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Posted by CrazySugarFreakBoy! on July 29, 2001 at 13:41:08:
Dreamcatcher Foxglove and Anna Kensington in ... The Song of Inanna
Continuity note: The tale takes
place two years Before Present (BP).
At the age of 21, Anna Kensington had never been kissed before.
She had
kissed her mother and father, whom she loved dearly and lived to make proud, and
when she was feeling charitable, she had even kissed her sister, even though her
younger sibling’s disobedient behavior upset Anna greatly, mostly because she
saw how much it hurt her parents.
But those had been family kisses, always on
the cheek, always accompanied by an affectionate yet brief embrace, part of the
huggy-kissy ritual that all children go through with their parents, as one would
expect between those families whose members are so close-knit that they can
afford to take one other’s unconditional love for granted.
When it came to
deeper kisses, those that are less akin to friendly handshakes and more an
expression of the sort of passion that can’t be put into words, Anna had never
given, nor received, such a gift.
She had dated, always young men whom her
parents deemed appropriate, who escorted her out on enjoyable evenings of
convivial conversation over dinner, and yet, in spite of the agreeable
entertainment and intellectually stimulating discussion that her male companions
usually provided, none had ever awakened any vestige of passion in her
heart.
In all the dates she’d had, none of the men who had asked her out had
ever kissed her anywhere but on the cheek, chastely signaling the conclusion to
their time together for that night.
And then, just a couple of months ago,
she had met someone, in one of her university’s computer labs, who had led her
down a different path.
He couldn’t have been more than 19 years old at the
most, a sophomore who was visibly confused by the sheet of instructions that
library aide had handed him, even though it was nothing more complex than a
simple step-by-step guide for students wishing to set up their own university
internet accounts.
Still, however ignorant of information technology he may
have been, Anna found herself smirking at his backpack full of comic books, and
the short Indian-style braid he’d woven into the back of his floppy auburn hair,
and disdain soon gave way to pity, as she found herself wandering over to his
terminal, to render at least a small measure of assistance.
As Anna explained
the instructions to the colorfully clad young man, whose entire wardrobe seemed
to consist of shades of fluorescent orange and neon green, she soon realized
that he was not nearly as ignorant as she had assumed from his initial
bewilderment at the challenge of registering a university account, and silently
chastised herself for assuming, as she was wont to do, that everyone was as
computer literate as herself and her usual peers.
The boy with the braid
thanked Anna, an endearingly childish smile on his lips.
He blinked his wide
eyes, and Anna was suddenly struck by how vibrantly green they were.
For
reasons that she suspected she would never fully understand, Anna found herself
writing her e-mail address down on a scrap of paper, and telling a man two years
her junior that, should he ever require any aid in using or understanding the
internet again, he should feel free to drop her a line, at any time.
AKensing
– that’s for Anna Kensington, she told him. She went on to inform him that
computer technology and the internet were her chosen field of study, so if she
wasn’t able to help him out, they were both probably in trouble. She laughed
briefly at her own joke, but for some strange reason, felt nervous at doing
so.
The auburn-haired boy with the wide green eyes looked up at her again,
and practically beamed. Thank you again, Anna, he said cheerfully, not seeming
to notice Anna’s inexplicable moment of uncomfortable self-consciousness. He
told her that, if she wanted, she could write to him, too, and he even provided
his own e-mail address, on a day-glow yellow piece of self-adhesive notepad
paper. DFoxglov - Dreamcatcher Foxglove, that was his name.
Over the next
week or so, Anna had opportunities aplenty to instruct Dream on the intricacies
of the internet, which was apparently entirely new ground for him. On average,
Anna would open her inbox to discover a couple of dozen posts from Dream, every
day. He was curious about everything, it seemed, and his enthusiasm was
infectious, as Anna found herself eager to teach Dream all about this universe
of possibilities that he had never even known existed before.
