9

Azad went out in the night, footsteps crunching the small layer of snow. He huddled himself in his jacket, as he ventured out of campus -

"Azad?"

He turned around; he saw her blonde hair, and it was Rieke, from the drink shop. "Azad! I haven't seen you for a while!" She ran over to him, and her gloved hands caressed his shoulders. "How are you? What've you been up to lately?"

"Oh, I'm in school for film.."

"Voice acting," she said. "Soon, you'll find me in your latest anime releases. In a way, I'm glad we're together again. How I missed you so!" She hugged Azad, and the reality of her hit him, as he'd all but forgotten about those cafe days, when he needed a breather just before school.

"Nice, nice," Azad went, as he glanced beyond her at the dark roads, the lone bus stop. "I'm off to see a girlfriend of mine," he said. "I wish I could stay and chat.." Really, he was glad to have bumped into her, and elated – it lightened his mood to know there was another girl who genuinely liked him.

"Oh, don't let me stop you – enjoy!" Rieke said.

And as Azad went off, he turned around, and went, "I've always loved your drinks.."

"I'm not a barista there anymore. It's full-time studio sessions now, there's animators who need voice talent. But you can catch me on YouTube.. it's StrawbellyCake!"

Azad pulled out his phone, and searching her channel, he added her – she'd brighten his day with her uploads. "Catch you around."

He arrived, unannounced at Amarna's home, with some Chinese takeout just freshly ordered. His gut knotted when the lights were on, and he saw a flash of her silhouette by the blinds. Why did Azad not bother to call? She would probably say she's busy to even chat, that was the feeling he had, and besides, sometimes surprises are nice.

She had left her van outside, it had gathered a pile of snow, and Azad unlatched the gate, and he went up the steps and pressed the doorbell, awaiting her to come down..

A long beat.

The door opened. He saw a shadow come by the door's window refraction, and he half-expected it to be Alex, answering on Amarna's behalf (a dick move) – but it was Amarna herself.

With none of her makeup on, she had a rather plain face, though her blue eyes gleamed just how they did during the summer. She seemed nonplussed by his being there.

"What is it Azad?"

"I just came to say hi, and-" He propped his bag out, revealing the Chinese takeout. "Suppose you needed a nice dinner? We could share it.."

Amarna eyeballed the takeout, where the greasy oil was spilling out into the plastic bag, and she said, reluctantly, "We had dinner a half-hour ago.. but thanks, I'm sure Alejandro would like something more to eat for the night." She took the greasy plastic bag.

Upon mention of Alex, Azad grimaced.

"What?" Amarna sounded more annoyed than concerned.

Azad felt a mounting pressure. Was she really talking to him like that? "What the fuck's with you, Amarna?" he said. "You hardly answer my calls or texts, it's like we don't know each other and some different, bitchier girl has taken your place. What's happened?"

Amarna shrinked away. "I've been busy, Azad.."

"Too busy sucking your young hubby's dick?" Azad's rage boiled over. ".. I get it now. You think I'm too young, I'm wimpy – not a real man enough for your tastes. So you found Ale-handro.. turned him into the hippy guy you want. Fuck that!"

Azad went down the steps, and he kicked the snow into a gust of flurries, swearing in his native Turkish. Soon, Alex came down to see what was the hubbub..

"Azad!" Alex shouted. "Que te pasa, meng?"

"We had a good time together! Happy! Then you came along!" Azad's fit soon gave way to exhaustion, and he was panting, his breath hanging in the frosty air. Recollecting himself. "Where did those good times go?" he asked, more to himself in a whisper. "Where did they go..?"

Something about him struck Amarna; she softened. "Alex, go, I talk with him-" She shooed off Alex, and she put on her winter jacket – she went outside in the cold night to join Azad.

..

"I've been struck by winter," Amarna said, huddling by Azad. "The seasons really get to me – prefer going down south if I can to avoid depression, but for now, I don't have the kind of money for it.."

He remained silent. It felt like flimsy excuses, what she said. Amarna, seeing how deeply she had hurt him – where did it all go..?

"Azad.. I'm sorry."

He looked up at her - his eyes glistening with tears.

"I'm sorry.. I shouldn't have left you in the cold. All those warm, summer days we've spent together.." She caressed his chest. "It lives, breathes in your heart – and mine also. Don't you ever think for a second.. that I've forgotten."

"Why Alex?" he said.

She knew how Azad felt, as it was when she'd been denied love back, from the men she fell for. "Alex is just one more friend from home, and he needs me. His parents don't believe in him, so I look after him, as a sister does.."

