The Question

AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a departure for me, a soft sensitive narrative. It is not dark and dangerous. I have no idea where this came from, but it is an experiment, as all my stories are. My only warning for this one would be for my fans (if I have any), as they might find this sappy and boring.

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The wine's bouquet scented the room as they gazed serenely into each other's eyes. His were black and deep like swamp water, hers were blue and deep like grottos in a coral reef, an odd but enchanting mix of gene pools. Nothing was said as the fire crackled and popped behind them. The smell of wood smoke was thick in the air, but there was more; the smell of sweaty sex added its mist of adventure, the beads of which were still on each other's brows and seeping through the furrows of their minds.

She rubbed her tiny hands across his chest, shaved by vanity and resisting her touch with heavy bristle. His back was against the sofa as they lay on the bearskin rug, and his massive left arm, tattooed and scarred from past adventures, dwarfed her shoulder while incongruent tenderness soothed her soft skin.

Their breathing had subsided from the rage of lust, you know the rage, that rage, the one with trees blowing and bucking in the roar of the wind. At least that was what it had seemed while in the throes of it, like there had been a meadow on a warm summer's day, and they had laid in it, and a wind had come up, a wind to exclude all other sound, and she had arched her back and raised herself up to meet him as he entered her, and he had thrust with so much need that he had pushed her back so that she needed a brace. It was energizing and exhausting all at once as the perspiration started to build, the sweaty sensual smack of bodies, culminating in the screams of lust fulfilled.

Calmness had been restored. Her nipples were smaller now and the meadow and the wind were gone, but her body was radiant with a sexual blush, a release of the blood needed for the act. Unseen to him, she still clenched her loins trying to recall those moments just before, and in doing so, wanting more. Her long fine blond hair was dark at the roots, not from lack of dye, but from sweat, and where the ends of it fell on her back and breasts, it was dark also, and for the same reason.

They wore nothing, no fancy and erotic underwear, no rings on their second fingers, no clothing at all, nothing to tie them together other than these last few naked moments and the memories like them over their time together. But they both knew that they had created something here, and a new single entity had emerged, a singularity of purpose, seemingly uncomplicated, but in reality it was one of those complex workings that causes a female bird to build a nest, a male to find food. And as in nature in general, it didn't need to be complicated; it just was what it was.

He admired her body, wanted her again, but he wanted to delay it, to savor the ascent to it. His eyes traveled to her slender waist bronzed still from the summer past. The belly button was an "innie" and he played with it as she giggled and pushed herself toward him, twisting so that she could grind her pubic area on his leg. Now there was wetness there also. He laughed. She laughed and her dimples became deep and cute beyond words, dominating her face, beautiful despite the lack of makeup. She would wake up as she went to sleep, the same Jennifer at all times. He liked that. He loved that. He loved her.

Jennifer allowed herself to slip down his chest so that she rested her head on his lap. Sex was gritty, and to be enjoyed fully it had to be done dirty, she believed. She didn't care that his penis was there, still wet and pulsating. She felt it strengthen behind her head as she looked up at him, his massive chest rising and falling in strength and calmness, his black hair cascading to his chin. She watched as he lifted the glass of wine and put it to his lips, watched as his Adam's apple rippled with the swallowing of it. A tiny bit of the red wine dribbled on his clean shaven chin, a chin that was wide and strong like the rest of him. She reached up and dabbed it off with her finger and put it to her lips. He looked down and they smiled wordlessly at each other. He was so strong, she thought, so confident, so rough and gentle all at once, knowing when to be one or the other. She liked that. She loved that. She loved him.

Neither of them had said a word since their lovemaking. It wasn't necessary, and there was no awkward silence between them; it was a comfortable silence, no, not silence, but something else, something like soft singing in the air. It filled the spaces between their words like background music to an old movie.

