Only a true hedonist can treat pleasure as something so integral to existence that it becomes ordinary. He thinks nothing of having conversations, many and varied, while contorting you and your emotions with the flick of a tongue. That you cannot do the same for a moment catches him by surprise. When the surprise fades, Iovis pats your hip. "Alright, alright, amice," he murmurs. A kiss placed upon your thigh, Iovis grins -- and more importantly leaves you be.
     "We should talk, si? Roll over," he gives you your space to do so, and even helps you by shifting his own position. He comes to lie on his side, his head propped up on his hand, his elbow in the bedding. The grin is wicked, blushed, when it comes into view. "I speak like it is nothing that you have your thighs around my head. It is habit, yes? I have been doing this for four-hundred years. So... I forget, Sono spiacente, io mi dimentico a volte, amice."
     You recline naked as a pair of princes on the Italian bedding. You could be in Genoa, with such company and surroundings. As you situate yourself, Iovis leans over and takes the bottle of wine again, opening it this time and taking a swallow from the bottle. He offers it to you, his smile still belonging to the devil, but his dark eyes warmer, sympathetic even.

     He has had less time at it than you. Instead of over four hundred years of this, he has not even had four years, yet, though you may not be aware of it. It is still so new - painfully new, perhaps. You free him, and slowly, slowly he rolls on the bed so that he can be opposite you, but still near.
     One hand reaches for the wine, taking it, letting it follow up to his lips for a long swallow. His head tips back, eyes closed as he does so; willing his throat to work and not close up, as much as willing other flesh to submit to the shift in circumstance.
     The bottle is offered back, and his hand lands lightly on your hip. As if even this temporary separation, it is too much without a touch, a gesture, something of intimacy maintained. "I do not think that you are shallow," Gwilym finally says, pulling the thoughts back into some semblance of order. "I ... do not know how to say this. I don't talk about myself very much, oes? Well, I talk of nothing but myself. But never much that means anything." He smiles at you; a quick, glimmering smile, a lightning bolt that is there and then gone, streaking across the room in darkness.
     "But I know what I have experienced... and how I have felt... and I have been shallow, oes? Hollow. Looking for something which would fill me. Women, men, things, ideas. Nothing worked, but I kept taking them in all the same. Is that not what you describe?"

     "It is no great crime, being shallow, amice. There are worse things, this I can tell you." He smiles at that. "So what if a man is shallow. Many would say such a man is blessed! He does not have the great problems of the world on his mind, look at him, how happy he must be. I do not say it about myself like it is some great misery of mine. It is just a fact in the moment, amice. I did not mean to sound like I was disparaging of myself. I know who I am. For what is good, for what is not good. For what is shallow," he smiles, dark eyes glimmering, "...and what parts of me are so deep they could be called an abyss!"
     Iovis takes the bottle from you, taking another swallow of the wine before passing it back to you. "I understand," he says quietly. "The... need to be filled. That is what my life has been these... long years, si? To become one big hunger pang. That is what it is like. But... that too... it has its good side, its bad side. But it bothers you," he sees that. "That you think you will never be satisfied, si? That you will eat and eat and still be hungry. That you will drink and drink until there are no oceans left and yet you will still be thirsty. You are... as seeker of experience, every thief is an adventurer, si? That same thing that made men cross oceans into their own deaths, that is the same impulse. But that does not mean that you are shallow necessarily. Or, not shallow, but not worthy. That is not it at all."
     He peers into the space between you, a hand going to your red hair. "I ... want and I want, I call myself Hunger, yes? But... when you are not here, amice, my bed stands empty of all but me. Sure, I eat when I need to eat. That is who I am but... I am..." Iovis pauses, his mouth twisting. "I ... am ...not worried that I will find you empty or hollow and then will leave you, amice. That... simply is not going to happen. I ... like you." Dark eyes lift to your face. "I am babbling, si?" He smirks. "You do not talk about yourself and I say too much! Always too much!"

     He listens to you speak, quiet as you do so, his attention affixed to your face (his hand affixed to your hip). You are saying things which he agrees with in part, disagrees with in part, but to which he just - does not know what to say. "It is just that I feel cold," Gwilym says finally, "inside. And it brings me to despair. I do things to get warm that a sane man wouldn't do, oes? That is all."
     There is more to it than just that. But these are the words which occur to him to say; he closes his eyes as your hand moves into his hair, the bottle dismissed in favour of grazing a kiss against your chin. "I don't mind your talking, you know," he says quietly. "I've kicked women and girls out of my bed for insisting on chatter. I stopped sleeping with women almost entirely because of it. Not entirely." His eyes slit open, and he smiles. "There are certain ... expectations on me, oes? As on you. Public ones."
     He pulls himself towards you by his grip on your side, halting only when he can feel your skin close to his own. "I like you, too," Gwilym admits, quiet again. "Maybe a little too much. It is not in my nature not to think about the future, Iovis. My brother's role is not mine; I do not know, do you understand how much that has shaped my life? I had a skewed kind of freedom, and so I took it. Not even because I wanted to, but in revenge. It would take too long to explain it all. I am always afraid of running out of time for those I like."

