33 Learning to Fly

The chapter title belongs to Tom Petty

Bella's awakening-plus-one

Something was wrong.

The morning had started out the way I thought every morning should start. We had each other for breakfast, for about an hour, until true hunger set in and Bella needed to hunt desperately. But before that we'd enjoyed each other in every position of the Kama Sutra. Bella was rather fond of being taken from behind. That worked for me.

We dressed, and after Bella grabbed her dark sunglasses and pulled her hair back, we were off. Bella walked with her head slightly inclined. I knew she was smelling everything. When she sniffed the cars I laughed to myself but remembered how shocked I was when I woke, to find I could smell every pet for a mile and how preferable that was to the cloud of death that hung over Chicago that fall.

Bella didn't need any help running down a deer today. I'd corralled one for her yesterday with some branches and brambles. The makeshift pen had held the animal for as long as it needed it to, and when it escaped and made a run for it, she impressively chased it down, jumping on it and pulling it to the ground.

We spent hours outside, running miles and miles as Bella took in the landscape and learned all about Alaska. I kept to the wilder areas, since it was tourist season. I never smelled a human but was worried the entire day. Human hikers could wander far into the preserve and we wouldn't know about it until we got a whiff.

In addition to another deer, Bella ran down a black bear (Emmett would be so jealous) and a wolf. We enthusiastically drank them both. Like yesterday, we dragged the carcasses to the wooded area and buried them. As I bent to place the last bit of cover over the bear, Bella slapped me on the arm.

I looked up. "You're it!" she shrieked, as she ran. In the blink of an eye she was gone. I hopped over the brush we'd gathered for the impromptu graves we'd dug with our bare hands and ran full out, darting around trees, concentrating hard on separating her scent from the lush landscape.

After running for a few seconds, I slowed. She was behind me but I didn't want her to know that I knew that. I trotted and finally stopped, shaking my head, my hands on my hips. She crept up behind me.

When she was about twenty feet away, I turned and pounced. As she had done to me yesterday, I tackled her and sat on her. I made certain that I caught her as she fell but her surprised expression was worth a fortune.

"Ha!" I laughed. I held her down by her arms, beside her head. "Now you're it."

She wiggled under me and my smile faltered, as did hers. All I could think of was making love with her on that patch of ice but she was looking to the left. A raven sat on a low branch, about six feet away. I looked at Bella and then back to the bird. It sat and watched us, cocking its head when I shooed it.

I stood and chucked a rock at it until finally it took flight. Bella watched it skim the tree beside us and after it disappeared she'd acted...unsettled. She wouldn't tell me what the problem was, though, and seemed to shake it off, whatever it was, and tugged me back down to the cold earth.

Making love to human Bella was a stellar experience but also extremely frightening. I loved the soft suppleness of her skin and her earthy scent but worried I would snap her neck in the throes of my passion. I had to be on guard every moment, and could never just let myself go.

I still held back as I made love to her on the snowy ground yesterday, and didn't even realize I'd done it until we were finished. It had become a habit that was so engrained in me that it had taken a conscious act on my part to overcome it, much like turning my head toward her neck, and not away, during my climax when I bit her and (attempted to) change her.

When we made love next, I fell into the experience, and for the first time, actually focused on Bella's pleasure and my own, and not on how to keep her in one piece. It was heaven.

After we'd gotten our pants back on, we ran again. The wind howled through the trees, their branches whipping violently. Great, gray clouds had gathered, blowing quickly across the sky. It would snow soon.

We decided to head home but before we reached the cabin, huge, wet flakes fell from the leaden sky, adding some icing to my already sweet bride. As we approached the main house I saw Bella staring at Carlisle's car. The same bird sat on it, the raven with the white marking on his back.

Bella ran up the steps to the house and I followed, my eyebrows drawn together. Now I felt a little uneasy. The family was gathered in the living room. A fire burned in the stone fireplace, bathing my family in an eerie light. Like we needed anything else to make us look unnatural.

Bella plopped down on one of the cushions next to the hearth. I joined her. We all looked to Bella, but she spoke only to Alice.

"You haven't seen anything...weird, lately, have you?"

I was relieved that I would, at last, find out what had been troubling her.

Alice sat up, her eyes drawn in a squint. "Weird? About what?"

