I love when you want something sexual from me

“It’s me,” Bob Brennan called over the sound of the radio. As
Jeanette was not in sight, she was in the kitchen. “Sorry I’m
late, but it was that or go back on campus tomorrow.” Instead of
the kiss he expected, Jeanette gave him a hushing gesture, finger
to her lips.

He washed his hands as quietly as he could, so as not to compete
with the voice of the French announcer. After someone else came
on, Jeanette clicked off the shortwave. The kiss Bob received
might have been belated, but it was enthusiastic. He hugged her
with his left arm while caressing her firm butt with his right
hand. “Oh Bob!” she said. “I understood it. Directly. Without
slowing it down or listening again.” That *was* a breakthrough.
It definitely called for a celebrative kiss. This time she sank
against him while his tongue chased hers. His hand was less
caressing than kneading.

She broke the kiss. “Um, aren’t you hungry?”

“Desperately; should I pull out the bed?”

“Nope! You should put up the table.” Unfolding the legs of the
card table and setting it were the two tasks which another person
could do to help the cook. The kitchen could hold two people, if
they were good friends; but they couldn’t do much food
preparation. Jeanette loaded their plates in the kitchen and
handed them out. Then they were sitting across from each other.

“Do you want to say the grace tonight?” he asked. She hesitated,
and he began to say that she didn’t have to.

“I really think that I do.” They folded their hands. “Heavenly
Father, I thank you for the food and what happened to me this
morning. Amen.”

“Amen,” he said, and reached for her hand. He squeezed it for a
second, and they started to eat. “Sorry to spring that on you.
But somehow it felt appropriate.”

“S’okay. But I felt so tongue tied. I did feel grateful
though.”

“Far as I know, He doesn’t grade on eloquence. Anyway, your
experience was the high point of the day. And I didn’t know
enough about it. So remedy my ignorance.” He started to make
serious inroads on the macaroni and cheese.

“I was listening to the tape at half speed on the MBTA,” she
started. “When I got off, the bus was right there and so noisy
that I couldn’t do anything but rewind. Then I walked along
listening to the tape again, full-speed that time. I was getting
everything, and then I just kept getting everything. Well, lot’s
of it anyway. So now I can.”

“Forr mee dahh ble,” he said. “Or will my accent spoil your
ear?”

“Your accent isn’t *that* bad.”

“I love you.” Which, after all, was what she was saying with her
little white lie.

Half his mind followed her expansion of the report, while half
played with the idea of celebration. The weather outside was
miserable, so ice-cream cones were out. She enjoyed his
elaborate stories, but she would probably rather talk about this
tonight. Bed for celebration was rather a cheat, he usually
enjoyed it more than she did. On the other hand, he would make
sure that she enjoyed it. She came to a pause, what had she said
last?

“I really think that it was a breakthrough.”

“So do I,” he said. “Even though I knew it would come sometime.”
Her face seemed to fall a little bit. Damn! He’d undercut the
accomplishment. “But then, you were the one chopping your way
through the tunnel with a pickax. All I did was watch. I knew
it would happen because I know my wife. When you put your mind
to something, you accomplish it.

“And,” he concluded, “I’m proud of your accomplishments,
especially proud of this latest one.” Then he took his plate to
the kitchen for seconds.

The conversation became both more general and more sporadic. He
cleared the table and was washing the dishes when she turned the
shortwave on again. Sitting at the card table, he took copious
notes on *Mohammed and Charlemagne*. He’d read the chapter
standing on the MBTA, but it had been too jerky to take any
notes. All the while, some part of his subconscious planned the
coming night.

Bob often told his friends that the apartment had a small
kitchen, but that the living room, dining room, bedroom, and
study was good-sized. The time having come to leave the study
for the bedroom, he folded up the card table and pulled out the
sofa bed.

He prepared for bed and got in on Jeanette’s side. Jeanette was
slow to take the hint, so he read further into Pirenne. When she
did come to bed, however, she took off her robe and slipped under
the covers naked. He rolled over into the chilliness to make
room.

“Still following it?” he asked.

“Most of it. Sometimes the subject is beyond my vocabulary, but
I can catch on when they start on another story. They are all
excited about the baptism of Clovis.”

It took him a moment to recognize the name with the French
pronunciation, but he tried to match it when he responded. “Then
you just might want to find a historian and bribe him to tell you
about Clovis.”

“What sort of bribes would one of your professors take?” she
asked.

