Bruises fade. Eventually. 

But I sometimes have this feeling that the body retains a corporal and indelible memory of where they once were. As if those cells that were once damaged by some blow are keeping the old ache in reserve, remembering it, not quite willing the bruise to come back but never forgetting that it's possible to have the pain there.

My own skin bruises very easily. It's always been that way for me. Even if it's not a massive punch or I've run into a table's edge, I still pick up bruises. Making love with Max has produced its share of bruises, but they rarely are painful. They aren't that kind of bruising. They discolor the skin but they don't ache down deep like others have.

He accepts that now, although at first it threw him to find marks on me the next day and realize he didn't remember holding me that hard or gripping in that firmly. But he's a strong man; he's always been capable of brutish displays of strength. He's just never been a brute to me.

He's been many things with me. But not a barbarian. I've often wondered ... what would he be like if he lost the sheen of our civilization?

The thing that came clear to me while in Italy with him was the sense of never feeling that in unison with another person. We discovered we actually had very similar goals in life ... to be financially secure, to accomplish goals we'd set for ourselves, to be responsible, to be emotionally involved, to contribute something to the world for having been here for whatever time we had. Nice, broad and general -- yet, like his honor, the kinds of things one like me can respect. So despite our vastly different backgrounds, we actually found a lot of similarities in what we valued.

All those misgivings, they were wise to have. But that didn't mean I wasn't to find that this was a man upon whom I would stake my future ... at least the immediate future. Beyond that? Well, I never planned that far in any relationship I've ever had. I don't know how to start. I don't want to start, truth be told. It would never be wise. Still, I came back from that trip with him feeling a connection I would never have believed possible between me and this man.

And it was that night that did it, I suppose ... that night after we found Etruscan tombs and Etruscan jewelry and Etruscan roads and Etruscan villages. He told me that the Roman gods were based on Etruscan gods and legends. He spoke of the study he'd made of Roman history, of his particular interest in the Etruscan influence on early Rome, its later domination and then eventual warring relationship between Rome and the Etruscans.

I told him I could listen to him tell me stories all night. When he looked off, just a bit self conscious and said perhaps I should tell him a story instead, I settled in with my head in his lap and said I wanted to him to tell me a legend of the Etruscans.

No legend, he said softly as he relaxed back against cushions we'd piled on the floor in front of the couch. "Did you know that the Etruscan woman was famous throughout the ancient world for her beauty but also for the freedom she enjoyed?" he asked me softly, his fingers stroking my hair.

I looked up at him and nestled against his groin a bit more. Smiled as he bit his lip and gave me this look. "Freedom? Really? I always imagined that in ancient times, women were never free."

"Every culture was different," he said rather sternly. "And what you might consider lack of freedom, that culture would have interpreted very differently. In most cultures, everyone has a role."

"What made the Etruscan women so different?"

"Perhaps it was their beauty that earned them special favors. What man can withstand a beautiful woman?"

"Oh, pshaw. Some cultural archeologist you'd make, Max!"

He chuckled at me. "In any event, it set them apart, this freedom. I somehow thought you would enjoy that about the women who once lived in this land where we are."

"I am fascinated. Tell me more." 

He looked off as his hand stroked down and then held my breasts, as if he could think more clearly while he fondled me. There is also something very tactile in Max's approach to me. He loves the softness, the slickness, the silkiness of fine lingerie and I tend more and more to wear items that feel interesting and sensual more than I concern myself with them being overtly, in-his-face sexy. I like how almost without realizing it, he strokes the fabric I wear ... as he was that night. It turned me on.

I shifted in his groin until I could rub his placid manhood with my cheek. I let my eyes drift closed; I took a long, lingering breath to absorb his scent. And wanted nothing more than to be lulled into another world by his voice. I do so love his voice.

"Ancient Greeks disapproved of the Etruscan woman's free ways. Unlike Greek women who were typically considered quite submissive to their husbands and even spent most of their time shut up in their homes, Etruscan women took part in all public events. At banquets, they sat next to their men on joint couches. Their dress was ... rather unconventional. They were educated, as Roman women were, I might add, but the Etruscans took it to a further level."

My eyes drifted open as he paused. He was looking down at where my hand was resting atop his belly. He was wearing one of the white terrycloth robes the resort had placed in our room. I think we both knew that my own hand would eventually seek the connection with his skin under where it was. I patted him until he looked in my eyes. When he didn't go on, I prompted him with, "And the Greeks disapproved?"

