PILLOW TALK
by JVB <jvb5000@yahoo.com>
/~jvb/


     I never thought Emily and I would ever be apart.  Well, I
knew for sure we'd be apart--by about two thousand miles--but I
didn't think Emily and I would ever be _apart_ apart.  I guess
first loves are like that.  Or maybe all loves are like that; I've
got no way to tell.  Maybe I should have known.
     But I didn't, so, oblivious to our diminishing moments
together, I absent-mindedly stared at the baked potato in front of
me as she chatted with my parents.  "Math," she answered.
     "Well, yeah, but not just any old math," I prompted, looking
up at her.  She smiled and kicked my shin under the table.
     "Discrete math," she proclaimed with mock self-importance,
"otherwise it'd be boring."  I returned to my potato.

     Later that evening, Emily and I reclined on my bed together,
tears streaming down our faces.  On the screen in front of us,
Basil was forcing Manuel into a burning room.  "It's only a drill,"
I mimicked, despite my spasming throat.  Emily sat up in my lap and
exclaimed, "Fuego!" before falling on her side and howling.  The
pledge break didn't rescue me from my desperate struggle for air
for several minutes.

     We were similarly situated on my bed two hours later, except
we sat in silence.  Both of us anxiously awaited the end of Leno's
monologue, since that meant Conan would be on in half an hour.
Emily suddenly asked, "Are you nervous about going away to school?"
     "I guess.  Are you?"
     "Yeah.  I keep thinking I'm making a mistake going all the
way to the East Coast.  I won't know anyone, and I'll be away from
my family and..."  She didn't finish her sentence.
     "You'll know Derek," I said jokingly.  She rolled her eyes.
"Great, a bully who can exponentiate matrices.  Okay, I won't know
anyone worth knowing."
     "Relax, Em, you're doing the right thing."  I gently stroked
the narrow strip of exposed skin above her waist with my finger.
"You'll be great over there."
     "How do you know?"
     "I know."  She didn't say anything, so I swept her copper-
colored hair to the side and kissed her behind the ear.  "Want to
know just how great you'll be?"
     "Okay, Nostradamus, tell me.  First give me another kiss."  I
leaned forward to kiss the side of her mouth and then squeezed her
against my chest.
     "Well, let's see: first semester, you'll breeze through
multivariable 'calc and linear algebra, so you'll have plenty of
time to write me filthy email.  Second semester, a bit tougher:
analysis and abstract algebra..."  Emily turned around and faced me.
     "Sounds to me like you're not seeing the future so much as
you're reciting my class schedule."
     "Hey, it's my prophecy."
     "So prophesize already."  She let me go on for a few minutes
about honor's theses and the William Lowell Putnam Mathematical
Competition, and looked progressively less amused the more I
talked.  But Emily tolerated my rambling an inhumanly long while,
until finally, she just shrugged and started to unbutton her
blouse.  I stopped and watched her work her way to the bottom, then
gave her a questioning look.  "Just taking an active part in the
betterment of my own future.  Keep going."  She let the open blouse
fall from her shoulders and reached back to undo her bra.  I coughed.
     "And then you graduate.  Congrats."  I put my hand over one
breast, lifting it slightly, and bent forward to nibble at the other.
     "Is that it?"
     "No, but further scrying requires a somatic component."
     "Ah, 'Detect Impending Sex'?" she asked.
     "Yep, 'Range: touch'.  And indeed, I sense impending sex."
     "I guess I failed my saving throw."  She giggled and tugged
at my shirt while I continued to caress and kiss her soft flesh.
"So, have any farther-reaching insights, o Great Diviner?"
     "Of course."  I didn't offer any.
     "Wait, I think I might have the Gift, too: after I graduate,
do I," she paused for dramatic effect, "go to graduate school?"
     "Good guess, but, no, you're wrong."  I went back to her
breasts to buy some time.  "Uhm, but actually you take some time
off to write for the Kids in the Hall," I mumbled between licks
