I split in half. I feel the pressure building inside. It’s unbearable. I can’t contain it, can’t think, and when I come, a raw moan rips from Abas’ throat. His arms fold around my chest, embracing me as he comes, too, clutching me so tightly, I can barely breathe, holding me like he’s afraid I’ll vanish.
When I’m fully spent, I collapse onto Abas in blissful exhaustion. Still holding me, he turns his face into the pillow, and I hear it, even over my own heavy breaths: the wet, raw sounds he’s trying to bury in the fabric.
Had I hurt him? But he’s not pulling away. He’s gripping the covers tightly and folding into himself. Just…breaking.
I feel strangely detached but simultaneously completely present. I don’t know what I’m doing. I sit, and even exhausted and drained, I pull him up, hold him, pretend that, somehow, this is enough. His ragged whimpers slow down as I stroke his hair, his tears caught by the pillow below. I lean back into the covers, close my eyes, and listen to nothing but the sounds of Abas’ despair.
XVI
ABAS
Atorrent of sensations descends upon me: entangled limbs, tension mounting to an inevitable release. I endeavour to resist, to quell the fervour before it can take hold of my senses, yet such efforts are in vain. My being shatters into infinitesimal fragments, only to be put together again and again by Astaire’s slender hands—a cycle of annihilation and resurrection longer than the sum of my years, yet contained within a single breath.
I strain against the drowning current, desperate to preserve the last thread of life. I attempt to remain above the waves, but the pull from the depths is too strong. And if, in that descent to darkness, I was welcomed by Astaire’s open arms, then let the deepest pits of hell claim me as their own, for in his embrace, even damnation finds reprieve.
It is not my own rapture that I perceive most keenly, but his. Astaire’s pleasure courses through me more vividly than my own, and for an instant in this shared sensation. I forget the solitude, the torment burrowed deep within my spirit.
Yet of what strange nature were my passions? Domination and surrender blurred into one, so that I knew not whether it was mastery or submission I sought more fervently.
With every command and every chastisement, another wound loosened under Astaire’s tender fingers. Centuries of misery untangled when my flesh at last melted into his. Seed spilt upon my skin, as the sensation I once believed utterly absent clutched me in its relentless claws.
My heart palpitates with abandon, exhales twisting from my core.
I try to hide my shame, seeking the concealment of the pillow’s down, yet Astaire does not turn away in revulsion. Like Madonna della Pietà, he gathers me into his lap, fingers entangled between my loosened curls, until all that remains is a dull thrumming in my skull.
“I’m sorry,” I breathe into Astaire’s skin, the words barely formed, as if ashamed to leave my mouth.
“What? No,” he begins, then his voice softens as he gathers me tightly in his arms. “I’m sorry.”
“Why should you be sorry?” I leave the evidence of my sorrow on the linen, sit up, and gaze upon his face.
“I hurt you.” The shame of his guilt tugs my power with insistence, terribly sincere.
“You have done me no harm,” I attempt to reassure him.
“Why are you upset?” he asks.
With these words, my gaze falters, I do not trust myself to speak plainly.
“Please,” he says gently, “I want to understand.” His intent is undeniable within those words. My lungs constrict; never have I faced such earnest care. I feel utterly disarmed in the presence of such empathy.
“You released something in me today,” I say at last, “a part I had confined to silence so long ago, I scarcely remembered its voice.
“What does that mean?”
“I have forbidden myself…fadings,” I answer, but his brow remains drawn in confusion. “La petite mort,” I explain. “It has been…centuries.”
“Centuries?” His eyes widen, not in fear but in awe. “How old are you?” He asks, but I hear no judgment in his voice, only curiosity.
“Old,” I reply, attempting deflection, though I know it will not suffice.
He raises a brow, commanding an honesty I would rather not offer. I wish I did not know, hadn’t counted every miserable year.
“One thousand and seventy-three,” I reply, resigned.
A quiet “oh” escapes his lips. The knowledge settles within his eyes, but then, he continues, “You mean forbidden yourself to orgasm? That’s what ‘the little death’ means, right? Is that like a vampire thing?”
I hesitate before I can respond, unsure if I possess the words or the courage.
