Love, Red Read online

  Could I even last through a third of the movie before begging you to leave?

  I want to find ways to bring you the same amount of pleasure you brought me. The one thing that I have always found so exceptional about making love to you, was how in tune you are to my body. You always seem to know the right way to touch me. And I love the way you grin when you tease me. I need to find a way of taking you to the same edge of insanity that you bring me to.

  I think what stands out most in my mind at the moment was how unbelievable it felt when you finally gave me what I have wanted for so long. The pure pleasure of what it felt like when you finally went inside of me again. My body shudders at the thought. My skin is ingrained with the memory of what it felt like for you to touch me.

  How wonderful it is to close my eyes and get lost in the feeling of you entering me. I am holding my breath as I sit here and write this. My insides tighten as I remember you finally giving into my pleas. The recall of you moving in and out of me.

  It was like heaven on earth. It felt good to have you inside of me. And I could tell by the look on your face that you were enjoying it as much as I was. But it is more than the sensual part of you being in me. It’s the laughter that is coupled with the passion that we share.

  I have to tell you that I wondered if once we had a chance to be together, if the desire would be lessened. But it hasn’t.

  Life should be about being wanted and desired on so many different levels. I hope I fulfill as many of those for you as you do for me. But most of all, I hope the laughter that we share brings the desire to a completely different level.

  Love,

  Gwynyth

  Chapter 17 –

  Life Goes On

  Leaving Rune was the most difficult thing I had ever done. I knew I had to go home. My family was waiting for me to start our vacation to visit Lorraine.

  My heart wasn’t into the trip, but it had become our yearly ritual to go visit her and enjoy the beauty of the Ozarks. We always rented a house on one of the lakes, and over time, it had become the favorite week of the year for everyone – even surpassing Christmas.

  We would spend hours on the lake during the day. And the evening was spent playing our favorite card game – Skip-Bo – and having a slice of Lorraine’s marble cake with homemade chocolate icing, along with a scoop of her delicious homemade ice cream.

  Unfortunately, my mind couldn’t move past the two days I had just spent with Rune. With every breath I took in, I remembered the touch of his hands on every inch of my body. With every exhale, I recalled my legs wrapped around him and the sweet bliss of him being inside of me again.

  But what filled my soul was the sound of happiness. It had been magic to hear him laugh when we were on the phone, but being able to hear it in person, while seeing his smile, was truly a slice of heaven.

  I have so many different ideas about what happens to us after we die. My thoughts range from believing in reincarnation, an afterlife of heaven, or this being it, and there is nothing once we die. All of the above could be true, but the truth is that no one can prove or disprove any of those things. We will find out when it is our time.

  However, if the theory of heaven is true, then my belief is that we get to live whatever day we want to, over and over again. For me, that day would be our walk on the beach at Fire Island. It was as if someone were directing the perfect scene in the movie of my life.

  It was walking and talking and holding his hand, listening to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. It was as if we were on a closed set of a movie, as there wasn’t another soul on the beach. Not something I understood, since it was the first week in August. I couldn’t figure out why we had it all to ourselves.

  The unique thing about Fire Island is that it has wooden bridges leading to the water every few hundred yards. We took off our shoes when we got to the steps of the bridge. I felt like a kid as our feet were leaving their imprints in the sand.

  As we walked the shoreline, our relationship was taking on a whole new dimension. He was letting go of his past with his ex-wife, but he was also letting me into his present.

  “I still can’t believe you’re here. I know I asked you to come, but getting on a plane with less than 24 hours’ notice couldn’t have been easy. And your job is important to you. Why would you do this for me?”

  The look on his face was one of complete disbelief. It was obvious that there weren’t too many people in his life that he counted on to be there for him.

  “You said you needed me. Do you know how many years I’ve dreamed of you realizing that I was someone you could always count on?” My eyes were starting to form tears again, and the crack in my voice gave away my emotions.

  “I’ve always known I could count on you. I’m just not sure what the future holds. I still have to get through the divorce, and Caleb is having such a difficult time with me moving out.”

  Seeing the sadness on his face as he said those words almost broke my heart. There were no words of solace, no words of wisdom that I could impart to make it better. It was something he was going to have to work through, one day at a time.

  “We should start walking back to the ferry,” he said, as he moved his arms around me to hug me.

  “Should we go back the way we came?” I asked.

  “No, let’s walk to the next bridge and see a different part of the island. There are some incredible homes here.”

  As we got to the top of the stairs, I turned around to take one last look.

  “We can stay a little longer if you want to.” He knew I didn’t want to leave.

  “No, there are still other things we want to do this evening. But honestly, this has been a perfect day. I don’t think there is any place on earth that is more peaceful to me. It is easy to get lost in the sounds of the ocean.”

