We each closed our doors simultaneously and locked them. I then unbuttoned my jacket and threw it over the desk chair. I had thought I was alone, but then I saw him. Cloud was standing by the window, staring at the treetops silently.

Slowly I approached him and stood next to him by the window. I too looked out at the trees. The sun had set completely now. A slight purple hue dusted the top of each leaf as the light disappeared for the evening. The water had vanished. The breeze still rustled the branches softly. The leaves brushing against each other in the wind was like some ancient kind of music I had always longed to hear. This was the night.

"How are you hands?" I asked him. My own hands were folded behind my back in the most professional stance I could manage, though they were sweating.

He smiled and briefly looked at me before looking back at the trees. "Fine, sir. They don't hurt, really." He lifted them up to show me. "I still have them, thanks to you."

"How long have you been back?"

"Nearly an hour sir."

"Didn't you go see your mother?"

"I did, sir, but I told her I'd be back later. To be honest…I wanted to get back here in case you needed something."

"A soldier who thinks of his duty before himself will go far in the company." I said blankly. He nodded.

"Cloud…"

"Yes, sir?"

"Don't call me that right now."

"Yes si-- okay."

For a long time, we were silent. I couldn't finish my sentence. Then he told me, "I heard what you and Zack were talking about in the hallway."

"I see." I answered him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see tears pricking at his eyes. Please, please. You're too beautiful to cry. "Is it true?" I ask.

"Yes sir," his voice broke, "but I want you to know that I will never let that compromise my work ethic or my duty to th--"

"You are very passionate about your poetry, are you not?"

"What?"

"Answer me."

He sucked up his tears and stared as hard as he could at the window. "Yes."

"What makes you feel…passionate about it?" I asked as I paced around him quietly.

"Well…" Cloud began, pausing and wrinkling his brow. Occasionally he still sniffed and wiped his nose. "I guess I was born feeling passionate about it, ya know? I just think its really beautiful when you can describe how you feel in a few short words. I think that's the hardest thing to do."

"I have never felt… passion." I ventured. Already my arms were aching to hold him as I had in the rain only a few short, yet very long, hours ago.

"Never? About anything?"

"No."

"Not about a song you've heard? Or a play? Or when you fight for something noble and courageous? Never?"

"Please…tell me what it feels like."

He looked at me again, then away. "Its like being in pain and being in love at the same time. Your stomach hurts because you want something so bad. And you get goose bumps, and you get fascinated by every little thing about it…and you can't think of anything else. Sir, I'm sure you've felt passion. I think everyone has at some time."

"…You're very right." I answered him. Boldly I walked towards him, facing him, looking down into his eyes. I had never been more afraid, but that is how life is, I suppose. Its easier to fight a thousand foes than to fight the foe within yourself.

"I think then I have felt passion, but not until recently. Not until I saw you write that poem with your hands…"

He then looked up into my eyes, facing me. We were so close, but before I consummated this…before I made it the way it was meant to be, I had to know.

"Is this…what I feel for you…is this passion?"

I saw his face break into a gigantic smile as he turned the small gap between us into nothing. I felt his arms wrap around my waist, and I too put my arms around his shoulders, breathing him in, so deep. He smelled like the trees and the dirt and the wild and everything that I should not be all in one, perfect unison.

"I can't think strait…" I whispered. "My whole life this is how its been, and then I saw you…I saw the real you scribbling on that piece of paper…and now, its infected me, too."

What Tseng would call imperfection.

Gently I pulled his face away from my chest and raised his chin to look up at me. Both of us were trembling violently.

"But it is something I will never, ever regret." I said. Even if it is imperfect. One must decide, eventually…when to live their own life, and not live it for others.

Then in a tangle of arms and sweat, we kissed each other. I did not kiss him. He did not kiss me. We. Kissed. Each other.

And in that blessed moment I felt all the things that I had longed to feel my entire life. Love, affirmation, electricity, passion…all flooding into my brain at once and making me forget what I am or was or will be.

