One of my friends had her honeymoon on Hawaii. She sent me a postcard. On the front, it was a beautiful scene of a lush canopy of palm trees over a pristine white beach that was lapped by gorgeous waves of blue-green. And in magenta, florid lettering, the design read: "Having a great time. Wish you were here."When I turned it over to read what she'd written to me on the little space they give you for messages, it read: "Not a chance! I'm on my honeymoon!" and it then listed, in bullet points, a few reasons she was glad it was just her and her new spouse alone together on a tropical, romantic island.It was a snapshot of her time there in paradise.

Does a snapshot, even a group of snapshots, ever really capture the full experience? Perhaps... if they are candid enough.

 

 

 

When I am with Max, I feel both at peace and curiously insatiable. If I could, I would sometimes choose to rush past the getting to know him part and plunge headlong into... into... into what?

This is what I do not know.

We had only just arrived in Hawaii. I was sharing his room. He was standing on the balcony. I had excused myself for only as long as it took to freshen up in the bathroom and to change into something I had brought along for just this experience.

But for a lingering moment, I stood in the shadowed interior of the room and I watched him standing out there. What is this curious, unexpected jumble of emotions I was feeling to be in this privileged position of being alone with Max again?

 

 

We had traveled together to the island. On the plane over, we had talked low and earnest to each other. It was a bit of teasing but it was also a prelude. I can close my eyes even now and draw up the way it felt, down to the finest detail, when he took my hand in his, drew it to his lips and then whispered to me that he had every intention of seducing me.

How can you seduce any woman who feels as I do about Max? I am not fighting this feeling; I am acknowledging it. But acknowledging it to myself and telling him are two different things. It is far too early. He has other women whom he treasures. It would be painful, at this point, to take a step like that when I know already that the recent image of him with another woman left me feeling anxious and sad.

Then there is the question of me and that I am clearly no longer as pure as I was when I first met Max. I will be honest enough to admit that while I would have once thought it was only Max to whom I'd give myself, that there are others who have captured both my attention and affection.

There is, at this point in time, no real reason to have to sort this out. We are, none of us, making declarations. We are, none of us, seeking any sort of declaration from another.

This is called dating.

And that's not meant to be callous. Just honest.

I walked into that pub not that long ago. I do not intend to run through the men there as if I'm holding tryouts for a male chorus, but neither do I have any reason not to date any with whom I fancy a date.

 

 

From the moment I sat down at Max's table weeks ago, I have allowed myself to be cautious with him. That is a mark of the respect I hold for what might someday be between us. It is an acknowledgment to myself of what I hope will one day be between us. And each emotional attachment we form is the foundation for what I hope will be someday.

This is on my mind because of one very simple complication: after I met Max and knew that between us would be emotions of lasting power and fulfilling depth, there was another man in that pub who surprised me with the instant flare of interest between us. That man has most unexpectedly proven a source of intense fascination for me. And in this weekend, I have promised to spend separate time with them both.

They seem to respect each other. But... there is some undercurrent of tension between them there that I am ignoring because I cannot see how that's important to me. I may be dating them both, but they understand about dating. It's like one is trying on a relationship for size. It is a time to get to know another person and for that person to get to know you. Somewhere along the way, these things work themselves out. You begin to realize that rather than just dating anyone who asks, you wish to be so much more selective. You hope to reach a point where you feel the same way about each other and where you wish to make it exclusive. Even then, even exclusive, it's still a trial, is it not? You are still learning if there is love on the horizon.

 

 

As it came to happen, when the trip to Hawaii came up, I invited this other man, Terry, to be my date for the biggest group event: the luau. I had reason to believe that Max was absorbed with another woman at that point. I am not saying that if Max had appeared free that I would have not asked Terry to be with me at the luau. That would be disingenuous. I am simply saying that the situation between Max and this other woman made me feel open to exploiting the fascination I had to do a different dance. So I invited Terry.

Yes, I sit here grinning as I reminisce on the particular way Terry accepted. And I am instantly sober at how he made me feel in the next breath. I am beginning to learn a bit about Terry... enough to know that it is in the 'next breath' when he is most deadly to a woman's equilibrium.

 

 

Max remains for me a man above all others. He has made me feel his strength. He has shared the depths of his longing nature.

All he need do is look upon me and I feel my skin flush.

When I am with him, every other person fades from view. I like that. I like that very much. It happens, I believe, because there is a level of intensity surrounding him that attracts an equal level of intensity from me.

For all the ways I am cautious in how I move in a relationship with Max, there is one way in which I have not been cautious with him since that first morning I woke with him. We make love no-holds-barred. We make love as if each time is the only time. That level of intensity cannot last. While we have it, I revel in it.

I feed it.

 

 

Two days after he asked me out of the blue to spend this time with him, I was out shopping for an outfit to wear to a social function I had coming up. I walked past a Victoria's Secret in the mall. And I thought to myself ... Maximus. My skin flushed thinking of him: the way he made love to me; the way he had found to loosen the woman inside who was bold with him.

In the central section of the store were three mannequins clothed in the latest lingerie offerings on sale. The middle one wore a short, red babydoll that was made of the sheerest, most feminine lace. It hugged the mannequin's curves in a way that brought me to a halt before it. I reached out to touch it. The lace was stretchy. I stroked over it. I could feel the subtle nubs and swales of the mannequin's surface in the open spaces of the lace. I got this instant visceral premonition of Max's hands touching my own skin through this lace.

I bought it in black. It came with a matching g-string.

 

 

Strands of my pubic hair curled through the lace of the g-string that evening in Hawaii after I slipped it on inside the bathroom. I dabbed perfume on my wrists and between my breasts and behind my neck after I donned the babydoll and adjusted it upon my own curves. The cleavage plunged; the bottom hem skirted more than halfway up my thighs; the thin straps looked more delicate than the lace. I brushed my hair out and when I flung my head back upright, I looked in the mirror. What I saw was a presentiment of how I would feel when I first walked out to where Max was on the balcony.

