Falling in Love Again

**

In the faint glow of the candle, Beth's skin shone as if brushed with gold dust. Her eyes were full of joy as she gently touched Joey's cheek once again. A smile of delight animated her pretty features as Joey's eyes opened a bit before closing again to accompany a soft snore.

"I know, I know..." Joey moaned, patting her small hand with his, then curling his fingers around hers. "I'm going to be late to class..." As he began to drift back into a sound sleep, a part of him came awake with shocking speed, and his eyes opened once again. "Beth?"

Beth's fingers squeezed his, her eyes sparkling. Joey's heart seized up and his breath escaped in one astonished whoosh. Sitting fully upright in the chair, he hurriedly glanced around his living room. All was as he'd left it, the bolt on the door still engaged. When he turned back to see if it had just been wishful thinking, Beth pulled her hand from his, lifting both of hers in a What the Hell gesture and offering a disarming smile.

"Okay. I'm going to start talking out loud here," Joey began, hastily stumbling to his feet and nearly overturning the coffee table as he staggered back from the woman kneeling on the floor. "In case the last year and change were a really shitty and realistic dream, you're not alive. I had to go identify your body because your mother was off with that slimy boyfriend of hers when the accident happened.

"I kissed your cold lips before they closed your casket. I fucking felt like my world had collapsed when I came back here to our place, and now here you are? What's going-"?

Beth's hands shot over her ears and tears began to rain down her cheeks. She closed her eyes, a look of pure anguish making her pretty features almost tragic.

"Hey... I'm sorry..." Joey fell to his knees across the table from her, his skin prickling with strange gooseflesh as he gingerly extended a hand to touch her bare left breast.

Instead of feeling clammy and cool, it was warm and seemed to pulse with life. Beth's eyes opened and within them he saw a trepidation that was heart breaking. But her nipple grew hard against his palm, and her small hands reached down to hold his hand there, her fingertips hot and silken against his wrist. Joey shook his head, rubbing his eyes with his free hand; uncertain of what was going on, but not entirely sure he wanted to know.

"I don't know what this is but-" Beth hastily pressed a finger to his lips, shaking her head as she arched her back, pressing her bosom against his touch. Her eyes told him that trying to understand it all and dissect the details might break the spell, pleading with him to just focus on her and the moment.

Questions raced through his brain as his nerves sent back the signal that yes, this truly was flesh. Soft and yielding, and if his nose wasn't in on the ruse, he thought he could smell the coconut of her shampoo and faint tropical floral whisper of her perfume. His lips parted, the words waiting patiently there as reality dueled with generous thanks for whatever short circuit in his mind had given him this gift. Especially on this night of all nights.

"God... you have no idea how much I've missed you..." Joey collapsed to his knees beside Beth, gingerly placing a shaking arm around her slender shoulders, her body warm and vibrant as she snuggled against his side. Looking up at him, he knew the look of contentment he'd find in her eyes the instant it sparked to life. And as he'd longed to do ever since getting that surreal and terrible phone call at work, he lifted his other arm to wrap her in a covetous embrace, his throat filled with the suppressed pain of fifteen months. "God how I love you..."

Beth's fingertips glided down the back of his neck with silken familiarity, and she strained up to brush his lips with hers, the feel of her body in his arms the only thing he was sure of as he lowered his mouth to give her a kiss.

Where it had been cautious and unbelieving at first, their kiss soon grew bolder before blossoming into the pent up hunger of lovers long denied contact. Beth sighed, her hands roaming up and down his back over the stiff material of his dress shirt, her soft little breasts pressed to his chest.

In the feeble light of the candle accompanied by Sigur Ros on the stereo, they lay back on the carpet, she atop him, her hair filtering out almost all the light as Joey opened his eyes.

"I don't want to do this. I don't want it to end, and if I don't start it, it can't." His heart raced and his eyes burned with unshed tears. "Please, Beth. Please... What ever this is... I can't."

Sweet lips pressed against his as the gentle pressure of her fingernails against his chest alerted him to her unbuttoning his shirt. Allowing his hands to wander, his fingertips played over her shoulder blades, down the silky concave column of her back to her narrow waist, then gently daring to cup the firm rounded mound of her bottom.

