[This is not the sort of polite, chaste kiss exchanged between shy beaus, not even the kind of electric ecstasy of new lovers, but something wholly foreign to her—the wet, dark warmth his tongue pressing between her parted lips is sinfully wicked, raw and visceral, and it gives her a shiver. There is the distant clatter of her empty glass, tipped over by the jostling of the table when his weight, lean with muscle, and his hands, hardened with calluses from a sort of terrible labor, press heavily over her, covering her shuddering, quaking body as if she is coming apart at the seams, and she needs him to hold her together.
What this is, she can sweeten it with as many desperate fantasies of love at first sight or hidden adoration as much as she would like, but it still remains an act of plain infidelity. Whorish behavior, her husband would sneer after too many New York Sours, and worse still, she is not immediately overwhelmed by a grevious sense of guilt—not when she is star-struck and lying passive beneath a stranger, a man she is inexplicably and infinitely charmed by, and he is treating her not like another gleaming silver award to polish for guests, or like an object of violence. Her treats her unlike any other suitor has, unlike any other man has, at all—and a rather tender memory, one of her soldier and wartime lover, rises to the forefront of her mind. He is not as brutish as Tom, but neither is he the traditional romantic as her very first lover had been—God only knows where he could be now.
But, morbid thought aside, she cannot dwell on the past when the present is so insistent, stealing the breath from her, leaving her gasping into his lips. This kiss, blurring the boundaries of flirtation and true intimacy, is morally reprehensible by every matrimonial law—and it will all be risked for naught, it he doesn't truly care for her. Does he care for her? Certainly, he cares for the comfort of her flesh, the temptation of feminine curves, but for her heart, for more than a pretty face? They haven't known each other for very long, at all. Perhaps she is just a conquest to him, a temporary concubine—and the thought is such a miserable one, her physical relief tinged with such bitterness that her pale cheeks are streaked with tears. He is pushing her past what she believes she can accept, but whether she believes it or not, she still has not refused him.]
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What this is, she can sweeten it with as many desperate fantasies of love at first sight or hidden adoration as much as she would like, but it still remains an act of plain infidelity. Whorish behavior, her husband would sneer after too many New York Sours, and worse still, she is not immediately overwhelmed by a grevious sense of guilt—not when she is star-struck and lying passive beneath a stranger, a man she is inexplicably and infinitely charmed by, and he is treating her not like another gleaming silver award to polish for guests, or like an object of violence. Her treats her unlike any other suitor has, unlike any other man has, at all—and a rather tender memory, one of her soldier and wartime lover, rises to the forefront of her mind. He is not as brutish as Tom, but neither is he the traditional romantic as her very first lover had been—God only knows where he could be now.
But, morbid thought aside, she cannot dwell on the past when the present is so insistent, stealing the breath from her, leaving her gasping into his lips. This kiss, blurring the boundaries of flirtation and true intimacy, is morally reprehensible by every matrimonial law—and it will all be risked for naught, it he doesn't truly care for her. Does he care for her? Certainly, he cares for the comfort of her flesh, the temptation of feminine curves, but for her heart, for more than a pretty face? They haven't known each other for very long, at all. Perhaps she is just a conquest to him, a temporary concubine—and the thought is such a miserable one, her physical relief tinged with such bitterness that her pale cheeks are streaked with tears. He is pushing her past what she believes she can accept, but whether she believes it or not, she still has not refused him.]