Part 3 - After The Masquerade Party

A block away, I'd phoned Andrea and she hadn't picked up. "Hi, it's me." I'd spoken, in a message, and in my own ears sounded odd. "I need to talk. Call as soon as you can."

There was a call. "Hi, its Geoffrey, I have your number from Andrea, call back please."

I was shaking myself awake to call him back. "Hi, its Hettie." His voice was a soft brush of fire on the morning's chill.

"Hettie, I couldn't get you out of my head last night," he said to me, his voice causing my body to seethe with madness. "I have to see you again," he continued, and I could sense the desire in his voice, the same desire that had driven me so crazy just hours before.

"I'm free now, if you'd like to stop over." I agreed without hesitation.

I entered his house since my heart was roaming as freely as a herd animal, wild and unrestrained. His house is a sanctuary from the ball's extravagances, a modest house in a secluded street with a little front garden that brought back memories of Saturday afternoon hours spent working the soil. The door was open, and I entered, the aroma of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air. Geoffrey was in the kitchen, chest naked and gleaming in the morning light. His eyes blazed when he saw me and he came into the room with the same wild beauty that had attracted me to him the night before. He put a cup of coffee in my hands, covering my hands with his as he did so, and I shuddered. We were perched on the little wooden table, the silence between us strained, thick with frustrated longing. "I know we didn't intend to," I began, my voice shaking. But I just cannot help but recall last night." His eyes nailed me, his gaze unyielding.

"Me too," he growled, his voice low and harsh. "I need to do this, Hettie. I need to feel all of you, every sound you make when I touch you." My face was burning, and I swallowed the scalding coffee, the moment it took to think.

"I'm married," I told him, the words tasting bad in my mouth.

"And yes, I know," he said to me, "But sometimes we must break through those walls to find what we have been missing."He was right.

My marriage had been a prison, a gilded cage that was keeping me safe but starving my heart. With Andries, I had tasted freedom, and now with Geoffrey, I hungered for it. The thrill of the forbidden, the thrill of the taboo, all mixed together for me like the song of a siren's call. "What next?" I breathed.

"Now we live in the moment," he answered, his hand coming up to wrap around mine. "We do what we must and pay for it later." His thumb was drawing circles on my skin, goosebumps appearing on my arms.

"But what if we get caught?" I asked, my fear a cold shot of reality.

"Then we deal with it," he shrugged, his eyes locking onto mine. "But for the time being, we're two buddies just hangin' out." He leaned out of his seat and cupped my face in his hands, the touch a shock of electricity more potent than caffeine.

He looked for a glimmer of uncertainty in my eyes and not finding it, he leaned in to kiss me.

It was a passionate kiss, a kiss that had the potential to snap the last thread of my resistance. His tongue drew a line around my mouth, stroking mine in sensual rhythm like that of the special one last night. While never leaving the kiss, he led me to his bedroom, a simple but masculine bedroom with a gigantic bed that dominated the room. He laid me on the bed, his body spread over mine, and the sensation of him on top of me was thrilling. His hands traced my body, relearning the shape and contours under clothing. My own hands charted the planes of his chest, the hardness of his shoulders, the tension of strain in his biceps. My clothes were torn from my skin with the same violence as the beating of my own heart, his mouth leaving a path of kisses along the line of my neck, his teeth sinking into my skin in a gentle bite of pain. His hands certain, his fingers certain as he ripped aside the obstacles between us.

His chest collided with my breasts, and a shudder ran through me, a warning that this was no longer dance of seduction but welcoming desire. He removed his cargo shorts to reveal a hard-on that left me breathless. It was beautiful, contemptuous and scornful, thrust out of a bush of black hair, unlike Daniel's modesty about his body. Our bodies collided, a montage of passion and fire. His dick rested on my leg, a sticky mess that I craved more of. He stayed, his mouth drawing out each contour of my body. His teeth nibbled at my nipples, pleasure twisting through my belly. I arched, my hands in his hair as he laved me. His hands wandered down, his fingers plunging into my wetness, questing for my folds with a look of wonder that was as exciting as it was intimate.

His penis was at the entrance of my vagina, the head rubbing against my clitoris, and I was inviting him in. And then he slid over the lips of my vagina slowly, and I groaned, my body eager to embrace his thickness. He began entering me slowly, his pace as steady as the tick of a metronome, a beat for the symphony of our mutual lust.

Every stroke was soft, a heavy tension that curled and curled and was ready to burst.

The bed creaked under us, the danger of longing we awakened in that tiny hot room. His eyes never left mine, and I could feel in them the same savage hunger devouring me body and soul. The room spun, the walls melting as we were caught up in the movement, our bodies choreographed in godly syncopation. It was the most body dance I've ever had, a dance that moved beyond the body and addressed itself directly to the very marrow of our being. A tidal wave of pure pleasure crashed over me as he filled me, his dick pumping with an expertise Daniel never had. It crescendoed, and I felt the orgasm rise, a shocking climax that would destroy the walls of the very universe. "Faster," I screamed, my voice raw and hoarse and somehow daring him to keep going.

His body faster, slapping flesh against flesh a testament to our desire for one another. I locked my legs around him, palms dragging down his back as we fought blow for blow. The room was a blur of sensation: the smell of our combined sweat, the rough rasp of our labored breathing, the feel of our bodies. I screamed as I came, body clenching around him as wave upon wave of pleasure washed over me. He was not far behind, his orgasm washing over him. Covered in the remnants of lust, I could not help but consider all of the choices that I had made. The burlesque club and the masquerade, and this as well -- they had all been a part of the same, a search for something that my life was lacking. But gazing into Geoffrey's eyes, I knew that I had found it.

This was what I had been starving for: a connection that was animal, raw, and consuming. A Daniel we had lost somewhere along the way, buried deep under the suffocating pile of expectation and routine. Geoffrey was a bottomless well of energy, his body still pumping into mine, each thrust a declaration of his hunger. His eyes were as intent as they had been that night in the candle-lit room of masks, yet here in the daylight there was a tenderness that surprised us. He kissed me again, tongue probing deep, following the contours of my mouth with the same fervor that he had followed the contours of my flesh. We gasped and held onto one another, legs wrapped around his hips, his body pushed down onto me into the bed.

The world outside was a burning cocoon, sunbeam light filtered through blinds and scattered into darkness on the floor. Everything else melted away around us, and all that remained was one another, creatures who found ourselves stranded on a parallel world with no one but ourselves. His hands shaped me, molding my curves, waist to hips, as from memory. It was a passion marathon neither of us wanted to end. Each touch, each caress, was a silent affirmation of our new union. The clock kept ticking away as we consumed every inch of each other's bodies, our screams of pleasure echoing off the walls of his small but comfortable bedroom. We were in our own world, one where the bitter ugliness of our everyday lives had no room. It was hours later that we eventually separated, when our hearts beat alike, and swapped lives. Geoffrey spoke of his travels, his passion for art, and books that lined his walls. His tales were of a man who had been to the ends of this earth, yet far back in his eyes there was something that was bittersweet, an untold deep yearning.

He spoke of loves lost that had shaped him, of a muse that had crafted him, and the devastation of being left behind afterwards. His words made their way to me, summoning to the front of my own mind loss and incompleteness. I went home that evening. The house was eerier than it had ever been. There was no trace of Daniel.

The silence was stifling.

I showered, trying to scrub the smell of Geoffrey's cologne from my body, but it lingered, a ghost of our love affair. The hot water cascaded over me as memories of our sex poured into my head like a sensual tapestry. I could smell his hands on me, his mouth on my ear, his penis in me. It was a sad reminder of what I had lost and to what I was returning.