Are you familiar with that dip of flesh at the outer corner of your lip? That soft, sensitive spot that so often is ignored when a man kisses a woman? I used to not be that aware of it. But it's Maximus lately who's made me very appreciative of it.

This is where he has begun to kiss me more and more lately; like it is the ultimate luxury to linger there. It started happening the fifth morning we were together after we flew from Miami. This was the morning when I realized that he'd relaxed.

Perhaps he really has never been on vacation before. I'm not talking about the kind of vacation where you're constantly running here and there sightseeing and engaging in all sorts of fun activities that you dream about when making your plans to go to some great place you've never been before. Max might have the ability to do that kind of vacation, as he would see it having the noble purpose of actively expanding your mind and exploring other cultures or something. But what do I know of Max? Sometimes, I think I know more than I did, but other times, I think the more I know, the more I'll realize how little I really will ever know.

But, see, I had another kind of vacation in mind for him. I had figured he needed to go someplace where he could just chill while he healed that injured foot of his. The one that he'd had to have operated on after taking a bullet during a mission with Dino and Terry's company. The doctor said he needed rest for a few weeks. Dino conspired with me to see if there was some way I might be able to entice him to slow down and relax ... can you picture Maximus doing that voluntarily?

Actually? I had thought he'd enjoy it. You know? I just thought the idea of escaping to some exotic locale with me, where he could leave behind all the stresses of that job of his ... where we could maybe figure out the direction we were going to go in with each other ... where we could luxuriate in each other ... I just thought he'd love it.

He tried. I know he did.

For maybe a day. Maybe two. Maybe.

Then he got antsy. He wanted to know how long we'd be there. Sitting there on the veranda of this small villa tucked away just up a rugged hillside from the sea ... the sun casting the most incredible sparkles on the water of the pool that was there just for our private use ... fresh fruit on the table, me in a sarong, him in bathing trunks I'd picked up at the resort's gift shop when we arrived, me asking him what I could get him to drink, him looking up from his book with this irritated look of scorn that that's all I could think to ask him ...

"Okay, well if you don't need anything, I think I'll get some sun for a while before the maids get here. Would you be a dear and put some lotion on my back? I don't want to burn," I said, my voice almost a coo but not quite.

"Certainly," he said but when I dropped the sarong to reveal that the only thing I was wearing was the bottom of my bikini and a gold chain around my waist, he coughed and looked around nervously.

"Max? They always ring the bell when they get here. And even if they see something, they're very discreet, right?"

He gave me that 'tsk' of his and I giggled at him. The look on his face! What a scowl. I went to where he was in that chair. Turned around. Lifted my hair from my shoulders and waited as I felt him adjust his weight until he was sitting up straight.

I sighed convincingly as he placed lotion on my back and began to work it into my skin. God, it felt good. Those big hands. The sun. The heat. That man right there. He gave my spine a little peck of a kiss when he finished. I turned around; reached out a hand to stroke down his chest and gave him my best come-hither look.

He looked off toward the sea. Not exactly the reaction I'd hoped for. "Would you like me to return the favor, Max? You know how very much I like touching your skin ... what ya say? Bit of a massage ... work out the kinks ... bit of hanky panky while we're still alone ..."

"Are you certain your cell phone will not work here? I really should check in with ..."

I blinked. "Oh, jeez, Max. Really? That's what you're thinking about when I'm standing here like this with my bare breasts in your face? You're thinking about work? Give it a rest. The company will go on for a few days without you and ..."

"I am certain they will. However, I may be of assistance to O'Leary in the matter of ..."

"Max!"

"Anna?"

"You're on vacation."

"I am not. I was given a bit of time to recover from the injury. But I am ready to return to some level of ..."

"Max."

His eyes on me and it felt like he was scorning my view of the entire world because I believed that sometimes, a worker bee needs a vacation that includes no adventures. I wanted Max to have a vacation of absolute indulgent indolence and, dammit, he was going to have it if I had to tie him down and shove it down his throat.

"Please?" I smiled sweetly at him. He gave me a soft smile, took my hand in his, kissed my fingertips. Then dropped my hand and turned back to his book.

Bummer, I thought as I slunk back to my lounger. All I wanted was for him to make the effort to relax and forget there was an outside world. Sure, sure.

As the sun began to work me into a sweat, my mind drifted. I thought about ... well ... Maximus. I mostly thought about the aspects of Max that I knew. The Max I'd first met, who'd helped me access a vision. This Max, inside that vision, had been natural, basic, beautiful, soft. He had fed me glazed fruit and introduced me to sensuality for the sake of sensuality. This was the Max who had stayed in my subconscious after that, lingering in the background as life went on for us down separate paths until we'd surprisingly found ourselves considering the view down this same perilous road to who knows where.

For so long, we had hovered on the outskirts of the other's life until we'd charged full bore into each other in Dubrovnik. It seemed to me that since the moment I first realized that he had a place in my life, that whatever we'd shared had been intense, edgy and confrontational. Even admitting we loved each other had not really taken away the challenge we presented to the other.

When you admit you love someone, isn't it supposed to get easier?

I turned over on the lounger and tried to chase that thought from my mind.

Was it going to be easier? Here we were, together in paradise. Thanks to Dino, I had whisked Max to an out-of-the-way island in the Bahamas. My intentions had been to spoil him rotten for at least a week or so as he recuperated. I figured after the first week, convalescing to Max would mean he'd give a wink and a nod to the pesky cast on his leg but that he would not let it slow him down too much at that point. By then, I figured, he'd be truly anxious to head to his own home and adamant to prove that an injury so minor it had only taken a little operation wasn't going to cause him problems.

How could anyone not be happy in paradise?

I got up, dove in the pool and began doing laps. I didn't want to think these thoughts. Because what worried me was that maybe the reason Max wasn't happy is because I wanted to change those edgy, confrontational dynamics between us and maybe he didn't want to.

