22
...I walk to the horizon and there I find another, it all seems so surprising, and then I find that I know... Anywhere Is (Enya)

	The new school year brought the usual complaints from Rose about teachers and students, even as she started in a new environment: the pirhana pit known as junior high.  The school was only ten blocks away from the apartments.  That, plus the fact that the school day was over a good half hour earlier than at her last school, meant that Rose was usually home before 3:30 every day.  Most days, she didn't even go by their apartment first; Marjorie never got home from work before 5:30, which meant that we usually spent the afternoons together.  When Rose would come breezing through the clubhouse door, if she was certain nobody else was around, she would sing out, "Hi, honey, I'm home!" and then wrap her arms around me to give me her sweet lips.  It was just like being married, and homier than anything I had known with Lilly.
	Rose wanted to start preparing dinner in the afternoons.  Prior to this, the evening meal for her all too often had been whatever simple thing Marjorie had the energy to fix after a long day at the office; mac and cheese, frozen pizza, sometimes just cereal and toast, or the occasional burger and fries from a drive-through on the way home.  Rose was learning things in her Life Skills cooking class that she wanted to try out.  She also wanted to show she was appreciative of her mother's energy being taken by her job, and she wanted to show Marjorie some of that appreciation by taking over meal preparations.  The fact that the clubhouse kitchen was twice as large as the kitchen in their apartment, more room, more utensils, two ovens, three sinks, pretty much everything she could have wanted, made it a natural that she would want to work there.  Well, that and the fact that I was always right there helping her out.  Many nights we stood side by side in the kitchen, peeling potatoes or frying up rice, boiling noodles or stirring sauces, whatever Rose could think of to make dinner a little more special.  It felt like we were an old married couple, doing the household chores together, sharing life in a way that had somehow escaped me during my time with Lilly, and my heart throbbed with the unfamiliar feeling of domesticity.  Yet one more way in which my tender little flower brought me bliss.
	Following the meal preparation, Rose would leave me a third of the food and take the rest home, and she and Marjorie would have their time together, after which Rose would do her homework (if she had any, which she usually didn't, or if we had neglected it during the afternoon) and then head back to the clubhouse for her evenings with me.  Usually it was movies or TV, cards or Scrabble or swimming, but we always left at least the last half hour for lovemaking behind the locked door of my room.
	That was the way we spent almost every weekday evening, for the first few weeks of the school year.  Eventually, Marjorie managed to browbeat me into stopping by their apartment to share supper with them at least once a week, and then I usually stayed around for awhile after supper, sitting on the couch to watch TV with Rose on one side and Marjorie on the other.  Occasionally, Marjorie had to busy herself at the kitchen table with work she had brought home, and Rose and I took special pleasure in slinking down into the couch cushions, below Marjorie's line of vision, to steal a kiss every now and then.  More often, though, Marjorie joined us on the couch, and then I had the unusual sensation of a slight resentment of Marjorie's presence preventing Rose and I from cuddling, mixed with a pleasant lassitude at finding myself ensconced between the beauty that was my lover and the beauty that was her mother.  Marjorie usually had a mixed drink in hand, and I took to sharing a drink with her; and occasionally, her hand would stray to my knee, to rest there for perhaps five or ten minutes, before being withdrawn.  I'm not entirely sure Marjorie was always aware she did this; it seemed somehow like force of habit, or perhaps a familiarity she had never learned to give up.  Whatever the reason, I never remarked or acted on it.  The first few times it happened, Rose and I exchanged significant glances, but then it just seemed to become part of the evening, and nothing noteworthy.  Dinner, small talk, TV, hand on the knee, and at the end of the evening, Rose would walk me back to my room for a few sweet nothings, then race home and try to get into bed without having to speak to Marjorie (so that my voice would be the last thing she heard before going to sleep; sigh).

