She tasted of another world. Sweet, fragrant. He enclosed her slowly in his arms, clasping her lean body gently at first; then feeling more and more of her warmth he pressed her to him, both of them still gasping. They seemed to float, weightless, serene in the darkness. Awkwardly he began pulling away his wet jerkin. "You're just as I imagined." Her hands traveled across his chest, lightly caressing his skin, while the lamp flickered against the paintings on the walls above them. "There's a strength about you, a roughness." She nuzzled his chest with her face. "Tonight will you let me be your poet?" "Tonight you can be anything you want." "I want to sing of you--a man I adore--of the desire I feel for you. After we know each other fully, the great longing will be gone. The most intense moment we can ever share will be past. The ache of wanting." "What you just said reminds me of something John Donne once wrote." "Who is he?" "One of our English poets and songwriters. But he had a slightly different idea." He hesitated, then smiled. "To tell the truth, I think I may like his better." She lifted herself up in the water, rose petals patterned across her body. "Then tell me what he said." "It's the only poem of his I can still remember, but only the first verse. For some reason I'll never forget it. I sometimes think of it when I think of you. Let me say it in English first and then try to translate. _"I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then? But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly? Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers' den? 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be; If ever any beauty I did see, Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee." _ She listened to the hard English rhythm and then to his translation, awkward and halting. Then she was silent for a moment, floating her hand across the surface of the pond. "You know, I also wonder now what I did before I met you. Before I held you." She slipped her hands about his neck, and as she did he drew her up out of the water and cradled her against him. Then he lifted her, her body still strewn with rose petals, and carried her slowly up the marble stairs to the couch of Akman. He felt her cling to him like no woman ever had, and as he placed her on the bed, she took his face in her hands and kissed him for a long moment. Then he heard her whisper. "Tonight we will know just each other. And there will be nothing else." And they gave each to each until there was nothing more to give because each was the other. Together, complete.