© Sauce*Box, Summer 1998. All rights
revert to author.
Angela Mannino Leven, Saturday, 19 June 1993 at 10:00:23
(excerpts from the novel "Taxi Murders Sextet.")
by Sean Farragher
-'Time and circumstance,' as the song goes, will take care of that, but my dear beautiful, zaftig Angela knew better.
1. Aaron Leven
Wearing faded blue jeans and paint spattered rosy flannel shirt, Aaron Leven, 43, having stopped work on his gray, umber, and vermilion floor to ceiling neo-abstract expressionist canvas mural, had slowly and quietly, for such a large man (more than six foot three and 240 lb.), climbed the noisy iron staircase of his well organized, three story machine shop art studio to watch his wife make love with his best friend, Henry.
Wednesday morning was Henry's alone, as Thursday was Aaron's, and on Saturday and Sunday, the three lovers played, inviting Christina, Henry's lover, to the games, and although they tired of artificial divisions, as Henry often mocked, the use and abuse of schedules kept power and disorder divided.
-How artificial, Henry complained. How do we know what we want?
For Aaron, Henry, as he called him, seemed, at almost fifty, more the ample, insatiable child than the gray and white hewn poet and flamboyant adult bassoon of writing workshops and taxi cab unions.
Having been Henry's friend for almost fourteen years, Aaron trusted the poet more naturally than his mundane CPA brother, David.
It was more than the brotherhood of the arts, Aaron mocked, slightly defensive.
Angela understood Henry's and Aaron's kinship, and she passionately helped them cross and protect what had been once for the three (or four) of them, a rigid and forbidden bisexual frontier.
-OK for two girls and guy, Henry would insist.
-But never two guys and a girl, right now, Angela would chastise Henry. Mocking him. Such bias, Angela continued
-But its true, Angela retorted to Christina, I do savor the tension and resolution(s).
For the past three years, Angela clearly had enjoyed the men and first Laurie and now, Laurie's sister, Christina.
-Never could go back to the simple number two, Angela posed, crossing her arms, taking on that gray delusion called physical strength.
-Isn't it wonderful how these men bless and anoint my life, Angela thought; they bring so much to us and our kids. We are in this together, Angela pressed Henry for more space, when Henry complained that he only wanted Angela and not Aaron.
Amazed on how the threesome grew, planning for each event took on more and more attention.
-I could never live with out them, she whispered to Christina, Henry's lover, once one of Angela's best friends.
All of this was true, especially when Christina complained that Henry seemed too distracted when he makes love to me, but above all, Angela thought, Christina did make it clear she was not jealous. But just before leaving, returning back to the world, this image of this unholy man takes place within; and at the end. Christina's voice would trail off, speaking to herself, convincing some ghost, perhaps.
When Laurie was with Henry, living here with you, I often wondered how Laurie could stand it, I never could let him, keep all of you, I'm too selfish, Christina insisted.
Got to keep some of him for myself, and then Christina would laugh at her silly objections, considering all that had happened these past years. How small jealousy is, Christina said, but I'd give Henry up, Angela, to bring my sister back. One of the reasons I love Henry, and then Christina paused. Henry keeps Laurie inside. I know he does. When I love him, Christina kissed Angela and then Aaron and Henry, I feel her eyes, her mouth, her breasts inside Henry. He is more than male, and less than female. He plays in Laurie's heart with me. He is Laurie. And when he comes I imagine Laurie grinding against him, and then, almost beside myself, I cry, when I come, missing Laurie's laugh as I would miss great rivers or dark sunsets.
How I miss ... How we miss her, Angela kissed Christina, kissing her hair, and feeling the quiet lift of Christina's breasts pushing against her hand. How odd what we feel at times, Angela said, turning back to Henry or Aaron. Finding the closest man, that's what I need, Christina laughed, in a trance, sadder as we assumed.
Death can claim more than our breath. Making the dream shorter than the folly. Is reality folly, after all. Wait.
-I am the Resurrection and their Light, Angela paused, intent, but aroused when she fondled human nipples, or held two cocks in place astride one than the other (or both together) while she distorted her childhood masks (all derived from a vulnerability that shuddered dark, gray and white flashing inside the playhouse of her almost ordinary sexually precocious childhood).
