Journeys
Lynn
Chapter 10
The party went on until very late
by tunnel standards. It was long after midnight when Elliot 
closed
the piano at last, and smilingly refused any more requests.
"I ought to pay you the guild rate for entertainers! Thank you so much for your patience with the family tonight, Elliot." Catherine was truly grateful that he had sat at the piano for a good part of the evening, taking requests for every kind of music, and fulfilling them all.
He looked down at her, smiling. "They are your family, aren’t they?"
"Oh, yes. There is no question about that; these people are my family. I am closer to them than I have ever been to anyone in my life. Elliot, I want to introduce you to their world also. We’ll make a date to go Below. I think you’ll find it very interesting."
"Below? That sounds mysterious."
"It is. Mysterious and wonderful. You’ll see" She turned and smiled as Vincent came up to them, taking his arm. "I was just inviting Elliot to come Below with us in the near future."
"Yes, we will do that. I have to thank you once more, Elliot. There have been many comments about your kindness in entertaining everyone tonight. I add my thanks to those of the tunnel folk."
"’Tunnel? Below?’ There is a large mystery here. I look forward to the solution. Now I wish you good night, and thank your for a very entertaining evening, and a great dinner." And with that, Elliot was gone.
Father had long ago retired, and the tunnel folk had made their thanks and gone also. M’bago had elected to stay Below. "I like it; it’s the friendliest place I’ve ever been. I’ll see you tomorrow, Vincent." He had gone with Rebecca, who volunteered to show him to his chamber.
Devin was the last to leave, and Catherine remembered just in time to tell him that there was a room prepared for him on the fourth floor.
"Great! Believe me, I don’t appreciate the tunnels even overnight. The chill is still in my bones from fifteen years of living there."
"We hope you’re going to stay more than just overnight, Devin." Vincent was not hopeful, though.
"Nope. Got important business that I left just for this occasion. I’ll be here tomorrow, but I leave in the evening. See ya." He turned away, heading for the elevator.
"I’ll walk you up." said Vincent, but before he left he turned to Catherine, and spoke in that low growling voice, "I believe that it is now ‘later’." He took her hands and gave her a long possessive look before he walked away.
Catherine, warmed again by his look, headed for the stairs and their bedroom.
**********
She was surprised when she opened the door to find the lights on, but not as surprised as she was when she got inside. The room was full of white roses.
As she looked around, she realized that it wasn’t full, as had been her first impression, but at least four dozen white roses stood in vases all around the room. As Catherine looked around at them, for the second time that day tears began to fall. I love him so much, how could I have been so lucky…oh, my dear…
She pulled herself together in a moment, and hurried into the bathroom, wiping her tears. She stripped herself out of her clothes, and stepped into the shower, hastening so she could get into her nightgown and be ready when he returned.
But she didn’t make it. The shower door opened while she was still rinsing off, and Vincent entered, his arms going around her from behind her, pulling her against him. "I’ve been longing to feel your skin against mine all day! When I looked up at you on that ladder this morning I nearly pulled you down off it right there and then." He held her tight against his body, while with every word his voice lowered, and he spoke into her ear in the half-whisper that she loved. "I love you, I want you…Catherine, I need you…. you are all there is for me… Catherine, oh my Catherine…" He crooned softly into her ear, while the hot water sluiced down her body, so that she didn’t know which was water, which was his hands moving over her. "Come with me to bed, Catherine…I want you now, I want to feel you open to me, ready for me….you are so beautiful, I love you, I want you…my love…."
