DISCLAIMERS AND AUTHOR'S NOTES:

	The following story is a work of fiction, entirely copyrighted by
the author.  It may not be reproduced except under the conditions to be
found at the end of the story.
	The content of this story is sexual in nature.  It may be illegal to
read depending on your age and your geographical location; proceeding
past this warning places responsibility with you.  The description of
certain acts in a work of fiction is in no way meant to be interpreted
as approval of these acts in reality.

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	A CANDLE FOR YOU
	by Antaeus Feldspar

	Scott walked along, feeling sodden and exhausted from the
drenching autumn rain. But whenever Ellen, walking beside him,
squeezed his hand or leaned against him as she walked, his mouth
went dry and all his exhausted muscles seemed to fill with some
energy generated by the dark night.  He squeezed back and smiled;
the thick woolen hood of her cloak turned towards him slightly,
and the corner of her full mouth appeared, smiling that rich
smile he'd fallen in love with in just four short days.  The
corners of his own mouth fell, as he remembered once again that
tomorrow she would be going home.
	"Decisions, decisions," she said, as they reached the shelter
of the cottage's screened porch.  "First thing to do is put on
the kettle, but for a bath first or some beef stew?"  She
shrugged off the grey-blue cloak and hung it one of the wooden
pegs. He watched the way her hands combed through her dampened
curls and he sighed to himself.  "I need some warmth, but I'm
also so hungry!"
	"Why don't we fill the bath first, and let it cool while we make
beef stew?" Scott suggested.  "That way neither of us has to get
scalded."
	Ellen turned to him, smiling.  "Good plan, King.  You make the
best plans, you know that?"  She opened her arms and hugged him,
tightly. He hugged her in return, feeling under his palms the
beating of her heart, alive and quick.  When the wetness on his
neck became warm instead of cold, he knew she was crying, and let
her go, to step back and look at her with concern.
	"Nothing, I guess," she said, trying to turn her lips back into a
smile.  "I was just...  thinking that I almost turned down your
offer to come here and recuperate.  I don't know why --" she
broke off and looked away from him, but her hand slipped into his
again and pressed.
	"I understand," he said, folding his arms around her again, and
letting her hair wisp against his lips as he murmured.  "I do. 
I've been there...  to survive the horrible day-to-day -- yes, I
do know, l--" he stopped, just short of saying what he had
dreamed, afraid, of saying.  He felt her cheek pressed against
his chest, and wondered if she could hear his heart pounding as
loud as it seemed to pound to him each time he looked at her.  "I
do know," he said, softly.  "You have to wall out the hopes that
things could ever be better.  Because if you didn't, the longing
could tear you apart."
	She nodded against his chest.  "Oh, Scott," was all she said, and
her fingers kneaded the flesh of his sides as she let out a long
sigh that trembled just a little.  He shut his eyes tight,
because if he remained able to feel her warmth and softness in
his arms, and to smell the delicate scent of her skin, almost
close enough to taste, and to see the rich red of her curls
turned burnished copper by the rain, the longing would have torn
him apart.
	When she sighed and stood again, his arms were reluctant to let
her go, and he had to force them to give her up.  She gave him a
brief grin that looked as scared as he knew his own was, and she
slipped through the door to the kitchen, whispering the words
water and kettle.  He sighed and waited to follow her until his
heart could obey him better and stop beating so foolishly fast.
	

