...of all Possible Worlds - Chapter Eight
My second visit to the Owner's Club was much different from my first, mostly because I felt much more relaxed, much more confident in myself. I'd repaired my makeup in the car and it hadn't been so bad, just my lipstick had been terribly smeared from sucking Mr. Reiser's cock and then kissing him hard. I fixed it and brushed my hair. My only complaint was the semen trickling from my asshole as I walked into the plantation house, but I have to say I enjoyed the sensation of my rectum filled with my owner's seed. I think it gave him pleasure as well, to know that I was well-fucked and soiled beneath my gorgeous evening gown.
I kept my head up as we took the grand staircase to the second floor, unafraid to meet the gaze of other black women who in the company of their white masters. I was the most beautiful girl there, or so Mr. Reiser told me and I believed him. I felt confident for the first time in my life and enjoyed the feeling immensely. I didn't even flinch beneath the eyes of the white men who looked at me, some of them quite openly and others with a more subtle and polite regard, but all of them with obvious interest. I'd return their gaze, only for a second or two, and then drop my eyes as a negra should, but not my head or shoulders. Unless you've been a beautiful woman in the company of men, you can't know what a powerful thrill such a thing really is.
Mr. Reiser took me dancing first and I wasn't very good at it, but that hardly seemed to matter. The music was live, coming from a dozen black musicians, and they were playing classical music, like waltzes and old ballroom music arranged for strings. The tempo was slow and deliberate and romantic. The women there were older, most of them, and dressed nicely, many of them evidently as spoiled as I was. This was Southern society at its best so far as I was concerned, the wealthy white men who ran the city and half the state, enjoying their black mistresses. We deserved to be spoiled and I couldn't stop smiling as Mr. Reiser held me close, patiently teaching me how to dance while other couples swept around us gracefully.
"I wonder if this isn't the real reason for slavery." Mr. Connelly, who had recently been the state Solicitor General, drawled lazily. "This, right here. A bunch of rich old men who love young and pretty black girls."
Mr. Connelly smiled at the boy who was sitting very close and rubbing the old man's cock. The black buck was several years younger than me and certainly no girl, but no one was going to say anything. There were half a dozen men seated loosely in a comfortable drawing room, the Marigold Room as it was called, and they all had boys close by. I was the only slave who truly looked like a girl, but many of them were pretty and the room was dedicated to owners with a penchant for such toys. This was that part of the Owner's Club where the married men brought their male lovers and these owners shared a certain intimacy with each other, a secret that seemed wholly unlike the larger and more socially acceptable reason the club existed at all.
"It's a good enough reason for me." A man named Taylor laughed and he owned a bank. He sat on a loveseat with a very attractive young black man and they would whisper back and forth.
"If apartheid is going to exist beyond the twenty-first century, we've got to support our friends in Africa," a man started saying.
"Boo…Who invited the lawyer?...More brandy!" The other men waved at him and held up their glasses and cigars so that the waiters would come quickly with crystal decanters and long wooden matches.
"The Germans are making a fine mess of it, aren't they?" another man seemed to agree, and I had a difficult time following the discussion anyway. Politics bored me terribly.
"More champagne." Mr. Reiser told a waiter, and my glass was refilled as we sat together on a sofa near a large fireplace.
"They make a mess of everything," the first man agreed, nodding. "The world's policemen, eh?"
There was some laughter at that, but everyone was hard on Germany for whatever reason, and I suppose it's because they'd been the world's only real super power since the end of World War II. Even though they were our ally and biggest trading partner, there would have to be a certain amount of jealousy.
"First Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq, now the Sudan." An older man with a neat beard and long sideburns shook his head. "They took care of the Jews, but those Muslim bastards are a different breed altogether."
"You think they'd learn, eh?" General Steed, who was a large, swollen man with a scarred face, spoke up. "They can put a swastika on the moon, but they can't put one in Mecca."
"Ahhh…It's good for business anyway, let them fight." Connelly shrugged and there was general agreement. "So long as they keep the oil flowing, that's all that counts."
"Got yourself a new negra, I see." A younger man, whom everyone called Nathan took a seat close to us and spoke with Mr. Reiser. "Very nice. They catch that runaway yet?"
"Not yet," he replied, and I looked up at my master as I sat beneath his arm arm. "I'm sure he'll turn up though."
