Jack  Parsons was a loner, although he was never lonely, because he had treasured
books in which he experienced life more magnificently than anyone else alive.  He
also had his beloved forested mountain side from which he could look out and
behold glorious, snowy peaks and lush, green valleys  Everyday he caressed the
flora of his environment, and he conversed with the fauna.

He was a highly educated man, who, twenty years previously, had earned a Ph.D. in
mathematics from the University of Chicago.  Everyone there thought that he was
incredibly brilliant, but they did not believe that he could make an academic
career, because he was, to put it bluntly, weird.  He did not find a teaching
appointment, nor did he search hard for one.  The income from a small inheritance
was sufficient for the man to escape from a world which was utterly foreign to
him.  He moved into a crude, small cabin in Idaho and found peace for the first
time in his life.

Several times a year he would make his way to a village ten miles away, where he
would purchase provisions and tote them up to his cabin.  The people in the
village were fascinated and disgusted by the man, because the hair of his head
and his face hung matted down to his shoulders, because he was ragged and filthy,
because he emitted a foul stink.  He did not talk to them.  He just asked for
what he wanted and paid for it in cash.

Jack was an extremely contented man, although he was oblivious of happiness.  He
had never loved another person, nor even yearned for one. He had never had a
sexual experience.  He had never masturbated.  The first thirty years of his life
had been an unfolding horror in which he had to deal with other people and
authorities.  What others might have considered to be academic achievement was
for him merely the easiest route through an ugly life.

One day in early Spring, a time when Jack smiled all day at the renewal of the
Earth, his solitude was shattered by the appearance of a young girl.  He could
not tell her age.  She had a young face, was a head shorter than he, and small
bulges in her tattered blouse suggested breasts.  He was furious at her intrusion
and he shouted at her to go away from him.  She stared defiantly at the mountain
man, who was slobbering in his rage, her chin up and her head held high,
supremely confident and self possessed, and she demanded food.  He trembled with
anger and loomed over the little girl menacingly, but she stood her ground
proudly.  She again demanded food, knowing, somehow, that she would have her way.
 Jack stood tall, looking down on the little girl, his fists clenched tightly,
and then he relaxed, because he knew that he could not hurt her.  He turned, went
into his cabin, and returned with crude, home-made biscuits and some meat, which
was not too rancid.  The girl ate the food greedly and washed it down with hand
scoops of water from a nearby rain barrel.  Jack watched as she gobbled the food,
 and he thought of the deer that frequented the nearby meadow.

The girl spoke to him, asked him questions,  and would not stop talking.  Jack
ran back to his cabin to escape the unwanted noise.  The girl followed him and
poked her head through the door, still talking. Jack lay on his pallet with his
hands over his ears, wanting the girl to go away and leave him in peace.

Had Jack listened to her, he would have learned that she was fourteen years old,
that her name was Alice, that she had run away from a children's prison, where
she been incarcerated for stabbing a man who was raping her, a man who was as
prominent as she was obscure.  Jack did not hear her words, just the light tinkle
of her young voice, which distressed him in a way which he had never before
experienced.  Jack cowered on the floor as Alice came into the evil smelling
cabin, her nose wrinkling at the stench.

She did not go away.  She had no where to go.  She slept that night on the floor
across from Jack, who was made woefully unhappy by her presence.   The next
morning Alice took a bucket of water from the rain barrel and went into the
forest to wash herself.  Jack looked at her departing figure and hoped that she
would not return.  But she did, carrying the empty bucket and asking again for
food.  Jack showed the girl his larder, a hopeless feeling coming over the man.

* * *

Alice was not at all intimidated by the man, whose utter wretchedness she found,
somehow, endearing.  He was like a character from a story book.  That first
morning she spent at the cabin she looked in vain for a broom.  Then, with a
series of rags, she dusted and sweap out the cluttered space, Jack looking on
helplessly, hoping that she would not disturb his books,  which she didn't.  She
talked constantly, but Jack did not hear her words, just her sounds, to which he
became accustomed. She tinkled like a wind chime in a gentle breeze.

For two days Alice cleansed the fetid cabin, airing it out as best she could. 
She dusted Jack's books, showing them proper respect when handling them.  She
tidied his pallet and made one for herself.  She washed the filthy clothes that
he was not wearing, and then demanded that he change and let her wash the clothes
that he had been wearing for three weeks.  Jack responded numbly.  He had
encountered  an authority which was totally novel to him, still threatening, yet
different.

Spring stretched into early Summer, when the days were frequently dead from the
heat and the inscents buzzed  incessantly.  Jack had come to accept the intruder
as part of his environment, as if she were a demanding puppy.  Early on Alice
discovered a nearby stream in which to bathe.  She mended her tattered clothes, a
blouse and jeans, as best she could.  She forced Jack to go the stream and to
bathe at least once a week.  She cut his hair and trimmed his beard as he sat
dumbly on a stump outside the cabin.

Although Jack was unbalanced, he came to understand that he was confronted with
another human being, not a puppy.  But this person became, eventually,  agreeable
to him, unlike all the others whom he had dealt with in the past.  She was
pulling him out of his solitude.  Jack began to smile at the girl, and he would
venture to exchange words with her, just a few.

