In the quiet space of one's soul, there is no place for hammering. Though the London nightscape glitters past the windows and walls of a small apartment, and an Indian kitchen cooks up delights whose flavors permeate even concrete, in this small bedroom, in this quiet space of his soul, Davydd lingers with only one. She is wrapped around him, and he her, and the blankets around them both. There is only quiet, and there is only skin.
     He has come close to his precipice. He has danced upon the edge of it like goat, though not half so sure-footed. He has come close to the edge, peered over it, felt the breeze on his face, the calm surrender, but a touch stopped him.
     And when the touch landed on his arm, a thought occurred to him. And hen that thought occurred to him and settled over him, he found himself looking over the ledge and knowing that it was not time to jump. Even if he knew that he would fly.
     Dark green eyes are couched in the face both young and old, looking as his fingertips are pressed to yours, playing something of a children's game...
     Itsy Bitsy Spider walked up the water spout...
     Down came the rain and washed the spider out...
     Out came the sun and dried up all the rain...
     And Itsy Bitsy Spider walked up the spout again...
     The lights are all off. The only thing lighting the room is a sliver of a beam from under the closed door between the bedroom and the living room and the lights from outside. Though the windows are closed -- the very window he once tapped on with a bird's beak -- the blinds are lifted so twinkling, sparkling London in all its gaudy glory can peek in.
     He doesn't mind it having a look.
     Bare bodies slide in Platonic enjoyment. Such an indulgence, the feeling of skin to skin, nakedness shared simply for the delight of itself. No phones. No distractions. Just quiet, and darkness, and skin. Davydd doesn't speak -- he doesn't want to jinx it. He just looks at you, his fingers grasping your hand with the spider rhyme done, and he leads it to his lips, closing his eyes as he kisses it, the heart of the palm of your hand.
     "I am here," he whispers in Welsh suddenly, softly. "Right here," his mouth moves against the heart of the palm of your hand again. "In the palm of your hand, you tiny, remarkable person." Bending, your hand curled in his, he kisses you. "Diolch," he says in the darkness with you. "For making me return." And not just here.

     She stirs, making a soft sound, a sigh of content. Her fingers brush to your own, thighs sliding against yours with a shivering frisson of pleasure, of enjoyment. It is lazy. It is sated; hunger diminished but not banished, her other hand lifting to tug lightly at your hair.
     I love you so much, Davy. It is silent, whispered not from her lips from your ear but from her thoughts to yours, placed where you might pluck it, a pearl from any bedded oyster. The world has gone away. Listen; you won't hear it. Just me and you and a bed.
     She smiles at you slowly, your wife, your lover, your girl. Her faces and aspects reflect to you in her eyes, joined together into one; as you and she have been one and will be again. You speak in Welsh and she answers you; it's gone a little more modern, with practice and experience. "You're welcome. Just promise you'll return the favor if I ever need it, mm?"
     Her hand remains with yours, her smile spreading, and she sprawls against you with another soft mm. "My Davy," Fiona murmurs lazily. "You needed reminding of what you're fighting for. Next time you go to war, can I be your camp follower?"

     "I'll have a tent made just for you," he chuckles in the darkness, his laughter lighting a match against the otherwise quiet. "And no matter how smelly I get," his question starts. He looks at you with a wondering gaze and upraised eyebrows as double question marks. "You'll be right there waiting for me to wash off the muck?" As if it should be an honor. And it is.
     Me and you and bed. His thoughts repeat your own, plinking between your ears like pearls dropped to bounce on marble tiles. I needed this more than even I knew. But you did. Davydd looks at you, his face close by, close enough to kiss, close enough to nuzzle at your flesh. But you knew. The nuzzle of his mouth reaches your breasts. He in his skin and blanket moves over and against you.
     There's nothing like the way you feel beneath him, coiled tight like an enchilada in the blankets. "I promise," Davydd's voice is muffled, his face between your breasts. "The next bridge you stand on, about to jump off of, I'll grab you by the back of the neck like the kitten you are."
     You give me hope when I run out. I need you, girl. And if I haven't told you... showed you... shame on me. Davydd looks up along your body to your face. His eyes crinkle at the corners as they do when he feels deeply -- or laughs loudly.
     Bowing his head, he comes face to face with your flesh. "I love you, too," he whispers. Gentle the lips the brush at your breasts. Your life is everywhere. You are so full of it. And when he feels empty, he fills himself with you.
     An hour's worth of rest begins to dissipate like fog to the lighting of a match. Red hair, cut short and choppy, is still long enough to drift with the bowing of his head, the tilting of his face as his mouth wanders over your skin, from breast to breast, with slow amazement. There is only him, you, and the bed. His breath (forced), your breath (real), and the shifting of bodies in the covers.

