And I was fiercely thankful for them, and fiercely proud of her, and impossibly glad.
It was late when we finally got home. Lea was wrecked; she stumbled, yawning, to the bathroom, brushed her teeth and made for her room. She pulled the door nearly shut behind her. I, meanwhile, had a long liaison with the shower, emerging pink and fresh.
I paused at her door. “Lea?” I called softly. “You still awake?”
“Mm. Sorta.”
“Ok. Night, sweetie. See you tomorrow. Yell if you need anything at all, okay?”
“Night, Rose. Love you. Sleep well,” she yawned.
I nudged my bedroom door partway closed and crawled into bed, but it was some time before I could settle enough to sleep.
I kept having to fight the urge to crawl in with her.
.:.
Footsteps woke me from a light doze. It was dark. I felt a moment’s relief that I could sleep longer.
I listened as Lea padded to the loo. There was a silence, then the sound of running water. I waited for the gentle squeak of her door.
But instead, mine slowly opened.
I heard her nightdress brush against the door and the wall. She took a couple of soft steps. Then I felt my duvet shift as she pulled it back; my mattress deformed as she gently lowered herself onto it.
I let out the breath I’d been holding; she froze for a moment. Then she slowly slipped in beside me. I shivered as I felt her cool skin against me, and bit down the noise I almost made as she covered us and then snuck her arm around me, just below my bare breasts.
“Rose? I know you’re awake,” she breathed. “I can feel your heart racing.”
“What… what are you…”
“I’m cold and lonely. And I can’t sleep.”
“And…”
“So I came hunting warmth. And companionship.”
“Mm. Really?”
“Yes. I needed to be near you.”
She shifted against me, burrowing in closer. I tried to relax, but something about her scent, her presence, had the opposite effect on me. I squirmed involuntarily. I bit my lip, hard, as I tried to tear my thoughts away from how good she felt against me.
“I liked the way people watched us at your club,” she whispered. “I liked it when they asked if we were an… item.”
“They’re desperate to find chinks in my facade,” I whimpered, trying to ignore the way that her proximity was unsettling me.
“Well. They found one. Me.”
“You’re not a chink in my facade. You’re my foundation stone,” I groaned.
She sighed. “Rose. You need to be more careful of what you do to me when you say things like that. Words have power.”
I rolled over towards her. “What do you mean? It’s how I feel about you. It’s how I’ve always felt about you.”
She sighed. “Yes. But… I mean…”
“Lea, you’re babbling…”
“Forget it,” she whispered.
“No. I won’t. You’ve come in here with something on your mind and I know that you want to talk about it.”
I pillowed my head on my arm so that I could watch her. “So tell me what it is.”
She was barely visible in the faint ambient light; a silhouette, the shadow of a girl. I couldn’t see her face, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she was stressed.
“What is it, Lea?”
“Remember how I told you that bringing boys back here wouldn’t be a problem for me?”
“Vaguely.”
“I’m… I’ve…”
She swallowed.
I fumbled for her cheek, gently cupped it in my hand. “Just breathe. I’m here.”
“That’s just the problem,” she said, with a strange little laugh.
“Why?”
And then I shivered as she slowly ran her hand down my spine, lingering briefly at the small of my back. “Oh…” I gasped, as the penny finally dropped.
She trailed her fingers further down, and I felt her take a shuddering breath. I whimpered as her touch lit flames in me.
“I’ve never been with anyone,” she whispered softly. “Never. I was saving myself. Because… because… it’s always been you, Rosie. It’s always only ever been you that I wanted. So… I waited. For you.”
I shuddered, took a panting gasp of air.
She shifted in towards me.
I could smell the faint overlay of her soap, the underlay of her.
My heart was pounding now; I tried to be adult, tried to fight away the need.
I knew she was broken.
I knew I was broken.
But as she slowly, shyly began to nuzzle against me the last little bit of my control burned away.
“I love you,” she whispered, and I surrendered unconditionally to her.
I clasped my arms around her, pulled her to me, over onto me so that I could have her closer. Her lips were hot on mine, her body as light as a feather as she rolled half on top of me. She was shaking, panting for air as I pulled her to me, held her to me, held my Lea to me as the last fragile boundaries between us blew away like smoke.
She threw her leg over me and levered herself up to straddle me. She arched forward and kissed me, then my cheeks, then, hesitantly, my throat. I moaned. I felt her fingers slide up along my ribs to my breasts. I fumbled for her hands, guided them, showed her how to tease me. She was a quick study. Her kisses were delicious and insistent. My need was almost unbearable. But we needed… we shouldn’t…
“Slow… slower,” I begged, when I could. “Slow down. Slow down, you’re… I’m…”
“No,” she moaned. “I’ve waited so long for you. I thought I would never have you and then, just when I was about to give up hope, you came back to me. I’m not waiting any longer. I need you. I crave you.”
