In That Moment

Paul strains breaths through his flaring nostrils. He smacks his lips and swallows. Gently he reaches forward and brushes his fingers through her hair, curling and tossing the wavy, long strands this way and that way. The way she looks up at him as she continuously strokes him with her lips and teeth turns him into a puddle.

Clara lifts her mouth off of him. Her hand slides up and down quickly now, the smooth, taut skin of his cock slick and slippery with her saliva. A milky, glossy bead of liquid appears at his tip and her tongue darts out to sweep it up. She looks up at him, grinning.

"Ah God," Paul groans his approval aloud.

Minutes pass and Clara remains relentless and voracious. Paul feels his reserves begin to steel in his belly and hips. Emboldened, he grabs Clara's shoulders and leans forward. Her lips pull of from him and they are met with a resounding, intense kiss.

He stands up from the bed and lifts Clara to her feet. He covers her throat with kisses drifting steadily downward to her chest. As his hands cup and fondle her soft breasts, he inhales her dark nipple and swirls his tongue around and around.

Clara tilts her head to the ceiling and coos. Her breasts heave and sigh as they delight in Paul's heated touch and caress.

Within a minute she is falling backwards, onto the silky soft sheets of the giant bed. A second later, Paul discards his shirt and joins her, lying down between her legs. They clutch at each other, lips kissing, tongues dancing. She feels his hand at her hips, fumbling with her panties.

"Rip them," she urges.

Paul obliges with a stiff tug. The thin lingerie tears off easily. He feels Clara's stocking covered legs draw up against his hips and squeeze and pull him forward. It's an unnecessary invitation on her part. The tip of his solid shaft is already in position and, with a mere ease of his hips, he enters her with one true thrust.

"Uh-uhn," Clara groans softly, her sweet lips rounding open.

Despite the immense build up he feels within, Paul moves in her with steady, easy strokes. In and out his cock glides in, feeling her tender folds against every inch of his skin. He enjoys the warmth surrounding him, he savours the softness of her thighs against him, and he even appreciates the way heels of her shoes scratch and dig into the back of his legs and butt. Each of her soft moans is his reward.

Clara holds him close. She nips at his shoulder. She breathes and gasps warm wisps of air along his ear as she nips and suckles at his lobe. "Paul," she groans, "Ahn."

Paul raises his head. He continues to roll his hips rhythmically, probing her with long, deep thrusts of his cock. He gazes down upon Clara. Her round, high cheeks are glowing pink, her eyes shiny and alight. Everything about her is so right. She feels so good, so incredibly good. He wants to just melt into her.

Clara's ankles are now locked just below his butt. She guides him in, urging him on. She pushes her hips up, crashing her crotch against his, taking his throbbing length as far as it can go. She beckons him with her fervent gasps and moans.

Paul's motions become more urgent. His thrusts are shorter and more stiff. Still he tries to make the moment last as long as it can, to drive the potency of it to its pinnacle. The pressure within is both painful and immensely satisfying. He can feel the hairs behind his neck bristling. "Clara," he groans.

Within seconds, she digs her fingers into his back and tenses her legs and stomach. Her lips part wide and for a moment she makes no sound. Then suddenly she trembles and groans, "Ahh! Huhn!" Her body quivers and rattles uncontrollably, her desperate moan announcing a dripping wetness coming in full release from deep within.

Hearing and feeling his lover come with satisfying abandon, Paul tightens his buttocks and stomach and gasps, "Uhn!" A rushing stream courses through and out of his swollen cock, jetting into Clara. As he clutches her tight against his exhausted body, nuzzling his face against hers, he holds his breath and gasps again, spurting more sticky, rich fire. He doesn't know how long it lasts, lost in his lover's embrace. She fits so perfectly in his arms. Only when he feels her fingertips gently stroking his back and his hair does he become aware of the time again.

Paul lifts his head back. As he looks at Clara, he carefully pulls aside the strands of hair that have fallen across her face. He brushes his knuckles against her cheek and traces the outline of her lips with his fingers. All the while, his eyes never leave hers.

Clara smiles like the dawn.

Paul never wants this moment to end.

* * * * *

Paul stands outside the door to his house. He's been standing there for five minutes, holding a bouquet of flowers. It's not as if he's locked himself out, though. He stands there because he's still trying to think of what to say to Clara.

