Fanchon's Book(27)

Because I was a sensual bitch and I knew it, and the dark mystery held no terrors for one such as me. "Look in the mirror. At me this time."

It wasn't easy. My tongue wasn't that long. But I kept it wriggling and fluttering and squirming as best I could. Then I saw what she was doing. With her hand-in front of her now-the fingers dipping into the pit of her belly. Doing it to herself, and I wished that I had two mouths, but she didn't seem to need them; I could feel her body getting close to its climax-or is it mine?-and then she went into a slow convulsion and I heard her voice, a shrieking command.

"Get back in, Fanchon. All the way!"

In a frenzy of obedience, I plunged. All the way.

Wedging my face between the fleshy pillows, shooting my tongue into the depths of her body. Suffocating and loving it. Dying a small pleasure-death.

And then it happened. To her. And to me. Marvel of marvels, it happened to me-without being touched! As if I had swallowed her convulsive climax and made it my own. But I couldn't make the soul-shattering ecstasy last forever, I slumped down and collapsed and everything went blank and all I could remember was my face landing on the floor between the spread legs of my beautiful goddess; and one bare foot was close, so close, and I struggled feverishly to slide my head over so that I might kiss it before oblivion overwhelmed me.



Chapter 9

My beautiful goddess. Gone? Light flashed in the black void of my mind long before I could get my eyelids unstuck, harsh light, searing, cruel-the blinding glare of panic. Where is she? I couldn't feel her near me. Such a terrifying moment, waking up on the floor and knowing that she had taken her presence away; oh, how I needed her!

I forced my eyes to function. There were signs of life, yes, but it was only the thing in the mirror, shaky, haggard, an awakening mound of flesh; naked Fanchon. That sensual bitch. Not much to look at, really, and I turned my head.

Ah!

A sluggish spiral of cigarette smoke climbed ceiling ward; in a spate of rekindled animation I crawled toward its source. No, she hadn't run off and left me. My love was still here. My love, my love. And how imperiously beautiful she looked on the chaise lounge, like a highborn lady taking her ease, the Maja Desnuda; wasn't it fitting and proper that I should greet my love by kissing her feet?

"So you're back among the living, eh, Fanchon?"

"I'm back. Was lout long?"

"A few minutes. You must be pretty' tired."

"I-I guess I am."

"Well, I'll let you go to bed soon. I'm not very sleepy myself, though. Be a dear and sit up with me for a while, will you? Pull up a chair or something." I rose to get the chair, moving unsteadily, just a shade bewildered. Our sex fantasy was over, apparently, and yet I was still doing her bidding. Not that I minded staying up with her: in this sweet aftermath of lust I was glad to remain close and bathe in the aura of our shared love. But she did seem a trifle too composed, indeed almost calculating. When I picked up the chair and swung around toward her, she was staring off into space, her face a study in pensive preoccupation, the cigarette between her fingers all but forgotten as it

The cigarette!

It was a mad dash, but I made it. In one breakneck scramble, I dropped the chair and grabbed the ashtray and slid it under the cigarette in time to keep the skin of her midriff intact. Another split-second and there would have been a badly scorched young woman.

I sagged to the floor to catch my breath and get my nerves untangled. Kristi nodded and patted my cheek, a gracious commendation; I glowed contentedly-and then the vivid memory impaled me, the barbed enlightenment, and I realized what I had just done. The significance of my instinctive gesture was Inescapable.