Border Crossings
7 Gutenberg’s Other Book
21 May 2016
SPENDING SUNDAY WITH KARL and his kids on the promised tour of Bavaria helped to lift my black mood some. In the past two days, I’d been back to the train station three times, ready to board a train and return to Brno. I desisted. What was I going to do? Go back and sit on her steps until she agreed to come with me? Prolong our parting? Skip my trip to Berlin to meet my daughter and her boyfriend? Fall more deeply into a hopeless love?
Instead, Karl drove me two hours from Munich to Hohenschwangau to tour the two castles. Neuschwanstein Castle was the inspiration for the Disneyland fairytale castle. We ate currywurst and talked. It was a good time. I learned about the German education system that Karl’s kids were in. We discussed alternate pathways through LNDtH. I found out about German politics and economy. We examined my creative process and how I come up with story ideas. His twelve-year-old daughter was practicing her English skills by joining in the conversation and by translating bits for her younger brother. I tried out my German on the boy and he laughed at my pronunciation and syntax. It was good.
THE NEXT DAY, I decided to visit an art museum and spent two hours wandering around lost thanks to a needed software update for my GPS. When I finally reached the museum, I was hot and sweaty and tired. But I enjoyed three hours of fantastic art, complete with an audio guide to important pieces. I took my time and often sat to simply ponder what the artist was saying in the painting. I especially enjoyed a series of landscapes painted over a ten-year period.
I headed back to my flat, knowing that I needed to find a place for dinner soon. And a beer. I was beginning to get a little weak and shaky.
I made another wrong turn trying to get to my flat in Munich. It proved to be fortuitous as a Mecca appeared before me. The Löwenbräu Beer Garden. I was saved. In Munich, there are seven breweries that dominate the market. Löwenbräu is not necessarily the top of the line. But it had a special place in my heart that took me back to Paula. I found a seat outside and soon found out what a mas was.
A Long Time Ago: Dark Special
MY FIRST EX-WIFE TO BE had taken a summer job in New Jersey and a week before our senior year in college I drove out to bring her back to Indiana. Yeah. That was the summer of Lori. Remember? Well, Paula had a cooler packed with sandwiches and drinks that we put in the backseat of the Corvair, and we tossed her bags in the front trunk with the other gear I had. We were on the road by nine in the morning and off the road by noon.
I had an ancestor who fought in the Civil War and I wanted to see the famed Gettysburg Battlefield. We found a campground located practically on the battlefield and set up our tent. As soon as our sleeping bags were unrolled, we crawled into the tent and fucked like bunnies. We were good at that.
Only we didn’t fuck. Chances are you were frustrated as hell in Living Next Door to Heaven when nobody actually fucked until the fourth book. Ever wonder where the idea for that rubbing without penetration came from? Yeah. The story of my life. Paula was a virgin and intended to stay that way until the knot was tied and we were on our honeymoon. So, we didn’t fuck—exactly. We did every possible thing we could think of that would get our genitals in touch with each other without penetrating. Had a few close calls, but a week before graduation, I took my new bride to a secluded inn and popped her tattered cherry. I never told her I wasn’t a virgin, too, but she never actually asked.
So, we depleted a lot of fluids in the tent that August afternoon and Paula opened the cooler. Along with the sandwiches, there were six bottles of Löwenbräu Dark Special—a gift from her former employer. I’d just turned twenty-one and Paula was a few months behind me, so neither of us were very experienced beer drinkers. But Löwenbräu Dark Special was the ambrosia of the gods to us that afternoon. Löwenbräu has had a special place in my heart ever since drinking it on that hot August afternoon with my fingers rubbing Paula’s clit.
Back to Munich
“EIN DUNKEL, BITTE.”
“Kleine oder grosse?”
“Grosse.”
All through Europe, I’d become used to beer being offered in two sizes. The small was a third of a liter—roughly the size of a 12-ounce can. The big was a half-liter, like ordering a pint at an English pub. I was definitely a thirsty cowboy this afternoon and figured a half-liter would go down easy.
The mug of dark beer the waiter brought me was huge. In Munich, and by extension much of Germany, it’s too much work to keep refilling half-liters of beer. So that is considered the small size. The large size, or mas, was a full liter. During Oktoberfest, I was told, you can’t even buy the small size. It made no difference. It was the perfect size to wash down their Beef Stroganoff.
I sat in the beer garden for two hours, relishing the flavor of the food and beer, and the memories of Paula’s pretty little pussy.
MY NEXT STOP was Berlin where I met up with my daughter and her boyfriend. When they found out that it was an eight-hour train ride that would cost them more than €500, they decided not to go to Munich. Instead, we had a good time visiting the sights in Berlin, my last stop in what I considered Eastern Europe. We visited the Mauer Park Market, the Brandenburg Gate, and the Reichstag or parliament.
A Long Time Ago: A Chink in the Wall
I WAS RAISED during the Cold War. My entire concept of Berlin was shaped by JFK shouting ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ over the wall—which roughly translated means ‘I am a jelly roll’—and by the James Bond movie, A View to a Kill. Not exactly the best of the genre.
Still, nothing epitomized the division of East and West like the Berlin Wall, der Mauer. It was the physical representation of the Iron Curtain. I was in rehearsal for a play that had been optioned by a small theater company in Honolulu in November of 1989. It wasn’t a big deal and the entire pay that I got was getting a ticket and housing for a week in Honolulu while I watched dress rehearsals, fucked the leading actress, and attended the premier. We were in dress rehearsal Wednesday night, the eighth of November, when the house manager interrupted the show.
“They’ve opened the Berlin Wall,” she said. “People are breaking down the wall!”
