The heart of the fairy queen grew sad when she saw the bright summer days begin to fade, but soon she was enchanted by the golden light of autumn, the bright colors of the trees, frost on the meadow. Leaves of red and gold rained down, and the children came again, to play in the fallen leaves.
One morning the fairy queen awoke to silence. She looked outside and saw the whole world white with snow. She who had never seen the winter wondered that anything still lived in that dark and silent world. The nights were longer than any she had ever known. The days were cold. Few of the villagers ventured out. She sometimes heard the children playing, although their mothers kept them close to home. Every day she watched at the window, and it seemed to her that nothing changed but the lacy patterns of the shadows of bare trees against the snow.
As the world slept, so too did the fairy queen fall into a sleep in which she dreamed back the past. When she awakened, she cried bitter tears for all that she had lost, until the fragrance of apple blossom and new grass drew her to the window, to look out at the springtime.
The meadow bloomed with crocuses and bluebells. Children came to pick the flowers. The farmers went out to sow their fields. A doe came to the stream to drink, her fawn beside her, and a young mother sat down in a patch of sunlight and bared her breast to nurse her child.
For the first time since she entered it, the fairy queen left the cottage. She breathed deep the air of springtime and sat down on her front step. All bright things cast a shadow, the old woman had said, and the fairy queen whispered to herself, the shadow too is beautiful. She was content, and those who passed by saw only an old woman sitting in the sunshine before her cottage door.
Winter's early dark had fallen. Inside the ruined cottage we were snug and safe. Both of us were in our shirtsleeves, and against my back I felt the warmth of Maara's body, the rise and fall of her breathing. Her arms held me as if nothing would persuade her to let me go. It was a long time before either of us spoke.
"Don't die," she said at last, and a tremor went through her body, as if a cold wind had blown through her bones.
I didn't know how to answer her. If she had been someone else, I might have made a joke of it, but I couldn't speak lightly of my own death to Maara, because she loved me.
"Supper's ready," she said.
We ate in silence, sitting side by side. Although I couldn't see her face, I felt her discontent. When we finished, she set the empty pot aside and sat staring into the fire. I waited for her to talk to me, but I didn't question her. I knew from experience that she would think about a story that puzzled her, sometimes for days, before asking me about it.
I smiled, remembering the question I had asked when I first heard that story. "Are the fairies real?" I asked my mother, and she replied, "Of course they are. As real as moonbeams."
"How did the fairy queen overcome her grief?" said Maara.
I thought for a minute before I said, "I think she learned to accept it."
"I can't." I heard in Maara's voice both desperation and defiance. I wondered if the story had taken her into the past and made her feel again some loss long forgotten, until she said, "I would like to keep this for a while."
Though my heart was glad to hear it, her words cast a dark shadow. It was the shadow of her own grief, which even now intruded on our happiness, as if loss always follows closely on the heels of love.
"For as long as I'm living, this is yours," I told her, "and I intend to live for a very long time."
She turned to me and smiled. "I believe you will."
My heart heard what she had left unsaid, that she believed she would not, or that something else would separate us.
I took her hand. "I don't intend to grow old without you."
Maara looked down at her hand in mine. She seemed puzzled, as if she wasn't quite sure what I wanted with it. Then she opened my fingers and brushed her fingertips across the palm of my hand. Her touch sent a shiver of pleasure through my body. My hand would have answered her in kind, but she let it go.
Before I could reach for her again, Maara stood up.
"I think these are dry," she said.
She took our cloaks down from where they hung and looked about her for the driest place to make our bed.
I needed to use the privy.
"I'll be right back," I said.
She nodded. "Don't go far."
The rain had stopped, and the moon was just rising. Its light, caught in the mist, hung around the cottage like a veil. I shivered a little in the cold air, although I found it pleasant after the stuffy warmth indoors. I took care not to stray too far from the cottage to relieve myself. The mist was treacherous.
Before I went back inside, I stood for a while by the tumbled wall. I wanted a few minutes to myself, to think about Maara and about the story I had told her. I had always accepted without question the lesson it taught, that things are as they are and as they should be, and that there is beauty in all of life, both the bright and the dark. But Maara had taken another lesson from it. Though I couldn't put it into words, acceptance of life as it is certainly had no part in it.
Suddenly Maara was behind me. Before I could turn around, she rested her hands lightly on my shoulders.
"I was worried," she said. She was so close to me that her breath tickled the back of my neck. I shivered.
"You're cold," she said.
I was a little, though the shiver that went through my body had nothing to do with the weather. As if to warm me, Maara's hands caressed my shoulders, and her touch did warm me, but it was desire that kept me from the cold. I wondered if she had intended to provoke it. Then she turned me around to face her. In the misty moonlight, her face seemed lit from within. I saw her desire in her eyes. I felt it in her touch. Her fingers brushed my cheek, but they didn't have to lift my mouth to hers. We met in an embrace that shattered the last barrier between us.
