‘Absolutely,’ I said, smiling cheekily.
‘Well, if we’re going to fill it with water, my clothes are going to need to come off first,’ she said, glaring at me. She sat up in the empty bath and placed a hand on my cheek, leaning into me to kiss me. I didn’t know someone’s lips could taste better with every kiss, but hers did. She pushed me away and jumped up out of the bath. She pushed down on the plug and I turned on the taps. She sat on the ledge facing me with her legs either side of my knees as I was still kneeling in front of her. I leaned in to give her a kiss holding one hand behind her back as the other reached for the bubble bath that sat on the ledge behind her. She straddled me with her legs, holding me still in between them as I reached over and poured out the bubble bath underneath the running tap.
‘Do you think that’s enough?’ I asked.
She turned her head to watch me pour it in, laughing. ‘I think that’s going to be more than enough.’ I sat the bottle down beside me and I placed both my hands on her cheeks, kissing her lips gently, holding her head still as she held me in between her legs. Her body fell into the rhythm of our lips touching and her hips started to rock on the edge of the bath’s ledge. I loved the way her hips rocked. It was like her body’s dance, moving to the rhythm of us. The rhythm of how she felt with me. She was in her short black work dress. I took my left hand off her neck and slowly tickled up the left side of her inner thigh. She let out a sigh and her legs shook, releasing me from her hold. I quickly stood up and grabbed her hands so that she was standing in front of me, so close, nothing could come between us. I wrapped my arms around the back of her, so I could slowly unzip her dress. The long zip ran from the back of her neck down to the dimples in her lower back. When I reached the end, she took a step back from me. She stared right at me, if her eyes could speak, they would have saidwatch me.She wiggled her shoulders, making the short sleeves of her dress drop down to the top of her chest. She still didn’t speak, but her eyes made sure mine were on her. How could they not be, watching her undress was art. Pure beauty, that could never be recreated by anyone else. Her shoulders and hips started to sway as she danced her dress down her body inch by inch, exposing her skin bit by bit until she was standing there in nothing but her black lace bra and panties. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stand back any longer. I threw my hands around her and unclipped the back of her bra, letting it fall to the floor as her bare chest was pushed up against me. I moved my hands to either side of the top of her lace as I pulled it down her legs and she danced her hips from side to side just as she did with her dress, letting the tiny lace string fall to the floor. She was completely naked. I was fully clothed. I looked over her shoulder to watch the bath filling up too quickly behind us, overflowing with sweetly scented bubbles. I leaned past her gorgeous naked body to turn the tap off. I stood in front of her. I wrapped my left hand around her back and my right arm picked her up from the back of her knees. She screamed out in giggles as I placed her gently down sinking into the bubble-filled bath. Her smile radiated throughout the whole bathroom.
I threw my shirt over my head so I could lean my body further into the bath and kiss her, gently brushing my hands up her arms and lightly over her chest, softly brushing her nipples. Just as I did, her mouth opened away from my lips, sighing, and her back arched in the water. I stood up and stepped away from the right-side ledge of the bath. She lay amongst the bubbles, not taking her eyes off me. I crouched down at the back of the bath on the tiles, reaching my hands in to rub her shoulders and kiss her neck. Her hips rocked in between sighs. I caught her closing her eyes and biting her lip while still not taking the smile off her face. Her hand reached back into my neck as my lips were still kissing hers. She turned to the right as she put her lips on my ear. I could feel her breath and the soft wetness of her lips. ‘I want you,’ she whispered, ‘I want you with me. I want you in here. I want you now,’ she moaned. I felt her breath move into my body and down my spine as she spoke. I kissed the top of her head as I stood up, unbuttoning my belt and wiggling out of my jeans and underwear at the same time as I stood behind her. I walked around to the side of the bath as she exposed each of her feet up on either ledge. I stepped into the warm, bubbled bath, crouching down in between her open legs. Our eyes never left each other. I reached my right hand in to take hold of her lower back. Her breath became deep and shaky, her hips rocking further towards me as I lay on top of her. The water started to overflow onto the bathroom floor, and she pulled my face down towards hers whispering to me again. ‘I want all of you. Infuse me.’ I took a deep breath, controlling myself from her words, her body, her goddess-like energy. I gently pushed myself inside of her. Her eyes changed from craving to opening, to pleasure, to bliss. Her screams of passion echoed throughout the bathroom, haunting me with the best sound I had ever heard in my life.