It was the only new thing I'd bought for the trip. I bought it solely for this purpose of presenting myself to Max.

 

 

When I stepped outside onto the balcony... barefoot, hair tousled, no makeup save a light gloss upon my lips... it was all for him. All for that first look... the hooded eyes, the quick intake of breath, the suddenly erect spine as he rose from the chair.

Of all the ways Maximus may thrill me, it is his honest reaction to my femininity that calls forth my lust for his masculinity.

"Was that for me?" I asked him, indicating the second wine glass on the table where he'd been sitting, watching the waning sunlight.

Without a word, he lifted the glass and presented it to me. I sipped as he continued to simply look at me. Walking to the rail so I could gaze out to sea, I said, "The view is so lovely from here, Max."

"Indeed," he said. His voice was deep, husky. I felt the way the air vibrated in its wake. Seconds later, I felt the heat of his body just behind me. "Eris, it has been far too long since we were alone together."

"Do you remember the first time you touched me?" I asked him. He moved the hair that covered my shoulders back until the sides of my neck were bare. I could feel his warm breath flowing down upon my shoulder near the strap of my babydoll. "I remember it as if I still lived it."

"Vero?" he whispered just before his lips pressed in on my skin next to the strap. He skimmed the back of his hands down either side of my spine. I trembled hard and closed my eyes.

"Yes," I said, on this breath that rushed from me. "I have never been the same since."

He placed his palms upon my hips. The fingers of his left hand were whisper soft upon my new tattoo, the one I knew he would understand but had yet to show him. He kissed up my shoulder toward my neck. Each kiss, in succession, grew more fierce. Each kiss brought his body closer to mine as he edged his groin in until I could feel the rod of his hardening penis pressing against my buttocks. I arched my neck sideways as his assault mounted. All I wanted ... it was coming true.

 

 

Several nights now, I'd imagined this moment. His presence overwhelmed me. I relished the moment and the touches from him: the feel of the warmth and roughness of his hands as they pressed and massaged my hips and then my belly... the feel of the fabric of the clothes he wore rubbing through the lace behind me, making me aware of my vulnerable state with a man who would take no prisoners on a night like this.

Beneath the lace, I beckoned. 

We were both of us aware of the message I gave him to have come to him this first night dressed in this manner. I would begin this time with an act of physical love that was only possible because of the intimacy we had shared.

He whispered to me... fevered words of what he would do with me. I opened my eyes, turned my head to find his mouth but he was looking down upon my breasts. I gazed down at my own body as I leaned back into his chest. My erect nipples were obvious in the binding of the lace. I reached up to finger them both. Max's teeth made contact with the top of my shoulder. I moaned as he bit in, sucking gently... an indentation, nothing more. Just enough to show me the level of his lust.

"We could be seen by anyone glancing this way," he said to me, his mouth against my ear. His face slid against mine, caressing me with the movement of cheek on cheek.

"Does that excite you?"

"Everything about you excites me, Eris."

"As you do to me, Maximus."

 

 

I followed him inside the room when he moved away from me. He knew I would follow. I brought the wine bottle and glasses with me. I padded silently into the sitting area of the suite. He was lounging upon a large, overstuffed reading chair. I knelt at his feet and poured more wine into his glass. As he sipped it, I removed his shoes and socks. I was careful, thoughtful, precise in my movements. I stroked his bare feet, from his insteps to his ankles and then down the rise until I stopped at his big toes.

When I glanced up at him, his head was tilted to the side and he smiled shyly at me. I was utterly charmed. When he put his hand down to me, I accepted it and let him draw me up into his lap. He shared his wine with me, bidding me to let him hold the glass for me as I tilted my head back and sipped. He tilted the glass too far and wine seeped around my lips, down my throat, into my cleavage.

My cleavage was where he attacked. He growled in at the feel of fleshy mounds at his mercy. I struggled lightly under the assault because the angle of my body made me feel off-kilter. His hands pressed my breasts in against his face and he burrowed in, licking the sticky remnants of wine with his broad tongue.

When he had had his fill, he paused and laid his cheek against the top of my breasts. I relaxed into the sureness of his hold; my insides tensed in anticipation and need. His hands held me tightly to his chest. Oh, the heat of him. All man; a man I could feel many things for if given time and encouragement.

"Tell me what you wish in this night, Eris. I will never deny you," he said.

I molded my body into his hold. I thought of that first night together, of how he had been from the first: a lover of exquisite physical strength... and a lover of hidden tenderness. And in the first morning together, I had reached a point with him from which I would not retreat. Ever.

He wanted to know what I wished?

 

 

Pushing myself from his hold, I stood before him. Our eyes met. I bent to kiss his lips, letting my tongue stroke across his closed mouth. When he yielded to my unspoken request, I flitted my tongue inside his warm, wet cavity. And then I stood tall before him again. With my hands, I traced my form... from my face to my neck, down my breasts, over my ribs, across my belly, to my hips. Slowly, I pulled up on the lace... inch by slow inch, I raised the fabric higher and higher until the bottom hem rose to my belly button.

He watched with abject attention. He absorbed what I was doing. I saw his head shake, these tiny movements... as if he was convincing himself that he was right in what he believed I was asking of him. He did not have reason to hide his continued excitement. He wanted my open gazes to linger upon the seat of his manhood.

He led with his fingers. He hooked one on either side of the g-string. Going every bit as slowly as I had gone in raising my lace, he went that slowly in lowering the lace of my g-string. Down, past my thighs, over my knees, down my calves... until it was low enough that I could easily step out of it. He held the g-string in his hands, rubbing the lace crotch. Absent-mindedly, he put it before his face and sniffed in deeply.

This honest gesture... I swallowed hard in response and whispered his name.