23
...Back in the classroom, open your books, the teacher don't know how mean she looks... School Day (Chuck Berry)

	At first, Rose had been worried that moving up to a whole new level of school might be more difficult than what she was ready for.  After the first few days, though, she came to realize that in a lot of ways, seventh grade was actually easier than sixth grade had been.  Her class was made up of a blend of students from several different elementary schools, and the curriculum had been to geared to the lowest common denominator.  She found her assignments (in everything but algebra) to be a cakewalk, and it wasn't very often that she wasn't able to complete her work during the school day.  Sometimes she got so far ahead that she had time to sit in class and observe the other students.  While her descriptions of the other kids in class were always hilarious and we shared hearty laughs over her witticisms, one or two kept me nervously guessing.  In her American Literature class, a boy named Ben seemed to be particularly adept at insulting Mr. Malkin (the teacher) without Malkin's appearing to understand he was being twitted.  In Computer Skills, it was Javier, a quiet dark-skinned guy who sat across the aisle from her and who seemed to always be giving her sideways glances whenever she looked over at him.  It is a hard and bitter thing to hear your lady love talk about other men, especially when you're doing your damnedest to appear nonchalant while your heart is on a taffy-stretcher.
	Having caught up to Brittany and company, she found they at least didn't object when she spent every lunch hour at the same table with them, eavesdropping on their stories about boys trying to get into their pants and the ways they kept them at bay (or gave in, depending on which girl was talking and which boy she was talking about).  Sometimes she was content to just listen, she said, but sometimes she was dying to tell them, to recount some of her own exploits, just to feel like part of the group, to be able to share that rapport with them.  At the worried expression on my face, she just laughed and said, "I'd never do that to you, Jack, I know it has to stay a secret, I swear it always will.  It's just that sometimes, I feel like I'm going to bust open if I can't tell someone about my lover and how good he makes me feel.  I'd even be one up on them, because all they ever do is complain about their boyfriends being rude and rushing them through things, and not doing anything to make THEM feel good, and I want SO BAD to tell them that I know how a real gentleman acts, that I have a lover who makes me feel like the most precious thing in the world, who rocks me until I can't breathe.  I've thought about telling them, you know, just being vague enough so they wouldn't know who I was talking about, but then I thought, no, that just sounds like a pretend lover even to me.  It could only be worth it if they believed me, believed I've done the stuff they talk about, the blowjobs and stuff, and I could make them SO jealous when I tell them about how much a REAL man LIKES to eat pussy, and then they'd have to meet you in person so they could see what I'm talking about."
	"Angel, I wish I could oblige you.  I think it would be fun to help you out like that, it would be a blast to see Brittany's face when you introduce me as your lover, I'll bet that would give her a nasty turn."  What I'd heard of Brittany made me think she was a stuck-up little whore who knew how much power she had over males and didn't mind exercising that power.  It was fun to think of her being deflated by Rose, when she learned of Rose's power over ME.  "But then Brittany would tell someone, and..."  Rose put her little hand on my mouth to tell me that she had already been through that in her head and that it was okay, she knew it had to stay secret.  What the hell.  Tiffany was probably well-known as a cumdumpster anyway, it would be her word against Rose's (and mine, I suppose), and as far as I knew, Rose and I hadn't done anything to make anybody else suspicious; but I just couldn't risk it, couldn't risk tearing us apart like that.
	Rose's schedule for the year included the usual mix of classes.  I noticed that her English Literature class, scheduled for the spring semester, was being taught by the same teacher that she had this semester for American Literature.  I learned from Rose that the G in G Malkin was for Garry.  I also learned that Ben's penchant for messing with this teacher included subtly mispronouncing his name (maudlin, makin', mulekin) to see if Malkin would notice or rise to the bait. Either he hadn't caught on or was just too intimidated to deal with it.
