The Taste of Love

A memory stirred faintly in the swirling abyss of his mind -- of what seemed another lifetime when he too was a child in a place that no longer had a name. He had been loitering happily, without an ounce of conscious purpose, along the banks of the stream that separated their village from the brooding expanse of forest that lay beyond. He had stumbled upon a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. Its wing was broken, but it was still alive, the soft down on its tiny breast ruffling with every breath. He had held it, fluttering, in his palm as he ran home. He didn't sleep that night, tending to his injured friend. When it died in the morning, he had wept tears that would not stop. He remembered drowning in the cloud of lace at his mother's bosom as she consoled him.

That is how Elsa felt in his arms -- like that baby bird fluttering in his palm; achingly, unbearably fragile. He would not let this one die, he decided. He raised his hand to gently stroke her hair, quieting her racing heart.

"It's alright. They are gone," he whispered softly into the airy cloud of brown curls beneath his chin.

She didn't stir. Even after her breathing slowed down and became even, she continued to cling to him, her cheek nestling against the silk of his shirt. She had never felt so safe in her life and she was determined never to let this go. When she finally lifted her head to look at him, his face was devoid of expression, inscrutable. But she knew instinctively, with an absolute certainty that she could not explain or understand, that she had nothing to fear from him.

She took his hand in both of hers, turning it over, examining it for he knew not what. Then, apparently satisfied, she grasped his right hand in her left and gently pulled him towards her building, retracing her steps. He followed her, unresisting, as he had on another day, a lifetime ago. When they reached the metal door, she released his hand to rummage for the key in her handbag, but looped her arm through his as though she were afraid that he would flee if she let him.

The foyer of the building was shabby, even a pretence at maintenance long since abandoned. The walls were discolored in patches where the paint had peeled. The lettering on the letterboxes had faded and some of the boxes were broken or broken into. She gripped his hand again, almost feverishly, as they waited for the elevator and wouldn't release it as they stepped into the black metal box for the journey upwards. She stole glances at him out of the corner of her eye as she waited for the ancient elevator to wheeze its way to her floor. Still as he was, he seemed part of that metal cage as though he had sprouted from it.

Once on her floor, she waited impatiently for him to slide shut the metal doors of the elevator before pulling him down the gloomy, dimly lit corridor towards her apartment. Outside her door, she repeated the ritual of capturing his arm in the crook of her elbow while she fumbled with her key to let them in.

He glanced around the apartment as she closed the door behind them. It was neat and well kept, but spoke of a genteel poverty. The furniture was elegant, obviously acquired in better times when her parents were still alive, but were now considerably worse for wear. The walls needed a coat of paint that she could not afford. She had artfully concealed patches of peeling plaster with picture frames, the consequent randomness of their placing giving the walls an oddly unbalanced look.

He interrupted his survey when he felt the gentle tug on his wrist. She had dropped her handbag unceremoniously on the floor next to the door and was now looking at him questioningly. He smiled to put her at ease. She smiled in her turn, her face lighting up, before leading him through the hall and the door opposite into what was obviously her bedroom.

Once they were inside the door, she dropped his hand and strode ahead. She stopped in the middle of the room with her back to him and began to strip with quiet deliberate efficiency. As she removed each article of clothing -- her shirt, her bra, her jeans and finally her plain cotton panties -- she folded it neatly and placed it in a pile on the chair at the foot of her bed. She finally raised her hands to her head and unknotted her hair, letting it cascade over her neck and shoulders. There was something unbearably erotic in that simple act.

He watched her body unveil with growing unease, his mind a raging cauldron of mixed emotions. There was fear there and desire and an aching tenderness. When she slid her panties down her legs and was finally naked, he tore his eyes away from her. In an odd way that he could not fully fathom, staring at her bare flesh seemed to him suddenly an act of disrespect, the violation of something sacred.

When he looked up again, she had turned around and he knew that he was lost. He knew that his life had been leading up to this moment, that he had seen the vision before him in his dreams -- dreams that he had dared not acknowledge. She stood there calmly, allowing his eyes to roam over her body -- over her soft firm breasts, the generous curve of her hips, the unruly curls of her pubes, the already moist petals of her sex and the fluid lines of her legs. Her beauty was the greater because it was so unselfconscious. He knew then that he could never deny her anything that she craved. Or perhaps he had always known.