     "You and every other living person," Iovis notes. "Me? I live forever. Well, I do not live. I linger. I am a loitering beggar on the planet, an insect sipping off the living." He smiles at that, full lips making much of a slight expression. "I do not have to worry about that. But... my maladies," he means malaise perhaps, "... of the heart, they are different from yours." He is quiet a moment. "Cold inside. Are you sure you are not one of my own kind?" He teases you to get you to smile about your sorrows. That is how he deals with his own. He returns your kiss, on your mouth instead of your chin. He plucks your lips, tugging on it with his long, sharp teeth.
     "I should not tease you," you feel his arms around you and he is in your space, invading it. "I do not know what to tell you about the cold you feel. Maybe this freedom you had, it was too free. And so.. to feel anything, you must go farther, do more. I do not know. I know why I am cold inside. I do not have a heart!" He grins. "Well, I have a heart like a raisin. A prune. But... I will tell you something," he whispers now. "When I am with you, I can feel it growing plump again with blood, Gwilym. I can almost feel it beat again, like it did when I was young. And alive."
     He brushes his parted lips against your own, then leans back a little. "I don't have the same expectations. So long as I don't cut off anyone's head in the street, who cares what I do? My expectations... not to do anything fatally stupid. To keep order. That is it. They are very low expectations, amice."
     Such a strange thing, the future. It is a myth, like santa claus and the unicorn. It doesn't really exist. And yet we worry about it so much! "Pah, what is too much? I do not ... no... really understand how your kingdom works. I have never been or known princes. I was a pauper, yes? A ruffian living in the streets of Genoa. I never met the doge. Any sort of doge, until I was dead some hundred years. But... I will say, though I do not understand it, how complex it must be... I can sympathize? I imagine it is difficult. You cannot worry about how much time you have, amice. You ... just have to live. To do your best like every man before you. And you will fail, because we all fail. But that is alright. You're not alone."

     "My lack of time is not because of my mortality." He almost smiles at the thought. Him? He's not as mortal as you might think. "I am magical in nature, Iovis; my life will be as long as I want, unless it is cut short by violence, disease, or accident." His hands both reach for you as you wind your arms around him. "But I am not as old as you, oes?" It is teasing, quiet. "I am only still barely over twenty, Iovis. Not even a boy, to you. Still a gleam in my da's eye. By now, I am older than my mother, and that is a strange feeling."
     He caresses your thigh, then tightens his arms, hugging you to him and then relaxing his grip. "With you, it is different," Gwilym whispers. "I want to explain things. I want you to share my world, Iovis. It does frighten me to feel this way - my mind trips and tangles over what could go wrong. But ... I want you to see it. All of it. I want you there with me."

     "A thief should be an optimist," Iovis teases. "I do not know why you are afraid. You were not afraid of those hell-beasts! They were much more worrying, yes? Than whether I will stay or go. Most people are glad to be rid of Iovis Macarelli." He laughs at that. "You should put aside those thoughts, those worries, amice. They do you no good. I do not think: I like this man, even if he is only twenty, maybe he will find out I am a ruthless killer bore and he will go somewhere else. If you do, you do. I can't do anything about a future that hasn't happened. You control today, amice, this moment. And that is all."
     Iovis props his head up again on a hand, his elbow digging into the bedding. "Magical, si. I do not understand what you are. But I am not complaining." His mouth curves in a slant, a very satisfied slant. "I enjoy it. I see things sometimes when I drink you. I feel things. I taste the magic, the shadows and sunlight. I remember the sun with you. And it does not burn me into ash!"
     It is extraordinary!
     Older than your mother? You see him look confused (it does not take much sometimes). "Your kingdom is strange, yes? That a son could be older than his mother! I would like to see it... maybe one night, we can try it. You have a sun in your kingdom? I wonder if it would burn me like the one here does. I miss the sun. It is a stupid thing after so many years to miss the sunlight. But... I miss the warmth and to have to squint because it is so bright on the water. To lie in a hammock and be lazy. Or, better even -- to fuck in the middle of the day, sunlight warming the skin and the grass! Oh," he sighs, rolling back to lie on his back. "Those were the days, amice... days indeed."