"Indeed. They spread what has come to be seen as malicious stories of how Etruscan women before their marriages could prostitute themselves. And did. That this was approved by society. Encouraged, by some stories spread by the Greeks."

"No kidding? I mean ... What was truth then?"

"Ah, well, that is still a matter of some debate. But in my time, we came to understand that the truth was the Etruscan women were encouraged to explore their sexuality before marriage. The men believed this made the women more desirable ... and endlessly more fascinating as lovers when the time did come for marriage."

Neither of us said a word for a while. I knew he'd told me this for a reason.

"And how do you feel? About a woman ... like me ... who explores her sexuality outside of marriage?" I asked him softly.

"I am endlessly fascinated by you. As a lover. As the woman I love. I am not sure it has much to do with your sexual history but certainly, I have benefited from both your experience and your sensuality."

Our eyes met. His honesty was this way; it could be coarse, but it wasn't so bad in this case. Still, I wasn't exactly sure what to think of this remark.

"Perhaps I can appreciate the attitude of the Etruscans, for I find your freedom adds to your beauty, cara. I never seek to take that from you."

He never blinked. Never. Just willed me to understand the gift he was giving me. The gift of letting me see into him ... to understand that he accepted who I was, with no qualms and no real reservation ... so far. I mean, sometimes you may think you accept everything, only to change later and realize, it's not always that simple. But the fact he was trying to make it that simple? How complicated and how substantial. How utterly endearing.

Yet ... there was something deeper even that he was saying ... that he had known, going into this, that to really build something together, he was going to have to be accepting of the ways in which I was not a woman of his time ... no, not accepting of that ... more like, he had to find that a part of the attraction of me. Part of it. Not all of it. Life's not that easy. Of course, he'd struggle over some things. Wasn't I struggling over some things of him?

What he said made me admit something to myself in this moment: I'd never been able to commit to a man like I was committing myself to Max. Was it that my experience with modern men had left me too unsure but that Max had been so unwavering that trusting him was possible? Was it precisely because he wasn't a modern man that made it possible for me to see that I could really trust in him? Wouldn't that be ironic, if so? Me worrying over our cultures clashing only to find that it was one of the very things that first drew us together?

Still, it was his willingness ... no, it was more than willingness, it was determination ... to be wholly within the love he felt for me that was incredibly affecting. What other man would have the instinct to see that this was something he needed to give me: confidence that he saw me and still loved me.

"That might be the sexiest thing any man has ever told me, Max," I said. I sat up, knelt before him, held him to me. "Only a real man is capable of such a confident acceptance of the woman he loves."

"Did you never really realize what I see in you?"

"Tonight, you speak of my freedom, including any sexual freedom I've exercised. I have to ask you something. Did you know that I have always feared that you harbor some lingering disgust over how we first became intimate?"

His hands paused where they'd been rubbing on my back. "What do you mean? That I would ..."

"That maybe you loved me in spite of that night. That maybe what I did, you found low-class or that it was something you've had to consciously overlook. That maybe that act of sex ... especially me initiating it ... was sordid to you."

"I have no such feelings about that night." He shook his head against my neck. "Did you think I was lying when I told you that in that night I felt I came to know a woman of uncommon charm and courage? That your ability to hand yourself over to me for safe-keeping was a side to you I would wish to see again?" He paused to disentangle himself from me so he could look at me when he said it. "Do you remember that?"

There was a challenge in his voice. I heard it. I also was beginning to know that sometimes ... most times ... he placed a challenge before me only when he felt he could keep me safe if I took it up. I held on to him; I held him to me. I felt our hearts adapt a rhythm that seemed not so much in sync as in collaboration.

"I want you to know something about that night, Max. I couldn't have done that without you. Ever. You made me feel safe. Like you'd be there to protect me if I went too far and that you were watching over me."

"I was."

"But we didn't know each other that night, did we? Knowing you better, loving you, I do have such trust in your honest approach to sex. You do make me feel that I never have to be worried about doing things with you that we want ... but there are some things that I ... I feel I ... that I worry about sharing with you ... like to just tell you of some things, like fantasies that come to me, or like dreams that come from nowhere I know of. Can I admit that to you?"

