Ben lit a joss stick to take through to the bedroom with the glasses that he had filled in the kitchen. He felt unconcerned by his nudity as he realised that Marcie had already closed the curtains through there, perhaps when she’d collected the things for her hair. He put their bedtime water down on the crowded bedside tables, carefully placing the incense holder there too, then briefly looked at the clean sheets on the bed, before deciding to fold down the duvet, eagerly anticipating what may be about to happen with Marcie there. Then he made his way back to the bathroom.

Marcie was already on her way out of there though, wrapped in her towel once again, turning off the lights as she came through the flat. She took his hand in hers as they intercepted each other in the living room, then she led him to the bedroom, in near darkness as she clicked off the last lamp. Ben was reminded of how she’d taken his hand in this way just two nights ago, when they’d first given in to their mutual desire. Now it felt almost as if she were his bride, leading him through the fragrant smoke to the consummation of which she’d carelessly spoken earlier.

As they got into the bedroom, she turned to him and raised her arms to wrap them around his neck, perhaps hoping as Ben did that the towel would fall away on its own. When it didn’t, he wrapped his own hands around her back, leaving space between them as he stooped down to give her a slow wet kiss, with both their mouths wide open. The towel’s rolled twist came away easily under his hand, and as it fell to the floor, Ben immediately became aware of the presence of Marcie’s naked skin so close to his as they continued to kiss, almost as if her body was radiant.

Then, with a luxuriant groan, Marcie pulled away from him, letting her slipping hands catch his as she deliberately fell backwards onto the bed. Ben was jerked forwards by her surprisingly firm grip, realising too late that he’d be unable to stay upright himself. He let go of Marcie’s hands as he overbalanced, his shin hitting the edge of the bed as he fell forwards. He collapsed onto one elbow on the mattress, his nose bumping hard against her shoulder, his belly pinning her hips and thigh beneath him. She exhaled forcefully then laughed carelessly, remarking, “Oh, you’re heavy!” before giving that sensuous groan again as Ben wriggled to a less awkward position on top of her, wonderfully aware of the contact of her skin and pubic hair against his naked torso and elongated penis.

He brought his face to hers, leaning on his elbows, which sank into the mattress below her armpits, and he felt sure that he was matching her uninhibited smile of pleasure. He tried to kiss her again, but she still seemed playful, just giving him quick pecks with pursed lips as the dark tied-up waves of her hair framed her dappled forehead, her heavy-lidded eyes under her glasses, her proud nose and her broad jaw. And then she started wriggling herself, clearly trying to get higher up the bed, to make herself more comfortable Ben guessed.

So he pushed himself up to let her move more freely, bearing his weight on his elbows, his feet still dragging on the floor. But then Marcie was parting her firm legs wide, so that his own thighs and knees could press into the mattress between hers. Ben’s erection was long and firm now, and he was urgently aware of how close its unseen head was to her open vulva, where her pubic hair rubbed against his flat stomach, just above his navel, in a wonderfully ticklish way. However, he was also aware that as Marcie pushed herself up onto the pillows, she was also raising her breasts ever closer to his eye level, where his head hung over her chest. He saw their fluid motion, shaking as she shuffled about on her back, spreading wide into broad jelly-like pools under gravity’s effect.

As Marcie’s own head reached the top of the bed, resting back on the piled pillows, Ben moved up only a little higher himself, pushing his pelvis and firm penis just against the clean sheets now. Then, giving in to his impulse, he took some of the weight off his elbows to lower his face to Marcie’s soft breast. She giggled a little as he softly brushed it with his nose, his cheeks and his lips, feeling its silky smoothness, contrasting with the bump of her nipple and the rumpled texture of the delicate skin around it. He inhaled the clean soapy fragrance of her warm skin, then let his mouth part over her rising teat.

She sighed as he gently enclosed it with his lips, striving to be as careful as he could in his reverential gratitude to her for letting him play out his private desires. Then she groaned a little as he used his tongue to toy with the tip of her nipple, reaching behind his head with both her hands to grip his hair. Ben realised that she was indeed enjoying his affectionate attention herself, so he indulged his impulses further, opening his mouth wide, keeping his lips over his teeth, taking as much of her into his mouth as he could, then sucking hard.

