He ran his fingers through my hair and tucked a few strands behind my ears.Then he kissed the side of my cheek.I love you, Stella.I love you; I love you; I love you.
The words sent a shock wave through my system.I felt frozen, paralyzed.I couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond to his statement or the series of kisses following because time had broken just then and frozen us both in this ambiguous hour of dark.I mouthed that I loved him too, that I couldn’t believe he could love me like this, that I didn’t know he possessed this much humanity.
On the physical front, my legs weakened.I stumbled as he held me closer to him.Aster caught me in his clutch and walked me to the couch, where he set me down and posed me with my legs crossed and my arms folded across my lap.I saw a dark spot near the top of his boxers.He took them off and stood erect before me.
“Please join me,” I said.“I feel too alone down here without you.”
To the end of the world and back.
I parted my legs and he climbed over me, planting one knee on either side and then cupping my chin in his hands.
“Aster, do you mean it?Do you mean this?”
I could feel him against me.I could feel the stickiness of his member hard over my belly, waiting to enter from below.And I wanted it.I shivered all over and grabbed onto him.I wanted him to keep going and never stop.I wanted to keep touching him like this, to know that he’d always come back to me, to know that I mattered more to him than anything else.
Oh, Aster, what?he challenged, responding to my earlier moan.
“I…” The words faltered.I wanted to choke on the energy of the moment.“I love you.Please don’t go away tonight.I want you to stay with me forever now.”
Aster’s lips parted in a delighted grin.He let go of my chin and pressed on my nose with his index finger.I promise you I will never leave you, Stella.Not while you draw breath.We will ride to immortality together.
I took a breath.
What’s that?he asked.
“Nothing,” I stammered.
He placed his hands on my shoulders and kissed my collarbone and the center of my neck.Then he straightened.Say my name,he said.
“What?”
My name.Say it.
“Aster?”
He flashed a dirty smile.Say it again.
“Aster.”
Again.
“As—”
He covered my lips with a kiss.
“—ter,” I finished, again breathless.
I had no chance to lie down before Aster threw me onto the cushions.Aster crawled over me.He planted his mouth over mine and sucked the air out of my lungs while infusing me with a new energy of his own.He entered me below and I grabbed onto the cloth cushions of the couch for support while he began riding me in and out, in and out.I relaxed.I basked in the reality of the moment, the feeling that Aster could provide all I needed.When I felt ready, I released the cushions and grabbed Aster instead, and I realized that I never could have loved anyone else.
THE MORNING
I fell asleepthat night in my bed on the second floor, with the drowsy blue comforter thrown casually to the floor by my side and my arms wrapped tightly around Aster as he slept beside me for the first time.I didn’t dream, but every now and then I half awoke and found him still next to me, breathing, human in a way that he had never been before.
When I woke up in the morning, I reached for him, but found him missing.My eyes flew open.I studied the sheets first, crumpled and strewn unevenly across the bed in a reflection of our recent activity.The dated alarm clock on the opposing bedstand gave the time as 11:48 in backlit red numerals, almost noon.
My unexpected solitude cast a confused haze over me.“Aster?”I asked, wiping the sleep from my eyes and standing up naked from the bed.
Briefly I feared that everything between us last night had been a dream.I looked at the bed itself in reassurance of its reality, that we really had gone all the way, that he meant it when he told me he loved me.
