**Disclaimer: The characters and situations of the Twilight Saga depicted in this story are the legal property of Stephenie Meyer, Summit Entertainment, and Little, Brown & Company, and have been used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended, and no profit is being made.
Happy Bella's Birthday everyone! Have a chapter :)
Chapter 2: Life After Sex and Death
[scrawled on a half-torn page of the journal in Bella's handwriting, recognized as a fragment of a Sylvia Plath poem]
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)
—
Something Like Despair
The Edward of my wedding night was a figment and a phantom who haunted me with his absence for the next two weeks of my honeymoon. Was he even real, or had I dreamed him? The memories were torture.
Finally, one night…I broke.
Bitter tears of disappointment pricked the corners of my eyes, but I held them back, as I clung to his body under the sheets.
"Isn't it hard enough without you wearing this?" Edward growled at me, his fist yanking a handful of black lace at my thigh to illustrate his point.
Was it hard for him? I wasn't sure. My babydoll nightgown was completely transparent and it was all I was wearing. He could see everything, all of me. When I had walked into the bedroom, his eyes had widened, and I could swear he gulped.
But he still said no.
Any hope I had that an Edward who had made love to me and knew what he was missing would be easier to seduce than the Edward who was a virgin had been dashed over the weeks since our wedding night. Even when I offered the one thing he swore he wanted above all else.
"I have a reason to want to be human that I didn't have before," I said, negotiating as calmly as I could.
"What's that?"
Could he really not know? "Guess."
Unable to resist, I climbed up his body and kissed him, caressing his jaw, my body rubbing against his. The lace on my skin felt delicious, made me feel more exposed than I would have had I been actually naked. Fourteen days of sexual frustration pooled between my legs, making me so hot, so desperate. I needed him to stretch me, fill me again with his cock, his cum. The sex act was so intimate and animalistic, romantic and dirty. I'd only gotten to experience it once, but I was already hopelessly addicted, like a cautionary tale in some twisted After School Special.
He kissed me back, but he was humoring me again, not tempted. He wasn't even hard. I could have died of shame.
"You are so human, Bella. Ruled by your hormones." He was chuckling, laughing at me—my neediness.
My chin raised defiantly. "That's the point, Edward. I like this part of being human. I don't want to give it up yet. I don't want to wait through years of being a blood-obsessed newborn for this to come back to me."
He was unmoved. He held me close and suggested I get some sleep. There was nothing else I could do or say—my dignity was all gone—so I did. Besides, I was tired. Since we'd come to Brazil, I was always and constantly tired. Naturally, I dreamed of him making love to me. That was a fairly standard dream, unlike the nightmares that had been plaguing me lately. My dreams had grown vivid and visceral since coming to Isle Esme and this one was no different, but it was the first time any sex dream had felt real enough to be true.
I was heartbroken when I woke up. We weren't on the beach and he wasn't inside me, rocking my body to a slow-build climax while whispering lovely and loving things in my ear. We were in a cold bed in a hot room and he was fully dressed, damn him. We were married, but we still spent our nights just like we had in my bedroom in Forks. He was right there, but I was lonely. So, so, lonely. It was all too much and I broke down crying.
It turned out that was the key, the way to break Edward's resolve. I should have known. Tears were how I got him to agree to our wedding night in the first place.
He made love to me that night in a way that was both gentle and violent. My nightgown was ripped to shreds, the headboard cracked in two, but there wasn't a single bruise anywhere on me in the morning. At least, not that could be seen. I was still sore between my legs, but that didn't surprise or bother me. He was huge and we were both still inexperienced. It was nice, actually, being able to feel him in me the day after. The sweet ache of it drove me crazy.
God knew how long I would be willing to remain human in order to keep feeling it. I offered him a semester, a year—maybe two, so long as he swore to keep making love to me.
That revelation baffled him. "For sex?" he asked as my hand trailed down his hard, shuddering abs toward his groin. "That was the key all along?"
It was absurd, I agreed, but it was still true. My little nagging worry that sex with Edward as a vampire would be missing something compared to sex with him as a human had ballooned. I was now half convinced it would be a pale shadow, a sad compromise. It wasn't just the newborn bloodlust I was afraid of anymore.
My fragile human body felt absolutely every little thing he did to me so acutely, the undiluted danger and excitement of his touch. The orgasms were like the ones with the dildo, only cranked up to some heretofore unimagined maximum heights: pain and pleasure together, feeding each other. When I made myself come, with my hand or with the detachable shower head in Charlie's bathroom, the ecstasy was straightforward and uncomplicated. These orgasms were different. The stinging discomfort made them feel more real, somehow. More earned—Edward's crushing weight, even when he held himself up; the roughness of his touch, even as he strove to be gentle; his stony hips bashing into my tender thighs, even when I was on top. His skin was cold, his teeth were deadly, and his cock absolutely unyielding. It may as well have been made of solid glass for how uncompromisingly it made my pussy give way and conform to its shape and whims and thrusts.
All that would vanish after Edward turned me. Our bodies would be equals and never again would I be the prey caught in the embrace of my predator, completely at his mercy, in his power, with only his love to protect me from himself.
I couldn't confess to him how much that dynamic thrilled me, made me feel desired and cherished—I could barely confess it to myself. He would be horrified, and rightly so. Part of me knew that prolonging my time as a human simply for sex was a selfish thing to do. He was frantically worried for my safety, and here I was, getting off on being in danger. Obviously, the risk to me lessened the appeal for him, stressed him out and placed an enormous burden on his shoulders. If I were a better person, I would just tell him to turn me now.
But he agreed to my bargain—sex in exchange for me remaining human a while longer. He even seemed eager, encouraged by the fact that our second time had gone so much smoother than our first.
Such was life that we would never know how the bargain would have gone. No sooner had we agreed to the compromise than we found out I was pregnant and that, of course, was a paradigm shift.
Pregnant…. The very first time I had sex. It was like a bad joke. Vampire sexual reproduction was supposed to be impossible. No one had known to warn us. We had ignorantly stumbled right into a life or death scenario on our wedding night.
We fought. A lot. About everything, but mostly about the baby. Emotionally, we sent each other into a kind of spiral. He became a haggard shadow of himself and I wasted away. I have already exhausted the details in my other journals, but here I will confess the rest, the pain and paranoia I buried deep and tried to hide.