In return,
Anna found herself discovering new feelings, unbidden thoughts and speculations
that became more and more prevalent, as she spent more and more time with the
young man who had, in a rather short span, gone from a mere passing acquaintance
to a relatively close friend. Or, perhaps more accurately, as close a friend as
Anna had allowed herself, outside of the members of her immediate family. Anna
wondered at the meaning of these feelings, many of which she could barely put a
name to, that seemed to surface whenever she spent an extended amount of time
with Dream.
The first inkling of those feelings’ true face revealed itself
when she was sitting in class, already bored because the lecture was covering
course material that she had down cold, and in an attempt to cheer herself, she
reminded herself that she would be meeting with Dream that night, at one of the
library’s computer labs, as per usual. As she recalled her last informal
internet tutoring session with Dream, she remembered spying the floppy ears of a
stuffed bunny, peeking out from his backpack, and a grin spread across her face.
He already projected an air of innocence, but when she flashed upon the image of
him with a stuffed bunny, she couldn’t help but think how cute it was –
Wait.
No, stop. Cute? Anna had just thought of Dream as cute. She’d never thought of
anyone as being cute before, not even the children she’d dealt with in her life.
But was it just cute, as in, childishly adorable, or was it cute, as in ... ?
Oh, no. No, no, no. She tried to kill the thought in her head, before it could
be completed, but by then, it was too late.
He was attractive.
Anna was
attracted to him.
She’d thought it, and she couldn’t pretend
otherwise.
But how could she be attracted to him? He was just a friend. Not
even a friend, an acquaintance. She barely even knew him. They’d never gone out
on a date, they’d hardly ever discussed anything aside from his questions
regarding computer operations and the internet, and ... and ...
He was
white.
Well, maybe not Bill Gates white, considering his distinctive name and
his quirky appearance, but he certainly wasn’t black, and that was enough.
In
principle, neither her mother nor her father had any problem whatsoever with
white people, and in fact, many of their closest acquaintances were either
white, or belonged to some racial or ethnic persuasion other than
African-American, but when it came to whom their daughters would settle down
with, Anna knew that the unspoken assumption was, simply enough, that she would
marry within her own race.
Even Anna’s rebellious younger sister, who
flaunted the fact that she was sharing a bed with the men whom she dated,
restricted her potential dating pool to the “bruthas”.
What was more, Anna
had never been sexually attracted to any man before.
She was unquestionably
heterosexual, and she was more than capable of appreciating when a given man was
attractive, but aside from the desire to give birth to children and have a
family of her own, Anna had never experienced any desire to engage in sexual
intercourse. To her, the physical aspect of romance was little more than window
dressing to the spiritual union, the lifelong commitment that she felt should
exist between two people, before they ever shared any degree of sexual intimacy
with once another.
And yet, for the first time, she found herself ...
curious.
After her class had ended, Anna hopped onto the nearest open
terminal, and fired off a quick e-mail to Dream: Change of plans. Meet
off-campus tonight, maybe one of those coffeehouses? Same time as before. Hope
not inconvenient for you. Let me know.
Later that afternoon, before Anna
returned to her dorm room for the evening, she opened her inbox to find a
reassuring but discomforting response: No problem! Could go for hot cider
anyway. Fall’s creeping up quick on us. Zodiac my choice, pending your veto.
Mind my asking why the last-minute schedule change? Hope all well on your end.
Look forward to our first “date”. ;) Love, Dream.
Anna stared numbly at the
screen for a few seconds, reading and rereading his hastily typed words. A date.
He just called it a date. But it was in quotation marks. With a winking sideways
smiley, for crying out loud. Was he kidding, or ... ? No. No, no, no. He was
kidding, of course. He’s got other things he thinks about, in that little world
of his that I know nothing about. Why would he be thinking that, just because I
am? But ... he said love. Love, Dream. I mean, he is very open about affection,
but he’s never ended an e-mail to me with “Love, Dream” before. Anna shook her
head, hoping to clear her thoughts, and immediately reprioritized her focus.
