by Cj Paul
Wildly captivated, I resume my own response.
8:15pm
Claire Nichole Eden
Mmmmmmmmmmmm reading your assessment of the benefits of the written word... One of my favorite aspects is how one can take her time, go at her own pace while reading... and rereading.... rather like a video you can click and pause and rewind to watch the juiciest parts over and over again... for full effect and pleasure
As for you being hopeless... we should all be so hopeless... That thought of you laying on a 'woman's shores'... siiiiiiiggggggghhhhh... How your words do part the waters and invite you to run aground, held fast as wave after wave washes over in rhythmic abandon
and yes
your passion suits you
exquisitely
Hopeful of his response, I fall asleep on the chaise in the sunroom, my computer expectantly beside me. I sleep in fits and starts. It’s satisfying and blissful in ways I can’t fully describe. I feel like I am becoming one with my body. Instead of the usual mild self-loathing over flab, rolls and cellulite, suddenly I feel seductive and alluring and ultra feminine. I awake a couple of hours later with that feeling that there are eyes feasting on me as I sleep. But rather than feeling frightened or defiled, I feel liberated and at ease. In my hazy stupor, I peek at my computer. No message. Ah, well. Sleep is yummy too. Just before closing the laptop, I pose a question as a Facebook status update: “If you could have anything, just for YOU, what would it be?” I smile in anticipation of the answers that will come from my friends and fans...and him.
Chapter SixteenI wake up late. Very late. So unlike me. I have no explanation for it and try to shrug it off. Getting up nearly two and a half hours behind schedule has thrown me. I should get in gear and do my usual tasks on the double, but instead, I sort of freeze, not knowing where to start. The menagerie makes it plain that the place to start is with breakfast – for them. After making the rounds with the animals, I tend to my own regimen.
Once I’ve completed my perfunctory domestic and business tasks, I tackle Facebook, bracing myself for the usual barrage of activity from those on the east coast who are three hours ahead of me. Make that five and a half hours ahead today. I make a beeline for the question I posted before bed last night. I scan the wonderful, heartfelt answers, feeling a twinge of guilt over the dismissiveness with which I treat them in my quest for one from Alex. Finding no comment from him, I resignedly go to my messages. There it is! His answer in full – and in private.
3:38am
Alexander Armstrong
Perhaps nothing is quite so erotic as bathing the flesh of an intelligent woman's soul in sensual splashes of metaphor and witnessing her understanding, with passion and abandon. You asked "If you could have anything for you, what would it be?" My answers are simple. I'd have a woman, strong and soft, intelligent and emotional, honest and mysterious, serious and playful, deliberate and reckless, slutty and demure, whispering and screaming, seductive and shy, simple and infinitely complex. I'd have her lay in the palm of my hand, and lay me in hers, and revel forever in the waves drenching and rocking us. I'd write poetry for her, great symphonies of passion and romance that she would evoke from my pen, the way a musician evokes music from a guitar. Does that answer your question, Miss Eden?
Why, yes, Dr. Armstrong. Yes, it does. And so I reply:
6:42am
Claire Nichole Eden
The words you've shared have reminded me what it feels like to burn with desire with the mere instant flip of a switch... to be lost in delectable delirium... and to feel oh so womanly.
Danke, Doctor. Your purity is invigorating and hope-giving
xo
7:35pm
Alexander Armstrong
Lady Claire, I could write a library of response to your previous provocation. And I shall certainly write much more than this brief reply. Later tonight, when I'm lying in bed, I'll make a start. At this moment, I want to share a poem that I wrote, months ago. I share it with you because, although I think this poem playfully sexy in a romantic way, I'm quite certain that as I get to know you more intimately, the poetry you might inspire if you graced me with your self would writhe in ecstasy on the page, and make fallen angels blush. It has certainly not escaped my attention that you are a formidable woman, and although a smaller man might find himself befuddled by your wildly intoxicating purring, I rather recognize that you are no less than a force of nature. And that is perfectly inebriating.
You mentioned handcuffs. The mere thought of a woman bold and trusting enough to be bound, to allow her man to listen closely enough to her body's perfectly plain lusts, and grace him by bending to his need, to speak with an elevation of the hips, or a twist of the torso, or the wrap of thighs, or anticipatory eyes, or wet, shallow sighs, has me both frustrated and blissed. You, my Lady, are blinding, in the most celebratory sense of the word. So here is the poem, shared as an example of what paler words, uninspired, pretend. If you'd but wash over me with your waves, these words would taste as dust in the mouths that voice them.
I wish that you would be my pages
I'd snow powdered sugar to blanket your breasts
And trace the letters of my bold rhymes
Across your heart.
I wish that you would be my pages
I'd bathe your belly in warm wet chocolate
And feed you the smiling ripe strawberries blessed
To pen my words around your laughing navel.