My pregnancy wasn't easy. The accelerated growth rate of a half-vampire fetus took quite the toll on my eighteen-year-old human body. In retrospect, it was barely a month from conception to c-section, but…damn. That horrid month lasted an eternity. I was always tired, always starving, too weak to even walk most days, and I hurt everywhere. My dreams, always full of sex or death, or sex and death, felt as real as my waking hours. The baby had her father's density and my stomach felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, pulling painfully on my skin and my spine any time I was upright. The amniotic sac hardened into a rock and dug into all of my comparatively soft organs. It was agony, 24/7.
I couldn't keep any food down, my body rejected the nutrients of the IV Carlisle desperately resorted to, and I watched my reflection in the mirror become skeletal. The situation improved when we discovered that the baby needed me to drink human blood, and I put some weight back on as I went through blood bag after blood bag, but I was no more comfortable.
For the first time since we met, I didn't want Edward. Sex was unimaginable—the last thing my body was up for, and when I did think of it, it was only in that wistful way you remember something truly lost. But it was more than that. I was anxious when he wasn't around, and I still could access the part of me that loved him, but it was an understatement to say that things between us were strained.
He was furious with me for insisting on keeping the baby, even if it was killing me, and he was sure that it was. I secretly feared he was right, but I couldn't bring myself to do anything different. He swore he'd hate our child if it killed me, and I tried not to hate him for saying it. He attempted to negotiate termination of the pregnancy with sex, and I made a plea for him to see things my way with tears. In that moment, I saw our developing patterns of bargaining for what they were: immature and unhealthy.
This wasn't how a husband and wife should solve problems. It wasn't compromise. It wasn't respectful, and it solved nothing. Sex may be my weakness and tears may be his, but it was wrong and childish to use those things against each other.
Then Edward went one level lower by recruiting Jacob to his cause. I don't know what Edward expected, but I was unsurprised when Jake was bitter from the word go and then lost his temper.
"You're dying for nothing, Bella. Nothing!"
As if I wasn't cradling all the world in my baby bump.
"Don't do this to me. Don't do it to him!" Jacob shouted at me. "You know what he's going to do when you die."
That was all Jake—Edward would never throw that in my face. But it was still true, and the thought twisted my heart and threatened to yank it from my chest. I had been wracking my brain all week for a way to extract a promise from Edward not to pull his Romeo stunt again if things ended horribly. They shouldn't—I believed I would survive this. Mostly.
But there was a chance, and the possibility I may die in childbirth scared me, both because I didn't want to die and because the idea that Edward might do something crazy if I did tormented me.
Jacob read my mind, and he didn't hold back. "You can spout reassuring crap to your bloodsucker, but you're not fooling me. You know you're not going to make it."
I didn't know that, not for sure.
"I think he's losing it. Completely."
Did Jake think I couldn't see that? And even if I had been blind to what this was doing to my husband, the realization that came next—that Edward had actually proposed a compromise where, if I wanted babies so badly, I could have Jake's—would have fully brought that home. I had never heard anything so stupid in my entire life. Was Edward really so deluded as to think this was about wanting a baby in general? Could he really not understand that this one was special because it was his?
And what was the plan here? He and Jake would pass me back and forth like a timeshare? Or was this bigger than that? Was…was he going to leave me for my own good again?
"I told you he was going crazy. Literally, Bells."
I was getting that. Of all the foolish, hurtful….
"Why do you always love the wrong things, Bella?" Jake said sadly, looking at my swollen stomach and thinking of my husband.
"I don't think I do," I responded, but even as I did, I felt a hopeless sinking inside me.
I wasn't sure where I had made the wrong or bad choices, but they had definitely been made, and I was furious with Jacob for throwing the situation in my face.
Even so, I tried to call him back. "I love you, Jake."
The way I felt about Jacob was easily the most disorienting and baffling thing about my pregnancy.
My immediate attachment and devotion to the fetus growing inside me in spite of my complete non-interest in being a mother beforehand had been somewhat of a surprise, but it made sense. I had heard of other women experiencing something similar—it didn't happen every or even most of the time, but it happened to me, and well, the feeling was inexplicably powerful and absolute. I may have been taken off guard by my maternal instinct, but I wasn't confused by it. Likewise, all the body horror aspects of my pregnancy. A half-vampire baby is going to throw out some irregularities, and knowing what I did of vampires, I wasn't shocked that Nessie's kicks left gargantuan bruises on my stomach and broke my ribs, that she needed me to drink gallons of human blood.
Nor was it all that astonishing that the pregnancy threw my marriage into turmoil. During that month, where Edward was concerned, everything was bleak and black and I couldn't see a way out. There were no good outcomes anymore—the future would be grim no matter what happened. If I died before the baby was close enough to term to survive…wouldn't that be fucking awful. If I died in childbirth, Edward would hate the baby and, if history was any indication, probably try to kill himself. If I lived and the baby died, I…well…I couldn't even think about that. If the baby and I both lived and Edward turned me as planned, then how much would all of this have damaged our relationship? Would our marriage collapse under the weight of all these new resentments? And even if, against all odds, we didn't hold this month against each other, there were still the incompatibilities and disappointed hopes between us that I had naively believed our wedding would fix.
Edward wouldn't even admit that he was angry with me, so I didn't hold out hope for a heart-to-heart that would lay any of the tension to bed before it was possibly too late. I was maybe dying and my husband and I couldn't even have a straight conversation with each other.
Was it any wonder that Jake's presence was comforting, even with his constant grumpiness, while Edward's was painful? That much made sense, but holy shit, the scale of that feeling was upsetting.
I understand now the peculiar cocktail of pregnancy hormones and Renesmee's influence that I was under, but at the time the confusion was constant and the effect on my emotions was devastating. Not even when Edward had left me with no intention of coming back, or when he returned and things were so hard, had Jacob been so appealing. My romantic feelings for Jake had been real in their way, but they had no hope of standing against what I felt for Edward—there was no comparison. And yet, during those awful days when I lay curled around my giant tummy on the Cullens' couch, I found myself looking at Jake with such longing. Everyone noticed, including Edward, but I couldn't seem to stop.
The pull was so strong, and given how bad everything was with Edward at the time, well…my thoughts went to uncharted territory. The choice between Edward and Jacob had been so easy—but had I chosen wrong? Were things so hard with Edward right now because we weren't actually supposed to be together? Would I have been happier, healthier, safer with Jacob? I knew they both thought so, and before the wedding I would have rolled my eyes at them, rock solid in my conviction that Edward was the one I belonged with, belonged to.
