How They May Be: After the Fall

"There." A crooked grin as she pulled back to admire her handiwork. "You look like Santa Claus."

The response came to me instantly. "I didn't think I needed to lose that much weight."

It was at best an average quip, but her smile flashed dazzling white as she giggled solidly. Relief, perhaps. She had been short on laughter recently. In any case, she reined it in as she brought the razor up to my face, her tongue adorably peeking between her lips as a look of concentration fell over her features. "Now hold still, daddy, okay?" Her mouth close enough for me to feel the soft breeze of her words against my cheek.

"Mm-hm," I answered, unmoving, and felt the edge touch upon my skin, a thin line of cold close beside my ear. It remained there a second or two before beginning its downward journey, impossibly slow and slightly irregular as it caught briefly upon individual hairs before slicing through. A little shiver ran up my spine, and I felt my heart beat faster. There was a unique intimacy in this, a tiny vulnerability - however miniscule the danger of an ordinary safety razor, she had in her hands the ability to inflict pain upon me, and there was a subtle eroticism in that.

It was as though the thought brought the reality. Her hand slipped forward, and I winced as I felt the steel blade bite into my skin. "Aah!" She recognized it as well, let out a quiet little cry as she pulled the razor away. "I'm sorry!"

"It's all right," I murmured softly. The fingers of her free hand already probed gently at the nick; she pulled them back with a stain of crimson, and I saw an overwrought horror climb into her eyes. With a tiny shake of her head, she repeated "I'm sorry."

"It's all right, I said." A brief chuckle. "It doesn't hurt." Even just a few moments later, there was only the mildest sting to the cut. "Just keep going. That's what I do."

She bit hesitantly at her lower lip, her brow low and worried. But eventually she brought the blade back against my face, and I held myself still as she tried again. Her movements smoother this time, drawing in multiple, quick strokes, rather than the single long drag of before. There were no more slips - I felt the layer of cream slowly cleaned from my face, the razor scraping along the curve of my chin, beneath my nose, under my lip. I almost laughed as she attended to the sensitive skin under my jaw, seeing the look of intensity on her face, but managed to hold it in. Quietly marveling at the connection I felt with her, the soft sensuality of this activity, like an ancient ritual of cleansing. I had never done this with Irene, never even thought of it - shaving was a basic task of hygiene, not something I'd ask anyone to do for me when I could handle it myself. But my skin fairly tingled now, feeling the quick and increasingly confident strokes of the razor in her hand, and I wondered with a certain hunger whether this, too, was wrong, or if I might safely try to make it into a new tradition.

Finally my face felt clean again, and she pulled the blade away, half a smile curving her lips as she brought up her hand to stroke again at my cheek. Rubbing off the little dot from the end of my nose. "There, much better."

I caught up a handful of water to wash the trickle of blood from my cheek, and felt for myself at the skin now smooth and hairless. "Not bad, sweetie." A grin spreading on my face. "Not bad at all. Except where you tried to cut me in half, of course."

She laughed briefly, pearly teeth showing as she rolled her eyes a bit. "Yeah, well." Fiddling distractedly with the can of shaving cream, her gaze shifted away from me, to the corner of the shower. "Um. I don't suppose . . . you want to shave me, too?"

I chuckled, thinking she was joking. "That would be rather a quick job, wouldn't it?" Then I saw her fingers curling downwards, her legs spreading slightly apart, and my heart skipped a beat as I suddenly realized what she meant. All I could say was "Oh."

"I mean," her voice was soft now, unassailably adorable. "Guys like it when a girl doesn't have any hair down there, right?"

"Some." I shrugged, attempting to be noncommittal, and awkwardly cleared my throat. "Ah, some men do."

She was growing used to my reticence. "Do you?"

My stomach squirmed, and I did not answer. For all the subtle intimacy I had felt in her play at barbering, it was a nominally innocent interaction, carrying a veneer of respectability behind which my increasingly-bold desires could hide. What she now proposed was far more blatant, and I did not know that I could give my assent to it. I wanted it, of course - there was nothing I did not want from her. But my conscience still tried feebly to stand between my wants and their admission.