First things first, he needed a confirmation on the meeting place he’d chosen,
so she hit the reply button, and typed out her
response:
Dream,
Kaffeeklatsch sounds fine.
Never been there, but hear
good things about it.
No problems on this end, have no fear.
Just felt
like ... talking.
This’ll be my last post before our meeting – heading back
to dorm now.
See you there.
Love, Anna.
And, before her better judgment
could delete the words, “Love, Anna”, she hit the send button.
Dream was
already on his second hot cider when Anna walked into the coffeehouse. It was
open mike poetry night, so the next of the performers was already ascending the
modest stage, and popping a Sun-Ra CD into the duct-taped boom box that served
as the establishment’s stereo system, to set the mood for his spoken word
dissertation. Dream was curled up on the couch, shoes on the floor, feet tucked
underneath of him, as he scribbled notes into a notepad that was already
overflowing with virtually indecipherable handwriting. Anna was embarrassed to
realize that she had no idea what the notes would be about, since she knew
nothing of Dream’s interests, outside of their internet tutoring sessions, and
the occasional glimpse of comic books she saw in his backpack.
Anna tapped
Dream lightly on his shoulder, and after a half-second of surprise, he gazed up
at her with characteristic cheer.
Anna had an agenda to this meeting, even if
she didn’t know it herself yet. She needed to know if she had anything, anything
at all, in common with this man to whom he felt attracted. Half of her hoped
that she would learn that they shared absolutely no interests, outside of his
interest in improving his computing skills, while the other half of her hoped
that they truly were kindred souls, so that she could have a spiritual union to
justify the passion she was beginning to feel.
When Dream inquired, for the
second time, why Anna had opted to change the location of their get-together,
Anna fumbled for words, again experiencing a nervousness which was almost
totally alien to her experience, until she elected to tell him that she was
interested in cultivating a friendship that went beyond their tutoring
sessions.
The explanation satisfied Anna, because it was not untrue, and it
seemed to satisfy Dream as well, since he shrugged nonchalantly, and said okay,
so, what do you want to talk about? Anna paused for a moment, not wishing to
embarrass herself by stumbling over her words again. In that moment, the side of
her that didn’t want Dream to pass her test recalled the comic books she had
seen frequently in his backpack, and Anna asked Dream if he shared her interest
in the mythologies and religions of ancient cultures.
The excited grin that
spread across his face was completely unexpected, and Anna proceeded to be even
more astounded as Dream rattled off a series of obviously thought-out opinions
on the Greco-Roman Pantheons of Olympian deities. By the time he’d regaled her
with his arguments about how the modern costumed crimefighter of superhero
stories was the last true legacy of the polytheistic religions’ tradition of
all-too-human gods and goddesses, whose extraordinary powers still placed them
far above the plane of ordinary mortals, and how the lesson of both ancient
Greek oral tradition and today’s four-color funnybooks was that great power must
necessarily be tempered with great responsibility, Anna was left almost
speechless.
As it turned out, Dream’s knowledge of other mythologies was just
comprehensive, even when Anna asked him rather pointed questions about the NON
Western-European cultures’ religious beliefs. He’d read the Song of Inanna,
about the Sumerian variant of the goddess Ishtar, and he even caught her
references to the African trickster deity Eshu. Moreover, he wound up recounting
a few stories about Old Man Coyote, of the Native American tribal tales, that
she had never heard before, to the point that Anna thought to herself, for a
white boy, he knows as much about Coyote as any Indian I’ve ever met.
Between the amiable background noise of the poetry recitals, and the
infectious enthusiasm that Dream seemed to be able to inject into any discussion
that he was interested in, Anna soon found herself forgetting about her previous
agenda of the conversation as a means of sizing Dream up, and simply enjoyed the
change to carry on an interesting and intelligent conversation.