-I am always bridge Angela would insist, faking it sometimes, pretended lamentations, as the men, really Roman twins, Aaron and Henry touched the rasp of her face kissing inner ears, shadowing the blush of her breast with the knuckles of clasped brows.
Neither man had ever wanted a man, but in this bisexual triad, or quartet,- Laurie (Sheila's younger half sister and Angela's best friend), flew above divergent rivers, palisades and plateau to leap free style, seduced and ribald, playfully fucked out of the sky into canal, river, vagina, mouth, and anus.
Only the foretaste of some blessed anxiety slowed the pace and the lascivious chase.
No hesitation. No soft tongue nor limp prick dark performance inhibited a very careful, well oiled penetration.
Laurie laughed when Angela acted out the mimicry of ear lobe kisses, and breast fucking movies as one tongue became two, moving Laurie out of Aaron, or Henry astride Sheila with Laurie dressed between more lubricant than actor.
Male or female parts were obscured, and the blur flashed opened cunt and ass warned by the close when semen rose in sails and milk flooded the swells.
I gave them my belly, and they healed my emptiness with their ardor. I gave them my breasts, and they ran my milk as blue words and red space, forging love from the chaste canvas of my cunt, their balls, pricks, and even the half dreams from phonetic whims of poem and unsettled verse.
I called them my fountains for obvious effect, and I raged with each flare of semen, shine of saliva and rave of blood. I deeply dressing my orgasm with their tender satisfaction as they did mine with the congress of their fingers and lips. Each human face becoming the foil for the other's grace.
At 31, Angela, was truly dazzling: open red blouse against faded bronze lipstick. Reclined, sexually involved, she revealed ample breasts and their cleft center lifted hugging prick and balls rose with the arch of her cobalt eyes to blast with Holst's and his tense strident harmony, out of his Planets when Jupiter's Heart closed too early and Angela's wet mouth, luscious but too warm from hours of kissing, had ridden now above Henry, covering his face, loins, cock, keeping the dark in his place, and as she devoured him, he swallowed her. Nothing was held back, then and now, Angela. remembering how the two men had fucked her ass, cunts, tits and mouth held Henry to her nipple feeling the warmth, the drawing out and inside, as the rush, pulled down, had swarmed above the double cocks of her two lovers, riding their harness, swirling her ass long black hair with Aaron's vibrating counter bass finally brushed against, clutched by contoured clit and its exogeographic compass that she held inside spinning out of bounds to thrive after multiple infusions.
-This nectar keeps me alive, she said. I thrive. Watch the bloom, notice how my eyes are full and my hands a fever, dancing with fragrant musk.
When sex radiated, Angela played perfectly round with sharps and flats, and every whole in one sharp breath, more than a scream rising out of temporal waves to flutter past eyes and fingertips.
During this mass, her breasts, arms, wings, branches, twigs were deftly gathered then tenderly bound by Henry and Aaron, as offering.
In Angela's church, Nave and transept were generous and graceful, softly gathered, entirely glamorous, her natural veils framed her pale neck, dark, thick sienna nipples, bounded with the pale blue sky of mother's milk.
Angela simply had, more than that voluptuous sheen and flesh arbor that Rubens and Renoir seduced more simply and with greater resolution than Euclid's ancient Greek wistful theorems. How sex changed when there were four outer arms to caress one woman.
Good friends: Henry and Aaron, (when the stars were right, Angela often quipped), took turns making love with Angela, who had four months earlier, given birth to a daughter by Aaron, named Sarah, who now slept in a cradle in a small well lit room off this larger darker one. That it was morning and the sun washed hot and bright seemed odd when you consider how night dominates the calculus of sexual play.
We forget how daylight and that other side, fear, step up to the horizon and pull us to oblivion. We need that gray twilight. We aspire towards absolute abandon as lovers creep atop tits, ass, balls, cunt, cock, clit, arm pit, and cleft, to rub, penetrate, stimulate and simulate as Henry, Angela and Aaron bent knee to suck whatever was there and was not, and now, after several orgasms, for her, had finished, really finished the morning well.
