Mirrors of Narcissus Page 3

  When Jonesy first saw her, he’d said jokingly: “Thank you, Attila the Hun.” Christine had a Polish background, and I suppose Jonesy was imagining the distant past when Mongol armies had swept into Poland, pillaging, plundering, and raping, leaving behind them those genetic traits which, when blended with the local Polish ones, had bequeathed this exotic look to Christine.

  “I refuse to use sex as a weapon,” she was saying. When she pouted, the way her lips pushed together gave her a winsomely stubborn look.

  I laughed. “Come on, Chrissie, I was only joking. But I guess I’ve learned why all the good-looking girls seem to get such good grades around here. Did you ever notice that?”

  She nodded, suddenly turning serious. “You know, it’s true. The better looking you are, the more likely you’ll do well in school. But there’s a deeper reason for that.”

  “Uh-oh. I think the psychologist in you is about to emerge.”

  Unlike myself—who still couldn’t decide what my major would be—Christine had always known she wanted to major in psychology. She was constantly reading up on various psychological experiments, and whenever she launched into her explanation of one of them, her face became most animated.

  “No, seriously,” she said. “I was just reading up on something dealing with that. Physical attractiveness has been shown to be a very important factor in the way we’re perceived by others—much more so than most people would think. There was a psychological experiment conducted on some kindergarten and elementary school teachers.” She paused, looking at me questioningly. “Are you interested in hearing this, or am I boring you?”

  “No, go on. I wanna hear about it.”

  “All right. Well, the teachers weren’t told the nature of the test they were undergoing though they knew they were being tested for something. They were shown a series of photographs of children and asked to rate them on an attractiveness scale, from one to ten.”

  “That sounds like the guys in my dorm judging girls. Go on.”

  “Anyway, these same photographs were then given to another group of teachers who were asked to study the photos and determine—just from first impressions—what they believed the personality of the child to be like. These results were then tallied against the results of the attractiveness test.”

  “I can imagine the results. Probably the same thing that we all learned in junior high and high school—that attractive kids are more popular.”

  “Exactly. The children who’d been rated low in attractiveness by the first group were almost invariably described as potential troublemakers, unsociable, unintelligent, or withdrawn. The attractive children, on the other hand, were judged to be more outgoing, friendly, intelligent, and creative. Mind you, all this was about children the teachers had never even met.”

  “So what does all that prove? I could have told you that without an experiment.”

  She became serious, a tiny wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. “Well, the result seems to show that a teacher’s initial impression of a child will determine how he will act toward the child—whether he will give him encouragement, or ignore the child’s true potentials. Naturally, children who receive more attention and love will respond in ways which stimulate their intellectual and social growth—in other words, succeed in the ways by which society measures accomplishment. So from a very young age, the dice are loaded against unattractive children.”

  “It’s not only teachers. We all judge people by their looks. Subconsciously and otherwise.”

  “True. I have to admit that’s what first drew me to you, Guy.”

  “Bingo.”

  Christine was the first girl who’d ever been open about her sexual attraction towards me. Perhaps it was all the psychology she’d studied, but she had never been shy about expressing her erotic feelings. And she liked to enunciate clearly what it was about me, physically, that she liked. It was that which excited me most: I could see myself through her eyes, and become aroused by the image of myself I saw there.

  For her, sexuality was the key to a person’s character. She was completely open about her own sexuality. We had long talks about our sexual awakenings, and (on my part, guardedly) about our love affairs in the past. I’d told her about the many girlfriends I’d had, but not about the thoughts that went through my head as I was making love with them, or what I had to do to excite myself. I hadn’t quite opened up with her to the point where I could confess that all the girls had merely been for decoration, to hide my true inclinations. And that in my mind I’d had to change many of them into boys before I could become sexually interested in them.

  Christine, for her part, kept nothing back from me. That was how I knew I was the fourth boy she’d made love to. I knew all about my predecessors, Craig, David, Brian, and Julian. She knew I was curious about the boys in her past and didn’t try to hide anything. I wasn’t exactly the jealous type. I’d fantasized about being able to enter her body and watch through her eyes as she made love with other boys.

  Because of her open attitude toward sex, people felt relaxed in her presence, and would confess things they wouldn’t have dreamed of revealing to other people. I’d even told her about my one homosexual experience in high school. My ability to confess this to her—and I felt able to, perhaps because she was a woman—was another bond between us.

  She felt that all people were basically bisexual—a belief which I shared—and that we all had a sort of gauge within us, one side indicating heterosexuality, the other, homosexuality. With most people, the needle pointed closer to heterosexual, with varying degrees of distance from it. Nobody was completely hetero, or for that matter, homo. She felt that we all had urges both ways, which fluctuated with time and circumstances.

  In junior high, she had had a crush on an older girl in school, even to the point of writing secret love letters. So she could understand homosexuality. I told her that my adolescence was also a confusing period of transition, though I stopped short of telling her that my most satisfying sexual experience had been with that one boy, and that my most vivid and erotic sexual fantasies were those involving men.

