Libby shuddered visibly, breaking out into gooseflesh.  He was really going to do it!  Her most desperately desired fantasy.  Her knees were like jelly and they gave way.  She sat down on the overstuffed chaise, looking at him with earnest anticipation.

"Not like that...." he laughed, rising from the depths of the leather chair.  Easing himself down before the couch, he lay back against it and patted his lap.  "Let's do this properly, shall we?  The mood has to be just right.  S'my fantasy, after all."  The last was accompanied by a cheeky wink that left her weak.  "Just put your head down here, darlin' and we'll get started...."

It was the first time in years a man had invited her head near his groin and didn't expect a blow job.  She blushed at the novelty and smiled shyly as she realised her involuntary flush had pleased him somehow.

Lowering herself gracefully, she settled on her back with her head pillowed on his thigh and closed her eyes to better focus on her other senses.  After he was gone, all she'd have left was looking at his image.  Tonight she wanted to savor him with the rest of her senses, to breathe in his crisp masculine scent, to feel the warmth of the thick thigh under her head, to relish the erotic rasp of his sandpaper voice.  She felt him remove the pins that held up her hair and there was a gentle tugging at her scalp as he spread it over his lap.  He didn't touch her--just her hair.  It was smooth and glossy between his fingers, like spun silk.  He couldn't do this without some physical connection to her, however tenuous.  It just wasn't in his nature. 

"Now, what to choose, hmmm?"  He was half tempted to tell her the unvarnished truth.  At the moment, the fantasy uppermost in his mind involved her naked on the nearby bed, stroking herself for his pleasure--but even his addled buzzing brain knew not to tempt fate so recklessly.  Making a run on the queen was just asking her to check and mate the king.  The stakes were too high for that particular gambit, however pleasurable it might be in the moment.  No, he needed to keep this in a less dangerous--though no less erotic--realm.

"Something worthy of what I gave you tonight would be nice."  Riding the high of her small victory, she couldn't resist goading him just the tiniest bit more.

He tutted at her.  "How about a variation on tonight's theme?  Passivity and invasion--"

She giggled.  "Are you sure you don't mean evasion?"

Poking her playfully, he grinned and scolded.  "No comments from the peanut gallery.  I'm driving this bus."  She left him to his delusion.  In her experience, men liked to feel they were in charge even if in truth they were not.  At least not entirely.  "You are just along for the ride, sweetheart."

His words were light but Libby got his message loud and clear.  She was not to involve herself in any way.  He wanted nothing from her but her silence and her ear.  Anything more and he would walk, debt or not. 

Fair enough.  She nodded, tense with excitement and anticipation at what he might reveal to her as his fantasy unfolded.      

Twining a lock of her shiny hair around his finger, he let his mind wander through his vivid fantasy life in the attempt to choose one that would do this night justice--and perhaps even challenge himself a little, though Libby didn't need to know that.  She could only speculate at his erotic dreamscape.  Maybe he really would make an attempt at tonight's theme, even if it was a bit uncomfortable for him.  Surely answering his questions had been uncomfortable for her.  To satisfy his conscience he had to find something of equal worth to give in return.  And he'd always liked a challenge.

He took a deep centering breath and began.  "In honor of the piss poor weather outside, how about something warm?  I have just the thing..."  

Under her head, Libby felt him relax as he slipped into the fantasy.

"I've recently returned from working on the Mexican coast, which is thankfully a world away from London's 'charming' days of endless gray.  It's a bloody gorgeous place--white powdery sand, warm wind, warm water--" his voice heated.  "And even warmer women."

Pretty tame, but it had promise...

"I think something languid should be the tune of the day.  Typical male, eh?  A lazy fuck on the beach."  He laughed at himself but for him, a fantasy where he took a lackadaisical part was hardly typical.

She couldn't help but wonder if he was really sharing a fantasy or just recounting an embellished encounter?  His womanizing was legendary and that wasn't at all what she was after.

"There's a large hammock there in the shade under the palms, and as I've discovered as of late, a hammock can be quite comfortable--once one gets the hang of climbing in and out of the fickle little buggers."

