The sexy coed wanted to learn about writing--but Stanley gave her a memorable lesson in research.

---

---

     HER LEGS were the first things he noticed. They were long, slender, curvy legs balanced on spike heels drilling twin holes into his doormat. Flesh-colored hose grasped the curving ankles and calves in a gossamer embrace held taught by garter hooks high on the swelling thighs. The lumps of the hooks were visible beneath the clinging material of her skirt. They were the only flaws in the smooth symmetry of leg that swooped upward from delicate ankles to a generous and mobile pelvis.
     "Hullo, I believe I have an appointment. I'm Molly Jones." Her voice was like a clear mountain stream chuckling over clean white stones.
      Stanley's eyes slipped up hurriedly over a variety of attractions that rivaled most National
Parks in scenic interest. He looked full into her face, noticing pouting lips and gray, smoky eyes. The sun back-lighted her golden hair in a radiant glow.
      "Yes, of course. You're the journalism student from the University. Come in." He pushed the door open.
     She came out of the sunlight into the shadowy, tobacco-hung intimacy of his den with the long-legged stride of a young collie sniffing the smells of a strange kennel. Stanley smiled in admiration of her undulating buttocks chewing at each other like the jaws of a contented cow.
     Molly moved around the den with an easy grace, delighted at the shelves of books, then stopped to study a stone idol. She leaned over his desk to examine the rack of pipes, arching her back and thrusting out mature breasts that could have graced a ship's figurehead.
     "Do you prefer meerschaum or briar?" she asked with a knowledge that surprised him.
     "Algerian briar, with a filter." Stanley waited while she made a note of his answer, then invited her to sit down and be comfortable.
     She settled her ample hips on his couch and ran her hand appreciatively over the rich leather. "So this is where you write?"
     "It suits," Stanley said simply. "I wrote my last two books here. The others were done wherever I happened to be at the time: Africa, Peru."
     "But this is where you did Lost Conquest, your Pulitzer winner. What a perfect spot for it!" Molly's eyes were bright with excitement. "I've read all your books. You've been my favorite author since I was a child."
     Stanley grimaced. "Suddenly I'm ancient."
     "Don't feel that way. I like mature men." She studied his tweedy figure with an intent longing.
     He waited until Molly had observed him point by point, then grunted, "Mature enough?"
     She ducked her head t make a note on her pad, ignoring his question. But he couldn't help seeing the flush of color that rose to her cheeks.
      He sat on the couch and let his thigh press against hers. "I suppose you're going to ask what kind of typewriter I use and what brand of paper I type on and does a beginning writer need an agent?"
     "Are those the questions every young writer asks?"
     "Invariably."
     "Then I won't. Instead, I'll throw it open to you. What advice would you give an aspiring writer?"
     "That's easy. Get a job in advertising and sell underarm deodorant. There's where the money is."
     "No, that won't do at all. I want immortality. I want to write with my soul."
     "That's infinitely more difficult. All of us wrote with our souls when we were young. We wrote beautiful, fragile little things that were wonderful for our souls. But there's no demand for souls."
He put his hand on her knee to emphasize the point and felt the flesh firm and alive under his fingertips. When she didn't pull away he continued, "Those who kept writing with their souls became teachers of writing in universities or presidents of writers' clubs and never sold anything. A few of us forgot our souls and became novelists. We learned to write with our guts."
     "I don't understand."
     "It's as simple as it is difficult. And since, as I've said, it's infinitely difficult, it follows that it's also transparently simple."
     Molly's pencil flew in a spasm of note taking. "Let me get all this down."
     "Put those notes aside and listen. My first novel was about a mountain. How would you begin work on a subject like that?"
     "I'd go to the library and look up everything I could find about mountains."
     "No, Molly, no! That's all wrong. You go to a very large and difficult mountain and you climb it. You go all the way to the top. No cheating. And before you're even part of the way up, you're living on guts alone. By the time you've done it, you're washed out, wrung out, and your soul is numb. The only thing left is guts. And that's the material for your story."
