Last Lovers by William Wharton
‘Tell me what you want, Mirabelle. What parts do you prefer?’
‘I like to be surprised. One thing about being blind is you are often surprised by everything. I have learned to prefer it.’
‘Okay. I’m going to surprise you.’
I reach in and pull out a good thigh, then another piece from the back of the chicken. I put two potatoes on her plate, dip gravy over the whole thing with the ladle. I carry her plate to the table.
‘My, how you spoil me, Jacques. I can do that myself and your meal is getting cold.’
We sit and eat again. This time we talk more. Mirabelle is telling about how she can feel some of the pigeon hens are beginning nests. She says they are very slim, lively, and restless. She can hear the cocks courting round and round in circles at her feet.
‘You know, Jacques, every year there are new baby pigeons born in the nests and one would think the flock would grow bigger and bigger but it remains almost the same. What do you think happens to these young? I know some of them stay in the flock but most of them will disappear before summer ends. I think many of them do not survive the late-summer molt, it is very hard on them, and often they do not have enough food after the tourists have left.’
‘It must be difficult for pigeons living in a large city such as Paris.’
I hadn’t thought much of it before, but all the carbon monoxide, the smog, the noise would make it tough for the pigeons to breed, to survive; it’s hard enough for humans.
‘Yes, there are always birds disappearing, even some of the healthy adults. I get to know them and then they do not come back. It can be sad.’
‘But then, that’s life, Mirabelle. It’s like that for all of us.’
‘Yes, I know, Jacques. We all must leave sometime, but it still seems sad.’
I want to ask her what she feels about death, about her age, but I don’t. We’re so comfortable and so happy together, it seems strange to consider such a thing on a beautiful day. I don’t want to think about it myself, either.
I carry the dishes into the kitchen and Mirabelle washes them in the sink. We just leave them on the dish rack to dry. We’re both anxious to get out painting. Today, I’m hoping to finish our painting, up Canettes, with the Place at the end. It’s really great having the good sun.
We’re settled in and painting before two o’clock. At first I don’t know where to start, but once I’m into it, explaining to Mirabelle what I’m doing as I go, it takes off on its own. It’s five o’clock and I’m finished almost before I know it. I’ve been up and down the street about ten times, sometimes dragging the box, sometimes just checking a detail where I’m doing the blending. I manage the shadows falling across the buildings in the right foreground exactly the way I want it. I even bring one flash of sunlight down onto the street like a décolletage. It helps hold the foreground, left and right, together.
When I’ve definitely decided it’s finished, we go up and take a place at the café. This time, because it isn’t so cold, I have a demi, a beer, and Mirabelle orders a verveine, a kind of herb tea. It’s a great joy sitting in the last sunshine.
That night, Mirabelle comes to my bed again. I was expecting her, and open the covers so she can slide in with me. Her feet aren’t cold because she hasn’t sat on the edge of the bed for so long. I hold her in my arms and we’re both very still. I wonder if we’re just going to sleep and I’m starting to doze off when I feel her soft hand brushing lightly over the top of my hair. She shifts and puts her head on my chest.
‘Do you want to sleep, Jacques? Are you tired?’
‘Whatever you’d like, Mirabelle. Are you tired?’
‘No. I do not think you can know how much it means to me when you allow me to touch you and taste you, to come to know you the way I do. I cannot think of anyone else in the world who would be so kind.’
‘I told you, Mirabelle. It’s a pleasure for me. I never knew anyone could be as gentle, as caressing as you are. I’ve not known that hands could touch so lightly, lips so tenderly.’
‘I am very happy, Jacques. Would you mind very much taking your sleeping shirt off again? I have been remembering all day how your hairy chest felt against my face and I would like to feel that again.’
I lean forward slightly, tilting her head and body, pull my shirt over my head. In so moving, I smell myself. I’d bathed in the morning but with the whole day of work, both painting the walls and painting my painting, I smell of perspiration and turpentine.