She felt his erection hard against her, and the feel of it made her bones turn to water. She turned to face him, pressing herself against him. "Please, take me to bed….please…" Her voice was husky with desire, inflaming him even more. "Put your hands on me, all over me, I want to feel your mouth on me, I want you so much, all the time, every minute…love me…take me…Vincent…"
He reached around her and turned the water off, then picked her up in his arms and stepped out of the shower. He set her on her feet, and taking a bath sheet from the shelf, he began to dry her body. Slowly he drew the towel down over her shoulders and patted it softly on each breast, then continued on down her body all the way to her feet, while she moaned a little, and caught her breath when he reached gently between her legs to pat her center dry. He moved behind her then, and beginning at her feet he toweled her body lovingly, passing over her buttocks with soft pressure, following the curve of her waist. Now Catherine’s body was all sensitized to his touch, her breath was coming fast. When he reached her shoulders, he began on her left arm, drying it down to the ends of her fingers, then the right arm. She was hypnotized by his actions; she stood absolutely still, waiting for what he would do next. He came around her again to stand in front of her, looking down at her body. "So wonderful…so soft…so beautiful…" he whispered under his breath, not taking his eyes off her while he toweled himself quickly. Then he picked her up again, carried her into the bedroom, and put her down on the bed.
She reached her arms up to receive him, but he shook his head. "Tonight, it will be slow. Tonight we will savor every touch, every sound and movement." He smiled tenderly. "Tonight is a very special night: our third anniversary, and our first lovemaking in our new home. I want us to remember this night forever." He knelt beside the bed. "Tonight is for me to show you how very much I love you. Now...I will begin."
He bent his head, and began to feather kisses over her face. Her hands rose to hold his face between them while she turned her head to make her skin completely available to him. Soft sounds came from her as he continued to brush his mouth across her cheeks, then moved to her ears, and down the side of her neck to that place he loved at the angle of her jaw, under her ear. As it always did, his tongue came out there to taste of her skin.
Just that touch of his tongue caused her to shiver, so sensitized was she to his lovemaking. "Yes, oh yes…" she whispered, as he moved further down her neck. Vincent’s body and his lovemaking were so wonderful to Catherine that she lost touch with the rest of the world when she felt his hands and his mouth on her. He became her world. The silky touch of the short hairs of his face against the palms of her hands was an aphrodisiac; she needed no other stimulation.
But there was more; Vincent seemed inspired tonight. He still knelt beside the bed, he still had not touched her body, and she was totally ready. He stopped for a moment, just looking down at her.
She opened her eyes, "What? Vincent?"
He smiled his small smile at her, touching her face with one clawed fingertip. "Nothing is the matter. I just need to stop to look at you, to believe that this is happening. I don’t want to forget how it was, how much I longed for this. For so many months and years…" His face showed remembered pain as he looked back on the past.
"Oh, sweetheart, I know. I wanted you so, and you…do you know, I wasn’t sure for a long time that you wanted me at all? You were so…controlled, sometimes I thought you just didn’t have any…physical feelings for me at all."
He looked down, away from her eyes. "…I was afraid all the time that you would know how I felt, and be disgusted. I thought I had to hide my longing from you." His eyes came back to hers, and then his glance moved slowly from her face down her body, and as slowly back again. "I wanted you so much. I laid awake at night, trying not to think about your body, trying to keep my thoughts of you away from the physical desire that was eating me alive. I wanted you so badly that I ached, my body ached when I saw you. I got used to it; the pain was there, but it meant that I was with you…and I wanted to be with you more than anything in the world. Just to see you, just to touch you now and then. To hold you in my arms was such...sweet torment. I loved it, it was balm to my aching soul, but I paid for it, in the nights…those endless nights when I wanted you with such passion, such agony…"
She smiled up at him, "I remember sleepless nights too! Vincent…I’m so glad, I’m so grateful to have you make love to me. I thought I’d never be free to touch you…here, on your skin. I wanted to see you bare before me so badly, to touch your body, to kiss you, like this…" Her arms went around him and she drew him down until his mouth was on hers. Then he slid his arms under her and lifted her upper body clear of the bed while his mouth explored hers slowly, with passionate thoroughness.
Her hands traveled slowly over his back, feeling the hard muscle under the smooth warm skin and the soft pelt of his body hair. When he lifted his head at last, she smiled up at him. "I don’t want to disturb your plans for tonight, but do you think it’s the right time yet for you to get into the bed? I really need to feel you against me."