He eased slowly off the couch, going to his knees before me and simply loved me there in his own style. It is a way he has of diving in with enthusiasm, authority and the knowledge that he is over-powering any resistance. I cried out to him... a combination of what he did to me that night and my memory of that earlier time when he had used his raw prowess here to release the woman who had wanted to be with him.

How can he be this man?

 

 

Yet in the midst of this time with him, I did not hesitate. I sunk to my own knees before him. We stared into each other for long seconds in which it seemed impossible that such force of emotion was between us, but there it was and we neither flinched in the face of it.

"I have had no night of peace since you asked me to join you here," I whispered in the shadows of that room.

"If you look to me for a peaceful night while you are with me, you look in vain," he replied.

I gazed down his body; my hands reached out to stroke lightly down his chest, the feel of his body through the soft cotton fabric was the hint of Max unleashed.

He touched me then. His hands cupped my breasts through the lace. It was all it should have been. I put my hands over his and pressed harder. Not enough time for a gasp before he moved. I would have him no other way with me.

His hands moved, so fast, so sure. His fingers curled under the edges of the bodice of the babydoll. He looked directly into my eyes. We were panting, open-mouthed, in unison. My eyes opened wide when I felt his hands tense in their grip of the fragile fabric that encased me.

He rent the lace in one swift, brutal motion... ripping it apart from the cleavage to the bottom hem until the garment gaped open and my body spilled out to the assault of his body.

I knelt there before him, wanting him. I reached for him but he slapped my hands away.

He touched me with heated, insistent hands. He fondled me, as if to both remembered my feel and to remind me as if I ever needed another reminder that I was this woman when with him. I tried to unbutton his shirt but he simply yanked it open before his hands at my derriere pulled me to his body. And then he lowered me to the floor before him, his body following mine.

Bare chest to bare chest, we squirmed against the other. I wanted to tell him how he made me feel but words could not compete with demonstration. And then he grunted out to me that he could not be held back. I felt his hands between us, wresting with his belt and the snap of his jeans.

My hands joined his. Between us, we succeeded where one might have fumbled forever in the midst of our struggling forms. There was a moment of pause; into it, his mouth found my earlobe and then his voice found my ear. He said he had to have me. I arched beneath him just as I placed his tip at my entrance.

What a woman of stone I would have had to be to ever not respond to the purity of his raw approach to me. He was relentless in that night. There did come a time when I simply held on to him and let him go; my voice gone into a huskiness that only he could hear.

And later, when he asked me if I remembered from whence I came, I could only touch tenderly upon the face of this man who had begun to teach me that there are more things upon earth that approach heaven than I had ever known before.

 

 

Much later that night, I lay stock still in the bed as moonlight was my only blanket. I had a hand placed on Max's chest, just to maintain contact. I watched the ceiling and listened to him breathe in the night. There was a purity in that moment. He lay exhausted next to me, deep in slumber, peaceful with the knowledge that the connection he had established with me remained inviolate.

I was far too tired to sleep. As I looked about me in that room that night, I realized that every single moment of my time with Max was marked by the impact we seemed to have on each other.

 

 

I may be cautious with Max; I am immoderate with Terry.

With Terry, I am almost giddy with the good times I have with him. He is witty, urbane, seductive, engaging. He flatters me with a knowing look. He makes me laugh. He can put me so at ease with him and yet all it takes is a certain touch of his knowing hand... a little push with his engrossing body... a little manipulation with his inquisitive mind... That's all it really takes. And there is instant fire between us.

The thing is, unlike Max, Terry Thorne knows. Max may guess and he may charge in on nothing more than faith, but Terry knows. Terry can take one look at me, hear me breathe a certain way on the phone, feel my hand tense in his, and he knows that I am his to claim however he wishes as long as he follows through on the promise of whatever it is he's done to make me want him. I assume he's that way with any woman he's interested in; it's something about him that gets to me.

It also gets to me that there's a certain amount of almost self-conscious awareness that Terry's not quite as self-confident with some women as he'd like them to think. There have been a few times when I've caught an edge to his look or a rawness to a gesture that made me think I was making him nervous.

He fascinates me, Terry Thorne.

Absolutely fascinates me.

I have never felt quite this way about any man. There is a part of me that knows for sure that whatever is in store for Terry and me, it is not love. But that doesn't matter. I don't always need every single man I am infatuated with to turn out to be someone I will love.

What I sense about Terry, though, is that I may be foolish enough to fall for him too fast. He'd be dangerous if that happened because he's a good man who never takes things like that for granted. He's romantic enough that he'd press it, hard. I'm romantic enough that I'd let myself be swept off my feet by a man like that.

 

 

The sun had risen hours hence. I had induced Max to ignore its presence for a while. The only thing that really got us out of that room was the fact we both thought it was perhaps more in keeping with the social aspects of the trip to attend to the morning's snorkeling expedition that someone had planned for the group.

Max had gone ahead to verify where we were to meet. I had lagged behind, as always curious about the details of the places I went to. In this case, I wanted more than anything to see the orchids that the person who checked us in told me were native to this particular island.

"Hips all limber?" he said, his familiar voice playful and yet challenging. He had been stealthy in approaching me in this morning; stealing up beside me as I bent to lay my index finger lightly upon the cerise softness of an orchid in the lobby display.

"Terry, what kind of question is that for a woman?" I asked him, my smile for him unbidden and instant.

"I was talking hula. What were you talking, Eris? You thinking naughty thoughts about me then?" He invaded my space, backing me up just enough and yet still keeping me close enough that any casual observer would have known with a glance that we were in heavy flirt mode. "If not, what can I do to put them in your mind, love?"

"Stop that. You're going to make me blush."

"Ready for tonight?"

When he did things like that, switching the conversation in that manner, I wondered if I was learning something important about him. It seemed to me that he liked the flirting until he chose to make it more. It also seemed to me that in the instant he made it more, he was waiting to see what next route he would take, depending on my response. If I kept up the playful banter, he made it more sexually aggressive. If I dropped it and became serious, only then did I feel I got a peek into the real person who wanted to make a connection with me but also wanted to protect his heart.

