Prolog: The Nobel Prize speech I can't give

Olivia giggled as I lifted her breast to my mouth like a microphone.

"Majesties, Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen. I accept the Nobel Prize in physics for my invention of a time machine. My friend Olivia Smallwood is the reason I invented it. After she sent me the rejection letter from the Barton Institute of Technology, I knew I would someday have to go back in time to undo her decision; the 'we changed our minds, you're admitted' letter arrived two days after the rejection..."

Eyes shining, she touched my face, tugged me up for a kiss. "You are the only woman I have ever loved."

I nodded, "You are the only woman I've ever loved too."

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Part One: Changing her mind

As always, I was a bit disoriented, appearing in a spot as I faded into view. The weeping cherry in her well-groomed yard just starting to shed its blossoms, the crocus buds in her window boxes just opening. Breathing to calm my nerves, I rang Olivia Small's doorbell, knowing she would be alone for the rest of the weekend. Her fiancé Charles Wood was at a physics conference in Geneva.

She answered the door in a beautiful mauve blouse, her long dark hair neatly plaited. She looked surprised at having an unexpected visitor  on a Sunday morning.

"Hello." She smiled uncertainly.

"Hi. I'm Robin Stein." I proffered a small bag with her favorite almond croissants.

She appeared even more confused. "Do I know you?"

"I'm one of the BIT applicants you rejected this year." 

She looked askance. "But, you're, what, over forty, no?"

"Forty-seven. May I come in to talk?"

Still a bit uncertain, she opened the door widely and invited me to her bright, airy kitchen.

"Tea?

I nodded. She bustled a bit in the pantry as the kettle heated.

Sitting, we nibbled at our pastries for a few moments.

"What can I do for you today?"

I took a long cleansing breath. I had to approach this delicately.

"After I got my bachelor's and PhD from BIT, I went on to invent a time traveling system."

She looked startled. "I ... don't know what to say."

"Your husband was my mentor."

She nodded; she wasn't really familiar with his work but understood he was working on particles that could travel through time.

"I've come to convince you that I should be admitted to BIT."

Now she was really startled. "But the letters went out on Friday."

"I know. I still have both letters signed by you."

"Both?"

"The second one says you changed your mind."

"Oh?" Her eyebrows shot up. "Why?"

"Because I came back in time to convince you."

We each looked away at our teacups. My heart was racing.

"And how did you convince me of that?"

I hesitated. "I kissed you a lot."

"I ... I've never kissed a woman like that."

"I know. You told me I was your first and only." I hesitated. "And you are mine as well."

She gazed at me a long time.

"I ..." She swallowed nervously. "I have been tempted by a few of the students."

"You told me that too." I hesitated, then blurted out. "You told me about Elizabeth, about three years ahead of me, the beautiful strawberry blonde. Pointed her out to me on campus once."

"I would never..." She stopped. "I've never mentioned her to anyone, not even Charles."

"I never told anyone either."

We sat in silence, hearing but not listening to the ticking of the kitchen clock.

Finally her gaze met mine again. "Only kissed me a lot?"

I smiled softly. "Well, kissed a lot of you too."  Her eyes widened. "And vice versa."

Her hand uncurled from her teacup, impulsively reached for mine. The warmth of her fingertips was palpable as the traced the veins on my hand.

A soft moan escaped from my lips as my eyes closed, breath catching. Fingers weaving together, we slowly followed the magnetic lines drawling our lips together. The flavor of her kiss was so familiar, the smell of her neck, the texture of her forearm, as if the last time we kissed was yesterday, not 30 years ago. Her heart audibly pounding, she kissed me for the first time, while I was kissing an old familiar lover.

