A F T E R M A T H

By ANTHRO (C) 1999

FROM THE ANTHRO BOOK - 'STRANGE TALES'

"So ...just how long has it been?"

Instinctively she laughed in reply, just a little.

"Quite a while. In fact, the last time our paths crossed I was with Mike and you were with her ...it must be about two lifetimes ago!"

"That long? Really?"

"Mmmm, about that long! Certainly not the ideal circumstances for us to catch up on old times. Well? It wasn't…was it?" she asked.

His brown eyes gazed over the rim of his pale green, elliptical sunglasses - he raised an eyebrow in response.

"You're right ...I suppose. he grinned, only briefly acknowledging the presence of the waiter. Bacardi and fresh orange, sweet Martini and lemonade please."

The red haired woman tilted her head and tapped her white teeth with a painted fingernail.

"How do you know that's what I wanted?"

"Sorry, I didn't even think about it - it's what we used to drink. Conditioned response. Would you like something else?"

"No, that's just what I wanted."

She leaned back and pushed her silver glasses up to her forehead like a shimmering hairband, forcing her long, thick hair back in a wild sweep that exposed the geometry of her face. The bright red mouth smiled and she simply stared at him while the warm breeze sent little shimmering ripples of movement throughout her black chiffon top. The woman said nothing more until she felt his eyes staring at her, seeing her.

The sounds of the nearby traffic echoed like an atonal hum, consuming the dull chatter from the other customers at the tables around them. Carried gently, almost floating on the drifting breeze was the scent of her perfume - he was unfamiliar with it, it was new ...like her.

It was obvious, neither of them made any pretense of the fact they were staring, appraising each other. He was still slim and handsome, dressed casually in a pale suit and black T-shirt. There was still something of a ‘little boy lost' look about him, something in the eyes ...the tormented look was still there and, perversely, it made him more attractive.

The time's been kind. You grew up to be beautiful." he said quietly while stroking the condensation from the side of the thin glass before him.

When he knew her, long ago, she had been petite and slim, pretty, sincere, bright and young - and now here she was again after half a lifetime, the same but subtly different. More than time had changed, for both of them. It seemed odd that she had managed to remain oblivious to the way men stared at her, watched her moving, even how they probably thought about her – it either didn't register with her or perhaps simply carried no weight. As her arms folded the black bra moved her flesh in an unconsciously seductive manner and when she noticed it distracting him, she smiled widely, naturally.

"Beautiful? Beautiful…maybe, but it didn't seem to make much difference – in the end I didn't grow up to be very…happy. Comfortable, content ...but not terribly happy. In the big picture nothing really meant anything to me - inside." The woman spoke without a trace of sadness, merely as if reporting facts about someone else's life.

Her clinical objectivity disturbed him, made the ramification of her words all the more chilling. The tips of his fingers stroked his lips absent mindedly and the dark brows furrowed in puzzlement at her unexpected response, her candor evoking both melancholy but also a perverse intimacy.

"That's …unbelievable, you seemed to be doing so well. I assumed you were exactly where you wanted to be, I mean, I'd hear from people, the old crowd, the occasional face from the past, see the occasional press piece – all of it sounded like a much rosier scenario. Law's a tough field for anyone to cut their own niche, to shine…especially when you're bright, attractive, intelligent and a woman. I'd have thought, did think, you were ...at ease."

"Then you'd be wrong. Dad's illness became totally unmanageable, I lived with a succession of ‘questionable' partners - none of whom cared for me the way I wanted, my career became my great escape plan for so long until I realized it wasn't building towards some sort of liberty or the doorway to happiness ...it was just a treadmill. It was just a hideous, unending treadmill. None of it has mattered much. Add to that the fact that the only man I did ever really care about pretty much abandoned me for a sociopathic bitch from hell and I think you should get the picture. I mean aside from that everything else has been just peachy!" she said with a strained little laugh.

"I don't know what to say – if I hadn't heard it from your own lips I'd never have believed it. I'm really surprised ...and sorry, you deserved better."

"I did deserve better!" she said with a sharp undertone of anger.

The woman threw her hair back and sipped her drink, the sunlight collected in her glass and reflected back with flickering sparkles in her eyes. With a soft swallow she puckered her lips and tilted her head defiantly in a powerful moment of non verbal communication.

