by Poppet
I'm just repeating what the therapist said, but I need her to know I understand.
Stroking her arm, needing to touch her, to soothe and fix, I lower to her level so I can look her in the eye. “Listen to me, nothing about her was normal. That wasn't love. Feeding a child isn't nurturing. She was incapable of nurturing a fucking thing but herself.”
She just looks at me.
It's like she punched me square in the jaw.
It's the silent scream that screams the loudest.
Her accusing silence is ripping me a new one.
I'm going to fix this.
“Zena, I'm sorry for what I did. I had no idea how it would hurt you. I just needed to break through, to get through to you. I can now see, honestly, that you do love me and have let me in, because you trust me. Trust isn't something you offer lightly. Will you let me teach you love?”
The answer is a shiny tear slipping out her eye to run over the bridge of her nose.
Moving my head off my pillow, I lean over her, gently kissing her mouth, tenderly wiping away the tear, releasing the plyx inside me to glow over her face.
Indicating the light coming from my eyes, I start her education, “This is love Zena. In its purest form. We call it Plyx. It's inside you, just like it's inside me. I'm going to let you feel mine, I'm going to love you with it, and then I'm going to show you what it feels like when you let yours touch mine. Heart to heart, spirit to spirit. Okay?”
Her hand comes up and presses so softly against my cheek, her eyes leaking endless tears, but in her eyes I see the need. The willingness. I broke her heart, but she still loves me. She wants me to make it better, I can hear the thoughts from here.
The fragile bubble of hope.
Crying myself, for her pain, her emotional agony, for her whole life, I close her into my arms, pulling her against my body, pressing our foreheads together and kissing her nose.
Unblinking, I blast her with love, with light.
I wronged her, and now I'm making it right.
Chapter 15
Božena:
It's magic. Thermal ambiance mists out of his incredible eyes which are aglow with golden maple light.
It flows all over me, sitting on my skin and seeping slowly into my body. Tingling, fizzing, soft, warm, caressing, bubbles popping into me, it filters through, filling me with a buzz. It's not unlike the sensation I had when I got off his motorbike.
The feeling is inside me, zinging and fizzing, heating and soothing, and the warmth it spreads through my belly and up into my heart smacks me with euphoria.
It's completely mystical and impossible. Inside me the bubble grows, filling me up like a balloon, with pure happiness, airy, light, jubilant, it's the same as what Arsay showed me. Love.
Love's hot, gentle, encompassing and complete. It's not sexy or urgent, instead it's languid, buoying, relaxing and sedate.
Closing my eyes against the halo exuding out of him with bright intensity, it unlocks my tight tongue and the truth comes flooding out, desperate to be released, purged, expelled.
“I often feel like I got lost and sent to the wrong planet. If the administration in the ether is anything like local government then that explains how the innocent are sentenced to life in prison,” I say randomly.
Strong hands tenderly rub my arms, tracing to my back, smooth lips nipping at my lower lip, his breath exhaling onto me and sending me into a trance.
“Hmmm?” he mumbles inside the lips on mine, moving to my ear.
“Abuse happens in prison. Innocence is destroyed through violence and pain, and the insane get majority rule. This entire planet is a crack-house full of addicts living for the next high of breaking you down and reducing you to a perpetual state of anxiety and desperation. I have SS because despite the abuse I am still sane, despite the abuse I am not yet numb. What's even worse is the insane don't know they're mad because they manage to function inside the system and think they're perfectly justified in all that they do. They're not. They were broken and have lost their grasp on reality, on spiritual reality, and instead of protecting innocents from more abuse they join the elite club and attack what the eye cannot see; the heart and mind.”
He stops kissing my neck, breathing into my ear, “Zena, I love you. I'm never going to use that love against you, to hurt you, abuse or manipulate. Love is unconditional. I will love you regardless of whether you love me back. It's simply a fact. I love you. Just like the trees are outside my door and the sky is blue, it's a fact that I love you. And I will spend the rest of my life showing you how much. I will never abandon you, and I give you my sworn oath that I'll never inflict pain on your heart again.”
