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Together they indulged their curious natures, their breath and fingers uncovering hidden sites of pleasure nestled in the other’s strange geography. She breathed in sharply as his lips brushed her neck, and he did the same when her fingers roamed the tangled forest of curly yellow hairs on his chest. When they kissed, Alicia felt their breaths mingle in the hot, steamy summer air, and his lips were as sweet and firm in her mouth as summer apples.
In perfect sync with the hot, lazy summer day, their gentle kissing and caressing was slow, unhurried, as placid and untroubled as the blue, blue sky above. From time to time Alicia caught her hand or his wandering to dark, forbidden loci beneath their clothes, but they stopped themselves with bated breath, demolishing the tension they built with conversation or raucous bouts of tickling.
Eventually, they pulled into a close embrace, lying together beside the thundering waters. Alicia cooed as she rubbed her head against Laurence’s broad chest and muscular arms that wrapped around her.
“We should probably go back,” one of them said every so often. The other would agree, but instead of leaving they would stay there in that same restful posture, their bodies warm and close.
“You know,” Alicia said at one point as Laurence nuzzled against her hair. “I think I really do envy you, Laurence.”
“Oho, you must know something about me that I don’t,” he replied, chuckling in a way that reverberated through her and nearly knocked the words out of her mind.
“I do, though. You never seem to have any doubt about what it is you need to do. Where I am always fretting about how my choices will please others, about which suitor is more appropriate or which dress will impress my peers, you seem so very certain of yourself. Each day you wake, you do your chores, you care for the land and your animals, and you go to bed knowing what you did with your time was good and right.”
She felt him shift slightly behind her. He paused in thought for a time before answering, “When you put it that way, it sounds a bit monotonous, I must say.”
Alicia pushed herself up on her arm, turning to look at Laurence with dismay. “Oh, no, I didn’t mean—”
He stopped her protests with a delicate little kiss on the tip of her nose. “I know you didn’t, Alicia. But it brings to mind something I have been thinking of myself.”
Laurence’s face twisted in a faraway look of melancholy that felt utterly heartbreaking to look at. Alicia sucked in a breath as she watched him chew over whatever it was that was bothering him.
“What is it?” she asked, unable to bear the wait.
“You know,” he said with a sigh, “I had often worried that very thing—people have always told me that travel is broadening, that seeing new places and things is good for a man…or a woman, certainly.” They shared a smile. “I never had any interest in leaving this farm, though.
“I hope you know that I don’t think any less of you for that,” Alicia protested. “Especially having seen just what a wonderful place it is.”
“You don’t know how happy it makes me to hear you say that,” said Laurence with a fond smile. For a moment Alicia thought he was going to kiss her again, but then he continued in a heavy voice, “All the same, I was almost afraid to be broadened, somehow. I think some part of me has always worried that by being exposed to something new I would begin to doubt my own happiness here.”
“Well,” said Alicia, snuggling closer to him on the blanket and resting her head on his massive shoulder. “Who says you have to? People can believe whatever they like—surely you can just stay here and be as happy as you like.”
His body suddenly felt hard and stiff beneath her, as though she were lying on a rock. “I…am no longer sure that is the case,” he murmured.
Oh no,she thought, hearing the pain in Laurence’s deep, resonant voice.What have I brought on this magnificent man by my carelessness?She felt her fingers clench anxiously.
“Even without setting a foot off my farm,” he continued in a faraway voice, “suddenly I find myself confronted with a world I had never known existed. One full of possibilities, just as everyone said.”
Laurence took a ragged breath, and Alicia closed her eyes to shut away her tears of sympathy. “You know, we are remarkably alike in many ways, Alicia. Most of all, it seems neither of us has ever taken the time to think about what it is we want. And now, being confronted with something I want—something I had never dared imagine before in my life—I find myself almost petrified with fear that I may be denied it.”
What does he mean?Alicia cried to herself, her eyes still firmly shut.What is he talking about? Have I somehow brought uncertainty into his life and robbed him of his contentedness? Or is there something else that—
Her worries were interrupted as she felt herself lifted and turned by strong arms. Her eyes shot open to see Laurence lower his head to hers and kiss her deeply on the lips.
With a gentle moan, Alicia’s fingers tensed, then relaxed as they folded behind his head, enjoying the sensation of running through his thick golden hair. She pulled him closer to her, her mouth parting to allow the welcome intrusion of Laurence’s tongue. From every corner of her mouth, she drank him in greedily, squirming with pleasure in his rock-solid grasp.
So long as they were kissing, so long as his skin met hers, everything else in the world was shut away. There was only Laurence and Alicia, their two souls flowing into one through the blessed conduits of their bodies.
Even after they broke their kiss, Alicia felt her head spinning pleasantly. They looked into one another’s eyes, sharing a smile for a long while before at last rising to their feet and dusting themselves off.
“But…what about what you were saying? Are you—” Alicia asked, her tears of happiness threatening to take on a more sour tinge.
Laurence reached up a finger and brushed away one of her tears. “Never you mind, Alicia. If you would be so kind to forget I said anything, I would be much obliged to you.”
She laughed. “I would do absolutely anything you asked me to,”was what she wanted to say to him. Instead, she just nodded and took him by the arm as they set off down the path.
Though they had talked long and deeply of their worries, Alicia found herself humming a happy tune as they turned back toward Laurence’s house. And as he reached a hand around to pull her close to him by the waist, she felt her carefree bliss catch on him. As they wound through the hills on the gold-haloed dusty path, their voices mingled together in cheery, wordless song.
It was such a shame it all had to end up so quickly spoiled.
