What happened then was something neither Marni nor Web had expected. She felt his tumescence press against the nest of curls at the apex of her thighs, and it was so intense, so electric that she recoiled and, in a burst of emotion, began to cry.
“Web … oh …” she sobbed, tears streaking down her cheeks and into the hairs of his chest. “Web … I … I …”
She couldn’t say anything else. Her crying prevented it. He held her head tightly to his chest with his left arm and ran his good hand over and around her naked back, knowing that he could easily be inside her but ignoring that fact because, at the moment, her emotional state was far more important.
“It’s okay. Shhhhh. Shhhhh.”
“I want,” she gulped, “want you … so badly, but … but …”
“Shhhhh. It’s okay.”
She wiped the tears from her eyes, but they kept flowing. She felt frustrated and embarrassed and confused. So she simply gave herself up to the outpouring of whatever it was and waited until at last the tears slowed before trying to speak again.
“I’m sorry … I didn’t mean to do that … I don’t know what happened …”
“Something’s bothering you,” he said softly, patiently. “Something snapped.”
“But it’s awful … what I did. A woman has no right to do that to … to a man.”
“I know you want me, so you’re suffering, too.”
She raised wide, tear-filled eyes to his. “Let me help you.” Her hand started back down. “Let me do it, Web—”
He flattened her body against his, trapping her hand. “No. I don’t want that.”
“But you’ll be uncomfortable—”
“The discomfort is more in my mind than my body.” Her tears had instantly cooled his ardor. He allowed a small space between them. “Feel. You’ll see. Go on.”
She did as he told her and discovered that he was no longer hard. Her eyes widened all the more, and she suddenly grappled with her pants, tugging them up. “Youdon’twant me …”
He gave a short laugh and rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.” His gaze fell to catch hers. “Of course I want you, sunshine. You are my sunshine, y’know. You’re bright and warm, the source of an incredible energy, but only when you’re sure of yourself, when you’re happy. Something happened just now. I don’t know exactly what it was, but it’s pushed that physical drive into the background for the time being.”
Marni wasn’t sure what to think. She nervously matted the hair on his chest with the flat of her finger. “It used to be that nothing could push that physical drive into the background.”
“We’re older. Life is more complex than it used to be. When I was twenty-six, sex was a sheer necessity. It was a physical outlet, sure, but it was also a means of communicating things that either I didn’t understand or didn’t see or didn’t want to say.” His arm was beginning to throb. Shifting himself back against the pillow, he drew Marni against him, cradling her with his right arm, letting his left rest limply on the sheet.
“If I was still twenty-six, I’d have made love to you regardless of your tears just now. I wouldn’t have had the strength to stop, the control. But I’m not twenty-six. I’m forty. I have the control now, and the strength.” He paused for a minute, but there was more he wanted to say. “I haven’t been a monk all these years, Marni. For a while I was with any and every woman who turned me on. Then I realized that the turn-on was purely physical, and it wasn’t enough. Maybe I’ve mellowed. I’ve become picky. I think … I think that when we do make love, you and I, it’ll be an incredibly new and wonderful experience.”
To her horror, Marni began to cry again. “Why do you … do yousaythings like that, Web? Why are … are you so incredibly understanding?”
He hugged her tighter. “It hurts me when you cry, sunshine. Please, tell me what’s bothering you. Tell me what happened back there.”
“Oh, God,” she cried, then sniffled, “I wish I knew. I was so high, so unbelievably high, and then it was like … like this door opened somewhere in the back of my mind, and in a lightning-quick instant I felt burned to a crisp, and frightened and nervous and guilty …”
He held her face back. “Guilty?”
She looked at him blankly, her lashes spiked with tears when she blinked. “Did I say that?” she whispered, puzzled.
“Very clearly. What did you mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe … maybe it’s that we haven’t been together long …”
“Maybe,” he returned, but skeptically. “You’ve been with other men since that summer, haven’t you?”
She nodded. “But it’s been a long time for me and … maybe it was too easy and that bothered me.”
“You’ve always been honest with me, Marni,” he chided softly. “Tell me. These are modern times, and you’re a fully grown, experienced woman. If you met a guy and felt something really unique with him, and if he felt the same, and the two of you wanted desperately to make love, would you hold out on principle?” When she didn’t answer, he coaxed gently, “Would you?”
