A Woman at a Distance
by Dreamspinner
Part Two


The editor closed MY DIARY. He picked absentmindedly at the same fleck of gold
leaf in the crotch of the 'Y' Kathy had found three nights earlier. Then he
stopped and stared at the nurse sitting across the table.

She flushed.

"Tell me exactly what happened," the editor said.

"I granted what I thought might be his fondest wish," she said. Her eyes
welled up. "As you must realize, he had yearned for real human contact for
years."

"Yes, I realize that," he said, holding MY DIARY in the air, wiggling it.

"God knows why he couldn't bring himself to allow it to happen except for with
that one girl, Lorraine, back in 1968," she said. "He must have had any number
of offers."

"I'm sure he did, Kathy."

She wiped away a tear. "But, for whatever reason, he didn't. He settled for
fantasies instead""fantasies about women he saw from a distance""a block away
or eighteen inches from his face on his computer screen. The fact is that they
weren't ... " words failed her.

"They weren't real," he said, patting MY DIARY. "They were fantasies."

"Yes," she said, "They were. But given the fact that he was dying, and because
I ... "

"Say it," he said.

"Because I was one of those ... that I was the kind ... actually I was one he
fantasized about ... "

"Your muscles," he said. It wasn't really a question.

To the nurse, it sounded more like a request. "My muscles." She pushed up her
sleeve and bent her arm. Her biceps rose up under the skin and held it tight
for a few seconds. Then she straightened out her arm and folded her hands in
her lap and fell silent.

"So you gave him what you thought he wanted."

She nodded.

"Tell me exactly."

"Two nights ago, I went into his room. He was tapping on his laptop. I saw
what he had written""it was gibberish. Just random letters. I could tell in a
moment he was near death."

"And?"

Kathy looked out the window. "I asked him if he wanted to see my muscle." She
turned back to the editor. Kathy wiped another tear. "The Writer nodded. I
closed the door and pushed up my sleeve and did like this." She pushed up her
sleeve and bent her arm. Her biceps swelled again. She straightened out her
arm.

"Then what?"

"Then he motioned for me to come closer. I did, still with my arm bent and the
muscle popping. He motioned for me to come closer still, and kept on until my
muscle was just inches from his face."

"Continue."

"He gazed at it as if he was in rapture. I could almost feel his eyes on it. I
would have expected the cancer would have made him impotent, but it hadn't. He
had a huge erection."

The editor raised his eyebrows.

"I looked at it and then I looked him in the eyes and he nodded his head and
... "

"Go on."

"I pulled the sheet away and jacked him off with my other hand. He had an
orgasm. When the aftershocks passed, so did he ... with a smile on his face. I
knew he was dead but I took his pulse anyway."

"Was he?"

Kathy nodded.

The editor hesitated. "And your needs?" he asked. "What of your needs?"

She sucked in a breath. "My needs?"

The editor held steady. "Yes, your needs, Kathy."

The nurse began to weep. "I'm sorry," she said between sobs. "Death doesn't
usually affect me this way."

"How do you understand why this man's passing has?" The editor knew how to be
provocative, and he judged that this was the time. "You hadn't seen him for
years, Kathy. Why would his death bother you so?"

"A lot you know!"

"Tell me, dammit!"

"I'd kept a torch burning for him all these years!" Kathy suddenly realized
they had been yelling, and she quieted. "Even though I knew he couldn't hear
me I talked to his dead body anyway. I pretended he heard me. I told him how
sad I was we hadn't gotten together back then, when we were juniors in high
school. He was so painfully shy. I remember that incident he wrote about in
his diary""the one where he said he thought I must be strong. Damn! Even then,
I wished for a boy who would admire my muscles.

"I told him I hadn't ever found a boy that would do what I wanted in all the
years since then. Even as he lay there dead, I felt a strange kinship with
him""as he had longed for the feel of a woman's muscles in his hands, so had I
wanted a man's appreciation of mine."

