"I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again."
F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise


"I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love." Rick rephrased what he had spoken in French into English, having memorized it as such from the book she left behind for him three weeks ago when he last saw her at the University. It was his favorite quote to whisper in her ear when they were alone in her apartment or halfway across town in some motel.

His eyes glued to the calendar indicating it was the summer of 1969 at Harvard University where he had first met his Michonne. Even then he considered her to have been the most exquisite ebony colored beauty he had or thought he would ever lay eyes upon, and he wanted to claim her.

But as her professor, he knew it was against the fraternization rules. This compulsion, this need to take her body up against the desk when the class was emptied out with everyone but her, he had to fight against. He had to fight to keep himself glued, or he would snap into pieces only to find himself rearranged in such a manner he would not recognize himself nor be-himself.

He was wary at first of having to use slight of hand or any deception or receiving any preconceived contrivance that he manipulated grades to keep her above all others. It was a known fact from the other course faculty that Michonne was an exceptional student. Many were hesitant to use the word genius and thrust it upon her kind not because she was an African American woman, but because she was a woman. He wanted to believe in the latter.

...

"Don't worry, I am not joining the Black Panther group."

"I wouldn't blame you if you did, Michonne."

"My parents would have a heart attack. I couldn't do that to them."

"I thought your apprehension had something to do with me and what my opinion was of the matter?" Rick gave Michonne a quizzical look.

Michonne smile grew as she snuggled her face into his neck. Her professor. Her lover. Her overthinking boyfriend with the accent.

"I have to go away for three long weeks. Are you going to come to my apartment tonight? Our last night together."

"Tonight?" Rick questioned.

"You said you would." Michonne ran her fingers through his hair while he caressed her mid back and arm.

"I failed to remember that this is my wife's birthday today and a party has been planned and-"

Instantly, Michonne went rigid and it instantly alarmed Rick who was relaxed in his office chair without his tweed jacket, Michonne had removed it and he allowed her to undo three buttons of his shirt so he appeared less stuffy and uptight.

Michonne began to lift herself from his lap but he held her firmly in place. She began to fight against his restraint.

"Let me go."

"I can never let you go, Michonne."

"Let me go, Richard." Michonne began to resist.

"I can't."

"I will scream if you don't take your slimy hands from around me."

"I wish you would scream. I wish you would reveal what we are doing, have been doing because I am tired of hiding it. I am tired, Michonne. I want to be with you but I need you to be certain that I am who you want."

"Why would you question my love for you? You are the one with the wife that you say you don't want. I question your love for me, Richard."

"I am thirty eight."

"You were thirty six when we started this."

"Your point?"

"I was helping you to establish one." Michonne's back was to him. He buried his face in her dreads until his nose was pressed against the back of her neck. His arm still firmly wrapped around her waist. She was no longer resisting him.

"I am going to give you just enough wiggle room my lady to pull down your undergarment."

"I didn't lock the door to your office, Richard." Michonne was surprised by his command.

Everyone from other Professors to Students all knew to knock first and wait for his customary, "Enter Please." A locked door was a rare event.

"I wouldn't have suggested if I hadn't secured it myself."

Michonne felt his very serious harden member come to life under her. The last time they had fooled around in his office it was incredible but it was over a month ago. A repeat of that had her heady. He was distracting her and it worked.

In the time that it took Michonne to reach under her mini skirt and pull down her panties Rick had undone his belt buckle ,unbuttoned and unzipped his pants. They were breathing heavy. He had turned her face to give her a kiss squarely on the mouth as Michonne sat, her back still to him and rode him with the same veracity she gave to her zest for knowledge. He fisted and lifted the back of the miniskirt up to get a visual view of her dark beautiful skin as it took him in and released him on a steady repeat. His eyes closed momentarily as they both moaned their pleasures as softly as possible. They weren't sure how thick the walls were in the faculty area but they weren't going to take any chances. Nothing about Michonne was meek or timid. She knew exactly how to tantalize him. He never stepped out of his pants that kept his ankles restrained and Michonne hadn't stepped out fully from her underwear that was tangled around her left ankle. He was consistently mesmerized at how she could bring him to the brink and he still had some sense of sanity.