It was deeply troubling to doubt myself, and I sank further into depression. I had never felt so unsure of myself and who I was. Despair, it turns out, doesn't have a floor. You can just go down and down.
When Jacob demanded an explanation for the moony eyes I was throwing his way, I actually found myself murmuring my darkest anxieties. "We got off track, Jake, you and me—off balance. We went wrong. No. I did. I went wrong."
I had never been more grateful that Edward couldn't get into my head.
The one tiny light in the darkness came in the days just before I went into labor. Edward heard our baby's thoughts. I'm not sure if it was that hearing fully coherent thoughts made our child seem like a real person to him, or if it was the nature of those musings. He was shocked that the mind was so benign, so innocent, that the baby was comforted by the sound of my voice—I don't know how he could ever think a person made of the two of us could be a monster.
For the first time, he touched my swollen stomach with awe and affection. No disgust, even for the bruises. The comfort I felt was crushing. Maybe it wasn't hopeless. Maybe, even if it all ended for me, Edward would still have someone to live for, someone to love.
—
Perspective
It's amazing what turning into a vampire can do for your mental health. Well, for me at least anyway.
When I awoke from [words scribbled out and illegible] it was staggering, the relief I felt. It was as though I had been fished right out of the oppressive, dark-water depths of my psyche. I was alive. The lives of my husband and child were lifted from my shoulders. All the people I loved were happy and healthy—crazy how that can flip your worldview and brighten your horizon.
Edward looked lighter, less tortured, than I had ever seen him. The traitorous pull toward Jake that had set me so adrift, full of doubt and self-disgust, was completely gone, and even had an explanation. With my mind and emotions my own once more, I found only Edward in my heart. I knew myself after all. The reassurance I got from that stabilized my world.
Moreover, my fears of losing myself to newborn bloodlust were either overblown, or Carlisle was right and psychological preparation had helped me adjust faster than most. Regardless, I still felt like myself. My personality and values were intact, even if looking in the mirror was jarring and it was strange not to be tripping over everything all the time.
My thirst, everyone tried to convince me, must not be that bad. It was a constant burning annoyance, no matter how much blood I drank—like the kind of dry tickle at the back of my throat I remembered from my human days, but at ten times the intensity, to the point of pain. I had to restrain myself from violence around humans at all times, locking my muscles down and breathing as little as possible. I couldn't fathom it being any worse than that, but the Cullens swore it was for most vampires, for most of them even. I knew they must be right—I didn't doubt them or their experiences, but it was difficult to wrap my head around.
How miserable for my poor Edward, if it was worse for him than this. Especially where I had been concerned. I felt a renewed and acute sense of guilt for asking him for sex while my blood was calling out to him. No wonder he had been so reluctant to risk touching me. No wonder he was so much more willing and enthusiastic now.
That was the most unexpected of my pleasant shocks: Edward wanted me. He actually did. If I could have cried, I would have.
In the gloom and melancholy of my pregnancy, I had resigned myself to the idea that Edward and I were perhaps just incompatible. Physically we fit, but our sex drives were laughably unbalanced. Like a fool I had trusted that things would be different after we married, only to spend my honeymoon and pregnancy basically untouched. I understood the extenuating circumstances, but I also started to accept that maybe he just didn't feel it the way I did—the pleasure, the pull, the intimacy, the hunger. There had been the little whisper of hope that my turning would change things, but I hadn't dared to hold my breath.
And yet, a mere handful of hours after I awoke as a vampire, Edward tackled me to our bedroom floor and made love to me for hours before we even made it the three feet to the bed.
He'd sweep me up in his arms and carry me to bed of his own volition multiple times a week. He only pushed me away when I was distracting him from something important, or if someone could see us. It wasn't the mad lust I had dreamed about in my old fantasies—like a dam breaking, revealing my Edward to be as fit to burst with naked lust as I was. No, it was more civil than that. Even at its most feverish, our post-transformation sex was always considerate, always romantic, usually at night, and usually in our bedroom. Our drives were still unbalanced; I wanted far more than he seemed to, but the point was that he did want. At this point, that was enough.
Not to mention kisses. Those were definitely better than before my turning, for no other reason than Edward wasn't afraid of nicking me with his sharp teeth. He didn't hold back, and for the first time, I got to experience open-mouthed kisses. I now knew the ecstasy of Edward's tongue in my mouth. Just the thought made my knees knock.
Besides, there were more important things than sex. Not just in our lives in general, but in our marriage as well. We had our daughter's growth-rate to worry over. In a matter of weeks, she was a toddler, and she just kept growing. We were tormented by the question of how long we would have her at all. Then there was the terror of the upcoming Volturi inquisition once word of Nessie got out, how we had needed to scramble for allies amongst Carlisle's old friends to ensure the trial wasn't rigged. Alice and Jasper disappeared for months, and once more everyone I loved was in danger.
In the midst of all of that, for the first time, sex with Edward became a comfort rather than a source of stress. It was predictable, reliable. Always safe and never challenging, both physically and emotionally.
If any part of me needed or wanted something else from my marriage bed, it was quiet during those fraught months. What more could I ask for, really?
—
An Obscene Notion
"Is that…?" Garrett trailed off in confusion. Then, unexpectedly, he reached for my hand. He blinked, seemingly fascinated by the scar on the heel of my palm.
I was so shocked, it took me a second to pull my wrist from his grip. Glowering at his violation of my personal space, I stepped back.
"Apologies," he said, spreading his palms. "I've just never seen a mark there before."
My eyes narrowed. I had no idea what he was talking about. "It's a scar."
He grinned. "I know. It's just an odd placing, but then Edward has always been odd, so maybe I shouldn't be surprised."
I was even more confused, but our conversation had drawn attention from some of the vampires training with us in the same clearing.
"You talking crap about my brother?" Rosalie demanded, appearing at my shoulder. She was imperious, her eyes deadly, and I stood a little taller.
Since the Cullen house had filled with Carlisle's friends, assembling for the fast-approaching Volturi trial, I had been comforted to learn that I was hardly the only person Rose took time warming up to. In this moment, I swelled with appreciation for her show of loyalty to Edward.
