In Which Things Get Literotic

Ladies and Gentlemen (and everyone in between), my paen to my literary loves.

To My First Roommate:

You told me
in high school,
“You’re such a book slut,
giving your mental
passions to every suave
motif, every deft
allusion – and
the more multilayered,
the better.
Length is of some
consequence – but
girth of meaning
really gets you off –
admit it.”

“With pleasure,”
I replied.
And I continued my epic tryst
into the narrow top bunk
of the dorm room we shared.

You took to your bed
every paperback pagan priest
with a pretty cover and a big
dragon, and devoured him
in one night – you were
a plot-only kind of gal,
no frills, no eloquence,
just the beginning,
middle and
end.
Dry, and without
organic structure –
like a ninth grader’s
5-paragraph essay –
your one-night novels.
Each predictable, disposable,
each a temporary
bedtime companion
to drown the day’s bitterness
with adventure like
a dinner-and-movie date
and love like
a half-hearted kiss.

You observed the etiquette of
library-rented lovers:
no rough handling, no doggy-
eared pages or pen-stain
hickeys to commemorate
your brief affair.
Even those bought and kept
retained their virginal shine,
never showing evidence
of fervent handling.

But 3 feet above you
I took works of character –
though not always noble or pure.
In these knightly poems
and libertine fictions,
I found literotic loves,
compelling me to return even
after the last page was spent.

I was not gentle, nor polite,
ravishing regularly those whose
words tangled in my hair
and left their letters in my clothes
until their spines broke
and their pages grew worn,
bruised by my pen’s exclamations.
They wore their duct-tape braces
with pride, and compared marks
to see who was loved more.

They remain my harem –
my fine bookshelf of
roguish novels, tender
gothic tales, voracious verses,
and the occasional,
thrilling philosopher –
but chief above them all
are the well-worn works
whose inky whispers leave my
pages ruffled, my binding weak,
and my bookmark right
at the best part.

You see, this is really how it goes. I had serious literary crushes before I had a crush on an actual boy. The short list goes something like this:
Peter Pevensie and Prince Caspian (Chronicles of Narnia) - Childhood. These boys were probably my first literary loves. Boys in shining armor, in a land of magic and chivalry and Greek gods and creatures? Oh yeah. I still think Prince Caspian is truly sexy, and am really looking forward to lusting after him on the big screen this May.
Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre) - 6th grade. Ok. This was my first sexual crush. I wanted...oooh, I wanted Mr. Rochester to do terrible things to me. And the things just kept getting more terrible the older I got. Some would say that this should've been my first clue that I'm submissiveish.
Petruchio (Taming of the Shrew) - 10th grade. I know, it's reeeely dorky to have a crush on a Shakespearean character. But the guy who played Petruchio in the school production was so compellingly hot...I fell in love with the character. Another dominant man. Hm.
Micheal Valentine Smith (Stranger In A Strange Land) - Sophomore year of college. Mm. A man who knows *exactly* what I want. Mmm. I hadn't had sex yet, but I knew that was a good good thing. And, he's just darling.
Wizard Howl (Howl's Moving Castle) - Jr. year of college. It's probably kinda wrong to find a literary crush in a children's lit class...but Howl is most certainly of age. And he's got the Rochesterian infuriating/dominant attitude. *melts*
The Vampire Lestat (Vampire Chronicles) - Jr. year. *bites lip* I feel a little guilty about this one. I mean...it's pop lit. But he's so damn sexy and compelling. He can bite me any day of the week.

Those are the major ones, the ones I like to spend a long afternoon with. There are other books that are on this level, but these are my literary men.