“Ooh, yes, that’s good,” he heard Marcie whisper as he kept sucking, pulling her nipple firmly into his mouth and vigorously teasing it, rolling around it with his tongue, breathing hard through his nose, which was buried in the soft cushion of her breast. Letting his weight bear down on her chest now, his hands were free to firmly stroke the sides of her torso, his flat palms and outstretched fingers caressing her naked skin from her hips, over the contours of her waist and ribs, to her damp armpits, then down again.

He broke off for a moment, staring down at the glossy slickness that his saliva had spread across her breast, across her shady pink areola, now puckered and wrinkled as it contracted, and over her nipple, erect and standing proud as if in harmony with his own rigid arousal. He exhaled, wondering if Marcie could feel his breath on her, as he brought his hand up to gently tease her, his fingertips slipping easily over the hardened tip of her nipple. Then, still stroking her, cupping her whole breast in his hand to feel its volume, he let his mouth fall to her other breast to enthusiastically repeat everything he’d just done, bringing his parted lips gently to her other nipple.

He sucked at her soft flesh, breathing through his nose as it pressed into Marcie’s breast, whilst her fingers still tangled in his hair, her own breath still passing with sighs of pleasure. As his lips drew her in and his tongue rhythmically massaged her proud nipple, he was aware how his mouth may be exactly imitating the actions of a feeding infant. Yet despite his close encounter with a mother who was genuinely breastfeeding her baby that morning, he felt at ease and unashamed to be doing this. Perhaps Marcie’s previous encouraging words had sunk home, or perhaps he was merely still feeling some careless tipsy confidence from the diverse drinks that he’d consumed earlier. For whatever reason, it felt right that he should be doing this with Marcie, letting his mouth fill itself with as much of her feminine body as it could draw in. He was a grown man and Marcie was his lover; he knew she was most certainly not a nursing mother to himself or anyone else.

Yet in some way she was still graciously feeding him, satisfying a hunger which arose from deep within him, which only she could assuage. And by this, she was therefore also stimulating a life-affirming energy within him, that he was expressing physically and unequivocally by his rigid erection, even if it was buried out of sight for now. Like an infant, he was blindly following his instinct, sucking at her breast almost mindlessly, unaware in the moment of anything but her slightly firm teat on his lips and tongue. And in that, also like the infant, he was also somehow embedded in the natural processes of regeneration and growth that were at the heart of human existence, the primal process that gave meaning and purpose to life. He knew intuitively that he was in the most perfect position to cherish this purpose, to enjoy that celebration of being alive, by being so intimately close to his loving companion.

These thoughts passed quickly through his mind, prompting him to concentrate on his awareness of their shared reality right now. Marcie was lying naked on the clean sheets of the bed that he’d made for them, on her back, her legs apart. He was lying on top of her, held in her hands, stimulating her slippery nipples with his wet mouth and gentle fingertips, rigidly aroused and therefore eager to make love to her. They had had a busy day, but night had fallen and they were at ease now, at their leisure in the private cocoon of Marcie’s darkened bedroom. More than that, they’d explicitly made a decision that would change both their lives, declaring it first to each other and then in public to their friends, and strangers too. They were a couple, and they intended to stay that way, sharing their unknown future path together. So now this was the time when they could truly make love, when they could make that natural intimate union, just as they were both evidentially ready and willing to do.

However, Ben knew there was something else that he wanted to do first, for Marcie, and to further stimulate his own arousal too. He had kissed her lips and her breasts, and now he let his mouth drift from her slippery nipple to her sternum, then down her belly, as he shuffled down the bed on his elbows once again. He planted soft kisses on her skin at the base of her ribs, on her stomach, then around her bellybutton.

“Oh Ben, are you sure?” he heard Marcie ask as she guessed his intention, his shoulders now settling between her widely parted thighs as he got his hands under her knees to grasp her hips, “You don’t have to do that for me.”

He glanced up at her, his mouth almost at her vulva now, to see her peering down at him over the smooth rise of her stomach and the wide mounds of her breasts with her proud nipples at their tips. She was a little flushed and pleasantly unfocussed already, he thought, but her current expression seemed to be a mixture of anxiety and pleading anticipation. His arousal was only reenforced by seeing her like this, and he felt a deeply committed sincerity as he simply said, “I really want to do this, Marcie, for us both, together.”

