Beginnings...

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Ed said "no" at first.

I was too young and didn't know what I wanted. He wanted older than me...so much older. Even after he let me leave with him, he insisted we'd sleep in separate beds. We weren't married, after all, and couldn't be married. No priest would marry us, no rabbi either. So we would just be travelling companions and he'd let me join him as he saved the world.

I think he had some kind of mentor-student relationship in mind. I was totally uninterested in that. I wanted him. I've never wanted anyone else that way, before or since. Oh, I've hungered for blood, or control. I've felt intimacy, of a kind, and desire, more than once. I'm not as cold as I think I sometimes pretend I am. But I've never felt that kind of dazzling, earth shaking, absolute certainty. I just knew. I knew that he was mine and I was his and nothing on this earth was going to change that.

And I knew I wanted him.

We were on a train, that shuddered and juddered and sent out great whistling clouds of steam. We had two bunk beds in a little sleeper carriage with solid shutters. Ed kissed me in the doorway when I put my suitcase down and then stopped, a little uncertainly.

"We should take our time," he said.

For a man with such a temper, Ed has always been surprisingly slow when it comes to things like this.

I shook my head firmly.

"What time is there to take? What will I know in a month that I don't know now?" I said, and kissed him firmly. He responded, which was a bit of a surprise. G-d, I can still remember how he tasted. It still sends shivers down my spine, and fills me up with a kind of sick fear that everyone who says my loyalties are suspect are right.

His arms felt good around me. Strong. They felt strong. I know now just how strong and know how much restraint he was showing. He could have broken me into pieces if he wanted, but instead he just held me.

He stiffens awkwardly when I'm near now. There's too much baggage, too much history between us. When I was safely bound to Dre it didn't hurt. Now Dre is gone, the hurt has come up again. I look at him, and all those flashes of memory come back. I remember how he looked at me that night. I remember how he did not object, for the first time, when I unbuttoned his shirt.

It shouldn't have been that way really, should it? I mean, he was old already. He had lived more lifetimes than any man and I wasn't quite out of my teens. I'd never been with a man before, although I knew a little of what should be happening, in theory. I know ours isn't the story that should have been told. I should have been uncertain, maidenly, perhaps played hard to get. But it seemed stupid. Why pretend that I didn't want that man when I did?

Afterwards, he tugged at my hair affectionately, and I giggled, which I don't often do. It was hard not to laugh, though, when happiness was spilling out of me. We tried to both fit in the tiny little bunk in our train cabin and just about managed it; elbows digging into ribs, and neither of us caring.

I still cared then. I cared with this passionate intensity about everything. I cared about people more than causes. Ed was always smarter than me, better at seeing the bigger picture. I just cared about what seemed right, what seemed to motivate people right then. I think perhaps I only ever thought about what I wanted right then, back in those days, when I was spoilt and beautiful and certain that everything would work out in the end.

I remember how safe I felt wrapped up in Ed's arms. This was real, I thought. This was like the earth beneath my feet and how we felt was never going to change. How could it?

But all things are transitory. And last time I saw him, he looked at me with suspicion and the last man to touch me only looked at me as if I were a piece of meat.

Still, I remember that night. And I'm still glad I got on that train. I still know that I was right.

Comments

[lucifermourning.livejournal.com]

beautiful.