I am far, far too nice. Look at this: I've decided to stop revising for my Italian oral exam (not as tasty as it sounds ;-)) to write a spot of fanfiction. You didn't even have to beg. (GAH! Realises exam is at 10am tomorrow morning.) I've been instructed by reviewer 'goodybad' to lay orf ye slash, so here goes. I did warn everyone I would be branching away from my Harry Potter rut, so I'm going to do a 'Kingdom of Heaven' fic, because I've just seen that, so it's fresh in my mind.
disclaimer -'Kingdom of Heaven' belongs to...somebody else other than me. Not the foggiest who though.
While you slept without your head…
"You know why I have come."
Oh God, (if you exist, and how confused I am now as to which one I have renounced: I am learning a lot about you, God, whoever you are) yes of course I knew why she had come. I knew straight from the moment she got here –teasing me about that humiliating experience with the water. Automatically, entranced, I opened my arms to her: this captivating, mildly dangerous, powerful young woman. Why did I do it? I should have declined her offers, rejected her advances. I ought to have thrown up my hands, hands that still carried the memory of your touch, of your skin, and said in the frankest tones: "No."
When asked to elaborate, I could have said, "beautiful though you are, and perfect as your body seemingly is, I cannot lie with you: I should not and I will not. I am still in mourning for my wife. The priests believe that her soul is in Hell. How can I lie with another woman, knowing that my wife is lying, newly dead and without her head, beneath a mere three feet of gravel and mud? I would be the most evil creature alive, to bed another woman at this time."
But I did not.
I felt her lips descend upon my own in a desperate dance, but they were not yours. Though I wanted her in that moment, and I knew that in some way she would help forge my future, for some seconds during that first, dangerous kiss, I suddenly imagined it was your beautiful olive face I was caressing, that it was your maternal, curvaceous body I gripped so tightly: you, alive and whole and mine again! It was after this thought that my kiss intensified.
Her body is nothing like yours –she is all angles, whereas childbirth had filled you out. I preferred you like that. As I carefully divested her of her expensive, showy garments, I felt such a pang for that familiar body, I cannot tell you, and the comfort of your caress in contrast to her impatience, which tore at my new clothes and left me faintly annoyed before I because caught up in taking her, at last. Did she know I had not grieved for you, yet? That your headless body, an image that I could only imagine, was constantly flitting across my eyes?
I never said her name. Instead I called for "God."
I had not called his name for a while. He had abandoned me, and I had given up hope of releasing your soul for Hell –how could you enjoy Heaven, if there is such a place, without your head? Her own head rested on my shoulder as she slipped into dream. You should know that I did not rest. I would ask you to dream for me, but how can you now?
Sleep then, beneath the earth. Later I will grieve.
For now I shall dream for the both of us.
review.
skinnyrita the pumpkin mistress.
