Beyond the Ken

Ichabod watched her from across the richly appointed table as she laughed and talked with Professor Donagan. Her long tresses were up, exposing her smooth, pale shoulders. The tops of her breasts, like heavy cream in color and texture, jiggled with her laughter and he felt an uncomfortable pressure building in his groin.

Coughing, he looked away, turning back to the Professor's wife on his right. She was still talking, something about crime in the city, and he nodded, feigning an interest he didn't feel.

"My dear boy," she went on, "it's gotten so civilized people can scarcely walk the streets!" She paused dramatically, obviously anticipating a response.

"Well," he said, "I believe that with the meticulous utilization of modern, scientific techniques, it will be possible to detect and apprehend the perpetrators, and, eventually, through study and the application of the modern mental sciences, prevent such aberrations altogether."

She beamed at him, and he smiled back, lifting his glass. Did he really believe what he'd just said? There'd been a time, not very long ago, when he had, without doubt or question. Now, he found himself less certain. Perhaps there was more involved than the measurable, the controllable. Forces and factors beyond the understanding or influence of science. A disturbing thought.

He glanced at Katrina again, and found her returning his gaze, a slow, secret smile on her red lips. He felt the heat rushing to his throat.

Officially, they were engaged, she sharing his apartment, with her own sleeping quarters, of course. She also functioned as his assistant, an apt pupil, soaking up instruction readily and eagerly. She was not squeamish in the least, an unusual trait in a female. To tell the truth, he did his best to put on a brave, stoic face in her presence, so as to not reveal his own aversion to the messier aspects of the work.

They had kissed, had held hands, and once, she'd run her soft hand under his shirt and upon his bare chest. The memory sent a shiver up his spine, and he shifted in his chair. He knew she wanted more, but he found himself almost paralyzed with shyness and self-doubt when he considered moving beyond their tentative courting.

Damn it! Why was he so sure of himself in his work and yet such a bumbling fool when it came to love? He'd lain with a woman before and he knew enough of the anatomy and process of the act. He felt a strong attraction and affection for her. And soon enough, they'd be married and a consummation of their union would be expected and proper. So why couldn't he bring himself to just do it? What point to waiting? He was a man of science, with no use for the supersticious moralizings of the religious or otherwise socially conventional. And she was a witch, a pagan, with no such compunctions of her own. She'd confessed to having had other lovers and seemed confused and hurt at his reticence. He feared losing her over the issue.

Later, as they strolled the several blocks back to the apartment, her arm looped through his, he spoke of work and of the weather and of politics, of anything and everything but what was foremost in his mind. Which was, of course, what it would feel like to press his aching cock in between her soft, firm breasts and rub himself there until he exploded all over them. The image, which persisted in arising unbidden, unnerved him and he covered his anxiety with a stream of almost desperate conversation.

After a nightcap before the fire, he leaned down to kiss her goodnight and she drew him down beside her on the couch. Her tongue crept shyly out and probed timidly for entry at his lips, and he opened the smallest bit, allowing it partial entrance. It was enough to render him dizzily weak and painfully hard in an instant. She moaned in his mouth and sought to draw him deeper. He pulled back, breaking contact.

"I...I should go to bed," he stammered. Her breath was agitated and her color high. Her bosoms rose and fell maddeningly.

"Ichabod..."

"It's an early morning and...and we've got much work waiting for us. I...sleep well, my love."

He left her then, silently cursing himself as he strode to his room and locked the door behind him. Idiot! He raised his hand to the handle, hesitated, then let it fall away.

He undressed and changed into his nightclothes in the dark then lay upon the bed, staring into the gray half-light. He tried to concentrate on on his latest studies, to mull the details over in his mind as he drifted toward sleep. Instead, his thoughts kept returning to her; her cleavage, her lips, her tongue, her small waist, her...

Sighing violently, he reached down and undid his breeches, seized his erection and massaged it firmly.

The tip was wet and slick, and he he spread the moisture over and around the head and shaft. His mouth fell open and his eyes closed. As he stroked and pumped, he indulged his favorite fantasy again, imagined himself thrusting fully into that warm, deep hollow between her breasts. He felt her swollen, pink nipples under his fingers as he cupped her, and heard her soft groans and sighs of pleasure as he moved in and out of her tight warmth, and he felt his spend rising like liquid fire from his taut balls, up through his shaft, into his pulsing head, then, and then, oh sweet mother of God, out and out and out, in one convulsive burst after another!

He gasped to catch his breath, feeling exhausted and euphoric and ashamed, as he always did. Ashamed? It was true, and now he paused to consider this illogical sensation. Could it be he'd internalized some of his father's attitudes towards sex and sin and punishment, even as he consciously rejected such nonsense? He supposed he must have, otherwise why would he experience sensations of guilt and shame over what was a perfectly normal, blameless biological urge and function?

He certainly hadn't gotten any such notions from his mother, a free spirit, one of the innocents, a witch, he supposed it was true. Like Katrina.

He rose, fastened his pants, lit the lamp, and retrieved a handkerchief from the dresser. He set about cleaning up the mess he'd made, carefully wiping up the splatters of seminal fluid on the bed and floor. He knew the volume of the average ejaculation to be relatively small, but there seemed to be gobs of it everywhere.

When he was done, he hid the handkerchief under the mattress to be disposed of later and washed up at the basin. And finally slept.