Madly, hotly I drove my mouth harder into his, his timid tongue pushing between my lips to taste me fully as I tasted him. I tasted salt and heat and his soft, perfect tongue dancing with mine with such passion it should have killed us both.

My hand pulled the back of his neck towards me so that our kiss almost hurt. His sleeveless top was completely delightful-- I ran my greedy hands over that perfect skin and I began to push harder and harder into it until I heard him groan under me.

With a hard smacking sound we managed to separate our lips, pouring our breath still into each other's mouths, we were so close, exhaling what the other inhaled, inhaling what the other exhaled. Our sweat intermingled upon our skin and I felt his hardness against my leg, just as he felt mine.

"Please…" I panted. "Let me touch you…just let me touch you…"

"Yes…yes, yes, yes…" he hardly said. "Whatever you want, I want to be only…only yours, please…"

We haphazardly tried to move towards the bed, which proved to be impossible, so I picked him up in my arms and carried him. He didn't seem to care- he only continued to kiss me-- a better blessing I could not have asked for. Laying him down on the bed, I pushed my hands under his shirt to touch what I couldn't earlier that day-- I poured all of my frustrations on him all at once. Climbing on top of him, I let my fingers push and pull his skin and watch how each part of it moved. I moved his shirt all the way up to his chin, running my tongue up along the crevasse in the middle of his chest. He moaned and fisted my hair pushing me away because it was so intense, pulling me to him so it would never stop.

Then I found those delicious little bits of flesh that haunted all of my thoughts. With one hand I trapped his wrists together above his hand and with the other I massaged the under part of one side of his chest, milking his breast as if he were a woman. He howled and squirmed under me, panting how much he loved me…loved me…

Then with my hand I pinched that beautiful, hard, cold nipple and bit his ear. I knew that, at least for my part, the feeling was an exquisite one when applied to myself, and he seemed to feel the same way. I wanted to give him the feelings I felt when I touched myself. I wanted to make him climax.

All in due time. For this time is to satisfy my curiosities- to satisfy my every whim. He was giving the control of himself to me. He told me that he was all mine. I intended to take full advantage of the situation.

Licking and massaging with my tongue his neck and ear, finally I ripped his shirt off entirely and seized his mouth with mine. My hands groped around for anything to keep his hands above his head, and when I only found the sheets, I thought that would have to do. Taking a corner of them, I wrapped them around his wrists and then tied them to the bed post. Ah, yes. Now that's better. I'll just take both of my fingertips here and brush lightly on both of his nipples until he begs me for more.

I suckled on his neck as my hands continued their ministrations. His voice became louder and louder, to the point that I gently took a fingertip and put it over his mouth. As much as I loved hearing him, I did not want to cause a ruckus outside.

I wanted him to be solely mine, and with no interruptions.

All awkwardness was gone. All questions answered. Only he and I amongst the bed sheets and our own salty sweat and saliva.

Ripping off the rest of my clothes as well as his, I finally take a good long look at my prize for the evening. A beautiful, perfect, naked, delicious thing that loves me and only me. Helpless and gorgeous and I'm a hungry wolf wanting to devour every last bit of flesh.

I pushed his legs apart slowly. I can tell he's scared, but I hope to overwhelm his fear with passion as my mouth now suckles his nipple. With a wet finger I massage the other, and with my hips I force his legs to come apart even more.

"L-look at me…" he panted. "Own me. Own my body."

That drunk look in his eyes is enough to make me climax on its own. With my hands I hold his knees and lean back so I can see the full extent of his arousal. His gorgeous, throbbing red is begging me.

As I touched his skin his emotions were so strong I could feel them in the air around me. I caressed his face with one of my hands and in his eyes I could see everything he said, how he was frightened, how he had never done this before, how he wanted me, needed me, wanted to give me everything that I needed.

