Boiling Lust
The last piece of meat I put in my mouth had gone cold.
That didn’t mean it tasted bad, though.
If anything, it was satisfying.
For someone like me who usually just sprinkled salt over meat and grilled it, the fragrant sweetness that spilled out with every chew—and a faint… spiciness?—felt entirely new. That mild stimulation from food was something I hadn’t known before.
"…Where did you learn to cook like this, Thea?"
"I followed a book I took from an empty restaurant nearby, exactly as it was written."
The book set down on the table with a soft thud was heavily worn. The letters had faded; the cover was frayed thin. Perhaps it had been a carefully treasured recipe for a very long time.
But more than that, what held my attention was her eyes—blankly drawing near, fixed on me.
First the eyes.
Then the nose.
Finally the mouth.
Slowly lowering that gaze, staring as if she meant to bore straight through my face, she soon brushed a fingertip lightly against the corner of my lips and whispered,
"Shall I wipe your mouth for you?"
She let her tongue slip free just enough to drag across those pink lips, and the sight of her was already setting me alight.
Had the temptation still not ended?
She was smiling.
Relaxing her mouth, she let her tongue—thickly coated in stretching veils of saliva—slide free, her face radiant with happiness.
"Heh—"
That breath, lightly warming the air, even tickled the tip of my nose.
…I knew the feel of that tongue far too well.
It would crush and yet hold me firmly, without fail.
How would she try to devour me this time?
Under the excuse of wiping my mouth, thoroughly wetting my lips with her tongue before drawing mine in as if to suck it down?
Or would she rub until both our mouths were a mess, humming a soft little tune?
Holding my head, she might do something even bolder still.
"Gulp."
I swallowed hard.
Loud enough for her to hear.
Loud enough to put a wide smile on her face.
I too began slowly to open my mouth.
No—it would be more accurate to say my mouth stretched open of its own accord.
Unable to close my jaw so that my teeth met, even the last resistance of barely sealing my lips finally came to nothing.
The furnace inside my mouth, already heated as far as it could go, stood ready to accept her forging at any moment.
Harsh, yet sometimes soft.
Rushing urgently, then slow, and gentle.
Remembering all of it, I wondered if I had already been thoroughly tamed.
Saliva began to spill free on its own.
My heart started racing faster and faster.
My breath grew a little more labored, and right as our lips were about to meet—
"Ha… ah…?"
Cloth covered my mouth.
The thick, rough surface scraped across the corner of my lips.
The dampness there began to dry.
The burning wick in my chest was snipped clean through.
My heated head could not accept what was happening.
For the coming ecstasy, the joy, the pleasure—my forehead, dazed to the point of tingling, rang with a sharp ache.
"Mm. All clean."
Her mouth, curved into a crescent, soon vanished from in front of me. The dishes stained with grease and spots were all gathered onto her arms and stacked into a tub.
And I stood there blankly for a long while.
My heart ached a little.
I must have done something wrong.
Otherwise she would never push me away so coldly.
She seemed to be testing me.
Tempting me every time, only to turn away the moment we were about to touch—as if she disliked the thick desire I carried.
Before I knew it, through the long gap that had opened in her holy robes, her slender yet perfectly balanced legs appeared before me.
I wanted to touch them.
Wanted to stroke them gently.
No—
Even if it wasn’t her legs, it would be fine.
If I could just reach her, I wanted to.
If she would only allow it, I wanted to press my body against hers right that instant.
But I couldn’t.
Because it seemed she was reluctant for our bodies to tangle together.
Softly, softly.
Her alluring gait stirred my lust.
I wanted to lay my hand at once along that long, lightly curved line and see everything above it.
Wanted to watch sweet gasps spill from her mouth along with laughter.
…Just because I hadn’t been able to kiss her.
Just because I hadn’t received her sticky love for even a brief moment.
Something inside me began to crumble.
If she was truly disappointed in me?
I slowly repeated to myself that it couldn’t be so.