The hours had
passed before either one of them had realized it, and when Anna glanced at her
watch, she sat bolt upright, alarmed at the fact that she was out past
midnight.
She had never been awake past midnight before, much less outside of
her bedroom at such an unreasonable hour.
Anna offered a rushed apology to
Dream, but nevertheless stressed to him that she needed to get as much sleep as
she could tonight, since one of the semester’s big exams was being held tomorrow
morning. Dream said that he more than understood, and after glancing out the
door of the coffeehouse, inquired as to whether Anna would care for an escort
back to her dorm?
Anna considered the fact that the city streets she had
walked to get here were much safer during the daylight hours, and agreed with
Dream’s reasoning. Oddly enough, while their time in the coffeehouse had been
characterized by animated conversation, neither Dream nor Anna could seem to
think of anything to talk about as they strolled back to her dorm. When Anna
shivered once, after a gust of chill wind blew briefly in their direction, Dream
removed his zip-up sweater and draped it over Anna’s shoulders, over her
protests. Not long afterwards, her teeth began to chatter, although she
certainly didn’t feel cold anymore.
And then, they were at the door to her
dorm.
Neither one was sure what to do or say next.
Anna knew what was
supposed to happen.
She was supposed to thank Dream for a wonderful night, to
which he would respond by kissing her on the cheek, and turning on his heel to
walk back home to his dorm.
She was supposed to do this, on all of her dates,
with every man, until she found the right one, and they got married.
She was
meant to remain a virgin until her wedding night.
She had never felt any
desire to have sex, with any man.
Anna took Dream’s hand in her own, and
asked if he’d like to come up to her room.
She was about to explain that she
had an illuminated print of the Song of Inanna in her room, that he might be
interested in seeing, but he said yes before she could get the next sentence
out.
In her room, she did finally get around to locating that illuminated
print edition of the Song of Inanna, but as they sat together on her bed,
flipping delicately through the pages, Dream’s eyes kept drifting up from the
page, and into Anna’s eyes, until Anna caught sight of his stolen glances, and
returned them with a bold stare of her own. When their eyes locked into each
other, her lips fell silent, while his leaned in, gradually coming closer and
closer, until –
“No. Wait. Stop. What are you doing?” Anna demanded, pulling
away as she raised her voice.
“I’m kissing you,” Dream said, cocking his head
curiously at her reaction. “I thought you wanted to kiss? I mean, you didn’t
pull away, not until right at the end.”
Anna shook her head, trying to clear
out all the irrational thoughts. “No. It’s – this is wrong. We can’t do
this.”
Dream ran his fingers along the side of Anna’s face, an expression of
deep concern etched on his face. “Why not?”
Yes, why not? Because you barely
know him? Because you made an oath, before God and family and yourself, to
remain pure until your wedding day? Because –
“Because I’m black,” Anna
blurted out, searching for something, anything, to defend her from this fearsome
unknown.
Dream blinked, and tried not to smirk. “Um, I thought we moved past
that kind of stuff in the sixties. After all, even Captain Kirk and Lieutenant
Uhura ended up together, in at least one episode of Star Trek. Besides which,
you’re not black. That’s sort of a misnomer anyway. You’re more ...
caramel.”
Anna looked up, overwhelmed all at once by the absurdity of his
statement. “Caramel?”
Dream grinned, pleased to see the smile dancing in
Anna’s eyes, even if it hadn’t moved to her lips yet. “Yeah! In this light,
especially, your skin looks like the exact same color as a caramel-dipped candy
apple, like really cool houses pass out on Halloween.” His tone turned a touch
more serious, as he clasped both her hands in his own. “Anna ... you’re
beautiful. I thought you were beautiful since the first time I laid eyes on
you.”
Don’t say it, she thought. Don’t say it, or else I’ll have to say it in
return. I won’t be able to lie to you. I’ll have to choice but to admit that
–
“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Dream breathed, his hands trembling
slightly as he continued to hold Anna’s hands in his own.