The next morning they took their tea and toast in silence. He buried himself in the newspaper and she gazed into her cup as if trying to read something there.

At the laboratory their interactions were limited to necessary, professional communications. Ichabod went out of his way to avoid any physical or eye contact. Even Ian, the junior assistant, noticed the palpable tension.

"Is everything alright?" He asked finally. "Not anything I've done?" The young man was ever eager to please, sometimes, like now, annoyingly so, thought Ichabod.

"No, nothing you've done," he snapped. Later, as he saw him making conversation and joking with Katrina, saw her laugh and cast shy glances at him, he considered dismissing him regardless. Damned upstart. But could he fairly blame him? Or her? Of course not. It was his own fault.

That evening as they dined alone, he struggled to muster the courage to do what he realized he must.

"Katrina," he said finally, "I love you. More, I...I want you. As a man wants a woman." She looked into his eyes beseechingly. "More than you'll ever know," he added hoarsly.

"Show me, Ichabod. Show me now how much you want me."

He rose, setting his napkin aside, and walked to her chair. She looked up at him, then down, and placed her palm on the front of his pants. His cock jerked and began to swell under her touch, and she whispered, "Oh darling, I want you, too. I need you. For so long now." Her hand moved on him slowly as she spoke, coaxing him to full engorgement, exciting him madly.

He reached down and pulled her up by her shoulders, more roughly than he'd intended, but she rose without resistance, letting her head fall back with a sigh.

He fell on her exposed throat, kissing it, working his way down to her breasts. The skin under his lips was so very warm, so very soft. He raised his hands up to cup her, squeezing tenderly. She moaned quietly and pressed herself into his hands and he almost spent in his pants.

He groaned. "Let's go to the bed." He led her to his room and lit the lamp, turning the flame low. They undressed silently. He was finished before she was, and he sat on the edge of the bed watching her undo and remove one article after another until she was down to her petticoat.

She approached the bed, standing directly in front of him, and he reached up and carefully unlaced her bodice, his hands trembling. It fell away, her breasts spilling out before him, and he seized her waist, pulling her closer. He pressed his face to her and began nuzzling, kissing, then licking and sucking, bringing her nipples to hard, swollen points. She ran her hand through his hair, eventually gripping handfuls almost painfully.

"You like that, don't you, my love?" she murmured. He moaned his assent without looking up. She let him continue for a while longer, until they were both breathing heavily and she felt she could stand on her shaky legs no longer. Then she gently but insistently pulled away and removed her petticoat, letting it drop around her feet and stepping out.

He cast his eyes lower and then back up to her face, his expression one of pleading torment. He reached out and took her hand, drawing her down beside him.

He slid a hand between her legs. She opened wider and covered his hand with hers, guiding him. The feel of her wet heat, her folds, her tightness made him feel frantic with need. He rose up over her, guiding himself into her, but she stopped him.

"Wait."

He started to speak, to question, perhaps to beg, but she shhhed him with a deep kiss and nudged him onto his back. His cock rose up between them and she bent to examine it before taking it into her hand.

"Katrina, I..." he began.

"This first," she said, and leaned over him so her breasts hung over his erection and pushed them together, enclosing him. She began moving, rubbing him slowly and tightly as she rose and descended. When his cock-head emerged on the downstroke, she took it into her lips and sucked, then let it retreat back into her cleavage.

He began thrusting, gingerly at first, then more boldly and faster, gasping. He found her nipples with his hands and fondled them roughly. Suddenly, he gave a loud cry, his hips rising from the bed. She sucked his head in deeply, then, as his cum began to gush out, she drew her mouth back and let it shoot out over her breasts. He stared, eyes wide, shaking, mouth agape, as his orgasm roared through him, as burst after burst flew.

When he fell back, stunned, she slid up to lay beside him, smiling and wiping herself with the bedclothes.

"How...How did you..."

"I'm a scientist," she interrupted. "Simple observation and deduction." She kissed him, and placed his hand on her breast. "And now," she said softly, "it will be better. Longer."

He wasn't sure he could. "You know, the male of the species requires, uh, some time to recover and achieve a tumescent state after..." She kissed him again, slipping her tongue inside his mouth, muffling his words, and playing with his nipple with her wet, nimble fingers. Amazingly, he could already feel himself responding, so he stopped trying to talk and focused on her breasts and the slippery slit between her thighs. He moved his fingers in and around her opening as he sucked her nipples and soon she started to shudder and moan. When she bucked and began tightening around his fingers rhythmically, he found he couldn't wait another moment, was fully erect and ready, and he pushed himself up above her and forced his way inside.

"Yes," she said, almost dreamily, "love me, Ichabod."

He did, the sensation of her cunt surrounding his cock as they moved so amazing, so overwhelming, he felt he couldn't possibly last another stroke. And then his pleasure would plateau, and he would thrust again and again, reaching an even higher level.

When she cried out and began thrusting back as if insane, squeezing him strongly, then relaxing around him as he drew out and plunged in, he lost himself in a total release beyond any he'd yet known. My GOD, he thought, I shall surely die, not caring if he did.

"Oh, oh my sweet Katrina," he said as they lay together in the darkness. The lamp had since burned dry.

"Yes?" She shifted her head upon his chest and held his hand tighter.

"I think there are some things beyond the ken of science. Some other...dimension, if you will, beyond the purely physical and measurable." He spoke it as a dark confession.

"Yes," she sighed, smiling, "there are."