I open my eyes, staring into the aurora borealis which hovers between us, peering through it to look into his endless carbon dark eyes which glint and glow with embered specks.
I speak my heart, in this moment feeling confident, and safe to be vulnerable, “You are my crystal-meth. Don't you get that? I can't go a day without my fix. It makes me crazy, antsy, uncomfortable. If I don't get my Sveta hug and kiss I can't function. You're different. It's not just the mark on my neck. Yes I love how it makes me feel, and it has made me want to get a tattoo, but you, you accept me even though I'm impossible and unreasonable.”
He presses a finger to my lips, “Shh. Listen to me. I don't love you because you're sexy, or beautiful. I love you because I can see energy. Neuri see life in its purest form. Inside you is a light so bright, pulsating with such beauty, it humbles me every fucking time I look at you. If you could see your beauty like I can, you'd never feel stupid - or ugly - or inferior. You were brainwashed into a state of constant insecurity. I'm going to change that because you're the brightest star in my sky, and I'm willing to make a wish on that one star every night. You're my world...”
His voice cracks, and hot tears slip off my lashes with his heartfelt deep words that are pinning onto my heart. I can feel his voice inside me, resonating. I can literally feel the love flare and heat inside me when he tells me he loves me. It presses hard on my heart, embracing it with a lover's touch, a lover's need, sincere and true, and the vulnerable ecstasy of the moment is so gorgeous it makes me cry tears of happiness.
Squashing us closer together, his tongue runs into my mouth. He sucks my bottom lip, licking up and tickling my palate, pulling back to breathe hoarsely, “You are my everything. You became my world and top priority the second I laid eyes on you in Pravus. Seeing you leave with Jowendrhan burned my ass so bad. What he did to you made me livid, but all I could do was be there for you, to show you how much you mean to me by taking care of you when he didn't. I love you, Zena. You. I want you in my bed every night for the rest of time, because you're the one for me. I don't care how damaged you are, I'm here to help the wounds heal, and it takes as long as it takes. Okay?”
I nod, too choked to speak. Snuggling closer, pressing my cheek into his shoulder, I hug him back as fiercely as he's holding me.
I want to believe him so bad. I crave the stability and safety he's offering. As if he knows, the light around me tightens, heating, thrilling me with wave after wave of tranquil peace.
*
Sveta:
The turbulence within her calms and I continue to saturate her with my plyx. It's the only language that can't be corrupted. It's the only way I can prove I'm sincere.
She may not recognize it, but her spirit will, and it will soothe her fears and insecurities when it comes to me. The light cocoon has expanded so much it covers the bed with an ethereal luminescence.
It's time.
“Babes?” I breathe over her parted lips, soaking in her relaxed exhalations. It's delicate and precious, and with all my heart I just want to squeeze her, but can't because it would mulch her bones.
“Mmm?” she mumbles.
“It's your turn.” Lacing our fingers together, I pull marginally away from her soft skin pressing into mine, catching both her hands and holding them in mine, between our chests. “Look,” I c
oax.
Eyes sparkling with blue open and stare a scalded soul at me. My breath jackhammers in my chest. She sends me into eternity when she's vulnerable and exposes her entire being to me.
My fingers tighten between hers in reflex to her gravitational pull, and I gently withdraw my light out of her, pulling hers out with the movement.
She looks at the sparks and swirls, hovering between our eyes, her perfect face scrunching with concentration as she stares at our hands, at the bright red light now floating and clouding with my fiery hue.
“Your plyx is red. It's the color of passion, of raw love, it's the color of foundation, of being grounded. See? Who you are could never be twisted and broken because your inner light is too stable. No matter how hard the world tries to drive you over the edge, they can't shatter the link to your spirit which is unbreakable, and too logical. You will always be this strong. You are so strong, and I'm going to teach you how much.”
