Un petit mort (repost)

***Reader Discretion Advised***

His first asked for it; begged really. It shocked him, but then excited him beyond his wildest imaginings. She was an unexpected gift. She breathed new life into an existence he had, until that night, ceased to enjoy. Now, every day had meaning. She had unwittingly given him a reason to get up in the morning; to dream at night. Ironically, she was his savior.

The first time she spoke to him was almost two years prior to that night. The company they worked for had brought together the various divisions from around the country for a conference. She pursued him for three days. He’d thought she was annoying. Everything about her was too much – she talked too much, smiled too much, laughed too much. She was unnaturally happy. He barely responded to her attempts at conversation, but she persisted. For three days. The conference ended and they went back to occasional contact due to work, but nothing else.

A year later, they were thrown together on a company retreat, and that was when he finally realized what she wanted. He’d been married 20 years and no one had been trying to fuck him for 21. His wife barely spoke to him. Or his kids. He had been understandably obtuse when it came to seeing the signs.

She guzzled cocktails while pressing her leg against his under the table. Drank out of his glass at dinner. Took his hand when a song she liked came on the radio in the van shuttling them from place to place. He’d casually placed it on her leg then removed it. She picked it up and put it back as she continued dancing in her seat. The light bulb went on.

That night, he knocked on the door to her room. She didn’t even ask who it was. She opened it from behind the door. He entered the darkened room. She hadn’t drawn the curtains, so a weak light from the night sky kept the room from complete darkness. She closed the door, locked it and then leaned against it. He stood in front of her, his body flush with hers, barely touching.

“So,” he whispered.

“So,” she whispered back.

Slowly, he lowered his head and brushed her cheek.

“This isn’t a good idea,” he said in her ear.

“I know,” she replied.

“I’m married,” he said.

“Unhappily, I think,” she said.

“We work together,” he said, kissing her neck.

“Only sometimes,” she said.

“Hmmm,” he said smelling her, flicking her ear with his tongue.

“Kiss me,” she said, “please.”

“I don’t think so,” he said, biting the soft flesh between her shoulder and her neck.

“Oh,” she gasped.

“Hmmm, like that?” he asked.

“Mmmhmmm,” she moaned.

When she tried to reach for him, he grabbed her wrists and held her hands above her head. “Don’t,” he said, pressing against her, flicking his tongue against her lips. When she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss, he let go and stood back.

“No,” he said. “Lay on the bed.”

She scrambled to the bed and lay down.

“Take off your clothes.”

“That’s a little quick, don’t you think? We didn’t even kiss yet,” she said, pulling her t-shirt over her head, baring her breasts.

“Well, we could say it’s been a year. But not to worry, we’re not having sex,” he said. “I just want to look at you.”

“Really,” she said, looking at his groin.

“Really,” he replied as he stared at her, now laying on the bed, the only light from the moon beyond her window.

He knelt next to the bed, and traced the skin from her forehead, down her nose, across her lips, chin, neck, circled her breasts, her belly, dipped between her thighs, felt her moist and stopped.

“I have to go,” he said, standing up.

“Now?” she asked, incredulous, as he hurried to the door. He was gone before she realized what had happened. What hadn’t happened.

He avoided her the next day, only nodding from across the table or the room. He said goodbye in the crowd of their co-workers. He went home agitated, wanting, but unsure what exactly it was he wanted.

After a few days of his being more distracted, more distant than usual, his wife asked him what was wrong. “Are you having an affair?” she asked as she got ready for bed.

“Of course not,” he replied, turning onto his side, facing the wall.

“You’ve been weird since you came home from that work meeting.”

“Retreat.”

“Whatever. You’ve been weird.”

“No weirder than usual, I suspect.”

“You’re more distant.”

“I’m always distant. At least that’s what you’ve been telling me for the last, what, 18 years?”

“Whatever,” she snapped, turning out the light.

The second week back at work, he finally gave up ignoring her. He set up an email account, unpetitmort. He called her, told her what he’d done, what the password was and that became their means of communication. For the next year, they talked – wrote – about everything and nothing at all. Philosophical foreplay. Angst-ridden diatribes against god and man. Mostly, they bemoaned the daily grunge that weighs down the soul and sucks the light out of life. He saw the hole in her from which seeped the joy she spewed like vomit and realized she was seeking something other than what he had first thought. Something she seemed to believe he could provide.

Almost a year to the day from that first non-kiss, they attended another conference. He had maneuvered to have adjoining rooms. He ignored it until the last night.

After the closing night dinner, he knocked on the inner door. She opened it, unsmiling, and turned to the room. “Hey,” she said.

“Surprise,” he said.

“What do you want?” she muttered, sitting on the bed. “Obviously, not me.”

“Maybe you,” he said, approaching her. He pushed her down on the bed and lay on top of her. She smiled. He kissed her, briefly pushing his tongue in her mouth, intertwining with hers. She moaned, happy. Her hands moved under his shirt, caressing his back. Lower, she grabbed him, squeezing as she pushed her hips up into him.

“Slow down,” he said. Taking one, then the other of her hands in his, he raised them above her head.

She lay there while he lifted her shirt. “Just as I remembered,” he said, licking, nipping, biting, one then the other. She writhed beneath him and moaned. He pulled the shirt over her head then moved to her pajama bottoms. He pushed them along with her nearly non-existent panties to her ankles and off. He kissed first one foot, then the other. He licked his way to her lips.

“Can I touch you now?” she whispered, arms still above her head.

“No.” He stood and removed his clothing, laying it neatly on the floor beside the bed. He covered himself with a condom, taking a moment to put the wrapper in the pocket of his pants.

He stood between her knees. Leaning over, he rubbed his hands up and down her thighs, teasing the flesh at their apex. When she moved her hips, he knelt on the bed, moved his hands up, past her breasts. His hands gently clasped her neck.

“You like this?” he whispered.

“Yes,” she whispered back, her throat slightly constricted by his hands.

“More?” he asked.

“Yes,” she gasped.

He entered her. Moved inside her. She moved with him.

“More,” he asked again, breathing rapid, eyes closed.

“Yes,” she rasped.

He squeezed and thrust, and squeezed more and thrust harder until he felt the most divine release he had ever experienced. He never noticed that she had stopped moving. He withdrew before falling upon her, panting.

When he opened his eyes, and lifted his head, her eyes stared at him, unseeing. He gazed back, waiting for his heart to slow. He closed her eyes. Returning to his room, he got a washcloth to cleanse her. Afterwards, he placed her legs on the bed and covered her with a blanket.

He took the clothes he had removed with him. Using her shirt, he locked the inner door to her room, let himself out and used his key to go back into his own room where he then used a clean washcloth to close and lock the inner door on his side. He put her clothes at the bottom of his suitcase, went to bed and slept better than he had in years.

She was his first. When he left to catch his flight home early the next morning, he was already planning his second.