Kissercise

Stewart Sternberg, whose blog is included with my links, challenged some folks to a seduction exercise. Writing one that is. I don't normally write this sort of thing, but I thought, what the hell. Below is my entry. I call it:

Kissercise:

Every day as he walked from his office to lunch he passed a woman whose lips Satan must have dreamed of in a long fall to Hell. She sat always at an outside table at Fryer Tucks, and every day he intended to speak to her. He planned things to say. But every day he lost his will just when the moment was ripe. Today the woman wore blue, as if she’d wrapped herself in sky, and today he’d left nothing to “will.”

At the precise moment when he passed her on the sidewalk, she sitting like a rapture at her white-clothed table, he triggered the virtual movie that he’d filmed on his computer and uploaded to his iPod. A calculated stumble precipitated the small device directly into the woman’s lap.

She startled, but so gracefully that she didn’t even spill the water glass cradled within the delicate web of her fingers. He paused, looking sheepish, and she immediately picked up the iPod and started to hand it back. That was when a character on the small screen said her name, “Jennifer.” It was a name that he’d overheard from a waiter on a previous walk past her table.

When Jennifer heard her name, she looked down at the screen. She saw a man and a woman, two lovers about to touch. And she saw:

***
He leans so close, halfway to the heaven of her kiss, wanting to close that gap. Needing to close it. Then his mouth finds the path to hers, his lips warm as they part slightly and he brushes them across her smile. That contact is feather light but electric, and his hand rises to cup the soft weight of her cheek, his nails sketched along the delicate line of her jaw.

He pulls back for a moment, studying her intently as if to memorize her face. Then his eyes darken, grow heavy-lidded with scarcely hidden desire, and he moves his mouth to hers again, turning his head to one side, letting his lips skate across the pout of her touch-warmed mouth. The tip of his tongue slips against the fullness of her lower lip, flicks softly across it, like the caress of a moth's wing.

He hears her gasp lightly and feels her mouth open under his. His tongue slips through that opening, meeting her own tongue in a brief swirl of heat that turns to hunger. His free hand slides up her back, fingernails grazing hotly on her skin until they twine in the satin-lace tangle of her hair.

He presses the kiss harder, turning his head again, tasting her, loving the wet glory of her mouth against his. The faint gasp of their breathing crackles in the room, that sound merging with the soft damp whisper of lips and tongues locked in a sweet war.

Her tongue thrusts suddenly against his and he lets her push him from her mouth, then uses his own tongue to capture hers and imprison it between his lips, suckling her, drawing a shiver from her body, a tiny mewling cry from her throat. He moans as well, both hands in her silken mane now, pulling her against him, the shock of their kiss spiraling down his chest, setting his muscles aquiver as he continues to make love to her mouth with his lips and tongue.

Only after a long moment does he pull back, breathing hard, his eyes dilated, half wild. He brushes his palm over his mouth, then glances down to see the smear of her kiss across his pale skin, the trail of dampness lying misted with a faint crimson stain from her lipstick. The vision jolts his body. He glances back up to meet her gaze, says--
***

The movie ended. The woman with the lips that Satan dreamed of looked up at the man who had dropped his iPod. She offered it back to him; he took it with his hand brushing hers.

“Sorry. So clumsy,” he said. “And sorry about the…film. Just a little animated piece I’ve been working on.”

“It was…interesting,” she said. “Are you a director?”

“In my dreams,” he said, and he wondered if she caught his double meaning. Then he glanced across the crowded tables nearby and added: “You know I’ve always wanted to eat here but I didn’t know if it was any good.”

“It’s very good,” she said.

“Great! Maybe I’ll go get a table.” Then he slipped into a well-practiced stricken look. “Or do you think the wait would be too long? I don’t have much time for lunch.”

Jennifer looked around. “Hmmm, I’d guess the wait would be pretty long. But why don’t you join me? I’m eating alone today.”

He smiled. “I’d like that very much. My name’s Paul. Can I ask yours?”

“Jennifer. Just like the character in your movie.”

“Wow,” he said, as he moved to pull up a chair across from her. “Can you picture such a coincidence? I wonder what other strange synchronizations we’ll find between us.”

Jennifer chuckled. “Quite a few, I would imagine. Perhaps enough to believe, almost, that our meeting was orchestrated.”

“Fate,” Paul said. “Must have been.”

They both laughed, and Paul clicked is iPod to Jennifer’s water glass in toast.