The angel is tentative at first.
But still he holds out his hand, and within its warmth all is safe. There are no dangers, no regrets, no fear. There is only the sparkle in his eye as he drinks in the sight before him that somehow, somehow, pleases the angel. His jawline tenses for a moment and he simply stares, asking for permission that he already knows he has. And then there is a shiver, up the spine and over the skin. The angel leaves a trail of shimmering dust wherever he touches and the skin is renewed, a bright glow of youth and health that reflects back into the angel’s eyes and suddenly he is purely ethereal, and there is nothing but hunger, hunger and light and passion and skin and beauty. He is ready now, for he tenses his arms and arches up, a deep red flush on his cheeks like crushed roses pressed to marble. There is a moment of breathing, a fragile human chest heaving beneath the sculpted stillness of the angel’s breast. His lips are wet and parted ever so slightly, his warm breath stealing all human air that it touches. He braces himself, as if he is the one who is in the presence of an angel. His wet lips moisten the warm spots where angel dust still lies, and he closes his eyes.

And then there is pain. Blinding, desperate, tearing, sweet, beautiful pain. The angel's eyes fly open in utter joy, blue floods the room as he looks upon it with the eyes of a seraph. The muscles in his arms and back grow and tighten as he moves; the lines of his body are each amplified from their own pleasure. He holds on tight and still there is pain, unfathomable pain that increases as the angel moves faster but there is no darkness, no fear, there is only pleasing the angel. There are tears, blurred tears that run down the cheeks and cool the skin, but still no fear. The angel lets out a small cry and by the grace of human touch his wings fly out behind him, powerful and white, stemming from the rolling muscles of his back. There is fascination amidst the pain at the sheer immensity, sheer beauty, of the angel’s wings that enclose the angel and his lover within a world of shade. He is moving faster and harder, the pain is more piercing, yet there is a want, a need, for more of it. Pain inflicted by an angel is not pain at all.

And then he stops, his eyes and mouth wide in shock at something even an angel does not understand. Every muscle is stone, every finger is clenched, both wings are frozen in mid flight. For a moment there is something human in his eyes, raw and vulnerable and passionate and mortal. There is no breath, no movement, as the angel stops the seconds from passing. Suddenly the ground is gone along with the atmosphere as the angel stares in admiration at the breakable, frail human form before him. Wide ocean eyes search for the stem of his jubilation, for the secret of the pleasure of mortality that the heavens had never entrusted to him. His happiness pulses from his skin like the waves that echo in his eyes. And there is only the angel’s love, flooding the lungs and filling the air and warming the skin. The pain is white but no longer blinding. Instead it sharpens every sense, brings the angel’s love to an encircling cocoon. There is nothing but his passion, his affection, his love. There is nothing but the angel’s glow, no air or breath or darkness or movement or time.
And then the angel collapses.
His skin is warm and damp, his breath shuddering along with his wings. His weight is the pull of gravity; his body is never close enough. The pain is now a dull ache, a throb pulsating with the angel’s love. Finally, he lifts his head and wipes away the forgotten tears, leaving white dust in their place. His breath is cooler, his hair swept away to reveal more skin. His complexion has reached a new level of stardom, its glow beyond that of before.
And then the angel smiles.
It touches every crevice of being; every light is cast aside as darkness in its presence. There is nothing but the angel’s happiness, nothing but the angel’s love. It is the oxygen in the air, it is the warmth of closely pressed bodies, it is the promise intimacy holds. The angel’s lips moisten again, and his wings contract slowly and gracefully into his back. They are a secret now, a beautiful wonderful secret as precious and sacred as the unspoken promise hovering on his lips. And then there is only weightlessness, air and breath and skin, as the angel carries his fragile promise back to the world of mortality, leaving only sparkling dust behind them.