Without waiting for a response, he let his eyes fall to her most intimate place, which was indeed open before him between her firm thighs. He relished the sight of her wrinkled inner lips, exposed in the long groove between her cushioning outer lips, nestling within the cosy bed of her dark curls. He was close enough to see the spot where the creased flesh made the hood over her clitoris, and further down the deeper crease that was the pursed mouth of her vagina. Feeling as if he were completing the act of worship that he’d been inspired to start but had been unable to follow through earlier in the kitchen, and in utmost personal arousal, he put his mouth’s lips to those inner lips of her vulva.

The yielding skin of her crumpled labia was soft and warm but surprisingly dry, he thought, whilst he noticed that she was almost free of her private heavy fragrance as he buried his nose into her pubic hair. He guessed all this may have been because of her effective shower and subsequent thorough towelling down. But as he let his tongue lick her, using his own mouth’s lubrication to push a little deeper between the folds of her inner labia, he found the edge of that hidden tunnel up into her body. As soon as he broke through the light pressure that held her lips closed, he found a bounteous wellspring of slippery liquid warmth waiting within, which must have been building up in Marcie’s own arousal.

Using the full extent of his tongue now, he eagerly lapped up from her vagina, smearing his saliva and her copious sexual juices all the way up her yielding lips toward their apex, where he strove to find her clitoris under his sensitive touch. Marcie’s hands had moved to the inner edge of her thighs now, whilst she’d raised her knees, as if she were seeking ways to make herself more open or to bring herself closer to him, making it easier for him push more of himself up against her bushy vulva. And he was supremely eager to do this, to bury his whole being within her, as his achingly hard arousal impelled him to do.

He’d ceased his lapping motion, instead now concentrating on the licking and rolling motion of his tongue against her clitoris, pressing it wide against her as he burrowed into those creases at the apex of her lips. With her released fluids, her scent seemed strong in his nostrils now as he breathed urgently through his nose, pressed hard into her pubic mound. He was aware that Marcie had started to quietly vocalise her own panting breaths, making that high rhythmic keening that he’d first heard when they’d made love in the kitchen, and now he thought that he could hear small wet noises from her vagina too.

Wriggling an arm underneath his chest, he carefully brought one hand from her hip up under his chin, without interrupting his steady licking strokes. He delicately put two fingertips against the taught and slippery edge of her vagina, then carefully pushed them up inside her, exploring the hot elastic space within, trying to find the same spot that he’d learnt of yesterday. With his fingers hooked, and still moving against the muscular walls inside her, he thought he found the rougher patch that he could rub against, and then he focused his concentration on his mouth’s motion.

Marcie’s keening was getting a little louder now, as she made long “aah” sounds with each heavy out-breath, though they were not as loud, as high pitched or as frantic as they had been in the kitchen. The sound was muffled though, as she was now clamping his head firmly between her thighs, but all this only encouraged Ben’s own distant arousal still further. With his fingers still deep inside her, he sought to enclose the whole area of her clitoris in his lips, carefully covering his teeth, before sucking steadily and firmly, just as he had at her breast. He was drawing her soft and baggy flesh into his mouth, and he thought he had her clitoris at its centre, rolling it around against his tongue as if it were a boiled sweet.

Suddenly Marcie’s grip on his hair became so firm that it was painful, and she’d opened her thighs wide again to push herself hard to him, jolting her pelvic bone against his nose and jaw with an almost violent force. He tried to hold his ground, being the immovable object that she could push against with as much force as she wished, even as he concentrated on continuing the steady motions of his mouth and fingertips. Her panting breaths had become deep grunts now, and he heard her distant voice force out strange words with each exhalation, “Qaddisa Marija! Omm Alla! Ħu ħsiebi!”

He guessed that Marcie might be reaching her orgasm, and that seemed to be confirmed when he felt the space inside her vagina spontaneously open up, and then contract, its slippery muscular walls squeezing his fingers firmly in their spasms. And then he was suddenly aware of a flood of warm wetness all around his mouth, cheeks and chin as Marcie let out a longer groan. But then she became frantic above him, urgently saying, “Stop, stop!” as she forcefully pulled him away from her Vixen by his hair. He raised his eyes as he withdrew his fingers to see her flushed and sweaty face looking down at him over her body in a stricken way, “Ħaqq Alla! What have I done? I’ve burst, haven’t I? Oh, Holy Mary, I’m so sorry!”