We lay amongst the bubbles, her body lying in between my legs, her head resting on my chest and my arms wrapped around her waist.
‘I like this. I really like being here,’ I said, brushing my fingers on her shoulder.
‘Yeah, it’s fun having you here,’ she said.
‘So that’s how it feels.’ I muttered. Fuck, it did hurt, I thought. ‘I deserved that.’
‘Aren’t you having fun?’ she said, laughing at her own joke; I could tell she felt impressed with her comment. But bringing it up again made me tense. Tense at how I had previously treated her, but also wondering if she had really let the past go.
‘You’re more than fun to me, Emma. You show me a world way beyond fun,’ I said, squeezing her shoulders tight.
Emma sat up straight, turning her head back towards me to look at me. ‘Do you ever think about what the world is going to be like once we’re gone?’ she asked.
‘That wasn’t what I was expecting to come out of your mouth,’ I said, creasing my forehead, confused at her quick conversation change. She twirled around in the bath, lying on her stomach, still, in between my legs, her breasts pressed up against me just above my belly button. She was looking up at me, intrigued, waiting for me to dive in further with my thoughts.
‘Sorry, I’ve just been lying here relaxed in my own thoughts, and I just think about it sometimes, you know? Life and death. When my time will come and what I won’t be here to see and experience once I’m gone, what will change, how people will remember me?’ she whispered softly.
‘Still obsessed with the notion of time and legacy, I see,’ I said, brushing my hand along her back. ‘I thought that was just me.’ I joked.
‘I remember when you gave me your legacy spill. I still remember it. It impacted me a lot. I’ve thought about it at a couple of decision-making times in my life. It’s reminded me to stay true to what I really want,’ she said. She had a much better memory than me. I didn’t remember everything that we spoke about on our first night’s meeting. But it made me smile, how much she did. I rubbed my hands down her back, lightly massaging her. Her words tingled throughout my body, knowing I had created a lasting memory that had stayed with her for so long.
‘I had forgotten, I had given you that ramble,’ I said.
‘I really like the idea of legacy. I do think about life beyond me a lot. We’re always only ever a minute away from dying,’ she said. She spoke about death with almost too much ease.
‘Why do you think about death so much?’ I questioned her, my mind stopping in my tracks when I remembered exactly why she did.
‘I’m sorry. I know why, I shouldn’t have asked,’ I said rubbing both her shoulders.
‘I guess you know, seeing it so closely, so young, it just made me aware of my own mortality, how we never really do know when our last breath will be. And I guess that’s why I think about it a lot. I know that’s why I expect things to end,’ her voice drifted off.
‘Are you expecting this to end?’ I asked.
‘Every moment has an ending,’ she said, flashing me a half-smile.
‘No, I mean are you expecting us to end?’ I asked, her eyes met mine, she was looking right through me, lost in her mind.
‘I don’t know yet,’ she said, lowering her voice.
I didn’t know how I felt about her answer. I realised in this very moment I was falling in love. I couldn’t imagine a life without her in it. But‘I don’t know’was an understandable answer. How could we ever know the answers to the future? My hands brushed up and down her arms as I asked her more questions. ‘What do you think about when you ponder your own mortality?’ I asked.
‘I go to bed every night thinking about it. I ask myself, if I died tomorrow or if I didn’t wake up from this sleep, did I do everything I wanted?’ she said. ‘I know that people think the answer to that question would be something like, oh I wish I didn’t go to work today and went skydiving or jet skiing or something wild. But that’s not the thoughts that you have when you sit down and ask yourself that question honestly. What matters to me is if I treated people right, did I give everyone around me the real me and act out of my own integrity? At the end of the day, I think that’s all that matters. Sure, there’s more I want to see and do and experience and create, and I hope that I have many more chances in this life to do so, but it’s not a dying need or necessity,’ she said.
I wished I could see the world the way she did. ‘Can I ask you something?’ I said, blatantly asking another question.
‘Sure?’ She looked up at me.
‘Why do you paint? I knew she was talented; I could see it in her eyes, the way she lit up when she spoke about her paintings, she was born for it. And the way she saw the world came from her incredibly open, selfless heart. People like that in my world were rare, a rare talent that needed to be unleashed upon the world.
