The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  When they had thrown me into Adam’s room that day, he had rushed to me and taken me in his arms, but I was able to wrench a hand free from his embrace. With that hand, I slapped him so hard that his massive body staggered. I was emotionally exhausted from my first meeting with the Warden, which had required me to be firmly on my guard, but the rage that I felt towards Adam had not been lessened by that emotional exhaustion.

  “All you have wanted,” I snarled, and I pushed him hard, “All you have wanted this entire time is to put your child into me! I have never been anything to you but a body that can bear some messiah child! That is all you have ever wanted! You son of a bitch! You motherfucker!”

  “Brynna…” He said softly, imploringly, as he tried to grasp my hands.

  “NO!” I screamed, and I was shaking now with that rage, shaking like I was chilled to the bone, and my eyes had turned blood red. “NO! They took James from me so he could not keep having sex with me! It was never because our love was a perversion, it was because they wanted you to father my children, not him! And that is all you have wanted! Every time you have objected to James, every time you have tried to take me away from him, it has been because you want me for yourself, which I knew, but I did not know that it was because you just wanted to increase the number of opportunities you would have to impregnate me with some fucking foreseen son! And when you demanded that he deliver me to you, it was so you could rape me in hopes that I would get pregnant! You fucking son of a bitch!”

  “No.” He said, still speaking so softly, so gently, because it was truly breaking his heart to hear me say all of those things, but the last in particular made his heart and mind give a sickened lurch. That should have convinced me that I was wrong about what I was shouting at him. But I was so furious with him for lying to me yet again. I was furious with James, for leaving me, for giving in to them. I was furious with myself, for loving them both, when they were such liars, such manipulators, when they hurt me so terribly over and over again. I was so stupid to have thought that my attraction to older men guaranteed my ability to handle their manipulations and lies. I was so stupid to have not fought my desire for both of them. But I loved them. I loved them to the Earth, to the moon, to the countless planets within galaxies within universes out there in the endless mass of space. I loved them when I loved so few, and they were so precious to me because of that.

  “You stupid son of a bitch!” I screamed at him, and when he tried to take my hand again, I pulled it away and slapped him. “When will you both stop lying?! But you know, I am not perfect, either. I am by no means truthful. How many secrets about me have I kept from you both until recently? Do you want to know the biggest one, Adam? Oh, you will love this. I am so utterly fucked in there that your child, if it is able to survive long enough to grasp on, will just end up bleeding out all over me! It won’t be much good to you in a jar, will it?!”

  “Brynna.” He said, and why was he so calm? Why was he always so fucking calm? I had hit him twice, and I wanted to hit him again, and I was crying, because maybe, someday, I would have wanted children, with either him or James or maybe both, but I could not. The tears were coming so fast, and my sobs were so hard, but I was fighting him, because he would hate me now as much as I hated him, as much as James hated me, and eventually, I would drive Janna away, and if the Warden kept Penny from me, I would have no one, and Violet was missing, and Nick was gone, and Quinn and Alice were nowhere to be found in my mind anymore, and everything was lost. Everything was over.

  “I have always known.” He whispered in my ear when I finally allowed him to hold me, “I have always known that you cannot conceive.” His hand came down to rest on my lower stomach, “I am a Healer, my love. I can see where you are hurt.” He kissed my neck and my shoulder, and then whispered in my ear, “I wish that I could heal you, but I cannot. I cared once for the child we might conceive, but now, I care only for you. I loathe the bastards who harmed you because they harmed you, not because they made you incapable of bearing our child. If the One God had not killed the first man, and you had not killed the second, I would spend my life pushing them to the brink of death as excruciatingly as I could and bringing them back, only so that I could push them there all over again, even more excruciatingly. I would do that only for you. I care nothing for that prophecy. I care only for you. Do you hear me?”

  I nodded, looking up at him, at his unbelievable green eyes that were alight in the glow from the torches. In order to do it, I had to stand on my tiptoes, but I wrapped my arms around his neck, and buried my face in his neck so I could breathe him in.

  “You are the love of my life.” He whispered, “You have my love. Not that child. Not that prophecy. You have all of my love. Only you, Brynna Olivier.”

  Before he could block me out, I peered into his mind and saw that he was telling the absolute truth. His heart was telling me of his guilt, of his anger at himself for not being honest with me about the prophecy before. His mind was telling me how everything had changed once he had met me. And then, I felt guilty for being so angry. I felt guilty for hitting him. I truly had to start trying to grasp a hold of my temper tantrums, even when I believed wholeheartedly that my rage was justified.

  I pulled away from him so I could reach up and touch his face, so I could rub my thumb through the gray stubble that was beginning to grow there.

  “That’s not my name anymore.” I whispered.

