An Unknown Conception

I leaf again through these splendorous memories I became so close to never expecting. What did I understand of joy after so much pain? My Josette had been torn away from me. Twice, although I did not know it until I ventured into a past world I had no knowledge of, but that I had skipped. Again, I was the anachronistic man, coming into the turmoil of my family through the centuries. How could it be we survived at all?

And I would think in each flash of finding my Josette, not for the first time, of course, but for the latter times I came in contact with her. In order to understand that this child becoming woman would have to venture through so much life and struggle to reach me over and over again. Her beauty never wavered and neither did my loyalty to her. I always recognized who she was or who she might be to me. But in these lives she would flitter and not know me, until it was too late... at least... those two times. But this last one, the third and the one that ultimately made the difference, knew. Let us not be lost again. We shall not be. I quote my darling, "Our destinies are one."

Knowing nothing of the rush in modern times, my matrimony was of all enjoyment. I hear of shuffling uncertainties and anxiety to weddings. For ours I knew none. I delighted in each detail. I adored them like a ripened berry on the vine, as the sight and touch of her always would be to my senses.

I tasted her at the altar of our sacred union. I stood in the clothing of our time, she stood in the recreation. Did this modern woman see my attire and wonder at it? No. She remembered. She knew. And all the horror our beloved people had gone through, there they stood at this divine ritual. They recognized, in the now of my family's own happiness, that to witness the two of us standing together in a sepulchral hold was the symbol of unity for all of us in our entirety. As we exited the chapel door my bride spoke into my ear, "They don't know, Barnabas, do they?"

Her white apricot cheek along mine, I whispered back in my smiling, coy address, "What don't they know, Miss Evans?"

"This isn't a town, my dearest, this is the threshold of our universe."

I stepped her closer to me beyond the frame of this doorway, "Oh, how I knew it was you, Josette. How I knew you had always been the pinnacle of change for us."

And, truthfully, I had.

Her hand rised and I clasped it in mine as she whispered to me, "Do you know what I'm looking forward to?"

"Tonight?" I uttered, hopefully.

"No," she laughed, "well, that, too. But our being friends, as we've begun to be."

I grinned at her gratefully, "I'll give you everything, my sweetness... all the games of cards, or reading together, of delightful dishes, songs, fabrics sewn to any lovely dress you desire... I promise I'll adore it all as much as I adore you."

With her lips she showed me what this meant to her, and she knew how honest I was; every single word.

Josette had once kissed me and pulled back in reprimand of my being too modern. Too modern for that time? What they now called Regency or Colonial? Why wouldn't I be? That was the whole purpose. I didn't want my bride for my own lustful circumstances. I loved her for more than that, to change this place and to change me. To change all of us. Even her own dear friend, Angelique Bouchard. She would do it in ways I never could. Josette loved Angelique in ways I never would. In that sense I look forward to a future in which we could all be whole again, to be one. And thatis why I love Josette Dupres... and why I adore Maggie Evans, the reborn continuance of her.

One night I knelt before our hearth with an unscrupulous novel. I couldn't read as I tried to in front of the fireside. Josette had leant me a book in certain wonderings if I would be pleased with it. I was not. I was worried to tell her. But she approached me and I confessed my worries while she giggled them away.

"I hadn't meant for you to read it if you didn't enjoy it." She confessed.

"I don't," I told her, "I only enjoy you, my dear."

"Hmmm," she laughed, "I believe you," she took the volume by Cleland from my withering grasp and set it on the mantel. Who would find it there after that... please let them be old enough to decide for themselves, I prayed. This Fanny Hill is not something I would want David to see.

She took my hands and I lifted myself from the kneeling position in front of our hearth. Fingers clasped, our lips met and she questioned me, "Do you want more from me tonight?"

Maggie was able to consent herself to me in this question and I had to answer, "I always want you, and if you want me I will prepare myself as quickly as I can."

