A Woman at a Distance By Dreamspinner She picked at a fleck of gold leaf in the crotch of the letter 'Y' in DIARY. After a moment, she realized she was procrastinating. She opened the worn, leather-bound book. The words, "NOBDY BETR REED THIS BUT ME" were printed in black crayon on the flyleaf. She turned the page and read the first entry. Then she read another and another after that. In all her experience, she had never read such a private thing. "MY DIARY" had been difficult reading""at times almost unbearable. This will not be easy, she thought. But she was a nurse""she was duty bound to follow deathbed instructions. They had been clear enough. Transcribe it, the Writer had said. When you've finished, call my editor. He will come to your home at once. Give him the book and your transcription of it. And tell him what happened at the end. I've promised for years I'd give this damned thing to him""now he'll get it. Never mind the missing pages ... it'll make it more mysterious. He had laughed after he said that. Standing at his bedside, she had opened the book. The Writer reached out and grabbed her wrist. Don't read it here, Kathy, he had said, not one syllable. His parting words echoed: "Wait until you get home." The first entry was in the crude cursive of a fourth-grader. She began to type. May 9 1954 age 7. There was a tv show on tonit that had a woman and a man gettin ready to have a fight. They were flexin their muscls liek they were tryin to make the other one afraid. The womns muscl was bigger than the mans. this all happnd at my cousin phils house. His mom and dad were there and all my other cusins too. I don't think nobody notict I had a boner from sein it. Later im gonna ask dad why seein a ladys muscl makes it hard. September 20, 1956. There's a gril in my clas whos name is judy Binningham. Shes got muscly calfs and I seen her goin up the stares. Her muscls were bunchin up and I got a boner watchn em. September 30, 1957. Me and my cousin phil arm rassld his sister sue ellen together and we still couldt pin her arm down. Shes got real big muscles shes got from doin farm work just like her brothers. Phil included. After we couldnt beat her she made her arm muscle stick up and told me and phil to see if we cud make a dent in it by pushin on it. We cundnt. It felt like wood. Feelin it gave me a boner. Later I seen her makin muscles in front of the mirror in the hall actin like it wasnt no big deal at all if anybody seen her. It was for me tho. March 9 1958 age 11. Me and Nancy and steve were walkin to steves house and steve and nancy were makin muscles. I didn't want to show mine cause it was so little. Even nancys was bigger than mine. But later I wanted to ask nancy to show me her muscle but I couldt get up the nerve. April 8 1958. One of nancy bates friends came over to her house to vist today. She was real big. Nancy said she lived on a farm and I guess she must do a lot of work and she must be real proud of her muscl, cause one of the first thigns she did when we got up in my treehouse was show me and nancy how big her muscl was. I felt bad cause it was way bigger than mine but at the same time I got hard lookin at it. I dont think nancy or her frined saw my boner or if they did they didnt say nothin about it. March 5 1959. I wonder if im like other boys. Do they have Picture books in theire minds too? August 5, 1959. I saw Joyce Mollers calf muscl today. She was riding her bike and me and mom passed her. After we got by her I looked down and saw moms leg pushing on the gas pedal and I got hard. August 5, 1960: Thre's a woman that lives two houses down from me. She plays golf a lot and her legs are real strong looking. From walking on the golf course all day I guess. Anyway her legs are one of the best things to think about when I jack off. One time I saw her going up the steps of her front porch and her leg muscles got all bunchy. I like to think about the muscle sliding up on the other one and want to put my penis there. September 5, 1961: My first day at jr. hi was ok. I took a lot of pictures for my book, especially of this one girl whose name is Gretchen. Her calve muscles are really big. She's got a good tan, seeig as how summer's just ending, and I saw her leg muscles from one end of the hall. It was like she was a magnet and I was a nail. Before I knew it I ws right behind her lookin down at her legs. She had white sandals on and the thin straps going across the tops of her tan feet looked real good. But her legs I got to see them again when she was walking upstairs to the second floor. I wishe she'd like me put my dick right there where the muscle makes a corner when it gets flexed real tight. November 2, 1962: On the Three Stooges there was a part where a girl was dancing in front of Curly. Every time she twirled around her dress came up and I could see that she had really hard cornered calves like the kind that I've always wanted to rub my dick up and down on. January 3, 1964: There's twins in my church group. A boy named Karl and his sister named