“You are calling me fussy!”
“Youarefussy, Arris,” said Demelza, arching an eyebrow and smiling at him. She brushed her fingers through his hair once more, pushing a curl behind his ear. “There.”
“Thank you,” said Arris.
“Of course,” said Demelza. “What are friends for?”
Friends, thought Arris. They were friends. How natural the word felt, how easily it settled into the space between them. Arris had never really had a friend. What made someone a friend, anyway? He admired his teachers and the company of scholars and as a child had delighted in the acquaintance of the courtiers’ children. He had laughed with some of them until his cheeks hurt and spoken with others until the night and all its stars unraveled into the dawn.
But they were not friends. There had never been the same ease or understanding. No one else had shared in his desire not simply to live, but to continue wanting. Not one person had truly understood… until Demelza.
“I suppose we are friends,” said Arris.
He thought about adding something that might be considered profound, but the thought vanished when Demelza placed her hands on his chest, rose up on her toes and kissed him fully on the mouth.
Kissing Demelza was exactly like kissing any other girl, which is to say that it was delightful. Lips are always soft wonders and the feminine form was a mystery Arris had, quite literally, risked life and limb to explore.
As a result of the persistent crusting of mud and twigs in her hair, Demelza smelled like a pond. This was notaltogether pleasant, but Arris had grown used to it enough that now some part of it signaled comfort in his mind. When he kissed her, the smell of the pond gave way to the imaginings of one—dragonflies with stained glass wings, water lilies at dusk, the flash of scales beneath a patina of green.
Usually, in a kiss, Arris found himself jumping forward a thousand steps… to the possibility of darker corners, the threshold of a secret room, the slight answering catch in a girl’s breath that painted fire along his bones. But not with Demelza. With her, Arris was not thinking of the future at all, but the past.
He had never laughed before he had kissed someone. He had never kissed a friend. He had never stood there, forgetting what he was supposed to be doing.
This kiss was no prelude to something else, it simply was, and it felt so natural as to be uncanny. Arris could not imagine that he existed for any other purpose than to kiss Demelza surrounded by the blousy, dark blooms of the myrtles and the silver gleam of the fog roses.
Slowly, Demelza’s hands traveled from his chest. Her fingers interlaced behind his neck and the kiss, so carefully planned, moved into a realm Arris hadn’t expected. He gripped her waist, felt the heated contours of her body through the nightgown’s slippery fabric. He tasted the warmth and sweetness of her mouth and wondered if he was dreaming.
“You’ve got to be joking!” said a loud voice.
Abruptly, Demelza broke the kiss. Arris stumbled, a part of him reluctant for the moment to pass. The velvetblooms of the peeping myrtle had turned crystalline and through them, he saw the row of contestants, their shock and bewilderment turned to fractals by the blossoms.
Dimly, he heard their curiosity and shock, but he paid it no mind. Demelza held all his focus. She was not smiling triumphantly, the way Arris had imagined and the way Yvlle had insisted. She was frowning. She turned her back on the contestants. Arris waved his hand over the peeping myrtles and the blooms turned opaque once more. He ignored the shocked and bewildered gasps of the contestants as they were, rather forcefully, shut out of this tableau. Yvlle had told him to make a scene about being caught, but he didn’t want to be witnessed anymore. The whole of his being seemed bent around Demelza’s frown. The lush mouth he had kissed a moment ago had flattened into a grimace.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, panicked. “Was that… bad? Did I hurt you or—”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
When Demelza faced him, she was composed. She even smiled, although the expression did not reach her eyes.
“It was exceedingly pleasant,” she said. “And it was generous of you to respond with some measure of passion toward the end. Clearly, my inexperience left me more affected than I expected. I’m grateful you didn’t recoil.”
Demelza paused, then laughed, and Arris—still stunned by the kiss—realized a moment too late that he had missed his chance. He should have cut her off, should have told her that he had been moved to kiss her like that of his own volition.
“Thank you,” she said.
An automatic sense of propriety kicked in.
“You’re welcome,” he said.
Something raw flashed in Demelza’s eyes. There and gone.
“Well. I have to go,” she said. “Must hear instructions for the second trial and all that. I’ll report back later, but no need to visit me this evening, yes? I should probably spend time with the other contestants. I’m sure they’ll have many questions.”
Once again, a moment too late, Arris realized he had not just missed his chance… he had crushed it beneath his heel.
But a chance of what, exactly? What was he mourning? He wanted to talk it over with Demelza, but by the time he recovered himself, she was already gone.
