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Your Love Is Better Than Chocolate
Your love is better than chocolate
Better than anything else that I’ve tried
Oh, love is better than chocolate
Everyone here knows how to cry
And it’s a long way down
It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down to the place
Where we started from
– Sarah McLachlan, “Ice Cream.”
Sweetheart, come
Sweetheart, come to me
Walk with me now under the stars
For it’s a clear and easy pleasure
And be happy in my company
For I love you without measure
Walk with me now under the stars
It’s a safe and easy pleasure
It seems we can be happy now
It’s late but it ain’t never
– Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, “Sweetheart Come.”
February 2016. Somewhere off the coast of Turtle Island.
“I love the way you taste,” he murmured, his lips just risen from her lightly dampened skin.
“Do I taste like the sea?” she asked, as it was the misty sea air that had dampened her skin. He always tasted like the salty sea air these days, and the taste always made her smile.
“No,” he answered, although in truth she did a little.
“How about strawberries?” She referenced the sweet treat they’d consumed not all that long earlier, sticky pink traces of which were still to be found at various places over her naked body.
“No,” he answered, although in truth she tasted a little of those as well.
“Chocolate?” They’d needed some melted chocolate to go with the strawberries, what with this being a day of celebration and all, and traces of that could still be found on her silky-smooth skin as well. Grissom loooved chocolate; Sara loved chocolate, too—though she had long ago determined its perfect partner was peppermint.
“No, Ms. Sidle,” he answered, although, like his previous answers, this one wasn’t completely true either. “Better than chocolate.” That part was true.
She went in the opposite direction, though; she took a 180-degree turn in her questioning. “How about the decay of rotting flesh, Dr. Grissom?” She hearkened back to their many years spent investigating the worst that humanity had to offer.
“No,” he answered, quickly and emphatically, while laughing.
“A garbage dump?” She followed a similar line of inquiry.
“No, my beauty, you certainly don’t taste like a garbage dump.”
“Lemons?”
“No, honey. I think it’s been a while now since you’ve had to bathe with lemons.”
“Oh, is it honey?” she asked—as always, searching for a clue.
“Nope, not honey, though you are at least as sweet.”
“Oh, you charmer,” she teased. “Perhaps oranges?” After some consideration, she’d returned to citrus—and recollections of the fresh-pressed orange juice he’d served her along with her special lemon-ricotta pancake breakfast that morning. She thought back to the fresh, tart but sweet juice that had dribbled down her chin that morning, after she’d stolen half an orange; the fresh, tart but sweet juice he’d licked off her chin that morning, after she’d stolen half an orange; the way he’d continued licking down, down, down her body—tart but sweet—that morning, after she’d stolen half an orange. . . . They never could seem to finish making pancakes all in one go.
“No,” he answered, although he’d often observed that she smelled faintly of creamsicles—a scent created by the intermingling of her bath products, a distinctly Sara scent, a scent he did in fact love, though of course not as much as he loved Sara herself. “It’s not oranges either.”
Still reflecting on their mornings’ activities, she remembered the way he’d leaned in to capture the intermingled maple syrup and freshly whipped cream that had gathered at the corner of her mouth while she ate her pancakes. “Maple syrup?”
He silently shook his head.
“Whipped cream?”
He shook his head again.
So she returned her thoughts to their more recent celebratory indulgences: “How about champagne?”
He lightly pressed his lips against hers, sucking a little on her lower lip, swiping his tongue along for good measure. “You do taste lightly of champagne right now, my little vixen, but that’s not what I meant either.”
She paused for a minute to consider her line of questioning before resuming her cross-examination. “Is it just my lips, baby?”
“What’s that?”
“Do you only like the taste of my lips?”
He looked vaguely confused. The first champagne bottle was empty, the second almost so; they’d both enjoyed imbibing more than just a little of that champagne, both before and after the smearing of strawberries and melted chocolate.
“That’s what you just sampled—my lips. Do you only like the taste of my lips?”
“No, dear. Besides, it wasn’t your lips I’d been tasting when I first made the observation,” he managed to recall, despite the champagne.
“True,” she conceded. “Then you like the taste of the rest of me as well?”
“Of course, Sara. I love the taste of all of you.”
“So you like the taste of my tits?” she asked, the champagne having made her as amorous as it had him.
“Of course,” he said, and he laughed as she wiggled them a little for him, channeling a Vegas showgirl—Sara’s inner Vegas showgirl, who typically came out only with the addition of the aforementioned champagne.
“I supposed that means you better sample them, too.”
“I suppose it does,” he said, as he lowered his head. He sucked gently on one of her breasts, running his tongue over her hardened nipple. He didn’t have long to dwell, so he moved his head to the other side of her chest and repeated his motions.
“Yes,” he told her, lifting his head and trying not to smirk, “I quite like the taste of your tits, my dear.”
“How about my stomach, Gilbert?”
He brought his head down lower then and kissed the pristine skin of her abdomen. He still considered it a small miracle—one of Sara’s many miracles, including the overwhelming miracle of Sara herself—that her skin had remained almost entirely unscathed after her long night in the desert, but here it was, as immaculate as when he’d first tasted it, almost exactly eighteen years earlier.
She watched him carefully as he kissed her abdomen. “And?”
“Yes, I quite like the taste there, too, ma petite puce.”
Her eyes travelled farther down, following the path on which his mouth was inevitably headed. His eyes glinted, as he too already knew the path.
“And my pussy, mon amour?”
“What about your pussy, my sweet?”
“Do you like the taste of my pussy, my love?”
Keeping eye contact with her, he reached down between her legs and swished two fingers below the damp curls.
She moaned at his touch, eager as always for more. “Ooooh, yes, Gil,” she purred slowly, relaxing fully into the pillows behind her, her eyes drifting up to the view above.
After more than a few deft movements of his digits, he brought his fingers up to his lips, licking the taste of her off them. “You know that I do.” He took one more lick, reveling in the sweet taste of her, exulting in the secondhand sugarhigh. “You know that I love your pussy, darlin’,” he drawled, showing sign of his intoxication—intoxicated by the champagne but mildly, intoxicated by her fully and completely.
As always, she’d become overly distracted by the delectable movements of his large but sensitive hands; she tried to recall their topic of conversation. “And does it taste the same as the rest of me?”
“Yes and no, wife,” he said, after some brief deliberation.
She raised her head to look at him as she laughed. “Please explain yourself, husband.”
“Well, sweetheart, the different parts of you all taste different, yet they all taste distinctively of you.”
“And what is that taste? That’s what you still haven’t told me.”
“Love, Sara.” He looked up into the big brown eyes he adored. “You taste like love.”