“Tuition. And you’d have to sit through the whole course,
probably taught during your working hours. There might be
prerequisites as well. A grad student would come much cheaper.”

“Are there any history grad students in this room?” He raised
his hand. “What would your price be for a short lecture on
Clovis.”

“Well, I’d have to prep and give the lecture tomorrow. Give me a
sample of your best kiss; I’ll tell you how many of those I would
charge.”

“You’re getting predictable. I saw that one coming.” She was
laughing, though.

At first the kiss was distorted by her smile. It was sexy as
hell, even so. She leaned over him supported on her elbow, with
one breast pressing into his left shoulder and the other resting
on the center of his chest. Her mouth slanted over his.

She licked his lips, and then played with his tongue for minutes;
but she wouldn’t follow his tongue between his teeth. She left
his mouth to peck on his eyebrows and lick at his ears. He
writhed while she licked and sucked her way down his neck and
onto his shoulder, but made no move to stop her. She spent
minutes on his left nipple, sucking it into a hardness such as he
had never experienced, licking it, and then sucking it again.
She sucked very hard and lifted her head until it popped out of
her mouth.

She continued down the side of his chest, kissing as she went.
Where could she be going? Stupid question, there was only one
place; and his phallus swelled until it ached. But this was
supposed to be her celebration! He couldn’t say no; he’d sworn
never to refused any erotic advances on her part. Breaking that
resolve now would be one hell of a celebration. She stopped
kissing at the line of his pubic hair, but she turned sideways
and slid further down.

She lay for a moment with the side of her face against his belly
and Junior just brushing her other cheek. Just then, his stomach
gurgled. She giggled. This might have decreased his excitement
if the breath from her giggle hadn’t struck his erection.

“Junior,” she said, “I know you expect a kiss as well. But Daddy
doesn’t count that as payment. So we’ll have to wait for another
time.” She turned her head upwards until her lips were against
the crown. There was the slightest peck of a kiss, and she slid
away.

His virgin bride had come a *long* way in three years, but he’d
never known her like this. She’d just given a whole new meaning
to the word ‘tease.’ And she didn’t seem to be done yet.

She straddled his left leg, which he raised protectively. Her
knee was closer to his scrotum than he really wanted it to be.
She settled down over him, breasts pressed into his chest. He
felt the hardness at the center of each pressing softness,
accepted their testimony of her arousal, pictured them, could
remember their taste.

What he tasted now was her tongue as it invaded his mouth. She
wasn’t being coy this time. It thrust in, dueled with his,
licked the roof of his mouth and the bottom of his tongue. When
it did withdraw, his followed; she sucked it before invading
again.

When he sucked hers in turn, she began to move her torso. That
rubbed her softness against his thigh. He could even feel a
little dampness. His erection, trapped between their bodies,
began to hurt. His hands were compulsively touching everything
that they could reach, caressing down her back to her butt and
back again.

She broke the kiss to pepper light kisses over his eyebrows,
nose, and cheeks. She kissed down his neck to his shoulder and
sucked that tendon, moving against his thigh all the while. She
sucked on the lobe of his left ear. Then she bit it.

She immediately rolled away, taking the bed clothes with her. He
rolled after her, mouth to her luscious breast, hand between her
spread legs.

“No Bob,” she said pulling the hand away. Before he could begin
to be disappointed, she pulled the arm further. “Now, Bob, Now!”

It wasn’t what he had planned, but his body wasn’t considering
that. He climbed between her legs, retrieved his hand to adjust
himself, and pressed into her wetness. He barely had time to
remove his arm before she arched upwards against him.

The sheets and blankets were a tangle under them, slipping away
from his knee when he drove inwards. This was hardly the time to
deal with that problem. Her thighs were raised and gripping his,
her heels started to beat against the backs of his legs. All his
lips could reach in this position was her forehead, so he kissed
that. She buried her head in his neck and sucked there. The
springs squeaked in time to their movement, but all he could hear
from Jeanette was the gasp of her breath.

Her fingernails scratched down his back to his butt. When she
clawed him, he drove into her and erupted.

When he came back, his butt was freezing. He was lying on
Jeanette with his head just below her breasts, and his feet were
sticking eight inches out from the edge of the bed. The mess,
which belonged on the lower half of the bottom sheet, was soaking
from the top sheet onto the upper edge of the blanket — and the
middle at that. They were going to be sleeping with that aroma
for a while.

