Warning: Explicit content.

“You still haven’t told me why you needed to leave so abruptly.” Daniel parked in his driveway and powered down the car. It was a glorious late summer evening, the sky clear and starlit, the nip in the air just right for an outdoor soiree. They were about to start the first dance of the gala when Amelia had pulled him aside and announced that she needed to leave, without offering any further explanation.

Now she was seated beside him in stiff silence as she took the pins out of her updo, her eyes downcast and cheeks pale.

Daniel unclipped his seat belt and leaned closer to her. “Did you see a familiar face at the party that made you uncomfortable?” He asked. Amelia shook her head, long tendrils coming loose from her chignon and falling across her face.

“I…” She gave him a tentative glance. “I don’t feel too well.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” He touched her forehead. “You’re not coming down with something, are you?”

Amelia unclipped her seatbelt, wincing against her will when the mere act of reaching for the door made her gush. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.” Daniel collected his keys and opened the door to his side. “Stay here.”

He rounded the car and opened the door to her side. Amelia’s heart lurched when he deftly slid one hand each across her shoulders and under her knees to draw her out of the vehicle.

“What are you doing?” she squawked as he scooped her in his arms and kicked the door shut. The vehicle locked with a beep as they approached the front door and without setting her down, Daniel turned the key in the lock and let them inside the house.

Amelia refrained from making a comment as he wordlessly carried her up the dark staircase to the master suite. It was after easing her onto the bed that Daniel breathed out a deep sigh.

“You break my heart sometimes, you know,” he said, switching on the bedside lamp. “Even after knowing me for so long, you hesitate to tell me the simple truth that you’re bleeding?”

Amelia seemed to shrink at his pained undertone. “I didn’t know I was going to get it at the party,” she said. “It caught me off guard.”

He smoothed his coat across the back of the armchair and began to unfasten his necktie. “I’ve told you before and I’m telling you again— you don’t need to hide from me. I’m not a young, clueless guy with no idea about a woman’s body. You can tell me anything and I will understand.”

“I’m sorry.” She closed her eyes. “I needed to leave because I didn’t have any tampons with me.”

“I don’t want an apology,” he said. “I want you to trust me with your body.”

“I do,” she protested, her skin tingling when she recalled how he had helped her when she bled right through the sheets one night not long ago. “You know I do. You’ve seen and felt every part of me, everything there is to see and feel.”

She raised her head to find Daniel walking into the ensuite bathroom. When he reappeared with a towel, some wet tissues, and a box of tampons, she almost died.

“Maybe not everything,” he smiled quietly, his onyx eyes twinkling in the yellow glow of the room. Amelia recoiled, mortified.

“No… you don’t have to do that.” Her heart started to pound. “I can do it.”

“I know you can.” Rolling his sleeves, he gently held up her feet and slid her shoes off, pressing kisses to each ankle. “But I want to do it.”

“Please, Dan…” She breathed, embarrassment and unease blending up a storm inside her. “You don’t have to.”

Spreading the towel on the bed, he gave her a probing stare. “Why not?”

“It’s…” Her head fell back onto the mattress. “It’s embarrassing.”

“Embarrassing?” He shook his head. “Something as natural as your menstrual cycle can never be embarrassing. It’s a huge part of what makes you a woman.”

Leaning over her, he laid a kiss on her forehead. “You know I love you, right? Every part of you. I’m familiar with the shift in your hormones, the changes in your body, how you smell and feel at various stages of your cycle. I can tell everything.”

He stroked her head. “Are you in pain?”

“A little.”

“Lie back and relax. I’ll take care of you.”

Tucking his hands under her knees, he pulled her closer to the edge of the bed, on top of the towel. Amelia wanted to disappear when he hiked up her dress and rolled off her panties. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined revealing her blood-soaked underwear to him, but there she was anyway.

“I see you had chosen very pretty knickers today,” he noted with a small chuckle. Amelia fisted the sheet with both hands when he parted her legs.

