by Muffy Wilson
“Detective, how did you do that?! I told you to wait!”
“You did tell me to wait, Lisbet, but you slid the chain off and opened the door. How would I get in otherwise?”
“I did not.! How did you do that? Get out! Get OUT!” I stamped my foot impulsively and pointed to the door with an accusatory finger.
“Miss Lisbet, please, I just need my phone. You let me in, really. I’m not a magician. I’m just a flat-footed dick trying to find out what happened to your husband. I’m sorry. You asked me to wait, but opened the door. I misunderstood your gesture as an invitation to come in.”
“Yes, yes of course, Detective. I don’t know what came over me. Of course, I must have, I just don’t remember unhooking the chain...”
“But, you did.”
“Yes, I must have.”
“You look different, if you don’t mind my saying Lisbet. You smell different, too.”
“A bath and a nap work wonders. A dab of Damien’s cologne made me feel somehow closer to him.”
The detective looked around the room as though investigating, searching for something specific. He seemed uneasy, beads of sweat forming on his brow.
“Detective, are you alright?”
“Yes, Lisbet, I’m fine. Just something crossed my mind; a memory plucked from the past by your perfume.”
“Your phone, Dick.”
“Wha...” The detective snapped his gaze back to my eyes.
“Your phone?”
“Oh, yes, yes of course.”
“What took you so long to return for your phone, Dick?” I outstretched my arm with the detective’s phone in my hand.
“I’m sorry. I got all the way back to the station and realized I left my phone here on the table. I guess I was wrapped up in my thoughts and lost track of time. I turned around and came back. I’m sorry, I should have called.”
“Yes, you should have, but what’s done is done. No harm. Here’s your phone. Goodnight, Detective.”
“Yes, Lisbet. I’m sorry to intrude.”
I walked him to the door and smiled.
“Goodnight, Detective, and I know... lock the doors.”
“Goodnight, Lisbet.” The Detective looked sheepish and apologetic.
I smiled, closed the door and threw all the deadbolts. I grabbed the chain and secured it in the track.
I turned back into the living room and started towards the office.
“Damien, Damien? Where are you?”
I walked into the office expecting to see you there, yet you were not. Had you hidden from the detective when you heard our exchange at the door?
“Damien? You can come out now. Where are you? Damien?”
I received no answer. I searched the entire apartment, calling your name as I went, but I couldn’t find you. Exhausted, I sat on the living room sofa and began to cry again. The whole thing had been a dream. You had never returned; never kissed my tears, or held me tight and healed my heart. You were really gone and I realized that, in my sorrow, a delirium rose to give me peace. I cried for my loss. I cried for my lost love. I cried for my soul, bleak and hopeless now. I cried for your soul.
I pulled my legs up on the couch, wrapped my terrycloth robe around my knees, and curled into a tight, pain-filled ball. I rocked back and forth, tears streaming from my heart and rolling down my face. I heard you whisper my name, and lifted my tearstained face to search for the source.
“Lisbet, darling, please don’t cry.”
I looked up and into your eyes, unwilling to trust what I saw. My eyes stung, clouded from the salty tears shed for my loss in my incredulity.
“Damien...?”
“Yes, darling, yes.”
You bent, collected me in your arms, and carried me to the bedroom, my face buried in the crook of your neck.
“Damien, I looked everywhere. Where did you hide? I couldn’t find you; I thought, I thought...”
“That it’d all been a dream?”
“Yes, a dream. I thought your kisses were the tears I wept while I slept. I do not believe I could live without you, Damien.”
“I know I cannot live without you, my Lisbet. It is expressly because of you that I have returned.”
“Returned...? You mean now? Or earlier tonight?”
His warmth, his scent filled me in a single gasp. He stood me beside the bed—our bed. I didn't know much when it came to love, except that it was about being so white hot you freeze, losing your breath and control over your limbs, then falling, and abandoning all hope of survival.