He chuckled softly. "I love you so…you are my white rose, my lovely darling, and I want to feel you against me also…so much." He lifted himself as he spoke, and moved over her to lie down beside her. She made a soft sound as she felt him press himself against her. Their mouths came together again; the kiss was long and slow, and warm with tender care. His penis was pressed against her, she could feel its hard length against her hip, and she turned without conscious thought to bring it closer to her feminine center. It moved between her legs, sliding over her nether lips, picking up the moisture that her body was giving generously in testament to her excitement.
Vincent groaned with pleasure as he felt her wet heat against him, but he drew away. He wasn’t ready yet to come to the final part of this special lovemaking. Catherine made a sound of dismay as she felt him pull back, but it turned to a sigh of pleasure, as his mouth began to travel down her body. He stopped for long minutes at her breasts, tonguing and drawing on them with great pleasure and with great skill; he had learned quickly to know exactly what would bring her to a frenzy of excitement.
When he left her breasts at last, and started down her body, she was panting; her hands followed his head down her body, pressing him against her a little, as if to make sure that he didn’t lift his head away from her. He moved slowly down her body. There was a certain place on her sides, just above the hip-bone, that always made her jump when he touched it. Tonight he took time to explore that particular place in more detail. He kissed her, and got the expected shiver; then his tongue came out, and with gentle pressure it began to explore the whole area. Catherine moaned, her hands still on his head, still holding him to her. When he left that place at last, she was rolling her head on the pillow.
He moved lower, and her head stopped, as she anticipated what he would do next. As his mouth crossed over the soft brown hair at her groin, his hot breath made her shiver again. His breath was all she felt, he didn’t touch her at all. He moved further down, until he knelt between her legs. Then he moved her knees apart, very gently, very slowly. His head bent down further, and now she felt that hot breath on her most sensitive part.
He stopped then, and she waited holding her breath, for what he would do next. When he didn’t move, she lifted her head. "Vincent?"
"Have patience. I’m looking." He glanced up at her, smiling. "Are you having trouble waiting?"
"Yes!" She smiled back and laid her head down again. He never got tired of looking, but she knew how to make it too difficult for him. She began to lift her hips into the warm breath she could feel on her, and as she expected, it was too much for Vincent. His mouth came down, hot and wet, and she sighed deeply as she felt his lips and tongue on her at last.
But he only pleasured her in this way for a few moments. He lifted his head then, and slid back up until he was beside her. She laughed and shook her head. "What are you trying to do to me? You’re driving me crazy!"
"I wouldn’t want to do that." He smiled at her, showing his canines fully. "I’m merely trying to make this night a little more memorable, so we will not forget our first night in our new home." He paused for a moment, looking down at her with tenderness in his eyes. Then he spoke with earnest gravity, caressing her cheek softly as he spoke.
"Let me stop making love to you for a little while, so I can tell you of my love. I feel somehow that I don’t say it often enough, strongly enough, clearly enough, so that you can have no possible doubt that you are the most precious thing in heaven and earth to me. Can you wait," he smiled again, "For a little while, to let me talk?"
"Oh, Vincent, I love to hear you tell me how you love me. I’ll wait until morning, if you want to talk that long." She put her hand over his, holding his fingers against her cheek and smiling up at him.
"…My lovely one…my white rose," he whispered as his head came down to kiss her with aching tenderness. "I want to tell you how much this night means to me, how much our home means to me. I…I’ve tried before, but I seem unable to express just how deeply I feel the joy of a home of our own, a place where we are alone together and can see the future stretching ahead, a lifetime in this same place." He hesitated again, gathering his thoughts.
