A Little Gift from ENCOM

Chapter 7: Sunrise

 

 

The morning after.

 

It was very early. The light flooding Ed’s bedroom was still sallow and grey.

Judith woke up because of Ed leaving the sheets and heading towards the bathroom. It was too early to rise and she was still tired. So she just raised her head briefly, a little dazed, looking at Ed’s sleek, luscious backside disappearing behind the bathroom door and then closed her eyes again, a little smile on her lips.

As he returned she was almost half asleep, but yet, through a gauzy veil of drowsiness taking over her conscious, she noticed him lying down very close to her. She heard his breath, felt its tender draft brushing her neck, felt the mattress denting from his elbow resting on it. Then suddenly his hand touched her shoulder, very tender, very faint, very cautious as if afraid of waking her up. He let it glide along the side of her body, slowly, tracing her silhouette down to her hip, stopping right at the edge of the blanket. And his touch slid all the way back then and he finally turned away and fell asleep again.

Still feeling an aftertaste of his touch lingering on her skin Judith finally drifted away as well.

 

 

A few hours later.

Judith woke up afresh, this time awake and not willing to sleep any longer. But Ed seemed to have fallen into deep sleep again. He lay there on the side, one hand tucked under the cushion, his mouth slightly open, his shoulder slowly moving up and down from his deep, steady breathing. Judith smiled enchanted, enjoying her lover’s sight, the beauty of his angelic, peaceful face exposed in the light, plain like never before.

It must have been very exhausting for you last night…She was thinking to herself, sitting on the bed, bowing over cautiously to stroke the strands of hair falling tousled into his forehead.

Then she was heading towards the bathroom. And because she didn’t expected Ed to wake up within the next fifteen minutes she decided to take a shower.

 

The bathroom was quite spacious too, like every room else in Ed’s luxurious apartment. It had a big milk glass window, and everything was kept in cold, shiny blue and white and chrome. There were no decorative objects displayed, just like Judith expected it from a man’s bathroom. Everything was very clean and sparse, and Ed seemed to keep only the most necessary things for his body care. But yet the products he had were of a very exquisite kind.

She didn’t wanted to snoop around so she refrained from open any doors and cupboards, just decided to use some shampoo and shower gel already standing there. She wasn’t expecting him to have women’s products anyway.

 

She was just about to step into the cubicle as Ed suddenly entered the bathroom. “Oh! I’m sorry!” he apologized, backtracking one step embarrassedly. But yet his eyes, although still midnight silky, were glancing down her naked body for just one blink in a flash of instinctive indecency.

Maintaining natural calmness and casualty, Judith replied: “No, don’t apologize! It’s your bathroom. If you want to use the shower first go ahead. I will be having some coffee in the meantime.”

“No, please, just go on! Use it… no problem. You’re my guest”, he said with a throaty, husky morning voice, one hand on the doorframe, his fingers nervously stroking its glossy surface.

Judith took the liberty to peer at his body herself. To finally see him in the unveiling brightness of the morning light was like getting to know him yet a little more. And it was even more beauty she discovered.

Slender built, lean and sleek, his body was a striking display of smooth tendons and muscles and strong, chiseled joints. His skin was fair and delicate and he had freckles scattered in the most unusual, yet alluring places.

Ed seemed to be captured by her sight as well for his eyes were taking in her nudeness again, this time with undisguised delight.

“…or we can share the shower…” Judith suggested while smiling softly. “There’s space enough.”

“You think…?” he said, hesitantly, decently, although some parts of him already had decided.

“Come on, Ed. Why so shy? Join me…” she spoke in a seducing voice, glancing down at him unabashed.

He still lingered in the doorframe for some moments, then he moved over to her. Slowly she stepped backwards into the shower cubicle until her back hit the wall, watching him approach, anticipating the touch of his skin on hers. And as he was in there too he closed the slide door and embraced her for a tender kiss.

“So, how do you like it?” she asked, a little cheeky.

“What…?”

She smiled, reaching out for the valve. “The water.”

“Umm… hot”, he answered, sincerely and no double meaning intended.

But she had a broad grin arising on her mouth. “Oh really?” she responded sassily, blinking and turning the water on.

Now he was smiling as well.

“Yes…” he whispered on her neck, pressing himself against her, fixing her between his body and the wall. And she liked it, the immobility, the tight closeness, the hard, cold wall in her back, the sleek, warm skin in her front, feeling his erection on her belly grow like an invitation. Or an affirmation...

She closed her fingers around him, around that dripping wet, stiff, warm handful of pure deliciousness. And he offered her some of these sweet sighs of delight and languish in return, his forehead resting on her shoulder for some moments of silent enjoying.

He began to caress her body then, longingly, as if he hadn’t seen her for weeks. He licked, he drank, the streams of warm water flowing round her breasts, rinsing out her navel, dripping from the curls in her crotch.

She turned around and he worked his licks upwards, tracing the glyph of her back with his tongue up to her neck.

And then: stagnation.

She felt his crotch pressing against her backside, so temptingly hard and wet and smooth, but he wasn’t moving on, just lingering over kissing and caressing her extensively, not attempting to enter her, and she didn’t know why.