I felt myself flush and my knees weaken. A blanket of gooseflesh draped across my body in graduated, throbbing waves of passion. My pulse stuttered as I froze under your spell. I wanted to touch you, to complete the magnetic connection ignited in our glance: embracing, flesh against flesh. Your arms coiled around my shoulders to my waist and pulled my body to yours. Chest to chest, the source of your love—your heart—beating against mine.
I could not help but fall into you. I surrendered control of my body to the foils of your hot currents. I rode my passions into the heat of your heart and the arms of your affections.
I tumbled into your love as surely as if I had fallen off of a cliff. You halted my descent when my knees buckled and my body folded, enveloping me into the warm waiting embrace of my lover, my husband.
You laid me on our bed, my gentle, tender lover. You handled me so delicately I felt fragile, a breakable crystal snowflake.
“Earlier tonight, I realized I could never leave you. I thought I would die in this long absence from you. I have been in agony.”
“As have I, Damien. These many months in your absence, the agony of my solitude was often too much to bear. I prayed to God to let me join you in death. I wanted to.”
“There is that moment, Lisbet, suspended in time, when you meet the person who connects you to humanity, to others, to life—to yourself. It is that one person into whom you release yourself, freely, carelessly... with a single touch, a stolen whisper, a silent look.
“You are that one person for me. The day we met, I dove eagerly, hopelessly falling into your heart. The first time we made love, I rode your heartbeat to your soul and drowned in the soft nuance your shadow cast across my body. I lost my breath in the oceans of your essence when you bent to kiss me, breathing life into my desires and love into my heart.
“In the night and shaded grays of your embrace, I drown in the sea of your love. Through you, with you, because of you—I am elevated to the ethereal currents that only love bestows upon the wicked, weary and wanton long desperate for the sweet rewards of the human connection.
“There is life in love. There is love in life, too long in the coming for me, but at once a welcome haven in you. I reveled in the warmth of your approach because, suspended in time, you are my only connection—to this life, to love, to God. Let me drown in us.”
“Oh, God. Oh, Damien. How I love you. How I need you. Your touch connects my soul to my heart, and my heart to you—it is the Trinity of our love. I thought I would die without you.”
“That is why I left. Because... you will die with me, Lisbet, because of me, if I stay. But... I had to see you again—to explain.”
“Then explain. Nothing could be worse than to live without you, Damien. Nothing.”
“I will. I will, in due time. But, first...”
I felt the sash of my robe loosen as you untied the knot. Across the arch of my back, I felt the sash tug, then slither out from underneath me. I opened my eyes to watch you. You looked hypnotized, your eyes dark and fixed. Your comment, ‘you will die with me’ sent a shiver of fear across my consciousness, but I dismissed it as you ran your fingertips from the hollow in my neck, under my robe to the rise of my breast. My breath caught in my throat as surely as if you clutched it in your hand.
“Ahhh...” I ached under your touch.
“Shhhhh...” you encouraged, and slipped the robe from my shoulders to expose my breasts, hard and lifted into the moonli
ght, eager to be kissed.
My arousal needed little encouragement from you. It electrified me, a current of desire that ran the length of my body and fluttered, radiating from my core. The pulse of my heart surely was evident in my temple as you pressed your lips at my hairline. I heard you breathe in the scent of my freshly bathed skin and felt your heated sigh on my flesh as you exhaled.
You kissed each of my eyelids and licked away the remnants of my tears.
I was afraid to touch you, lest you not be real, but resistance was futile. Fingers woven through your hair, I knotted the soft curls in my fists and pulled you in tight. I drew your mouth to mine and buried my dreams in your kiss.
“Oh, Damien,” I mumbled into your open mouth, your breath warm as it tangled with mine. “I love you, so much.”
“I love you, too, darling. Oh, God, how I missed your body. How I missed the way you smell, your touch, the taste of your kiss.”
