Thief

by Greg Curtis

  Heedless of his own fears he told her again and again that he was able, desperation in his voice. He cried out to her that nothing she could do could harm him. He told her that for her to deny him would be a thousand times worse than whatever harm she thought he might suffer else. At that moment it was true. He was scared of going ahead with this miraculous madness, but he was agonized by the idea of not doing so. He shamelessly used her own beliefs against her, arguing that it was meant to be, and that she shouldn’t go against that. Anything and everything he could think of he threw into his cries.

  And it worked. Slowly he began convincing her, winning her around to his way of thinking, and as her doubts began to lessen, her desires raged. He felt it so clearly and took heart, knowing there was a chance. Hope fired him to try ever harder to persuade her, telling her of his desire, of his love, everything else forgotten in his desperate need to be with her.

  Then in a moment of joy she yielded, utterly and completely, knowing he told the truth when he said being apart would be the worst pain he could know. She knew his torment, it was hers as well. He knew the instant she relented and screamed his pleasure - and his terror. She was smiling, smiling for him. Calling him to her, urging him to be with her. There was no possible resistance. How could there be? There was nothing left to resist with.

  Legs, forgotten, returned suddenly to urgent life. He covered the scant yards between them in a shambling run, finally completely out of control and uncaring.

  In seconds he had thrown himself into the cold, crystal clear water and was instantly with her, holding her to him, kissing her. And in his wonder and joy he found Sherial returning his passion. His mouth, his hands found her body as hers found him, and wandered freely guided by both their hungers. Mikel felt such desire, such joy, such love and peace in her arms that even then he knew he would never be able to leave. He had known that from the first. He was her slave in truth.

  “I am a thief.” From where the words came from he didn’t know, but he clung to them as though his body and soul depended on them. They did. But they weren’t enough. Not nearly enough. Not when her glory was already surrounding him, her love was holding him tighter than mere steel bonds. It was as if a stranger had spoken them. His paranoid control-freak personality, no longer truly a part of him, still trying to pull him back from the edge after he had already jumped. It didn’t stand a chance.

  “Let me go.” He screamed the words at her, but his scream was scarcely more than a whisper. For he understood once more, that she was drawing him to her, as she had been since the very start. That he had never had a choice in this. That both Sherial, and he himself on some level had never wanted him to have a choice. But that knowledge wasn’t enough to free him. Nothing could ever be. His hands continued to hold and glory in her perfection, while hers played with him in turn, promising paradise without end.

  “Why?” Whether the word even made it out of his mouth was debatable, but Sherial understood him clearly. Her response was as nothing he could have imagined, as nothing he could even really understand. She held him to her with a strength not human and kissed him, so deeply, so longingly, that he knew she ached for him in exactly the same way as he did for her. And in his mind her felt her total desire for their union. With her soul she showed him everything that she desired, so much more than just the physical pleasure.

  It was for love and lust all right. Sherial was going to enjoy their passion with all her might, as was he. It was also for hope and for their future. It was in some strange way for both his and her protection. It was for their future together as man and wife and for their family to come. It was so they could both be complete together instead of partial people apart as she had suddenly discovered they both were. It was something she didn’t completely understand herself, but which she was completely certain was absolutely right. If the Lord had not meant this to be, neither would be experiencing this now she told him. They were. There was nothing more to say.

  Somewhere along the way the last of his clothes vanished, and he held her to him as tight as he could, while she in turn wrapped her arms, her legs, her wings around him promising him she would never let go either. Her hands held his lips to her, encouraging them in their exploration, and he knew nothing was off limits. For everything he wanted, everything he dreamed of, everything he had ever even fantasised of, she wanted too.

  As he gloried in the perfection of Sherial surrounding him he felt her in turn relishing the touch of his hands on her own bare skin. It was as though their two bodies were becoming one. Her hands too found him and wandered freely, raising exquisite sensations over every square millimetre of his bare skin, while his manhood became painful. He swiftly became a raging hunger, which only Sherial could sate, and then he knew, only ever briefly.

  An eternity of waiting later they joined, and in the same moment their flesh became one, so did their hearts and souls. For the briefest of instances Mikel finally understood why it was that she had always attracted him so incredibly strongly. It was her soul, reaching out to his, drawing him in like a magnet, as his must have somehow reached out to her. Then he ceased all comprehension, as their world became that of the thrust and parry of sexual intercourse. Desperation ruled them both.

  Sherial wrapped him up in herself, arms, legs wings holding him tighter than a straight jacket, and answered his every thrust with one of her own. Quickly they together found a harmony of flesh and spirit that Mikel had never known, as each gave and received in perfect unison, but faster, ever faster.

  Too soon he found himself on the edge, too soon surely for her, and yet even as he told her wordlessly of his nearness he felt Sherial coming too. Somehow, his heat had fired her own. As he felt the beginnings of his explosion, Sherial forced herself further down on him, trying to squeeze every last drop of pleasure out of him. And then all thoughts, all understanding ended, perhaps for eternity as they entered paradise together.

