To Dream of Pauline in the Flesh

“What if you did not have a boyfriend and we could dance the whole, whole, whole, night long…” -Ani Difranco

She danced about as if a jig existed only in her mind. Her hips swayed freely: tipsy as she was, drunk on the giddiness of this, their first hangout. Pauline was unique. She operated as if a tune stuck on replay in her mind possessed her. Even her words sung about in slightly out-of-tune rhythms, the meanings of which also were mysterious and captivating to the only onlooker she was dancing for, Felicia, alone as they were together in her tiny, airless living room.

Everywhere Felicia looked she saw evidence of this inner fervor of Pauline’s. Her table was laden with books propped up against unfinished sketches, propped up against smudges of Conte crayon stains as well as other spilled paint and watermarks.

As Pauline’s head obviously spun on wine and the excitement of being the entertainer, Felicia’s own mind and body began to sting with the age-old familiar pangs of the unknown and desire for this half-crazed woman at her side.

Only Pauline’s bed, in one corner, was plain. It was made staunchly and tucked in with hospital corners with one mere teal blue sheet. A single white pillow stuck out at an angle, the only hint of disorder there. Felicia noted that the array of her bed was distinctly different from all of the chaos which surrounded Pauline, this mystical-seeming woman.

“I wish women took better care of themselves,” Pauline began, “I never even leave for the mailbox without my face on.” She spoke, referring to her makeup. Her face indeed looked painted on with a similar love of color and fine lines as evident on her other canvasses.

“And, you look soooo fabulous, really beautiful, I luv your strong arms,” she went on to coo at Felicia.

Felicia blushed. Her arms were her weak point she had always thought- they were just beginning to show the signs of her age in their pliability. That and her belly zone. Felicia was so sensitive about her middle and as her mind wandered to whether or not Pauline had noticed this on her, Felicia dared to glance sideways at the many fine places all up and down the body of the taller, more willowy Pauline.

“I believe in moving forward in life always,” Pauline.

“Yes, I do not fear change as much as I fear stagnation,” Felicia.

“Oooh yes, “ Pauline said, with more cooing.

“I always need more cool friends!” they chorused.

But deep down, Felicia knew she was the only one of the two with wetness brewing in between her thighs. While something was startling about the freshness and candor of this Pauline, Felicia knew better than to assume that her newer friend was indeed hot to be in that pristinely made bed with her.

They went on to talk more casually about different workouts. Pauline oddly did not like yoga although she seemed the bigger hippy while Felicia who was more glitzy, perhaps, swore by it. Pauline wanted a hard, toned body. Felicia wanted the one Pauline already had to be splayed out before her.

Pauline’s core was strong. Her arms and legs are smooth and without a speck of fat while maintaining a certain curve. Likewise, her thighs were small yet touching ever so slightly in the softest way, almost like near her most intimate area she was made of sensual tissue paper softness. This zone and the rear view of Pauline’s ass in the crudely scissor-cut denim shorty shorts that Pauline apparently wore only around her home, was enough to make Felicia blush again- her own mind now wandering into the temptations of her eagerness to touch Pauline. Everything Pauline seemed to have touched around her home had turned into an artistic mixture of paint, glue, or collage. Everything looked uniquely beautiful yet touched by the elegance of paint splotches. Felicia could not help but dream of what Pauline’s touch would do to her as it burned an impression upon her own skin. Felicia wanted to be one of Pauline’s masterpieces- each was special and carved out with what seemed so like both whimsy and artistic intent.

Felicia saw her arm reach out to touch Pauline as if she was dreaming or sleepwalking. Seeing herself from a cloud point of view, Felicia touched Pauline’s arm and wrenched her close. They were now chest to chest and could feel each other breathing. Pauline had ample breasts the curves of which caressed Felicia’s own little ones, the nipples of which were so obviously now on end.

“I need to throw her ass down. To force her onto that bed, to spread her legs, strip her panty-less shorts off and burrow my mouth against her vag before she has any ability whatsoever to protest. I know this would be the only way with her- she wants to, but will never admit it. She has pranced around in front of me all day so far, half-dressed and sing-songy while she lavishes me with compliments and her charms, but she will not invite me. Pauline would never be the one to cross any forbidden line. I must be the one to demand this of her in a way that she cannot deny, yet that she will not regret.” Felicia’s awareness of the situation.

“Hee, hee,” but Pauline in a quick to dodge way, “Hug, hug, and wee, around we can dance like this.”

The heightened sexual moment immediately began to wither.

Pauline has turned Felicia’s outstretched hand around as if in a game, away from her inner thighs and unto her shoulders as if their dance now were an awkward, formal setting, like a first date at a school dance in the school cafeteria or over-decorated gym.

Felicia left soon after, more bored than frustrated. She had wanted her friend to be already drunk enough when she had arrived, in fact, Felicia had counted on it. It would be fun to see her without a mask, without the reproaching eyes of a crowd of others. Sure, but Felicia had not counted on Pauline being so coy, so cute! yet able yet to resist her.

And, Felicia had not come to fuck her- no not exactly, it had been more of an obsessive curiosity as if could there really could be a woman who operated on whims like this- the mess all over the room, the spritely expressions of joy oozing from her mouth at all times, the sweet, sweet way that Felicia dreamed that Pauline’s pussy smelled up close, like the crushed patchouli beads and dried flowers scenting up the window sill in the only window in her home…

The two were doomed, casualties of the conventional. Pauline had turned out to be too shy at the last of moments and Felicia was forced to think these dreams existed only in her own mind. Felicia felt a little ashamed at herself, if only she too was not so endlessly fearful of rejection to have gone for the sweetest of caresses, the lavishing and slurping and forcing of her tongue into Pauline in ways she knew she was adept.

Felicia assumed Pauline had never, that that was what her trepidation seemed to be about, but perhaps she had, in turn, failed Pauline- she had seemed to want to be made to do it- to have it be all about the other woman’s depravity. Felicia would never know. This woman, Pauline would remain a mystery in intimate ways and the best way of being allowed by her wonderous side may indeed be a friendship.

But, Felicia so wanted just to be able to rewrite the rules governing women and friends. If not just selfishly in this cool case of Pauline, then maybe for the feminine world. She heard that friends readily experienced sexual pleasures with friends in parts of Europe, for example. What if these two could just hold hands in a bitter world as true grrl friends and also occasionally hook up or simply be each other’s joy.

In the 17th century, women wrote loving letters to one another, full of poetic prose. In the current era, people decline to define themselves or their sexualities at all. Felicia finds herself reflecting on all of this as she drives away from Pauline’s home. She sees herself and her friend as caught somewhere- in a potentially gorgeous in between, yet as in a dance. Waltz’s used to have steps and measures. Slam dancing has none. What was their choreography to be, orchestrated or, more likely a tumbling? Felicia now finds a certain hope catch up in her throat.