He cleaned up what he could, including himself and Jeanette; he
pulled the bedclothes from underneath her, rolling her when
necessary. He remade the bed over her and turned off the light.
He crawled in his side of the bed. Her first contribution to the
rearrangement was to snuggle back against him.

“Love you,” he said. Her response was hardly audible, but she
pressed back more firmly and hugged his arm.

– = –

He had to extricate himself from that hug the next morning.

He stared blearily into the mirror while shaving. He had a mark
on his shoulder. Jeanette had given him a hickey. Hickey, hell!
He could see faint tooth marks. The lobe of his ear was sore,
too, though he couldn’t see any marks. Also, there was a
stinging on his butt.

But he certainly wasn’t going to register any complaints. Not
only had that been the most arousing night in months, but she had
initiated it.

He wished there were something he could do to make her that
joyous every day; he might not survive it, but he would die
happy.

Of course, she was joyous because of an accomplishment of her
own, something — by definition — that he could never give her.
And they still hadn’t had the celebration he had planned. Well,
he could make today a little special; she’d celebrate the
accomplishment of the day, he the passion of the night as well.
Maybe tonight he could deliver some fraction of the sexual
pleasure to her that she’d provided him.

He’d eaten and put her coffee on before she finally struggled out
of bed. He handed her a cup of coffee while enjoying the sight
of her staggering past in the altogether. Morning wasn’t
Jeanette’s best time, but she was still sexy as hell in her skin.
He started her breakfast while she was in the bathroom. She
accepted another cup on her way to find her robe. Well, he
couldn’t complain; the room was a bit chilly.

She was sipping the third cup when he put the plate at her place
at table. “Thanks,” she said. “What’s with the eggs?”

“Celebration. One of our family members just conquered Gaul.
Sorry there wasn’t any bacon.”

“I know. Terribly expensive. But this means less fancy ramen
for the next two weeks. But it was sweet of you.” When she
dipped the toast into the first yolk, he went to straighten the
bed and brush his breakfast off his teeth.

“Bob Brennan!” she shouted from the kitchen. “You had cereal for
breakfast.”

“Well, it was a celebration of your victory. I couldn’t consult
the chief cook on how long the supplies had to last and also
surprise the honoree. Anyway, it was a tremendous breakthrough.
It deserved lobster, let alone eggs. I do think it was the
second greatest accomplishment that I’ve seen you make.”

“Second?” she said. “What was the first?” He felt a twinge of
guilt; she really didn’t get up to speed this soon after waking
up. She’d have looked both ways if he had said something like
that in the afternoon.

“Seducing me, of course.”

“Pffft! I could seduce you with my hands tied behind my back.”

“Wanna bet?” This was spiraling away from a celebration in her
honor once again, but he couldn’t resist an opening like that.
He could picture her with her hands tied behind her back.

“No.” And the mood seemed to cool down.

“Well it was your choice of words.”

“Anyway,” she said, “I remember the seduction going quite the
other way.”

“You just stood there, your chin thrust forward and fire shooting
out of your eyes. The seduction was immediate and total, and you
hadn’t even noticed me yet.”

“I don’t think that that counts as seduction. I was fourteen
then.” But her tone softened; the first days of their friendship
meant something special to her. To him, too, of course; but she
responded more to the first stages than to the spots in between
which he thought were finer.

“Sure it does,” he said. “It just took me a few years to
reciprocate.”

“Sheesh! ‘Doctor, you’re the one with the dirty pictures.'” He
had to dig into memory to connect the punch line to a joke about
a man who saw sexual content in every Rorschach inkblot. “I tell
off a bully before I’d even met you. You use that as an excuse
for a nine-year campaign of words and kisses and such to entice
me into your bed. And you call that reciprocation.”

“Totally unfair.”

“How?”

“Well,” he explained. “It has been only eight and a half years
in all. And I hadn’t the goal of enticing you into my bed
clearly in mind for the first part of that….”

“How many minutes?”

“Weeks and weeks. I fell in love with your spirit first. Not
before the first dance, probably not before the second, was I
thinking of bed. Anyway, I stopped trying to entice you into my
bed after the wedding.”

“Because we used sleeping bags on our honeymoon?”

“Because I was clever enough to set it up so you didn’t have any
other bed available,” he said. “Anyway, I never blamed you for
being the sexiest woman in North America. First: I think it’s
great. Second: you don’t try to be; it’s just your nature.”