     "I'll be waiting for you with a hot bath," Fiona retorts. Her hands move lazily over your chest, both of them, in smoothing whorls and loops. "Think I'm going to put up with mud on my finest imported silks? I'll wash you clean and scrub you, and tease you unmercifully, and give you heated wine mulled with spices. And all of your men will be jealous that you have the most beautiful and talented camp follower in the entire world."
     She chuckles, breath easing out of her as you nuzzle in, her hand slipping to your hair again, massaging at your neck. You and me and a bed. The best thing in the world. Food can wait until later, even. Just us, hm? And the rain coming to hit the windows. Blessed rain. It'll change the sheets of the world for us.
     "Why do you think I keep jumping off bridges?" Fiona smiles at you, the corners of her eyes crinkling in answer to yours. "Because I keep hoping you'll be there to pull me back to safety or otherwise to catch me - or what the hell, to jump with me when it's time. What would I do without you?"
     She leans forward, your mouth at her breast, her lips at the top of your head, a pink flush of rising blood answering you. I need you more than anything, Davy. You make me happiest in moments like this - when you remember things. Your soul is closest to the surface in these moments - and that's what you've been missing, isn't it? Your soul. But your soul always has to answer to mine...

     "Maybe one day," his low voice breathes its way out across your skin, "...you and I'll learn to walk from the shore to the water rather than plummeting head first." There's always hope, isn't there? His words muffle into a moan as his mouth, at the first twinge of your temperature lifting in your blush, comes to cover risen flesh. As if he, like his sons, could take his nourishment there.
     Davydd pulls from you with a stolen breath, the intake of unnecessary air that is expelled at your ear in his murmur. "Sometimes, my mind's like a forest. It gets so thick with brush, only a fire can save it." Looking at you, a hand lifting to brush your hair gently back, he plies your lips with his.
     There is hunger unmistakable. But it is not the primary need, not the primary emotion. There is love, first of all, in how his arms surround you, in how his body rolls against yours, enjoying you being beneath him. "I have missed it all. The silence. Being here, just in the moment of feeling this. Where have I been, I wonder?" he thinks suddenly. "To have been so ... wrapped up that I had forgotten just what it means to be wrapped up with you in an old comforter on an old bed in an old city."
     He lifts slightly, one hand going to the bed to brace him. Davydd looks at you, he kisses you with eyes open, unshielded, as his mouth feels the quickening pace of your pulse, first at your mouth, and then in the shadows of your neck as he buries his face in your flesh.
     Beneath the covers, his fingers tickle, sliding along your belly before dipping between your thighs. With the sliding of his fingers, will you notice the pluck? As his fingers smoothly circle in distraction, could you miss the circling of his tongue marking the strike?
     When his teeth sink into you, so do his fingers.

     "You had locked yourself in the citadel of despair." Fiona's voice is still lazy, but her eyes are half-lidded, watching you from under thick eyelashes, her smile broadening. "I had to mount quite the military campaign on it myself, my husband. I'm glad the casualties were only your misery and not my patience."
     She nuzzles in against you, even as you lift from her, her head tipping back to allow you easy access to her flesh. Davy...
     Oh, the temptation is there. The air is thick with it; so thick with it that it almost chokes her. Her hips bump up against you, and she shudders, then cries out as she is so ably penetrated. It is a waterslide, tonight. She slips into it as easily as into sleep, and as wildly as from the back of a runaway horse. Her body bends to yours shudderingly, achingly, without fight; a sudden, unintended and complete surrender.
     She didn't even know you were fighting...

Posted by rowan at March 29, 2007 09:45 AM