Damon awoke the next morning to the smell of coffee. After a largely restless night he had fallen into a hard sleep around first light. Waking up now he was groggy and had difficulty placing where he was. The smell of morning coffee made him think of Claire, who usually arose before him and would bring him a steaming mug of coffee if he was still asleep once she had brewed it.
Damon sat up, still trying to orient himself, half expecting Claire to walk into the room, a mug in each hand. In the background he became aware of the never-ending "boom-boom" and it painfully began to dawn on him where--and when--he was. A gloom descended over him like a palpable weight, pushing down his shoulders and compressing his chest. He had difficulty breathing and tears of disappointment welled in his eyes.
Bobi appeared suddenly at the bedroom door holding two steaming mugs. For the briefest instant Damon thought it was Claire, that she had made it back safely somehow, but then he realized it wasn't her, but some interloper, cruelly mocking his misplaced hope. As she walked toward the bed more memories flooded Damon's awareness, more recent ones; memories that involved the taste of this stranger's lips, the smell of her hair, the feel of her breath on his face and then the fullness of his memory was restored to him, where he was and what had happened and what he had done. He teetered on the brink of guilt and despair when a voice checked his fall.
"Do you expect me to hold it to your lips or do you think you can manage it yourself?" the voice teased.
A large blue mug floated before his vision. Damon stared at the mug, then looked to the voice's owner. Bobi's sweet smile greeted him and gently pulled him further back from the edge.
"A straw maybe?" the voice teased again.
Damon carefully grasped the mug and put it to his lips. The hot liquid washed away the bile of disappointment that had risen in his throat and he allowed himself to lean back against the headboard.
Bobi squirmed next to him with her mug in both hands so she could lean against his shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
Damon kissed the top of her head. "Yes, I'm okay," he faintly croaked out. Then more firmly, "Coffee's good. Thanks."
"I hope you don't mind. I watched how you used the burner and thought I could figure it out. You were so sound asleep, I didn't want to wake you."
He kissed her head again in acknowledgment and they sat quietly for a long while sipping their coffee.
When the cups were set aside Bobi snuggled closer and wrapped her arms around him.
"Damon? You okay? You seem . . . troubled."
"I'm okay. Just . . . thoughtful, I guess."
"Last night you said that we would know what we had done was right depending on how we felt about it tomorrow. Well, now it's tomorrow. Is that what you're struggling with?"
"I guess a bit," Damon admitted. "But it's not so much a struggle as it's a reluctance to let go. After all that's happened there's just this huge gulf separating me from my memories, but they still manage to float across occasionally.
"How about you? Does it still feel right to you?"
"Yes, it does. It's an unfamiliar feeling, and strange, but it's not wrong."
She hugged Damon tighter.
"I guess we've both lost something," she continued. "You've lost your family and I've lost my God. But we've found each other so that we won't lose ourselves."
Damon grasped a handful of Bobi's hair and gently pulled her head back so that he could look into her eyes. Those soft, deep, brown pools where now lay his only hope and salvation. Whatever hesitancy had stayed him before had fled. He wanted only to lose himself in her warm, forgiving gaze and be closeted there forever.
"You're amazing!" He leaned down to kiss her.
She returned his affections enthusiastically and soon lay atop him, feverishly kissing his eyes, nose, forehead, and all over his face. She wore only a long t-shirt, Damon soon realized, and he himself was still completely unclothed.
Still kissing him urgently, Bobi, slid down a little atop him. Damon could feel her coarse pubic hair rub against his stomach and then his groin. He was already hard and could feel the heat of her pussy near his cock.
She tried scooting further down to rub against him, so he reached down to help guide himself into her desire. As he slid in she almost hummed in pleasure, then began to grind her hips against him. He thrust urgently into her, almost as if he were trying to reach ever deeper into her being. He soon could feel her pussy clench around his cock as she let out several short moans and a sharp gasp. He kept thrusting as he felt the pressure build inside him and then he wrapped his arms around her, almost crushing her to him as he burst within her with a loud "Aaaah!".
Bobi giggled as she resumed kissing him all over his face and head.
"Wow, what did I do to deserve this?" he asked between kisses.
More giggles. "Make a girl feel like that and this is what you get."
"Feel like what?"
"Oh, you know, like a Roman candle just went off between my legs; like you just plugged me into an electric socket connected to my pleasure generator. You know, just stuff like that."
"Sounds impressive."
"I had no idea how impressive it could be. Do it again?"
"Uh, well, if anyone could make it happen again quickly you could, but, um, you need to understand that for guys there's an issue of, uh, recovery time."
