𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐲𝐫𝐦𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
subsidence) wrote2018-08-22 11:06 pm
subsidence) wrote2018-08-22 11:06 pm
will my affection pull the strings?
[It was only a quick trip down the hall to the kitchenette. Estinien could have gotten it herself. She told Aymeric just that for ages, and when she was saying it, the kitchen was much further away. It was all the way across Aymeric's manor. But early on, she would grunt and climb out of bed before he could put his feet down on the floor. She would tell him she could get it herself, 'twas only a blasted pudding or some biscuits from the pantry...
One night, with starlight filtering past the window curtains, Aymeric pressed her back down against the bed and kissed her forehead. He told her to stay where she was, and this time, she obeyed him. He came back to her with scones slathered in lemon curd and he fed them to her by hand. She was very quiet while she let that happen, and he was patient about her silence. How vulnerable, to be fed from her lover's fingertips. He thumbed the last of the lemon zest from her mouth and set the plate on the bedside table. Estinien curled and uncurled her toes, over and over again, while she listened to him go back to sleep. Then, the next night, she rolled over and whispered, "Aymeric, I'm hungry."
It's summer, so dawn comes early, and Estinien's cravings usually hit just a few hours before then. In the beginning of this vulnerable arrangement, she would tell Aymeric what she wanted and he would retrieve it for her. Now she lets him choose. It's a wonder and a secret, but the Saint of Ferndale lets Aymeric choose what to feed her. Some nights, he does give it to her bite by bite; other times, she knows how tired he is, and how willing he is to stay awake to feed her despite it, so she'll swat away his hands and tell him to go to sleep. And then there are her favorite nights: those on which they eat together. They'll pass bites between each other, barely able to see more than the outline of his hand, the line of her neck and shoulder, for the darkness of the hour. Sometimes she falls asleep listening to the slow way he appreciates buttery shortbreads and their layer of smooth chocolate. Sometimes he falls asleep with his head on her stomach, and wakes up with crumbs in his hair. When he wakes up and finds them, he has to kiss her. He just has to kiss her when he's granted the evidence of how she stays with him through the night. And she knows that she did that to him. She sowed that need with worse than her crumbs.
This night would be one to see Aymeric back to sleep. He's brought Estinien her plate of sweets, and she can already hear his breathing begin to even out. She would be all right with that. If he had brought her anything else to eat, she would be all right with his quick doze. But this... But what he's cut and served for her... Well, it's not meant to be eaten by just one person. The cake was a feat of butter and silken icing, the jam in between the layers not too sweet, the spices a fragrant surprise. Their wedding cake was so large that neither Aymeric nor Estinien could have eaten it themselves; it's meant to be eaten by both of them. Even now, the second night into their honeymoon, the great section of cake Aymeric made sure to bring along remains enough for both of them, and too much for one of them. Too much, even, for Estinien and her growing appetite, her growing belly, Aymeric's children growing inside her.
Sucking on the tines of her fork, she considers Aymeric's easy breathing. Then she scoots so she's resting on her side, nudging up against him--belly first, then more of her, and one foot hooked over his ankle. She finds his face in the darkness. It's not hard; her ears are keen for the way he breathes, and from whence it comes. His cheek, his chin... and here is his mouth, his bottom lip, and up closer to his teeth. Her thumb is what touches him there, bringing with it a dollop of icing.]
Here, now, [she says. Her voice is as soft as his mouth; she wants to give him what she gets. She spent so long refusing to do that.] You have some, too.
One night, with starlight filtering past the window curtains, Aymeric pressed her back down against the bed and kissed her forehead. He told her to stay where she was, and this time, she obeyed him. He came back to her with scones slathered in lemon curd and he fed them to her by hand. She was very quiet while she let that happen, and he was patient about her silence. How vulnerable, to be fed from her lover's fingertips. He thumbed the last of the lemon zest from her mouth and set the plate on the bedside table. Estinien curled and uncurled her toes, over and over again, while she listened to him go back to sleep. Then, the next night, she rolled over and whispered, "Aymeric, I'm hungry."
It's summer, so dawn comes early, and Estinien's cravings usually hit just a few hours before then. In the beginning of this vulnerable arrangement, she would tell Aymeric what she wanted and he would retrieve it for her. Now she lets him choose. It's a wonder and a secret, but the Saint of Ferndale lets Aymeric choose what to feed her. Some nights, he does give it to her bite by bite; other times, she knows how tired he is, and how willing he is to stay awake to feed her despite it, so she'll swat away his hands and tell him to go to sleep. And then there are her favorite nights: those on which they eat together. They'll pass bites between each other, barely able to see more than the outline of his hand, the line of her neck and shoulder, for the darkness of the hour. Sometimes she falls asleep listening to the slow way he appreciates buttery shortbreads and their layer of smooth chocolate. Sometimes he falls asleep with his head on her stomach, and wakes up with crumbs in his hair. When he wakes up and finds them, he has to kiss her. He just has to kiss her when he's granted the evidence of how she stays with him through the night. And she knows that she did that to him. She sowed that need with worse than her crumbs.
This night would be one to see Aymeric back to sleep. He's brought Estinien her plate of sweets, and she can already hear his breathing begin to even out. She would be all right with that. If he had brought her anything else to eat, she would be all right with his quick doze. But this... But what he's cut and served for her... Well, it's not meant to be eaten by just one person. The cake was a feat of butter and silken icing, the jam in between the layers not too sweet, the spices a fragrant surprise. Their wedding cake was so large that neither Aymeric nor Estinien could have eaten it themselves; it's meant to be eaten by both of them. Even now, the second night into their honeymoon, the great section of cake Aymeric made sure to bring along remains enough for both of them, and too much for one of them. Too much, even, for Estinien and her growing appetite, her growing belly, Aymeric's children growing inside her.