“This is nuts, Sveta,” she breathes, a smile lighting up her face, joy reaching her eyes as she looks at our hands in awe.
The wonder of her inner child has just been tapped, and it makes me throb to see it. There's the woman I love. Right there.
Leaning in, I kiss her like the world is exploding and tomorrow we'll all be dancing on rainbows in the heavenly ether.
I love you!
She laughs in my head, and it traps my blood in segregated pockets of amazement. It's the first free laugh she's blessed me with.
“I love you too,” she says, and I feel it because her light dives into me and punches my heart.
I didn't even have to teach her how to manipulate her light, or how to control it. It's instinctive for her to aim for the heart and make it count.
I can't abstain, releasing her hands I fold her in, squeezing, kissing her, needing to show her the incredible realm of love when two bodies are joined in one light.
Rolling her, draping her in plyx, I slide inside her to create the bubble of psychedelic light and whispered sound. Our light together instantly turns coral, and the vibration increases, thrumming through us both, voltage so high it electrifies, pounding through our bodies, blasting us into stars and fireworks of plyx colliding, bonding, spinning in orbit around each other, catapulted off the earth field into the light field where we are complete and whole in every way.
Now she knows what love is.
Now she can't doubt it.
Leaning close, I bite the mark I left on her neck, showing her the world through my eyes.
It only works when we're both in a love state.
*
Božena:
Nebulous lights bang and tinkle around us, lifting us into a floating wave of dizzying happiness. So much love I feel I'm drowning in it, and I never ever want it to stop.
It's happy! It's alive, so bright it's almost blinding, the dark room accentuating the display, and all the hurt vanishes as if it was never ever there.
When Sveta kisses my neck, reattaching us with his mark, the room's darkness vanishes and I see instead every atom glowing, everything is alive with energy, pulsating, moving, spinning, dancing. Creation is overjoyed and oscillating with sufi dances, cartwheeling over itself as atoms and energy leap over each other, playful and vibrant.
Now look at me, he says in my head.
I guess he can't speak and bite me simultaneously. It makes me smile.
It's so hard to drag my focus away from the walls and air, the plyx, but I manage it, looking at his shoulder arching over me.
An abundant waterfall of gossamer light pours off him, covering me, into me, saturating my ethereal being with iridescent love. It's his energy, plyx, soaking into me to wrap me up in his love. He is a huge mass of glowing plyx, and it feels rapturous.
Look at your hand on my body.
Automatically I check my hand, seeing my red light helixing with his, round and round his heart, locking us together.
Soul to soul, spirit to spirit, mind to mind. Can you see why I wanted you to let me in? So I could give you this. I needed you to open up so I could heal your heart and lock us together. Your heart and my heart are sealed together. I will never ever leave you.
Ever.
Chapter 16
Božena:
There's no pinpointing why I open my eyes, but I'm tense, waiting for...
Did I hear something?
Frowning so hard it makes my head ache, holding my breath, I listen intently. Listening for a squeak, the rusted swivel of a handle, the tentative step of an intruder in unfamiliar territory... something. Anything.
The quiet is so oppressive it's thick, stalking my heartbeat as if to halt it.
My living is shrieking loudly into the cosmic dearth of this silence. Sound doesn't travel in a vacuum, I remember that.
The mere fact that I cannot discern a damn thing is freaking me out. There's such a huge absence of noise I can hear my own elbow creak when I cautiously inch up in tiny increments to survey the room.
The world is never, ever, this silent.
Not ever.
Terror starts picking at the seams of my mind, throwing hateful words like rapture and holocaust at me.
Isolated, alone.. abandoned?
Okay wait, calm down. Maybe you're still sleeping. Close your eyes and open them again.
Squeezing my lids shut, I reopen to the room still saturated in darkness. It's the same; black, and insanely silent.