Garrett's body language became more defensive. "Hey, there's no rules, I guess. You know me—I'm not big on regulation, especially for something as personal as a mating bite. I say put them wherever you want."
Rosalie must have been able to piece together what he meant because she knew vocabulary that I did not. She gestured to my hand. "That's not a mating bite, dumbass. My family doesn't do that. Some dipshit nomad tried to kill her."
He drew back, nonplussed. "Oh. Well…my mistake."
I wasn't entirely sure what the misunderstanding had been, but I knew what we were discussing now. "He attacked me. I raised my hand defensively," I mimed the motion, "and his teeth scraped the heel of my hand."
Garrett leaned in to take a closer look. "May I?" This time he asked, at least, extending his hand to take mine.
I didn't know how I felt about that and my mind scrambled for a polite way to refuse.
Luckily, Rose was still by my side. "Of course not," she snapped. "You can see fine from where you are, and don't you have training you should be doing with Kate?"
He glowered at Rosalie, but did not argue. He took one last glance at my hand, which was now hanging at my side, and shook his head. "Edward's a good guy. A lot of vampires would have a hard time if their mate had another man's bite on their skin."
"Like you?" Rose retorted acidly.
He shrugged and walked away, breaking into a sprint to join Kate and Tanya on the other side of the training meadow.
When I was pretty sure he was out of earshot, I whispered to Rose, "Thanks."
She nodded. "You okay?"
I indicated that I was, and then asked, "What was he talking about?"
She made a face and shuddered. "Some nomads do this disgusting bullshit where they bite each other, like animals."
My brows shot up. That word…mating. "While they're having sex?"
"Yeah, it's barbaric. It's like a claiming, ownership, caveman thing." She patted my arm. "Don't worry—we don't do that. Well, Jasper and Alice are into some freaky stuff, so who knows. But you have nothing to worry about. Edward would never."
Unbidden, an image flashed through my brain of Edward's head dipping, teeth glinting, toward my neck while he pinned my wrists to our mattress and thrust into me. The shock of arousal between my legs was like a lightning strike. It took every bit of composure I had not to gasp out loud, but Rosalie didn't seem to notice.
It was a clip right out of one of my old human erotic dreams, the contents of which I had pushed down, way down, into my subconscious over the past several months, willing myself to forget. The human girl I had been had no idea what she was doing. Her ridiculous fantasies about what sex with Edward would be, should be, had almost ruined everything. All of those toxic obsessions were better off left in the past.
I shook myself and got back to work.
A few hours later, when I was gathering up some of the supplies to return to the house, I heard an unfamiliar set of footsteps approach. Looking up, I saw Charlotte, one of Jasper and Alice's friends. She hung back, respecting my personal space.
"It's not like that," she said. "Mating bites. Garrett and Rosalie don't know what the hell they're talking about—no first-hand experience. Garrett's never had a mate before and Rosalie has made a point of not knowing how most vampires live their lives."
I glanced around but no one was paying attention to us. I studied the woman before me, unsure whether or not I should be having this conversation with her. Was she trustworthy? Did she want something? We hadn't interacted much and I didn't know her.
She seemed to sense my hesitation. "I know it's not really my place. The Cullens have their way of doing things, and Peter and I respect that. Rose is right that mating bites aren't a practice adopted by your Coven—not even by Alice and Jasper, by the way. Neither of them are fans. I just thought I would offer to answer any questions you might have." Charlotte shrugged and gave me a tiny smile, "Because you seemed curious."
The human girl and her dark desires stirred inside me. "What is it like, then?"
"It's painful," she stated up front, "but it's intimate, too." She tugged at the collar of her thick sweater and revealed a bite at the base of her neck. "Peter gave me this mark when we escaped Maria years ago."
Like the bite on the heel of my hand and those that covered Jasper's arms, it was a raised, crystalline scar, but the lines of it were so clean, so defined. Each tooth was clearly visible.
I inhaled sharply.
"It's a ritual, not ownership, not a one-way promise," Charlotte continued. "Not for Peter and I, anyway. He bit me, and I bit him. It's an exchange and a commitment, like what the humans do—a marriage. Except it's actually for forever. We live a long, long time, and this," she gestured to the bite, "is how we promise the person we love most that they won't have to spend that time alone."
—
The Body Electric
Becoming a vampire changed my body in so many ways. I was aware of that in all contexts and at all times, but the difference seemed the most stark in relation to my sexuality.
It was the strangest sensation to feel the ache of desire pool between my legs without the accompaniment of a speeding heart. Venom moved through my veins, but it wasn't the same. When Edward would kiss me before, I could physically feel my blood throb wantonly as it sped up. My insides were so quiet now. It was disconcerting.
And the temperature difference of his touch was just jarring. I had grown used to the coldness, underscored with his density. I had fetishized it for God's sake. Now, touching him felt like touching a human boy used to. We were the same temperature—sometimes he was even warm in comparison to me. His skin gave, was actually pliable under my touch. Even if I could still bruise, I doubted his touch would leave marks anymore. It was better, objectively. It just took some getting used to.
I wondered what it must be like for him. He seemed thrilled that I was no longer fragile, and he didn't hold back when he swept me into his arms anymore, but I must feel so strange to him. Humans, I had noticed, were hotter to the touch than even werewolves had been before I turned. How scorching hot I must have been to caress, to be inside of. Edward still groaned about my "hot pussy" when he humped me into our mattress, and I didn't doubt him. His cock was hot to me now, too—but only the way I imagine it was for two people with the same base temperature.
Our bodies were of a kind now, equals, just like I wanted, even if it was still strange. Touching Edward felt positively normal now—there was no constant reminder that we were different from one another, that he was a hunter and I was his prey. This was a good thing, definitely.
If only the perverted human girl inside of me would shut up.
The bites Charlotte talked about haunted my thoughts long after the Volturi trial concluded and the vampire allies we had assembled dispersed. Mating bites were like the worst of my old human dreams transformed.
It was sick—that I'd had dirty dreams where he bit me and I liked it, that I had touched myself while I imagined him being rough with me, taking me in the grass like an animal. How twisted that I had enjoyed him leaving marks on my skin. How pathetic that I had developed a fetish over the idea of him touching himself, over the idea of him watching me touch myself. My ideas of sex had been so skewed and outrageous. I reminded myself that I had been a virgin—what could I have understood, really, about what sex was like and what I wanted?
Only…an evil little voice whispered, your wedding night. That was everything you pictured and everything you ever wanted.