Two hours earlier, he had stormed out of the house after they had another one of their heated arguments. He can't even seem to recall exactly what it was about. Yet he winces as he recalls some of the hurtful things he said. Clara had said some nasty things herself, but he's sure whatever he said was worse.

Paul looks down and shakes his head, smirking to himself. He doesn't know why he argues so much with Clara. Not as if he ever won an argument with her.

"Hi Paul," someone calls out from behind.

He jumps a little and turns. His neighbour is walking by with his dog on the sidewalk.

"Flowers for the little lady?" the neighbour asks.

Paul grins sheepishly. "Yeah."

"Argument again?"

Paul shrugs.

The neighbour smiles and nods. "Good luck!"

Paul forces a chuckle and actually says "Thanks." He looks at the bouquet and realizes how stupid he must look. Finally he goes through the door.

He stands in the foyer and peers around the house to the kitchen and living room. "Clara?"

Hearing a thump from the floor above, he makes his way upstairs. He goes into the bedroom and finds it empty at first but then Clara emerges from the en-suite bathroom dressed in a bathrobe and a towel wrapped on her head.

Clara pauses and glares at him with dead eyes. Crossing her arms, she leans against the bathroom door frame and says, "Is that your form of apology?"

Paul frowns and grind his teeth. Even he thinks that he's a bit pathetic. Still, he shrugs and says, "Yeah...maybe?"

Clara shakes her head slowly.

"No?" Paul asks.

"Drop those in the trash, come here, and apologize properly," Clara instructs.

Following her orders, Paul dispatches the flowers and walks over to her. He opens his mouth to say something but Clara smothers his lips with her hand.

"No. Shut up," she tells him, "Don't say you're sorry with words. Action."

"Action?" Paul mumbles through her fingers.

Clara arches her this dark brows and nods. "Yeah. Action."

As soon as she lifts away her hand, she moves in and plants a smouldering kiss on his mouth. It's so sudden and expected, but it only takes a moment for Paul to realize and accept what was going on.

He was going to enjoy apologizing profusely.

As they continue to kiss, Clara takes control and shoves Paul onto the bed on his back. She crawls over him and stops and straddles him just below his chest. There she takes a moment to remove the towel from her damp hair allowing the darkened raven strands to fall heavily against her shoulders.

Paul strokes her thighs as he watches her disrobe and toss her garment aside revealing her lovely nude shape. There is a very harsh and wicked look on her face as she continues to shimmy upward until she's splayed her legs apart over his face. An enticingly clean and floral fragrance fills his nostrils as he inhales her scent.

Clara looks down from above. "Start apologizing, Paul."

With hands firmly stretched across her round buttocks, Paul obliges and buries his lips against her crotch and presses his tongue into her tender petals. She's as tasty as she smells. Quickly he works her folds apart, whirling his tongue in rapid, slick circles.

Clara swirls her hips and breaths deeply through her nose, sucking in her lips. She tilts her head back and succumbs to the delightful touches of Paul's agile tongue.

Paul nuzzles his face closer. He teases her clit with nips of his teeth then tongues the hood. He feels her quiver and shake. When he clamps down with his lips and hums, Clara groans aloud and nearly buckles above him.

Clara grinds and gyrates, bobbing her torso up and down. She massages her breasts, pinching her nipples. Her head snaps to and fro, at once forward , then to the side against her shoulder, then back. She gasps and moans relentlessly.

Paul is lost in the moment, tasting and pleasuring Clara, listening to her sighs of ecstasy above. He thinks he could do this forever.

Momentarily, reluctantly, Clara moves away but only to turn around and reposition herself. She continues to straddle Paul's face, lowering her crotch towards him, but now she's able to unzip his fly and release his swelling cock from beneath his shorts.

Paul reaches up around her butt and pulls her down the last inch so that he's mouthing her folds again. He redoubles his efforts, licking and kissing her tenderness even as he feels his shaft sliding into her mouth.

Clara has a firm hold of his length. She winds her hand up and down, and her mouth follows the same path. She sucks at his tip, whisking it with her tongue, before plunging down on him. She pulls off then presses his hard, wet shaft against her cheek as she runs her tongue down then back up.

Paul's breaths are warm and heavy on her crotch and thighs. She is damp with his saliva and her own wetness, and he savours all of the mingling flavours. Now with every deliberate, long ling of his tongue, with every soft nip of his teeth, Clara trembles then groans. The vibration of her throat rattles through his cock and he's quickly brought to his throbbing apex.