I wish that you would be my pages
I'd wash your porcelain thighs with amber honey
And sing the lyrics of my love to your dewey loins
With my silent cursive tongue.
I wish that you would be my pages
I'd shower you clean with bubbling champagne
And towel my silly sweet stanzas away with
All of me.
Words such as these may be bold, but without risk. Forgive me if I've crossed the bounds of chivalry, for that was not my intent. But truth becomes you. And so it's the least I can offer. I'll have more to add a little later, because your thoughts envelop me like mists of romance after a wild, brief summer thundershower. And I can't resist. Your pardon, Lady Claire.
Phone calls, emails, IM’s and texts accost me from every angle. I pay attention to none of them. Nothing interests me now but him. Nothing matters to me now but him. I am consumed by our conversation. My kundalini is not just awake, it is alert and aroused. Very aroused. Without a trace of timidity, I pour myself out to this man as I’ve never done with anyone. And all this with someone I started chatting with yesterday, and have yet to even speak with on the phone.
8:24pm
Claire Nichole Eden
Where does one start in reply?
especially when smiling rapaciously
taking in your words at turns in sips and large gulps
words breaking o'er me in waves of liberation
my eyes taking in the you-ness you so unabashedly share
as my fingertips unwittingly trace a path from my lips to my heaving bosom.......... pausing to give reverence to the arousal you've inspired
........ I must read more
You consider me formidable do you....my my
I am most curious as to what conjured that impression
and heartily confess to liking it!
As for being bound..... and trusting....... well you have touched on that which I perhaps desire most
Throughout my life I have fallen into the role of team captain, committee chairman, boss....... things of that ilk.
Never having craved the position of leadership, but invariably falling all too easily into it
and so the idea of being stripped of all power
to be handled
to be helpless
captive and trusting
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh I can think of nothing more delicious
to be in the hands and at the disposal of one with imagination and creative courage...... someone who knows himself well e
nough to know a woman without apology
to explore
to experiment
to surrender
to submit
J'adore your bold assertions... which you yourself have already noted are 'without risk'
I would indeed forgive you, should there be anything to forgive, but I find your forthrightness chivalrous in its honesty
So please, do not resist... do not hesitate...... and do........ speak on... close to my ear..... so I can feel your breath on my skin....... and hear your sweet suggestions over my growing moans as my yearning increases and my loins begin to beg
I fear my last message may push him over the edge. Frankly, I don’t know where the words I’m writing are coming from. And I’m shocked and titillated by what I am telling him. These are desires I never identified in myself. Yet somehow, they feel as natural to discuss as if I were spelling my name.
9:39pm
Alexander Armstrong
I read what you say, and listen intently, like a thief with an ear pressed against the door of a vault whose treasures smolder buried within. I hear the crackle and simmer and fire of your secret longings. I'd quench them, drown them in the passion-flood of me. I'd coax screaming moans of ecstatic 'yes' from the depth of your drenched loins. And savor every drop. I’d share the taste of you with your sugared lips. You ask why I say "formidable," but you know. And you know that I know, you're not a woman to be trifled with. The first thing I mentioned in my dull diatribe of desire, was a woman complex, and free and like the sea, boundless, reckless, passionate and plain. With all the irresistible trappings of a siren, and all the wisdom of gardenias, who grow argent, and bouquet the world with the perfume of eternity: one, and present, and velvety effulgent. I'd be on your doorstep at this moment, were you not thousands of miles away. And I'll learn a way to bend the world so that little things like earth would convulse and yield and make distance illusion. I'd stand at your door with an orchid. And give no hint of my exuberance or the blood pounding in my veins when you inevitably invite me in. I'd save my bliss for a moment when I could flood your gut with butterfly wings. And tremble with you.
So much more to say. But you provoke immediate response. And I answer your call.
9:48pm
Claire Nichole Eden
Oh my dear, answering the siren's call can be incredibly perilous... both for the mariner as well as the sighing siren, shackled to her post on the windswept crag, unsheltered from the tempest's rants and whims, unguarded and wanting nothing more than to leap into the sea and sail off on the majestic ship of dreams that whispers to her of exotic adventures and fragrant shores.
And may I say, only a true poet would recognize the 'wisdom of gardenias'
while only a true lover would mention ‘velvety effulgence’
I adore orchids, but were you at my doorstep, dainties such as orchids would be trampled underfoot in my ravenous assault of your person
all the while waiting, and wishing, for that moment... that convergence… that flooding you so elegantly unleashed
I want this man. As much as I’ve wanted anything or anyone, I want him. Not as a possession, but as an experience. Not to own him, but to free myself.