But the bruises the morning after. He'd hurt me.
You liked it. A lot. Pain, pleasure…in the moment they felt the same to you. It was all ecstasy.
Yes, and that night had almost scared Edward off sex for good.
But it was the best, wasn't it? The best sex you've ever had?
I didn't like admitting that to myself. It was backwards. First times weren't supposed to be the best sex of your life. They were supposed to be awkward and fumbling and if an orgasm happened at all, you could count yourself lucky. Why, oh why had mine been such a high watermark that everything since had come up slightly short?
My post-transformation sex life was perfect! Well, it was fine. It was perfectly fine. We had sex, lots of it. My new vampire stamina meant that I could go for hours, that an orgasm made me feel boneless, but not tired. Edward desired me and made love to me for hours every single night. It was more than I deserved and more than I could have hoped for in the darkest days of our courtship or the pure hell of my pregnancy. Back then, I would have been satisfied with anything—anything at all. To have these thoughts crop up now and again was just…ungrateful.
Human pervert me should just sit down and shut up. Edward would be horrified. He would judge me. I could imagine his disgust with stunning clarity and had no wish to ever actually see it.
So, in the months after everything settled down, when the thoughts crept up on me, I strove to push them from my mind. When that didn't work completely, I decided to take drastic action.
"Alice, I have an embarrassing question to ask you."
Her eyes flickered up at me from over a sales rack of cashmere sweaters. "Oh?"
My voice trembled as I studied the price tag of a cardigan that I didn't even like. "Where is my glass dildo?"
I heard her mouth snap shut, which must have meant that her jaw had dropped. "The one we bought before the wedding?"
I nodded, still looking down. "It's not with the rest of my things in the cottage from what I can tell."
"I threw it out."
That startled me enough that I finally met her gaze. "What? Why would you do that?"
"Because it's not like…" she made a furtive check that no humans were close enough to hear us. "You can't use it anymore, Bella. Your muscles, down there," she glanced meaningfully and a fresh wave of embarrassment flooded through me, "are too strong. You'd shatter it. Vampire healing notwithstanding, no one needs broken glass in their vag."
Agreed.
She shrugged her delicate shoulders. "One of the downsides of being what we are is that a lot of sex toys are off the table for us."
I chewed my lip and scraped together the bravery to ask, "Then, what do you use when you need to…?" I gestured illustratively.
"Jasper," Alice answered frankly. "There aren't many materials that can safely withstand our strength. From what I understand, Tanya, Kate, and Irina trained themselves to be able to engage in sex acts and even climax without harming human penises, but that seems like a lot of risk and hassle to me. Too restrained. You'd need the discipline and patience of a saint. Don't get me wrong, I have full faith in you, but take my word for it that another vampire's body is the best and safest bet."
"What if…what if you want something, or just want to fantasize about something that…Jasper wouldn't enjoy?"
Alice was studying me very intently now. I was detecting an undercurrent of concern. After a time, she said, "I don't want to shock you, Bella, but occasionally I have other partners. Male and female. Jazz does, too. Nothing regular or intimate—fun only, no emotions. That works for us. We also have an understanding about certain things only one of us enjoys. Mostly, we do them sometimes as a compromise, and the one or two things that are hard lines? We do those with our other partners."
She had shocked me. Thoroughly. Alice and Jasper's relationship had always seemed so perfect, so aspirational to me, but it had just morphed into something I couldn't wrap my head around.
"I know you and Edward are different," she continued conversationally. "Opening the bedroom door doesn't work for everyone. I was just being honest about how we do things because you asked."
"I…just…." I tried to picture having the type of relationship she was describing—Edward with another lover—and my brain short-circuited. Sharp pain pierced my chest. I couldn't fathom it.
"It's okay, Bella," Alice said gently, placing a comforting hand on my arm. "Breathe."
I blinked and did as she said.
"You and Edward are dyed-in-the-wool monogamists, and even if you weren't, what works for Jazz and me wouldn't work for you. Every relationship finds its own way, sets its own boundaries." She gave me an encouraging smile. "You guys are just starting. It will take some time to figure everything out, and that's normal."
My brows pulled together and I wrenched my focus back to the reason I had gone looking for my old dildo in the first place. "We're okay," I insisted. "I just have some things I think about sometimes that Edward wouldn't like."
I could make do. If the best option was a vampire appendage, well, I had two hands.
Alice's mouth mued in disapproval.
"What?"
She shook her head. "You should talk to Edward, if there's anything you need and aren't getting."
"There's nothing I need."
"You should still talk to Edward. That's how this sex in a long-term relationship thing works—the only way it works."
But Alice was wrong. If Edward ever found out about the things I wanted, he'd never touch me again.
It was all right. I could continue on as I was. I would ignore the weird fantasies, and when I couldn't ignore them, I would take care of myself. Edward would never need to know.
That might have been the way we continued on indefinitely, if Edward hunting wasn't the hottest thing in the world.
—
Our Meadow, Revisited
The day I first revealed one of my human fantasies to Edward, we went hunting together and then collapsed to take a rest in our meadow. It was the first time we had visited in almost two years—a testament to the craziness of that period of time, and Edward agreed.
"It's been too long."
We were lying side by side in the grass. I fingered his wedding band, admiring his hands. "We've been busy."
I was a horny mess and my lust was a low hum in my nerve endings, underscoring my every movement. Hunting with him often had that effect on me. His fluid movements, his speed and clean brutality—he never even got a drop of blood on his clothes. But I think it was his eyes that got me. They would go black, pupils flared wide, and he would focus in on his prey with staggering, hungry intensity.
The way he used to look at me.
It made my panties melt every time.
Then he'd pounce, bite, sink his teeth into flesh. He'd drink his fill and…. Those images, memories, would present themselves to me when I masturbated, pop up over and over as I swatted them down like the most perverse game of whack-a-mole in all of history. I tried not to think of Edward biting me…but not hard enough.
I knew better than to let Edward see how much hunting with him pushed my buttons. That was the touchiest of all touchy subjects. Once, I had made the mistake of making an advance while he was still in his hunter mindset, leaning in to lick an irresistibly sexy drop of blood off his lips. He'd jerked away from me so fast he was blur even to my vampire eyes. Lesson learned.
Just now, I was doing my best to ignore how turned on I was. When we got home and showered, I would take care of myself.