It was November 9th in Germany. The government announced that East Berliners would be allowed to cross the wall to visit relatives and friends in the West. The wall was mobbed. The checkpoints opened. People on both sides began pounding on it with hammers. The wall didn’t officially come down for two more years, but November 9, 1989 is one of the two dates in history that I will always remember. It was the day the Berlin Wall was breached.
Back to Berlin
TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS LATER, I stood at Checkpoint Charlie. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as I imagined it all those years ago. A box in the middle of the street and a sign announcing ‘You are leaving the American Sector.’ A couple old guys in surplus US Army uniforms holding an American flag charged tourists three euros for a picture with them. From the sound of it, the guys were German. You can even have your passport stamped.
A FEW SECTIONS of the wall still stand as a sort of memorial, and the entire length of the wall is marked by posts so people can see how the city was divided. I didn’t walk the whole thirty-four miles, but I did visit several sections. In Mauer Park, there is a section of wall a hundred yards long that graffiti artists paint every week. It is temporary art. Each Friday, the park maintenance people paint out everything on that section of the wall with gray or white paint. Saturday and Sunday, the artists start with a new canvas and tag it again. Graffiti is a real art form in Berlin.
ANOTHER SECTION of wall, about a mile long, is in the center of Berlin along the River Spree. It’s called the East Side Gallery and preserves a huge amount of the graffiti art that had decorated the west side of the wall in the 80s. I spent more than an hour walking along this section, then let my daughter and her boyfriend go on while I went back along the wall on the east side, through the killing field along the river.
I had to sit.
And some people in our country want to build one.
I STAYED IN BERLIN for a couple extra days to attend a party at the women’s prison and go swimming at the nude beach. An interesting experience.
Frauengefängnis Lichterfelde is an old prison in the American Sector that was used for women during the cold war. It’s such an iconic place that it’s been used as a location for prison movies since it was decommissioned in the early ’90s. The new prison was built and opened a few miles away. The old prison was acquired by a private investor who is turning it into an artists’ colony. For some exorbitant fee, you can rent a cell in which to create or display your art, whether it is painting, sculpture, music, writing, or whatever. A little of the facility is being updated—like restrooms—but the cells are essentially still six-by-eight rooms that were big enough for a cot and a sink.
A MUSICIAN FRIEND was playing a couple sets at the opening celebration of the new facility so I stayed in town to attend with my Rent-a-Bed host, Giselle. Mostly we had a great time wandering around exploring the various studio cells, watching musical performances and a little dance, and eating from the half dozen food vendors. We didn’t get back to the apartment until after two in the morning and I wished my daughter had been able to stay one more night. She’d have loved the event.
I didn’t get to the kitchen to make coffee until nearly seven the next morning. That’s pretty late for me. Even when I stay up late the night before, I tend to rise between five and five-thirty in the morning every day. It goes back to my days as a newspaper carrier with a morning route. Does that sound familiar? Well, bits and pieces of the real me sneak into my characters’ experience. Then I doctor them up to make it look like it was exciting and significant. Kind of like the news media.
Giselle was even later emerging from her room, thankful that I had coffee ready. We didn’t speak until she’d had two cups and a cigarette on the deck. Eventually, she asked if I had plans for the day.
“I’m just kind of hanging around today,” I said. “I want to catch up on some writing, but other than that, finding coffee and food are the top of my list.”
“I have some work to do this morning now that my eyes are open. There’s a beach not far from here. We could take the bikes this afternoon. Interested?”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said.
Great idea since the afternoon turned out to be about the hottest that I’d had since I left Thailand.
Giselle and I had hit it off like old friends from the moment I entered her apartment north of the Hauptbahnhof. It was like we had all this catching up to do since the last time we’d seen each other, even though we’d never met before. It wasn’t a sexual thing at all, surprisingly enough. We certainly had plenty of opportunity to indulge ourselves that way if we wanted. Mostly, though, it was just as if we were two long-time friends sharing an apartment.
WHAT SHE’D FAILED to mention to me was that the stretch of grass on either side of the bike path that they called a beach was the favored hangout for the local naturists. Water access was down a muddy path and through a hole cut in the fence. It wasn’t much of a beach, but the scenery was great! Giselle wasn’t bad, either, though we’d developed more of a partners-in-crime relationship than one of potential bedmates. Maybe she was laying the groundwork for a future visit. Neither of us could see the other’s eyes behind our dark glasses, but after surreptitiously checking each other out, I think we both enjoyed looking at the other bathers.
Monday morning, I boarded a train headed West to the little town of Mainz, Germany, thirty minutes west of Frankfurt and across the river from Wiesbaden. It was a pilgrimage. Mainz—the place where Gutenberg printed the Bible and started the printing revolution.
A Few Years Ago: Gutenberg’s Other Book
I WROTE A BOOK—big surprise—about printing. As a hobby, I studied printing history for twenty years and even lectured on it on occasion. I was as fascinated by what wasn’t in the history as what was. Why, exactly, was the goldsmith Gutenberg fooling around with lead, tin, and antimony so that he accidentally came up with a dimensionally stable alloy that would be hard enough to resist the pressure of the printing press but that would melt at a low enough temperature to be cast in the shape of characters of the alphabet. Could it have been that he was actually an alchemist? Lead, tin, and antimony were known to be the principal ingredients alchemists used for their experiments in turning lead into gold.
I WOVE THAT POSSIBILITY into a contemporary thriller about two rare-book librarians who race time, terrorists, and homeland security across three continents to find and preserve a legendary ‘other book’ supposedly printed by Gutenberg. It actually won an award and became my best-selling commercial work.
Before you jump to conclusions about what that means, let me remind you that there are a million books a year published in the U.S. and it takes only 100 sales to be in the top twenty percent of sellers. The Gutenberg Rubric made it up into about the top fifteen percent when I was on my book tour back in ’11. Hot shit, huh?