When they found themselves unusually aroused by this connection shared, Rick confirmed what was in his heart as he began to press Michonne chest against his office desk. Hotly he said in her ear before he plunged deeper, "I love you Michonne. Love you. I want to spend the rest of my days with you. Do you want me like that?"

Michonne breathed out, "Yes. I love you. I will always be with you Richard. I want to be with you like this. I am yours."

"All of this is mine, Michonne?" Rick began to twitch and pulse inside of her.

"Yes."

"I want your body, mind and spirit." Rick gave a long deep thrust that caused Michonne to lose her train of thought.

"I-"

"You have mine, Michonne. You know that you have my body. Only you can break my mind and spirit."

"Fuck me please."

..

The inferiority of a woman is or was so engrained in the males psyche it may just take a century to have it erased completely. One day when there will be Gender neutrality one of the faculty members would like to drone on to the point of ad nauseam.

Rick never understood fully the dynamics of that period of society where the disparity was apparent but ignored. He was after all born and raised in London, England and took the teaching position in America at the affluent college. He did it to get away from his parents who wanted him married to his second cousin, Lori, who he actually married and moved her with him to America. They found a small modest home and that was where they settled in Massachusetts. They had a son named Carl who was 9 years old.

The affair was one of many things that happened that year. Lori was suffering from some type of self induced psychosis that was left untreated. Michonne had a birthday that now made her 22 to his 38. Nothing much changed in the ways or thoughts of those outside the campus who were happy and content with some schooling if any at all. Desegregation caused more segregation in the lunch rooms of every middle school and high school from his vantage point.

There was a growing systemic problem that would not have any acknowledgment if it weren't for a select conscience driven few. He was a white man in love with a colored woman and with the amount of people okay with getting by with just a 9th grade level of education he could see how society was doomed to repeat itself.

He was also a man that would strangle his wife in a fit of rage because she had shot his lover at the Greyhound bus stop that fateful day. It was the day the world sat in wonder around their television while he waited at the bus station for Michonne's return. It was the day on repeat. Rick found that day to contradict the words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

A man on the moon, compared to what happened in 1968 with Martin Luther King wasn't what Rick considered progress; it was escapism and deflection, when the world below was inching closer to utter mental and moral decay.

His wife lay lifeless on the sidewalk and he walked poetically in front of a moving school bus that was driven by Mike which was his first day and last day as Alexandria Commons School Bus driver.

...


Michonne was his first taste of love. His only. Rick found that his body was unable to yield to another. His mind would not permit it, and when he received word that she was in Louisiana with his older Sister Carol, he made haste by stage coach to arrive as quickly as possible even if it was over 4 weeks later. The mere mention that Michonne was on Carol's estate caused a stir within the guest in attendance who were staying in her home for a short period. It was where he had abandon Miss Lori Davidson to pursue his only love, Michonne Benton who had witnessed him talking to the woman that was flaunted before him as a suitable choice and the discussion was made rather public to all in attendance by the man named, Mr. Monroe.

Michonne had performed on the piano that night where Rick danced twice with Lori. It made Michonne sick to her stomach, and she had abruptly made her quick apologies spoken in French when the applause died down after she completed the second recital. Her father, Mr. Benton was on violin and started up a new tune while his daughter quickly left the drawing room for the outdoors. The gasp came not from what Michonne had done but that Rick without thought went right after her.

"No worries Everyone!" Carol said jovially. "My brother paid a fine price to make sure she played tonight. He's going to ensure her safe return to finish out the night." Quickly the crowd became enraptured in the violin player and Carol made her way out to find her brother and Michonne. If it weren't for the sounds they made, Carol would not have known which direction to take.

"You want her?"

"No, I don't want her." Rick responded honestly.

"Then why are you dancing with her?" Michonne questioned.

"Because I can't dance with you. Lori will never compare to you. Even the men in there know that and I can't tell which man at the party I may have to kill if they think they are going to have you for their pleasure. I am not going to sleep tonight when I know what is on the mind of a few of them. You ran out here in the darkness and I had to follow you out to make sure no harm comes to you, My Chonne."