A duet of gasps and groans, of wet smacks and hungry slurps, fills the bedroom. Paul and Clara are both trembling and reaching their point of release. They hold on, mouths full, tongues working with fervour and zeal.

Paul digs his fingers into her butt, clamping down. Clara responds by tightening her thighs against his face. Suddenly, he hears and feels her loose a deep, guttural groan and then tremble uncontrollably. His mouth and tongue are met with a flowing wet release; she spills out over his face, down his cheeks and chin and neck.

The sensation of his lover's climax is more than enough for Paul. He tenses his butt and stomach and groans, "Uh-uhn!"

Clara wraps her lips around his tip and accepts what she can of the quick spurts of viscous cum splashing into her mouth. She hums and moans, rolling her tongue around him, slipping around on the slick spunk. As she pulls her mouth off, she maintains her grasp even as a final spurt pours out and over her fingers and hand.

The two are spent, both slowly squirming in the bed as if relaxing each muscle in their bodies one at a time. They both continue to sigh their satisfaction and approval.

Finally Clara slides off. Paul can barely move. He remains on his back gazing at the ceiling, a subtle smile on his wet lips.

Clara curls up beside him and he wraps an arm around her. "Apology accepted," she says.

Paul stifles a chuckle, his smile broadening. He looks at her and says, "Yours as well."

He holds her close and thinks that in moments like these, sometimes it's nice to say he's sorry.

* * * * *

11:55 p.m.

With the few minutes remaining before Michael's arrival, Paul's mind was in overdrive. He clutched at his temples and tried to focus. Laughing together, crying together, travelling together, dancing, eating, running, sleeping...making love. He wanted to experience everything again but he couldn't think of one single moment that embodied all of that.

He decided that the times he made love to Clara were the best moments he could experience again. He was sure that an hour wouldn't be enough, he would want to stay inside Clara forever, but what else could he do? There could be no more significant point in time with her; he was certain of it.

Even then, out of all the times they were intimate, how could he choose one moment?

Just then, he saw a pin prick of light appear in the air in front of him. It widened and grew then a cascading white glow poured slowly into the space, shimmering and sparkling like crystal particles of dust.

Paul sat up and steeled his jaw as he watched the light emerge and form into what he could see as Michael. He inhaled deeply to steady himself as a quivering feeling of anticipation swelled in his heart.

"Paul," Michael said softly, "It's time to take you back to be with Clara."

Boldly, Paul asked, "Is there any way I can have more than an hour?"

"No," Michael replied, "Not a minute more. I'm sorry."

Paul nodded. He had asked and he had to accept the answer. He waited, unsure of what was to happen next. Hesitantly, he asked, "Do I...tell you the moment I want to return to?"

The breezy voice replied, "That's not necessary. You already have."

Paul frowned, wary of what that might mean. "When?" he asked, anxiety dripping into his voice.

"A point where every minute spent will say all you want and need to say to Clara."

Michael's light began to flare like the sun, embers flashing in Paul's eyes.

"But..." Paul fumbled over his thoughts, "There's so much...I just want...I..."

Michael reached for him, swallowed him up with fingers of light.

Paul wasn't on his sofa anymore, he wasn't in his living room, in his home anymore. He felt like he was being thrown backward, spinning and spiralling through a twisting tunnel. He heard his heartbeat blending with his heavy breaths in his head. It was as if he were in a cloud, as if he was the cloud. He reached out.

"Clara!"

Then...nothing.

* * * * *

"So, Paul. Are you coming over?"

Paul blinks and shirks back in his sofa. He looks around. It's still dark...except now it's raining outside, a downpour.

"Paul?"

He has his phone at his ear. The voice on the other end belongs to a woman. It's not Clara. He mouths the word 'What' three times before he finally utters it.

The woman giggles. "Don't tell me you're afraid of a bit of thunder and lighting?"

Paul stands up and looks around in the dark. Clara. Where is Clara? He struggles to figure out what's happening and reaches for the clock on the side table. It's 5:30 p.m. October 22. He shuts his eyes and thinks to himself, "5:30. Raining. October 15. Where's Clara? Think, think, THINK!"

"Just this once. I'd really like to see you tonight, Paul," the woman says. There's an enticing lilt in her tongue.