But this is about the pilgrimage to Mainz. I’d been there once before and actually had a framed page of the Bible that I got to print on a refurbished press of the fifteenth century. But in 2000, celebrating the 550th anniversary of the birth of printing (in western civilization), they had completely renovated and remodeled the Gutenberg museum and library. That was the façade that was featured in my story and I’d never seen it.
Back to Mainz
I ENJOY WALKING, so it didn’t bother me that the hotel I finally managed to get was located two miles and across the river from downtown Mainz. It was next to the US Army base in Wiesbaden and I was willing to walk along the Main River to get to where I wanted to go. I reserved the day on Tuesday to go explore the museum and set off in the morning. Little did I know, this particular Tuesday was some kind of religious holiday that is celebrated in Mainz and everything was closed, including the museum.
Everything except the Dom. The various Archbishops of Mainz played into the history of printing as well, so I did spend an hour or more touring the cathedral that had stained glass memorials to its bishops dating back well into the first millennium. After having seen my fill of dead people, I found a wine bar and had a pleasant late lunch before hiking the two miles back to my hotel to write.
I was nearly finished with the do-over, Not This Time, and was trying to figure out how to wrap it up. People would either love it or hate it, but that seemed to be pretty standard for what I write. I’m fine with that. Even when readers write anonymously to tell me that I’m a “sick puppy who maybe likes to trick people into reading his sick fantasies.” That’s better than my last ex-wife’s indifference. Sorry. Didn’t mean to let that slip out.
Breakfast at the hotel was a high point, even if it was high-priced. After three months in Europe, I finally learned how to eat a hard-boiled egg in an egg cup. First off, I decided I really like hot boiled eggs.
All my life, boiled eggs in my family have been served cold. Well, there were only two occasions for serving boiled eggs in the first place. We colored boiled eggs at Easter, hid them, hunted them, and sat with a salt shaker as we peeled and ate them. Two or three months later, we’d find one that had been missed and see what target outside we could hit with it.
The only other time we boiled eggs was to make deviled eggs for picnics.
Setting a boiled egg, still hot, in an egg cup (big end down) and tapping around it to remove the top half of the shell took a little skill. But then you simply use your egg spoon to eat the hot egg out of the bottom half of the shell. Quick and easy! And boiled eggs don’t splash grease all over the stovetop. I was definitely going to be eating a lot more boiled eggs in the future. Complete with cold slices of ham and cheese. And thick slices of fresh bread. I was beginning to like the idea of how breakfasts would change when I moved back into my trailer.
Nonetheless, even writing during breakfast only stretches the meal out so long and I was off on my second hike to Mainz to see the museum.
“WHY ARE THEY DIFFERENT?” a woman to my left asked.
I was standing in front of the display case in a dimly lit room looking at two different copies of the Gutenberg Bible open to the same page. I’d been standing there staring at them for at least fifteen minutes. They were, indeed, different.
“When Gutenberg printed the Bible, he left a blank space for the large capitals,” I said automatically. “Because of the consistency across the books, we’re assuming that he printed the red-letter type at the beginning of some of the chapters, but the decorative capitals were left for calligraphers to paint on individual copies of the book. The person who acquired a Bible got a stack of pages and a guide to rubrication, or the letters that the calligrapher needed to add. Different buyers had different tastes and budgets. This copy was done in a fairly plain style with just one additional color of ink. This one, apparently acquired by a wealthier patron, was painted with ornate capitals and tails—the decorative parts that extend down the page—and even makes use of gold leaf.”
“HUH. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS?” she asked. I tore my gaze away from the incredible works of both art and craftsmanship to look at her, bending over the glass. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t the substantial woman that I met. She straightened up and looked me straight in the eye. We were about even in height. And by substantial, I don’t mean fat or even heavy. She was broad-shouldered, big-breasted, and wide at the hip, but she looked to be absolutely rock solid.
“Well, I studied it. Read all the little placards and stories on the exhibits here in the museum. That sort of thing,” I said.
“Tell me more. Do you mean that they actually just got a stack of printed pages? Who put the covers on?” she asked.
“That would be the work of a book binder. If you look at the bindings, you’ll see that they are as different from each other as the calligraphy. In fact, this one was rebound in the nineteenth century. We really don’t know what the original binding even looked like,” I said. Okay, I’m a bit of a showoff when it comes to print history. Having an interested—and really very pretty—audience triggered my pomposity gene and I started telling stories about printing. She followed along as we went through the exhibit and I pointed out other works that were of interest in the museum, which was about everything to me.
“The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili was the first of what we might call dime novels.”
“WHAT IS THAT?” she asked.
“A popular romance novel. Not sure how it translates into German. In English, it’s roughly Poliphilo’s Dream of Love and Sex. Supposedly a very sexy book, though I’ve never seen a translation. I might rewrite it someday in a contemporary version if I ever do find a translation. The unique part about the book, aside from its blatantly secular nature, was the size. It was said to be the first book that would conveniently ‘fit in a saddlebag.’ You can see that it’s about the same size as a contemporary hardcover novel,” I said.
I am a pompous ass. My companion, however, had possessively latched onto my arm as she asked questions about the various works in the museum. I loved this stuff! And she wasn’t bad, either. She asked questions and it prompted me to launch into legends and stories surrounding the printing of the first Bible that had circulated for generations.
“Gutenberg’s one-time business partner, Johan Fust, is said to have taken a wagonload of Bibles into France where he attempted to sell them as manuscripts—copied in a monastery rather than printed. The city fathers met to look at the pages and compare them to their own city Bible. What they discovered, though, was that the Bibles Fust was offering were all exactly and perfectly identical. This disturbed the city fathers and they determined that the only way this could have been accomplished was by witchcraft. They pursued Fust out of the city and out of France, attempting to capture him to burn him at the stake,” I said.
