“Did you know”, said he, “that during WWII in Britain, an orange was considered a great luxury?”
She mumbled the barest of replies and he wondered if he had finally begun to bore himself as well as she. He put down his book,
British Wartime Necessities
, and pondered a moment.
There they were, both sitting up in bed, he with a book and she with a magazine, their end-table lamps burning, like an ancient pajama-bound couple who had grown so used to each other that they scarcely acknowledged one another.
Complacency, he thought. This is the relationship-killer, the seed of a useless weed that grows up to choke everyone who has the misfortune to be planted in its poisonous soil. No, not tonight at least, he thought. Then said aloud, “Not tonight!”
“Hmm?”, she said, her head still buried in her magazine.
“What was that, darling?”
“Oh”, he said, “I’ve got an idea”. And with that he made his way to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door and fumbled in the fruit tender, and selected what he thought a suitable fruit for the evening.
“Pomegranate?”, said she.
“Pomegranate.”, He replied.
Pomegranates, at about a dollar a piece, were one luxury she could afford; ever since she was small she enjoyed this succulent fruit, with its vibrant colors of red, pink and green, a delight to the eyes, and its clusters of juice-filled sacs, luscious morsels that begged to be tasted and which rewarded the taster with an unrivaled sweetness. She felt confident the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden wasn’t an apple; it had to be a pomegranate.
He watched her deftly score the skin of the fruit with the paring knife he brought. He admired her small, delicate hands as she broke open the fruit and picked out a cluster.
They still sat on the bed, as if they were still reading, but he had moved closer to her, eyeing her every motion. It was a simple pleasure she experienced, this pomegranate-eating. It aroused him.
As she bit into the first sac he admired the sensuous curves of her mouth; her full lips extracted all the juice she could muster. These same lips were stained with the juice now, and they were a deeper, more inviting scarlet than any lipstick she possessed. He moved to kiss her and as their lips met, she gave a light laugh.
“Pips,” she said. She gently removed them and placed them on a coaster where she usually placed her evening cup of tea.
“Pips,“ he said, and he kissed her again, this time more deeply. His hand caressed her soft blonde hair; she really was beautiful, he thought, as stunningly-beautiful as ever, and he must never, never take her for granted. She sighed softly as he added to this intense invasion of her mouth; she loved how the sweetness of the fruit and the magic of his kisses blended so marvelously together. She tingled now and felt responsive to every touch.
He began to kiss her neck as she grabbed another cluster of fruit and sucked on it; she wasn’t as nimble with it now because his kisses were distracting her – exciting her.