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Chapter 8: Pleasure Torture

[cut from a literary magazine and glued to the journal page]

Persephone and Hades

Ravishing, he rose at her from the gaping earth
like nothing she had ever beheld
blooming there before, his bleak shadow
strangling the insipid flowers,
bleaching the easy green from the grass,
relieving her of birdsong and bouquets,
the rows of oats growing silver in the sun—
so she let him take her in his shrouding arms,
the stricken garlands slipping from her lap
and a peacock beginning to wail
close above the sealing earth.

Then the hush
as if all trilling nature had loosed
its rush of sound from around her
and she found herself begin
to weep, turning her eyes
from his untried kindnesses,
making him believe she grieved
for the temperate pleasures he had undone,
the ceaseless budding
and flowering, the ripeness
cloying at desire.

When at last he thought to offer
the split pomegranate, the clotted seeds
slick as beaded blood
in the sweating wound she had made of him,
she brought his chilly hand to her lips
and sucked the musky fruit
enough to hold him those measured months
where he waited to possess once more
what had been lost to him—
the grainy fragrance of the living world,
the flush loveliness of summer
fading in his famished embrace.

- Carol Tufts (1994)

—

His Monster

Back home, we each showered. Separately. Edward was telegraphing with his stiff movements and lack of eye-contact that he still did not wish to be touched, so I didn't suggest that we share, even though I was acutely aware that my body was vibrating with a low hum of arousal I hadn't felt in oh, so long. After I toweled off and dressed, I sought him out to check that he was okay.

Rounding the corner leading out of the hall, I peered into the parlor. Edward was sitting on his end of our loveseat with all the lights off. The room was only illuminated by the gray cast of the rainy sky through the windows. His head was in his hands.

"Hey," I ventured.

He looked up and his eyes lingered on me before he spoke. "Hey."

It occurred to me that I had reached for one of his sweatshirts again without thinking. I wondered if it bothered him that I was wearing so many of his clothes, but just now it didn't seem so. His gaze seemed longing, like he wanted me to stay, so I could do nothing but go to his side.

Joining him on the loveseat, I tucked my socked feet up under as I sat facing him. "Feeling any better?"

Edward shook his head. He looked sick to his stomach. "Not really." Dropping his head back into his hands, he muttered, "Bella, I don't know what to say."

God, he looked miserable. My heart twisted. I wanted to comfort him, to ease his pain, and I needed him to know how…important that moment in the forest had been to me.

Gently, I reached out to stroke his damp hair. I half expected him to flinch, but he did not. "Edward, I understand that what we are dealing with has been really hard. But in this case, I want you to know that I absolutely do not need an apology. In fact, please don't say you are sorry for any of it."

He met my eyes.

My breath shook as I tried to explain. "This last week," I paused, unsure, "has been really hard for me. Because I started to figure it out—I had a theory, at least—about what was going on with my body. Why I couldn't seem to want sex at all."

I decided then that I wouldn't hide my dismay over my interest in sex disappearing, but I didn't want to drag him through the play-by-play details of my theory of my vampire body having been irrevocably altered in a way that would kill my sex drive for all time. That would trouble him unnecessarily, and, thank God, it was a theory that had been destroyed beyond any doubt by his horny words and hot, hungry kisses.

Instead, I focused on something else I had learned while searching for the cause of my psychological frigidity. As I understood it, this was the underlying cause driving my lack of appetite, even if the effects had been less permanent than I had dreaded. The theory had taken shape nebulously over the past month. The language to articulate it had eluded me, but my mind was sharply clear at the moment. It may have been the lightning on the mountain, or the naked agony of Edward's lustful confession, or even the hot shower—who knew? But, for the first time in what felt like so long, I had the words.

"Do you remember me telling you how the thought of you losing control and taking me hard was so hot only because I knew I would be safe?"

"Yes," he said warily.

"Well," I launched into it, "I think that actually, it was all like that. Everything we did. That I wanted you so much because of how safe you've always made me feel. Even when I felt shy about getting naked for you, or asking you to make love to me, kiss me here, touch me there, confessing to you all those silly and perverted things I fantasized about…I was able to get past that shyness because nothing bad could happen to me." I grinned feebly and tried to keep my tone gentle, because I knew all of this would upset him. "I was with you. You always handled my body and my feelings like they were the most precious things in the world. So, I could be myself, I could be vulnerable. I could jump, because you would catch me. And my body felt free in that environment of security and trust you created to just…want you. All the time, and so badly."

His expression rippled with shock, with emotion, and I had to drop my gaze.

I pushed forward because I knew I couldn't stop with the bleak. I needed to get to the parting clouds at the end—to the hopeful conclusion I had reached.

"After our fight, I think…I wasn't feeling as safe. I was questioning all kinds of things about our relationship, especially how much you really wanted me. Sexually. Obviously, I didn't question your love—what other reason could you have for putting up with me pawing at you all the time? I knew you must want me at least sometimes, but looking back over our sex life, it was disconcerting—because I couldn't tell when for sure. You always seemed to want to when we…. I could think of a few instances where you seemed reluctant or begrudging at first, but," I shrugged, "I realized I legitimately couldn't tell if you changed your mind because I seduced you, or if you were just going through the motions out of obligation to me. Or if there were even times you rolled up your sleeves and put on a smile from the beginning without tipping me off at all, like taking me to bed was the vacuuming or grocery shopping or any other chore to keep our household running. Trying to sort through when sex was real and when it was just you acting out of duty…it freaked me out."

I watched Edward's face as I made my confession, the way the muscles in his jaw tightened and his eyelids fell closed. I hated that the truth was so painful. But we had a whole month of mutual misery behind us that told me the fallout of keeping secrets was worse. So, I stayed the course of honesty.

"You explained and apologized, and that helped. I believed you—at least, I believed that you were sorry," I acknowledged our talk in the bedroom, the night I realized I was dead inside. "But even with you on top of me and rock hard and tearing my clothes off, there was this little whisper of fear, this horrible little voice. What if you were only doing what you thought I wanted? You could make yourself hard for me at will—I've seen you do it—and if I was hurting and you wanted to comfort me, I know you'd do anything, anything, to take my pain away. Even pity sex. And once the thought popped into my head, I couldn't make it go away. I was so scared. I've never felt that way before—not with you."

Edward moved so quickly, I had barely registered he was reaching for me until I was tucked safe in his lap with his strong arms around me. The gesture warmed me, made the world around us fall away.

I could sense he was about to speak. Placing a few of my fingers over his soft lips, I whispered a plea, "I need to get this out, Edward. Please."

He nodded, and I continued.

"The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that my theory was right, that a key component of my sex drive was how safe I felt."

I didn't add that a key clue had been that I could no longer lower my mind's shield. I thought that might be twisting the knife. Besides, now that the source of all of this was clearer, I would overcome the block. I would. Edward deserved to hear my mental voice again and I would do everything in my power to get us there.