Then, as any good mathematician or artist, you throw another stone or two, and the dice never quit, and the stars spin brighter than ribald climax or orgy, and then dull, bright, rusted and luminous, but never morose, the colors congeal, as the ejaculating dark, or if you're innocent, you fell the thick semen or woman lick the back of your thighs, coming between the ass and the sun. as if any of us are truly innocent (man, woman, priest, or Rabbi). We are not done in by too early, too furtive passion. We are murdered by fear, hidden agendas, and that simply too awful prescience, we scrambled in a thousand million dreams, called death parts one to ten octillion (10 to the 27th power).
Throw another and, yes, it grinds dark, almost painful, remote and skewed like a more dismal art than sun and invisible dancers. What is the key? How does pleasure mingle with pain, as if arousal and expulsion, acceptance and ache can be forgotten once proclaimed.
2. The Bedroom
Protected in her lap, Henry Whitman, poet and arm chair taxi driver, drew Angela's milk into his mouth, one half of his face concealed by her round breast, satisfying one thirst while Aaron, painter and a much quieter man than Henry perched in an ancient rocking chair, perched under one of Aaron's portraits, stretched halfway across the other side of the room, Aaron's feet up, pushing slowly against the wall, rhythmically pumping his legs against the wall to propel himself.
Sometimes the loner, Aaron liked to sway in his rocking chair at the foot of the bed. Five or six feet from the couple, he seemed closer, rocking gently, as if he were holding an infant. Aaron, as the artist voyeur, had fused with Henry and Angela.
Painting quite a picture himself, Aaron was obviously aroused but also intent on not showing his feelings. His hands may have been clean, but his face, streaked with payne's gray and umber, suggested that the assured painter was wild and possessed, possibly more out of control than his attitude suggested.
-I can't get enough of both of you, Aaron said, smiling, you're perfect.
-How long you been there, Angela, smiled at Aaron brushing her hair back, and squinting. I can never see you when I am not wearing my contacts.
-That's not important. I can see you, Aaron rocked softer. Angela, you have the most beautiful breasts and Henry, your mouth is full like a sacrificial blow job. Aaron laughed, almost giggled. Angela lifting her head, throwing her hair back, you are one terrible con artist, Aaron, she laughed. Why don't you pull up a chair, and I'll provide curb service.
-That is if you don't think my ass is too fat, Angela sang. You know. I love it.
-I'm looking inside, love, Aaron paused, motionless, trying to decide if he would stay put, or move closer towards them.
-At my fat. Yuck, she softly shook her head, and Henry, who had seem truly the silent infant looked up for a second, without fully releasing the nipple, before Angela gently pushed him back down.
-No trouble from you now, she admonished Henry.
-"Fucking Madonna, you agree Henry," Aaron said in his fake Irish accent affected to mimic Henry, adding at the end, "I'm just not sure which one."
-"Jealous, dear one. There's one here for you too," Angela said, grasping her free nipple, teasing it, making the swollen tip, shine.
Sometimes Angela called Aaron dear one as she called Henry, Sir, mocking them. Angela liked to play, and what she loved about both these men were their capacities to laugh at themselves with her. And when Aaron didn't immediately respond to Angela's invitation, suddenly, she playfully, directed a wisp of her pale, white milk towards Aaron missing him by several feet. Actually, the milk had landed on Henry's arms and chest, and Aaron, pretending to dodge the track, stood up, moving towards Angela, who now closed her eyes, shifting her face upward in a grand gesture that was obviously sincerely felt but at the same time could be interpreted as affected. Aaron meanwhile, was licking Henry's arms and chest, cleaning the milk, and then leaning into Angela, Aaron caressed hair, eyes, and open lips, quietly, Aaron settled down, moving forward back to the most distant corner of their bed, finally, resting, leaning hard against his mural sized, massive but serene, blue, gray and russet painting that he had set up to reflect late morning light from the front bedroom window, and within that heat, the painting, luminous, framed the NYC skyline.