I put my hand on the front of his shirt, my fingers pulling and worrying over the top buttons. My fingertips made contact with his chest, in that concave area above his sternum, not too far below his Adam's apple. My eyes drifted up to meet his only after I'd taken a step in toward him and felt him surround me with just his aura of masculinity.

"I've been ready for tonight since I first asked you to be my date for the luau," I said softly. "I'm so grateful you said yes."

"It was my easiest negotiation ever. A beautiful escort and she can hula," he said. "You make it too easy."

When I invited him to the luau, I had teased him with a supposed negotiation for the date by telling him I could hula. And I added a further inducement that I would prepare a hula dance that would be performed only for him and in private after the luau.

"Well, in case you forget what I look like, I'll be the one wearing the sarong and a smile. The smile will be for you." 

"Terry throws in the towel ..." he said, dropping his voice so low. I leaned in. He leaned in. I felt his hand, warm, upon my bare midriff.

"Eris throws in the sarong ..." I said, my voice also low. My fingers dipped just beneath the open neck of his shirt. His skin was so inviting.

I was a breath from kissing him. A breath from forgetting myself. A breath from forgetting Max.

"I should go," I whispered as I edged away from him. "Max is taking me snorkeling."

"Don't forget. You promised me tonight. Make sure he knows that."

"You do know already that I'm not the sort of woman who plays games when it comes to other people's feelings. I know with whom I'll be at the luau. And that man gets all of my time, attention and involvement for that. I'd be a pretty awful person to do otherwise, especially to someone like you."

"I never doubted that."

 

 

Just before I found Max, I stood on the beach, watching out into the waves. I was troubled by my own actions. I was more troubled by the titillation of what I'd just felt in that brief encounter. I like to think I am an honorable person.

I would have been ashamed for Max to have witnessed what had just transpired between Terry and me. I would have known that witnessing it would have dishonored something between us. It was not fear of any jealousy on his part; it was that I owed him more than that. It seemed somehow disingenuous not to acknowledge that he deserved for me to treat him with greater regard for how it would feel for him to witness a display of sexual flirtation between me and another man when I was Max's date for that weekend.

That was the issue that was so tricky, though. Max had invited me to spend this weekend within the shelter of his company, to share his bed, only after I had invited Terry to be my date for the evening's luau. I was open with Max; painfully so. I gave him the option of dropping his invitation once he learned I had invited Terry to what was to be the most significant group event of the weekend. But Max had already known this before he issued his invitation; therefore, all was supposed to be easy and neat. Except for the luau, I would be with Max. Had I just proven that perhaps it was not quite so neat?

Who can regiment a person's drives? Who can tame a person's desires? How does a person control her reactions when she finds herself in close proximity to two men who each draw her so powerfully toward them? Where are the boundaries? This would be easier with written rules.

These were murky waters for me. I have never swum in them before. I am not a woman given to callous treatment of someone I hold dear; I am not a person who disregards other's feelings.

Max knew I had had a dalliance with Terry recently. He knew I had a date with him that night. Max had invited me to spend this weekend with him anyway. He had been gracious when I had bluntly raised the issue of whether or not this would be a concern for him. He said he did not seek to monopolize my time. I do not know why, I admit, but when he had said that, a part of me wished he did.

 

 

"I had no idea your lessons had been so exotic, Terry."

"There is so much you don't know about me, Eris."

"Do you like it that way?"

"What way?" he stopped in front of me upon the path. He did not turn to look at me. In the night's natural ease, I could hear him clearly even so. "You mean, do I like being the mystery man with you?"

"Yes. Do you want me to just accept what I see and not look further? I can do that if you'd like."

He dropped his head, like he was looking at the path. But in my mind's eye, I saw him staring into space... inner space. I saw his face grow serious, almost sad, very thoughtful. I think if I'd been looking in his eyes, I might have even seen fear, hesitation. But when he turned to me, his body language showed me a man who chose in that one clear moment to overcome his fear of letting someone in. He didn't turn smoothly. It was a half turn my way, his eyes darting at me before darting to the side of the path, to a large banyan tree right on the edge.

And then he made a jerky turn to where he was almost facing me but not quite. But by this time, his chin was up, his eyes were on mine and he knew what he wanted.

He had a hand on my forearm and he resolutely moved my body over to the tree. It was as if he needed to place me somewhere that he knew would provide a support for me when he moved in... but that also gave him the resistance he needed.

I believe he knew I wouldn't resist him.

In an instant, his body enveloped mine. It was so smoothly done that it seemed natural. I wrapped my arms around his neck even as his body settled against me and his arms surrounded me. His thigh was between mine; I never stopped myself from rubbing on it. It was so dark that I could not see his eyes. I guessed they were closed when he kissed me. Mine were. It was a smoldering, banking kiss.

"I doubt you'd find much if you look too hard," he whispered finally. His lips moved against my neck. It made me shiver.

"I've already found so much. I would consider it a privilege to be let inside a man like you."

"What's there to find for a woman like you, Eris? I have no noble sacrifices in my past. I'm not a leader of men. I don't..."

My fingers found his lips as I edged away from him. I wondered if there was enough light for him to see my face and to see how serious I was. "None of that is true. I could list your attributes for you but I won't. I will say only this, Terry. This man I am with in this night? He is a man who means much to me. He is a man who has shown me glimpses of his heart and I have found a sweetness in him that makes his ability to be tough all the more admirable."

I felt him smile against my fingers. He kissed the tips and then drew my hand down his body. "You gonna be with this man all night? Or does he expect you back?"

There was no hesitation in my response. "Where's this path lead, Terry?"

"To a waterfall."