"You've had a few runaways now," Connelly chuckled. "You must be one of those cruel owners I hear so much about."
"Heh!" Mr. Reiser laughed. "I must be."
Such comments made me very curious as I hadn't known my owner had any other slaves. Not recently, at least, but it wasn't a topic I could involve myself in. I had to sit quietly, sipping my champagne and looking beautiful. So far as these men were concerned, the other slaves and I were little more than furniture in that respect.
"You don't whip 'em enough," Taylor decided. "I strap this boy every day, rain or shine. Don't I, boy?"
"Yes sir." His companion smiled at us. "Master Taylor straps me good every morning come sunrise."
"This nigger was born for the strap." He smiled and pressed a hand against his slave's cock, squeezing him through the loose pants he wore. "Gets him hard just thinking about it."
"Gets you hard too, eh?" someone joked, and Taylor laughed.
"Goddamn right it does," he said. "In fact, if ya'll will excuse us for a short while, I believe I'll sodomize this nigger on the balcony. Some fresh air might do him some good."
"Fresh air is overrated." Connelly laughed. "Get on the floor, boy."
The old man was speaking to his own slave, who couldn't have been fourteen yet and so I thought the boy must have been slaveborn. He was an angelic half-breed, with light brown skin and kinky blonde hair, but he had dark eyes and African features. A small, broad nose and thick lips that the boy soon wrapped around his Master's hard, white cock while we watched. I watched anyway, but most of the others had the good grace to ignore it, or at least pretend to. It seemed obvious to me that all the men there were aroused, including my own Master who played his fingers lightly across the awkward tent spoiling my dress.
"What are you going to do when they catch that nigger of yours?" a distinguished looking gentleman with a long, sharp nose and soft blue eyes asked Mr. Reiser.
"After rehabilitation?" My Master shrugged. "Take him downstairs, sell him off. I don't have much use for a runaway."
"He was a pretty one, as I recall. Creole, wasn't he?" Connelly wondered. "Like my boy here."
"Creole, yeah," Mr. Reiser said. "His mother was whore down in Orleans, a white woman who liked the dark meat."
"French?" Nathan asked, and there were some chuckles.
"All the whores in Orleans are French, aren't they?" Mr. Reiser laughed. "She sold that boy for food stamps."
"Ought to be a law against that." Connelly grinned.
"There is," the long nosed man replied. "Against prostitution anyway."
"But not in Orleans!" General Steed laughed. "Thank God for that."
"Prostitution and gambling." Connelly shook his head. "That city is the very garden spot of Hell."
"Orleans? A man needs a place like that. I took my wife there for our anniversary." A man I didn't know entered the conversation, leading a boy my age by the hand. "I didn't see her for three days. We had a great time."
"Heh." The men laughed at that and most of them had their cocks out, letting their slaves jerk them off, or suckle them while they talked.
Mr. Reiser didn't stop me when I opened his trousers, shifting my body so I could bring my mouth to his cock. He stroked my hair and hardened quickly for the third time that evening. It would be a long while before I could make him cum probably, but I gathered that orgasm wasn't the point of this at all. It was slave owners relaxing and enjoying the luxury of being fondled and sucked off in public, in front of their peers as if it meant nothing at all to them. Such a thing existed beyond reason anywhere else in our culture, and most of them would have been shocked and outraged at such behavior in another place and time. But right then and there it was perfectly normal and engaged a wholly separate cultural identity for those men.
To us slaves, it meant very little. I'd suck and fuck my Master wherever and whenever he wanted me. The paradox of slavery is that it grants a level of freedom from responsibility no citizen could possibly hope to enjoy, or so I'd been taught in school and I believed it. Why wouldn't I? To accuse me of such a crime would be like blaming an automobile for speeding.
"Oh ho, gentlemen!" A man's loud voice interrupted the conversation, and the sex. "Does anyone want a piece of this negra cunt?"
I looked to see a large, forty-something man dragging a naked black girl behind him on a leash and collar, weeping as she crawled on her hands and knees. She was black, obviously, and had recently been whipped. Her back, ass, and thighs were criss-crossed with angry welts, red and white and raised upon her dark skin. She had semen leaking from her raw pussy and anus, and her once pretty face was sticky with cum, her thick black hair matted and soaked with it as well.
"Runaway?" General Steed asked.