It was the length of the pause that betrayed his genuine surprise. He never thought she had felt that way about him, not like that – with such intensity. During their silence it was apparent to both of them that he clearly had no awareness of her feeling until now.

"I'm as surprised as you, everyone else knew how I felt about you…but I can see you didn't get it. Well, I never really got over you - despite the fact it was so long ago when we were young. None of the others ever made me feel that way, not the way I felt things around you. If this were a film or a book it would all be so tragically romantic ...young girl falling for the moody, cool guy that everybody used to like but warn you about. You were every parent's nightmare and even I didn't like you at first ...but, you just ...you made me ...anyway she said, raising her well shaped eyebrows up and down briefly you were the man who was going to be the first for me - I couldn't help myself. I never got you out my system ...and I always hated her, well ...disliked her. I still don't understand how you didn't see her as we all did, she was ...troubled, to say the least."

It took him a few moments to reply, the drifting ghosts passing through the real world in the distance offered only a momentary distraction. He could say nothing as the flood of possibilities and realities flashed through his mind.

She stared sadly, her body rigid beneath the fluttering black chiffon. It was apparent to her he was staring at her body…but seeing nothing, he was far away. "Well, this is just oodles of fun isn't it? I'll bet you're so glad we literally bumped into each other today. You never thought taking me for lunch would have guaranteed such a zappy conversation, did you?"

"I'm ...I never knew. Christ, it's..." his voice trailed off.

"Surprising?" she inquired, "I didn't think all this was going to come out either!".

"No ...well, yes, but ...I think tragic is more appropriate. All of it, like a sick joke. Look, just so you know - I realized there was something the matter with her - something I could fix. It was only years later that I found out how she ...dealt with you. By then the damage was done and it was too late to do anything but stay away and leave you to your life."

They smiled to each other, a sad, intimate smile that appeared to somehow appease the unspoken pain and resentment that was never aired. The long magenta nails stroked the skin of her warm flesh beneath the chiffon and left little streaks of wet trails behind where her condensation cooled fingers moved over the firm tissue of her breast.

He leaned forward and looked at her bare legs through the glass the table top.

"Well, I don't suppose it's much consolation but ...I paid the price, got what I deserved, had universal justice visit me. Boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy realizes problem, boy and girl can't fix it, girl betrays boy, girl leaves boy, boy gets destroyed and gets replaced by a ghost ...and so, here am I. Happy as a Sandboy!"

"You were always so arrogant, confident, so bloody sure of yourself and everything around you. Do you know what made it worse? You never let anyone in - not even your friends, no matter how close they got. What's the adage? No man is an island ...except you. What were you scared of? What could be so bad about letting your friends know you cared about them. I mean, did you let her know?" she asked, leaning forward and uncrossing her legs.

"I thought so ...I thought I let everyone know how I regarded them by my behavior - how I acted, not by what I said. Maybe I should've been highly articulate like – Love you, I'd never let you down, this is forever… then do the opposite. It's what you do not what you say that matters – words are cheap, they don't need much effort. But, I suppose, having said that, maybe people do need to hear what one thinks about them…maybe doing the right thing isn't enough. So I suppose I didn't communicate what I thought of my friends - not by anyone else's terms anyway. But like the philosopher ‘Popeye' used to say – ‘I yam what I yam'!"

Her hand reached across the table and rested on his, tingling with electricity. Her skin was soft, looked after, vibrant…like her. There was something between them, something strange.

"Your terms had very little to do with anybody else's. Everything was an issue with you, everything had to have meaning and was serious - your code or philosophy or religion, whatever you called it, meant more than the people you were dealing with. Sometimes you were like a machine, ,just running a program and everything was black or white – as if you weren't a human or were scared to act like us. Most of those you let get close to you did know, but you should still have told them. People have to actually hear things to believe in them – seeing isn't believing, not when it comes to things like this…they need to be told. Nobody can live by those standards, nobody can live up to them - not even you. How can you live that way? Some things just don't have real meaning - some things you just do, for the moment, and they don't matter in the big picture."

The man said nothing as the breeze caressed his dark hair. Distractedly he stroked her soft hand, rubbed her fingertips.

"There has to be meaning - otherwise there can't be progression or communication, hope, dreams, happiness ...pleasure."

"I don't think so and I can demonstrate it."

"How?"

"Okay, Mr. Analysis, hypothetically speaking if I were to ask you to come back to my place to spend the afternoon in my bed - would it be for the simple pleasure or because of the things between us?"