I was wet immediately, flowing with a river of unrequited love and passion. I arched, encouraging your touch to follow the curve of my flesh. The slope of my taut stomach to the silken slit where my thighs met was fluid, like a single stroke from God’s hand on a canvas of carnal beauty. It was a curve you had not forgotten, for you had traveled that highway frequently in our married life together.
I turned my head, wrapped my arm gracefully around your shoulders, and gazed at you. Our eyes met in a hypnotic caress. Your eyes were black, intense. I hungered for your hips to dig into mine, spread my legs and bury your cock inside me.
You understood. You knew how much I needed you, and the eager weeping of your penis as it grew, proclaimed how much you desired me. The head of your cock pushed into the petal-soft folds of my pussy, insistent to gain an unfettered entry. I wanted it—to feel you inside. But, right now, I wanted to taste you more. My hunger for you was powerful, animalistic, almost feral.
“Stop, Damien. Please, stop. Come here.” I meant is as a plea, but my request sounded more like a growl.
I couldn’t help myself, and pulled you up by your shoulders, grabbed the hem of your shirt and tugged it over your head. The slick sensation of your flesh against mine was an arousal I couldn’t delay any longer. I pushed you back on your heels, grasping at your belt buckle and fly.
Lavender ribbons of moonlight beamed into our bedroom in welcome of your return and I salivated with excitement as I watched you fall back on your heels, your eyes clocking my movements. Your furrowed brow softened as beads of sweat formed, covering your face with tiny droplets, and reflected the moon’s embrace like diamond facets beneath your skin. You appeared to glow in our mutually shared love. The intensity of the moment was ethereal, as though we were floating, elevated to another plane; one only those blessed by the heavens reveled within.
Seduced by the moonlight and you, I was overwhelmed, and joined the moon to feast upon your delights.
I slipped my hand into your fly and felt the warm hardness of your cock. You dripped with desire. You kicked out of your pants, stance wide and closer to my mouth. I took you to my lips, conscious of your intense scrutiny, and kissed your purple head in greeting. Your cock throbbed in my hand as my tongue rimmed the lip of the head.
Oh, God... how did I survive without this staff of life—your staff, my life? You gave me everything through this cock. Everything—from the deepest parts of your soul, your heart, and your life.
You straddled me, knees astride the fullness of my breasts. I grabbed your hips and pulled you closer to my face and waiting lips. I peeked up as the passion overtook your face and you leaned into the padded headboard of our bed. You rolled your head along the padding, and bit your lip as I rimmed your cock with the tip of my tongue. I had you, all of you, and that was what I missed, loved.
I took your fullness into my mouth and your breathing suspended. I took your fullness in short bursts and thrusts. Your pre-cum coated my lips, my throat, and I savored the beloved salty sweetness. The flame of hunger burned bright in my belly, fueled by the lack of passion I endured in your absence.
You moaned and thrust, rolled and trembled. I tickled the under-lip of your cock with my tongue, ran it the full length of your shaft, and spiraled my eagerly curled tongue back up to its head. I sucked and speared the slit in your cock with the rigid tip of my tongue. You weakened in my arms when you thrust yourself all the way down my throat and I rippled my muscles around the full size of your cock. Held fast in my python-grip, I claimed you for my own and swept you into oblivion, lost in your orgasm.
You were mine, and mine alone, again.
I swallowed you, heart and soul.
“Oh, God, Lissie!” You gave a final strong, quivering thrust and leaned against the headboard.
You released your grip on the headboard, and slowly slipped from your perch above me. Sweat glistened on your skin beneath the moonlight that sliced through the sheer drapes. You dropped your arms around me and held me close; so close I felt almost as though you were never gone.
Gone.
Gone.
“What is going on, Damien? What is happening to us?”
“This is very difficult, my darling. I have much to tell you and I don’t know how, or where, to begin.”
“We have as much time as you need. Take as much time as you want.”
“I don’t want you to think I don’t trust you, or that I don’t think you will understand. I do trust you and I know you will understand. That is not the problem. When I tell you everything, you’ll be forced to make a decision. I stand to lose you. Having tried to spare you that already, I know I cannot live without you.”