Bella looked down and chewed on her lip for a moment. "The last time I slept I had a dream, but it was different...more real." She swallowed and looked off, probably recalling some aspect of the dream that was troubling her.

"Given that you were preparing to endure—"

"No, no," she interrupted Alice, "it was different. Like a...message. Only," she shook her head, "I don't know what it means."

"Okay, start from the beginning," Alice said softly. We all looked at one another. Bella had had some prophetic dreams in the past and I was concerned that this, whatever it was, might be the same.

Bella looked at me with genuine fear in her eyes. "Nothing can hurt you now, Bella," I reassured her, as I held her close to me.

"It's not me I'm worried about. I just don't know how to interpret it."

"Just tell us, from start to finish," Alice prompted.

"As I fell asleep that last time, I saw a raven sitting on the fencepost outside the bedroom window. He sat there for a while. It started to snow really hard, and it covered his back, but he didn't fly away. I looked around for his companions, but he was alone. After a few minutes he hopped around to face the window."

Alice nodded for her to continue. The entire family was alert. Even Rose was paying attention.

"I dreamed the raven spoke to me. He said he'd come to me because I was transitioning to another life form." She paused, and I thought that was just her mind trying to prepare her for what she knew awaited.

I glanced at Alice and Bella continued. "He said, 'All I am allowed to tell you is this: all is as the universe decrees.'"

Now that was weird. I couldn't imagine my Bella coming up with a phrase like that. My family was becoming a bit unsettled as well. Emmett shifted uneasily on the couch and Esme got up to stand by the fire. All eyes were on Bella.

As I was pondering its meaning, she went on.

"Then we were flying, the bird and I, over the woods around Forks, then over to the beach at La Push. We sat in a tree in my neighbor's yard and watched Charlie for a moment. Then we flew through the trees, and their leaves all turned to red, yellow and orange. I woke up with my face still stinging from the rush of leaves as we soared through them."

She looked around to the family, then finally back to me, shaking her head. "It wasn't like a dream! It was like I was really there...I could smell the salty water at the beach, and somewhere," she gestured with her hand, "a fire burned. I could smell what Charlie had cooked for breakfast. Burned toast." She grimaced.

"Then those trees! We rushed through them and the leaves stung my face. There were millions of them, and as we flew through them, the leaves turned right before my eyes. And I woke up."

Nobody spoke. Bella continued, "And now I keep seeing that damn bird! I saw him yesterday and now, today, I saw him six times! I saw him on the fencepost again, four times as Edward and I hunted and ran, and just now, sitting on top of Carlisle's car."

Emmett hopped up, instantly outraged. "Jesus Christ! Did you shoo him off?" I opened my mouth to speak but he clearly wasn't finished. "Bird shit, on the Mercedes? I just waxed it before we—"

"Hang on there, fella," Rose placated. She had gone to the window to peek out. "He's gone."

Emmett stood awkwardly, the entire family looking at him. He shuffled in place and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Well," he muttered, clearly embarrassed by his exhibition, "sometimes they eat berries, and it..."

His voice died away as Esme caught his eye, but he had diffused the situation. It was easy for us to take ourselves a little too seriously, panicking over dreams and random sightings of birds. Sometimes Emmett, with his silly antics, was what we needed to bring us down to earth.

I sat up straighter to get a good look at him. "What is that you've got on?" I asked, rather incredulously.

He looked sideways, then brushed the front of his t-shirt. "It's one of those t-shirts that Rose bought me," he said, a little defensively.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see Esme look over to Carlisle and shake her head. The t-shirt was blue, with a kitten drawn on it. The caption read, I like cats, but I can't eat a whole one by myself.

"Bella, there are lots of ravens and crows around here, honey," Esme offered, trying to get back to the topic at hand. "It probably wasn't the same bird." Her voice sounded casual but her inner mom had recoiled from the strange dream and its implications.

"I saw it too," I told them. "It's got a whitish patch on its back." Bella looked at me gratefully.

Carlisle sat up and folded his hands in his lap. "So, we're certain it's the same bird, correct?"

Bella and I both nodded. His face didn't show it, but Carlisle was troubled.

Alice glanced at me quickly and then back to Bella. Bella looked at her expectantly and Alice shook her head slowly. "My visions are recovering but not back to their previous levels..." Her voice died away but her thoughts betrayed her. I sat up straight but she nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I saw that," Bella said lightly.