"I knew I was going to have to tell you eventually, and I dreaded that. Because, however much you used to get frustrated at me insisting I felt perfectly safe with you, I knew that if I ever actually felt anything less, you would be devastated." His arms around me tightened. He wasn't breathing. I pressed forward. "I didn't know how we could fix it. If we even could. What if our relationship was just permanently different now?" Alluding to the fears that I had fundamentally changed inside made me shiver. "But that's why I don't want you to take back what you did in the forest earlier. Because I'm not worried so much anymore."

I sought one of Edward's hands and lifted it to my lips. We had arrived at the hopeful ending of the story. "I have never seen you like that—that wild, desperate look in your eyes. Your hands were so rough—you've never pinched my nipples that hard before. And the sexual things you said?" I tried to infuse my voice with all the gravity and sincerity I felt. I did know how I could ever truly express my gratitude for the things he had said in his outburst. "They meant the world to me, because they were clearly true, and it was the most detail you have ever given me out loud about what you like in bed." I nestled deeper into his embrace, into his scent. My skin felt alive. "You saying those things to me in that growly voice? It was…so hot, for a second I thought I was having an out of body experience. It made me so horny."

"It did?" He sounded shocked.

I nodded against his chest, fully aware of everywhere our bodies were touching. "There I was, terrified my sex drive was dead forever, and you brought me back to life. I…have never felt so wanted, so desired by you. Sure, you told me you were missing sex, too. And intellectually, I knew my fears that you didn't want me were ridiculous—obviously you did. But it wasn't until you were babbling all those dirty things at me that I fully believed it." I spoke with all the wonder I felt. "You really do lust after me, Edward, don't you?"

"Yes," he said, roughly. "Like crazy."

It was the loveliest sound in the world. A thrill of bliss flitted through my nerve endings. "Good. Then, maybe we'll be okay."

"So…." He paused, then ventured, "Your sex drive…it's back?"

Well, it was back at the moment, but I doubted it would be that simple, like a switch we could flip on and off, and I laughed somewhat bitterly. "No, I don't think so. At least, not completely." I lifted my head from the cradle of his neck and looked into his eyes. "I think that will take a little time. I don't know how to make that little whisper of fear go away. But I know now that my body can still feel desire, that I can still feel safe and wanted enough with you that I will want sex again, and it's…such a relief."

Edward gazed at me with worry and tenderness. I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his cheekbone to comfort him. "We're going to be okay, Edward. That's what I realized. Even if it takes a while to build that sense of trust and safety back up again. I know we can do it." I stroked the side of his face.

He gave me a wan smile.

"Remember where you found me today?" I tried to fill my voice with my new confidence, the sense of sureness his words and kisses had given me up on that mountain today. "I've been going to that spot because things were starting to feel hopeless, honestly. I ran into Sam a few weeks ago while I was hunting and he pointed it out—I hadn't remembered where it was. I was too out of it at the time. I didn't mean for it to become a place for me to hide out, but it sort of did. But I'm glad, because it reminded me that what we're going through right now isn't so bad."

His voice took on a pessimistic hardness. "It isn't, is it?"

"You left me, Edward," I reminded him, brooking no dilution of the past. The despair of this last month had reached such a scale that the only point of analogous reference I had was his abandonment. For me, they were directly comparable; our estrangement had opened up the exact same wound and deepened the scar. But I still had a sense of perspective—one event had clearly been more painful and traumatic than the other. "On a scale of one to ripping my heart out and throwing it in the garbage, which do you think hurt more: you telling me you never really loved me and walking out of my life, or you saying that sex with me is sometimes a chore because I'm too needy? Which do you think made me feel less safe emotionally? But we came back from that. Somehow we did. And if we can come back from that, we can come back from this."

Edward blinked, and of course, he seized on exactly the detail I least wanted to linger upon. "Wait. Bella, you don't still worry that I'll leave, do you?"

For just a moment, I thought of the night he left me to go for a run, when I had collapsed and curled up in a ball on our closet carpet. But then I snapped myself back to reality and the matter at hand.

"Every once in a while," I confessed. But then I recited to him all the little words of comfort I used to soothe myself when that thought reared its head, "but hardly ever compared to the way I worried at first, and now I am able to quash those fears pretty easily when they do creep up. I mean, you turned me, you made me your wife. We have a daughter. It's hard to picture you leaving me for any reason now, even if you thought it was for the best." I gripped his hand tightly as I spoke. "And that's my point. We came through that, so we can handle this. We can improve our communication. I can…" my stomach drooped sharply as shame over sexual appetite returned in a flood, "…scale back."

"Bella," he murmured softly.

I didn't want to look at him, but he waited until I did.

Eyes serious, Edward enclosed my hand in his and brushed his lips against mine. "It was all real," he declared. "All the sex we've ever had was real. Every single time was an act of love, an act of pleasure."

I shivered at his intense sincerity.

"Maybe I didn't always appreciate that properly," he continued. "Maybe sometimes I did think of sex as something I was doing to make you happy. But I've had a lot of time to reflect over the last month, to truly come to terms with my own sexual needs and how empty my life is without you with me in that bed. I was kidding myself if I ever thought that sex was more important to you than it is to me, and it was cruel of me to ever let you worry about that. This last month, I would have given my right arm for even the most routine quickie with you. I was crawling out of my skin with how badly I needed your touch." He kissed my knuckles, and then he made me a whispered oath, "It was all real, and I will never take your desire for me for granted again."

The electricity from the mountain cracked through me again. Desire hummed and swelled low in my belly. His expression was so intense, so fevered. Like he wanted me so badly he was on the edge of madness.

My cunt throbbed eagerly and, with a moan, I fell into him, "Oh…Edward. You did it again." It felt so good to want him like this again.

"I wasn't trying to turn you on." He was somehow surprised by my response.

I laughed, unable to contain my giddiness. My body felt so alive! "I know. I know you're just trying to assure me that sex isn't a chore for you. It's working—you're very convincing. Especially when you keep looking at me with those hot eyes."

His brows knit, as though he had no idea he'd been so transparent.

"Seriously, Edward, some night soon, I am going to drag you to bed and have you say everything you said to me in the forest again. I might have to add your dirty talk to my fantasies, because Jesus, you're good at it." I was worked up now, just thinking about it. "When you started telling me everything you missed, and then everything you were about to do to me." I shivered at the heaven of it all, knowing my underwear was soaked through.

But then it hit me where I had led us. Right to the precipice, to the taboo. I think we both knew there was no way forward after Port Angeles except through this tangle of a sore topic. If I wanted Edward back—and I did!—then it could not be ignored. The two of us needed to reach an understanding, even if the only resolution to be had was to rope the area off as a permanent boundary.

I spoke seriously, honestly, conscious of how tense Edward's arms had become around me. "And when you put your mouth on my neck, and I felt your teeth…. That may have been the single hottest moment of my entire life. When you pressed down, just short of breaking my skin…for a second, I thought I was having an orgasm."

