~~~~~
The following morning Trent woke up feeling the most refreshed and relaxed that he had in a long while. His body ached in desperate longing to not have to walk anymore - at least for a while - and he happily lay still and did not move at all. The ground underneath him was so warm, it almost felt like he was indulging in a warm bath…
Suddenly he was finding himself wondering if there was water in the area, and if so, if it was heated. Oh what a warm bath would feel like after so long walking most of every day and only washing in freezing cold rivers when he had been in the valley areas!
Parts of the dream from the night of sleep came to him and he was focused on her once more. He was sure she was real, but how could she be? How could any of this be?
He pulled his water bottle from his bag and noticed it would need filling soon. Having not yet looked further around the ruins of the village, he now hoped he would find a water source eventually. He could not think of any real reason why water would have stopped flowing to wherever the past residents had gathered their water from.
He was deep in thought when he heard footsteps approaching and her soft voice call out to him from outside the tent.
"Trent," she whispered as loudly as she dared, with it being so early in the morning.
Even the sound of her voice was intoxicating, he realized as his body instantly jumped to attention, making him curse that part of him as he really did not want there to be awake right now.
He clutched his sleeping bag tightly around him as he leaned forward and unzipped the small entry point of the tent.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, intrigued by the zip itself.
He laughed softly at her as she took the zip in her fingers and moved it upwards and then downwards, then upwards and then downwards. While she was intrigued by that he took the moment to lie back again on his back, resting his head on one arm that was crooked behind his head, and smiling at her.
After a few minutes she looked at him with a sheepish look on her face.
"Sorry, Trent. I have never seen such a thing," she whispered and he smiled at her. "May I … come in here with you?"
The question was an innocent one but he had to curse his body once more as it immediately jumped to even greater attention.
"Yes, of course Isabella," he said and watched her slowly find her way in climbing into the tiny space and eventually lying alongside him, her face close to his.
"Did you sleep well?" she asked, seeming to be so close to him that he was enchanted by the beauty of her eyes, and the movement of her lips.
"I did, thank you. I had the best sleep I have had in a very long while," he responded, unintentionally raising his free hand to touch her cheek and jaw line. "Did you?"
Isabella closed her eyes and indulged in the feeling going through her.
"Yes," she seemed to breathe out and he knew that sound. She might be inexperienced in sex but she still had a great depth of passion inside of her, and she was waking up to it, seemingly right before his eyes.
She leaned in to kiss him and he welcomed it as they lay together, his body's determination to not be sleepy fortunately being contained within the thick sleeping bag.
Trent felt like he was transported. The feelings were incredible. He had been with some amazing and very memorable lovers in his adult life so far, but no-one had ever had this effect on him.
He moved himself so he was facing her, and pulled her close to him, feeling her body naturally move so that she aligned herself perfectly, rising one knee up so it rested on his hip through the protective layer he had around him.
Both of them sunk into the feelings, not wanting them to stop, until Trent found his head and pulled away.
"Oh, Isabella," he heard himself groan as he fought to find words. "I … I think we should not get too close here and now."
"Have I done something wrong?"
"No! Oh no, kissing you is the most exquisite thing I have ever experienced. You have no idea how it feels to kiss you…"
"Yes I do," she argued back softly. "I do know how it feels, and it feels wonderful."
He closed his eyes and shook his head, desperate to keep control of what was happening, and when he opened them he saw her still staring at him with such an intense look on her face.
"Other people will see you, will they not? They will see you lying on the ground here, looking like you are … kissing someone," he said and she comprehended his words and he heard a slight giggle come from her.
"Yes, you are right, Trent. I imagine it would be quite an image to others who can see me but cannot see you," she said, nodding and smiling broadly. "I shall leave you now."
"Oh you don't have to go…" he said, reaching out and stopping her progress that had begun to move toward the zip once more. "I just meant perhaps you shouldn't be kissing me…"
She smiled such a beautiful, intense smile at him that he felt a natural urge to grab her and pull her back, and into his sleeping bag with him. But he fought it, instead thinking of the day to come.
"Isabella, do you have water here somewhere?" he asked and she looked confused. "Water for drinking, and water for bathing."
"Ahh yes, of course. I shall go to breakfast now while you rest and then get ready. When I have eaten I shall bring you some more bread?" she asked and he nodded, feeling hunger at the thought of it. "And then I shall go with you to where our water supply is. I did not bathe yesterday so I will have to do so today," she said and looked at him in such a way that he could only imagine her naked body, and once again he was very pleased to have such a thick sleeping bag wrapped around him.
~~~~~
At breakfast she met up with Adrian, who seemed particularly eager to talk to her.
"Isabella, I am still confused by yesterday. How did we see that man? Who is he and where did he come from? I just don't understand…"
Isabella looked at her friend and felt his confusion.
