I Loved You Wednesday (20 page)

She stops smiling.

Picking up a large sponge of her own and placing her legs astride both sides of my waist, Chris begins massaging my chest and stomach.

I edge even closer and wash up and down her arms before moving the sponge up to her neck and then slowly down to her breasts. Her sensitive nipples respond to my fondling, so I press down slightly harder on the sponge.

Chris drops
her
sponge and continues to massage now with just her hands. She moves them slowly, tantalizingly across my wet shoulders and down my back.

I elicit the softest moan of pleasure and put my sponge aside. Placing my hands on her rounded breasts, I softly knead them. She purrs quietly.

We look at each other for a long time, still massaging, still stroking, still not speaking.

At last I take her hand and help us both out of the bath.

Taking a large towel for myself, I then hand another to Chris. I begin drying her, wiping away the mountains of bubbles still beautifully clinging to her glistening body.

She dries me, too, with long, soft strokes, removing the excess suds all over me.

I drape my towel around her shoulders, and she does the same with hers on mine. Taking her hand, I lead her into the bedroom. Still not a word.

After pulling down the covers, we crawl into bed. Placing my arms underneath her, I hug tightly while enjoying the sensation of our two naked bodies rubbing against each other.

Lifting her chin and taking my eyes away from hers for the first time, I bring my mouth down to those lovely lips.

We kiss for a long, long while.

I try swallowing her chin and kissing her nose and her eyes and practically drown her ears with my saliva. Overwhelmed by the depths of her sensuality, I want to kiss all of her. Our breathing gets progressively heavier.

She moves down to my nipples, which she chews on tenderly, before circling them with her tongue. Wanting so much of her, so badly, for so long, I know not where to begin. So I squeeze her buttocks, and she moans and runs her fingernails up and down my scalp, scratching ever so gently. We stare at each other while her fingers comb through and pull my hair. Nothing’s ever seemed so exciting. Diluted in this runaway euphoria, I bring my mouth down to the magic of her beautiful triangle. It’s all too fabulous, too incredible.

Chris sits up and then lies down in the other direction so that her feet face my head and vice versa. Riveted now by sensuous anticipation, I get lost in her as she leans forward and takes the whole of my extended penis in her mouth.

We remain this way, intoxicated with each other for some time until, ready to burst, I back off. Sitting up, I bring her into my arms, kissing her all over and then, lowering her again, place her head back on the pillow. We stare at each other again, roving our fingers across our bodies. She squeezes my back and shoulder muscles vigorously.

Lost in kisses, I move around, getting on top of her. Wrapping one of her thighs around each of my arms, I ease forward and teasingly move my erection up and down, titillating the outside of her wetted vagina, pausing several moments to savor her excitement.

The room seems to be spinning. All I can see, though, is her, outlined in total beauty and giving.

We are both softly moaning now, so I gently spread her thighs again and gradually part the delicate softened lips. Bringing my body into position ever so carefully, never taking my eyes away from hers, I push my way down and forward, slowly, slowly until I’m finally deep within her. Abandoning all sense of time and place, relishing the magnetic thrill, both of us look at one another, rejoicing in our complete understanding.

I lean forward, placing a palm of each hand on either side of her head for support, and kiss her again and again, and I don’t want this to ever end. Not ever.

Then, together, we begin a rhythmic thrust. We build and build and our moans of pleasure grow louder and I’ve never known such sensations and Chris is going wild, tossing her head first left and then right and I know she’s coming because I can feel the wetness within, so I thrust even harder and she screams out my name, which is the first verbal communication between us in the past hour, and I wait a moment or so, holding back before thrusting again.

“I can’t believe this,” I say softly. “Can’t believe how fabulous.”

Chris starts to build again and I know she’s drawing close to a second orgasm. “Steve!” she moans. “You don’t know. . . . You don’t know!”

“I know,” I answer. “I do know. Come on. Come on, babe!” I coax her. “COME ON!”

And there it comes again, that fabulous wetness, lubricating my entire cock with its welcome envelopment.

“Oh, Steve,” she moans. “OH, STEVE!”

I flop down again, licking her entire face as I shove a pillow beneath the small of her back. I’ve lost all restraint by now. There is nothing but her.

Thrusting again, even more forceful than before, I can’t contain myself any longer, so I begin to let loose.

Leaning back slightly, I grab both her hands and bring them up alongside each of her shoulders, entangling her fingers within mine, holding on with all I’ve got. I thrust forward again, and a warm current from someplace deep, deep within starts tingling, traveling up from God knows where, circling my testicles before gathering for a final moment at the base of my erection.

“CHRIS! BABY! NOW!” I roar, thrusting a final, giant jab inside her, and all that juice gathered at the base of my cock surges upward and out, shooting far into her, wave after wave after wave. I let out some final, indistinguishable moan, some animal sound of sublime release.

And Chris welcomes my semen with a third, incredible orgasm of her own, meeting my come with oceans of her own juice. Our two liquids unite, celebrating these endless gifts of sensations.

“MY GOD, STEVE!” shouts Chris. “MY GOD!”

The last of me drains deep within her before I collapse on top of her. Lifting my head slowly, I hold her face in my hands and kiss and kiss her, and we simply cannot get enough of each other.

Finally, I hold her head steady a moment and whisper, “I love you, Chris. I’ve always loved you.”

Chapter Eleven
 

Seconds later, Chris and I both fall asleep for a long while, snow, suds and sex having taken their energizing tolls.