We’d been walking around the museum for a couple of hours, including sitting through a demonstration by a master printer who cast lead type, set a page, and pulled a proof from the inked type. An excited ten-year-old boy got to pull the handle on the press and was rewarded with the page he pulled. Before I realized it, the museum was closing and I was almost hoarse from talking. I hadn’t even found out the name of my attentive listener.
“I’ve monopolized your time, I’m afraid,” I said. “I am Aroslav. May I ask, though belatedly, your name?”
“I think it is I who have pressed you,” she smiled. Brilliant white teeth, perfectly aligned. “My name is Frieda. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She offered her hand and I took it. Her grip was warm and firm.
“May I invite you to dinner?” I asked. “It seems we must leave the museum and I find myself reluctant to part from your company.”
“I suppose that would be all right. I’m visiting my aunt and she insisted that I come to the museum to get educated. And I certainly have!” I held the door for her as we left and as soon as we were outside, she took my arm again. We strolled away from the museum.
“Are you German?” I asked. “Your English is superb. I’m afraid that when I try to speak German, I stumble all over myself.”
“I am from Wittenberg, but I live in London. I work in fashion merchandising for a men’s tailor on Savile Row. Of course, that won’t last long. If the UK votes to leave the European Union, I’ll probably lose the right to work there and have to return here.”
“Men’s fashion? Are you certain you want to be seen with me?” I asked. I was wearing a plaid flannel shirt and black jeans with my usual hiking shoes and Panama hat. It had turned a bit chilly and wet today. I’d pulled my daypack over one shoulder.
“It’s why I spoke to you,” she said. “No, I don’t mean I want to improve your wardrobe. I mean you don’t look like the stuffed shirts I usually deal with. It’s refreshing.”
“That’s the first time I’ve heard my wardrobe referred to as refreshing,” I laughed. “I’ve been living in the same clothes for nearly eight months now. I haven’t been able to find a coin-op laundry since I got here and I might need to buy a new pair of jeans tomorrow just so I have something clean to wear.”
“I’ll help you shop. I do know where to buy clothes!” she laughed.
We found a place to eat that didn’t look too pricey and I ordered a bottle of wine to go with our meal. We were practically in the heart of the Rhineland and I felt obligated to have a Rhine wine, even though they were a little sweeter than I usually prefer. I ordered what was billed as the fresh catch of the day and wondered if they’d been fishing in the river. Nonetheless, it was a tasty meal, made better by the company.
A Long Time Ago: Finger-Lickin’ Good
I WONDER IF THERE IS A BETTER or more common way to move from casual acquaintance to lover than by sharing a meal. Of course, I’d known one woman back in my dating days who went absolutely silent when food was served. She didn’t look at me. She didn’t respond to me in any way. Once there was food in front of her, that was the only thing she saw.
Debra was otherwise sweet and engaging. We dated through most of senior year in high school. I liked spending time with her and I especially liked the fact that she liked to kiss and pet. The drive-in movie was our place to bond… as soon as the popcorn was gone. I learned soon enough to get the small size box plus a drink to wash her mouth out. I can think of nothing more disconcerting than having a popcorn kernel floating around on a girl’s tongue while she’s giving you a blow job.
Deb always wore short skirts and pullover tops when we went to the drive-in. The only place I drove was on dates and Mom’s big Ford Galaxy had plenty of room to play. Dad made a snide comment once that a girl who wore pants to the drive-in was ready to wrestle. A girl who wore a skirt had already conceded the match.
Well, I watched The Dirty Dozen just until it started actually getting interesting, which is when Deb finished her popcorn. Neither of us watched the movie from that point on. She had nice, soft round boobs and never had them harnessed in anything more than a lightweight nylon bra that was more for show than for support. And she liked to show it to me. The Galaxy had a big backseat and as soon as we were settled back there, her pullover would be pulled over her head. That flimsy bit of nylon she called a bra could be quickly pushed aside and I’d feast on her glorious nipples.
While my mouth and hands were occupied with her boobs, Debra would free my cock. She liked to get it out of my pants before I was hard and then just hold it in her hand while I firmed up. That’s a feeling I still like. Going from soft to hard while a girl is just holding my cock in her cool little hand. Nothing better until said girl bends over and takes the hardened flesh in her mouth. Somehow, that position would always clear the way for my hand to get up under her skirt and into her panties. She’d keep sucking and I’d keep diddling her until we both exploded.
Usually, we had time for another round. She liked to keep my cock in her mouth after I’d softened with one or two of my fingers buried in her twat. She’d just keep squeezing her pussy muscles on my fingers while she held me in her mouth, lips tight against my pubic hair. Of course, I’d start to get hard. She’d keep her lips as tight against my crotch as she could get them as I gradually expanded in her mouth and down her throat. She said she couldn’t take me down her throat when I was already hard, but somehow, having me grow down her throat made it easier.
Whatever. My second come of the night was always a lot stronger than the first and it shot straight down her throat. As soon as I was depleted, Debra would roll to her back in my lap so I had clear access to her breasts and pussy. While I sucked on her nipples, I plunged my fingers in and out of her pussy and rubbed her clit. Debra wasn’t a quiet comer. More than once, several horns started up near us after her climax. Everyone enjoyed it.
Then Deb wanted more popcorn and we wouldn’t interact again until I kissed her goodnight.
We talked about going all the way, but never did. “Do we really want our first time in the backseat of a Ford?” Deb asked me. It was never a question about us going all the way. “Let’s go camping or something this summer and then we can just fuck until we’re exhausted, where we can be naked and not worry about being interrupted,” she said. We assumed we would screw eventually—just not in the backseat of the Galaxy. Somehow, the timing never worked out and I left for college a very well-sucked virgin.