while I unbuttoned her jeans and started to work them off her hips.
     "I think this is their last season, actually."
     "What?"  I looked up.  "Where'd you hear that?"
     "I dunno, maybe Karen told me," she answered, propping
herself up on her elbows.  I sat back against the headboard.
     "Crying shame," I muttered.  She kicked her jeans over her
socks to the floor, then gracefully twisted her hips around and
crawled toward me.
     "So, do you need to be consoled?"
     "No--I mean, yes."  In perfect cooperative harmony, I
unzipped my pants, and Emily yanked them off along with my
underwear.  Then, she pressed her lips firmly against mine, and as
we kissed, she gently stroked my penis with the backs of her
fingers.  I dragged my palms over her thighs and belly to her
ribcage and pushed against her slightly, and she pushed back with
matching force (purposely, not just as a result of Newton's third
law).  Giving in, I slid my hands to the sides of her breasts,
which she crushed into me while massaging my erection more
vigorously.  I could pull three consecutive all-nighters hacking on
Waffle, or watch the entire "Key to Time" storyline in a single ten-
hour session, but sadly, my stamina wasn't applicable to all
situations.
     "Ahm, Em, I'm gonna," I began.  She pulled herself away from
me and sat on my knees.
     "Whoops," she grinned.  "Hmm, why don't you finish your story?"
     "Er," I stammered as she leaned over to fish around in my
nightstand, "well, uhm, I guess, uh, yeah, I guess you...."  I let
my mouth hang open a moment.  "I guess you win a, uh, a Field's
Medal, or something."  She withdrew a condom from the drawer and
raised an eyebrow at me.
     "For writing for a disbanded comedy troupe?"
     "No, no, for math."
     "Oh, really?" she laughed.  "One of the math ones?"
     "Heh, yeah," I gulped.  She smirked and twirled the foil
wrapper between her fingers a few times.
     "So, care to elaborate?"
     "Uh..."
     "Take your time," she said as she tore open the package and
began to slowly unroll the condom over me.  Once finished, she
leaned forward and lowered herself until I just barely entered her.
"Ready yet?"
     "Yeah!"  She didn't move.
     "Oh, er, you discover an algorithm for finding Hamiltonian
Circuits in polynomial time."  Satisfied, she slid down as far as
she could, and nuzzled her cheek against my neck.  She brought
herself back up, and then down, and up again, her rhythm gradually
accelerating.  I kissed her shoulder and held my fingers loosely at
her sides, tickling her.  Soon, we were both breathing quickly, and
a deep flush had filled in the space between the freckles on her
face and chest.  She clenched her eyes shut and squeezed my
shoulders, and oscillated frantically.  Then, just as the frequency
of her forced breaths, desperate strokes, and the squeals from deep
in her throat reached their peaks, her eyes snapped open and she
exclaimed, "But that's an NP-complete probl-- ahhhmn!"
     She had me there.  That could have been the end of my
credibility as a false prophet, but luckily for me, just as things
took a turn for the worse, she climaxed.  And I did too, so I
wouldn't have been able to defend myself from her skepticism
anyway.  Simultaneous orgasms definitely have their advantages.

     Early the next morning, we sat on the steps of her front
porch, looking out into the empty cul-de-sac.  In a few minutes,
she'd have to sneak back up into her room.  Her hands were pushed
deep into the pockets of her coat, and she sat as close to me as
she could.  "I had another vision," I told her.
     "Yeah?"
     "Yeah."  I ground a clod of dirt into the concrete with my
toe.  "Some day, when you're busy gaining international acclaim, a
humble software engineer will move out East, and ask you to marry
him.  And you'll say 'yes.'"
     "Will this software engineer be cute, shorter-than-average,
with messy hair?"
     "Of course."
     "Well, I could have told you that," she said, before turning
her head toward me for a long, sweet, kiss.

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