Ben could not help himself from smiling in self-satisfaction, as he had clearly given Marcie that kind of orgasm of which she’d spoken about last night, when her body completely gave way to its arousal and she involuntarily leaked or squirted whatever it was that came with female ejaculation. Thinking quickly, he slipped off the bed and picked up the towel from the floor where it had fallen from Marcie’s body, very briefly wiping it around his mouth before passing it to her, even as he said, “Don’t worry. It’s fine. No, it’s better than fine. It’s wonderful. I feel honoured and blessed by it, by your wet coming, to be so close to you, when you’re abandoned to ecstasy, I guess.”

“Oh yes, it was ecstasy,” Marcie reassured him as her panted breaths slowed. Wiping her vulva and thighs, reaching under her buttocks with the towel as well to rub the sheet in a vaguely ineffective way, she went on, “Holy Mary, I was blown away, I was lost in my own private world of bliss, and you’d taken me there. Thank you Ben. You’ve left me breathless, tingling!”

“Don’t thank me,” Ben urged, wriggling up the bed to cuddle against her, pushing his hand down to rest it against her warm damp Vixen, encouraging her hand to hold his as she released the towel, “I said I wanted to find a secret world, a Narnia fairyland, inside you. I wanted to push through your fur coats, through your secret wardrobe, to find somewhere magical, filled with hope. And what you just said, it proves you’re already there, in a ‘private world of bliss’. Also, it really turned me on too, look!”

He dropped her hand to hold up his penis, long and still reassuringly firm, letting it fall back to lie across her thigh. He’d noticed a creamy smear across its glossy red head, realising that he’d leaked a little himself without noticing, graphically demonstrating how close he’d been to his own orgasm. Marcie had obviously seen this too, as she asked, “Oh, did you come too? Was I stroking you with my foot like I did last night? I didn’t even notice.”

“No, I wasn’t rubbing it against anything, and I didn’t come. Look, I’m still solid,” he said, demonstrating his arousal by holding his shaft low down, showing off as he admired the full bowed length or his erection waving around so close to Marcie’s hand and vulva.

“Is it safe?” Marcie asked. Ben had to query what she meant. She explained, “I mean if you put a condom on now and put it inside me, that sperm that’s already leaked wouldn’t make me pregnant, would it?”

“Would you let me do that?” Ben asked eagerly, feeling his heart thump in anticipation, hastily adding, “I mean, put a condom on for you, not, erm, make you pregnant. I’d love to be inside you. And I’m pretty sure it would be safe, especially if I had a little wipe with your towel. The leakage would be on the inside, wouldn’t it? As long as I don’t muddle things up, like if I tried putting it on the wrong way round first.”

“Can you do that now then?” Marcie asked with sincere entreatment, Ben thought. She added, “I put the condoms in the drawer,” nodding toward the bedside where he had found her toys.

He quickly rolled over, his erection waving around confidently as he did so, and took the towel. He briskly rubbed himself, perhaps a little too roughly, then pulled the drawer open to see the box of Durex that they’d opened that afternoon. He pulled the single foil-wrapped condom out, along with the gel, then rolled back to lie beside Marcie. He peered at the packet, then ripped along its edge, carefully slipping the greasy circle of rubber out the right way up. He went to raise his penis with his free hand, but Marcie anticipated his need, rolling onto her side to hold him upright with both hands wrapped around the base of his member. To Ben it seemed almost as if she were supporting a ritual wand, perhaps a heraldic pennant, or one of those religious staves with a brass mitre on the top that he’d had seen in churches.

He systematically rolled the latex sheath down his full shaft, then offered the tube of lubricant to Marcie, hoping she’d give him the thrill of rubbing its chilly gel over his protected penis once again. She did just that, bringing him a burst of intensely pleasant sensation, then she cast the tube aside. They’d done all this without speaking, working as one to get them to this point, when they could truly bring themselves together in that ultimate union of a man and woman in love. Now Marcie spoke, “Shall I lie back so you can get on top? Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to go?”