Her first kiss was fierce. After the shock of it, I felt her draw back. I waited for her, and she returned to me, more gently this time. Her kiss was a caress, but it tasted bittersweet. She tried to make me understand. Her meaning slipped into the darkest places in my heart and showed me my own fear. I clung to her, as if she could be my shield against it. It would be a long time before I understood that fear is only the dark face of love.
It was too late to go back, too late to undo the bonds I had made to hold her, when I knit my life to hers. Those bonds held me as well. Now I had no choice but to go forward. I might have locked my fear away in some dark corner of my heart, and by doing so I would have locked her out of it. Instead I forced the door and let her in. She met me there. She understood. Love turned again and showed me her bright face. We stood on the threshold of our cottage and kissed each other as if this were a homecoming.
She drew back and took my hand. "Come inside," she said.
We ducked through a ragged hole in the fallen thatch and picked our way through the ruins. This time our fire lit the way. She had already made our bed. I sat down, expecting her to join me, but first she knelt to build up the fire into a bright blaze.
I was impatient. "It's warm enough," I said.
She smiled at me. "I want the light."
Thinking she wanted to see my body, I loosened the ties of my shirt and began to pull it off over my head.
"Don't," she said. "You'll be too cold."
She came to the bed and sat down beside me. It was my face she wanted to see. With a touch of her fingertips on my cheek, she turned me to the light. I searched her eyes to discover her intentions. My desire for her had coiled into a tight knot in my belly. I thought that her desire might have faded, until she touched me. Her fingers trembled with it as they caressed my face. When her thumb brushed my lips, my own desire made me tremble, and the knot in my belly began to loosen. I closed my eyes. Her lips touched mine, but before I could return her kiss, they moved away. It was just enough. She wanted what I wanted. I smiled.
"What?" she whispered.
I opened my ey
es. "What do you need from me?" I asked her.
"Lie down," she said.
I obeyed her, and she lay down beside me, taking care not to shield me from the light. She leaned up on one elbow and looked down at me, brushed my hair away from my face, let her fingertips drift over my brow and across my cheek. Her eyes moved from my face to the ties of my shirt, as her fingers loosened them a little more. She bent and kissed the exposed skin between my breasts. Then she laid her head down over my heart and was still.
For several minutes she lay like that, lost in her own dream, gone where I couldn't follow. I tangled my fingers in her hair, to bring her back to me. Her warm hand rested on my stomach, just above my belt, and under it the blood began to beat stronger in my belly. Surely she could feel it. She slipped her hand under my shirt, to caress the tender skin beneath my breast.
I had never felt a more intimate touch, because it was she who touched me.
She stretched her body out beside me and laid her head down next to mine. When I turned to her, she put her arms around me. With one arm she held me close, while her other hand caressed the bare skin of my back.
I lost myself for a time in the pleasure of her touch, but soon I understood that giving pleasure wasn't her intention. She touched me as if she had set herself the task of learning my body's secrets, not to find what gave me pleasure, but to discover things I might wish to conceal, to explore my boundaries and my defenses.
Perhaps she felt me hesitate, because her hold on my body loosened, and she drew away from me. Then I was glad for the firelight. In her face I saw a tenderness that reassured me. Whatever her intentions, she was the woman I knew and trusted.
Her thumb circled the orbit of my eye, pressed the skin below it, feeling for the bone beneath, traced the outline of my mouth, the line of my jaw, touching me more with curiosity than with desire. Again she slipped her hand under my shirt, to caress my belly and my breasts. Sometimes a certain touch would draw a response from me -- a sound, a change of breath, a movement of my body against hers -- and she would return there, again and again.
I knew what she was doing. Each touch was a question. She was asking me what I would give and what I would withhold, what I would reveal, what I would hide. I had told her that I loved her. Perhaps she was unsure of what I meant, and now she was asking me the questions she couldn't frame in words. How much of myself would I give her? How much was hers?
I hid nothing from her. I had no wish to. And if she believed that only I revealed myself in that exchange, she was mistaken. Her every touch revealed her. Each one told me that she doubted me, doubted herself, doubted her own perceptions, that she needed to see, again and again, what I could have told her in a word, if she would have believed me.
But if this was how she chose to question me, I was glad to answer her. The pleasure of her touch on my skin gave way to a deeper pleasure. She had explored the boundaries, and now she easily slipped past them, to take my heart into her hand and teach it to beat to the rhythm of her own heart. When her lips touched mine, they made me tell her all my secrets, in a language more ancient, more eloquent, than speech.
She undid my belt and loosened the waistband of my trousers, slipped her hand inside them and began to touch me. Her fingers opened me, explored me, caressed me, and this time her intent was to give me what I wanted. I hid my face against her shoulder, inhaled the sweet fragrance of her skin, listened to her breathing quicken with mine. She was as gentle as I wanted her to be.
If she could have held me in that place forever, I would have been content to stay there. The purest pleasure flowed from the secret place between my legs over the surface of my skin and through my blood and bones. The taste of it lay on my tongue. The sweetness of it filled my heart. It was enough. It needed nothing more, it had no destination, but it was more than my body could contain. It burst through my skin, ran through me like fire, burned itself to ash, and left me breathless in her arms.