"You are breaking my heart dancing with her." Michonne admitted tearfully.

"I won't dance ever again unless it is with you like we are about to do right now." He promised and offered in one breath.

"You want to dance with me now?"

"I can still hear your father on the Violin. Can't you? May I have this dance, Michonne?"

The distance in which Carol stood, she could see the two dancing a simple Waltz.

"I am going to dance three dances with you and then you will come back inside knowing I danced more with you than I had danced with Lori. You will play the piano and allow me to love you with my eyes. I will just watch and listen to you play tonight. I will keep watch by your bedroom door to make sure no harm comes to you, my love. My Michonne."

Courting another was not ever brought up again, and Rick did not explain his abrupt departure other than he brought the music back which he received a round of applause.

When her father and the flamboyant white Frenchmen that they always traveled with was killed unexpectedly on the road back to Carol's Estate, Michonne found herself without any real direction. Rick was out in town with the two men that were official Guest of Carol when it happened. He had blood on his clothes and only a shared look with Carol that indicated the negotiations for Michonne didn't go to well.

...
"Dr. Deanna, I don't understand."

"Let me put it to you this way. Slavery was one of the most evil institution that had people open with their superiority complexes and self-delusion of importance while degrading, objectifying and mortally wounding all sense of self for the man of color. Human Bondage. Your mother was in a perpetual state of bondage the moment your father," Dr. Deanna glanced from Andre to Carl, "sold his soul to release her from the very grips that keep them from moving forward."

...

We were completely naked in his bedroom. I didn't know whether Sasha and Daryl came back inside the trailer or not. After awhile I didn't care if they could hear us.

Rick was intent on being in the missionary position. He wouldn't allow me on top, and he took his time in finally sliding inside of me, and I felt my delirium grow to a new level. I had him completely submerged inside me where he didn't move. He just stared down at me and me up at him. Droplets of his sweat hit my face and neck. I didn't care.

There was a wave that we both refused to ride. It was deliciously intense as we both tried to fight the desire to move. We connected in such a way that a memory came back to me. A memory that I had no record of but it played before my eyes as if I recalled a time in which, Rick and I knew each other, have known each other. We were sharing this moment in tandem.

Flicker of flames and then we let loose.

...

The body of his cousin, Shane surfaced, somehow at some point in Georgia. His father had finally died as did his mother from God's medicine, Opium.

Negan from the bank came calling, but we were already gone. Only a few of the slaves followed. The ones that stayed were afraid of freedom. To them, it was like saying there was no master when they have always had one, unfathomable.

Rick wasn't forcing anyone. He left those who wouldn't budge for the bank to take and control. Ezekiel came with us and Rick's Mammy, Mabel. I had to sit with them in the wagon that was driven by the male slave and Rick by his side who never done so at such a long distance.

I couldn't sit with Rick just in case we were stopped in our travels to Louisiana with our small group of enslaved Negroes. He didn't like the fact I was with the few, hidden from sight as he preferred for safety reasons. He gave the men a quick look about, and they knew to keep a safe sitting distance from me even with Mammy by my side to ensure it.

"We almost there, Chonnie."

Rick waited on top of the River bank while Michonne waded in the River to cool herself off and to freshen up from the dust and grime of travel. The horses needed their rest, and they drank from the same river while Mammy made a quick outdoor meal while everyone sat close to the wagons wary of any sound or movement.

"You promised a tub!"

"We will take the cabin by the River. I don't see no need for a tub if we do that." Rick teased.

"You goin back on your promise to me?"

"The Cabin at Carol's is too small, and I will be busying with making it larger and adding rooms for our children. There won't be any comfort for awhile until I get it just right."