"Just returned from rehabilitation," the master agreed. We could see the branding on her left breast when he had her kneel upright for closer inspection.
"Where did they catch her?" Mr. Reiser asked.
"In the back of a van, going through the border up in Louisville," he answered. "This negra and half a dozen more. Some abolitionist from New York or some such place was driving."
"They got him locked up?" Connelly wondered, and the man nodded.
"He'll be on the block."
"Black boy?" someone asked.
"Yeah. Northern nigger wanted to free his oppressed sisters." The man chuckled and jerked the leash hard, forcing his slave back onto her hands as she lost her balance. "Are you feeling oppressed, bitch?"
"N-No Master." She shook her head, answering in a weak and watery voice.
"I'm breeding the slut now, so if any of you fine gentlemen want a shot at her nigger eggs…" He shrugged. "Or any other part of her, be my guest."
"I'll take a run at the whore," the long nosed man agreed. Without much ceremony he pulled his cock free of his boy's sucking mouth and moved to mount the girl from behind.
"I have a dozen slaves, she's the first one that ever run off." The man stood there watching his slave get fucked hard. "Ungrateful bitch. Had her since she was just a baby too. It just goes to show, you can't trust a negra to be anything else but."
"It's a hard lesson," Mr. Reiser agreed, pushing my mouth back down on his cock and lowering his voice. "You've seen enough."
This brought on another round of discussion about slaves and runaways and how none of us could be trusted. I didn't listen too much as I tried to close my ears to the sound of the girl crying while she was fucked. The man doing it was large and trying to hurt her, I thought, slamming his prick inside her hard and then pulling nearly all of the way out so he could do it again. I concentrated on making my Master feel good, sucking his penis the best I knew how in the hope that it would prove beyond a doubt my loyalty to him. I wasn't like that bitch and she was getting what she deserved anyway. I just didn't want to have to listen to her complain about it.
"Ughhh…There's another half-breed bastard for the army!" The man fucking the girl laughed and pulled his cock out a moment later, wiping it off on her ass and then in her hair as if it was a towel. "Next!"
Three of the men there fucked her, all of them cumming inside her pussy, and happily for me, Mr. Reiser hadn't wanted her. She would have stained his cock and I already felt jealous enough, silly as that sounds. I didn't want to share my Master with anyone and I felt very glad he had no other slaves besides myself and Mercy. That would have been bad enough, but I found the idea of him fucking a runaway negra like that one especially repulsive. I had my arms tight around him the whole time, nursing on my owner's cock without pause until the other master finally led his rehabilitated bitch away.
"That's enough for a little bit," he told me. I'd been sucking him a long while, over half an hour, I was sure, and he wasn't going to cum, but my jaw ached.
"Mmmm…Yes sir." I licked my lips, feeling them swollen and my tongue was strangely weary, overworked and thick. Conversation went on around us, but I paid it no mind and neither did my Master.
"Drink more champagne," Mr. Reiser said, smiling and stroking my face with his fingertips.
I nodded, reaching for my glass and finding it didn't taste as good now that it had grown warm. I was thirsty, however, and I drank it anyway so that a waiter could refill my glass with cold champagne, and that was much better. I drank a lot of it, and quickly too, which made my Master chuckle. He warned me to slow down, with a kiss on the cheek and small hug as I snuggled closer in his arms.
"Where do you find a boy like that?" a man wondered, leaning towards us in his chair.
His name was Mr. Simpson and he was another lawyer. His slave was a young boy of twelve or thirteen years, I thought, and dressed as a girl in a black skirt and white blouse. He was cute and doubtlessly very sweet, but not entirely passable, even at that tender age. He had a boyish face and the slave would never look like anything but a nigger in drag and his master knew it.
"I got lucky and…" Mr. Reiser said, pausing as a waiter lit his cigar. "Thank you. And one of my managers had her picture on his desk. I made a comment about how pretty she looked and the man told me she was his son."
"Is that right?" Simpson smiled and his eyes were all over me. "That's one in a million right there."
"You can't make one." My Master nodded sagely. "Sissy negras are born, that's a fact."
"Want to sell her?" the man asked, apparently serious, and I swallowed hard.
"Oh, bad form!" Connelly laughed. "Bad form, old man!"
"I had to ask. Christ doing cartwheels, can you blame me?" Simpson asked, grinning at the older politician who only shook his head. "How much?"
