They were standing at the gravesite. His Father's black coffin slowly lowered into the silent Earth. Family and acquaintances huddled 'round the hole, shivering from the chill. His only concern was HER. Zilpha. Sister from childhood, fragile and thin. Now taller, curvy and irresistible. Raven black hair pulled back revealing obsidian eyes. Eyes that had once cradled him, adored him, taken him all in. Now scanning the dank ground as the priest recited the familiar orison.
She spoke the words of the Lord's Prayer along with the other congregants. He wondered how well her God had comforted her in the vast expanse of their separation. Had He held her in the long nights? Had he wiped away her tears in the moments of loneliness and despair? Had he assured her they would meet again?
James had carved a place for himself in the world and yet he still found himself yearning. For connection? For love? Simply sex? He wasn't quite sure.
Yet, after all of this time, whatever it was that he wanted was embodied in her. Like a compass forever set to point North, his heart and his mind all turned towards her.
"Over my dead body will you ever have her." That's what his Father had said. Once he realized how close they had truly become. How Zilpha's desire to be with her brother crossed all of the boundaries of decency. Before Horace had thrown him out on the street with a satchel and no money. Before he erased him from his lips. Vowing to forget him forever.
Before it was all said and done, it was his Father who had called out for HIM on those cold lifeless shores of the Thames. It was he who had begged for forgiveness and comfort and help.
Now over that frigid form, James said the words and cast the spell.
"Monsan mmra me. Mede me. Koma me. Nokware fie me."
("Return to me! My love, my heart, my truest home.")
"Several times I died, resurrected only by the will to feel your love again. In the water, beneath angry waves, amongst vengeful slaves, I wrestled back to consciousness to find you. Give yourself to me."
He opened his small container of colored powder, dabbed his forefinger with several fragments, and ran a sharp, ruddy stain beneath his right eye.-
They thought he offered a final word of prayer in his irreverent language. A pagan offering to a Father he'd outright abandoned.
They were ignorant. They had no need to know the truth.
She'd summoned him at precisely one o'clock. The chapel was in a village just outside of the city. Overgrown grass and puffy dandelions, a lonesome grave site with the remnant of souls long gone, the air humming with the buzz of dragonflies. He arrived fifteen minutes early. Outside of his Father's funeral, this was the first time he'd willingly set foot in a house of worship. Cold, distant, totally remote from the pungently rich rites which he now called his own. This place felt lost to time.
He crossed the threshold, the echo of his boots against the stone floor swallowing up his thoughts.
He sat in the choir pew; a place he remembered from his youth, when Father had sought to punish him for refusing to read his scriptures. He carried no musical talents. At least none that could be appreciated by the Church of England. His music was one of atonal strident sounds and primal howls to milky moons. Not regimented harmonies adoring a prophet from Jerusalem. His strident noisemaking had been enough to never allow Horace to entertain that thought again. Instead of mentally torturous or passively rude, his punishments became more physically violent from there on out.
He had no idea what she wanted. He blocked any foresight into the matter from his conscious mind. He hoped that she'd chosen this moment, this sacred place, to tell him that she was tearing her bond with Thorne forever and choosing a life of love and adventure with him. His heart quickened at the deliciousness of the thought. To truly be together, beyond law and regimented life. To live wild and free and passionately blissful. With each other. Possibly with their son and new children. To sail to the New World, traveling by train then horse and carriage to Nootka. They could strip themselves of every stitch of propriety and return to the wild from which they'd both been conceived.
He took one deep breath when he heard a carriage approach.
Soon enough he heard the click of her heels on the floor and let the aroma of her floral perfume sooth his senses.
She was dressed in black, fully covered, with a cap hiding copious amounts of black thick hair beneath it. She seemed stern and uninvolved, but he could feel the way her breathing quickened at the sight of him. She came to the cross closest to where he sat, slid a slender hand down the rail of the pew and knelt deeply before it. How dutiful she was. Paying deference and penance at all times.
As she lowered herself to the floor and slowly rose, James imagined her lowering herself down on him, taking the full length of his cock inside her. He closed his eyes at the thought in a moment of sinful bliss.
When he opened his eyes, she was sitting in the pew directly across from him.
"You summoned me. I'm here now. What do you want?" His words and his tone were coarse. Beneath them were a raging river of lust ready to burst forth at her slightest invitation.
"I used to think we were the same person." She was looking towards the altar. Unaffected.