Alice shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She wasn't accustomed to anyone being able to read her body language to such a degree.

"Today I saw Edward calling me. He was out in the woods, but that's all I see. Not the before, not the after, not what it was about. Just the call. It could be because he found a...giant wooly mammoth or something. I just don't know.

Bella didn't buy it. Alice Hale being backed into a corner wasn't a pretty sight, but Bella wasn't letting up. "Why wouldn't you want to tell me that? Why the coy looks at Edward?"

"All I see," Alice said each word slowly, "is that same damn swirly mist that's plagued me for weeks!" She hopped up and began to walk the large room. "I can't see through it! Anything could happen."

As Alice paced, I heard her loud and clear. What she'd seen but was unwilling to share with Bella. I don't know when it takes place. The snow is melting in spots. You call from...I don't even know where, but Jazz and I show up. Then it's fast forward to another snowy, cold day, and you're sitting with Bella by the fire. That's all.

There was no way to interpret that vision. It could be entirely benign, as Alice suggested, but it made me uneasy. Benign wasn't a word that the universe had assigned to us. Malignant, now that was a word that we were accustomed to.

Bella pursed her lips and slowly nodded. "I'm going to call Charlie. See how he's doing." Her phone was in the cabin and as we walked out the front door, the raven was sitting on the gate, facing the house.

I motioned for the family to take a look out the window. The bird looked up at us. Emmett was relieved he'd taken a perch on something other than the expensive European automobile. Carlisle was concerned about Bella's precarious emotional state, hoping that we wouldn't suffer our usual disaster while she was still adjusting to life on this side of reality.

In a fit of pique, Bella opened the front door and scooped up a bunch of snow in her hand. After a second, she hurled the snowball at the gate but the bird had taken flight.

Glaring, she grabbed my hand. "Let's go," she urged, pulling me out. I glanced back at my family. They were still standing at the window.

We walked slowly back to the cabin, swinging our clasped hands. Bella was frowning. I pulled her close to me, hugging her as we walked. "What would make you feel better?" I whispered in her ear. I knew what would have made me feel better...

"A nap." She looked up to me. "It's the only thing I really miss."

I nodded. I couldn't disagree with her, either. How often had I wished for the repose of slumber?

When we got back to the cabin, Bella took a shower and then called Charlie. They chatted for a few minutes. He didn't ask any questions and she didn't offer any answers. He seemed to be doing well, or he was just faking it; I couldn't tell from a voice on the phone. Charlie had lived alone for many years and could certainly adjust back to that. His isolation was self-induced, and Bella knew that.

Bella's mood seemed to have leveled out some. Perhaps she was taking the dream, and the odd bird, in stride, waiting for something to develop, instead of worrying about it.

After she'd hung up, I decided this was a good time to tell her about my siblings'...extracurricular activities with one another. A distraction would undoubtedly improve her mood further. I popped my iPod into the docking station, needing the cover of music for what I was about to divulge.

Bella lay with her head on my shoulder. Her hand traced shapes lightly on my chest, while I did the same to her back. It was soothing and mildly stimulating. I had been looking forward to this conversation, actually. The look on her face would be priceless.

"Bella, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about."

She stopped breathing. Her fingers, instead of gently meandering on my skin, began softly drumming, then tapping. Abruptly she sat, facing me.

I smiled. "It's nothing bad. Just, there are some things I need to tell you about my family..." Her eyes had drawn together in a squint. She was prepared for the worst.

"You need to be ready, need to be...aware...that's all." I realized that I had imparted no information to her whatsoever. She looked confused.

"On occasion," I began, remembering the only episodes I'd personally witnessed, "Jasper and Emmett," I thrust out one hand, "and Alice and Rose," I thrust out the other hand, "will sometimes...enjoy one another." There. I'd said it. Bella raised her eyebrows, shaking her head a bit.

Okay. How to make it clearer? "They will, occasionally..." Before I could think of the proper word to say it, Bella seemed to catch on, jumping minutely.

"Wait. You mean, they have sex? With each other?" She acted like I'd just divulged the conspirators in the Kennedy assassination.

I nodded.

"Why?"

It was a valid question. "Forever is a long, long, long time, love. Sometimes the most challenging thing for us is to find something to do that we haven't done twenty million times already. Why else would we bother to go to high school thirty two times?"

"Soooo..." She drew the word out, gesturing to me to continue.