Giggling nervously, we leaned back from that first kiss, amazement and lust mirrored in our eyes. Taking her hand, I led her along the familiar path to her bedroom, the one I hadn't seen in nearly thirty years. Standing at the foot of her bed, my fingers sure, I started unbuttoning her blouse. My lips caressed hers, then found her earlobe, then her collar bone as I bared it. I slipped the strap from her shoulder, kissing along the faint pressure line down toward her nipple. Eyes on hers as she sighed her consent, I took her nipple gently into my mouth. I felt her opening the buttons on my blouse, then unzipping her soft grey skirt and letting it fall to the ground.

Somehow we shed the rest of our clothes on the way to the lavender duvet, kissing, kissing, kissing. Her eyes filled wonderment as I traversed her whole body with fingertips, kisses, licks, massage strokes, caresses, teases with my hair and breasts, finally kissing her thighs apart and bringing her to a long, sighing orgasm.

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As her breathing returned to normal, she murmured in my ear. "I thought you'd never made love with a woman. How did you get so good at that?"

"I've never made love with any other woman." I hesitated. "You taught me."

She looked askance at me momentarily, and then grinned, as she understood what I meant.

Eyes shining, I nodded. Then, "You know you have to call me now if you're admitting me."

She took a deep, contented breath, kissed between my breasts and then my face softly. "I'll do it now."

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Part Two: Learning how

My first week at BIT caused no nervousness at all. Orientation was super well organized, housing a snap, meeting my freshman advisor and devising my schedule brought only comfort. The safety lecture culminating in a lecture about safe sex and harassment prevention was familiar, but caused a lot of nervous tittering among my classmates.

Fall semester was a whirlwind. Calculus, physics, economics, cognitive science, meteorology classes filled my days and evenings. My dorm floor played every possible intramural game and I wound up playing about six sports. There was little time for socializing.

The evening before the first day of classes spring semester, my roommate was out at a mixer and I was reading on the extra long twin bed. I was lifted out of my reverie by a soft knock on my door. Opening it, I found a beautiful woman, looking nervously at me.

"Hello," I started.

She swallowed, held out her hand and shook mine. "I'm Olivia Small."

"Oh! Admissions office? You're the one who called me to say the rejection letter had been mistaken!"

She nodded, her eyes a bit unsure. "May I come in?"

I stood back and opened the door further. "Of course," I stammered.

She stepped in, leaving the door ajar. "I wanted to meet you,” she added. "I hear you're in my fiancé's physics seminar on quantum mechanics."

Mischievously, my eyes met hers. "Oh. You like to meet all the students in his seminar?"

She swallowed. "Well, no. You are the only woman in his class, though."  She hesitated. "I've reread your application and can't understand why we didn't admit you right away."

"That's kind of you to say." I closed my eyes, transported back to the day the letter arrived. "I spent the next 30 hours in a funk until you called me that afternoon."

"Oh, I'm sure. I wanted to call you to let you know. And of course I sent out the corrected letter the next morning."

 I grinned. "My mother framed both letters together in a diptych."

She giggled nervously. "I haven't smiled this much in months."

She hesitated, then added, "Would you like to come over for dinner sometime with Charles and me?"

"Charles? Oh, Professor Wood?" I had no idea whether this was normal protocol, but I really liked her already, and was really looking forward to his seminar.

"I promise you the food will be better than the commons food. And I'm pretty sure you will like him."

"When?"

"Sunday?"

I smiled. "I'll be there."

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I took a last small sip of wine. "Where did you learn to make lasagna like that?"

Olivia smiled, winked at Charles, and exulted, "I knew she would like it!" Looking back at me, she stage whispered her secret. "Prepared tomato sauce from Little Italy. Fresh mozzarella. Basil and spinach frozen from my garden."

"My Italian cousin's lasagna used to be my favorite. Not any more"

Charles looked at his watch. "I'm afraid I'll have to take my leave. Poker rests for no one."

I raised an eyebrow at Olivia.

"Oh, his weekly poker seminar. He teaches an intensive poker workshop during intersession, and then has weekly games with his graduate students. You should try it sometime."

"I'm not much of a gambler."

