begged him, please, wait . . . Slower!
He paused.
—Do you want me to stop?
—No, go on. It hurts, but I like it. I don’t quite know. Go on, but gently.
When he judged himself sufficiently lodged within her, David induced a to-and-fro motion to his prick trapped in the tightness of her shaft. At his first move, Amélie clenched her teeth, anticipating the same pain. But nothing prepared her for the violence of the sensation she now discovered. She howled, whitened knuckles gripping the sides of the desk.
Soon her pain subsided, diluted by the force of the tidal-wave hurling over her, flooding each and every nerve ending of her skin. David was invading her entrails. The giddiness inflicted upon her by his thrusts felt at once excruciating and delicious.
Through his cock, David perceived the onset of her pleasure, heralded by the surrender of her loins:
—But you like it, don’t you? Say you love me fucking your ass!
—Yes! she cried out, I love it!
—I’m going to come! he bellowed.
He shoved himself in further, ejaculated, and Amélie felt her belly torn asunder by a climax that left her limp. They remained recumbent on the table, limbs askew like a pair of dislocated puppets. When he attempted to stand, she said:
—Don’t leave me like this! I can hardly move, and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to sit down!
He laughed, gathered her into his arms, and carried her to the bed. Shivering, she slipped under the covers as David disappeared into the bathroom.
—My goodness! she exclaimed when he came back. You’re all ready, spruced up and gorgeous! You’re amazing. Look at me, I’m a wreck!
—I may seem fresh and relaxed, but I can hardly stand on my own two feet . . . Come on, darling, get ready, or we’ll never get out of here in time for dinner. It’s our last evening.
A limping Berber escorted them through the dark alleys of the medina, where the muffled sounds of the city, reduced to whisperings, seemed to stagnate. His lantern, burning with a night-light glow, softened the narrow streets teeming with shadows and, depending on his meandering path, projected haphazardly rays or bursts of light revealing doors, windows, vaguely, mouthlike humid orifices, carved in walls glossed by the penumbra.
Emerging from the labyrinth of primitive streets, Amélie felt she had traveled in time and space. They found themselves among the ordinary clients of a restaurant who stared at the newcomers as people do in pubs all over the world.
The ancient palace enclosed a square courtyard, sheltered by a makeshift velum. It was full of local color: Air drafts blew through the awnings, evoking the precariousness of desert tents, while a tinkling fountain seemed to orchestrate the smell of cinnamon and orange blossoms floating over the tables. They were placed face-to-face on deep sofas. David took Amélie’s hand extended over a tablecloth covered with rose petals.
—I love you.
That’s when she saw him: Jacques G., seated alone two tables away from theirs. His profile was too still to be natural. He had seen her, that was for sure! And he was still wonderingwhether he ought to recognize her. She lowered her head, pretending to rearrange the locks of hair falling over her forehead:
—Merde! she whistled between clenched teeth.
—What’s the matter? David asked.
—Second table on the left; Jacques G., a friend of Paul’s. He was on my right at our tenth anniversary party. What a disaster!
David said nothing; he felt responsible. It was he after all who had suggested Marrakech, keeping secret the fact that social collisions were far from uncommon in this exotic city. How stupid of him to have taken her to the city’s best restaurant! But he was tired of racking his brain for obscure pubs in Paris where she wouldn’t run into anyone she knew: African restaurants whose local color offset disastrous cuisine, charming bistros of the nineteenth arrondissement; touristy hash-houses of the Place du
David Hewson
Russell Banks
Paula Quinn
Lurlene McDaniel
Melanie Harlow
Kay Brody
Jen Turano
Heather Graham
Luna Noir
D Jordan Redhawk