She sat upright, and shifted. I felt the fabric of her nightie brush along me as she pulled it up and off her. She slumped forward again, and this time I felt the warmth of her breasts against mine. I let out a long, shivery groan. I pulled her to me once more, legs shuddering and spasming as she clenched her fingers on my aching nipples.
“Show me how to make love to you,” she begged. “Show me how to be what you want. Teach me how to do this. I want to be what you want…”
“You are,” I moaned. “You always were. Oh god, oh god, just, just touch me the way you are. Kiss… mm… oh God… kiss me the way… you are… you’re perfect… I love you… I love you,” I cried out, and she shuddered her echo into my neck.
I felt her fumbling at me, and I wailed a thin, reedy “yes” as she managed to get her hand under my leggings, down to me. I dug my nails into her back as she found me. She cried out, leaned into our kiss, then shifted off me so she could lie down beside me, and clumsily tease my aching lips open. I was soaked, and she let out another low breathy moan of need as she found my entrance.
“Lea, Lea, please, please, please,” I begged, writhing against her. “Put your fingers in me, please, please, put them in me… like… like this…”
I fumbled down, found her hand, took her, drove her into me, crying out as my body clenched down on her. I found my clit, started to furiously stroke myself as she pushed her fingers deeper into me, panting into my neck, biting down on my ear, grinding her belly against my hip as she took me.
It felt like mere seconds. Her fingers were perfect in me, perfect, and I could feel my orgasm building. “Lea,” I gasped. “Lea, I’m going to come. I’m going to come. I’m going to… I’m…”, and then my body began to shake as she broke me. I arched upwards, back locking, and she clawed in against me as I began to convulse against her, gasping wordlessly, shaking uncontrollably, totally and utterly hers.
She held me tight to her, her fingers still sunk in me, letting me ease down, letting me come back to her. And then she just rolled in against me and rested her head on my shoulder, just being there with me, breathing, as I tried to remember how to speak. I shuddered, gasped as she slowly eased her fingers out of me, my thighs clamping down on her hand. She kissed my neck, and I shuddered again.
“I have been waiting a long time for that,” she groaned. “To have you as my own.”
I wormed my arm in under her and pulled her against me; she rolled part on top of me, resting against me, her slick and sticky hand resting between my breasts. I could smell myself on her, a dark, pungent scent mingling with hers, and my body spasmed again.
“Rosie?” she breathed.
“Still… God… can’t…”
She laughed softly in her throat. “So that was nice, was it?”
“So… nice. Oh… oh my God… needed that…”
“I’m glad. Consider it a little bit to even things.”
“No,” I whispered. “No. I won’t. I won’t let you… use yourself for me… in any way or form. Never.”
I fumbled for her, pulled her up to me, kissed her hard, then broke for air. She sighed and tucked her face in against me.
“We’ve wasted so many years, you and I” she whispered.
“I know. But you’re here… now, and I’m here now. And… I’ll never let you leave me again.”
“Then make me yours,” she breathed.
“Are you sure? Are you sure you want this? There’s… there’s no going back. If you… if you let me do this with you, I will…”
“You will… what.”
“There will never be anyone else. If you were ever to… to leave… that… that would be it for me.”
“Rosie,” she sighed. “How could I ever, willingly, leave you? I want to be yours. I want every part of me to be yours. Yours and yours alone. You… you complete me. So. Come here. Come here and kiss…”
And I silenced the rest of her words with my lips, and held her to me as her entire body shuddered.
I gently pushed her down onto the bed. I kissed her cheek, her throat, down over her shoulders, down over her small, firm breasts and the hard nubs of her nipples.
“Rosie… what…”
Down over her ribs, down over her quivering stomach.
She moaned, long and low as my lips traversed her belly. She shifted her leg, opening herself as I nibbled, teased lower, down, past her bellybutton, then lower, slower, over the downy fuzz of her mons. She shuddered once, shifted her bum to the middle of the bed, and cried out, writhing as I reached her sex.
“Rose,” she begged, “what are… what are you…”
“Making love to you,” I whispered. “I am going to take you. I’m going to tongue you until you scream. I’m going to make you forget your own name.”
And then I touched the tip of my tongue to her, and she made a noise I’d never heard before, a low, primal grunt of need. Her thighs quivered as I touched her, she clawed at her belly, then at her breasts, shivering as I teased my fingertip along her.
“Lea?”