“They’re stained.”

“A little, but nothing a good wash won’t mend.” Daniel kneeled, his breath against the folds of her womanhood making her shiver. “It’s alright,” he soothed when she squirmed. “You just started. It’s not a crime scene yet.”

“It’s gross,” she whined.

“Don’t say that about your body,” he half-scolded her, producing a wet tissue from the box. “This is cold, just letting you know.”

Despite the warning, her hips twisted when the cold tissue made contact with her genitals. “This is so awkward,” she mumbled almost inaudibly. “You didn’t have to see my bleeding vagina.”

“Oh, Mel,” he laughed, tenderly cleaning her labia. “You’re talking to a man who’s been puked, peed, and pooped on millions of times. Some dead blood and tissues don’t compare to scrubbing feces out of the carpet for two days.”

He spread her legs wider, attending to the folds, the bud, and the crack of her buttocks. “You’re fertile. You have the gift of life. Few things in the world are more wonderful.”

Amelia took in a deep breath, too embarrassed to see what he was doing, even though she could feel everything— the tenderness, the adeptness, the familiarity with her body. It made her want to cry.

“When did you last shave?” Daniel suddenly asked. She glanced down to see him studying her intently as his thumb traced the folds he had just cleaned.

“A week ago,” she answered. “I’m a forest down there, aren’t I?”

“More like a forest fire.”

“Oh, hell.” She covered her face with a hand. “I should’ve been on top of it.”

“Do you skip shaving on your period?”

“No, I do it every day, unless I have some razor burn or ingrown hair that I’m trying to grow out.”

“Oh.” A terrible idea bloomed in his mind the longer he stared at her unshaven vagina— a sight he had never been lucky to witness before, since Amelia was usually meticulous about her grooming regime. The flaming copper bush was identical to the colour of her tresses, almost inviting him to unwrap her from her frilly, feminine trappings and discover the soft flesh underneath.

His groyne suddenly throbbed. He ignored it and rose to his feet.

“Where are you going?” Amelia called out, raising herself on her elbows. “You’ve left me lying here like a nude model.”

“Don’t move!” Daniel commanded from the bathroom. She looked up again and saw him returning to the bedroom with a safety razor in one hand and a bottle of shaving cream in the other. Her eyes nearly fell out.

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah. Long-held dream.” Kneeling between her legs again, he leisurely ran his hands across her inner thighs. “Must be hard to shave yourself all the way back here,” he whispered, his voice dropping to the lowest octave. “Let me be your mirror today.”

Amelia’s toes curled, the embarrassment she had so long felt inexplicably changing into molten heat when he began to lather her pubic hair. She had played that scene inside her head many times. It was one of her unspoken desires that she had often fantasised about but never made obvious, unsure of what Daniel would think.

Only to learn that he had been harbouring the same desire all this while.

An accidental moan escaped her lips as he carefully spread the shaving cream across her mound, outer labia, and inner thighs, her hips twisting involuntarily under the deftness of his big, capable hands. She closed her eyes, biting down on a knuckle.

“Shh… Hold still.” Daniel touched the cool tip of the razor to her skin. “I won’t hurt you.”

The first stroke of the blade tonsured away a lathered chunk of hair to expose peachy skin. He held the folds taut, shaving away the curls in long, smooth motions, leaving her pubis and inner thighs hair-free except a line above her bud, just how he’d always seen on her. Putting away the razor, he reached for another tissue to clean away the residue of the shaving cream.

Her delicate pink tissues were throbbing when he finished. The sight made him pulse inside his trousers.

“I’m so tempted to taste you,” he breathed, gently kissing the crook of her inner thigh. Amelia’s hips jerked, the sudden movement goading a spurt of blood out of her cleft. He cleaned it with a tissue, bringing his attention back to what he initially set out to do.

“Heavy? Or regular?” 

His query made her steal a glance downwards to see he was talking about the tampon. She flopped back down with a sigh.

