Chapter 13

Thick fog rolled through the apartment, obscuring sight, and sound, and scent, and taste, and touch. Numbing his flesh until all that remained was a yawning precipice. He chair teetered on its edge, poised at the breathless moment before plummeting to previously unimaginable depths. But no matter what he did, no matter how he struggled to escape, he could neither lean forward and embrace death nor scuttle backward to firmer ground. And so he remained, caught on the axis of time, trapped between moments, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting...

By mid-afternoon the fog had cleared, leaving only emptiness in its wake. A hollow shell numbly descended stairs that led nowhere, opened a doorway to nothingness, put fingers to a keyboard they couldn’t touch. Steps without counting, heartbeats without existence, time without record. Beneath him the chasm still beckoned, waiting.

Waiting.

Waiting...

His phone chimed. There was a message from no one. He stared at the words, understanding nothing.

“Meet me at the rock.”

He stood and tried to take a step. But he no longer knew where he was going, and his feet refused to move.

Much later, in a silent universe of light that bathed everything in darkness, he discovered her there. Watching ducks bob and paddle through the weeds that threatened the shore. He sat next to her, studying the fabric of her light summer dress as it rippled in the breeze. He tried to listen, but he didn’t understand what it was telling him.

“I was beginning to wonder if you’d come. I’ve been waiting.”

Waiting.

Waiting...

The sun’s too bright. There should be clouds. Today is a cloudy day. I’m sure of it. So where are the clouds?

“I’m sorry I walked away.”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not. I should have stayed.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“So why are we here?”

“Because I should have said something.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why am I here?”

“You already asked that.”

“No I didn’t.”

“Because you should be here?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to be here.”

“Oh.” He paused, trying but failing to taste the flow of time, to see the scent of flowers, to smell the caress of a lover. “I do too.”

“So why aren’t you here?”

Her fingers crept around his, listening for the sound of sunlight. Their hands whispered to each other. He kept searching for clouds, wondering why he couldn’t hear them, waiting for her to explain to him why there weren’t any clouds.

Waiting.

Waiting...

“Whatever you want me to say ... whatever you don’t want me to say ... I’m not ready to say it.”

“Okay.”

“No, it’s not. You deserve an answer. You’ll get one, eventually. But I don’t ... I can’t ... right now.”

“You don’t have to answer.”

“Yes I do.”

“But I didn’t even ask a question.”

“Yes you did.”

“You still don’t have to answer.”

“Not answering is an answer.”

“That’s true.”

“Can we talk about something else, or do we need to wait until I have one?”

“We can talk about anything else.”

“Are we still friends?”

“Yes, of course. Always, I hope.”

“Are we still lovers?”

“Do you want to be?”

“Yes, absolutely. Very, very much.”

“Then yes. I want that as well.”

“Is this going to make being with me more difficult?”

“I don’t know. I think that depends on you.”

“Why just me?”

“My feelings haven’t changed.”

“Haven’t they?”

The precipice collapsed into itself. Gravity rediscovered its will. A chair tumbled into the abyss, smashed to bits on a towering pile of discarded fear. For the first time in so very many years ... all those wasted decades since he’d lost her ... he felt her hand. She was still holding his. Still clinging to a sound, still tasting his memory. Beneath him was a solid foundation of rock. He listened to its strength until clamor and chaos receded into silence.

It’s such a lovely day. When did the sun come out?

“No. They won’t. They couldn’t. Not ever.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry. I guess I went away for a while. But now I’m back.”

She leaned against his shoulder, sighing with relief. “I’m glad. I missed you.”

“Me too.”

Her head was on his lap. She was looking up at him, her irises a vivid melange of their inherent rainforest canopy and reflected cobalt sky. He was looking down at her, fascinated by long strands of sunset-hued hair as they passed through the comb of his fingertips.

“I’ve thought about your proposal, and I accept. I’d like to do something in the city. With you. A date, if you want to call it that. But it has to be on my terms.”

“Whatever you need. Do you want me to...?”

“I’ve already made plans.”

“You have? Should I be worried or excited?”

With a mysterious smile, she replied, “Probably both.”