‘I’m sorry if I smell, Mirabelle. I should have washed up before I came to bed. I didn’t think.’
‘Oh no. I am glad you did not wash away your smells. I told you I like the way you smell, it is so real, so like a good healthy animal.’
She nuzzles her face into my armpit. Then I feel her lips and tongue as she begins to lick me down the side from the armpit to the hairless sides of my trunk. Now she really begins to tickle. I jump.
‘Did I hurt you, Jacques?’
She lifts her head onto my chest again.
‘No, you only tickled me.’
‘Tickle? Oh yes, I remember when I was a little girl, Rolande would tickle me and we would tickle each other. It was a very strange feeling. I have discovered one cannot tickle oneself. When you know where someone is going to touch, there is no tickle. I think it is partly the surprise.’
‘Perhaps, Mirabelle. But I knew where you were, what you were doing, and still it tickled me. However, there is one place any person can tickle himself, you know.’
‘Is there? Tell me. Where is it?’
‘In the top of the mouth. If you take your finger and lightly rub it along the roof of your mouth, you will have a very strong feeling of tickling.’
I demonstrate, then realize she can’t know what I’m doing. I tickle the top of my mouth, anyway, and she puts her hand on mine. I pull my finger out of my mouth quickly when the tickling becomes too much, then massage the place with my tongue, rubbing hard, to stop it. It really is a strong sensation, between pleasant and painful. It’s almost like the itch of athlete’s foot.
Mirabelle takes her finger and puts it in her mouth the way I had done. Quickly she pulls her hand out of her mouth and makes the noises of rubbing her tongue against the tickle.
‘Oh my, Jacques. Is that a tickle? It has been so long, I had quite forgotten. It is a most strange sensation, is it not?’
She tries again, pulls out her finger, and shakes her head.
‘That is really most peculiar. Do most people know of this?’
‘I don’t think so, Mirabelle. I had an uncle who showed me when I was a little boy. I haven’t told anyone except you.’
‘Is it possible for me to tickle you like that? Or must one do it oneself?’
‘I don’t know, I’ve never had anybody try to tickle me there.’
‘May I try?’
‘All right, but be careful I don’t bite you.’
She turns her hand and gently, with her forefinger, rubs against the top of my mouth. It is so strong I need to pull her hand away. It’s more powerful than when I did it myself. I rub vigorously with my tongue.
‘Yes, Mirabelle. Somebody else can tickle the mouth of another. It is very strong.’
‘Oh, please, would you tickle me in the mouth, Jacques?’
I reach out my hand and she opens her mouth. I reach in and rub my middle finger against the ribbed roof of her mouth. Almost immediately she pulls away. She pushes her tongue back and forth, in and out, shaking her head for several seconds.
‘But it will not stop. I cannot make it go away.’
We’re both laughing, with Mirabelle interrupting to rub her tongue against her mouth some more.
Finally we settle down. Mirabelle lowers her head to my chest again. I rest my hand on her head and run it carefully over her hair to the point where it begins twisting into the braid.
‘So we have our little secret, Mirabelle. We won’t tell anyone else, will we.’
‘No, I think not.
She lies still for several minutes, then her hands begin to move slowly down my ribs again, slowly, tentatively, creeping along the soft flesh.
‘You tell me when it starts to tickle. I would like to know just where it begins.’
I wait and nothing happens. I do not feel ticklish, only a pleasant stimulation something like when she kissed and sucked my nipples, a tingling at the back of my head. Then she brings her one hand, the one on the far side, away from her, across onto my stomach where the hair grows thickly down the middle.
‘You were not ticklish this time, Jacques? Perhaps we used up all your tickle in your mouth.’
‘I think it is because you moved so slowly, Mirabelle, you didn’t take me by surprise, I was expecting it.’
‘Do you mind my hand being where it is now?’
‘I’ll tell you, Mirabelle, when I am not happy.’
