FF (May 2013) Caelyn Alba - The Touch of Bliss ~ A Sensual Reckonin

On the long drive up, I realized how long it had been since I was happy. But even more frustrating, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed as if I couldn't remember how to be happy anymore.

Something needed to change. I needed to change...

A woman whose relationship has broken down around her takes a solo spa vacation that was supposed to have been her and her husband's dream getaway -- and discovers that some dreams need first to be brought to light before they can come true.

This 16,000-word erotic novelette is a graphically detailed exploration of romance and sexuality. It is meant for adults only.

If you like any of these book, support the author by buying it.


Sample

Part One

I CAN TASTE HER even through my tears. I can feel the wetness of her on my lips, as I can feel my own wetness where my fingers trace their way between my thighs.

The tears are because everything changes tonight, and as deep as I fall into the feel of her, this scares me. My breasts are soft against hers, our upthrust nipples touching as I caress her with all of me, with all I have, all I am. As hungrily as I embrace her, dropping slowly to my knees before her, it scares me.

“Tell me what you want,” she says…

“What the fuck do you want, Lori?”

The last thing D___ said to me before he left. I can still remember the swearing, can still feel his anger.

I’ve been thinking about that far too much. Replaying the scene in my head as I do, thinking of all the things I should have said, only too late.

You want more than he can give you.

So many times that I’d felt it, so many times that I’d thought it. And all I could think about on the long drive out of the city was that if he showed up right now, even as angry as I was, as hurt and lonely as he had left me — I still didn’t know whether I’d be able to say it to him.

He’d picked out the resort for our fifth anniversary, just as he made the arrangements for most of our holidays. He liked to organize, he always said. D___ liked to make sure everything was perfect. But even as he’d been making his perfect plans, things at home had been getting less perfect for so long now.

We both knew it. We both saw it happening, watching it unfold over what must have been a year of increasingly random and pointless fights. Both of us were working far too many hours. Both of us were feeling like something had changed. The seven-year-itch, my sister called it when I tried the one time to talk to her about it, but I was never very good at talking.

I was always better at listening, even when D___ had totally lost it the weekend before.

“You don’t know what I go through trying to keep you happy!” he yelled. He yelled a lot of things that night, but that’s the one I remember. Because I remember telling him that everything he did made me happy, even though it was less true than it had been for months.

“What do you want, Lori?”

You want to feel like it was before. You want to feel new, but you feel old in a way that you never expected this relationship, this life to feel so soon…

I was always better at listening. So I didn’t say anything. I just listened to him talking about needing space, and I let him throw a beer bottle that smashed the glass in the John Lysak print he’d bought us for our first anniversary. I let him walk away.

He’d picked out the resort because he liked everything to be perfect, and it was. Except for the bit about him not being here with me, that is. I’d never heard of the place before, had never driven the wine country back roads that the GPS directed me along. It was the middle of nowhere, vineyards in full leaf and tall stands of white pine rising to frame an impossibly blue sky. I saw the glass gleam of the hotel’s floor-to-ceiling windows as I rounded the final curve, and even from a distance, it was beautiful.

More beautiful than you deserve.

I don’t remember what I said to the concierge at the check-in desk when he asked me if Mr. ____ was arriving later. The credit card still had both our names on it, so that was all that really mattered in the end.

My mind was a blur as I was passed off to a hostess for the full introduction of the resort’s schedules and events, spa sessions and special treatments, fireside patios and walking trails. A bellhop swept in to whisk my bags up to the room. A trainer from the spa and wellness center smiled as she took me on the tour that I wasn’t thinking quickly enough to beg off.

BLISS is what they called the facilities, and the name with its stylized font and all caps seemed terribly ironic given the darkness of my thoughts. I felt all the trainer’s tips and schedule information forgotten as soon as it was spoken, but I smiled with a polite That sounds wonderful at intervals. I was always better at listening.

By the time I’d made it to my room, I had resolved to not leave it for the next eight days.

All of this is a mistake, because mistakes are what you do best. Thinking that coming here would help get your mind off him. But all you can feel now is the emptiness in the room that he would have filled.

It was a beautiful room, for all that. White and pristine, all chrome and lacquered hardwood. The clean European style that D___ liked.

I spent some time at the vast picture window overlooking the vineyards below.

I spent some time on the bed. I cried for a while, but not for as long as I thought I would.

I ordered in room service. I ate alone. I drank three glasses of wine from the complimentary bottle of red at the dark oak breakfast nook. I had a long bath in the open-to-the-living-room tub, with its view of the falling dark through the floor-to-ceiling windows. None of it did anything to ease the tension and the darkness inside me.

As I was toweling off, I saw a white paper slipped in under the door. BLISS, it said across the top. It was a spa schedule, as I saw when I padded over to pick it up. I’d already looked at it, another copy still sitting where I’d left it on the room’s massive oak desk.

This one had a section highlighted, though. 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. — European Style — Clothing Optional Sauna, Hot Tub, Steam Room.

I’d heard that from the trainer who showed me around the facilities. Something else that D___ would have liked, I thought numbly. We’d never done any clothing optional vacationing before, but he always liked to show me off.