"You can admit many things, I would think. But you choose not to, cara. I would never force you ... but that does not mean I don't notice." I bit my lip; he seemed almost stern. "Tonight, it's just you and I. Very simple. Let us make it simple between us ... tell me of these 'things' of which you worry over telling me. Sexual things?"

I nodded, feeling a need to force myself to go someplace that scared me ... toward showing a vulnerability in a way I never had with any man. "Things I think you'd find ... inappropriate ... or, more likely, things I don't think you'd ever do or want to do with me. Things you might find disturbing to know I thought of them, even if it was a dream, say."

His eyes crinkled for just a moment. "Do you really believe there is something you may wish to try that I would not? Or that I have not already?"

"Yes." His eyes narrowed. I felt myself blush and grow nervous under his examination. "Not like you think perhaps. Some are just things I think fly in the face of how you are, how your culture's got taboos different from ours. Like ... like how reserved you are with me in public ... I don't really have a huge problem with that, don't get me wrong. But sometimes, I wouldn't mind holding hands or a little kiss ... something that wouldn't destroy you but would be acceptable in my culture. Something that would be natural to me."

He frowned, shook his head impatiently. "No. Go further than that, Ann. Deeper. What desires do you have that you fear to tell me?"

"It's not that I fear telling you ... it's just ... I don't do this, Max. I don't share this way," I said, moving away from him just a bit. But his hand on my knee wouldn't let me get far. He sat there staring at me, waiting. Finally, I sighed in frustration, closed my eyes and just blurted out, "I get inappropriate thoughts about you sometimes."

"Tell me."

"Jesus, Max."

"Share this with me. Just as I shared a fantasy I had of you on Lupercalia. Do you remember?"

"Yes," I whispered. "I'm so glad that you trusted me like that. And I want to be like you in that way. I do."

"Then tell me."

I sighed and frowned. And was clutching at straws when my mind leapt ... to this: "But I don't have the advantage you did. You blindfolded me, remember? Maybe that made it easier for you. Because the way you're watching me, Max. It's just ... hard to talk about this."

"But you wish to?"

"Yes."

"Then blindfold me. Let me simply listen as you tell me."

Our eyes held each other for a long time. I didn't feel he was testing me as much as he was needing me to open up to him and to do it within the safety of our relationship. I decided on a slim edge of certainty that I would never know another man who'd offer me this in this way. And that I wanted to learn to open up with him. He'd just so much as made crystal clear that there wasn't anything he'd find 'bad' about what I may feel or want or have done in terms of sex. I trusted in him for the truth he spoke to me.

So I decided ... I would face this. But putting a blindfold on him added elements that made it exotic to me, as if I knew I could step outside myself and ... it gave me a sense of control if he was somewhat helpless.

The only thing I could find that seemed right for a blindfold for Max was a black satin nightgown I'd brought with me. I rolled it up until it was skinny enough to tie around his eyes. I sat in front of him, waved my hand ... and when I was satisfied he couldn't see, I rubbed the end of the gown upon his neck and whispered to him of how I'd always found it arousing that he liked the sensual elements of my lingerie. He said he liked that about me.

I kissed his lips and then sank down to sit before him on the rug, as he leaned back into pillows set up against the couch's bottom edge. We were sitting Indian style, I think they call it, our knees touching, him holding my hands. I suggested we make this a challenge for both of us. I would speak of a dream I'd had that I wanted to share with him. He had to resist touching me unless I specifically asked him to. I smiled to myself when his eyebrow crooked up and his chin rose. I loved that arrogance in him; it was well-placed.

He said he accepted the challenge. I knew it would be a piece of cake for an old Stoic like Maximus.

"Do you remember what you said about when you first saw me? Do you know how I've changed that in my fantasies? I play with your power. Your power, Max, your virility ... they are so arousing. But they're only a small part of you, you know? So I don't want you to think it's all I see ... it's not ... and what I'm going to tell you, I want you to know, I don't actually see you that way and I'm not saying I actually want you to be that way. But ..."

"Cara, fantasies have no rhyme much less reason. They simply are. I would not judge them anymore than I'd want you to judge mine. However ..." he said, his voice suddenly dropping low, dangerous. "However, is there truly a man alive who would not find his lover's fantasies to be an erotic sampler of what may be explored between them in the future?"

I swallowed hard; took my hands from his. Played with my hair. And then jumped in to see how it felt.

