BELOW THE SURFACE
In his dream, Ardeth saw himself at eighteen again. He had come back to the village to attend the burial of Taiyib. His beloved Sharîk had come to him, touching his face, whispering words to him in English. At the time, Ardeth knew very little English, but it sounded absolutely lovely coming out of her mouth. It was almost foreign to his ears. He had seen how beautiful she was in her pristine white nightgown. When he tasted her lips, he ached to make love to her. However, she was promised to another and he could not betray his friend or disgrace his love. He readied to leave when she disappeared from his sight, but he stopped immediately when she was completely gone. He wasn't interested in getting back just yet. He knew he didn't want to lay his eyes on Sharîk again. If he did, he would not keep the promise he made to himself, his friend, and her. At eighteen, he had never touched a woman like a man should. In fact, he had never seen one naked. It simply wasn't proper. He assumed that he would be married some day, but the idea of having another woman who was not Sharîk felt devastating and wrong. He didn't intend to share his life with anyone. If he couldn't have the woman he wanted, he would have none of them. His life, what he was born for, was extremely difficult, and marriage really didn't mesh well with it. He didn't want to leave, but knew he couldn't stay. He longed to stay behind to break up the marriage. He couldn't fathom the idea of losing his precious Sharîk. The thought of her giving way to anyone other than him sent him off into a wild tangent. He completely didn't understand what was going on inside him. Whatever it was, he hated it. He gave a brief command to his horse and turned away.
Not understanding where he was walking [or necessarily caring], he stumbled along, grumbling, his heart aching immensely. It was very dark outside; there were no stars, no light to illuminate the sleeping village. It mattered little. If he fell, he might break his leg and not have to go back. He could stay and raise a fuss. Perhaps then, he would not lose his lifelong love. He wasn't watching where he was going, he didn't care. However, he should have. He wound up walking right into a recently widowed wife of a tribesman. She was young, probably no more than twenty. She was as dark and as beautiful as Sharîk. He tried to recall her name and it eluded him for just a brief moment. However, it came to mind as if it were a gentle breeze from the heavens sent to cool heated flesh: Ginsi. He had met her once or twice. Her husband was much older than she and he didn't live long enough to have children with her. She would remain among the village until she had another contract to marry. He reached out to her, preparing to apologize for his clumsiness, and then he remembered the rule of not touching another man's wife. Yet, she wasn't married any longer. He stepped back and tried to walk away, but she took hold of his hand. He stared down into her eyes, the eyes so much like his beloved. There was so much tension rushing through his body and he didn't know where to put it, where to expend it. He was not in battle. She sensed he was upset and she offered him a cool drink of water. Mutely, he followed her back. If she had been any other woman, he would not have done it. His mind saw one person and one only.
Off the sand and inside, she uncovered her head, revealing beautiful, long black hair. He took the cool drink, intending to drain the cup before escaping. He hadn't known then, but Ginsi had always had an eye for him. She had longed to be promised to him above all others. However, it wasn't likely to happen. She would settle for what she could get. When he gave her the cup, she touched his hand gently, her fingers running delicately over his. What was she doing? Was she seducing him, drawing him toward her? His question was answered the moment she leaned forward and kissed him. His first instinct was to move away, to take off, and go back as he had intended. However, his adolescent body could not exactly listen to that command. He would remember Ginsi, remember what she had given him, and what she taken away. In his dream state, he watched as Ginsi undressed his adolescent self, but as soon as he was naked before her and she with him, he was a man, in his present state.
Ginsi was nude and reaching out to him, touching him, and he felt the same surging rush of excitement through every nerve ending in his body. It was as if he were experiencing it as it happened at eighteen, but he had somehow come into the dream as a man. He wanted her, wanted her very badly, but wasn't sure what he should do, if he should even touch her. She took care of everything and he had never had an experience such as this until he met his wife. Ginsi had been married to an older man and she knew things, things that most women her age weren't privy to, but he could not find the words to complain. His body, his man's body, responded wickedly to her touch, as it did when he was still a boy. Feeling almost virginal again, she had nearly brought him to release with the simple touch of her hand. She lay back and pulled him on top of her, giving him gentle commands, telling him what he needed to do, and he realized that she liked his touch, welcomed it. Her soft, sensual moans told him without a word ever escaping her mouth. This felt so wrong, but seemed so right. The man with an adolescent mind and body tried to stop what was happening, but he couldn't. He was inside this woman, had never been inside another since he met Leven. He was cheating on his wife. Yet, he wasn't. Ginsi was his first, and he had had her when he was eighteen, not as a man. Why did he feel this way, feel as if he was cheating?
He cried out at the sheer intensity of his release, and it was when his adolescent self began to feel the first tinges of regret. He had declared his love for one woman, but managed to lay with another? She whispered to him that she wanted him again, and at his age, he would be ready very soon. He hadn't wanted to linger with her, hadn't wanted to touch her again, but he couldn't help it. The second time, she had been atop him, controlling his movements and forcing back his release. He had become his adult self again, and reached out to her, touching her, noticing how she didn't feel anything like his Leven. She was atop him, though, and no other woman had ever done that before his wife. She didn't look like his wife, she looked like Ginsi. Within moments of slipping inside her, he felt another release building inside him. He recalled that Ginsi had whispered that young men such as he could go all night. He could not argue, but he had no intention of doing so. He had to leave…to go. His adult self grasped her waist, digging his fingers into her flesh and he moved within her madly. Again, the sensation was such as if it was actually happening to him, but he knew it wasn't. In his present mind, he wondered why he was dreaming of his first lover. He rarely thought of her anymore. After that night, she had been given another marriage contract, and he never saw her again.