"Last time we were here…" he sighed as though the memories were unpleasant.
I bristled. "You almost made love to me," I reminded him.
He was silent for a moment, and when he spoke, it was to refute me. "That's a bit of an exaggeration."
Perhaps he was right, I conceded to myself sourly. "Wishful thinking on my part, I admit it."
His head popped up and peered down at me over the tall grass between us. The sun lit his fashionably mussed bronze hair like a halo. "You said you wanted me to stop."
He was so adorable. And confused. "Yes, I did. And I did want you to stop, for the record. It was the right choice, and I don't regret it."
At the time, I had come to take his wish to wait until marriage seriously. I'd worried that he would resent it if we jumped the gun, and could say with relative confidence now that I had been right. Waiting had been important to him, and I was glad I had respected that. But in the moment, I had very much wanted to say yes, to let him ravish me. I thought about it in the weeks afterward, a lot. Just one more of poor, sex-starved human Bella's fantasies.
As I gazed up at him, the highlights of that fantasy swirled through my brain. How lovely it would have been, for Edward to have had his way with me on a bed of flowers.
His brows knit and he could tell my mind had wandered off for a moment.
I sat up.
It occurred to me that there was no harm in initiating sex with him now. Enough time had passed from the hunt that he wouldn't make the connection, right? I was paranoid that he would be able to tell, somehow, but that was crazy. He knew damn well that I didn't need an excuse to get turned on. Besides, as fantasies of mine went, sex in our meadow was as tame as it got.
"Back when I was human," I began, trying to control the tremble of nerves that ran through me, "I would sometimes wonder about what would have happened if I hadn't stopped you."
Edward released my hand and pulled away. He sat up and stared off into the trees, his manner becoming closed in a way that was all too familiar. "Like, if I would have hurt you?"
"You never would have hurt me," I said reflexively. This was our oldest conversation and we could have it on autopilot, but I didn't want to. I pulled him forward with my next words, away from his dark thoughts and toward the sex I wanted and was hoping he'd want, too. "And why on earth would I fantasize about that?"
That got him. "What do you mean by fantasize?"
My giggle was a little intense in its hopefulness. "What do you think I mean?"
I was still anxious proposing sex when unsure of his mood, even after a year and a half of marriage, a vague terror ever-present at the back of my mind that the Edward of my honeymoon would make a reappearance and reject me, laugh with contempt at my sexual neediness. Just now, he was reluctant, his mind having just gone down the dark old cul-de-sac of his days of thinking of me as food, and I…couldn't take rejection right now.
Maybe I should do something drastic, dramatic. I knew he could never resist an opportunity to hear my thoughts.
I reached out and caressed the sides of his beautiful face. "Here. Let me show you."
For a split second, I lamented that I couldn't show him my favorite meadow fantasy, spawned from the first day he brought me here to show me his skin in the sun. That fantasy was a shameful mess that culminated in him tearing the clothes from my body and fucking me brutally while his teeth grazed my skin. But there was no use feeling disappointed. There were a million good reasons that fantasy was and would always remain a secret.
Besides, this one, the one from the day he offered himself to me after we defeated Victoria, well, it was pretty damn good, too.
I concentrated, taking care to sweep my thoughts clean of any traces of my lust for him in predator-mode before I dared open up. Lowering the shield that protected my mind from him required a direct focus. Safe, I soothed myself. You're safe with Edward. Always.
That was the key—complete trust. It was harder during my moments of fear that he would say no, but I could push past that if I zeroed in on all the times he had placed himself between me and the forces of the world that would hurt me.
The shield around my mind dropped and I showed him exactly what I thought would have happened had I not stopped him that day. I showed him the two of us tearing each other's clothes off—his figuratively, mine literally—while our frantic bodies moved together. I don't know why the idea of his ripping my bra in two was so hot to me, but it was. Once we were naked, he'd lower me to the grass and make love to me in the sun.
I heard the change in Edward's breathing, the involuntary moan as I dragged out the images. His awakened lust made me bold. I took things a step further and showed him something I had always wanted him to see: me touching myself in my bed while I thought of him. I transitioned from the fantasy itself into a memory of me masturbating while I imagined it. I made sure he got all the finer details—the way the sheets had felt against my naked skin, especially my nipples; the way my hips humped wildly against my hand as my clit throbbed with pleasure; the way his name sounded in the dark room as I called for him.
Edward wrenched back and grunted so loudly, for a second I thought he had come in his pants.
Fuck, that was a thrilling idea.
I couldn't believe my own brazenness, how forward and open I had been. My hands trembled giddily. "I can't believe I did that," I blurted my feelings out loud. And, as my eyes caressed his hard cock, straining in his pants, I somehow added, "I think I picked the right one."
"The right one?" he asked.
I blinked, realizing what I had said. I tried to shrug it off like it was nothing, still riding the high of my daring. "I had more than one meadow fantasy to choose from. But I didn't think you would appreciate the one I had about the first time we came here." He looked skeptical that such a fantasy could possibly exist, so I added defiantly, "You brought me here alone, completely at your mercy, and spent the day with your chest naked. Like that wasn't going to trigger a sexual awakening in me."
He half-closed off on me again. I should have anticipated that response. "It wouldn't have gone that way," he said solemnly. "If I had gotten that close to you that day, if I had loosened my control even a little."
As if I hadn't heard this a thousand times before.
"I know." I raised my chin. "But, come on. You can imagine why this meadow always came to mind while I was thinking of us taking that step, right? For a long time, I was absolutely certain I would lose my virginity to you right here in the grass. I always thought it would be here."
My defense only made him flounder further. When his brows came together and he receded into himself, I realized that he was now doubting his call to take me to Brazil for our wedding night.
"I know what you are thinking, Edward Cullen, and don't you dare. That was the best night of my life. Don't you go regretting a second of it."
Edward looked at me, a half-smile pulling at his lips.
"It wasn't as though I had my heart set on the meadow or anything," I clarified for him. "I'm practical enough to know that a bed is better for a first time, especially given all the things we had to consider above the norm. When I tried to seduce you, it was in a bed, remember?"
He mulled that over.
I continued, "Besides, it all worked out. I wouldn't trade our honeymoon on Isle Esme for anything. Our first time was perfect."
