Chapter 11

In the close, palpable silence of a stranger's bedroom, Janice was primed to notice everything -- from the sweet, almost narcotic fog that hung in the air to the heat radiating from her body, reflecting off of Mel's as they lay tangled in the large bed. She felt good...good from the navel out in all directions. She knew there was a goofy contented smile on her face and the knowledge came as a revelation to her. She could count her pre-Mel sexual experiences on one hand -- two brief flings and one serious year-long relationship that ended badly -- a hundred or so sticky, passionate fumblings and never once the fuzzy-warm payoff of afterglow. She had written it off as romanticized claptrap...until she met Mel. Is that all it takes? The right person? Some small fraction of her suspected that the answer could not be reduced to something as fundamental as chemistry. Like all truly good things, love did not require close scrutiny. It simply was.

She lay quietly for some time, absently fingering feather-light swirls upon Mel's exposed skin while she admired her exquisite profile in the pale moonlight. She was visibly moved by the effect. An angel...I'm in love with an angel. "I deserve this," she said aloud.

"Hmm...wha'?" Mel responded groggily.

Smoothing sweat-dampened hair, Janice whispered, "Shh...go back to sleep."

Mel nuzzled Janice's neck, gazing up with sleep-heavy lids. "I don't wanna miss anythin'."

"Believe me, sweetheart," replied Janice. "There's nothing I could do alone that wouldn't be more fun with you. You warm enough?"

"Ummm." Mel smiled against the hollow of Janice's neck and curved an arm around her waist. "I had a real good time tonight."

"Me, too." Janice kissed a crown of dark hair and gathered her close. "Yep," she sighed. "This must be heaven."

"Until sunrise anyway," replied Mel. She wasn't by nature a clockwatcher, but minutes and hours had never seemed so valuable as they did tonight. "What time do you s'pose it is?"

"Don't know, don't care," replied Janice airily.

Mel sat up quickly, as if stung; the blanket pooled unnoticed around her waist. "And it doesn't bother you that we only have a few short hours left together?"

Janice propped herself up on one elbow. "Mel, honey, the sun is going to rise tomorrow. No amount of wishing will change that. I simply choose not to dwell on the inevitable."

"Cynic," quipped Mel, groping for her glasses on the bedside table.

"Realist. There's a difference." She swung her feet to the floor and stood.

Mel caught her by the wrist. "Now I've gone and chased you outta bed."

"Oh, heart," Janice replied. "You could never do that. However, " she said, reaching for the dressing gown at the foot of the bed. "I do have to visit the little archaeologist's room."

Mel's lips curved in a playful line. "Oh, allright, if nature calls..." She watched as Janice thrust one arm into the flowing sleeve of the gown. "No. Don't," she said, capturing the hem of the garment in her fist. A smouldering gaze lingered over sculpted abs and firm, pert breasts. "It'd be like throwin' a tarp over a Da Vinci."

Janice lifted her eyebrows. "Mel, it's cold in here."

Mel migrated to the spot left warm by Janice's body and replied pointedly, "But it's warm in bed."

"I can't argue with that kind of logic." Janice stepped out of the gown. "Be right back."

Mel pushed the glasses up on her nose and said, "Besides, this way I get to see those two cute little dimples on your backside."

Janice scowled and looked over her shoulder. "The woman's a sucker for dimples. Who knew?"

"I love everythin' about your body," she purred, her voice dissolving into a slow, hypnotic drawl. "I could be a lifetime memorizing every curve and swell... " Her finger traced a sizzling path to Janice's hip. "...every little scar and mole -- " Janice cleared her throat and raised one eyebrow in a dramatic gesture. "Beauty mark!" Mel amended with a sly smile. "Every little beauty mark."

"You are so good for my ego," laughed Janice. She knelt on the bed and met warm, parted lips halfway -- quick peck flowered into passionate kiss. Mel's hands worked in concert, one at the small of her back, pulling her inward, the other -- her strong right hand -- groping a full, pebbled breast until Janice groaned into Mel's mouth. "Wait wait wait..." she gasped and pulled away with a feral grin. "Hold that thought."

Mel reclined into a cluster of pillows and pursed her lips in an audible pout. "Hurry back," she cooed as her hands curved provocatively beneath her breasts. "I'm missin' you already."

Janice was momentarily transfixed, her mouth watered -- but her bladder made a convincing argument. She held up a finger and looked Mel seriously in the eye. "One minute." She turned, navigating the moonlit room with unseemly haste. At the dresser, she caught sight of her featureless profile in the dark mirror; she gave Mel's hazy silhouette a considering look as if something had only this minute registered. "Da Vinci, huh? Well, at least you didn't say Picasso. What would I do with a third breast anyway?"

"More importantly: what would I do with it?" quipped Mel. She folded her glasses with care and lay them on the nightstand. There was an audible click before soft light illuminated the cul du sac and spilled into the bedroom proper. Mel laced her fingers behind her head and stared at the ceiling dappled with shadows and water stains. "How's it goin' in there? Need any help?" she inquired facetiously.