Charles winked at me. "I'm driving near campus. Want a lift?"

Olivia demurred. "It's not that far. I was going to offer to walk her to campus along the river."

"Oh, I'd like that. It'll help me clear my head from the wine."

As Charles let himself out of the front door, we turned to cleaning up. I helped carry the dishes into the kitchen, which she stacked neatly in the dishwasher. Leftovers stored, we slipped our coats on and headed out into the blustery February air and headed down to the river walk, talking about freshman classes, how the admissions season was going, the sailing pavilion and crew boathouse as we passed. My teeth started chattering about a block from my dorm.

Olivia looked at me, then opened her long down coat and wrapped me in against her slim figure. Arm around her waist, we walked on barely talking. I felt quite aware of her closeness.

"Almost there, sweetie." she whispered in my ear. Not all of my shivers were because of the cold.

She kept me wrapped up as we entered the dorm, all the way to my room, and only relinquished me at the door to my room. Smiling at my roommate, she asked, "Do either of you have a hot water bottle? I think Robin needs one."

Without looking up, my roommate answered. "Yeah, it's in the little closet next to the suite shower."

While she was out, I changed into my flannel pajamas. Slipping into the bed, I gratefully took the water bottle from Olivia, curled up around it facing the wall. She sat on the edge of my bed, softly stroking my back and hair, as I slowly drifted off to sleep, dreaming of her holding me all night.

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I was startled awake by my bedside phone the next morning.  "Hello?" I managed to blear.

"Are you all right?" she began without preamble.

"Oh, yes," I answered. "Slept like a baby."

"I couldn't stop thinking about you," she answered. "I'm so glad, and sorry I subjected you to that."

"Please don't be sorry. I really enjoyed everything, right up to and including you putting me to bed." I hesitated. "I dreamed you were holding me all night."

I could hear her breath catch. "I ... I did too."

"Oh?"

"I really enjoyed the evening with you. I hope you'll let me, um, us invite you again."

"I'd really love that."

"Next Sunday?"

"You're sure it's not inconvenient?"

I could hear her smile over the phone. "I'll even drive you home this time."

I spent the rest of the day with a secret smile.

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The fourth week it was just the two of us. "Oh, where's Charles?"

"He's in Geneva. His meeting ran over by a day. He told me to tell you don't worry, he'll be back by Tuesday's class."

I chuckled. "He does make me feel like I'm his favorite student."

"That's what he says." She stopped, blushed. "Don't tell him I told you."

"My lips are sealed."

"Oh, I hope not so sealed. I made spanakopita and dolmas. And galaktoboureko for dessert."

"I don't know what those are."

She smiled. "Better than dorm food."

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She was right. After dinner we sat together on the sofa, talking about our work, lives, everything. Then she asked me if I had a boyfriend.

"No, not really. I have a high school boyfriend about 6 hours away, but I think he's dating another girl there." I shrugged. "I never expected it to last this long."

"No other guys caught your interest?"

"Not really." I giggled. "Although Charles is kind of cute. I could see having a crush on him. He's safe, you know?"

"What about girls?"

I looked at her, wondering if she knew. "No, not really. Well, I did make out with a girl in the dorm one night over intersession. We were playing Truth or Dare, of all things. I hadn't played that since, like, ninth grade."

She hesitated, and then spoke in a somewhat softer voice. "I sometimes look at the girls on campus. I had a 'kissing friend' in high school and I guess never stopped looking when I got to college."

I grinned. "Am I one of the girls you look at?"

She blushed crimson, said nothing.

I reached for her hand. "I don't mind, you know."

She squeezed back, then dropped my hand.

"Is there someone you really like?"

She laid her head back on the sofa, took a deep breath. "There was a girl in the first class I admitted, three years ago. She was also Charles' favorite that year. Elizabeth." She drew out the name, like it was poetry in her mouth. "Charles introduced us. We had just started dating and he wanted me to meet her. I probably fantasized about her for six months before I shook myself out of it."

