Kiss Of A Rose

Clothed in only the moonlight streaming through her window, Shelli drowsily

rolls over onto her belly, nestling pillows beneath her. The breeze that

caresses her flutters through the curtains above the bed like a lover's whisper

and carries faintly a hint of the fragrances from the flowers in full bloom, the

rose garden that is her pride and joy, even a monument to a joy once shared.

There is a pleasant ache that suffuses her body. She had begun at dawn and

worked until evening glimmered along the horizon in her rose garden. It is in

many ways a delicious sensation of muscles stretched and used after too long a

time of indifference. Indeed, if but for a moment, this pleasing pain distracts

her from the deeper ache in her heart, the echo of emptiness left by the recent

death of her husband.

In the hinterland of consciousness, gliding between reality and dreams, Shelli

wonders why the fragrance of the roses is suddenly stronger. A faint,

preternatural stirring of the baby fine hairs at the back of her neck causes

Shelli to stretch, though languidly, the muscles of her back and legs a slow

ripple.

She senses...what? It is as if someone is in the room with her, and yet, there

is no fear, even at the soft stirring of her hair being brushed aside.

~I'm~ dreaming, she tells herself as the scent of rose grows stronger, and a

gentle touch too smooth for human finger, softly grazes the back of her neck. It

is cool, silken moving unhurriedly along her shoulders.

'...dreaming...,' she sighs, as a long, slow glide along her spine strokes,

seems to stoke embers within her.

Dreaming or not, Shelli finds herself reluctant to move, to disturb this flowing

caress that touches her without ceasing. So light it is, she wonders why it does

not tickle, rather it leaves faint trails along her body as if of meteors,

bright and warm, as it journeys along her sides and over her buttocks, down her

legs and back again, faintly brushing between her thighs.

Shelli sighs, and rolls over. Suddenly, the sense of another presence in the

room is far more palpable. Yet, her eyelids are so heavy, it is all she can do

to barely open them...watch a shadow within shadows hovering above her.

Alarms go off in her head, yet they are distant and fade quickly. It is far

easier to believe she is dreaming, and perhaps she is, though the dream has a

sweet voice that whispers to her as she feels that maybe a butterfly has landed

upon her cheek. It is a voice at once familiar and strange, one she tries to

hear by straining to move deeper into sleep.

"As I upon my travels here passed this proud rose, it called to me," she hears.

"Look, it said, look at me...nature's penultimate beauty. How can you resist my

siren call? I but shook my head and smiled. Rose, I said to it, while you are

quite lovely, there is one lovelier still who awaits me...and though in your

company would I gladly spend time, yet must I be about my way to where she

lays."

Shelli feels the rose, for now she knows what it is, kiss her throat and move

slowly between her breasts, tenderly circling each one in a slow figure eight

back and forth. Tension is now flowing into her, but such a sweet tightness she

casts away thought for sensation and the words that whisper in the dark to her

and her alone.

"Ha, the rose did say in scorn, how could anything of earth compare to ME? I

smiled again and told the rose, perhaps it is an angel that I seek, or seeks me,

for truly she is of such beauty as to seem ethereal.

"Show me this beauty, demanded the rose, for until I have met such, I shall not

believe any may surpass my splendor."

The rose full kisses Shelli's nipples, and as eager buds they harden. The sweep

of the velvety bloom along her body seems to draw the breath from her, and she

finds herself breathing harder, faster, her heart beginning to pound as the

flower, which has found itself down to worship her feet now ascends with

agonizing slowness her slowly parting thighs.

She gasps, at the first touch of the rose upon her own passion's flower, already

dewy with desire. The tender touch is almost too much to bear as her own petals

swell, blossom...and the bud within eagerly rises up for the caress.

The rose then is gone...and Shelli sighs in frustration, wanting once again to

feel, if even for a moment...she whispers, "...please..."

There is silence, a suspension of time that seems to draw on into eternity. Then

comes the voice of shadow again, comforting in its familiarity, exciting in its

strangeness.

"I fear this poor rose has now wilted in despair, having not only seen but

tasted your sweetness. Thus, I offer in its place, my own kiss...knowing despair

will wilt me not, rather will desire grow a stronger vine..."

