The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Tongues of Fire

Previously: "The Light of the Planets" 

(based on a chapter originally by imaj)

The Crystal Cave, a trendy coffeeshop directly across the street from the university, in the same building that houses Arnholms' Used Books, would normally be outside Melody's budget. But Joe is buying and this is where he wants to come. The lone barista mopping the floor shoots you both a dirty look but you ignore her. Joe, meanwhile, seems to have only eyes for you.

"Melody," he says as you settle at a table. His smile widens. "They say that's what a pretty girl is like."

"Is like what?"

"Like a Melody. Or was that too cute of a come on?"

If it was a come-on, it baffled you a little. "I don't get it, but it sounded like a compliment."

He shrugs with embarrassment, and fiddles with the little metal card holder that stands in the middle of the table. Each of the ten tables has one: a stand with a metal ring, slid inside which is a card with an strange symbol on it. "You wouldn't be a music major, would you?" he says.

"No," you reply. "Anthropology for now. I want to be an archaeologist."

His eyebrows go up. "Then you should have got my 'pretty girl is like a melody' reference. It's old enough. My dad's in his sixties," he adds with a wry grimace. "I grew up with a lot of pop culture references that no one gets these days." He shrugs again, and seems even more embarrassed than before.

"It sounded sweet," you repeat.

"You know any languages?" he asks, and relaxes onto the table with his chin propped in his hand. "If you're studying to be an archaeologist, you should."

"Ein paar."

"Oh!" His eyebrows go up again. "Die sprache von dichtern, philosophen, musikern, und wissenschaftlern," he says with a fluidity so natural it could belong to a native. "Wenn ich das gewusst hatte, hatte ich darin gesprochen, als wir uns das erste mal trafen. Du hattest mich also als das erkannt, as ich bin."

This is a little much for, and can only glean that he would have spoken German to you on first meeting, if he knew you knew the language.

"Je vais mieux en francais," you reply.

He looks puckish.

"N'est-ce pas tout le monde," he replies. "Meme si l'on n'est pas techniquement correct, cela semble mondain et sophistique. Et comme si on faisait l'amour," he adds with a wicked grin.

"Nunc gloriaris."

"Habeo causas bonas."

"Der mewred aan akea chewtewr?"

His expression briefly falls. "That's not one of mine," he says.

"It's not really one of mine either," you admit. "But I was getting desperate. What's your major?"

"Undeclared."

"You should do something with languages."

"I should, but I'd have to find something fun to do inside one of them. Besides charming pretty girls. It's Saturday night. Were you going to a party or coming from one?"

"Neither," you confess, and briefly the shadow of your session with Blackwell falls across your spirit. "I was working."

"Du bist ein ernstes madchen."

"Nicht wirklich. Nein, ich bin."

He reaches out with his free hand to lightly touch the tip of your nose.

"Tout le monde devrait avoir quelqu'un qui leur apporte du plaisir."

"Proposez-vous de faire du benevolat?"

"Je demanderais le poste, et je vous laisserais la decision."

Pourquoi, you would ask, but you are afraid he would read it as reluctance—even a rejection—on your part, and not the prompting of your lack of self-confidence.

"If you want to give it a try," you tell him in a small voice.

His smile widens as though he were trying to embrace the world with it.

* * * * *

He was very quick to get you to this point, but now he moves very slowly. For two hours—until the barista shows up to glower down at you—you talk and talk only, of shared interests and unique experiences. He listens with a warm but relaxed interest as you describe your—that is to say, Melody's—interest in early medieval Europe, and he asks intelligent, probing questions about life in post-Roman France and Britain, tentatively offering his own impressions about the time period for you to weigh and correct. But he is also at certain points able to offer direct observations of his own, for (he says) he has been to Germany and Italy more than once, to visit family friends, and describes with a vivid and appreciative vocabulary the sights in Cologne, and Prague, and Florence. You slip in and out of multiple languages as you talk, and he gets to tease you for knowing too little Italian, and no Polish at all—both languages that he is conversant in. When you finally demand to know how he came to know so many tongues, he shrugs and says that his father was a great traveler in his day; that he knew and still knows many interesting people from around the world; that these were constantly trafficking in and out of the house when he was growing up; and that ... well, he's apparently got an underlying talent for them.