"You know what they say, don't you?" Connelly lifted his slave's face from his cock and stroked the boy's cheek gently. "If you have to ask, you can't afford it."
"No, you can't afford this one," Mr. Reiser agreed.
"Well, name a price, let's find out," Mr. Simpson insisted, bad form or not.
"Heh." Mr. Reiser looked at me and I had a lump in my throat, feeling not a little afraid that he really might sell me. "A million dollars?"
"What?" Simpson laughed and everyone chuckled.
"One in a million, right?" My Master grinned at me. "That's what you said."
"Yeah, okay." He shook his head and took a drink of his bourbon. "How about a dance with her then. Will you afford me that much charity?"
"A dance?" Mr. Reiser shrugged. "I'll trade her for your boy there, an hour let's say." He looked at his watch. "And then I need to get her to bed."
"I bet you do," one of the other men chuckled.
"An hour it is," Simpson agreed quickly, standing up and gesturing to his slave to rise as well. "You're generous to a fault, Sir."
"Probably." He smiled, pushing me me gently off the loveseat. I tried not to frown or show my reluctance, but it wasn't easy. I didn't want to leave Mr. Reiser or see him with another slave, or most especially spend an hour with Mr. Simpson, who wasn't an ugly man, nor old, but only not my Master.
"Come, my dear." Mr. Simpson held out his hand and I kept my eyes down, smoothing my dress briefly before I took it.
Behind me the boy in the skirt had already taken my place. I looked away as I saw Mr. Reiser feeding the young sissy his hard cock.
"I'm going to take you to the ballroom, I think," the man informed me, pulling my right arm under his left, with both of his hands wrapped around mine.
"Yes sir," I agreed, because there was little else I could do as we walked away.
He guided me towards the grand staircase which occupied the center of the mansion and beyond it, on the same second floor we were on, I knew lay the ballroom where I'd danced with my Master earlier. Mr. Simpson led me up the stairs, however, to the uppermost floor of the manor. I glanced at him uncertainly, but was afraid to ask where the man intended to take me.
"I need a room," he told an elderly black man standing behind a counter, and I suddenly realized that this was very much like a hotel of sorts. Or a brothel.
"Of course, sir. Number four." The servant produced a key and actually smiled at me, and I felt my cheeks burning.
"This way, Darling." Mr. Simpson continued to hold my hand with his right, but his left hand slipped behind me, to my back at first, and then down to feel my ass, groping me while we walked along a well appointed corridor.
"I thought, um, we were going to the ballroom, sir?" I said softly, and the man laughed.
"We are, Darling," he teased me. "We're going to ball, don't you worry about it."
The room wasn't far and Mr. Simpson unlocked it to reveal a bedroom and private bath. Two bedside lamps glowed soft and warm and it was a nice bedroom to be sure, with a large brass bed and comfortable furniture, but a room with only one purpose in mind. It had been decorated in salmon and scarlet, and stained wood paneling, with a mirrored ceiling above the bed. A portrait of a naked girl dominated the wall behind it, a young black girl, nude and posed erotically. I felt as if I were in a bordello, or at least how I'd always imagined one to be.
As soon as the door closed, Mr. Simpson tried to kiss me, taking me in his arms and pressing his hand to my crotch, wanting to feel my hidden penis while his lips found mine. I think he wanted to assure himself that I really was a boy, as that's what he liked best about me, the way I gave no proof of my real sex otherwise.
I wasn't ready for his kiss though, it took me by surprise and I truly didn't want that intimacy from anyone other than Mr. Reiser. So it was without any thought or intention on my part that I turned my head instinctively, pushing at the man for just a brief second in my surprise, as if I would try to run from him. In reality, I would have given in to him, of course. I knew I was a slave and I knew my place, I only needed a few precious seconds to remember it and allow my good sense to overcome my surprise.
Unfortunately, Mr. Simpson didn't allow me that luxury.
"You fucking whore!" He took my rejection badly and slapped me hard across the face. "Think you're too good for me, boy?"
I was stunned, black spots dancing in front of my eyes and although Mr. Simpson had used the flat of his hand, I felt as if he'd punched me in the temple with his fist. I almost collapsed as he grabbed me by the hair, dragging me to the bed and throwing me face down upon it.
