S
he lay upon the bed, across his legs, she slept so deeply, so smoothly. She lay with her head upon his chest, her legs and arms in disarray, hand palm up with softly curled fingers. And he watched as she slept, first upon her face, now still and even, then he raised his eyes to the trail of clothes and he chuckled to himself. She murmured something as the edge of dream and reality met for a moment, he sang her name with cool whisper until she settled to this softness.
It had been a cool evening, late summer kissing sweet goodbye, and he had too much to drink before dinner. The melancholy pervaded his mood. Invaded his heart. She came to his house dressed in celery green organza, a dress with pale cream flowers cascading down her body. She laughed all through dinner, her mood too light for his incapable toungue, and his words fell about like wooden blocks. She possessed a grace that danced through them, laughing never at him, but at the heat of his earnestness, at his bumbled attempts to right his ideas with fiercer posturing. He knew this, and followed in chase as she galloped along with news and gossip that even turned his sour disposition to nothing more than easy smile of surrender. With this victory she settled into her meal, he could only allow that she had been nervous at his mood. He reached a hand to hers and coiled his fingers about hers, finding hers yielding. She looked up, her eyes truly meeting hisfor the first time that night, her face of pale moonsilk.
"Thank you," he felt the blush creep up his neck, "I missed you, I will miss, you, I mean." That now said he turned to his meal.
"What manner of man is this?" She sang softly. "You say more than you think. I did confess to myself only yesterday that Catherine did not need me to help her with this bazaar. Only the decorations I said!" She took his hand full with both of hers, "it will be for just a few weeks, then it will be Thanksgiving..."
"And then christmas and then easter and then a summer." He flustered with his napkin and pulled away, upsetting her wine glass and drenching her sleeve. "Oh Elizabeth! Forgive me!" He was up helping her sop the drooping sleeve. She only laughed at his efforts. "John, we will find more success if I change into a robe," she smiled.
She took his hand and led him to the bathroom, "how may I unzip," she tossed over her shoulder. He followed a bit dazed, without a thought except her ruined dress. In the small wallpapered room she looked at him in the mirror, he stood behind her, not sure what to do next. "Well?" She smiled indicating the zipper. He blushed a quick grin and unzipped her dress. He watched the gentle undulation of her body as she stepped out of the dress. Then, clad in a slip of gossamer silk, filled the sink with cold water and gently washed her dress.
He did not hear her voice so intent he was on the nape of her neck. "John, should I borrow one of Melisa's dresses or are they too short for me?"
"Uh, yes," he blurted out. "I mean no, it isn't too short." Reeling out of the room he found himself at the top landing of the stairs before he could even recall taking the first step. Melisa was to Toronto in June and by Labor Day back in the house after a summer with "the sisters," she was the fifth of 5 sisters who all lived in an elder statesman of a neighborhood and bemoaned losing the baby to an American university administrator. Melisa wore poplin, ginghams and polyester blends. All practical. Her laugh was soft, subtle and wry. He laughed instantly at the sound of it, like an inward thought. She never wore organza. Elizabeth had been a student who had trouble with funds from her parents in California, then married suddenly to the wealthy son of a local family. Now she was, after 15 years, a fixture in the local scene, a scion, surety in thought and step. A far cry from that nervous girl in his office he barely noticed.
He found a blue indian cotton, one Melisa bought to wear on a cruise, but it blossomed around her short legs and ballooned beyond proportion. He recalled meeting Elizabeth at a library board tea party, given in gratitude by her "Friends of" group. She became a fast friend, somehow her manner was less strained than those early days of college, but for some reason he found himself helping her on a communications committee and soon she was over for dinner with him and Melisa. She asked him questions about his art, his knowledge was something Melisa had largely ignored, thinking, he imagined, that she was somehow wounding him in remeniscence of an utapped life. And yet Elizabeth asked for his advice, his thoughts.
"oh ego." He mumbled as he returned with the dress.
His heart skipped a beat when she walked out to meet him on the deck. Her hands delicately held the loose indian cotton over her knees as she stepped down to the lawn, "a wonderful dress, thank you! I will dry clean it tomorrow." She walked to the edge of the lake, looking at him as he stood, stodge incarnate, he thought. But oh how she wore that dress, the golds and greens embroidered about the hem swayed with her step. Finally he went down the path to the lake to be near her.
"I do not understand why each time I visit it is like the first. I cannot consider myself your lover," she watched him turn away in embarrassment, "when you feel like a blushing cleric in my midst. I do not chasten you, I know she comes home soon. And so I will be off to meet him in Europe and we will think no more of the summer than a good memory. And a good hope, eh my love?"
