Part Three: Wednesday

He awoke the next morning with Tabitha asleep on his arm and his arm asleep under her neck. He spent ten minutes just appreciating his luck and her beauty before various needs drove him out into the cold. A shaven Alex slipped back under the covers and next to her.

She awoke to find him staring at her. "You could have woken me up," she said. "I don't want to miss a minute with you. I missed you all the time yesterday."

He remembered and laughed. "In the car, I said that I would miss you this vacation. You didn't say that you would miss me. I'm missing you less than I expected."

"Were you hurt?"

"A tiny bit. Your surprise made up for it a million times over. Kiss me and I'll forgive you." She did, then got up and grabbed her robe. When she got back he asked, "Will you forgive me for going to the office if I kiss you?" This was a longer and sweeter kiss. Then he had to kiss his favorite breasts good morning.

This was the first of five mornings ahead of them without office deadlines. Both of them were determined to make it special.

He returned to her mouth for a long kiss with tongues playing tag. Half way through this, he clasped her mound in his hand. As he trailed kisses down to her far breast, he parted her lower lips with one finger. He spread the dew upward in the slit before it was time to change breasts. With the second sweet nipple in his mouth, he first rubbed the area around her clitoris, then brushed over it lightly. When she stiffened under this treatment he kissed a path down to her curls.

She brought love to their kiss and waited for him to heat it to passion. Soon, her expectations were satisfied. His lips and his tongue stirred her while his hand inflamed her. She knew his mouth's destination when it began its journey down from her breast. This time her eagerness for his arrival was unmixed with dread. The kisses on her thighs tickled her as they aroused her. As he parted her labia with his fingers, his breath warmed and excited them. She was stirred before his tongue ever touched her. When it did, it soon brought ecstasy. Wave after wave swept through her as he continued his caresses until she collapsed.

He loved Tabitha. He loved her beauty, he loved her thoughtfulness, he loved her cleverness. He loved her intimate odor and taste. But he loved her responsiveness most. Her climax in his arms, evoked by his mouth, was as erotic an experience for him as any climax of his own had ever been. He lay for a moment with his head on her lax thigh, then he moved beside her to snuggle against her as she recovered.

Their silence held more love than she could express, but she tried: "I love what you do with me. I thought that you had made me come alive when we talked. I wasn't alive before I was in this bed."

"I love how you respond to me," he answered. "You were always alive. I saw it before I knew your name. 'That girl is alive, ' I told myself, 'the rest of us here are zombies.' You are more alive when sleeping than most women are in orgasm. That's what I was watching. A little breath, a quiver of an eyelash, the essence of vitality."

"Only around you," she answered. And, after a pause, "Speaking of around you..."

He laughed and made the preparations. Her general relaxation was communicating itself to her most critical area. Without increasing the pressure, he felt himself slide infinitesimally further in. That sliding, unfortunately, was taking him nearer the edge.

It must have had some effect on Tabitha, as well, for she began moving from side to side. The results at their juncture was twofold. He entered still further, and he reached the brink of orgasm. He pulled back with the last of his volition. Turning on his back, he said, "Come lie on my shoulder." Then, "Please don't, Sweetheart. Keep your arms well above my waist." They spent a little time in that position before he relaxed. Her breasts pressed into his side didn't help, but he couldn't reject that. Finally, when she was almost asleep again, he said, "Good morning, love. And does my lady care to join me in a shower?"

She found the intimacy of being washed by him disturbing. Her own reaction puzzled her considering that he had explored her most intimate areas with hand and mouth and penis. Washing him was exciting in a different way. "I think that area is clean," he said. "And continuing to wash it will have unanticipated consequences."

"What if I want those consequences?" she asked. He merely braced himself against the wall above her head. He arched above her, sheltering her without touching her. She dropped the washcloth and brought her soapy hand to his groin. His testes seemed to shrink away from her attention. His penis was warm and responsive and smooth in her hand. Then it seemed to get larger. Then he pushed his groin forward, and the penis throbbed in her grip. After the first spurt hit her, she moved his organ to the side. She felt remarkably powerful directing this dynamic response of this dynamic man wherever she wanted.

As the water pulsed on his back, his essence pulsed out through her gentle grasp. Merely remaining standing after that took all his effort. When Tabitha finally removed her hand, he turned immediately and rinsed the area thoroughly. He wiped himself quickly with a towel while she rinsed. Then he got a bath sheet to wrap around his beloved. She held it around her while he dried her face, and then kissed it. That precedent established, he treated each section of her sweet body the same way. He bared it, patted it dry, and then kissed it.

Warm but damp, they rushed through the chilly bedroom and dived into bed. The bed felt chilly, too, so they cuddled skin to skin as they waited for the sheets to warm. Their breath mixed as their tongues played.

Later, he pressed her back as he kissed every inch he could reach, saving the best for last. The clean, warm, smell of her newly-washed curls just preceded the odor from her center. None of the sweet, clever, things she had said to him was so welcome a message as the one of unmistakable desire which that odor conveyed. His desire responded to hers. He could not resist following the sniff with a taste. Soon he was lapping her cleft and kissing its top.