She walked forward, wrapped her arms around him and pressed her naked body against his, her face nuzzling his chest. He felt his heart melt at that embrace. It was as though a dam had burst, releasing a flood of emotion that he had been afraid to feel. He felt his eyes well up with tears. Two drops stumbled over his lashes and slid down his cheeks. He raised a hand to wipe his tears before they dripped into her hair. He gently ran his palms down her naked shoulders and her back to cup the cheeks of her bottom. His touch was so delicate, so unspeakably tender that she felt her hips lurch unconsciously against his flesh.

When she lifted her head, his face was no longer inscrutable. There was no doubting now the emotion in his eyes and the pent up desire. He lowered his face to plant a soft kiss on her forehead - a wet whisper against her skin - before moving on, his lips fluttering on her eyes, her nose, her cheeks before capturing her lips. As he gently sucked the soft wet flesh of her lips, she moaned and her bottom quivered deliciously in the cradle of his palms. Her lips parted to let him in and their tongues dueled in the wet cavern of her mouth. Time stopped as they tasted each other, with the eagerness of newly discovered passion, until she decided that she wanted more.

As she pulled away, she silenced his protests with a finger on his lips. Then she began to slowly unbutton his shirt. Her lips followed her fingers, nipping his skin as it was laid bare. She flicked her tongue softly to taste the salty flavor of his flesh before capturing his exposed nipple in her mouth, sucking it in. When his shirt came off, she ran her palms over the hard muscles of his arms and torso, testing their resilience.

She drifted lower to kneel at his feet to remove his shoes one by one. It pleased her to serve him thus, her submissive posture flooding her sex afresh. By the time she peeled away his last piece of clothing to expose his swollen flesh, her fingers were trembling. The sight of his hard throbbing erection left her breathless. Surely, flesh could not be more perfect. She could barely encircle its girth with her fingers. It was firm and smooth, as though sculpted from marble ... warm living pulsing marble.

She flicked her tongue along his swollen length before licking it in long wet sweeps. After it was dripping wet, she swirled her tongue around the crown before easing it between her lips. She sucked softly on his rampant flesh like a baby at a mother's breast. He groaned as her mouth worked on him, resisting the temptation to grip the back of her head and to drive his hips forward, filling her throat. She sensed that he was holding back and cupped the hard muscled cheeks of his bottom to urge him deeper. As he felt his resolve weaken, he reached down and gently eased her lips off his throbbing shaft. Her fingers still held on for dear life, unwilling to relinquish the object of her desire, until he prized them open. He bent down to pick her up in his arms and carried her to the bed in the middle of the room. While her bedroom was generally neat and orderly, the bed was unkempt. She must have had to leave in a hurry, he thought.

He laid her down on the coverlet and then climbed onto the bed to kneel beside her. As he slowly ran his eyes over her naked body, her lips parted in a soft whisper that he could not discern. When he turned to her, she raised her arms to him in a mute gesture of welcome. He groaned at that simple act of surrender, suddenly grateful for the miracle in his arms.

He gently caressed her curves - her hips, the soft mounds of her breasts, the lines of her ribs, the sensitive inner flesh of her thighs that now parted to afford him access to her most intimate flesh. His touch was like no other that she had ever known. His fingers inflamed her, set her body on fire. In a sudden moment of clarity, she knew why that was so. This strange beautiful man was not having sex with her. He was not even making love to her. He was worshipping at her altar. And her body knew - with a wisdom far greater than her mind could muster. She laughed joyously at the utter simplicity of her revelation. When he raised an eyebrow quizzically, she reached up and drew his head down to plant soft wet lingering kisses on his face. He smiled shyly, pleased, almost childlike in his happiness.

He ran the tip of his forefinger playfully over her lips, now swollen with passion. They parted to let him in. She sucked his finger softly, her eyes never leaving his. His finger left her mouth to trail a thin silvery thread of spit to her nipple. He gently rubbed the wetness into the crinkled tip before taking it in his mouth, babying it. Her hips arched off the bed at the gentle assault on her sensitive flesh. His lips kept drifting from one nipple to the other, tasting, sucking, nipping. She was making small mewling noises in the back of her throat and her hips were twitching and jerking continuously, her hot moist sex now weeping for attention.