"So they will, on occasion, mix it up with each other. Not often. Only the girls and the boys, They never swap partners." I paused. "Carlisle and Esme never participate. They know, I'm sure, but they've never discussed it."

"So, Carlisle and Esme aren't upset by it?" Her voice conveyed disbelief.

I laughed. Bella's naïveté showed her youth and inexperience, and also her inability to see my family as a group of creatures that had seen the sun rise and set decades before her birth, and in Carlisle's case, over three hundred years had gone by before a nurse plopped a dark haired baby in Charlie and Renee's arms.

"They aren't really our parents, Bella. Rose and Emmett are the youngsters, and they were born in 1915. It isn't like any of us have to ask them for permission to do anything. The family dynamic is necessary to blend in with humans, so it's easy for us to look to them both as the de-facto leaders of the household. But they're not our boss, or authority figures in anything but the most superficial sense."

Bella bit her lip. "Have you watched?"

I nodded again. "Once for each group. Jazz and Em invited me, but I declined. I didn't want my first sexual experience to be with two guys."

She nodded thoughtfully, like that was the most normal thing in the world.

I could hear their thoughts about the act as they performed it, and if I were honest, I couldn't say that I wasn't intrigued. They both really enjoyed it. The sensation of anal sex was very different than regular sex, and extremely satisfying. During the experience, their thoughts descended into animalistic and primal, a swirl of jagged colors and shapes more than words or thoughts.

She looked around conspiratorially. "Now that you've experienced sex, do you want to join them on their sex-capades?" She was a little breathless.

I wasn't ready to answer that, instead questioning her. "Well, how about you? Before you met me, had you ever had a sexual relationship with another girl?"

"No sexual experiences at all before I met you, Edward," she reminded me.

"If you were invited, would you participate? With Rose and Alice?" Now that I would like to see.

She smiled and shook her head. "I don't think I'm quite ready for that yet. But what do they do?" Her eyes were bright. Oh, goodie. I was going to enlighten her and watch her be naughty.

I rubbed my hands together. "Lie back and I'll tell you." I sat at the foot of the bed as she crawled up and leaned against the pillows, cross legged.

I shook my head. "Nope. Legs out." She complied. "Spread them. There you go." I paused. "Oh. And I'll take that towel." She unwound it and gave it to me.

Her eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open. She'd bent her knees and slightly spread her legs. I had a bird's eye view of exactly what she was about to do.

"Usually, but not always, they go out into the woods," I began, slowly. "They usually take along some kind of toy and some lube, but they always run around and get giggly, pull down the first animal they come to, and after feeding, undress each other." I knew this from their wild and colorful thoughts when they returned. Bella was hanging on every word, just barely mingling her hand in her curls.

"They take turns being the aggressor. There's usually lots of kissing and licking." Bella's finger had crept down, and as she listened to my tale, she rubbed herself absently, running her finger down to her opening, then pulling it back up again.

"There's lots of action with tongues and fingers. They take turns, playing a game of how many orgasms they can have before they're done."

Bella was unashamedly pleasuring herself, something I'd never really gotten to watch before from such an excellent vantage point. "Toys," she murmured. "What kind?"

This was fun, but I needed to get out of my clothes. "Oh, all kinds. Usually big, hand-held ones."

"You mean," she breathed, "they...do each other with those toys?" She rubbed very slowly as she listened.

I nodded slowly. "In every available opening." She gasped.

"You watched?"

"Once. I watched each of them once, sitting in a tree high above them."

"And Jasper and Emmett...they…what did they do?"

"Sometimes oral, but that's nothing new, as Rose or Alice would do that. It's penetration for them." She began to moan.

"Again, it's usually out in the woods, after feeding. But there's no kissing or tenderness, like with Alice and Rose. It's just sex."

"Just..."

"Sex. Yeah." She couldn't say it out loud, that my theyout in the woods to engage in such behaviors. Couldn't wrap her head around the mental image of these things.

Bella's eyes met mine. Her fingers continued their ministrations against her cold skin. She lost herself in the act, spreading her legs wide. I was fascinated by the view. Her hair was dark and curly, and she'd trimmed it carefully before being changed.

Soon, her eyes closed, and as they did I reached over and slipped a finger inside. That was all she needed, apparently, to go right over the edge. She tensed her entire body, then arched her back up off the bed, moaning and squealing and cussing. It was great.

