Yet again, despite himself, the big one runs for you, fear for you quickening his heart rate, his breathing. And he pushes you behind him as his eyes dart around the dark room. He turns to you in confusion.
You are blushing and hiding your eyes, because you know you have been foolish. "Spider," you mumble. "Spider web."
And his cold hands are on either side of your face and he studies your eyes before dropping his hands and laughing again. You grow indignant.
"Arachnids are dangerous. Tiny and sneaky and dangerous."
His eyebrow lifts, amused. "Sounds like you oughta get along real well with them 'rachnids, Crazy." He notices your crossed arms and sighs. He can afford to accommodate your quirks, now. "Just wait right here. I'm gonna start a fire and turn on the lights and clear away the spider webs."
This must be verified. "All the webs?"
"That's what I said, ain't it?"
"Don't forget the cliffwalls and the sky, then. They hide where you least expect." If you can't do something smart, do something right—the first time.
He rolls his eyes. "Gimme one of them twigs, girl. I'll knock down the webs and kill all the scary creepy crawlies."
You stare at him. "You want to kill the beasts?"
He is bewildered. "They scare you, I kill them. That's how it works."
You shake your head, bemused. "They have not harmed me; I wish them no harm. They are simply living as they ought." Live simply, that others may simply live.
He shakes his head back at you, continues to indulge. You watch as he swipes behind furniture, under the bed, pokes in the corners, and swats at the ceiling.
When he tires of the chore, he looks you a question, Is this good enough?
"Not shiny, but acceptable," you answer aloud, nodding and stepping into your little one-room abode. It is strange that the furniture is not dusty, though it has not been used in some time, and you thank the 'verse for small favors.
Your wolfish man sees you shiver and starts for the fireplace. There is wood here, and matches, and you begin to wonder if you will find a fey deity-mother in the mirror. Any pumpkins would be rotten, of course, and mice turned to horses would not be useful now; glass slippers, how impractical! Yours must be the useful sort, and you are glad for that.
When the crackle pop is loud enough, Alpha turns and studies you. You have settled to the floor, dripping on the rug beneath you. Your skin feels thick, rubbery and smooth and still you tremble from the chill.
Alpha tenses, though perhaps you are seeing what he would hide. His shoulders may not have frozen for that moment; his breath may not have stopped still in time. He finds his thoughts a disturbance of the peace (civil unrest, Thoreau behind bars to Emerson), but he takes that unbreathed breath and presses on.
"Crazy, girl, Cap'n and the Doc'll kill me if'n I bring them back a sickly girl-shaped ice planet, 'stead of a moonbrained killer woman," and you do see him hesitate this time, as his brain-eyes see what his sphere-eyes have not. "So, uh, you gotta get outta them clothes."
And you feel the most delicious tremor begin at the base of your spine and move through your shoulder blades. You know the wolf intends to turn, show deference, respect to your modesty, but what have you to hide? Skin is body is flesh is girl is you and he must see you.
So you meet his eyes, blue beyond any ocean sky River you've dreamed, and you nod your assent. And you stand slowly and you don't break the chain that connects you, paper cup telephone, but this is not a game.
Your clothes are stiff and heavy wet, so this is less grace-filled (Mariver, full of grace) than you'd hoped, but you dance the steps that come. Your arms to your hands to the hood on your head, and slowly push it back. Unwrap the scarf, a spiral ribbon above you, and let it fall.
Remove the mittens you've forgotten and peel off that first layer. The zipper is like tearing paper, careful, smooth, and measured.
When the sodden mess of that coat (armor or arms or down feather-filled?) slaps to the floor, you can flow more freely than before. What big eyes you have, canine Jayne. Jaynine, the immortality impulse is natural. Life wishes to continue living, and this is why we procreate. Lust and pleasure are the incentive and reward; there is no shame in this.
But you did not say that to the male sculpture (Adonis) before you, because if he startles, there is the danger he will crack. And a cracked Jayne is no good to you tonight; you need the solid state, molecules heated but static.
So when his eyes leave yours to travel down your body, you pause and breathe shallowly. If he can forget you are SpaceDangerTrash, if the male grows warm toward you, this may be the beginning of the happy after ever. After ever, after all, after…
After his eyes leave yours and linger on the fabric that clings to your form, you begin to comprehend how a breast may be more than a Simon or a bottle. The tightening at the peaks is a pleasure strange as any, with the coldwet and the gazeheat and the Jaynethought.
And those eyes study your figure with intensity and you realize he is sketching your form on his mental canvas. He is still unaware of his actions, you note, caught in current of the want/need River; and yet this is not the instinct ritual. This is not a thoughtless rut. There is something new under the sun, and you are not chasing after the wind.
The heat surges lower and suddenly you are throbbing at three points, a triangle of breeding season lust that will not be sated, though your belly tingles, too, and you must bite back the moan.
This brings his eyes back to yours and you cannot read what is clearly before you, do not even try. You cross your arms over that triangle of desire and grip the wet that ends there.
Slowly.
Slower, Rivulet, Ria, Stream, Channel.
You do gasp when the wet fabric covers your face, though this is disgust at the slimy intrusion on your flushed, pink skin, and suddenly you cannot wait to be free of the soggy fibers.
When they drop to the floor, it is you in your camisole, soulless camisole, and skirt over trousers over socks and underwear and the boots you forgot to remove. A wicked thought flashes through your mind (or was it his, and does it matter?) and you have leaned forward, over, to pick at the laces.
And in his mind, there is the satisfaction of cleavage, of cleaving, cleft: Rock of ages, do this for me.
But the knots on your boots are stubborn and your fingers are still so stiff and he has noticed at last. The Jaynewolf growls and produces a knife.
You think you should perhaps be wary: the three of you have never yet ended well. But he lowers his bulk to the floor at your feet (always lower than the Queen of the River) and his eyes meet yours once more and you have no reason to be frightened.
Four short slices later and your feet slip from prison like they were born to the adventure. The man-man, you realize, mine-below you carefully plants your feet back on the rug and you realize he has touched you (although never fully, because the atoms make it so) and his gaze is still enraptured.
Or entranced, you wonder, and look around quickly for the Robin Goodfellow with his flower-syrup for your lover's eye.
The faery court is nowhere to be seen and there is still a beautiful male at your feet. You loosen the snaps that hold the heavy woolen skirt together, raise your arms above your head, and shimmy your hips till the sheep-hair pools around two stocking feet and a large man's hands.
And you have lost your patience again, seeing through his eyes, and your pants land on the floor and you have no memory of removing them.
You have been more exposed than this, you know, in the presence of the wolf before you, but you have never felt more vulnerable. The desire in your stomach clenches with uncertainty and your senses are on fire as you lift the camisole from your torso, and the wolfsheep has closed his eyes of a sudden, and yet you continue with the ritual. And then it is you in your socks alone with the wolf and the fire and the spiders in a cabin in the woods in the heavy fallen snow.
"Jayne?" You sound more timid than you think you feel; you don't want to remind him that he is an old wolf, but you have.
And he must ask this question with his eyes, because that is his way, so he peeks a bit, just a squint-look, really, and then the blue orbs are wide before they crash in on themselves, a blue supernova.
"Blanket from the bed, Ri-Moonbrain, and take off your socks."
