by Fulani
His sickness came upon him slowly at first, but like the leaves falling from autumnal branches, the damage became more and more apparent. He would sit in his study by night, fingertips pressed to his temples, just a shadowy figure in a moon-bathed room. She would find him; she would stay with him and hold his hand. She knew when the pain was worst as his grip would instinctively tighten, fingers becoming more entangled as if he knew the end was coming and he had to hold onto her or he might slip away.
Death stole in quietly one night in the spring as the blossoms hung festively on the trees. It crept in and then slipped quietly away taking him with it. She found him cold when her arm fell upon him, she knew he was gone. Something that they had never known was there purely because of its constant presence had departed in the darker hours. She wondered if he felt it, wherever he was now.
She stayed, she wrote, she let life run its quiet course. She didn't take another lover and would attempt to satisfy herself in the darker and lonely hours. Hunching around her dildo, pinching her nipples and breathing hard she would climax, roll onto her back and feel unsatisfied.
What had once been a white watered torrent had become a stately calm river down which she floated. She wondered when she would see the ocean.
And now she floats, yet it is a different ocean that buoys her up, making her feel weightless. She can feel ripples running from the tips of her toes to the top of her head; fast licks of sensual warmth and then satisfying coolness. What can she see? Her eyes blink in this nowhere place, or she tries to blink, but it is hard, so hard.
The white infused with soft pink swirls around her still yet it starts swirling with more ferocity: twisters of opaque smoke roll across her body and she can feel the tickle of their moist touch.
The smoke is thickening, becoming vivid. Two arms with hands that she knows so well come into focus, the fingers stroke and dance on her skin, it is these digits of pleasure that tickle her.
She looks down at herself; she feels no surprise to see that she is naked. She watches as one hand from this unseen lover navigates between the rise of her breasts, down, momentarily dipping into her navel and then onward to the neat triangle of hair. A swirl of smoke passes before her eyes. She can see only white and pinks but she can feel the hand. It has run past and down her body, caressing the sensitive flesh on the inside of her thigh.
The other hand, just a shadow to her joins the race, running from her collar bone, touching and teasing a nipple as it passes, across her stomach and again past where she so wants it to go, and to her other thigh.
She sighs in delicious anguish and attempts to satisfy that burning need, but she cannot move. She is bound by steam, shadows and smoke. It is only her unseen lover that can make her whole.
And, as if he hears, through time, through space, she feels the hands grip her legs and gently spread them. The vapour tickles at her and she shivers with the pleasure. She wants to say ‘Now, give it to me now,’ but she can't. Her voice does not work in this place; instead it comes out as a needful gasp.
There is something else there now, beyond the blinding clouds, she feels it; hot and hardening, a silky mass that runs up the inside of one thigh before travelling down the other. She knows it for what it is and raises her hips to it.
The stiffening length rises again, and pauses. The silky skin of the head is poised on her lips, moving in swift little circles. She shakes uncontrollably and wants to scream ‘Give it to me! Now!’
She awoke with a jolt, her black hair fanned onto the cream pillow and her eyes full of muted starlight. Beneath the white sheets her hand rose to cup one breast. She had been dreaming but then, in the strange way of that nocturnal theatre, something had happened. Something sweet and wonderful, yet something that had left her.
Her thumb lazily traced the circle of her areola and tickled her nipple as she tried to remember, but could not take hold of the memory. It had been so real in the dream, yet now it was like a distant song carried on the wind, it teased her. Something felt different here.
An odd certainty crept over her, her stroking finger slowed but did not stop, there was something here, something in the house with her. There was no reason why she should have thought this, but the certainty remained. She was not alone.
Quietly, half afraid that any sound would break this spell, she slipped from bed. Her white nightdress, shaded in the swells and curves of her body, was iridescent in the moonlight. The great silver disk peeped in the window at her like a naughty young boy spying on the lust of his youth. Her hair fell in stark contrast to the white silk yet the same sheen seemed to enrich both.
Barefoot she crossed the room very aware of the world around her, the soft slickness of the nightdress on her bare skin and her stiffening nipples, the cold floorboards beneath her feet, the temperature of the air, not yet holding the nibble of winter but still charged with the tension of the years passing.
She passed through the open door, a door that she had not shut since his death. Something had told her not to, as if the door being open was waiting for someone to come and before getting into bed, shutting it, shutting them in and the world out. To close the door would have been a true acceptance that he was gone, and even now, years later she couldn't bring herself to do it.
She stood at the top of the stairs listening. She could hear the grandfather clock in the kitchen busily chopping up time, the musing hum of the fridge as it cooled its cargo.
The house was old and with that age came the sighs and groans of it settling. She often thought of the house as an old sheep dog, still fully capable yet by night it would go to rest with mutterings of aching joints and tired limbs.
Tonight the house stood silent as if, like her, it was listening, waiting at the back door for its beloved master to come home.