“Uh huhn”
“Tell me to stop if you need me to.”
“No. No. No. Don’t. Please. No. Don’t stop. Please.”
“Ok.”
And then she let out a long, glorious, raspy alto moan as I penetrated her.
I slowly began to lick her, teasing the tip of my tongue around the base of her clit. She tasted delicious; her skin was wonderfully smooth, her vagina so tight and hot on me. Her thighs clamped rhythmically on my cheeks, squeezing me in time with the slow torturous strokes of my tongue. I could hear her panting, smell her sweat, and my own pulse was loud in my veins.
I wanted her to scream. I wanted to blow her mind, show her with my body how much I loved her, how much I needed her, how much having her back meant to me.
Her muscles clamped on me, and she groaned. Her panting gasps for breath were faint, high-pitched and desperate. She’d angled her hips, opening herself more to me. I could feel the way her belly was spasming, the way every muscle that I could feel was tensing slightly more every second that I licked her.
“Rosie,” she managed. “Rosie. Don’t. Don’t stop. Please. Oh please. Oh please. Oh… Oh…”
She stopped writhing. I felt her thighs tense. I pushed two fingers deep into her, and she convulsed up off the bed. I felt her hands scrabbling at me, and she gave a grunting gasp, shuddering hard against me. She fell backwards, and let out a deep, long, guttural moan that made my toes curl in sympathetic pleasure.
And then she just lay there, gasping every couple of seconds, boneless as a puppet cut free from the puppeteer’s hand.
I teased her just a little longer, then eased out of her so that I could slowly slip my body up along her sweat-slicked chest and kiss her again.
.:.
“Rosie?” she whispered, some unknowable amount of time later.
“Yes.”
“That thing you did.”
“What thing.”
“With your fingers. And your… tongue.”
“Uh huh.”
“It was very nice.”
I laughed softly, and after a moment, so did she.
She shifted in my arms, pushed her leg gently against me.
“You realise there’s going to be a lot of smugness at the club. My reputation will be ruined.”
“Scared they’ll all find out you’re actually a complete softie?”
“I’ve spent years cultivating my image as a Valkyrie. You’ve undone it in one day.”
“So sad,” she whispered. I could hear the mischievous smile in her voice. She shifted, stretched her arm further over me, then settled in against me with a sigh. “We might as well change that room back to a study.”
“And get a bigger bed.”
“Yes. You smell so good. And feel so amazing. I don’t want to sleep apart from you.”
“We’ll have to tell our parents at some point, you know.”
“Some point. Not now. Lets just… have some time for ourselves, first. To learn… us.”
“Ok.”
“I love how you just… get me.”
I kissed her brow, and smiled as I felt her sigh.
“What time is it, do you think?” she breathed.
“Early.”
“Morning?”
“Not just yet.”
“Good. Means I get longer with you before you have to leave.”
“I’m tempted to call in sick. Spend the day like this with you. Move only to eat.”
She laughed. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later. I’ll make sure I’m posed somewhere… nice… for you when you get home.”
I pulled her tighter to me, savouring the little breathy squeak she let out.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“For what?”
“For coming back.”
“Like I had a choice. The girl I love asked me to come to her.”
I took a shuddering breath as the emotion surged up in me.
“Rosie?” she breathed. “What’s wrong, honey?”
“Just…” I whispered.
“Shh. It’s ok. I… I know. I know.”
“Sorry,” I breathed, as I wiped my eyes. “Being all stupid and stuff.”
“You can be stupid with me.”
“You make me stupid,” I whispered, and she laughed softly once more.
I gently began to run my fingers through her hair, and she made a soft happy noise against me. “You melt me,” she murmured. “Always have done.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you from everything.”
“It just makes this all the sweeter.”
She yawned, and shifted slightly against me.
I cradled her to me as she slowly fell asleep in my arms, and then I just lay there, bearing mute witness as the slow pre-dawn light transmuted her shadows to colours and made her real.
.:.
Slowly the days became weeks. Lea lost the hunted look behind her eyes as the fear of the other shoe dropping slowly left her. I managed her ruthlessly at times, never letting her question herself, never letting her doubt her central place in my existence. I hugged her as much as I could, kissed her as often as she’d let me and, yes, made her scream my name whenever she wanted me.
Which was often.
And even as I worked so hard to heal her, I discovered that she was working her own magic on me.
My anger faded, flickered out and, finally, died. I smiled, often and without reason. She straddled my lap one evening and painted my nails for me, and despite my protests I had to confess that I liked the pampering and the ridiculous colours she’d chosen for me.
She threw herself into cookery, and every night became a competition for her to try to outdo herself on our initially shoestring budget.
