XX. Endings and Beginnings

XX. Endings and Beginnings

Russ and Inanna spooned each other amongst the big soft billowy covers of the king sized bed they lay on while the moonlight spilled across their bodies from the window. Neither slept. Inanna’s thoughts raced with images of the Tree of Life dying and of her father’s intentions while Russ’ mind filled with Lucifer’s plans, Lilith’s anger, and his very own personal problem growing between his legs threatening to make its presence known to Inanna’s backside.

The night seemed to drag along, heavy with the day’s events, things fought in their consciousness and a need yet to be satisfied. For as surely as Russ wanted Inanna – she wanted him in the same way. She moved closer against his body to feel his warmth radiating on her back. He wrapped his arms around her waist tightly and pulled her into him aware that she would “feel” him. Russ nuzzled his nose into her neck and took in the scent of her hair and skin, Inanna turned slightly toward him to feel his breath dance slowly along the soft curvature of her shoulder.

“Not sleepy?” Inanna said in a deep sensual voice.

“No – not at all,” Russ breathed.

Russ ran his hand beneath her tank top and across her stomach as he planted small lingering kisses from the nape of her neck down to the cuff of her shoulder. His hand moved slowly in a circular pattern beneath her shirt toward the fullness of her breasts. She moved out of the spooned position to lay on her back and put an arm behind him to cup the back of his head as a small sigh escaped her lips.

“Can I?” Russ spoke softly into her ear.

Inanna nodded a slow but certain “yes” with her eyes closed as she bit her bottom lip. She lay one of her long soft and supple legs on top of his and his hands and fingers caressed her breasts and nipples. She found the bottom of her top sliding up towards her neck then over her head. Once free of it she turned her body towards Russ then slid over on top of him resting her warm softly glowing skin on his. The moonlight moved in angular lines across her back as a small breeze blew in from the window scenting the hotel room with the sea. Russ’s hands moved along her back squeezing and gripping as his lips danced with hers.

A thought entered his mind. She had teeth. He froze in place for a moment and trained his eyes on hers. She could see the thought in his eyes and the fear that arose in him, she quickly put it away.

“I’m not hungry”, she breathed in a whisper towards his ear while planting small wet kisses on his ear lobe.

Russ ran his fingers through her hair and continued to hold her gaze. His heart beat spoke the words his lips could not.

“Please, let me.”

Inanna nodded then kissed him fully on the lips. A look passed between the two of them. Her eyes let him know that he would not be harmed and that he would leave intact. He accepted this. His strong hands slid down the length of her back towards the top of her panties while his lips pulled and suckled at hers.

He rolled so that his body was now on top of hers with his face buried in the curve of her neck – he breathed in the perfumed body wash she used scented with jasmine and rosewater. The fragrance of her skin flowed through him, it intoxicated him. He didn’t just want her, at that moment he needed her. His need sped up his pulse, thrummed in his chest, and grew into a throbbing between his legs. Her legs relaxed and widened to accept him. He felt her hands push at his boxers to free him of them. He felt her hips writhe beneath his as a woman’s body does when it wishes to speak flesh to flesh, skin to skin. He heard her breaths stagger and watched as her eyes closed tightly when he gave the slightest push against her pelvis then listened to her words.

“Don’t tease me.”

Russ pushed himself up on his knees slowly kissing her neck and the tops of her full breasts as he went. His hands moved with ease down the sides of her body towards her panties then pulled them off, his eyes took all of her in. They roamed over her glowing caramel skin and watched as the soft light accentuated her eyes, her breasts, her hips, and one of her long legs that rested so comfortably against his chest. He kissed her calf up to her knee while bending forward to plant a kiss on her lips.

She pushed his boxers down off of his waist, sitting up to assist him and he caught her hands gently to let her know, he would do it. She lay back down and watched as he removed his boxers then stretched her legs on either side of him to make a place for his body to comfort him and accept him. Before laying with her, he glanced down to see that her parts looked just like every other woman’s privates he’d been with, well-groomed but the same.

He rested his body on hers then kissed and suckled at her breasts while he took and armful of her legs and a handful of her buttocks. Their skin wrestled with each other. He rode the waves of her body as he entered her tight and warm places. She trained her breathing as she sought to tame her body to his.

This wasn’t just lust that passed between them, but a genuine affection for each other. He was not just delivering thrusts to her body for his pleasure but a passion to get to know all of the woman she was. Her returns weren’t just sexual responses out of the act but a most intimate communication to let him know what she felt. The deeper he stroked within her the more provocative her body’s language became. The more she moaned and writhed beneath him, the clearer her message was.