Libby grinned inwardly.  This was indeed a fantasy.  Lovemaking in a hammock was a difficultly acquired skill--a delicate balancing act between the swinging and the rocking and the thrusting.  It was about as far from lazy as one could get.  And she was glad he had kept his word and had given her a true fantasy.  It would give her a much deeper glimpse into his mind; and that was what she truly desired, to share a piece of him that nobody else had ever had.

"So there I am dozing in languid heat, the creak of the hammock in my ear as it swings in the breeze.  My hair is free, drying in the sun from the swim I had earlier.  It tickles a bit--but a nice tickle.  Like a woman's tongue.  The beach is deserted for miles and my only companion is the roar of the surf."

She was impressed at the vivid details and by mood he set with a few simple phrases--but then again he was first and foremost a storyteller.  "However, the surf and I are soon joined by another lost soul."

Lost?  Interesting choice of words.

"There is a woman--"

Isn't there always?  She snorted softly in amusement and she felt his eyes on her, in part admonishing her for the slight interruption and in part sharing her amusement.

"She's just come out of the little shack on the beach that I've been staying in for the last few weeks and she looks damned good walking toward me in that white scrap of nothing she calls a bikini.  I close my eyes to fix her image there in my mind.  Who knows how long the next dry spell will be?"

Libby wondered if he would put a face and form to his fantasy woman or if he would leave her vague.  It would be curious--and telling--if he did, given the rich detail with which he'd imbued the rest of his fantasy.  

"The coolness of her shadow falls over me.  My eyes open again, and what a sight it is!  She's brought me herself and a bottle of the local vino as well."  He wet his lips.  "It's not anything I'd lay down in the cellar, mind--but it does go down tolerably well on a hot afternoon.  And so does she," he added with a dirty chuckle.

"We're on about day three of a night of a one-night stand."  His voice was warm with self-depreciating amusement.  "I'm a gluttonous bastard with a voracious appetite for all the best things in life, primely passion--in all its glorious forms.  I do too many things to excess, most especially sex on holiday."

Libby shuddered at the candid self-description.  Even more curious was that his fantasy encounter was exactly the sort of set up she'd described to him earlier when she was explaining how she worked.  Had he chosen that specifically or was it merely a coincidence?

"Dropping the bottle in the sand beside us, she joins me in the hammock.  Steady on, sweetheart.  It's a delicate operation, this..." his smile widened and Libby was intrigued by the change in his speech, it was an unexpected boon to be--in essence--a voyeur to his intimate love talk.  "It takes a minute of wiggling--that I thoroughly and shamelessly enjoy--before she finds her balance and her seat over my hips."

She laughed softly, sharing his enjoyment of the fictitious moment.

Trying to keep to the passive role he set for himself, he kept on with the narration even though it was getting harder to stay within the original parameters he'd established.  "Lazy bastard that I am, I can't be bothered to do much more than smile up at her and give a wiggle under her bum as the rest of me wakes up as well.  Thankfully she takes her own top off and saves me the trouble."

Please, please.... Libby was dying for some description of his fantasy woman.

"Christ!  The view is bloody brilliant!  Tiny perky titties in the immediate foreground.  Sparkling azure ocean in the background.  Sunny skies above.  I am a lucky, lucky man."

Unconsciously Libby ran a hand over her own small breasts.  He observed the gesture, pleased he had managed to draw such a pointed reaction from her so early on.  Redoubling his efforts, he sank deeper into the fantasy.  He would have her quivering by the end, or he would scorch himself trying.

It went against his nature, but he carried on with his passive role in the fantasy.  "Her hands go to her breasts."  Libby's hands immediately froze and she felt him shake under her with amusement.  She folded her arms over her chest with a huff and he shouted with laughter at her mock protest... but he didn't give in, choosing to comment on her little slip by way of the fantasy instead.  "Don't be shy now, love.  Go on... you know how much I love to see you touch yourself."

He wasn't going to get her again that easily.  When Libby didn't move, he carried on talking to the fantasy woman instead.  "That's the way, sweetheart.  Feels good, doesn't it?"  Humming softly to himself in pleasure, he took an unwise, and yet unavoidable decision to give the fantasy woman an all too familiar appearance.