She put on weight. Not much, but enough, and I loved the way she began to curve again, the way I could feel her give when I held her.
I’d lean against the bathroom door, watching her as she showered, loving the flush that never failed to take root, the blush she never totally lost no matter how intimate we were. Her ribs still showed, but now they were punctuation rather than plot, and the dark hollows under her eyes had almost been chased away.
I spent fewer evenings at the clubhouse, and began to spend at least two weekday evenings a week on her alone. We’d go for walks, explore our immediate area, meander through the smaller lanes as the leaves began to change.
She taught me what it felt like to be held, and to be loved – unconditionally and without restraint.
I learned that she loved to have the small of her back kissed, and that she’d go to the extreme of hiding the last block of a bar of chocolate so she could, laughing, share it with me later.
She learned that she could render me insensible by sneaking up behind me and kissing me on the curve where my neck and shoulder met.
I discovered, quite by accident, that champagne turned her libido up to eleven.
She discovered that she could get whatever she wanted from me with her smile alone.
I discovered that she had a love of North African spices, and that lamb and apricot tagine was her idea of heaven.
And she discovered how much I loved showering with her.
I had never been happier.
I gave my boss my frank opinion about the state of our website and press releases, and showed him some sample rewrites I’d bullied her into providing. I lied through my teeth about her experience, and she was on a part-time contract with us within a week. He must have mentioned her to his network, because within a month she had more work than she knew what to do with.
She cried herself to a standstill when she saw her first actual salary come in.
We used some of it to buy her a proper chair and a reasonable laptop, and a month later she was able to add a high quality pedestal monitor and ergonomic keyboard and trackball.
The recovery of her independence was the final missing piece she’d needed.
She’d walk up behind me whenever she could and hug me as hard as she could, never saying anything, just placing her cool cheek to the nape of my neck, her cat-like thank you that I never grew tired of.
And while she’d sometimes talk about teaching music, she never took that step.
So I started finding tickets to orchestral performances in the area, and once a month I’d treat her to an evening out. I’d inflict a dress on myself, and makeup, and let her do something with my hair, and I’d sit there beside her, quietly admiring her as the music transported her to some far off space that only she could see.
It was the seventh of December when I took a day off work without telling her, and made my way to St Albans to pick up the ring I’d commissioned. The jeweller, a lovely old man, took great pleasure in displaying it to me and showing me the quality of the central garnet I’d wanted in the setting.
“Why a Garnet?” he’d asked. “Actually, wait. I know this. Persephone, am I right?”
“Yeah,” I’d confessed, flushing, loving the dry chuckle he’d given in reply.
“It’s a beautiful stone. She’s a lucky girl,” he’d said, as he gently put the ring back in its bag.
“No. I’m the lucky one. She has to settle for me.”
.:.
But then came the mental block.
I wanted the moment to be special.
But I had no idea how to make it so.
And she, in her magical way, showed me.
.:.
“Rose?” she said softly, one morning, as we lay in our pre-awake state.
“Mm?”
“I was thinking.”
“Oh no…”
“Shush. I’ll bite you.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Do you think we’d be able to go on a city break somewhere? I’ve… I’ve never been anywhere.”
“Where?”
“Um… it’s… it’s my dream to see Marrakesh. It has been for years. Would it be… safe, for us, do you think?”
I rolled onto my side. Her face was a study in hope, but I could see that she had steeled herself to expect a gentle no.
“We’ll look. And if it’s safe I’d love to go.”
“Really?” she breathed, radiant.
“Yes. Of course we will. I’ve never been and I’d love to go with you.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She crawled in close and sighed.
I, meanwhile, lay there, the Eureka moment echoing in my mind.
I buried my intent deep under layers of guile, but over the next few days I began placing the orders for the various things I needed. I got everything delivered to my workplace, and begged a locker off our sympathetic office manager who, alone amongst everyone, I’d let in on my plans because I knew he’d been to Morocco the year before.
He made a number of fantastic suggestions, then flushed scarlet as I hugged him in a complete departure from my normal character.
Finally, I had everything I needed.
Lea had a busy week, and had been asked to attend a late meeting in person. It was my chance. I made my way in to the office, confessed to my boss, told him I needed the day and why I needed it, and was given an amused “fuck off and don’t come back unless she says yes.”
I retrieved my packages and waited for the taxi to arrive.
.:.
I pushed the couch back against the wall, and moved our coffee table to the middle of the floor.