At the moment of his second release, he didn't cry out. Instead, he lifted his body to meet hers and sank his teeth into her shoulder, probably hurting her, drawing blood. He had never done that before, but it was something he couldn't help. He didn't want to cry out again, because if he did, he'd awaken his wife. His wife? Wasn't she lying beside him, her fingers curled around his hair?
* * *
Ardeth awoke with a start, his body slicked with sweat. As if expecting to see someone else beside him, he gazed at his wife. She had laid her head in the crook between his arm and chest. Her arm lay across him and the fingers of that hand had closed around his hair. She had fallen asleep stroking it. For a moment, he wondered whom he expected to see? Ginsi? The woman in his dream was supposed to represent her, but she was very different, much more forward in her movements and lovemaking. She was nothing like the woman who had made him a man. She seemed more…wicked, teasing, more like Leven, but not her. The sight of his wife's body and the soft press of her breasts against him brought about an all too familiar stirring in his loins. He wanted her, longed to wake her up, and end the ache once and for all. Slowly, carefully, he drew her hand away from his hair. She mumbled a little as he pushed her back. He had positioned her in such a way where he could lay his eyes on her entire body. It was covered by a modest nightgown, but had that ever stopped him before? He didn't think of her exhaustion, her need to rest, or her own wants and needs. He knew what he wanted and had the greatest urge to take it. His eyes raked lustfully over the swell of her breasts, down her flat abdomen, to her thighs, and finally down to the silky triangle between her legs that was covered from view as well. He reached out and took hold of the front of her nightgown. His hands ached to rip it from her breasts. He had grabbed a handful of the material and felt his hand beginning to pull it taut against her. When she moaned a little in her sleep, he gasped, as if he were coming awake from a trance. He glanced down and saw what he had nearly done to her. He released her nightgown and tried to put it back in some order.
He fell to his back. What had just happened? Twice now, he had nearly attacked his wife while she slept. It was lust again, pure and simple lust. It was the lust he had felt as a boy of eighteen when Ginsi had gently taken his virginity. It wasn't love; it wasn't anything close to it. As much as his father had thought years before him, he realized that he had never touched his wife with only lust in his heart. He had thought this before, but he analyzed in his mind again and again. Pure, carnal desire had been coursing through him during the entire dream. He had seen himself making love to the woman, not as a boy, but as a man. He had felt the sensations as they happened, just as he felt them at eighteen. It was loneliness and lust that drove him forward. As he came awake and laid his eyes upon his wife, the lust had taken over, ruling him, pushing him forward to betray a trust so sacred and pure that he would die if he broke it. He couldn't continue to have these dreams, couldn't continue to feel this way. Some day soon, he was afraid that he would act upon his feelings and attack her. He loved her, she was the mother of his children, and hurting her was something he'd never ever do in a thousand lifetimes. The urge had been there, and it was strong. He was tempted to talk to Leven about it, but it was something he thought he could control. Whatever was going on in his mind was in his own hands. However, he didn't realize that he was completely wrong about that. Unaware for the time being, he turned to his side and drew a gentle line along Leven's jaw. She sighed a little and turned toward him. He loved her so very much and he never wanted to lose her. In her sleep, she sensed the closeness of his body, and she molded herself against him, wrapping her leg around his hip and burying her face into his chest. She mumbled something against him, he didn't understand, but it sounded like a whispered love you. He cupped the back of her head into his hand; unable to believe that he had nearly hurt her, had broken a trust. He had never felt so confused or so low at the same time.
At the slight touch on the back of her head, she made a soft sound, one that he had heard many times. It left her just before she awoke. He hadn't wanted his discord to rouse her, but it happened despite how hard he tried to hide it. His wife appeared to be some type of human barometer, she could literally sense when all was not right with him. Part of it was due to the gift she had inherited from her grandfather. Yet, the bigger part came directly from her heart. She loved him so very much, he knew this, knew it with every fiber of his being. He felt Leven stir gently against him, her body barely moving. Before releasing the back of her head, he ran his hand over her hair and pulled back just a little to accommodate her movements. She placed a gentle kiss at the base of his throat. When she tasted the salt tang of his sweat, she drew away even further to gaze at him. For a moment, she thought the injury on his hand had gotten infected and he was running fever. She touched his cheek and noticed it was cool to the touch.
"Baby," she whispered, "are you okay? You're drenched with sweat." She touched his hair. It, like his body, was damp.
"Bad dreams," he said. "Do not worry."