His jaw took on that grim, strained cast that had become so familiar lately. If he were human, I would say he was about to be sick.

"That look on your face right now?" I whispered. "It's the reason I stopped you. I knew we hadn't sorted through your baggage yet, and I wouldn't be able to bear it if you did something like that with me and wound up regretting it." With a sigh, I pulled him close and kissed his brow. "Though, for what it's worth, judging from the way we each reacted, I don't think actual biting is needed from the kink perspective. Pretty sure you could just press your teeth into my skin and we would both get off just fine."

He could try to deny it, but I remembered the ravenous need in his hoarse voice, how tight his grip on me got when his teeth touched my throat. I remembered the way his cock had swelled and shivered and pulsed against my ass.

"Look, Edward," I tried to steer us in a productive direction. "I think we should make a distinction here. On the one hand, we have mating bites and the ritual of commitment they represent, and on the other we have a strong sexual response to the idea of you biting my neck. I think, despite their overlap, they should probably be two different conversations." I paused. "Do you agree?"

It was a moment before he nodded.

I felt a weight lift from me in relief. We were still talking—it felt like progress.

He spoke carefully. "Bella, whatever physiological response I have to the idea of biting you neck, it doesn't change the way it makes me feel. Psychologically."

I nodded along, expecting this. "You feel repulsed. Not so much by the act, but by yourself." I gently ran my fingers through his hair with a repetition I hoped was comforting. "I saw that very clearly today."

Edward let loose a breath he had been holding. "Not only that, I worry about indulging…that part of myself. That it could be dangerous down the line to feed him."

Up until that last word, I was following him. Despite how it had sometimes felt over the past month, I did know my husband. I knew him well and none of this surprised me. But…. "Him?"

He nodded and explained automatically. "My monster. The part of me…the part of me that is the vampire, I guess. Sometimes it's easier to separate it out and think of him as someone I am fighting against to keep the humans around me safe. Especially you, before you changed. I know he and I aren't really separate, but sometimes it's easier to live with myself if I pretend."

He stopped when my lips parted in a kind of horror.

"I didn't mean it quite like that." He said it quickly. Too quickly.

"Yes, you did."

I didn't think that after everything we had been through, my heart was capable of breaking anymore than it already had. Edward's words of self-hatred proved me wrong. Caressing the planes of his sad-eyed face, I swept soft kisses across his skin, dotting his nose, eyelids, cheeks, chin, and brows. These were kisses of comfort. Kisses one might place on a wound.

"Bella, it's okay," he mumbled, seemingly taken aback. As though he hadn't anticipated my reaction, or perhaps even thought that he didn't deserve it.

Immediately, I became defensive of him. "I'm allowed to be sad that the best person I know hates himself and thinks he's not good enough. Edward," I said forcefully, holding eye-contact, "I love all of you. All of you, do you hear me? Even your monster."

I heard an intake of breath and saw the flash of awe in his eyes, before it all became subsumed by bitterness.

"And you're attracted to him, too." He said it as an accusation.

Though I was thrown, I was also now impressed with the importance of not backing down here. I hadn't realized quite how deep this self-loathing went, how fractured Edward saw himself. He needed my unwavering and all-encompassing acceptance and love.

I spoke clearly and calmly. "I don't make that distinction. You're you. But if you're asking am I now and was I then, when I was a human, sexually attracted to you as a vampire, and all that entails? The answer is yes."

Edward stared at me for a beat. Then, he nodded solemnly and lifted me from his lap, setting me on the cushion beside him.

"You can't be surprised by that?"

"No, I'm not surprised. I knew. I've known for a long time." He rose and walked to the windows, shoulders slumped. "But that doesn't mean I understand, or that the thought doesn't make me uncomfortable."

Well, I supposed if a frank discussion was what I was aiming for, it was good that he was at least returning my honesty.

Had he forgotten our history? I would be dead many times over without the protection and careful handling of the most vampiric aspects of his nature. How could I not love that side of Edward after it had rescued me in my darkest hour, over and over again?

"The first time I realized you were more than you seemed, it was because you saved my life. Would a human boy have realized what was happening in time? Been fast enough to get between me and that van? Strong enough to lift it away from me?"

He looked back at me.

"Would a human boyfriend have been able to find me in time to stop those men in Port Angeles?" I challenged rationally. "Would he have been able to intimidate them into running away? Or hunt and kill the tracker that took a liking to me? Rip its mate's head off to defend my life? Because I am pretty sure that all that stuff could only be done by a vampire boyfriend."

His eyes closed and the muscles of his face clenched in a wince, as though my words were unpleasant. "Bella…."

But I was feeling defiant now. "Yeah, that guy? He's hot. Sometimes he snarls, literally, and it always makes my panties just a little wet. He can be scary, but so can the world we have to live in, and I have only ever been scared for him, never of him. He's decent and strong. My life is better because he's in it, and I feel safer looking toward the future because he's beside me."

Some part of that must have ruffled him, because he whirled on me and accused, "And you want him to bite your neck. Take you hard, make you sore on purpose. Pinch your nipples until they hurt. Pin your wrists, pull your hair."

He had been paying attention, hadn't he? He spat the words like they were a dirty secret, but I was too tired to hide or to be ashamed. So I simply admitted, "Yes."

Edward shook his head in disgust, and it hurt, but I was also growing used to it. The insight I had on the mountain was helping me contextualize his reactions—how much of this was revulsion at my kinks? And how much was directed inward at his own?

He moved further away from me, to the other side of the room, and sat on the piano bench facing me.

Taking a deep breath, I sat forward. "I'm not going to keep my desires a secret from you anymore, but want doesn't mean expect," I said. "I'm done pushing your boundaries, and you should give yourself a break, too. It's obvious that we need to back off here. You're hurting. I know this goes against everything you are, but Edward, just because I want something doesn't mean you have to give it to me."

Edward nodded, but I could see he had checked out of the conversation. That didn't surprise me. It was par for the course that trying to convince Edward not to spoil me would lead to nothing but a brick wall.

"Let's leave this for now," he said with a sigh. "Renesmee is home."

—

Origin From Emotion

Indeed, our daughter had returned from an adventurous day out with Charlie and Sue. Edward and I tabled our conversation, and I wasn't terribly surprised when he didn't join me in the kitchen to greet my father and his girlfriend.

I was when he began playing the piano, though. At the ringing of the first notes, my spine stiffened and I stumbled over my words. Edward hadn't touched the piano in weeks.

I recognized the opening notes to my lullaby, which, to my knowledge, Edward hadn't played since I was turned, as Sue described the whales they had seen while on the ferry. The muscles in my neck felt tight as I nodded and smiled along, reminding myself that I couldn't just rush to his side—that would be rude. And I didn't know how I felt when the tune changed and changed again. Edward was cycling through the opening of piece after piece, then he transitioned into playing chords I didn't recognize that were messy, dark, and repetitive.