"Both, either, neither - I don't ...I'm not sure."

"Shall we find out?"

He paused, uncertain for a moment. "I'd like to find out."

"Good, I've had enough depth and meaning for today," she smiled "let's go!"

As the door opened the glare was enormous, a startling whiteness driven by the penetration of the sunlight through the glass bubble ceiling which was the only source of external light. The room was incredibly minimalist, white walls devoid of ornaments or pictures, two white leather and chrome chairs on either side of the enormous, low bed.

She kicked off her dark, high heeled shoes and strode, barefoot, onto her bed. The silver rimmed, photochromatic glasses had become impenetrable black lenses which hid her bright green eyes.

He leaned against the closed door and watched the beautiful redhead tug her chiffon blouse from the confines of her tight Grey skirt. With a tiny grin she turned her back to him, unzipped the side of her skirt and let it slide down her hips a little as she deftly unhooked her bra, shook her shoulders and allowed it to fall forward onto the bed.

As he watched her undressing performance he raised his glasses and became aware of the sexual arousal she was generating within him. He desired her.

With her arms hiding her breasts she turned to face him again, crossing her legs and watching his eyes as her skirt slid from her thighs to her ankles. The sunlight made her pale skin glow with an alien incandescence. Her legs were small but powerful, tightly muscled and well shaped. Her belly moved in and out in an excited flutter as she allowed him to see she had been devoid of any underwear. Between her thighs was a flaming strip of dense, red pubic hair.

With a toss of her head, the shoulder length mass of redness jerked backward and her fingers stroked her firm flesh of her breasts whilst she sighed aloud. Delicate hands stroked her flesh, slowly revealing the natural shape of her firm breasts. The magenta tipped nails plucked the thick, stiff nipples, dark and long, pausing briefly before plunging down in a pincer movement which rested between her legs. Her left hand opened herself to allow the right to access her interior as she walked toward him. The sound of her moan was personal, as if no-one else should hear it. The woman stopped at the end of the bed only a couple of feet from him. The first and second fingers of her right hand slowly slipped into her wet sex while she bit down on her lower lip. They said nothing and she walked forward, stopping before him - staring up into his face. There was an involuntary moan from deep within her throat as she withdrew her fingers and then raised them to his face. The sunlight revealed the clinging wetness on her fingers, an abundant and viscose cloudiness whose scent was sweetly musky. Like a mirror image her bright mouth opened reflecting his. The heat of her body was as powerful as the warmth of the overhead sunlight. With a determined tardiness she raised her wet fingers to his opened mouth and teased his tongue by pulling her fingers away once and then again until he moved his head forward to catch her nails between his teeth. The woman's fingers pushed forward and slipped slowly into his mouth, pressing down on his soft tongue.

He allowed her fingers far into his mouth, tasting her vaginal juices and slipping his tongue between her fingers as he opened his jaws until his lips kissed her knuckles. The tight clutch of his mouth locked round her retracting fingers and he rubbed his lips together, watching her suck on the same fingers he had just suckled on.

"You made me wet today, very wet. When we met, just round from the bar, I felt myself dripping out onto my thighs. I thought I was going to have to go put a tampon in. I hate you still having that power over me ...but I like it too - kiss me!"

With a gentle shift of the head he moved his mouth to hers and rested his hands on her bare hips. She instantly pulled her head back from his.

"Don't touch," she breathed "I can touch you - but I don't want you to touch me. Just kiss."

Her fragrance filled his lungs and senses as their lips met, stroking and shifting until they dissolved into one another. They pressed together, gently, romantically, stirring each other and arousing their desires as she pressed her nakedness against his clothed body. Her arms stroked and held him as their tongues snaked and darted within the wet, twin mouths.

She smiled mentally, feeling his hardness press against her belly as she ground against him in small, pushy circles. Slowly her legs parted while they still kissed, shifting her stance until his left thigh was between her own. Sharp fingers stroked his chest and searched for his nipples, gripping and pinching the hard little buds, all the while her hips worked themselves back and forth along his stiff thigh. She pulled away and broke their kiss.

"Your suit is wet with my ...lubrications. Look!"

"I want you."

The woman peered over her dark lenses then moved back, letting him see her body for a minute before sitting down on the end of the bed, legs parted to reveal the pale inner slash within her red pubic strip.

"Take your clothes off for me - I want to see if you still look the way I remember you."