Kathy. They're not identical. But they look a lot alike. They've both got big muscles in their arms and their legs. You can't hardly tell them apart except for Kathy has long hair and tits and she's beter looking than karl. I can't hardly take my eyes off her when there's a group of us kids together. We're supposed to be talking about Jesus, but all I can think about is how hard her muscles look. She was talking last Sunday and moving her arms to make a point and the muscles in her arms were sliding up and down and up and down as she turned her wrists while she was talking. The minister called on me after Kathy was done talking. He said he wanted me to comment on what Kathy said and because I hadn't been payng attention to what she was saying all I had on my mind was her muscles. So I said I think she's probably real strong. All the other kids laughed and I felt like shit so much I ran out to my car. I was crying I was so embarrassed and trying to get the key in the door I didn't notice Kathy come up right behind me. she grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around real gentle and said I am strong. Instead of talking about how strong she is which is what I've wanted to do all along for as long as I can remember instead I got in my car and drove off and left her standing there with a real surprised look on her face. I'm never going back to church group, no matter what mom and dad say. They can't make me. I wish I would have asked Kathy to go get a coke or something with me and then we could have made out and I could have felt her muscles. But the way its going nothing like that will ever happen. I'm too chicken. June 11, 1964, age 16. Chad's mom has the biggest biceps I've ever seen on a woman. We were out in his back yard and she was sitting on a tire swing with her arms up at just the right angle holding on to the rope and they were just popping out. There was a vain running acrost the top of each one of her muscles. She acted like she didn't even know they were showing tht anyone could see them. She was laughing and talking with Chad and his sister while I was sitting there with my eyes glued to her muscle. Later on in the house Chad got the idea of tape measuring everybody's muscle, including his mom's. It was bigger than anybody's including Chad's dad's. I wouldn't let him measure mine on account of it was too small. I was really embarrassed but at the same time really excited. I jacked off on the way home thinking about her muscle and about had a wreck. January 21, 1965: I found all this stuff on the wall behind the head of my bed and couldn't figure out for the longest time what it was. At first I thought it was snot because its all brown and crusty looking. But then I figured it out. It's come from me jackin off in bed before I go to sleep. It's got to be from where it squirts out over my head. It gets all over my chest and my face and sometimes in my eyes and some of it must squirt over my head and hit the wall where it's built up. Now the whole wall's covered with it. I don't know why my mom hasn't said anything about it. I know she's seen it in there. There's no way she could miss it. May 15, 1965: My 18th birthday. Sue caught me today looking at a muscle magazine""or should I say a picture of a girl standing on tiptoe in a muscle magazine. The caption said something like 'if you're a man who is charmed by muscular legs like these, and would like to see more pictures like this, please send $5 to the following address.' That's all the farther I got when Sue tapped me on the shoulder. I about jumped out of my skin. She asked me if I like girls with legs like that and I lied and said no. She said too bad because that's what mine are like. Then she smiled and walked away. She was right. Hers do look like that. I wish I had the nerve to ask her out. She likes me, I know she does. October 11, 1966: there's this black girl in my English class with the biggest, most angular calves I've ever seen. She sits behind me and I keep looking under my arm to check them out. My dick gets hard as a broomstick and I have to wait for a minute before I stand up when the bell rings so everybody won't see it. She's really beautiful in the face, too. I'd like to fuck her but every time we pass in the hall and she gets this expression on her face like she'd like me to say something to her my mouth freezes solid and I can't make any words come out so I guess I won't be fucking her unless you count when I pretend my hand is her pussy. The teacher says she thinks I ought to give some serious thought to being a writer. She says I've got a unique way of describing things. I don't know what she means. September 19, 1967: A girl who lives in the dorm next to mine is named Lee. She's from Hawaii. She's got muscular calves and she's got long black hair and almond eyes and she's beautiful. We got drunk together last weekend and made out. I wanted to ask her to flex her calf muscles and let me feel them but I was too chicken even though I was really messed up. July 14, 1968, age 