Emily, for her part, clearly knew by now what my silence meant, and she moved with an understanding delicacy. I found the razor's handle pressed into my palm, my fingers closing automatically around it; she rose to her feet and stood before the shower's glass wall, her elegant legs bracing perhaps two feet apart. I watched from the corner of my eye as she squirted out from the can another handful of cream, reaching gingerly down to spread it upon the gentle rise of her mons, as thick and delicious-looking as frosting upon a pastry. Her fingers barely lingered as they traced across that most tender part of her anatomy, pausing and slowing only in a few brief moments, but when they did I almost imagined I could see the sensation rippling up into her body, like waves in a shallow pond. She painted on herself a rough, inverted triangle in white, rising up to the height of her prominent hipbones, and when she was finished her eyes fell upon mine, quiet and expectant.

A faint smile flickered on my lips, my throat painfully dry as the blood pounded in my ears. I shouldn't do this, of course not, no. I could not voice my desire to. But she waited for me now, and action was so much easier than words. I did not have to find a place for this in my worldview, I did not have to defend it. I had only to do it. And if I did not - what then? Wander off like a cretin, tell her to do it herself?

No. I shuffled across the tiles over to her, steadied myself with a hand on her thigh, just above her knee. Sitting on my feet, my eyes were just at the level of her hips. I was so close to her, to the landscape of her body, a forest of thin black hairs perhaps half an inch long, blanketed in a snowy layer of cream. And at the bottom, the perfect pink folds of her flower, softly parted by her stance, holding my eyes as a magnet holds the needle of a compass. I could feel the muscles of her leg tighten beneath my hand, and smelled ever so faintly the perfume of her arousal. This was a mistake, the thought came weakly warning in the back of my mind. So easily ignored.

The razor came up almost unbidden; I found my hand trembling as it hesitated at her pelvis, the blade dipped barely into the white cream, a tiny fraction of an inch from her skin. I knew now Emily's concern, her terror at the sight of my blood. God, if I hurt her, if by an errant twitch of my hand I caused her the slightest injury . . . the bare thought had the feeling of sacrilege. I had to be cautious. I closed my eyes, breathing with a deliberate slowness until my pulse settled to a mere jog and I could once again hold myself steady. Only then did I look again, and lowered the razor upon her - a quick, gasping inhalation from above me as the cool steel made contact with her warm flesh. I drew it down with a careful, measured speed, feeling a host of tiny, almost imperceptible impacts as her fine hairs caught and broke upon the blade. Where it passed the cream was wiped away, leaving behind nothing but gloriously bare skin, so pale there was almost no difference in color. Just the faintest speckling of infinitesimally fine black dots, the broken ends of hairs buried within their follicles. Beautiful. I realized I wasn't breathing, and stopped to exhale.

Her thin, shaven hairs were collected upon the razor, stuck to the blade; I reached back to wash it off in the still-streaming water before returning for another pass. On the other side now, my approach symmetric, moving downward at the curving edge of her pelvis, the slight concavity where her legs merged with her hips. And again I drew down smooth, another patch of wondrously perfect skin uncovered to my eyes. Like unwrapping a gift an inch at a time, revealing tantalizing glimpses of the whole. She was breathing somewhere above me, slow and heavy - I did not speak, did not want to ruin the moment with words. Just washed off the blade again and kept working, as reverently and as carefully as a museum curator restoring the Mona Lisa. And slowly the spread of shaving cream was replaced with an expanse of bare, succulent flesh.

Nearly done, then; all that remained was the most delicate part of her, thin strips of hair upon her outer labia, ending abruptly where the skin turned inward, diving into her sweetness. This was the most difficult task, her flesh here curved and yielding and achingly sensitive. An error of no more than a millimeter, and I would slice into that blood-thickened flesh - I had to be perfect. For her.

Even with her legs spread as they were, I had not enough room to maneuver, and for a moment I put down the razor, placing my hands upon her feet to slide them further apart on the tiles. She moved compliantly, opening slowly wider, until her toes touched opposite ends of the shower and her legs quivered, struggling to keep her upright. Finally she bent at the waist and put her hands upon my shoulders, steadying herself against me. I retrieved the razor. Everything was ready.