Sucking on the tines of her fork, she considers Aymeric's easy breathing. Then she scoots so she's resting on her side, nudging up against him--belly first, then more of her, and one foot hooked over his ankle. She finds his face in the darkness. It's not hard; her ears are keen for the way he breathes, and from whence it comes. His cheek, his chin... and here is his mouth, his bottom lip, and up closer to his teeth. Her thumb is what touches him there, bringing with it a dollop of icing.]
Here, now, [she says. Her voice is as soft as his mouth; she wants to give him what she gets. She spent so long refusing to do that.] You have some, too.
no subject
She was always controlled and careful about undoing any buttons or buckles or laces she may have bore. When she would steal in through Aymeric's window or otherwise trespass, their fucking was desperate enough that it may have warranted the snapping of her buttons or the tearing away of her laces. But, no, she undid them deliberately. She knew what she would need once she stopped needing him for the night: malms and malms between them. And as she would come to him wearing the only traveler's shirt she had, and as she would need to wear it again to get away from him, she could not tear open her clothing. She undid her buttons so carefully. The stiff and measured restraint of her hands when she removed her clothes was there because it had to be.
She had come back to Aymeric, quite alive, to find that she had been presumed dead. She came back to find that she was best known in porcelain and marble and faithful hymn. Aymeric wouldn't touch her. He alleged that it wasn't allowed--profanity, blasphemy, some shite like that--but she knew it was because he was angry. Then, much later than she should have, she realized that it was also because he was hurt. Estinien had long been the rend, never the mender, and so to fix this she knew only to tear. She stood before Aymeric and ripped open the front of her own shirt, all those little snapped threads, all those buttons sent flying. She did that to prove to him, as tangibly as she could, that she no longer needed the malms and malms between them. That she needed anything but. Later, when he took her home, it was in the swaddle of his own coat--later, when he took her home, after she'd ridden him in his chair until even the hard thighs of a dragoon could not keep her upright.
How different, now. In Aymeric's singular need to make love to her, she holds the singular need to be made love to, but they aren't pressing together, into each other, for lack of time. They aren't dreading the morrow nor the vulnerable night. It's a need, but they aren't desperate. They are both of them fulfilling the other, fulfilling themselves, recursive needs and needs met. How different, now, how much Estinien can stand, how much she can bear: being held, being here, innumerable nights, immeasurable dawns. Even her thighs are disparate. She could leap. She could leap if she were called to. But she would do so carried high in the palm of Halone's own hand, for these are not the hard thighs of a dragoon. These are the soft thighs of a saint.
Granted, they're no less a vise for their softness. Estinien's thighs hug the hips of her husband like a holy adornment. Her flesh is already hot, and her legs are bare beneath her nightgown; all of her is bare beneath her nightgown. She has no need of smallclothes in the night. She has no need of what she's wearing now. And here is the new way she undoes her buttons. There's no call to pop them off again, but nor must her hands carry quick and tense precision. She can do it with leisure, the first button, the second, a pause to align herself with the rise of his cock, to roll herself against where she can feel it stiffening through his sleeping clothes. He's only wearing a thin robe in this warm weather, and it will be easy to get him out of it, but Estinien has found that it does please her to be languid. So comes the third button, and the fourth. Aymeric is grasping at her, and she is letting herself be grasped. Against all her history, she is loving the grasp: his firm hold, and her own body being firmly held. He is holding her down, weighing her down, with the promise, the threat...
A bride, a lady--but she can still loom. She leans over Aymeric, somehow even darker than the dark of night, with enough of a shadow to overwhelm the thin starlight. Her hands press against his shoulders, and as she lowers herself over his body--by the gods, she is growing--her stomach touches him before her breasts do. But some things do not change, and her trajectory is such a familiar one that it doesn't miss even with so little light: she nudges in to bite Aymeric's ear. Her teeth might seem unkind to a man who doesn't know her, but Aymeric knows her better than anyone, and here she is pressed flush against him, no intention of slipping away. To further anchor herself to him by taking hold of his ear is the dot on the i of her love letter. It keeps everything legible; it allows the rest to be read.
Into his ear, she tells him sternly,] Of course. [Stern, yes, as that undergirding of muscle, but like her thighs, her voice is softer than not.] I realize it. I count on it. Every time y... [Once this would have spooked her: she interrupts herself to gasp, sharp and hitching, when she presses just so upon his cock. She has to orient herself again, but here is the evidence of the love she's learned. She isn't flinching away from it.] Every time you come inside me, I think... of how many rooms you have got in that big fancy house.
[To be languid does not mean to draw it out forever. Sometimes she really is content to lie there beside him for bell after bell, kissing him. More often, she wants to fuck. So this is the time to right herself again, sitting up over his hips, searching his body for the tie of his robe. She finds it and undoes what barely passes for a knot. Good. They are always ready for each other, and that feels good in a way it never did to surprise him on an icy night.
With this, she can take his cock in hand--of course she doesn't need anything more than starlight to recognize it. They used to fumble in the dark. Now, stroking him feels no different from touching herself. It's just as personal, just as familiar. Her own nightgown is only half open, but touching him, feeling all of his responses--the shifting of his thighs beneath hers--is gratifying in a way she never let herself understand before. That first time they made love after she confessed that she was pregnant was when it sank into her. He sank into her for the joy of it, for the celebration, and fucked her in a way that seemed unreal. Because he was happy. It turns out that love feels so much better than she was willing to believe. And now her pussy is shameless against his thigh while she works his dick with her palm. Touching him has her overflowing with anticipation, wet enough to take him right away.]
How many, hmm? Do you know off the top of your head? How many rooms to fill...