"The secret," he said to me, from across the room where he was, "... is to put yourself so completely into some other place, some other time, some other scenario that you don't feel the pain. That way you're not fighting it. You don't have to fight what you don't feel."

"That's your secret?" I said as I looked over at him. He wasn't looking at me. He was studying some artwork on the wall. He was doing this on purpose, trying to help me get distracted. "Just think pleasant thoughts, you're saying?"

"Or unpleasant." Now he looked at me, his eyes intense. "I wonder which you'll choose... unpleasant? Or pleasant?"

Unpleasant.

I looked up at the ceiling. I thought about the most unpleasant thing I had ever witnessed. It put this in perspective. Within minutes, the drone of the needle machine almost lulled me to sleep; I barely felt anything.

When the man working on me pronounced that we were done, I looked down at what he had wrought upon my skin and gave him an appreciative "incredible." In the elation of the moment, I couldn't help giggling as I looked back at Dino. "I cannot believe I did this! This is so cool."

He gave me his grin. "Just don't blame me in the morning, honey. Okay?"

"So... I'm a member of the club now, aren't I?"

"Eris, I like your style."

"I like yours as well, Dino."

"That'll be $350," the guy with the needle said. He scowled in concentration as he put a bandage over his artwork that now adorned my right hip, just where the top of a bikini would cover it from sight.

I had planned to pay for this; expected to. But Dino insisted it was his treat. Like the whole trip had been.

And what a trip.

Dino kissed my hand as he helped me rise from the chair I had been laying in for two hours. It was the second time he'd made that almost courtly gesture. The first time had been after I had asked him to take me to see a tattoo parlor, just to look around, just to experience other people doing something I knew I'd never have wanted to do. Get a tattoo? Are you absolutely insane? I am terrified of needles and I never go through pain for no good reason.

"I knew you'd do this," he whispered to me as the tattoo artist ran his credit card. "From the moment your eyes lit up when you first asked me if I had a tattoo like the other Marines you knew."

"No, you did not!" I chuckled but he just looked rather smug. "It was you telling me you could explain all about tattoos, Marines and the meaning of life that intrigued me. All I wanted to do was start a conversation. Trust you to figure out how to make it more."

"Trust me, Eris. I knew you would do this. It's why I made this our last stop on Dino O'Leary's Tour Of Tattoo Parlors In Los Angeles. I only trusted your body in the hands of an artist like Freewind."

"God, some of those places! I can't believe we made it out alive in the second one!" He rolled his eyes at that. "This has been such fun. Thank you."

"It's been my pleasure, Eris."

The night before, I had unadorned skin. This night, I looked down at my hip, peeled back the bandage Freewind had placed there and smiled to be marked.

After a bit of instructions on caring for my brand spanking new tattoo as it healed, we walked out of this other-worldly tattoo parlor hidden in the back of a chi-chi art gallery on South Le Brea Avenue in LA. It was such an amazing place. We had visited nothing like it all day. Dino had said the guy, Freewind, was famed as one of the originators of a style of tattoo known as tribal. But that like every artist, he was... um... temperamental sometimes. And he only did tattoos... or body art, as Freewind instructed me... by appointment. I still don't know how Dino arranged it, but I rather liked the fact that Dino enjoyed the mystery that surrounded this accomplishment so I didn't ask for explanations.

"He was incredible," I said to Dino as we left the gallery. "I think he must have been his own best canvas."

He grinned at me as he opened the car door. "You should have seen your face when he walked in the room. You grabbed my hand so hard."

"Well, you could have warned me, Dino."

"Well... yeah. But then I wouldn't have been treated to you clinging to me all trembling like that."

"I did not tremble! I was startled, that's all. I mean, the guy's covered in those black swiggles and swirls and... What?"

"Those swiggles and swirls, as you call them, are not just traditional Maori tattoos. Most of them have a deep ritualistic meaning to Freewind."

"I thought he was Samoan?"

"Nope. Maori."

"Okay, so you got me. But... why him?"

"Because I knew that he'd give you the most artistic design. And I knew you'd never go for something traditional like a heart or a butterfly like other girls. I just knew the two of you would connect."

"You read people well, Dino."

"It's part of what makes me me, Eris."

"I'm enjoying getting to know you. Well, some of you. Because something tells me, I will never know it all."

