but in concert with a quick, excitable demeanor. JoLane had a keen, intelligent face and two of the traits scientifically considered beautiful, small chin and wide-spaced eyes, but not the third, high cheekbones. Her dark brown hair was cut too short, whether for revolutionary unisex or a distaste for feminine adornment could not be divined. Nothing on the ring finger. Finally, from multiple signals in her tone of voice and body language, he presumed she was not gay.
And, of greater importance to Raff as to most intelligent men, they were both highly alert and goal-oriented. They were each anxious to tell the other about their childhood, and they could comfortably mock and laugh about their upbringing. That evening their private conversation went on for half an hour, and then after the meeting another half hour, drawing looks from other Gaia Force members, until finally the group began to dissolve. Raff was relieved that no male friend of JoLane's intruded in the conversation, and in the end none came up and said, Come on, JoLane, I'll take you home. Only later did it occur to him that lack of intervention by a possessive male might be evidence of a taboo on sexist displays, based in turn on the belief that testosteronic behavior was a defining trait of environmental evildoers.
Two days later they met for coffee at the student center in the basement of Memorial Hall. There was more talk, this time getting into serious matters of environmental activism and world affairs. Still no sign of Gaian male rivals. The next Saturday, a walk over to the Law School, a tour of the premises by Raff, more talk. The following weekend, with Raff's roommate at Richards Hall away at a Gabonese freedom rally, bed and pillow talk.
Prior to his arrival at Harvard, Raff had, unlike most of his fellow students at FSU, no experience with sex. He was too small physically and immature in physical appearance to attract even the casual attention of most girls. Further, he was shy in temperament, afraid of impregnating a girl or forming any relationship serious enough to deflect him from his planned career. In any case, he could not drive a car, a prerequisite for romance in most of America.
At Florida State University he nevertheless dated several girls with dinner, conversation, a movie in or as close as possible to the FSU campus. And twice he engaged in moderately heavy petting outside the girl's dormitory when he and his date saw other couples doing it. These encounters he frequently reviewed in his mind, and elaborated them into fantasy. He dreamed of more, but resigned himself to waiting.
Raff was totally unprepared, then, for the physical attentions that JoLane showered upon him. They were a quantum leap from anything he had dreamed he might one day experience. The young ladies of his acquaintance at FSU had been basically very modest, and monogamous. They wished to form sexual relationships with one or a very few partners, leading to a husband or at least what is euphemistically called a boyfriend--in either case, the love of their life. Raff had the same domestic concept.
JoLane, in contrast, aimed to wring from sex every pleasure it had to offer. Hers was an experimental and fearless attitude born of radical feminism. It was less raw physical desire than a political statement. With the certification granted her by ideology, she erased the very idea of limits. She approached sex with the casualness of pouring morning coffee. A wildness consumed her, as she set out to try every position, engage every orifice.
JoLane dragged Raff beyond the limits of his own fantasies. She was Lilith, Aphrodite, a force of nature. He had no way to fold their adventure into his logic-dominated worldview. A normal young male, he released himself and joined JoLane's free-form experiments, wondering where they might ultimately lead.
An affair in a major university like Harvard is like no other, independent of the magnitude of its sexual energy. Raff and JoLane were happily lost in the great brainy anthill, weaving their way through a constantly changing labyrinth of classes, study sessions, meetings with friends separate and mutual, and, whenever they could find an hour or two of privacy, or even semiprivacy, exhausting sessions of lovemaking.
Both discovered a new allure, with deepening satisfaction, in the life of Harvard and the surrounding venues of Cambridge. During a lecture by a Supreme Court justice at the Law School entitled "The Constitution and International Negotiation," she started to giggle and