"Richard Sinclaire Grimes-"

Rick chuckled. He knew she was going to go into fluent French fussing which was easy to endure than when she would do it in English. English he knew what she was saying but spoken in French she was his fancy, exotic, one of a kind life mate, his wife. Rick waited for the pause as he watched her animated hands splash the water as she began to emerge. He had a towel awaiting her, and he was standing guard that no one from his entourage would foolishly come to the River until he and Michonne were finished. He left a gun with Ezekiel to shoot off if there was any sign of trouble.

"You will have your tub, Chonnie. I will make room for it if you promise to let me watch you soak from time to time."

"Why do you like to upset me?"

"Just some fun with you."

"I trust words you tell me."

"Did you just drown fun in the river with you? If so get back in the water and get it before it dies."

"At a time like this, you want humor? We have people terrified of this idea to go to Louisiana. They are likely to run back in the direction in whence we came for what is familiar is a comfort but instead we, you have people that have chosen to follow you and do you know why?" Michonne didn't wait for her husband, life mate to respond as she stood before him in her dripping wet Chemise or Shift as it was known in America, "Because they trust the words you speak. You are a man of your words. You haven't harmed them, and they don't distrust you."

Rick looked about as he held the towel to wrap around her body, more for modesty than anything else, "I have two concerns right now, Chonne. My number one concern is you, my family. My second concern is you speaking to me in a manner that I need to take you over my knee and spank you a few good times until you understand to speak broken English at all times unless we are under the roof of our home then you can speak to me any way you see fit."

They stood there with their eyes locked on each other. Rick was close enough for Michonne to feel his breath on her cooled skin. "You want to do this here?" Michonne questioned what his inclinations were when he was ever this close to her. He had proven to her many times over that he loved no one but her and he was showing it again by leaning down and kissing her on her forehead and then gently on the lips.

"We have people as you say that may need to get down to this here River and cool themselves. If I do what you know what I want to do right now, they would never get a chance for a great while longer, Chonnie."

"Hand me my dry clothes."

...

We had already found refuge with Carol. We were living amongst who Rick sister Carol would call her family with peculiar propensities. Rick had refused to live inside the large home with his sister if that meant I had to stay in the back room and stealthily come to him in the night if there were visitors. He didn't want to live that way nor did he want our children to live like that, their mother was his wife, not his bed wench.

His arrangement would have been that He and I would share a bed and our kids would remain close by, not in the other part of the house.

The thought of Michonne having to creep to him or him to her unsettled him since Carol would on many occasion entertain an occasional outsider who would stay over night and would surely put two and two together. Michonne was off limits. She belongs to him.

He still preferred placing us away from the main house. We took to living in the Cabin where we first made love and where we would go to be together before we had the children.

The home was much smaller than the one in Georgia, and Rick promised to extend it. He was going to make it larger from a two-room to four or five room home. He would have to enlist the help of the others, and he wasn't sure what the incentive would be other than obtaining a skill he was willing to teach if he had too.

We had plans to start anew. We had the children on pallets while we took to the only Cot that was there, had always been there.

We made love that night, quietly while the children slept. We were on our sides. His breathing was heavy and warm on the back of my neck. I lifted my leg so he could enter me from behind. His bare chest was prest to my back. My breathing matched his as we began to make the bed creak and he tried with all his might to slow down to not wake the children who slept peacefully, unaware. Our lower half covered by the blanket that he pulled down to our waist, his hand playing between my legs. It was hot that night, but we didn't stop.
...

Beads of sweat fell from my brow onto her forehead. It was hot in that bedroom that I called my own in Daryl's Trailer home.

I felt incredibly aroused by how responsive she was to me. I moved deeper inside her becoming merciless, fed by some primal need to consume her. I was hard, and I wanted to fill Michonne up until she reached her peak without reaching mine but I descended twice down the mountain to find myself still rigid, hard, increasingly turned on and climbing steadily back to the top ready to go yet again without stopping my thrusts. I was a rutting animal.

Her body was that of a beautiful black goddess, her skin velvety smooth all over. She was slick, and I prayed she didn't want me to stop. I needed this between her thighs. I was going to rupture a blood vessel from this orgasmic frenzy I found myself in, still on top of her, still in the missionary position, stuck in a perpetual haze of euphoria. I craved her mouth. I covered it with my own. Tasting her and relishing in the heat that engulfed me, inflamed me

It was hot, but we didn't stop.