21: On this day it began. It all came clear after I had been with Lorraine. I had been troubled in the vague way as I had begun to be after we had been together. The moment I stepped onto the curb across from her apartment it came into my mind in a moment of perfect clarity. Lorraine took my cherry. It was the third time we had been together. She had begun to heave under me, reminding me of how it felt to be on a small boat when a storm was coming up. The pictures came unbidden to me then. The thick, muscled calves of Gretchen Canner came into my mind. I was in junior high school, and had the habit of stationing myself at the bottom of the stairs. I would lean against the radiator with one elbow, feigning nonchalance. But I was anything but nonchalant. I was there waiting""for Judy, Joyce, or Gretchen. Gretchen especially. Hers were the biggest calves of any of the girls in school. They were as big and hard- looking as those of Mr. Dunahy who lived next door. He used to play football for Notre Dame. Gretchen's calves pushed her up the stairs, bunching up, contracting, squeezing, bifurcated. And at the top of the stairs her legs would be swollen""this I knew and anticipated. Some mornings I awoke with this on my mind. I would have it on his mind at breakfast and I would be stiff at I ate my cereal, not listening to my mother as she admonished me not to look so thoughtful. "No one will know what nice boy you are if you look so serious," she had said. When the images came first into my mind I thought: this is a problem""Lorraine will surely sense I am not completely with her. She will stop then and ask me what is wrong and I will not be able to confess. Her rage will be terrible. She will accuse me of betraying her, saying that I should not need to think of anything else while we are together. She will demand I think only of her. She will be furious, and her fury will grow and she will strike me. I could not rid myself of these thoughts, even as I plunged in her again and again. Then, as I had feared, I softened. And Lorraine stopped then and asked what the matter was and I could not and would not tell her. June 16, 1969, advanced infantry training, age 22: It is very difficult to find a place to jack off when you are surrounded by men who are crammed together, their minds full of the fear of dying in the mud somewhere in a spot in Southeast Asia. No, it is impossible to conjure up any thoughts that would make one want to jack off. August 20,1970, age 23, leaving on a 707, bound for Da Nang. The stewardess has tears in her eyes and muscles on her arms. I would fuck her on the floor of this jet if I thought I could get it hard. If I come back I will fuck Lorraine's brains out if she is still there and think about this girl and all the others I've seen at a distance and to hell with what anyone thinks. Fuck it all. January 18, 1973: A girl with muscles came to model for Life Drawing today. I wanted to ask her out but didn't. I took my sketches of her home with me and laid them on the floor of my garret and splattered my come all over them. Thunder reminds me of terrible things. June 30, 1975: I saw a class in the schedule called Weighlifting for Women and went over to the gym to see what it was all about. My dreams are coming true. Muscle girls""what a concept! Am I not alone as I had thought? November 11, 1976: This morning when I was in the Federal Building I saw a woman pulling a heavy mail sack. She had to pull it backwards which made her calf muscles bulge. I stood watching her and I was almost made late for my appointment. April 1, 1978, age 31. To my great surprise, I saw a magazine on the newsstand today with a picture of a woman flexing her muscles. Her picture was right on the cover. Luckily, I was on the other side of town from where I live so I bought it. To think I've spent all these years wishing and praying for what now seems to be becoming a reality. God, won't you Grant me the luck of finding a woman like this, and when I've found her, give me the courage to speak what's been on my mind since I was seven? December 25, 1984: Pictures of musclewomen are everywhere. They are on TV, too. I am a partially happy man with a collection of images of muscular arms, legs, stomachs, shoulders, and asses in my mind. I am glad my penis is nearly indestructible! The question remains, however""why haven't I been with a woman since Lorraine? That was 1968""now it is 1984. It would be a Christmas present for me. But then again, I think not and know not why. May 5, 1988: There's a filing clerk at my ENT's office who has the biggest, most muscular calves I've ever seen. She's a large woman, but the muscularity of her calves is inconsistent with the tonus of the rest of her, which is rather fleshy""to put it kindly. At any rate, I saw her stand on her toes to put a file on the top shelf. I wanted nothing more than to ask her if she would give me a longer demonstration so I could make many pictures. But considering she's a scowling, mean-spirited bitch, I didn't. But that didn't