 

 

Shortly after the trip to Hawaii was proposed, there had been a half-joke from Uma that someone had to undertake the challenge to get Terry to perform a hula dance for us at the luau. This came after Dino had shared with us all some dubious information and even more dubious photos of hula lessons that he claimed he and Terry had gotten while spending some memorable R&R time on a Hawaiian isle. When Uma asked if someone was willing to find a way to get Terry to dance for us on stage, I had two conflicting thoughts. One was that it would be wonderful to see Terry having that kind of fun, to see him feeling that easy within this group that he'd put himself on display. But the other was that displaying himself like that, especially knowing it was a dare, might make Terry feel used, devalued... as if he was only good to us for the prurient interest we had in his body.

I don't know Terry well enough to know how he really felt. Someday, I aspire to.

All I do know is that he knew about the dare even though it had only been discussed among the women in the pub's ladies room.

As I 'negotiated' this date with him, he'd given me a wide-open shot to make him dancing the hula into a condition of our date. I think he might have been testing me and I don't know if I failed or not because I refused to take the shot. To do so, I thought, would cheapen my sincere interest in being with him that night.

"I know you already know about the effort to get you to dance the hula," I told him when he gave me the opening during the 'negotiations.' "Call me unpredictable; no way am I going to ask you to do that as a condition of this date. But..."

He looked off; his body tensed as he leaned into the bar.

"... Even though I won't ever make it a condition, I am curious. What would it take to get you to perform the hula for us that night and show off those legendary lessons from your misspent earlier years? Would it be as simple as my heartfelt request?" I tried to lighten what suddenly felt like a heavy air between us by joking. "Is it even negotiable? If so, what numbers can I give you to take back to your people?"

"Get me on the stage?" He turned to gaze into my eyes. I saw him lick his lips. I wondered what was going on inside his mind. I wondered why he seemed nervous with me all of a sudden. "You only have to ask. Nicely. And come up with me. Guess I will need a partner?"

"Really?" 

It came out as a whisper. I was studying his eyes; I didn't want him to be saying this because he felt coerced or because he felt I expected it, like he was just being a nice guy for me. He would do this only because I asked? That was all? Then I wanted to ask in a way that honored what I felt this could mean to his own risk of personal dignity.

"Terry, would you dance a hula with me at the luau? There are several reasons why I'd love it but chief among them is that we'd be forced to get together beforehand to learn a routine. I know, I know. It would be a horrible sacrifice for us both, wouldn't it? Although... we do seem to dance together pretty well," I smiled at him. He grinned back, a shy grin that made my heart flutter. "Say yes? Please?"

"I'd say the hula was definitely on the cards. See what you get when you ask nicely? But we do need to practice. Reckon the General will be simpatico to that?"

 

 

We had developed a routine for him after watching an Elvis movie set in Hawaii one night. It sounds crazy, but it was a lovely way to go.

And oh-my-God sexy.

Then, in Hawaii at the luau, he let everyone think he didn't want to go up there. Lachlan and Jack dragged him up on stage to general hoots and much banging on tables that set glasses in motion. Marie insisted he be costumed like the Hawaiian male dancers. She fastened a grass skirt about his hips while Gaia rolled up his pants legs and unbuttoned his shirt. She tried to drag the shirt completely off him, but he stopped her with a kiss that left her disoriented, making it easy for him to gently push her away before she remembered what she'd been up to.

Terry made a few exaggerated rolls of his hips, as if limbering up. But when the emcee started the musical intro, I knew Terry had already coordinated this whole thing with the dancing troupe. It was the music he'd practiced to. I sat at the table and grinned in delight because I knew this group was in for a good show.

I looked around the table as Terry began with some initial moves. These people... surely Terry understood his place among them? Or was he the type of man who saw how others admired him? I don't think he's a man who is shy about his own accomplishments; I do wonder if he is a person who perhaps feels he has not accomplished much because he rates himself not just against impossible standards but on things that have nothing to do with what shows outwardly.

And just then, I met Uma's eyes. There is a quality to her relationship with Terry that he needs. There is a quality to her that appeals to me. I believe she sees very clearly into the rest of us. She may be blind to her own feelings; or she may just pretend she is.

Dino sat next to me. He nudged me and directed my attention to the stage.

Terry was looking at me as he moved, his hips swiveling ever so slightly, knees flexed... doing a movement not in the steps he'd practiced with me. This was when I realized he'd conned me a bit. I'd rather dismissed Dino's reports of Terry's hula lessons. Someday I will learn that Terry always has something up his sleeve... I hope someday never comes. I like surprises with a man like him.

I believe that every woman there caught her breath when he suddenly pulled his shirt down his arms and handed it to one of the women dancers. I know that I did. When he accepted one of the fire batons from one of the male dancers, I knew right then that he knew exactly what he was doing. I watched as he swished it overhead with rigid arms. And all that time, he looked at me. He suddenly stopped moving. He pointed one hand at me and beckoned to me.

This was most decidedly not the dance we'd practiced. But I was game. And I trusted him.

 

 

"We both stink."

"It's the kerosene, Eris." He sniffed me. "And something else."

"We can't go back to the table smelling like this."

"Maybe we should wash it off us?"

He took my hand and led me away. He had driven us over in a rental car; I had thought he had done it just to show a bit of style for me. I knew better when he turned the opposite way from the resort when we hit the main road. I asked him where he was taking me; he said to someplace we could wash off.

"Those moves, Terry..."

"You liked?"

Oh.

Yes.

It was like the tango. It took him over. On stage with him, he took my hand to move me close. He held the fire stick above his head and with only his eyes, he induced me to find his rhythm. I moved with him, using nothing but a feel for what fit me in close to him and let me compliment the swaying motion of his hips.

My left hand slowly came to rest upon his waist, needing that feel of skin on inviting skin. His face was serious, sensual. His lips were slightly parted, his eyes hooded. There was a sheen of sweat upon his torso and above his lips. The dancing light of the fire stick threw shadows of bas-relief upon the planes of his body.