He complied, elegantly removing jacket, shoes, socks, trousers and T-shirt until he stood nakedly erect for her examination.

"You still don't use underwear, I see!" she said rhetorically, her eyes, hidden from his, revealing her approval. "I've made you hard - I like that, it serves you right for making me so wet. My seat was damp when we left the restaurant ... but you're going to make me wetter."

The redhead's frame shifted seductively as she leaned back, never taking her eyes from his body, until she rested on her right elbow as her left hand began to caress the delicate genitals between her opened thighs.

"I want you to masturbate for me, turn me on with it. I want to see you stimulating your erection ...knowing you're watching me." the woman said.

She lay back, appraising him as he hesitated before grinning a little. His right hand stroked his testes, gently squeezing and manipulating them before grasping the bottom of his penis with a tight grip that engorged the organ. There was a flick of the eyes between them as he choked himself until the veins throbbed thickly along the length of his member, she was distracted by it. With wet strokes he began to masturbate for her, slowly running his hand up and down the length of his penis, tugging harder each time until his foreskin was dragged behind the swollen, shining glans.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"What have you got?"

"Rope!"

There was a pause.

He tilted his head. The woman smiled. Her rounded white skin glowed under the light as she rolled to her side and got on all fours, revealing her well shaped and rounded bottom with its slash of glistening flesh. From beneath the bed she produced some white rope, held it aloft and curled herself back towards him.

"Times have changed," she giggled, "now it's my turn to show you - if you're up for it."

Releasing himself he moved forward and knelt on the end of the bed, staring at the redheaded beauty - naked but for her silver rimmed, black lensed glasses.

"I'm yours." he eventually replied.

"Lie back in the middle of the bed, spread your arms and legs like an ‘X'."

The woman rose from the bed and he watched her small, well toned muscles move, watched the shifting of her limbs and the pale nippled breasts. She was beautiful and confident. As she tied his wrists to the top of the bed he tried to remember what it was like to be with her, to be in her, to taste her.

All the while she moved and worked in silence, crouching coyly at the foot of the bed as she tied his ankles - rendering him immobile and trusting. Even her coughing was gentle, somehow managing to cover her mouth sensually.

He felt the bed reveal the weight of her every step as she slowly walked over his tied body until she looked down on him with one foot at either side of his chest. Still she said nothing and he gazed up. Her painted fingernails clawed her soft breasts in a clutch the pushed her hard nipples outward. There was the faintest sound of swallowing when her hands slipped down over her soft, curved belly until a host of fingers slithered through the fiery red strip of hair, gripping flesh and pulling it up and back. The pale pinkness of her inner labia shimmered with an opaque wetness and the skin was uncannily smooth. He noted how tidy her genitalia was, how beautiful it looked on its own merits of existence.

In a fluid movement she dropped to her knees, shins pressing down on his shoulders, and she continued to open herself for him, pulling her sex wide and smooth and revealing the thick, swelling of her clitoris. The scent of her sex made him tingle, his erection harder until it seemed as if some phantom hand was still gripping it to force the head to swell and the veins throb. With little rolls of her hips she teased him with her opening, making him wait until the hard tip of his tongue finally made contact with her dampened sex. Slowly he dragged his tongue along her red maned sex, swallowing her fluids, reveling in the pleasure of the taste before pressing the tip against the thick, engorged clitoral tip. Her fingers gripped and pressed his head hard against her crotch as their mutual, dull moan resonated. The woman threw her head back and made tiny circles with her hips for a few minutes until her muscles began tightening, tensing as the flesh quivered in controlled pleasure. She pressed his head away from her and she dragged her soft, wet, oozing sex down his chest, letting him feel the opened lips of her sex painting a thick, greasy streak down his hard toned body. Teasingly she jerked her hips up as she felt the weeping penis hit the space between her buttocks, leaving a wet blob of his lubrication running down her anus.

The woman slithered away from him, lying between his legs, staring at his crotch. The small fingers wrapped around the base of his organ as the other hand enclosed itself around the hard, wet head - rubbing and rolling the palm over every centimeter of its surface. His head rolled back and he sighed aloud as she began to jerk the base with her other hand, continuing to rub the head in a slower rhythm. The bright red lips left smudges of Afterburn Pink on his tight testes, pursing together as she slowly made a long, slithering kiss that ran from base to tip. Pleasure rippled through him and he raised his head to see her between his opened thighs, stroking, jerking, rubbing and kissing his penis. Her eyes were still hidden by her dark glasses and only when the lenses paled could he see the glowing green within.