I like that about Dino. He gives you such an amazing, in your face public persona that you can be deluded into thinking that this is all he is. But he's got all these layers, I think, that take a while to work your way through, if you ever can.

It's like this trip of tattoo parlors. It started because I asked him if he had a tattoo. Every Marine I know has one. And they all like to talk about them or at least flex them a bit. I was curious about Dino so I thought this was a fun question to ask him. He had replied that he'd be glad to answer all my questions about tattoos, Marines and the meaning of life.

Oh man, I had thought. This man is too much! The meaning of life?

Oh, ye of little faith!

"Dino, really! Tattoos, Marines and the meaning of life? How is it possible that you have the answers to all my questions on those topics? You are an amazing man," I kidded him.

"I didn't mean to imply that I was willing to answer all your questions you've ever had on these subjects, but I am willing to answer your specific questions... and I think I can even relate it to at least one meaning of life."

Yes, he had a tattoo, he said. No, he would not tell me everything about it. But he would tell me this much, he said: that getting a tattoo could be about the meaning of life.

He fixed me within the gaze of those amazing blue eyes, tilted his chin down, and this soft look swept over his face. I felt myself relax into some trance-like state of mind; it was like I just knew this man was going to make this moment count.

"I got this tattoo for one basic reason: because I was drunk enough not to be scared and I was young enough to want to emulate the old-timers who seemed to know what life was about," he said softly.

And his tale was this: older Marine officers he admired all had tattoos. Somehow in the way of these things, they had each told him about getting their tattoos when they were about his age and with his time in service.

"They said it was a rite of passage. They said it's one of those tests a Marine gives himself. They said getting a tattoo earns you admittance to the club. So one night, a group of us young guys were out drinking and... well, enjoying our manhood... and we dared each other to get a tattoo. We all did," he told me. He got this rueful look on his face and shook his head. "Next morning, oh, man, did I regret two things. One was getting that drunk because that's always painful the next morning and the other was getting the damned tattoo because it hurt. I mean hurt. For days, mind you."

I patted his arm and went 'ah' in mock sympathy. He gave me a bit of a scowl. 

"Go on, go on. Don't stop there. We haven't reached the meaning of life yet," I said with a little laugh.

"Well, now I'm not so sure you deserve to learn the meaning of life, Eris."

"No! I do, I swear I deserve it! Go on with your story."

"Okay." He grinned as he sipped his Scotch. He made me wait on him. I watched him sip, pause, sip, lick his lips, place the glass down, move it about in the concentric circles of moisture on the table top.

"A few days later, I was with two of those older Marines I told you I so admired and just generally being grunts before going off to a jungle jump test run. And I was flexing my arm and trying not to act like a big pussy for still hurting from this tattoo."

But the two other Marines noticed he was aching and made him tell them what was wrong. Can you even imagine that mixture of pride and shame that young Dino had on his face when he took off his shirt and showed them his brand new tattoo?

"I was feeling ... I don't know how to describe it -- like I should have been proud because I'd joined their 'club' but I was really more regretting that I'd been that needy to seek their approval that way."

When he told them just that, he earned something very valuable from them: respect. They each shook his hand and told him that he'd learned an important lesson about being a man.

"And that lesson was: it's fine to emulate someone you admire... but it means more in the long run if you begin to see that even the people you admire make mistakes so that you stop blindly doing whatever they do and exercise your own judgment."

Dino paused and sipped at his drink again. I sat there waiting for the punch line. I honestly thought I was being suckered in. But I wasn't.

He took this big breath, looked deep in his glass of Scotch as he moved it in circular motions on the table. "So that was my lesson... tattoos and one meaning of life. Make any sense or was that too mucho macho for you?"

When he looked up into my eyes, I was caught totally unprepared for the honesty in that gaze of his. I put my hand on his, my fingers gliding along until I felt the damp lip of the glass where his lips had just touched.

"Not too mucho macho, no. It was very revealing, though."

He gave me this head tilt as if to say it was no big deal while acknowledging that it was at least a small big deal.

"Now, Eris, I notice you like to ask leading questions to get men talking about themselves. I have one back for you: do you have a tattoo? If so, what's your story on that?"

"You're too much, Dino! That was a really swift way of turning this back on me."

"I like the way your mouth looks when you're smiling at me like this," he said.