"Wow." She looked a little stunned as she sat back up and composed herself. "Was that a...secret...that you just told me?"

"Nah. I just wanted you to hear it from me, in case it ever comes up. They've made a pact to never discuss what goes on out in the open, but now if you happen to hear something, you'll know what the deal is."

She nodded and then gestured to me. "Your turn."

I shook my head playfully. She nodded teasingly in return. "Now, I've seen this before, but not close up and personal. This is something that I've been itching to watch, Edward Cullen."

I recalled with some chagrin when I had masturbated out of her window and she'd been awake and watched the whole thing.

Slowly I stood and popped the buttons of my jeans. My boxers, red and black check with a neon yellow racecar on the front, shone brightly against my pale skin. Bella shook her head and smiled, pursing her lips. I pushed them down and off.

I got on my knees on the bed. Bella stayed up against the pillows. Her eyes met mine before traveling back down to what I was doing with my hands. "When I watched you, in my bedroom, I wished I'd had a better view," she admitted, her eyes glued to my crotch. "I wished I could tell you I was awake. I wanted you so bad, Edward," she murmured.

I'd carried out this act so many times, wishing I could share it with her. Sometimes, we that walk the earth see the secret. The universe doesn't keep it from us—we keep it from ourselves. The secret is this: we are the ones that place limits on every single thing we do, say and feel.

Bella and I had made a commitment to each other months ago, but I stupidly decided, for both of us, that we would wait until marriage to enter into a physical relationship. We could have been enjoying each other since last year...so many missteps.

I also knew the other part of the secret: forgive yourself and move on. I closed my eyes, willing the secret to become part of me, hoping its wisdom would remain, like the bindis worn by Hindu women to proclaim their marital status, stuck to my forehead, a constant reminder of a universal truth that, even though one may know, is certain to forget.

Forgive yourself and move on. I closed my eyes, promising to honor that truth. Promised myself to enjoy every single moment with Bella. Even though we would theoretically live forever, who was to say the Volturi wouldn't visit us tomorrow? None of us knew how much time we had, not even immortals. As Captain Blood said in the movie of the same name, Faith, it's an uncertain world entirely.

Introspection combined with masturbation was an odd mix. I shrugged it off, focusing on the task at hand. Bella looked up to my face, then back down to my activity, then back up, a hungry, aroused expression on her face. Her pussy still stared at me, fueling an already raging fire. I hoped when I was finished here that we didn't break Tanya's bed. Probably should utilize the floor again. There's a big rug in front of the fireplace...

It seemed that part of the old Edward fell away on that snowy evening during Bella's first week as one of my family. He didn't disappear entirely, but he ceased to be the controlling influence in my life, replaced by someone with a more general acceptance of the inevitable.

The guilt that I'd so carefully stowed away, the shame about engaging in such an intimate act with my new bride watching, just a few feet from me, washed away. We were married, what we were doing wasn't illegal or immoral, and it was 100% consensual.

I picked up the pace. Bella's eyes locked with mine, and in a move that stunned me and made me glad I was a man, she crawled over and began to lick the tip. To say that I exploded in a fit of color and sensation doesn't really do the thing justice. It seemed that the feeling built quickly and rushed through my entire body, all the way to my toes. That one, singular act had forced a climax that had eclipsed every orgasm I'd ever had.

I actually lost consciousness for a minute or two, waking with Bella's concerned face hovering over mine, a smile of relief and expectation greeting me as I sat up. "What made you do that?" I asked. "That was great."

She chuckled softly and bit her lip. "It seemed like it needed a...kiss?" If she were human, she would have blushed, and we both laughed, falling off the bed. We crawled to the rug and fell into one another so completely that I wasn't sure we'd be able to separate into two persons when the sun came up next.

Before we'd collapsed into fits of laughter and raucousness, I got a glimpse out the window, where the raven kept its watch, his black form inviting me to ponder what dark message he held. Bella scooted even closer to me, capturing me in a kiss, her sweet lips caressing mine in the timeless dance we'd grow to perfect.

Before I fell headlong into her, I had a last, lingering fear—that yet another disaster or disappointment awaited us. Her kiss beckoned me back, her sweet scent making me forget the real world, and its ever present problems, setbacks and woes.

Like Scarlett O'Hara, I'd think about that tomorrow.