"Damn but she looks good enough to eat and all that soft golden skin is really doing it for me.  I've always had a soft spot--or rather a hard one--for delicate diminutive women... and those pale eyes get me every time."

He caught the hitch in her breath as she realized who he was roundaboutly describing.  

"She's a bit of a naughty girl, though.  Smooth down below, like a great juicy peach.  Better, actually.  Not even any fuzz.   She tastes better too--

His words made them both think of the kiss they'd shared earlier.  The taste of each other still lingered on their lips.

"--or at least she did before a put a few gallons of myself up her."  Laughing at his own crude juvenile arrogance--and her sharply indrawn breath--he continued, "I told you I was a greedy bugger."

Libby grinned in spite of herself.  He was entirely too charming.  And how interesting that his earlier distaste for anything resembling an adolescent lover had disappeared when he was deep in his own pleasure.  Was that deliberate too, or had his mind reached for her image instead?  He'd seen her in the loo earlier and she'd noted his prurient interest in her smooth pink sex.  Only time would tell.    

"And because it's my fantasy, there are no bloody paps around--so I can make love to her outside in the open air.  I used to be able to do that," he admitted without really meaning to.  "I miss it."

Shaking away the momentary melancholy, he checked himself.  Unwise confessions aside, it was getting harder to stay within the box.  In his mind, the fantasy had already shifted from a passive session to one in which he was the one making love instead of the one on the receiving end.  So much for that challenge.     

Once his mind was made up and he had given himself permission to drive the bus again instead of trying to force something that didn't feel quite right, he was confident he knew just where to take both the fantasy and the woman resting her head in his lap.  And it sure as hell wasn't a bloody hammock.  Escaping it would require a bit of finesse, but he was up to the task.

"Her kiss is soft and she tastes of coconut.  She has a wicked, wicked tongue," he added just to watch Libby squirm.  "I particularly enjoy how suckling it makes her wiggle that sweet little bum on my cock."

Libby shuddered.  It was the first time he'd said anything really crude and the thought of his mouth suckling anything made her burn.

He hummed with anticipation.  Now for the fun part.... 

"Bugger all!" he roared, scaring Libby half out of her wits.  She jerked but he checked the motion with one big palm on her chest and eased her back down, giggling with glee.  "She's an exuberant girl.  Got a bit ahead of herself and dumped us into the sand whilst she was trying to reach into my shorts.  Oopsie poopsie!"

He was giggling again.  Libby was too... but not for long.  "I've half a mind to put her back in the hammock and teach her a lesson.  You know, head hanging off one side and her legs over my shoulders with my face buried between--what a view that would be, eh?"

Jesus!  His or hers?  

"But then I spy the bottle she left in the sand earlier and a better idea comes to mind..."

Libby's body suddenly thrummed with electric anticipation as his fantasy took an unexpected turn.  His lazy fuck on the beach had just veered off the beaten path.  She could hardly contain herself, and for a moment she was in real danger of hyperventilating.  It was a silly childhood problem she thought she'd outgrown years ago.  That it was threatening to resurface now was a telling sign of just how deeply this man affected her.

He could feel the tension in her body and went in for the kill.

"Bottle in one hand, I drag her up and we kiss and grope our way back to the beach hut, divesting ourselves of clothes along the way.  Naughty girl that she is, she leads me in by my cock, her pert little titties bouncing in my face all the while until I am half crazed.  That's when I decide to bite her there later--to leave my mark on her."

Libby thought of the palm mark she'd left on his cheek earlier.

"A little something for her to remember me by because God knows it will be weeks before I forget that sight."  

Weeks?  How like a man.  Years would pass and yet she knew she'd never forget a single moment of this night.  

His face took on a wistful look.  "You know... in my experience most of those beach huts are complete crap, cold drafty old buggers held together with palm lashings and dust.  But..."  He paused purposefully to draw out the suspense.  ".... they all seem to have the crispest, whitest sheets I have ever seen in my life.  How do they do it?  Bound to be one of the great mysteries of life, I reckon.  And they are the perfect backdrop for all that golden skin when I toss her down on the bed and climb in after."