Back to Frieda
FRIEDA GLORIED in the sensuality of eating. There was no question that she enjoyed every bite, but she made sure I enjoyed watching her, as well. You know there is the sloppy and gross way of making a sexual object out of food, like sliding a hotdog in and out of your mouth or something. That wasn’t what made Frieda’s enjoyment of food sexy. It was far more subtle. Of course, picking up Spargel in your fingers and eating it from the end before licking each of your fingers clean could be considered obvious. It was the season and we were offered Spargel—oh, that’s asparagus—in both white and green varieties, steamed, grilled, raw, in soup, dipped, and once I even saw it at a market fast food vendor breaded and deep fried. And it was good! What we had on our plates was lightly sautéed and drenched in melted garlic butter. I have to admit, it would have been a different experience if she had been the type to stab and cut her spears.
“What do you mean by saying the earlier printers were incestuous? You mean they were fucking their daughters? I didn’t think Gutenberg had any family. You never hear about Mrs. Gutenberg,” Frieda said. She kept circling around to the stories of printing and I had to admit that I enjoyed telling them. I hadn’t had the opportunity since I finished my book tour for Rubric.
“More ‘commercially incestuous,’ not sexually. Exactly. Well, a little. Gutenberg was a brilliant man from what we know, but he wasn’t a particularly good businessman. We think he’d gone bankrupt in Dusseldorf before he came back home to Mainz. Maybe more than once. He was sued a couple of times, too—once for breach of faith when he refused to marry his fiancée. Anyway, he had some equipment and was apparently able to show the concept of printing to some potential investors in Mainz, which is how he met Johan Fust. A joint venture was formed. A joint venture is said to be a situation in which a man with experience joins a man with money and at the end the roles are reversed. Well, Fust had money and invested a lot of it into Gutenberg’s Bible printing business. We think that Gutenberg had as many as five presses working at the peak of operations, printing around 280 copies of the twelve-hundred-page Bible.”
“Incest?” she asked. I do tend to wax eloquent.
“Well, Gutenberg kept secrets and it seems he was funneling off some of Fust’s money to use for his own private project. We’re not sure what that project was, but that’s what my book is about. Anyway, Fust got wind of the fact that the accounting wasn’t right and sued Gutenberg. All he wanted was a share of the secret project—or so he said. Gutenberg refused to share the project. The courts found in Fust’s favor and just six months before the massive printing project was completed, Fust foreclosed on the print shop and was awarded the operation. He put Gutenberg on the street and elevated his second in command, Peter Schoeffer, to the position of master printer. Having once been burned, Fust wanted to make absolutely certain that the printing business stayed in the family, so he arranged to have Schoeffer marry his daughter. Fust’s daughter. Thus, it became a family business.”
“You mean Gutenberg didn’t get anything out of his invention?” Frieda asked. I watched her lick the eis off her spoon. Ice cream. She had a little that clung to the corner of her mouth and I impulsively reached over to wipe it off with my finger. She captured my digit between her lips and sucked the cream clean. I got hard. “Well?” she asked.
“Right. A fellow named Humboldt apparently set Gutenberg up in operation again and he may have gone to Bamberg with his original, larger type font molds and printed another edition of the Bible there.”
“Okay, so Fust made the business a family operation. That doesn’t really sound very incestuous,” Frieda said. Another dribble of ice cream landed on her chin and I repeated the process of catching it on my finger. I think she was doing it on purpose. Her lips caressing my fingers made it very difficult to concentrate on the story.
“Remember I told you about Fust’s ill-fated attempt to sell Bibles in France? Well, it seems he didn’t really learn his lesson, though news of the printing was spreading and within ten years print shops were springing up all over Europe. It was the cradle of printing that we call the Incunabula. He didn’t try selling them as manuscripts again, but Fust launched another sales expedition into France. This time he was not so lucky. He caught the plague and died, leaving Schoeffer as the head of both the family and of the print shop. Schoeffer learned something of business expediency and immediately married off Fust’s widow to his second in command at the print shop, consolidating the printing business in the family.”
“Sounds like printers were a horny lot.”
“Yes. I guess I’ve inherited that bit of the culture. I never married into the business, though.”
“It was common?”
“Oh yes. Not just with the printing business. Many family-owned businesses functioned the same way. It was their method of keeping the trade secrets tightly held. And Schoeffer was a talented printer. His Mainz Psalter was deemed one of the finest works of the Incunabula, though only a few pages survive today. At the other end of the Incunabula, near the end of the century, an Italian printer by the name of Aldus Manutius arrived in Venice intent on secularizing the industry. We looked at the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili in the museum. Remember? Being a poor man, he sought out and wooed the daughter of the richest man in Venice and using the wealth of his new wife, established a printing business that lasted for generations,” I said.
Frieda reached across our little table and wiped an imaginary drip of ice cream off my beard, offering her finger to my questing lips. I mentioned that Frieda was abundantly endowed, did I not? As I caught her finger between my lips and tickled it with my tongue, I saw evidence that I was producing an erection on her chest that was near equivalent to the one in my lap.
“Take me to your room and tell me more stories,” Frieda whispered. Hell, yes!
We caught a cab, my first experience with one in Germany. Thankfully, Frieda handled the communication with the driver and I simply shelled out the euros when we finally reached my hotel.
Once in my room, Frieda was the very essence of German efficiency. I excused myself to use the toilet and when I came out, her clothes were neatly folded and she stood before me in all her Germanic glory. I understood, at last, Wagner’s inspiration. The Valkyrie had arrived in my hotel room. She removed my clothing, and had it neatly folded next to hers in moments. Our first kiss had our naked bodies pressed against each other and instinct drove me from that point forward. And back. And forward.
