Lovers' Lost

They say romance is dead in today's world. The sunlit picnic has been replaced shady motels and decrepit beds. In the time, before now, a marriage was not considered legal until it was consummated in a night of sweat, passion, and, depending on the era, twisted sheets. Does that mean that most of us are married thrice over? That those nights of intimate passion have been subsumed by faceless ruts, all animal straining and pressure release? That "love" was in the hallowed company of the tanning stump? I thought so. I thought that romance was a thing dead to the drum beat of progress, and that was a good thing. The idea that sex was a thing of body and soul just seemed so... hokey. The fact that we could look up someone who matched our tastes, kinks, and proclivities and be fucking within the hour seemed to be such a better way of doing things. So much more civilized than this whole "love" idea I had read about.

At least, that was what I thought. The ancients believed in gods - something so foreign to us now. To them, they explained the universe. Storms were caused because they had made the gods of the air angry, and in their fitful wrath the heavens were thrown into disarray. Dams broke because the spirits of the river had not been appeased. You get the picture. Anyways, chief among them was the goddess of love. They venerated her above all else, for she was the force that warmed the bed on cold winters night, that cooled the blistering summer sun.

They had all sorts of ceremonies honoring these different gods and goddesses, but they faded into history as we lost our faith in the supernatural. The river gods were replaced with better dams, and the gods of the sky were conquered with cloud seeding. But gods do not just die, and their ceremonies do not just lose meaning because they are no longer practiced.

Anyways, back to me. Why do I know all this? The gods aren't even real, right? Wrong, at least in the case of the goddess of love. I cannot speak to the others, but I can tell you the story of how I learned of her existence, and maybe, just maybe, reintroduced her into the world. It all started with a girl named Christine. I was walking down Fifth Avenue on the way to release a little pressure after a long day, and by "release a little pressure" I mean "tie up my newest hookup and fuck her six ways from Sunday." But I digress. I was hurrying down Fifth Avenue when I saw her. Christine. Someone I had never seen before. That in itself was a shock - every man and woman of a similar age had at least seen each other when trolling for a fuck. Everyone was on the site.

You know that saying "stopped in their tracks?" Yeah, I did that. I know its cliché, but that is the only way I can think to describe - skidding sound, dust trail and all. I didn't stop just because I had never seen her before - while weird, that would not have swayed me from my path. I had a boiling need, and was blocks away from seeing that explosively satisfied. I stopped because she was beautiful. Gorgeous. Radiant. I have thought for years to find a way to describe her in ways that don't sound trite, to find the words and the language that could properly describe her. But I cannot. I felt like I was in one of those old movies where the hero turns around to see his beloved backlit with a halo, cherubic choir and all.

So, of course, I did what any rational, sexually frustrated man would do. I crossed the street and asked her if she would like to return to my room and fuck. That was the custom, of course. Sometimes we would see people that would strike our fancy, and, instead of the online process, negotiate things in the old-fashioned way. Much to my surprise, she neither turned me down nor accepted my offer. Instead, she asked me to dinner.

Now, looking back on things, I cannot believe how lucky I was. See, Christine did not believe in how people went about life. All the emotionless, animal fucking that people underwent was somehow distasteful to her. Lady Luck must have been on my side... or Lady Love.

So, that dinner went splendidly - we went to a local crepe stand - I can still remember what she ate. Florentine crepes. Unbeknownst to both of us, that was the first step of the ritual honoring the goddess of love - mutually agreed upon consumption of food - a "date" as they used to call it. Now, this would not have even mattered had we not met on the vernal equinox - the first day of spring. Looking back on it, this explains much. Everyone seemed to fuck a bit more on that day, and fuck harder.

Well, the "date" went lovely. It turned out that not only was Christine insanely attractive, she was also funny, smart, and wonderfully kind. We formed some sort of connection then. Maybe it was the day and the unknown ritual, or maybe it was just me letting my guard down, I don't know. But we did connect, and after hours of laughter and companionship, she did agree to return to my place. Part two of the ritual, complete. Go to a mutually agreed upon place of habitation with a carnal desire. I know I said Christine was not the type of person that bought into the way people fucked, but that doesn't mean she didn't have desire. And, not to toot my own horn too much, I wasn't too shabby looking either. There was a reason I always got my first choice in hookups.

Anyways, we went back to my place, ostensibly to watch some show. Strangely enough, when I got there, I felt no need to watch something. All I wanted to do was watch her. It seemed she wanted the same thing, as that show was never mentioned. To be fair, I didn't watch her for very long, but I would argue that one can see with their lips and tongue and hands. She melted into me, and, Goddess, I had never felt anything like it. She melted into me, into my lips. This wasn't some precursor, some gateway she had to pass before she had access to my cock. This was her sharing some part of herself with me, something I could tell she hadn't shared with many people before. Her hands roamed over my back as mine roamed hers, and I felt as if I could see stars. I have not experienced a kiss like that since, in all the years and all the times that I have kissed her since. I gently scooped her up and carried her to my bed, pausing only to remove our shirts. Step three was complete - exchange fluids in an emotionally charged manner. I know I describe these stages dispassionately, but I am merely copying them from a book I found from when this was done. Apparently describing the ritual in more explicit terms often caused the writers to lose control of themselves and search for the nearest person willing to fuck. Kind of hard to write an academic piece on these things if that happens all the time.

So, I laid her down on my bed, shirtless. We just kissed for a time. But as time passed, a need grew in both of us, unlike that I had ever felt before. As midnight approached, I grew harder than I ever had, and her gasps grew into moans into whimpers. I reached behind her and unclasped her bra (no applause please, I had plenty of practice), kissing my way down her chest to where her pants lay buttoned. Pants are much easier to remove than a bra, as are panties, and both were cast away in short order, as were my own clothes. Fully enthralled in the ritual, as was she, I climbed on top of her and whispered feather-soft kisses down her neck and collarbone. I did not take her, as I was accustomed. I felt there was something I had to do. As time advanced, I trace a glistening trail over her stomach. Eventually, words came unbidden to my lips, words I understood instantly to be true. I leaned down to her ear and whispered three incredibly powerful words, those required to begin the most important part of the ritual.

"I love you," I whispered as I slowly slipped inside of her. She gasped, and her arms wrapped around my back, tracing a pattern of pleasure and love that only the goddess herself can truly interpret. Our breaths and bodies became as one, and looking back on it years later, I can still not tell her actions from my own. We were locked in a sacred dance of sweat, passion, and twisted sheets, and could no more separate ourselves than a light can turn itself off. We stayed like this for what felt like hours, strained cries, grunts, and moans filling the air as we wrote our love on each other's backs, on each other's lips. As much as we loved every minute of this dance, we slowly began to realize we were waiting for something to drive us to completion. We didn't know what it was, but then the clock struck midnight and we stopped wondering. She shuddered around me and I exploded deep into her, both quickly falling asleep from the greatest orgasm we had ever experienced. On the last second of the first day of spring, we orgasmed together, and, in those seconds between orgasm and sleep, felt something the world had been missing for quite a while. Love.

So now I hope you believe me when I tell you gods exist. They do not have as much power as the ancients said they did, but they can still impact our lives, in ways I would argue are very beneficial.

What was the last part of the ritual, you ask? Very well, my story is finished and I was planning on retiring for the evening anyways. You see, there is no technical way to describe the last part of the ritual. It is too important, and too holy.

The last part, of course, was this:

Make love.