The usual disclaimers. I don't own the characters, I don't make money from them.

Louis, Interrogative.

1 janvrier, 2000

Gairid

I was lying sprawled over Louis, my head on his flat stomach, my body between his long legs. I felt like so much pulled taffy, all loose and ropy, my muscles totally beyond any command my woozy brain might think to impose upon them. I could feel a loud purr of contentment issuing from my chest, as Louis stroked my head, his own satisfaction evident in his slow, languid movement. Satiated. Spent. Pick your word. More simply stated, damn, I felt good.

After a time I felt that an attempt to move was in order, and when I found that I *could* I squirmed my way up Louis' body and rolled off of him so that I could look at him. Looking at Louis is always a good way to wake up from any post-coital lethargy. He reached for the slashed sheet, but I grabbed his hand playfully.

"Don't, Louis. " I said. "I'm *looking*"

He obliged me by letting go of the sheet, and then stretching before me. As good as he always looks, he knows me, and he knows I like to see the play of his muscles when he lengthens himself that way. I also knew it to be a signal that he, too, was gearing up for Round Two. The night was young, after all.

"Looking. " He said. He drew in a tiny breath as I rolled his rather bruised-looking right nipple between my thumb and forefinger. "You are a demon, Lestat. Insatiable, one might even suggest. I must be doing something* wrong*, mustn't I?

He pushed my head to his chest and I seized the now-erect nipple with my teeth, pulling on it a little.
When I heard him hiss a little I let go of it.

"Wrong?" I said, rolling on to my stomach and resting my head on my crossed arms. I looked into his eyes. "Hardly. That was the *best*. I suppose I am insatiable…. I *know* I never seem to be able to have enough of *you*, Cher." I watched as he drew the tip of his tongue across his teeth. I was thinking of just where he'd used that very same little muscle to drive me over the brink of sanity and self-control only a short time ago. I'd come so hard I lost consciousness briefly. Minor infraction of the *Rules*, that slip of mine. I knew I'd be put to task for it at some time or other. I looked forward to it in fact.

"The Best?" he said. That tone. I knew that tone. I chose to ignore what it might mean, and I moved closer to him, kissing him. He responded eagerly, and I thought I'd deflected him from whatever train of thought he'd seized upon. I didn't know what it was, but like I said. I *knew* that tone. I also should have known that it would take more than a little making out to deflect that mind of his from whatever course he'd decided to follow.

He pushed me back, and sat up, with his back resting against the scarred headboard of the bed, his legs straight out before him, crossed at the ankles. The deep scratches in the dark cherrywood were mine, but it was Louis who had cracked the thing down the middle. It looked like it *might* last the night, seeing as Louis seemed to have something on his mind.

"Tell me something, Lestat," He said, trying to smooth the medusa-like tangle that his hair was in. After a moment he gave it up as a lost cause. "You often speak in superlatives. Just now you referred to our lovemaking…*this time*… as 'the best’. "

I moved to sit up beside him. He leaned forward as I draped one of the quilts over his shoulders, and waited for me to pull the other side over mine.

"The *best* you said. Non?" He persisted.

"Yes. What's your point?" I asked him, taking his hand in mine.

"You say that all the time though." He said, squeezing my hand a little.

I smiled, relaxing against him.

"That's because every time is the best time. " I said, pleased with myself. I meant it, too.

He turned his head to look at me, knowing that I was already gazing at his profile.

I know you think that." He said affectionately. His smile was warm and radiant, and loving.

When he looks at me that way, I can hardly stand how crushingly sublime it makes me feel. It's a feeling that's close to fear somehow, because it's such a *huge* feeling.

"But I want to know, 'Stat, which time do you think really * was* the best?" He looked at me expectantly.

I opened my mouth to say something, and then abruptly shut it again. Louis and his questions. His goddamned straightforward, tell-me-because-I really-want-to-know-what-you-are-thinking questions. And I'll answer him…or *try* to, because I love him, and one of the many reasons I love him is *because* he asks me such things, *because* he *does* wish to know.

There was only one problem. What the hell was the right answer? I rested my head back against the uneasy headboard to think about it a little. Louis laid his head on my shoulder, waiting.

Now, first let me say something, in case there is any doubt or anything. If Louis asks me a question like this and I decide I wish to answer it, he expects me to be honest, and tell him what I really think. He's not looking for an answer that will please *him*, or some sort of ego stroking. What he wants from me is to *know*. There is also the small and utterly true fact that Louis does not have much of an ego per say. I have more than enough for the two of us, anyway. So with that said I will go on with my little story.

