第68章

He took her in his arms again and drew her to him,and suddenly she became small in his arms,small and nestling.It was gone,the resistance was gone,and she began to melt in a marvellous peace.And as she melted small and wonderful in his arms,she became infinitely desirable to him,all his blood-vessels seemed to scald with intense yet tender desire,for her,for her softness,for the penetrating beauty of her in his arms,passing into his blood.And softly,with that marvellous swoon-like caress of his hand in pure soft desire,softly he stroked the silky slope of her loins,down,down between her soft warm buttocks,coming nearer and nearer to the very quick of her.And she felt him like a flame of desire,yet tender,and she felt herself melting in the flame.She let herself go.She felt his penis risen against her with silent amazing force and assertion and she let herself go to him She yielded with a quiver that was like death,she went all open to him.And oh,if he were not tender to her now,how cruel,for she was all open to him and helpless!

She quivered again at the potent inexorable entry inside her,so strange and terrible.It might come with the thrust of a sword in her softly-opened body,and that would be death.She clung in a sudden anguish of terror.

But it came with a strange slow thrust of peace,the dark thrust of peace and a ponderous,primordial tenderness,such as made the world in the beginning.

And her terror subsided in her breast,her breast dared to be gone in peace,she held nothing.She dared to let go everything,all herself and be gone in the flood.

And it seemed she was like the sea,nothing but dark waves rising and heaving,heaving with a great swell,so that slowly her whole darkness was in motion,and she was Ocean rolling its dark,dumb mass.Oh,and far down inside her the deeps parted and rolled asunder,in long,fair-travelling billows,and ever,at the quick of her,the depths parted and rolled asunder,from the centre of soft plunging,as the plunger went deeper and deeper,touching lower,and she was deeper and deeper and deeper disclosed,the heavier the billows of her rolled away to some shore,uncovering her,and closer and closer plunged the palpable unknown,and further and further rolled the waves of herself away from herself leaving her,till suddenly,in a soft,shuddering convulsion,the quick of all her plasm was touched,she knew herself touched,the consummation was upon her,and she was gone.

She was gone,she was not,and she was born:a woman.

Ah,too lovely,too lovely!In the ebbing she realized all the loveliness.

Now all her body clung with tender love to the unknown man,and blindly to the wilting penis,as it so tenderly,frailly,unknowingly withdrew,after the fierce thrust of its potency.As it drew out and left her body,the secret,sensitive thing,she gave an unconscious cry of pure loss,and she tried to put it back.It had been so perfect!And she loved it so!

And only now she became aware of the small,bud-like reticence and tenderness of the penis,and a little cry of wonder and poignancy escaped her again,her woman's heart crying out over the tender frailty of that which had been the power.

'It was so lovely!'she moaned.'It was so lovely!'But he said nothing,only softly kissed her,lying still above her.And she moaned with a sort Of bliss,as a sacrifice,and a newborn thing.

And now in her heart the queer wonder of him was awakened.

A man!The strange potency of manhood upon her!Her hands strayed over him,still a little afraid.Afraid of that strange,hostile,slightly repulsive thing that he had been to her,a man.And now she touched him,and it was the sons of god with the daughters of men.How beautiful he felt,how pure in tissue!How lovely,how lovely,strong,and yet pure and delicate,such stillness of the sensitive body!Such utter stillness of potency and delicate flesh.How beautiful!How beautiful!Her hands came timorously down his back,to the soft,smallish globes of the buttocks.Beauty!What beauty!a sudden little flame of new awareness went through her.How was it possible,this beauty here,where she had previously only been repelled?The unspeakable beauty to the touch of the warm,living buttocks!The life within life,the sheer warm,potent loveliness.And the strange weight of the balls between his legs!What a mystery!What a strange heavy weight of mystery,that could lie soft and heavy in one's hand!The roots,root of all that is lovely,the primeval root of all full beauty.

She clung to him,with a hiss of wonder that was almost awe,terror.