I was mesmerized by what he made me feel up there... being the one woman to be with him in this moment. Just then, in his eyes, I saw the reason he'd agreed to dance the hula that night when I'd asked. He'd wanted me to understand that he was willing to step beyond what I anticipated from him in order to impress upon me that I was someone he desired in his life. And that he might not have been any more sure than I was what would happen between us in the future, but he wanted me to see that I would need to be open to other possibilities.

"Turn around, love," he said softly. "Let me show you something I think you'll enjoy."

I swiveled around until I stood facing an unseen audience. They didn't exist for me. Only Terry did.

Suddenly, fire streaked before me, lines of it. It arced and danced and blazed paths in the dark sky. I felt Terry swaying in the fire dance behind me, his hips never losing the rhythm and movements, his knees flexed, his body loose. I moved with him, my hands reaching back to touch his hips to maintain contact. And all this time, he moved that fire stick before my body, passing it from hand to hand, twirling it in this way that seemed fraught with danger to me. One slip, one miscalculation and I would have been burned.

But I knew he'd never burn me. Never.

By the time the dance was over, I would have slipped into his body. He knew this. He whispered to me, reminding me without saying much, that we were in public. This was not our last tango; but it was also not our last hula.

 

 

At the end of that path, Terry stepped aside and let me experience the waterfall's simple majesty in the full brunt of the moonlight.

It was small as far as waterfalls go. The lagoon into which it cascaded was really no bigger than a large pool. It was enchanting. He had taken me here precisely to show me something about him... that he was so good at guessing what I liked.

Maybe he'd always planned to let me in, to grant me a chance to explore him at my leisure. For sure, ever since that moment on the path, he wasn't going to back away from it. I had tears in my eyes when I looked from the waterfall to him. I never had to thank him. He read it in my tears. It's why he held me so gently and rocked me side to side.

"Thank you for tonight," I whispered, wanting to verbalize my thanks anyway. "Every single thing you've done to make this special... I am overwhelmed."

"That's what makes it worth it. That you get it."

He released me to turn me toward the pool and whispered to me that here was where he'd hoped we'd wash off the smell of the fire dance. I felt his fingers at my nape as they undid the one knot that held my short sarong in place. I had seen his face light up when I'd first appeared at his door to pick him up for our date. He hadn't missed a trick; he remembered precisely what I said I'd be wearing: a sarong and a smile.

Earlier that evening, he'd asked about that as he'd handed me a glass of wine. He'd invited me into his suite when I'd come to pick him up for our date. I was standing there in the middle of the room; he was making me feel that strange fluttery feeling he can do with just that kind of look. He circled my body, his eyes traveling from where the sarong began as a loop tied behind my neck to wear it ended, crossed over my torso and hanging just almost to mid-thigh. I had told him, pertly, that he might find out the answer to that at some point.

He can be such a patient man. All evening he'd refrained from teasing me about the 'sarong and a smile' line although he had made sure I saw him studying my form for panty lines. But it wasn't until this moment at the waterfall that he chose to find out. He undid the knot and slowly pulled the sarong from me. "Only a smile," he said at last.

"Am I smiling?"

"You will be."

He dove into the water and I slipped in to follow him as he swam toward the waterfall. When I reached him, he pulled me up onto a flat rock where we could stand together under the pounding torrents. I held tightly to his waist as he scrubbed us both, as if somehow his hands would clean us better that way. He got distracted when he tended to my body; his hands lingered on my breasts and my derriere. His fingers stroked into my slit until my nails dug crescent shapes on his back.

We swam in the soft natural pool and looked at stars. We talked about his first trip to this island. I told him his hula had been something I would never have thought to witness and that I had loved it.

"Your turn then, love?"

"To do my private hula for you, you mean?" I asked. He nodded and gave me this grin. "Here? But I have no music."

"Do you really need any? With the way you move?"

 

 

Up upon a lightly curved boulder on the side of the water, I performed the hula for him. He stayed in the tarn, treading water. I used the rhythm of the waterfall as my music. I told him a tale with my hula. I wondered if he could interpret it.

At the end, my arms were raised to the stars and my eyes sighted the moon along the trajectory of my right hand. When I sighed and looked down, Terry was walking out of the water. I watched as he laid his shirt upon the grass just beyond the muddy edges of the tiny lagoon. His every movement was precise and with purpose. His body was a study of man. It held life; it challenged life; it showed life; it reflected his specific life.

He walked to where I stood, took my hand to help me down, kept holding it to lead me to where he'd placed his shirt. He kissed me even as he sunk down to sit upon his shirt, drawing me with him. Totally silent; just seeing if the hula was the only dance in which messages were given not with words but with specific movements of a person's body that another person could interpret.

Being locked to him in that kiss was a powerful experience for me in that night. When he kissed his way out of it, we seemed to not know quite where to go from there. And then he got this look upon his face, as if within me, he saw something new and just for him. Something he wanted to claim and cherish.

He pulled my arms up until they were in the same stance as I'd ended in the hula. I looked up just as he did and we both followed the trail they blazed to the skies above us. I do not know why I moved, but I do think somehow I do know. I felt my hips mimic the hula moves. My hands swam in the night above our heads. I knew the words I made; I refused to ask if he did. It was enough that he knew that whatever I was saying, it was with feeling.

His hands smoothed slowly down from my wrists to my elbows. They paused at the juncture with my shoulders and once again when they reached under my armpits. He pushed up, raising me above his lap even as my languid hip movements kept my groin stroking along his abdomen. But when he took my breasts, one at a time, within his soft mouth... I knew then that whatever else happened in this night, I would spend it with this man. All of it.

With his help, I sunk slowly down atop his hard penis. His hands dropped instantly to hold himself and steady it so it would enter me as easily as possible. Part way down, I lost the hula. My hands dropped down to hold his face. I was still holding him there when we began moving against each other, seeking a slow release.