He freezes, a sudden realization smacking him across the face like a load of bricks. "Sylvie," he drones.

The woman chuckles. "You can say my name a little less like as if you're reading a road sign, don't you think?"

Paul spins on his heels, dragging his fingers through his hair then covering his mouth. It's that night. Oh no.

"You could be here in fifteen minutes even with the rain," Sylvie says and adds, "The trains aren't running with the tracks flooded. It'll probably take her over an hour or more to get home. You can just tell her you went to see a friend, got stuck with them in the rain."

'Her'. Clara. Clara won't be home for almost another two hours...and he wouldn't be there to greet her when she finally did arrive.

Things were never the same between them after that.

"No, no, NO!" Paul screams in his head.

"She'll never know."

Paul shouts aloud, "NO!"

He hangs up on Sylvie and launches himself to the door and runs through the rain to the car. He strains the ignition and, as he backs out of the driveway, he dials Clara's cell number.

"The number you have dialled is not in service...please hang..."

Goddammit! He should have known better. Clara was always forgetting to charge her phone.

A normally thirty minute drive to her office downtown turns out to be an aggravating torture test of snarled traffic and flooded roads. Paul tries every shortcut he knows, cutting through parking lots and alleys, and against one way streets. As he drives he tries to gauge where she might be by recalling what Clara had told him of this night. How she walked through the blankets of rain to street corners where shuttle-buses were supposed to be waiting only to find a massive crowd huddled together at the bus stops. How she tried in vain to hail taxis only to get splashed as they drove by hitting the puddles on the streets.

She walked and walked to get home...because Paul would be there waiting for her.

"Oh God," Paul cries, and smacks the wheel of the car with his palm. He checks his watch: twenty-five minutes remaining.

How could Michael do this? Why this day? Why now? All he can think about is to see her. That's all. To see here, to hold her, to be with her. It didn't matter if they said nothing, if they did nothing else other than hold each other close. He just needs to be with her, be with Clara.

Fifteen minutes. He is wedged into bumper-to-bumper traffic now. For half a heartbeat he considers ploughing his way through the other cars. It's no use. He looks around to get his bearings, figure out where he is. Then he opens the door, climbs out of the car and runs through the rain searching for Clara.

Even though the rain subsides, it's still a slog. The sidewalks are slick and crowded, people walking in every direction. The lights of the storefronts are dizzying and seem to close in on him. Yet, desperation and urgency drives him on and keeps him focused on one thing, one person.

"Clara!" he shouts repeatedly, till his lungs are ready to burst and his throat dry.

Five minutes.

He falls against a light pole, leaning heavily against the cold, wet metal. Still, with each time he breathes, he pushes out her name. It's hopeless.

"Paul?"

Paul freezes, staring at the ground at his feet. The voice is like a tender caress at his heart. He lifts his head slowly, closes his eyes and turns. When he opens them...

"What are you doing here?" Clara asks.

He soaks in the vision of her like the sand absorbs the rain. His heart beats so hard he feels like he's being shoved from the inside and he stumbles back a step. "Cl...Clara," he gasps, "I found you."

Her coat is drenched, her shoes wrecked, and her hair is scraggly and pasted all over her face. She's never been more beautiful.

"Yeah? What are you nuts?" Clara says. A crooked, sweet smile tugs onto her lips as she eyes him and asks, "You didn't...did you come for me?"

Paul nods as he slowly steps towards her. "Yeah," he says, "For you. I came for you."

Clara's shoulders slump and she throws him a sympathetic look. "Oh Paul, you didn't have to do that," she says, "I could have caught a bus or taxi. It must have been awful trying to drive down here tonight."

"I just," Paul says, hesitating to choke back a tear, "I just needed to be with you now."

"Right now?" Clara says with a grin, "Right at this very moment?"

He almost laughs. "Yeah, right at this moment."

She shrugs. "Okay. I'm fine with that."

He reaches out and gathers her in an embrace. She fits so perfectly in his arms.

"I'm glad that you came," Clara says as she nuzzles up against him.

"I'm sorry," Paul whispers, "So sorry."

She doesn't hear him. She settles into his embrace and hugs him back.

Paul is unaware of the people walking around them. He hears nothing else except her soft breathing. He feels nothing but her gentle frame in his arms. She's tangible and real and she's so warm. As he holds her, her warmth fills him completely mind, body, and soul.