Yet she kept tormenting me.
Ever since she had tempted me on the bed, I had not been able to touch her.
Even now Thea stood before me, fanning herself with one hand and flicking open buttons.
She caressed that provocative waist of hers—narrowing as it neared the navel, widening again as it left—and let out a long sigh.
Without shedding a single drop of sweat, she kept revealing her skin through the gaps in her clothes.
In front of me, fluttering the fabric with a breeze that seemed to come from nowhere.
…I couldn’t endure it any longer.
I stretched out my hand at once, determined to seize even her soft wrist—or at the very least the edge of her sleeve—and threw myself forward with everything I had.
Upper body bent low so that my shoulder and arm could ram into her and wrap around her—
Like a stone loosed from a catapult, my body flew toward where she stood.
In the wind that stabbed fiercely at my cheeks and eyes I only blinked for an instant.
Surely her sweet embrace had been right under my nose.
I missed.
Thea was not where she should have been.
Instead, just as I was about to smash my head into the bare wall that remained—
A purple radiance wrapped around my body and caught me in midair.
Then it gently set me down on the floor.
While fully revealing the valley between the two soft mounds that had been slightly exposed.
"…Thea."
"Mm, Evan."
Once I had missed her, that dry voice returned once more.
Once more her attire was being neatly arranged.
The opened buttons closed; the gap that had bared her long legs was somehow neatly fastened with a decoration.
But this time the corners of her mouth were trembling faintly.
Her lips were wet and red.
Her eyes sparkled.
She was looking straight at me.
With the tip of her scarlet tongue peeking out just a little.
Only then did I understand.
This was a test.
Yet it was not meant to measure my self-control or purity, nor to confirm how much I cherished her.
This was temptation.
Her vicious little game to see how long I could hold out.
And just now, I had passed one of Thea’s tests.
"…Huu."
Her face was growing redder and hotter by the second.
The heat of the emotion she carried rose so high it could no longer be hidden.
Little by little, dew began to form on that jade-white skin.
The hot breath she exhaled deeply tickled my face and slowly began to claim the space around us.
Though a cool breeze ought to have been blowing, we were feeling the heat.
Bang.
One motion of Thea’s soft hand, and every window slammed shut.
Snap.
She flicked a slender finger, and a purple blackout curtain sealed away every ray of light that had entered the house—so that nothing could come in or go out.
Darkness arrived, and her figure too was swallowed by the veil the darkness offered.
Nothing was visible before my eyes.
Only an ominous purple faintly casting its shadow near the windows.
It was quiet.
Silence filled the space.
Only our rough breathing told that we still existed here.
How long did I stare into that void, concentrating every sense into my ears?
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
A familiar sound reached me.
The soft stretch and sudden release of cloth had become something I could never forget.
It was the sound of her sweet embrace opening.
Like the seal of a relic coming undone, three buttons fell free one after another.
By no hand but her own.
Yet still there was no light.
Even as her footsteps filled the room, I was still not granted the chance to see her.
For a long while I simply remained where I was, kneeling upright, waiting for something to happen—
…No. This isn’t right.
Even without sight I roughly judged the position of my hands and brought them close to my own body.
Chak.
Why was it that the clothes I wore were soaked through and refused to come free?
They weren’t sticky, yet the sensation of them pulling at my skin as if glued with paste was far from pleasant.
Had I sweated this much?
It hardly mattered now.
Thud.
The clothes I flung to the floor made a wet, flattening sound as they stuck to the ground.
If what I was thinking was correct, she clearly wanted this—wanted none other than me to prove that I desired her.
Whether she had grown tired of tempting me, or disappointed that I had not answered the temptation, I did not know.
With only a single layer left covering me, I knelt again in place.
Feeling the breath that had drawn even closer.
Accepting the sweet fragrance that spilled from her mouth.
I listened to the footsteps ringing behind me.
And the final sound that rose in that darkness was the fierce scrape of skin against cloth, followed by the soft sprawl of fabric across the floor.