I turned him over and licked his back, making his hips buck and his back arch at the sensation. I massaged his chest with one hand and pull his hair gently with the other, just to see if he likes that. He does. He moans in approval and leans against the headboard, his gorgeous entrance pushing upwards to meet me, and the taste and the heat and yes, oh God yes, the euphoria of it all is swallowing me whole….

Not yet. Not yet. You don't want to hurt him.

I decide to crawl underneath him and look very carefully at the erection that is solely for me. Think that again…yes… solely for me…what an intoxicating thought. With one hand I take his sac, in the other his sex. He moans and arches his back more to give me fuller access. I thank him by stroking him harder and wetting my hands with saliva.

A drop of pre-climax drips slowly out of his head. Quietly I lick it up, marveling at the taste-- how its just as wild as his sweat. To be bold I place his entire sex in my mouth and suckle gently, trying not to touch it with my teeth. My assumption would be that would be painful, or at the least alarming.

He loves it. He loves me. He cries and he wants to shout but instead he bites the sheets in his euphoria. Increasingly aware of my need for release, I turn him over on his back once again and lay on top of him, massaging his sides and backside, his inner thigh…

"Do you want this…do you want…me?" I ask him, licking my fingers and touching timidly the ring of muscle between his legs.

"Yes. Yes, please. I want you to…"

His voice turns to a whisper.

"I love you."

I need no more encouragement. Holding his legs open as best I can and untying his hands, I slowly push two fingers into him. The sensation is hot, slick, tight. So, so tight. His face becomes something of a grimace and something of a moan.

I soon push it to three. This time he cries out not in pain but delight-- apparently I have touched something that was very much to his liking. Both he and I are learning. I'm not sure what it was that I did.

"What did you feel?" I asked him, caressing his face.

He pushed one of his hands against the one I had on his face, as if to keep it there forever. He looked as if he valued the touch more than anything in the world.

I felt such warmth in my heart.

"D-deeper…" he stuttered. "It…it…ah! Yes! Yes!"

That crooning and moaning is just about all I can stand. With a slight pause, I push my way into him. Ah, yes. Yes, this is the feeling. Tight, hot, wet, all around me, pushing on me all at once, bombarding me on all sides. I fist his erection hard so he feels the overwhelming pleasure that I do. His fingertips with their tiny scars clawing my skin, his back arching. Then his arms wrap around my neck, with a thousand 'I- love-yous flowing through the air to my ears. And finally, I feel him tighten even more around me; I seize up in him, and we both come to utopia, screaming, me into him, him onto me.

I collapsed onto him and into the tangle of sheets. I'm so, so tired, but it's a pleasant tired…one I've never had before. I could feel his fingers exploring me-- wanting to know me as fully as I had known him. I feel his lips kiss my neck gently, then my chest. Then I felt him pick up one my hands and he puts one of my fingers in his mouth, pushing it in and out, in and out. The image of it was superb, and if I wasn't so tired, I would probably be aroused again. Apparently, he's not through.

He settles himself suckling on my chest for a few minutes-- something I'm not about to argue with…mm, God, that feels good…

His tiny little tongue laps and explores the entirety of my body. He pushes my knee between his legs and he moans. It seems now he's got my interest again; I push my knee harder to his liking and pull the small of his back towards me. This makes his back into a gorgeous arch-- one I love to look at. I grab his backside harshly and push his body into mine-- our masses fighting now for the same space. The taste of him…I cannot have enough of it.

And then he does something I never expected him to do.

He climbed on top of me and pushed my half-hardness into himself. Strateling me between his legs, he pushes and pulls himself down and up on my shaft, the sight of him doing this now making me harder than ever before. He lets his head fly back. I listen to him breathe. He's so aroused that he exhales long and harsh, and he inhales hardly at all. I take my hand to his sex and he touches his own chest in reply, caressing his delicate stomach muscles, teasing his nipples.

How could I have had this right in front of me for so long and never really seen it.