"I'm supposed to tell you what I think was actually *the* best time?" I asked. I already had something in my mind, but I wanted to make sure I was clear on what he wished to know.

"You're stalling, 'Stat. This isn't a test. I'm curious, nothing more." He said. He moved down a little, and rolled to his stomach, pulling his side of the blanket over his back. He placed his arms to either side of my thigh, his hands laced over my leg, about half way up from my knee. He rested his chin on his fingers and gazed up at me.


"I know what you're thinking, you know." He said, grinning up at me.

"Oh?" His face was disconcertingly close to my groin. He pulled the quilt across my legs.

"Yes. And the right answer is whatever you tell me. Come, now. One time, at least, must stand out. When I asked you I could see *something* jumped right to the front of your mind.

"Something did, as a matter of fact." I agreed. "Remember the night with the flail?

Louis feigned innocence.

"Flail? Please refresh my memory, darling. And leave nothing out, mind you. Which flail do you mean. There *is* more than one, or have you forgotten?"

As if I could.

"The flail that I made with your own beautiful hair, Mon Ange." I said, reaching my hand to stroke his face.

There are times, when we are making love that we become quite exuberant. Carried away? By this time, you who are reading this must know that our avenues of pleasure are not in the least narrow or confined. Sensation for us is blurred, pain being a part of our pleasure when it suits us. There have been times when I've pulled hair from my darlings' head in the throes of some ecstatic moment. When this happens I invariably keep the hair clutched in my hand, always placing it on my night table afterward. I save these parts of my angel, unwilling to burn or otherwise dispose of it. It's somehow not the same as when he cuts his hair himself.

I keep Louis' hair, taken from him in passion, and I put it in a box, an ornate little chest actually, that sits on the shelf in our armoire. One evening, I opened it, intending to place another precious bundle of his hair inside. Looking into it, I noticed that I'd collected rather a lot of it. I took the box with me into the library, placing it on the little carved games table that we have, and I returned to the bedroom, searching through the organizer in the closet until I found what I was looking for. I brought that also into the library.

There were a few things I needed that I knew were not to be found in the house, so I dressed and made ready to go in search of them. I was intent on this little project, a small gift I wished to make for Louis.
He had gone out and was just returning as I was leaving. He looked at me in surprise when we met in the foyer. I kissed him and told him that I would be back soon, leaving him at the door watching me with a bemused smile on his face as he watched me move down the street. I blew him a kiss and went on my way.

I went right into the library upon my return, calling to Louis that I was back. I tossed my jacket, onto one of the chairs, and sat down at the table. Arranging my purchases, I contemplated how I might best begin. Louis wandered in as I was taking a section of his hair from the little chest, lifting it to my nose to inhale his scent. He looked curiously at the things on the table, and then crossed the room to the deal table there, moving aside some books and seating himself upon it. He didn't speak, just crossed his legs and drew them up to his chest, clasped loosely in his arms. Watching me.

I quickly became absorbed in what I was doing, binding Louis' black hair in small, neat lengths with black, waxed thread. Each length pushed through tiny holes I punched through a section of black leather, and fastened there with a needle and thread. After several tries, I was able to do these small, precise things easily enough. I took my time, breathing in Louis' scent, and reveling in the silky feel of his black hair. Listening to his soft breathing as he sat across the room from me, watching me as I worked.

*****

(Louis)

Usually when Lestat does anything, it's accompanied with bright light, and, more often than not, ear-splittingly loud music. I had been surprised when he passed me on his way out earlier. He was not gone long, and when he returned he called to me that he was back, disappearing into the library. Curious, I followed him in and stood behind him where he sat at the games table with a rather strange array of objects before him, and only the small high-intensity lamp switched on. No music. No television blaring from the other room.

He looked up from his contemplation of the items, smiling at me with a little anticipatory gleam in his azure eyes. He did not speak, and neither did I. I went across the room and sat down on the table there to watch him. He set about his work with precise deliberation, and it did not take me long to figure out what he was making. I gazed at him, fascinated by his absorption, by the economical, graceful movements of his long fingers, and the way his golden hair tumbled over his brow, and into his eyes.

He was taking his time, smoothing the lengths of hair between his fingers, scenting all the while, clearly enjoying what he was doing. Never one to be still for very long, his body rocked minutely to some inner rhythm, his right leg moving back and forth, back and forth in his usual restless manner. His beautiful face is so expressive, his emotions easily seen as they cross his features; a small pulling in of his brows showed impatience, the curve of his lips in a little smile signaled satisfaction. The tip of his pink tongue held between his teeth denoted concentration. Seeing him thus was like being given a precious gift, for I do so love to watch him, my golden one.