The effect of the changes could have drawn Aaron physically closer to Angela, but his stiff, closed posture although superficially jocular and light strained at the noose of indifference. Aaron said he always felt odd, but turned on, when he encouraged Angela's intimacy with another man. Sex was not usually a problem. They, by agreement, could be sexually involved with any partner. Angela recently had explored her attraction to very feminine women.
-I wish I had my camera, Angela said.
-Why, Aaron was startled by the comment
-You're beautiful, Angela said, especially when your body frames your larger than life paintings. Set against the flat blue field of your work, you would make a dynamic and inscrutable photograph.
-I always wanted to be the subject of a coffee table book. What if I were naked, would that work?
-Only if you had a hardon, Angela laughed, caressing Henry who seemed almost asleep, his wet lips presumably pressed to tit.
-I know the caption, Aaron stood up, walking back towards Angela, as he drew an imaginary line against the field of his painting, "The artist fucks with naked friends and children."
.-"Better save some for Sarah," Aaron teased, forcing his head against Henry's, jostling his friend to dislodge his mouth from Angela's nipple. Failing to move, Henry, pretended annoyance. Aaron, starting from her belly button then licked and suckled at Angela's other breast, accepting the quasi equality.
-"I've plenty," Angela said, "the more you take, the more I make.
-Paraphrasing Lennon, now, Aaron paused, grinned.
-You mean Lenin, Henry stopping for a second, pulled Angela down, pinning her arms, very much alive.
-Quiet, you. Pushing Henry back up, and then quickly kissing him, Besides, I nursed the baby just before you guys got here. She'll be sleeping for a least an hour more.
-"You hope, Henry said, as he stopped for a moment, smiling up at Angela who stopped playing with Henry's ear.
-"Don't , Henry purred, that feels too
-"GOOD," Aaron cried, leaning up, stopping, his chin wet, now I am jealous, he teased.
-"You should be, Henry mocked, I got the chocolate one, opening his mouth, self satisfied, almost smug.
-"You always did have a preference for the darker values, as Aaron, who sometimes played the outsider, the black, the Jew to Henry's holy WASP, seemed almost sarcastic, which seem somewhat out of character. Perhaps, he was slightly put off by Henry's possessiveness of his wife. Aaron truly loved Henry, and Angela, who was in perfect tune with Aaron, understood the disruption, and she took control.
-"Hey," Angela protested. "get back there," as she gently pulled Henry's hair, directing him into her liquid breast. "You guys have no idea how good thissure you could have two women suck , but there's much more. I can't believe how wet "
Henry and Aaron resumed furiously, ignoring Angela's hint. Quietly they fed like twins. Angela noticed how Henry curled up his fingers like Sarah and Henry suckled harder than Aaron, used his teeth, gently, but the discomfort was good and she encouraged Henry to nibble by her sighs while she twisted his nipples, then twisting him as hard as she could.
-"Stop. Feels too good, she said. "No, Aaron, you can't bite. I told you that. You know I like it, but If you make me too sore, I won't be able to nurse Sarah.
-"Hey, that was me, Henry, said, not Aaron, got us mixed up.
-"Who gives a fuck who it is, she laughed. Don't you fucken stop, she said, pulling Aaron back, who seriously resisted. He seemed annoyed, which was out of character for the placid Aaron.
Aaron who had stood up, now, fully erect, played with his cock, as if it itched or needed something more. He looked at the happy couple, mother and child, he thought. Need my sketch pad, and he stopped feeling slightly put out by Angela's mistake. I guess I really don't mind, and he smiled, and Angela grabbed his playful hand pushing it away from his cock, startling Henry, with her loss of concentration.
-That's mine, Angela said, pulling Aaron back towards the bed by his cock. She did it gently, not insistent, and Aaron's knees buckled, as he sat down on the edge of the bed half facing Angela and Henry, enjoying the play, when suddenly Henry reached up, seeing the action, and placed his hand on Angela's, helping her, feeling her intense heat from Aaron's cock through her hands. Henry wasn't actually touching Aaron, exactly, not that he minded. In helping Angela soothe Aaron, Henry said to the husband and wife, I love you both. Henry didn't need to speak. They knew, and Aaron, falling closer to Henry, brushed Angela's hair, caressing it.