"I have had difficulty believing in this happiness. I have wondered when I wake in the night to find you warm and sweet beside me, how long it will last, what unforeseen calamitous event could take you away from me. I don’t think I could… survive that. Sometimes I think that you will stop wanting me, that some morning you will wake and think What am I doing here? What has happened to the good life that I lived Above? And I think that you will leave me, that you will find another life without me." His head went down, his hair hiding his face from her. When he spoke again, his voice was very low, a half-whisper. "This life with me is so much less than you have had…"
"Stop! Stop right there." She raised her hand to brush back his hair so she could see his face. "Vincent, how…how can you say that? This life with you is so much more than I could ever have Above…ever! Do you think that our love, the love you give me is common? Do you think that this…this wonderful thing we have together, is something that could happen to me without you?" She shook her head at him, stroking his face tenderly. "You have no idea how wonderful you are, do you? You don’t see that the tenderness and care and commitment that you give me are…matchless. You don’t see that the lovemaking we share is so much more, orders of magnitude more than anything I have ever experienced before…Vincent, If you left me, I would die of it." Her eyes filled with tears as she gazed at him. "Don’t worry about my ever, ever leaving you. It’s not going to happen." The tears spilled over, and his mouth came down quickly to kiss them away.
"My most adored one, my lovely rose…I love you so much…" His voice trailed off as his mouth moved over her face and down the side of her throat. "I want you so much…always…I think about this, about kissing your breasts, while I am working, while we are separated even for a little while, and I want you until I think I’ll not be able to stand it." While he whispered to her of his love and his desire, he kissed and caressed his way down her body. His mouth covered a nipple, and his tongue laved it while his hands moved over her. He began to suckle then at her breast, making her moan under his mouth and hands. Excitement struck at both of them immediately, as the small interlude of talk gave way to lovemaking again.
She spoke with urgency in her voice as excitement took her once more. "Vincent, oh please, go farther…do more…I need your touch all over me, everywhere." Her body arched up, pushing her hips against him, and her leg reached around his to pull it against her center, where the desire to be filled was raging in a moment. "Please, love…oh please…"
"Catherine…I want to feel your mouth on me. The feeling of your mouth on my body is beyond anything I ever dreamed of. Please don’t let this night go by without your mouth on me. I want that so much…oh, please…" As they both whispered of their desires, his voice blended with hers in a duet of passionate longing.
Catherine loved it when he told her what he wanted, when he was explicit in his desires, and she heard what he said. She raised herself up, leaning over him. "Lie down flat, my love, let me pleasure you," she whispered, and lowered herself until she knelt between his knees. She looked then at his phallus, distended with the blood of his passion, and her mouth watered to take him inside. But she too, wanted to make this an evening to remember.
"Do you want it? Do you want me to take you into my mouth? Do you want to feel it close around you, hot and wet? Tell me, Vincent, tell me how much." She lowered her head until it was just above his throbbing penis, letting her breath warm him.
He moaned and began to speak in a growling, semi-audible whisper. "Yes, oh yes…take it in your mouth, I want to feel the heat of your mouth…give it to me, Catherine,…Catherine, now…oh, now…"
Her mouth closed around him all at once, without any preparatory kisses or caresses. He jumped and groaned when he felt her heat on his surging member. "Ah…god…do it, do it…" He became incoherent very quickly, and speech turned into growls. Her hands, curled around his testicles, very soon could feel that drawing in that was the precursor of orgasm. He was far past being able to stop now, and she wanted very much to feel his seed come pouring out in a spurting, delicious flood. But she slowed her motions, and in a moment she drew her mouth slowly away from him.
"Oh no…no, don’t stop…no…" But in a moment or two his protests stopped, and he opened his eyes. "You are so wonderful to me, I love you beyond the end of desire and time and love…" He was still nearly incoherent, still wanting very much for her to continue the sliding, slippery motions of her mouth to bring him to an ecstatic orgasm, but he was beginning to remember his own recipe for tonight’s lovemaking, and so his next words when he had had time to cool a little, were, "Thank you, love, I’d never have stopped on my own…thank you."