Charlie was annoyed, whether by the piano playing or Edward's uncharacteristic lapse in manners I couldn't tell, but he didn't say anything. Sue chatted on politely as though she didn't notice, and I did my best to remain present even though I wanted nothing more than for them to leave so that I could return to my husband. I was grateful when Renesmee went to check on him instead, pulled no doubt by the same magnetism I felt. She put a stop to the emotional chaos, and in moments the two of them began playing side by side on the same bench.

"They play together?" Sue said with a smile, peeking around the corner and into the parlor. "How sweet."

Charlie coughed like he wasn't impressed, but I could tell he was.

After goodbyes, I entered the parlor and Edward's grin was a balm. Nessie began a second piece when the first ended, and I sat to watch the performance.

Trying not to feel unnerved by Edward's lack of eye contact with me, I busied myself making dinner for my daughter. At Renesmee's insistence, we watched a movie as a family afterward on the big sofa, and a thrill went through me when Edward put his arm around my shoulders. I tried not not to assign too much significance to the gesture, but in the wake of our estrangement, my skin was starved for his touch.

The heat that he had reignited within me was thrumming through my body. Unable to focus on the movie, my thoughts swirled with visions of Edward carrying me off to bed. For the first time in weeks, it felt…possible. After all, my lust was back from the dead, and hadn't he made it abundantly clear that he was crazed with hunger for me?

I am going out of my mind from how badly I want you, he'd said in that raspy dark growl. I need sex, Bella. I need it with you, all the time. I go to pieces without it.

I bit my lip and shifted in my seat. Edward's thigh was pressed against mine and his intoxicating scent surrounded me. His jawline caught the light of the television, looking so tantalizingly lickable.

I could keep you in our bed for a week straight and still not be satisfied.

My pussy flooded and ached. God, how I wanted to satisfy him.

We still had lots to talk about, of course, but surely make up sex would take priority. Surely we wouldn't—couldn't go another night without each other.

Imagine the letdown when Edward turned to me while we were shepherding Renesmee through her bedtime routine and said, "After she goes down, I'd like to head up to the big house."

My heart dropped, and for just a fraction of a second, I thought of the night he left me to go for a run. "Oh. Okay."

If he noticed the wind had been knocked out of me, there was no indication. "I think I may have a song," he said. "I haven't written one in a while, and I want to see if there's something there. But I don't want to keep Nessie up all night by playing the piano."

Oh. Suddenly his repetitive circles of chords and notes made some sense. On the one hand, I couldn't help my disappointment, and an insecure, evil little voice in my head whispered, Leave him alone. He doesn't want you, you needy slut. On the other, more sane hand, Edward feeling creative and wanting to do something that normally fulfilled him and made him happy was a good thing, right? Especially after his month of melancholy?

So, I said, "Oh, that's exciting. Of course, go compose. I'll hold down the fort here."

He left as soon as Renesmee fell asleep, and I waved goodbye as though my insides weren't churning in the ugliest of ways.

He wasn't ready, I realized. In spite of everything he'd said to me in the rain, he wasn't ready, and I shouldn't push him. I resolved to give him space and let him come to me. In the meantime, I would rein myself back in—the way I had before our marriage. I would take care of myself and not burden him.

As I crawled into our bed, the mean voice was back, hissing horrible things in my ear. It was incredible to me, the dramatic swing in my emotions, my confidence. Edward's rough groping and lustful ramblings had emboldened me, made me feel secure and desired, but it had only taken Edward choosing to spend the night apart to make the floor fall out from under me.

I tried, I did, but I couldn't come. My skin and muscles were tight with tension. Restless energy was zinging through me. Physically, I was wound up in a way I couldn't remember ever being before. My clitoris was swollen and sore from lack of release but no matter what I tried, I couldn't get myself over the threshold to any sort of an orgasm. Perhaps that was because, emotionally, I felt sluggish and low. I was sad. I was lonely. And I felt like a dirty, undesirable pervert. Maybe I didn't deserve to come.

The night dragged and I paced—just to move, to have something to direct my bodily energy toward. The last thing I needed was to obsess about Edward or to read too much into his actions, so I tried to keep myself busy. I tidied the house, but it was mostly clean already and there wasn't much to do. One disorganized space was my desk, so I spent extra time there.

It was scattered with half-filled bound notebooks, each labeled for different parts of my life. There was a time I had prided myself on being able to block out and forget memories I didn't like; now I was desperate to keep them all. I had spent a lot of time lately writing down every bit of my human life that I could remember. There were notebooks for my childhood, my memories of friends and family, and exhaustive accounts of my time in Forks. The overall project of memory preservation was one of the few things Edward and I had been able to talk about over the past month, so the diaries were all out and full of fresh entries. There was even one dedicated book where I had transcribed verbatim the conversations we'd had about all the memories we could remember taking place in my old bedroom.

I fingered the spine of that particular journal and pulled it toward me. Sinking into the chair, I opened it and idly flipped through its contents. I wasn't looking for anything in particular at first, but as I gazed at page after page indented with pen marks, one stood out. Stopping on the night when Edward had brought me home from Italy and held me while I slept, my finger traced a paragraph that called to me.

"You held onto me just as tightly as you had on the plane ride—your warm, fragile arms tight around my abdomen. I could feel your heartbeat, steady and strong, against my stomach. Your hair was tangled, but I combed it through with my fingers slowly and gently over the span of hours. I didn't want you to wake—I wanted the moment to continue forever. You were alive and safe and in my arms, and after the miserable hell I had put us both through, it was more than I had ever hoped to experience again. I was certain that when you woke, you would ask me to leave, that you would never take me back."

Though in my handwriting, they were his words, and they were comforting. They were a reminder that I wasn't the only one who got feeling insecure about our relationship. I wasn't the only one who had messed up badly and hurt us both.

I pressed my hand to my chest over my still heart. I breathed in, and out. Some of my frantic angst evaporated and I felt marginally lighter. I had been right earlier—when I reassured Edward. We had gotten through that, so surely we would get through this, and we would both be better off if I could keep that in mind.

Edward was struggling, spiraling even. He needed me right now, to be strong, to be his safe haven. So I couldn't let my insecurities get to me. Even if all my worst fears came to fruition and Edward came out of all of this wanting or loving me less, I could never forgive myself if I became too wrapped up in my own emotions to be there for him.

Still, it would be nice if I had someone I could talk to. I did have friends, good friends—great friends even! But all of this was too private. The only person I could fathom talking to about everything I was thinking and feeling was Edward, but he was overwhelmed as it was.

I closed the journal. "Bella's Bedroom" the cover had been labeled.

It occurred to me that some of the memories therein had been edited and censored by me, or even left out altogether. My rationale had been that some thoughts or details were too intimate. I'd felt mortified by the idea that some stranger or family member years from now would pick up these journals and read them. I had even cringed over the thought of Edward seeing them, though he hadn't touched any of the notebooks except with my express permission.