Left to my own devices, I was typically more comfortable in t-shirt and shorts than anything else. But even for the drive up, I’d worn the thigh-hugging skirt and the tight mesh top I’d bought for the holiday that wasn’t happening now. I was wearing a camisole under the mesh today, but I’d gone without when I modeled it for him weeks ago. Before things had gone so bad. I went braless for D___ whenever he asked, conscious of how good it made him feel for me to be so exposed in public. The few times we’d been to the nude beach at Magnuson Park at his suggestion, he talked about how he liked to put me on display. Always spending more time watching other guys looking at me than he spent looking at other women.

Almost before I realized I was doing it, I had slipped on the spa robe and sandals from outside the bathroom instead of digging my nightshirt out of my suitcase.

You want to feel like it was before. You want to feel brand new…

On the long drive up, I realized how long it had been since I was happy. But even more frustrating, no matter how hard I tried, it seemed as if I couldn’t remember how to be happy anymore.

Something needed to change. I needed to change.

I had decided to make use of the reservation D___ had made for us because in the blank pain that settled inside me after he walked out, I told myself that I could enjoy myself without him. That I could be me again.

Time for you to figure out what that means…

BLISS was busy that night but not overly so. Maybe two dozen people were scattered across a stylish lounge decked out in wicker and white tile, getting ready for or cooling off after massage sessions and yoga. I could see roughly the same number partaking of the saunas and baths beyond, about half of whom appeared to be taking advantage of European hour. I’ve never been much of a voyeur, so I had no problem keeping my gaze to myself. I didn’t recognize either of the attendants on duty from my earlier tour, but I smiled politely and shook my head when they asked if I needed help with anything.

What I needed was the hot tub, I thought. A place to try again to drain away the worry that still flooded through me, and which the bath upstairs had barely made a dent in. The wine from earlier was kicking in, though. In the mirrors that lined the deck around the tubs, I could see a faint flush in my paler-than-normal cheeks.

Seven people were already in the least occupied tub, none of them paying me any mind as I approached. Three of the women were topless, I could see, all of them older than me. I couldn’t tell what the three men were wearing beneath the swirling water. A younger woman wore a modest one-piece, lying back alone where the others looked like couples, talking and laughing quietly among themselves.

I took a minute to unfold and refold my towel at the bench adjacent, as I felt the attack of self-consciousness that I’d known would hit me. D___ and I had always hot-tubbed whenever we stayed at hotels. He liked to pick out which bikini I’d wear, rubbing my belly lightly under the water while I floated to put my breasts on display for him. Though I’m not an exhibitionist by nature, I confess that I used to get a little thrill when he showed me off. One of those things that I would do for him, but which I’d never really done for myself.

I needed that thrill for myself, I knew. I needed to feel it for me.

I slipped the robe off casually, feeling the moist warmth of the air against my body. My heart was beating quickly, which I knew was ridiculous even as it made me smile.

This is good. This is what you need.

I took a moment to fold my robe and place it on the bench next to the towel. I took a deep breath as I kicked off my sandals and turned around, and I felt silly when I realized that I was expecting all eyes to be on me. This was totally natural, I told myself. This was what it was supposed to be like, just being myself. Not showing off for him but being comfortable in my own skin.

Quite literally.

I was smiling again as I slipped into the water.

Whether it was the wine or whether the presence of other people simply made it harder to feel sorry for myself, I quickly felt the tension and the worry of the previous days begin to slip away. The water was perfectly sultry, not so hot that I felt the need to hop out every few minutes.

The older couples were doing so, and showing me from the corner of my half-closed eyes that the three men were as naked as their partners. Even beyond them being too old for me, though, I felt no compulsion to take a longer look. With all that happened since D___ walked out, including our last bout of angry sex two days before the final fight that pushed him away, I was about as far from feeling lascivious as I could possibly be. From where I was at, it would be a long walk to even feel social.

Thankfully, the others in the tub all kept to themselves, no one even greeting me where I pushed off to one side and slipped down beneath the water. Thinking about it, I supposed that must be a kind of common courtesy during clothing-optional hours, where it would be far too easy to mistake polite friendliness for a come-on. That all worked just fine for me, though. As much as I was feeling better for having the company of other people, I was happy to still be essentially alone.

Where I rested against the padded edge of the tub, I had closed my eyes. As I felt myself drifting away, deliciously sleepy and drained of all worry, I felt a leg brush up against mine.

When D___ and I used to tub together, he always kept me close at his side, making sure I was pressed to him. Even as he liked other guys to look, I guess he had a strict no touching policy. It thus felt even stranger than expected to feel this contact — and then to realize as the contact continued that it wasn’t just random chance.

This wasn’t someone bumping into me and quickly pulling away. Someone was running a foot gently up my leg, toe-walking along my outer thigh.

I opened my eyes. The woman in the white one-piece had shifted around to sit across from me. She smiled as her small foot gently rubbed my naked leg.

This is so not you…

She was of an age with me. Maybe a few years younger. Or was it just her petite frame that made her look that way? Her white one-piece made a stark contrast to the dark-chocolate tones of her skin. Her hair was long and black and corkscrew-curled, tied back and hanging down into the water beside her.

This is nothing you’ve ever done.

She was watching me expectantly, her touch oh so gentle. Tentative, as if she was expecting me to push her off or to make a scene.

I didn’t do either. I just lay there, trying to process the sensation and the thoughts rushing through my head with the gentle cadence of the water flowing past and around me.

This is nothing you’ve ever done, nothing you’ve ever even fantasized about.

I felt her toes clench against my thigh, pressing in like tiny fingers as they ran up and down, up and down.

Which means this is exactly what you need…