Oooooh.  Myyyyyy......  Libby shivered and pressed her legs together.  It only served to heighten the throbbing between them.  

"But you see, the thing about those sheets is that anything so pristine just begs to be dirtied up a bit.  And lucky for her, I am in the mood to oblige."  

He watched as her legs began to move restlessly as she anticipated what he'd say next.  

"I can't think of anything I'd like more than to spend a sweaty afternoon in bed working up a thirst with a woman like her."  With his free hand, he picked up the half full wine bottle beside him and rolled it between his thick fingers.  "It's a good job I have this bottle here...."

His eyes twinkled.  Below him, Libby's eyes were closed to better see the vision he was creating for them.  "She doesn't know me well enough to know she should have tried to escape while she had the chance.  She's too busy jerking me.  That's the way... Ssssssfffff.  Feelssss good....."

Libby began to sweat.  God, that voice!  He might as well be fucking her ears as well as her mind.

"Lust is scorching my senses.  It's been a long dry spell and all I can think about is gorging on her to excess.  I grab the cork with my teeth and pop it with a lusty pull.  She thinks I'm teasing when I hold it over her and start to tip it...."

This time it was Libby who shrieked when a wet splash hit her chin and neck before soaking her blouse.  Under her clothes she could feel the slow crawl of the sticky droplets as they ran down her sides and dribbled wetly between her legs.  In her shock she tried to squirm away.

"Oh no you don't, sweetheart...."  His had restrained her once again.  "I'm thirsty and you are not going anywhere until I drink my fill...."  He took a pull off the bottle.  "Don't worry.... I have enough for two...."

She trembled and her body clenched around the Burmese bells.  It wasn't nearly enough.  They weren't a traditional sex toy.  They were small and offered little stimulation save the sensation of something tangible to squeeze down on in her desperation.

"First a kiss to start us off.  It's wild.  Wet.  I suckle her bottom lip first and save the top for after.  The wine is distracting me and I can't help but follow the red drops with my mouth.  Another splash on her chest to be sure I get to taste it all." 

He looked down at her heaving chest.  Her nipples were outlined by the wet cloth.  "Y'like that?  Your nipples say you do.... Let me taste the other one.  No!  Bring it to my mouth..." 

His pants were getting uncomfortably tight and he shifted under Libby's head, squirming--caught up as deftly as she in the world he'd created.

"I lick into her armpit and she giggles and squirms away.  Ticklish then are you, love?  You know what they say about ticklish people, don't you?"  He paused again for effect.  "Sexually repressed."  He tutted. "But maybe not so much anymore...."  

Libby whimpered softly in the back of her throat.

"Still thirsty?"  Covering the mouth of the bottle with the fat pad of his thumb, he trickled some over Libby's lips, just a dribble at first and then a gush.  It overflowed into her hair and pooled wetly under her back.  The crawl of the dark fluid over her skin was one of the most erotic sensations she'd ever felt.  The fact that he'd all but forbidden her to move or speak only enhanced the feeling.

"I prise her legs apart, though it doesn't take much coaxing."  He sounded smug.  "What a pretty cunt....  She's so slippery and tight.  I can't resist touching her there.  Open up for me... yesssss...like that..."

Her legs parted slightly, an unconscious echo of his fantasy.

"A splash there too?  That feel good?  Mmmm... I know it does."  He opened his eyes and his gaze settled on the cork lying beside him.  His eyes gleamed.  Libby's were still screwed tightly shut. 

"What's this now?"  He held the cork under her nose so she could identify it and wouldn't be alarmed when he lightly stroked it down her neck.  "I kiss her so she can't see what I'm doing and I slip the cork up inside her--"

Libby bit her lip.

"--and press it deep."  It was uncanny how his fantasy had echoed the Burmese bells she'd slipped inside herself earlier tonight.  "Big boy are just like little ones.  They see a hole and can't resist sticking things into it."  He giggled at his observation.