Kathryn’s tongue ran up and down the sides of his cock, eagerly consuming a milky coating of their mingled emissions. She’d taken him with an urgent ferocity akin to Irina’s aggressive pounding, crying out his name at every peak, and he’d responded by flooding her cunt with waves of pent-up seed. When she was done cleaning his manhood, she twisted around and opened the nightstand drawer. Her hand reappeared, shining with lubrication that she impatiently transferred to his rigid staff. Her eyes were closed as she straddled him, positioning his rod at the entrance to her ass and slowly impaling herself, grunting as he breached her anus, moaning as he sank into the clinging depths of her nether channel, shuddering as she came.

Luke braced himself against the shower wall, groaning with ecstasy. Water coursed down his back. Kathryn’s fingers gripped his buttocks, prying them apart so her tongue could plunge in and out of his dark hole. He trembled on the very edge of release, but she refused to touch his cock. Every time he tried to take matters into his own hands, she batted them away.

Her breathing slowed. Splayed limbs revealed the ejaculate seeping from both orifices, though his final load — the one he’d delivered straight across her tongue — had long since disappeared down her throat. He watched her for a while, love and desire swelling his heart, then reached down to pull a crumpled, sweat-stained sheet over their naked bodies. Piece by piece, moment by moment, he unspooled the events of the day until he was back at the precipice, peering over the edge, curiosity once again giving way to anxiety and then surrendering to fear.

I’ll keep waiting.

When a second consecutive dawn arrived without the blissful feeling of her lips around her shaft, he resolved to make up for the previous day’s failure and offer his own enthusiastic oral tribute. But when he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was alone. Confused, he sat up and called her name. No answer. I guess she had something to do. He was trying to decide between a run and a shower when she came bounding up the stairs, casually dressed and full of energy.

“Good morning! I know, I know, I broke a promise I swore I wouldn’t break. Don’t worry, your reward is coming. And yes, that pun was intentional. Right now, though, I need you to shower and pack an overnight bag.”

A little overwhelmed by so much infectious enthusiasm so early in the morning, Luke rose from the bed. “Where are we going?”

“To the city. We have a date, remember?”

“I do, but I didn’t realize it was going to begin at sunrise. What should I bring? Do I need a suit and tie or anything like that?”

“No. Hot casual.”

“I swear I will never understand how women categorize clothes. What does that even mean?”

“Dress casually. Look hot. It’s really not that complicated.”

“Yeah, that definitely clears it right up. Let’s try this: what are you going to wear?”

“Just this for now. Later, something that will melt your brain and work its way lower. Don’t try to compete with it; I’ll be wearing it for you, not me. Just stick with hot casual. Either way, you’re going to get laid.”

“You said it’s overnight. Just so I don’t start packing unnecessary toiletries, can you at least tell me where we’re staying?”

“ ... your place.” He took note of her brief hesitation, and wondered at the reason.

“But...”

“Don’t tell me it needs cleaning. I judged you far too anal-retentive to leave a dirty apartment.”

Laughing, he shot back, “I’m choosing to take that as a compliment. No, it’s clean. I have cleaners, and they were there a few days after I moved here. Though it’s probably a little stuffy.”

“I’m not worried about it. Later on, it’s not going to matter.”

“What does that mean?”

“Fewer questions. More showering.”

“It’s not much, but it’s all mine.”

She looked around, her eyes twinkling. “Manly. So very, very manly.”

“Admittedly, the aesthetic is a bit minimalist.”

“The aesthetic is ‘I refuse to make any sort of artistic statement with my furnishings so that no woman with actual taste will want to spend time anywhere but in my bed.’ Is that what you were going for? Well done, if so.”

“If you’re still here tomorrow morning, I guess we’ll find out. First, let me open a window and air out the smoke from that sick burn.”

Moments after they dropped their bags to the floor, their clothes followed. Kathryn sank to her knees, noisily slurping on his cock. Noticing his enraptured stare, she pulled free, purring in her sultriest voice purred, “Is this what you imagined me doing the night we met?”

“I may have pictured it one or five hundred times, yes. For what it’s worth, nothing I imagined comes close to the perfection of the real thing.”

