My throat tightened.I looked at the dark hair over the scalp, hair that once framed a human face.“Is it really him?”I asked.“Is he real?Is this?”
The man himself?Yes.But the character you and I have crafted could be reflected in any face.Think of it.This man’s been lying here generation after generation.He never told his dog goodbye, and his daughter is still looking out that window counting clouds.He never even got to eat breakfast the next morning.We get a storm on land and we close the windows.The same storm out here—no, up there,he corrected, pointing up,could end your life.
I stood tall and looked upward.Underwater like this I couldn’t judge the brightness of Aster’s lantern.I supposed that his supernatural energy cast the illusion of a light that overpowered the depths of the sea, or possibly the reality.
From here, a massive pocket of black betrayed where the proud arched ceiling had rotted away entirely.Past that, Aster’s light could not shine.“Why did you take me here?”I asked.“Could you always do this?Go wherever you want and...take me with you?”
I can do whatever you need to get a grasp on your work,he said.
His eyes sparkled.Then the music began.
At first I thought I imagined the sound, and I ignored it as I reached out and traced the contours of the captain’s desk.A delicately painted white and blue China teacup lay split in half over the top.This whole place could be in a museum.
The substance around us mirrored both air and water.My skin felt dry, but my hair floated around my head whenever I moved.The atmosphere had felt thick but also quiet, completely still, until now.
The tune I noticed earlier started with a whistle, and then a faint chime, like a wind chime in the distance.It sounded grainy and partly decayed, like a recording from an old gramophone.
The sound came in so subtly that I had to cover one ear with a hand to tell for certain that I heard it at all.My eyes scanned the perimeters of the dark around us for a source of the notes: maybe some kitchen utensils had fallen from their resting place, or an old door hinge had remembered to creak.
Meanwhile Aster surveyed me with a familiar coolness.Do you mind?he asked, and only then I saw that he extended a hand to me.
I stepped away from the corpse, and my cheeks flushed.
The music grew louder and the notes more defined against the dark, warped and eerie.
You understand, a simple trip to the beach would not have helped like this,said Aster.He turned his head to meet my eyes.
“No indeed.”
We needed something much closer to the source.And now we have it.And to make the moment complete, I should like to dance with you in the manner of the era,said Aster.
I pressed a hand to my face.Now I knew the reason behind the blushing.“I can’t dance,” I said.“I don’t know how.”
It was true.I’d never been connected much to my physical body, and dance was a foreign concept.My presence had never inspired a room.In fact, the only audience I could count on to welcome me was the blank page.
Allow me to teach you,said Aster.
I stepped closer to him, and I closed my eyes.I was still giddy from Aster’s earlier enchantment, how he eliminated from me my need for sleep.Where did his power end?What more could he do with me if he wanted?
Aster kept things simple at first.He took both of my hands in his, and then we swayed in place.The music swelled.I surrendered to its easy cadence while Aster drew me in closer to his chest.
I held against him as if in a tight hug.I could feel him breathing against me, hear his heart thumping resolutely in his chest, inhale the sweet scent of his natural musk.
It’s just another way of making love, you see,said Aster.A way for the two of us to push against the boundaries that fence us in.
My shoulders dipped as he changed his hold to an embrace.“I thought we had writing to do,” I said, delighted.“I thought you wanted to work straight through the night.Whatever happened to that?”
I opened my eyes and tilted my head back so that I could get a better view of Aster’s expression.His eyes sparkled in the dim lantern light, but his lips remained an expressionless line.
Don’t let anything you see fool you,said Aster.This is the best of all.The ship, the fish, our good captain over there.In all of this, you never stepped away from the keyboard.
I tensed.We weren’t dancing anymore, and the music had shifted into a minor key.
Then I saw that Aster was busy already undressing me, pulling my pants down to my ankles and then lifting my shirt over my arms.His given explanation for our unexpected field trip faded to the back recesses of my conscious thought.
This time our chemistry was different.The underwater setting enchanted me, and I acted under a compulsion and curiosity that had never infected me before.Aster acted similarly charged, and he explored me from new angles, kissing my hips and running his arms down my ribs before teasing me with his tongue.Maybe the change between us stemmed from the thicker aquatic atmosphere, from the ruins in decay around us.The shipwreck.The remains of our own storm.
Every breath felt fresher and further imbued with life.Every moan spoke not only of pleasure but of being as well, of existence.I saw that I could drink in the space between us, literally drink it, endlessly drink it without fear of drowning.