The editor waited. The writer in him hoped Kathy would summarize it all in the
next sentence. He wasn't disappointed.

"Yes, my needs were satisfied, too," she said.

He nodded.

The editor ran his hands over MY DIARY. He felt its heft. He looked at Kathy.
"You know," he said, "I think there's a great story here."

"You do?"

"Yes, I do."

"Why?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Well, MY DIARY is a tragedy, if what's written here is a true representation
of what his life must have been like""and I believe it is. Tragedies make the
best stories. The Writer was an isolated man.

"And, his 'preference' needn't have caused him so much pain. That's the key."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He was terrified that he'd be found out""that 'someone' would learn that he
liked muscular women. As I read it, the fear of disclosing what he liked was
the thing that kept him away from it. You see?"

"No, I don't."

The editor drew in a long breath and blew it out again. Then he spoke. "So
what if he liked women with muscles? I know for a fact that hundreds of
thousands""perhaps millions of us like muscles on a woman."

"How do you know?"

"Do you have any idea how many websites there are that feature muscular
women?" Kathy shook her head slowly. "I don't know the exact figure," the
editor said, "but I do know for a fact that one of the biggest gets nearly
three-quarters of a million hits each and every day. Are you hearing me,
Kathy?"

"Are you saying that you're one of those men ... one of those that like
muscular women?"

"Yes, but that's not the point, which is this: this man""a man my age""lived
his life out as a recluse. And he didn't need to. He could have had exactly
what he wanted. Why he didn't just go ahead and get it, God only knows. But he
didn't and he died without ever having what he wanted most""up until the
bittersweet end, that is."

She was suddenly very thoughtful. "I'm beginning to see what you mean. But how
could he have overcome his ... resistance ... is that the word?"

"Yes."

"That's the question: 'How?' How, indeed. As guarded about this as he seemed
to be, I don't think he could've gotten up the nerve to talk to an analyst
about it."

Kathy stood up. "Maybe he was fated," she said. "Fated. Or maybe destined is
the better word""destined never to know women""really know them. Only to
collect 'pictures' of women at a distance, and to have sex with them from a
distance."

She was paraphrasing the Writer, and the editor knew it. "If you don't mind,
Kathy, may I use a slight variation of what you said as a title? He wanted me
to be his biographer."

She smiled. She was very beautiful and knew it. "I'd be flattered. Will you
let me read it?"

"Actually, I was thinking we might collaborate," he said. "It would be
important to include the muscular woman's point-of-view, don't you think?" he
asked, wiggling MY DIARY in the air again. "After all ... " He let his voice
trail off.

Kathy smiled again. She knew he knew she would say 'yes.'

The editor stood. He reached in his pocket and brought out his card. "Here,"
he said.

Kathy took his card. She bit her lower lip. "Consider this," he said. "Maybe
if other men similarly disposed know that a muscled woman such as you longs
for the feel of a man's admiring hands, they can be spared the agony our poor
friend endured."

She nodded.

He made for the door. When his hand was on the knob he turned and made his
final point. He knew she only needed to hear it said out loud. "Consider the
other side of it, Kathy."

"The other side of it?"

"Yes. This story might prompt hesitating men to act, and if they do, women
such as you might ... "

She got it. "Maybe so," she said. "I'll think it over."

"Give me a call when you're ready."

"I will," she said. They shook hands.

The editor spoke into his pocket recorder. "Today I met the woman named Kathy
who will figure prominently in my biography of the Writer. She has strong
hands and a beautiful smile. She knew the Writer years ago when they were very
young and will have many important things to say about him and much to say
about other things."

He clicked off his recorder and drove along and thoughts came into his mind.

He thought about how the Writer had noticed what he had""that when a woman
sits with her legs crossed she often points the toe that touches the floor and
that causes the calf to slide up and make a corner where before there was only
curve, and he recalled that when Kathy crossed her legs she had pointed the
toe that touched the floor and her calf had squeezed tight and made a corner,
and he recalled how her thick hand had felt in his and he hardened as he drove
along.

The end