A throaty exhale often greeted me in response as it did now, "Don't be so hard on yourself, dearest," here she stroked my cheek with the back of her fingers, "I doubt you sense what these wee hours could mean..."

Here I had to clutch her ribs and bring her further to me before letting go, "Tell me what you want and I'll pursue it with you, only tell me."

Her dancing brown eyes leapt between looking at mine, "You remember the candle I created, Barnabas."

"From the one Sarah made for you? Why did you re-make it?"

"The wick was troubled and the wax needed more work, so I re-created it and it's in my window, but I haven't lit it yet. I want us to go upstairs and light the rest. And then... that one her and I made together, of course."

"You smile, Maggie," I breathed into the chestnut tresses I adored, "but I don't understand why."

She wove her fingers from my shoulder to my neck and up into my hair, grasping my head in her palms and pulling mine towards hers, "I've had you for years now... but I think we're ready for more."

My lips found her forehead first in this desire as I continued along either side of her nose and to her lips, apprehending what she meant.

A child. Our child. Our love and the possibilities I finally recognized.

A sharp breath in me ladled that blue sea wave stirring under my heart. Hardly surprising her, my arm scooped up her legs, as I held her back in my other arm. My steps were cautious as I bore her up the stairs. Not a whisper of noise in our house now. The perfection of this moment allayed any worries. Her arms held fast about my neck and shoulders. Maggie remained still in her smile, knowing a careful tread needed to be maintained. Romantic as this was, to carry her like this on the staircase wasn't so precarious a manoeuvre, regardless of how indestructible we might be now.

As I lifted my steps upward, I grew for her below. What she desired was no concern when she introduced this idea for me. I knew her and she knew me, but in this way we might finally know each other in a more profound ecstasy if what she proposed was true.

I held her toward her room but the door was shut. She let a hand linger down and twist the knob to open her chamber. As we entered I asked if she want to be placed on her feet.

"Oh, no," she smiled, stroking me from ear to cheek, "turn around with me..."

I did and she closed the door with her hand, remaining in my arms, continuing to look into my eyes while locking this room. The key often was laid to turn where it should be: on the inside of her door.

And so it was done. Her arms wrapped around me again as I stepped toward that place, where I'd longed to have her for ages, and where she longed to be. I placed her to lie down, and I let my over laden apparel start falling away. It was when I was in my vest I could permit myself to begin removing her clothes; The slippers from her feet, the odd components keeping her hair in place as I kneeled down to kiss her. Maggie took my breath in a vacuum and as I relaxed I could feel air entering my being as she inhaled through me.

She refused to be docile, sitting up, feet dangling over her bedside to twist the buttons on my clothing. Not so feverish on this evening but determined. The sun had set long ago and as we became half clothed she led me toward the fireplace and brought me back to the ritual we'd forgotten. To take the sticks to light the candles, in all of how we were tangled from halving in disrobe. I watched as her trembling hand lit the wicks and then she gestured me to that one beside her window.

We combined our two flames to ignite that one, re-created from what her father and the ghost of my sister had produced. Even my hands shook and as we lifted the smoking tinders away. She blew them both out. We stood. I could see the light from that candle in my periphery and I stared at her as we longed for each other. She took the stick from my hand and placed it side by side along the windowsill. I glanced downward and wished to lay beside her in the same way as those objects. Before that window we pulled more away to reach and expose more skin to caress.

In a side step, parting ourselves from that flame, the clothing continued to be undone, falling away with a grace I didn't expect. I was careful, as I often would be with my dearest love, to course my fingers along her skin, arms, clavicle, staring along each merest inch. I saw her do the same to me. What I knew of this life, this harmony of both marriage and promise. But she would show me again and again. Now she took my fingers in her hands, leading me to our nest. This time she wanted something new.

I turned my head to see the candle, the wisp of a thought... but one mustn't think of those things when concentrating on the sacred.

And so we bedded down together, as we had done for years, and I never took for granted. Each time we did this we renewed our vows from the altar, each kiss goodnight and awakening bespoke these pledges to our union. We'd existed too long without each other. To take it for granted would simply never do. But tonight?