The first day on the island, he'd enjoyed the idea of just nothing to do but enjoy each other. He'd basically woken up and spent as many hours as he could making love with me. About the only reason I'd gotten out of bed that first day was to get us things to eat and drink from the kitchen that had been stocked for us before our arrival. I'd had to help him hobble into the bathroom where he'd grumble at me in this hard voice to leave him to his business except I kept holding on to him and asking him where I should spray it. He'd peel my fingers off and scold me. I'd stand behind him giggling at him until he'd finally shake with the laughter he was trying so hard to hold in. And then I'd help him back to bed where he'd show me who was the real boss ... that a little cast on his leg was not going to slow him down.

Even though it did.

Well, only in the sense that some positions were a bit precarious. I mean, that cast could hurt, if you catch my drift.

The second day, he kept acting like there must have been some place he was supposed to be, some duty he was sure required his attention, some emperor about to come gig him for not being a stoic or something. I told him he just hated the reminder that even he could be laid low with an injury. He'd given me one of those long looks of his until I knuckled under.

At least we made it out of the bedroom that day.

But on this third day, he seemed un-enticeable in the warm sun with my nearly nude body sweating and bronzing before him. 

We had bickered that morning. I had thought I could arrest the irritation he was feeling if I just turned up the doting on him that I'd been doing since I'd greeted him on the plane in Miami. So I bustled around even harder, getting him drinks, pillows, books, moving the umbrella to make sure he stayed out of the sun ... he told me to stop fluttering around.

I stopped swimming when this hard thought invaded me at the memory of his voice when he'd chastised me. I treaded water. I glanced up at Max, reading under the shade of an umbrella. If he had wanted me, if I had been enticing to him, he could have been in the pool with me. His cast was one of those new polymers so it wasn't like he had to stay away from water. Christ, he wasn't even peeking at me and I was basically nude. Had I lost my allure now that he'd won my love?

No, even as insecure as I am, I didn't think that was really it.  Or at least, not all of it. But there was something about the way the dynamics were changing between us that he obviously didn't enjoy. And between that and the injury and how being injured was affecting his own peace of mind ... all those things together ... if he was out of sorts, wasn't he entitled to that?

So as I got back to swimming laps, I began to think of what things I could do. And what I wanted to do. I mean, it wasn't like I was ever going to be all smarmy romantic and white picket fence. Which, face it, is what Max would want in a woman he'd have the real thing with. He's as basic as the next guy when it comes to that. And, it has been demonstrated over and over, I am seriously a failure when it comes to that.

So what did I represent to Max and how could that help me understand what he needs, I thought as I turned over and back stoked down the lane. I wasn't a piece of fluff; he'd made that clear to me. I wasn't just a sexual conquest, though that was a strong component. I tried to remember something he'd said in New Orleans, the night after the opera.

It pricked at my memory but I could not recapture it. I had this sense that he'd said something that night that had been meant to make me understand what he wanted from me but that I had not understood.

I swam to the end of the pool but before I walked up the steps to leave, I looked hard at Max. What did he want from me? What could I do to show him that I'd give him...

God. I almost said I'd give him anything, I thought and felt that shiver down my spine.

I concentrated on the book he was reading to keep from reacting to my own admission to myself. He was reading, "The Decameron," according to the title. I sighed. Jesus. I don't even recognize the books he reads, I thought. I can't even have an intelligent conversation with him about one thing I do like -- literature. Where's our common ground ever going to come from? How will I ever learn to guess correctly and give him what he wants?

My eyes caught movement inside the villa; the maids had arrived. I wrapped a towel around me before I went in the house to chat with the maids.

This was always my 'alone' time. Max always stayed outside when the maids were around. I always went in to chat with them, talk with them about menus ... but more importantly, I used those precious private moments to sneak into one of the guest bedrooms and ... check my email.

Yeah. That's right. I'd lied to Max. So what? Wanna make something of it? Because here's the thing ... the villa was most definitely wired for Internet. My cell phone worked from there on some kind of digital dish that serviced the island. But I didn't want Max to know because ... well, because I thought he'd relax if he was incommunicado. But, me, on the other hand, it was important I stay in touch with clients. Er. And with Dino. You know? Just in case he really did need to talk with Max?

So with Max safely ensconced outside, I shut the door to the guest room, and checked my email. Nothing urgent. Handled it quickly. Looked at my watch. Figured I had maybe a half hour of safe time left.

Decided to look up Max's book ... see what it was about ... see if I could surprise him that night by saying, "So I was thinking about the subject of ..." And just coolly bring into play a conversation centered around whatever the theme of his book was and maybe this would be a conversation he'd enjoy. And maybe then he'd find a reason to like me. Because I wasn't so sure he was liking me too much. Maybe I was getting on his nerves. Maybe ...

The only thing I could find on the book was an obscure reference to one by an Italian author named Bocacchio. If it was that book, then the author had written it in the late Middle Ages and it was basically a rewriting, the site said, of a Roman tale, "Satyricon" by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, whom the site said was known as the "Arbiter of Elegance" in the court of Nero.

"Great. Just great," I groaned to my laptop. "I can picture the enlightened conversation Max and I can have on that one. I'll just prove to him what a real plebian I am."

I closed down the laptop and sat on the bed in that room. Looked out the window at the low-slung bushes that decorated the sandy dunes. For some reason, the word "Satyricon" seemed somehow familiar to me.

And then it came to me ... the movie of that name by Fellini. His films never made sense to me; this one I had seen many years ago while in the haze of accompanying a much older boyfriend who wanted me to appreciate the art of the film. About all I really remembered was watching his face as he watched the film ... except ... I did remember this one scene that had always stuck with me.

I wonder if decadence is always of intrigue to me and maybe that's why I remember the Roman orgy scene in that film?

"You always were a perve," I said as I walked to the door of the room. But I stopped suddenly when my hand touched the doorknob.

Roman orgy. Maximus.

Why did those two concepts seem 'right' together?

"At least it's something he'd appreciate. You could show him that you're interested in his culture." I looked back out the window and thought on this. I flashed on the strong memories of when he'd induced me to try playing Basilinda with him. That had been a game of his time that we'd turned into a sensual experience.