A Long Time Ago: The First Taste
THOUGH DEBRA AND I had driven each other frequently to mutual orgasms, I’d always regretted having never tasted her. The way our equipment is shaped and positioned simply made it more difficult to get down between her legs with my mouth than it did for her to suck me. It was another of those things that she would say, “Wait until we’re in a bed. Then you’ll owe me one.” By the time we parted, I owed her a lot.
My first taste of a woman was Cher.
Cher was the camp nurse at a little church camp somewhere near the Ohio-Pennsylvania state line. That’s about as accurate a location as I can give you right now because I stumbled onto the place by accident back during the summer before my sophomore year in college. What a summer!
That was the summer that I first contemplated going around the world. It just took me decades to make the dream a reality. I got a bug up my butt to ride my bicycle across the country. The problem with that is starting in Indiana you can’t do coast-to-coast. So, I had to choose. My choice was to go east. West was a big lot of empty fields and prairies and then mountains. East was inhabited. I packed a sleeping bag, a coffee pot, and a change of clothes on my bicycle and took off.
It might seem like I didn’t plan very well. I actually had a general route, some relatives to visit, and places that I had designated as mail stops where my parents could send things to me in care of General Delivery. And I had three dollars in my pocket. And a ukulele. I returned to Indiana twelve weeks later with two dollars left.
I told stories and sang on street corners.
I met a preacher in one of those small towns I pedaled through and he enjoyed my playing and storytelling, encouraging a police officer to let me finish my story and not make me move on. The preacher had half a dozen kids with him and I was really hamming it up.
“We’ve got a church camp about an hour from here,” he said after he’d introduced himself. “Would you consider coming out and telling stories to the camp tonight? We’ll feed you and give you a place to stay. Oh, and we can toss your bike in the back of the truck to go out there. It’s a little steep.” What could I say? Free meal and a bed to sleep in? Great!
And it was fun. The kids were elementary school age and were easy to entertain with folk tales around the campfire. I knew a fair number of camp songs, too, so I played the uke and led the singing. It was all good, wholesome entertainment and got the camp off to a good start.
At curfew, the counselors who had cabin responsibilities took their kids and got them settled for the night. The staff, including me, hung around the dying campfire. The cook brought cups of cocoa out. They asked me about my travels and what was the funniest thing that had happened so far and where I was headed. We were all college kids except Cher, who had just graduated with her nursing degree. She kept edging closer to me at the fire until she was leaning against my knees.
Knowing what a week of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders would do to them, the cooks, the groundskeeper, and the lifeguard all headed off to bed. I asked where I was staying. Cher said she’d take me to my room but would I sing one more song for her first? Of course. She wanted a kind of sad and sappy folk song and leaned against me as I played ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’
She’d been getting closer to me all evening. When I finished singing, she lifted her lips to mine and we kissed. It was pretty unexpected because she hadn’t really said much to me since I arrived. She’d just been close to me almost since I got there and touching me most of the evening. She was a nice girl. Not a beauty queen, but good looking. She had to be fairly smart to become a nurse, right? She just seemed to crave touch.
“I’ll show you to your room,” she said after we broke the kiss. I was a little out of breath. “Or you can share mine if you’d like. I’d like to be held by you tonight.” I liked. We used the facilities and then went into her tiny room in the lodge. It had a single bed that wasn’t much more than a two-by-four frame with a mattress on a sheet of plywood.
“Do you think we’ll fit on that?”
“If we get close enough together, we will,” she laughed. “You do want to be close together, don’t you?”
“I think I’d like that a lot,” I said.
She turned away from me and began to undress. I watched her as I pulled off my shirt and unbuckled my jeans. Her back was beautiful. The swell of her hips made her plain cotton panties look sexy. She reached behind her and unfastened her bra, letting it slide forward off her shoulders and onto her little dresser. Without turning around, she pulled out a flannel nightgown and dropped it over her head. It reached the floor. It was still sexy. Made more so when she reached under it and pulled off her panties.
I was standing in just my briefs with an obvious bulge when she turned to face me.
“I hope this is okay. I don’t have pajamas,” I said. I was nineteen years old and hadn’t worn a stitch of clothing to bed in ten years.
“More than I expected you to wear,” she said. She put her arms around me and hugged me. I kissed the top of her head as I wrapped my arms around her and felt the softness of her body tight against mine. She tugged me to the bed and we worked our way beneath her blankets and into each other’s arms. The room was already cool with the night’s chill and it would be easy to have ice cubes for toes if they stuck out from beneath the blanket.
Cher solved the space issue by lying mostly on top of me as she kissed me. She approached the kiss slowly, as if testing to see if she liked kissing. She explored my lips and eventually our tongues touched. I could taste her minty toothpaste.
“Why, Cher?” I whispered. “Why do you want me here? We hardly know each other.” She rubbed her face against my chest and gripped me hard.
“So lonely,” she sighed. “I’ve been so lonely since… I broke up with my fiancé the day we graduated from college. I came out here to this camp and I put Band-Aids on children’s booboos. But so alone and lonely. And then you came and told stories and sang. He used to tell me stories. They would all start, ‘Once upon a time there was a little boy and a little girl…’ And then he would tell about some fantastic adventure he and I would have together. We would end up conquering the world, or a little piece of it, and making love. Now he’s gone and I’m alone and you came to tell me stories. I just want to be held again.”
“Cher, I don’t know how to approach this or say it, but I don’t have any protection. That isn’t to say that I expect sex from you, just that you need to know,” I said.
“Just hold me, Ari. Let me pretend I’m not alone.”
