Light-less Crumbs

All characters are, of course, therefore, not minors. And, in addition, they are all imaginary and fictional, as are the occurrences in this story. In fact, the only things that are real in this story are the music titles.

The story itself is both longer and much slower-developing than my usual short stories and is, in a manner of speaking, serving to train my ability to create longer prose. I'd tell you where to skip to the racy bits but were I to so do, you'd skip all my wordy exercise.

... The warm air smells of bergamot.

Kacharpari softly plays, mixing its notes into scent. Under my hands, her shoulder-blades stretch and relax - their tenseness loosening at the pressure. Not weight, not force - just the press of the base of the palm, gliding over the skin, over the bones, over the muscles. The clenched muscles unwind, even the nervous knots at the sides of the neck. The oil bowl leans against my thigh - its warm rim, offering another dip in the scented oil, is on my skin.

Gently, I drum the pads of my fingers down her spine, savouring the reverberations in her back and in my palms, down towards her sides, to dip the fingers of one hand in the oil and return to the spinal cord, upwards. Her back is so pleasantly warm that the warm oil blends into the skin as one. My hands tingle with the contact with her slick skin.

I lean forward, running my hands up her neck, its sides. Carefully. She is sensitive. The press of her hip against mine warms me and makes me hold my breath. My palms cup her jawline as I lightly lean my arms on her shoulders, savouring the feel of oil on my hands, on my chest. Just a bit of my weight on her back. Her hair smells faintly of honey, tickles my nose almost imperceptibly. Honey and bergamot.

The touch of her shoulders on my chest blends into the notes of Alturas as I shift backwards, sliding my hands and body over her back, inhaling the scent of oil and her body. She arches her back, just so very slightly, tantalising me with the undulation, the fleeting contact. She knows what it does to me, I am sure. Knows and uses the knowledge. She is wise, wise and cruel in her knowledge.

The temptation to touch her back with my lips is very strong. Surely, such a fleeting kiss, the foretaste of a kiss, just a bare lip-brush - surely it would not be electric, will charge my soul, will discorrupt me. My lips are dry, parched with wanting her - I am but helpless by the flow and ebb of her back, the swell of it, like a surf.

The cadence of the music dictates my rhythm. My hands speed up, slow down, stop. Slide over and cup the shoulder blades, together with La Partida. Her shoulders are strong. Too strong to control or subdue - they can only be lulled asleep by my languid strokes. In time to the words and the strum. Reverberations of touch. She rests easy under the traveling hands, relaxed and relaxing - not longer undulating under my chest.

I gently, oh so gently, run my fingernails down her back, lower, from the shoulder blades down, towards her lower back and hips. The scratches are not real - they are too light, just tickle. Even the tickle has no weight behind it, no pressure, no weight. Indeed, I must not pressure her. Not press. Just touch her back, her soul and her heat. She told me, oh, so recently, that she likes the slow touch. Oh, my fingernails swirl a spiral around each and every vertebra, the left hand racing the right in tardiness, then speeds up, obeying Bailando, Bailando.

Oh yes, obeying. My fingers move into a concentric race over her spine. I lean forward again, briefly, to blow cold air across her shoulders and down her spine. Contrast with the warm oil. She shudders, very very lightly, and I hurry to erase the touch of the cold air, with fingers dipped in the warm scented oil. I can almost imagine I hear the oil phial laugh at this my attempt to use it to repair hurt. After all - why are we here but to laugh at ourselves and at others. If I tickle her, if my fingers tickle, she will laugh. I flatten my hands, pulling them to me over her spine, flattening, caressing, and pressing harder. Will she notice the additional energy.

Indeed, she does. Arches back, resists the pressure on her back. Turns her body just slightly and I imagine how the oil glistens in the shadow, catching light over the vertebrae. I count them - running my thumb over them. One, two, three, slowly, four, five, how I wish I could, six, seven, touch them more and always. Surely, I can touch and they will retain the memory of the touch.

The bed creaks as I shift position, balancing on my knees now for a better angle, a wider reach. My hands sweep oil from her back down her body, towards her waist. I want to enfold her waist, circle it with my hands and fingers, as I trail down, until I feel the swell of her buttocks, rising away from her waist - the border of now and soon.

I put my palms together, crossing my thumbs and start running my hands across her waist, from one side to the other. I want to enjoy the sensation, to feel the swell of her buttocks. The warm air in the room is motionless, so I again lean forward, to gently blow cool air across her cheeks. Oh, I should not have done that. The scent of bergamot and oil are mixed with the scent of her excitement. It is already strong - she's very excited, early. Surely, it is not just my touch, my massage. Probably her imagination also working. Her excitement fuels mine, just as M'Bifo comes on. I inhale deeper - imagining taste, varying my hands' pressure on her hips, anything to increase her excitement. Pressing my chest against her, I slide my body back, down her legs. Her buttocks push against my chest and I shuffle my body, left and right, right and left.

