Rising to the Occasion

She slipped in beside him and they kissed. She could feel the tension in his body so she commanded him to roll onto his front and began to gently massage the taut shoulders, smoothing away the knots with supple fingers. He groaned softly as she pressed more firmly into the tense deltoids. She could see the muscle moving beneath his tanned skin.

Jane admired his muscular back as she moved down his spine. She paused only to pour some moisturiser on her hands before continuing her stately progress. She kneaded his buttocks and thighs, steadily moving on down until she reached his feet. She massaged each foot in turn, working on the soles and the ball of each toe. She could see him relaxing as she worked.

More moisturiser was needed and this she applied to her breasts before slowly climbing his body, gently stroking him and trailing her nipples softly up his back. She heard him gasp as became aware of what she was doing. When she finished, she lay back down beside him. “I think that’s enough excitement for one night, don’t you?” she said and turned out the light.

In the bright morning Ben awoke before she did. He eased himself up on the pillow in this strange bed and looked down at the sleeping girl. He found himself touched to the depth of his being by simply looking at her. Her breathing was slow and even, her face serene. He studied the shaded planes and hollows of her face and neck like some explorer, seeking to commit the map of her form and features to his memory. He loved the way her lips curved, the delicate arch of her eyebrows and the smooth, unlined curve of her jaw.

As he watched her, he tried to imagine her as a child, trying to see the metamorphosis from little girl into young woman. He wanted to understand and experience her past as well as her present and future. He was like a man in a desert relieved by sudden rainfall. He yearned to draw her essence into himself, to absorb her quintessential being into his own by osmosis. His soul had been parched and she was refreshment. More, perhaps, could she be that elusive thing called hope; hope for the future, hope for salvation, hope for life itself?

In a flash of clarity he saw what he had been missing all those years. Those wasted years, as he now thought. Somehow Jane had broken the pattern of his relationships. Previously, he had rushed into sex with no knowledge of the woman as a person. When that knowledge had come, he was dissatisfied. Now, his new enlightenment allowed him to see what he had always missed; that making love to a body was ultimately a sterile, futile experience.

Looking at her now, beginning to stir, one rose-tipped pale breast emerging from the white sea of the sheets, his need of her was a physical thing. His chest felt constricted as if his heart had swollen to three or four times its natural size. He struggled to remember to breathe, found himself hyperventilating. He felt as if he was choking on his love for her while she opened her eyes and smiled up at him sleepily.

He shifted himself onto one elbow and gently kissed first her forehead, then her eyes and then her lips. She stretched, arching like a cat in the sunshine and drew his head down to return his kiss. He thought he could still see a slow-departing dream in the gentle profundity of her eyes.

“Good Morning” she smiled, stretching and arching again. He did not trust himself to speak but smiled and kissed her forehead again, stroking silky hair the colour of a lioness’ pelt.

“Why so serious?” One eyebrow lifting slightly to complete the quizzical look.

“Not serious, my love, not really. Just thinking.”

“And what were you ‘just thinking’?”

“That I love you.”

This said quietly, looking directly into those marvellous eyes.
She held his gaze for a long moment. He felt she was looking way down inside him; that she could read his feelings, his recent revelation just as if it was all etched on his retinas in some obscure script for which she possessed both a translation and a key.
“I know you do”. Her voice pitched low and sweet to his ears. She paused. “I’d be very upset if you didn’t. And you wouldn’t be here, in my bed, if I didn’t love you.”

He leaned down and kissed her throat, slipping down her body to take each dusky pink nipple gently between his lips in turn. She watched him like a cat. He nuzzled her breasts gently, placing kisses on the underside, where they lay upon her ribcage. She was languorously still as he traced a line of kisses down her stomach, pausing to cover each hipbone and the hollows they formed with her abdomen. He loved the scent of her skin. He could not liken it to any other. He breathed her perfume now as he returned to her stomach and back down to her hips. It seemed to him she was redolent of love itself. If he could distil the fragrance of her skin it would be the essence of purity.

His tongue slipped lightly into her and she gave a slight gasp above him. Slowly he quested through the curling folds and swirls, tasting her arousal and loving the little noises she let slip. He was firmer now, longer caresses of his tongue elicited a reciprocal urgency in the movement of her hips and her breathing grew more rapid. It brought to his mind a violin or cello, the modulations produced by the tensioning of strings. She was getting near and her breath was coming in gasps. She made no other sound until, at the moment of her release, there was a great exhalation and then a dreamy murmuring, barely vocalised, meaningless noises. She clutched at his neck and held him tightly against her, rocking her hips until the waves that rippled through her retreated and she was back among mortal men.

Her voice was husky as she called him to her and he slid up her body like a seal. It was his turn to gasp involuntarily as he entered her, feeling the fluid firmness surrounding him and her arms twine about his back as her legs parted further to draw him in more deeply. He gritted his teeth to keep his pace slow and his movements gentle and once more felt her breathing grow ragged by his ear and sensed more urgency as she pushed back to meet him. He battled to control his own flaring passion, overcome by the deeper desire for tenderness and the need to express the intensity of his feelings for her in this most basic of human acts. He felt the need building in her. Her movements became stronger and more convulsive and she ground her pelvis into him. He was hanging on desperately now, keeping his rhythm deliberate. The necessity to stay controlled was now almost painful yet exhilarating at the same time.

This time she cried out sharply as she reached her climax and then he was lost, sprinting madly to his own release while she clung to him, seizing his face between her hands she covered him in kisses, her eyes mad and wild as he poured himself into her in a series of ecstatic tremors. They clung together, kissing and touching until the physical rush subsided and left them with a surreptitious sense of delight, a feeling of something wondrous, delicately achieved, too special to be sullied by scant words. Smiles and gentle hugs spoke more profoundly.

At length they moved apart and Ben lay back with Jane cradled on his shoulder. She stroked his chest and snuggled more closely. “I think we can safely say you’ve made a full recovery,” she said at last. “I think we can.” He grinned.” But give me a minute or two and we can make sure!” Jane pushed him away with a laugh and rose in a smooth lithe movement and padded naked in the morning light to the bathroom. He lay back and listened to her singing in the shower. She had a high soft voice and he smiled with the pleasure of hearing her so obviously at one with the world. He caught a feeling of self-satisfaction bordering on the smug. ‘Time to get up’ he thought and grinned ruefully. He knew now that he would never have any trouble getting up again.