Hey, when my mind snaps on an idea, it leaps into action. I hunted down the woman who prepared the meals. She stocked us up on supplies but she also took special requests. So I made mine. I wanted finger food, fruit in bite-sized chunks, retsina ... anything like that would work.

And all that night after they left, while Max slept, I plotted. I mapped out what I'd do ... what essential elements I could accomplish under his nose that would surprise him when he saw what I'd done to bring him a Roman orgy.

The next morning, he decided to try walking down the steps to the beach. He needed to begin working out, he said, and figured the sand would help him keep his leg muscles firm. I encouraged him to take all the time he wanted.

While he was gone, I figured out a costume I could wear to belly dance. I had gone online in the early hours while Max slept and found a site for beginners who wanted to do a belly dance to entice their man. Just the ticket! I figured out how to loop and tie several sarongs around my hips, anchored and supported by my little gold waist chain. I draped a few scarves around my shoulders, tucking them in strategically to the top of my bikini. The results? Actually, rather nice. It appeared rather sweetly swoopy but when I practiced the belly dance moves, it was pretty easy to slip them off, one at a time, to show skin bit by bit.

This was going to be great. I had this insane bout of giggles when I turned around to practice one of the moves described on that site and caught sight of the top of Max's head coming up the stairs. I about ripped in half every bit of fabric hanging off me in my haste to get everything stashed in a drawer before he saw it.

All the different ways he fascinated me. The first time I'd met Maximus, I'd been afraid of him. I had fought so hard not to knuckle under to what I thought was his need to dominate. And then the sex had ... had just ... just ... just been more than I could fathom. And then I'd had to realize, there was a reason the sex had been that way. It was him. And me. It was us. It was the way we fired off each other's strengths, weaknesses, insecurities, confidences, backgrounds, pasts, secret longings ... it was us.

The many sides of him that he'd shown me. His stoicism, courage, fear, humanity, tenderness, uncompromising masculinity, soul, heart, love.

This image of Roman excess. Toga parties, right? Orgies? They knew how to party. The times that were wild and uninhibited to just blow out the pipes.

Here's what I hoped it would do for him: release ... to release everything until all that was left was whatever he was willing to let me have of him.

Why am I such a trite thinker and innovative implementer? Surely other women who look at Max must at one time or another have pictured him in the throes of Bacchanal excess. But it's me, I thought, who will push it. Push him.

And I thought about all the things inside him that Max had showed me and I just knew ... there was a wild part of Max, a boy set loose in a sexually charged atmosphere, that I'd seen the edge of but had never really ... not really ... experienced.

I remembered a conversation with Uma one time about Max and how stoical he could be. We talked about Bacchanalian rites and the release of pent up energies. I had always had this image of the explosive nature of a man giving himself that permission to finally just let go and take what he wanted and do as he most wished way down deep there in his gut.

So I was ready, wasn't I? I mean, I was going to get Max the stoic to cut loose the old-fashioned way ... the way of his times. And he would have his blow out and it would chill him out for the rest of our days there ... and he'd be so thanking me for making him take this time to relax, wouldn't he?

And maybe ... just maybe there was this little part of me ... if I was brave enough to admit it to myself ... maybe there was a part of me that thought he might like me somehow if I could just find the one right thing to be for him.

Actually, Max was in much better fettle than I would have realized. His temper was frayed, for sure, but he'd directed his energies that day into getting more mobile. During his three trips down the stairs to the beach, I figured I had time to prepare. I had everything staged out of sight and on his final trip, I met him at the top of the wooden stairs.

I coaxed him into the shower by telling him I had a special dinner planned for us. While he was in the bathroom, I slung pillows on the floor, put on mood music, made a few attempts at décor adjustments, brought out the wine ... and got nervous.

When he came out into the bedroom, he found the clothing I'd laid out for him. His robe. That's all. Just a robe. It was silk and black with gold piping and he thought he looked odd in it. I thought he looked like sex and I thought he felt better. I smiled at him from the doorway as he frowned at the robe. But he put it on.

We sat on the back patio and watched the sun sink into the ocean. Magenta blue violet sky. We drank cool wine.  I went to sit on his lap on the second glass. He blew on my neck and I shivered in his arms. I told him about this sunset I'd seen when I'd first moved to California and how it had stunned me to see the way the world around me turned midnight blue and then the stars popped out.

I got all choked up when he described in surprising detail the one we'd watched in Croatia from his hotel room balcony while I held a tulip he'd given me. He whispered to me that it had been his favorite sunset until this night.

"Max, you just take my breath away when you are like this," I whispered as I turned in his arms and went to snuggle against him.

He wiped a tear from my eye and gave me that shy, little boy smile of his. When he does that, I'm just unable to think straight for a while. "All you have to do is walk near me and I feel overwhelmed to know you have chosen to devote love to an old warrior such as me," he said.

"Oh, Max," I whispered to him. And I wasn't so much filled with nervous anticipation to make something wonderful happen for him that night ... not anymore. No, now I was simply hoping that maybe this was a good omen because he'd said something so sentimental to me.

I asked him to wait out there on the patio until I could make final preparations for what I hoped would be a special meal. Inside, I scampered around lighting candles ... big thick, ecru-colored candles that cast warm yellow light in the room. Around the low-slung coffee table, I put out bowls of fruit and platters of dates, cheeses, dolmades, olives, nuts, souvlaki. Greek retsina wine. Glasses, plates, napkins ... no utensils ... were sedately placed over the sheet covering one of the end tables. On the other one, a plate lined with dessert ...baklava.

When I was done, I looked around. It wasn't really like a Roman hall or anything. There were no elaborate draped lounging couches or anything really ornate. It was really just the suggestion that we'd ensconce ourselves on the floor, lounge together, dispense with what we in our modern times might have needed for a celebratory feast ... I had this vision that he'd get it when he saw it.