stop me from scanning. They would measure twenty-three inches around at the very least. Too bad the rest of her isn't as hard. December 15, 1990: There's a bailiff at the County Court House with muscular calves. I took her picture when I had jury duty. I made sure I was the first one following her upstairs every time we came back from recess. Ha! I think she knows I like looking at her legs. The courtroom was on the third floor. I got a lot of good pictures. I'm going to look at them tonight. January 2, 1991: I made my first phone sex call this morning. I told the girl I was really nervous; that I had never done this before and that I had an unusual preference. She said not to be nervous, just go ahead and tell me. I said I like muscles on a woman""especially muscular calves. She said honey you got the right girl 'cause I could have been a running back. I immediately got a hardon and I asked her would she tell me about her calves. Before three minutes went by I came. She was really surprised. I told her I'd call her back and she said just ask for 'Charlotte.' Now I feel guilty, as if everyone who sees me will know. Its crazy, but that's how I feel. It's the same kind of feeling I get after I jack off only it's more intense. But I know in my heart of hearts, regardless of how guilty I feel at the moment, I will make many more, perhaps thousands more, calls to the one who says her name is Charlotte. Or if not her, others who say they have big muscles. They may be lying, but if they are convincing enough it will not matter. March 3, 1997: Soon I will be a published author. A letter came today saying that the manuscript for The Odd and the Unusual who Live Among Us had been accepted. However, happiness and fulfillment continue to elude me. February 2, 1999: There are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of images of muscular women, all arranged by category, posted on the Internet for anyone to see. Sex without human contact. An ideal situation for one such as myself. Now I have the answer to one of my most persistent questions""I am not alone in what I fancy. July 7, 2002: A woman at the pool is naturally muscled. She's one of those rare ones you see sometimes that has remarkable natural definition. A blond, about forty plus, her leg muscles show when she walks. She's got a little boy with her who I believe is her grandson and when she picks him up her arms ripple. Her biceps naturally bifurcated. I doubt if she's weight trained. I wonder if her husband has the nerve to tell her to flex for him. I wonder if he notices or cares as much as I do about this whole thing. He's lucky, I think. January 1, 2003: Today I was told I have cancer. The doctor said it was inoperable, that it would soon spread to my brain. If there were any loose ends, he said, I should tie them up. He said I would have six, maybe eight more months. By then, he said, I would be in a nursing home ... non compus mentus. I told him I wanted no heroic measures. I told him also that he could go fuck himself. June 18, 2003: "Please try to smile more," my mother said so long ago. Little did she know that her calves, too, were in my album. But this was not a woman seen at a distance""this was my mother. No matter. Her calves were the first I remember noticing in that special way. She had been a ballerina when she was younger and before she had met father. Many years and many pounds later she was heavier than when she was in her prime, but I had no definitive knowledge of that beyond what I had seen in pictures taken at her recitals and then during her performances. But hers were calves I had thought of many times. It was when she had elevated on one foot to retrieve something from the top shelf in the kitchen when I was eating my cereal. That's when I had first noticed the surging in my loins""that was the moment it had all begun, but I didn't realize the implications of it until later. Her calf captured my attention and my imagination. I remember it enlarging; swelling and changing its shape, making corners appear where before was curve. I had seen it before, when mother climbed the stairs or reached high when she was hanging laundry on the line to fasten a clothespin. But that morning it had affected me strangely. The sight of those sibling muscles, one aside the other, threatening""it seemed to me""to burst through the skin of her lower leg. That was the moment. She had had a difficult time reaching whatever it was she was trying to reach, and as she stretched, the muscle tightened. On that day, I stiffened for the first time at the sight of it and for reasons I did not understand it made me afraid. My fear was made worse when she had gotten what she was after and complained about the cramp in her calf. She had pulled her skirt up, put her foot on the chair next to mine and massaged the muscle where it had made a corner moments before. I remember it as if it was yesterday. A spoonful of cereal was halfway to my mouth. I felt as if I was turned to stone and would never move again. Mother, who of