She slid back as if she were going to leave the bed. "I think you need water…"
Before she could get up, he took hold of her arm and drew her back beside him. He leaned over her and ran his hand over her forehead. "I will not have you waiting on me hand and foot. The babies run you ragged as it is. It was only a dream and I am fine. I need nothing but you in my arms." He kissed her very gently. In the back of his mind, the urge to molest and plunder her body had never gone away, but he fought it back madly. When he broke the kiss, he touched her cheek. "Go to sleep."
Ardeth started to draw away, but she didn't immediately release the hold she had on his body. "Wait," she said. "What kind of dreams were you having?"
Her question shocked him and sent a little tingle of anxiety down his spine. How could he tell her he was reenacting the night he had first taken a woman? How could he tell her that it felt as if he were actually touching Ginsi? Throughout the entire dream, the thought that he was cheating on his wife would not go away. Yet, it was no more than a dream [was it]. He had told this woman who lay beneath him many things. She had touched his entire soul and had given her heart completely to him. She had sacrificed her old way of life to come to him, marry him, and give birth to his children. However, he wasn't sure he could tell her this, not directly, not just yet. If he ever grew to understand it, perhaps then he would speak to her. As he gazed into her eyes and saw her love, her concern, he knew he had to at least touch upon it. Would she understand? She was different than the women he had known before. Of course, she came from a different time. They had shared everything a couple could, in bed and out. He wanted to tell her, wanted to get it out. The dreams disturbed him, almost as much as the ones he'd had before he found Leven.
"Leven," he began tentatively, "have you…have you ever dreamed of past lovers?"
What an odd question. "Here and there, but not all the time. Why do you ask? Did you have a dream like that?"
He nodded a bit shamefacedly. "Yes. It was a woman I have not thought of in ten years. She played a role in shaping me, I suppose."
Inside, she was smiling. He was gently trying to tell her that this woman had taken his virginity. His obvious embarrassment made the mental smile grow wider. Here was a man who'd made love to her so many times she couldn't count them on her fingers and toes, he'd fathered her children, but he couldn't admit that he'd dreamed of his first lover. She didn't want to go into the gory details of a wet dream, but she had to say something. It was really sweet, but she wouldn't laugh at him if her life depended on it. "Well, what she did for you is considered quite an event. I would say it's fairly normal to dream about her."
He nodded a little. "Do you…dream about your first?"
Leven thought about that for a moment. Did she? She had been slightly younger than Ardeth, but it was more like one of those things that just…happened. She was sixteen, the boy a year older. They'd been drinking and bam, the next day, she woke up naked and alone. "No, I don't, but it was different for me, I'm sure. Who was she?"
He thought about it for a moment before answering. Sighing a little, he said, "Her name was Ginsi. She was a young widow, two years older than I. I do not remember who her husband was, but he was a tribesman. She had not been promised to anyone else and it was not rare for a young man to seek the experience of a widow. I did not intend to seek her out, I ran into her, and she offered comfort and warmth. At that stage in my life, it was exactly what I needed. She gave me that. I never saw her again after that night. I think she was sent to another tribe and married there."
Oh yeah, definitely different than mine. "You were eighteen or so?" He nodded. "Was this when you knew Sharîk? Was she married to Q yet?"
"She was to marry him the next day. I had kissed her that night, but I wanted more. I could not…" For a moment, the words dried up.
She placed her fingers over his lips. "I know this one."
He smiled. "Yes, you do."
"I don't find it unusual for you to dream of this woman. It happens. It happened with me a few times," she told him with a knowing smile. "The important thing is, you're not losing your mind. You'll probably never dream of her again."
I may not be losing my mind, but am I losing my soul? Ardeth wanted to delve into it further, wanted to tell her the feelings that rose up in him after the dream. He had nearly attacked her as she slept. That, he knew, wasn't normal. He drew back to the night with Ginsi almost twelve years ago. Nothing had happened which would make him want to attack anyone. It was definitely an act of loneliness and lust on his part. On hers, she had always wanted him [she hadn't failed to tell him that while undressing him], and she would have him before she was sent away. No matter how comfortable he was, no matter how much he loved her, he couldn't share with Leven the fact that he nearly took her with force. It wasn't right and he refused to betray the bond and trust that they had. Perhaps she was right. It might turn into a one-time thing and completely go away.
He kissed her gently. "You are right. The only dream I want to have right now is the one I am touching and looking upon. I love you."
She kissed him back, running her tongue along his parted lips. This often drove him a little nuts. "Show me. Show me how much," she whispered against his lips.
The hunger, need, and want had returned in one tremendous surge of emotion and sensation. Taking hold of her nightgown, he was once again tempted to rip it away from her body, to eliminate the grand ache that had built inside him. He took a handful of it and pulled it forward, literally jerking it up in less than gentle motions. What are you doing? Stop, stop, stop. He drew away the slightest bit and gazed down at her. She wasn't offended or hurt by his behavior, but she was confused. Saying nothing, he lowered his body over hers and kissed her again, plunging his tongue into her mouth. Her hands went into his hair as his began to push the nightgown up slowly, gently, as was his way. When she lay nude before him, the need to force her, to take her, had slid away. What had he been thinking? This woman was his Leven, his wife, his eternal partner. She was not an object of lust, she was an object of his love, one worthy of worship.