Suddenly Aaron pulled away, but sensing a turn, Angela held Henry's head firmly to her breast while she took Aaron's fully hard cock in her lips. Taking just the head, slowly, she leaned forward swallowing it, then pulling away, going back, licking the head, she concentrated on his hole, allowing her tongue to linger on the ridges, then she stopped, rose up on her knees kissed Aaron, pushing him against the now erect Henry who sat up in the bed, wondering not what had happened, but where this was going.
Suddenly, as if to say it's Henry's turn, Angela surprised Henry, and silently she tenderly elbowed Aaron off the bed. Aaron didn't resist. Getting up, he pretended to slump to the floor- a wounded bird, struck in his heart.
[Fade to White then Black, White again warming crimson]
3. Top of Leven Household Stairs Moments Later.
-You fucken guys are too much," Aaron said seeming almost too sincere. "Anyway, have fun. I got to get back to work. Some of us have to earn a living," patting Henry's ass, slapping it hard, as he moved away, then returning, almost an afterthought, hitting Angela equally hard on her rounded ass, raised upward, on her side, striking what he knew was the sweet spot, showing no favoritism.
-"You deserve one too, darling, Aaron laughed, watching Henry nestle with Angela, looking almost too certain of himself, too comfortable, and then throwing his head back, Aaron left the room quickly, falling down the spiral staircase, looking back only once, but his eyes reveled nothing of the longing he already missed.
-Shit, my belly aches, Aaron thought, and for a moment, he fought the urge to return, as he paused on the stairs, near the last stair, out of sight of the busy couple, resisting the urge to fly up the stairs to join them, knowing he could, but that he couldn't take back what he knew was not his, but at that moment, when will turned, he saw the furious lips of his latest half finished mural pressed against the wall, illuminated by interior light: reds, grays, browns, covering canvas 5 feet by 8, filled more than his hands, and his cock gently hardened.
Aaron painted to restore himself, and what he borrowed from life and dreams was not tangible unless he renewed himself with the fundamental work of mixing paint with canvas and, of course, lips with skin. More than synergism.
Painting was not better than making love; it was making love, and he knew that Angela understood that, and how unconditionally he loved her, and she him.
-What better "bottom line, what sustenance, " Aaron said out loud, to no one, laughing with himself at the "delicacy" of his allusions. Aaron knew the patterns of their pleasures.
Later that night, after five or six hours of painting, and a few hours of mutual sleep, when Henry left his bedroom, retiring to his own room, Angela would be ready, horny, alone, and terribly turned on, teasing Aaron with her blow by blow description of what she did with Henry -tempering her story, but also giddy, adding, in her generous manner how Henry had at first too eagerly responded, of course, wanting more than the grace of his poems, but lacking that essential control, unlike you, dear, Henry seemed to give up too early, but he made upfor it later.
-We love Henry," Angela added, trying to include Aaron, not that he needed her refrain. No chorus was necessary. Angela knew her partner, Aaron. This certainty made the threesome more than pleasure. Everyone knew what they could give or take back. Boundaries were not perfect, but sublime, and they teased one way, or another, at the edge curled back, or forward on the lip of the sea, as the flood pressed outside and one partner became the other's convoluted tease, and the spirits fused.
Simple? Almost?
As she spoke, or didn't speak, Angela held Aaron's face in both her hands, possessing him by lifting her ass, tightening her thighs around his waist, pulling his (and then their) gasp inside, holding it by its rush, anticipating the tilt and lift of her cunt, and then the lunge of his mouth or cock from that moist promontory to fact, fantasy and then the return as lifting up the hill the skier drops faster, or holding the line the yacht keeps high on the wave out of reach of the wake.
One orgasm becomes a thousand, in fact, uncounted.
Yes, Aaron and Angela and Henry had an easy, undefined longing. They knew the joy of enduring triangular proportions. Want and need were entangled, but not confused. Held in balance by the reasonable symmetry of patience and the knowledge that grace bestows on those who know how to let go of what they cannot possess.
