Silent Screams - C. E. Lawrence [90]
He had no idea if she felt as strongly as he did, and he didn’t want to ask, in case the answer was no.
Her invitation to come back to her friend’s Upper West Side apartment where she was staying was almost casual, another step in the delicate dance the two of them had been performing ever since they met.
“I’m house-sitting for her for the weekend, and she won’t be back until late Sunday.”
She smiled, and the dimple on her chin puckered and blossomed.
And so they found themselves, later that afternoon, lying in bed at her friend’s apartment, on a green plaid bedspread, the late afternoon light creeping across the opposite wall, forming shadows and patterns that her friend’s two gray kittens attacked in little hops and leaps.
When at last his mouth found hers he didn’t want to move on, but lingered as her strong little pointed tongue felt the insides of his cheeks. He ran his tongue over her perfectly white teeth, imagining them shining in the darkness of her mouth, waiting for his tongue to discover them. It had always amazed him that this act of intimacy was necessary to continue the species—for one body to actually enter another. Surely there would have been easier, safer ways. Instead, Nature had given them this gift, this miracle of flesh on flesh.
The back of Kathy’s neck smelled tart and fresh, like winter flowers—carnations, maybe, or narcissi? Her body was so slight that he was afraid he might crush her, but the space between her hip bones tautened and trembled when he ran his lips over it. Her breasts were small but prominent, and perfectly round, like two cupcakes, her nipples sweet as ripe cherries.
He postponed the moment of entry as long as possible, until his body ached to thrust into her, and he gave in, sinking into her wet, unknowable darkness. She took him inside her, and he could feel her body pulling him in. It seemed as natural a fit as a hand inside a well-worn glove. As he entered her he thought of the deep, soft soil of furrowed farm fields stretching out between the white and green trimmed houses of his childhood.
He looked down at her face. She smiled at him through half-closed eyes, and again the dimple on her chin blossomed. He had wondered what her face would look like in the heat of passion, and now he knew. Her dark skin was flushed, her lips full and open.
He drove deeper inside her. She moaned and dug her nails into his back.
Being inside her was like being at the center of the earth. He had experienced good sex that was simply a physical connection, a mutual satisfying of needs—but this was different. He felt engulfed, surrounded, and he surrendered gratefully, wanting her to suck out all the pain of the last few years.
It was still amazing to him that these beautiful creatures, women, could be touched and smelled and licked and entered.
She breathed harder and harder, until her breath was coming in hoarse gasps and she moaned underneath him. He loved the feeling of power it gave him to make her moan like that, as she writhed and cried, “Oh, oh, oh God,” her slim body twisting like a snake beneath him, perspiration collecting on her upper lip, in the hollow of her neck. He wanted to know things no one else knew about her.
The aftermath of his orgasm was like the descent of the winter sunset outside the lace curtains, as daylight slipped slowly into night, separating into a pastel palette of colors too subtle and delicate for the robustness of a summer’s evening. He watched the shades of winter twilight, watched as the day seemed relieved to let go and enter the long slide into night. They lay wrapped in the green plaid bedspread as the light outside the window faded, a tangle of arms and legs and cat hair.
He braced himself against the sadness that followed. It surged up inside him, just under his breastbone—soft, wet, and full. It pulled at his throat, closing off his airway, until he cleared it with a deep sigh.
She looked at him, alarmed. In the dim light, her eyes were the color of