"No, thank you. I've been doing this alone since I was 2."

Over the flush of the toilet Mel quipped, "You didn't tell me you were a prodigy!"

Janice glowered at Mel as she soaped and rinsed her hands. "Oh, I'm gifted, darlin'." She tossed the towel over her shoulder and snapped off the light, groping her way to the bed, bunging her toes into the dresser only once -- "Gotdammittohell!" -- before sliding beneath the blanket Mel opened for her. Sucking a breath between her teeth, she growled, "Stupid place for a dresser anyway..."

"Poor baby," crooned Mel; she lowered her voice a notch. "Let me kiss it and make it all better." She suckled on the soft hollow at the base of Janice's ear eliciting a groan of satisfaction. "You don't mind if I start at the top and work my way down now, do you?"

Janice closed her eyes, arching her throat into the kiss and replied, "As long as we both get there, sweetheart."

"Oh, don't you worry about ole Mel," she purred, straddling one of Janice's powerful thighs. "Now...where was I? Oh yes...beauty marks..." She drew her index finger beneath Janice's ribs, sending a shiver across the taut muscles. "Janice... what's this scar here? I don't ‘member this."

Janice replied without opening her eyes. "I was 10...pitched right over the handlebars of my bike." Warm lips drew a cool, burning line across her skin. "Have you seen my appendectomy scar?" she quipped.

Mel traced the livid pink scar with her tongue before planting a kiss in the well of Janice's navel with the admonition, "You should be kinder to your body." Janice merely clucked her tongue and shrugged while Mel continued her macabre inventory. It didn't bother her to be the object of such fervent scrutiny; she had no desire to keep secrets. Mel's fingers gently skimmed the starburst-shaped scar where the neck and collarbone joined. "This is new."

"Gunshot, three months ago in Istanbul," Janice replied lightly, even as she began to flex and release the muscles of her thighs. "Never step between a man and the woman he's battering without first checking him for weapons. That's a little piece of advice from me to you."

"Ohhh, Janice," Mel's face was a strange combination of fear and regret and desire. "I wish I had been there for you. Does it hurt much?"

"Let's not talk about pain," Janice replied. "Tonight is about pleasure." Her own breath quickened as Mel rocked, head thrown back, full lips parted in shameless ecstasy. "You're so beautiful," she murmured. Mel's knee, so advantageously placed, struck gold. She grasped Mel's hips as her own began to roll and sway in time with her lover. "Mine. My own flawless Mel..." she whispered as her heart clenched in joyful empathy.

"What?" Mel slowed her rhythm, breathing shallowly through her mouth as she tried to focus on the face beneath her. "Did you say somethin'?"

"Oh, God, Mel...whatever you do, don't stop!" Her heart hammered in her chest while the rhythm of their bodies slowed to a steady, less frenetic, ultimately less satisfying pace. She discovered, to her grief, that she could think...but only just. "Now -- what is it?"

Mel narrowed her eyes. "Did you call me... ‘flawless'?"

Janice reached up, touching Mel's glistening face with a barely contained smile. "You got a problem with that?"

Mel stopped all motion, screwing her face into a scowl. "You need glasses more than I do. What do you call this?" She lay a finger atop her right breast.

Janice squeezed her eyes shut and pounded her forehead with her free hand. "Wait...don't tell me. I know this one!"

Mel groaned and slapped her playfully across the cheek. "No, silly...look closer."

With little effort, Janice rolled Mel onto her back, straddling her sleek torso while pinning her arms above her head. "Well, looky there..." She made a show of examining the circular birthmark above what was otherwise a perfect breast. "How'd I ever miss that?"

At the first touch of a warm, wet tongue, Mel stretched and groaned, weaving her fingers into Janice's as first one breast, then the other was suckled upon until the nipples were aching peaks. She could feel the comforting weight of her lover's breasts, heavy and aroused against her ribcage, and the unparalleled warmth of her center as it married with her own. Articulate thought was the first casualty. "...so wet...fer me..."

"For you..." Janice bit an erect nipple, slavered her tongue around it. "Because of you. Now, can I finish what you started?" Green eyes met blue in a serious gaze as she transferred Mel's grasp to the spindles on the headboard. "Don't you let go," she warned in a low, throaty voice, her fingernails grazing the insides of long, supple arms. "The minute you let go...I stop."