I could not recall ever seeing him involved in such a single-minded pursuit, though I have often sat and listened as he played the piano, at those times also unable to take my eyes from him. In many instances, though, Lestat's attention is easily diverted, a child-like trait that I adore in him. It's amusing to hear him arguing with a set of directions on how to operate this or that electronic gadget, as though by saying things out loud he can somehow make the thing work in the way he wishes it to.

As I sat there I could hear him humming under his breath, a French tune from his childhood, one he'd taught to me long ago. I hadn't heard it in a very long time. My eyes welled up, as I listened to him. Mon Ange.

*****

I don't know how long it took me to finish. It didn't seem long. After fixing the hair to the leather I glued it to the base of a rather large and interesting looking sexual prop…commonly called a dildo… and then I bound it more securely with the waxed thread. What I held in my hands when I'd finished was what would have been called a scourge, or a flail. Such things had been used at one time by monks and nuns and other assorted religious folk in ritual flagellation, a way to cleanse oneself of sin. This was not at all what I had in mind when I made the flail. We had several others, all of which were rather more punishing in aspect. Looking at it, trailing the long hair over my arm gave me a hot shiver.

Louis left his spot on the table and stood looking down at me. I offered the flail to him, and he took it from me, his eyes dilated slightly as he turned the thing in his hands. The phone rang in the office.

"Go and answer that Lestat." Louis said, a strange note in his voice. A sound that sent another of those hot shivers through me. Something. Something in his mind. I went to answer the phone.

It was one of the myriad contractors, needing to ask me questions about renovations to one of our properties, the place over on Rue Toulouse. I was on for a few minutes, when Louis came in to the office. He had removed his shirt, but still had on his jeans. He tapped the flail rhythmically against his leg as he mouthed to me to continue my conversation. I have no idea what I said to that contractor, although I recall that he called back a few days later and asked if I felt better, and could we please discuss the change in plans.

I was standing in front of the desk, as Louis approached me. He held my eyes as he unbuttoned my jeans and pushed them down over my hips with one hand. He continued tapping his thigh with the flail.
I stepped out of my pants and he pushed me back against the edge of the desk, parting my thighs by standing between them. I was babbling, quite incoherently to the hapless contractor, realizing dimly that I was making no real sense. Louis unbuttoned my shirt and pushed it over my shoulder, and ran the hair...*his* hair… across my spread thighs and over my straining cock, a wicked smile on his face. I concluded my conversation, to the contractors' relief, I am quite sure.

"Did you make this for me, Mon Ange?" He asked. My hands were busy unbuttoning his pants and he was running the hair across my belly as he pushed me back slightly.

"I made it for you." I confirmed. He stepped back to let me push his jeans down. Freed, he leaned to kiss me, teasing my lips with little bites. I could feel his cock, insistent between my legs and I moved my hips forward. He put the flail in my hand, as he pressed his hips tightly to me, his cock rubbing deliciously against mine.

"Put it inside me, 'Stat. Pleasure me. I want it. I want it." His voice was low, not pleading so much as daring. I put my arms around his hips and he drew back, his hands on me, lifting my ass away from the desk as he positioned himself against the opening to my body even as I did the same with the end of the flail to his.

"Do it. " He hissed.

I pushed it up into him, slowly, and as I did this, he moved into me just as slowly, the pressure of my hands guiding the flail into him pushing him forward and into me. He pushed me back so that I was half reclining the hair of his head fell forward, over my face as he drew one finger bruisingly hard across my lips, hissing as I moved the handle of the flail into him. I ground myself to him, reveling in the way he filled me, wanting more. He brought a knee up onto the desk to give himself more leverage, and making himself more…accessible at the same time. I could feel the hair from the flail against my balls, tickling the insides of my thighs as I worked him.

With one hand, Louis cleared the top of the desk noisily, things crashing to the floor and papers flying. He pushed me onto my back, and I momentarily lost my grip on the flail as he thrust roughly into me.
I could feel blood running from me, pooling on the blotter beneath me, as I managed to get my hands on the flail. I could feel the hair on it, spread over his ass, and I groaned as I pictured how that must look, his ass, covered with his beautiful hair, clenching and unclenching as he moved in out of me, his cock slicked with my blood.