She took exaggeratedly high steps back towards her wardrobe. It
was her way of miming that the bullshit was getting a little
deep. She didn’t deny his description of her though; she really
couldn’t after the previous night. She snapped on the shortwave,
and he got dressed.

Over lunch, Bob got a report on the news from Europe. “And have
you researched this Clovis business?” Jeanette asked.

“Most of it,” he said. “I’ll be ready for the lecture as soon as
I get my fee.”

“How soon he forgets! I would have thought my kiss was worth
remembering for at least one day.”

“How soon she forgets. I got a *sample*, which is what I asked
for. If that kiss is the fee, I’ll have to give change. But
what you gave me last night was a sample of what the fee would
be.”

She looked at him, obviously trying to replay the conversation
from the night before. “And here I thought that you had chosen a
different career, back three years ago.”

Well, he wasn’t a lawyer, or even a law student. That didn’t
mean he couldn’t be tricky. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give the
lecture tonight, and you can decide how much fee it deserves.”

When the night came, he suggested that she run another tape in
the shortwave.

“But I can understand it directly now. I don’t have to slow it
down; good thing, too — I was getting to think all Frenchmen
spoke in basso profundo.”

“But you can’t take the radio with you to work,” he pointed out.
“What this means is that you’ll need three times as many tapes as
before. Well, less than that, we’ll see how many. And you said
that some of them stretch your vocabulary. You could put one of
those on tape, copy the new words down at half speed, and play it
at full speed when you’ve learned them. If that requires more
tape, I’m sure that Mom would send a care package before the
summer.” Summer, when Bob as well as Jeanette worked, was the
season for non-budgeted purchases.

She was just looking at him. “Okay, it’s your life, your study.
I was just thinking what might help.”

“You’re cute,” she said, “bossy as hell but cute. There’s a
little squirrel up there spinning the little wheel in his cage
all day. I tell you about the breakthrough, and it goes
clockwise: ‘How can Jeanette use this to learn as much French as
possible?’ Then it goes the other direction: ‘How can I cheat
Jeanette out of as many kisses as possible?'”

“But they were *kisses*!” Who kissed whom was mostly a game. He
thought that she enjoyed it.

“They were kisses. If I needed to trade chores, you’d never
cheat me. But you think up these elaborate schemes to cheat me
over something which you get any time for the asking.”

Not like last night, he couldn’t. But he kept silent.

“And then the squirrel turns around again and whirls his cage
with plans to feed me a special breakfast for celebration. I
love you, Bob.”

“And I love you, too.”

“I know you do,” she said. His heart lurched at the statement.
“And I’m going to call on that love tonight. I don’t deserve
this; I had my way last night. But could I run two nights in
succession?”

“Three sixty five.” She would never believe it, but simply that
she desired something sexual from him was more erotic than any
position that contortionists could devise.

“I wouldn’t like that,” she said. “I love my gentle husband, and
all you other folk; but I love that crazy, busy, squirrel, too.
And I don’t have your facility — we wouldn’t do anything new.
It’s just that I *really* want gentleness tonight. And it’s
unfair….”

“Fairness has nothing to do with marriage. Anyway, fairness
would say that Bob has run much more than fifty percent of our
bed times. Let’s discuss this if the series doesn’t stop.
Anyway, you’re saying that you liked last night.” That was
incredibly more important. His memory of that ecstasy was marred
by the thought that it couldn’t have been very good for her.

“More than I could say.”

“Then you can have anything you want tonight.” He’d left himself
wide open with that, but she didn’t seem to be in a game-playing
mood.

“Then come here.” That was no painful task. They ended up in a
tight cuddle with the back of his butt just on the middle of the
bed, and about eight inches between her knee and the edge.

“Can you give the lecture like this?”

“I had visual aids,” he said. Really the map was necessary.

“Bring the Kleenex, too.” The nice thing about a sofa-bed was
that it came with a fine shelf along the head of the bed. He got
his books up there within reach, and the box on its side so the
first Kleenex was hanging down.

They settled back into the same position. A little
experimentation allowed her to hold the book open to the map
while his hand stayed on her breast. He talked softly into the
back of her neck, mostly resisting the temptation to kiss it more
often than the natural breaks in the story allowed.

He described the odd situation of “federates” in the late Roman
empire, which could be alternatively — even simultaneously —
nations invading the Empire and part of the Roman military
system. He briefly ran through the Arian/Athanasian split and
the decision to send the heretics out as missionaries. “So you
see,” he said, “most of those Germanic federates were disliked
for their Arianism as much as for any other reason. Most of the
Franks, however, were still pagans.”