"You have the most amazing way of lowering your chin and absorbing what a woman is telling you. And when you do that, there's this look you get in your eyes that makes me want to crawl across this table and kiss you hard."

"Anytime you get that urge, Eris, go on and indulge it."

"Will you show me your tattoo now?"

"No. But I'll give you one clue... Semper Fi, baby."

"So I'd guess it's the Marine Corps symbol and it's on your upper arm. Am I right? Do I win a prize if I am?"

"How about you slide right over here next to me so I can lean in close and tell you the answer?"

"Something tells me you'd be dangerous to get that close to."

"You'll never know from over there." When I didn't move, he said, "You never answered my question about whether or not you have a tattoo."

"Moi? Surely you're kidding. I'm a total and complete ninny when it comes to needles! However, tattoos have long been a fascination of mine and I've always actually wished I was brave enough to get a small one."

"Would you get one if I asked nice?"

"I don't think that would be the determining factor. However, I'd at least be willing to go to a tattoo parlor if you'd come with me. I'd feel so much braver with a 'pro' at my side. It'd be cool to look around... and who knows what will come of it?"

"Yes. Who knows."

"But I can assure you on one thing... I find great inspiration from the life lesson you learned in getting your tattoo, Dino. I promise you this, I'll never get a tattoo to emulate anyone. If I got one, it'd be for me. Now, don't you feel like you've done your good deed for the day?"

"Maybe. But, Eris, you serious about wanting me to take you to a tattoo parlor? Just so you can look around? Why is it I'm guessing the parlor in question is in a rather dicey part of town and that's why you've never gone by yourself?"

"Because it is." He laughed right along with me.

"If you want to visit a place where the finest tattoos are done, why don't you let me select the location? I say this because if by some chance while we're there you decide you are going to get a tattoo, then I want to be sure you're someplace where not only is the work done artistically, but where there's no chance of infection or anything else nasty. Deal?"

It made me smile broadly at him. I almost climbed across the table to kiss him. He just turned me on so completely with how well he read me and how comfortable it felt that he did. It was just so sexy.

"Why is it I suspect that what you have in mind is not the quick trip to the corner tattoo place that I had in mind? This place you mention-- maybe you need to tell me what you know I should know before I say yes? I suspect you have something up your sleeve other than a tattoo."

"Huh? Why would you think I'm up to something?" He gave me a devastating grin. "Oh, that's right. Because I usually am. Damn. I hate a smart woman when she catches on to all my tricks."

"No, you don't. It just makes you work a little harder and you like that."

"Honey, why don't you just close your eyes and live a little? I promise that whatever idea I have, it is one you will enjoy. Think you've got what it takes to put your trust in me and just let me enjoy this chance to make you smile?"

"Give me some details or convince me to take a chance on an adventure with you."

"You know what? I think the best way for me to convince you is to not even try. Eris, you're a woman who knew before you even sat down that you wanted to have an adventure with me. Right? So take my hand, put your faith in me and let's go have some fun."

Man. The fact he wasn't even going to try to convince me? It absolutely worked in his favor. "I'm ready if you are. But as for shutting my eyes? I think I'd rather keep them open and enjoy the view. "

"Eyes open ... that's how I like a woman when she's with me. I'd hate for her to miss anything." He stood up from the table, took my proffered hand, bent over it as he helped me up and kissed my knuckles. God. What a class act. "You grab your purse, I'll grab you. And let's blow this Popsicle stand."

We were almost out the door. He was keeping up this patter. I think it's a front he puts on because it's kind of expected of him to be a bit hyper when he's excited. I would like to find out one day if this is his own form of camouflage.

He was busy asking me about my schedule for the rest of the week. I was uncharacteristically not really paying attention. And that's why I admitted that I had nothing on my calendar for three days until that Friday when I had a date.

"Does that mean you're mine 'til then? Or was that just pushing it a stroke too far?" He leaned in close as he opened the door to the pub for me. "Let me just remind you that you have put yourself in my hands for the trip to the tattoo parlor. And I never did actually guarantee it was nearby, did I?"

"What?" My mouth opened in wonder. I just hadn't expected that. I should have known, shouldn't I? "Dino, you are a devil! I did not give you carte blanche and you know it..."

"C'mon. I can see that light in your eyes. It's just dawning on you that you might be in for a wilder time than you realized, isn't it?"