I was vaguely aware that the desk had been inching forward with the force of our movements…it met the wall, finally. We were grappling with each other, wrestling for the best position, our bodies striving and straining. Louis gained a brief advantage, moving down and pulling me with him so that we were lying almost prone, He pulled my leg over himself, and we were moved into a spooned position. I twisted my arm back around to grasp the flail as he moved slow and hard inside me.

I jumped when he curled his hand around my cock, and I could feel his mouth at my neck, his hair cascading forward over my shoulder. I fought to keep control, but his hand on, his cock moving inside me, it was madness…it was pushing me, pushing…

He sank his fangs into my neck with a sound between a moan and a snarl, drawing strongly from me. I felt him, felt him there with me, mind to mind, I could taste with him how my blood burned in his mouth. He calmed me somewhat, as I felt him change the rhythm of his hips. He moved out of me, and then back into me slowly. His movement was deliberate, less intense than the frenetic pounding. He was throttling back, holding us both. Slowly, out of me. Into me, hard. Demanding. Slowly, out…and his mouth. Suckling from me, connecting us. When he was hilted in me, I held him tightly, tried to keep him there, but he did not let up his slow thrusts. Filling me as he was also filled, and I could…I could feel *that* too, the flail, unyielding in his flesh.

He'd let up the pressure of his hand around my cock, and I moved trying to *feel* more, trying to feel pressure that was not there. The tension coiled in my belly, doubled by the pressure of Louis inside me.
Deliciously agonizing…how I loved it, strained on the edge of climax, trembling and hot and slicked with our bloodsweat. Louis' will, holding us there, poised together, twitching and shuddering.

I raised my leg up, wanting more of him. The blood flowing from me facilitated his increasingly brutal thrusts and I had all this while managed to keep working Louis with the flail, my body twisted in a way that I am certain would be quite impossible for a mortal. There was vicious pain as he fucked me, overlaid with obliterating pleasure.

And then, excruciatingly, he was gone from inside me. He'd pulled out and left me gasping with the sudden loss of him. He turned his body, and his ass was there, close to my face, the flail with all that beautiful hair hilted deeply within him. He went down on me with a vengeance and I was so sore, I could barely move my legs at first. I pushed my face against the hilted flail, groaning and grasping his hips tightly. Our bodies bowed outward at the same time as he ran his hand along my legs. He rubbed his face in the fine hair between my legs, biting me up and down along my inner thighs and sinking his fangs into my flesh. He smeared the flowing blood over his lips and face…down his neck.

He caught my straining cock and rubbed his face sensuously against it…and as he slid the skin of it back and forth he pushed one fang into the slitted opening at the tip. I couldn't breathe, couldn't make a sound. Arched to him, trembling, my hands spasming helplessly. He ground his ass against my face, where I'd pushed the hair aside so that I could lap at his stretched and yearning orifice.

"Take it out." Louis growled, tensely.

I removed the flail, slowly, and licked at him, lapping at the blood that spilled from him, little shocks of pleasure upon my tongue. He reached for me, grasping my hands in his and pulling me on top of him, kissing me, still holding my hands. He was breathing heavily, panting as his tongue darted in my mouth. In a fluid movement, he pushed me up, and back so that I was sitting on my haunches. He turned, reared up, pausing for a moment, turning his head to look down into my eyes, his aspect hungry, driven…and then he impaled himself upon my cock, wringing a coughing snarl from me as I pulled him to me, his back against my chest.

I began to rock, and he was with me…. *with* me, and we made our own rhythm. 'In him…. ' I was thinking, ' I am in him and I am his, and he is mine, and Mon Dieu, he feels so good….' On and on, like that in my mind. I could hear Louis, keening, deeper than usual, more in his chest, the sound. I could feel it vibrating through his back.

Maybe there were words spoken, maybe they were just sounds, salacious thoughts, salacious words. I was growling softly, and murmuring to him as I moved inside of him. He placed his hands over mine, drawing one to his groin, curling his hand over mine as I cupped him. He took my other hand and rubbed it up and down first one of his legs and then the other, and then drawing my palm across the taut flesh of his lower belly. He was muttering in my ear, promising….entreating…daring, all the while moving my hands over his skin as we rocked together.

"Lestat? My own…?" He murmured as we rocked slowly together.

He leaned back, his legs spread over me as he ground down upon me even as I pushed up into him. His head was back against my shoulder and he pushed his face up beneath my hair, breathing into my ear, and sweeping his eyelashes against the side of my face. I had my fingers on the tops of his thighs, at the crease of his groin, my thumbs pressed into his hips, holding his legs apart as I continued to thrust into him.