He could not say a word, but felt his hand meet hers, and in a moment he kissed her with slow deliberation, feeling her mold to him, easing against him. Her arms encircled his neck, she sighed, "let's to the house, I feel naked here."
Inside she pulled him up the stairs, to the guest room. He never took her to his own bed, Melisa's bed. She unbuttoned his shirt, kissing him all the while. She pushed him onto the bed, where he watched as she carefully disrobed, finally slipping out of the wisp of a slip, her breasts sloping to pink tips, her belly, soft and flat arching down to a v of blond silken curls. She whispered a soft murmer of his name, it fell like caress.
He showered kisses where he may, savoring each mouthful, only when he could bear no more did he undress. He pulled off his shirt to reveal his white collar body, with it's dash of weekend jogs. He blanched inwardly, at the thought of her husband, Thad, the sailor, the horseman, the perfect man. But her eyes spoke non of this and he kneeled before her on the bed, parting her thighs and began kissing her thighs. Trailing kisses to the soft, buttery inner thighs with open mouth, tasting her sex with gentle toungueing strokes. Her sighs, soft and deep, called to him as he opened the lips of her sex, pink glistening lips opening like ripe petals. He suckled around the edges then slowly slipped his toungue deep into her nector. The bright light in the room dancing on the walls and found the jewel brightly engorged like a srawberry, he wrapped his lips around it and stroked it, then he slipped a finger deep inside. She tightened so hard about him, he slipped deeper with one finger then another, gently fucking her, tasting her.
She quaked beneath his touch, feeling his long fingers slipping deeply into her sex. His wet mouth suckling and licking. He slipped a finger along the soft pucker of her anus, sweet velvety skin. His face buried deeply into her. His cock throbbing against his belly. He pulled away and gloried in her. He felt her coming, the deep ache that burned out in glossy strands of joy, her sex tightened and thrust to meet him as he slipped his cock along it's ridged underbelly along her slick sex, then as she moaned, writhing softly beneath him.
Slipping slowly into her bed of heat, her succulent wetness he sucked his breath in short gasps feeling her sex tighten and stroked along the head of his cock. Her eyes closed and she arched back as he thrust into her, holding her as she cried out his name. With a final thrust she bucked against him, sending him into paroxysms of sweet pleasure, and he bucked against her with delicious release.
She trembled under his kisses, tears sprang to her eyes, unable to do more than murmer his name again and again. In these moments, her coltish ways melted into easy repose. He caressed her face and long blond hair, he wrapped his arms about her, unable to utter a word, unable to say love, or darling, or anything resembling adoration.
Soon she slept, softly, easily as the light turned reddish as the day slowly melted to twilight. Draped over him, with the ease of a child. He gazed over to the lake and became lost in the thought of his life with her. He would submit his work for a juried show, then perhaps a trip to Italy with her at his side. He barely felt her weight, and didn't notice the difference in her breathing as she awakened and lay in her own thoughts.
"She will be here in a week." Her voice, now unadorned, mild and sleepy, caused him a slight tremor of joy and sorrow. It carried nothing of love, but the very sound seemed to squeeze his heart to bursting.
"I think this is the case, though she has stayed on to past labor day before." He could only fall back to earth. Back to this room and the separateness of their lives.
"I think," she paused, "that she will be home soon, but I don't know why I feel this. John, she will want to ready for the classes she teaches this semester. It is something she told me in passing last May."
"Of course," he did not want to think of Melisa, she had never brought her up, now he tangled his mind with the two. "Elizabeth, will you stay for the night?"
She started up, gathering her lingerie, pushing the thick ropes of hair back with a pin and stood before him, "I can't tonight, I promised Catherine I would meet her at my house for drinks and then..." He interupted her with a kiss, sitting back down on the bed, caressing her with lips that asked, parting gently, tasting then demanding. Fingers found her breasts, encircling her nipples, feeling them harden under his touch. Then pushing her back as he mounted her, feeling her thickly engorged sex still wet and tender from the play. He fucked her slowly, deliberate strokes. The light, now low, masked her in shadow, and he rode her arching body. They shattered the quiet house with cries of joy, she sighed and moaned trying to contain herself but thirsted for more and dashed her hips against his hard thrusts. He arched back, with hard bucking strokes he felt the white hot release into her, and his body ached for more the moment he finished.
"I love you," he murmured into her ear. And he lay for a moment spent, as she panted beneath him.
She pushed him off softly, with no ire, but lay him on his back and looked down at him, her body slanting back, breathing softly in the mellowing afternoon light. With a movement she rose, carefully dressing in the blue indian cotton, with memory of summer embroidered in the hem. And as she left, he knew she would mail the dress back and as he listened to her car wheels crunch slowly along the gravel, he knew she would not return in November.