	Apparently, when Malkin made an assignment for his students to write a paper about an author, he didn't confine the choice of author to ones they had discussed, but threw the entire category open for choice.  Rose wondered if, during her English Literature class with him, when she selected Lewis Carroll as the subject of a paper, whether she might be able to just recycle her "Alices" paper from last year.  She had gotten an A+ on it, and was intrigued by the idea of claiming two grades for one paper, but a little worried over whether that was ethical.  I don't think I was corrupting her by telling her there wasn't anything wrong with it; her thoughts on the books, I said, wouldn't have changed enough in one year to justify writing a whole new paper.  We were in the alley behind the Dairy Suite on Gannon when we had this discussion, and my opinion on the subject earned me a sloppy milkshake kiss that ended up with both of us having ice cream all over our mouths and chins.  We were laughing so hard over it that we couldn't get back on our bikes for five minutes.

24
My heart is on fire, my soul's like a wheel that's turnin'... My Love is Alive  (Gary Wright)

	October moved in with a flourish of dry leaves, yet the nights were still warm, warmer than the season warranted.  Marjorie had to leave town.  Her job was preparing to migrate to a whole new system of doing business, and her employer was sending a group of ten employees to some 3-day class in Atlanta to learn the new system, scheduled for the week after Rose's 13th birthday.  The class was Monday through Wednesday, but to get a cheaper airline fare, the company had purchased tickets on a flight leaving the Friday night before, so they'd actually be gone for five days.  Marjorie fretted over it for a long time; she really wanted and needed to go to this class, but she was worried about leaving Rose alone.  She actually came to see me, to ask if I would mind staying at their apartment to keep an eye on Rose while she was out of town, she'd make it worth my while, and I was to feel free to sleep in her bed and use their car while she was gone.  I almost begged her not to put the responsibility on me, I was so worried about the possibilities of loose talk by neighbors, of our secret being discovered.  But in the end I kept my mouth shut, and agreed to stay with Rose; who, when she learned of this arrangement, actually knocked me over with her excitement and joy, knocked me flat on my backside while she jumped on me, rubbing my hair and squealing, "OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGOD, we are gonna have so much FFUUNN!!!"  With enthusiasm like that to draw on, I soon lost any nervous edge I might have had over the whole thing.
	We drove Marjorie to the airport.  While we were waiting for her flight to be ready, she fretted and fussed over Rose, nervous and out-of-sorts at having to leave her.  Just before she boarded, she turned to me and, with a nervous flinch or three, put her arms around me so she could put her lips up to my ear.  "You take good care of her, Brent," she whispered, "I'm giving you charge of the only thing in my life that means anything."  I wanted to tell her I knew exactly how she felt, that Rose was the only thing in my life that meant anything, too; but I settled for just promising to take very special care of her, grimacing a little inwardly at the dichotomy between what Marjorie would understand by 'very special care' and what I actually intended.  With a nervous smile, she turned and walked down the ramp with the rest of the passengers, pausing just before turning the bend of the ramp to wave at us.  Rose and I waved back, and then she was gone from sight.  We watched as the plane took off, getting smaller and smaller until it finally vanished into the fading afternoon.  Even after the plane was completely gone, Rose and I just stood there side by side in the lounge for a long time afterward, savoring the weirdly mixed taste of freedom and responsibility, knowing the night was completely ours to do with as we chose.  Eventually, we stirred ourselves out of our reverie and headed back to the car, walking very close but not touching, hearing each other's breathing in the still autumn night.  When we were about 50 feet from the car, Rose's hand sought and slipped into mine, our fingers locking together, the slightest hint of moisture beginning to form in the hollow between our palms.  We glanced at each other briefly, then took another look, and another; and by the time we were at the car, we were gazing openly into each other's eyes.  Rose wrapped her arms around me and slipped her hands down the back of my pants.  Shocked, I looked quickly around the lot.  Apart from an older couple that was threading their way through the rows toward the terminal, we were alone.  Bending over Rose, I put my mouth on hers for an exchange of breath and saliva that felt like a handful of seconds, but in that handful was an eternity of promise.  We got in the car, and with my hand on Rose's knee and her hand on the back of my head, rubbing and scratching my scalp, we drove in silence to Flinger's, where we parked at the very end of the lot, just behind the fenced-off dumpster.  As we sat there watching the final rays of sunset fade below the horizon, massaging each other's thighs and savoring the delicious, heady feeling of having the night ahead with only Marjorie's call from the hotel to worry about, Rose leaned over and laid her face in my lap, her sweet mouth covering my crotch with it's tender warmth.  As I was gently kneading her buttcheeks under her panties, a group of teenaged boys came ambling over, to climb into a car parked two spaces down from us.  My heart was pounding an insane rhythm in my chest, but I couldn't stop what I was doing, or warn Rose to stop.  Rose could tell something was wrong, and as she sat up to look out the window, the car full of boys slid past us.  A couple of them seemed to be looking right at us, and I was certain they'd seen Rose's head emerging from my lap; but the car just kept on moving, out onto the frontage road and into the night.  Rose and I exchanged a significant look, but neither of us said anything more about it.  Our meal was a little more subdued than I'd have wanted, but before it was over, we were back in our old familiar patterns, laughing and joking and swatting each other on the arm like the old pals we'd always been.  Rose wanted one of the dessert menu's oversized creampuffs, boxed up to take with us for later, and I felt so good that I left a 5 dollar tip for an 18 dollar meal.