I unrolled the wafts of burgundy, violet, indigo and red fabrics and began tacking them to the roof; it took some time to work out how to secure them properly but I figured it out and began to construct a tent of cascading fabric that fell in gentle waves. I knew that the dim light of evening would soften the roughness and lend to the illusion, and I was happy that the effect would be as I wanted it to be.
I wove the fairy lights in the space above the coffee table, and tied their battery box to the room’s central light fitting.
I covered the coffee table itself with a length of scarlet cloth, embroidered with silver Arabesques.
I scattered petals of pink Damascus rose over and around it.
And I placed the small Moroccan-style lamp dead centre.
I closed the curtains and conducted a lighting test, and it was everything that I’d hoped it would be – a small oasis of light and colour, with the falls of cloth screening us from the rest of the world.
After that, I just had to make the meal I wanted to prepare for her.
.:.
Nearly home. Be there in ten minutes
See you now xxx I replied, blessing the fact that a text would not betray the stress I felt.
I smoothed my dress in a helpless gesture of nerves, and quickly lit the candles on the kitchen counter and in the lantern. I cracked a window so the smoke would escape. I checked the food in the oven, it still had half an hour to go. Plenty of time.
I opened a bottle of her favourite red, and poured us both a glass. I took a nervous gulp of mine.
I was terrified.
I took a breath. I pressed my hands to my cheeks, opened the window wider, took some deep gulps of fresh air.
I lit the tee-light candles on the window sills.
I dimmed the lights and lit the fairy lights.
I turned up the soft soundtrack I’d set up on my phone, the selection of tracks that had felt appropriate for this moment with her.
And even I had to admit that I’d done a good job.
I closed my eyes, counted to ten.
I heard her footsteps on the stairs, the soft footfalls as she approached our door.
I took my place, and fought for calm. I touched my hair to make sure it was still in place.
She opened the door, then froze on the threshold.
“Rosie?” she whispered. “What on earth…”
I reached out, pulled her to me, kissed her, and hugged her hard. I took her backpack from her slack hand and gently dropped it beside the doorway. I pushed the door closed behind her, kissed her again. I took her coat off her and hung it, and then led her to the space I’d made for us. I helped her sit on the pillow I’d placed for her.
And through all this she stared at the flat, at the candles, the colours, the lights… and at me.
“Rosie,” she said, lower lip trembling in her classic tell. “What’s going on? What is this?”
“I’m setting the scene,” I whispered in her ear. “For when we go away. You always cook for me. You do everything for me. I wanted to do something special for you.”
I passed her her glass of wine, then came and sat cross-legged beside her.
“I tell you a lot how much you mean to me,” I told her. “But… words are cheap. Actions say what a million words cannot.”
“You did all this… for me?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, Rosie,” she whispered. “What did I ever do to deserve you.”
“You took my hand and showed me where the pony drawing book was.”
She laughed, a strange little half-sob, and she turned away for a moment so she could catch her breath.
I drank my glass of wine beside her, and slowly she unwound.
I served her her meal and ate mine beside her, and told her of the research I’d been doing on our potential city break, the things we’d need to do to be safe, the choices we’d have to make about where to go and what to do when we got there, and that if we took a slightly longer break then we could do a trip into the desert and see the North African stars.
She leaned her head against me, not saying much, just breathing. Her eyes were dark pools of liquid night, her breath gentle, her hand warm where it curled on my thigh.
Sometimes she’d smile, and sometimes I’d reach up to gently wipe away her tears.
My Lea.
My light, my shadow, my soul.
The very best part of me.
She got up once to go to the loo and wash her face, and I quickly scrabbled up the small black bag from inside the coffee table’s topmost drawer.
I hid it in the shadows of my lap, and waited, aching, until she’d settled herself back down beside me.
“Lea,” I quavered, softly, my heart pounding hard in my chest.
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Close your eyes.”
“No more, Rosie, please,” she gulped. “No more. You’ve spoiled me so much already. I’m going to blub if you don’t stop…”
“Close your eyes,” I begged once more, as I leaned in to brush my lips against her cheeks.
She took a shuddering breath and complied. I fumbled the ring into my shaking hand. “Don’t peek,” I whispered. I took her left hand, kissed it, then slowly slipped the cool metal of the ring onto her ring finger.
She let out a low moan – something primal, something raw and unfiltered.
She opened her eyes, stared at her hand, then up at me. Her mouth worked, but no further sound came out.
“Will you marry me, Lea Fergusson?” I somehow managed to gasp. “Will you be mine from now until forever?”
She shuddered, once.
She pulled me to her.
She kissed me.
“Yes,” was the single simple word she sobbed in answer.
And there, in the gentle candlelight, I kissed my love’s tears away.
And, at last, we were whole.
-: — :-