  “Yes, it has been nice. Thank you again for coming to be with me. Your friendship means the world to me.”

  And just like everything else that had been so surreal about my trip, the bridge that we were on had a message for us. As I took a final look and one more deep breath of the ocean air, I looked down and saw the words someone had written in sand-colored bubble paint – Is this the end of the road, or just the beginning? I couldn’t help but wonder what the universe was trying to tell me.

  • • •

  I was missing him so much as I sat on the deck at the lake house in Arkansas. But I couldn’t help but smile, listening to the sounds of the kids getting excited every time one of them caught a two-inch fish.

  As the hums of the evening started, the noise of the crickets reminded me of the “toy” that he had brought for us to play with. I made the mistake of mentioning to him that the chirping of the crickets reminded me of the toy, and several times a day, I would get the same text message from him.

  “zzzzzzzd :- ))))”

  “You’re really trying to drive me crazy, aren’t you?”

  “Am I succeeding?” was the question spoken with a grin that I knew was on his face. “Honestly, it was two perfect days. I still can’t believe you came up here on such short notice. You’ll never know how much that meant to me. It helped me so much. Being able to laugh again was nice, but even more than that was the ability to say whatever I needed to with complete trust.” The tenderness in his voice flooded my brain with visions of the hours of talking we had done while lying in bed.

  “There is no place I would rather have been. It was nice being able to spend time with you again.”

  • • •

  As the weeks passed by, they seemed like an eternity. And I knew that it was going to be at least two more months before I would be able to see him again. My job was taking me out of the country for four weeks. I had too much to do to get ready to leave, and he was in the final stages of his divorce.

  The meetings with the lawyers were taking their emotional toll on him. His son was unhappy, and his work kept him flying all around the country.

  But we still found time to t
alk. We had both gotten used to having someone to confide in, and the level of trust that we had developed was something that we both had come to rely on.

  However, as hard as we tried, we were never able to eliminate the sexual banter. It was a part of who we were together.

  “Do you have any idea how much I wish we were making love right now?” I said.

  With that familiar grin in his voice, he said, “Yeah, I have somewhat of an idea, Puddles. Your last chapter kind of gave you away. Your retelling of our time in New York seems to indicate you enjoyed it just a little.”

  “Oh, so you didn’t?” I asked.

  “Maybe just a little,” was the teasing reply. “So tell me, what does it feel like when I make love to you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I want to know what it feels like when I’m making love to you.”

  “Do you mean, physically?” He must have picked up on the confusion in my voice.

  “Yes, physically, but everything you’re feeling. You’ve already written 20+ chapters in Shades of Red. Surely you can devote a chapter or two, so that I know what it feels like.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic. Never in my life had a man wanted to know, much less asked me to describe, what making love felt like. Turns out, it took me five chapters to fully explain it to him.

  Love Letters – Anticipation

  Dear Rune,

  I know I should have been sleeping, but instead, my mind keeps wandering to memories of making love to you and trying to figure out how can I even begin to describe what it feels like to make love to you. The truth is, there are many different pieces to making love. Some are completely physical, others are emotional, and some are a distinct combination of the two. So in order for you to fully understand it from my perspective, I’m going to have to explain all three.

  I’m wondering how I can describe it without using all of the adjectives that I have in the past. Pleasure, ecstasy, desire are all telling you how fantastic it is to make love to you. But how do I convey the physical nature of what it does to me? How do I make you understand how much desire is created, just writing all of this to you?

  I can’t put it all into one chapter, so I’m going to break it down into several chapters, each focusing on a different emotion. The emotion has to be there; otherwise, I could never have written what I already have. I certainly wouldn’t be able to reach into my inner-most being and write about how it truly feels to make love to you, without the trust that I have in you.

  The first word that came to my mind was “anticipation.” When I came to New York, it had been years since we had seen each other and made love. But I felt that same anticipation when it had only been three hours since we had been together.

  It’s hard to imagine, but every time I have been with you, it’s like the very first time. I don’t know if it is because I can’t believe we are getting the opportunity to make love again, fear that it could be the last time we ever make love, or the emotion our friendship brings to the physical act.

  But the anticipation of you moving inside of me is what has triggered the waterfall each time. Before we ever made love that very first time, it was the anticipation of your touch that drove me to pursue making love to you.

  I remember standing at the window, looking out over the city. Every nerve ending in my body was on high alert. As you came up behind me and cupped my breast, your touch triggered a reaction in my insides. The waterfall started immediately. It’s like the tips of your fingers have a direct connection to my inner self.

  There is a softness to the touch at first, but then the more my body responds, the more intense your movements become. When you are playing with the tips of my nipples, it’s almost as if they aren’t part of my body.

  As you are rubbing them between your thumb and forefinger, I feel some of the pleasure there, but it’s the reaction I have internally at the start of the waterfall that is so intense.