  It was a land neither would ever leave voluntarily.

  In the hours, days, weeks that followed, they made love as a man and a woman should only dream of. Time and space lost all meaning, as did everything else outside their love. The sun beat down on them, warming them with its light, and they made love. The stars shone down on them, cooling and blessing them in their glory, and they made love. The water lapped at them, cooling, soothing and caressing, easing their thirsts but not the heat of their hungers raging hotter than the sun. They made love.

  Through it all they had an audience of all the wild creatures of the woods, every one of them as drawn to the beauty that was Sherial as was he. They too all wanted to gaze upon her beauty, to bathe in her radiance.

  Were they jealous? Mikel hoped so.

  CHAPTER NINE.

  “If I have freedom in my love, And in my soul am free, -

  Angels alone that soar above, Enjoy such liberty.”

  ~Richard Lovelace

  Fire, sickness, pain and infinite heart ache.

  He heard hysterical laughter in the air, the sound of a madman crying, and knew it for his own. He just couldn’t allow himself to know why. Instead he suffered, clinging to the pain, the insanity, holding it close as a comforting blanket. But even it couldn’t protect him forever.

  How long? It was the first real thought that crossed his shattered mind.

  How long had he been with her? Worse, how long had she been gone? He didn’t know the answer to either, and it scared him. He’d never lost control like this before. He’d never lost control in his entire life. And yet the loss of control was as nothing to the loss of Sherial. He shied away from that thought, too painful to bear. Yet his mind kept returning to it, worrying at it, like a tongue poking at a rotten tooth. Sooner or later he would have to know his loss.

  It had been many days surely. He concentrated on the memories, the happy ones, desperate.

  They had been joined body and soul for many days. He knew it had been the most wonderful time he had ever known, yet he couldn’t remember anything clearl
y of the spell that had passed. He vaguely remembered the passage of many star lit nights and sun drenched days. He remembered pleasure never before known to him, nor quite probably to any other man. Days and nights where all he’d done was to make love to Sherial, and she him.

  Loving like otters in the sun, naked, free, and without a care in the world. They hadn’t eaten or slept in all that time, nor had they even spoken with more than their bodies and souls. But what other communication was there? All they had done was love, every climax only the prelude to the next. It had been a private orgy without end, without even the thought of an ending – except now it had ended.

  A terrible blackness descended on him as he let that realization slowly creep over him. He couldn’t stop the truth sinking in ever deeper, crushing him with its weight. It had ended. What would he do?

  Die. Surely there was nothing else to do. He was alone, his world so totally empty and tiny that he would disappear into a tiny black hole any second. Death would at least fill that void, and he would not know how bleak his existence was. Yet even as he thought of suicide he knew he wouldn’t do such a thing. It wasn’t allowed, either by Sherial or him.

  The pain and heartache quickly turned to self-hatred. He cursed himself for having let it end, for it was his fault. The fault of his frail human body, and his even more fragile mind.

  For he’d been dying. Dying of delight. The only way he’d endured as much as he had was because Sherial had given of herself to help him. As he had started failing, he had begged her for help, and she had responded. Her strength had filled him, allowing him to stay with her in heaven, allowing him to serve her as they both craved. It still hadn’t been enough. Could anything be enough? And yet even now, crippled and half-dead with pain, and only barely aware of who and what he was, he still wanted more. He would have gladly died for her, with her, giving her everything he had. Nothing could have given him greater pleasure. Literally.

  But Sherial was gone. His world was empty, even though he knew she wasn’t far away, at least in angel terms. If she wanted she could be here in seconds, and she did want. Her love was here now with him, would always be in his soul. But she would stay away he knew. She would stay away until he’d recovered. For she knew he needed to recover, both in mind and body.

  She’d told him so. It was the last thing Sherial had told him before she left. That there was something wrong. Something she didn’t understand, or perhaps just something that she couldn’t accept. Something that would kill him if they stayed together. And she didn’t want him to die, ever.

  It had hurt her to leave him, even as much as it hurt him. He knew it. He had felt it, though he found it almost impossible to accept in his misery. For Sherial wanted to be with him every bit as powerfully as he longed for her. She had told him so with every breath she took, with every beat of her heart. But unlike him, she knew she had to be strong, for he couldn’t be. Even now he felt her message echoing in his soul, knowing that she never wanted to leave, that she wanted to return. But that he needed to heal.

  How long would that be? The idea terrified him, the thought that she might not return to him was more than he could stand. Yet worse was the terrible knowledge that she was right. He somehow knew that she was right, he had a problem, and one that he didn’t even understand let alone know how to fix it. It was his fault.

