Elizabeta Brooke: Never: an erotic retelling of Peter Pan

Her trawling of the dorms had never revealed any sexual activity in Billy's room, and for that reason she'd paid him scant heed. Tonight, however, she was prepared to make up for the oversight.

Summer had come unseasonably early, and in response to the sultry heat, Billy lay on his bed clad only in a pair of brief underpants. Slowly and with a connoisseur's attention to detail, she mapped the lineament of his body, revelling in the discovery that his campus uniform of jeans and a western shirt had disguised a magnificent physique.

In the quiet of the darkened office her breathing sounded overly loud as she watched him flicking pages, the book propped atop his ample chest. Although the overhead light was on, he had angled his bedside lamp to better illuminate the book, guilelessly casting a golden hue over his statuesque form. His knees were bent, affording her a good view of his muscular thighs, and when he rolled on to his side exposing a broad, beautiful back, she murmured appreciatively.

Adjusting the eyepiece to gain a wider view, she let her gaze drift over the curve of his waist and then down over the tight buttocks barely concealed beneath his plain navy briefs.

As a hardened voyeur, Dee was normally only stirred by physical intimacies, but there was something about the solidity, the bulky musculature of this lone body on the bed that intrigued her.

She tried to focus on the book but his shoulder blocked her view. Was it course literature? A novel? Pornography? She panned back to the taut buttocks, licking her lips as the now familiar sensations overcame her — the quickened breathing, the dry mouth, nipples that tingled and longed to be touched. She could feel the cycle starting, the wakening of a visceral pulse that would hound her relentlessly until she achieved orgasm.

Masturbation — her usual recourse, had become too repetitive to supply anything more than the gratification of releasing tensed muscles. Increasingly she craved intimacy, and tonight she planned to seduce James into providing the necessary physical stimulation. If he was 'tired' again she might need to revisit the idea of making him jealous. It had seemed disloyal, and too much like game-playing to be worthy of her intelligence, but resentment had begun to flourish and she knew that never went to a good place.

Male colleagues had been giving her interested glances for years, so it wouldn’t be difficult to manufacture an admirer. It was only her status as the Dean's wife that had saved her from more obvious overtures in the past. That, and her own apathy. For the fifteen years of their marriage sex had been a comfortable stress-reliever, a way to satisfy her normal human desire to be touched, and as James had grown older and less attractive, the telescope had been her tool for arousal.

Unfortunately the titillation of her once a week hobby was fast becoming an every-second-night obsession. At thirty-six she appeared to be reaching her sexual peak exactly at a point in James' life where he found it all a bit tiresome, and it struck her suddenly that there might be some perverse connection between the two. Could he be pushing her away deliberately, now, when she needed him the most?

Dee sat back from the telescope, and frowned. That was an unworthy thought. If anyone was to blame for not foreseeing this, it was hers. James was two decades — a whole generation her senior and he'd married for love, not some perceived future. She had, however looked to the future as an escape from her past, and there'd been no rose-coloured glasses to mar her expectations. Although in fairness to herself, fifteen years ago she could never have imagined this merry-go-round of desire and frustration taking hold of her. Not again.

She shivered, quickly suppressing the painful memory. She was in the now. Old ghosts couldn't hurt her anymore. At least that’s what she hoped, but as memories clamored inside her she deliberately leant back in the chair and dropped into the rhythm of the slow breathing the psychiatrist had taught her. Then on impulse, she unbuttoned her silk shirt and opened it, letting the slight breeze that carried the gum blossom scent up to her window caress her chest, cooling her down. It soothed, and helped her focus her mind.

She was a happily married woman, she must remember that. And her current sexual absorption was a mere phase that would, hopefully, soon pass.

But it didn't pass last time, a little voice whispered. It was stopped. And her hand fell unconsciously to cover her abdomen.

Shakily, she drew in another lungful of the fragrant night air. The past is gone.

Happily married. Happily married. She repeated the litany, staring out the window at the chequerboard pattern of lights blurred in the distance, the dorm building.

Inside that was a body on a bed — a tool for arousal.

She straightened and went back to the viewer to Billy was still reading. Blissfully unaware.

He was also tantalizingly passive, and the analytically part of her mind, the place inside her that remained aloof amid the most torrid voyeuristic scenes was critical of that. It questioned whether this form of static stimuli would be enough to keep her aroused through the inevitably slow-foreplay that would be required to coax James into an erection.

There was no denying the symmetrical perfection of Billy's back, and beyond her desire, the sensuality to his pose elicited an artistic appreciation, as though he was a sculpture she was studying. She traced it with imaginary fingertips, finding it smooth, firm to the touch, and warm. Perhaps if he moved…?

Move him with your mind.

She licked her lips, then bit the lower one. She'd made a rule. A sensible rule that said no fantasising about subjects, particularly ones you had to teach. Never create, simply observe. In that way she'd ensure there could be no emotional involvement. But tonight her reckless libido pressed her to do more, try more, insisting Billy was harmless. She might as easily fantasise about the aboriginal dancer or old Simms for all the danger it presented. There was no chance of her becoming emotionally involved with any of them.

There would be an inherent risk in fantasising about a colleague, someone who might tempt her in the real world. But Billy? He was just a boy. A boy in a man's body, admittedly. But still a boy. She stared at him pensively as the internal arguments went on, guilt and justification. Then her litany, only a body, it's only a body, repeated itself inside her mind and the angry voices faded into silence — a warm lethargic silence that whispered with sensual currents. Why fight the inevitable? Nothing short of intercourse would satisfy her tonight and if fantasising about one of her students would keep her aroused long enough to seduce James, then so be it.

Settling deeper into her comfortable leather chair she smiled to herself. Then was unsure why she had. A barrier had been broken, but why would that please her? It was strange, but the reason eluded her so she concentrated on Billy’s back, opening herself to the fantasy, imagining herself inside his room watching him from a darkened corner. He would continue to read and she would caress his bare flesh with her eyes, revelling in its texture and warmth. He might move occasionally, his muscles flexing beneath the tanned skin and she would imagine her lips over those muscles, absorbing their flow. Then after a particularly breathtaking stretch he would tire of the book and roll on to his back…

Then… what? Dee didn't want to touch Billy, even in a fantasy. That would be stretching her rules too far. She thought for a moment, then decided to invent a woman for him and watch them make love.

But who, and how?

With her fantasy stalled, Dee struggled to recall what she knew of Billy. Unlike most of her undergraduates, she did know something about him. A colleague, determined to rub Dee's nose in her hick background had told her he was from Dulacca, not far from her own home town of Taroom in Western Queensland.