I couldn't help myself. He just had a certain something that I enjoyed being around. I threw my head back and laughed full out.

"Damn, Eris, you have any idea how sexy that is?" he said. He was leaning in to me. He just placed his lips... right... there... on the pulse point near my neck. And he kissed me. It was so slight, so soft, so... respectful.

He is so smooth, so charming, so in tune with a woman. It makes it so enjoyable to be in his company. It makes it hard to find the will to put your defenses up. He is unrepentantly dangerous. I wasn't expecting that.

He made all the plans on the fly. He was on his cell while driving us to a small private airstrip. We were in the air minutes after getting there. And we were in LA maybe two hours later.

You know how they say New York never sleeps? Well, I used to always say that LA never wakes up. It never needs to. Who'd want to wake up from the land of eternal youth, everlasting make-believe and never-ending experience? LA's quite an exotic palette with many colors and canvases. Dino showed me a few of them I had not seen. It was maybe 2 a.m. when we hit the first tattoo parlor. It was in a strip mall off Ventura in a part of town that was more industrial than residential. The hallway we entered was long and narrow. Along both sides of the wall were colorful murals that Dino said were examples of tattoo work the guys here could do.

He told the big guy standing next to a chair that we were just looking. Along the walls in the bigger room were samples, drawings, photos... It was overwhelming and I had no idea how anyone would choose a tattoo. It would take hours to look them over.

In the second chair in the room, a man was lying face down and another man was tapping ink into his skin. Dino asked if we could watch. So I stood there, leaning into Dino's reassuring body and just watched. The tattoo guy was following an intricate outline to make a large mermaid whose tale wove down into the customer's upper butt.

I whispered to Dino some crack about mermaids and him. He didn't say a word. When I glanced back at him, he cocked an eyebrow and told me he'd be chastising me in private later for that remark.

"You'll have to get me in private first," I replied. 

"That was my intent," Dino said.

"Don't be so sure of yourself. Although it does look good on you."

When I looked back, the tattoo guy and the customer were both staring at us.

The next tattoo parlor we went to was in a very bad part of town. But it delighted me no end. It was just like the place I'd had in mind to get Dino to take me to. I drove past that other place sometimes when I was going to visit a friend. There always looked like there was a party going on inside. Sometimes, there'd be so many Harleys parked out front that the crowd would be lounging around outside, drinking, laughing and looking incredibly rough.

There is no way I would go in a place like that by myself. It is not a lifestyle I am curious about. But I am curious about people and what they accept as normal within their own sphere. Most times, it's banally identical no matter what sphere you are in. Everyone wants to be accepted. Everyone wants a tribal identity. Everyone wants a place they feel safe. Everyone likes to stir the shit sometimes. Everyone wants to think they don't fit in even while they keep going to the one place some instinct tells them they were made to fit. I don't know... that's not so prosaic. It is just what I think sometimes about the universal nature of human needs.

Dino did not take my hand when we walked in the place. I had stopped to look down a line of Harleys and admire the rather neat, precise manner in which they had each been parked. That spoke volumes to me. Then I stopped to just observe the dashes of paint that set the tone for this place before you even went in. Just inside the door was a waiting area separated from three workstations by a low partition that wasn't so much meant to keep you out as to delineate the parts of the parlor. The people in the waiting area were not actually all waiting for tattoos. They were there because this was where they liked hanging around. They liked being with other people who liked tattoos. They liked being somewhere where other people, un-tattooed people, didn't stare at them like they were freaks.

Dino was lounging in a chair, sipping a beer from a can, watching me as I took in the place's atmosphere.

Everyone in there seemed to be waiting on me to do or say something.

"May I just look around?" I asked one of the tattoo artists. He narrowed his eyes, looked over at Dino, and then shrugged and told me to have a blast.

There was so much to see. It was almost over stimulation of the eyes. Colorful drawings of tattoo possibilities adorned each wall. And there were pictures of completed projects; people with tattoos that covered major portions of their bodies. The majority of the people were either nude or mostly unclothed. I was amazed at the places some of them had tattoos etched into their skin.

I was standing looking hard at some of these pictures when a man sitting in a chair nearby suddenly took off his shirt, turned his back to me and flexed.

"Oh my!" I whispered to him. "Can I touch?"