Just now, that felt slightly silly. Edward respected my privacy, and I was risking losing precious memories that were getting blurrier and murkier every day. Besides, I was in desperate need of a confidante. If no one was available, maybe writing out my thoughts would help. Once I wrote everything down, it would be committed to my memory, and if I was really so worried about someone stumbling upon the journal, I could just throw it in a fire.

With a new sense of resolution, I reached into my desk drawer and pulled out a fresh journal, thick and hardbound, with a leather cover engraved with vines. This journal—the one I am writing in now. I chose it because it had the most pages, somehow knowing on a gut level that I had more to say than a regular bound notebook could hold. I found a pen under some piled papers, opened the journal to the first page, and began to write. Vent, really. About sex, about my body and its cursed insatiable appetites, and about how Edward's responses alternately confounded and wounded me.

It started in broad terms of how I had felt as a human girl hit with her sexual awakening during our courtship, but before I knew it, I was describing experiences moment to moment. Specific conversations (as far as I remembered them, anyway). My first experience with a sex toy. And…my wedding night.

My beloved wedding night….

—

Ars Longa

I wrote pages and pages, until I was too emotionally exhausted to continue. Getting it all out and on the page made me feel calmer, more emotionally even-keeled. It was a relief.

The clock read 5:18 when I set my pen down and closed the journal. I ignored the twinge I felt that Edward still wasn't home.

Space, I reminded myself. I would give him whatever space he needed.

With grim determination, I wandered back to our parlor and found my book. Curling up on the loveseat, I held it open in front of me, but my eyes wouldn't focus on the words. Instead, my gaze wandered to the window behind the gauzy white curtains. A stillness came over me as I watched the sky lighten and listened to the birds wake.

In the gray morning light, I heard Edward's footsteps approach our back kitchen door.

Heart in my throat, I waited, not moving. If he wanted to see me, I would be here. If he didn't want to…then I wouldn't push.

But my nerves were for nothing. He came directly to my side. I shifted to sit up and make room for him beside me, but he collapsed to sit on the floor in front of the loveseat, heavy with emotion. I was unable to speak as his eyes drank me in with unsettling intensity. He was back to looking at me like he was dying of pining for me. My chest fluttered so violently, for a moment, I thought my heart was beating.

I blinked, wide-eyed and I opened my mouth to greet him. But he kissed me.

It was a sweet, passionate kiss. Slow. It warmed the whole room.

My fingers sank into his hair as I kissed him back. I tried to pay attention to his lead and defer to it. As far as I could tell, the kiss was emotionally hungry rather than outright lustful. I responded in kind. We kissed and kissed as the minutes dragged on. He raised up on his knees beside the loveseat, but didn't otherwise move hardly at all. The only place his hands caressed me was my face. But his lips were relentless.

I had not anticipated that the kissing would continue the way it did. We had not done this since I was human. At least, not on this scale. Sometimes we would make out for fifteen or twenty minutes, but we were passing the hour mark here, and that hadn't happened since I had turned.

His lips moved over mine as if he was savoring every second of the experience. I felt…loved, and cherished. And God, so hot. I was feeling no corresponding urgency in him, so I held myself in restraint. I didn't moan. I didn't squirm, though my pussy was pulsing so badly it ached. I was paranoid that if Edward saw my hips bucking he would feel obligated to take things further, so I locked them down. I kept the tremble out of my hands.

Instead, I tried to bring myself down to match him. I was at a boil; he was at a simmer. I needed to just enjoy what he was offering.

When he finally broke away, it took me several moments to realize it was because our daughter had woken. My lips felt bereft despite how Edward had spoiled them.

I wasn't sure what to expect after Rosalie came to pick up Renesmee for her schooling. Would Edward want to continue kissing me? Or did he need more time alone? He surprised me by taking my hand and leading me to the piano in our parlor, but I should have been anticipating that. Naturally, he was going to want to share with me what he had written. I settled beside him and sat patiently while he began to play.

It was a brooding piece, but I expected nothing less. I hadn't foreseen that he would incorporate parts of my lullaby, though perhaps I should have given the way I'd heard him messing around with it the night before. Did this mean the song was for me? About me?

If so, I was unsure what to make of how dark and hopeless it all sounded. The piece was lovely, but so was everything else Edward wrote. Was he trying to tell me something?

I screwed up my courage when he finished playing and asked, "What's it called?"

"Persephone and Hades," he said solemnly.

For a beat, I was shocked. Is that how he saw our love story? As a kidnapping? A defilement? Head resting on his shoulder, I joked with mirth I did not feel, "So, you'd be Hades, then?"

Edward didn't like that. He said forcefully, "It's not a joke. You wanted it and I wanted it, but I did what I did, and it's permanent."

I didn't respond to his charges against himself directly. I agreed it was no laughing matter, but passionately disagreed with the way he was casting his actions, vilifying himself. He had done nothing but what I had expressly asked. "I like your underworld," I said stubbornly.

"I know." He said it like the thought made him sick, and I bit my lip to keep silent. Our peace was so fragile and I was terrified of ruining it.

Silence stretched between us.

"Bella? Can I ask you a question?"

Full of misgiving, I lifted my head from his shoulder and met his eyes. "Of course."

He looked away. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft. "Didn't you ever wish…that I could be human, at all?"

My breath caught. Edward looked vulnerable, fragile even. His eyes darted to my face and away again.

I confess I briefly considered lying, but only for the smallest of seconds. Instead, I kept to my commitment of honesty. "No," I admitted. "I have always loved you as you are."

I hoped that the idea that I had accepted him completely would be reassuring, but it didn't seem so. Instead, his expression grew pleading. "But wouldn't things have been so much simpler, so much better, if I had been human?"

My fingers closed over his and I sighed wearily. "Perhaps," I conceded. "But I don't think that way—too practical maybe, to wish like that. You came to me as a vampire, so that was how I took you. The fact that I got to have you at all seemed like more than I had dared hope for myself. What would have been the point of what ifs, especially such impossible ones?"

Edward nodded with resignation—maybe even sadness. "And you like the vampire in me? You want him? Even…love him?"

"You," I corrected him, disturbed by his insistence in framing it that way, as though I was being somehow unfaithful by loving him fully. "And yes, to all of the above." I didn't know how to impress upon him just how total my love and acceptance was, but felt that I had to try. "Edward, whatever is in here," I placed my hand over his heart, "I take and love as is."

He did not look comforted. "All right," he said. "It's yours."

I blinked.

His eyes became fevered as he elaborated in a rush. "All of me, whatever that entails. I won't try to protect you from the worst of me if you don't want me to." He pulled my hand from his chest. "But Bella, I'm not sure what all is in there. I only just came to terms with my…sexual…." He stopped, groaning in frustration, then burst out in a rush, "I know you don't like me wording it like this, but it's the only way I know how to explain. My monster—he's my thirst, but I think he might also be my sexuality. And maybe that's okay with you. Maybe…he'll want to be rough with you and hurt you all the time and you'll like that."