"Yes, Love?" I whispered. My eyes were closed.

Louis moaned as we moved together. I tightened my hand slightly around his cock. His beautiful cock. He was still tracing his body with my other hand.

"Where……where is it?" He said gutturally.

"Where is what, Sweeting?" I asked him. He was so tight around me, his inner muscles clenching and releasing in time with our movements.

"The flail. Where is it?" He moaned the words out.

I reluctantly removed my hand from beneath his, and groped for the flail.

"Here it is, my darling…" I said, shivering, as he tongued the inside of my ear.

"Where has it been, my love?" He asked, his voice barely audible.

Salacious. Ahh, he was.

"It's been inside of you, my Angel. " I answered, my voice as soft as his, as I trailed the hair over his white thigh.

"I… I want you to….ahhh…" Keening, his soft wail piercing my heart. I had not ceased in all this time moving inside him.

"Tell me, Louis. Tell me what you want, my Baby." The friction of his sleek, wet skin against mine…

He was groaning, his body writhing as I fucked him.

"Tell me…." I said again.

"What is on the flail, Lestat? Lover?"

"Your own beautiful hair, and your precious blood. I can smell you there. " I said huskily.

"You can? You can smell me? You…" He arched his body to me again, moaning.

"I can. I can smell you. " I brought the flail to my face, scenting the part that had been inside of him, as he watched me, his eyes slitted.

"I want you to do something….I want….would you do something for me?"

Oh, his voice. It was beautiful in its wanting, the soft pleading I could hear there.

"Tell me what you want, " I said, thrusting myself deeply into him, "Tell me and I will do it. Whatever you wish of me I will do for you."

"I want you to lick me off the flail." He said, grinding his ass savagely against me.

I could smell him. Yes…I could smell his blood, I could see it, streaked across the surface of the flail's handle. Moaning softly I brought it to my mouth and lapped delicately at the red smears. There was a surge of saliva into my mouth as I tasted him, and the sweep of my tongue became voracious. He was panting in short, hard bursts as he gazed at me.

"Suck it, darling….as if it were me. I want to…I want to *see*…." He voice broke as he growled gutturally.

He was rubbing is face against mine. I turned the flail and drew it into my mouth, gore-streaked thing. Large, it was, though not so large as my Angel. And on it, the taste and the smell of Louis, making it so much less a thing of indifferent inanimation because of his living blood upon it, and the silky movement of his hair sliding against the skin of my hand, my neck.

I lapped at it as I pushed it further into my mouth, growling as I cleaned the blood from it. Louis' growling matching mine as he watched me withdraw the flail's handle from my mouth, my tongue still seeking the minute amounts of blood I could sense upon it. I released it, and it dropped between our two striving bodies, and I could feel the hair on it, Louis' beautiful hair pooled around my cock as I pumped in and out of his ass.

"Take my cock…I want your hands on me." His voice was terse, strained.

I worked him with firm, sure strokes.

"Both hands." He said, moaning torturously. I cupped his balls, rolling them in my hand.

His knees were to the wall and he braced a hand there, reaching his other hand behind to pinch at my nipples, rolling them between his thumb and finger, first one, and as he heard my hiss of pain, then the other. I was moaning now, my head thrown back. He whispered into my ear.

"Do with me…as you will, my love. Do what you want to do…" He urged.

I released his balls, and took his hand, and put it over mine as I squeezed and stroked him. I pushed him forward, nearly off of my cock, and I picked up the flail, still wet with my spit. I felt my focus narrow, my vision sharpened to this act, the thunder of our twinned heartbeats roaring in my head. I positioned the head of the flail beside my cock, and slowly…as slowly as I was able, I eased it into him. Pushing myself into him beside the thing. I could hear his breath hitch and I felt him push back against the pressure, his body accommodating the added width of the flail.

When I was hilted inside him, and the flail alongside me, I began moving in him again, the bloody, wet hair of it on my thighs. Deep, insistent strokes…and I moved my hand on his cock in the same fierce rhythm, leaning forward over his bowed back. I could feel him automatically arch to me.

Mon Ange, " I muttered, my voice hoarse, "My own. And I *will* do with you as I will, Ah oui, take you this way, make you feel me. How I love you, Louis." I was thrusting desperately into him by that time.

"What I feel for you…" He whispered. I could hear his voice catch with a small, stifled sob.