"No. But you can look," the guy said. He had a handlebar mustache and he was so big that there was no way I would have ever told him that this was a bad style for his round face.

All I did instead was examine his back. It was almost completely covered in tattoos. There seemed little rhyme or reason. There were dragons and clouds and hearts and thorns and abstract designs and snakes and an eagle. There was the name of a woman...

"Who's Rosemarie?" I asked him as I leaned in close to study the designs and colors.

"A mistake," he grunted. "Done looking?"

"I suppose. It's fascinating. Can I ask..."

"Why? Why I got tattoos like that? Just because. I like 'em. You got a problem with that?"

"Er. No. Actually, I was going to ask... Rosemarie... how does it feel when you see her name on your body now?"

"You getting a tattoo, little lady?" he asked me. I shrugged my shoulders. "If you do, got one bit of advice for you. Don't get a name. If you get a name, make it someone in your family. Your mom. Kid. Like that. But not a man... not your husband or lover. Because no matter how sure you are it'll last forever, it won't. But your family, man, they're your family forever."

"That's good advice. Can I ask something else?" When he nodded, I asked, "How do you choose a tattoo out of all the choices out there?"

"Don't pick nothing that don't mean something to you, y'see? You pick something that represents who you really are, inside, for always, or you'll get tired of it a year or two."

"I think that's very wise. I would not have thought of that. Thank you."

We stuck around to drink beer and watch this man, who told me I could call him Rocco, get a bit more work done on his assortment of tattoos. He was seeking to fill in the one spot on his shoulder that had been held back in reserve for when he decided what he wanted there. He asked my opinion; did I like the anchor or the lion better? I asked him which reflected his personality more. He grinned at me and told me that I was an all right lady. He chose the anchor.

We went to three more parlors after that. They were all different; they were all interesting. But the one where I met Rocco, while certainly the loudest, would always stay with me as what I would consider the quintessential tattoo parlor.

By 10 a.m., I was dragging and Dino had the one place left to take me. He said it was a place called Black Wave and that it was the final stop on the tour. After this stop, he promised to let me get some sleep. Black Wave is Freewind's place. It was only inside that parlor that I realized I was getting a tattoo.

As I had done in the other parlors, I looked at the artwork. Freewind came in before I had gotten very far and I did get startled by his appearance. He had black tattoos of freeform shapes on his face, neck, arms, hands. In all the places that Dino had taken me to so far, I had seen nothing like this. Some of the places had tribal designs like Celtic crosses in ornate colors. Some had moderate monochromatic forms, similar in some fashion to Hando's representative tattoos. But none looked like this. I had seen similar designs on Samoa, but no one I'd seen there had them on his face like Freewind did. Or at least, not to that extent.

It made him look fierce. I think maybe that was the point.

But his eyes were such a contrast because they were gentle and inquisitive. I do not know what it was about him. Maybe it was as much that I knew Dino had brought me there for a specific reason as anything I read in Freewind's eyes. But before I even shook his hand, I slipped a piece of paper from my wallet and handed it to him.

He unfolded it carefully. Studied the picture there. Looked up at me and asked me where I wanted it.

This was how I chose my tattoo. The one I'd been carrying around with me only had never known it before I met Dino. That whole night, I realized only then, was about him helping me find my tattoo. And about me realizing I already had it only I hadn't realized it.

I asked Dino later if he really had been so sure I had always wanted to get a tattoo. He gave me this warm smile. "There are two kinds of people in this world, Eris. Those who know what's permanent in them, and those who don't."

We each of us, I found out later, had chosen permanent symbols as our tattoos. Dino had known, even so young, that he would always be a Marine at heart, that it would always be a part of his makeup. That's why he has the Marine Corp emblem as a small tattoo on his upper right bicep.

It's only lately, since I met Maximus, that I realized I have a permanent part of me, too. I chose as my symbol an Etruscan cross design that is a small detail in a painting that hangs in both Max's apartment and my home. The coincidence of us both owning a reproduction of that same painting was not lost on us.

I have carried that picture of the Etruscan cross with me since I was 13 years old. I only got the painting because I saw the cross design in it. Maximus is the one who explained to me what the cross meant.