Then he told the standard story of the conquests of Clovis and
his conversion to Catholic Christianity. “But all of this is
fairly dubious. Our primary source is Gregory of Tours, who came
centuries later and wasn’t the most careful of chroniclers
anyway. The…” He kissed the prominent vertebra where her neck
met her spine. “…end!” He kissed there again.

“Well the Pope is coming to celebrate the anniversary of his
baptism, and some politicians don’t like it. I don’t think it is
mostly about what actually happened.”

“No it wouldn’t be,” he answered. “Outside academia, inside nine
times out of ten, the battle is not about what happened in the
past; it’s about what the past means.”

She took his hand, which had been holding one breast or the other
for most of the lecture, and drew it to her mouth. She slowly
kissed each finger, pecking at them rather than drawing them into
her mouth. “Do you think that you could make very gentle love to
your wife?”

“Bad day?” he asked. It had certainly not seemed so.

She turned so that she was lying on her back beside him. “Lovely
day. I don’t want it to end.”

Well that was fine. Not that he wasn’t willing to gentle her
over some rough spots in her work life, but he didn’t want her to
*have* rough spots. Gentling for celebration was much better.

He began by sprinkling kisses over her face. He worked down to
her mouth and kissed that closed-lip until it opened by itself.
Then their tongues dueled before he broke the kiss to lick her
ears and throat. He kissed round and round her far breast in a
spiral until he reached the areola. He sucked the nipple once
before repeating the performance on the near breast. Then he
alternated licks and sucks, right breast and left, in what he
hoped was a random pattern. He kissed the spot where her breasts
met while his hand wandered down her belly.

He massaged her mons, pressing hard enough that the pad moved
over the bone rather than his hand moving over her hair. While
he was doing that, he kissed a slow path up her breast from the
bottom groove to the nipple on top and then sipped at that
nipple. He repeated that on the other breast. Her thighs spread
a little.

Responding to that silent invitation, he tickled the sensitive
flesh on their insides. While doing that, he kissed from one
nipple across the valley and up to the other. When her legs had
spread enough to make it difficult to tickle them simultaneously,
he brought his hand up to clasp her groin. Holding her thus, he
kissed up her body towards her mouth. His tongue slipped between
one set of lips as his finger slipped between another.

She welcomed both. Her knees raised and spread while her tongue
was licking his. As soon as his finger had gathered sufficient
moisture, he used it to rub the very edges of her inner labia.
That should be gentle enough. He returned to the valley for
light strokes before his lips returned to her breast. He played
with her nipple with lips, tongue, and suction. He stroked one
side of her valley and then the other. He kept his weight off
her and listened to her breathing.

When she was breathing shallowly and her abdomen had hardened
under his arm, he switched breasts and added a second finger.
Now he was sucking harder and licking the nipple less. He
brought more moisture up close to her clitoris. When she pressed
her hips down into the bed at the top of his strokes, he smiled
and released her nipple. He looked into her intent face.

Her frown didn’t fool him at all. She was on the road to
pleasure. He allowed his fingers to brush over her clitoris, and
smiled at her gasp.

“Bob, please,” she said. “I want you in me.”

He’d been concentrating so completely on maintaining his
gentleness that his erection had softened. Her appeal, however,
began to restore him. As he moved between her legs, she took him
in her hand, hardening him further. When he was in position, she
rubbed the head up and down her valley. He was stiff as a ramrod
by the time that she placed him and pulled him with her fingers.

Slowly, slowly, he moved inwards. Lushly, warmly, her tunnel
clasped him. Deeply embedded, he looked into her eyes.

“I want two more things, Bob,” she said. “I want the floor.” He
nodded, although greatly surprised. This wasn’t a family
meeting. On the other hand, in the present position he could
refuse her nothing.

“I’ve been happy the last two days because of the French,” she
began, “but not only that. Oh, you can move.” He did, still
gently. “Oh yes! Try to keep it slow. Anyway, you came home
while I was listening, and I shushed you, and you shushed. You
didn’t ask why.”

He almost explained that Jeanette wanting quiet was the reason
why. She’d decided because the broadcast was suddenly
comprehensible, and that was a good reason. But he’d decided
because she wanted it, and that was — if anything — a better
reason. But she’d shushed him again, and it was hard to
concentrate enough to put that into words.