We would come in there and not be here, not be in this world where I lived a life I couldn't explain, couldn't guess, couldn't seem to plan for. Where this man sometimes made me regret that I was in love with him because he was never going to be safe ... when he was away from me, his life too often put him in danger. And lately ... ever since that one night in New Orleans ... I'd begun to think that maybe he clung to me now because I could give him a sense of home ... yet I never really had a clue as to whether or not he liked the person I really was or the person he thought I could have been for him. I was such a work in progress; he needed ... not me, you know? But when he was with me, he made me want to be more than I was. He made me want things with him and I wasn't sure what to do with that kind of want.

Whatever order there had been in my life, it's different now.

When I thought of him now, there were feelings inside me I didn't know what to do with. I've been alone my whole life, I sometimes think. I'm not sure I know anymore how to not be alone. It's hard to contemplate changing everything based on what might be a passing whim, like so many others have been. I told him that night after the opera that men seemed to only pass through my life. He said he was there to stay, that I could count on it. It had been unfair of me to even say that to him. What else would a man of such honor say in response?

I would take him into my life. I know I would. I just don't know how to begin.

He lets me draw him into the villa, forcing me to tug on his crutches just a bit to get him to come with me and giving me this smile of anticipatory teasing. It's as if he knows he's going to want to be charmed by whatever silliness I have done. It's such a change from the recent tension I've felt over just this -- his contempt for my silly, immature gestures to find a way to connect with him.

Inside, he regards the candlelight, platters of food, pillows on the floor, music wafting through ... and there in his eyes I see nothing but that he's puzzled as to how he's to react. Take it seriously? Assume I'm looking for some specific words from him and knowing he's going to blow it? Or should he cajole me into explaining? Should he laugh with enjoyment that I've done something, anything? Or is he about to be annoyed that I've done something new that won't sit well with his nerves?

"You come sit here," I say to him, indicating this mass of pillows before the couch. "You relax and I'll treat you as you may have been used to."

"Used to? When?" he asks as he lets me help him get onto the floor. He doesn't really need my help, mind you, but he accepts it graciously.

I whisk away the crutches and then kneel beside him. "You'll see," is all I say.

So it begins. Not smoothly; it begins hesitantly. I pour him wine; he isn't sure why I'm serving Greek wine. Frankly? I'm not either. I just wanted something that seemed from that area of the world and it was the best I could come up with. I should have made a special effort to have the women bring me some kind of Italian or Spanish wine. It's the first miscue. It won't be the last. Well, because the food's also basically Greek. How many errors before the game's called, I wonder.

Still, he struggles at first but eventually he lets me feed him. I consider it part of the service ... servant girl with the Roman emperor or something. I don't know. As I get into it, the more lame it seems.

Finally, he is sipping wine and his other hand is resting on my hip as I bend over to grab the wine bottle to refill his glass. I feel his fingers tense along my hip and look back at him. He searches my eyes for some understanding of what I'm up to.

I sigh and sink back away from him. "I was trying for an orgy motif," I say to him and feel myself blush as he draws his eyebrows together. "You know? Like some feast and then dancing girls and then ... you know. Just let 'er rip. Really explode. Like you must be used to ... back then. Right?"

"Orgy?" he says softly, putting the wine glass down at his side.

"Yeah. This is the feast," I say, sweeping my hands around the platters around him. "And drinking, right?"

I reach for the wine bottle and pour him more. When I hand him his glass, he takes it but his other hand holds mine. "I am not certain I understand."

"Well, a feast first. Then the dancing girls ... you'll have to use your imagination though, because there's only me to dance for you ... then ... the real wild ..." My voice has been slowly trailing off until I barely say the last word, "... sex."

Now he shakes his head in real confusion.

"I know it's not the same without lots of people around and ... but I thought ..."

"You thought what?"

"You know? An orgy? They show them in the movies all the time ... I mean, I know it's not the forum or whatever and I don't have us in togas and ... but still, can't you see? That even if it's just us, it can still be about sexual excess and freedom and release of control for you."

"Orgy?" He purses his lips and drops his eyes. "In Latin, orgies. In my time, it is a religious, ritualistic affair. At such an event, we would have processions, music, trances ... that sort of thing. Perhaps it would be a Bacchanal rite or ... I am uncertain of your meaning, of how this relates to sexual excess."

"But in the movies ... Y'all did this all the time," I hear myself whine at him. I try and figure out ... would it be more embarrassing to just crawl away right then or stay there and shut up? I bite on my lip and look to see what the straightest route out of there is.

"I see. I have seen a few movies in which Roman rites were reduced to the most ... I rather think you are referring to such debauched emperors as Caligula, Nero or my old brother Commodus ..."

"Jeez," I whisper. Now I've insulted him. Oh God. "Max, I swear, I thought ... I'm such an idiot to ever think that I could ever ... Will I never learn?"

I go to move away from him, feeling everything inside me drop into the cavern of blackest doubt. But his hand wraps around my elbow and he makes me stay near him. "You are not an idiot. You simply are victim to your time's common assumptions that what is portrayed in popular movies and literature really tells the scope of a complicated culture from long ago."

"Max, I'm sorry. Let's just forget this ..." I am still whispering; he is looking at me with real concern.

"I am not offended. But you assume that what you see or hear in popular movies or books reflects honestly on all people of my time and culture. Let me give you an example and perhaps you will understand what I mean. Do all people in your time behave like ... Courtney Love?"

"Courtney Love? Max! Of course not. She's a total mess."

"There you see? But if I saw a movie about her and assumed all blond women of this time were as ... her ... it would not be representative of normal women, would it? In just that way, what may have come down through all these years is likely the grossest stories or even fiction, exaggeration. And then add on top of that, the interpretation of your culture for the medium of cinema ... you see?"

"Yes."

"Anna? Come back here to me. There's no reason to pout."

"I'm not pouting. I'm embarrassed." I take a deep breath. "Let me get you a fork."

I don't know why I say that. It just pops in my mind. Like the lack of utensils is my grossest sin here? 

He takes my hand in his and begins telling me a story about a dinner; a typical dinner, he tells me. How in real Roman dinner parties, first there was the meal. And women attended "but did not recline," he adds with this wag of his finger and a grin at me. I try to smile. I try to not feel like such a fool. He continues. I know he's trying to find a way to smooth this out between us, to absolve me, to teach me. He says that when the women withdrew, there was the comissatio.