I needed her arms around me then. I needed her to gather me up and hold me, until all the scattered parts of me came back together. She understood, and she stayed with me. She pulled me into a tight embrace and soothed me with whispered words I didn't understand and with a touch so tender it made me want to weep. I felt as if I were returning to her after a long journey, yet she had been with me all the time.
I became aware of her in a way I hadn't been before. Against my body hers was soft and yielding. I felt the heat of her skin even through her clothing. I turned my head to kiss her, and my lips touched the base of her throat. Her desire still beat there. My hand found her breast, and her body responded to my touch, but she took my hand in hers to stop me.
"The fire," she whispered.
I hadn't noticed that the fire had burned down to a bed of glowing coals. I almost let her go, but when she began to leave me, I felt a sudden shock of fear, as if something precious that had been within my grasp was about to slip away.
"Leave it," I said. I tangled my fingers in her shirt front.
For a moment I thought she would resist me. Before she could make up her mind to free herself, I pushed her gently onto her back and lay half on top of her. She lay still, although she could easily have moved me aside. Even if her body did not resist me, her heart was already searching for a hiding place.
"Don't," I whispered.
"What?"
"Don't leave me."
"I'm right here."
I leaned up on my elbow and looked down at her. Even in the dim light, I saw her confusion in her eyes. She didn't know what she was doing.
"Do you want me?" I asked her.
When she opened her mouth to reply, her lower lip trembled. She said nothing, but she had answered me. I took her lower lip between my lips and loved it, because it had trembled, because it had given her away. She returned my kiss. Her lips were full and soft, and they caressed mine with tenderness and longing.
I closed my eyes and let my mouth explore her, and although I didn't think about it at the time, I questioned her as she had questioned me. I had never listened as intently as I listened to that wordless conversation. Again and again I asked her permission. May I? Here? And here? Is this too much? Too little? Can you hear me? This is my heart.
She made a sound deep in her throat, and her body moved under me. I slipped my leg between hers. Then her arms were around me, holding my body tight against her, as her hips rose and she pressed herself against my thigh. I was afraid she would satisfy the desire of her body before I found her heart. It was her heart I wanted.
"No," I whispered.
She stopped. Her body stiffened, and she let go of me. I thought she might push me away, but she didn't move. She waited.
"Let me touch you," I said.
I didn't wait for her answer. I undid her trousers and opened them, slipping them down as far as I could, to expose the soft skin of her belly. I slid down to kiss her there. She recoiled a little, more from surprise, I think, than from displeasure. I laid my cheek against that tender place. Just beneath the softness of her skin, the muscles tightened, as if to shield her. I gave her a little time to grow used to my touch before I began to kiss her again.
Slowly she relaxed, and the way she moved told me that my kisses gave her pleasure. I slipped her trousers down a little more, until I could see the dark curls between her legs. I brushed my fingertips across them. I longed to touch her more intimately, but I knew it was too soon. I pushed her shirt up and laid my head down on her breast. Her skin was hot against my cheek. I cupped her breast in my hand and held it, stroking it gently with my fingertips for a little while before taking her nipple into my mouth.
She responded differently to each new touch. She was easily surprised. I learned to wait for her body to catch up with me. Touching her gave me so much pleasure that I might have become impatient, but this was for her pleasure. I listened to her body, not my own, and although her movements were subtle, they were revealing. She held herself still for as long as possible, until her pleasure
took control away from her and her body responded to my touch.
I brushed my fingers through the curls between her legs, then pressed the heel of my hand against her, until her hips rose in response. Her legs opened when I touched her. She was swollen and slippery with desire. I was careful with her, careful not to hurt her and careful not to hurry her. I let her body tell me where she wanted me to touch her, what kind of touch she wanted.
I began to learn the rhythm of her desire. It flowed through her in waves, building until her body was rigid with it, then fading as she softened and coiled back into herself. And little by little, I coaxed her heart out of hiding. I felt first a shy touch on my back. Then her fingers clutched at my shirt as her desire grew. Her hips rose to my touch. My own desire was intense. Her body joined mine in a dance of love and pleasure.
Then she stopped.
I waited for her to tell me what she needed.
"I can't," she said.
She put her hand over mine, to hold me still. Her desire still beat against my fingertips, but Maara was gone.
I lay quiet next to her and hid my face against her shoulder, so that she wouldn't see how much she'd hurt me. For a time the pain was so great that I couldn't think of her at all, but in a little while it lessened, and then I began to wonder. What was it she didn't want me to see? Was she hiding her own pain?
"Why?" I asked her.
She didn't answer.
When I tried to look at her, she turned her head away. In the soft glow of what remained of our fire, I caught a glimpse of her expression. It looked like shame.
"Who hurt you?" I asked her.
She was silent.
"Who else has touched you like this?"
"No one," she whispered.
"Then why?"
I knew she wouldn't answer me. Her heart was a fortress. Was she waiting for love to breach the walls?
"Touch me," I said.
She didn't move.
"Please." I shifted my hips back a bit, so that she could reach me more easily, and she slipped her hand between my legs and held me.