She lowers her head onto my chest and with her other hand smooths away the hair and begins to suckle on my nipples again. I’m between being very relaxed and highly excited. She moves from one nipple to the other.
‘I wish I had two mouths, Jacques. I think each of your nipples tastes a little differently but I can’t be sure. By the time I move from one to the other, I forget.’
Her hand on my stomach has found my navel. She carefully, like someone exploring the edge of a crater, circles her fingers around it, going deeper each time.
‘I have a navel, too, but it is not so deep. I do not think there is a bottom to yours.’
She inserts her finger deeper. She comes to the puckered skin at the bottom and explores more.
‘Oh yes, there it is. It is like mine but it is so hidden in your stomach and by your hair, it is hard to find.’
She slides her body down, going deeper under the covers. I feel her tongue enter my navel, cautiously ringing the sides and going deeper. It’s such a strange feeling, I didn’t realize the navel was so sensitive, it’s not ticklish but still is just on the level of sensation I can bear. She lifts her head.
‘I can put my entire tongue in. I did not realize men had such deep navels. And you have a wonderful taste here, the same as behind your ears but stronger. It is absolutely delicious.’
‘I think my navel is deeper than most men’s, Mirabelle. Sometimes I need to clean it out because bits of lint and dust gather in there. I don’t know about other men, but this could be exceptional.’
‘Yes, it is very exceptional, I am sure. Is it painful for you when I put my tongue in here?’
‘No, it’s only a very peculiar feeling. I’ve never felt anything quite like it.’
I’m also beginning to feel a tumescence in my penis. It isn’t exactly an erection, but the growth and swelling, which is still such a marvel to me, has started. I try to concentrate, to stop it.
This is a switch. The trouble in my sex with Lorrie over the last few years has been that I haven’t had spontaneous erections. With Lorrie’s stimulation, I would usually respond and we could then have sex. Especially after Didier, I had this trouble, but then Lorrie became so adept at stimulating me, it didn’t matter much. But rarely in the last years has any of it been spontaneous.
The last time I can remember trying to keep an erection down must have been twenty years ago. Of course, this isn’t exactly an unstimulated erection that’s happening. We haven’t kissed and she hasn’t touched me there, but what she’s been doing has made me very excited. Perhaps it’s because of the long time without sex at all, or because, with the running, I’ve gotten into better shape physically. Whatever it is, this stiffening is out of control. If I’m not careful, it’s liable to pop right up and clobber poor Mirabelle on the cheek. I try to think of my painting, anything, but nothing helps. Mirabelle takes her tongue out of my navel.
‘Jacques, is that your penis I feel moving? I know men have penises but I did not know they could move by themselves.’
‘Yes, Mirabelle, that’s my penis, and usually they don’t move by themselves.’
‘May I touch your penis? Would it annoy you if I touch it?’
She pauses, pushes the covers away from her head so I can see her face. I reach down and take her hand, move it gently down toward my erection. She slowly continues to move her hand downward herself, until her fingertips carefully, sinuously touch it at the base where the penis comes out of the pubic hairs. I feel her fingers wrap around it.
‘It is so large! Is this what a man puts into a woman to plant the seeds for babies? It is impossible. I know I am ignorant about such things. How can this be?’
‘It happens all the time, Mirabelle. But my penis isn’t this big all the time. You have aroused me sexually and my penis has swollen because of that. Normally, it is much smaller than this.’
‘Have I truly aroused you, Jacques? Are you angry with me? I did not know.’
‘Yes, dearest Mirabelle, you have aroused me. I didn’t think this would happen but it has. I am not angry, it is very pleasant for me.’
‘May I touch it some more? I want to discover more about it. You have been so kind, would this be all right?’
‘Yes, Mirabelle, but I warn you, if you stimulate me too much I could very easily have some of my seed come out, so do be careful. If it’s going to happen I’ll tell you so you can move away.’
‘Do you have enough seed? Would you be angry if some of your seed spills out?’
