Drummond stopped just inside the door, pressing his back against the heavy wooden panel, and watched her. She was aware of his presence, but they both pretended he had caught her unawares, and he stood watching her dance, filling his heart with her beauty.

Her movement spoke her desire, the deep, rich, strong currents of her sexuality... the undeniable affirmation of life that drove her relentlessly. It also spoke her pain, the gut-wrenching betrayal that her rape meant to her, the loss of innocence, the fact that she would never be able to trust, to love without reservation again... the infinite sorrow of what that took away from her love with Drummond, from the joy she took from their coupling.

It also spoke the lesser sadness of what she had lost in the immolation of her innocence... the joy she had taken in just being a sexual creature... the teasing manner of dress, the sexy walk, the casual display of her body... she could never again feel that joy without also feeling the horrid, dirty, dark, destructive lust that had driven the alien males to invade her body... to take by force what they might very well have gotten voluntarily had they only been the kind of people Dolly could love.

Then suddenly she was in his arms, the heat of her body through the thin fabric of her clothes thrilling him, setting him vibrating in time with... with the lights or something, he couldn't tell.

Then suddenly he could, and their heartbeats fell into an easy synchronization as she pulled herself up by her grip on his neck and battened onto his mouth with hers. When they had to breathe again, he realized he had his arms around her ribs, crushing her to him, supporting her weight, and he let her back down onto her own feet and kissed her forehead, brushing aside a wisp of her hair to do so.

"I'm sorry, Love. I never meant... " she put her fingertips over his mouth.

"Shh." she said. "It's OK. I should have known better. I just... " he felt her shudder. "Please," she begged suddenly, "Just hold me!" And he took her desperately into his embrace and let them fall together onto the couch in the suite's sitting room.

Not for the first time, he blessed the great difference in their sizes, because it let him fold her up in his arms and completely shield her with his body. People wondered how humanity had selected for such a great difference in body size by sex. This was it: certain varieties of men needed to shelter their beloved women, and some women needed to be sheltered.

He held her tight and rocked gently while she wept. Although he would never have wished her the pain, he was at last given some small measure of peace by being allowed to comfort her.

After awhile, Dolly wound down and was merely vibrating at her normal rate rather than the hyper frequency she'd been at for the longest time. They talked about the inconsequential things that matter so much to people making a life together. Did she want Drummond to take her car in for its oil change? And did it go to the Porsche dealer or to European Motor Cars? (Drummond could never remember.) Would he express regrets for her on several social invitations? Regarding several others: would he bring the materials to her from home so she could hand-write her own replies? Did she want to join the Zoo this year? (Strange after two months to be thinking about annual commitments, but his membership was up and, if it was to be renewed, it would have to be in both their names.) What did she think about putting impatiens in the annual bed by the kitchen door? He'd always had geraniums or impatiens there, but would she prefer something else... pansies or something?

"Oh, I almost forgot," he said after a brief, companionable silence. "Guess who I ran into in the cafeteria?"

"Out of the sixteen million people in Ohio? I haven't got a clue."

"Xe." He didn't know any other way to put it.

"Oh." And she didn't really know what to say about that.

"She was mad at me because she thought I was keeping her from visiting you."

"Actually, it was me."

"Oh." And he really didn't know what to say about that. Except maybe, "I think Sappho finally got her to admit that they have a thing going there."

"Really?"

"Yeah. She was lookin' pretty good. A lot better than the last time we saw her." At the apartment a couple of miles up Alum Creek Drive from the campus that the two former dollies had shared briefly and where so many of the battles between them had started. The night Gabrielle had decided to make a break with Xe.

Xe had been trashed, in old and dirty, ragged clothing -- hole-y jeans, torn and dirty t-shirt, down-at-the-heels moccasins, her hair unkempt, her face and hands unwashed. Had she been a man, she would have had a four-day growth of scraggly beard, she'd looked that seedy.

"You think so, huh?"

"Yeah. It was pretty obvious. Sappho was letting Xe drive her bike."

"The Beamer?" Dolly squeaked. Drummond nodded. "Wow! It must be serious!"

"So. Will you see her? There must have been something on her mind for her to want to see you."

"But it took me getting raped and almost killed for her to come around."

"Well... . Be fair. You haven't exactly been easy to get to see here lately. We've been out of the country a lot. But maybe it did take all that for her to realize that she should come see you. You never tried to find her."

"No, I haven't. I'm not so sure how I feel about her having come here now. I did leave her for a reason."

"True... And I told her that. But she's here now... or, at any rate, she was here earlier." He brushed the hair out of her eyes. She looked up at him from her hands, that had been tangling their fingers in a rhythm with her doubts. "Sorry. I don't mean to be pushing you. But, if it won't hurt anything, it might... ."

"It might do some good." She nodded.

"Think about it?"

"Yeah. I will," she said softly. Then she slowly reached her hand out and brushed aside a lock of his hair.

He turned his head to kiss the palm of her hand, then took the hand in his and held it as he kissed the thick flesh at the base of her thumb, taking it in his mouth to nibble a little.

He turned her hand over and gently kissed the back of it -- reversing the normal flow of things. Usually, one began with the dry and remote skin of the back of the hand and progressed to the soft, tender, sensitive flesh of the palm after. But he wanted to be sure of something, He looked up from her hand, searching her face to some clue as to what she was feeling.

She was leaned against the back of the couch, her head turned somewhat away, her other hand shading her closed eyes, a neutral expression on her lips. Then one of her green eyes opened and she peered down at Drummond and burst out laughing. She collapsed into his arms, helpless with laughter.

Then she stopped and smacked Drummond in the chest with her free hand.

"You told Sappho I went down on you?"

"Hell, Dolly, the whole furkin' Center saw it on videotape. Anyway, I thought you were cute, the way you got mad about it. What?" he protested as she hit him again, laughing, "You were too!"

"I was not! I. Am. Not. Cute."

"Bullshit! You are the cutest thing on two legs and don't you try to deny it, Gabrielle Francesca Dolly!" He started tickling her ribs, and she let him, trying to get him back before she dissolved in helpless giggles.

And when they stopped for a moment to catch their breath, they looked into each other's eyes and saw there the beginning of a healing that they would be afraid to speak of for some time to come -- afraid of a jinx if they talked of it. But they knew it was there, and they both felt like they could relax a little -- just a little -- knowing it was there.

Later that evening, he laid her down on the soft sheets of her bed and made slow, tender, gentle love with her -- with her, not to her -- and the healing went a little farther. Her crowing cries of release were a benison to him, a balm for his tortured soul. And before she slept at long last, replete, in his arms, he whispered in her ear:

"I love you, Gabrielle Dolly."

THE END

Sinfonia de la Inamorata
An Interlude for Sweet Lovin' | Previous: IV: Duets ... First Movement