"Her eyes fly open..."  

Their gaze met for the first time since beginning this erotic island trip.

"More?"  

She didn't nod.  She didn't have to.  He already knew she was deep in his thrall.

"I press it higher.  Two fingers this time.  She can't get away."  His cock ached.  "That's the way, sweetheart.  Squeeze down.  Feel it....Harder.  Harder!  Make me fucking feel it.....You gonna come?"

In a perfect world, yes... but she hovered on the edge, body fluttering around the damned bells.  Reality so closely mirrored fantasy in that moment that she could almost feel the cork.

"That's it...."  There was satisfaction in his voice now.  "It was just a small orgasm.  Nothing compared to the one I'm about to give her..."

Libby's body juddered, a physical reaction to his words.  Watching it excited him on a whole different level than this aural fantasy.  He was drunk on his own power.  Bringing a woman to such a state with only his imagination and voice was a heady experience.  It made him bold.

"She's into it now.... even the cork... but she's young and inexperienced.  I think what I have in mind to do next might be too salty for her."

She watched him stroke the neck of the bottle pointedly and swallowed a gasp of want.

"I could use this....push it in just enough to meet the cork and force it exquisitely high...."

The world began to spin.  

"I'm curious to see if I can recork it that way before she passes out from the pleasure but I see that her eyes flare wide when the bottle comes anywhere close.  Pity.  Maybe another time?  Lusty I might be, but I don't want to frighten her.  Besides, another idea just occurred to me that I like better anyway...."

He grabbed the bottle again and watched her watch him upend it.

"Too much?  Don't worry... I'll just have a drink of this then and we'll see about that cork...  I splash it over her cunt and gulp a mouthful for myself.  Spit some into her.  Drink it out.  Slake my thirst on her.  I don't think she minds... not if the thighs she has wrapped round my neck have anything to say about it."

Libby made a strangled sound.

"I kiss her again.  On the mouth," he clarified.  "Whisper inane things in her ear.  She thinks I'm in control but I'm as far gone as she is.  She's frantic.  I can't resist pushing in, just to watch her face when my cock nudges the cork in deeper...."

Oh, God!

"It's fun for a while but the novelty of it soon wears off.  She's small and it's a tight fit even without the cork.  I'm impatient to fuck her like I really want to, cram her so full she feels me up to her neck."

His graphic description of a man in full rut was crude, but also revealed the depth of his need.  Libby's fingers curled into fists.

"Enough playing.  She's frantic for me now, tossing her head back and forth.  Scratching at me."

Libby dug her nails into her tender palm and shivered. 

"I make her take out the cork.  I want to watch.  I want to push myself to the breaking point before covering her like an animal and riding her until we both pass out.  I feel wild.  Savage.  She's not gentle either.  Not shy about touching herself now.  She'd do anything it took to feel me inside her.  I'd do anything to be there."

She was very close.  Her breath came in great shuddering gasps.

"I make her wait a few more moments--just because I am a bastard and I want to revel in the mindless state I've brought her to.  Show me the cork, love.  Nice.  S'wet....... I close her fingers round it with a kiss and surround her fist with my own.  Lovely bouquet, this....."

He wanted to make Libby wait too, to revel in the state he'd brought her to.  Another few moments and it would all be over. 

"I ram in hard.  Push deep.  Hoh.  So fucking tight!  Hot.  I can't believe how hot she is inside.  Blistering.  Mindless.  It feels so good.... like a drug, a rush.  Addictive.  Primal.  Instinctive.  I have to fight not to come.  It's hard.  So fucking hard.  All I want to do is give in.  The only thing I want more is to feel her give in first...."

So close......  More.  God!  

"So good....  You're killing me, baby.... Let me feel you.........Come...." 

The hand he had in her hair stopped stroking and pulled sharply with a sudden vicious jerk.

"Come on me..... Come ON!  Give it to me!"  

Libby came, her body taut like a bowstring as the pleasure rippled through her and she made a soft strangled cry.

"Yess...."