"That was a drinking game for men. There would be dancing girls; music possibly. But mostly, there was the drinking." He pauses, leans back against the couch and pulls me with him. I resist but there really isn't any chance to physically refuse to give in to Max if he's got his mind made up. He draws me to him until I'm captured within his hold. Maybe it really bothers him ... that sense he has now that my first instinct will be to hide from him now that I've fucked things up. Maybe this is him, refusing me the safe option of hiding.

His head leans back on the couch and his eyes drift to the ceiling. It's as if he's lost in his past. "My memories of dinner parties are hazy. Mostly of drinking myself stupid."

I can't help it. He says it so solemnly that I laugh at the unexpected humor at his own expense. More gently, persuading me this time rather than forcing me, he tugs on my arm until I sit facing him, in his lap, my legs on either side of his hips. His hands cup my breasts. But it's not actually such a sexual touch as that implies. More like reassurance ... like he wants the connection.

"But," he says, giving me a smug look, "... but I believe I was usually the last to hit the floor."

"Oh, Max." I sigh at him and lean into his chest. His arms circle me. "I'm so sorry about tonight. I thought maybe I could be what you wanted for a change ... that maybe it would make you happy with me again. And I wanted tonight to be ..."

"Have I been difficult to get along with? So difficult you have to tiptoe around me and make up activities in the night to help restore my good humor?"

"Yes."

It's his turn to laugh. And then he sighs. His buries his face in my hair. He turns serious. "Can you not see how hard this is for me? I am anxious being out of touch."

It slams into me. I am so fucking guilty. I've kept him incommunicado like it was a game. How would I feel if he'd done that to me? I would have sliced his balls off. No, not really. But I would have been really upset. I stiffen in his arms. The only thing I think of ... this is so typically clueless of me ... is that maybe he won't hate me so much if I can still make this a night he can have a blow out. It's not looking so promising now ... now that I've learned I know even less that I already knew I didn't know ... but ... well, he did mention dancing girls, right? So even at his version of Roman dinner parties, there was still dancing girls to entertain the men, right?

And you know they were there for the men afterwards. Right?

"How about the evening's entertainment?" I ask him. "I am all prepared to dance for you, to entice you, my lord."

"Anna, you would be an inappropriate dancing girl, if that's your intent. A woman of your standing in my life ... this would not be how I would see you."

"I want to be that woman, Max. For you." I feel myself blush again ... it drives me crazy that I keep doing this with him tonight. Why am I blushing? I go to pull away from him again. The weight of what I'd hoped to somehow transform myself into being seems shallow, out of reach, too deep, not enough, never quite good enough.

But his warm, strong hand checks me in place. I dip my head and let my hair provide shelter from his eyes that see too much and give so little away sometimes. I wish I could be more like him in that regard. "What woman, Anna? Have I ever made you feel that you ... You are ... Anna, surely you know what a treasure you are to me?"

"Sure. Sure."

"Anna." One finger of his hand upon my forearm swings loose from the others to stroke my skin. It isn't a playful gesture. It isn't meant to comfort me. It is just absent-minded touching.

"I'm fine. No. I'm embarrassed. I've embarrassed myself for the last time before you, Max. This is it." I try again to move away but his hand never budges and I am held fast. I get this image in my mind of watching a man snare a nuisance alligator back home. The guy told me that one thing he always counted on was the gator trying to get away so he just held on to the rope until the gator got tired of fighting. "I wanted to be exotic. To tempt you. To make you think I could be that kind of woman. The kind that makes a man like you lose control when she's tempting you with ... with what it would be like for you ... if you just lost control and had to take her and ..."

"Ah," he whispers it to me as he sits up and draws me in closer to him. His other hand comes around my waist and pulls me in toward him. "Little Anna ... always worried she's not enough ... never seeing she is more than is possible ... have I truly not shown you any of how I feel? Would a poem perform some new trick for you in this moment?"

"Please just tell me what you want and I will give it to you," I ask him into the soft quiet of nothing much more than his heartbeat and his intermittent deep breaths. The doors that overlook the lanai and the sea are open. Sounds of the air sweeping in over the ocean and up along the bluff into this room are shushes in the night. Every so often, the breezes bring the sound of surf with them. Everything seems to conspire to gently sandblast this moment clean.

"I am a simple man. I want to know I stand in your eyes as the man in your life who allows you to show the courage of who you are, even if it's only that you wish to play for a short while as a fantasy woman for this man before you." I turn in his arms and look out into the night. "Do you understand what I am saying?"

"It's too late now, Max. The mood is broken, isn't it? It's too soft now between us. There's no release for either of us when it's soft." He gives this deep sigh and his chest makes me rise and fall with the motion. "It's okay. This is better."

"If you won't work for what you want, you cannot expect someone to simply hand it to you. Life is not that way."

"That's fine. Besides, I just want to give you what you want. That's what this time was supposed to be anyway. It was about you." I turn back to him and nestle in, my arms going around his waist and my chin nudging in along his shoulder. "I lost sight of you in my desire to do for you, Max. I brought you here because I thought I was so smart and figured you would enjoy just relaxing here with me while you healed. But that was presumptuous of me. Tomorrow, I'll book us a flight out to Miami. You want me to make your plane reservations from Miami to your home? It won't take but a few minutes while I'm doing mine. How's that sound?"

"Like you are telling me goodbye and like I do not deserve that. It is not what I desire."

"Yeah. Well. Your irritation with me says otherwise." I give him these gentle pats along his thigh. "It's okay. Maybe we can't take more than a few days together at a stretch. We'll hook up again some other time."

"Hook up?" He says it like that; blunt, rough, invasive.

I don't know why I say it. Maybe I honestly think being callous somehow protects me from Max's ability to see me. "One last fuck for the road, Maxie? Think you got it in you tonight or should I try my luck in the morning instead?"

He doesn't say a word. For a long time, he doesn't even move. But when he does, it is never more than what I deserve. His arms release me, he sits up and turns from me. "You may go," he says, his voice short and very deep.

"Go? Go where?" I ask him.