 

 

My voice was the one that finally pierced the night. I don't normally find myself aware of my own noise in a way that makes me cautious. But I'd been biting on my tongue to keep quiet because it seemed to me that silence was an offering to him that night. It took a while, but I could finally hold it in not a moment longer. And perhaps that was also an offering to him.

"Please," I said, so loudly, so urgently. He wrapped his arms around my waist and ground hard up into me. "Oh, God. Oh, God."

"Jesus." He panted it out, sounding just this edge of desperate. I hugged in around his neck and held on. My movements became jerky, uneven, non-melodic... but there was hidden reserves of strength in me that he was not expecting. "Eris, Jesus. I can't hold on if... Come for me."

I was sweating.

He was grunting with each shove up. He moved until his hands gripped my hips and he simply took over the rhythm until I no longer had any control.

"Come. Fuck. Come... Jesus, Eris," he moaned it into me as I held out, not wanting it to end.

And somehow I knew this... he was determined I would come before him. It was important to him. Vital.

It made me come. I know why. It was the knowledge of him that gave me. That even in the midst of that, he was thinking of me before him. And even keeping me uppermost in his mind, what I did for him felt so good that he nearly lost it.

The moment I started coming, I felt him stiffen and jerk up into me... I came so long that by the time he came inside me, his coming mingled with mine. We were both left shaken by the experience.

I had not planned to be intimate with Terry that night. I had thought it was inappropriate behavior on my part. But as we held each other in that night and I listened to the sound of the waterfall, I felt at peace with the change in my decision.

Would I have felt this way if the situations were reversed? What if Max had gone off that evening with another woman as I faced a night alone?

 

 

Max did not attend the luau. 

He told me he was not going to join the group for it as we walked to meet the others for snorkeling mid-morning on the day of the luau. I had not looked at him when he said it. He is a proud man. He is a smart man.

I wondered if he had even a clue how I felt about him?

He explained his decision simply. He did not wish to see Terry kiss me, put his hands on me, be aggressive with me. He also did not want his presence to in any way affect my enjoyment of the luau.

"What makes you think it would, Max?" I asked softly.

"Don't be silly."

"I'm not given to silliness around you." Our eyes met briefly. "I would not flaunt a relationship with one man in front of another I care about. I am also certain that Terry would be discreet in his treatment of me in front of you, Max. He is a smart man... he knows you're important to me."

"I do not wish to dampen your evening, Eris." I thought that was all he was going to say. But then he looked off and said, "As for Thorne, you give him more credit than he deserves. Were I to be there, he would take childish delight in my discomfort that he was the man you chose to be your escort."

"Max! You know that's not true. You like Terry. What's going on?"

But I knew. I did. I just did not wish to admit it. I wished instead to play the innocent, the young girl who was mystified by the behavior of two men interested in the same woman.

"Come. The others have already entered the water."

I took his hand in mine and tried to slow him down. "Max, please. I am sorry. I was so sure you would be otherwise occupied on this trip. I was so sure."

Max and I had never had this type of tension between us. I hated it. Absolutely hated it. It made my heart beat out of control and it saddened me.

 

 

His lips were warm and wet against my tattoo.

This was how he woke me from the nap we took following the snorkeling expedition. From the moment of our words on the beach until then, there had been distance between us that seemed obscene to me.

I doubt I slept soundly in that nap.

When he shifted on the bed, a part of my brain began to mark his movements. After turning to his side and then back to his back, he had risen from the bed. I heard his feet pad to the bathroom and heard him close the door softly. I felt a tear behind one eyelid.

It is not that I like everything in my life to be easy. For one thing, I do not think I have ever found myself wishing that I would find an easy man to love. Complicated, matured, life-defying men hold endless fascination for me. This is the type of man I will always search out.

I pressed an arm over my eyes and meditated into a sleep state.

And I have no idea how much time went by before he woke me by kissing my new tattoo. He said he waited until he had his fill of looking at my sleep soft form upon his bed. Perhaps it took him a while to realize he did not wish to let me go off from him that evening feeling as if things had turned bad between us.

The tear I had been holding in trickled from my eye as I looked down upon the top of his head and felt his tongue lick and flicker over my tattoo. "I was thinking of you when I got it," I whispered, my voice husky with sleep and sad with the destruction of our good mood. "Of anyone I've ever known in my life, I felt you would understand the symbolism."

"You flatter me with your faith in me," he responded. His eyes never sought mine. He laid his cheek over the rise of my groin and stroked the tattoo with his index finger.

"I am so sad, Max."

"I have no claim on you, Eris."

"But you do, Max. I want you to. That is your claim. Maximus?"

His hand had traveled from the tattoo to my wetness. I felt the rise and fall of his chest against my thighs as it quickened and became steadier. He stroked me. I put a hand down to still his but he whispered, "Let me."

So I let him.

"You chose to invite him. I know you well enough to know it was done with thought."

"Did you want to ask me why I invited Terry and not you?" He nodded against me. I stroked his hair. "You were absorbed in another woman at that particular time. I would not have dreamed of interfering."

Long moments passed as he absorbed this. "Does that bother you?"

"You mean am I bothered that you are dating both me and Ann? And that you may date other women as well?" I considered this. I made myself consider it. "I would not think so... it's more that I am aware of it and that I keep it in mind. I want what we have to just be between us. I hope to afford that privacy to you and any other woman. But I would be lying if I implied that I did not notice the intensity of what happened between you and her. It did make me uncomfortable about any expectations I might have."

All this while, he continued this languid pace of gently exploring the most private part of me. It was as if this incredible intimacy of his fingers' touching me there would remove the barrier of the day's harsh words on the beach. But it did not... not entirely. Not for me.

"I value your friendship but do not wish to monopolize your freedom to choose, Eris. Our time is our time - what we spend with others is not part of that equation. Can you live with that? For my part it is more than any man deserves - just to have a claim on some part of your life."

When I didn't reply, he turned his head and kissed, precisely, over my now-sensitized pearl. I was not expecting that move; perhaps that is why it was so effective. I gasped at the feel of his tongue coming out to rasp along this area he had touched and coaxed until it had bloomed. I tried to move his head off; it was too much, too soon. I was shocked by his response.