When we left Freewind's place, Dino drove through south California's blazing sunshine to a small inn up in the hills of Malibu. I was dozing by the time we reached there. He gave me the bed and he took the couch. I was way too tired to get in any silly argument with him about the need to do that. I frankly just respected that he said it in such a way that I could take the offer as it was intended... as a considerate gesture from an aware gentleman.

I woke up in pain. I took aspirin and I smeared on the antibiotic cream Freewind had given me for my tattoo. It wasn't bad pain but it sure as hell did ache a hell of a lot. I was no longer supposed to wear a bandage over the tattoo and there was no way I was wearing any clothing too rub right up against it so I went without undies when I dressed. I wore a light sundress of softest cotton that was loose enough to not be a constant abrasion against the tender skin. The pain distracted me through dinner and I couldn't keep up the patter with Dino.

He wanted to take me to a movie after dinner. "We'll sit in the dark, share a bag of popcorn and not watch the screen," he said.

"Only if you'll kiss me when the movie starts and then hold me close in the scary parts."

"That's easy."

"Are you implying I'm easy?"

"Never." He smirked at me. He was too smart for that trap. And then suddenly his eyes got serious. "How are you feeling, Eris? Does it hurt?"

"Hell yes."

"Well, then why don't we do something about that?"

He took me back to the inn, turned on soothing soft jazz on the radio and made me lie down on the couch. I zoned out on sounds of him bustling around until I felt his hands on my bare knees. I opened my eyes to find him kneeling next to me.

"Trust me?" he asked me softly. He has that quality in his voice that would make a woman feel an absolute fool if she did not trust him. But I had already put my trust in him or I would not have been on the trip with him. And I would not have been alone in that room with him without trusting him. So all I did was smile at him in response to his question.

He very carefully began to roll up my sundress. I watched him just as carefully. He never even flinched when he rolled it up far enough to realize that I had no panties on. He stopped rolling only when he had the material that covered the tattoo out of the way.

His eyes dropped to the floor before him. I dipped my head to the side and looked down. There was a crystal bucket before him. His fingers reached in and drew out a small ice cube.

There was something very powerful about the exquisite gentleness of his hold on that small, crescent shaped cube of ice. Drops of melt water glistened in the beam of sunlight that he moved the ice through on its way to me. He pursed his lips in concentration and let a few cooling drops fall on my skin where the tattoo was.

"Freewind said not to soak it in water for a few days," I reminded him softly.

"Trust me."

"I do."

"Good girl."

The sensation of the ice he placed against the heat of the pain was like entering a level of heaven. I sighed, long and deep, at the cessation of pain. When my skin was numb, I opened my eyes again and he was watching me with that intensity he has.

He withdrew the ice cube before it could melt and replaced it with his other hand, which I only then realized had been resting deep inside the bucket of ice. My mouth opened in reaction to what he was sacrificing for me. He had let his own fingers blister from the pain of immersion in ice just so he could put something cold against my skin to relieve my own pain... something cold that would not constitute too much water in violation of Freewind's directions.

I whispered his name and reached a hand out to stroke down his jaw.

For so long, he tended me in order to ease my discomfort. When his hand began to warm, he replaced it with fingers of his other hand that had been immersed in the icy water in the bowl.

Gradually, even the deep down pain just seemed to begin leaving me. He told me to relax and try to doze. He promised me that I would feel better when I woke.

I closed my eyes, nestled into the couch and willed my body to relax. But I didn't doze. I wanted to enjoy the sensations of him. His body warmth was intoxicating. His fingers touched me with perfection. Even his breathing was calming.

"You are a nurturer," I said.

"You are an observer," he replied.

"You are seductive."

"You are seduction itself."

This talk of seduction. I kept my eyes closed and pictured me as he must have been seeing me: an intimate part of my body was inches from him. It was visible when, by rights, it should not have been on display for him at this stage in knowing him. He might have pretended this nurturing of my tattoo's pain was all that he was concentrating on, but he was a man. And he was a frank man. As I am a frank woman when it comes to such things. I moved my hand down until it could play amongst the curls at my groin.

He blew this warm breath across the part of me that had grown moist with his nearness and his interest. I ran a finger down to touch the bud and test my own arousal. He whispered my name and the sound of it was beautiful in his voice. It was the sound of a man enjoying a woman enjoying being with him.