"I know, Adrian. It is beyond me how anything like this could be, also. I thought I might be seeing things, because he was the man from my visions of the night, but…"
"He is who you saw in your visions of the night?" Adrian asked, feeling a depth of concern deep in his heart. "I do not understand…"
"It is beyond belief, I know. But Elder Rhys said it was real - that he had seen someone like Trent before. A traveller, he called him."
Adrian listened to the words but kept finding his thoughts going back to her statement that the man had been seen in her visions of the night.
"What happened in your night visions? When you saw him?" he asked.
Immediately he saw her face fall into a deep blush and he was instantly angered. He knew that look, and the significance behind it. He had not seen it on her before, but he had seen it on others after they had gone through the pairing.
"No! Isabella?" he asked with tentativeness and horror in his voice. "You did not … pair with him…"
"No! Adrian, no I have not paired with him!"
Isabella could feel her face burning. She did not want to lie to him - she had never lied to him in their many years as close friends - but she did not want to hurt him either.
"What then? You are not telling me something."
"Please. No more about this, Adrian. I do not wish to talk about him anymore." She paused before turning to him more fully, and speaking again, trying to force a smile onto her face. "I want to talk about you. Please … how was the mill yesterday? Is the water running more freely now?"
He knew it was a diversion but conceded that perhaps it was best that he play along with it. He did not want to argue with her, and he certainly did not want there to be vexation between them. For now he would let it go.
She saw him take a deep breath, as if trying to realign his thinking and ready his words.
"The mill was busier yesterday. There was enough warmth yesterday, we think, to create more water flowing, and that enabled the water wheel to flow more freely, so it was a good day of milling all round."
For a moment he just looked at her, enjoying the look of her eyes, her mouth, her hair. He knew they were friends, and he knew they were lifelong companions. But he wished so much that they could be more, that sometimes he found that it physically hurt inside.
"Come, let us wash up and then leave," she said all of a sudden, at the same time taking more bread, including one slice with some mushroom spread on it.
Adrian knew who it was for but said nothing. Despite how the man seemed to be affecting Isabella, he was a man nonetheless and even Adrian could see and concede how little food he must have had in recent times. No matter how the two men might not wish to know each other, Adrian would at least help her to keep the strange man alive.
~~~~~
"Here," Isabella said to Trent as she approached him. "I have food for you, but come with me and let us find somewhere quieter and less open."
Trent absorbed the look of her, thinking about their earlier kisses. He became aware in that moment that since arriving in this impossible place, he had become completely obsessed with her … enamoured. But the problem for him was not knowing if that was real or not. He wasn't even sure if she was real, so how could he begin to be certain if any of his feelings were real.
He grabbed his packed up gear, stood and immediately followed her, the two of them now more comfortable with having to work together to avoid the different obstacles that each other could see in their path.
She led him to an area where the people of the village bathed, but she knew no-one was ever there in the mornings. It was a place people tended to go late in the afternoon, after a day's work was done.
Trent was suddenly aware of the sound of water and when he focused he could see that she was leading him to a small pool with a waterfall flowing into it. It was the first moving thing - apart from her, her friend and the ancient he had met - that he had seen in the grey landscape that was his constant view.
Isabella sensed his attention and questioned him with a look of curiosity on her face.
"Do you see the water?"
He smiled broadly all of a sudden.
"Yes!" The word came out almost as a laugh, he was so joyed. He wondered why he had not been able to hear the water running from within the main part of the village, but quickly dispelled the question in his mind. Right now he was able to see water that he could drink and he could bath in.
Isabella watched him edge closer to the side of the pool, crouch down and touch the water with his fingers. Instantly he looked back at her and smiled.
"It is warm," he said and she laughed at him.
"Yes, it is where we bathe."
"But to drink?"
"No, do not drink that. There is water running through it constantly so it is alright to bathe in, but we gather our drinking water up further from here. I can take you there now if you wish…"
"No!" he said, too intrigued by the warm water pool before him. "No, thank you Isabella but I would like to just stop here for a while and take my time to enjoy this, if you don't mind."
She nodded at him, and stood to leave.
"Where are you going?"
"You wish to bathe. Do you not wish to do so in private?"
He stood and came up to her, putting his arms around her and kissing her on her lips, making her melt against his chest as he felt her arms enclose him also.
"Are there any other people here now? From your time?"
She shook her head.
"No. No-one comes here in the morning. It is usually later in the day when anyone bathes."
He kissed her again, deeply, and heard her groan escape from her throat.
"Stay with me. I have so much to ask about your life here," he said and she nodded once more.
He edged closer to the water and gave her a smile.
"I am going to undress, Isabella," he said, wondering what she would do.
Instantly she turned away and presented her back to him, but not before he saw a distinct level of redness on her face.
