Free Secret Dreams by Keith Korman Page B

Where were the others? The hairs rose on her calves., She took a step back from the jug, shading her eyes against the glare to peer into the gloom under the tree. The figure stirred, Slowly it stood, shaggy haunches unfolding from the long grass at the trunk, hooves crumbling clods of dirt. His tail swished back and forth. He had his man-thing out —coming, coming for her.
    She ran, her shout swallowed up in a deaf sky. She noticed a little cloud, all alone in the blue: a tender silky nimbus racing with her…. And then another cloud descended down upon it. The dark cloud spread out its gray cloak, gathering in the silky one. Why see this now? Her shoulders no longer ached, her wet front warm as summer rain. And she suddenly felt hungry for a piece of roast meat between her teeth, the juice running over her chin.
    She stole a glance over her shoulder. He fell over himself as he came on. Above her, the two clouds were tangled. She stumbled, her body hot and sweaty in the soft dirt. She wasn’t fleeing from him anymore…. His breath blew against her ear and smelled of mown grass. She squirmed, struggling in the dirt to make the taking sweeter. To make him want it more. Her rags ripped and shredded; the sun shone on the backs of her thighs. She raised her bottom for him, and he hugged her to the ground. Beside the fig tree her jug had fallen over, and the water from the water jug gurgled into the soft earth. She howled, glad no one could hear her cry. She was open and ready…. Beg me for it, Picus. I’ll laugh in your face tonight!
    The old man came back to his study,- he touched Pans smooth bronze skin. How much he wished he had that huge manness now, possessing the great swollen heat of it. He remembered it as a separate part of him, an animal, distinctly not human, with its own needs and wants. Then came a stab of burning envy. That horny goat with the smooth green skin had owned his manhood for three thousand years and would own it for another three. But not himself. Not Herr Professor of Maresfield Gardens, not Herr Doktor of 19 Berggasse, not the lover of Martha, the father of his children. Not his mortal, human self who possessed the man-thing for a brief score of years, a poor little tail, withered and flaccid in the end.
    How irrelevant an old man’s penis was — compared to what it had always been. An old man’s stick, no good for women and hardly even good to pee with. Then, last of all, becoming a leaky faucet, a constant drip you couldn’t ignore.
    Now he bore his wife’s kind smiles when she came to him in bed; the last time he had gone to her was almost a year ago. At eighty-two! How cocky he felt that day. A swift year later he had waned for good. While in the darkness of each night he felt her push her warm bottom up against his cold flanks. What did she think of then? His younger days? Then the kindness of her smiles killed him. Much too late now to tell the world that the envy of an old man for his younger self was the last bitter breath of life. That — and your wife drifting off to sleep with an old woman’s sigh …
    In a flicker of torment, he saw her bottom as it looked in her youth, round and firm like a pear that he could split open with his fingers whenever he wanted and devour it. A lump rose in his throat, and he feared he might cry. Cry right there in his sunny morning office, in front of Lün. Dogs understood about crying, whining mournfully or coming over to snuffle your leg. And Lün sensed his mood, nosing it out of the air like a smell. Even his own Lün … She shifted her furry head off the carpet and stared at him with great brown watchful eyes. The dull pain in his jaw returned to trouble him. Somehow he had let the statue of Pan fall on its face. He managed a dry chuckle, then stood the god upright and drew Astarte alongside. Pan with his great erection and, beside him, Astarte — showing the world her voluptuous vagina. He