It's been a while, so let me offer a short story for your amusement...
All rights reserved by the author, and unauthorized
duplication is prohibited.
Indigo
"What have you found?"
He looked up, a bit of cobweb caught in his hair. His eyes
were narrowed against the relentless sun that reached into the stone alcove.
"I'm not sure. A bit of pottery, but it's impossible to say where it's
from until I find more."
She knelt beside him, as awkward as a colt. It had not
always been that way, and the memory of a dancer's grace made his heart ache
for a moment. He placed the scrap in her hand, his fingers dusted with sand. He
watched her turn the shard over, her thin fingers still deft.
"The glaze is beautiful." She stroked the scrap
with one finger. "It reminds me of something."
"You bought me tea cups in that color," he
replied, feeling his lips pull up into a smile. "To replace a broken tea
cup."
"I don't remember that." She looked up, tentative,
and then smiled when she saw his smile.
He touched her cheek, feeling the dryness of her skin. It
used to feel like silk under his fingers. "It doesn't matter. It's a
little thing. I just remembered because I always liked the color."
"Indigo. It reminded me of your eyes." She
sounded uncertain, as if she was trying to convince herself of something.
"Do you still have them?"
"They're in our kitchen, yes. Back home." He
stood and offered her a hand. "Let's take a break for the day. It's late
enough, and we can watch the sunset while we eat something."
She let him help her to her feet, her hand cool despite
the heat. "It's just soup."
He pulled her close to him, his arms around her. She had
never been more than a slip of a thing, but she felt even more fragile now. He
tilted her face up to look into her eyes.
"Soup is fine," he told her. "I wasn't
expecting a gourmet meal out here, lovely one."
She flinched when he used the endearment, and he felt the
now familiar ache.
"I'm sorry," she said, her voice no more than a
whisper. She slipped out of his arms, and handed him the scrap of pottery.
"There's nothing to be sorry about," he
replied, keeping his voice gentle. "I forgot for a moment. That's
all." He paused and looked up. "It's going to be a lovely sunset,
don't you think?"
She looked up as well, and he saw her frown a little.
"It looks like there are clouds building. Do you think we'll have a
storm?"
"It's always possible." He looked, but saw
nothing on the horizon. "We're almost at the season for it."
"If it does, we won't be able to see the stars when
we're sleeping." She sounded wistful, but she let him take her hand again,
and lead her to the camp.
He had made their camp in a small stone building that had
survived the years intact. It was no more than a hut, really, and had no
significant historical purpose, but it provided better shelter than a tent
against the chill of the night, and the sand carried by the wind that rose when
the sun went down.
On other occasions, in other places, they had slept
beside a campfire, eschewing even a tent, entwined together under the stars. It
was not uncommon for her to seize on a memory like this, although it never failed
to make his throat tighten.
He barely tasted the soup, as he watched her eat with the
dutiful manner of a child expected to clean their plate. The kettle was heating
for tea, and he rummaged among the provisions to find some sweet cookies.
They shared the cookies, sipping tea to wash them down, and
she let him put his arm around her as the colors changed in the sky. She felt
like a shadow against him, insubstantial and likely to vanish, but he forced
his thought away from that dark path.
No one could explain what was wrong with her, what was
causing her to fade like an old painting on this forgotten temple's wall. He
had asked in more places than he could count, and the answer had always been
the same. Watching her turn into a stranger was almost more than he could bear,
but he would not leave her.
Thin wisps of clouds had formed, and the colors played
off them like dancers with long ribbons. She laughed in delight, and for a
moment, he let himself believe that she could still recover, that she would
come back to him. He found himself laughing with her as the winds picked up,
lifting her hair away from her face.
He had not meant to do it, but he turned and kissed her,
tasting the tea and the sweet hint of cookie as he slid his hand into her hair.
He expected her to flinch away, but this time, she did not. For once, she did
not push him away, and beneath the ache that he could not escape, he felt the
fluttering of desire.
She did not protest when he tugged at her thin sweater,
and her fingers found the buttons of his shirt. Her skin was cool and dry as
she pressed herself against his hand, feverish with need. It had been so long
since she had needed him like this, and he ignored the little voice in the back
of his head that cautioned him to go slowly.
It was a familiar dance as they clung to each other,
clothing discarded with haste until they were both naked. He could feel his
skin tighten in the cool air, the sky on fire with sunset. It gave her too-pale
skin a gloss of color, and made her look like she had when they first met,
masking the way her ribs showed through her skin.
He rolled over onto his back, heedless of the sand
beneath him, to let her take what she needed from him. She weighed no more than
a breeze, and when she lowered herself, burying him within her, he could feel
the heat that still burned deep inside. He wrapped a hand around her hip to
steady her, the other finding the moist nub hidden within her folds. Her back
arched, and she sighed when he matched the pace with which she rose and fell on
him.
She was almost herself again as she took her pleasure,
and he could not look away from the sight of her. Her cheeks were flushed with
her arousal, and her eyes had darkened, signaling that she was close. He felt
her thighs tighten, and she shivered as she ground down with an almost silent
groan, her orgasm making her clench around him tightly.
As much as he wanted to let himself join her, he held
back. It had been so long, and he wanted her to feel that one more time, to
watch her come undone again. She did not appear to disagree as she rocked her
hips forward and back, churning him within her. That coaxed a gasp from him,
and he felt his throat tighten as he remembered the way they would talk,
teasing each other with words as well as touches.
He felt her tightening again, and it was almost too much
for him. He needed to let himself come this time, if only to pretend for a few
precious minutes that they had all the time in the world ahead of them. He
looked at her, and the tears that trickled down her cheeks were enough to break
his heart.
"Please," she whispered, and ground down
harder, letting herself fall over that edge again, her walls gripping him so
tightly that he had no choice but to let go and join her. His hips left the
ground as he came, pressing into her, wanting nothing more than to hold her.
She sank forward, letting her head come to rest alongside his, and he could
feel her tremble against him.
"It's all right," he murmured into her hair,
his throat tight and his eyes burning as he eased back down to the sandy floor.
"I love you."
"Don't," she said, and her voice wavered and
broke. "We should sleep now."
"I'll bank the fire, after I get you settled."
He let her pull away, pull off him, and he watched her gather her scattered
clothing. Her shoulders were hunched inward, and he ached with the need to hold
her again. He knew she would only pull away, and so he sat up, reaching for his
pants.
Their bedrolls were set up inside the hut, side by side
so they could share warmth. He watched her crawl into her side of them, her face
pale and damp with the tears she had shed, and he helped her pull up the
coverings. "I'll be right in," he said, as her eyes closed.
Despite his words, he sat and watched her, watched her
breathing even out and slow into the rhythm of sleep. She looked like herself
when she slept, the fine lines of pain smoothed away. It was hard to believe
that she was slipping away, and that he could do nothing to save her after the
way she had saved him, when she had taught him how to open his heart to love
again.
A rumbling from outside the hut broke the spell, and he
stood, looking up at the clouds that gathered overhead, obscuring the stars as
they boiled across the darkening sky. As he stooped to pick up the rest of his
clothing, the pottery shard fell to the ground, and he could hear her voice as
she gave him the new tea cups, shy and so unsure of herself.
He had been taken by surprise. He was so much older,
after all, and she was eighteen, with her future ahead of her. She had looked
up at him as she handed him the cups, and he had known right then that he loved
her. He had not known how much until this moment, when a shard of pottery
reminded him of all he was losing.
He turned the shard over in his fingers, feeling the
smoothness of the glaze even after all these years buried in the sand. "I
love you," he said again. There was a flash of lightning, and the rains
came, washing away the tears that scalded his cheeks.