I flinched, feeling ashamed.

His next words reoriented my emotions, however. They reminded me that this wasn't about me. He was suffering and he needed me.

"I know he wants to bite you," Edward continued, expression pained, "but I don't know what else he wants. I have been repressing him for so long, I have no idea. I'm just warning you, because maybe you'll like it, but…maybe the things I'll want will be too much for you. Maybe they'll be dark and ugly and sick. Things that will make you feel bad about yourself. And if that's the case, push me away, tell me no. If he's too much, Bella, I'll repress him again, I swear."

It disturbed me how he talked about aspects of himself as though they were a separate person. A stranger. Somewhere along the line, his self-image had fractured in two. No sooner did the thought cross my mind that I couldn't relate to what he was describing than I realized that, actually, I could. Had I not done the same? Had I not begun to separate myself into vampire Bella and human Bella? Did that feeling not cause me serious emotional distress? Did I not feel severely alienated from myself?

Is that how Edward had been feeling all along?

My heart went out to him. I climbed into his lap and enfolded him in my arms. "You've been worried about this for a while," I realized. How tragic, especially when it was so evident to me that his fears were unfounded. My gentle, considerate, romantic husband, a sexual sadist? The idea was absurd. "Edward, I can tell you with reasonable confidence that your monster is not your sexuality."

He opened his mouth to speak, but I needed him to listen—really hear me. Caressing the plains of his face lovingly, I said, "I know I'm not you, and you know a whole hell of a lot about your sexuality that I don't. I'm not disputing that. But I am the person you've been having sex with, constantly, for more than a year. So, I know a thing or two about what gets you going. I just spent a month agonizing over every second of every sexual encounter you and I have ever had trying to figure out which parts were sincere for you, and do you want to know the results of that data analysis?"

His eyes widened in fear, so I didn't keep him in suspense.

"You, my love, are a sap. Almost all of the encounters where I was absolutely sure of your enthusiasm were tender and sweet. Sure, there were a handful of outliers, but your favorite sex is making love. That night in Port Angeles, when we fought? We started off the night stuck in that lust cycle, riding high. I was the one who resorted to kink to break out of it. The sex that satiated you enough to come down? Purely romantic. That dirty talk from yesterday, the things you missed most about sex and what wanted to do to me in the rain? Again, a lot of pretty lovey-dovey stuff."

He blinked, his face registering shock.

I continued, reminding him gently, "Edward, haven't you always said that your sex drive is heavily tied to how much you love me? That for you, sex is about how much you love me? If that's true, how can it be your monster? I mean, yeah, the biting thing is pretty clear at this point, maybe you're not as averse to getting a little rough as you thought, and sure, there could be something new and shocking hiding in your subconscious, but I refuse to believe that there's unfathomed depths of sadistic depravity you've been completely unaware of up to this point. Your sexuality might be broader than you thought, but it's also been fully active over this last year. If there is anything I know from my time in our bed, it's that you get off on making me feel loved. Literally, it makes you come. That doesn't sound like a monster to me."

He stiffened, eyes focused on nothing. At first, I thought that might be because he had shut down and wasn't listening to me. But then, I realized it was just the opposite.

Edward trembled in my arms and his grip around my waist tightened. The expression on his face alarmed me—for a second I was sure he was on the verge of tears. It shook me.

I guess…I never realized how scared Edward was of himself. I knew he hated himself, of course. But this was different and it seemed to go deeper, to the very bedrock of his psyche.

The only thing I could think to do was comfort him. I stroked his hair and whispered, "Edward, it's all right."

"Bella, is…is it that okay? With you?" he asked desperately. "If I mostly like romantic sex? Will that be…enough for you?"

I felt like a heel for having been so unclear in the past. Clearly he had twisted himself up in nonsensical knots if he thought that I didn't enjoy sex in all its forms with him. I laughed sardonically. "For crying out loud, Edward. What part of 'all of you' are you not getting? Yes, damn it. I'm crazy about you making love to me. It does it for me, pushes all of the right buttons. And yes, I am thrilled by the idea of it being the meat and potatoes of our sex life. Maybe that's sappy, but so are we. Everything else can be a here-and-there treat—it's more exciting that way, anyway."

His eyes lit up with such relief and joy that I was compelled to kiss him. He kissed me back. I held myself in restraint, counseled my body to respond with patience. Don't push him, Bella, I admonished myself. But as it turned out, I didn't need to hold back. He groaned and his nails dug into my neck as he deepened the kiss. This wasn't anything like the energy of when we were making out an hour ago. Exuberant hope exploded inside of me.

I pulled him closer to me, moaning into the kiss and not realizing until it was too late that one of my hands had slipped under his shirt via the collar to grip his shoulder. It was all right though, because one of his hands traveled down the line of my spine and slid under the sweatshirt I was wearing. His fingers splayed against the bare skin of my back and I shivered all over. His hand made its way up between my shoulder blades, bunching up the fabric he went and exposing my stomach to the air. He used the leverage to pull me closer to him, grunting lustily in a way that made my pussy drip and clench.

My limbs were shaking—I needed this so bad. I hoped to God that he wouldn't pull away again.

Both his hands were under the sweatshirt now, caressing the sensitive skin of my back, the slopes of my shoulders and the sides of my ribs. My nipples were so tight they ached. He didn't object when I began unbuttoning his shirt, and then his pants. It didn't seem like he had any intention of stopping, but I decided to play for keeps anyway. I would pamper him sexually with his favorite things. He deserved the tender care, and I needed him inside of me if I was to have any hope of retaining my sanity.

"God, Bella," he rasped. "I want you so much."

My belly flooded with hot swirls of pleasure and my panties somehow became wetter. I palmed the front of his open trousers. "Edward, let me suck your cock. Please," I begged, so desperate I was becoming incoherent. "I love…I want you in my mouth."

Edward groaned roughly and rocked his cock against my hand.

Frantic to taste him, make him come, I slid inelegantly from his lap to the floor between his legs. My elbow hit some piano keys and Edward pushed the bench back in response to give me more room. But his hands were still under the oversized sweatshirt I had stolen from his side of the closet, and the hem lifted even higher. There was interest in his eyes that told me he would like to see it come off, so I obliged and lifted my arms so that it slid easily over my head. He tossed the garment aside and his eyes locked on my chest. The nerve endings in my nipples pulsed with pleasure at the intensity of his stare. It was almost…predatory.

"God Edward…. The way you're looking at me."

I gasped as he reached out and squeezed my breasts. Heat was pulsing over my whole body, spiraling out from where his thumbs flicked my nipples. "You're so sexy."

He sounded like some kind of lust-crazed beast. I whimpered with need. "Okay, so we are keeping that growly voice. God." I hadn't meant to say that part out loud, but I had no wish to take it back either.

Edward moaned and his gravelly voice rasped, "Oh, yes."