  She wanted no secrets between us, so it was a torture for me not to be able to tell her everything. I longed to do away with this great secret which I carried, but I knew that this very secret was the bond which linked us so tightly together. And though she was the only person to whom I was ready to confess everything, that very confession would have destroyed what we had together. Her love would never be able to withstand that revelation. And I didn’t want to hurt her. I wanted to protect her for my own reasons: because I needed her love. My relationship with her had been the most fulfilling relationship of my life. So I had to keep up the pretense that I was what I seemed to be on the outside—just another heterosexual boy.

  But I’d come very close to revealing myself. She knew I was excited by the way other men were attracted to her. And she knew I fantasized about other men making love to her…that I was hungry for details about the other boys in her life.

  About clumsy Craig, her first boyfriend, in the eighth grade. He would come over to see her as she babysat for a neighbor. After the kids had gone to sleep, they would sit on the sofa watching TV and kissing, for hours, until she became frantic with desire. Craig would eventually slip his hand into her blouse, so eagerly, yet so awkwardly, that she wished she could take his hand and guide him.

  In her sophomore year of high school she’d gone steady with David, who was not much better. He was a redhead, a hotshot tennis player and a Boy Scout. Christine practically had to seduce him, but she finally lost her virginity to him one night in a girlfriend’s bedroom.

  Then there was the brief flirtation with Brian in her junior year. Christine lost her interest in him when she discovered that, despite his outward braggadocio, he suffered from premature ejaculation. Their lovemaking never got to the point of insertion.

  The boy who changed it all was Julian, the bad boy in school. He was the one who first gave Christine
the feeling that sex was not just a naughty prize to give away to a boy, to spite the grown-up world, or to prove your adulthood. Before she ever met him, she’d been fascinated by his reputation: since junior high, he’d been linked with the pregnancies of several girls. In high school there was talk that he’d slept with a student teacher from college. He exuded a confident virility, and it was this which excited Christine…and me.

  “Was he that good looking?” I asked her.

  “No, not really. He was tall and pale, with dark, curly hair and searching eyes. He wasn’t conventionally handsome. But there was something about him which the girls in my school found endlessly fascinating.”

  “Did he have a good body?”

  “Oh yes. Firmly muscled, slim hips….”

  Of course Christine thought she was stoking my jealousy as a preliminary to our lovemaking. But for me, hearing about Julian enhanced our lovemaking, was a vital part of it. This was the only way I could get close to a boy—to see his nudity, to know how he kissed and caressed, the way he smelled, the way he made love.

  “Did he have a big dick?”

  “About average, I guess.”

  “But he sure knew how to use it, huh?”

  “Oh, yes. But not nearly as good as you. You’re the best ever.”

  “Oh?”

  “And you’re the best looking guy I’ve ever been with.”

  “What is it about me you like?”

  “Your butt, for one. I love your butt.”

  “Girls usually tell me that.” Her hands were on my buttocks, caressing them. “What else?”

  “Your chest.” She pulled off my shirt. “I love your chest, and your shoulders. You worked out today, didn’t you?”

  “Oh yes.”

  She felt the hardness of my muscles with the palms of both hands. Seeing the desire in her eyes as she looked at my body excited me. I could see myself reflected in her pupils. There was a lascivious hunger in them. Her lips were slightly parted and I saw her tongue flicker inside. Even in the darkness her eyes glowed greedily when I slipped off my briefs. Feeling her lust, I became aroused. It was her desire for a boy’s body that pierced me now. She made no effort to hide it or disguise it. I could feel it so keenly that my head swam. Maybe this was the nearest I would ever come to making love with another boy. Only Christine had been able to do this to me. And she would do anything for me, to stretch her erotic boundaries in an almost reckless fashion. Only with her had I not had to resort to my imagination. My excitement was what I might have felt if I were naked on a bed together with another boy.

  Her slender, boyish figure, and the androgynous, classical beauty of her face easily enhanced the illusion. When her hair was brushed straight back, as it was now, the exquisite shape of her head and the perfection of her ears made her seem like the beautiful young prince of childhood fairy tales.

  I reached up and gathered her hair in a bunch behind her head. “Now you look like a boy.”

  “Meaning you wish I had bigger tits.”

  “No way. I love you just the way you are.”

  I lay on my back and she sat atop me straddling my thighs, the better to stroke my erection. From the way she was sitting, it looked as if my up-thrusting penis were hers, completing the illusion that she was a boy.

  “You look like a young kid beating off,” I said.

  “Oh?” She smiled naughtily, immediately sensing what I wanted. Without hesitation, she began stroking my dick with smooth, practiced motions of the wrist, parting her lips and running her tongue over them. Then she opened her mouth slightly let out a soft moan. It was a beautiful performance.

  “Is this how you do it?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. You do it so well.”

  Looking at the expression on her face, it was difficult to believe she wasn’t feeling exactly what I was feeling. Yes, of course she’d seen a boy’s pleasure at firsthand. I thought of her masturbating her boyfriends by hand. I was now looking at Julian’s face….