Azad – on the inside, he was melting, like the frigid chill didn't matter anymore. "Every day with you will be that of a summer's day, and in that way I envy Alex who you'd look after.. there's so much of you to get jealous about-"

"Come in, you must be freezing.."

From the window, Alex watched them, lit under the house lamps..

"I think I've mentioned it to you, once before," Amarna said, as she showed Azad to her room with the iMac and fluffy bedsheets – both of them wet from the snow. "It's my ex-boyfriend.. Mohammed. he's sent me harassing messages, again and again. It's happened for a while since we went to Madrid.."

"Why didn't you tell me that?!" Azad went. "I would happily ream his jihadi ass to the ground for you-"

"You don't know the whole situation.. he's much stronger than you Azad. If you seriously got involved, he would come after you, and-" Amarna momentarily glanced aside. "I just don't want you to get hurt because of me.."

"Wha- how badly could he hurt me? You know me, Amarna - I'm Azad, I am invincible!" (He said the last part with some jest, flexing his arm.)

"He'll kill you."

Azad blinked. "Kill me?"

"He's made friends of mine disappear for trying to intervene," she said. "If blocking them on my phone doesn't work-"

"Did you block your friends?"

Amarna nodded. "I had to, he threatened to maim them. And my friend, Annie, she tried to step in despite everything, only for her to vanish – I'm pretty sure she'd dead because of him.."

"Fuck that dude, yo!" Azad said. "Well, he's not here now, is he?"

"He doesn't know where I'm at, and I plan on keeping it that way. With Alex.. with someone else speaking Spanish, he wouldn't suspect I've left the country. But now, I'm not so sure.."

She showed Azad all the threatening messages.

"Why not call the police?" Azad went. "They can trace where he's calling from – bam, he dead, he fucked in the ass in prison man, later bitches-"

"I tried everything. He has some kind of blocker.. the police think the calls are coming from all over the world."

".. shit."

Azad was at a loss – he didn't know what to say or do, but he saw Amarna in front of him, this beautiful, fey woman; she was adrift, and he happened to be caught in her wake.. even while he had a goddamn paper to write, and short films to plan out, he wanted to make something of this moment, while he still had the chance.

"Amarna-" he began, "let me save you, please.. Let me love you, let me protect you.." And before he realised it, he was holding her – being a little taller than her. "I'll be here for you, always.. in my heart.."

Amarna was taken aback by his earnestness. She was uncomfortably reminded of Mohammed, but there was a spontaneity which registered genuine; whereas Mohammed's actions were done on purpose, as if calculated to press her emotional buttons – Azad was real.

Slowly.. she burrowed her face in his neck. It felt.. good. She danced her mouth over his throat, up to his cheeks. Azad felt her crawl up to his face, and he closed his eyes.

In that blackness where he saw nothing, he welcomed her gentle kisses, and felt her hands, sliding up under his shirt to his back – sending waves of nervous trembling that jolted his heart. Her tongue left a feeling of enticing wetness, and soon, caressed his lips.

Azad let out an involuntary moan; it was so much to take at once. When his mouth opened up, he expected a gasp of air, but instead found her warm, exhaled breath filling his lungs.. ballooning him with total joy. He didn't want to open his eyes. He just wanted this bliss, shared with her, to last, for as long as it could.

This was love.

In the room, almost motionless, they remained in each other's embrace, across kisses, across all time and space they'd passed by to be here. Their kissing grew ravishly fervant; Amarna was beginning to moan, out of some deep, primal place, and her arms drew Azad into her, more and more, until it verged on suffocation.

Azad peeked open his eyes – Amarna was going full-in on him, her eyes shut, enrapt in passion. She wanted him, and that made his hands go as if on automatic, as he tore off his sweater and shirt, so his bare chest rubbed over her clothed breasts. His head was so lucid from the blood that was flooding his body, with heat, and Amarna looked open, gazed at him in an interval between her kiss, and panting, said, "Dios.. you're really blushing.."

"I am?"

They were gazing at each other now, too close, and saw in each other's eyes a blossoming of lust. Unable to restrain his urges, Azad thrust forward, holding Amarna's hips, and rubbed his groin between her legs, where he felt her pelvis – the rubbing sending surges of joy, to the point where it made him shiver over what was happening.

Amarna felt herself growing wet down there, and as she continued with him, all those thoughts – her worries, her doubts – dissipated away like a reprieve from a bad stuffy nose.

She needed him in her.