He was staring between my legs and it wasn't until that moment that I realized I was touching myself, over the flannel of my sleep shorts. My brain whirled, first with embarrassment, then with shivery delight: Edward wanted to watch me play with myself. I felt an inkling of shyness, but then reminded myself how often I had fantasized performing for him this way. I remembered how hard I had come in that day in my bedroom while I played with my pussy while he sat watching in the rocking chair.

"Okay," I whispered with determination.

My hands were shaking, but I did finally manage to remove my shorts and underwear. I was pathetically wet, with a trail of glistening arousal stretching visibly from my pussy to the gusset of my panties, and snapping as I pulled them off.

Edward snarled possessively at the sight. My limbs felt swoony—all I wanted was to submit, to be taken by him.

His hands extracted his cock roughly, and I watched, slightly numb with shock, as he began to jerk himself off staring at my body.

I didn't want to block his view, but I had to touch myself or the pressure inside me would explode. My fingers dipped into the slick mess between my thighs and I moaned loudly at the first touch.

Edward's jaw clenched. I saw his fingers tighten around his girth and his balls begin to pull close. Oh God, I realized. He's coming already.

In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. Our night apart had filled me with doubt, but according to his words in the mountain rain, he was just as sex-starved as I was. In the moment, I panicked. This wasn't the plan! I was supposed to please him with my mouth, put on a show touching myself for him, make him feel desired and loved so that we could start to repair our bond. Yet here that plan was slipping away, fast and without warning.

I lunged forward, taking him into my mouth. He moved his hand out of the way and I sank my lips down to the base of his cock.

Edward cried out and his hip began jerking, bashing against my lips. I anchored my grip on his thighs and let him fuck my face while he came. The noises he made were sweet music I hadn't heard in far too long. My lips milked him gently, taking care not to overstimulate him in the comedown of an orgasm, and my hand massaged his scrotum. I wanted every drop of cum.

After the spurting stopped and Edward caught his breath, I gradually increased stimulation. I needed to keep him hard if I wanted to try this again.

God, I had missed his cock. I know I was supposed to be blowing him, but I couldn't stop kissing it. I was so happy to be having sex with Edward again, feeling this close to him again.

"Bella, I love you." His words pulled my focus and I looked up at him. He'd spoke so earnestly, my heart hurt.

"Edward…."

He studied me. After a moment, he seemed to reach a conclusion and nodded. "I know, sweetheart. I know what you need."

Holy shit.

I trembled.

In our bedroom, "I know what you need" seemed to be code for "I'm going to penetrate you so deep you'll scream." Which was a fair assumption on Edward's part—nine times out of ten, balls-deep penetration was exactly what I needed.

My plan to focus on his pleasure melted away in the face of his offer. I was too desperate, too starved. Delirious with need, I whimpered my assent.

Tugging his hand, I breathed, "Get down here."

He grinned. "Okay."

"No clothes."

I crawled to the place on the furry rug under the piano with the most space to maneuver and then lowered onto my back, where I watched Edward undress with bestial hunger in my eyes. It had been so long, too long, since I had seen him this way. His bobbing erection set me hyperventilating.

In me. He was going to put that in me.

My swollen clit pulsed painfully. My thighs vibrated and wantonly parted wide.

He joined me under the piano, crawling so that he was poised over me, between my legs, lean muscles flexing as he moved. He looked powerful and strong. I was the helpless prey, completely at his mercy. Exactly where I wanted to be.

"It's been so long," I whispered.

"I know."

The longing, the need, was too much. He wasn't even inside me yet and my clitoris was buzzing with an escalating, pulsating high, like the way it felt when I was approaching an orgasm. I was going to go over the edge as quickly as Edward had moments ago, I just knew it. I'm not sure why, but suddenly I was spilling my needy feelings everywhere. "I've felt so empty and lonely. Please, make me full."

So much for not burdening him.

"I will," he swore.

To my shock, he licked the index and middle finger of his right hand and then reached between our bodies. Did he actually think I needed foreplay in any form?

The touch of his fingers sent sharp sensations ricocheting through me. I was so swollen, so sexually frustrated at this point, stimulation was more agony than pleasure. I thought that might be prophetic for what was to come. I tried not to cry out in pain, but I couldn't help myself.

Edward's eyes widened.

Gasping, I tried to explain, unable to meet his gaze. "You don't understand. I have been…like this…since the forest yesterday. I tried touching myself last night and it didn't work. I think I need it to be you. I'm…so ready, I think I might…." Oh God, how could I face him after this? "I might, you know, right away. When you're finally inside me again. But keep going if I do," I pleaded. "I'll need…more. As much as you can give me."

I worried that he would have follow-up questions, but he didn't. Instead I felt the fat head of his cock slide between my slick pussy-lips and stop at the entrance of my needy hole.

He kissed me passionately and I unleashed a high-pitched whimper against his lips.

"Bella love, I'll give you as much as you can take."

He pressed forward, into me. I screamed. There was no other word for it. It didn't sound like I was having a good time—it sounded like someone had lit me on fire. That's how it felt, too. The nerves in my pussy were firing with release already, at the first stroke of his cock, but it hurt. The muscles of my cunt had been too tight and too engorged for too long. I was already sore and he wasn't even all the way in yet.

Edward hesitated, but my legs encircled him and my hips thrashed, pulling him deeper.

He asked if I was okay, and all I could do was gasp, "Fuck me. Please, fuck me, please."

His deep, forceful thrusts wiped my vision white and black. My body seized and flailed. I waited for the orgasm to taper off, but it didn't. Every time one tide began to ebb, there was an immediate wave of blinding pleasure-pain that surged to take its place, slamming through my body. I could see my limbs feverishly grasping at his body, but I couldn't feel them through the orgasmic high that overwhelmed my senses.

Edward dropped sweet, gentle kisses over my shoulders, neck, and face. He murmured lovely nothings as he thrust—how much he loved me, how he was going to take care of me, make me come and come. I was fully nonverbal at this point. I could only cry out at the intensity of everything I was feeling.

It continued, tortuously. Each time the muscles inside my cunt clenched with build up, then spasmed with release, they hurt more. As though they were cramping. But there was no reprieve—my body couldn't stop.

At long last, I reached a breaking point. My hand pressed into Edward's chest and I managed actual words through my panting. "Okay, I need a break."

He stilled at once, yet it was difficult to stop the rolling momentum of ecstasy. I squeezed my eyes shut and concentrated on my breathing. I tried not to think about how Edward's cock felt—stretching me, filling me, making me whole. A gentle wave of…bliss? contentment? relief? filled me to the brim. I couldn't name it. I just felt…good. Really good.

Was it the release of all that pent up energy and angst? Was it that it was impossible to feel lonely or alone with Edward sheathed in me to the hilt, showering me with words and kisses of love? Regardless, I was flying. I didn't know when I'd last felt such an emotional high, if ever.