Nearly as tender as the touch of the rose are the lips that first lightly

brushes along Shelli's outer lips, yet far warmer than the now discarded flower.

Tenderly do they caress, and with infinite care to explore does a tongue weave

its way between and about her open bloom of desire. For the moment, she feels as

if she is a flower, and above her hovers a hummingbird that comes, not to feast,

but to savor with each languid lick, subtle suck. And the feel of those lips,

like the voice she does not know if she remembers or imagines.

A gasp escapes her as the tongue sinuously parts her, enters slowly, probing,

tasting...she reaches down, the fire within her so hot she feels as if a sun

grows in her womb...she reaches down and entangles her fingers in a thick

growth, eagerly pulling, yearning to have this dream reach its culmination.

There is warmth just above her body, a heat that though barely touching upon

hers, nonetheless seeps into her, fills her. She reaches down and there, yes,

there, a strong, firm throbbing stalk moves into her palm. Shelli holds it there

a moment, feeling the hardness within the silkiness of the tight stretched

skin...and with infinite slowness, guides it to her own aching need.

She takes him in, slowly, feeling him fill her bit by bit until at last their

bodies touch in soft, sweet collision. He is hard and long and she can feel him

faintly pulsing within the close and narrow channel, the sensation of

completeness...a feeling she thought she would never know again.

Tenderly, a kiss touches her cheek, her eyes, her lips. Now she can open her

eyes, thinks she opens her eyes, perhaps only falling further and further into

this dream for the face is vague and dark, yet there are eyes. Green eyes,

alight with inner fire and gentle humor...eyes she feels she could get lost in,

wander as if through a field of summer forever. Green eyes that seem to flow

from memory...

For the moment, together they join and do not move save for hands soft and warm

caressing. His are firm upon her but gentle, hers tender yet eager...for what

they feel is a long lean body of hard muscle and the scent of musky maleness

more potent than a full garden of roses.

And she hears him say...

"What use an eager stem without a flower?

'Tis but a weed to be plucked, discarded

desolate and lonely, left to wither.

Ah, for such proud stalk this fate's too sordid.

And how may bud longing to blossom,

find reason to bloom detached from the vine

that carries sap for unfolding's ransom?

Full petals spread best when drunk on such wine.

Yet more is needed for stem and flower,

if sweeter, stronger, and finer to grow;

to weather storms and circumstances sere.

What ist? Ah, beloved, 'tis this we know.

Affection's warmth, tender showers of care;

what nurture's most desire, this love we share."

Then the time of words is done as slowly they begin to move together, rhythms

ancient beyond memory, yet ever new and fresh. The poems now are written with

lips and tongues and fingers and bodies writhing together gradually faster and

faster, stronger. Synchronizing in motion, hearts beating as one, inexorably

approaching the great divide from passion to satiation, across the abyss of

climax, as if this phantom lover knew her as only one other man ever did.

Shelli feels as if she is a cauldron, and within her, this bar of white hot

metal drawing ever close to the melting point. Her legs wrap around his waist

and draw him closer to her as she feels the trembling of her body echoed by the

deep throb of him within her. The sound of labored breathing is the wind running

before the storm and when that storm breaks there is the thunder and lightning

of senses reeling nigh into oblivion. Shelli cries out, hears her name called as

if from a distance and all is lost in the swirl of sensation that blots out all

of the rest of the universe.

#

Morning comes all too soon, it seems to Shelli, as she stretches upon the bed.

Sunlight warms her, but not nearly as much as the warmth she felt through the

night.

"Heck of a dream," she laughs and wonders at the faint tingling of her skin, the

feeling of moist warmth lingering between her thighs.

She laughs at the thought that, during that most vivid vision, she might have

helped it along with her own nimble fingers. And in the midst of that laughter,

she realizes is the seed of possibility for a new life to begin even as she will

ever cherish the one she can only ever know in the treasury of her memories.

Shelli laughs again, joyously...until, upon rolling over onto her side, she sees

the pillow beside her...

...and upon it, a rose.

-end-