"What if things had been different that day? What if I had noticed you when you were watching me? Can you imagine how that might feel to a woman? I walk into that store; I'm browsing for a book and at some point, I look up to find you near me, watching me. You're a man of imposing physical presence. You smolder when you look at me. I am instantly aware that everything about you exudes masculinity and power. I know in the aggressive way in which you're regarding me that you've picked me ... that you're going to pursue me ... that you have decided to have me. And I don't even know you," I said ... feeling myself drop into storyteller mode. And I retold the tale of our meeting as I'd once dreamed it when I'd been alone one night, missing him.

"How did you feel?" he asked me softly.

"I feel flattered. I feel attracted ... on a very basic, powerful level. I've never felt that with a man before. But I see you watching me, staring at me. You follow me, wherever I go in that store. I lead you along the racks, knowing you're following. Knowing that you know very well I am leading you someplace."

"Where do you take me?"

"In this section where no one ever goes. Tall racks of books are all around is. No one can see unless they walk right into that area."

His head tilted to the side; he was concentrating ... I think he was discovering that he liked hearing me talk about this, that he liked not quite knowing what I might say next. "Do I come close to you? Touch you?"

"I stand before some books. My back to you. I feel you come close. Until you stand next to me. We reach for the same book. Our fingers touch. Your hand, very deliberately, comes over mine. You stroke it, feel it, linger there. It's almost obscene. I imagine your hand somewhere else on my body, touching it that way."

"Do you leave your hand there or do you remove it?"

"I leave it there. I turn and look in your eyes. You move as if you will simply overpower me right there and then. I would let you. I know you read that in my eyes. That I am inviting you to push this."

He leaned slightly forward. His voice got very low. "But I don't. Do I?"

"No. I don't give you the chance. I don't want it to be that easy for you. I want you to earn me. So I take the book from the shelf, push away from you, and leave that sheltered area. I know you follow me as I pay for the book. I know you follow me in your car. I want you to. You have no idea. But I also want to make you work for it ... and to tease you, play with you, see how badly you might want me."

"And all this time, we have never even exchanged a word? No names?"

"Oh, that's important. No names. Ever. This is anonymous sex."

"No romance?"

"None."

"When is the next time I see you?"

"I see you from time to time. You watch me leaving work. You learn where I get coffee and I see you in there sometimes. I have even sat at your table in the coffee shop. I stir my coffee, sip it. Look out the window. Never look at you until I am rising to leave."

"How you would stir my blood. You would drive me to distraction."

I looked at his body language. As I was talking, he was sitting up straighter. A light sheen of sweat over his upper lip. His tongue darting out every so often. I couldn't tell, the way the robe was, if he was hardening. I wondered ... would he be trying to restrain himself in some Stoical exercise of self-control ... or would he be getting into this with me?

"Every time I see you, I can tell, you are growing so hungry to have me. But I may be growing hungrier. It would be hard to tell. Then finally, one day, I walk into that bar ... remember the one where I first saw you and you didn't see me?"

He nodded; his hand reached out for me; I chided him that he wasn't supposed to touch me. He bit his lip and his hand settled back atop his knee. I figured he did that move on purpose, to make me feel my own power over him.

I decided to exercise that power. I was feeling ... more comfortable the longer I spoke. Not all of this was exactly as I had once dreamed of, and then reflected on so often since then ... trying to figure exactly what this said about me that I had had this notional, flitting fantasy sequence with him.

When he was settled back in place, had shifted in to where he looked resolved and where he looked like he believed he was going to weather the rest of this with no problem ... then I moved. Slowly. First, I simply rose to my knees and leaned in close to him. He sat rigid, poised.

"This time, though, you are in there specifically to see me. You knew I'd be coming in to meet friends. I see you the instant I walk in. Our eyes meet. Yours have a challenge in them. Yours will me to come over there to you. I refuse."

"Instead, you go meet your friends, as you planned. You would do that, Anna. You would. And I would be frustrated, determined. So very determined by then. I would have you."

He startled when I raised his hands to get them out of my way as I simply slid my body in over his lap, straddling him, settling slowly down.  When I was where I wanted to be, I put his hands on his knees again. So while he surrounded me, he wasn't exactly in charge of how we touched. And he was blind. I felt ... like really being in charge ... like showing a different part of me.

He made me feel like I could do this; he made me want to do this ... to simply show a side of me I'd always thought I had to keep hidden. My darker, edgier take on sex and the need to sometimes make it rough sex with no restrictions and no bindings.