He observed her orgasm.  It was a pure thing of erotic beauty.  Her body trembled and her hips jerked slightly, as if accepting her lover's thrusts.  She collapsed against him after, turning on her side and curling up to hide her face against his thigh.  He stroked her hair softly.  He was deeply aroused, though the massive quantity of alcohol he'd consumed tonight made talking about orgasm more desirable than actually having one.  Imagine what the world would think if they discovered he was merely human after all? 

Libby came back to herself slowly.  She could still hear his smoky voice talking, presumably finishing out his little fantasy.

"....and then I close my eyes and let go...."

Eyes closed.  Yes, it was a fantasy after all.  If he'd been with his love, he'd have held her eyes with his own and fallen into them in the end.  He was going to leave her tonight and when he had finally won his love, they would make love with their eyes open--and Libby would have what she always did, men who dreamed of having her... and who always closed their eyes and thought of their real loves in the end.  She was nothing but a fantasy.

Shaking herself from her maudlin thoughts, she was surprised to hear him still talking.  Usually the fantasy ended with the orgasm.  It was unusual for a man to continue past that point.  Libby listened, curious.

"Later, long after we have gone our separate ways, I can't help but smile when I think of her.  I stand on the bow with my mate, talking about our lives and the pleasures of home.  I keep the cork in my pocket and bring it out when I am aching for all the things I left behind.  I look out over the vast sea and hold it under my nose to let the delicate fragrance remind me of the softness women bring to my vagabond life."  And of the sacrifices he was going to have to make to be worthy of having one particular woman in his life for the rest of his days.

Libby groaned inwardly.  Oh, God!  He was a romantic!  Her heart ached and she wished she'd never agreed to speak with him at all.  She'd been hoping for a glimpse at the mind of the one man she found fascinating above all others.  He'd given her so much more than that, and now, after meeting him and coming to know him--if only in the most superficial of ways--the pain of knowing him and watching him walk away was deeper than she'd ever imagined. 

He was a singular man; passionate, volatile, arrogant, intelligent, humble, witty.  Honor and integrity were rare qualities, as was his fearlessness and hearty appetite for life.  He had his faults, some of which she'd tasted tonight, but he was a man among men.

"I wish I'd met you before."  It was as close as she would ever come to apologizing for the path she'd chosen in life.

"I don't," he said honestly.  "You'd have broken my heart," he teased trying to lighten the mood, aware of how painful his honest words might be.  

And it was possible.  For all his brashness, he had a tender heart--but it was more likely that he was glad they hadn't crossed paths because had she made different choices with her life, she would have been exactly the soft of woman he fell hard for and that would have only complicated his life and the one relationship that mattered to him above all.

Wanting to avoid an ugly scene--or worse--her tears, he chucked her chin softly.  "Besides, you're far too young for an old goat like me."  He stood and helped her to her feet, eying her wine stained clothes with a small and not-so-apologetic smile.  "That's a good look on you, Libby."

"I hear it's all the rage in Paris."

"Paris?  No... but Provence, maybe..."

They looked at each other.  He was the first to break the moment.

"Tell me something?"

"Well, like you said... honesty is the coin of the night."

He giggled.  "When you were dancing... and just a bit ago when you..." he paused, flushing slightly.  Libby found it adorably endearing.  "I heard bells.  Tell me I am not crazy."

"You're not crazy."

"Bells?" he shook his head in amusement when she offered no further explanation.

"You're one to talk!  I will never look at a bottle of wine again without thinking of you." 

"Then my work here is done."  He bowed with a swagger that was pure man.  "I thank you for the... audience," he said, reminding her of his first impression of her regal air.  "But I have been lucky so far to make it through tonight without compromising myself.  I had best be off before I tempt fate one too many times."

Libby threw her head back and laughed.  "Are you joking?"  Her next words were probably going to tarnish his memory of her forever, but someday he--and the woman he finally settled down with--would thank her.  "Did you just fuck me or not?"

That drew him back sharply, shocking him out of his jovial mood.  "Excuse me?"  She had done the unthinkable.  Raise the conundrum--was what had passed between them tonight infidelity?  "I never fucking touched you!"