     "I've never done anything like that."
     "It's the only way. You have to live it first. Then you know all you need to know. If you put it all down carefully, precisely the way it was, and get it just right, it'll be literature."
     "I thought fiction was just make believe. You're supposed to make it up.”
     "Fiction is truth. First you live it. Then you write it down. With your guts."
     "A girl doesn't climb mountains and fight in revolutions and shoot lions. My ambition is to write romantic novels."
     "What do you know of romance?" Molly tried to speak, faltered, and finally confessed, "Not much."
     "How will you write it? Do you intend to go to the library stacks and look it up under `L for love?' No, you must have an affair with a man, get involved, live it deeply until you know everything. If you have any luck, you'll forget your precious soul and write it truly with the only thing that counts-guts."
     "My instructor never mentioned this in Creative Writing II"
     "That's hardly surprising. Look at me and pretend you're writing a love scene. Could you accurately describe me if I'd not been here with you?"
     "No."
     "You see? When I take you in my arms like this, you feel certain things. And whatever it is you feel, it's real and it happened to you, not somebody else at some other time."
     "How would you describe my face?"
     "Your face is a moon rising in the warm night of my desire. Your lips are trembling with passion and, beyond the sooty veil of your lashes, your eyes hint of hidden pleasures. Even the glory of your bleached hair is stimulating, for it reminds me of an angel with a tarnished halo."
      Molly pressed her cheek against his. Her breath whispered like cat fur in the softness of his ear. "That was beautiful. But the part about my hair is fiction. I'm a natural blonde."
      He tilted her chin and smiled. "Are you?" he asked, settling his lips over the hot volcano of her mouth. He tasted the fiery sweetness of the crater. Stanley didn't let her go, but prolonged the embrace until her interest exceeded his.
      He felt her fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. He had counted the buttons. There were three. And her lips held him prisoner until the third was undone. At last she released him from the kiss to press his face into the open front of her blouse.
     The nipples were erect like ripe plums on the puddings of her breasts.
     Stanley rolled her down on the couch and the springs groaned under the weight of them both. She was a good woman, as good as his first glimpse of her legs had promised. But she was wrong about one thing--she wasn't a natural blonde.
     When he finished, Stanley got up and discreetly turned away to fill his pipe while Molly regained her composure. By the time he'd finished tamping the last pinch of stringcut tobacco into the bowl and had it well lit, she was dressed.
     "Well, Molly, now do you understand what it is to experience what you write?"
     "No! I couldn't put down words for that. It's too personal. I want to hide it."
     "Hush, Molly. You're talking like a woman, not a writer." Stanley selected a sheet of bond and cranked it into his portable typewriter. He sat down and flexed his fingers over the keys.
     "I'm a woman. But I also want to write. I want to be immortal." 
     "But, my dear Molly! You are immortal. You have become a part of my experience. You'll live forever." He typed a few words on the paper. "Please excuse me. I must work."
     "How can you do it now, when we just finished?"
     "Guts." He continued typing. 
     "Will it bother you if I look over your shoulder while you write?" 
     "Certainly not." He puffed at his pipe and continued typing.
     She moved behind his chair and looked at the sheet of manuscript paper in the machine. She read the words left by the pecking keys as they raced across the paper:

THE IMMORTAL MOLLY JONES 

     Her legs were the first things he noticed. They were long, slender, curvy legs balanced on spike heels drilling twin holes into his doormat. Flesh-colored hose grasped the curving ankles and calves in a gossamer embrace held taut by garter hooks high on the swelling thighs. The lumps of the hooks were visible beneath the clinging material of her skirt. They were the only flaws in the smooth symmetry of leg that swooped upward from delicate ankles to a generous and mobile pelvis.
"Hello, I believe I have an appointment. I'm Molly Jones."…
 
 

More Essays>>>