She swallowed. "It would have been so inappropriate. I'm well aware."

I nodded, taking her hand again. "I don't feel inappropriate here with you." I didn't let her let go this time.

She sighed. "The funny thing is, I know I'm okay with you. We are destined to be friends forever, somehow."

I smiled. "Your secret is safe with me."

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After cleanup, she asked me if I was ready for my ride home.

"Are you sure? You seem sleepy. I could sleep on your sofa and you can take me with you to work tomorrow."

"Or..." She hesitated.

"Or?"

"You could sleep in my bed."

I smiled. "You've been sleeping in my bed every Sunday for a month."

"Oh?" Her smile was contagious as she realized what I was saying. "Oh!"

Moving into the bedroom, she rummaged in a drawer and brought out a new toothbrush, then took down a flannel nightgown and handed it to me. She pointed to the bathroom.

After we were changed, we gingerly got under her quilt from opposite sides of the bed. I shivered a bit as my feet hit the cool sheets. She carefully left some space between us.

"Good night, Robin," she murmured.

"Can you hold me for a few minutes, Olivia?"

I felt her move, gingerly curl up with me, her hand carefully placed on my shoulder. My heart was suddenly pounding. I took her hand and placed it on my chest so she could feel. Her lips found my neck as her hand curled onto my breast, and I gently stroked her forearm.

"I'm so happy I'm here, Olivia," I whispered, not sure if she could hear me. I felt her lips caress up and down my neck as if she was nodding. "So happy we're together like this," I added.

Her hand gently squeezed my breast, then a fingertip lightly traced around my hardening nipple.

"Are you cold?"

"Not a bit."

She kissed my neck again. I rolled to partially face her. My lips sought hers in the dark.

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I have no idea how long we kissed before going to sleep all curled up together. In retrospect, it's amazing we didn't make love that first night. The first time was the next week during Charles' poker game. She left all the lights on, slowly stripped me, and with delicate touches and playful questions she gently teased all of my body with fingertips, her lips, her nose, her hair, her tongue. Ohh, my, her tongue lingered on my nipples, my ribs, my underarms, my belly, my clit. She softly flicked, breathed, sucked, coaxed me to an orgasm that seemed to go on forever. I felt so clumsy the first time I tried to imitate her, too hurried, too anxious to prove myself.

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Epilogue: Nobel Prize speech revisited.

Over the next three years I would continue to have what I called my private lessons with Olivia. It wasn't every week, and it never felt needy. I had a few boyfriends in the interim, and near graduation I met the man who would become my husband. I was a bridesmaid when Charles Wood and Olivia Small became Smallwoods, and she held up one of the canopy poles at my wedding the week after I defended my dissertation.

I only ever made love with her one more time after that, not counting the time-travel visit.

I came to celebrate with her the week after the Nobel was announced. She had been recently widowed; Charles had died suddenly about three weeks earlier. She looked old and tired at 68, and as I looked more closely I realized she was wearing an ill-fitting wig. Taking her arm as we walked back from her neighborhood bistro, I noticed she was weak, her arm muscles emaciated.

"What's wrong?"

She looked away.  Finally, she spoke. "My breast cancer came back."

I nodded. I had visited her a few times after her mastectomy and when I could after a round of chemotherapy. When she could barely manage the key, I opened the door for her, brought her back to her bed, gently undressed her and laid her in the bed.

"Can you hold me for a few minutes, Robin?"

I nodded through my tears, undressed with her and curled up. My hand held her breast for a moment, then lightly traced the scars on the other side. I kissed her neck and she rolled over to kiss me.

I sat up beside her and started teasing her bare skin, not really trying to arouse her, just reminding her that I loved her. I did kiss her all over, and I think she had a small orgasm before she stopped me.

I lay beside her, touching her face. Then I playfully lifted her breast.

"Majesties, Laureates, Ladies and Gentlemen..."