Richard Sharon - Diary of a Lover

Yet the State of Israel, just four years old held a peculiar fascination for both of us, not because of cultural ties or heritage but from the standpoint of curiosity. We wanted to see these tough Jews, farmers and herdsmen, refugees and professionals, who had somehow kicked the shit out of an invading army and had established a state. We wanted to walk the land, to meet and talk with the people, and beneath it all we wanted to understand why, nonreligious and assimilated as we were, we felt this attachment for a place we had never seen and people we had never met.

We made a vow that during the coming summer vacation we would go to Israel to see and feel whatever it was we thought we might see and feel.

I was sitting naked at the small dinette table. Susan came over and sat on my lap, to hold close once more before I dressed and we had to leave for school. But it was too new, too fresh for us to just hold each other. She hiked up her long dress, pulled the crotch of her pants to the side, and, working herself slowly, she settled down on me, pushing me inside of her.

"Come in me," she said. "I want to feel you between my legs all day. I want to stand in class and see you sitting there with all of the others, and have the marvelous secret that your sperm is warm and alive inside my body."

"And then I realized that it was because Susan loved me, loved me as myself, and not the orgasms. I realized

that she was putting me under no pressure to perform, the only one who had never done so, because she knew that I could please her, and knowing that, it was no longer important to her. It was me and our feelings for each other that were important, and physical release had become secondary. The fucking machine could retire with a clear conscience.

She slid up and down on me fully, using her feet, planted firmly on the floor on either side of me, to push herself. This time I didn't fight it; I didn't grab her waist and use pressure to keep her from going so fast, or from using the full length of me. I didn't fight so that she could be pleased, because I understood that that wasn't the point anymore. Instead, I did what Susan wanted. I let her move as she wished; I let the voluptuous waves of pleasure she gave me build, one upon the other, until in a blaze of sensation I poured out into her. And when I did, she kissed my face all over, so joyful was she to give and to demand nothing in return.

I showered, shaved, and dressed while Susan made jokes about it all dripping down out of her, and that if I were to stick my head under her dress I would drown. And that day in class and from then on we had our secret looks, our eyes delivering silent, loving messages while our mouths discussed things completely irrelevant to what we felt. Often, as she stood there in her grandma disguise, I wondered what the class or other teachers would think if they knew my sperm was still damp in the crotch of her panties and drying in streaky crusts over the soft skin of her thighs. Over the next two months our relationship continued to grow, and as it grew our sex became no less important to us, but secondary. I made another discovery: if sex is fulfilling and satisfying to two people it becomes accepted into their total life in its proper proportion, as simply one facet of a much greater whole. Only when sex is not satisfying, when its failures cause doubts and frustrations, does it assume importance out of proportion to its place in a relationship. Like anything else that's desired, if you have it you don't think about it; if you don't have it you occupy yourself with trying to get it. Susan and I had it.

Many evenings we stayed home. I studied and Susan corrected papers, promising me an A only if I deserved one and joking that some students would go to any length to get a good grade from their teacher. Then we would listen to music, read, and talk until we were sleepy. Susan did the cooking, I did the dishes, and we both cleaned house. We were happy, living our lives and loving each other in gratitude and appreciation for what we had.

I brought her home to meet my parents several times. They were so happy that she was Jewish that they didn't object to the fact that she was older and that she was my teacher. Susan's parents drove up from Los Angeles for a weekend and we all got along well. Fortunately, we were able to spend most of the time driving them around the city to sightsee. We never discussed anything more important than the building boom in San Francisco, and if they had things they would have liked to say, they never took advantage of the several opportunities. I suppose they were embarrassed.

Time passed quickly. We wanted to relish the hours, to savor the day, but already it was the end of February.

I walked out of Susan's class on the third floor and headed down the hall to my next class. Susan had a meeting on the second floor and I hadn't planned on seeing her again until after school. I was about twenty feet down the hall from her room when I heard a loud commotion coining from the stairwell in back of me. Some kids ran by.

"What happened?" I asked.

"It's Miss Lawrence, she just fell down a whole flight of steps. We're going for help," they yelled.

My stomach got tight and I felt cold all over. I ran to the top of the stairwell but couldn't see her through the crowd of students gathered at the bottom. I went down the steps three at a time, and with panic building rapidly inside of me I pushed my way through to her.

Susan was on her back, parallel to the bottom step. Her long skirt lay at her waist, exposing a right leg that was torn and bleeding. A bump between her knee and her ankle protruded where her broken bone was trying to push through the skin. Her normally tan face was white and her expensive fake glasses lay smashed halfway up the steps. Her eyes were closed tightly, her face contorted by pain.

I pulled the rumpled skirt down over her legs, ripped off my jacket, and, folding it, placed it beneath her head. Then I sat beside her and stroked her hair. "It's all right," I said softly to her. "Your leg is broken but I think that's all. Don't worry, the ambulance will be here soon."

Actually, I didn't even know if one had been called yet.

Susan was so pale. She opened her eyes and saw me above her. "Hold me," she sobbed. "Oh, love, it hurts so much. I'm so scared."

And she reached up and pulled me down until I was almost laying next to her, trying to soothe and calm, frustrated because I wanted her not to hurt but was powerless to stop it.

Mr. Oaks and several of the teachers appeared on the scene pushing their way through the crowd and ordering everybody back to class.

Susan was in shock and I was too upset to realize what we were doing. I heard Dave's voice. "Dick, you'd better go back to class. We'll take over now."

Another voice, a woman's, said that the ambulance was on the way.

I started to pull away from Susan but her arms tightened suddenly around my neck. "Don't leave me," she cried. "Please, love, don't go away.

I looked around me at the crowd of teachers and the principal, all standing in stunned silence.

And I knew we had blown it.

The ambulance from San Francisco Emergency finally arrived, with two stewards and a medical resident, who gave Susan a shot to dull the pain. As they lifted her onto the gurney I took Susan's hand and faced Mr. Oaks. "I'm going with her, John. Will you arrange a pass or something for the rest of my classes?"

Standing a majestic six and a half feet, hair silver from thirty years of school problems, he looked at me intently. "I'll arrange it," he said. My eyes thanked him.

"I'll come to your office tomorrow and we'll talk."

"I think that would be a good idea," he said, signing a release paper for the ambulance steward.