“No no no no no
no,” Anna whimpered, shaking her head from side to side, afraid to meet his
gaze.
Dream released Anna’s hands. “Just tell me you don’t feel anything.
Tell me that you don’t feel anything for me, and this ends right here. Whatever
happens from here, I want it to be what YOU want to happen. Just tell me what
you want. Tell me what to do.”
Anna blinked against the moisture that was
forming behind her eyelids. She knew what she was supposed to do. What’s more,
he was giving her the perfect out to do it. If she didn’t tell him to leave, she
wouldn’t be able to blame him for what would happen.
She would never be able
to forgive herself.
“I want you to kiss me,” Anna said, her voice
quaking.
After the first hesitant, slightly awkward kiss, there were very few
nervous pauses, and it almost felt as time was moving faster, in the rush of
movements that followed, of embraces and explorations and barely coherent
whispers, as Dream’s electric mouth sent shocks through Anna’s entire body with
every devouring kiss, and for some strange reason she could feel his ragged
breathing vibrate through her nerve endings like a series of earthquake tremors.
Item after item of clothing was torn off or wriggled out of or shimmied onto the
floor, with Anna only vaguely conscious that that was what they were doing,
until Dream pulled himself away from their perpetually re-entwining embrace, and
Anna realized that she was completely nude.
And so was he.
Anna had never
seen a naked man before. She’d gathered a rough idea from sex ed. classes, of
course, but textbook diagrams were a far thing from seeing the ... enthusiasm of
a full-grown adult male, directly in front of you. For Dream’s part, he seemed
even more awe-struck. After staring for a second or so, he kissed Anna on the
lips, very tenderly, and brushed her braided hair off of her face.
“You’re a
goddess,” he breathed. “You ARE Inanna.”
Anna swallowed hard, not sure how to
explain. “Dream, I – I’ve never ...”
Dream regarded her curiously, and then
his eyes widened with understanding. “Never?”
Anna felt ashamed of her
inexperience, and averted her eyes. “I’d never even kissed a boy, before
now.”
Dream ran his fingers soothingly across Anna’s cheek. “We can stop
right here. We don’t have to go any further –”
“NO,” Anna interjected,
sounding harsher than she meant to. “No.”
Dream checked her expression.
“You’re sure?”
Anna considered, then nodded. “I want to be your Inanna. I
want you to worship me. So worship me, Dream.” And then, quoting from the Song
of Inanna, when Inanna invited the shepherd Dumuzi to her bedchamber, to be her
husband and consort: “Plow my field, man of the earth. Plow my field.”
Dream
bit his lip in concern, and slowly eased himself into her. As she lost her
virginity, Anna cried out sharply in pain, and Dream instantly halted his
movement. “Do you want me to stop? I can stop –”
“Don’t you DARE,” Anna
growled through gritted teeth, gripping Dream’s backside and forcing him to
thrust into her, all the way, in one swift stroke. Even as Anna cried again in
pain anew, her arms gripped Dream’s back with all the force that she could
muster, until her whimpers of discomfort turned into moans of
passion.
Several hours later, as dusk threatened to become dawn, Anna
Kensington lay next to Dreamcatcher Foxglove, their limbs entangled as
inextricably as any Chinese finger trap, as just before her heavy eyelids
lowered, and she drifted off to sleep, Anna dazedly thought to
herself,
Wow.
So ... that’s what orgasms feel like.
No wonder my sister
is so fond of them.
Anna overslept that morning, and missed her big
exam.
Fortunately, thanks to the record of exemplary academic performance
that she’d already established with all of her professors, they were more than
willing to accept her apologies, and to schedule a make-up exam for her, to be
held at a later date.
But for once in her life, she wasn’t entirely concerned
with maintaining the standard she’d set for her own academic
performance.
That doesn’t mean that she didn’t make Dream pay the price for
making her miss the exam, though.
Oddly enough, he didn’t much mind his
punishment.