"We are," he assured her.
She turned towards him pointedly.
"We're not. I am a lady of London. Married. Established. You are a creature of the world. Following wanderlust and treasure. Now that we've buried that horrid vermin of a Father, our story is over."
She seemed as harsh and dismissive as he'd ever heard her. It made him want her even more.
"In fact…" She let her words trail off. She got up, walked over to him, raised her skirts, revealing nothing but long, limber legs, black panties and her dainty stockings. She straddled him and kissed him deeply; inviting his tongue inside her mouth, pressing against his lips, savoring the taste of all that they'd been to each other.
Her brazenness and coldness were too much for him to take. Eyes locked into hers, pounding of her heartbeat mimicking the pulse of his member, he placed his hands assuredly beneath her skirts, found her fragile panties and in one smooth move, ripped them apart so his hand could fondle her sex.
Her eyes were angry with shock. Her kiss became more aggressive. But she did not pull away.
She was wet, slippery even. He knew she wanted to cry out. But then the priest, in the rear quarters would hear them and know fully well what they were doing.
His mouth sought the soft skin of her neck. A place he'd cradled long ago. He licked her there before he began sucking the soft ivory flesh. The reintroduction to her smell made him dizzy. He wanted to suckle her breasts, but he wouldn't dare tear her dress. Not here. Instead he let his free hand roam over her chest until he felt the peak of a nipple beneath the fabric. It rose as he rubbed around it.
His other hand rubbed her pussy slowly and lightly until he found that engorged nob. She moaned and then covered her mouth with her left hand to diminish any other sounds that might leave her lips.
He rubbed her clit in circles and she couldn't help moving against his hand causing the most exquisite friction. He wanted her to cry out in defiance of morality and etiquette. She was his religion and his temple.
She took her hand from her mouth and began kissing him again. On his forehead, on his neck, on his nose and back to his willing mouth. He placed two fingers from his free hand into her mouth and she began sucking them vigorously. His dick was engorged already, pressing against the fabric of his pants and one of her legs. There would be time later to plunge deep inside of her. To satiate his own needs. But he had no concern for that now. Just to give her this small moment was enough to satisfy him.
He listened to her soft pants coming swifter together before he slipped two fingers inside her and began pushing in and out. Circling inside her walls, feeling the flesh tense and grip around him. He brought his thumb back to her clit teasing her with both sensations at once. In the stead of his covered member, he fucked her with his fingers, energy surging between their mouths, his fingers and his cock. Now she was gyrating back and forth, round and round. Moans still escaping. Breathing heavy. Pleasure uncontrollable.
His pointed stare was too much for her to handle. She buried her head against his neck and gave in to him. Shocked at how wet and ready she was for him. Tantalized by the solidity of his strong manly hands. His fingers flickered daring her to come and it wasn't long before her body began to spasm of its own accord. She held onto his shoulders firmly so she wouldn't fall back. For a moment she left the confines of this church and her and self-imposed cage. And she allowed herself to ride this wave of pleasure, the electricity surging speedily through her loins. Her juices flowed beyond her walls, rapidly onto his fingers and against his breeches. She bit down on his neck, feeling herself spill all around him. His pulse was rapid and she knew that he'd love nothing more than to take her on the stone floor. To let himself swim inside her and reunite with her once more. She kissed him one last time before he removed his hand from between her legs and sucked his fingers, tasting the sweetest parts of her.
She shivered. Tears threatened to fall over the lids of her long lashes. Panties torn and of no more use, she got up and moved back around to the pew. She was still panting, trying to control her breath and gain composure.
He never took his eyes away from her. How could he? He knew what she really wanted. And even why she kept herself from it. But there couldn't be a wall between them forever.
She remained there a moment. Head bowed as if in silent prayer.
She straightened her skirts and then let them fall effortlessly back into place.
"Now," she said resolutely, turning her head towards him, "I never want to see you again."
It was a lie, but a necessary one. If they were found out, she would be a social pariah. Unweclome. Unclean.
There was a slight sting in her words and the tone.
She turned her head back to the church doors and slowly strode towards them. Assuredly to an awaiting carriage.
James wiped what little of her that remained from around his mouth. He'd heard her lie. Her body spoke the truth.
"But we will see each other again. And you'll be mine before all is said and done"
He wiped one hand against his dark pants, took a look at his watch and headed out back to mount his steed.