	Back at the apartment complex, we pulled up and parked in Marjorie's usual spot near the back of their building.  I told Rose to go on in, that I had to get something first, then I'd be right up.  With a look of quiet joy, she nodded vigorously (did she know how weak I got at the sight of her ponytail bobbing up and down like that?), then bolted up the steps two at a time, pausing at the landing to look around.  Assured nobody could see her, she blew me a kiss, then whirled to skip down the hall to her apartment, the styrofoam container with the creampuff tucked under her arm.  I hustled over to the clubhouse, where I stuffed a condom (from the box I had bought especially for this night) into my left pocket, grabbed the bottle of rosé wine that I had hidden at the back of the refrigerator, and retrieved the 13 roses and vase from the closet where I had hidden them the day before, after having picked them up at The Little Flower Shop next to Sav-Rite.  Rose had left the door to the apartment standing open, and as I stepped inside and shut the door with my foot, I got a powerful whiff of Nag Champa incense, and the sound of the campus radio station's nightly jazz program reached me from somewhere further back in the apartment.  As I sat the wine down on the kitchen counter, Rose came in from the hall.  She had changed into what I assumed was one of Marjorie's nightgowns.  It was a little big for her, a little baggy, but made from a shimmery and almost-but-not-quite transparent material, with a slit all the way up past the hips, and it was through this slit that her leg and bare hip emerged as she walked over to me.  She had applied perfume; a dainty daub, not the bath she took the night she came back to me, but the lightest little dab behind her ears, on her shoulders; a trace on her creamy tummy, a brush under her tender, tender rosebud breasts?  She took the roses from me with a gooey sweet smile smeared all over her face, her hands shaking at the unaccustomed, implied weight of such a gift.  "OhmyGod, they're so beautiful!" she cried, stroking the petals and burying her nose in the middle.  Feeling like my smile was going to reach all the way around to the back of my head, I told her, "That's just the same way I feel about you.  Sorry it's late.  It's 13 roses, for your 13th birthday."  As she hustled over to the sink to fill the vase with water and arrange the flowers, she saw the bottle of rosé on the counter.  Her priceless expression will be locked in my head forever.  "Not a lot," I cautioned, wanting to be careful to manage her expectations, "just enough to feel it.  You remember what I said about tonight?"  She nodded solemnly.  "Magic," she breathed, and I breathed back in agreement, "Magic."
	While I opened the bottle, Rose got out a couple of plates and split the huge creampuff between them, licking the whipped cream off her fingers with an impish grin.  I poured a couple of glasses and handed her one.  We sat on the couch, our plates and glasses on the coffee table, and for the first five minutes or so, we just sat there gazing at each other, gently touching each other's hair and faces.
