Full. The first full sound — not the contained ones, not the managed ones, the specific, honest, unmanaged output of a body that had received sothing deep and was reporting it at full volu.
Her back arched.
The warrior’s body doing the sa thing Rua’s body had done in the forest — the specific, involuntary arc of soone receiving at depth, the spine curving, the shoulders pressing down, the whole architecture of the body oriented around the event at its center.
PAAH. PAAH.
’—HAANN~!! AAAHN~!!—’
CLAP. CLAP.
The sounds of the room filling — not only Sora’s sounds, because Wren beside them was making her own sounds in response to his hand which had returned to her while he moved, the dual-note output of two young won at two different stages of the sa morning.
’—AAAHN~!! AHN~!! HAANN~!!!—’ (Sora)
’—Aaahn~! Aah~! AAAHN~!!!—’ (Wren)
PAAH. PAAH. PAAH.
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
He turned to Wren.
She arrived at his mouth before he arrived at hers — the specific, forward lean of a young woman who had been waiting her turn and was done waiting — and the kiss she gave him had in it everything that Wren’s body had been building toward for the last hour, which was considerable.
’MHNN~!! Mmh~! MHNN~!!!’
He sealed her mouth with his and shifted.
The movent from Sora required the specific, careful, physician’s withdrawal — slow, the sa slow as entry, the sa patient architecture applied in reverse — and Sora made a sound at the withdrawal that had in it the specific, surprised quality of a body that had adjusted to a condition and was now receiving information that the condition had changed.
’—Aah~—’
Not relief. Not protest. Sothing between the two that didn’t have a clean category.
Wren felt him move toward her and went still.
The forward lean stopped.
The amber eyes, which had been warm and present and fully committed to the kiss, went slightly wide with the specific, recalibrated awareness of soone who has just registered what ’her turn’ ans in practice and is updating her assessnt.
"Senior—" she said.
"Wren," he said.
She looked at him.
He pushed her back.
She went — not because she’d decided to, because the flat, horizontal guidance of his hands at her shoulders was not an architecture that required her decision. The bedding received her back, her dark hair spreading around her face, and she looked up at him with the amber eyes and the expression that Sora had been wearing fifteen minutes ago.
"It’ll hurt," she said.
Not a question. She had been watching.
"Yes," he said.
"For a mont," she said, with the specific quality of soone testing whether this sentence was still true.
He kissed her forehead.
She blinked.
Beside them, Sora had turned on her side. Watching, the amber eyes soft with the aftermath, her hand finding the bedding between herself and Wren and resting there without touching her — the specific, available presence of a friend who was nearby without instruction.
He positioned.
The first contact — the sa heat, the sa specific warmth of bare against bare, the sa blunt and patient presence at an entrance that had not been opened — and Wren’s hands flew imdiately to his forearms.
’"—SENIOR—WAIT—"’
He kissed her.
’—MMNH~!’
The sound she made was enormous and muffled and had every shape of panic in it and the specific, involuntary warmth of Wren’s body which had never had a protocol for this category of input and was producing its honest, unfiltered response through every available channel simultaneously.
He pressed.
Slow.
’—MMNH~! MMNGH~!—’
Wren’s hands on his forearms were shaking.
Not the warrior’s grip — Wren didn’t have the warrior’s grip, Sora had the warrior’s grip — but the full, earnest, desperate grip of soone whose hands were the last available stopping chanism and who was using them as completely as she knew how.
They t the wall.
The wall remained.
Pah.
’—MMNH~!!!’—
The threshold.
The absolute, honest, first-ti event — the sa mont that had happened with Sora, expressed through Wren differently, because Wren did not have the warrior’s architecture, Wren expressed things with her whole body and her whole voice and no chanism between experience and expression.
’—AAAHNH~!!!—’
The sound ca through the kiss — around the kiss — the kiss was insufficient to contain it, the specific, full-volu, unmanaged output of a young woman whose body had crossed a threshold for the first ti and was expressing the crossing in the full, honest way that Wren expressed everything.
He held still.
The sa pause. The full, patient, physician’s pause.
Wren was crying.
Not dramatically — the specific, involuntary, physical tears of a body that had just processed a significant structural event through its nervous system and was using the available biological chanisms. Her amber eyes were wet at the corners and the tears were running into her hair and she was still looking at him through them with the wide, wide, full-presence gaze of soone who has arrived at a new place and is taking their first readings.
"—it’s—" she said.
He kissed the tears.
Both sides. The flat, clinical, physician’s comfort — not more than that, exactly that, the specific, unhurried acknowledgnt of the event.
She made a sound that was very small.
He waited.
Then he moved.
The night took everything the cedar room could hold.
Outside, the tribe’s fires went low and cold and the cedar canopy above the village held the sounds that the guest quarters were producing and managed them with the patient, comprehensive indifference of trees that had been holding things for a very long ti.
Inside: the specific, continuous output of two nineteen-year-olds discovering the full range of what their bodies were capable of, expressed at regular intervals through walls that were not quite sufficient.
PAAH. PAAH. PAAH.
’—AAAHN~!!! AAAHN~!!! HAANN~!!!—’
Sora, on her hands and knees, with the warrior’s broad shoulders and the warrior’s braced arms and the warrior’s body reduced to its honest, physical, unmanaged baseline — the thick, full weight of her hanging bare in the room’s dim light, the heavy swing of her with every impact, every descent carrying the full pendular arc of sothing that had been contained all morning and was no longer behind anything.
His hands at her hips.
Both of them, gripping with the flat, functional authority of soone establishing a pace rather than suggesting one.
PAAH. PAAH.
’—AHN~! AHN~! AAAHN~!!!—’
Beside them, Wren on her back, looking at the ceiling, her amber eyes between soft and absent with the specific, floating quality of soone who is in the aftermath of a recent event and the pre-awareness of an upcoming one and has arrived at a settled, warm place between them.
He reached.
His free hand found her.
’—Aah~!—’
The sound she made was quiet and imdiate and had the specific warmth of a young woman whose body had been recalibrated by the previous several hours and was now responding to contact at a different baseline than the morning’s baseline.
PAH PAH PAH.
’—HAANN~!! AAAHN~!! AHN~!!—’ (Sora)
’—Aaahn~! Aah~! Aaahn~!—’ (Wren)
The dual-note output filling the room and the room filling with it, the cedar walls absorbing what they could and the rest going to the forest.
Sowhere in the village a dog lifted its head.
Put it back down.
PAAAH!
’—AAAHNN~!!!—’
User Comments
0 comments from readers