"I'm…Sorry…No sir!" I said quickly, apologizing and wanting to explain. I tried to tell the man that I was willing to do whatever he wanted.
"Faggot negra bitch!" He growled and I felt so frightened that I did move, if only to avoid his anger, but not fast or far enough to get away. It didn't take him all that long to remove his belt anyway.
"N-No…P-P-Please…No!" I felt my eyes fill with tears as he held me down easily with one strong hand in the small of my back.
"Shut up, cunt! Pull up your dress…Lift it…Over that fine ass of yours…Higher…Higher!"
I wept, looking at him over my shoulder, begging him not to punish me, but knowing he was going to. I had no choice but to do as he asked, tugging at my beautiful dress, pulling it up my legs and thighs and higher, squirming slightly to expose my bare butt to him.
"Don't you fucking move!" he told me, and Mr. Simpson had his thin leather belt doubled over in his right fist already.
He strapped me hard, bringing that cruel belt down repeatedly across my ass and thighs. I strained to remain still, gasping at each stroke and jerking with a sob when they landed like tongues of fire lapping at my flesh. Mr. Simpson was panting and the sound of leather on my skin was sharp and distinctive. I gathered the bed sheets in my fists and in my mouth eventually, biting into it as I should have screamed with pain otherwise. I'd never been whipped like that before, although this wasn't a real whipping at all; I lacked experienced enough to know the difference.
How long Mr. Simpson beat me, I have no idea. He did it until he tired of it, I know that, the last strokes coming weakly and without the man's earlier fervor. He took me then, undressing quickly while I shook with my pitiful sobs. My ass and thighs burned on the surface and ached inside, feeling bruised and swollen all the way down to my bones.
He straddled me quickly, naked now and pressing his cockhead to my anus. He kissed my hair and wet cheek even as he thrust his cock inside me hard, splitting my asshole easily as I was still wet with Mr. Reiser's cum. I lifted my head at the painful intrusion, although just feeling his hairy thighs and pelvis against my raw and oversensitive skin seemed much worse just then. His body felt like sandpaper over an open wound and I writhed painfully beneath the man while he fucked his prick eagerly inside me.
"Oh, you sweet fuck!" he breathed. "I've never had a million dollar negra before! Fuck me with that ass!"
Mr. Simpson enjoyed raping me quite a lot and his cock wasn't overly large, but extremely rigid, hard like steel as it stroked in and out of my rectum. I didn't enjoy it any more than I'd enjoyed being raped at school that morning, but I was helpless and resigned to restore the white man's good will. I desperately sought the strength to fuck him back, to move my ass for him and stop my tears from running down my cheeks. I'd deserved my whipping, I knew that, and I had to be better than I was. I wiped my face at the damp sheets, sniffling and turning my head.
"Fuck me…P-Please…It feels…Good…" I whispered, lying because I wanted to please him.
"You like that big cock, huh?" He nodded and kissed me again. This time I didn't reject him, but gave the man my lips readily, letting his tongue fill my mouth, and I offered him a low moan to show my pleasure.
It was a deception, but a necessary one and no different than what any other girl would have done. I made all the sounds Mr. Simpson wanted and expected to hear, moving my body despite the pain to give him as much pleasure as he could take from me. I was fucking him and being fucked, letting the white Master have my body to appease his lusty desires.
"I'm going to cum…Fuck…Cumming…" he groaned, forcing himself inside me one last time, his cock pumping sperm into the depths of my tight hot ass.
"Ohhh God…I feel it…Yes! Cum inside me!" I squeezed my ass around him, rocking my hips as if I was cumming as well. I moaned and reached back with my hands, caressing his neck and hair and panting with open lips while Mr. Simpson strained to complete his orgasm.--------------------------------------------------------
"He tried to kiss me and…" I looked down as we waited for the valet to bring Mr. Reiser's car. My car. "I wasn't ready. I just…I didn't want him to kiss me, but I would have. I swear, Master. I was surprised is all."
"And that's why he strapped you?" Mr. Reiser asked me and I nodded slowly.
"I knew he was going to do it. Have sex with me, but a kiss…I'm sorry, Master." I felt very ashamed of myself. "I don't want anyone to kiss me but you."
"Men will always want to kiss you," he said, just as the car arrived, and we didn't talk about it further.