I put my mouth near his lips to say, "Inside the bar, there are regular tables and there are the bistro tables. Do you know what those are?" He didn't, so I described them to him: high tables and the seats were high bar stools. For a woman as short as me, it takes a bit of effort to climb up in one of them with grace. "My friends are at one of the bistro tables. You are at the bar. I go to my friends' table and sit with them. I'm in one of those high stools. All the time, I refuse to look back at you at the bar."

"I would not accept this." He was subtle about it but he shifted ever so slightly under me. I was subtle about it, but I shifted over him, to feel him. He was not hard. Not yet.

"You don't. You move and take a seat at one of the regular tables. It's right in front of me. I can no longer ignore you. You sit there, your eyes never blinking, just staring at me. You don't so much look in my eyes as you simply examine my body. You want me to see that you're doing that. Because, between us, it's nothing spiritual or loving ... this is pure sexual desire. Nothing else. Nothing fancy or soul stirring. Just an animalistic awareness that we want each other's body and nothing else."

"Do you get nervous under my gaze? You would grow wet from the intensity of my desire."

"Oh, I do. But I've been wet since I walked in to find you there ... but, yeah, it gets a lot worse with you staring at me where I'm forced to see you do it. You keep looking at my legs; every time I cross and uncross them."

I blew across his neck, where moisture was gathered. He didn't shiver; he was much too self-aware for that. I reached behind me and stroked his bare legs. I lingered over the knuckles of his hands, emphasizing that he could not enjoy a similar freedom without failing the challenge.

"You have nice legs. I long to be between them. This is all I think." He said it rough, frank ... and I realized, he had taken the real step to imagine himself in that dream with me. The dream seemed almost real now.

"I know that. I can read it, Max. And I wish to knock you for a bit of a loop. I wish to up the ante. See how you react."

"What do you do?"

"I take a long time. I do it carefully so no one else has any idea. But I know you watch every single step I take as I work my panties off. I inch them down, scooting out of them delicately, artfully, gracefully. At first, you don't know what I'm doing but you're watching. When the white edge of my panties comes into view under my skirt, I know it because you start blinking. And as they reach my knees, you are sweating. When they're at my ankles, I simply reach down, as if I've dropped my napkin. I grab the panties, slide them into my jacket's pocket. No one has noticed except you. Your face is flushed. I don't have to be near you to see how hard you're breathing."

I reached down, my hand sliding under the robe's folded edges and put my hand flat on his chest. His breathing was even. But his skin was hot. I moved against him. In a very real way, I liked that he held himself rigid ... it was as if I could do whatever I wanted to provoke him ... and that he wasn't reacting as I had thought he might, made me work a bit harder, feel a bit wilder.

"Now you're looking at me with the full force of your power in your eyes and in your body language. I know I've ramped you up ... all this time, you've been unable to touch me ... and I'm making this overt message to you. That there is nothing to stop you now except convention."

I blew in his ear. Bit at his earlobe. He swallowed, long and slow ... and so fucking sexy. He said it low, soft: "Convention?"

"Yes ... you can't very well grab me from where I'm with friends and drag me off to some hotel to screw me. You can't toss the tables aside and simply fuck me out in the open of that bar."

"Do you wish me to?"

"I wish to you to want to badly enough to have to restrain yourself."

"What does that accomplish?"

"Nothing ... yet. I want to see what you do in response. You surprise me. You glare at me, your chin up, just like it is now ... that element of arrogance, of confidence in your masculinity that is so affecting. Anyway, your eyes narrow and I can read ... You are thinking of how you'll take me at some point ... You know I want you. In response, I very purposely open my legs so you will look at what you want but can't have yet ... and maybe won't have if I decide not to let you. You smile at me in response."

"You would not like that."

I moved over him. He was still flaccid. Yet his breathing was rough, his body was tense ... I sensed he was refusing to harden, that some kind of internal test was taking place. I wanted him to get hard. I wanted to feel that he had no control just then. That me telling him all this, that it was something that affected him.

"I don't like it. But I do. I like that you won't concede defeat. That you are defiantly all man in your response. You spread your legs ... and show me ... and anyone else who might be looking ... that you yourself have grown hard. You touch yourself ... not lewdly or obviously. But you do run a hand over your hardness."

"Showing you what you're missing ... what you might be passing up if I get tired of this game and simply walk out of there."

