The Kiss

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For Shane

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Winifred sat alone at the picnic table. The beauty of the day—the wind rustling through the trees and grass, playing with the empty swings across the way, the bright sunshine, the green of a just-blooming spring—escaped her. The children’s laughter drifting along to her deaf ears from the playground didn’t stir her. The sound of a vehicle passing by on the street every moment or so did not earn so much as a glance. Nothing moved her—because she was engulfed in another world entirely. Gripped in her hands she held a book, her eyes skimming quickly from left to right, down and down the page. To all the world around her, she looked like a regular Belle, absorbed in her literary world.

In Winnie’s mind, though, she was in the middle of a battle, not sitting in the local park. She grasped, not a book, but a sword as heavy and broad as anything she had ever imagined. She was slaying the vicious enemy, one right after the other, and taking great pleasure from finally felling those who had tormented her people for so long. Across the field a ways, she saw Rio as she turned and stabbed another. Her lover faired as well as she, bloodied and tired, but filled with righteous fury and passion. The heat from a blazing sun burned into her back, sweat stung her many cuts and the laceration down her arm. The smell of blood and gore turned her stomach, making her sick. But it felt good, to swing and finally have an outlet for so much pent-up injustice. They were winning… Finally, something was going well for them.

Because Winnie was so engrossed in her fantasy land, she didn’t hear the group that approached her from behind. Though the grass muted their steps, their voices carried plainly for any who cared to hear.

“That one,” one of the women said in a high-pitched voice with a certain note of sophistication, as she pointed ideally to the young woman who sat alone on the picnic table.

“That one?” a man’s voice asked with a strange weariness.

“I don’t know, Mel,” another male voice spoke in a deeper baritone. “She doesn’t look good enough.”

Mel tossed her head so that her hair curtained around her as she flicked her wrist. “That’s why she’s perfect. Go on, Sey, do it.”

The first man groaned, but stepped toward Winnie nonetheless. She was a beautiful woman, if a little plain. Her hair was a bit long and loose, with just a touch of natural wave showing as it danced in the wind. Her vivid brown eyes chased words across the pages of her book, and a small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She wore no makeup, only a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt.

Sey took a deep breath as he came within a half foot of her and she didn’t notice him. Her fascination with her book fascinated him. What could be so engaging on those pages that she wouldn’t notice another human being crowding her space? He was intrigued into just watching her for a moment, but Mel cleared her throat from behind him, reminding him.

Suddenly, the minute smile that had been at one corner of his mouth vanish and he frowned, then did what he had to do. He kissed this unknown, bookworm of a woman.

Winnie was startled to find the kiss shared between the heroine and Rio so very real on her lips. Rio must be a truly exquisite kisser, she thought. Then she realized that the kiss she was feeling was real. It was not part of her fairy tale story. It was as real as the book she’d bought that morning.

She’d never been kissed before, but the firm tenderness of male lips pressed to hers was unlike anything she’d ever felt before. It was so moving—she’d dreamed so long of being kissed, yearned for it, wondered about it—that tears sprang to her eyes as he began a kneading motion, grinding gently against her mouth. His hand cupped her jaw and part of her neck; her head titled back. He followed her. Her eyes closed.

The book fell, long forgotten from her hands. He must have sat down then, because suddenly she could feel his body heat all along her side, from her knee, up her thigh, to hip and side, ribcage, chest, and their warmly, sweetly blended mouths.

His tongue suddenly found its way just barely into her mouth. She jumped slightly, but then smiled, unsure, but aware that she liked it. All it took was a slight parting of her lips to invite him in more, and he took up her invitation just as she gave it. Her tongue brushed his and warmth shot through her body, all the way from her mouth to her toes, then back, to settle lower than the pit of her stomach. His fingers tangled in her hair, his nails brushing ever so slightly over her scalp.

Then his tongue started to withdraw from her mouth. Suddenly panicked, hers chased his, trying to coax it back. Before she realized it, her tongue was in his mouth. As he sucked lightly on that part of her, holding her there, she smiled, realizing that he’d done it deliberately, teasing her to give what he had given.

She didn’t know how long the woman had been laughing, but suddenly the low, evil sound penetrated the first aroused daze Winnie had ever experienced. It was cruel, the way that sound dragged her so completely and so swiftly from a haven she had been seeking all her life. But she opened her eyes as he pulled away from her, leaving her feeling vulnerable and abandoned.

The fabulously blonde woman stood tall above them, her hands on her hips, a cross between a sneer and a cruel smile on her face. Her makeup was heavy. Her frame was very thin. She looked like a model, complete with her hair being ruffled by the wind and a halo glow from the sun.

“You didn’t have to enjoy it so much, Sey.”

Sey blew out a ragged breath that touched Winnie. He mumbled something like, “Sorry, Mel,” but it hardly registered with Winnie.

The tears that had built up in her eyes from being so tenderly and sparingly ravished turned very suddenly to tears of bitterness and betrayal as her gaze swept between her unknown kisser and the woman, to the three people who stood back, watching her. Even as she told herself that whoever this man was, he couldn’t betray her because they didn’t know each other, her heart knew that was wrong. He had betrayed her, in the worse way possible.

She’d been duped…again.

When would she learn? her mind demanded fiercely with a verbal and mental whip. When would her foolish heart stop looking for a knight in shining armor? Never, the heart vowed back, even as it was shattering.

The tears tracked down her cheeks in silent streams as she stared at him. His eyes were wild, tinged with something that might have been regret. His face was flushed; his hand shook where it was still against her throat. His lips were swollen, bright red. None of it mattered.

Winnie lowered her eyelashes to hide herself from the humiliation that tore at her heart. It didn’t work. While the eyes and laughter of those around her were bad, it was her own inner self-bitterness that rocketed heat through her, then followed closely with a thin coating of ice that settled deep within her. She bent to pick up her book, then stood, all without looking at him.

She closed it gently, her only friend, and reached for her bag. Don’t look at him, she told herself, but she did. Her eyelashes rose, their gazes collided. She saw his emotions there, but couldn’t bring herself to recognize any of them. She was too busy drowning on her own. That was why she didn’t stare at him long before turning away to leave.

The laugher that chased after her was cruel. But the mental whip struck with a vibrating and bleeding force every few seconds in her own mind, a condemnation of a foolish child’s heart that had never grown up and had never learned.

Copyrighted © 2008 Arden Ashart