When his face grew darker, I gave up on any last glimmer of hope that we would be having sex in the meadow today. I had lost him to brooding—if I pushed, he would push me away. My only consolation was that I hadn't outright offered, and he hadn't outright said no, so as a rejection, it didn't count. At the moment, I knew he was thinking, unkindly, of our wedding night. The best night of my life. He might even say something disparaging, and I couldn't take that.
"It was perfect," I said firmly, brooking no disagreement. Then I tried to lighten the mood with a levity I didn't feel. "And it was in a bed, in warm Brazil, so what do I know? If we'd done it here, with my luck, I probably would have gotten poison ivy and tick bites, shivering the entire time. Maybe even sprained my ankle on the hike back for good measure."
He laughed and that startled me. I hadn't expected that to work. Leaning toward me, he trailed the backs of his fingers over my cheek and kissed my nose.
My spirits lifted instantly.
"You're right," he said, and my heart swelled. "I just hate the idea of you missing out on anything you wanted."
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he wasn't closed off. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't as though I was still human. His refusals had been few and far between since I had changed, and they often had a clear and definable cause that was not me. I had to stop being so scared of his rejection, but it was like convincing myself to touch a hot stove after I'd already learned my lesson repeatedly and had the scars to prove it.
Maybe I could live out just one of my human dreams. This one was so basic, so straightforward—there was nothing to turn Edward's stomach. I didn't think Alice's advice was wise in general, but she was probably right in that I could and should be communicating more than I was.
I forced air into my lungs. "Who's to say I have to miss out? We're here now, aren't we?"
He didn't follow. "Yes, we are." I could see the confusion in his bright amber eyes. "What would you like me to do?"
I chewed my lip as I gathered my courage. I could do this. I wasn't scared. I wasn't.
Edward allowed me to position his limbs. I stood, brushed the grass from my jeans and rubbed my hands on them reflexively—I kept forgetting that I no longer sweat—then dropped into Edward's lap, straddling him. I caught Edward's eye as I removed my wedding ring and slid it into his right pocket. I wrapped my arms around his neck and allowed myself a hopeful smile.
He still didn't get it, so I prompted, "Familiar?"
And there I saw the realization dawn in his eyes. We were positioned exactly as we were the day he offered to take my virginity and then turn me.
He was shocked, but I didn't detect any revulsion, and that gave me courage, allowed my excitement to grow. "What? It might be fun."
"You mean…? Like, pretend?"
Oh… Wouldn't that be something? I was just hinting, elaborately, that we should have sex, but the idea of role-playing our former selves seized me and shot my arousal into overdrive.
I was all eagerness now. "Yes. It's two years ago. You're planning to seduce me, and this time, I'm going to let you."
"Where do we start?"
I felt faint. Yes—he was saying yes!
Lifting his hand, I balled it into a fist but extended the index finger. "You're going to put your finger against my lips and say, 'Don't worry, Bella love. I haven't forgotten my promise.' Then you are going to kiss me."
And…he did just that. His gaze was intense as he murmured the words, and his kiss was so passionate I worried I would somehow swoon. I felt…human again. I clutched at his body to keep him from pulling away to end the kiss. God oh God, this was thrilling.
He lowered me to the grass, his hips cradled in my thighs. His weight was solid and reassuring over me. I was at his mercy and in his care—the best place in the world to be. Missionary position was underrated.
Edward kissed my jaw, my earlobe, my neck and I arched into him. I almost forgot we were role-playing. Almost.
"Stop, Edward. Wait!"
He stiffened above me and groaned as though he was gathering strength. When he lifted his body, the expression on his face was one of concern.
"What's wrong?"
I closed my eyes and groaned. Was it over already? The playfulness I had been so excited for? "You're supposed to say, 'Why?'"
"I thought you said you weren't going to stop me this time."
It was insane that he thought I would be capable of refusing him anything at this point. "I'm not. I just want to get to a certain part."
He laughed and the noise made me tense.
"How am I supposed to know that? You didn't tell me how far we are taking this. You say stop, I'm going to stop."
I relaxed with relief. He was so sweet, ready to pause at the drop of a hat to check on me. His ease in rejecting me, telling me no, may hurt, but it always came from a place of love, of not wanting me to be harmed, and it was good to remind myself of that. He was dead on, of course—stop means stop. If we were going to continue this, we should lay some groundwork.
"I appreciate that. You're right." I propped myself up on my elbow. "How about this—in the future, if I want you to really stop, I'll say—" my gaze swept the meadow "—fern. I'll say fern."
His eyes widened and he stammered. "Do…we have a safe word now? Is that what just happened?"
Giggling, I dropped back into the grass. This was the fun kind of shocking Edward, the kind that turned him on. "Yes, we do. Either of us can use it."
He shuddered with lust and my pussy pulsed in anticipation.
Lowering himself back down on top of me, he said, "So…my line is 'Why?'"
I nodded. "And then I say, 'I'm not sure.'"
His confusion was back. "That isn't what you said."
"Gah!" I grumbled. "Stupid, pedantic vampire memories." He was missing the point. "It doesn't matter. I'm not stopping you this time."
"But if you say, 'I'm not sure,' then my next line doesn't make sense."
At this point my impatience and frustration were so acute, I was having trouble keeping myself from bursting out laughing. "Then skip it."
Edward stared for a moment, long enough for me to begin to feel self-conscious. "This next line of mine," he said finally, "after the one I'm skipping, it's the one you want, isn't it?"
He'd figured me out. I didn't deny it.
I reached for him, reverently touched his chest, and whispered a plea with all my vulnerability. "Say it now like you said it then. Please."
His expression became tender, but his eyes darkened. I saw real and staggering want there. "I love you. I want you. Right now."
He surged forward, insistently pressing his hard cock into me, against my clitoris through layers of clothing. It was a gesture so raw and demanding that it sent waves of electricity through me. My eyes rolled back and pleasure exploded between my legs. It wasn't until several seconds later that I realized that was an orgasm. A little one, but sharp and intense, raising the ante. It made me desperate for more.
When his lips found mine, I responded enthusiastically, stroking his tongue with mine. My body was rubbing against his like a cat in heat. "Edward, oh, Edward," I rambled. "That was perfect—yes…yes."
"What's next?"
I couldn't process his words.
"In the script," he prompted, voice ragged with desire. "What's next?"
Was he kidding? "Nothing. We're off script. Now you have your way with me."
To illustrate my point, I tore his shirt open. I didn't mean to actually rip the fabric—that was unbecoming of a human Bella, but it made my point. It was ludicrous that we weren't naked yet.