     Gwilym reddens slightly as you talk of the shadows and their dangers. "That was different," he says gruffly. "I have no reason to be afraid of those. The worst that they could do is kill me, oes?" It is the opposite of your belief. The worst that can happen to you is that you end up dead. "You are not boring. You have more than you think."
     He looks at you, then rolls towards you, onto you, throwing one leg over your hip. "We could find out," he murmurs. "I could take you to my home, and if it would work - you could test it by just sticking a finger out. I don't know if you'd be safe or not. It's ... never come up, oes? But you paint attractive pictures." He smiles down at you. "As attractive as you."

     The look is openly skeptical. Skeptical of being burned by a magical sun? Maybe. Skeptical that he is attractive? Certainly. His lips curve this way and that in that skepticism turned humorous. "We will try that another night, some night when I am feeling brave, si? What a thing to think of, turning to ash. The only thing that frightens me... the only thing... is waking up in hell. What if I see someone I know? That would be awkward, yes? What do you even talk about in hell? The weather?"
     He gives you a brief respite, but it does not last long. Turning his head on the pillow, those black eyes fix on you. "You are troubled. You have so much to say, it is all damming up at your teeth." His hand pats your leg. "It is alright, amice. You do not have to say everything. I hear you, I hear what you do not say," Iovis murmurs. "Sometime soon, we will try it, this adventure, si? I will have to make sure I leave my will just in case I explode."
     He smiles when he teases of his own death. He speaks of it plainly, graphically, and it amuses him to no end. "You will do me a favor, si? You will do something for your Iovis." Iovis looks at you, his smile fading. "You will try not to agonize too much. I want to see you smile. Your face may be the face of shadows, but it does not suit you, being cloudy."

     "If you are cast into Hell," Gwilym tells you, very seriously, "then I will follow you." His expression is grim. To you, this is a maybe - a possible. To him, it is a certainty. "I will find you, and I will find a way to bring you back with me. If I must suborn the leader of the Hunt himself, I will do it."
     And why not? The leader of the Hunt is related to his mother. The commander of that hunt is his grandfather - soon to be his brother. If anyone could persuade Mad Peter to show the way to Hell, surely it would be under such conditions. Even if he would not tell entirely the truth if he did not have to.
     You look at him, you speak, and he nods slowly; he dips his head to kiss you again. "I will try," Gwilym whispers. "Sometimes, smiling is easier than at other times. Sometimes, my smile is just to tell the world to sod off, oes? But you ... you make me want to smile more often." And at that, he does smile, expression softening. "I am where I want to be, you know."

     "You better come find me," Iovis warns, black eyes glittering with the dark curving grin, "... or you will hear me yelling obscenities and curses even from the last pit of hell." He laughs, but in his eyes is the recognition of your promise. His kiss is his reply.
     Those who are good at words, like poets and scholars, could come up with a proper reply. Iovis is not these things. Instead, there is his hand in your hair. Instead, there is his rolling you over until you are under him. And there is his kiss, wide and blatantly lascivious. It parts your lips. It assails your mouth. It surrounds and suckles your tongue.
     His weight presses you into the bedding. His skin moves against yours as Iovis wallows in you. If you were covered in blood, he would swim in you no less. "You are where I want you, too," Iovis says at last. He pauses for a moment, as if thinking: Should I say this? But when has he ever stopped himself before? "Li desidero. Non ora. Non appena ora. Li desiderero domani. Li desiderero dopo domani. E se devo andare ad inferno averlo voi, quindi andra."
     Iovis bends his head, his mouth enfolding yours again. His lips, full, are so soft. Softer than this bed, more luxurious. Intimacy as much as sensuality is expressed in the joining of your mouths. It quickens, deepens, and when it parts, the parting breath is loud..
     "Have you said all you wish to say to me for a while? I have to have you. I cannot wait anymore. You are burning beneath my skin. I need to fuck you, amice. I need to hear you groaning my name." His mouth leaves your mouth, his words sputtering between kisses, and buries itself against your neck, in the darkness of the crook of your neck and shoulder.

     His answer is wordless, speechless, with the need for air and the need for your touch. Gwilym's arms lift to surround you again, rolled beneath you as he is; and with his emerald eyes closed, he burrows up against you as if you could somehow save him from tomorrow.
     "Placet..."

Posted by rowan at December 06, 2006 08:49 PM