He was trying to move slowly and not rest too much weight on her,
which gave an unusual flavor to their frictions. She was talking
in gusts, contracting a bit more tightly around him as the breath
rushed out. The sensations were exquisite, but they made
concentrating on her speech (to say nothing of controlling his
pace) that much more difficult. To bring her along, he began
pausing each time he was fully within her; there he shifted back
and forth a millimeter, rubbing his groin against hers.

“And this is the same thing, somehow,” she continued. “I want
something quite special tonight, and you don’t ask why — or even
what. You give me the lead because I asked.” She would never
see that her wanting the lead was, by itself, an incredible
turn-on. “I’ve felt about you like that before, since the track
team. Your love somehow supports me; like holding a child up to
put ornaments on a Christmas tree. I can do things, can enjoy
things, because Bob loves me.” He’d missed a transition there,
but he did love her; she knew it, and that was what counted.

He moved his hands onto her breasts and looked a question at her.
“Oh yes, Bob. I love when you do that.” So he caressed the
smoothness and played, still gently, with the pink nipples on
top. Voices stilled, they let their faces and bodies communicate
for them. Her face’s message was different from her body’s.

Her face expressed warm, calm, love; almost totally divorced from
the actions of their bodies. Her hands smoothed over his back
and arms, as if to coach him in the gentleness she’d asked. They
certainly expressed love, but it could have been love divorced
from desire. Her body, on the other hand, was answering his.
Not only had she spread her legs to clasp him, delightful as that
acceptance was; not only was she warm and wet for him, letting
him know of her desire as well as her love; she was now pushing
back to meet his thrusts. The motion was still slow and
deliberate, but it was clearly mutual.

As his need increased, however, hers seemed to increase as
rapidly. The gentle smile on her face turned tense, her touch
heavier. Her body firmed under his; her hands darted from one
place to another and gripped him where they alit. Her face began
to frown, and her eyes focused beyond him. It took obvious
effort for her to speak.

“Bob, please. Come first. Let me feel you.” He desperately
wanted to see her climax, but he’d said that this night was hers
to call. He deepened his stroke and changed the angle subtly.
Now the nerve bud under the head of his phallus rubbed the floor
of her vagina for the entire stroke. His pace evened, speeding
only slightly, but no longer pausing. He withdrew until the head
passed the lovely constriction at her entrance, and then slid
inward again until he was buried completely.

He still watched her face tighten as his own orgasm built up
pressure. She was staring at him again, searching his face for
something. She snaked her arms under his and scratched over his
nipples. Then she caressed down his back, down further. He was
conscious of her hands on his hips, the top of his thighs. But
mostly he was conscious of the tension building within him, the
pressure rolling up from those thighs to his neck. Then, just as
the pressure reached the top of his head, and he could feel the
seed pouring into his phallus, she pressed a finger joint just
back of his scrotum.

He drove into her. “Bob!” she cried. And another “Bob” after
each of his pulses. She pressed upwards against him and clutched
around him. He was one ecstatic erupting rigidity.

Then he was nothing. His next sensation was her gasps in his
ear, as he lay collapsed atop her. He was panting as hard as she
was, and too weak to move.

When he finally could, he shifted his weight onto knees and one
elbow. That popped him out. He reached the Kleenex box and
extracted three tissues. He cleaned himself off, and then the
sheet as best he could; she took one tissue for cleaning herself.

When those had been tossed towards the wastebasket, when he’d
turned off the light and she’d turned off the radio, when he’d
moved to his own side of the bed; then she snuggled back against
him. He held her belly for a minute, and she put her hand over
his and pressed firmly. He kissed the back of her neck. She
pulled his hand to the gap between her breasts and hugged it
fiercely. After that hug, she moved it to her breast. They
relaxed the little bit that eased them towards sleep.

“Have I been too selfish?” she asked.

“Heavens no. I love when you want something sexual from me.”

“Well I often want something sexual from you, sometimes even your
ingenious games. It’s just that I wanted something particular
this time.”

“Anytime,” he said, “that you want something particular from me,
let me know. Anytime…. Well anytime in private.”

She chuckled a little at the condition.

“I do love you,” he added.

“I know, Bob. That was what I was trying to say. I’m supposed
to respond with ‘I love you, too.’ And that’s true. But what’s
been so evident to me today is your love for me. It surrounds me
and cuddles me like your arm.”

So he cuddled her as lovingly as he could until they fell asleep.