a favorite haiku
by Pares


If she could have been said to have had expectations, Teyla would have guessed Rodney to be excitable and likely to climax first. This was not in fact, the case. Rodney moved quite slowly, even carefully. He held his hands out in front of him, as if it were necessary to reassure her that he held no weapons, before he placed them against the curves of her ribcage, dipping his head to set a kiss to the flat plate of her sternum. His warm forehead and soft, short hair brushed the skin between her breasts, and she felt both a prickle of anticipation and a thrill of tenderness. She stroked his shoulders, and then drew the backs of her fingers along the angle of his cheek, and he lifted his head, eyes wide, and drew close to kiss her, his mouth sweet and wet, but not at all urgent.

This unsettled her somehow, to have Rodney so deliberate, his large hands splayed against her body, his knees a slightly sweaty pressure against the insides of her spread thighs. It further surprised her that he did not speak. She would have expected many words—descriptions of how long he had wanted this, perhaps, or of her beauty, or even boorish self-congratulation that he had at last lured her into his bed. Should there not have been eager promises, nervous declarations, or at the very least pushy demands of action, impatient directions? And while Rodney's voice did not reach her ears, his deep, fast breath and his expressive face said many things.

Kissing her again, one hand cradling the back of her neck under the curtain of her hair, he teased her nipple with an almost absent motion, the backs of two fingers brushing against the pebbling flesh—not quite arousing, but almost annoying. Distracting her from the gentle flicker of his tongue against hers. When he drew away, she tugged on his shoulder, wishing him back again, but he leaned up on one elbow and rather delicately prodded just the tips of two fingers of his free hand into the wet swell at the join of her thighs. His eyes met hers, and it was plain that he was studying her reaction, and waiting for permission to proceed. Smiling, she stretched her arms above her head, luxuriating in the comfort of the bed, in the promise of satiety, in the warmth of his skin against hers, and bent one knee, bidding him entry.

Those two stroking fingers glided against the swollen lips of her nima and his other palm settled on the low hill of her sex. For a long time, he seemed content to stroke her lightly, gently, with aimless passes of his fingers. With no focused pressure, Teyla found herself relaxing against the heaped pillows at her back, dreamily enjoying the subtle pleasure without thought to anything more. She had shared the beds of three members of the Lantean expedition, and those experiences had been focused on sexual satisfaction rather than loveplay, so she did not suppose that Rodney's overtures were "typical" of a Lantean's sexual practices—as much as that could be said of any human coupling on any world. When he did bend his head to nose at her curls and lip gently at the hooded flesh of her attar, she tempered her own urge to buck at the sudden intensity of sensation and found her smile widening. She carded her fingers through Rodney's hair before taking the hand that was currently curled around her thigh. Without looking up, he gave her fingers a warm squeeze, his other hand spreading her wider, so he could stroke her with the flat of his tongue.

Again, he kept his touch light, dabbling, and a spreading warmth settled in the entire saddle of her pelvis, filling her with a delicious lassitude shot through with the bright promise of a truly shaking orgasm. Eventually, Rodney lifted his head. His mouth looked soft and swollen, his lips wet. He smelled like sex, warm and raw, and he wiped his chin with the back of his hand before guiding it back between her legs, this time to glide two fingertips against the sensitive flesh he had lavished so much attention on with his mouth. Rodney's face was avid now, and she realized that it was only a reflection of her own expression, that he was watching her feel him, and she made an effort to keep her eyes open, so that he could see how he was affecting her. When he increased the speed and pressure of the pads of his fingers, focusing now on her attar, she tightened her thighs and shuddered as the pleasure began to tighten and build. She could feel it like a fist of golden light in the base of her belly, echoing against her bones, and just before the fist opened to spread its fingers and send that sweeping surge of completion singing through her, just as she tilted her head, arching, she felt Rodney shift above her, balancing on his arms, his round thighs heavy and fever-hot against her own, the thick wet drive of his ket sliding inside her, exactly right. And now she had a moment of perfection, the sensation of fullness to lock against, what she had needed to make the orgasm ring through her like the peal of a temple bell, and she bucked beneath him, giving a little glad cry of laughter as she hooked her ankles at the small of his back and took him.

END

title from "Japan", by Billy Collins



Japan

Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.