  For a long moment, he looked at me, and his green eyes made mine turn back to blue. He was shocked, but for once, it was a good shock. For the previous months, when I had been taken to see him, we had sat around, talking and holding each other, but both of us were trying to keep things platonic, out of respect for mine and James’s terrible ending. But after I said those words, I realized that I wanted to be his wife. Despite how brokenhearted I still was about James, I wanted Adam. I needed him. I might have even loved him.

  “That’s not my name anymore, Adam.” I told him again, and then, his hands gently rested on either side of my neck, and his mouth covered mine. His tongue moved slowly against my own, and mine was pushing back against his. I was resting my body totally against him, and he did not falter for a second; I could rest everything upon him, and his strong body supported the weight.

  We were lying in his bed, on that red comforter, and he undressed me first. Once I was lying, totally naked, before him, he slowly spread my legs and then stood up to look down at me. Maura had always told me that males were visual, relishing in their visceral urges to dominate the female body when they observed it. I do not argue that men are creatures who thrive on and thirst for visual stimuli, and perhaps Maura was right about the rest of it. But Adam’s gaze did not make me feel vulnerable. As I laid there on his bed, and he stood over me, unbuttoning his shirt slowly, I felt strong. I felt beautiful. Most of all, I was aroused, already almost dripping wet, and he had not even removed all of his clothes yet. As he shed his shirt, and his muscular midsection was exposed to me, my hand came down by its own will and pressed hard between my legs. Slowly, my fingers stroked up and down, and my hips began to push into forward against my hand, my head tilted back, my breasts pushed up as I breathed in deeply, and when I saw how watching me was making that look in his eyes deepen, I let out one of my famous moan-sighs that had driven James so mad to see if it had a similar effect on Adam.

  It was not even one second later that he was over top of me, his fingers slipping deep into my wet opening as I continued to rub myself, and he was kissing me deeply again as his fingers found my spot effortlessly, curled upwards and pressed into it gently at first, but then a little bit harder.

  “Again.” He whispered breathlessly after my mouth had broken free from his so I could draw in a deep breath. “Moan for me again, my queen.”

  And I did, this time louder, and deeper, and longer.

  “Adam…” I moaned, “Now. I want you now.”

  For the second time in my life, a man made love
to me slowly. The first time had been my first time with James. Of course, that first time had been beautiful, as perfect as it could possibly have been. This time, though, I knew how to move in synchrony with Adam’s body. I knew how to arch my back and when. I was able to respond to his deep kisses confidently, and I was able to look up into his eyes and know that I would die for him, that I cared so deeply for him, which had taken some time with James.

  Mine and Adam’s hands were clutched together, our fingers entwined, and when I felt my arousal begin its final ascent to its peak, I squeezed. My moans intensified, and his breathing grew deeper.

  It surprised me, but he turned me around and pulled me so my back was pressed to his chest. Just when I began to ache to feel him inside of me again, he pushed himself inside, and now, he was pressed to my spot, where his fingers had been before. My body tensed, and my arm curled back to wrap around his neck, and my other hand flew down to grasp his hand that was rested on my lower belly, keeping me held to him.

  “Oh, God…” I murmured, and then I cried out, “Oh, my God!” as the walls of me began to contract and expand upon him. I felt the need to bear down on him, to push against him, and the feeling was somehow building both quickly and slowly.

  “Adam…” I cried out, because it felt amazing. It was almost startling, how amazing it felt, because I didn’t know what was happening. “Adam!”

  “It is alright.” He whispered gently in my ear, which made the feeling intensify even more, “Just let go, my love. It is alright.”

  And then, it happened. My whole body felt warmer and fuller than it ever had, and something warm began to flow out of me when he slowed his thrusts but pushed even harder right in that spot. I had experienced intense sexual pleasure before with both James and Adam that had caused tears to fall from my eyes, because that was a common side effect of sex between evolved human-like or formerly human creatures, but by the time the orgasm had tapered off, I was almost sobbing, not because it hurt, not because I was afraid, but because it had felt so good.

  He expelled a deep breath and released into me. Gently, he laid me down so I was lying on my back, and I pulled him down so his body was resting on top of mine. My legs came up to wrap around his middle, and my arms came up to lock around his neck as his face buried beneath mine, and his lips pressed lightly to my neck over and over. His strong heartbeat pounded against my own, and I wanted to chuckle softly at the fact that our heartbeats were in sync, but I was so exhausted that I could not manage the sound. My eyelids were drooping closed, and I wanted to sleep with him over top of me until the end of time, but I also wanted to remain awake so I could feel his arms around me.

  When he regained some of his strength, his lips began to trail from my shoulder, across my collarbones, to my other shoulder, and then he came up to kiss my lips.