She responds to the press of my hands and body and to O Vis Eternitatis. Pushes up, against me with her pelvis. I press down, back, and her body obeys my weight, resting back on the bed. I am preparing for my sculptor's role, kneading. She anticipates me, raising her hips, making her bum meet my hands. Her bum cheeks are firm, rounded. My hands knead her buttocks, one to a hand, one to a palm. They are small and muscular and she responds to my hands by clenching her bum as my hands hold its halves. I can hear sharp breaths, inhales as she clenches, exhales as she relaxes.

She will gasp soon, I am sure. She will gasp and moan and I will know that she is my putty, soft and oily and pliant. I press and circle my palm, one to a cheek, even rise slightly, to better press down, again to pin her hips to the bed. Limit her movement, at least for now. She will have it back, soon enough.

The roundness of her buttocks and the slickness of the oil combine to almost seduce me into a kiss. It is too early for kissing - there is much too much to touch, to sense, to enjoy. I will wait a bit more. But not passively. Sliding backwards again, I run my hands down her buttocks, rocking her bum side to side. She rocks back, pushing against me, Oh Salve Regina!

I stay leaning on her, rocking, and massaging her legs in long strokes. The skin on the back of her knees - it is sensitive, I know. So I pinch-pull my thumb and forefinger, from the backs of her knees up the legs in one long stretch. And yet back again. This tickles, I am sure. She tries to move her legs, to escape the light touch, but they are pinned under my weight. Yet I add more strength into my touch, not to tickle again.

Slowly, as I move my hands up her leg, I... or maybe her... separate them, spread them. My hands encircle her legs, pushing oil and energy up each leg, into her. My thumbs slightly, oh so very slightly, touch her lips and she shudders. Is she natural, is she shaved - I wonder. I try to remember, yet cannot. Probably natural. I hope natural. I am fortunate that I cannot see her, only feel. The heat from her lips, the almost unfelt slickness, quickens my pulse. I push away from her lips, back down the legs, everything to prolong the moment of touch and the excitement, as Yulunga drowns us both.

My hands move back up her legs and she flexes and rocks her hips, brushing against my knees. She cannot continue teasing me, can she. I cannot allow myself to be teased. To breathe slowly, to control my hands, to concentrate on the skin. Her body undulates under my long light stroke, from her calves, up her legs, over her buttocks and to her hips and waist and shoulders. Long and light. Long and light. Long and light. This is the litany against lust. Lust is the mind killer, is it not? I will face my lust and let it pass over me, until only I remain.

But that is fiction. Here and now - I gently pull on her hip, urging, encouraging, her to turn over, present herself. I can feel how she raises herself for a moment. Is she looking at me? Then - the oily touch of her buttocks and hip sliding against my knee as she turns over, to lie on her back. Her skin is very light, probably glistening with small streaks of oil, touching off a train of thought. Let me try - can I remember her beauty marks - there is one on the shoulder, a small one. There is one on her torso, under her left breast. Or is it the right.

The damned blindfold. I cannot see, not even under or around it. She lies here, nude under the dim reddish light and I cannot see her. My touch will have to do. I trail my fingers down her leg, then up, barely touching. Maybe my caress will sense-tempt her into removing the blindfold. Or, maybe not. A bet's a bet, I lost. My fingers encounter the swell of her breast just as Mariama invites me on.

My hands caress her torso, just touching the swell of her breasts. Circling around, feeling their contours. I will not touch her nipples, not yet. Leaning forward, I run my hands to her clavicles, tracing them with the tips of my fingers - she is quite so sensitive there, her shudder transmits into my hands, my arms, my shoulders. Into me. The shudder is an invitation, a call - to tap a slow rhythm against the clavicles, play slow music on her skin, Nan Sira Madi, listen to the oil's lisp as it drips from my fingers onto her neck.

I continue tapping the rhythm on her skin, downwards, towards her breasts and over them, over her stomach. My palms briefly touch her pubic hair. It tickles my wrists. It seems nicely trimmed, curly. What is its colour, its texture? I spread my hands widely - massaging her leg and her hand at the same time, flexing my fingers and gently pinching her muscles. My chest rests on her hip - I can feel her breast against my shoulder and the oil on my skin. My strokes lull me and her both, into a rhythm of hand and leg, up and down. I switch position, slightly, to better reach her farther leg and hand, and continue the massage.

My torso, my head are brought lower yet and closer to her stomach. The scent of her skin and the oil envelops me. It is a dark scent of dusk and skin mixed with the citrus. And I, weak-willed I, as my hands pull inward and toward, I revel in the sensation of my arms sliding over her breast and nipple and pubis. The hard nipple and the just-scratchy pubic hairs caress my inner arms. I purse my lips, oh to kiss her stomach, to touch her... but no - only to blow cool air over her skin. Her intake of breath, I almost do not hear it, but she shifts, her nipple brushes against my arm, stiff, only Because of the Night.

Quickly, away - I sit back, straight, adding more oil onto my hand on her stomach. The feel of more oil on her skin invites and entices me. But moving away, is an error. I feel her shifting, following my movement and pushing me back, to lie by her side, as she shifts, rolls over and onto me. Her legs pin my arms to the bed and I feel her pubic hair on my nose, sliding slowly towards my mouth, waiting for her Bab Al-Ashq to accept my tongue.