With infinite caution, I touched the blade to the base of her lower lips, getting the angle just right. Then, without further ceremony, I pulled it slowly back towards me, pushing up just barely hard enough to keep it flush against the skin, adjusting my arm so that the blade ran always parallel. Her fingers squeezed helplessly upon my shoulders, and I heard a slow, strangled sigh emerge from the depths of her, a lingering "Ohhhh..." The skin uncovered here was not white but pink, capillaries brimming with her blood, just beneath the surface. The other side, now. My heart was beating like a kettle drum. I could see her inner lips, glistening with moisture. Finishing up, pulling the blade along her again, as little palpitations ran through her leg. Her fingers almost painfully tight upon my shoulders, her breath coming fast and ragged. "Oh my god," she whispered - not to me, just an utterance of sensation, happening to take the form of words.

The blade crossed the last centimeter. "There," I sighed, a feeling of trembling exultation in my breast. Success. No wound, no blood. Just the softly delectable rise of her mons, her skin now bald and beautiful, dotted here and there with remains of the shaving cream. She did not yet stand up, and I put back the razor into its proper place, caught a little handful of water and splashed it upon her garden.

She yelped at that, jumped back upright. "God, daddy." I looked up at her face; she was red-cheeked and glassy-eyed, her mouth hanging slightly open as she breathed. "It's...it feels so..."

"Sensitive?" I offered, and she nodded emphatically. "That happens, when you shave skin that's had hair for a while." Closer. Her legs were shut again, her flower closed. A little pink rosebud, growing by some miracle in a field of snow. I pursed my lips and blew upon it, a soft, cool breeze - she let out a sound like a high-pitched squeak, and her hands clutched desperately at my scalp.

"Umm." A short little gasping laugh, more than slightly hysterical. "Is it . . . does it look okay?"

"Hm." I felt drunk, ecstatically inebriated with her beauty, with her scent, with the unbearably titillating sound of her voice. "I think I'll need to take another look." Pushing her legs wider again, I brought my face up between them, inches away from her womanhood - she looked so clean now, so utterly smooth. Finely crafted as a china doll. I spoke again, "Hm." Giddy desire bubbling in my veins. Closer. Pursed my lips again, and this time, laid a slow kiss right there at the center of her.

She squealed frantically, her nails biting at the back of my neck. "Oh my god, your lips...!"

"It feels all right." Jubilant laughter tickled at the back of my throat, but I kept it inside. "Perhaps a taste?" And her juices smeared upon my face as I pressed my mouth against her, tracing my tongue along the edges of her lips, probing up to tickle at her stiff bud. I rejoiced at the taste of her in my mouth, her viscous, faintly bitter ambrosia, and she moaned and clutched me fiercely, her hips rolling against my face.

I had thought of playing a bit more. But from the sensual incoherence of her voice, the curling fingers in my hair, and the ferocity with which she tugged at the back of my head, I knew that she was near her release, and I was more than willing to grant it to her. My tongue dove deeper within her, eagerly questing for her satisfaction, while my lips slid against hers; she fell back, supporting her weight against the wall as still more urgent sighs issued from her throat. Yes, she was close. I moved up an inch, let my tongue flutter and dance upon her nub for a few moments. It was enough - a high, strangled cry erupted from her mouth, and her hands curled into fists against my scalp. I felt her legs twitch once, twice, and then she slipped downward, fairly collapsing upon the tiles from the power of her ecstasy.

"Easy," I murmured as I rose to my feet, my arm catching around her waist and carrying her up with me. There was a dreamy smile upon her lips, a distant, guileless pleasure in her eyes. Slowly, she put her arm around me as well, her fingertips touching small and gentle upon my back. Over the constant cascade of falling water, it took me a moment to hear her low and deeply delighted hum. "What do you think?" I asked her slyly. "Like the shave?"

Her chest quivered with laughter, her nipples proud and erect. "Mmm. Um." Delay, as she worked to find words again. "Um, you still didn't tell me how it looks."

"I didn't, did I?" I pulled her body against mine, trapping my hardness between us, tall and hot against her abdomen. Stared down lustfully into her eyes, as I spoke the truth. "It's the sexiest, most beautiful thing I've ever seen." And I kissed her, forcefully, sharing with her the taste of herself which still coated my lips. Shamelessly thrusting my tongue into her mouth, probing as though to lick her up from the inside, as though to devour her. Still languid with rapture, she did not return it with quite the same force - but she tried, all the same, her lips working against mine, her tongue wresting ineffectually with its opposite. When I finally pulled back, I could have roared with desire, a feeling of masculine power throbbing in my veins. Instead I murmured, my voice husky, thick, commanding. "Let's get you back into bed." And I reached over to turn off the water.