Not once, though, does he touch you, until you are resigned (and also relieved) at this being only a "getting to know you" first date. Possibly an only date, for Melody (and you, who have gotten a good look at her from the outside) is realistic about her looks. Her skinny frame, intense gaze, and hawkish nose are far from conventionally attractive. And Joe, you are sure, could have his pick of college girls.

So it's both a surprise and a thrill when, on leaving the coffee shop, he casually slips an arm around your waist and palms the side your hip. It seems a protective gesture, as he wards off an oncoming car with his free hand as he hurries you across the street back to the campus, but he doesn't withdraw his arm after you are safely on the other side.

And when you pass under the shadow of a tall wall, he leans over to quickly kiss you on the side of your neck. Your assumed flesh thrills all over.

For what seems like an hour you linger with him against the wall of your dormitory, in the shadows between two bushes. He keeps you gently pinned there with his body, but touches you with only one hand—placed on the side of your abdomen—as he softly kisses you at the throat and the chin and the cheek, and finally on the mouth. You kiss him back. Oh God, I'm making out with a guy! you exclaim to yourself. But it feels so good that you can't stop yourself, and your guts are soon a maelstrom of ardor. You feel as though you are about to pee—or have already peed—yourself, and you feel little electric shocks all through you.

But how long can this last? you sadly think to yourself. And could I fight him off if he wants to go further? Then: Do I even want to fight him off?

"Je suis vierge," you confess with tremble.

Without missing a beat, he kisses your ear and replies, Que veux-tu que je fasse a ce sujet?"

Your loins quiver harder. "Et si je disais non?"

"Je crois aux invitations," he murmurs, "pas aux occupations. Aber," he adds as he puts both hands to the sides of your hips. "Ich plante eine langsame einkriesung, keinen blitzkrieg."

But then his right hand drifts over to thrust itself between your thighs, and you nearly jump out of your skin as his forefinger wedges atop your pussy.

"Sag mir," he growls into the side of your throat, where his teeth are lightly playing. "Brennt Paris?"

It is, as though the very flesh there had turned molten.

* * * * *

You are woken the next morning by the rattle of cups. But you are half asleep at you flop over in bed to see what the noise is, and when you find that you have it all to yourself you are for a heart-stopping moment entirely crushed. He didn't stay!

But he did, as you realize after you've got your eyes open and your brain out of first gear. Joe is at the sink, beside the refrigerator, filling two coffee cups.

He is clad only in boxers, but these are so small and tight you can make out almost every curve of his trim, tight buttocks. His thighs are strong and well-shaped, and his torso (as you confirmed last night when he got his shirt off, is smooth and tight and well-muscled all over, from the shapely pecs down to the smooth six-pack.

What you didn't see last night, by the dim table-lamp, is how his skin is an even, golden brown all over, and it glows from beneath with an almost ludicrous health.

"One's black, the other has milk and sugar," he says as he pads the few feet back to the bed. He sits first on the edge, then bumps you over so he can slide on next to you. "I didn't know which way you take it, and I can take it either way. That's what he said," he adds with a grin.

"Black," you reply as you sit up to take the cup. Once you have it, he slips himself under the sheets with you. "I'm not going to be worth anything today."

"Aw, rough night?" he teases, and kisses the side of your head. "Someone keep you up all night?"

You begin to shiver all over again: It's a thrill at having him touching you again; a fear that he will leave and you'll never see him again; and an underlying horror at making out with a guy all night long. You even cradled his naked balls and helped him to cum!

Your own virginity is still intact, thankfully. He was as good as his word, and though he probed and kissed "the suburbs" as he called them, there was no penetration of any kind. When you fell asleep, it was across his warm, bare chest, with him actually snoring softly into the top of your head.

"What are you going to do today?" he asks.

"Catch up on classes."

"I thought you might have to go in to work again. Where do you work?"

Next: "Getting to the Root of Things" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"