The blend of their limbs with their sexual parts lifted the puzzle from the table to the mirror, and the two men and one woman laughed at that partial, distorted reflection. How can we know from the outside, what we cannot reasonably know from the inside, Angela mused, kissing Aaron, stopping him, as he quickly undid the buttons of his shirt.
-Let me catch up, Aaron said, racing higher, his mouth open.
-Slow down, darling, Angela continued, breathing softly, teasing Aaron, as she caressed and then lifted first one and then another of her breasts out from her nursing bra, feeling the comfort of the air and the loss of control, finally throwing the thin cotton tee shirt she wore for comfort and ease of access across the room before arching upward, her low voice, its pitch reduced by ardor, trembling, amplified, leaping into what some would have once called, centuries ago, forbidden "dirty," prurient magic; the ones Angela sang or uttered for Aaron as welcome resembled the echo of the whale as they returned.
Angela was wet, and oh so ready for Aaron to finish what Angela and Henry had started.
-See, she squealed to herself, under her breath, racing her heart, feeling the moisture gather louder, lifting her fingers up, cooling them in the January air.
-Yes, you felt it too, that inhuman song, didn't you, Aaron whispering now, slowed, resuming his normal pace.
-More a human song, Sweets, Angela caressed Aaron's face, speaking softly, opening her mouth anticipating her kiss, trailing off, Whales are more profound. Shh. Shut the fuck up.
Aaron didn't hear the last phrase. Angela's breath was trapped by his mouth, and the last phrase, and its direction, was swallowed inside Henry, absorbed and comfortable in the fold of his hands on Angela's face, neck, and lips.
-From no where, Angela spoke, breaking off the kiss, letting the last tease of her tongue linger as a fuck between his tongue and lips, yes I love, Angela continued, Henry's "unabashed "vulnerability (resuming the flow of the previous conversation), but yours, my husband, is more rounded, complete, Angela mused, fondling Aaron's hands, then breast and nipples, pressing her breasts against Aaron's arm, as if to say, welcome, these tits are for you, they miss you, we are full, brimming, hurting, almost, please, now, yes, I've come home, found my own way back. Thanks for your gift. Here's mine.
Angela ruffled Aaron's hair, charmed by its thinning and the crows feet around his eyes, as Aaron suckled, she felt his comfort and vulnerability.
-Good and Plenty, Aaron giggled, almost coughing.
-Now, hush, dear lover, swallow, Angela laughed at that reversal. We don't want any mess, now do we?
Aaron didn't laugh, but he smiled, returning, robust seizing Angela's nipple, and said absolutely nothing more, answering in his mind, yes dear.
Hopeless, he thought, looking up at Angela's eyes, mouth, and the mountains of her flesh, holding that flush as memory, while he tasted what was sweet, taking inside more than the milk that was truly perfect, as Angela directed, as she turned suddenly crushing her other tit against his cheek, finding his dick, saying the word aloud, where is it now, that cock, dear cock, rubbing his balls deftly, squeezing them, making his belly rise and fall (like civilization she laughed to herself) as her breath lifted into that plateau before the fall and rise, nine times nine and more, but alas, perhaps no further. How I wished I could rub my own cock while I nurse, Angela giggled as she held him. Wouldn't that be wonderful. Having dick and tits. We could share. Perhaps in this other world, Aaron could bear the pregnancy and birth, endure the stress before periods, and the anxiousness of wondering, as the case may be, am I or am I not pregnant. When I was fifteen, I held those fears invisible. I knew nothing. But now, here, inside with my lover, I am well learning more about how full and complex I can become when I am love and not just in love. He knows me. No, he thinks he does. I don't really know him. Yes, I do. Now, here I do. I am inside his skin. Wait, let me tell him.
-"You know, dear, no you can't," Angela said aloud then stoking, starting from nowhere, yet speaking clearly and softly, "that ache before being empty. Now, don't say a word, listen "
-First you are full, then released. Years, later, when you're dry, closed, angry, just looking backward to this minute, now, restores that ache, no love, and time compressed, simple resists until the letdown revives, and the ache quickly restored closes the circle between birth and termination. No, I mean death. Why can't I use the word "death" when I'm nursing. Why does nursing make me linger there. The milk will stop as my orgasm, no actually his. Yes, it does stop sometime, but while it lasts, let the ache linger outside, watching the skyline for deadly microbes and murder. How morbid?
