Fruit Salad, African Violets and...Wet Knickers?

He approached his prey like a lion stalking a zebra; hungrily he eyed her as she sat at her vanity, brushing her crimson tresses with her ivory-handled hairbrush. Her breasts swelled large against the confines of the leopard-print chemise she wore; the sight of her pert nipples, teased and worried...

"Worried? What are they worried about, nuclear winter? They're confined, apparently...are they afraid they're never going to get out of there?" Harry pictured them jumping off the heroine's body, bouncing across the floor and underneath the door. Go, go, he silently cheered.

... against the expensive fabric, caused his manhood to harden and his pulse to quicken. Acting purely on instinct he pounced, his hands grabbing her shoulders and his mouth falling to her neck, lips and teeth catching the creamy warm softness of her neck...

"Creamy? Like meringue? That's not creamy, it's clammy. She's got a fever, and he's biting her instead of helping her!" Harry hoped that the couple's camp was close to a doctor's station.

"If I don't make love to you this second, I will die," he whispered.

"Oh, GAG!"

"Take me now, on the bearskin rug," she breathed, her bosom heaving as if she'd just outrun a pack of hungry wolves.

"Medic! We've got a heart attack in progress..."

And without a second thought, he scooped her into his arms and exited the room, growling manish-ly, the scent of musky arousal in her soaked knickers filling his nostrils with animalistic lust...

"Musky arousal? Soaked knickers? That can't be comfortable. Hope she's got a spare pair." Harry continued to read, his eyes widening.

Thrusting. Panting. Moaning. Spread legs. Pink and pure. Velvet lips. Moist. Cries. Elephant-sized penis. Milky juices. His precious African violet.

"AHH!"

Harry groaned and tossed Dudley's worn out copy of Sultry Safari (published by Harlequin-UK, all rights reserved; ask for it at your local bookstore) out the window. The passage he'd been reading must have been one of his cousin's favorite parts; many of the pages were somewhat sticky and smeared with what he hoped was cake icing and not something more unpleasant. Briefly, he pondered how Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon might react if they knew that their only son had a bit of a penchant for romance novels with cheesy plotlines and lame phrases like "manhood" and "heaving bosom" sprinkled throughout.

Then again, they'd not batted an eye when Dudley had announced last year at breakfast, rather cheekily, that he liked wearing silk underwear underneath his boxing trunks ("It keeps the boys comfortable" he'd explained). This remembrance brought a moment's worth of chuckles to Harry's lips, but didn't help him to rid the pressing problem he had:

Her visage entered his mind, unbidden; red hair and sunshine, freckles across bare shoulders that once, in a moment's spontaneous move, he'd decided to kiss, one by one, but had stopped at two hundred when she had indicated that she was late for Ancient Runes...

Ginny.

Despite his protestations to Ginny that they needed to stay apart due to his apparent destiny with the Dark Lord, their romance had rekindled itself at Bill and Fleur's wedding three years ago. An innocent greeting in the receiving line had led to sitting at the same table at the reception and sharing several dances after that. Casual touches had led to chaste kisses, which had led to considerably more than that just beyond the back garden and conveniently out of site of prying eyes. Twenty minutes of heavy petting had convinced both of them that the good thing they had together could easily overcome any obstacle, even being number one on Voldemort's hit list.

Besides, Ginny had murmured as she'd run her fingers through his untamable hair, what better way to go into battle than with the memory of the one he loved in his heart, buoying him on.

Ginny was one smart girl sometimes.

They had continued kissing and exploring each other, as far as Harry dared go, lest they be caught in a compromising position and despite Ginny's declaration that "nobody's coming back here; they're all embarrassing themselves over Phlegm." In reality, Harry's wanting to stop the proceedings had nothing to do with being caught and everything to do with the fact that he was...

...well, he'd been busy with Voldemort, after all...

...it was nothing to be ashamed of, really...

...it was considered noble to save oneself for their true love...

What a load of crap.

Harry Potter was a virgin, and a woefully pathetic one. On a purity test, the Pope would have scored lower. It wasn't that Harry had no interest in women; he had rather a lot, honestly. Tits, asses, legs... women kicked butt. But pesky problems like dealing with the Darkest Lord of the age and his group of socially backward followers had usurped much of Harry's time. Hell, Voldemort had even tried to attack him in his dreams while he slept, which had given the term "wet dream" a whole new meaning. It was hard to be able to act upon his normal instincts. After all, who wanted to be doing the nasty just to have Voldemort possess them at the best part?

And so, Harry had remained annoyingly chaste, thereby arousing suspicions about his sexual leanings and becoming the butt of jokes, innuendo and internet essays. It wasn't easy being The Chosen One.

"If I approach Ginny like a 'lion to prey', she's going to laugh her arse off," he muttered. "And don't get me started with 'soaked knickers.' Where do people get the idea that wet underpants are sexually arousing, for Merlin's sake? They're WET. And eventually COLD, I'd assume." He remembered the time in Muggle school when, at the tender age of six, he'd wet his pants by accident, the result of not feeling well. As the stain had spread across his trousers, he'd endured laughter, looks of disdain and well... the smell hadn't been great, either.

No, he decided, whoever thought that soaked underpants was erotic was obviously smoking something wacky and not sharing.

He wasn't even sure how to initiate the act itself. What did one say at such a time? Did Hallmark make a greeting card for such occasions? He tried a couple of ideas:

"Let's shag." No, she'd laugh in my general direction.

"I think you're sexy. Let's shag." Better, but a bit abrupt.

"I'll respect you in the morning." What if we shag in the early afternoon? Do I change the phrase to "evening?" And why wouldn't I respect her? I just made love to her; it's not like we played a game of Gobstones...