I held her all night long. I didn’t sleep all that much. I petted her dark brown hair and crooned little nonsense ditties to her. Lullabies. ‘Too Ra Loo Ra Loo Ral.’ She kissed my chest and slept soundly. Eventually, I did, too.
I woke up to the sensation of my cock being played with. I had a pretty good morning erection going on, but didn’t feel the pressure of needing to pee. Cher had worked her way around so she was facing my cock, my briefs pulled down far enough to give her access. She handled me with reverence. I never considered my cock to be that awesome. As she stroked me, she reached out with her tongue and licked the length, slicking me with her saliva so her hand moved more smoothly. Her hips were close enough to my head that I could smell the warm intimacy of night. Her nightgown was gathered above her knees and I reached over to tug it farther up around her waist. She shifted to make it easier and pulled my briefs the rest of the way down when I lifted my hips.
We lay side by side, each facing the other’s sex. Her dark hair was trimmed so it would fit in her bathing suit without hanging out, but was otherwise a fringe to be parted in order to reveal her treasures. She bent her leg, opening herself to me. I’d never actually had this view of a woman before. I’d done my share of digital explorations, so I knew the map by touch, but I’d never actually been face to face with… Well, I guess that’s face to pussy.
I’m nearsighted and without my glasses, the details in the early morning light were sharp and clear. I could see the moisture gathering at her opening as I parted the hair and inner lips. There was scarcely an inch between that pink tunnel and the crinkled darkness of her anus. At the other end of the slit, her flushing clit pulsed, waiting for my tongue. I felt my cock engulfed in her mouth and reached out my tongue for my first taste of a woman.
Lightly licking around her clit brought shivers from her. It seemed to be a struggle for her to keep her legs parted as they began to shake. I managed to support her knee and she renewed her assault on my cock. I was only partially aware of what she was doing to me because I was so wrapped up in exploring her sex. I dipped my tongue into the opening and gathered her juices there to savor. The texture and taste were not unlike kissing her. It lacked only her tongue to meet and play with mine. As I licked toward her asshole, there was a slight bitterness to the dry skin, a contrast to what I recognized as the faint sweetness of her juices.
We stayed in this position, building toward our peaks for several minutes. As far as I was concerned, I could live here. When her climax overtook her, my cock was just barely between her lips. The vibration shot down its length and was returned with my convulsions. We held each other’s hips close to our faces and then began the slow dance of moving around so our bodies were facing the same direction. Her nightgown was nearly under her armpits by the time we were situated again and I felt the breasts that I had not actually seen yet pressed against my chest. I held her and stroked her hair, marveling at the sensuousness of the woman who had chosen to share this intimacy with me. I felt hot tears against my skin and Cher shook with a sob.
“What is it?” I asked softly. “It’s okay, sweetheart. We shared something beautiful. Thank you so much.” I was babbling. I just didn’t have the experience to understand why a woman would cry after such a shattering orgasm.
“We didn’t break up,” she sobbed against me. “He’s dead.”
Oh fucking shit!
There were really no explanations needed. She didn’t weave a long story, but just lay in my arms weeping for several minutes. Her fiancé who told her stories was dead. I’d walked in to fill a void of loneliness for a night. We could already hear the shouts of happy campers outside as they scampered through the dew to the restrooms. We grabbed quick showers and dressed. I led some singing in the chow hall at breakfast and then the campers headed toward their morning activities.
I loaded my pack on the back of my bicycle and bade goodbye to all the staff. Cher walked with me out to the gates of the camp, well out of sight of the campers. Before I mounted the bike, we kissed again.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I’m so sorry, Cher,” I said.
“Don’t. I got to say goodbye. Make up a story about me one day, Ari.” She stepped away from me and I straddled the bike. She waved and blew me a kiss. I returned it and pedaled down the gravel road to the highway to resume my journey.
I never even found out her last name.
Back to Frieda
WHEN FRIEDA CLAMPED her thighs around my head, I wasn’t sure if I would be sucked right into her pussy or if she would crack my head like a walnut. It was certain, though, that she would flood my tongue with her juices as she came.
Frieda was an… efficient lover. We moved from position to position with precision and without thrashing around. When a condom was filled, it was disposed of, necessary stimulus applied, and a fresh condom rolled on. Then we would start in another position. I wasn’t sure but what Frieda had memorized the entire Kama Sutra or The Joy of Sex. When she used her mouth to get me back up between sessions, I had my face buried in her pussy. Even with the slight residue of latex, she had a fragrance that inspired me. I licked from her clit to her rosebud and she came again. Her orgasms were joyful. Licking around her asshole seemed to drive her to new heights and she quickly had me sheathed as she rolled to her stomach.
“Ja! Fick mein Arschloch!” she cried out, finally abandoning her well-practiced English. She raised her ass in the air for my ministrations. And what a good-looking ass it was. I knew better than to just plunge in, no matter how excited she seemed. I grabbed my bottle of lube and squirted her full as she squealed. Yes, I always have a bottle of lube with me. I’m a single guy who spends most of his nights in bed alone. Why should I depend on spit?
When she was adequately prepared, I began pressing into her. I mentioned that Frieda was a big girl, but she was by no means fat. The well-proportioned roundness of her ass was an open invitation and as I slowly sank into her murky depths, I came to rest against that pleasantly padded posterior. Frieda was panting and clamped onto me. It was clear that this wasn’t her first time in this position and I strongly suspected I could not come up with a position that would be her first. Having already come twice, I was not in any danger of a quick release, no matter how hot and tight her anal opening. That was apparently part of her plan.