"Anywhere as long as it away from me."

"Yell at me, Max."

"Go."

"Lose control."

"You are always trying to loosen me from my control. The idea of that holds such fascination for you?" He says it in a harsh whisper. His eyes cut into me. The set to his jaw ... working to contain anger and other emotions I can only guess at. "What if I did, Anna? What if I let myself react as I wish in this very moment?"

"Go on, Max." We are close but he would still have to reach for me if he wished to grab me. We are not close enough. I think maybe he's been building up to this for days ... maybe since he was shot. "Let it happen. Show me the real you."

"You see the real me. I cannot hide myself from ..."

"No! You do, Max. You're so ... in control. Always the stoic. Always. God, how it gets to me. There's always that reserve part of you that never ..."

He lunges for me. I am not prepared for it. The look on his face ... the wildness in his eyes ... he grabs both arms and shoves me on my back. I'm stunned by the sudden turn. His hands are groping me, ripping the covering my pareo gave me, yanking on my bikini bottom. He is muttering in Latin; harsh sounds, guttural.

I don't mean to cry out but I do. It's instantly and horribly frightening. I don't know what I thought might happen, but not this. Not feeling as though I am nothing, just a thing to him, not even a person.

But I don't fight him. I fight myself more than him. Fight for my own control.

Not until he puts his mouth against my ear and speaks English to me again. By then, he is rubbing himself on me but he's not getting hard. He half turns me; I'm on my side; his hand's between my legs, rubbing me brusquely. He says, "Is this it for you, Anna? Only this? The animal in me? Is that what really attracts you to me?"

"No." I choke the word out. It's like I see him and regret what I've done. Like that. Like someone opened my eyes and made me see ... I was wrong to do this. "I just thought that you needed ..."

"Yes? What I need? Is this what you wish to give me ... what I need?"

"Yes." I grab his wrist. "Yes. Yes. I would give you anything you need. Just ask."

Everything stops. All I can hear is the way his hard breathing contrasts with the softness of the surf's sounds.

"What if I wanted to see in you what you are trying so hard to see in me tonight?"

"I don't understand."

His hand strokes gently down my hip now. "What if I wanted to witness you lose control?"

I turn toward him until I can look in his eyes. "You see that so often, Max. I am rarely in control with you."

"There is always, Anna, a part of you that remains ... held back from me."

My eyes dart away from him. "Perhaps."

But I know exactly what he means. He tells the truth.

"It is that basic part of you that refuses to let yourself ever really put your fate into another person's hands. Into my hands."

"Perhaps."

"This is what I wonder, Anna. Do you remember when I asked you to whom you went for shelter? This is the essence of woman, to me. Is that a concept too ancient for you, such a modern woman? A woman seeking shelter from a man ..." He looks down at my hands. "You have shown you can control yourself. What if I asked you this ... can you give up control of your person to me in this one night? Can you trust in me that much? Are you willing to?"

I dart a glance at him. It's odd. He's speaking of making me lose the last vestiges of control, my independence. I think I'm closer than I ever have been of witnessing Max's legendary self-control on shaky ground. Who is pushing whom here?

"How?" I ask him. I am surprised by how steady my voice is.

"By putting yourself in my hands. By having no control. By giving up your choices." The way he says it. His voice going deep; the words crisp; the tone hard. His face is impossible to read. "Have you never wondered what I would loosen you from if you ever stopped fighting me?"

"I never have. But I have often wondered why you pursue me even in the face of me refusing to bow to your wish to control me."

"This is what you believe? That I wish to control you?"

"You would change me, Max. If you could. You know you would."

"I would. I would make you willing to accept me in your life. Fully accept me. Not as a convenience. Not as an occasional companion. Not as a compromise. But fully." He pauses, his hand firm against my hip, the look on his face one of contemplation for just a moment. And then his eyes narrow and focus on mine. "You are not ready for that, Anna. You would still run from me if I asked too much of you."

We stay there like that. Concentrating on each other. Weighing where this night has taken us. He will not make the further move. He will wait on me forever. I think about this issue of control, will, power ... male and female. I think about how it has been an undercurrent of so much of what has been between us. We are neither of us, I think, comfortable with how there is an essential battle between us on this issue. But in this night, even not fully confronting my own concerns, I am confronting my own reservations. What had I said to myself? That I would give up so much if he asked? He has asked. Do I trust enough to know there is nothing to fear that cannot be undone if it proves wrong for me or for us?

"What would you do to take my control tonight?"

An instant answer. I wonder how long he has thought about this. "I would blindfold you."

"Why?"

"To disorient you. To make you dependent on me."

"And then?"

"No, Anna," he whispers as he leans against my body and sweeps a hand down between my legs. "You may choose once ... to give me control or not. From there, no more choices. Trust is your only option."

"But you won't tell me what you have in mind?"

He just looks into me. No answer is the answer. I swallow hard; my decision had already been made. I made it when I first asked myself if I trusted in us enough. I do. So I sit up; his hand lingers where it was soft between my legs. I pull one of the big napkins from the table and hand it to him. He shakes his head; fingers my pareo; looks in my eyes. I rise to my knees; untie the knot; hand him the pareo; turn from him and wait. He doesn't make me wait long. I close my eyes as he slips the fabric over my eyes and ties a firm knot behind my head.

For what seems like an interminable amount of time, he makes me wait. I know he sits behind me but even the air seems to be still and waiting on him to do something. When he does move, it is deceptive but it is definitive. He pulls me to my knees and he puts his arms around me, holding me back to his chest. I can feel he's hardening now; he gently rubs himself against my buttocks; it seems almost more instinctive than deliberate. He removes my bikini top; slides the bottoms down just low enough that he can slip a hand around the front to finger me gently.

"What would you say if I told you that I have been to nights that would rival anything you may have seen on film? Perhaps would go beyond anything you've imagined?" he says against my ear. He slips my earlobe into his mouth; it makes me shiver in his hold.

"But you said ..."

"Perhaps I lied. Perhaps I told you what I would have told my wife. I would never have told her of those nights." He pauses. Switches to my other ear to say, "But then, my wife would not have asked me about such nights."