Between them, he felt his blood racing through his veins, filling his mind with scarlet desire and his stiffening cock with frantic need.

Beth broke the kiss to slide down his body, her fingers working expertly with the buckle of his belt and zip of his pants. She didn't meet his gaze but kept hers on his groin, the tender pink dart of her tongue running along her lower lip as she tugged down his pants and boxers to allow the straining length of his cock to spring forth.

Wincing as the cool air hit his most sensitive flesh, Joey closed his eyes as hot little fingertips wrapped around his throbbing shaft. The touch was so divine it bordered on agony, and the combination of cool air and warm caresses soon had him gasping.

The opportunity to open his eyes eluded him yet again as he felt a feathery brush of lips against the now dripping and swollen head. When her lips parted to admit just a little of him in, the hot wetness and suction shot right through his being and he tensed against the unyielding floor.

A vision of Beth kneeling beside him on the deck of her mother's summer cottage grew vivid in Joey's mind as he felt more of himself enveloped by Beth's slow and sensual suckling. They had gone berry picking under cloudy skies, and as the first few drops of rain began to fall over the pristine forest, they grabbed their basket of blackberries and hurried back to the cabin.

Beth's mother was in the nearest small town shopping for groceries, and the pair of lovers had stood on the covered deck, falling like the rain into each other's sweet wet kisses, their thunderous heartbeats joined as they stood pressed together.

Without a word, Beth offered a mischievous smile and gestured to the lounge chair at the peripheral of the deck, and he went to it, laying back into the supportive nylon weave as she'd hurriedly pulled down his jeans to bend and take him into her mouth with a soft and hungry moan. It had been pure bliss, the occasional errant raindrop striking his cheek or arm while she sucked him to a hurried and tingling climax, opening her eyes to look at him as she swallowed, his softening dick still held snug between her full little lips as the skies darkened around them and the birds took shelter under the leaves.

Breaths that became moans escaped Joey as he opened his eyes to watch the flickering projection of candlelight on the ceiling. If he looked down at Beth, he knew it would be over and he'd be lost, and he wanted this to last for as long as his mind would allow.

With rapid up and down strokes, Beth worked her mouth over his cock, her hair sliding along his thighs with her movements as she sucked him hard as she could bear.

"Baby..." Joey groaned, his hips arching off the floor, the carpeting scraping against his shoulders.

Faintly, he became aware of the thumping beat down the hall again, and this only further fueled his notion that this couldn't be happening. His mind was merely making the most of his subconscious desire, using every chemical at its disposal for optimum enjoyment and realism. Even the soft moan through her closed lips felt and sounded completely genuine.

Soon, he became aware that the sensual dance had changed. No longer was his mind the lead in this fragile pas de deux. His body had taken the dominant role and he was rapidly barreling toward climax. With all the strength he could muster, he raised a hand to reach down, gently stroking her cheek.

"Stop." Joey panted, trying to sit up. Beth stopped, sitting up to brush the back of one petite hand over her mouth, looking down at him in dazed euphoria.

She bombarded his senses as she moved up his body, kissing her way to his throat, then his jaw, and finally his lips.

Her body was trembling with need, her hands shaking as they went to his shoulders. Giving him an impossibly sweet kiss as she pushed herself upward with her hands, she parted her legs, her knees settling against his waist as she pushed the sultry sticky folds of her smooth nether flower against his cock. With a gasp, she rubbed against him, sliding back and forth a mere few inches to let the tip of him rub against her secret pearl. Joey inhaled sharply, reaching down beneath her splayed thighs to hold his cock steady, arching his hips to nudge against the snug and slippery channel of her sex.

One gentle push and he was inside her, the shockwave of ecstasy accompanying the movement enough to steal his breath. Beth gasped, the throaty inhalation enough to spur him into unstoppable action. Grasping her hips, Joey stared into Beth's face, lost in the exquisite tension he saw reflected in those fathomless eyes. The acute aching of her need and his attempts to fill it stretched out into every molecule of his being, and at that moment, he understood.

It had never been just fucking between them. It had been a reinforcement of the intertwining of two souls meant to be together. With every thrust, he opened the enigmatic flower of Beth's being, exploring all the tremulous corolla before venturing further into the heart of her; the parts of her that were made just for him to discover. She had opened and gave of herself, never shielding anything from him no matter the vulnerable layers he peeled back and explored.

