The Music of Love, The Dance of Lust and The Last of Lascivious Larceny.

In my lost youth I danced with many. The driving beat of sensuality lived within my body, constantly pulsating, throbbing in time to the music of want. The rhythm of those days was a palpitating house beat. Loud, unrelenting, endless, driven... *doof*doof*doof*doof*.

My husband lay beside me in the lazy morn. His breath warm, moist, soft against my neck. His hand slowly traced a rhythm down my body, undulating, teasing, tempting. My fingers clasped his, slowed, then stilled the travels over me.

I once pulsed with the music of sex, but over the years the rhythm had slowed. Dance club beat had moved to slow dancing in the moonlight, then gentle swaying without movement to stillness.

Children, exhaustion, stress, aging, ill-health had slowly drowned the palpitations of lust until defeated they lay in the pool of my night sweats, limp, lifeless.

His hand slowly began its dance once more. "Shhh, let me rub your back. Relax, forget, just enjoy."

Underneath his memory-laden fingertips my body softened. He stroked, slowly pulling the cadence from a slow waltz into a sensual tango. Gradually he drew me into the beat of sensation, his touch persuading my body to dance once more.


The music within flowed from Sexual Healing to Billy Squires' The Stroke, and finally leapt into life under the driving rhythm of Nine Inch Nails' Closer.

I lie next to him, the sweat cooling on my body. The beat of my racing heart is slowing, the driving pounding, decelerating until the only sound I hear is his breath in my ear, and the wordless whisper of "I love you".