10:16pm
Alexander Armstrong
Peril liberates. It refines. It force focuses each nerve on the razor edge of the present. So when you say "oh my dear" and mention 'peril' I take it as a sign announcing a feast, and not as some whispered warning. Assault me with petals of you. Let me feel you claw. Torture me with your ethereal mind, and bathe me in your heart's washes. Spill yourself on me. Wrap me. Lay yourself bare before me, and know what 'release' means. I don't mean to be carried away. But I blame THAT on you, Lady Claire. Life is too brief to equivocate.
10:43pm
Claire Nichole Eden
Welcome to the feast, cheri
Take as much as you want, including seconds of your favorites.... of which I would love to learn
What entices a multi-lingual, live-off-the-land, seductive and desirable wordsmith?
To you what is the perfect appetizer?
What is your favorite entrée?
And what would make for the most poignant and satisfying dessert?
And more important, what keeps you coming back for more?
There is no equivocation, yummy man... just my body quivering and convulsing at the thought of your touch
12:07am
Alexander Armstrong
My feast begins with the sparkle in your eyes, and goes straight to your mind. Rolling in your waves, and learning the slopes of your soul. And lost there, feel the gravity of your lips. Where I linger, and savor, and devour and dance. Where the world dissolves in perfect chaos, and draws my self to you, and I pull you close, close enough that when my eyes tire, your eyes close. And when you grow moist, watered, my self grows. I'd bind your hands. But I'd prefer to just ask you to be still. To spread yourself before me. So that as my mouth learned the curves of your breasts, and my tongue traced its way 'round your navel, you would be free to bury your hands in my hair and arch your back, and push my head down to where you wanted me to kiss you. Where my mouth could compel your thighs to wrap hungrily around my head and draw me in. And that, My Lady, would be little more than the water before drinks were served. Appetizers and the rest would follow. But I'd begin my feast by satisfying my thirst.
You ask what keeps me coming back for more? A woman insatiable. In every way. A gypsy. Free.
I cannot stop myself. Nor do I want to.
12:09am
Claire Nichole Eden
...................................... more
please
12:15am
Alexander Armstrong
Craving the gouge of your nails, the sweet scars of passion, I'd tease you. Rise back above you, let you taste your sweetness on my lips. And sweetly, roughly, take your breast in my hand. Reach low and spread your willing thighs, and find the spots that make you flail.
I take a risk, hinting at the touchless pleasure he arouses.
12:17am
Claire Nichole Eden
you wouldn't have far to look or search.... since, if touched properly, and with an attitude of zest and delight, nearly every spot on me can make me flail
And though my touch be gentle, my nails are at the ready
I can think of few things more delicious than tasting the depths of oneself after they've been plumbed by an ardent thorough lover
12:20am
Alexander Armstrong
The trace of fingertips across the belly can be more intimate, and convulsive, than the most skilled machinations of the fingers. Not tickling. But sensuality, the dance on the edge of whimsy and lust.
And there is nothing more keenly aware than the body of a woman in good hands. Nothing more worthy of worship on this earth.
12:23am
Claire Nichole Eden
My exhilaration would be short lived without the pleasure and honor of laying you back and learning all I can about you, without words... though with tongues.
Are you of the tantric persuasion, my dear?
12:23am
Alexander Armstrong
I am, yes.
12:24am
Claire Nichole Eden
I believe my soul just left my body
12:25am
Alexander Armstrong
That's part of it. But just a small part. The best part happens while the soul is still IN the body.
12:25am
Claire Nichole Eden
heeheehee indeed
You are just heady stuff
and
gulp
a treasure most rare and unexpected
and you generally have me at a loss for meaningful words
I just basically sit in front of my computer screen, sporting a dopey grin
I should be going to bed but I can’t. Nothing in the world exists for me now but Alex. Not my mom, not my pets, not even David what’s-his-nam
e.
12:28am
Alexander Armstrong
As are you! What a life. Grand miracles that might pass to the unaware as serendipity. More importantly, I sit here not even able to muster a grin, for the look of shock on my face that overcomes me when we speak. Where did you come from? Why are you not here with me?
Scorpio men. Direct and intense. That's the way we roll. Me maybe more than most. But honestly, you...damn. Words fail. You are someone I need to know better.
12:36am
Claire Nichole Eden
Oh, but I am there with you… and have been for some time... as you well know... this is the portion of the feast where the necessary niceties are conducted... coats collected and hung, hapless hostess gifts proffered... a quick perfunctory tour of the house made... kitchen envy expressed by the women... garage and power tool envy expressed by the men... and all sit in the family room off the kitchen to feign interest in the family photos needing dusting on the mantle, while one nibbles the Martha Stewart-directed hors d'oeuvres off of that plate the hostess received 2 Christmases ago from her mother in law but never has an excuse to use, as she busies herself in the kitchen, putting the final touches on her mangia masterpiece, all the while doing her best not to spill on her crisp store bought ensemble purchased just today for the occasion
Meanwhile... were I there... I would be paying attention to none of these formalities... and simply turn the stove off and lock you in a room for the next 72 or so hours