When his fingers reached the junction of her thighs, she was already sopping wet, her juices glistening on her thighs and her bottom cheeks. He ran a finger through the wet slimy flesh, bisecting her mons, before pushing it, with exquisite slowness, into her hot yearning hole. Sounds, which meant nothing and which meant everything, were now bubbling from her lips as his finger churned her slippery depths. Her hips were jerking as she tried to impale herself even more fully on his finger.

As he drew his finger out of her hole, she felt an aching sense of loss before new sensations quickly overwhelmed her mind. His finger smeared her juices on her fleshy hood before easing it back to expose the hard throbbing pearl beneath. It then drifted lower between her parted cheeks to anoint the tight pink hole of her bottom with her juices. She was finally ready.

He parted her thighs to kneel between them and lowered his mouth to her sex. At the first contact of his tongue on her wet slimy flesh, her hips jerked and her body began to tremble uncontrollably. He worked his arms under her thighs and over her hips to hold her down as he began to work on her slowly, methodically, relentlessly. He sucked her outer lips into his mouth stretching the flesh and then easing it out between his teeth. His tongue flicked restlessly through her inner folds. He drifted lower to trace the damp crack between her cheeks, pausing to lap up the juices glistening on her bottom hole, making her flinch with a pleasure that she could not longer absorb. He speared the hot yearning hole of her sex, his tongue twisting and writhing in her slimy depths. He sucked all of her hot flesh into the swamp of his mouth, mixing his spit with her juices. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, when she had been reducing to a whimpering mass of helpless flesh, he slid her eager throbbing pearl between his lips and sucked. She screamed her pleasure into the night, her body unable to contain the enormity of her release.

She was still jerking with the aftershocks of the explosion that had racked her limbs. But she wanted more. She wanted his swollen flesh inside her. She wanted him to split her open, to own her, to claim her. No words issued from her mouth. But he understood the silent plea in her eyes and the urgency in her fingers scrabbling ineffectually on his flesh. She didn't notice the shadow of fear that flitted across his eyes or the quiet resolution that replaced it.

He placed a soft fluffy pillow under her hips. She felt his throbbing tip softly kiss the rim of her hungry hole before stretching it open and impaling her with one long smooth thrust that drove the air out of her lungs. She did not peak again. It was far more intense. It was as if the tremors of her first release had not stopped. Waves of pleasure pooled in the junction of her thighs and then rolled to the extremities of her limbs rocking her body again and again as his flesh pulsed in and out of her throbbing sex.

She was floating gently on a calm sea of contentment when a sudden sense of foreboding penetrated the mist of pleasure that had fogged her mind. It was tiny at first, but grew more insistent until suddenly her eyes snapped open and she was fully awake. He was cold and clammy in her arms, his body bathed in sweat. The room smelt of death. She took his face between her palms and raised it to look into his eyes. Her mind struggled to absorb what she saw in those bottomless pools. She saw centuries of conflict, bitterness, anger and regret. She saw the clash of arms and the fall of armies. She saw an endless struggle to preserve virtue in the face of unremitting hostility. She saw the brooding shadow of death ... and how he was yielding to it. She also saw love for her and an unspoken tenderness -- deep and enduring, like a bottomless abyss. She saw a sun soaked day in the spring and a little girl pondering thoughtfully her choice of ice cream.

"Max?" she breathed, overwhelmed by that revelation.

"Elsa," he responded, his voice a sigh, his lips stretching in the saddest smile that she had ever seen, so full of pain, longing and regret that it would eclipse the sun.

She knew then how this day must end. She only marveled that her choice was so easy and so obvious. She threw her head back, her brown curls tumbling over the edge of the bed, exposing the soft white expanse of her throat. She reached upwards, placed her hand behind his neck and gently drew him down. As his lips touched her skin, her body trembled. And he learnt once again the taste of love. It was bitter sweet - the taste of immortality and of endless torment.

*****