‘No, I wouldn’t be angry, Mirabelle, there’s much seed in me. But I only want to warn you, so you won’t be frightened.’
Finding how unknowing she is of these things is almost harder to believe than accepting that she’s blind. When I think about it, being isolated with her sister, who didn’t communicate with her all that much, through all those years of her adulthood, combined with her not being able to read, having no access to other people who would speak of such things, I shouldn’t be surprised. She is like a child, a very naïve fourteen-year-old from another time, two generations ago.
She has slid under the covers again. I reach down and push the bottom of my sweat suit off, kick it to the end of the bed with my feet. I’m just about bursting with the pressure to ejaculate.
As a married man of twenty-five years, I’ve had some experience with holding back, but this is, for some reason, the most difficult I’ve known. She has one hand still around the base of my penis and with the other she is, in her tentative way, ‘exploring,’ running the tip of her finger up its length.
‘The skin is so soft, Jacques, and there are lines like veins, and it curves. Is this normal?’
‘Yes, Mirabelle.’
‘And the skin at the end is loose, with extra skin at the very top, the skin feels almost like the skin in the bottom of your navel, only it is softer.’
‘If you want, you can pull back that skin and discover the true head of the penis, Mirabelle, it’s called the glans. The skin is only a cover, such as the eyelid that protects the eye.’
As I say it, I wonder if that is a good simile. I wonder if her blind eyes have the same sensitivity as seeing eyes. Of course they do, she isn’t really blind, her eyes are like mine.
Gently, with both hands, she slides back the skin so the glans is exposed. I’m having an impossible time holding back. I can feel her finger now gently exploring the head of my penis. Usually, because I’m not circumcised, this part of me is so sensitive that finger touching can be almost painful, but her fingers are touching so tenderly, there is only the slightest feeling of them passing over, like the weight of a fly walking on my skin.
‘It is an amazingly strange feeling, your glans, Jacques. It is shaped almost like a heart, with a split on one side and a small hole in the split, it is somewhat like an acorn from which an oak could grow. Is this the hole from which you urinate?’
‘Yes, it’s also the place from which my seed can come. It is very sensitive, be careful.’
‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No, you are very gentle.’
‘I did not know men would be so sensitive; they are not much different from women, are they? It must be wonderful when a man can put this sensitive part of himself inside the very sensitive parts of a woman. I understand now why there is much talk about sex and love. It truly is a miracle, is it not?’
‘That’s right, Mirabelle, a miracle.’
The miracle is I’m still hanging in there. I didn’t know I could do it. I’m beginning to wonder if somehow I’ve changed over the past year, that all the alcohol and sleeping on the ground, maybe the running even, have changed me so I can’t ejaculate. I know I’m probably going to have one of the worst cases of hot nuts I’ve had since I was fifteen if I hold this erection much longer.
‘May I taste your penis, Jacques? I can smell it. It smells very much like a man smell. I never knew that was what I was smelling when I smelled men. I would like very much to taste your penis.’
‘You must be careful, Mirabelle. I am very excited and I could spill my seed at any minute. It is getting more and more difficult to hold it back.’
‘I will not bite you, Jacques. I will be very careful.’
‘I’m not worried about you biting me. It’s only that most women are afraid of tasting or swallowing a man’s seed. They don’t want it to happen. It seems wrong to them.’
‘Why, Jacques? Is the seed of a man poisonous? It would seem that anything that when mixed with a woman’s egg will create a new person must be very good, it is an important part of life itself. Why are they afraid?’
She’s lifted her head out from under the covers, holding tight on to my stiffened penis with both hands.
‘I don’t know, Mirabelle. I’ve never thought about it. I’ve never had a woman who drank my seed but I’ve heard about such women. There are also men who drink other men’s seed. Lorrie would never put her mouth around my penis until that last year when she was with Didier. And, even then, she never drank my seed.’
I can feel my impossible erection starting to settle down some, it’s still stiff but I don’t feel as if my testicles are about to be sucked into my body.