CAJUN FIRE

Marc stood on the deck of the steamer-sail ship that had brought him to Louisiana. The wind snapped the sails, making hard, repetitive sounds against the tall wooden mast. The rapping continued, until finally awakening from a fatigue-drugged sleep, he realized someone was at the door. He threw a bed sheet over his nakedness and stumbled through the room. A sheet of rain splashed the roof, and a rising wind moaned through the oaks. He cracked the door, and in a flash of lightning he saw her, her eyes huge, her clothing wet and clinging to her.

“Emmelyn,” he breathed. He threw the door open and reached for her. Before she could speak, he pulled her inside and took her in a trembling embrace, crushing her against his lean and hungry body.

She pulled away, and the sheet dropped to the floor. In another flash of lightning, she saw his naked body and his erect maleness. For a moment she was too shocked to speak, then found her voice as he reached out for her, again.

“Marc,” she gasped, “I had to come to see you, to explain why I have to marry someone else.”

“Emmelyn.” He intoned her name again, like a reverent prayer and pulled her back to him. His mouth moved over her face, her neck, her lips, tasting, sipping her like a rare and fine wine of which he could not get enough. She struggled to pull away, but he drew her back and felt her body shudder against his as he kissed her. Suddenly, she was responding, reaching up, grabbing his hair and pulling his head down, opening her mouth to receive his kisses.

He picked her up, then, his mouth against hers, and carried her to bed. The rolling of the thunder, the pounding of the rain on the roof, the pounding in his head, in his chest, in his loins, were all one violent drumming that drowned out all sense of place and time, and lay her on his bed. Her eyes were large and luminous in a time and place where there were no longer conventions or constraints. The very thunder and lightning that raged outside the cabin removed them to a different world. He began taking off her wet clothing, caressing as he took off each item. When she was naked, he lay next to her and pulled her to him. He felt her breasts against his chest, her nipples hard against his. He moaned, then rose to his knees to straddle her. 

“Marc, I’m afraid.” Her voice broke the spell that had encased and held him.

“Em, don’t be. I love you.”

“We can’t.”

“This may be the only time we’ll ever have, my sweet Em.” He leaned over and stroked her breasts, then suckled them. She gasped and shuddered at the pleasure it gave. He moved his mouth down her body.

“Marc, don’t.” But even as she whispered these words, her body ignored them and responded, arching to his caresses.

He took her hand and placed it on his throbbing sex. “Put me inside you,” he said.

She shut her eyes unable to resist her body’s need. A delicious warmth gushed inside her as she felt him enter, felt the initial resistance. She stiffened, then gave a sharp cry as he broke into her, and she was lost.

Outside, the full fury of the storm burst and pounded the earth with shuddering force. The night danced with powerful thrusts of lightning to the accompanying response of shattering thunder echoing over the land. It was a savage display of nature as the storm, wild and powerful, released itself upon the earth.

When the storm played itself out and all that was left was the rain quietly falling, it was Emmelyn who spoke first, her voice trembling.

“I didn’t want this to happen.”

“My sweet Em. No one will ever take you from me.”

A groan broke from her, and she spoke again. “You don’t understand. I have to marry Ducleon. I have to, for my mother’s sake. We’ll lose the plantation if I don’t, and Maman won’t have any place to go. She’s so frail, so sickly. It would kill her. I know it would.”

He kissed her face. “She can stay here with us. I’ll build a room on the cabin.”

“Dear, sweet Marc, I must marry Ducleon.”

Marc rose on one elbow. “Em, your father is using you for his own interest. I’ll take care of you and your mother.”

Emmelyn shook her head, her hair sprayed on his pillow. “Your way is impossible, can’t you see that? I must do this. Will you wait for me?”

“Wait? How can I wait? Look at us. We belong together.”