Two years passed since Jim and Jane had last spoken. He ended their final long distance telephone conversation, tears sliding out of both their eyes, with a shaky "Goodbye." They had resolved that distance was making their relationship expensive. Two hour conversations over thousands of miles. And it impeded their freedom. They were young and needed to be bold and go out into the world and take some chances. It wasn't real for them to be together anymore. They weren't together anymore.
Their year and a half relationship had been warm and adventurous and sexy. By the end of their senior year they had trusted each other implicitly, which opened them up to all types of play, from the nearly religious experience of the most intimate embrace, love saturated passion, to the most perverse of positions and places to play and places to penetrate.
During that year and a half, both blossomed into most attractive adults. Jane, with the help of her remarkable holistic gynecologist, Dr. Anderson, had lost the ugly duckling glasses and bent posture, and revealed her pretty face and her tall, graceful body. The remarkable metamorphosis occurred at the beginning of their relationship, and by its end her face and body had become smoother, more self-confident then ever through her study of modern dance as well as the consistent love she received from Jim.
Jim, despite the nerd disguise, the uncool clothes and the big black framed glasses, was also gaining confidence in himself, and his big body and face became more defined, more attractive. Before their relationship, only Jane's mother seemed to give him props for his presence, his looks and his abilities. He never felt right talking to people, the conversations never flowed, except with her. By the end, both Jane and her mother were making him feel great about himself. And he found himself to be charming in nearly every situation he was in. The inner strength he found through his relationships with Jane via heart felt love, and her mother via deep friendship actually made him resilient. He found out how strong he was when faced with the end of his and Jane's wonderful relationship.
Their love had never been severed except for the distance. Pure chance broke them apart, not a wish to be separated. He was staying home to go to University, and she was off at a dance school and at a college in Manhattan, NYC. And the post split remnants of their love settled deep into their consciousness. What the remnants became were expectations. His were eventually fulfilled. And more and more his Clark Kent vulnerability behind the black horn rimmed glasses presenting himself to the world as a nerd of limited sexual appeal was being shucked off for Superman, a young man of great strength and confidence. The scholarship he needed to supplement the cost of his classes kept him busy with the wrestling team at University, which kept his body in peak shape.
Although twenty years difference in age separated him and his current lover, he felt great confidence in his relationship with her. Sometimes she was dominant, but he could dominate too. With their great respect for each other despite him being half her age, it all equaled out.
Jane's attitude was Jim's opposite. She had become passive, vulnerable, accident prone. Her relationships became skirmishes. She would be fascinated by a young man, giving herself over to his seduction. She enjoyed sharing her chambers with him. She enjoyed the company. These young men seduced her, disrobed her, entered inside. It was a frenzy of discovery, discarding the outer layers of flirtation and courtship in order to find what was hidden. Blind passion. Naked hard young flesh daggers pointing to her to pierce her. She would guide each dagger inside. Each young man would pump his straining flesh against her and deep inside her where it popped, releasing the scalding brew. They would separate. He wasn't inside her. And they slept. It wasn't enough. If they stayed together, time would strain expectations. He wasn't there for her, but for his release. She was his repository. At least that's what she felt. So many of the young men just didn't care or want to care how she felt. She met men who fought her every move to communicate with them, to have them respond beyond the bedroom. She met men who she found wild and exciting but learned that though she may have been desirable at the start, ultimately she was to them a bag of flesh to be stabbed, kicked and shoved aside. She found herself in several abusive relationships, the most current one just ending after lasting over a year.
It was two years to the night since Jane and Jim had their final phone conversation when Jim and his friend Harry stepped into the small Tribeca coffeehouse and saw Jane standing beside the stage clutching a manuscript against her chest. Jim remembered that chest, those big soft lovely breasts, the nipples he would tease with his tongue until they glowed in the candle light, a quarter inch long and taut. He remembered her breasts as pillows accommodating his cheeks as he nestled his face against her. He looked up into her eyes.
She couldn't believe it was him. He looked handsome standing in the back of the coffeehouse staring at her. And here she was going to read her poems. She thought she'd been nervous before she saw him! She caught his smile like he had tossed it from deep inside. She smiled at him, and it all clicked. She stood at the podium, spread the poem before her and began to read. When she glanced from the page to give the line of poetry out to the public, she kept getting caught. His smile, his intense gaze, despite those thick glasses affixed to his nose, kept catching the drift of her eyes trying to spread her poem out to the whole audience.
He could see she'd lost her posture. She was the most radiantly healthy when they'd said their good-byes, her flesh leaner, her movement more lithe and graceful. Her grace of movement was breathtaking. In the two years of separation, an invisible weight had taken its toll, and she didn't stand so tall anymore. Maturity kept her from returning to the full slouch her lack of self-worth had provided during her adolescence, but the effect was similar. She had become Plain Jane again. He could see she needed him. Not as a lover. She needed him for guidance.
Her poetry was lovely and graceful. He loved the one in which two lovers in the park whispered to each other endearments, but instead of describing their partner's attributes, they described visions of the park. It was so lovely and graceful it broke his heart. He'd enjoyed the many private poetry readings in her bedroom, and her poetry had gotten better since she'd last recited to him. In fact he thought her poetry had reached the realm of greatness. He'd never been so lost in the visions she spoke. He felt that old love for her in his heart.
Jim felt the full force of guilt. As the pangs of love lost and found came over him for the first time, and it wouldn't be the last, he knew he needed to have the strength to resist. It would be too complicated to return to an ongoing relationship. He couldn't open up to her completely, and their relationship had been built on honesty and trust. He retreated from her beautiful mind and returned to her damaged body. Along with her unhealthy posture, her eyes seemed distracted, not steady. Skittish. Afraid she would have to present herself.
