“No.”
The word echoed through wood, startling a starling into flight. It wasn’t often words were spoken here in the land of chessboards and broken promises. Today, however, they were necessary.
“No.”
And again the reply. Had she been able to sigh, she would have, her hands settling like autumn leaves to her sides, her frown more resigned than angry. The answer was always the same, no matter how often she asked the question. Still, she continued to ask. Once again, her hands lifted and she spoke in the only way left to her, spiderlike digit forming words and sounds, darker than dark eyes speaking volumes when even fingers failed her.
Why?
A shrug, nothing more. Her disappointment was silent as she turned away and walked across the checkered field, across alternating squares of virgin snow and black ice, the soles of her feet as numb as her heart. Tomorrow she would ask again. And the following day. And the one following that, until at last, the answer was yes.
o-O-o
“Lemon raspberry and ice blue cream.”
“Shush, Doll. Make love to me.”
I brushed her lips with the tips of my fingers, please to feel her trembling with anticipation. She was beautiful, hanging as she was, trussed up in silk upon the great web that I’d woven. It stretched across the room, glistening beneath the starlight like a thousand diamond strung together. Still, its unearthly beauty paled to hers.
“I would, you know I would.”
“Yes, I know.”
I traced her lips, teasing long her jawline, down her throat, along her collar bone, than make, drifting downwards to circle her ripening pink peak. My mouth followed suit, kissing her delightful tip, sucking it between moist lips like a confectionary delight, the tip of my tongue a butterfly against her sensitive flesh.
“Please.”
She moaned, her eyes closing, her lips sensuous, framing an oval shaped mouth, the sound delightful to my ears.
“Please please or please pause?”
“Yes.”
I smiled, kneeling before her, my mouth on her pouting tummy, her rounded mound, her quivering arrow of desire, my tongue entering her quiver, filling it full of eros, barbed and pointed. I was the hunter, after all, and she my captive. As I filled her, I felt her shivers turn to quaking; her whispers soon turned to moans, her moistness morphed to sea foam that flowed like thick honey along the insides of her thighs and over my rough tongue as I drank her in.
“Please!”
She cried out, this time, the sound echoing in the chamber, her hips lunging forward, impaling herself upon the spear of my mouth, robbing my of any and all language, a discovery I would make later. So it was that I learned the speech of birds once upon a time.
There were no more words, only the language of the flesh, a tidal wave rolling through her as she prayed for resolution, her hands forming fists as well as trees, her toes curling, frustration coloring her every shade of fire imaginable as I left her on the cliff’s edge forever and ever than robbed her of breath and life, my mouth sealing her delightful cavern, finger clenching her buttocks.
“Yes oh yes oh yes oh yes.”
Like a flower of the mountain she came for me, sweetly oh so sweetly, screaming my name at last… oh, if I could only remember it…
o-O-o
“Alice.”
I awoke, startled out of my dream, her face hovering over mine, her tired eyes full of concern.
“Lucy?”
“You were dreaming.”
I smiled, nodding, remember the dream, my lover at my mercy, my tongue pushing between her puffy petals, filling her, erasing the memory of all else.
“This is the dream, and I am awake.”
“We’ll be late. Again.”
I pulled her into my arms. We were both late that day, my mouth smelling like strawberries, hers smelling like cantaloupe. Hopefully breakfast disguised the scent of passion drenched pussies, not that either of us cared overly much. We were young, and in love and even knowing what was to come, and what had already come to pass, muted my joy.
“I am glad I found you again, Alice. I was worried.”
“You know that you’re fated to lose me over and over…”
“Shush. Not today. Perhaps not tomorrow, or the tomorrow after that. For now there is just us.
o-O-o
“No.”
Again she turned away, diamonds cascading from the night sky, frost clinging to her nakedness, hands fluttering uselessly as the sun yawned and its whiskers quivered as it fell into a gentle doze.
“No.”
Again, the word echoed across the fields, brushing through a forest of black and white pawns, blowing a dusting of soft know from their rounded heads.
o-O-o
I wrapped my wrist in wine soaked gauze, holding it up to the light that broke through the cathedral window. Stained glass and sacramental wafers crunched softly as I walked down the aisle, the carpeting beneath not much more than a memory. At the far end, she stood, dressed in white, something we’d debated endlessly amidst much laughter and not a few tears
Beside her stood a huge cat, sheathed in white fur, his smile stretching from ear to ear. I felt my stomach lurch, but kept walking, ignoring the prints of blood left in my wake. For her I would risk anything, even death. For her I would travel beyond the known and into the pages of make-believe. For her I would eat birthday cake and drink wine. And for her, I would face monsters.
“No.”
I felt rough hands grab my wrists, tugging at me, holding me in place between the pews of the church no matter how much I struggled to reach her.
I shouted her name, forgetting again, as I had the day before and the day before that, that I had been robbed of speech.
“No!”
Once again, that command, this time from her, from my Alice.
o-O-o
I awoke, her face hovering over mine, blue eyes that one sparkled with laughter now dulled with worry, her gold curls framing her porcelain face.
“You were dreaming, Lucy.”
Unable to draw a breath, I simply nodded, my eyes full of silent gratitude.
“About him?”
Again I nodded, and she replied with a smile, erasing his memory the only way she knew how, gently parting my thighs, dampening my soft down with her kisses, her tongue teasing me open until I shook and cried and went rigid, my fingers clenched in her golden locks.