course had no appreciation for my dilemma, snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Hello?" she called. "Earth to sonny boy," she had said. "Come in!" she called. And she laughed. She had no idea how exquisite was my situation at the moment. My hardon would get me in trouble""or so I thought. That was all I knew then and I wished I had been far away""that a great distance instead of inches was between me and her muscle. Then later, whenever I was preoccupied with my mother's muscular legs, I became irritable and it caused great arguments between us that perplexed her. That was what I thought of in the moment I stepped on the curb as I was leaving Lorraine's apartment, so long ago. In my sophistication, I knew what the unbidden images of Gretchen Canner's bulging calves, my mother's calves, and all the rest""all the pictures I had taken with my mind of women at a distance""the one who twirled, dancing on an episode of the Three Stooges so her muscular calf showed each time the hem of her dress lifted; the women I had seen sitting at outdoor cafes with their legs crossed, the foot that touched the floor pointing its toe, causing its calf to slide up the leg and make a corner; all these and more""in my sophistication, I knew what they meant. They had come unbidden into my mind no matter how lustily Lorraine heaved beneath me, groaning. In fact, they seemed to be more insistent if she was especially aroused. In time I learned these images would always come and I learned too that instead of attempting to banish them (which would make me soften) I had to conjure them up and focus on them to the exclusion of the sights and sounds and smells of her. It was the only way I could get my orgasm to be made manifest. I fancied it was a shy beast that had to be coaxed out of its lair. It would not come out if the thing it wanted was too close. I had to hide her under a cloak of images""the orgasm had to be deceived. It was a strange thing, this orgasm of mine. It had to be deceived. Fooled. Hoodwinked. Until the last moment""then I could show what was there and by then it was too late. It was out and the images had served their purpose. The orgasm was out and could not be put back in and the images subsided. I closed my book. Yes, I knew what it meant""the pictures were an antidote. July 12, 2003: I am aged 56. The cancer is in my brain and it has become difficult to concentrate. I can no longer hold a pen and am grateful for my computer that has served me well even though it is all I can do to peck the keys, one by one. This machine has been a friend, finding pictures of muscular women, tirelessly, effortlessly, rapidly doing my bidding. All it needed was to be told to SEARCH. Like many other men, I made a habit of remembering women. Whether it was inborn or the result of conscious effort is not important. What is important is that when I retired for the evening, I opened my catalogue of visual memories and grew stiff as I perused the images contained therein. When I was most honest with myself I knew I was likely not unique, but I considered myself odd nevertheless, inasmuch as my memories were of muscles I had seen on the arms and legs of girls and women I saw at a distance. Now I lie in bed worrying about different things. When I was preoccupied with the memory of mother's great muscular legs, I became irritable and took it out on her. It caused great arguments between us that perplexed her. I love those two sentences. If I were to live, it would use them in a story or a poem. August 10, 2003: To my utter astonishment, the evening shift nurse at this godforsaken place is the same Kathy who was in my church group years ago, the same Kathy I left standing in the parking lot with a puzzled expression on her face. She's aged, of course; grayer and heavier, but still wonderfully muscled. I recognized her the moment she came in my room. It must have been my name that rang a bell with her""I know it wasn't my appearance. The cancer has wasted me and if a person hadn't known me all along they surely wouldn't recognize me after nearly forty years. She asked was I the same person who used to live in Kirkwood in 1964 and who was in the youth group at the Webster Groves Christian Church. I said yes, I was that same person. She sat on the bed opposite mine and said she had thought about the time I left her standing in the parking lot many times in the years since it happened. She didn't understand why I bolted, she said. If I could, she asked, would I please explain it to her. It had troubled her then and it troubled her now, she said. She said it made her feel awful. "I thought you didn't like me because of my big muscles," she said. It was obvious, but I asked anyway. "You know I have only a few months to live?" She nodded. "Until this moment," I said, "what's written in these pages was for my eyes and my eyes only. Now, all things considered; because of my situation and because its you, Kathy ... " I shut up and handed her my diary and told her what I wanted done. End of Part One