  She refined the illusion by peering around furtively as she stroked, like a boy in his bedroom fearful of being caught at it. I thought of myself earlier in the library restroom.

  “Oh yes….”

  She closed her eyes and began sighing, moaning, grimacing, a little exaggeratedly at first, but then more and more realistically. A strange and wonderful boy-girl had been created before my eyes, and I could feel each nuance of his pleasure as he masturbated himself, for he and I were one, stroking and being stroked, boy on boy.

  The illusion was perfect.

  “Come on, baby….” She had gripped her shaft and was giving herself up to a straight pumping action, jerking it up and down in a frenzied pace which made the glans bob crazily. Her hair had come loose and now flopped rhythmically against her cheekbones to the beat of the creaking of the bed beneath us. The heel of her hand made a slight slapping sound as it hit repeatedly against her groin.

  She glanced at me wickedly. She knew I liked what I saw.

  And my excitement in turn ignited hers. She became lost in her performance, excited by it, exploring the perverse corners of her own soul. As she sensed the onset of my pleasure, she really seemed to forget for a moment that she was a girl. Suddenly she threw her head back and her thighs gripped me tighter and her lips made a tight O as she shot her warm semen all over my chest.

  I was in heaven….

  4

  Peter Cockle lived north of the campus among the hills overlooking the city. I’d spoken with him over the phone and had taken him for just another art student. But after I’d learned more about him from Christine, I began to feel a little nervous about meeting him. Apparently he was already something of a campus celebrity, being one of the most talented artists in school. There were those who called him a genius. The art professors treated him a little deferentially, creating a certain amount of envy among the other art students.

  It was Christine who had introduced me to modeling. She’d started to model herself under the work-study program offered by the school, which gave students part-time employment around campus. These jobs barely paid minimum wages, but were convenient and easy. The fine arts department was looking for models for the art students, and the pay was reasonable; Christine had applied and immediately been accepted.

  I used to watch her sometimes as she sat for the students, wishing she could be posing in the nude. School regulations prohibited nude modeling during class periods ever since some student’s mother had complained about it, but students or groups of students could make private arrangements with a model for extracurricular sessions, even using the art room after school hours. Christine herself refused such offers, but when I told her I would be willing, she recommended them to me. She had told me it was easy work and, knowing I could use the money, urged me to try it, too. I’d never modeled before so I agreed initially out of curiosity. Since then, I’d posed privately on a number of occasions, almost always in the nude.

  Peter Cockle had apparently seen me posing for someone else, and had contacted me over the phone. He wondered if I would be willing to model privately for him. I’d agreed, then gone to Christine to find out more about him. What she told me made me curious to meet him, especially as he was apparently widely rumored to be gay.

  When he came to the door in answer to my ring, he was wiping his glasses.

  “I’m so glad you could come, Guy,” he said, extending a thin white hand. I shook it—it was limp, and a little damp. “Come on in.”

  He was a pale, intense aesthete, the stereotypical artist. Thick lenses magnified his eyes, which had a stark, questioning look. His hair was thin and wispy, already going bald. He wore a black turtle neck sweater under a pair of faded workman’s overalls. He was barefoot.

  He was obviously the type who became so absorbed in his painting that he forgot to eat. If it weren’t for his careless way of dressing, and the complete lack of interest he took in his grooming, he could have passed for a business ed major—a future bank manager or adver
tising executive.

  His apartment was cramped and smelled of oil paints and turpentine. Canvases filled every room, most with their faces turned to the wall. Their backs, wooden-framed, looked naked, and were covered with titles scribbled in pencil. Rows of them leaned out from the wall into the middle of the room, and we had to maneuver carefully past them to get to the workroom.

  Peter apparently did all his painting in this small, well-lighted space with a paint-spattered workbench in the middle. Pinned to the walls everywhere in kaleidoscopic disarray were newspaper clippings, photos torn out of magazines, comic strips, and Polaroid shots of street scenes. There was a camera on a tripod beside the bathroom door. The floor was littered with cans, bottles, and various knick-knacks obviously picked up at antique stores and junkyards. Amid all the clutter was a strange wooden contraption which looked like a tiny replica of the Wright brothers’ first airplane. Propped inside it was a small mirror, angled so that the viewer’s eye stared back at him. Next to it was a book checked out from the library turned face down, a collection of African art.

  “Sit down,” he said. “I’ll get you something to drink before we get started.”

  It was difficult to find a place to sit among the jumble of things scattered haphazardly all over the place. I sat down in a low-slung canvas director’s chair.

  He opened a portable refrigerator under the workbench—I caught a glimpse of rows of paints and camera film inside—and pulled out a can of Coke. Picking up a glass from a small table, he blew the dust off it and handed it to me with the drink.

  “I can’t pay you very much,” he said. “But I’ll do the best I can.” He named a price and I nodded; it was well over what I usually got.

  “What kind of work are you doing now?” I asked.