"I saw your cock.  You saw my cunt."  She was deliberately crude.  "We kissed.  We had world class foreplay.  And after?  That was the best sex I have ever had--bar none.  You fucked me more thoroughly than anyone ever has."  Or probably ever will, she thought glumly.

His eyes narrowed.  "We're even then.  Now you've fucked me just as thoroughly."  He was angry, furious--and yet somewhere in the mix, his ego was roaring in triumph and he was secretly pleased that out of the dozens or hundreds of men she'd been with, she'd crowned him the very best.  Why did everything have to be so fucking complex?

"You're welcome."

Her unexpected answer should have pissed him off more--and it probably would have if his mind wasn't already on the track she was trying to lay for him.  But he'd already taken the decision.  He didn't need anyone telling him what he should or shouldn't do.  And it was due in part to the night he shared with Liberty.  Free at last.  Free at last.  He knew what he needed to do now and he was finally, finally ready.

"Madame.  It as been a pleasure."  He reached for her hand.    

His reply threw her.  "You're not mad?"

"Of course I am."  And he still was, despite everything.  "But we promised each other honesty and I couldn't leave without giving you that much."  His sincerity floored her and made it all the more difficult to watch him walk away forever.  "Even if I could cheerfully strangle you at the moment."

Libby simply nodded.  What more was there to say?  

She led him back through to the room where he'd left his shoes, socks and jacket earlier.  "When you're ready, my assistant will see you out."  Libby turned to go.  "I would do it myself but I seem to have had a little accident." She waved a hand at her wine stained clothes with a smile.  Her skirt was still dripping.

"I still think it's a good look on you."

"The best," she said softly, slipping away before he saw the tears in her eyes.  For all the others, she was just a fantasy.  For him... for him she had just been herself.

Her assistant saw him to the elevator doors and slipped a small box into his hand, patting his arm in her maternal way.  "It's from her." She said unnecessarily, looking fresh as a daisy despite the fact the night was half gone.  It was going on five.  The sun would be rising soon.  Jesus!  Did the woman not sleep? 

His mind whirling, he kissed the old woman on the cheek and smiled at her scolding as he slipped into the elevator and the doors glided shut.  Alone at last, except for the box he now carried.  It felt a bit like the end of an era.  Or maybe the beginning?

Curious, he studied the small brocade covered box, wondering what Libby might have tucked inside.  And like an exuberant little child at Christmas, he held it up to his ear and shook it. 

Bells.

Chuckling to himself, he opened the box.  Nestled in a bed of red satin were two small perfectly round golden balls.  He shook the box again, watching they came together making a soft muted chiming.  Understanding flooded him.  He hefted them in his palm.  They were deceptively heavy and still held the residual warmth of her body.  He held them to his face, inhaling the faint erotic fragrance of her body and felt his cock twitch in response.  With reverence, he returned the bells to their satin bed and closed the lid.   

The first of many roads not taken.

The floor bounced under him slightly indicating he had reached the lobby and as the lift doors slid silently open, he tucked the gift back into his coat pocket.  Thankfully the lobby was all but deserted as he made his way to the doors.  Stepping out into the gray predawn light, he turned the collar of his coat up against the damp and started walking, aware of the weight in his pocket as it bumped his thigh with every step he took.

Too wound up to sleep, he wandered the city, stopping for a strong hot cup of tea at a small café.  He drank it outside, alone, watching the sunrise.  It suited his mood perfectly.  It was the start of something new, something unspoiled and unsullied that glowed with warmth and promise despite the pitfalls it illuminated on the horizon.

Inside the deep pocket of his coat, he fingered the fine gift one last time before wrapping it in his napkin and tossing it into the receptacle as he left.  He was a romantic sort and there was a time he would have kept such a fine memento of an erotic night of exploration and growth.  Even yesterday he would have been hard pressed to part with it.  And yet today--today everything was different.  He was different. 

He saw it all in a new light and it was one that did not have room for such gifts, however precious they might be.  Memory and fantasy would have to be enough.  He walked away lighter--freer--with no regrets and a future that spread before him like an open road.