Samhain
The clapboard sign outside the Ferox Hall auditorium featured a very nice picture of Arthur Taliesin. He wore his new glasses with the black wire frames, and he had even persuaded Maggie to let him borrow his old tweed jacket. It looked good, not even a little bit threadbare.
She had taken many versions of this photo as the afternoon light streamed in through her apartment window. In many of the takes, he’d kept a serious expression with his signature furrowed brow, but in the one they’d sent off to Hawthorn’s marketing department, his lips were quirked in a half smile. Beneath his picture was the title of this afternoon’s lecture:
Alchemical Transformation for Technological Advancement Lecture Series: Metallic Conversions
Arthur Taliesin, Professor Emeritus
5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.
Students were already leaving the hall, tugging their jackets close around their shoulders as the autumn wind met them. They talked excitedly about the lecture, about tonight’s festivities andtheir weekend plans. The parties they would attend, the costumes they’d wear, the person they hoped to find, masked, beneath the stars. Maggie smiled to herself as she listened to their chatter, shifting her legs as she sat on the steps, waiting.
Finally, after the stream of students and faculty died down, she heard one last person come through the doors of Ferox Hall and clear his throat. She twisted at her waist and grinned up at Arthur, who looked far too handsome in the glow of the lamplight that had finally flickered on as the sun set. He held out his hand and helped her up, gripping her waist and pulling her into him. She giggled as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and he leaned in to kiss her. She had never thought of herself as this light, airy woman, but he seemed to bring out the best in her. “Hello, Dr. Linden.”
“Good evening, Dr. Taliesin.” They untangled their limbs, reaching for each other’s hands as they walked down the steps of Ferox Hall.
“Do you have your costume ready?” she asked, and he smirked.
“It’s in my truck.”
Her lips curled into a wicked grin. “Let’s get it before we go upstairs.”
At Maggie’s apartment, he fiddled with his costume while she disappeared into her bedroom to find what she needed. When she emerged, he was wearing his Beltane mask and she was wearing hers. The magic had long worn off and the petals were dry and had curled at the edges, muted versions of the bright things they’d been on Beltane, but Maggie liked this mark of the passage of time. They were different people than they’d been that night; the masks should be different, too. “Wehave”—she glanced at the clock on her wall—“thirty minutes before we need to leave.”
“That’s plenty of time, I think,” he said, heat in his voice.
“To tell me about your day?” she said, getting closer, tugging him by the lapel of the tweed jacket until their bodies were flush together.
“My day was lovely. My twelfth graders were very excited about the candy I picked up at Glinda’s,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “I’m ready for my seminar with the Hawthorn first years. And today’s lecture attendees were very”—he pulled back to look at her so she would know exactly whom he was talking about—“enthusiastic. How was your day?”
He bent down to kiss her neck as she tried to talk, but words failed her as he distracted her with his tongue. “It went too slow,” she finally said. “I think my office is too quiet these days.”
He hummed against her skin. “I knew you’d miss me.” She did, and he knew it, but he was still Arthur, and she was still Maggie. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of admitting it.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said casually, “my translation was accepted to theDiadhan Review.” Arthur broke away just enough so she could see his wide smile. “So was my conference proposal.” She paused for dramatic effect and then added, “As part of the plenary session.”
“I knew it!” he shouted, gathering her into a spinning hug as her cheeks burned from the smile she couldn’t contain. Arthur might have known, but Maggie certainly hadn’t. He had listened to her fret over the submission materials and second-guess every word for weeks, cooking her dinner while she workedlong into the night. She knew the proposal was good, but it was such a prestigious translation conference. In the moments she had wondered if it was a waste of time, Arthur had reassured her again and again.
“Thank you for believing in me,” she whispered.
“It’s easy to believe in you, Maggie.”
She walked backward as he kissed her, pulling him along, until the backs of her knees hit the couch. She sat and spread her legs, dragging him down with her until he was kneeling before her. The black tights she was wearing provided a thrilling challenge to what he truly wanted. Slowly, he pulled them down, one small inch at a time, anticipation coursing through Maggie like fire. Once he had them around her knees, he stopped, sitting up and kissing her again, keeping her legs pinned, deliciously, together.
“I love you,” Maggie said, and he sucked her bottom lip into his mouth, biting it gently.
He sat back on his knees between her legs, looking up at her like she was a vision. Like he still couldn’t believe it. “I will never get tired of hearing that,” he said reverently as his fingers slid up her stockinged calves toward the bare skin at her thighs.
She gasped as he tugged aside her underwear, the movement urgent with his want, and slipped two fingers inside her. Arthur had spent many weeks learning all the ways to drive her pleasure higher and higher, all the ways to make her squirm beneath his touch. He was a methodical researcher.
“We don’t have much time,” she reminded him.
“I’m not worried about that,” he said, crooking his finger inside her. “I know what you need.”
“If Dahlia were here, she’d make you put a dollar in the jar for that.”
The glass jam jar on the counter was nearly full of dollars and had a handmade label on the outside in Dahlia’s loopy handwriting—Arthur’s Full-of-Himself Fund.