Fear did not tickle her spine; it did not breathe icy terror onto her crystalline nerves. She felt more than she had for almost a decade, but none of it was fear. An expectance sat in her belly like a child, she could feel it stirring and growing. She laid her hand there, cupping this phantom child, protecting it. Her fingers spread wide and pale on the silk that felt so much like cool skin. The heat from her palm radiated into her belly. She could feel the absent cup of her navel like a hungry little mouth.
From somewhere down stairs there was a creak; a series of short staccato tacky pops. She knew that sound, she knew it well. It would wake her sometimes all those years ago when she would turn her head she would see the opposite side of the bed empty, the sheets tossed back and the half full glass of water glimmering like a jewel.
It was his chair, his leather chair that sat like an old tired man itself in his study, a study in which she had not gone since just after his death. As with the bedroom door she saw it as a portal to him, yet unlike the bedroom door it remained shut, as if holding in the last vestiges of him. She foolishly thought that if she opened it there would be an out-rush of air, warm and so beautiful on her face and containing the scent of him, but then he would be gone, rushing into the air and dispersing like wood smoke.
And now, from behind that sealed door there had come that sound of settling leather. Her spectral child grew.
Down the stairs she passed running her free hand, the other still lay on her stomach, down the waxy banister. The familiar protests of the stairs seemed distant to her, quieted somehow.
She passed into the kitchen, her bare feet making soft ‘Whap whap’ sounds on the stone floor.
The grandfather’s face showed a slice between spindly hands, 3.20 a.m. The pendulum swung back and forth, the copper weight on the end a gleeful child.
The door to his study was black and glossy, the knob like a cartoon golden nose. Her hand took it, held it but did not turn it. That voice, the superstitious voice in the back of her head, was muttering. If she opened this door and that warm breeze fluttered past her face to be gone forever, what would she do? Still worse, if she opened it and nothing happened, well then he was truly gone.
She had to
decide; could she actually go on with this empty vessel always there, invisible yet always present, the space where he should have been? She had for this long, but she knew she owed it to him, she owed it to herself, she had to let go of death and live.
Before she could change her mind she took her hand from her belly and, feeling the child of excitement writhing and kicking, twisted the knob with both hands. The door, unused for so long, groaned indignantly.
Beyond, the room was as she had left it, though dust drifted on every surface. The waft of air from the opening door sent opaque storm clouds of dust spiralling where they glinted and glittered in the moonlight. She waited for the storm to die before moving into the room, no breathy kiss on her lips, no sigh of rushing life, and yet she did not feel disappointed as she thought she would. Instead, that expectation of something wonderful remained.
With the light off, the big leather chair in front of the window seemed to suck in the night. It faced away, the better for him to see the garden, which had been so beautiful but was now a tangled mess of grasses and wild flowers. She felt no urge to change this, without anyone to enjoy it with the natural state seemed more apt, a sort of surrender.
She moved slowly across the room, her pale legs swinging like pendulums from beneath the hem of the night dress. Muscles flexed and contracted producing dusky, transitory shades. She felt the air rise up and chill her thighs. She tingled with the fierce sensation of it.
Behind the chair she stopped, flashing back to those nights when he could not sleep because the pain was too bad. She would walk in quietly, lean into the back of the chair with her breasts sitting atop the chair back and kiss him on the crown of the head. His hand would rise and she would take it. They would stand here like this and watch the night time garden together.
Tonight she, more from habit than anything else, moved over the chair back, leaned forward closing her eyes as she did so and feeling her breasts atop the chair. They sat, a little larger than they had been last time she had done this, she had put on a little weight in recent years rounding out the tightness of youth and accentuating her femininity.
She took a deep breath, steeling herself and cautiously put her hand over the back of the chair. She wondered what would happen when he touched her, what would he feel like, would he be cold like winter, or would his hand exude the warmth of life? Would she be afraid, would she gasp? Would she take that hand and pull it to her breast, laying it over her heart?
Her hand hovered in the air for a few seconds longer before falling with a slap onto the headrest. She also let her head fall so her cheek was pressed to the chair. She was so tired, so very tired.
With her eyes still closed she passed around and sat in the chair which creaked its familiar greeting. She drew her knees up and tucked them beneath her bottom and like a girl tired from play, she made her hands as if to pray and laid her wet cheek against it.
She listened to the curious owls of the wood as they asked their soft question.
‘Who?’ they asked.
She fancied she could still smell him on the soft leather and answered in a whisper, ‘I don't know.’ and then she slipped into a pool of dreams.
Some time later, she did not know how long, she awoke, One of her legs had gone numb and she had rolled her head so her face pressed against the leather, it made a slurping sound as she pulled it away. Her eyes remained closed, eyelashes long and dark on her pale skin. Her lips were dry causing her to softly lick them giving back their shine. They tasted a little strange, strange yet somehow familiar.
I could just stay here forever, she thought. I could just stay here and slowly fade into nothing. She rigged her leg beneath her bottom, flexing the muscle and feeling the spikes of pins and needles crawl up her calf.
A finger touched her lips; the finger trembled like a weak bird yet remained pressed there. It began to make its stuttering way around her mouth.