Why do I feel as we all do, that call, backward to hell and salvation, or is it heaven and brimstone. Please dear husband stay with my breast and let me come into your ear with my growl.Moments Later.
-You fucken guys are too much," Aaron said seeming almost too sincere. "Anyway, have fun. I got to get back to work. Some of us have to earn a living," patting Henry's ass, slapping it hard, as he moved away, then returning, almost an afterthought, hitting Angela equally hard on her rounded ass, raised upward, on her side, striking what he knew was the sweet spot, showing no favoritism.
-"You deserve one too, darling, Aaron laughed, watching Henry nestle with Angela, looking almost too certain of himself, too comfortable, and then throwing his head back, Aaron left the room quickly, falling down the spiral staircase, looking back only once, but his eyes reveled nothing of the longing he already missed.
-Shit, my belly aches, Aaron thought, and for a moment, he fought the urge to return, as he paused on the stairs, near the last stair, out of sight of the busy couple, resisting the urge to fly up the stairs to join them, knowing he could, but that he couldn't take back what he knew was not his, but at that moment, when will turned, he saw the furious lips of his latest half finished mural pressed against the wall, illuminated by interior light: reds, grays, browns, covering canvas 5 feet by 8, filled more than his hands, and his cock gently hardened.
Aaron painted to restore himself, and what he borrowed from life and dreams was not tangible unless he renewed himself with the fundamental work of mixing paint with canvas and, of course, lips with skin. More than synergism.
Painting was not better than making love; it was making love, and he knew that Angela understood that, and how unconditionally he loved her, and she him.
-What better "bottom line, what sustenance, " Aaron said out loud, to no one, laughing with himself at the "delicacy" of his allusions. Aaron knew the patterns of their pleasures.
Later that night, after five or six hours of painting, and a few hours of mutual sleep, when Henry left his bedroom, retiring to his own room, Angela would be ready, horny, alone, and terribly turned on, teasing Aaron with her blow by blow description of what she did with Henry -tempering her story, but also giddy, adding, in her generous manner how Henry had at first too eagerly responded, of course, wanting more than the grace of his poems, but lacking that essential control, unlike you, dear, Henry seemed to give up too early, but he made upfor it later.
-We love Henry," Angela added, trying to include Aaron, not that he needed her refrain. No chorus was necessary. Angela knew her partner, Aaron. This certainty made the threesome more than pleasure. Everyone knew what they could give or take back. Boundaries were not perfect, but sublime, and they teased one way, or another, at the edge curled back, or forward on the lip of the sea, as the flood pressed outside and one partner became the other's convoluted tease, and the spirits fused.
Simple? Almost?
As she spoke, or didn't speak, Angela held Aaron's face in both her hands, possessing him by lifting her ass, tightening her thighs around his waist, pulling his (and then their) gasp inside, holding it by its rush, anticipating the tilt and lift of her cunt, and then the lunge of his mouth or cock from that moist promontory to fact, fantasy and then the return as lifting up the hill the skier drops faster, or holding the line the yacht keeps high on the wave out of reach of the wake.
One orgasm becomes a thousand, in fact, uncounted.
Yes, Aaron and Angela and Henry had an easy, undefined longing. They knew the joy of enduring triangular proportions. Want and need were entangled, but not confused. Held in balance by the reasonable symmetry of patience and the knowledge that grace bestows on those who know how to let go of what they cannot possess.
The blend of their limbs with their sexual parts lifted the puzzle from the table to the mirror, and the two men and one woman laughed at that partial, distorted reflection. How can we know from the outside, what we cannot reasonably know from the inside, Angela mused, kissing Aaron, stopping him, as he quickly undid the buttons of his shirt.
-Let me catch up, Aaron said, racing higher, his mouth open.