Tonight was different.

Here was a readiness my father-in-law tried to explain to me in visits, as he tampered brush strokes with the colours on his palette and chortled odd interpretations to life I wasn't sure of. But I was pleased in his acceptance of me.

"Of course, old man," he expressed to me, in the love of his art, "I remember in those bygone days, just the same. We've come so long across a stretch of centuries for me to deny it. And I love you both far too much to let those things diminish. Besides... I'm alive once more, Barnabas, aren't I?"

"But I still don't understand what Sarah meant that night you brought her to say goodbye." I professed.

"No," he grinned back at me, "you don't."

From this recollection I returned to the present. I bestowed myself to her, nothing which we were ashamed of at this point, of course. I needed to express in my telepathic thoughts to her how I felt, now that they were a staple of our life together. To this she smiled and extended her own reflections to mine, "I've always been pleased by our joy and our love," and she slipped her arm around my underside as I slid in beside her, taking hold of her waist.

Her lips were the ambrosia I always craved and took in my mouth. Maggie let herself speak to me in this meeting. My urges grew in the obvious places... the ripened knowledge of her exposing itself to me. The purpose should have been obvious, but I'd spent too much focus on what she was to me and always had been. Josette had cared about my forgiveness and not only her forgiveness of me, but my own forgiveness towards myself. I would never know how to thank her more than I was doing this night and so many nights before. Was it her pleasure that was so important, then my own, or ours combined? When it comes to marriage; perhaps that was the highest question of all.

I smiled toward her, "What would you like most of all tonight?" I pondered, already placing my hand to her breast as I was no longer afraid to touch her anymore. Not that I stayed there, I was craving all of her enshrined parts.

Images floated into my mind, not a technique we used very frequently, the words had proven more tender than pictures. A blend of anatomy she had preferences for, parts of her being for which there were no names. Lowering myself I folded my hands over her thighs and gathered my lips along her leg, going further down and reaching her toes. She'd breathed in loving gasps but this last part made her giggle slightly. After all this time, could it be she was still ticklish? Or was it more a noise of things to come, echoes of precious sounds an infant might utter?

I questioned our ability to enact this ritual to its end result. We had to desire a new being into this world to bring it forth. In all the years we'd shared there had been no "accidents", if one could call such creations thus. All must be done with combined willingness, an intention.

My torso was between her legs and I'd lain myself over her womanhood to kiss her stomach, bless it as it were, course my way up to massage her ribs and down again, she took my head in her hands, weaving her fingers through my hair and caressing me behind the ears. I rested my cheek on her indrawn abdomen. Let what I endow here give us our little one back, and in doing so, give Sarah the chance she never had; to grow and become a woman herself. This was my prayer.

I could feel Maggie's feet, knees, legs moving to favour the skin at either side and I lay there. She'd shown me absolution; sending me her own feelings as I'd sent her mine. Part of me wanted to relax there forever. But the surge was growing stronger. Would something so intimate between us bring back a beloved face, a name we hadn't spoken in address for however long it had been? Would she, my sister, perhaps my daughter, be the same?

"And more," my Josette breathed in answer.

My hands came down from her flesh to the bed. Bringing myself above, Margaret's feet rested on the mattress. Gentleness in her kiss released itself to my lips, the trickle of her fingers along my ribs and breast. Would it ever be different with us in this room we finally shared? I wondered this too often. It was the harsher days we faced together, the simple joys from all our delights in this world. The nights and events would vary, rarely being overwhelming of sorrow. Walks, novels, conversation with our family, the sharing of opinions and ideas, replacing old structures. In the end it had made our love so much richer, stronger, the proof of all we were.

And now, could it be this rich? Something far beyond monetary wealth was our being in each other's arms. My love for Margaret Josette Dupres, making love with her, our wedlock finally arriving: Could this return another family member to us? One who'd helped by crossing the veil, but soon might be of flesh again as we could make?