Ben agreed, just propping himself up on his side at first as she settled her head back into the pillows and parted her legs, smiling wickedly up at him. Feeling his heart hammer in his anticipation of the moment that was finally at hand, he briefly admired the full length her naked body. He glanced up from her feet and toes along her smooth strong legs to her bushy vulva, open to show the delicate pink lips that he’d been so close to just moments earlier, her pubic hair still matted with the remaining dampness of his saliva and her own fluids. Then he raised his gaze from her broad hips over her flat stomach to the wide, low mounds of her softly pooling breasts that he still found so beautiful, with the tracery of veins under their pale skin and the crinkled dusky ovals stretching around the bumps of her nipples. Her chest was rising and falling with her breath as he brought his eyes up to hers, seeing a pleading hope there perhaps, beneath her glasses, as she stretched out her arms towards him, even as she relaxed in comfort, resting her head with its dark waves of tight thick hair against her white pillows.

His body knew what he needed to do now as he rolled over onto his knees and hands, hanging over her between her parted thighs. He glanced down at Marcie’s prone, naked body, at her sliver cross that hung between them, dangling from the chain that was still around his neck, and at his wooden member, with its bulging red head clear through the thin latex, sticking out firmly over her Vixen. He saw her put her hands to her vulva and part her lips for him, hearing her breathing in, seemingly with her own anticipation. Balancing on one hand, he guided himself to her, feeling the tip of his penis make slippery contact with her soft warm skin, then pushed very gently. They both had to wriggle a little awkwardly to bring themselves together properly, but then Marcie panted out a small, “Oh!” as he felt her warm lips close around his head.

Propping himself on both hands now, still hanging over her so that their only contact with each other was through the most imitate parts of their bodies, he began to slowly make small back and forth movements, easing himself a little deeper into her by degrees, already panting in his excitement. “This is it,” he whispered, “We’re together, Marcie. I love you.”

He knew his strokes were slipping deep inside her now as he felt the supreme comfort of her warm vagina enclosing him utterly. “Yes, it’s so right, it feels so good,” Marcie murmured back as Ben felt his chest working hard to put everything he had into this moment, “I feel you. I feel you inside me. You’re home, you’re safe. Come home Ben, come to me, come to Mama,” then realising what she’d just said, suddenly she put one hand to her mouth and her other flat against his pectoral muscle, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” she panted, “My stupid mouth!”

Ben had felt impelled to stop his pushing waves, but he was acutely aware that he was still deeply penetrating Marcie as he breathed heavily and said, sincerely, “Don’t worry. It’s not so strange.” He genuinely felt that her unexpected phrase had not upset or distracted him in any way. While Marcie tenderly stroked to the sides of his chest with both hands now, he tried to explain, “You are Woman, feminine perfection, to me, right now. I’m turned on, I’m virile, and you’re taking that, taking my erection, my maleness, you’re letting that into you, opening your magic portal, opening the Origin of the World, letting me push through it, to penetrate your sacred pool, to seed it, perhaps. You could be the Mother, the universal creator, fertile, the bearer of my children. Right now, you’re the goddess, my holy Madonna, my white witch, queen of the land, playing at being Mother Nature herself, just for me.”

“Yes, for you, Ben,” Marcie agreed, raking her fingers down his torso then around his sides and over his back. He had already begun gently moving against her again as he’d been speaking, still propped on straining arms and wrists above her, but cherishing the sight of her tender upturned face and naked breasts beneath him, quivering as his movement became more powerfully thrusting, her whole body rocking against the mattress in reaction to his firm rhythmic pumping. Now he felt his wooden shaft slip up and down within her quickly and easily with dizzying pleasure, as she kept quietly talking between her own heavily panted breaths, “You’re right, I’m queen of my land, of my flesh, open for you. Ooh, and you’re deep inside me, hard. And you are my king, my sun, radiating warmth, light, onto and into my body, the essence of Man, fertilising me. Aah! Bringing new life to my womb, except for one thing, that cunning rubber, stopping that literal truth, deceiving ourselves. Our bodies know though, we’re truly making love Ben, making our love real. I feel it. Aah! That’s true magic. Oh yes!” she groaned expressively.