	Rose had had burgundy before, so she was prepared for some kind of burn when she took her first few sips, but the rosé surprised her anyway.  She said it made her chest cold, but then about 30 seconds later, she felt like it was burning.  She downed the glass and asked coyly if I thought she could risk just one more.  How could I say no?  She took her time with the second glass, savoring the interplay of wine and creampuff, and in the process teaching me anew how to appreciate such things.  She smeared a blob of whipped cream on my neck, then slowly and teasingly licked it off.  I retaliated by smearing her face and cleaning it off the same way.  More little tendernesses, trifles, tidbits we exchanged like almost-careless gifts, until we were laying full out on the couch, our hands exploring with greater urgency now.
	The ringing phone startled us both.  Pulling away from me, Rose answered and found it was Marjorie, calling from the hotel in Atlanta, letting us know she had arrived safe and sound.  At Marjorie's request, Rose handed the phone to me.  "Brent, thanks again, you don't know what it means to me to have you around.  You're such a sweetheart, you really are a gift from God," she said, and I could tell that if she said anything more, she was going to start crying, so I wound it up and handed the phone back to Rose, who snuggled up on my lap to finish the call, her face against mine as she gently caressed my cheek.  A minute later the call was over, and Rose returned the handset to it's cradle with a slow and thoughtful expression.
	I slipped out from under her, then stood and scooped her up in my arms to carry her down the hall.  When I hesitated at the door of her room, she gestured with her head to Marjorie's room, then took her hand from my shoulder to point.  "In there," she whispered, "let's go in there."  So I carried her in and stood her next to the bed, where I bent to kiss her honey-sweet lips.  As we were kissing, Rose unbuttoned and removed my shirt in a very unhurried and meaningful way, then undid my pants, letting them fall to the floor, leaving me standing there in my briefs, with my erection pressing to escape.  I reached into my shorts and pulled my stiffness up so it was trapped against my stomach.  Rose held her arms up, waiting on me, and I obliged by pulling off the nightgown.  She stood naked before me, any possible trace of shame having been transformed to desire long ago.
	As I lay back on the bed, Rose climbed up on top of me like she had in so many dry-hump sessions before, and bending over to kiss my neck, she started slowly grinding her mound against my underwear, giving out little animal moans as she did so.  The front of my briefs were starting to get very moist.  My hands felt like they weren't under my control anymore, and I watched with a curious detachment as I kneaded and fondled the backs of her thighs and spread her buttcheeks, then roamed up her torso to tickle her under the arms.  She moved up to plant her breasts in my face, and as I sucked on her nipples and fingered my way down between her buttcheeks, she ground herself into my stomach and hugged my head close.
	"Jack, is this ready?  Is this right?  Is it going to happen tonight?" she was breathless from her exertion, and from the sheer nervousness of simply asking aloud, and from sheer disbelief that the night had finally arrived.  "Are we going to...  are we going to fu..."  In response, I gently slid her off of me, got up, picked up my pants from the floor, and pulled a condom out of the pocket.  When she saw that, Rose's eyes and mouth both made the same perfect O, and she reached in slow motion for the condom as if it were something in a dream, something that you know you have to be careful with, but that you can't help but reach for.  With the little foil square trembling in her fingers, she looked up at me for direction.  I touched the nightstand; "Leave it here for now," I whispered, and reverently, she laid it where I had indicated.  Slipping off my shorts, I lay back down next to her.  As if she had been holding back and couldn't stand it anymore, she attacked my balls, squeezing, stroking and licking, fondling and playing, pulling and squeezing hard and harder.  I feared for a moment she might do some damage, but it was like my balls had become crush-proof; the harder she squeezed, the better it felt, and I just kept nodding like an idiot, eyes screwed shut, my mouth moving soundlessly, forming the word 'harder' over and over again.  Then she was squeezing her tender young breasts together around them, trying to smother my balls in the soft folds of her flesh, her mouth buried in my stomach.  Gripping her by her shoulders, I laid her on her stomach and straddled her.  As I massaged her shoulders and back, my stiffness rubbing up against her buttcrack, she wriggled to push her hips up to me, pressing and rubbing herself against my member as her hands slipped down to her vagina to stroke and diddle.  We played like that for a minute, both of our hands exploring and stroking the folds between her legs, our fingers touching as we sought the same flesh.  Then she twisted around to lay on her back, spreading her legs as wide as she could.  In the dim light from the living room, I could see as well as smell the moistness, the dewy exulation that drenched her down there.  I had seen Rose wet before, but now it literally looked a faucet had been turned on.  Powerless before the flow, I bent down to suck up as much as I could, my tongue exulting in the feel of that heat and juice.  As I looked up to see her moaning, I saw her rolling her head slowly from one side to the other, lost in the feeling, drifting, drifting... little jolts in her thighs were making her legs spasm against my face.  Somewhere above us, the music from the radio blended perfectly with the music from her throat, and I knew what it was to ride a tidal flow.  Her inner walls gripped my tongue, seizing it an an embrace of joy that was tight and hot and altogether too much to quite believe.  I moved up from her pussy to her stomach, then rubbed my stomach against her sex as I took her nipples, one at a time, into my mouth.  Sliding further up, we were face to face, and the top side of my shaft was being drawn between her labia, getting soaked by the hot liquid.