"Yes," I whispered against his ear. My lips touched his neck. He leaned into the kiss. His face turned toward mine. His chin nuzzled the cheek near him. "Do you know what I do in response? I want to see if I can make you come in your pants. Or at least, I want to make you so damned hard that you have to leave and get some relief. I slip my hand down to my lap. Your eyes follow the movement. I turn to look at one of my friends who's telling a joke. And I put two fingers up myself and start rubbing, very slowly."

He didn't say anything; his response was more a low grunt. But he still wasn't hard. But he was sweating now. I opened the front of his robe just a bit and blew cooling air over him. And then rubbed my chest against his.

Then said, "As we all laugh at her joke, I glance at you. I lick my lips, very slowly. I see a smile form on your face. A haughty smile. Like you want me to think that this was what you wanted me to do and that you're glad to see that I'm under your influence. You raise your index finger at me. Kind of swivel it in the air for a moment. And then very deliberately, you put it in your beer. You swirl it in the liquid, your eyes on your finger. You pull the finger up, a drop drips from it. You put the finger in your mouth, sucking off the beer."

"Anna ..."

"And then you look at me. A challenge in your eyes. I am ... hot from that. I have to respond. I pull my finger from where it's been inside me and as I turn to watch another friend tell another story, I simply place my finger between my lips, like I'm biting on my knuckle. But you know ... you and no one else ... you know I'm sucking off my own tastes."

He gave this low growling grunt, leaned in to sniff at my neck. I jostled over his groin a bit more, grinding just a bit ... tilted my neck to give him access. He responded with just this small swipe of his lips. My heart began that upwards sweep. My hands slipped under his open robe, around to his back.

"I can't take it anymore ... I don't know what I think will happen but the moment I look back at you, your face is dark. You are beyond the limit. So am I. We just seem to know this about each other. Teasing each other, ramping it up ... right there ... in public ... no one else even notices. I excuse myself from my friends, telling them I need to use the restroom. I get up, walk down the long hall toward the restroom. I turn the corner and find myself in a small open area ... the women's room door is at the far side ... it's rather dark in that space. I hesitate there ... I hear footsteps behind me. They are measured, firm."

His voice came out tight, hard, impatient. "What do I do to you?"

"What would you do, Max? What would want to do to me?" 

He didn't answer; he pressed his lips tightly together, like he was working hard to not speak out. I pressed my lips over his; he wouldn't give me entry. Now he really was sweating. I shifted. He was still not hard. I didn't know whether to be impressed or frustrated.

"You don't say a word. You come up behind me. You shove me against the wall. When I gasp, and struggle, you order me to put my hands flat on the wall and to not move, to not utter a sound. To not look at you, to not speak to you. To be perfectly still so no one knows what we are doing. Anyone could walk back there at any moment. It is ... thrilling ... it is raw and nasty ... the hallway of a bar ... But I do it. I put my hands on the wall, shift, arch my back in anticipation."

"I touch you ..." he whispered, his voice midnight dark. His arms trembled with the effort to not touch me. I think he very definitely wanted me to understand the restraint he was showing. The strength of will that must take ... how it impresses itself on me.

I reached behind me, lifted his hands. Taking them in mine, I pressed them over my breasts, over the raw silk chemise I wore. I never let his hands go; I moved them where I wanted; he pressed, massaged ... a little harder than I had expected. It excited me in a way I struggled with.

"You grab my breasts. You fondle them right over the jacket I'm wearing. You bite in, lightly, at my neck. I feel you shift behind me ... your hardness pressed in against my crack."

He squeezed harder; my breasts felt impossibly large. I thought I felt him harden, just a bit, but it might have been wishful thinking. I took his hands from my breasts, put them on the bottom hem of my chemise. "You raise my skirt up. You slip your hands directly up, into my groin and then, instantly, you put a finger into me, into my cunt."

I cringed at the word 'cunt,' for some reason. It sounded crude. Yet I used it and didn't back away from it. When he didn't react negatively, it turned a notch for me.

"You put your finger in me," I said, my voice very hoarse. 

I took his hand, then his index finger. Moved the fingertip to my wetness. Stroked. Bit into his neck; he grunted. He put his lips against my neck. I thought I heard him whisper, "Do it."

So I did. I put his finger in me; my finger went in with his. I pressed him inside me. I couldn't suppress the shudder. I dropped his other hand and reached around his neck to steady myself.

