Moonlight/Noose

Hands gliding over her milky skin, Nycto admires the unblemished masterpiece laid out underneath his hovering body. With gentle fingers, he peels the white shirt loosely covering her upper body off her dainty form and plants soft kisses on her neck, her cheeks, her collarbones and everywhere else displayed all so vulnerably before his sweetly lustful eyes. Selenea lets out an unconscious small noise to which Nycto reacts to with not verbal responses but physical ones. The night is deep and the moon is bright.

The sheets are soft to the skin and the mattress is comfortable enough to hold the two intertwining as one to share one of the most intimate moments of their lives. All lights are off, even the stars. Through the window, the argent veil of the moon reaches out to highlight the dimples of Selenea’s hips. Nycto casts away the white garment in hand to the ground and holds both of his lover’s cheeks in his calloused hands. He bores into her half-lidded emerald eyes, staring for a moment with an irresistible smile dancing on his lips. Her gem-like pupils, her golden eyelashes, her freckled nose, and flushed lips---every bend and curve of her face is perfect. He cannot contain the fiery passion reaching to the brim and spilling down into the galaxies beyond her beautiful eyes; it is so full of fervor he might say it is even vehement. Though at the same time, the love pumping the blood out to every vein in his body is so placid, so platonic, and so mildly tender. The contrast of these two same feelings obliges him to lower his face and meet lips with the woman’s after a long moment of silence.

Their kiss lasts long enough to escalate to a whole new level of pleasure. Selenea grasps his pitch black hair in desperation, and Nycto’s right hand travels down her neck until it lands on her bosom. As muted sighs and moans pass from each other’s lips, Nycto fondles Selenea’s breasts with care and she gasps in pleasant surprise. He is eager but not in a hurry. Nycto takes his time exploring his lover’s nectarous warmth. Memories flash across his mind as he continues to caress Selenea’s sensitive spots and savor the exchange of personal flavors through tongues, teeth, and plump lips. He remembers the first time they had relations. It was just like this night, all lights off save the stray ray of the full moon shining on their naked frames. Tonight is different, though. He can feel it. A somewhat ethereal air simmers in the atmosphere and it creates an all the more dreamy aura about his one and only fiancée. Nycto enjoys it. Perhaps, Selenea shares the same thoughts.

“I love you,” he whispers.

“I love you more,” she susurrates.

Nycto giggles and kisses deeply into her neck. He lets Selenea slide her hands over and down his back to strip him of the last piece of clothing he had on him. He, too, gets his fingertips on the ribbons on the side of her black underwear and sensually undoes them, crumbling the thin fabric into a ball in his hand and letting it drop on the floor. At last, they get rid of every foreign obstacle that stood between them and meet skin to skin. The air is cold to the bare skin but the body heat they bestow upon each other feels more soothing than anything the sun can offer. Selenea sighs jaggedly, the need inside her growing as time progresses.

The splendor of the moon illuminates the flawless body of his lover through the wide window. Yet he cannot get enough of this sight. He can’t look hard enough, no, he will never be able to take in every bit of her in to satisfy that inexplicable something in him. Selenea refuses to wait for her gawking lover and pulls him down with her thin arms, spreading her legs open. A consent. An invitation. Nycto’s length naturally hardens at the gesture.

Wordlessly, Nycto holds his breath and shifts his position to enter inside her. With gentle force, he spreads her legs a little wider. Selenea is propping herself up on her elbows and fixing her eyes on his erection. She subconsciously licks her lower lip, probably from anticipation and slight worry. After all, this process, at first, cannot go without a little pain for her. But her heaving chest and sweat glistening on her forehead encourage him to go on. Nycto quickly glances up to lock his golden eyes with his lover and gets a small nod of reassurance. He smiles, holds Selenea down by her pressure points, and in one fluid movement, slips inside her tight entrance.