“Ed…” she spoke tenderly, lifting her arm and grabbing his neck, touching his cheek, turning her head backwards a little. “As much as I love foreplay… I want you now, so take me.”

Ed’s lips were hot on the skin of her neck as he murmured through the rushing of the shower: “Usual way or… or other way…” And Judith heard the insecurity, the shame and the discomfort in his words dripping like water from his lips. She softly smiled. “Usual way, please.”

And without hesitating one moment longer he invaded her, in yearning ardency, breathing out slowly while thrusting in gently. And for a moment Judith didn’t know where to put her hands for the wall was just so slippery and the floor as well and she was fearing to fall because her legs were trembling in weakness as waves of pleasure were pulsing through her body, right on the rhythm of his moves. But he enfolded her waist firmly and she held onto his arms, grasping her fingers into his flesh as she came, so sudden and quick and intense. And he noticed it and followed her with delighted ardor and relief, breathing a moan of pleasure into the wet strands of her hair.

 

His knees were trembling that hard he had to lean against the wall. Judith smiled at him lovingly. “Do I make you weak?” she said.

“The only kind of weakness I like…” he admitted.

 

 

Judith sipped from the coffee Ed just had made. She was sitting at the table in his kitchen while he was standing at the kitchen counter, pouring himself a cup too.

Soberly she spoke into the silence: “Are you going to delete him?”

“Why are you asking? You wanna keep him?” His tone was an odd merge of fear and blame.

“No, of course not! I don’t need him, Ed. I never needed him.”

Ed turned to the window, drinking one sip. “But I did…” he muttered silently, not intending to be heard.

 

Changing topic Judith stood up, joining him standing at the counter and said: “So Ed, what do want to offer me for breakfast? I’m hungry, host.”

He took some sips, some conspicuously extended sips, and finally answered: “There’s a nice bistro just around the corner. They serve e delicious brunch at Sundays.”

Judith furrowed her brows, puckering her lips. “You sure…? You have such a beautiful balcony. And the weather’s so fine.”

He looked at her for some moments, silent and sober and a little grimly, his cup at the ready to drink. “I have nothing here I could serve you”, he answered, almost sounding slightly sulky that she had made him conceding this fact.

“I’m convinced you have something. I’m easy to please, you know.” She smiled on the rim of her cup, drank a little. “I’m sure you have at least some milk here, some eggs or toast… marmalade… cereals…”

“No. Nothing”, was his short, dry, brusque answer.

She slightly shook her head, convinced that he was just making fun of her. “May I?” she asked, tapping on the fridge door.

“Well, go ahead then!” He made an exaggerated gesture of invitation towards the fridge, in his voice a trace of asperity.

And she opened the door, facing the poor assemblage of some bottles of beer, a few slices Parma ham, a six pack of energy drinks, several chocolate bars, chocolate milks and some yogurts. A bachelor’s fridge…

“So you were buying Burmester but you weren’t thinking about buying breakfast…?” She asked him, slightly amused. And from the way Ed’s body and his face were freezing, every emotion capped from appearing at the surface, she could tell that he must be somehow embarrassed.

“Well, you will agree with me that breakfast aliments will get bad much quicker than Port!” He stated, turning away from her and pouring himself some more coffee.

Judith silently smiled to herself, didn’t forging further on that topic because she could tell already from the subtext of Ed’s words that in fact he hadn’t expected her to stay until breakfast.

“So, what kind of bistro was that again?”

 

 

 

 

 

At ENCOM, five days later.

 

Ed was sitting in his office behind his desk, eyes fixed on the computer’s screen. A short question was blinking there, steadily, pulsing blue:

Are you sure you want to delete _DAREK_ ?   Yes No

Without hesitating he pressed Y. Then he observed the screen, leant back in his chair, arms crossed.

Deleting process 5%

He stood up and walked along the window front, spreading some extensive gazes over the city. After several minutes he returned to the desk. With both hands on the blank surface he was bowing over the screen.

Deleting process 39%

His heart was beating faster for some reasons. He didn’t know why. Unsettled he looked away from the screen, grabbing the cup of coffee Judith had left him there. He let her do that coffee-offering-workmate-thing. It seemed to make her happy. He smiled to his self before taking another sip. He could have sworn the coffee tasted better than ever…

The next time he checked the screen it said:

Deleting process 98%

He sat down and watched the percentage increase while his heartbeat was increasing as well. And as it had reached 100% and the confirmation:  _DAREK_  successfully deleted appeared on the screen, he felt a little strange for a moment. Felt like stepping from a cliff into the void. But strangely it wasn’t a bad feeling. It was a feeling of overcoming, of liberation and relief. Like a new beginning, all on his own, without a safety net …

He sank back into the chair again, closing his eyes, breathing deep, a little trembling though, but content, looking forward to tomorrow evening, Saturday. Another dinner with Judith. He was thinking about what she might would wear. He hoped that it would be that purple dress. And he imagined what it must be like to touch her luscious curves through that silken purple, to love her with this dress still having on, having her pushed against the wall in the doorway of his flat.

His desire; a starved out animal finally unleashed.