They were both panting heavily now, and Ben had given up bearing his weight so far above her. He’d sunk onto his elbows, wrapping his hands under Marcie’s shoulders to pull her to him, just as she clung to him. He was pressing her beneath him, brushing her cheek with his, burying his nose against her ear, pushing the bare skin of his torso against her stomach and soft breasts. But still his hips kept moving against her, more urgently now as she kept whispering in quickly panted breaths, “You’re my fire. Aah! Buried deep, the power that stirs. Oh, Mother of God, you’re deep! I’ve got you. Your cock, your rod, it stirs my still waters, you’re touching my womb, and so my wellspring flows. Ooh, so it bursts like a geyser! Fuck, yes! Let it flow now too, Ben. Oh, flow into me, join me. Aah, yes, relax and let it out. Oh yes! You’re safe, you’re home, I’ve got you. That’s it, I feel you! Ooh! It’s all okay. Ooh, I have you. I have you safe. Aah yes, you can relax, and come. Yes, come to me!”

Marcie had raised her legs around Ben’s thighs now, angling her hips up, seemingly bringing him further into herself as she pushed her pelvis against his, whilst also holding him in that cage of her limbs. At the same time, he kept embracing Marcie tightly to him, feeling the tickle of her stray hairs on his nose and cheeks even as he felt his achingly firm manhood slipping back and forth deep within her, a sensation that was profoundly satisfying, seeming so healthy and right. Meanwhile his impulses drove him on, pumping against her with an urgent and unstoppable rhythmic force, rubbing the shaft of his penis against the grip of her vagina like a bowstring on a fine violin. He felt his conscious awareness drifting away as he listened to Marcie’s reassuring words, her hypnotically calming voice, whispering in his ear, with those exciting exclamations that she seemed to spontaneously vocalise as she expressed her own pleasure. Yet he was also still vaguely aware that their passionate coition had been going on for a surprisingly long time, perhaps because he’d only ejaculated a few hours earlier, or perhaps because of the drink, but he hoped because of her relaxing incantation and his own profound calm. Still, he knew their precious physical union could not last forever, as his deep instincts drove him towards an urgent need for completion.

Feeling himself tipping towards the edge, he simply whispered, “Marcie!” then let his breath moan from him before pushing his lips messily to her eyebrow, squashing his nose against her glossy forehead, knocking her glasses. She held him tighter, gripping her arms and legs firmly around him as she groaned, as if making an eager plea of her own, pressing her soft breasts and belly to his sweat-slicked torso, even as she almost brought his urgent motion to a standstill.

“Ooh, Ben, come into me!” she repeated in an urgent whisper, “Come home, you’re safe. Qaddisa Marija! You’re so big, I can feel you! Omm Alla, you’re so far in me! Aah, yes, that’s it! Ooh, let it flow.”

Ben had felt the first spurt of his ejaculation leak from him almost as if it were an easy and leisurely trickle, utterly relaxed and natural, and utterly beyond his distant conscious mind’s control as his body achieved the climax of its long stimulation. Marcie’s words came to him as if from a great distance as the second pulse ripped through him, which he felt far more strongly as a forceful gush of sperm jetting from him, deep into Marcie, hard against her cervix, he was sure, if it weren’t for that rubber she’d mentioned. And yet it was only then that his true orgasm overwhelmed him, rising from his testes through his pounding heart and heaving lungs to every hair on his scalp, making him insensate in his ecstasy as the unstoppable pulses flowed through him, flowed through his spasming rod and out into Marcie now, even as he kept thrusting against her.

As the pounding waves of his profoundly satisfying orgasm subsided, softer waves of relaxation followed, lapping through his body with a calmer bliss as his hips’ motion slowed right down. He felt his heart still hammering as he laboured for breath, yet as he came to rest, he luxuriated in the sensation of his body lying against Marcie’s, his cheek against her forehead, her breasts cushioning his chest, her thighs beneath his hips, and her Vixen enclosing him. He thought he could feel the tickle of her pubic hairs, the warm silkiness of her lips, and the strong walls of her deep vagina still gripping him. His calm satisfaction in the tranquil relief that followed such an intimate expression of their shared love was almost lulling him to sleep even where he lay.