"You never give me a chance to fight you off. Not that I would. But you just zero in on my g-spot and I can't do anything but moan."

"Show me," he whispered.

"My g-spot?" He nodded against my neck. "You know where it's at."

He hesitated for a fraction of a second and then said, rather gruffly, but plainly, "I have read of it ... but I have never asked to be shown ..."

"No? But you seemed to ..." I looked at the cording of his neck; the part of him before my eyes. I had this instant awareness ... he'd just revealed something to me but he'd not been ashamed to not know this. And it's me he asked. I pressed my finger in against his, guided it until I could feel him press in exactly the right place. "Feel that? Be gentle and ... Yes ... oh ... yeah ... that's ... that's it."

I panted as he stroked, explored, pressed, stroked ... just reading the impact on me and responding. My mouth open, I glanced at him; he was smiling and his eyebrows were raised. It was a bit of a wicked smile.

Me? Well, I wasn't sitting up and begging yet but I was about to. Finally: "Stop ... Max ... stop," I gasped, my hand dragging his finger out of me.

"But I don't want to stop, do I?"

My words came out in a blinding rush ... a whisper of need to finish this because I was wanting him, not the dream. "No. Oh God ... Yes, you do stop ... because you ... you only do it to make me weak ... to show me the faint edge of your incredible power ... I'm moaning by this point ... you pull your hand out, clamp it over my mouth to keep me quiet. Your other hand, it yanks down your zipper. You pull yourself out, don't bother dropping your pants, you don't need to for this."

I was determined now ... he wasn't hard ... I needed him hard ... my mouth was licking his neck and I was rubbing on him, slowly, rhythmically. I put his hands on my hips; they twitched and squeezed but otherwise, didn't move.

"What did we do then?"

"You fuck me. Hard. It ends there ... always ends like that ... it's just a dream, Max ..." I put my mouth right at his ear. "Maximus ... Maximus! Why aren't you hard? Don't you want me? I thought you said telling a man things like this was arousing. Am I not?"

His hands came up to my face, holding me still. His lips came to my mouth, I felt them flutter against my lips as his deep, rich voice so full of unknown danger and depth, said, "I am a different man than you have known. Remember that when you challenge me."

"I do ... I try to ..."

He took one of my hands in his and wrapped it around his soft manhood. His voice was darker ... edgier ... powerful in the extreme. "This ... this is not lack of arousal. This is absolute self-control. It is my force of will over my body. This is the man I am. It is how I lived my life. Periods of control and then a wild bloodletting."

I swallowed hard and then lifted his chin up with my free hand. So he was forced to see my eyes, the windows of my soul ... and I wanted him to see me ... all of me. "I am woman enough, Maximus, to invite you to be the man you are with me. I can take you when you are not in control."

"I never had a single doubt, Anna. It is the woman I have always believed you were," he whispered, low and dark.

"Are you man enough to show me who you are in those moments, Maximus?" I said. His eyes narrowed at me. His jaw worked, that way he has when he's utterly intense and on the verge of something he's going to release. "If you were to have a wild bloodletting, could you do that? Take me that way? Make it just so absolutely, uncompromisingly about cheap sex?"

"Yes." I released his chin, put that hand on his heart ... I could feel its hard rhythm. His hand that was over mine on his manhood made me stroke him ... mimicking what I'd done with his hands on my breasts.

I thought I would faint from want ... he was allowing himself to harden ... it felt more erotic than I thought possible to be bearing tactile witness to his cock's arousal from its beginning stage to full erection. "What would you have done to me? Could I have driven you there? To where you'd risk so much just to fuck me and then we'd walk away from that experience?"

"You'd never be able to stand, much less walk when I was finished with you if I took you like that."

I reached up and pulled the blindfold from his eyes. They were dark and focused on me. Something on the edge of his eyes caught the light and sparkled.

"You'd never be willing to lose control like that, Max. You'd never take me that way."

He never said another word for a long time.

Instead ... he just acted and I reacted ... and we went someplace we never had. But we were safe because we were with each other.

He put his finger in me ... and pressed in right where I'd taught him. At the perfect pressure and rhythm. My eyes rolled back as he gave me a release that rocketed through my body. I whimpered when he took me back up again ... and again ... I tried shoving away from him but he just lowered me to my back.

"We don't even know each other's names. We don't even want to," I finally gasped out to him. "Fuck me."