Catherine moved up to lie beside him and he pulled her tight against his body. She looked down, away from him as she said, "Vincent, would you…I’d like…" she stopped, unaccountably feeling shy of telling him what she wanted.
"Tell me. Anything…I’ll do anything you want. Anything." His hand reached up to stroke her hair.
"Would you…take me from behind…like you did that other time?"
Vincent still had guilt about that position, and they’d never done it again after the night in her apartment when he had totally lost control, and had been so frightened that he had hurt her. But he remembered also the supremely satisfying orgasm that had happened to him that night. And he had said he’d do anything.
As he moved to place himself behind her, his heart started to pound. "Catherine, I want this. I want it so much…oh, love, I want you so much…"
"I want it too, I have ever since…" she stopped and gasped as she felt his erection nudging at her. She rolled onto her stomach and reached to put a pillow under her hips.
In a moment he was over her, holding her tightly against him, his penis just touching the opening of her body. As he felt again the overwhelming excitement, the power of the forbidden that had taken him the first time, he had time to think, it’s all right, I didn’t hurt her before, this is all right! before he lost the ability to think at all.
Catherine’s heart was pounding too. She remembered this as the one time that Vincent had let go of everything, all his inhibitions, and sunk into sexual excitement with his whole heart, and she wanted to feel that happen to him again. The very thought of it brought her to the edge of orgasm.
And so it was again. In a moment his body entered hers with a rushing plunge, and he began to growl and take long strokes. She could feel the steely tension in his body, the excitement taking over, leaving fears behind. As before, his hand came around her to feel the joining of their bodies, and then to touch her in that place that brought the most intense of sensations. She began to make a small sound, a continuous moaning that was drawn from her unaware.
Vincent was shaking now, his whole body trembling with excitement. His strokes quickened and lengthened, and his growl became deeper, more elemental. His usual tender care of Catherine was not gone, but transformed into a supremely masculine possession of her body. As they came closer and closer to that place of ecstasy, both let go of everything but the sensations they were feeling.
When the climax came, it was shattering for both of them. A swooping reach for the top, and then a long long slow slide of gradually lessening spasms down into utter exhausted satiation. Vincent came to himself long enough to slide off Catherine, and then subsided in utter weakness.
He came slowly back to reality apprehensive of guilt, but strangely, it wasn’t there. In spite of having completely lost control of his actions, he felt no terror that he’d hurt Catherine. He hadn’t hurt her; he loved her. As he lay thinking about it, he was mystified as to how he could have ever thought that he would hurt her. He turned his head to look at her.
She lay still on her stomach, her face turned toward him, and as he looked at her, her eyes opened. "’Lo," She said, slurring the word, "D’you feel a little bit out of it, too?"
"I may never recover totally. In fact, I hope I don’t." He rolled toward her, and reached to kiss her. She turned her head a little more to touch his lips, and then relaxed again into a heap. He smiled at her, then his face sobered as he began to tell her of something important to him. "Catherine, I didn’t hurt you. I couldn’t hurt you! I love you."
She shook her head without raising it, raising her eyes to heaven in disbelief of his obtuseness. "I know. I’ve been telling you that for three years."
"Well, I may be a little slow, but I think I’ve finally got it." His eyes laughed at her.
"Vincent, you’re marvelous at making love, and when you’re not scared of hurting me you’re even better!" Having recovered somewhat from exhaustion, she raised herself up on her elbows. "I think that your apprehension about this ‘animal’ position was a good thing. You were so excited by it when you finally got to do it that you lost all your inhibitions. You just went into it with your whole heart, and that was the best thing that could have happened. How would we ever have known that you were holding anything back if you hadn’t let go that one time?"
"Was I holding back? Yes…yes, I was. I didn’t realize…but when I think about what just happened…it was different, wasn’t it? Better?"