"I never was particularly wise when it came to men."

He ignores that comment. "I can remember one occasion ... but ... I doubt you would ever be brave enough to engage me in such a way. It would take you to a place you've never been with anyone."

His voice ... his words ... the challenge inherent in there. I swallow hard, lean back into his hold as he forces me to spread my legs as far as my lowered bikini panties will allow. "Tell me, Max. Tonight I would do anything."

"Because you trust me that much?"

"Because I want to trust in you that much, yes. Because I want to learn to. Because I want to feel that safe with you."

"But you will not be safe with me tonight, Anna. That is the point."

"Do you trust me?"

He never really answers, but he does. "Three women."

I don't know why it is ... but just those words and I think I know what he means. Maybe it's because he says it at the same time he's rubbing into me from behind, got his fingers of one hand up me, and got his other hand massaging assertively at one of my breasts.

"At once?" I ask him, my voice hushed.

"They serviced me at once. As I dictated."

My knees shake. I would swoon at the voice he's used ... it's so brutal and frank ... it's so unforgiving. It's demanding. It allows for no retreat.

Of course he would have been in charge. Max and three women at an orgy ... God. The visuals that calls up for me.

"Would you like me to show you how it was? Would you care to see what I would have had you do with me if you'd been one of the three in that night?" I nod against him.

He makes me stand. He tells me to let my panties fall off and then he leads me by one hand. I cannot see a thing but I latch on to his hand and go with him; the blindfold does its job magnificently. I am disoriented already and don't really know where he's taking me. I listen to the way his good foot makes virtually no sound on the tile we cross but his foot with the cast makes a hollow noise that gets to me.

And then he picks me up, his hands at my waist and we're falling ... and when he stops, we're on the bed. I can feel the satin of the bedspread beneath us. It's slippery, cool, mysterious.

"Three women. They come to me as a group. I have asked specifically for them. I chose them, you see, from the dancing women on display ... This is something I've wanted but these women, they make it an experience above what I could have imagined ..."

"Why?"

"Because they please me." I feel his hands run down my body as we lay facing each other on the bed. I touch him; he's shucked the robe. I cannot quite fulfill my desire to touch him. He feels that good. "Because they do exactly as I ask ... they do not hesitate ... and they show me their enjoyment of what I can do for them."

Is this what he seeks from me, I wonder. That I will only seek to please him, that I will obey him without hesitation? Jeez, no wonder he doesn't like me even if he likes to have sex with me ... even if he feels loving toward me. I've never realized before how hopeless it has always been to ever think this would ever be more than it already is. It has to be good enough for me ... because I would rather have what we have than ever face the day I won't have him in my life.

I return his kiss. It's searching. And then it's so hot it would burn me up from the inside out except he breaks it off abruptly. He draws me with him when he rolls onto his back. His hands go to my waist and push me up to sit astride his chest. I'm not sure where my hands should go; I end up leaning forward, thinking I'll find his mouth with either my lips or my breasts. But he has other plans.

"The first woman ... another woman, not you ... do you understand?"

He is hesitating; it makes me think what he's trying to get me to see. And when he shoves my body up his, I think I do. "Which of the three women am I?"

"Not this one. This one ... she grinds herself into my face and allows me to devour her. She dances to the feel of my mouth upon her sex."

It's so crude. Too crude ... except for Max ... things that with other men would be too crude, they are not with Maximus. I don't know why, but it just is that way. Maybe it's because he's blunt and honest.

But he shifts my body up his; he's so strong that he just really almost lifts me up to where he wants me to be. I have my hands out before me, feeling for the wall or the headboard that I figure has to be there and I don't want to hit it with my face. But it's not until I feel his breath upon my sex as he holds me hovering over him ... that's when my fingertips touch the wall. Thank God it's there ... it gives me something to brace myself against when he pulls me down to his mouth and begins ...

Oh God.

He just has this way of doing this. It's often different but it's also achingly similar in that it is never really hesitant ... he always seems to know just what he's doing. He may ask me if something feels good, if I like it, if perhaps I like this other way better ... but his style is frank. His tongue laps up my moisture; he makes rough grunts as his tongue probes up into me. He grips hard into my hips and then into my buttocks; he grinds me against him. I can feel his teeth as he pulls me down hard into his mouth. When he sucks, even though it's not a lot of force at first, I think I'm about to come. His fingers dig into my ass as he shoves me back and forth ... and I'm grinding against him, deep in want, deep in need, deep in bliss.

But before I can really come ... right on that finite edge where you know there's only a whisper between you and your fulfillment, he lifts me from his face and pulls me down his body. When he kisses me, he lets me feel how damp his face is. I taste and smell myself on him.

"The second woman ... she is also not you, Anna ... she impales herself on my cock at my command."

And this is when I get it ... what I think is happening ... an orgy for four with two players. I am to be all three women ... or rather, I am to fill in for two women and be the third. He will show me what he had each do. He will want me to be as they were ... to obey his directions without hesitation and to show appreciation for what he is capable of making these three women feel.

They would feel decadent, loose, wild, willing ... so will I ... if it kills me.

"Sit on me," he orders suddenly. "Nunc! Now!"

And I do. Without vision, without hesitation. I trust that he will be holding himself and watching out for me and able to just be poised in the right position for me to lower myself on him without trepidation.

But, my God, he's hard to take that way. He's almost impossible, really. It's different if he's shoving himself in and you have no choice. But this is all your own ... you have to take him in all at once and that's just almost too much with a man his size. I do my best. And when I do, I feel this flame of abandon flick into being inside me.

He wants to see me loose control, doesn't he? That means that whatever it is the third woman does, it will be the ultimate challenge for me.

I ride him hard. I get so into it that I am gripping into his chest and I won't know this until the morning, but I suddenly realize that I'm maybe bruising him, maybe digging in too hard ... not that it makes me stop, mind you.

Before I can come ... again when I'm so close it's just a breath away, he pulls me off and shoves me further down his body.

He pulls my head down toward his groin; he rubs his slick hardness against my cheek even as he grunts out, "Suck me."