-Slow down, darling, Angela continued, breathing softly, teasing Aaron, as she caressed and then lifted first one and then another of her breasts out from her nursing bra, feeling the comfort of the air and the loss of control, finally throwing the thin cotton tee shirt she wore for comfort and ease of access across the room before arching upward, her low voice, its pitch reduced by ardor, trembling, amplified, leaping into what some would have once called, centuries ago, forbidden "dirty," prurient magic; the ones Angela sang or uttered for Aaron as welcome resembled the echo of the whale as they returned.
Angela was wet, and oh so ready for Aaron to finish what Angela and Henry had started.
-See, she squealed to herself, under her breath, racing her heart, feeling the moisture gather louder, lifting her fingers up, cooling them in the January air.
-Yes, you felt it too, that inhuman song, didn't you, Aaron whispering now, slowed, resuming his normal pace.
-More a human song, Sweets, Angela caressed Aaron's face, speaking softly, opening her mouth anticipating her kiss, trailing off, Whales are more profound. Shh. Shut the fuck up.
Aaron didn't hear the last phrase. Angela's breath was trapped by his mouth, and the last phrase, and its direction, was swallowed inside Henry, absorbed and comfortable in the fold of his hands on Angela's face, neck, and lips.
-From no where, Angela spoke, breaking off the kiss, letting the last tease of her tongue linger as a fuck between his tongue and lips, yes I love, Angela continued, Henry's "unabashed "vulnerability (resuming the flow of the previous conversation), but yours, my husband, is more rounded, complete, Angela mused, fondling Aaron's hands, then breast and nipples, pressing her breasts against Aaron's arm, as if to say, welcome, these tits are for you, they miss you, we are full, brimming, hurting, almost, please, now, yes, I've come home, found my own way back. Thanks for your gift. Here's mine.
Angela ruffled Aaron's hair, charmed by its thinning and the crows feet around his eyes, as Aaron suckled, she felt his comfort and vulnerability.
-Good and Plenty, Aaron giggled, almost coughing.
-Now, hush, dear lover, swallow, Angela laughed at that reversal. We don't want any mess, now do we?
Aaron didn't laugh, but he smiled, returning, robust seizing Angela's nipple, and said absolutely nothing more, answering in his mind, yes dear.
Hopeless, he thought, looking up at Angela's eyes, mouth, and the mountains of her flesh, holding that flush as memory, while he tasted what was sweet, taking inside more than the milk that was truly perfect, as Angela directed, as she turned suddenly crushing her other tit against his cheek, finding his dick, saying the word aloud, where is it now, that cock, dear cock, rubbing his balls deftly, squeezing them, making his belly rise and fall (like civilization she laughed to herself) as her breath lifted into that plateau before the fall and rise, nine times nine and more, but alas, perhaps no further. How I wished I could rub my own cock while I nurse, Angela giggled as she held him. Wouldn't that be wonderful. Having dick and tits. We could share. Perhaps in this other world, Aaron could bear the pregnancy and birth, endure the stress before periods, and the anxiousness of wondering, as the case may be, am I or am I not pregnant. When I was fifteen, I held those fears invisible. I knew nothing. But now, here, inside with my lover, I am well learning more about how full and complex I can become when I am love and not just in love. He knows me. No, he thinks he does. I don't really know him. Yes, I do. Now, here I do. I am inside his skin. Wait, let me tell him.
-"You know, dear, no you can't," Angela said aloud then stoking, starting from nowhere, yet speaking clearly and softly, "that ache before being empty. Now, don't say a word, listen "
-First you are full, then released. Years, later, when you're dry, closed, angry, just looking backward to this minute, now, restores that ache, no love, and time compressed, simple resists until the letdown revives, and the ache quickly restored closes the circle between birth and termination. No, I mean death. Why can't I use the word "death" when I'm nursing. Why does nursing make me linger there. The milk will stop as my orgasm, no actually his. Yes, it does stop sometime, but while it lasts, let the ache linger outside, watching the skyline for deadly microbes and murder. How morbid?
Why do I feel as we all do, that call, backward to hell and salvation, or is it heaven and brimstone. Please dear husband stay with my breast and let me come into your ear with my growl.
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