Oh, Fuck!. I'm going to cum. I'm fucking going to come again. I am going to-" I was drowning, and I didn't want to be alone, "Come with me. Tell me you will come with me-Please?"

My thrust never stopped. I plunged faster and grabbed Michonne nicely round black ass to lift her to move at an angle so I could reshoot my seed into her. This sensation was what I remembered.

Burned alive. No escape.

...

Rick had just ejaculated on her dress with just dry humping, unable to wait for her garments removal. His eyes rolled back it was the right amount of friction and a slight rip of her bodice he was able to take into his mouth her dark nipple. He couldn't help ejaculating with his trouser undone and her straddling him as he sat on the cot inside of the Cabin. This level of intimacy was the first time and their first attempt.

"I have never been to a whore house. I have never been to a brothel." Rick had informed Michonne. "I had the opportunity to go, but the smell repulsed me, Michonne. Women that have been with other men and the heavy perfume they wore. I began to wonder if I were peculiar, and then I met you, and you have been all that I have ever desired. I have waited for you. I have waited for this, us."

"You wouldn't have hurt my feelings if you have. They have bath houses in France. I've heard the whispers about who goes in there. Practice to become a good lover or until you find a wife is not a bad thing. I have come across some books about it. You are the first and only person I have told that I have read such a thing."

"I too saw a book or two, but I think it is very different when actually with someone. The books don't mention anything about nerves. I don't have any training in the area, and if I am doing things wrong, it's because of that."

"I've never done anything with anyone but you, Rick. I am a little scared."

"I don't want you scared, Michonne. We don't have to continue since I-" Rick found it hard to finish his sentence or to look at Michonne. He had already soiled her dress and his pants..

"You've changed your mind?" Michonne was surprised by the change in his desire to proceed with what she dreamt about for months upon months.

"No. I haven't changed my mind. I want to. I want to continue." Rick felt his arousal grow with the possibility of finally consummating his relationship with Michonne.

"Well, you need to be more careful with my clothing."

"I don't know if I can be gentle, Michonne. I've dreamt of this. I've waited a long time for this. You may have to remove everything yourself. I will watch to see how it is done."

"I will undress, and you undress," Michonne suggested.

Rick began to make haste in the removal of his cravat along with his vest and dress shirt. He paused when fully removing his trouser that was already unbuttoned. Just the sight of her nude body had Rick completely erect again within seconds. His heart raced, and his breathing began to stagger long and labored. He fought becoming erratic. He was nervous again. She was breathtaking, exquisite, and her scent was driving him wild that he quickly got to his feet and swooped her up in his arms and placed her onto the cot to gaze down at her beautiful form.

He lowered himself on the small bed and began to kiss her slowly and then deeply. He kissed her everywhere all the way down to her feet. Parting her legs, he fed himself readily. Her juices were slightly sweet. But he knew very little of what technique and went with how her body responded to the use of his fingers and hands gripping her hips as he buried his face further to drain her of every drop that she expelled for him as he listened on to her pleas for him to never stop.

Words of love spoken in French and English in between gasps.

He predicted that he wasn't going to be gentle but he was and he continued that way.

"Vous et nul autre," Michonne whispered. "You and no other."

He made love to her slowly, sweetly and endlessly.

...

The bounty for my brother was valid. Richard Sinclair Grimes was a wanted man in Georgia and Louisiana for the death of our cousin Shane Walsh and Mr. Devereaux. Michonne's father was disposable, considered perishable property, similar to a sack of potatoes. Things did not go as plan for little brother Rick when he had asked for Michonne. He wanted Michonne to be his, leaving out the part that he was hers. It probably would have made it more palatable to the two men with whom he was in negotiations with regarding his beloved. Rick was denied, and so he took her without regard to the father's pleas that his daughter was not property and could never and would never be free to walk and enjoy much less love openly in the South, no better in the North from his experience.

Mr. Benton' didn't want that for his only daughter that was produced by a forced union at a time he barely remembered, but the birth was his reminder.