On the afternoon Elisabeth was flung from this realm, her soul had slipped the crushed and hurting tethers of her body, taking along with it a part of him that could not be replaced. It was ripped free, leaving behind a screaming and pulsing wound. The excruciating impact of her loss left in its wake a butchered amputation of his heart and soul that refused to heal.

When she fell against him, their hips still working against each other, the months' long agony he'd known began to fade. With every slippery undulation, every frantic kiss and desperate embrace, he understood at last. Knew that while he had been maimed, he had not been the one to die.

"I love you..." Joey whispered, taking her face in his hands and crushing his lips to hers as he exploded inside her, her muscles throbbing and contracting to capture every bit of him as she went rigid in his arms before he inhaled her long trembling breath.

The music on the hall blared on. The music on their stereo played on. They lay on their side, her head resting against his upper arm as he wrapped around her, capturing her waist in his other arm as they closed their eyes, the soft brush of her hair against his chin a reassuring bit of contact as he started to drowse.

**

Staggering to his feet, Joey shambled toward the bathroom. His head pounded and his belly protested queasily to the sudden jerky movements as he made haste to the toilet.

Emptying his bladder, a vague sense of something huge and important snagged at the edges of his mind. What was it? Something just out of reach...

As he flushed, he padded over to the sink, glancing up at himself to see he was completely naked. In his haste, his flopping and flaccid member hadn't even trumped his blurry thoughts, which were focused only on getting to the bathroom. Often, he slept only in boxers, but rarely did he sleep nude. In fact, he gave that habit up when...

Gazing closer at his reflection, Joey looked at the half open bathroom door behind him. The one empty hook of the two screwed into the back.

"Beth's kimono..." Joey whispered, the memory bursting through the booze-clouded surface of thought to spread out like a colorful butterfly emerging from a battered cocoon.

Vague flashes of the previous night flew back toward him, blurred and unfocused save for one clear recollection. In the hazy hour before dawn, Joey had awakened enough to feel cold. As if a great rush of air had just made contact with his skin. Looking up, he saw Beth emerging from the direction of their bedroom, clad in her black kimono; an expression of boundless love in her eyes as she gazed down at her lover now sprawled on the floor.

Kneeling over him, she had kissed her fingertips, and then pressed them to his cheek. He longed to get up. He ached to grab her and steal endless kisses from those beautiful lips. She was leaving. Going back to whatever enchanted ether had allowed her this night, and he longed to wrap his arms around her narrow waist and hang on, drifting away with her into the mysterious realm where she would wait for him to return. But he was so tired... His eyelids fluttered and then fell and the world was blackness.

Washing his hands, Joey slowly left the bathroom. Glancing into the living room, he saw his clothes bundled in a heap on the floor by the chair. Saw the white ring of wax and metal wick plate in the votive holder. His wine glass lay on its side, apparently falling over unnoticed sometime during the night.

"What..." Joey began, taking one cautious step toward his bedroom. Another followed, and soon he found himself standing in the doorway, scrutinizing the uninterrupted blue and green pattern of the duvet. A few more steps into his room revealed that the kimono had not slipped off the bed. It was not wedged between the mattress and the wall. It was gone.

**

"So tell me about this new lady in your life." Dr. Hansen smiled, the expression carefully controlled but not able to hide a bit of the genuine happiness she was experiencing. She couldn't believe the metamorphosis one of her most troubled clients had made just over the space of one short year.

Joey stretched, long bangs falling into his eyes before he grinned, brushing them away.

"Her name's Melody. We've been working together for a while; I just didn't really talk to her much. But now... we're going on another date tomorrow. I made the reservations for a special Valentine's Day package last week, and I think she's going to be really surprised." Dr. Hansen wrote something in her notes, and then crossed her stocking-clad legs, the pale violet of her silk blouse shimmering with her movements as she smoothed her floral print skirt with her free hand.

"And you're doing all right with this? No lingering guilt or conflict over your past?" Joey's eyes shone with secret understanding and peace.

"All I can say is that your advice worked. Better than I'd expected. Maybe better than you'd expected. I just know that I'm alive, and I need to start remembering that. Beth would want me to remember that."

Finis