I’m momentarily aroused from blissful slumber when she snuggles up next to me. Placing my arm around her with care, I’m taken by surprise when I find her hips much thinner and her chest hairier than I remember.

Opening my eyes, I find Ruth lying between us, looking up at me sadly.

“Sorry, miss. Not tonight,” I tell the bulldog, pushing her off the bed onto the floor. “We’ll save the ménage for another time, if you don’t mind.” Ruth does mind, though. Scorned by my love for another woman, she returns to the warmth of Chris’ closet, where she collapses next to Harry and releases her fury by snoring even louder than usual.

I cuddle next to Chris and kiss her forehead. She wakes with a soft smile and extends her arms to me.

We embrace and are in no time engaged again in lovemaking. It’s another glorious encounter intensified, if that’s possible, by the growing familiarity of the workings of our respective heightened awarenesses.

Afterwards we fall asleep again; stirring only to get more comfortable, moving closer together. And each time one of us wakes, he embraces the other as a welcome longlost friend before dozing off again.

Somewhere around five thirty in the morning I open my eyes and find Chris staring directly back at me.

We blink at each other a few times until Chris quietly asks, “Steve?”

“Yes?”

“I’m starving!”

“What should we eat?”

“I don’t know. Let’s sneak into the kitchen, kill a few cockroaches and see what’s there.”

Watching the sun rise over a snow-covered Riverside Drive, while breakfasting on bacon and eggs, whole wheat toast, coffee, thirteen multihued vitamin tablets and a Miss Grimble’s cheesecake can be a lot of fun.

Especially if you’ve just fallen in love.

Now I don’t mean to get mushy, honest, and I know I’ve always been one of your more cynical skeptics on the subject, sloughing it off as kid stuff and antics that only happen in films.

BUT. . . .

When it finally comes along, I’m afraid it’s just as all the clichés in all the musical numbers in all the movies suggest.

Chris and I support this by singing, yes, singing to each other over the breakfast table all those songs of love we grew up on at Saturday matinees.

Once our medley’s completed, Chris, looking at me very intensely, says, “I’ve always wanted to fall in love with someone who would sing to me the way Gordon McRae did to Doris Day.”

“Well, now you have. And all I can say about it is, ‘What a day this has been, what a rare mood I’m in.

Chris picks it up. “Why, it’s almost like being in love....”

And the two of us finish the song.

Three songs, two cups of coffee and another piece of cheesecake later, I look at Chris. She looks back at me, totally absorbed. We gaze at each other like this for an awfully long time, sighing a lot, until I finally break the stare. “What happened?” I ask quietly.

“What happened when?” questions Chris, confused, though still eyeball to eyeball.

“What happened to us? I thought we were supposed to be friends.”

“So?”

“I mean ... I can’t believe it finally happened. What made you change your mind?”

“Come on, Steve. Don’t play games. You were there. Didn’t I always say we would when and if it was meant to be?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it was and we did!”

“I’ve never felt this way before about anyone.”

“That sounds like something you should have told someone when you were sixteen.”

“I’m a slow learner.”

“True.”

“How many times does this make for you, Chris?”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“In love?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t just mean crushes or casual affairs or infatuations or unrequited romances or one-way scenes, huh? You mean
love
, the real thing.”

“Right. How many times?” “Eight!”

“EIGHT?”

“Yeah, eight. There was Alan in high school and Carl in college, and then I thought I loved Arthur, so I married him. Then Eddie, then Hal, though he was married, then “

“Never mind.”

“You asked.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But you wanna know something, Steve?”

“Sure.”

“Of all the loves I’ve known, through all the good times and all the shit, I don’t think I’ve every been happier than right now.”

“God, I love you!” “And I want you to know that no matter what happens between us, Steve, I’ll always—”

“What do you mean? No matter what happens? Nothing’s gonna happen. We’re going to be fine. That’s all.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?”

“It
will
be nice. Listen, Chris. I’ve waited thirty years for this and would happily wait another thirty for what we’ve just experienced. I’ve never felt such love for anyone.”

“Be careful, Steve. Keep talking this way and I’ll soon start lowering my defenses and you know better than anyone when I give myself it’s a total thing.”

“I welcome it.”

“My shrink always said if I were to learn one thing from therapy, it’s not to run into a relationship too soon.”

“Good advice. Chris, my darling, we’ve had five years’ practice.”

“We have, haven’t we?” she says, more in amazement than conviction, before adding, “There are only two things I want out of life.”

“One is to do a musical.”

“Right. And the other is to find a man, just one, out of all I’ve wanted, who would once return the love I’m prepared to give.”

“Chris, you’re looking at him.”

“Come on.”

“Cross my heart.”

“You actually, seriously, in your heart of hearts think we’ve got a shot at it?”

“I only have one thing to say about it.”

“What’s that?”

And I launch into a downbeat rendition of:

I have often walked down this street before, but the pavementalways stayed beneath my feet before.

And Chris joins me in harmony, as we both sing:

All at once am Iseveral stories high,knowing I’m on the streetwhere you live.

And that is more or less the way Chris and I spend the rest of our first morning in love.

And our second.

And our third.

All of it marked by ridiculous antics, constant lovemaking and by Chris’ continually coming up with new reasons why it can’t work between us. This is followed regularly by my dismissing her excuses and then reassuring her everything’s fine. Just relax.