Chapter 6

I felt like I was going to melt into the bed.

When I first met McKayla, I knew she was smart. But I didn't quite realise how smart she was until we were together for a couple of years. She was the kind of person who could pick up a new language with ease. She was always naturally curious, and when she put her mind to something, it came to her very easily. As a result, she engaged in a wide variety of activities and picked up a gazillion skills throughout her lifetime. Somehow, she passed this trait on to our daughter, who was smarter at 14 than I was or ever will be.

Between her freshman and sophomore years in college, McKayla spent a summer as a whitewater rafting guide on the Gauley and New Rivers in southern West Virginia. She earned black belts in karate and judo. On the weekends when she wasn't taking us to a Renaissance Fair, she dressed up in her killer metal bikini that made Star Wars nerds drool at Dragon*Con. McKayla once spent an afternoon explaining to me why Tom Baker was the best of the Doctors. She also taught me how to hang shingles, lay tile, make the perfect cheese fondue and all about salsa, both the dance and the sauce.

So it was that I found myself face down on our bed with my wife—and newly-minted licensed massage therapist—digging her palms into my back. If I hadn't been lying down, my knees would have turned to jelly.

Maureen was two years old and sleeping in her room down the hallway. The windows were open and a cool evening breeze blew over us. The sound of waves washing up on the shore echoed across the sand dunes.

Every muscle in my body was completely relaxed. We were both nude. McKayla had always given the most wonderful erotic massages, but now that she had learned to give the therapeutic kind, they were sooooooooooooo much better.

Her fingernails raked my skin, her featherlight touch drawing a line of goosebumps across my back. I felt her hair brush across my shoulders then her warm breath on my neck.

"I love you," she whispered.

My toes started to tingle as her warm lips pressed against my skin. I swear my nipples were so hard they could cut glass!

I felt her teeth run the length of my spine, from top to bottom and back.

Her hands pushed me back down into the bed when I tried to roll over. I don't consider myself a meek person, but in bed I have always been on the submissive side. In my regular life, I don't like to be controlled in the sense that my significant other holds things over me or manipulates me, but in bed I like for someone else to have control.

McKayla was always the dominant one in our sex life. I never minded because she had earned my trust. When she put a blindfold on me or tied me down, I never felt fear, or that I was going to be abused. There were so many things in McKayla's life that were bigger than she was—the Huntington's Disease for one, and later the cancer that took her life—that she wanted to have as much control as she could.

My college boyfriend also liked to be in control in bed. I think I gave in to him just because it was easy. Don't get me wrong; our sex life was pretty good (at least until I found out he couldn't keep his dick out of the pothead who lived in the apartment right underneath us), but sometimes he would just bang me. On some occasions, I was just a quick suck and fuck for him, and I just accepted it because I thought that's just how sex worked.

Then I met McKayla.

She spoiled me on all future lovers. The funny thing is, we didn't really have sex that often. Usually we just held one another. She showed me that the simple act of kissing can be more intimate than fucking like rabbits for an hour.

I loved feeling her against me. Her skin was always so soft and warm. Her hands never pawed at me. Our touches were soft and gentle caresses. That's not to say we didn't have some wild, hot monkey-love or that we never had mind-blowing, wake-the-neighbours orgasms, but for her the object of sex was never just to get off.

MaKayla wanted to be close to me, and I wanted to be close to her. She made me feel sexy and loved in a way no one had before. Or since.

Her hands continued to work over my back, even as her lips caressed my skin.

"How's your headache?" she asked with a mischievous giggle. "All better?"

"Not quite," I breathed, although in truth, I wanted for nothing and really felt fine. But there was something else she wanted, and who was I to deny her?

Her hands ran up and down my back one more time. Then she gently flipped me over. I was so relaxed that I couldn't move on my own if I wanted to.

McKayla's body pressed against mine. She brushed the hair out of my eyes and cupped my face. Her lips pressed against mine, not hungrily, but sweetly.

"I love you, Elven Princess," she whispered the most secret pet name we had.