I turn my face; I mouth his shaft; I lick up our combined essences. I feel so aroused, so lost. I rather like being blind, like it gives me permission to believe that no one else can see ... that no one's watching me, judging me, finding me wanting.

"Is this the third woman? Is this me? Is this what you like from me most? My mouth taking you?" I ask him, and I'm so breathy and panting out the words.

"No. This is still the second woman. You are waiting for my order. I will give it shortly. For now, the second woman, she takes me in deep. She moans at the taste of me. She shows me her pleasure. It fires me ... but not nearly like the knowledge that the third woman ... you, Anna ... is watching and waiting to learn what I will do with her."

I cannot take him in deeply enough. I think I could take him to his root and it would not be deep enough. But I can't get that far anyway. Not him. I use my hands to help me cover all of his length. I moan ... just like he wants. I know it vibrates through him, I know it nearly makes him come ... I know he is using all his control to stop his coming ...

He asks me, as I suck him, if I'm wet. I nod and my breath catches. Do you desire pleasure, he asks me. Can you almost feel the pleasure I could make possible for you? Would you take it however I made it possible for you? He asks me all this rapid fire, like he's lost inside his own desire. I nod solemnly each time, never quite able to catch my breath. Still fellating him, still wondering ... what will he do to the third woman ... to me?

"Take more of me inside," he whispers to me. "I have a treat for you."

I try. More of him slips in. I close my eyes tight against a bit of panic ... I can't take him in deeper but I know he wants more.

"It's time for the third woman. Anna ... imagine you are her." I feel tears behind my lids. His hands are on my head as he pumps slowly into me. "The third woman ... I tell her to pleasure the second woman. To lick her, suck her ... to make her come so I can watch it happen while the second woman takes my offering down her throat."

My eyes open but of course I cannot see. So I rely on the eyes of my imagination ... they try and are able to see what he's asking of me. I hesitate ... he feels me do that ... his hands press down gently.

I see now ... I try to imagine what that would be like ... how I would have reacted if it'd ever been me, Max and two other women ... if I would have been brave enough to meet this challenge. If I would have loved another woman with my mouth as he would have wanted. Could I have done that? For him? Would I have trusted in him enough?

Do I trust in him enough now? If I react ... how I react ... that will tell him something very deep, very hidden about me ... because every person has a place they never once thought of going and when it's suddenly asked of them ... when they face it, it shows something about them.

Am I this free? Maximus is. Isn't he? He's free enough to have opened up a part of him ... the part that is just wild enough to scare me. The part that's brave enough to face me.

And the oddest thing is ... I am so wet at this point that I'm dripping. I can feel the moisture as it gathers into drops. It's not the aspect of loving a woman that's doing it; it's the aspect of being in his control this way. Of not being in my own control.

Of trusting in him with such absolute conviction that I may mark my reactions, but I won't control them.

"Let me be you ... I will show you what you do ..." he says softly ... like he's wanting nothing so much as to make me both the second and third woman ... like he wants me to be able to be both of them ... like he wants me to visualize what he wants so strongly that forever after, I may even believe I was the third woman here.

His strong arms lift my body and turn me. I rise off his penis, but only to break the suction and let it turn in my mouth. And then I'm on my knees again ... this time, poised with my mouth at his groin and my groin at his mouth.

And then ... it happens as a shift as light as a tulip being danced down my spine. A woman's hands smooth slowly over my buttocks, touching me tentatively, finding herself doing something she hadn't expected to do. She quickly refuses to be hesitant ... she wants to please the man who's watching.

And then I ... I feel a woman's tongue. I hear her soft murmurs. I cannot believe a woman is doing this to me. I feel a woman's softer, smaller, lighter touch as she pulls me further down to her.

I feel a woman's ripe, soft roundness against my mouth. My tongue tastes her ... I know this taste ... it's like me. I lap up the wetness. I know what she'll like. I hear her moan; it's indistinct because she's got his cock in her mouth.

And I can feel myself as both women. I come as both. When he erupts in my mouth, I feel her suck in so hard that I am coming as I feel her coming against my lips, around my tongue. My God. Her taste! His taste! It's like they are as one ...

When it's over, I don't want to stop being two women, but I know I have. I roll away from him and he lets me. We both lay there, on our backs, our heads facing the opposite way ... and we touch each other's sex ... it's lazy, soft, comforting ... but it's not us. It's them ... it's those women and that man. It's not me and Max. Not yet.

Not until he rises and shifts ... until he is lying with his mouth next to my ear and he's whispering to me ... asking me what she felt like against my mouth. And I tell him how it felt and I recognize the words ... they are the same description he gave me once when I asked him what I felt like when he took me that way.

He removes the blindfold and we hold each other.

"I wish to be more to you than I am," he says much later in that night. "I would have us be more to each other. I would like you to want me in that way ... As the man who shelters you."

"Max ... I'm not good enough for you. I thought for sure you realized that."

He doesn't say anything at first. Instead, for a while, he just strokes a hand softly down my back. And then he nestles his face into my shoulder. It's like he's forcing me to accept him, to take him in, to give in to what he must know I want. I do want. More than anything. I want to be there for him. I want to be the one he turns to. I want to feel that deep down sense of entitled joy to be able to respond to this type of movement from him by simply hugging him in to me ... I want to hold him close. To feel more than just worthy to hold him ... to feel no question or doubt but just to do it because I feel that intimate with him that it's an instinct.

"I would not ask for what I do not wish to have with you." He sighs his words into my skin. "I know you trust me. As I trust you. Tonight would never have been possible without it between us. But I wish more than that. I wish for the sense of home. Between us ... this is only us, Anna. We are capable of so much more. Doesn't it excite you to journey the road by my side? The man who loves you for the woman you are with him? The man you can count upon?"

So this is how we face the future. I'll try. I'll try to succeed. I think that's markedly better than just trying not to fail.

And he's finally unafraid to ask me too much. He's finally seen that maybe having that kind of trust in me is what will keep me with him in the end ... without boundaries, without fear, without safety nets.