A muffled moan immediately escapes from her lips. A frown, whether from the pain or pleasure, masks Selenea’s face for a second and then dissolves away, replaced by a restless one urging him to swiftly rock his hips and reach in deeper. Nycto complies gladly, lowering his body while lifting Selenea’s more to find himself a better angle. He moves his lower body and lets guttural groans pour out from his mouth as he feels the moist, strained insides of Selenea provide the most euphoric type of friction that generates this sensation traveling all the way from his length to his spine. The room isn’t laden with quietude anymore. As much as they attempt to conceal too many noises reverberating off the walls, lascivious sounds echoing around can’t be helped. To their relief, only the moon watches their lovemaking with silent eyes and a silent mouth.

Nycto loses track of time as sparks of pleasure blind his vision and cloud his mind. Selenea’s unfiltered whines and moans serve to heighten his arousal and guide him to reach his climax. The clawing Selenea does to his back is likely to leave multiple crimson trails in the morning. He doesn’t mind it. Rather, he feels proud of it. As his orgasm hits his lower stomach like a hurtling wave and numbs his entire body, Nycto bites at Selenea’s shoulder not too harshly to stifle the overstimulation. Selenea cries out his name simultaneously; she has climaxed, too, fortunately. He rides out the residual pleasure with a few more lazy rocking movements and pants out huffs of labored breaths. Selenea continuously murmurs something unintelligible into his cheeks and nibbles at his ears with her pearly little teeth while a little bit of moisture smears onto his face. She must have shed some tears.

All movements have halted. They stay still in that position for quite a while, just listening to each other’s breathing returning to normal and feeling each other’s heart beating against their overlapped chests. Selenea’s thumping heartbeat vibrating softly on Nycto’s sweaty skin becomes the key to his calming down process. He smiles against her face, rubs his nose on hers with affection and cards his fingers through her ginger locks. Selenea responds to the smile with a similar one on her face. But something is off.

Something is wrong.

Nycto’s eyebrows furrow as he quickly slips out of Selenea and puts on his boxer briefs. Leaving the listless body of his lover on the bed, he hurries to the window and opens the curtain that was half-concealing the scenery outside. Then his jaw drops.

“No,” he whispers. His lower lip is shaking. His face is contorted, there is no longer love residing in his golden pupils.

Hands gliding over the clear surface of the widow, Nycto gapes aghast at the abhorrent reality that has unraveled before his brittle body. With shaking fingers, he pulls out the black strands of hair from his hair in mental agony and plants sharp fingernails into his scalp, face, neck, and everywhere else displayed all so vulnerably on the reflection of the window standing in front of him. Nycto lets out unconscious small noises to which absolutely no one reacts to, except for the---

Myriad moons hanging in the sky.

The night is deep and the moons are bright. The night is deep and reality is gone. The night is deep yet this is but a dream. An illusion. A fantasy. A figment of his own mental creation. Nycto falls on his knees and screams out in frustration that can never be helped. He looks back at the bed, panicked, but Selenea is nowhere to be seen. Because…because…

Selenea is dead.

Selenea is gone. She was gentle like the flowers, deep as the ocean, sweet like a dream and bright like the moon. But she is not present anymore. Nycto can never, ever, see her beautiful smile nor her rosy blush shining at him again.

He had killed her.

He had killed her last night. He thought it was a dream. He thought it wasn’t the reality. He thought it was an illusion, a fantasy, a figment of his own mental creation, therefore a nonexistent monster. However, what he had murdered last night was his Selenea, his lover and fiancée. Not this…not this lookalike that he has just had sex with. However, when he had opened the half-closed curtain last night, there was but one moon.

Nycto pounds at the window, bashes his head against the ground until he bleeds, and screeches out again and again until there is no more voice left in him. Nonetheless, there is no going back. There is no turning back, to the reality in which Selenea was alive. This is the appropriate torment and price he must endure for his transgressions that cannot be undone no matter how much he strives to undo them. Endless guilt and endless moons will become the judge and jury for his heinous crime.

The moonlight, at last, becomes a noose.

One moon.

There is only one moon hanging in the sky.

Selenea gasps in utter terror.

Nycto is dead, and it was by her hands.