Whether the glistening on their faces was from the melting snow, or the sweat, it didn't matter; Amarna had found again that eros itch she'd all but forgotten about – and she would have it scratched for all it was worth. So, withstanding Azad's abs, Amarna undid his pants, and she reached for his erection, her petite fingers feeling through the cloth of his underpants how engorged he was. A sturdy thing.

Azad fought the urge to recoil from how direct she was. The way she gently danced her hands over.. then she took Azad and pushed him back onto her bed, where his underwear was a makeshift tent, and when Azad pulled it off his legs –

He was there; naked, vulnerable – yearning.

Amarna crept in, and when she felt comfortable poising herself, she closed her lips around his tip, and sucked upon it - torquing her mouth before letting go – her teeth clenched. That alone elicited a moan from Azad, and so she gave him another.

And another.

It was like that one summer's evening, Azad squirmed – except this was on another level. Like Amarna was trying to burrow herself, deeper, deeper into his central nervous system, into where it was truly raw, and her mouth, her tongue delivered sensuous jolts, as she cupped his testicles, gazing at him all the while – it was so much, he didn't want it to be over that fast.

As he lay there like that with his head up, she pulled her shirt away, her body carrying some trepidation as she revealed her navel and bra, her form lithe and beautiful. But it was her attentive gaze which caught his eyes the most, as she unstrapped her bra (ever so slowly) to reveal her breasts..

They were naked with one another now, and the air they breathed was pregnant with nervousness. Azad, especially. Melina never gave showed him deeply this realm – he saw her breasts with the rosy areolae, and he went up and approached her, timidly and childlike, and he felt her breasts, her silky skin upon them, and how soft under his touch they were - to Amarna's arousal.

the lady in red
is dancing with me
cheek to cheek

Upon her ribcage, he felt her heart – pounding, fluttering and excited, as his was. Then his touches turned to gropes, as he indulged himself in exploring.. just how soft her breasts were..

("You perv," she said, giggling, kissing him all the while.)

It was a lovers' dance. Azad was feeling her all over, including her derriere – and Amarna, she quivered, and he felt it.

She lured Azad back onto the bed, with her facing up. Silhouetted by the room's lamps, Azad (hands trembling) slid off the last of her clothing, her pink panties, which had been drooled all over by her arousal. And he smelt her, it was a raw scent of her pheromones, concentrated and all, and her vulva with all her pubic hair was there – he panted, and then his face took the plunge into her genitals, where he knew the taste of her honey.

It was more than good. She was exquisite, and he felt his urges swelling far beyond any semblance of control, as he took her vulva, kissing her lips with total adoration, and Amarna..

She felt rememberances of those times when she had Mohammed make love with her, and it was so much to bear, and the pain of what she had to endure over those times.. no, she didn't want to think of that. Azad was a different man, an innocent boy, who she was leading into temptation and the original sin of fucking.

Fucking. Making love. Sex. The motions were basically the same, but the tonality, the feelings behind it were so different, like a music of its own. She was bringing Azad into her private self, this wild temptress, and she let out a piercing scream, as her body wasn't able to keep her ecstasy in, and the feeling had flooded out into all her cavities and extremities, as her legs caved in, almost crushing Azad's head in the midst of her orgasm.

Azad was sputtering, choking. His nose and mouth had verged on drowning of her juices, and he felt it was just about time to enter.. her..

Amarna had gripped Azad by his head, her fingers clenching his hair, fingernails scratching deep, as she tried to come back from heaven to her senses, and she thought of having another – to delight Azad too. It was only fair. She looked up, with a bit of longing desire, at him, and so he went up with her, and they danced.

(dios)

They danced for what felt like a time that compacted itself into a second's immediacy, they danced for a lifetime's worth, until Amarna felt a second wave, surging forth from out of her belly, far stronger than the first, and all her moans crescendoed into a primal scream, piercing out..

(letting go)

Until Azad, in his grunting and efforts, felt an inevitablity whelm him, and his endorphins exploded out from behind that dam – within her, caressed inside, all over..

(let go)

Until they felt.. full, and Azad was quivering with Amarna in syzygy, all of a sudden aware how he was naked, with someone else, but it was alright.. he was still quivering as his pelvis still reverberated, his heart relieving itself from that rollercoaster ride with Amarna.

Amarna was stroking his face, taking him in anew with her eyes, and as their climax had weared away like Cinderella's magical ball, they kissed, innocently as if for the first time again.. a warmth, spreading through them to envelop with a final, lasting bliss.