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© 2005 Dale H. West. All rights reserved.

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Bruised

I look down at them and count as I touch each one.

"One." So perfect and round.

"Two." Just exactly like the first.

"Three." A mark. A path. A reward.

"Four." Again. Please. Again.

My finger slaloms their course from one end to the other and back. I press down and the pain, the pain and arousal returns as I recall, as vividly as the moment they arrived, her hand gripping my thigh... so tight... so intense... making four very neat, little, round bruises.

I count them again and trace their path.

Purple and black. A redness surrounds them, a redness which will fade before their impressions in my memory.

I had thought her nails might puncture my skin and cause me to bleed. I didn't watch her do it but my mind's eye was watching. As I worked the digits on my right hand into her, she held on to my leg. It was something I wanted; feel the pain while gripped tight to gauge my ministrations on her body. As the resistance to my hand increased so her fingers tightened into my flesh. It was not possible for her to exceed my tolerance for pain. There could have been a point where I might hurt her but I didn't know where it was and I counted on her grip to tell me. Had she let go, I knew I would have had to stop. But as long as she held on...

I had known she would leave a mark. The concept thrilled me. After she was gone, my flesh would bear a memory long after the heat - but not the passion - had died away.

"I'm sorry," she says as I reveal her evening's handiwork in the weak light of dawning day.

"Don't be sorry, love," I consol then watch my own hand run its course through the pattern again and again. My eyes avert her pouting lips, lips saddened by false perception.

"I didn't mean to bruise you like that."

"I know." I pause to adjust my gaze directly into her steel eyes. "But I knew you would..."

"I didn't want to hurt you."

I sigh and let the moment rest before countering, "Had it occurred to you I wanted you to bruise me?"

I watch the concept wash over her face with knowing but do not wait for her to respond. "That I enjoyed it immensely and maybe, just maybe, I loved the pain?"

Behind me he repositions himself and spoons into my back. His knees bend into the backs of my knees. His arm drapes over my waist. His hand rests with his thumb on my left breast.

She just watches as we gaze at each other knowing.

What we know I'm not quite sure. But we share something.

We know about the alcohol, the social lubricant of pain and pleasure and a thousand mistakes. It is making all our heads remember this morning — making us remember the toll it exacts on our bodies. Our bodies are no longer the youthful sponges they once were; they more readily reflect the abuses we self-inflict.

We know the night before was no mistake. There was no mistake in the insane passion that leaves the mind wondering which hand belongs to which lover then instantly not caring. No mistake in the lights glaring into eyes pressed backward and down under the weight of bodies. No mistake in the furniture rearranged. No mistake in the expanses of stained wood and steel, glass and tile, and carpet never before touched by naked flesh.

Answers, but so many more questions.

He was there too. He was there through it all; he who I need to support me through my desires and explorations. He had held her, kissed her, stroked her hair. He shared with her his skills which, before last night, he had only ever shared with me.

I could not get enough of watching them.

I wasn't removed from it, not even when I was not touching either. My spirit soared and mingled with the power that comes from two who have never known each other, finding and exploring for the first time.

Her gaze moves from my eyes to where his hand rests on my breast.

"Do you think he's awake?"

I look down to his hand then back to her. Our relationship in this manner so new, my self-confidence lacking, instinctively I question her motives. "Why do you ask?"

For a moment she seems as though she might crawl back inside some invisible shell she keeps around herself. My words cause her recoil and I nearly retract then before she recovers and whispers back, "I was just wondering because..."

She didn't need to finish her words.

I reach and move the hair from her face and our lips meet.

© 2005 Dale H. West. All rights reserved.