	Looking into my eyes in the darkend room, Rose breathed, a husky intake that was almost possessed.  "I'm ready, Jack, I'm ready now, put it in me, put it in me now," she panted.
	Rolling over onto my back, I took the condom off the dresser and held it up to her.  She took it from me as if receiving a blessing.
	"Open it," I urged, and she slowly tore open the top seam, then reached in to pull out the little rolled latex circle.  I took her hand, showing her how to place the condom on my penis, encouraging her to roll it down around the shaft and make sure it was a snug fit.  She squeezed the resevoir at the tip a couple of times, fascinated in the knowledge of what it would soon hold, and touching the ridges now circling my shaft as if they were some kind of Braille that she wanted desparately to learn.
	I laid her back on the bed and knelt before her open legs, squeezing and pulling those hard little nipples.  I gripped my shaft between my thumb and first two fingers.  Slowly rubbing the head between her nether lips, I was directly over her, looking down into her eyes as I pushed in just the tiniest little bit, then a little bit more, and then I had the whole head in, where I had to stop so we could both take in the amazing feeling.  Slowly, oh god so slowly, I eased my way further and further in, her moan so low it would have been frightening if I hadn't been so aroused, watching the perfect circle of her mouth as she said "oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh," and I continued to push in, slowly slowly slowly.  She was so hot and tight and welcoming, the shock on her face as she felt me entering her was almost more than I could bear, and I wondered briefly if I would actually cry from the pleasure of it all.  Suddenly I  was pressed up against an obstruction, and Rose whimpered a little at the sensation.
	"Okay, baby, you know what's coming next," I whispered, "you know how sorry I am that I have to hurt you.  I'm going to push through, and then I'll just stop, okay?  You ready?"  I could feel, rather than see, her earnest nod.  "On three, okay?" I told her.  "One..." and then without thinking about it, I pushed as hard as I could, breaking through and suddenly plunging in up to the hilt, my balls smacking wetly against her ass.  Her sudden cry of pain was at once horrible and beautiful.  Her arms wrapped around me, her nails digging into my back, as she sought to cope with the agony.  After perhaps ten or twelve seconds, her fingers relaxed, and her shuddering breath told me she was slowly coming to terms with the feeling.
