Oh, Robert Curtin, kill me again.

Claudio Sacchi He thought he heard an operetta, off, a long distance away, he listened in his dream and he heard it again, an angelic voice, la petite mort, la petite mort. He looked up and she was there, naked and beautiful, leaning on an elbow and absentmindedly, as if she too were in the same slumber and repeating the verse, over and over again, la petite mort.

His awakening brought her around, she looked on him and smiled. “Oh, hello.”

“What were you saying?” He reached over and pulled her head down onto his chest. “My French, is not good, I mostly slept through all the classes.”

“La petite mort. The little death.” She smiled. “Marta used to read naughty books to me at night, after all the lights were out. We’d make a little tent with the sheets and we’d have a flashlight. I’d hold the light and Marta would read under the tent. One book, about a woman in love,” she hesitated, a little embarrassed.

“Go on, please.”

“She would describe things, things we didn’t understand, of course we knew what they were doing, you know, it, but we didn’t fully understand. And she said, the character in the book said, she felt la petite mort. Every time it would happen, it was like a little death.” She looked up and kissed him on the mouth, moved her hand down over his body and smiled. “And now I know what she meant.”

“Yes, yes.” He thought on that for a while. “It’s sad, there’s a sadness to it, isn’t there, Rebecca? Like a feeling that is too overpowering, that it is like Christmas morning, but then Christmas morning turns to Christmas afternoon and then, there’s sadness.” He kissed her hair. “That’s stupid. That’s not what it is.”

“No, no, Robert. I know what you’re saying. It’s like having the feeling and the feeling is so wonderful that, you are afraid that it doesn’t get any better, or that, having it is somehow so deliciously bad that you will be punished for your sin, your sin of happiness. That being this happy, no one has the right, no one deserves to be so happy, and something has got to give. It’s almost as if la petite mort, it would be better to just go on and die, and not recover from it, it…” She suddenly looked into his eyes, they both, now misty-eyed, overwhelmed, so much in love that it hurt. Their hearts, literally, ached.

She pulled him on top of her. “Oh, Robert Curtin, kill me again.” The Mule Tamer III, Marta's Quest