Dance

He watched her, dancing.

She was the one dancing, of course; while he could remember a time, back in his youth, when he might have danced, the time was long past now. But she loved to dance, loved to let the music wash through her, working magic in ways neither of them could completely understand. She loved to sway and sweep and twist and tremble as her body was overtaken, as it was possessed. It was better, sometimes, than sex could ever be – not because he, or any of her partners, was less than able, but because there was no peak, no high point that led to an inevitable dwindling of pleasure. It went on, and on, as long as she wanted and had the strength to move and be moved.

She loved to dance. And he loved to watch.

This time, they were in a bar, with friends – more hers than his, though he got along well enough with them all. Her friends had either accepted long ago their strange relationship, the mentor-father figure-lover who encouraged her to fall in love with others, who was always there to fall back upon when they left or she left or things simply became untenable and she wished for freedom again. They had accepted his constant presence in her life; and to be honest, more than one of them had envied it, though none of them would ever dare to make advances. Just because he believed in love that could reach in any direction didn't necessarily mean

she

would be as open-minded.

She was, after all, not much younger, but young enough to believe that being possessive was the only means to security. He knew that, and he indulged her jealousy to a point, as hypocritical as it might be; certainly, he kept his flirtations out of her sight, and to her friends he seemed as unapproachable in the terms of desire as any figure of myth and legend.

None of which was really important that night, as the air seemed to shimmer and she to float within it; all that mattered to him was that she was dancing, and when she danced, all was well in the world.

Eventually, a slow song came along, and she made her way through the crowds back to the table. Her chest was heaving, a sheen of sweat on her shoulders and cleavage turning her skin red beneath the lights. Laughing, she kissed him and sat down, sparklers of joy in her eyes that he could feel being ignited in his as well. When she was looking at him, the rest of the world seemed to fall away. "Are you having a good time?" she asked, stealing his glass of ale and taking a long swallow. When she looked up again, her upper lip was outlined in foam.

With his thumb, he wiped it off, and laughed when she sucked the digit into her mouth to clean it. Her tongue wiggled against him, and she raised her eyebrows invitingly. He looked over, and her friends had all disappeared. He slid his free hand beneath the table and let it fall on her bare thigh. Slowly, his fingers stroked their way upward, and he could feel her whole body tremble. He let the side of his hand press against her, the thin silken fabric sliding over his skin, and he could feel the heat as she rocked her hips forward. Deliberately, he slid his hand up, pushing against her clit.

She gasped and leaned over to kiss him, her tongue teasing its way between his lips. An electric shock seemed to ripple through his body, the hair standing up on his arms, his cock beginning to swell against the fly of his trousers. He could hear her friends' voices somewhere in the mix of sound surrounding them both, but only as if they were calling from another room. He hooked his finger in the elastic band where her panties clung to her thigh and slid behind it. For a moment, she let him caress her, and they continued to kiss. He could feel his heart racing, and he slid forward in the chair. Her breath was hot against his cheek.

Suddenly, she pulled away and stood up, her eyes shining, her friends arrayed behind as if she were Aphrodite and they her accompanying nymphs. She bent down again to whisper in his ear: "Don't go anywhere. I want to go home with you tonight." Then she spun away, her skirt flying up over her thighs like curtains parted by the wind. His eyes followed her, as they always did; even as she found some younger partner on the floor, even as she swayed, her hips pressed tight against his, her hair falling back over her shoulders like water. His eyes followed her without rancour, without jealousy, and he lost himself once more in the poetry that her body was in motion.

He watched her, dancing, and could not help but love her more.

Late that night, in a quieter room, lit only by moonlight filtering in from the fields, he watched her moving again, and he was equally entranced. She rode above him, her arms folded behind her head, rocking and writhing in rhythm with his thrusts, each time seeming to rise higher, to float above him like some ethereal creature, but then sliding down to the base of his cock once again with a fire in her eyes that was definitely of the earth. She moaned, reaching down to place her hands on his chest, her fingernails teasing down through the tangle of hair to his belly, and back up to his nipples, flicking them lightly (something he would never have believed could be pleasurable before knowing her) until he groaned and swelled thicker inside her.

He reached up blindly, needing her flesh beneath his palms as well, and his hands found her sides, slid down to her hips. One hand slid down his body again to where they joined, and she stroked her clit as he pulled her down hard to meet his thrusts. She bent her head back, breasts squeezed between her upper arms, nipples taut, and cried his name into the night, so loud he swore he could hear an echo reply moments later ...

Then he realized that voice was his own, moaning from somewhere deep in his throat as she gripped him tighter than ever, as she slid slickly up and down his hardness, as he felt the rising pleasure inside him hit that point where there was no more holding back, and he thrust one final time, reaching somewhere deeper than he'd ever felt before, and burst, his heat spilling into her, triggering her own reaction a moment later, both bodies moving in perfect, harmonic pleasure, voices and souls mingling as they cannot help but do when any two share their secret hearts in the way that the truest lovemaking is. And all the while, he watched her, each moment only more perfect than the rest.

After they had slowed, and she was lying languorously in his arms, he kissed her softly and thanked her for everything she was to him. She kissed him back, letting her palm slide over the curve of his middle-aged belly to stroke his soaking-slick cock once again, and bent her head to whisper in his ear:

"I don't know why you say that you don't dance with me."