Two Out of Three
by Merith
Milliardo stroked the dark skin of the arm over his chest and marveled at the difference between the two tones. His paleness hadn’t disappeared into bronze after two years of living on the island; his attempts to tan left him burned and ill. Now he remained covered in the sun. And while it added to his mystic, it left him lonely. At least, until the girl had approached him.
She was unlike any he’d ever known, and his days were suddenly filled with a life far different from before. Fiery and passionate, dark of skin and hair and at once volatile and demure, her presence fascinated him. She had slipped into his life like the ocean breeze and between his sheets like the hurricane winds. She’d touched him in places no one had; taught him more than he ever knew existed. He’d never met her equal. But then, the girl he held contrasted in most every way from the one he longed to hold.
When she’d asked, and received his response, curses and threats were hurled; glassware, curios, and a lamp were thrown. Amidst the damage he grabbed her, letting his own anger take control of his actions for the moment. It had been the closest to abuse he’d ever inflicted upon anyone. Garments rent in brutal fashion, fingers, teeth and mouth applied with uncommon harshness - he used her. Though their copulation held none of the tenderness unusually shared, her legs parted and her cries of rage and scratches of fury became ones of passion and lust. She slept the sleep of the sated and content. At least for the moment.
Slipping out from under her exhausted embrace, he left their bed and paced across the room. He stood at the lattice framed glass door overlooking the beach and watched as the moonlight danced with the waves lapping at the sand. The ebb and flow soothed him with its gentle motions, and he closed his eyes. Without thought, he pictured her as she was the night he’d made the decision to leave.
Pale on pale, honey wheat entwined with white amber, skin flushed as their need satisfied. Her lips brushed over his after his breathless declaration. He listened, as she explained how she could never love him as he did her, of how her heart was filled with love for another. But she wanted him, she needed him and he’d always remain as he was in her heart.
Milliardo turned his head to look at his sleeping lover. His comment, a bare whisper in the night, was a faint echo of her words, "two out of three isn’t bad.” But somehow he knew it wouldn’t comfort this dark-skinned girl either.
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