One day he muttered that he had to go the village and replenish his supplies. 
Alice beamed a smile at the man and requested some cookies. In the village the
people noticed a marked difference in Jack, who no longer stank, whose eyes were
brighter, whose appearance was more tidy. He returned that evening heavily laden
with provisions, including many cookies, and some shirts and trousers for the
girl, which, of course, were too large, and had to be altered.  Alice was glad to
see her mountain man return, and Jack smiled at her as he trudged up the track to
the cabin.

* * *

Now we have a problem, a problem in explaining how these these so dissimilar
persons became lovers.

Jack was a man who lived inside his own mind, where he enjoyed a luxurious,
elegant existence.  Over the years his attachment to the physical world outside
his head, and to the people who populated it had become increasingly tenuous.  He
was completely impotent.  Never in his life had his penis felt an urge. Never had
blood flowed to it and thickened it.

Alice was so different.  She lived in the real world, and, although she was still
a small, young girl, she was confident that she could master it.  She was not a
virgin.  She had been raped once by that odious, important man whom she had
stabbed, not fatally, she regretted.  She masturbated frequently, ever since she
was ten years old, and, at fourteen, whe wanted a lover.

Alice thought that Jack would become her lover, despite his age and his mental
disability.  She feared it, because she knew that she would quickly become
pregnant.  Still, she had no where else to go, because she would rather die than
return to the children's prison.  If she gave birth up there in the mountains,
with Jack incapable of any help, she could die, or her child could perish.  If
she sought help from the larger society, which clung to the valleys like a mold,
she would be sent back to prison.  She thought that Jack would take her, and she
would clutch to him as he thrust into her, hurting her.  She wanted so much to
feel it for the first time.

Jack had always shunned authority, which he considered so egregiously intrusive. 
He was a free man who had a greater comprehension of the universe than others. So
 he wondered why he accepted the authority of Alice, who had come to rule his
life.  He no longer offered any resistance to the girl.  If he could think
clearly, he would have realized that he had come to love the kid, who stroked his
cheek so often, smiled at him and was so nice.  He realized that she was very
pretty, like a faun or a wildflower.  He had no sexual feelings, although he
relished the touch of her soft skin.  Alice had caused confusion in Jack's mind,
but she also gave him an entirely new and profound experience.  It was happiness.

One night, rather than masturbating, Alice decided to go and join Jack on his
pallet.  She wondered why he had not hit upon her for the several months which
they had shared together.  She nestled to him, one arm thrown across his chest. 
She licked his cheek and felt the old man's stubble on her tongue.  He smelled
clean, because of her, and she felt proud of it.  Jack, however, did not respond.
 He did not clutch her. He did not kiss her.  He did not fondle her.  Alice
kissed his lips and felt nothing in response.  She then decided that the man was
too old for sex, and she pushed her body against his in frustration.

Jack stirred.  He palmed Alice's cheek gently, lovingly.  He was not totally
demented.  Alice suddenly hoped that he would take her, but he didn't; he
couldn't.  He fondled her soft upper arm and was delighted, when she pressed her
lips to his.  He felt her tongue on his lips and he responded with his own,
touching the tip of hers.  Jack knew about sex, but he also realized that it was
something of which he was incapable. Still, he treasured the feel of her soft
warmth, her fragrance, but most of all her acceptance of him.  He fondled a
breast for the first time in his life and clutched the girl to him. licking her
hair.   He was aroused, yet flacid.  She had become the most precious creature in
his existance.

Alice was extremely frustrated sexually.  She took Jack's hand in hers and
pressed it to her  groin, rubbing it against her.  It was not enough.  She got up
and took off all her clothes and then lay beside him again naked.  She groped the
man and felt no hardness.  She unzipped his fly and pulled out his penis.  She
played with it, stroked it.  She leaned down and took it into her mouth.  It was
to no avail.  He remained flacid.  Then, in a moment of lucidity, Jack
appologized and told the girl, petting her head as though she were a kitten, that
he was impotent.  Alice suddenly felt pity for the man and snuggled to him, her
eyes moist.

Jack had never felt such ecstasy,  such happiness as he lay with the small girl
in his arms.   He was not a complete retard.  He knew what she needed.  He kissed
her lips as he explored her between the legs with his large fingers.  He knew
that he had found a magic spot, when she jerked and gasped.  He lingered there,
stroking her with the most profound love, until Alice cried out and bit his ear
lobe.   Jack shed decades of isolation and became a kid once again.  He licked
and sucked on her flesh fervently as she squirmed and fondled his head.  His face
between her thighs, he inhaled her aroma and felt her moistness on his lips.  He
licked on her magic spot as he pushed two fat fingers into her, hoping that it
would be enough to bring her to pleasure.  Alice went wild and soon emitted a
brief scream.

She quieted and wondered how she could possibly pleasure her lover. It was
unnecessary.  Jack held the naked girl tightly to him, breathing in her scent,
feeling her warm flesh, lost in a reverie that was more splended than a crude
orgasm.