Emily's smile was almost triumphant, her eyes sparkling happily. "Carry me," she demanded softly, and I was only too eager to oblige. A moment later her legs were wrapped around my waist, her shapely rear resting on my arm, and our lips pressed and squeezed in another long and deliriously wonderful kiss as I teetered with her out of the shower and back into my bedroom, collapsing in a haze of passion upon the covers. It was eight o'clock. The day was beginning.

---

That weekend was a kind of honeymoon. I cannot count the number of times we made love - not for any failure of arithmetic, but because there was hardly any stopping to divide one from the next. Even after I spent myself within her, we lazily coupled with hand and tongue, until I was once more able to rise to her pleasures, repeating the process. Emily herself seemed to be insatiable, if not inexhaustible; even when a particularly energetic bout left her panting tiredly on the bed, hardly able to move, she still urged my hands to her breasts, to her mouth, to her womanhood tender and rosy from my assaults.

We did not leave the bed again until well past noon, and even then were fixed at one another's side, eating voraciously in half-undress as we tried to restore the energy we had expended over the past few hours. Sharing a single plate, Emily sitting snugly in my lap, each of us unwilling to separate longer than a moment. And when we had eaten our fill, we were right back at each other again. Even in my younger days, I had never had such an experience as this - an endless expression of fevered desire, the physical act of love stretched out into almost a state of being.

Indeed, even my actual honeymoon with Irene had not been as all-encompassing as this. Some two decades earlier, a lifetime ago - we had held back our bodies' wants in anticipation of our wedding night, giving in to no more than some rather heavy kisses and caresses, hints of what waited as reward for our patience. It was not, of course, actually a first time for either of us; I was not so devout as that, then or now, and Irene confessed that she had been less careful in her teenage years. But I had felt, all the same, that for her it was a sacrifice worth making. Our wedding was an event of pomp and ceremony, and the night thereafter an almost celebration of desire, an indulgence of feeling finally blessed by God. After half a year's wait, I so ached for her that I felt I might burst - and in fact did, after a fashion. We made love until the pink of dawn glowed through the windows of our hotel suite; fueled by my long abstinence, I set a personal record, climbing three times to the summit of release, and I daresay helping her to it at least as many.

We did not much try to duplicate that experience, in the years which followed. Irene had a sense of moderation about such things, feeling that unrestrained lust was a vice, even inside of marriage. I do not want to make her sound cold - indeed, she was a very passionate woman, in her own way. She could always make me feel the man of the house, when I came home tired and lonely from another long assignment abroad. She simply felt, and in fact I agreed with her, that one should not lie about in endless indulgence of the flesh.

Now, with Emily, I found myself doing exactly that. My desire for her never seemed to wane, and she was ever-welcoming - more than welcoming, positively demanding that it be indulged. It was not until nightfall that we took any sort of break; though my spirit still was willing, my body was by then utterly exhausted, and pointedly refused any further activity. And I realized as I lay there beside her, our bodies sticky with sweat, that I had not just broken my old record but nearly doubled it. My heart recoiled from comparing Emily to her mother, to my departed wife; it seemed intolerably vulgar. They were different, that was all. And yet, for her to have such an effect on me...

The madness was that all these hours we spent in zealous intimacy were still with this conflict inside me, the shrill disapproval of reason and of conscience. I could not hear it, of course, when lust thundered in my veins; without a break, without time for thought and guilt, it was a quiet and powerless onlooker. Not until Sunday morning did my conscience really make itself heard again - only to be defeated even more swiftly than it had been the day before. Despite my suggestions, we did not attend church that morning, and we invoked the name of God only for most questionable reasons.

In the end, the day turned out much the same as the one before. A trifle slower, both of us sore from our prior exertions. A little more conversation, a little more time taken when we ate. We did not confine ourselves to my bed, but roamed the house, coupling on the living room couch, on the kitchen table, atop the washing machine...sometimes madly, sometimes languidly, sometimes with such a loving care and slowness I felt as though my heart might tear open from the emotion filling it. And every time I came inside her, every time I heard her cry out with rapture and shudder beneath me, the voice of conscience became a little quieter, a little weaker. Even if it was wrong, I could not keep being horrified. To sleep with my daughter once was a huge and terrible step, a violation like a bullet to the soul. To do it a tenth time was a twinge of guilt like brushing off a beggar. Man, it seems, can accustom himself to anything.