“Damien, trust your instincts. You came home—back to me—because this is where your heart is, with me, wherever we are. I live in you, too, and I died while you were gone.”
You tightened your embrace around my shoulders, cuddling me tight. I pulled the length of my robe over my cooling body, damp with perspiration and the evidence of our love. You rolled onto your back and I found my safe place, notched against your shoulder and chest. I breathed in the comforting perfume our lovemaking left on your body, and listened as your heartbeat began to slow.
“This story goes back centuries, Lisbet. But, let me begin simply; this is going to be a lot to take in. Have you ever given a rising thought to my appearance?”
“Other than that you are virile, strikingly handsome, and I am proud to be on your arm when we go out, and that you are stunning naked.”
“No, I mean my face and, of course, my body and hands.”
“I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific, Damien. But, first...are you thirsty or hungry?”
“Yes, actually, I am.” Damien seemed to pause and rethink his words.
I had little in the house to eat other than Ramen but, I did have some canned black bread, Italian olives, dried figs and some sort of cheese I could plate. I thought, The Louis Roederer bottle of Cristal was still chilling in the refrigerator. You brought it home to celebrate our anniversary months ago. That would do nicely, and appropriately, considering your return was more of a reason to celebrate than our anniversary. We had come to accept there would always be another anniversary together. I will remind myself that your life is more celebratory than our anniversary from now on. I will never take you for granted again.
And, I had news for you.
I rose from our bed, the sheets disheveled from our lovemaking, and ran my fingers along the length of your torso. I had lost so much weight while you were ‘dead’, but you still looked like a god. I paused to think about your question while I tied my robe sash. You have changed little in the years since we have met. Your parents must have been made of strong European genes and I was grateful at once that your heritage was so sturdy.
All the more reason to celebrate.
When I returned, you were snoring. Your gentle, rhythmic breaths always gave me such comfort, but more so now than ever before. I put the tray on the ottoman and sat in the armchair by the dark, cold fireplace to listen to you slee
p. I was at peace again, safe in the knowledge that these many months were a distant nightmare now. You stirred...
“I’m sorry, darling. Did I wake you?”
“No, Lissie. No, you didn’t. Come here, my love. I never want to be more than a few feet from you ever again—if you’ll have me.”
“What a silly thing to say, Damien. I will never let you go.”
“Ah, don’t be so sure.”
“Don’t you be silly. Here; I brought food and wine. This is the wine you brought home with flowers the night of our anniversary. I can’t imagine why we never drank the it.”
“As I remember, we were otherwise occupied that night, darling. A fine anniversary it was, too.”
I leaned in to kiss you and was rejuvenated by the sheer vitality of your presence.
“Ah, food and drink. What could be better than this?”
“A baby.”
I hadn’t expected to tell you like this.
“A... what are you talking about, Lisbet? A baby? What?”
“Yes, Damien. I’m sorry to blurt it out like this, but I was going to tell you on our anniversary when you were called out.”
“How long? When did you find out? Are you and the baby alright? Oh, my God...”
“I found out the day before our anniversary. I was so excited; I wanted to tell you right away. I wanted to rush back, run into your office, and jump in your arms to tell you immediately, but I decided to be a little more deliberate.”
“Oh, God, Lissie...”
“What, Damien? I thought you would be happy; we’ve waited so long, and now he’s coming.”
“I am, Lissie, I am happy. He? Did you say he?”
“Yes, Damien. You are—we are going to have a little boy.”
I let the words sink in for a few moments while I buttered some black bread for you and poured the champagne.
“This is magical, Lissie. You have made me the happiest man alive. But, how are you? You have lost so much weight. Oh, my God, Lissie. I am so sorry. What I have put you through. I am so terribly sorry.”
“I’m fine now that you’re home, Damien. The weight will return quickly, now that you’re here to help me work up my appetite!”