	"Are you okay?" I asked.  Again, the nod that I could feel rather than see, then from the darkness she said, "I think so, it's fading, it's almost stopped hurting..." and as I put my face against hers, I felt her melting into the dewiest, tenderest, most satisified smile.  "Oh God, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good," Rose murmured, "OhmyGod, ohmyGod, ohmyGod, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good," finally trailing off into a series of mmms and aahs as she wrapped her arms around me and pulled her nails down my back.  This was all just from me entering her and sliding all the way in; I hadn't even started to stroke yet, we had only just achieved complete union.  We lay together like that for countless hearbeats, my manhood fully buried in her female embrace as we gazed wonderingly into each other's eyes, both of us struggling to come to terms with the enormity of what we had just accomplished.  Slowly, I started to pull out, riding high to try to brush her clitoris as I did so, then just as slowly pushed back in again.  I repeated this several times, until Rose started to match my thrusts.  As we ground our hips together, she pulled my ear down to her mouth so I could hear her whispering, "Fuck me Jack, fuck me Jack, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me Jack."  My hands were under her buttcheeks now, squeezing and pushing her up onto me, and she wrapped her arms up and around me as if she were holding on for dear life.  When she sank her teeth into my shoulder, I felt a brief twinge of pain, then my body somehow transmuted the bite into pleasure, and as she bit in deeper, her scream muffled against my flesh, the pleasure became a wave that swept through my chest and neck.  We were thrusting against each other full force now, the sounds of our bodies smacking wetly together, and I slipped my hand into the space between us and started massaging her clitoris as we pounded together.  "oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh," was all Rose could manage, and then breathlessly, "Oh God, I can feel you inside me, you're in me, you're inside my body... I'm so full, oh God, oh Jesus, oh Jesus, oh, I'm so full of you... I love you Jack, I love you, fuck me fuck me fuck me, I love you I love you fuck me fuck me fuck me."  I had been worried that I might only last a few seconds, scared I wouldn't be able to give Rose the full treatment; but now, as I slid in and out of her, I knew I had nothing to worry about.  I sat back on my legs, my penis still buried in her vagina, and looked over at the mirror on Marjorie's dresser, where I could see the two of us reflected perfectly in the darkness.  I watched myself pumping away for a little bit, then I laid back down to cover Rose with my body.  Wrapping her in my arms, and taking care to make sure my penis stayed inside her, I rolled over on my back, and now Rose was on top and bouncing up and down on me.  I pointed to the mirror, and Rose found the sight fascinating; she couldn't take her eyes off the reflection as she continued to pound away, her clitoris riding the ridges of the condom up and down, up and down, up and down...  "Oh God, yes, it's so good, it's so good, I'm fucking you Jack, I'm fucking you, I can feel your cock deep inside me, oh Jack, don't let this end, I want to feel this way forever and ever, I love you, Jack, oh God, you're my man, you're my cock, you're my man, you're my cock, oh fuck me, fuck me, fuck me..."  Wrapping my hands around her waist, I found that her gorgeous little breasts were right in front of my face, and with no effort at all, I was able to put first one nipple, then the other, into my mouth, where I was able to suck and bite her rock-hard nipples while she continued to bounce on me, her hands grabbing my hair and pulling my head closer.  I knew that my nerves were registering the hair pulling as pain, but by the time the impulses made it to my brain, the feeling had become pure pleasure, a tingling and pulsing that shot green darts through my skull, and I sucked her nipples as if they contained the Secret of Life.  In one instant, I knew I was about to climax, I knew I was past the point of no return, and yet it felt like it was still a lifetime away.  Rose suddenly arched her back, her nipple pulling away from my mouth, and she let loose a howl like a wild animal, a scream I'd never heard before.  "I'm gonna cum, oh God, I can feel it," she sang, "oh God, oh God, I'm gonna cum, I'm gonna cum, I'm gonnnnnaaaaaa... AOOOWWW GOD, OH OH OH OH OH OH OH!"  She was halfway between singing and shrieking, and it was more than I could stand.  I felt myself explode in the most overwhelming rush of feeling I've ever had, and for the first time ever, I literally saw fireworks, an insane riot of stars and pinwheels and explosisons of light, and my ears were full to overflowing with a sound that I couldn't hear, a pressure on the eardrums that could only be some ancient blood surge that drowned out anything that wasn't our hearts crashing together.  I was literally blind and deaf; somewhere in the consensus universe, it must have lasted for maybe ten or twelve seconds, but in the reality I was in at that moment, I think I touched eternity; I was in a timeless state where thought was not possible, and I can't even be sure I was breathing.  Was this it, I wondered, when the capacity for rational thought evenutally returned, was this the Little Death?  It had never been like this with Lilly, never even close.  I had thought I knew what ecstasy was, but now I knew I didn't know anything.