The passion increased, her eyes half closed and a soft smile containing this wonder with me, except she was more confident, tasting me in return with her answer. Maggie wasn't convinced tonight would deliver a new joy. But she was certain a number of nights in the same concentration of it would allow bringing this to us.

No flashes of our lost Sarah entered in imagery, but the spirit and the love was enfolded around our hearts. I could feel this, holding my dearest to me, as our chests were so close together. Motions of our unity continued to constrict and expand. Her mouth the fascinating pleasure it had always been in each life I'd relished her before. Josette had always kissed me with savour. (Although once, with a blush.)

I'd tugged at her shoulders to bring her closer after each movement away My hand slid down from behind her to fondle the flesh below and around her bosom, not upon it. Then the sensation struck me, what she felt in her excitement, even as her breathing changed, moans reaching my ears. The thrill of seeing her gratified in expression, teeth parted slightly, but revealed. The sounds of her rapture, but to feel something I'd done to her was to conjure disbelief. How far could we share? Was this a sign of achieving our intention: To conceive a child together even if we'd never done so before in all the experiences of ardour?

The shivers came to us both. It was a way of bonding mutually, inside and out. Not a torment, nor an agony; an adoring world within us to continue to engage in, both in this act and in its memory. Tomorrow we would know this occasion again in thought while others dubiously considered our expressions.

We progressed upon one another, merging, but neither gently nor voraciously, with tenderness that showed both thrill and calm release. Our breathing gained in emotion and I could hear a familiar sound from her. My precious bride was almost released to highest elation as I brought myself nearer to that as well. Compressing together, I let go and found her lips again, moving my hand to the other side of her chest and gripping firmly. More than sampling now, we engorged upon our lips, tasting one another, sharing our insides. I became so submerged I had no choice in what happened next.

Hastily, Josette pulled back with a gape and took in the air, but her voice was neither silent nor loud, simply astonished, as was mine. The zenith had been reached... and simultaneously which was a more tenuous occurrence than most might speculate. This did not happen frequently for us, not at all.

Was this lack of climatic culmination a disappointment? No. Allow us a winsome smile at the very idea. For true-love is a harmony, as I've discovered, that once it's found and explored such an objective becomes meaningless. The time spent, the factor of having this love, is the idyllic world her and I live in. This is why our story began with the wedding. Those who feel they've conquered an end result in marriage will find unhappiness. Cherishing the dream of an ever-lasting now is its purpose.

Maggie's hands drifted up my arms and down from my shoulders, cascading her fingers along my chest, and suggesting release. I laid on the left of the bed, but held her kiss still, moving slowly. Her hand reached to mine where I held her nurturing softness above... then our lips parted.

"I love you, Barnabas, I love you."

"And I love you, Margaret, as I've always done."

She smiled in her exhale, "I felt I had to say that first before any other words were spoken."

"Why, do you suppose?"

"Because if we succeeded tonight I wanted those words to be our resolve in all of this. I wanted love and not pleasure here, as much as it hardly needs to be spoken, I know."

I was on my left elbow, leaning over to look upon her, my hand finally shifting from her breast to her face, my thumb gliding along it's smoothness, "No, it does not need to be spoken, Josette, but to say it holds gratitude as well. We have more than a need, you and I, we have a precious devotion to adore the changes life brings but cling to past wisdoms."

"That would make sense, My Heart. Across the ages we dared to hope and to believe and be alive at last. To ask for help from all of these new friends and old relations... Barnabas... your longest journey so empty, and mine so filled with variations to overwhelm."

I clasped her right hand in mine, "That would make us similar, but not too similar that it wouldn't work as it's done so beautifully." I kissed her again, drawing away with this curious but somber question, "Do you believe you conceived, Maggie?"

She didn't answer... not until the next afternoon... seeing that the candle on her windowsill had burned itself out.

"Yes, Barnabas," she observed with a bewildered look, "I believe I did."