The Chosen

well-defined hips, delicate shoulders. Her lean waist offered a slightly inverted navel, which tickled insanely when nibbled, and though she’d not had a suntan in years—her profession’s hours eluded the sun—her skin shined fresh, robust, and unblemished. Some of the more ribald girls at The Emerald, during girl-talk sessions, ranted endlessly over treatments of the pubic hair. They plucked, clipped, trimmed, waxed, electrolysized, etc., to no end. Vera saw little need for this—it seemed vainly silly. She’d discussed it once with Paul—the prevaricating prick—and he’d urged her to leave it be, with a sound observation. “It must be there for a reason,” he’d stated, “though I can’t imagine what reason. Mother Nature must know what she’s doing, you think?” It made sense, at any rate. Therefore, Vera left the dark, black plot alone, save for the occasional scissor-snip when things got too unruly.

Next, her eyes focused on the mirror’s cast of her breasts…gandering your rib-melons, she recalled again, and laughed, but then concluded, not much to gander. She supposed women were as concerned over the size of their breasts and men were over the size of their penises, and that this was an irrelevant concern. Vera wore a 34B, not exactly Chesty Morgan, but the breasts themselves were sufficiently erect and firm. “They feel like tomatoes!” one short-term lover from college had once informed her during a sexual frolic, which—she recalled now—included whipped cream, strawberries, and Hershey’s chocolate sauce. “I’m not a dessert cart, you know,” she’d pointed out. “We’ll see about that,” he’d replied, shaking vigorously the big blue can of Reddi Wip. I wonder what happened to him? she thought now. Probably weighs three hundred pounds. God, those were the days…

Indeed they were, and they were gone now, transcribed into a new reality. Vera could come to terms with that. What she couldn’t come to terms with was the great big question mark of the future. Suddenly she felt very irritated, and she didn’t know why.

She dried off with a huge black terry towel, then encloaked herself in it. She took her drink back out to the bedroom. The odd sexual anxieties continued to nip at her; she felt antsy. What is wrong with you? she thought. Eventually she finished her GM, turned out the light, and lay back in bed.

She crawled nude under the covers but kicked them off moments later, feeling smothered. She tried to blank her mind, to sleep. Each time her eyes closed, however, they snapped back open. An image seemed afloat beyond the room’s grainy darkness, and beyond her mind. Somewhere down the hall, a clock ticked almost inaudibly. She lay on her belly, hugging a pillow.

Go to sleep!

But the image continued to reform: two hands splayed, descending to touch her. The more fervently she tried to dissipate the vision, the sharper it grew in her mind. After many minutes of resisting it, she gave in to the truth. The fantasy hands belonged to Kyle. All right, she admitted. So I’m attracted to Kyle. It’s a primitive, purely physical, and silly attraction. So what?

Yeah, so what? Her skin felt flushed, sweat broke on her back like hot beads, and her sex moistened. The only way to get rid of the image was to acknowledge it. At least then she could get some sleep. She squeezed her eyes shut…

The hands formed arms. The arms extended to a body. It was a trim, young, muscular body. She concentrated on the image, let it focus in her mind, and suddenly she felt so anxious she was nearly whining. She put a face on the image: Kyle’s face.

She felt ashamed thinking of this, she felt immature and slutty. Nevertheless, her thoughts bid the hands…

Touch me.

She remained atop the sheets, on her belly. Her legs lay out behind her in a wide V.

Touch me right now…