Keeper of the Light

“It’s not you, Paul. I never have.”

He leaned away so that he could look at her. “You’ve made love since you were fifteen and you’ve never…?”

“I truly don’t care. It’s never been important to me. I’d see a guy and want to hold him, to feel good that way, warm and loved. If sex was what I had to do to get that, so be it.”

He pulled her close again. “If you really want to make me happy, Annie, then let me make you feel good for a change.”

“You do,” she said. “You make me feel wonderful.”

“You know what I mean.”

She shrank away from him. “I figure it must not be possible for me,” she said. “I think it would have happened by now.”

He was unwilling to talk to his friends about something so personal, so he spent the next afternoon in the library hunting for a solution to Annie’s dilemma. He found a book filled with advice and illustrations which he couldn’t bring himself to check out from the wizened old gentleman behind the desk. So he sat in a secluded corner and read it, from cover to cover.

That night in her dorm room, he sat down on her bed and patted the space next to him. She joined him, wrapping her arms around him and planting a wet kiss on his neck.

“I read a sex manual today,” he said.

“What?” She jerked away from him. “Why?”

“Because it’s your turn tonight.” He reached for the hem of her T-shirt, but she stopped him.

“No,” she whined.

“Annie.” He held her by the shoulders. “Do this for me if not for yourself, all right?”

“What if it doesn’t work? You’ll be disappointed in me… You’ll…”

“I’m not going to be disappointed in you or stop loving you or anything else you’re worried about. It’ll be fine. But you have to relax.”

She bit her lip. “Turn off the light,” she said.

He did as he was told, and then returned to the bed where he undressed her, rather methodically, and sat behind her with his back against the wall.

“What are we doing? Aren’t you going to take off your clothes, too?” she asked.

“Nope.” He spread his legs wide and pulled her back against his chest. The illustration from the manual was burned into his brain. All day he’d thought of how it would feel to hold Annie this way, to touch her, to finally feel her respond. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her shoulder. She was shivering.

“This is nice,” she said. “You could just hold me like this. I’d rather do this than…”

“Shh. Rest your legs against mine. That’s it.”

“This is stupid. I feel ridiculous.”

He stroked her arms, her shoulders. “You have to tell me what feels good,” he said, moving his hands to her breasts. “Let me know if anything hurts.”

“That doesn’t hurt.” She giggled and seemed to relax in his arms, but she went rigid once he lowered his hands to her thighs.

“Come on, Annie, relax.”

“I’m trying. I just don’t like all the attention being on me. I don’t see why… Oh.”

His fingertips had found their mark. Annie drew in her breath and her legs suddenly opened wider, pressing hard against his own, her hands grasping the denim that covered his thighs. He slipped a finger of his left hand inside her and she shuddered.

“This feels good to me, too, Annie,” he said, encouraging her, but it was unnecessary. She was letting herself go, letting herself take. When she came, he had one sudden pulse of terror that she might be faking, but then the waves of contractions circled his finger, and he felt her go limp.

That night was a turning point for them, not just that it made sex better—she continued to refer to sex as a “by-product” of being close—but that it shifted their relationship to a different plane, one in which Annie allowed things to be done for her. The addiction, though still an addiction, was mutual now.

His family adored her. He and Annie visited Philadelphia twice that year, and Annie slipped right into that female dominated household as easily as if she’d been born into it.

“Your family’s so warm, Paul,” she told him. “You don’t know how lucky you are.”

She would not take him to meet her own parents, however, even though they lived no more than a half hour’s drive from school. After much arm-twisting on his part, she finally agreed to take him home with her on her father’s fiftieth birthday. “You talk about him all the time,” he said. “I want to meet him.”

She did talk about her father a great deal, her voice often swelling with her pride in his accomplishments as a physician. She worked for a month on his birthday gift—gold cufflinks she had designed herself—showing Paul the progress she was making on them each time he came over.

Paul held the small package containing the cufflinks on his lap as he and Annie turned onto the tree-lined street leading to her house. She had been quiet during the entire trip, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel of her red convertible.

“What time is it?” she asked, as they passed one enormous mansion after another.