“Ben, Ben! Are you okay? Is your breathing okay?” Marcie asked, the urgent tone in her voice jolting him back to full awareness. He propped himself back up on his elbows to look into her eyes, the loving affection that glowed there being overwritten by lines of concern. Whilst he felt his own profound happiness and love was also wide open to her in his honest expression, he was serious too as he tried to draw a slow deep breath. With some alarm, he realised just how choked up that breath suddenly seemed, as if, even though his mouth was open and relaxed, the air was only able to reach or leave his lungs through a thin straw.

“I think I need the puffer,” he admitted.

“Where is it? I’ll get it,” Marcie said, sounding serious in her assertiveness as she seemed to tense beneath him.

“In the pocket of my jeans, in the bathroom,” he explained, panting a little.

“I’m sorry, but you must let me go then,” she said with genuine pity in her soulful eyes, pushing herself up onto her bent elbow beneath him.

Still feeling a little reluctant about doing so, Ben lifted himself higher on his own braced elbow, pinched the base of his still thick penis with the fingers of his free hand, brushing Marcie’s warm wet Vixen as he did so, then withdrew his softening penis from within her, with the warm greasy condom still safely attached. She urgently wriggled away beneath him, then slid away under his arm.

“Thank you,” he said as he rolled onto his back, drawing his laboured breaths even whilst he still felt filled with contented satisfaction. He watched her bare shoulders, her sinuous spine and her round buttocks as she urgently pushed herself into a seated position at the edge of the mattress, and then quickly dashed from the room. He relaxed back against the pillows himself now, wheezing but feeling happy, his deep hunger sated, still aware of Marcie’s natural fragrance lingering around his face, stronger than the incense that still drifted through the air, one hand on his penis in its flaccid latex sheath, noticing its heat under his touch.

Marcie was back just a moment later, holding out the blue inhaler to him as her naked hourglass figure seemed to shimmy across the bedroom. Propping himself up on his elbow, he thanked her again, popped off its cover, and drew in the puff of relieving agent. He held his arm out so that Marcie could cuddle up beside him as he blew out and took a couple of experimental breaths. As she snuggled beneath his arm, he felt his breath was still tight, so he inhaled another dose deeply. Marcie’s presence seemed to be helping to calm him too as she rested her hand on his chest, shuffling down beside him, letting the bare skin of her hip and thigh press against his. “Is it working?” she asked, her voice betraying some urgent anxiety even as she relaxed against him.

As Ben could still feel the constriction there, he took another good puff, just as the pharmacist had instructed. “Yes, I think so,” he reassured her, adding, “I just want to be sure.” Marcie let him take his time to get his breath back, idly stroking his chest with her fingertips, pushing his pendant around as she did so. “One more,” Ben said, using the inhaler again. He remembered being told that he should only take one or two puffs normally, but also that he could take as many as ten, leaving thirty seconds between each, if he was having an attack. He wasn’t sure if that’s what he was experiencing, or he’d just overwhelmed his system with such an intense experience, but he also wanted to reassure Marcie that he could recover well with the assistance of the prescribed treatment.

As he waited, he felt his heart slowing to a steadier heavy thump, then he experimentally took longer and slower breaths, which were coming easily and smoothly now. He took Marcie’s hand in his and gripped it, saying, “Yes, I’m fine.”

She looked up into his eyes, reflecting his smile as her worries passed. “I guess in other times, couples would have shared a cigarette after sex, wouldn’t they?” she remarked in a thoughtful way as she looked down at their clasped hands. “Now we make do with me sitting on a towel and you taking your medicine.”

“It’s still wonderful, Marcie,” Ben said, surprised to feel his eyes stinging with potential tears. He wondered where that emotion had come from, if they were tears of joy, or if he was sad because this unique and precious moment, the first time they’d truly made love in their new shared bed, with all its muddled mixture of activity, was already slipping into the past. Or perhaps the tears had merely come because he was a little bit tipsy and overwrought. “It’s been a perfect way to finish, to conclude a very special day, the day when we agreed to live together.”

“I wouldn’t say perfect, Ben,” she admitted ruefully, “I might have accidentally let myself pee on your face, and you scared the life out of me by seeming to do an encore of your near-expiration performance at the gym.”