The moment was approaching. She not only felt her flood gates opening but she felt another set of gates beginning to open as well.

It had been a long time for her, she’d taken her pleasure with men in other ways, this way as well but those were feedings. This was something more, something deeper and more intimate. Her body liked his, it fit the form of him naturally. His arms held the right amount of strength for her body. His lips the right amount of softness and his hips the right amount of pressure for her pleasure. Inanna tightened her body around him causing him to pause and take deep breaths. At times he found himself unable to move and biting back throaty screams due to her grip. Sounds he’d rarely heard from his own mouth escaped his lips. Not high in pitch but for his range, high. He spoke to her. Recounted her beauty and yes even made a promise all out of love, the love they felt at that moment and forged between them. No longer strangers but lovers.

Russ’s face flooded her eyes. They glowed a soft amber in her sockets as if light had been set on them. She looked into him and found a beauty no one else could see and it drove her passion for him. Each of her returns of his thrusts meant something. She wasn’t just taking, she was giving. Not of her body but of her being. She was gifting herself to him. Not of the body but of her spirit.

Their pleasure grew with intensity. Russ lost himself within the folds of her arms and body, he felt himself being drained and replenished all at once. Inanna felt her release come smooth and free. Release of her inhibitions, her worries, and her essence. She gripped his back tight at all of his pressure points as the kisses that passed between them intensified. He pulled her into him and pushed into her strongly so that she knew of his consumption.

A moment was upon them. The moment.

It had become known to her within the midst of her pleasure in the depths of intimacy that the gates were open. The Gateway. She was the gateway and it was only opened for the sake of love. It never needed to be spoken of only felt and experienced and love was there.

Only for the purity of love and there was enough love between them at that moment to open the gates to the Garden of Eden.

Inanna’s body shook as her climax rose from deep within her. Her breaths became short and broken. Russ’s focus on her was unbreakable. All of his attention was on her and very little on the state of his body. He felt it well up within him and while he had no intentions of stopping it, he wanted her to go first.

His strokes became longer and deeper until he felt her shudder beneath him and felt lightheadedness within himself. They both let go at the same time. She spoke in a language he didn’t know. It sounded incoherent to him – words Russ didn’t quite understand and something happened.

Just as Russ finished, his body moistened with sweat both of his and hers, he saw a spark shine as he opened his eyes. This spark of light shone from the center of her body and flared out into an all-encompassing light. Russ found himself unable to move out of shock and because Inanna held him still. It wrapped around them both, pulling them into each other.

Inanna spoke in that dual tone he heard her in voice when she was in her natural state.

“Do not be afraid – we go now.”

While it was hard to fight the fear- he understood that he was not about to be eaten but to be sent.

The light enveloped them both and Russ found himself merging painlessly into Inanna’s body. Not evaporation but a submergence into the light flowing from within her. He noticed that she, her form also became a part of that light. That light filled the hotel room and poured out of the windows of that room. It slid beneath the door then spilled out into the hallway then the two became one.

In the hour none noticed save for the homeless drunk laying in the sand with his eyes towards the hotel. He looked to his bottle of rum then back to the light flaring out into the night. He tossed the bottle and decided he was never going to drink again.

Eve of Eden once stood in the very same garden before a different tree in the Garden. She stood before the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil then. Russ and Inanna stood before the Tree of Life bare of their clothing hand in hand with their eyes stretched toward the fall foliage of the Tree. There was something different about it now. It no longer bled.

Its wound was sealed. The Tree and everything in the garden were now in autumn. Russ and Inanna stood before the tree as did the first man and woman did in the garden.

A world away…

Lucifer and Lilith walked in the great Tower of Babylon hand in hand. At its center – a black crystal condensed with every known and unknown living thing in Hell hovered over a black pool of the darkest souls not fit for Earth or Hades. Inside the crystal was disease multiplied, famine was endless, and war raged between the bodies of lust, greed, and vanity. Pain thrived eternally and life was death. Lilith and Lucifer both reached out and held the stone in their arms as if they were cradling a newborn. They looked on to each other – with individual plots for the destruction of mankind glowing brightly in their eyes.

“Babylon was the first”, Lilith said smiling devilishly at the crystal.

“Eden will be the last”, Lucifer breathed in his angelic repose. The skies over the Tower of Babylon swirled with dark masses at a maddening pace while they prepared to change the shape of universe for all eternity.