Her mind, already ravished by his response and his cherishing care, was ahead of her body for once. Every caress, every hug, every lick, was a welcome confirmation of her mental arousal. Finally, he licked and sucked her clitoris until she spasmed. Then she was limp satiation, and he was warm comfort. It was twenty minutes before she asked "Do you want me in the same position again?"

This time the glans almost fit within her. They lay in silence for ten minutes. He petted her arm during that time and thought of the joys she had brought him the previous day.

Her thoughts were bittersweet. She knew that he would not let her stay with him forever; she would, she assumed, marry another. Someday she would lie with a husband upon the marriage bed while he told her that she was about to be hurt; but that was fine, the first time always hurt.

When he asked her to push back again, she was tempted to shove hard and be done with it. Instead, she pressed herself against him very gently and felt the slippery presence enter still more. Tabitha could have lain there in his arms forever. They had things to do today, however, and she was determined to make him a good breakfast, well, brunch.

Her thoughts continued in the kitchen. She knew that he would never consider her as a wife. Even if he had not been gun-shy from his first marriage, she was too jejune to be an effective corporate wife. She wished he wouldn't resist her playing housewife, however. She knew the difference between fantasy and reality. The question was how she would ever settle for a normal reality after experiencing the fantasy with this extraordinary man.

He dressed slowly, leaving the kitchen to her as her domain. He wished, however, that she would stop these flirtatious offers of her housewifely skills. He had managed to resist ripping her open when she offered him the opportunity, but that time of temptation was short-range. He wondered how long he could resist proposing marriage. He wondered if she saw how much such a marriage would devastate her life.

At thirty-nine, he had something to offer a nineteen year old. Not as much as her liveliness and beauty offered him, but he could plausibly tell himself that the gentleness, experience, and luxury that he offered were superior to what boys her age would give her. But if his forties compared favorably to his anonymous competitor's twenties, that competitor would be in his forties when Alex was in his sixties. "Let me love her and leave her," he thought, "because only leaving her will express any love for her." More realistically, he expected her to outgrow him as she was outgrowing her parents.

Over brunch, they laid out the next two days. "Do you want a stocking?" he asked.

"Not this year. I think I'm claiming to be an adult." She would have had one at home, of course; at home she would always be a child.

"How about one present tonight, and the rest on Christmas morning?" He knew that those rules changed from family to family. The gifts celebrated Twelfth Night for that matter.

"If you want." There weren't going to be that many presents for her. He had a fair number from others. They had checked her dorm, and there were two packages waiting for her.

They stood in a sea of small-fry to look at the mechanical displays in the store windows. Soon the entranced children on their side of the window were more entertaining then the repetitive motions on the other. After a quiet lunch, they drove up to her dorm to get her Christmas packages. There was a message about a phone call in her slot.

She called collect. "You can call from my place," said Alex. "You don't have to call collect."

"I have to call collect," she replied. "They're mean, not stupid."

"Hello, mother. Merry Christmas."

"Tabitha? We were worried about you."

"That's nice."

"Are you sure you know what you are doing?"

"I'm perfectly sure, mother. You should have worried on Thanksgiving. Did you know what you were doing then? It wasn't hard to figure out."

"Forget that. We just wanted to know that you were safe. And merry Christmas to you. Did you get the package?"

"Two packages."

"Well, one is from Dobie. I just did the outer wrapping."

"Is he there?"

"Want to speak to him?" Tabitha could hear a muffled shout.

"Dobie?" Tabitha said. There was no answer.

"Sis?" Dobie said a minute later. He'd been running.

"Thanks for the package. I haven't opened it yet, so I can't be specific. Did you guys get mine okay?"

"They're under the tree, and I got a card from that Alex guy."

"You did? He didn't tell me."

"Funny card. Remember the argument about the metric system? He kept his mouth shut, but he remembered it. Dad says that you stayed away to spend the time with him. I dunno. I think I would have blown up at the folks after Christmas."

"You're a sweet brother, but mercenary as heck."

"You're a sweet sister, especially when you're away long enough for us to forget our grudges."

She laughed. Dobie was so dependably unsentimental. "Merry Christmas to the folks, and to you to. Bye."

"Bye." And that got around the problem of actually speaking to her father.

"You sent a Christmas card to my brother?" She asked.

"A funny one. Twelve days of Christmas done in ten, under the metric system. 'On the third day of Christmas, my sysop gave to me -- three kilojoules, two French curves, and a partial with respect to t.' You know." She didn't know, but Dobie had appreciated it. The call hadn't been as bad as she had expected. With it behind her and Alex beside her, she felt light hearted, as if it were really Christmas.

Dinner was at a place new to her. He tried to vary between introducing her to new locations and repeating an environment in which they had enjoyed themselves. "This is where we ate on Christmas Eve," sounded like a possible favorite.

She enjoyed the food greatly. She knew that he made subtle distinctions, but "much better than dorm food" seemed to cover every place he had taken her.

When they were home, they kissed and he slowly removed her clothes. They went through the bra ritual. Then he stopped and laughed. "I think that we should change the rules," he said.