"…and my will, Louis…" I continued, panting, "…my will is your will. Ahhh…Mon Dieu…my life. Yes. My life."

Thrusting into him still, myself, and the flail, hissing as I did so.

"Can you feel me? Can you, Louis? FEEL me? Because I can feel nothing but you. There is nothing but you, my Own… my Louis."

"You are* all* I feel, my darling. You are all I have *ever* felt." Louis said, his voice barely a whisper as he turned his head to look at me.

A single tear, like a garnet raindrop…it was trapped in the web of his eyelashes. I watched, mesmerized as it escaped and slid down his perfect cheekbone.

I pulled out of him briefly and removed the flail, dropping it on the desk beside us. Hilted myself in him again, thrusting and moving my hands on his cock, Trembling, again at that precipice, waiting for Louis so that we might fall together. He opened his eyes and met mine, locked there, igniting us so that we flared, and together left that brink where we been poised, dancing, for so long. Minds twined, so that I could feel his climax as he felt mine, and the hot blood from him covered my hands and his thighs, the wall running red with it. I could feel Louis' chest expand as he inhaled and inhaled…breath after breath, as though he could not pull in enough air. Blood still gouting from his cock as it was from mine, the heat of his body absorbing all that I was giving him.

Between us was the same thought, it was his and it was mine, because for those moments when we are so linked there is no division between our souls. I could feel the sweep of Louis' mind and memory existing there alongside my own. The ringing, clear thought, echoing bell-like. Always together, like this. Oh, that this would never, never end and we could be this way forever. Always together, like this.

*****

As Lestat related this to me, he'd moved down and pulled me into his arms, playing with my hair, as he so loves to do. His voice was rich and beautiful as he spoke to me, leaving nothing out, just as I had asked him. I had asked him this question, because I am always curious as to how his mind works. What he will do or say next, and although I can often predict such things quite accurately, he can and does still surprise me. Mercurial, he has often been called, and that, of course is true, for he is a volatile and often capricious creature. I love him for these qualities, and I love him for the things that he has chosen to give to me alone.

I remember the time he was speaking of, as I remember all my time with Lestat. I remember that night with exquisite clarity; enhanced by his words… how I had felt drowned in the hot, voluptuous sensation of Lestat in me and on me, and all around me. The scent of our mingled blood had been powerful and heavy, as though if I had opened my eyes, there would have been a mist of red raftered in the humid air of that room. How his blood, released in his intense climax, seared me inside, lava-like. How we think and feel as one being at such times. How, when we are together thus I can see so much…bright light, motion and emotion, texture. Sounds. All these things spinning and glittering around me. Yes, I remember that night.

And it really is as Lestat said when I first questioned him. He had spoken the words in simple vernacular, contented afterglow conversation couched in 20th century words.

"That's because every time is the best time." He'd said.

*****

When I finished relating my *best * time, I pulled Louis closer to me. Sometimes I worry about how desperate I feel, like I cannot get close enough to him, that he will be ephemeral, and I will somehow lose him. Like I dreamed him. A dream from my mortal life, a time when nothing that I had wanted stayed with me for the length of time it took me to be happy. I stroked his dark hair, treasuring the curve of his skull as though it were the last time I might feel such a thing. I felt an ache in my chest, remnant from the times that I thought he would leave me, remnant from any temporary separation from him. How would I feel if he did not love me? I could hardly bear to think of it, although I knew in my heart that he loved me to distraction.

As we lay together he reached up and touched my cheek. Myself, after having related *that* tale….well there was nothing more I wanted than to make love yet again. I know I am compulsive. I just cannot believe that anyone would actually love *me*. Always, and forever.

"So, Louis." I said, with what I thought was some modicum of control. "What did you think of my choice?"

His answer was to wind himself around my body, gripping me tightly.

"I told you, Mon Lion, that there was no real answer. I was curious as to what would jump into your brain, ‘Stat. And I would confess something else. I do love to read your accounts of our encounters.. They are beautiful. Erotic. I am particularly pleased that you are saying such things about * us*, Mon Marquis."

I chuckled at that.

I had answered his question and I had pleased him, I think. My account, of course, could never cover all that exists between us, but we both know that, so it’s all right. And I knew he liked reading the stories. I’m pretty sure that the few times I see him at the computer at all he’s either reading e-mails that I send him (yes, I know he’s right here with me, but I send them to him anyway.) or the accounts, as he called them.

He kissed me, and I rolled onto my back, pulling him on top of me.

"Round Two?" He said

FIN