Maybe I shouldn't have set a bad precedent, though. Edward responded by whipping my blouse up over my head and off. It was the kind of thing he never would have done with human Bella for fear of hurting her. It pulled me from the moment.
"Careful! I'm human, remember?"
His brows knit in incredulity as he pointed to his torn shirt. "Human?"
Yeah, I had slipped up with my overzealousness, but I had been enjoying imagining myself as human Bella again. I was formulating a response when he halted all of my thoughts in their tracks by shedding his shirt. God, his chest…his arms.
I no longer had any opinion about what we were doing. He could do whatever he wanted as long as it involved fucking me.
His strong hand caressed my stomach and then trailed upward. His finger slid under the silk tab of fabric joining the two cups of my bra, and then he paused.
Confused, I sought his eyes and found him watching my face. We held eye-contact until it hit me that this was his exact position, not in my memory, but in my fantasy—the one I had shown him. This was exactly how he had looked before he ripped my bra apart.
My breathing sped and I trembled with anticipation. Sure enough, with a flick of his wrist, my bra was ruined and the cups fell open. My aching nipples strained toward him, but he kissed me and threw the shreds of my bra into the trees before he finally touched them. He went with the slow torture, teasing the sore tips with the pads of his thumbs, back and forth, until I was ready to scream. He dotted wet kisses over my chest and shoulders as he fondled. I was panting, my fingers clawed for purchase in the dirt.
Then his lips brushed my ear and he gave me an order. "Hump me, Bella."
My hips bucked upward, into his, automatically. His hard length provided the perfect stimulus, pressure and friction right where I needed it. While I moved, I was aware in a detached way that he was unfastening my jeans, rearranging my legs. Cruelly, he took his weight away from me, but only to finish stripping me naked. He didn't stop until I was completely exposed, spread out for him in the grass, thighs open and inviting.
The way he was looking at me filled me with warmth and need. I reached up to touch the side of his face and he kissed my palm.
"Edward, I need you inside me."
To my dismay, he shook his head. "You're a virgin, right?"
I gasped. Oh God yes, we were still playing. "Yes, I'm a virgin."
"Then you should be prepared first." His hand slipped between my legs and I whimpered. "I wouldn't want to hurt you," he said, voice dark with lust.
He was going to finger me, and that never got old. Edward's attention to detail and obsession with reading my responses meant that he was so, so good at it. He began with his thumb on my clitoris, an unpredictable clockwise to counter-clockwise pattern that made me scream every time. My eyes fell closed as I lost myself in the sensation, but opened when I felt his finger touch my bottom lip. Meeting his gaze, I realized what he wanted. I was glad I could no longer blush, but I still felt shy as I parted my lips and he slid his finger between them. I suckled and stroked it with my tongue before I released it. Immediately, he penetrated my pussy, finger lubed with my own saliva, and I cried out.
He dragged out the pleasure, damn him, as though there was no rush at all. As though I wasn't trying my damnedest to wait until he was inside me before I came. But he kept right on inserting more fingers and torturing my clit.
I gave up. I was going to come and I couldn't help it, so I surrendered, riding his hand and clawing the grass. I had been touching myself for years. It wasn't fair that he was better at it than I was. Of course, he had an advantage—his fingers were bigger than mine, and the first time he touched me with them, there between my legs, when I was still human…. I moaned, on the precipice of my climax.
"So good. Your fingers always feel so good. So much better than mine did."
"Yeah?"
If I wasn't half-mad with pleasure, I never would have responded with, "Mine were too warm, too soft. Your fingers feel like your cock."
But thinking of his cold fingers was too much. It pushed me over the line. I came, crying out his name and shivering with waves and waves of bliss. I was still floating when I became aware that he was lowering himself over me now, fully naked. The tip of his cock teased my entrance as he began to press forward slowly. He was always considerate of his bulk, but I preferred it when he entered quickly and there was a sharp sting to accompany the ecstasy, so I rolled my hips and took him into me all at once.
I moaned at the intensity and enjoyed the feeling of Edward's body stiffening against mine, his pained puff of breath. I knew what that meant. He'd almost come, only just keeping himself from the brink, and I reveled in my power. His face was tight with pleasure when he opened his eyes.
We held eye-contact as he began thrusting into me, building a rhythm. My hands clenched his biceps. He filled me completely, so deep that it was as though I could feel him in all of me. The pleasure was stoking right where my last orgasm left off, luring me higher and higher. I don't know if it was that we were finally making love in our meadow, or if it was that I was playing human Bella at the moment, but the sensations, the thrills were so acute. I was spiraling toward a peak so quickly it took my breath away.
"Love you, Edward. I love you," I babbled. My fingernails dug into his skin, my legs constricted around his hips, and the dam inside me broke. I screamed and he came with me, body shaking over mine.
In the hazy aftermath, I could only marvel. Wow, just…wow.
Eventually, I felt Edward press a kiss to my brow. "Bella?"
"Hmm?"
"Are you still human?"
I sighed happily. "No, not anymore."
He laughed. After a moment, he added, "That was fun."
My eyes flitted open. I studied his face, cautious. "Fun?"
"Hot," he admitted.
I grinned with relief. "Well, maybe we can do it again sometime."
"Yeah," he said in a way I would have interpreted as non-committal except…he was still inside me.
My eyes widened as I felt his cock twitch and harden at his next words.
"I mean, you probably have more fantasies I could make come true, right?"
Author's Note: The solipsistic poem that I quoted part of at the beginning of this chapter is "Mad Girl's Love Song" by Sylvia Plath, patron saint of girlhood pain.
All of the dialogue from the "Something Like Despair" portion of this chapter is lifted from chapters 6, 10, 15 of Breaking Dawn. I didn't transcribe it or the direct text around it exactly (i.e. if you go back and read the sections, you will see that some of the dialogue and the way it is described as being said, the emotions and expressions, is a little different). I did this to denote the fact that these are human memories for Bella and therefore imperfect, but that she remembers how they made her feel. The gist remains intact, and man, did Stephenie give Edward some shithead lines in the first half of Breaking Dawn.
As with the corresponding chapter in Ferns, the part in the meadow included a few lines from Eclipse.
I want to express appreciation for the warm reception you gave to the beginning of this story and the end of Ferns. Thank you all for being so awesome :)