Her hand gripped and raised the organ straight, jutting upwards at 90 degrees from his belly. The pink lips kissed the head of his penis, making a protracted circle around the tip before opening gently, pausing and then slipping down - taking him inside her mouth.

There was something strange, he felt something in her mouth, pressing and enclosing the glans. The woman's red hair shook as her head began to bob up and down as she pushed more of him into her mouth. With regularity the head went down and the mouth went back, the lips locked round and her felt her pushing something around his stiffness.

The condom had enclosed his glans before he realized what it was, he groaned as she took a substantial swallow of his flesh, rolling some inches of condom over his erection.

The woman's hands slithered and carefully pulled the rubber over him as her industrious mouth consumed the swollen tip far inside.

He moaned and pushed his hips up in supplication.

Intelligent, talented and pretty, he sighed then and now!.

"Shut up!" she demanded as she moved to squat herself over his hips, "I want you - bastard!"

The heat of her sex circulated throughout his penis as she grasped him against her erected lips, rolling her hips back and forward against it, wetting the length of the rubber with her fluids. The light from above made her look immaculate and radiant as she slowly intensified his arousal. The woman's breasts and belly undulated in tiny, seductive moves that made him press up from the restraining bed, tugging hard on the white ropes. With hidden eyes she grasped his thick erection and placed it just against her vaginal entrance. Sparkles of light reflected from her glasses as she paused, immobile to stare into his eyes.

"Well?" she asked.

"You seem to be in charge. It's your call."

Her red mouth smiled as she suddenly shifted the weight of her torso and allowed the head of his penis to swiftly move into her - just a little. They both moaned in harmony.

In a slow progressive movement she began to make tiny circles with her hips, holding his organ inside with her muscles. She teasingly let his sheath coated penis slip a little further into her each time, arousing and frustrating him simultaneously. In no time she found him bucking his hips to try and penetrate further into her, but she managed to evade each desirable lunge. By the time she became motionless again she was ready to move into a position where she could experience clitoral stimulus as well as vaginal. He kept driving his organ into her, but no further than she had previously allowed.

The red hair fell forward as she leaned over his chest, legs sliding up to either side of his chest as she mouthed something silently to him and pushed her torso back, impaling herself on the entire length of his penis in a slow graceful motion. The man began to make slow circles against her, pressing pubic bone against bone making her moan a little from the dual pleasures.

As her face pressed close to his she flicked her tongue out and ran it along his lips, moving off him a little to whisper in his ear.

"Fuck me, darling!" she intoned romantically, giggling a little.

Their hips began to work in unison, pushing and giving, grinding and slipping. The heat of the shifting sun warmed their nakedness and the controlled copulation made them sweat in an erotic sheen of wetness. The strangeness of being together again after so many years was odd, almost as much as the near familiarity they shared. The movements became wilder and more forceful as she felt the culmination of the afternoon's arousal screaming for release. As if reading her thoughts he began a systematic thrust and grind that manipulated her labia and pressed too deeply inside her sex. With a calculated abandon she fell forward on her elbows, soft, well shaped breasts caressing his almost hairless chest as she felt the inside muscles of her thighs begin to shake and her vaginal muscles began to tighten.

He watched her biting her lip as the wet frenzy took her to the edge, held her there as she resisted the inevitable for a few more seconds of the pro-orgasmic thrill before jamming herself down on his stiffness with a savage hunger. Inside his organ thrust and distorted her vaginal walls and then sent her contractions afire as she finally abandoned herself to her own pleasure, mouth and lips tight as she resisted moaning aloud. Inside she felt the clitoral stimulation becoming momentarily confused with the forceful vaginal machinations she had solicited, it made her see little bubbles of light in her head and feel an invisible internal hand distorting her insides with a gratifying touch. She timed her movements to the regularity of her spasm, jamming him inside her to maximize each new contraction. Their bodies continued moving, stretching the tingling fire, the burning repetition of her sexual spasm until she shook her head to stop.