I say she was efficient in her moves, but that is not to say mechanical. Sex with Frieda was almost balletic. Lifts, pirouettes, pliés. And we were in a new position. We went from a rear mount to her having one ankle wrapped around my neck without disconnecting. This gave me free access to her clit and pussy. She came again as I stroked into her ass with my cock and into her pussy with my thumb. Her clit was red and swollen by the time she completed her next move and I was facing her tits. Leaning down to suck on her nipples drove my cock even farther into her ass.
I’d ‘done anal’ before and sometimes it was good. I was usually so uptight about potentially hurting my partner, though, that I never relaxed to just enjoy the sensations. It was apparent with Frieda, though, that she was as into this rear invasion as she was conventional sex. Although I’m not sure you could call anything with Frieda conventional. Nonetheless, when we were finally face to face her pace slowed and, for the first time, I felt that we were making love instead of having sex.
She pulled my face to her for a long, sensuous kiss. This was no small feat as the position tended to keep me farther down her body than was a comfortable match for our lips. But her hands ran over my back and sides and pulled me as deep into her as I could go when she rocked her hips forward.
“Ja. Sehr gut,” she whispered as we rocked back and forth. She panted into my mouth as she rose to another crashing climax, and I joined her. I may have had less fluid to offer, but the convulsions were as powerful as my first. We eventually parted and cleaned up. She took me to the shower and we washed each other with the hotel’s little shampoo packets. We did a lot of sliding around each other’s soapy body, but there was really no rise to another engagement. She borrowed my toothbrush when I’d finished. Well, our tongues had been in each other’s mouths for the past three hours, so I suppose we weren’t going to catch anything from sharing a toothbrush.
Then we went to bed. Frieda pressed against me as I spooned behind her and soon, she was snoring. I chuckled a little and just cupped one of her magnificent breasts in my hand as I went off to sleep.
WAKING UP next to Frieda was another experience entirely. She was not a quiet sleeper and, during the night, I had been pushed to the very edge of the bed. I once had a five-pound cat who could occupy an entire king-size bed. Frieda was like that. It wasn’t just that she had moved closer and closer to me, pushing me to the edge, but she was actually taking up the entire bed. I wouldn’t have had any more room if I’d gotten up and moved to the other side.
I’m an early riser anyway, so I pulled my body away from her soft skin and got out of bed. The heat had kicked on during the night and the room was pleasantly warm. The comforter was only pulled up as far as her waist. Lying sprawled on the bed, I had an unobstructed view of her torso and face.
Without makeup, her complexion was a touch blotchy, but not unattractive. Her dark auburn hair was a tangled mess on the pillows. Somehow, she had managed to occupy both of those as well. One arm was thrown over her head and the pit showed stubble in need of a fresh shave. A fine spattering of freckles covered her upper chest. Her breasts flattened out against her chest some under the pressure of gravity, which made her areolae look nearly the size of saucers with the nipples now soft and sunk into them.
I smiled. Maybe she wasn’t a beauty queen when she was asleep, but there was nothing about her that I didn’t want to see more of. I wondered if I could inch the comforter down far enough to see her sex as well. She seemed to have a pretty good grip on it, though.
I had no idea how long she would sleep, so I dressed and slipped out to go downstairs for coffee. They were kind enough to fix me a pot with two cups which I brought back to the room.
As if my desires had been answered, Frieda had kicked the comforter completely off and lay on the bed with all her charms on display. One leg was straight out with the other bent and the foot propped against the opposite knee. It was such a perfect picture that I considered getting my camera. Too much of a gentleman. I wouldn’t take a photo like that without her permission. I had no difficulty, however, sipping my coffee while I continued to stare up into her pussy. The lips were parted, but not gaping from our night’s activity. Still, I could see traces of her moisture glistening around the opening. Her clit had settled under its hood, but the area was still flushed and red. I flared my nostrils, but the aroma of my coffee was more intense than any scent she was releasing into the air.
That was a thought. What a perfect world it would be if I could wake up to coffee flavored pussy in the mornings. I chuckled a little.
“Do I get coffee?” Frieda asked. I looked up to find her staring at me as intently as I had been staring at her pussy. Still, she didn’t move to change her position. I wondered if she had kicked off the bedclothes intentionally while I was gone.
“Absolutely,” I said. “Cream and sugar?”
“Ja, bitte.” I fixed her cup and all the while she didn’t move, staying open to my frequent looks without blushing. I took her the coffee and kissed her lightly. “Wait until I’ve had a few sips,” she laughed. “Then our morning breath will smell the same.” She sat up and I piled the pillows and the comforter behind her so she could drink her coffee. I sat back in the desk chair facing her. She still kept her thighs parted and I thought there was more moisture glistening there. “Do you like what you see?” she asked.
“Ja, gerne,” I said. Well, that wasn’t exactly the right word. ‘Gladly?’ Well, it wasn’t that far off.
“God! Speak English. Who knows what you might call it otherwise,” she laughed. “Undress.” It was a simple command and I obeyed it quickly. I wasn’t fully erect, but blood was definitely flowing. I sat again with my legs spread like hers were. Fair was fair.
“I like looking at you,” I said. “I’m still amazed that you came home with me last night.”
“I like stories,” she said. “You got me turned on.” She changed her coffee cup to her left hand and her right slipped down to tangle in the hair above her slit. Yes, there was definitely more moisture gathering there and more blood flowing to my cock. I watched her as we both sipped our coffee and she slid a finger through her crease to spread moisture to her clit. It was beginning to look like it would be a very good day. “Tell me another story, Ari. What was so important about the ink?”
Ink? Oh! Gutenberg. Talking about trace amounts of heavy metals found in Gutenberg’s ink didn’t seem to be all that sexy to me, but before I was finished, my cock was buried again and we were pressing together.
Storytelling. Who’d have thought it was so sexy?
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