“Definitely heavy.”

“Definitely heavy,” he repeated, picking the one in a red wrapper. Amelia looked at him again.

“You know how a tampon works?” she asked. His answering chuckle was low and fond.

“You trust me with a blade but not with a tampon?”

She stared at the ceiling with a hard gulp. “Men don’t usually know how these things work.”

“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.” He tore open the wrapper to reveal a white applicator. “You still have much to discover about me, don’t you?”

With one hand, he rubbed her knee as he placed the tip of the applicator against her opening. “Relax,” he urged. “Take a deep breath. Loosen your muscles.”

Amelia did his bidding, filling her stomach with air. Her eyes scrunched with the first squeeze as he slipped in the tip of the applicator.

“Does it hurt?” He paused, searching her face. She shook her head. Daniel nodded, pushing in the plastic applicator until his index and middle fingers met her folds. Amelia stiffened when she felt him press his thumb against the end of the applicator, pushing in the absorbent plug until it was snug inside her canal.

“Do you feel it?” He asked, pulling out the applicator. She answered with another shake of her head. “Good. You’re all done.”

Wiping his hands with a tissue, he sauntered to the walk-through bathroom closet and opened her underwear drawer. “Do you have a preference?” he posed, sorting through her panties. Amelia swallowed hard, wishing her body was not on fire.

“No,” she said. “Pick any you like.”

Daniel returned to the foot of the bed with a pair of randomly chosen panties. Amelia lifted her legs and he rolled up the knickers to her hips, kissing her legs as he did so. She rewarded him with a light giggle, the sound making him smile.

He removed the towel from underneath her, then collected the supplies from the floor. As the water ran in the bathroom sink, Amelia snaked a hand inside her underwear to realise that was the smoothest shave she had ever had. She dragged herself out of the bed, knowing for certain that she would never be able to groom herself or put in a tampon without thinking of that episode.

“Do you need anything?” Daniel called out from the closet doorway, unbuttoning his shirt. Amelia slipped out of her gown and reached for the night dress she had left on the back of the chair.

“I’m alright,” she answered without turning around. “Thank you.”

He looked away, tossing his shirt into the laundry basket in a corner of the spacious wardrobe. “I think I’ll take a shower.”

“But I’m here for you,” she blurted. Daniel’s heart thudded.

“What?”

“You showered shortly before we left for the party.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Why do you need to shower again so soon?”

When she turned around to meet his gaze, the look in her shimmering green eyes made a shiver run up his heated skin. “It’s okay if what you just did to me inflamed you,” she said quietly. “It did the same to me.”

His shoulders sagged. Amelia gingerly walked up to him when he held out a hand.

“Sure I did not absolutely encroach and violate you?” He asked on a hard swallow. Amelia gave him an indolent smile.

“There are men who won’t even touch a woman on their period.” She ran a hand across his strong chest, relishing the coarseness of the dark hair against her palm. “And then there’s you, worshiping my menstrual cycle like a sacred entity.”

He smiled, holding the hand on his chest. “Are you glad I did it?”

“You know I love everything you do to me.” She tilted her face, sliding her other hand down the front of his pants to feel his raging erection. “I want to repay the favour.”

“It wasn’t a favour. It was a joy.”

“And you won’t let me return it?”

“You’re indisposed.”

“And so darn aroused. You can taste me all you want.”

“Oh, Christ…” Daniel dipped his head to claim her lips in a hard kiss. The connection moved between them like a torrent, electrifying the arousal they were trying to deny in vain. He cupped her nape to draw her closer, and her fingers dug into his hips as their mouths danced and plundered, tension roiling and rising through their tangled bodies.

“You’ll really let me love you when you’re bleeding?” he asked on a ragged breath. She nodded.

“Long-held dream,” she quipped. “But only if I get to love you too.”

“On one condition,” he announced. “I’m going to make us dinner after.”

Amelia agreed with a happy laugh as he carried her back to bed.