“Oh, you poor young man. Your wrist must have been so tired.” Her mouth descended, driving him hard and fast towards release. The tension in his loins crescendoed, but she backed away before he could come.

“Luke, I’m going to be a little evil to you today. I promise that, if you do as I ask, it will be well worth a few hours of suffering. I want to start by doing all sorts of deliciously naughty things with you on your bed — right where you hoped I’d be all those weeks ago — but here’s the catch: I don’t want you to come. If at any point you can’t help it, then go ahead; this isn’t like when I was submitting to you, and none of my plans for later are going to change if you do. But I’d like you to be boiling with unresolved sexual tension tonight. Do you think you can manage that?”

“Is this what you meant by ‘on your terms’?”

“It’s ... part of it.”

Still mysterious. “Well, I’ll try, but that’s all I can promise. It would help if you were less arousing than usual.”

“Request denied.” With a wicked smile, she pulled him between her wide-open legs, guiding his rampant shaft into her drenched tunnel. “Ohhhh god, just like that. Fuck me, Luke. Fuck me hard. Fuck me so hard. But whatever you do, don’t come. Please, lover, just hold back. I promise it will all be worth it.”

Four hours later he was gasping for air, his face (literally) and his balls (metaphorically) turning purple from the number of times he’d had to strain to put off his release. Kathryn was in the bathroom, rummaging through his cabinets and drawers.

“Do you need something?”

“Nope, I found exactly what I was looking for. Come join me in the shower.”

He entered to find the water already running. To be honest, I was kinda hoping for cold. But I guess hot will do. The bigger problem, however, is that she’s here with me. Indeed, the moment the door closed she was back on her knees with his spear buried in her sucking mouth.

“Kathryn, you’re going to kill me. Seriously. I’m about two minutes from a cataclysmic release I won’t be able to stop.”

“Okay, okay. But you were leaking a little bit, and since denying you means I haven’t gotten any for myself, it was too delicious to pass up. Could you do me a favor and turn off the water for a while?” She stayed on her knees, producing a can of shaving cream and a razor. With a dangerous glint in her eyes, she asked, “Do you trust me?”

“I do, but to be honest I’m disinclined to argue with anyone holding a blade so close to my dangly bits.”

“Then I doubt I’ll hear any arguments until I’m done, because it’s about to get a lot closer.” Filling her hand with cream, she slathered it over his testicles and the base of his shaft, working the rest between his thighs and buttocks. With almost surgical precision, she began shaving him. “Relax,” she said as he fought the urge to quaver or shrink away whenever she approached his scrotum, “I’ve done this before. Quite a few times, actually. Don’t worry, you’re in safe hands.” She was humming while she worked, though his eyes widened when he realized just what she was humming: “Cuts Like a Knife” by Bryan Adams.

“Could you, uh, maybe pick a different tune?”

Though she didn’t look away from his sensitive areas, she grinned as she offered a few alternatives. “‘Mack the Knife?’ Or maybe you’d prefer selections from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre soundtrack?”

Oh god, oh god, oh god...

When she was finished, front and back, he showered, rinsed, and inspected her work. It was a far cleaner job than he could ever have managed on his own, and he wondered if he could get away with asking her to do it again. She, in turn, watched carefully as — at her insistence — he practiced his own facial blade-work in front of the mirror, pointing out a few small patches that he’d missed. He didn’t know why she was suddenly so invested in his personal grooming, nor why she was insisting that he be freshly shaved, but before he could ask she disappeared into the bedroom, ordering him not to peek while she got dressed for dinner.

She was, of course, well worth the wait. Her outrageously revealing charcoal-colored dress either clung to or highlighted every single one of her curves, including a tremendous expanse of cleavage and an open back that descended dangerously close to the swell of her buttocks. Even her hair looked wilder than usual. It was a dress designed for after hours, and in concert with the hair and the naked eroticism that forever radiated from her exquisite body, rather strongly suggested someone who’d just experienced hours of raw, uninhibited sex and was looking for more. Which, of course, she had, and was. Luke was in danger of failing his promise not to come just from looking at her.