against my neck. Whispering, whispering. I couldn’t make out the words, but after a moment, his whispering began to tickle. I tried to wriggle away but he held me fast. Soon, on account of all my squirming, he began to laugh, a warm, languid, gravelly sound that raced a shiver of glorious tingles across my skin. Soon I was giggling too. The music of our shared nervousness loosened the tension. I forgot my fears. There was just Samuel – my dear, sweet Samuel – and the delicious private moment we now inhabited.
Winding myself around him like an eager vine, I clung tightly, and tighter still as he tumbled us both onto the bed, crushing me under his weight. My skirt found its way to my waist, then left me altogether. Somehow my blouse joined it on the floor, and then my undergarments along with Samuel’s trousers and shirt. His skin was velvety smooth, the muscle beneath like iron.
‘What if I’m dreaming?’ I murmured. ‘What if I wake and find you’ve already gone?’
Samuel stroked his thumbs against my cheeks and kissed the corners of my mouth. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight and rested himself along my length.
‘Is this real enough?’ he breathed, sliding his hand to my shoulder, then down over my breast. ‘Is this proof that I’m no dream?’
‘Oh, you’re a dream, all right,’ I countered, smiling as I slid my arms about his neck and lifted my hips to meet him. ‘A beautiful dream I never want to wake up from.’
‘We won’t wake, then,’ he promised. ‘We’ll stay here forever, just you and me, as we are now, always together.’
I liked the sound of that, and wanted to bask longer in the glow it gave me . . . but then Samuel’s mouth met mine with such hunger that I forgot the things he’d said, forgot his vows, forgot the sweet promise of our future together. For the longest time I was aware only of the sunlight fading from the window, the slow-moving shadows as day became night, the gentle squeak of the cot’s rusty springs – and Samuel, my dear Samuel, possessing me in a dream that I wished would never end . . .
Later – much later, it seemed – I lay awake while Samuel slept. Somewhere in the heat of our joining I had felt the old Aylish crumble and fall away, like a snakeskin abandoned in the grass. I’d always been an outsider, trapped midway between my father’s world of books, Bible study, and prayer – and the simple mission existence of my mother’s people. I was neither light nor dark, but a shadow-girl wedged between the two. Now, though, I belonged to Samuel, and he to me. I smiled to myself, feeling full in my spirit. We would, as he had so often told me in the past, create our own world where a person’s differences were cherished, and their skills and talents and heart placed far above such trifles as the colour of their skin –
A flinch at the window.
An owl or nightjar, I thought. Flapping past, disturbing the fragile moonbeams that shone into our haven. I wanted toignore the disturbance, and for a while I did . . . but then my skin began to prickle as though I’d taken too much sun, and I had the oddest sense that we were no longer alone.
My gaze went across the moonlit jumble of garments strewn on the floor, past the oblong shadow of the door to the tallboy and its vase of rosehips. It slid along the rough-hewn wall until at last it alighted on the pale glow of the window.
A face was peering through the glassless opening. A child’s face, hovering with no body, a restless spirit drifting out of the night. It was plump and gleamed white as alabaster, floating like a ghost, peering into the room with large curious eyes. For the briefest instant I met its gaze and terror struck my heart. I was looking into the face of death. My death . . . or maybe Samuel’s. I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t cry out. That face had captured my voice, drowned it in a well of silence and turned me mute.
But only for a moment.
At
Winding myself around him like an eager vine, I clung tightly, and tighter still as he tumbled us both onto the bed, crushing me under his weight. My skirt found its way to my waist, then left me altogether. Somehow my blouse joined it on the floor, and then my undergarments along with Samuel’s trousers and shirt. His skin was velvety smooth, the muscle beneath like iron.
‘What if I’m dreaming?’ I murmured. ‘What if I wake and find you’ve already gone?’
Samuel stroked his thumbs against my cheeks and kissed the corners of my mouth. The bed creaked as he shifted his weight and rested himself along my length.
‘Is this real enough?’ he breathed, sliding his hand to my shoulder, then down over my breast. ‘Is this proof that I’m no dream?’
‘Oh, you’re a dream, all right,’ I countered, smiling as I slid my arms about his neck and lifted my hips to meet him. ‘A beautiful dream I never want to wake up from.’
‘We won’t wake, then,’ he promised. ‘We’ll stay here forever, just you and me, as we are now, always together.’
I liked the sound of that, and wanted to bask longer in the glow it gave me . . . but then Samuel’s mouth met mine with such hunger that I forgot the things he’d said, forgot his vows, forgot the sweet promise of our future together. For the longest time I was aware only of the sunlight fading from the window, the slow-moving shadows as day became night, the gentle squeak of the cot’s rusty springs – and Samuel, my dear Samuel, possessing me in a dream that I wished would never end . . .
Later – much later, it seemed – I lay awake while Samuel slept. Somewhere in the heat of our joining I had felt the old Aylish crumble and fall away, like a snakeskin abandoned in the grass. I’d always been an outsider, trapped midway between my father’s world of books, Bible study, and prayer – and the simple mission existence of my mother’s people. I was neither light nor dark, but a shadow-girl wedged between the two. Now, though, I belonged to Samuel, and he to me. I smiled to myself, feeling full in my spirit. We would, as he had so often told me in the past, create our own world where a person’s differences were cherished, and their skills and talents and heart placed far above such trifles as the colour of their skin –
A flinch at the window.
An owl or nightjar, I thought. Flapping past, disturbing the fragile moonbeams that shone into our haven. I wanted toignore the disturbance, and for a while I did . . . but then my skin began to prickle as though I’d taken too much sun, and I had the oddest sense that we were no longer alone.
My gaze went across the moonlit jumble of garments strewn on the floor, past the oblong shadow of the door to the tallboy and its vase of rosehips. It slid along the rough-hewn wall until at last it alighted on the pale glow of the window.
A face was peering through the glassless opening. A child’s face, hovering with no body, a restless spirit drifting out of the night. It was plump and gleamed white as alabaster, floating like a ghost, peering into the room with large curious eyes. For the briefest instant I met its gaze and terror struck my heart. I was looking into the face of death. My death . . . or maybe Samuel’s. I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth, but couldn’t cry out. That face had captured my voice, drowned it in a well of silence and turned me mute.
But only for a moment.
At
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