Bobi stopped kissing Damon and pushed herself up on her arms with an exaggerated pout. Gravity pulled her ample breasts down against the fabric of her shirt and Damon could feel them just brushing against his bare chest.
"How much recovery time?"
"Well, if I'm well fed and sufficiently pampered, maybe not all that much."
Bobi slowly lowered herself onto Damon, as if she were doing pushups, and gave him a long, slow, sensual kiss.
"Does that count for pampering?" she said when she had released her kiss.
"Yes, quite."
"And . . .?"
"Food?"
Another pout.
"Oh, all right, I guess."
Bobi rolled over onto her back with an exaggerated bounce and stretched her arms into the air.
"Eggs Benedict?" she suggested.
"Um, the chef whose specialty that is happens to be on vacation. Perhaps you would settle for Vienna Sausage under glass?"
Another pout. "Oh, all right.'
After breakfast, the two of them were cleaning dishes when they were startled by a loud explosion nearby. Bobi dropped a dish she was drying, which erupted into shards when it hit the floor. They both jumped back involuntarily. Out the kitchen window a plume of black smoke began to rise.
"Couldn't be more than a few blocks away," Damon muttered, looking out the window.
"Where?" Bobi asked, moving closer to the window. "Ow! Oh, crap! Oh, my!"
"What?"
Bobi pointed to one of her bare feet, already stained red with blood.
"Oh damn! A shard got you! Don't move, or you'll get cut some more. Here, let me get you out of the danger zone. I've got my slippers on, I won't get cut."
Damon stepped over to Bobi and bent slightly to put one arm behind her knees and the other around her back.
"Lean back and I'll lift you up," he instructed.
Bobi obeyed, but as he lifted her she let out a short gasp.
"Did I hurt you?"
"No," she replied pointing to the window. "Look!"
Damon swiveled with Bobi in his arms. Rising above the treetops first one, then a second floater appeared near the column of smoke. They hovered there for a few more seconds, then one moved off away from them. The two of them stood frozen, anxiously peering at the remaining floater, which hovered at the scene perhaps another half minute, then slowly drifted their way.
Bobi buried her face in Damon's shoulder.
"No, no, no. Not again! Go away, go away!"
"Shh, shh. It's alright. It won't come in here. And we need to get you patched up."
Damon carried Bobi to the hall bathroom, as much to get her away from the window as to patch up her cut. He set her down on the counter and lifted her foot to examine it.
"It's a bleeder, but you're really not cut too bad."
He grabbed a washcloth from a cabinet and pressed it against the cut until the bleeding slowed, then applied some anti-bacterial cream and a band-aid.
"There, good as new!"
Legs dangling from the counter, Bobi looked at him with a dour expression but didn't reply.
"There, there. It'll be okay, I promise," he reassured her with a hug.
"I doubt anything will be okay," she finally said, hopping down and hobbling down the hall. "I'd better clean up my mess."
Damon hurried after her and grabbed her arm before she got to the kitchen.
"Go to my bedroom closet and find some house slippers. Then you can come help me. I'll get a broom."
Sweeping up the ceramic shards from the kitchen floor, Damon cast frequent nervous glances out the window. Smoke still rose from the source of the explosion, but no more floaters were to be seen.
Bobi shuffled into the kitchen, now wearing slippers. She also looked nervously to the window.
Seeing her gaze, Damon tried to reassure her. "It's gone now. Moved on to wherever. Here, can you grab that dust pan and help me sweep this up? You'll want to keep those on when you're in here from now on. I've tried to get everything, but there could be a small piece or two I've missed. You don't want one stuck in your foot."
As Bobi knelt to help with the cleanup, Damon chattered on, trying to distract Bobi from her obviously dark mood. It didn't seem to be working.
Once he had disposed of the dish fragments and put up the broom, Bobi sought out Damon in the living room, where he had gone to take a quick survey of the street. She silently pulled him to her and hugged him tightly, laying her head to his chest.
"Bobi, I know how frightening those damn things are, but really, if we're just careful we'll . . ."
She silenced him by putting three fingers over his mouth.
"I'm not interested in talking about those damn things. I don't even want to think about them! But I do want to live a life, however much of that is left, whatever it might be. Will you help me do that?"
"Of course! I couldn't refuse you anything, not now."
"Then let's live."
Bobi took Damon by the hand and led him to the bedroom. She had him sit on the edge of the bed, then stood back a step.
"I am in need of instruction," Bobi stated matter of factly, standing before him with her arms at her sides.
"Instruction?"
"Yes, I need you to show me everything you know about pleasure, about how two people in love can make each other happy. Can you do that?"
