He pulled his chair around to the table and smiled across at her. He waited till she was through with the bleu cheese dressing, then poured a liberal dollop of it onto his salad and spread it around. He took a forkful, then paused, hand in mid-air. She was still looking at him.
Her eyes were glowing. Shining.
Slowly, he lowered his fork.
He was glowing too.
Sharing food is an intimacy. Eating together in a restaurant is a sign of one level of trust, a public level of mutual acceptance. Hamburgers shared at a drive-in are even more intimate; the food is being shared in a car — part of the personal territory of one of the participants. Even more intimate than that is the cooking and serving of a meal in one’s own home — it’s a sharing of the inner self, and you can’t get any more intimate than that.
They were in his apartment. His territory. His personal environment.
She had come into it willingly. He had allowed her — no, wanted her to enter.
He had provided the food; she had prepared it.
A sharing. An intimacy.
In the unspoken language that human beings use to communicate with each other in the absence of words, she had just said, “I love you, David.”
And now he looked back at her and said, “I love you too, Annie.” Only, he used words.
He reached across and took her hand. “I can answer your question now, Annie. I don’t need HARLIE. I just — Annie, darling, dear sweet baby — I love you. I — I’m just realizing it now — I — I—” He stopped; he had to swallow, but he couldn’t. It poured out in a rush. “Don’t you see? I’ve been wondering too if you cared for me in the same way or what — I — I haven’t been sure what love is, so I haven’t — Dammit, I still don’t know what it is, but—”
The glow was golden now. It filled the apartment. The walls reflected it back at them, warm and shining. She was beautiful in it. “Oh, love — lover—”
“I feel like I’m bursting — there aren’t any words for this, are there?”
She couldn’t answer. She couldn’t speak either.
How they finished dinner, he was never able to say. And yet, at the same time, it was a meal he would never forget.
They were in bed and he was poised over her. And still their eyes were locked. And shining and glowing. The bed was full of gasps. And sighs. And giggles.
There was such an overflowing inside of him, such a surge of tension released. All this time, all this time, he had been wanting, wanting, it had been building, gathering like water impatient behind a dam. Somewhere in his past he had known this joy, somewhere in the dim recesses of his mind that he refused to accept. But it was there and it was part of him — the sheer animal delight in the joyous experience of sex and love — all tumbled together and laughing in the sheets.
They paused to rest, to breathe, to share a kiss, to giggle together, to shift slightly, to kiss again. He bent down suddenly and kissed her eyes, first one, then the other.
She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time, and her arms were tight around him. And tighter, her hands were grasping. “Oh, David—”
He held her and he held her and he held her and still he couldn’t hold her enough. He was exploding in joy; he could neither contain nor control it. Her little soft gasps were sobs, and he knew why she was crying. He had to wipe at his eyes too.
“Oh—” she said, and kissed him. “Oh, David — I — I—” She kissed him again. “Have you ever seen anyone crying with happiness?”
He wanted to laugh, but he was crying at the same time, sobbing with joy and melting down into her. He was a chip of flesh tossed on a splashing sea of laughter and wet eyes and love. A pink sea, with foamy waves and giggling billows. Red nipple-topped pink seas. “Oh, Annie, Annie, I can’t let go of you, I can’t—”
“I don’t want you to. I don’t want you to. Oh, never let go. Never.”
“Never… never…” he gasped. He was moving again now, onto and into her. A joyous thrusting — a shaft of velvet and a silken lining. He was sobbing as he did, sobbing with joy — and she was too.
All the days of wanting and holding back, all those denials of the body and the animal within — all of it poured forth, melted into golden glowing tears and shining eyes, sparkling in rapture. At last he had someone, some-one to share it all with. He had someone to hold, to love, to touch.
And she did too. She moved with him, with love and with lust, the two blending into a whirlpool of colors and kisses. The caressing waves gathered them up, surging and crashing and gasping, sweeping them across a sweet sky of delight and at last leaving them gently on the shores of a sighing embrace. The waters lapped at the shore and gentled their touch, and their fingers strayed across the velvety landscape, exploring — familiar and yet always wondrous.
He was holding her tightly. He couldn’t stop holding her. She sighed — a sound of pleasure. He echoed it and smiled. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He laughed. And kissed her. And kissed her.
And kissed her.
They spent Saturday falling in love.
Deeper in love.
It began before either was awake, with an unconscious fitting of their bodies, one to the other, with the purely animal reflex of erection, sliding forward, and he was onto and into her almost as reflex, so familiar was the desire. She eased onto her back, only slowly coming awake. He was aware now; he was inside her, warm and exciting, a silken motion.
She opened her eyes and looked at him. He paused in his motion. “I had the strangest dream,” she said. “I dreamed I was being—”
“Shh,” he said. “Don’t wake me up — I’m still dreaming.” And pressed deeper. She brought her legs up to help him.
This time, instead of melting into the experience, he was totally conscious of himself and his body. It was a new awareness he possessed, an awareness of the sexuality inherent in himself and in her. His hands gripped her legs and his loins pumped at her torso. He penetrated her flowing warmth. Poised above her in the morning, he was aware how truly beautiful she was — more beautiful in the act of love than he had ever seen her before.
She giggled. “This is silly.”
“Isn’t it, though?” he asked, and they both laughed and kissed and hugged again, embracing through the splashing suds of the shower.
They broke apart, and she sudsed his chest again. He let his hands slide up and down across her chest — her gentle breasts, her nipples. Her pink flesh glistened with the flowing water and the foam of the soap. Her green eyes glowed at him. Shone.
She played with the hair on his chest, a sparse little patch, almost lost in the suds. She let her hands trail downward, fingers straying into and twirling his coarse curly black hair, and lower, fondling his testes and the shaft of his penis. Her eyes followed her hand; she caressed that beautiful, beautiful organ. It was in a state which was neither soft nor erect, but a little of each. The skin of it was like velvet, and the cap of the glans was tender and pink. Her fingers traced the ridge around the edge of it, and she cupped it in her palm and looked up at bun, and they were both smiling and giggling like children in a schoolyard. “Can I touch it?” she asked impishly.
He grinned. “If I can touch yours…”
She giggled at the oft-told joke, still funny despite its familiarity. His hands slid down from her breasts toward her mons, her labia, majora and minora; his finger — strong, firm, gentle — slipped into that moist opening. The flesh was like silk, and the splashing foam of the shower made it even more exciting.
“It feels so… good…” he murmured.
“Mmm,” she said. “Mmm Hmmm. If you think it feels good from there, you ought to try it from my side…”
He laughed. She laughed. They had been laughing all morning — even at things that weren’t funny. Yet everything was funny; it was the laughter of delight — of rapturously lovely delight “Okay,” he said. “Change places with me.”
And again they laughed. But neither moved their hands from the other’s gentle warmth. They stepped a little closer. “Oh, look,” she said. “It’s growing — and I thought it was all tired out by now.”