The first thing I focused on when I opened my eyes was the sight of his fingers covering my tattoo. The second thing was how his eyes were watching mine. The next thing was the tightening of his jaw when I slid a finger inside myself. And the thing after that? It was how his mouth deliberately opened to accept that finger as I offered it to him.

After swirling his tongue around it, he slowly pulled my finger from his mouth and held my hand to his chest. For long moments, we took this gentle time to simply gaze at the other. This was the last time we would see each other with these eyes that were unmarked with the intimacies we were about to share. Later, our souls would be marked with knowledge of the other that would be permanent.

I sat up and pulled my simple shift over my head. All I wore was my bra. I watched him decide how he would take that bra off me. He put both hands on my legs and drew me over to sit on the edge of the couch so that we ended up with him kneeling between my knees.

He kissed in at my belly, his tongue dipping into my belly button while his eyes smiled at me. It made me grin. And then his eyes shifted to my bra and I felt his hands slide firmly up my back until they reached the clasp. He buried his mouth in the soft flesh beneath my ribs as he unhooked my bra. Sightless, showing me his dexterity and confidence, he smoothed the bra straps down my arms and tossed the bra away over his shoulder.

"That was nicely done," I said.

"You'll get your chance to show me what you can do," he said with a quirk to his eyebrows.

But it wasn't until after he had explored my breasts that I got my chance to touch his own clothing. By then, he had me leaning back on the couch's back pillows. He gave me this look and I simply knew he was waiting to see what I would do. My fingers bunched along the back of his shirt and I began scrunching it up in my hands. Slowly, slowly, slowly his bare back came into view for me. He raised his arms and I drew the shirt over his head. He braced his arms on either side of me. I stroked his chest... down... then up.

"So I was close," I said. I got a slow smile from him. "I had guessed the right arm not the left, is all. But I knew your tattoo would look like this, remember?"

Ah, yes. But isn't it in the personal discovery of such intimate knowledge that the real mystery lies?"

"Sometimes, Dino, I think you say things that I would like to pause and just consider before responding. You have such a different way about you."

"While you're thinking of a response, your mouth's free... I think I'll claim it now."

His body surrounded mine. He kissed with finesse... and then with hunger. His hands pulled my body in so tightly to his that I could feel his hardness pressing, hot, through his jeans. The rasp of that harsh material on my tender flesh, both over the tattoo and along my crease, was quickly unbearable.

"Jeans," I gasped out as I struggled to get out of the lip lock while pushing his hips away.

"I can't hold back either," he said hoarsely.

"No, I mean..." I started to admit that I just found the movement of the material too painful but the look on his face gave me a better reason to get those jeans off him.

He stood up swiftly and peeled the jeans off his body before sinking back down before me. My body met his at the edge of the couch. He wrapped my legs around his waist as my hands between our bodies stroked over his penis and whispered to him of my reactions to the feel of him.

Easing slightly out of the grip of my legs, he kissed down from my lips. I felt his mouth open large and it was like he was so hungry for me that he wanted all of me... his lips slid around my chin, sucking it into the wet, evocative cavity, stroking his tongue along the tender skin. And still with wide-open kisses, he traveled down, familiarizing himself with me in huge mouthfuls. First my neck; then my breasts. He paused every so often to give me a compliment... my taste, my softness, my shape... nothing seemed too minor for him not to note it.

By the time he finished, I felt I was nothing but the receptor of his gifts. I was barely stroking him; too in tune to the way he made me appreciate my own body to remember how I longed to know his.

He sat back on his haunches and looked me up, then down. This irrepressible smirk hovered about his lips only to be pressed tightly away. His fingers stroked gently along whatever part of me caught his attention.

"Do you always make love to a woman this way?"

"What way is that?"

"As if her body is an altar for you to worship at."

"What a beautiful image, Eris. I like that."

His fingers dipped in toward my core. I felt caught totally within the safe vision of how he saw me. I recognized the danger such a man represents to any woman not ready to give her heart away because, if he wanted it, he would claim it and never let it go.

I sunk further into the couch and my legs seemed to spread of their own volition. His free hand raised one leg by the ankle and through slitted eyes, I watched him view my knee inches from his eyes. Then his mouth pressed in on the skin there. In time with the slowly pumping fingers, he moved up from my knee to my thigh. His mouth wasn't so much kissing as it was feeling the skin. This is how he traveled up to where he placed his lips around where his fingers were buried inside me. When he did this, I moaned.