I wonder if this'd be easier if we just played Gobstones...

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted Harry's thoughts. He startled, certain of who was on the other side. He pulled his blankets to his chin. "Come on in, Ginny."

Ginny peered into the room, her hair spilling over her shoulders; she had removed it from the tight bun she'd worn at their Christmas Eve wedding hours earlier. Her wedding gown had been replaced with a simple black chemise whose hem skimmed her thighs and hugged her curves. Gone was her usually sunny expression; now she wore an expression Harry rarely saw--complete panic.

"Hi."

"Come in," Harry urged gently.

Ginny slipped inside and sat on the large bed, very far away from her new husband. She fidgeted with her hands; Harry noticed she had bitten her French-manicured index finger to the quick. "We're weirdoes," she admitted after some time.

Harry blinked. "Why?"

"Two virgins," Ginny said with a sigh. She cast him a pointed look. "You know how the joke goes, right?" When Harry shook his head in the negative, she made a circle with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand. "What do two virgins on their wedding night look like?"

"I dunno." Harry's heart began to sink.

Ginny pointed her left index finger at the circle she'd made with her right hand and poked at the circle several times with her index finger before inserting it straight through the ring.

Harry's stomach clenched. "Ah..."

"And it's my fault," Ginny stated. "We should have...I should have...and now...you're going to laugh at me!"

"Why?" Harry cried.

Ginny turned to him, her cheeks aflame. "I want this to be great, but I wasn't sure exactly how...or what...and so I bought a book to try and get some...pointers..."

"What book did you get?"

"Surrender to the Knight." Ginny burst into peals of laughter and reached underneath the bed, giving Harry a nice look at her butt. She tossed the book to Harry, who caught it and stared at the cover. Two lovers sat atop a black stallion wearing nothing but spurs and smiles. "It's a Harlequin. You probably don't know what that is, being a bloke, but my mum reads them all the time, so I figured it was bound to be great, but it was stupid!"

"Lots of heaving bosoms and wet knickers?" Harry wondered aloud.

"Yeah, how'd you guess?"

"Just lucky."

"Gimmie the book and listen to this," Ginny said, snatching the book from Harry's hands. "My insides are fighting a battle, Ravennah, that I'm unsure either can win. My head sees your wisdom and grace on the fighting field, but my loins see you as a ripe peach, awaiting the day when you shall be plucked from the orchard, stroked of your softness and purged of your pit. Can I be the one to taste your sweet fruit?"

"'Purged of your pit'?" Harry asked.

"'Purged of your pit,'" Ginny declared. "I'll spare you the two page description of her ripe flesh and honeyed nectar."

"Thanks. Ginny, does he want to make love to her or make a fruit salad?"

"Who knows?"

"I don't have a clue as to what I'm doing. Probably best to admit that up front. And for what it's worth, I read a Harlequin, too. Sultry Safari. It was Dudley's and no better than yours." He stretched his legs. "When other guys were getting some, I was facing Voldemort. Somehow, it doesn't seem fair."

"This shouldn't be so hard. It's not like we have to write a book about the first time we do it," Ginny suggested carefully. "We're not trying to put on a show. We're trying to express our love for each other."

"Can't we just play a game of Quidditch?" Harry joked.

Ginny cuffed him playfully on the chest. "Think of it like sport, if you must. I mean after all, it's got to be the most Freudian game ever invented. I can be a hoop, if you like, and you can be the....Quaffle, I guess."

Harry looked under the blankets. "I think I resemble a Beater bat, actually."

"Really?" Ginny reached for the covers. "I'd like to see that."

"Would you, now?"

Ginny nodded, pulling back a bit of the blanket. "The opposing team begins to stalk the other teams Beater..."

Harry grinned. "The Beater begins to move about the field, hoping to gain good position..."

Ginny moved toward Harry and slipped beneath the blankets. "It's a warm, sunny day. Perfect for the big game," she said. She ran a hand along Harry's chest. "Field conditions are excellent."

Harry rolled his eyes, but laughed. "I don't know. The hills and valleys could make finding the Snitch difficult."

Ginny's hand moved south and brushed against Harry's...Beater.

"Hey, now, it's considered bad form to foul the Beater," Harry warned.

"What about beating the Beater?" Ginny asked coquettishly, her fingers wrapped around him. She stroked him just the way he liked, slowly and firmly. She watched him close his eyes and arch his back a bit.

"Ohhh, don't put the beater out of commission or the game'll have to be called," Harry said in a hoarse voice. He reached for his new bride and pulled her on top of him. After kissing her, he remarked, "Delay of game?"

"You wish," Ginny whispered, kissing him back. "There's no delay of game in Quidditch unless the ref calls a personal foul or someone falls off their broom. Are you gonna fall off your broom, Harry?" she asked, grinding herself against him.

"They don't call me one of the best fliers in one hundred years for nothing," Harry remarked.

"Oooh," Ginny purred. "I'm really turned on by a man who can control his Firebolt...."

Harry could feel Ginny's breasts against his chest, her nipples pebble hard. He maneuvered about so that he could stroke them with the tips of his fingers, thoughts of them leaping off her chest a la Sultry Safari escaping his mind when above him, Ginny's breath caught in her throat in a way that made his knees weak.

"Do you like that?" he asked.

"You know that I do."

One of the straps on Ginny's chemise fell from her shoulder; Harry slipped his hand between the fabric and Ginny's breast and massaged it with his hand, kissing her the whole time. A moment later, she broke the kiss.

"A sudden rain shower sends the players into overdrive," she moaned against his skin. For a minute, Harry didn't comprehend. Then, when Ginny rolled off him, grabbed his free hand and guided it between her legs, he understood completely. She was wet.

And it wasn't as bad a thing as he'd expected.