The threat was implicit in word and tone. Mel licked her lips, trapping a corner of flesh between her teeth. Lips and tongue, white hot against glistening pale skin, murmured little endearments as they made lazy but determined progress down the length of her quivering, eager body. Legs parted, enveloping Janice's retreating form in a heady, fragrant embrace until her ankles crossed at the small of her back, drawing Janice into a needy union of flesh and teeth and tongue. At the first stroke, the master stroke - broad and rough and achingly slow - her hips left the bed in an instinctive spasm. Prickly, breath-snatching sensations, like tiny heart attacks, radiated outward from her groin. She screwed her eyes shut, in delicious agony. Hands, damp with sweat, closed into tight fists, wringing discordant squeaks from the wooden spindles of the headboard as Janice began her work in earnest, with a reverence generally reserved for prayer - the body as a temple. Minutes later, gathering breath for a scream, Mel's body arched like a bow under the expert ministrations of a devoted worshiper.

Janice let the front door close with the care of a long-time resident. "Make way! Hot, hot!" She moved briskly across the verandah clad only in one of Jack Greenway's voluminous shirts, balancing a thick slab of buttered sourdough bread atop the mug of hot tea. "Your tea."

Seated on the glider, Mel wordlessly opened the heavy blanket with one hand while accepting the proffered mug with the other. She was careful to hold the brimming hot liquid away from her as her partner situated herself in the warm niche of her hip. Once the glider had settled to a near standstill, she cooled her tea with a breath before taking a sip.

Janice bit into the slab of bread she had cut for herself and observed Mel over its glistening buttered surface; the blue eyes that returned her gaze were casually expectant. "Wha'?" she asked, her teeth sunk into the cottony-soft bread. She chewed and swallowed hurriedly in an effort to expedite the conversation. "Something wrong with your tea?"

"I can't believe you actually bit me." Mel sipped tea through a tight grimace and tried to sound angry as she said, "You're insatiable," but the phrase came across as more compliment than indictment.

"I barely even broke the skin," Janice argued, pausing to lick a dollop of sweet butter from her fingers. "It didn't even bleed."

"Still an' all, you bit me."

"Hey, you could've let go at any time, remember?" Janice tucked her bare feet beneath her like a bird, commandeering a little more of the blanket for herself. "I think I sprained my tongue, if that'll make you feel any better."

Mel looked horror-stricken for a moment as a thought struck her. "What if it scars?"

"It won't," countered Janice in breezy counterpoint.

"But if it does..." Mel persisted. "I mean, how does one explain bite marks there..."

Janice pulled away slightly, until she could no longer feel skin touching skin. "Why would you have to explain? C'mon, Mel," she coaxed playfully. "Think fast."

Equal to the challenge, Mel fired back, "My family doctor might ask."

Janice laughed. "Good answer." She popped the last morsel of bread into her mouth and, chewing thoughtfully, leaned into Mel, filling the hollows of her exquisite body like two spoons in a drawer. They sat in companionable silence for the next few minutes as the quarter moon descended below the foothills, briefly backlighting a stand of bare gum trees, their gnarled branches outstretched in an eerie, questing embrace. With the retreat of the moon, the breeze freshened, whispering through the tops of the trees. "This is beautiful, Mel." Janice's voice was furtive, as if she were imparting confidential information. "I can see what you love about the country."

"Mmm, but I've learned one thing in the last twelve hours..."

Janice snuggled closer, drawing her knees up and over Mel's thigh. "And that is?"

Encouraged by proximity and opportunity, Mel kissed her and replied, "That even the most breathtakin' panorama can be improved." Under the blanket, one hand absently caressed the sensitive skin behind Janice's knees. "Must be after two o'clock..."

Janice touched Mel's hand where it lay exposed, clasping the blanket closed around them. "Don't think about the time, Mel...no watches or clocks here. We have hours yet..." She weaved an arm around Mel's waist and felt her shiver. "Cold?"

Mel shrugged and burrowed closer into her lover, until they exchanged breaths. "Maybe a little."

"Let's go inside." Janice set her feet on the ground, feeling the cool night air against her legs. "I can start a fire."

Mel grabbed the dangling shirt tail as Janice stood and pulled her back into the fold of blanket. "Why don't you stay right here and start a fire?"

"Oh. Oh, I can do that, too."

Janice awoke to find the sun coming over the horizon, washing the landscape of Dreamtime in rich hues of sienna and gold. The horses in the paddock stirred, pawed the hard-packed earth and whinnied for their oats. A cloud of green finches wheeled with military precision in the translucent sky before lighting in a stand of pale gums to feast on the insects there. Bon appetite, guys.Two soft-boiled eggs, bacon crisp, hash browns scattered and smothered. Her mouth watered. As a prelude to breakfast, she stretched her arms and flexed her calves, rotated her ankles - minimal isometrics that began her every morning upon waking. Routine for routine's sake. It was the comforting weight upon her chest and the feel of a possessive arm across her middle that set this morning apart.

She drew the blanket over an exposed shoulder and peered intently into Mel's face, waiting for her to wake. Her anticipation was almost painful. She inhaled and pursed her lips, preparing to blow a cool breath across impossibly long eyelashes when her eyes caught movement at the far end of the verandah. Seated cross-legged atop a weathered coffee table, placidly sketching charcoal on a piece of butcher's paper, was Alice.