  If he couldn’t fix it he might never be with her again. The thought, the very idea was too horrible to contemplate. It was unbearable being apart at all. To have no hope of returning, he was better off dead. He cried out to her, again and again and again, knowing she heard him, she always would. Knowing she wouldn’t come. Knowing it was futile.

  He knew she would not come. Not until it was right. She had told him so, was somehow, even here, still telling him. But she couldn’t tell him how to make it right. She couldn’t be with him.

  Finally he broke down totally and screamed his terrible loneliness and pain to the entire world. It was a sound that nearly ripped the back of his throat out of his body, a cry that sent animals scurrying in blind panic in all directions, a vibration that was surely heard and felt in both heaven and hell. It was a sound that would not end until nothing remained.

  But eventually it did. At the last there was nothing left in him to escape. No energy, no hope, just a great aching loneliness, and a mass of pain that was his lungs and throat. But behind it lay something else, a decision, a resolution. At first it was largely formless, undirected, yet the strength behind it grew like a nuclear mushroom cloud, until it overshadowed everything else.

  In time it flowered in his mind, what little remained. A single idea. If she would not come to him, he would go to her. He would recover as fast as he could and return to her. The sudden resolve ran through him like lightening. In an instant he was totally self-possessed, his goal Sherial, his route back to her the only thing in his mind.

  He wondered how long it had taken him to come to that decision. There was something in his memories that spoke of days of just lying in this pond, suffering. He looked around and saw he was lying in the warm waters of the shallow brook. His shoulder was pressed deeply into the soft mud bottom, and he was curled up like a baby. Willing his aching muscles to work he started straightening up, only to scream in sudden agony.

  Mikel instantly curled into the tightest foetal position he could, knowing nothing but pain. In the distance he heard screaming, but it wasn’t for long minutes that he recognized it as his own. His maleness, his whole body was on fire. There was a nuclear furnace burning out of control somewhere in his groin and dimly he understood he’d given too much. Much more than his mere human anatomy could give. He was drained far more than merely dry.

  But the pain at least started clearing away some of the cobwebs that seemed to enmesh his mind. For the first time he started thinking, in between bouts of screaming agony. The pain finally freed him, a little, from his passion. His duty, for so long swept out of his mind like a patch of dust, returned and beat him up.

  How long had he been like this? And more importantly how much time had he wasted? He had to save those people, those angels. Did he still have the time, or had he wasted it all? There were no answers. He had no way of knowing, and probably no time to lose.

  “I live. I strive. I win.”

  Slowly he fought the pain, trying to straighten out his crippled body, the first step to standing and then walking. It wasn’t easy. Every stretch re-awakened the agony that coursed through him in waves of sick-making torment. And yet after each bout he somehow found the will to try again, and slowly, infinitely slowly he continued the process.

  Hours later, perhaps many hours later, he found his feet, a triumph of mind over both pain and sanity, and surveyed the land around him, looking for the smoothest path out of the water. For he knew that the task of walking would be an incredibly difficult and painful process, especially as the weight of his tortured privates was no longer borne by the water. Still it had to be done.

  Mikel found he couldn’t bring his feet together, just the attempt caused him to scream and collapse back into the water. But by keeping them at least a yard apart he found he could at least attempt a stagger. One foot after the other, swinging his legs around in ridiculously wide arcs he lurched himself towards the shore and the nearest tree.

  “Ohh shit – I’m saddle sore!” The words just came out of him and he laughed hysterically, - until he screamed again. Even that slight bouncing caused by his laughter was too much for his manhood to bear.

  Reaching down he explored his tenderness and discovered new pain. Even the slightest touch was like that of gently playing a flame-thrower over his most sensitive skin. But at least he finally understood his torment. He was swollen, his balls more like grapefruit while his penis was rubbed raw. The skin of his groin was a mass of red and black, denuded of hair. He was bleeding from places he’d never known a man could bleed, and it scared him, briefly.

  How was it possible? How could any man do this to himself? But lo
oking back he knew how it was possible. And he knew that no matter how impossible it had been, no matter how painful it was, he would do it again in an instant if only she would let him.

  “Lover. You rode me like a bronco!” But he wasn’t even vaguely upset as he cried out his understanding. He only regretted that it had ended. Sherial’s absence was an open wound somewhere deep within, and all he wanted to do was scream out his pain and suffering. The pain of his weak flesh mattered not against the pain of her absence.

  “Please God don’t let it be over”. He cried the words out with everything he had, knowing there would be no answer.

  But there was. Sherial was still with him, even though she was far distant, and she told him anew of her love. He could feel her heart somewhere deep inside him, beating her love for him to feel, as his did for her. It scared him as much as he welcomed it. The invasion of privacy, the loss of self, all things that terrified him as nothing else could. Yet still he knew given the choice he’d throw himself upon her fire again and again, until it killed him. Which was the very thing Sherial couldn’t allow.