He undressed quickly and tentatively crept into the water, feeling a soft and silky texture on the ground in the water, under his feet. It was like sinking into a hot bath, and he relaxed down, eventually putting his head under and vigorously rubbing his hair to loosen what he knew must be extreme layers and levels of dirt on his scalp.
When he turned around to face her he saw that she had turned back again and was watching him with a vast smile on her face, and intense amusement in her eyes.
He treaded water as their eyes locked.
"Do you want to come in?" he asked her and she blushed again.
"I should bathe today, but no, I do not think so, Trent. It would not be right," she replied, all the while looking longingly at the water … and him.
Looking at him mostly covered by the water, she could see his arms and his shoulders, and liked the shape of them. She knew he had told her he had reduced in size since starting his journey, but she liked his shoulders. And she was curious about what his body would look like once she helped him to once again be eating regularly.
She saw him smile brilliantly at her and then dive under the water. When he came up she was laughing at him.
"Do you do such things in water, where you are from?"
"Yes, where I have lived we have large pools but the ones I have been in were mostly man-made. I have never seen anything natural like this. Not natural and so warm, although I know there are such places around still."
He watched her as she sat, looking at him with the look of intense curiosity, as if she still could not believe he was in her reality.
"I should wash those clothes in here, too," he said, nodding his head to indicate the pile of clothing he had just removed. "Could you pass them to me, Isabella?"
She stood and walked forward, crouched down, and one piece at a time, passed his items into the water for him to catch, wash in the water, squeeze out, and then pass back to her to put on the ground before doing the same to the next item.
"Thank you. I shall get out now," he said but she continued to watch him, seemingly not comprehending what he had said. He laughed softly at her. "Isabella, can you please turn around for a few minutes?"
Finally he saw her face realize what he was implying, and she turned and walked back to his backpack, brought it forward for him, and then turned and walked a short distance away, keeping her back to him.
"I dreamed about … touching … your body," he heard her say softly, and he was instantly aroused, immediately dreading she would turn around in that moment.
"I did, too. Touching you and … kissing you."
He pulled from his pack the cleanest clothing he had - not that anything was really clean anymore - and quickly put them on.
"Okay, I am dressed. It is safe to turn around now."
Isabella turned and saw that he was in different clothing. She watched him as he gathered up his wet clothing and haphazardly threw them over various rocks to let the sun and warmth from the ground under them, dissolve the moisture from the fabrics.
"This part of your village must still be intact then?," he asked her and she nodded.
"It seems so, does it not? I do not know what happened here but I believe Elder Rhys has more to tell us."
He came and sat beside her. Still all he saw was dirt around them, even though to her was the view of greenery and colour.
"No-one is here?" he asked her, suddenly desperate to see what she saw, and wondering if the same action of placing both of his hands down on the earth would provide him with that view.
She nodded at him.
"It is safe."
Trent lowered his hands one at a time. When both came in contact with the earth he felt the same energy surge through him, once again forcing him to close his eyes and just indulge in the feeling.
When he opened them he was astounded by
the colour around him. The green of the trees and bushes, and grass before him. But nearby he could see lavender coloured roses climbing up one of the walls, and the scent from them was heavenly.
As Isabella watched his facial expressions as he moved from one time to another, she saw something new. A small tear was appearing in his eyes - just enough to show moistness where a moment ago there had been none.
"What moves you so?" she asked him and he turned his focus to her.
"Everything."
He moved his eyes away from her for a moment, once again looking all around him.
"Your land is so beautiful. It should never have changed…"
He felt overwhelmed by emotions and needed to be closer to her. Knowing - weighing up - that he would lose the views around them when he moved his hands, he made the judgement then to stand up, seeing the landscape instantly change back to the brown and grey it naturally was to him.
Isabella saw him reach out his hands toward her and she stood and walked into his arms, once more feeling the pull toward him, while he focused on the intense need to kiss her with a hunger that at times was not there but right now, in this moment, was highly invigorating to him.
They clung to each other, kissing with intense desire, and yet still he found no arousal in his body - it was her lips touching his lips that drove his hunger, and it was if his body knew she was not his … yet.
She pulled away from him suddenly.
"You must be hungry," she said, remembering the bread she had carried with her.
He laughed out loud, for a moment confusing her.
"You have no idea."
Seeing she did not understand the play on words, he did not say anything more. He sat down on the ground and she sat before him, as he placed his hands down and watched the vista change once more.
Isabella broke up the plain bread first and fed him piece after piece, neither of them saying anything.
"I also brought a piece with small amount of special mushroom spread that Cook Nina prepared. I like it but not everyone does. Would you like to try?"
The thought of tasting fresh mushroom made him salivate as he nodded, eager to try a different flavour from the bread, which perfectly served to fill his tummy but left a gap of taste on his tongue.
The Golden Desires Page 7