Every so often, he would glance up at me. I somehow knew he was gauging his actions to what he would see me doing. If I swallowed hard, he dove in harder. If I opened my mouth and panted, he eased off. If I sighed, he sucked until I cried out.

When he was done experimenting with me, he took his fingers out, gripped tightly to my bucking body and brought me to a white-hot coming.

"I want to taste you, too," I said when I could speak again. I pushed him to his back on the floor and tried hard to adore his body like he had done mine. He moved with languid grace in response. There was a look of toughness on his face, as if the real man inside him could not be hidden in a moment that was only for him, about him.

When he felt he had all he wanted just then, he gently pried my lips from his penis. His words were so to the point, so him. "I want to make love to you for a little while, honey. On your back for me?"

This was how he was for me: deceptively open and generous. But not really hiding that he had not yet chosen to show me all of his layers. It made me admire him. It made me want him.

He told me later, when I asked him, that first times that mark a beginning always seem so apparent to him. And when he feels that way, he likes to remember that first times stick around in a woman's memories for a long time. So he likes to make them the kind of memory of both him and the woman that she will cherish... even if she eventually leaves him or he leaves her.

"I hope that doesn't mean that you plan your exit when you first enter?" I asked him.

He was lying nude next to me on the bed, his fingers twined in my hair and his lips pressed softly to my temple. "Would that bother you?"

"It just seems more cynical than I thought you were."

"Oh, honey. There's a real cynic inside me. It's what keeps me from being surprised by other people."

"But the cynical side of you doesn't seem very dominant."

"What real cynic doesn't hope they're wrong?"

He makes me think about what he says for long after the conversation is over. It's not that I question the truth of what he has said, it's just that I know that there are often layers there in his remarks. And I know that upon reflection, I will see further into those remarks and learn other things about him.

What a fascinating man he is. I do not know that he likes people to realize just how fascinating. And, of course, that fascinates me even more.

He was remarkably generous with allowing me to ask him questions. For all the ways he seems to be inclined to guard his private self, he appears unashamed to show it if you really start looking.

"What made you into this man you have become?"

We were sitting cross-legged on the bed, eating room service-delivered dessert and telling ghost stories. He has a slew of them. He admitted to me right up front that they are each designed to make a woman squeal and chuck pillows at him when he tells the punch line but then cling to him in the dark of night as he makes eerie noises to spook her.

But in the midst of one ghost story about a lonely babysitter, I suddenly asked him what, for me, was the most critical question I could have asked him.

"The man I've become? You mean the debonair protector in the night?"

"No, the real man. The one so able to relate to women. So in tune with himself that he can simply devour a woman's pain and give back to her this vision of herself that is so clean... Tell me. Please."

I saw this blush in his cheeks. I crawled across the dishes on the bed and while he protested over the mess I was causing, I snuggled myself right up in his lap and examined his face closely.

"Please tell me," I whispered to him. "How did you become this man?"

"I like women."

"Yes, surely. But it's more than that."

He regarded me solemnly. Leaned back on his elbows and looked up at me as he pursed his lips. "I don't know how to answer that, Eris. I'm just me. I like women. Not just sexually, though that's significant."

"How so?"

"Why is it significant?" he asked me. I nodded. He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "A woman opens up to let a man inside her during sex. Their emotional and mental response to men seems to mirror that basic function. I have found that approaching women in a similar fashion interests me. For me, finding my way inside a woman is worth whatever it takes. I think women somehow intuitively know that about me. It's like a circle, you see? I want in, they like me wanting in, they let me in."

"And so you seem to have an almost feminine way of seeking to see inside another person, to read people... which, as you noted, is one of your real gifts... Yet, even so, you are such a man. I mean, you are capable of being a very rough, aggressive, testosterone-driven male animal. No one questions your masculinity."

"Well, Terry does."

I giggled at him when his hand tickled along my ribs and he smiled at me. I dropped down to lean against his chest. My fingers traced his tattoo. "Semper Fidelis."

"Semper Fi."

"Always faithful. You see? Rocco was right. Choose a tattoo that reflects who you are, not some passing fancy."

Tattoos. Marines. The meaning of life. Sometimes it isn't the answers you seek so much as it is the questions you are willing to ask.