I felt him dig his hands in my inner thighs and rudely spread them further apart. Fuck me, I mouthed to him. He shoved in. Just shoved it. My body moved with the force. He grabbed in at my hips and pulled me in while he thrust a few tough times.

My back was arched. My eyes were shut; I felt tears of release behind them. He fucked me hard. He was growling, grunting obscenely. Each thrust, this deep grunt. My body shook with the force of it, but his grip on my hips kept me in place, no matter how he thrust.

I was grunting, too, but mine were in response to his thrusting, that way it feels to absorb hard fucking like that.

 It was sweaty, brutal, unrepentant. I came again. More tears ... my throat was hoarse from holding back ... but finally, on the cusp of another coming, I made real noise ... Through my clenched teeth, I whimpered and it turned into this half-scream.

And this is when he came. In three giant lunges, he spurted into me. One. Two. Pause. Three, not quite as powerful; he shuddered and then collapsed with a sigh atop me.

We were both shaking. I could feel us. It took a little while to stop. When it did, he raised up over me, looked down in my face. That darkness still lingered at the edges of his eyes; he was studying me hard.

But neither of us said anything. We didn't need to. We were far beyond where words would have taken us or reached us. There was a connection between us in that moment ... something inviolate, something timeless.

This is why I didn't say a word when I noticed that it wasn't only sweat that was glistening on his face, near his eyes. I simply reached a finger up to touch him there. Without thinking, just instinct, I licked my finger ... and tasted his tears. Oh, the look on his face when I did that. It nearly did me in. I mouthed his name, pulled him to me, held him tightly.

And I know this is why I shed tears as well. Just overwhelmed by the acceptance I felt coming from him. And knowing that he'd sensed all these things inside me and that no one else had ever made me feel I could just be me and that that would not just be "good enough" but that it would be all that he wanted and more.

That night, holding each other, I told him that I never knew how closely I held my secrets before. But that I do know why it's so hard for me to let go enough to reveal myself. It's past rejection, of course, but it's other things, too. And I promised him I'd try so hard to learn to trust again.

"I will always guard your secrets." He said it softly but it was such a firm message.

"I know you will. I guess that's really the difference, isn't it?" I stroked through the welcome disarray of his hair as he kissed my breasts. "And I will always guard your secrets, Max. I promise you."

The next day, I skipped having a massage when I saw the bruises on my thighs and hips. I just thought they'd be awkward to expose to a stranger.

It said a lot about Max that he never apologized when he saw the bruising. He noted it; he asked if there was anything he could do, if I was sore. But he didn't make it into a big issue. I appreciated that because to do otherwise, it meant the night before was not the experience it had been for us.

I insisted he keep his own appointment for some kind of stone massage he'd wanted to have. When he was gone, I pulled on sweatpants and a t-shirt. What bruising showed was not remarkable. And I set off walking about the resort, just enjoying the calm of the grounds. We met up for lunch at the little café just off the grounds.

He was waiting for me on the pavement out front. When I approached, he hesitated and then reached to take my hands and pull me into a soft embrace. He kissed me on the lips. A light kiss, just the tips of our tongues glancing off each other.

It was the first time he ever had kissed me openly like that ... out in the public, where anyone could see.

I didn't make a huge deal of this ... but he knew how it made me feel. I could tell by that shy grin he gave me after the kiss as his eyes darted to mine to see if I'd realized he'd done that on purpose to make me feel good. I teased him that the next thing I knew, he'd be making out with me at the bar. He gave me that "tsk" of his. And then he made a specific show of taking my hand and holding it while he walked me inside the café to find a table.

In the wake of our trip, I have thought a lot about what I learned about Max over there. He told me a legend about Etruscan women that I didn't get at first why he told me. But I've since realized that he told me that because he was thinking of me, of my need to be reassured that he loves me with open eyes.

And me, I have this singular thing happening where I find myself focused on his needs. I never thought of myself as a nurturer but what else can it be to worry over him, to want to shelter him, to want to protect his secrets as he protects mine?

Not everything we will face will be solved just because he loves me so much that he is studying what it is that I need and then finding the way to give me what he can of it. Nor will all differences between us dissolve just because I would give up about anything to care for him and to see that he has a good life.

The oddest thing is that I've begun to wonder ... does he have to change or do I have to? Or is it enough that our respect and love for each other is so central?

So far, anyway, it's working.

And I think I know why.

It's because we want it to work. It's because we are making it work.