	Slowly, slowly, the room came back into being around me, and I became aware of Rose, naked and spent, laying full out on me, still wrapped around me down there, breathing breathing breathing, her head on my chest, her fingers twitching, spasming, raking little trails through the sweat on my shoulders.  She looked up into my face, drew closer, and as her lips melted into mine, her body did the same; any trace of stress or tension having vanished in the flood, leaving only a drugged relaxation that she was unable to stir from.   As I gazed at her peaceful face laying there on my shoulder, I felt that I had to tell her about my experience before I lost it, but what could I say?  What language could even approach it?  "Rose," I started, and stopped; and again, "Rose," and she looked at me with wonder and reverence, "Rose, I don't know what happened to me just now, but I've never felt that before.  Never.  Even my wildest moments with Lilly... Rose, you took me to another universe, I can barely even speak right now..."  I looked at her, looking at me, and I swear she was glowing, she was literally emitting light from her eyes and nose and mouth.  "Rose, I want to tell you I love you, but even that feels so incomplete and inadequate... God, Rose, you're my life, you're everything I could ever even dream of wanting..." I may have been aware of her, and of the room around us after that, but I really don't remember anything else.  Sometime during the night, I roused enough to become aware of the feeling of the condom being pulled off my penis, then everything faded again.  The next thing I was aware of was waking up in the morning, the condom gone from my limp member and Rose's arm over my chest as she lay there sleeping; a blanket covering us up to the waist and the first, palest light of dawn beginning to show through the window.
	As I stirred, Rose woke and looked over at me, blankly at first, then with the world's biggest smile gradually taking over her entire face.  "Good morning, lover," she grinned, and added in a husky whisper, "you were right.  Magic.  Real live miracle magic, that's the only way to describe it.  I think I actually passed out for a little bit, it felt so good.  It still feels wonderful, I'm still feeling it from last night."
	"Rose, listen, I have to tell you something," I started, and had to pause as I tried to collect my thoughts.  She laid her head on my chest and gazed earnestly into my eyes, waiting rapturously on me to find the words.  "What happened last night, what I felt, was like nothing I've ever felt before.  Lilly never did to me what you did to me.  I never had any idea it could be like that.  Even though I've had sex before, in a very real way, last night was a first time for me.  Rose, you took me to a place that was no place and every place at once.  It's like you found a virginity in me that I didn't even know I had.  You took me to another universe.  I think I might have actually touched Heaven.  I mean it, sweetheart, the real thing, the real, truly live, Heaven.  You took me there."  Her only response was to put her mouth on mine and kiss me for long, long minutes.
	The shower was another small miracle.  When we first got in, the purple bruise on my shoulder where she had sunk her teeth was throbbing and sending little spikes of agony through to my back, but by the time the shower was over, the only evidence I had left was the fading bruise; the pain had been seemingly rinsed away by the water and I felt fine.  We spent a half hour together under the hot spray, playing and teasing, and she finished me off by dropping to her knees and stroking me until I exploded all over her face and chest, giggling uncontrollably as she caught the last drops in her mouth, then licked me clean, the water washing the rest away seconds later.  It took us another hour to dry off and get dressed.
	Breakfast was a trip to Walt's in the Sangreal plaza, where I had a Belgian waffle with pecans and maple syrup and Rose ordered a stack of banana-chocolate chip pancakes.  She tried some of my black coffee and found it horrible.  I added enough sugar and creamer to make it taste like hot ice cream; she found that much more to her liking, and had a cup of her own.
	The world was different.  The world was changed.  What more can I say?   The world was changed.  I felt it in the water.  I felt it in the earth.  I smelled it in the air.  I had had love before, but now I had Love.  Now I had... I had... oh God, how can I tell you?  What words can I use?  What can make you understand?  I had Rose.  I had Rose.  I.  Had.  Rose.  Can you see the tears?  Can you taste the salt?  Rose.  Alpha and Omega.  Love.  Om.  Rose.