Page 83 of Two Chances With You

“You see me.”

“But if I choose to, I can just shut my eyes.”

She doesn’t say no, and she doesn’t say yes. She doesn’t speak. She breathes into my ear as she lets me undress her. Away with the jacket, away with the T-shirt, and they both fall untidily from the bench, into an even darker pool of gloom.

Away with the shoes, away with the trousers. Each of us strips off the other’s garments. Then we stop. And before my eyes, she covers her breasts, embracing herself with both hands crisscrossed over her shoulders, framed by her hair hanging down in the moonlight, and farther down covered by nothing other than her panties. I can’t believe it. There she is, Gin.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing, peeping at me?”

“You didn’t tell me not to look. And actually, no, you’re wrong. My eyes are shut.”

Somewhere, streaming out of a club or someone’s open window, we hear music from a stereo in the distance.

“What a liar you are.” And she spreads her arms wide, letting me look and smiling. Then she leans toward me, her legs half open. She sits there, staring at me. “Listen…”

“Shh…let’s not speak.” I kiss her and gently, slowly, pull off her panties.

“No, I want to talk. First of all, do you have…uh, you know…what we’re going to need?”

“I have it,” I reply, with a laugh. “I have it.”

“There, I knew it. Do you carry it around in your pocket or in your wallet? Or did you buy it on your way over to pick me up? Because maybe you were pretty sure this is how things would turn out!”

“Actually, no, I couldn’t know that this was how things would turn out. It is always up to you.”

“Okay, and one other thing…”

“No, that’s enough talking for now.”

I pull her close. I kiss her neck. She tosses her hair back, and I, like a little vampire, continue to suck on her neck, savoring her, and her scent. My hand seems to travel of its own free will, down her side, her hips, her waist, and between her legs. I hear her breathe slowly, then a little faster, as she squirms in my arms as if dancing, gently, up and down, without any contrived modesty, smiling, opening her eyes, looking at me, with a tranquility and a serenity that only embarrass me. And as if that weren’t enough, as I move my hand to reach out and extract our protection…

“No, here, let me. I want to do it.”

“But listen, I’m the one who has to wear it.”

“I know that, dummy. Do you want to know how many I’ve put on in my time? Hold on. Let me think…”

“I don’t want to know.”

“This is the twelfth one I’ve put on.”

“Oh, that’s a relief.”

“Why?”

“Because if it had been your thirteenth, I would have started worrying. It’s bad luck!”

She doesn’t give me the satisfaction of laughing at my joke, but she amuses me anyway. She peels it open as if it were an individually wrapped piece of candy, or tries to, first with her fingernails and then popping it into her mouth, and this time grinning at me mischievously.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to eat it.”

One sharp tug with her teeth and the condom is in her hands. She turns it over and over again, smiling. “It’s a funny thing.” And that’s all she says. Then she moves her head toward me. “Well?”

Naked, I open my legs, and she caresses me, slowly, gently, up and down, and then she calmly slips the condom on me.

“Was I good?”

“Too good!” But I say nothing more. Now I’m an astronaut in this journey between astral conjunctions beneath a starry sky, with an enchanted woman, amid the ruins of the past, delving deep into the pleasure of the present.

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