Ben laughed. “What’s a bit of pee between friends?” he joked, thinking he didn’t need to go into just how at ease he was with whatever had happened again. Then he added more seriously, “And thank you, for noticing my breathing, and then helping. I’m sorry that I got you worried. I don’t know myself if it was a proper asthma attack. I was so into making love to you, I was lost to my body’s impulses, and it felt so good, to be inside you, making us one, in union together. Maybe I just got carried away. But I love you, from my core. I want to join myself to you, completely, in my body, my heart, my future plans, my whole being.”

“That’s good, Ben. I love you too, and I’m really happy to be joined to you.” She glanced up into his eyes with a soulful look, adding, “We have made it real now, haven’t we? It feels like we’re a proper couple. But I’ve got to keep you safe too. You might think it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go, but I really don’t want to lose you now.”

“I promise,” Ben said seriously, gripping her hand again, “I’ll look after myself, for you, for our future.”

He felt Marcie’s shoulder shake under his arm and heard her give a kind of choking sniff, then realised to his surprise that she was crying too. He squeezed her tenderly, asking her what was up, and she replied, “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m so happy, but it’s so fragile too, isn’t it? It feels as if it could all pop, disappearing like a soap bubble, in the time it takes to breathe out one final time.”

“No Marcie, it won’t,” Ben denied, even though he too felt some of the same sadness about the impermanence of their vivid experiences. He said, “I promise you, I will keep breathing. I’m being looked after, by professionals now, but by you too. It’s you who’s done the most, saving me, giving me strength, raising the wind to carry us into the open sky, making me your lion, letting me be born again, rampant in your own secret Narnia!”

“Oh, stop talking nonsense! You’re teasing me now,” she playfully chastised, giving him a hard shove with her shoulder. Then as she released his hand to dab her eyes, she echoed Ben’s own sceptical thoughts by admitting, “I’m probably just a bit tired and emotional after a big day and few too many sherbets. It has been a magical end to a special evening, but I really do need another proper wee, and then I need to get to sleep. We’ve got another busy day tomorrow too.”

“Aye,” Ben agreed, “And I need to tidy up Roddie’s little mackintosh.”

Marcie giggled as she pushed herself up and looked down at the sorry mess of his shrunken penis, appearing a little ridiculous now, Ben thought, in the long limp condom with its little payload of semen. “Have I finally worn him out? I don’t think I’ve ever seen him looking so small and sleepy.”

“He’ll be up again in the morning, all pumped up for the new day, I’m sure,” Ben joked.

“Well he’d better mind how he goes then,” she replied with mock sternness, before excusing herself to pop to the bathroom. Alone again, Ben checked that he was breathing easily as he tidied himself up, hoping Marcie wouldn’t mind when he gave his small slippery penis a wipe with her towel. He got up to check if she had left a wet patch on the bed, but he couldn’t see one, then he tried to tidy up a little. As he shook out the pillows and duvet, he thought it would be very likely that he’d be putting on another wash on very soon anyway, for the towel at least, and he could change the sheet then too. Then he noticed the incense still glowing, and wondered if its smoke had been part of the problem. He licked his fingertips then extinguished it by pinching its tip, thinking of their safety too if they were about to fall asleep.

Marcie appreciated his effort to make the bed when she came back in, still nude, Ben was delighted to see. Then she asked him if he didn’t need to have a pee and splash his face before he came to bed. Ben took the hint, quickly finding his way through the darkened flat to the bathroom.

When he came back, he found her already snuggled down under the duvet with her glasses off. She murmured that she’d set the alarm as he slipped into bed beside her and clicked the lamp off, putting his own naked body against hers, nestling into the spoons position, just as he had on their first night. Though his hips were now pressing against her naked buttocks and his hand was gently resting on the bare silken skin of her soft warm breast, he remained relaxed and unaroused. Marcie had been right to say she had worn him out, he realised, even as he still enjoyed the sensations, burying his nose into the damp perfumed scent of her hair’s tightly knotted braid as he drifted into sleep.

“Sleep tight, my witchy queen,” he rumbled.

“Sweet dreams, my noble lion,” he heard Marcie murmur with a sleepy sigh.