  “Please tell me I did not just urinate all over you, because that is what it felt like.” I said softly, because I was too tired to speak loudly.

  He laughed rather heartily at that and kissed me.

  “No, my love.” He said, “That is a very common occurrence when a woman is stimulated where I was stimulating you.”

  “Fascinating.” I said, and I meant it, “Well, either way, I am sorry that I expelled a strange liquid in your bed.”

  “Oh, I will not allow you to apologize.” He said, “Because your strange liquid does not disturb me; it merely tells me that I have pleased you, and that makes me a happy man.”

  “Did I please you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Good. Then I am a happy woman.” I said, and he chuckled softly, and in response to that sound I knew and loved so much, I laughed, too.

  “God, that laugh…” I said with a roll of my eyes, “It is so unbelievably sexy.”

  “‘Sexy?’ This means ‘arousing,’ yes?”

  I was barely able to reply “yes” because I was laughing so hysterically.

  “I see. Well, everything about you is sexy to me.”

  “It is too strange when you say it.” I told him, and he laughed even harder, as did I.

  “I do apologize.”

  “I will not allow you to apologize.”

  “Alright. Then I will not. If my wife will not allow it, then I will not do it.”

  “And alas, you just spoke the one sure way to ensure that you survive our marriage.”

  “It is one way of many, I am sure.”

  “Yes.”

  “You will have to tell me all the ways to survive our marriage. I do not want to displease you.”

  “Can I tell you something?” I asked him suddenly, and already, my voice was losing what little volume it had as sleep began to close its fingers around me. “And you had better not tell me that I am only speaking this way because I am devastated over James, and I have had a rather rough time of it out there, and I am traumatized, and because you just made me come like I have never come before, and whatever else.”

  “You have my word that I will say none of those things.”

  “I better.” I replied.

  “You do.”

  “And you had better not run for the hills, as they say.”

  “We are bound in marriage by the laws of the good, righteous, and pious Old Spirits. Not to mention we are imprisoned. And also, not to mention, my unwavering desire for and dedication to you. There is always that.”

  “Good, because it is that unwavering desire and dedication that I want to address.”

  “Alright. Go ahead.”

  “I love you.” I said, and believe me when I say that he was utterly shocked. He opened his mouth, not to reply, but because he had drawn in a slight inhalation of surprise. “I love you, Adam Elohimson, in every way that I could possibly love you, and though I miss James terribly, and I love him, too, I am glad to be your wife. And I am sure now that I love you.”

  He wanted to reply but could not. Not with words, anyway. Suddenly, the beast of Pangaea, the almighty King, the oldest man, my husband, with his silver tongue, was speechless. Instead of answering, he kissed me, his hand running up my thigh, my middle, over my gently heaving breasts to rest on my face. When he pulled away, he had a tear in each eye that he allowed me to wipe away before he kissed my palm.

  “I love you, and I am glad to be your husband.” He whispered to me hoarsely as a tear fell from his eye, “I promise you that I will love you and cherish you until the day that I leave this world, and even after. You are my equal, my superior. You are my partner in harboring our shared darkness. You are my partner in wielding our combined light. You are my queen. You are my love. You are my wife.”

  I nodded, crying with him now.

  “I promise you,” I said, “…that I will hold you as my equal, and as the love of my eternal life. I promise you that even if they take you from me, I will find you. I will always fight for you as well as beside you. I will be your staunchest ally in our fight against them, and you will be mine. I will be your support when there is none, I will carry you when you cannot walk…” We both laughed softly through our tears at that, because as you very well know, I had proven my ability to do that, “…I will never leave you behind. I will die beside you if your God wills us to die at all and wills us to die together, and if you are to die before me, you will die in no one’s arms but mine. And, most importantly, I will be your wife until the day this world stops turning, and even after.”

  He smiled through his tears and brought my hand to his lips so he could kiss my ring finger. I brought his hand to my lips so I could kiss his.

  “Now we are married.” I whispered.

  “Yes.” He whispered as he kissed me softly over and over again. “We are, my beauty.”

  “It seems we had our wedding night before our vows.”

  “How sinful of us. No matter: we will have a wedding morning. And a wedding afternoon. And perhaps if we are lucky, we will have our wedding night again tomorrow.”

  “Alright.” My eyes were closed, and his head was under
neath of mine, rested on my chest. My hands were gently stroking his hair as my body began to slip away into sleep, but just before I dozed off, I whispered, “I love you so much, Adam Elohimson.”

  “And I love you. Brynna Elohimson, I have loved none before you, and I will love none after you. From now until the end of time, I love you.”

  All of what he said deeply touched my heart, but Brynna Elohimson? I especially liked the sound of that.