	"Mmmm," she murmured, leaning back in her chair with her eyes
almost shut.  Dreamily, her pink tongue-tip came out to lick a
tiny tendril of stew from the edge of her lip.  "I could have
another bowl and be full.  But that was so delicious that it's so
much more luxurious to stay half-hungry.  Does that make sense?"
	He nodded.  He, too, wanted more of the taste of the warm, rich
stew and yet made no attempt to ladle it into his bowl.  As long
as he could keep away fullness, he could continue to confuse his
yearning with hunger.  She opened her eyes, and raised her brows
at him.
	He nodded.  "Makes sense," he said.  "There's enough there that
we can put the rest away and heat it up tomorrow before -- before
you go," he finished.
	Ellen sat up in the wooden chair.  "Well."  Her voice seemed
introspective, maybe a little distant.  "That bath water should
be at just the right temperature -- I hope."  She stood up. 
"Should I wash the dishes before..."
	"No," he said, "I'll do them.  Have something to do while you're
in there.  In the bath."  As he spoke, one of his dream images of
her floated into his mind, and he hoped that he kept the flush
away from his cheeks.  "Go.  Ah, you go.  I'll take care of the
-- dishes."
	He sighed when she had left the room.  _Smooth talker, you,_
he thought.  _You might as well just have painted it neon on
yourself._  All through the five-day vacation, he had needed to
say it to her but couldn't find the words, and had told himself
that the time had not yet come, had not yet come.  And now, it
seemed that somehow the time had passed, yet he could not say
when that time had been.  When should he have told her?  If he
should have told her?  And what should he have told her?
	"Ellen," he tried, a little falteringly in the silence of the
kitchen.  "Ellen, I..."  He stopped again.  "For such a long time
I've been...  for so long I've needed..."
	He stopped, before he could sound ludicrous or even false to his
own ears.  What had he himself said?  That you locked away
all those things that might be, before they could make it
impossible to live with what had to be.  What could be more
natural, then...  what could make more sense...  than to pack
them up like your sleeping bag and toothbrush, pack them away,
tidy and neat.  He sighed and let his head slump forward until
his forehead rested on the faucet that only poured cold water.
	"Scott?"  Her voice echoed oddly from down the hall.
	"Yes?"  He straightened up and shook the water from his
hands.
	"Can you come here, please?"
	He paused at the partly open door.  "Ellen?  Is it okay...
to come in?"
	She paused.  "Yes.  Please... come in."
	He pushed the door open and found her kneeling on the bathrug,
in a soaked white bra and briefs.  She hugged herself tight,
water beaded on her skin.  Her eyes looked up into his,
and she caught her lower lip briefly between her teeth.  Slowly,
never losing his gaze, she raised one of her arms, letting the
fingertips that brushed across her skin trace a line through the
moisture, and pushed one of the straps off her shoulder.  "Please,"
she said.  "I'm so tired of waiting."
	He felt unreal and hypnotized but knew he was neither as he
walked awkwardly towards her, and stopped and knelt before her.
If this was not real, he couldn't notice the tiny details, like the
way that the flushed pale pink of her skin shone through the eyelet
lace that edged the bra, or the way her lips trembled, or the distinct
dark circles that pressed out against the wet white cotton, or the
way her breath caught hard when he looked up at her again.
	"You've been waiting so long," she whispered.  A shudder ran
through her, and her hand came up to touch, cool and soft, against
his cheek.  "I don't want to wait anymore.  I don't want to lose
this chance with you.  No.  Please."  The hand that had pressed to
his cheek was now gently pulling his head down to her breast, a
breast that was being cupped and lifted up to his mouth by her
other hand.
	As the shape of her swollen nipple slid into his mouth, he closed
his lips upon it with a hungry sob, and the tears leaked out from
under his closed lids.  Her fingers tangled in his hair and each
time she trembled, he felt it through her touch, and trembled
with her.  The water squeezed from the wet fabric ran warm down his
chin.
	He straightened his head and brought his lips to hers, and kissed
her slowly, tenderly.  She pulled at his shirt and worked the buttons
loose, slipping her hands under its edge and squeezing his shoulders
and sides.  "-- love you, love you," he whispered, rubbing his face 
against hers.  "Oh, how I love you..."
	"Oh God," she moaned.  The rain had returned and pounded in waves
against the shaded windows, a staccato beat counterpointing their
rapid breathing.  She clung to him as he moved down her body,
until his lips were kissing and nuzzling the curls that lay dark
curves on the pale elastic of her briefs like tracery.  As his
hands slipped the clinging damp fabric off, sliding it down her
thighs, and as his hot breath warmed her skin and teased her sex,
she ran her hands through his hair and whispered his name.
	He could no longer stop his tears; they fell on the soft skin
of her thighs, and they glistened as wet beads on the tangled
masses of her dark down.  And so, when his mouth pressed hungrily
to her mound, the breath shuddering in his chest, he was tasting
not only her but him.  His tongue and lips licked her tender arch,
and the insides of her petals, and when her thighs convulsively
closed, pressing either side of his face, and she whispered, "don't --
don't... s--s-stop..." a new round of tears seemed to flow from
his eyes as relentless as the rain.
	When she whispered her oncoming climax, and her hips jumped and
trembled within his loving hold, he held her pelvis gently down with
his hands, and let his thumbs part and rub her swollen, hot labia.
He licked at the juices between, and let them wet his tongue as
it travelled upwards, drawing harder and hotter groans from her.  
With lips and tongue he teased her erect nub out from under its hood;
with lips he surrounded it and rolled it from side to side, and
with tongue he flickered again and again in circles around the
tip.  When she shrieked, and cried his name, and her hips lifted up
and thrust themselves out and onto his thumbtips, he licked hard,
trying to match the rhythm that thrust her hips, until she sank back
and breathed hard, the sweat beading on her skin.
	He lay down beside her, watching her tightly closed eyes, the 'o'
of her half-open mouth, the rise and fall of her chest.  She had
not removed her bra, but it hung askew on her chest, hanging
loosely on her shoulders and exposing both flushed breasts.  Her
eyes opened but stayed half-lidded, and her lips curved up into a
smile of satiation.  "Lover," she whispered.
	She guided him, this time.  She unzipped his jeans and slid them
down to his knees, she caressed his bulge under his boxers and
whispered how big he was, how firm and exciting.  She kissed him
deep and hungrily, and rubbed her erect nipples in his chest hair,
and when she had pulled his boxers down to expose his manhood, she
bent and kissed the tip of him tenderly.  She rolled his heavy
testicles in her palm as she guided him between her thighs and 
inside her softness.  When he was fully within her, she held him
to her and used her hands to bring him down as she rolled her hips
up.
	So like -- and so unlike -- all his fantasies of being with her,
of pleasing her, of finding his own release in her.  Her legs
twined around his hips, pulling him in, bringing him closer to
the climax he could already feel swelling deep inside his body.
She smiled up at him and mouthed the words, 'love you,'
emphasizing it with her hands touching his cheek tenderly.  He
had to close his eyes and lay his head down beside hers, hips
thrusting, so overjoyed and scared at the relief of the ache in
his body and the ache in his heart being eased by the one lovely
woman.  He gasped and arched his back as his climax throbbed into
her; her arms wound tight around his waist and held him in.

	THE END

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