She nodded. "Better! I loved it; it felt to me like you were only feeling, not thinking at all… then I quit thinking myself. It was so wonderful. We were just two people loving each other and loving what our bodies do together. Oh, Vincent, it was so lovely…talking about it isn’t enough…let’s do it again…"
His body moved over hers and his mouth reached for hers, hunger unabated, and in a few minutes both were gasping again. This time the excitement and the freedom were there without his being behind her. He looked down into her eyes and growled as the arousal built and multiplied and grew to unbearable heights, before spilling over into a starburst of passionate emotion and physical sensation, and a long delicious slide into exhaustion.
After long moments of silence as both recovered, Vincent said softly, wonder in his voice. "I wouldn’t have believed that it could get any better."
"Me either. It did, though!" She smiled at him with her love in her eyes. Then her expression became serious. "I love it when you’re not afraid, when you hold nothing back, Vincent. I’ve been so sorry that you were apprehensive of hurting me; it was bound to detract from your pleasure. But I think you’re finally learning to trust yourself, to trust your love for me. That’s the best anniversary present I could ever have!"
His arms tightened around her. "I believe that I have learned, finally. Catherine, my love for you is so overwhelming, it takes precedence over any other feeling. It…it rules my actions completely." He stopped for a moment, examining these new feelings, new ideas, feeling his way to the truths buried there. "Violence is overwhelming intensity, expressed in a negative way. Whatever impulse to violence I have is channeled through my love for you, and comes out the other side as a…a loving, positive intensity, a compulsion to make our lovemaking…so complete, that you take the most possible pleasure from your body, and from mine pleasuring yours." As he stopped speaking his mouth began to move over her face, kissing her softly, and her hand came up to stroke the side of his face.
They laid quietly then, pressed together, Vincent’s arms enclosing Catherine in a tender protective embrace as they floated in a warm sea of satisfaction and happy contentment. After a few minutes, tired out from both a long day and the intensity of their lovemaking, they both drifted off to sleep.
*********
Vincent woke up sometime toward morning, to find the light of the moon shedding its beams through the window, to cover the bed in a lambent shower of soft light. He gazed enthralled at the sight; he’d never slept in a bath of moonlight before. So many things, so much that I’ve never experienced, and never thought to. He turned his head to look down at Catherine sleeping quietly, and a wordless prayer of thanks went up from him for this lovely woman who had made his life into something entirely new. It’s been a long and arduous journey, but I’ve come at its end to this marvelous woman who is my mate, and to our home, and to this new life.
As if in answer to his thoughts Catherine opened her eyes, to see tears on his face. "…My love?" Her hand came up to touch his cheek, smoothing them away.
"It’s only that I’m so happy, so content to be where I am…and what I am. Catherine, we have come so far. So many chances taken, and so many happy hours to reward us for those odds dared." He stopped for a moment, thinking. "So many journeys! Journeys of the body and of the soul, to bring us here, to this moment. When I look back on what I was before you came into my life, I can’t believe how far I’ve come. When you came to me, I thought that I would be on the outside forever, only looking in on your warmth and your love…and your body…oh that too! And then, even when I knew that you loved, that your love for me was real, I thought…I thought that you would be repelled by the idea of physical contact between us." He moved closer to her, and tightened his arms. "This is so far beyond anything I dreamed…" He reached down to kiss her. "I am so blessed, to have come finally to this place, the journey over, at rest at last." Renewed tears came to his eyes.
"Oh, my love, I too am blessed." Catherine’s arms closed around him. "I thought sometimes that it would never happen, that your fears for me would keep us forever apart." She smiled up at him. "And now we’re at the beginning of a new journey, Vincent."
"A lifetime’s journey…a journey we will take together, truly together at last." He smiled down on her in return, answering her happiness with his own.
They lay there for a long time, talking quietly, remembering the past and making plans for the future. And while they talked the sun came up, and the splendor of light laid a blessing on their bed, their home, and their new life together.
The End
The author apologizes for any
remarks about African countries that are inaccurate or otherwise unfair.
Put it down to ignorance; I’ve never been there, and I hope you will allow
me artistic license to facilitate the movement of my story. Thank
you.