Needing movement and life affirming noise, I sit up fast, shoving off the covers, feeling my way to the bedside table.
Oh right!
Fuck! I completely forgot.
Go Zena! Talk about catching the Bullet Train to Mars. The red planet and all.
Laughing to myself, I finally locate the god damn switch on the lamp, and click it on.
The dimmest glow breaks the claustrophobic doom I was sinking into, and I sit back with utter relief.
Twisting, I stare at the vast empty bed.
That's what woke me. He must have snuck out and subconsciously I heard him.
It takes a moment for the gleeful smugness of being in his bedroom to sink in.
He's worse then me. With him you have to work to gain entrance. It's like breaking into an underground cult. You have to prove yourself over and over and over again, consistently, and until the don is satisfied, or the master, or the priest, or high lord, or whatever the fuck, until he says you're in, well until then you're not in.
But haha, once you're in you go straight to the inner sanctum of darkness to experience the consecrated for yourself.
Holy fuckness!
Sveta, my god, what a mind fuck.
He's subliminal.
Still in a stage of acceptance, denial, and disbelief, I swivel my hungry gaze back over the room where I am currently hidden.
I'm comfortably resting on a custom made futon with Japanese trimmings. I know it's custom made because it's the biggest bed I've ever seen. Mats which look handwoven splatter the ebony floorboards. A lingering scent of sandalwood and aspen permeates throughout.
Everything is edge to edge perfection. There are no door handles, just hidden grooves artfully crafted into the flat panels that make up the wardrobe. Hiding doors, and windows, and cupboards, and god knows what else. A basement? A torture chamber? A dungeon?
It gives a flawless face to the interior that is unmarred and unbroken. It's so neat I'm afraid to sweat in here, for fear of ruining the immaculate veneer of his safe space.
Daring to shatter the silence, I indulge in a delighted laugh, thrilled to have made it this far.
Impulsively I snatch up his pillow and smother my face with it, flopping back and appreciating crisp cool linen imbedded with Sveta's masculine imprint.
It's faint, but it's there. And there's enough of him left on this pillow to successfully flog my fears back into hiding.
So where is the neuri underling?
Underling my fucking ass. Do his brothers know how powerful he is? Or is power just so natural
to them that it's seen as insignificant?
Replacing his pillow and nervously smoothing it flat, I return surveillance to the room that I hardly had time to appreciate earlier. It's a total surprise. The linens look like that eco-friendly bamboo thread. It's off white and unbelievably soft. The mats on the floor are undyed pure wool, thick and amply woven.
The only decoration is a holograph foil painting of a tranquil pool surrounded with lush foliage. It takes up a third of the far wall. The ceiling meets the walls at perfect right angles and the entire room is painted in matte nougat, seamlessly joining wall to ceiling. The rest is decorated in almost-black wood, offset with natural threads.
I did not see any of this hidden side of Sveta coming.
And I like it.
I like it a lot.
Twisting my long hair into a knot, I stand, creeping to where I think the door is. Hooking a finger in the groove, I pull on it.
Soundlessly the door slides open, almost giving me a fucking heart attack. Jumping back with my heart doing the popcorn dance, my hands are clenched tight over my chest while I wait for the door to chill out.
I expected it to open like a normal door!
Looking up, I notice the railings. So every door slides open and hangs from the ceiling?
Jeez dude, this house needs to come with a visitor's manual.
With my pulse pumping palpitations, I look inside the closet. It's walk in. Lights behind bamboo wood trim gradually beam into life, igniting like enchanted lanterns in an alternate dimension.
It illuminates a looped cream carpet set as a runway between clothes hung neatly on wooden hangers; it's a wardrobe brimming with leather to linen, and everything in between.
I'm gobsmacked.
Why does he dress like a ruffian when he wears this at home?
I'm tempted to walk in and touch everything, except I'm afraid he has alarms, or cameras set up to spy on a snoop.