Deuxième partie

Continued from Causeries d’un Cabochard
Dante closes his eyes, breathes deep her fragrance, and it gets him high, “It is these moments, it is tactile is it not?” He slips around her, hand across her midsection, and he whispers in her ear, “When you can feel the fire someone ignites from deep within. The only action you can muster is to give in to it.”

She sighs as his hot breath slips across her neck, he is like a serpent, Dante’s presence constricts just a little more with each exhale. She can sense his smile, she knew he was adept in any art he could practice, but to the art of seduction, her societal programming told her to resist.

Dante feels the tension and does not stop her as she twirls out of his embrace, she is looking at him, partly afraid and also accomplished. He looks at her, the mess of hair, the crooked smile her body language is like a prey animal who almost got the food it needed and also narrowly escaped being eaten. Fight or flight is an instinct that betrays in this situation, it is a lose-lose, to flee would deny her as much as fighting does. “I am not that easy, I won’t just give you what you want just like that.” she protests. She seems proud of herself like it was some sort of milestone to be achieved, allowing cultural conditioning to delegate one’s choices.

Dante chuckles, “Easy? No, my dear, I do not suppose you are.” He approaches a window, “Being proficient in something is the ability to take hard tasks and make them seem easy. The effortless nature is not a byproduct of the looseness of your integrity, but the mastery of mine,” Dante gazes into the courtyard, the jasmine, scotch, and cigarette dancing madly on his tongue. “Being easy is to just give into wants of another, I never propose this, what I seek is to deliver you a carnal experience your human animal needs. It is like the air we breathe and water which sustains our lives, delivering needs to each other is never a bad thing. Society has organized itself in such a way that this one need is treated like a luxury, a want, which is detrimental to the animal humans truly are.” He turns towards her, taking a step forward. “Now if I may continue,” he stares into her eyes, “The casual observer would claim your eyes are jade marbles, but this is shallow and untrue, they are a lagoon, a cold steely blue, golden lilies dance at the surface, the senses lie to the casual among us. Even this is too superficial for me, the rule of attraction is backward to me in this regard, we covet first with our eyes says the rule, however, I covet first what is within. That spark of freedom from commonality, that little light in you that keeps you here now, that is what draws me in, like a moth to a flame. The idea I can stoke the flame to a roaring inferno that will have you live on the razor’s edge to insanity like myself keeps me here.” Dante smiles at the look of concern rushing across her face. “It is of course with wild abandon I do this, as I will surely be burned by your fire, as it strips away the normalcy, frees you from the cage put inside your mind.” He looks into her eyes, thrilled and frightened, and he caresses her cheek, “but what a way to go.”

“You are insane.”

“I am quite mad my dear,” a wry curl of his lips dances as she steps into him. She closes her eyes as his thumb glides over her lips, they part as she surrenders, and her breath trembles.

Continued at Troisième Partie