Mr. Reiser had me undress when we arrived in our bedroom and he examined my backside in the bathroom. I had welts, he said, but they weren't bad. The belt hadn't been able to break my skin at all, but I felt very sore and there was some slight bruising. He massaged some ointment onto my ass and thighs and it felt good, very cool and soothing. He washed my asshole as well, which seemed a peculiar thing for my Master to do, but he washed me thoroughly nonetheless. He used a rubber suction bulb with a long, soft nozzle to wash me inside with soapy water and then extract the remains of my evening's sex. It left me refreshed and clean, and I was very grateful for it.
"I want you to carry condoms with you at all times," Mr. Reiser told me as we lay in bed with the lights off.
"Yes sir," I agreed, holding myself close to him. We were both naked beneath the warm sheets.
"The next time you disobey a white man, I'll have you tied to a whipping post," he said. "Understand?"
"Yes sir." I swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, Master."
"I'm spoiling you. That's my fault, but don't test my patience," Mr. Reiser said softly. "I didn't give you to that man so he could whip you."
"Yes sir," I repeated. "I won't forget."
I understood him to be very unhappy that I'd been whipped, but not at Mr. Simpson. It had been fully within his right to punish me the way he had. My owner properly placed the blame for what happened on me. I was property and now I'd caused damage to his property through my foolish behavior. I was very ashamed of myself and I think he sensed that, but it wasn't enough and I felt as if I should have been punished more. If I'd been Mr. Reiser, I think I should have whipped my slave and made her sleep on the floor, but for whatever reason, my Master continued to indulge me and that only made me all the more desperate to please him.
I kissed his body tentatively as we lay on our sides facing each other. Mr. Reiser didn't stop me, but neither did he encourage me. I kissed his chest and found his left nipple with my mouth. I sucked him lightly at first and then harder, bringing my left hand to his shoulder, caressing my Master as I pinched his nipple between my lips.
"Mmmm…" he sighed. "Bite it."
I felt my heart leap at those barely spoken words. I used my teeth to nibble and then chew Mr. Reiser's nipple so that it became swollen and the skin around it puffy as he pulled my mouth harder against him. My owner wanted it now, he wanted to feel it rough and he encouraged me wordlessly to work his nipple until I was afraid I would draw blood from his taut skin. I moved to the other as he rolled onto his back, pulling me to lay atop him. I spread my legs and straddled his thighs as I continued to kiss and bite his right nipple now. My girl cock had grown stiff and my Master's penis was lengthening as well.
He didn't want to fuck me though, Mr. Reiser was happy to feel my balls and penis riding over his. We were moving together, sliding our cocks together so that I could feel my penis stroking along his hot shaft. It was sexy and wonderful, making love that way, without any real penetration. Precum leaked from both of us, covering our swollen organs and adding a wet, slippery sensation to the warmth of our flesh. I chewed his nipple hard, as I had the other one, until it too was thick and distended, standing out from the swollen flesh surrounding it. Mr. Reiser's nipples would be dark with love bites for days afterward, I knew, and that made me happy. He'd be reminded of me as they itched during the long days he would spend at work. He'd miss me and what we were doing right then in the dark.
I moved slightly as his hands found my ass, gripping me hard. I gasped as my skin was still very sore and I shivered at that rough treatment, but my Master was unrelenting and he held me tight, moving me as he desired so that we were fucking with our cocks trapped between us. My long hair fell loose into the man's face and we kissed. I offered Mr. Reiser my tongue, letting him suck it between his lips and play upon it with his own. I moaned and felt my orgasm imminent, telling him breathlessly that I was going to cum. He didn't let me go, but only held me tighter, lifting his hips and working his larger cock against mine.
When I came, it was sudden and welcome. I cried out, moaning into Mr. Reiser's mouth as my hot semen pumped from my penis to cover his cock and stain our sweaty bodies. It was thick and oily between us, and a moment later he was cumming as well, joining me in that sublime pleasure of making masturbatory love. We continued kissing for a long while, both of us growing soft and lazy, no longer moving our hips or legs, but only our hands and tongues.
I moved to get a towel and dampened a washcloth with warm water so that I could clean my Master. He was already asleep by the time I returned. I cleaned him carefully and kissed his flaccid cock before pulling up the sheets and slipping into bed beside him, pressing myself close and whispering my love before I closed my eyes.