His hands grasped each of mine; he shoved them down, over the sides of my hips and pinioned them to the bed. I could feel the wrinkles of the sheet against the backs of my hands.

More than that... he buried his face between my thighs and sucked without regard for my struggles.

More than that... I liked it.

I begged him to love me harder, to suck until I could not breathe without his permission.

 

 

It was only later, before he left in the late afternoon, that I reached for him to tell him that I could live with this proposal that we would both pursue our separate relationships while keeping what we had for each other just for us.

He can be so many things. Someone who never fails to amaze me, among them.

These are the kinds of things you hope to learn about someone when you're dating.

 

 

The grounds of the resort had yet to wake by the time Terry and I were walking along the beach. We had to part company right away. We knew that. We dallied there upon the beach anyway. New things were now between us; the kinds of things one never can predict.

I left him there as blue turned gold.

When I slipped into the room I was sharing with Max, the air conditioning chilled me to the bone. My hair was wet; my sarong was damp. I crept into the bedroom. Max was not there. The bed did not appear to have been slept in.

My instant reaction was relief that he was not there to witness my return. It seemed too soon to put to the test his words of the day before, that what happened with others when we were not together had no part in the equation between us.

But as I stood under the warm water of the shower minutes later, I felt curiously deflated to think we might never expect that much from the other... that we might not some day have reason to lay greater claim.

 

 

"Boring day ahead with the General, I take it?" he whispered. His mouth was against my ear. He stood behind me, holding me as we waited for the dawn.

"Don't."

"I want to see you again."

"What shall we dance to next time?"

"Don't."

"Terry? I just want you to know... Thank you for this night with you. I am treasuring getting to know you."

He turned me into a kiss. His hands were on either side of my face; it never went further than a kiss. But in that one searing kiss, I gave in to this whisper of a thought... he had not turned out to be what I thought he'd be.

How could one simple weekend open my eyes in this way?

 

 

When talk first began in the pub that Marie might plan a group excursion for a long weekend in Kauai, I listened to the planning. For the final day of the trip, Marie had suggested the group take a horse ride tour in a wilder section of this wonderful island up to a large waterfall.

I begged off as I am not a rider. I have no real interest in it.

But having passed on this group activity, I saw a wonderful opportunity to visit a place I had read about. It is Max who shared my first pilgrimage to a sacred place; I would have wished more than anything for his companionship to a Hindu temple on that island. Believers have trekked through the years for enlightenment and spiritual connection.

This, then, was the Kadayul Hindu Temple. It was set in lush, virginal surroundings near a small river, deep in a valley. It only took about a half hour to hike the shady path.

Max had offered, right from the beginning, to share this journey with me. In some ways, it is why we were sharing a room that weekend. It had begun with his offer to spend this day with me. He said he hated to think of me being on my own while everyone else was on the horse ride.

It had touched me deeply. Every single thing he had done to plan and prepare for this trip had touched me in that way. This is how he makes me feel the special place he has granted me in his life.

 

 

No matter how diligent I was, an edgy distance was between Max and me until we stood alone inside the outer sanctuary at the temple.

"Never again," I whispered.

"Never again," he said softly.

I turned to meet his eyes. They were troubled. I am certain mine were as well. Oh, he is so dear to me.

"I would have asked no one else to accompany me here to this place."

He gave me that half bow he does. Just that one gesture has never failed to make me feel valued. "What we share between us, Eris, has been earned."

"You are so important to me."

"And my life is infinitely enriched by your presence in it. As I think you already know, my lady."

"I feel like in this one weekend, I have lived up to my namesake."

He gave the first genuine smile of the day at that. His hand cupped my cheek. When I blushed, his eyes got a shine of amusement and he chuckled. "Eris. Goddess of Chaos. At least you did not start a war."

"Didn't I?"

"Come here to me, Eris." I moved into his arms and my ear was upon his chest. I could hear his heart beating, steady and strong and calm, in his chest. I gripped in around him. "Perhaps I should not have issued my invitation. I should have foreseen there would be some effort by both of us to establish a claim on you before the other gained an advantage. I did not mean to place you in an uncomfortable position but I will not cede my place within your affections."

"If you only knew how I felt about you."

"Would you like to tell me, Eris?"

"No. I am not ready, Maximus." I shifted in his hold and reached to put my arms around his neck. His arms tightened around me in response. "I would search my whole life through and never find another man who would give me the opportunity you present to me. This is why my every move with you must be careful, thoughtful."

"I will push you. I am relentless."

"I know."

 

 

Rivalry. Perhaps there are women who would enjoy being the rag two men pull between them as they fight for victory over a rival. I am not one of those women.

Not that I will let it get to that point between them. There is nothing I would ever purposely do to hurt or insult either man.

But who is to say that I would allow myself to be claimed by either man? Aye, there is the rub. But then, is life not about these unexpected shifts in the wind?

There is a side to this rivalry that I have avoided acknowledging. Just as Max issued his invitation to me at least in part to defend his place in my life from a rival, did I so quickly and enthusiastically accept it because I was worried I was losing my place in his to a rival?

Perhaps it is the grossest unfairness to speak of rivals when we are all adults, all above board about who we choose to date, all good people doing the best we can without rules to guide us... without artificial boundaries to cage us. None of us should take priority over another. That's the fair way to go when dating.

I have not had much time since we have returned to do more but read my postcards of moments. I find myself more and more pausing to re-read Max's words:

"For my part it is more than any man deserves - just to have a claim on some part of your life."

Just to have some claim... For now, anyway, I think there is wisdom in that sentiment. There is sadness, to be sure. All I can really do is relate this from my perspective. Am I feeling as though I deserve more than a claim on some part of their lives?

Who is to say either man would allow me to claim them? Aye, there is the rub.

 

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