Breaking into my intent concentration, Edward's voice ventured haltingly, "Are you…good?"

I opened my eyes to see him looking down at me. The expression on his face was one of acute concern. It hadn't occurred to me how troubling he might find my behavior, my body's response. I didn't know what to make of it myself.

I smiled giddily. "Hell yes! You just kept me in a rolling orgasm for a half hour. I didn't even know that was possible." I reached up to caress his cheek. "So good to me."

But when I tried to lift my neck to kiss him, the shift was apparently too much for my body. My clit brushed his pelvic bone ever so slightly, and that was enough to send me spiraling into another orgasm. My cramped muscles protested sharply, but it also felt so damn good. I moaned, my nails digging into his skin.

I swore, then laughed at the ridiculousness of my predicament. Only to need to stop immediately when my pussy began to twitch at even that barest stimulation. "I can't even laugh, or I'll come."

"Is that bad?" Edward still looked worried.

"No," I reassured him. "I'm just sore. Which I don't mind, but that was…a lot. I wasn't expecting—I mean, I knew I was horny, and I was trying not to get my hopes up too early this time. You know, seduce you first, just to make sure it actually happened. I knew I was on kind of a hair-trigger, but Good Lord. It looks like my vampire body still has surprises for me."

As I spoke, my clit was beginning to pulse again, buzzing with escalating pleasure. Edward was still inside me, and felt so heavenly. Apparently, the state I was in, just being full of his cock was enough to push me, inexorably, toward climax.

"You think it's a vampire thing?" he asked skeptically.

That was an absurd question. Really, what else could it be?

My next orgasm was stalking closer, whether I was ready or not. I tensed, though in anticipation or to brace myself, I couldn't say. "I can't imagine my human body doing that. Maybe for a minute or two, but not half an hour." It bit my lip—oh God, it was coming. "It hurts."

"Do you need me to pull out?" Edward offered.

"Don't you dare!"

I clutched his hips tight and my eyes rolled back as the ecstasy took me. I shuddered, release wracking my body, gasping at the intensity.

"Oh, wow," I sighed in the afterglow. "I love this."

Edward still looked confused, but I think he was happy that I was happy. "Yeah?"

I nodded. "You said you missed my pussy. I think my pussy missed you, too."

He spluttered with shock, then laughed.

Unfettered, undiluted joy soared inside me. "We're really back, aren't we?" I marveled in a whisper.

"Yes," he agreed. "We're back."

—

if that night she experiences the intense feelings across the skin of her body not as her own body but as the intensely feelable presence of her beloved, she in each of these moments experiences the sensation of "touch" not as bodily sensations but as self-displacing, self-transforming objectification; and so far are these moments from physical pain, that if they are named as bodily occurrences at all, they will be called "pleasure," a word usually reserved either for moments of overt disembodiment or, as here, moments when acute bodily sensations are experienced as something other than one's own body.

[…]

A state of consciousness other than pain—such as hunger or desire—will, if deprived of its object, begin to approach the neighborhood of pain, as in acute, unsatisfied hunger or prolonged, objectless longing; conversely, when such a state is given an object, it is itself experienced as a pleasurable and self-eliminating (or more precisely, pleasurable because self-eliminating) physical occurrence.

- Elaine Scarry, The Body in Pain, 1985

—

Voluptas In Dolore

Vampire physiology being what it is, I didn't think it was possible for me to have another experience like my wedding night—the haze of relentless sensation and euphoria, the complete distortion of time, the world beyond the boundaries of our bed ceasing to exist.

I was wrong.

Edward lifted my limp, blissed body from the parlor floor and carried me to our bedroom. There he laid me on the bed and held me captive for five whole days. I didn't realize, at first, just what I was in for. But as we moved into the afternoon, Edward reached for his cellphone and called Rose. My eyes widened when he asked her to take Renesmee. He didn't specify an exact amount of time, but he did say days—days plural.

A thrill of excited fear sparked through me, leaving the surface of my naked skin charged. I was already good and fucked and sore. And he said days.

It was a promise he kept.

For me, it began the way our frenzies usually did. Orgasm after orgasm inflicted on my raw pussy, with only the smallest of periodic breaks to ask, "More?"

I don't know what it was like for him, just that his eyes had a mad, feral intensity to them. The way he fucked me that first day…it didn't feel like he was just catering to my body. Sometimes it was downright selfish in a way that could only be his own desperate needs breaking to the surface. He even fucked my throat twice.

His clear and present lust kept me answering "yes" to the question of "more?" long after I normally would have cried uncle. He tortured me with repeated, never-ending orgasms. The pain in my pussy became so sharp, so excruciating, that some fucks were sheer agony. And yet…I still managed to come. His arms around me made it impossible for me not to.

Sometime around the second morning, something changed. At that point, for hours I had been feeling a shift that resembled the way I had felt in Port Angeles—when I had started to feel the frenzy, the fever. Around dawn…. I don't know how to describe this, but I will try my best. I don't know if it would be more accurate to say that something inside me broke, or that it clicked into place? I guess it doesn't strictly matter. I became somehow hot and numb at the same time. I felt light, like I was floating, and the only thing keeping me anchored to the earth was Edward.

The pain and the pleasure were still there—sharp and vital. But I was separate from them, as though I was experiencing the sensations vicariously rather than directly. The Bella that Edward was fucking into the mattress was in a world of violence and speed and loud screams. She was present. I was absent, and my world was a slow-motion, floaty euphoria.

I never got high as a human, or had an out-of-body experience, but I can only imagine this is what that must feel like. I was dizzy, incoherent. Blissed and free. And loved. Edward's love was the viscous fluid my slow world breathed. It was tangible and essential. We would suffocate to death without it.

Time lost all meaning for me, but on what I deduced afterward was the fourth day, Edward succumbed to his exhaustion. He collapsed, completely drained, but couldn't bear to not be touching me. So, he pulled my body tight against his. I came back to myself so slowly and gently that I wasn't conscious it was happening at all.

All I know is that at some point I became aware that he was brushing his lips against mine. I opened my eyes and it was like I was waking from a hundred-year sleep.

Edward seemed aware that my body had hit some sort of breaking point and he didn't ask anything of it. Instead, he arranged me on my back and simply kissed and caressed my skin, every inch of it. Gentle, feather-light lips and fingertips for hours and hours.

On the fifth day, he said softly, "Thank you, Bella. That was everything I needed."

I nestled into his chest. "I needed it, too."

Author's Note: Two of my entry headings are in Latin this time around. Ars Longa = art is long; Voluptas In Dolore = pleasure in pain. "Origin From Emotion" is a William Wordsworth thing.

I would like to express appreciation to everyone who has been reading and reviewing. This project has been difficult, far more so than Ferns was for reasons that I both understand and don't. Regardless, reading all of your kind words and enthusiastic encouragement has helped keep me motivated. The writer-fuel that reviews and comments provide cannot be overstated, so thank you.