There were no words, merely smiles and delicate laughter until she raised her tousled red head and began to twist herself about him again, denying him intense gratification until she had fed the hunger he had created by appearing from the past, by being with her. He felt her wetness running down his skin, felt it run teasingly, tickling his genitals as he watched her using him, pleasing him in slow careful movements until she sat back and tossed her head behind before she climaxed without any warning, enhancing it by rubbing the tip of the clitoris with her wet fingers, provocatively revealing her beautiful, delicate, pale sex for him. This time she abandoned herself to the pleasure, moaning and tossing her frame about on him until she was finished. He was entranced and desperate to feel his own orgasm when she jumped from him, pulled herself off the gentle penile probing he had continued. The sunlight caught the drips of wetness falling from her, still open, sex as she rose.

The woman moved back, nestling between his opened thighs and pulled the wet condom from his long, thick erection. Wordlessly he watched her mouth devour him with hungry, sensual gulps that stimulated the condom blunted, penile erogenous zones. Bright red lips took long bites of him, slipping far down the shaft as her hands massaged his testes and stroked the base of his shaft. By the time his hips were bucking she knew he had reached the point of no return. Her ministrations became solely dedicated to the underside of his glans in erotic flicks of her tongue until she felt his penis swell and expand indicating the immanence. Then she stopped, pulled his skin back hard to the base of his penis as she presses her tongue between the glans and frenum, pressing back and forth. She felt his emission pulsing along the vas with her lower lip and it made her grip him tighter. Suddenly a huge streak of his ejaculation spat out, missing her face and arcing over his head to splatter on the white wall. The man was silent, barely aware of the pre-orgasmic issue he had splattered above - he was rapt in the first real spasm which she encouraged with long flicks of her tongue. Her mouth moved sideways to kiss the front of the head without getting in the way of his flow, the sensation of feeling his juices rushing up his penis was dirtily erotic to her. The long arcs of thick, white sperm rushed out of his bloated organ, making him moan a low, animal gasp of pleasure as spasm after spasm combined with her oral skill. Before he was finished she moved her face and felt his seminal heat paint her cheeks and hair as she consumed his penis in her mouth, flicking and rolling her tongue as she tasted the powerful flow and hot, greasy fluid. He felt his last spasm pour directly down her throat as she took him deeply inside her mouth. His organ was still trembling as she rested her head on his belly, letting his come drip from her mouth onto his own skin whilst the rest of his emission trailed down the wall. The sun shone above as they rested in silence. There was still time before the sun went down.

The woman enclosed her nakedness in a flimsy white silk gown, watching his lean body becoming progressively hidden from her sight as he dressed again.

"So, was it meaningful or just a memorable moment?" she asked.

"I'm not sure, but I probably wouldn't have whizzed off for a quick, casual fling - too risky and no great inclination, I came because of you."

"Are you sure?"

"I think so, otherwise it's really a case of availing yourself of the nearest warm body for your own gratification."

"Would that be a crime?"

"Only if the other person isn't made aware of it."

"Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I mean, did you enjoy it because of the moment or because it carried meaning?"

"So, are you saying none of that mattered?" he asked tugging his T-shirt over his head.

"Yes, it mattered - it meant we had great sex, but that's the only meaning really - it burns briefly and then it's gone. It's something you do and then is done. It's done and I think it proves I'm right."

"Maybe ...or maybe we experience the same events differently."

"There is no ‘meaning' just the same way there's no going back to the past - we're both trapped in ourselves ...I live for the moment and there is no meaning, you live for meaning so can't live in the moment. We simply are and that's as good as it gets - life is too fragile to analyze every moment."

"Life's too fragile not to."

"Well, we've effectively demonstrated just how right we both are - at least to ourselves.

So where do we go from here?"

"Back to our own lives again ...Who knows?" He slipped his jacket on, glowing with a dull gold from the dying light outside. The glasses were unnecessary, but he slipped them on none the less. "I have to go."

There was a brief silence, she stared hard at him – trying to see him, hoping he could see her.

"I'm...I'm getting married next month, a June bride ...the senior partner in the firm made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"I hope you'll be happy." he replied quietly.

She shrugged, shaking her head a little and clutching her white silk gown around her flesh ...giving him a last glimpse of undulating tissue and the pale skin beneath. "Happy?" she asked in an almost perplexed tone.

He smiled sadly. They stood in silence, waiting. Her green eyes glowed mysteriously.

He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, raised his arm and swung the hand in a small arc. Then he turned away closing the door gently but firmly behind him. The finality of the sound resonated with a lingering echo and the world moved on.