  All of the feeling shifts to my muscles and with each twist of the tips, my insides contract. And that’s when I start telling you how much I want you. When I squeeze my muscles and you aren’t there (like I’m doing now, just wishing you were lying next to me so that I could feel you go inside of me),I feel a tingling sensation as I move the muscles in a wave-like pattern.

  But when you are inside of me, the muscles are tightening around the mass of you. There is a heat that is generated, and the squeezing sensation is intensified. If you can imagine taking your hand and wrapping it around your wrist, feeling the softness of your skin, that’s what it initially feels like when you go inside of me.

  The wetness that I have generated makes the sliding back and forth so much easier, but it also generates a friction that we both really enjoy. It’s like an unbelievable massage of my insides. Instead of your hands running back and forth on my skin, the muscle that brings me so much pleasure is moving back and forth inside of me. Each stroke brings a hardness combined with the softness of your skin that rubs against the inner lining of my body.

  I know I have never had the OMG that you want me to have, but it is pure pleasure to feel you moving in and out of me. It’s a feeling of being desired, but at the same time, the squeezing lets me feel you.

  It’s the moment when you are about to come that feels so different. The softness of your skin gets more rigid, and the internal squeezing can’t hold onto you the same way. But the pleasure is suddenly more intense.

  You can’t even begin to imagine the reactions writing this has generated.

  I miss you so much,

  Gwynyth

  Love Letters – Impulse and Affection

  Dear Rune,

  I just couldn’t sleep after we talked. I want to make love to you again. I know back in August, it had been years since we had made love, but for some reason, the fact that it has already been two months since we were together seems longer than the ten years did.

  It goes back to the emotions I mentioned in the last chapter that I would need to use to describe to you what it feels like to make love to you. Without them, I can’t fully explain it to you. I thought it was interesting how easily the first emotion came to mind. It’s always been about the anticipation of making love to you, but once we get beyond that, there are so many other feelings that come into play.

  There are two that may seem like extreme opposites, but they are very closely intertwined in detailing what it feels like to make love to you. The first is impulsive. To say that we have given in to our impulses over the years is an understatement.

  Maybe I’m wrong, but except for our time together in New York, most of our encounters have been spur-of-the-moment times when we would see each other. They were cloaked with the pretense that we weren’t going to make love. We would pretend we were just two friends visiting, but then the desire would take over, and we would give in to the physical needs.

  The other side of those times was affection. I think we have always genuinely cared for each other. And yes, it was more me than you in some ways, but I think there are two reasons for that. One, if you haven’t noticed, I am female:-) . As a woman, I’m much more emotional and very open about my feelings.

  And yes, there was an overwhelming physical attraction on my part from the moment I saw that smile on the face of the twenty-something-year-old that was standing at my door. But the years have taken that attraction, and it has grown into something completely different.

  What I never in my life expected, was for you to recognize and appreciate what we have. I remember when you called me and wanted me to come to New York. I knew a big part of why you wanted me there was the physical side of it. Way too many chapters of Shades of Red had been written by both of us. But it was more than that, it was the affection, the need for our friendship, the wanting to share the joys in person that we both needed.

  I hope you aren’t disappointed in this description of what it feels like to make love to you. Because it’s not always about the physical act of making love.

&nbs
p; When we were on Fire Island, and you took my hand as we were walking on the beach, that was one of the most sensual moments of my life. Walking and talking, laughing and smiling, sadness over what you are going through, are all forms of making love to you.

  Nothing in my life was more important than being there for you at that moment in time. Feeling your hand around mine, feeling the protection of you next to me, feeling the need to be there for you, all stirred emotions in me.

  Sitting in the car at the air field, touching the back of your head as you were talking about the issues with the divorce, was a form of making love to you. It was an odd sense of pleasure that I felt. As my fingertips were softly touching your head when I was running my fingers through your hair, those actions stirred something in me that I can’t fully explain.

  It was a very physical pleasure, and it’s what causes the desire to make love to you. When we got back to the hotel, I wanted to make love to you right then and there, but you were emotionally exhausted.

  As we laid on the bed, there were two very conflicting desires. One was the physical desire to feel you inside of me again, but the other desire won out. And that was the desire to give you a chance to rest.

  I was hoping that the time we had spent talking had helped you. And I wondered how long it had been since you had an emotional break from what you were dealing with. I was content just lying next to you and being there for you.

  As I reread your text from yesterday, I feel totally helpless. When you said you were feeling sorry for yourself, I completely understood that emotion. As the saying goes, been there, done that – and gotten way too many t-shirts because of that. I know I can’t be there right now, but if you told me you needed me, I would be telling my boss I had a personal emergency, and I would be heading to New York.