She opened her eyes, so green they flashed from beneath dark lashes. The garden beyond the window was darker now, the moon having retreated leaving the stars to their mysterious dance.
The wood was silent, the only sound a lover’s sigh as the wind breathed on the trees. In the room everything was still. No spectral form knelt before her, no fantastical vision of him, or dim shade, yet she knew it was he that touched her lips; like a blind man, feeling the contours of her mouth.
Closing her eyes again she let the sensation soothe her. He used to do this as they lay facing each other in bed, he loved her lips and he would often tell her.
She raised her hand, seeking the one that touched her but her fingers only found empty space.
‘Are you there?’ she asked in a cracked whisper. She felt her mouth moving against the unseen fingers.
There was no reply, but what she did feel were cool lips on her neck, pressing then releasing, and again tracing the line of her jaw, across her cheek and to her mouth.
‘Oh God,’ she moaned. ‘I've missed you so much.’
Though her back was to the leather she felt a hand slip across her shoulder, down the hollow of her spine and to the small of her back. The touch was so light, so delicate that she felt goose bumps rising where the fingers had passed.
She arched a little in the chair feeling the silky material of her nightdress tugging across her breasts and nipples, pulling up and across her belly, tightening around her hips.
Tears slipped from beneath her lashes leaving clinging webs of moisture. The invisible hand encircled her hips and she felt an arm pull tight across her as the kisses came harder and more desperate.
Her mouth was open, her tongue pressing against the invisible resistance. Expectance had been replaced by relief in her belly, rich and heavy. The hand traced the curve of it, up to beneath her breasts where it cupped and gently squeezed. A thumb flicked across her nipple making her pull back from the kisses to gasp. It was as if the city of her body, so long without electricity had suddenly burst into glorious bright light. Her skin tingled. She touched herself, at her waist, and felt a surge of pure sensitivity. Her body felt charged, a spring that had been winding for a decade was now ready.
The mouth left hers and traced down to her breasts. While the tongue continued to massage the right nipple and plumpness of the breast, lips encircled her left nipple, a tongue teasing, pressing the nub which grew tight and hard. Teeth gently pulled aghast the engorged skin. Her own hands, unobstructed by her lover found her breasts which felt flushed and fuller under the soft silk. She let her own finger run circles around and around in spirals until it reached the centre which was being teased so lovingly. Simultaneously, her elbows spread to either side, her head rolled back, she grasped and pressed, and tugged, and squeezed.
In her chest her heart thundered, she thought it might burst with the purity of the sensation. The mouth left her breast and traced a line of soft kisses over her stomach, briefly pausing at her navel, a tongue dashing in and out. It tickled, making her giggle; she felt her breasts tremble with the laughter.
The kissing mouth continued south, and down into the silky triangle of hair. Mouth against mouth the lips were parted like the petals of a delicate white flower. A slickness entered her, exploring, rolling and delving.
She was panting hard, her fingers digging into the flesh of her breasts, nails flicking across the points of crackling energy.
She felt the front of her shirt growing moist, a combination of sweat and her own juices slickening her flower like a morning dew.
The ghostly tongue found the nub of hardness which felt strained and taut. The smallest touch made her give a guttural gasp, hunching her forward and causing her to bite down on her lower lip. Her hands never stopped moving in their tiny dance of passion.
The tongue struck again, this time landing for a little longer before flicking away again. This time she bent almost double and what sounded like a desperate sob burst from her lips.
Hands traced down her sides, over the swells of her hips to land on her behind. They kneaded and
squeezed the flesh, creating a heat that seemed to run all the way forward, back up and into her head. She thrust forward, the nightdress riding up her legs and exposing the soft inner thighs. Hands, both seen and unseen were tightening her like a violin string.
I'm going to snap she thought, her bottom sliding further forward on the smooth leather. The cool material touched the back of her legs as her nightdress slipped higher.
Convulsively she clenched her thigh muscles tight, the muscles contracted under the soft white skin, squeezing the feeling in tighter. She didn't know how much more of this she could bear; she felt somehow full, the relief and power in her belly swollen huge.
Her hair dangled wetly about her face swinging with her motion, dark patches across her breasts, down her arms, all over her sides showed the sweat that ran from her.
Though she knew she could take no more, like a blown up balloon she said, ‘More, give me more.’
The tongue pulled back from its teasing of her core and withdrew. A kiss fell back upon her mouth; she could taste herself in it, her musk.
What replaced the tongue was something she was familiar with, but had not felt for so long. It filled her up, deep and rich. It moved in further and she felt the familiar pressure. It moved out and then hard back in, it was cool, but not so cool as to be uncomfortable. She tightened the muscles, pulling in more, more than she could stand.
It was going to happen soon, she felt the power building in her loins, a storm ready to crack and break and shake and discharge.
‘Now!’ she screamed and stars burst behind her closed eyelids. The storm broke sending fire through her, from her finger tips, rocketing up her arms, through her chest igniting everything that it touched with a passionate white hot flame.
‘Yes!’ she cried with ecstasy.