She stood with the moonlight pouring over her, opal and shadow, like fine Italian art. Her nipples rubied in the chill. She backed against the waist-high railing of the balcony and held it with outstretched arms, a smooth triangle shape, her hair now fluttering and gyring exuberantly in a sudden wind, the locks like ink spilled in a cold current. She raised a leg and coiled it between the railing and displayed herself to him, without shame or embarrassment, those useless shackling feelings thankfully long discarded in the fog of penitent youth, now replaced with a deep adult craving, a lust as raw as it was unbridled.

“Taste me,” she said, “all of me, as deeply as you can.”