“Oh yes. I come here often.” She ducked beneath the warm water, and he felt her hair brush against his flank as she swam below the surface. He reached down and grabbed at her and felt bare, soft flesh. Her buttocks? Was she as naked as he was?
She surfaced, and her musical laugh filled the cave. “So, you want to play.” Again she dove, and he felt hands on his thigh. Shaking his head, he, too, dove beneath the water and reached for anything he could touch. Her body was indeed naked, and his hands found her breasts and her ankles.
For long minutes, they dove, surfaced, laughed, and dove again, until Bret was breathless. Finally the two stood side by side in the water, panting. “You are very handsome,” she said when she could breathe easily again.
“And you are very beautiful,” he said.
Then her lips were against his, and the length of her lush body pressed his. Her hand cupped his head as the kiss lengthened. This wasn’t play anymore, and his body knew it. He was hard and her hand found him, circling his erection with long fingers.
When he groaned, she laughed, her joy obvious. “Wonderful,” she said, holding him under the warm water. She cupped his balls and touched the tender spot just in front of his anus. He reached for her and held her breasts, stroking the soft skin, teasing her hard nipples.
“You must stop,” he said.
“But why?” she asked.
“You don’t know what will happen if you continue.”
“Of course I do, silly. And it will be magnificent. I know.” She continued to knead his hardness, forcing him to concentrate on not spurting yet. This was too fantastic. Her hands felt so good touching him, and her breasts filled his hands. He slid his palms around to her back, then down to cup her buttocks. He lifted her, and she wrapped her thighs around his waist.
He pushed her upward and, as her head fell backward, took one turgid nipple in his mouth. He suckled, listening to her moans of pleasure, trying to extend their tender lovemaking. But he knew his body would wait no longer. He lowered her slowly along the length of his chest and was inside her with one smooth thrust, the water cushioning his movements. In perfect rhythm they matched their motions as his erection slid in and out of her slick passage. It was going to be too quick, he knew, as he felt his orgasm boiling in his belly. His fingers found her clit and he rubbed, trying to increase her obvious pleasure.
“Oh yes,” she screamed, and he felt small spasms ripple through her channel. His back arched, and too soon he erupted deep inside of her.
He didn’t make it home that night. They stayed together in the cave, sharing his bread and cheese and making love many more times. Finally she told him that he would have to leave. “I don’t want to go,” he moaned.
“I know, but you have to. You are allowed only one night.”
“This is the Cave of Delight?” he gasped.
“I thought you knew,” she said.
He was desolate. But he knew where the opening of the cave was, so he could find it again. He would. “I hadn’t thought about it, but I want to return.”
“I know, but it is impossible.”
Slowly he put his clothes back on, determined to come back that very night. He kissed her good-bye, and, as he crawled back through the tunnel, he heard her magical laugh.
He returned to the rocks that night, but there was no opening, no tunnel, no cave. Night after night he combed the rocks but, alas, no cave.
Months later, he was resigned to his marriage. Maybe she’d be more than he expected, yet she could never be Marie. Never.
Two days before his wedding, he traveled to his future wife’s village with his parents and his eldest brother. When they arrived at her family’s farm, he was seated in the small main room, and he watched as she slowly glided down the stairs. She was quite lovely, with long auburn hair and soft, white skin. “My name is Jane,” she said, “but my friends call me by my middle name, Marie.”
“Marie?” he said, pained by the coincidence.
“Yes,” she said, lowering her eyes. “You can call me Jane if you prefer.”
He had to forget the night in the cave. It was a fantasy, and this was reality. “Of course I will call you Marie.”
“And you are Bret. I like that name.”
They talked for a few minutes, then were called into the dining room for dinner. She went into the kitchen to help with the serving, and suddenly he heard her musical laugh. It was her laugh, the angel from the cave. She walked from the kitchen, still laughing. It was her. There could be no mistake. As she sat beside him, he whispered, “It was you, wasn’t it?”
“It was the cave of your delight, what you wanted most. Many have been there, and each gets what he most desires. You wanted a lover and a wife in one.”
“But how?”
“I do not know, and you must not reveal any of what happened or it will disappear. Just be content that we can have our desires for the rest of our lives.”
Bret couldn’t control his grin. He was the happiest and luckiest of men.
The Model
JUSTIN LAY stretched out on his bed with the most recent copy of the Geneva Toy Company catalog propped on his stomach. He stared at the model clothed only in a sheer stretchy black cat suit with a pattern of vines, roses, and leaves woven in. Her well-developed breasts were clearly defined beneath the lacy fabric. He sighed and traced her outline with his index finger. “I’d really love to play with that,” he whispered.
“And so you shall,” a woman’s voice sighed into his ear.
“Yeah, right,” he growled. “Now I’m hearing voices.”
“No, you aren’t. You’re hearing me.”
Justin sat up and looked around. There was nothing out of the ordinary in his room. “Hearing who?” he asked. “Where the hell are you?”
“Right here,” the voice said, seeming to come from the foot of his bed.
“Right where?”
“Here.”
Justin stared at the place from which the voice seemed to be coming. The air appeared to shimmer, like when you drive down a road in the summer and you see the heat rising off the pavement. The air became somehow less transparent, as though seeing his dresser through a gauzy curtain. “What the fuck’s going on here?”
“Just be patient. You have to be patient.”
The air thickened, and slowly a shape began to appear. There was a torso, then legs. Long, shapely legs that seemed to rise forever from a pair of black, high-heeled shoes. The torso solidified, and soft breasts, a flat belly, and narrow hips were visible. Shoulders appeared, with long arms, then hands with long fingernails polished bright red. A head formed from a small plume of hazy smoke, the face smiling, the hair wild and black. As she became a woman, he realized that she was indeed the model from the catalog, dressed in the lacy, black cat suit in the picture.
“Just a few moments more,” she said as her body thickened and became three dimensional. “It takes less and less time each time I do this.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve learned to materialize when a man wishes for me. And you did.”
“I did?” Justin was totally bemused. What was happening? Was he losing his mind? This kind of thing just didn’t happen. Not to sane men. He raked his fingers through his shoulder-length brown hair.
“Yes. You said, and I quote, ‘I’d like to play with that.’ End quote.