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I. Lucy arrived shortly before midnight. II. 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. 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. 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. III. 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. “You could’ve parked in the driveway, you know,” Ghiger said, smirking, “No need for secrecy these days, Lucy.” She smiled in return, “Old habits, I suppose, Doctor.” 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. “To old habits,” they toasted. IV. “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…” “’…Too much wine, like naiveté, dulls the senses.’” Lucy said, stealing the words off his wine-red lips. “Exactly,” the doctor smiled, proudly perhaps, and disappeared into the hallway. 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. 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. Lucy wondered if it remembered her taste as she did its touch. 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. 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. V. 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. 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. 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. 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. “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. 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? “You’d forgotten?” the doctor asked, knowing her concerns (as he always had) before she revealed them. Appearing something of ashamed, Lucy nodded yes. “Not to worry, Lucy,” he said, appearing strangely pleased, “true music, like magic, does not care to be remembered, only to heal…” Lucy contemplated his words for a moment: not completely understanding, but feeling better for them. “Shall we begin?” Doctor Ghiger asked and opened the lid. Inside the tiny organ came to life and the song began. VI. 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. 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. 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. “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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. As Ghiger stood before her, he was semi-erect. His scrotum, pink and shorn, hoisted itself discreetly, protecting delicacies. 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. Ghiger gasped a breath of longing, shivered. 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. Ghiger’s eyes revealed his excitement; his body nodded its agreement as his cock stiffening, throbbing and full. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. “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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Bio: Philip Hickey lives in New Jersey. In addition to writing, he enjoys painting, photography and acting. Philip is currently writing novel which he plans to complete sometime during 2003. |
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12.07.06: Scarlet Letters -- in case it isn't glaringly obvious -- is currently
on an extended hiatus. The web has changed, we've changed, and
we're trying to figure out how we both fit together now, which isn't a process we want to rush. If you're looking for more current SL-related content, you can
have check out upcoming books from editor Heather Corinna and previous co-editor Hanne Blank, check out Heather's current sexuality sites, or explore sites through the femmerotic network. We hope to be back with you soon, as fresh, challenging and
unexpected as ever.
In the meantime, by all means, enjoy our years of past content,
all of which still remain in the public and subscription areas.
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