Carol was steadfast she got everyone that lived under her protection armed and ready to defend. Right or wrong she was going to die trying that night the walls were breached, and the sound of hounds howled. Her eyes were made to pierce the darkness that blanketed the woods. Quietly she crept with the help of the moonlight that shone eerily bright that warm and humid night.

The Hounds were the first to fall to the ground with a loud yelp. Carol shot the first two and her lover aimed for the other three. The butt of the gun missed her as it swung. A bullet in the head caused a man to fall to the ground at the time she held the hot barrelled tip to Negan's temple.

"Now why you go and do that?" Negan inquired. He was not shaken by the position he was in. He still had the air of having the upper hand even with the nozzle of the gun pressed to his head.

Carol didn't have any answers she pulled the trigger at the time the walls of the cabin was pulled from the frame and out walked her brother with his children and Michonne carrying the youngest child.

Carol was too late, spirits walking out of the flames meant she was dead too, shot gun blown from her hands. Negan was on all sides of her. How?

"You save them from the fire will only have your brother Richard Sinclaire Grimes hanging from the nearest tree. I will have him by his neck for Michonne to find him. Don't you think it better they burn?"

"Our father who aren't in heaven-" Carol began the lord's prayer falling to her knees. Prayer hands and eyes closed.

"Don't go with that. I asked you a question, Carol. Am I sure you can see things the way I do? Right? A fire. Do you want me to finish the story of what a Michonne would do if she found her precious Rick hanging? Negan not waiting for a response continued, "Well, Michonne is a smart one she knows that the bank could make good with all the breeding she and Rick had gone and done. We would make money with those half breed bastards. High price for them with that fair complexion and the young girls. I would say, those would make me quite a bit of money. They would come handy in the night when you have an uptight wife."

"Michonne would kill her children first before she allowed it. She would." Carol agreed with the outcome.

"I am considered the Melodramatic. You are correct my Dear Lorac. Very correct."

"My brother will never kneel to you."

"Oh but he has, but he still calls for Michonne, why? Tell me!"

...

"Why are they still on the roof? Get them down. Get them down. Right now damn it. The storm is coming." Mabel had her hands on her hips as she waited for Tyrese to come with the ladder.

Eugene climbed the ladder reaching and nudging Rick's foot. He didn't stir. Eugene nudged harder, Michonne snuggled closer into Ricks body.

"I am the Queen of the land of Sand and Wind. Why are you here?"

"To worship you," Rick whispered eyes closed.

...

A/N:

Answers to all the burning questions.

Where in the heck is Michonne and Rick?

Rick and Michonne are actually on the Roof of the Mortuary experiencing these things and I hope as the reader you are experiencing it as they are presenting it. The sex helps them connect to and experience their past lives in tandem. They are on the roof but they are connected in Daryl trailer where they have joined in slavery and splinter off-Rick the Professor and Michonne direction is when she was Queen.

What is this story about?

Mental Illness or supernatural time traveling time jump, but the end will reveal hopefully succinctly.

What were you thinking to write this? Are you insane?

This is from very little sleep. I will come back to it in the morning if it is truly chaotic. I was thinking and I gave up thought and just began to type which may be a sign of insanity.

I am having a hard time following your stories.

I would suggest you start with Two Islands or Pencil Skirt. If you can't get through that then put me on Author Ignore list. ( If you endeavor to continue You will notice a slight grammar improvement with time)

PS:

The quote: J'ai aimé jusqu'à atteindre la folie. Ce que certains appellent la folie, mais ce qui pour moi, est la seule façon d'aimer.

I have loved to the point of madness; That which is called madness, That which to me, Is the only sensible way to love
Francois Sagan in the 1960's.

Rick would have never heard such a thing in the period I have him and Michonne which is somewhere in the 1800's (Slavery/Plantation, Georgia, Louisiana and New York) He would not have heard this or known this but I wanted to incorporate it by introducing the beginning story line Professor/Student relationship in 1969. Also towards the end is introducing another time jump of when Michonne was Queen.

...