Summer and Fall

I shook my head, "No. Nyet. Nope. Negative."

"Well good. So you won't object to me asking you the same question?" Alex opened her hand to reveal something shiny.

"NO! Alex Mak, you did not!" I jumped to my feet and screeched when I realised what it was.

"I'm not the type to want to wear an engagement ring, so thank you for not giving me one," she said, "but I wondered if you'd want to mark the occasion -- if and when it happened -- so I decided to get you a ring, in case you wanted one."

"Oh honey, it is beautiful." I extended my hand to her, and she slipped the ring on.

"Perfect fit." Alex held on to my hand.

"How did you know? I mean, how did you have the ring in your hand?"

"I actually didn't know. Your mum, I think, played her part of go-between perfectly. We'll have to thank her."

"You know, for all your bluster and misanthropy, you are a romantic, Alexandra." I pulled her up into a hug and gave her a kiss.

"Only with you, Jessica," Alex nuzzled my neck.

"And what other things do you do only with me?" I asked suggestively.

Alex trailed kisses along my earlobe, "I don't know, let me think..."

I shivered.

"... something to do with touching tender, sensitive spots... like maybe here..." She brushed her fingers against my nipples.

"Hmmm... what else?" I smiled at my fiancée.

She wrapped her arms around me and picked me up, "Here on the floor, or in the bedroom?"

I stared at her, remembering those words -- that question -- from a year ago. Alex wiggled her eyebrows at me.

"Oh, very smooth, Alex." I curled my legs tight around her. "My parents are gone?"

Alex nodded.

"Bedroom. Now."

"As you wish."

***END***

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den?
'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

--John Donne, The Good-Morrow