A log fell in the fireplace and the room started to cool. Large snowflakes fell outside. Jennifer shivered and wrapped her arms around him while the side of her head rested on his penis. It was large again now and she smiled. He had that look about him, the one that says please, so she took him in her mouth. He was ready again and she worked him slowly while his hands roamed her body seemingly at random, touching the small of her back, the mass of her breasts as they jiggled above his knees, the nape of her neck and that beautiful spot behind her ears which always made her quiver. She could feel his cock twitch in her mouth and knew she had to be careful so she pulled back and fondled his testicles with her hands while his penis throbbed in space.

Suddenly he raised himself up and at the same time lifted her as if she was a child, placing her on her back on the rug. One quick motion had opened her legs to him and she stared upward, waiting. But he just touched her with his tip, only testing her wetness, teasing her so that she had to take action or go mad. She thrust upward in her need. It was all he wanted, and he thrust into her deeply, so deeply that she moaned a deep guttural lament.

That meadow; there it was again, and the wind, and the breeze became a gale, and the trees began to bend, and the wind began to roar. There was nothing else but the wind of it all as they joined each other, creating noises that only lovemaking creates, groans, gasps, squeals, lost in the roar of the storm, and finally the screams and "oh Gods" of mutual orgasm, her spasms drawing him out, pulling him even further into her so that in the end, he had pinioned her to the floor, the weight of him upon her. And she liked it like that, the dominance of him.

He kept himself pressed down on her while he finished his ecstasy, and under him her orgasm seemed continuous as he did so, their pulsating spasms massaging each other in perfect harmony. The weight of him diminished and her orgasm subsided, not in disappointment, but in perfection. He was softening inside her.

Whether it was from smoke in the air or from groaning and gasping so uncontrollably, Jennifer felt a tickle in her throat and coughed. It was one of those surprising moments that changes everything in an instant. The vaginal contraction of the cough sent him out like a nuclear torpedo and she immediately felt physically empty, like one of her organs had been expelled. The astonished looks on their faces quickly turned to hysterical laughter.

Finally Geoffrey spoke, "Jesus Jen! You could have just asked me to get out!" His voice was deep like his eyes, but there was laughter in it.

Jennifer tried to gain her composure back. "Well, I figured that's enough sex before supper. Move out. Move on. Time to feed our stomachs, not our sexual appetites, don't you think?"

Geoffrey gazed at her softly and mysteriously and changed the subject. For the first time since they had met over ten months ago, his voice sounded tentative but hopeful. "Jen? I want to...I have something..."

He stopped and looked down, taking a deep breath and composing himself. Suddenly he said, "Sit up. I want to get this right." He wrapped a hot tub towel around him so that his body exposure was now decent, and padded in his bare feet on the cold hardwood floor to the front door of the cabin where the winter wind flowed slippery underneath. There he retrieved a small package out of one of the pockets in his ski jacket. When he came back to her, he made a grand spectacle of getting on his knees and presenting her with the package.

With a false formality he said, "Note that I already had this prior to making love to you, and also note that I hereby pop this question AFTER we made love, implying (quite correctly) that you are way more important to me than just being a sexual partner." He cleared his throat and said with an apprehensive voice, "Jen, I love you with all my heart, with all my being. Will you marry me Jen? Please, please say yes."

Jennifer's tears dripped from her chin and nose and the corners of her smiling mouth, but she had her wits about her. Grinning, she said, "Geoff, as sex objects go (and you are one), you're the best, the best ever, but that's not because of the physical motions of it. We merge. That's what it's like to me. We merge our spirits when we make love and that's a big signal for me, and one I've never had before, ever." She was looking at the ring now. It glistened like her wet eyes in the firelight. She slipped it on her finger and said, "Oh God Geoff, yes, yes. I will marry you! I love you so much!"

They embraced and a sigh of relief escaped unnoticed from Geoffrey's lungs. Even when you're sure, you are never really, really sure. And maybe that's what life is all about, he thought, never really being sure. Then and there, he promised himself that he would never be completely sure of her love, and that he would try to constantly earn it. Till death did they part.