kissed him, lightly at first and
then harder, tasting the heat of his tongue. She could feel the
weight of his hands, moist and warm, gliding up the length of
her thighs and pausing at her narrow hips. His fingertips toying
with the moist lace of her panties. Lucy kissed him deeper, biting
at his bottom lip until he pulled away, smiling and licking the
nip. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy lowered her mouth first to his neck and then his chest, sampling
the sweat off his collarbone. Lucy could feel the migration of
Ghiger’s hands, one teasing her breast, the other caressing the
inner wall of her thigh. She sighed as he fingered her panties,
cautiously exploring the folds of soaked fabric. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy teased his nipples with her tongue. She slid down the length
of his belly, rigid with bands of muscle, until she felt the head
of his cock nudging at the underside of her chin. The warm shaft,
as hard as bone, against the pulse of her throat. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy paused as she opened her mouth, glancing up at the doctor,
meeting his dark eyes. For a moment, both she and Ghiger held
their breaths as though they both had volumes to say but could
not find the words. Instead, Lucy only smiled shyly and lowered
her mouth onto his cock, savoring the spice of familiarity. She
tilted her head, feeling the knob rubbing against the roof of
her mouth, at the back of her throat. Wrapping her lips around
the stem, the salty taste of bloated veins. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger sighed almost inaudibly, dragging down her dark panties
with both hands with such force that he nearly tore them in half.
He peeled them down to her knees where they fell to her ankles.
Lucy stepped out of them, spreading her stance and feeling her
salivation spill down her inner thighs in warm beads. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger brought his fingers to the newly shaven apex of Lucy’s
thighs, prickly and rose. Feeling the burning-hot folds of her
sex, raining silk. Lucy moaned as he slid his fingers inside her,
rubbing the swollen petal of her clitoris with his thumb, kneading
it in velvet circles. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy lifted her mouth off Ghiger and took hold of his cock with
both hands, stroking the glossy, blushed organ. Ghiger leaned
down and kissed her, tickling Lucy’s lips and tongue with his
own. His mouth followed down her chin and neck, over the arched
wings of her collarbone until he buried his face in the valley
of her breasts. He drank of her body’s heat, his cheeks glistening
with her sweat; lapping at the tender flesh of her nipples. His
lips teasing the saucers of her areolas, fondling the rings with
the tip of his tongue: tasting of perspiration and steel. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Lucy and Ghiger obeyed the beck of gravity and slid to the floor.
The doctor perched atop; his patient’s spine against the elaborate
handmade rug, fragrant with sandalwood. Lucy giggled with exhilaration
as Ghiger lowered his face from her breasts, kissing as he went,
down the egg-white canvas of her belly. His mouth paused only
inches above her pussy, feeling a vapor of wet-heat rising up
to warm his face. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">“My God…” she hissed, arching her back, as Ghiger lightly tongued
the bud of her clitoris, teasing, before burying his mouth between
her thighs, drawing the swollen hood into his mouth. The stubble
of his face scratching against her weeping labia, parting against
the pressure of his lips and spilling fluid down her ass. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Ghiger pleasured her for a long while until, as she approached
orgasm, he pulled back and entered her. Pushing his erection to
the root; both gasped. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">They fucked. First on her back with her knees locked at his hips,
then with her steel-toed boots over his shoulders, heels on his
back. As Ghiger thrust, he watched his cock slipping in and out
of her, spattering her wetness on his stomach. His cock glazed
with her lubrication, parting the moist skirts of her labia with
each burning push. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As Lucy neared orgasm again, she pulled away; climbing to her
hands and knees, whispering for Ghiger to take her from behind.
He did so with his hands at her hips, taking fists of flesh; pounding
to the percussion of skin slapping skin. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As Lucy came, (and Ghiger a moment later, pulling out and spurting
pearly vines across her back) she thought of all the lovers she’d
taken over the years. Dozens upon hopeful dozens; those she’d
taken in the last two years since she’d moved to Portland. Lying
on her back, dry and numb, beneath the grunting weight of numerous
bedfellows, both men and women of all ages, shapes, sizes and
preferences. From the nervous virgin boy whispering poetry, to
the dominatrix barking slurs: she’d felt nothing. None of them,
no matter their persistence or art, had ever glimpsed the pleasure
that Ghiger could give her. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As the music box’s hymn faded to conclusion, she and Ghiger embraced
for a short moment, trembling in the wake of the rapture. They
both thanked each other for the evening and then dressed without
a word. Ghiger walked Lucy to the door and they said their good-byes.
He watched from the door as she hurried through the sleet, disappearing
into the wet darkness. </font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was near 2 a.m. as Lucy drove the distance back to her hotel.
Weeping, she thought of calling Ghiger when she arrived at her
room. Finally telling him how his therapy had ruined her for all
the others, how he’d spoiled her flesh with his alchemy. Leaving
her body in a constant state of fevered anticipation. Infinitely
Ghiger’s helpless connoisseur, she’d become; her body his dependent.
</font></p>
<p><font face="Georgia" size="2">But instead, like any good pupil, when Lucy got back to the hotel
she simply showered and went to sleep, humming a hymn she’d heard
once upon a time.</font></td>
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