1.49. Acquired Taste
The Thief
The dull pain of his tenderization beneath August il Agante’s fists drummed against his exhausted brain to the rhythm of Demetrius’ hooves; he flitted back and forth across the boundary of consciousness, now and then, when the horse’s gait changed and his body discovered an exciting new way it hurt.
But it didn’t matter. It was okay. She’d come for him.
He only remembered snatches of their return. Tiago and Ofelia helping him from the horse. Hands clasping him, sure and sturdy against his back.
Then he was in bed, and it was day. And Ofelia was in the easy chair in the corner of his hotel room, reading.
He rolled to his side and winced. “Morning.”
Ofelia glanced up and back down again. “Good afternoon, in fact.”
Maybe that was why his throat was so parched. There was a pitcher of water on the nightstand; he reached weakly for it, half-expecting Ofelia to intervene and pass it to him. She didn’t, and he sat up more, and he was tender and bruised, but he was all right.
He poured a glass of water, threw it back in a breath, and poured another. “Where’s Annalise?”
“She’s off on the scaffold,” Ofelia said. “Everyone was quite cross with her, how much she delayed. The condemned are impatient to get their heads lopped.”
Seth stretched his sore arms and rubbed the ligature marks on his wrists. The woman who’d saved his life last night was outside taking the lives of others. He supposed you might call that playing God, but Annalise struck him as uniquely deserving of deification. He looked to the shamrock square of sky beaming into the hotel room. “Tiago’s with her?”
“Mmhmm.” Ofelia turned a page. “He’s forgiven her.”
“For what?”
“For chasing you away,” Ofelia said.
“Sorta thought you were the pro-Seth sibling.”
“We are both pro-whatever you did with that grouse you fixed for us.” Ofelia got up. “If I pop off to tell them you’re awake, you won’t have any kind of mysterious aneurysm while I’m out, will you?”
“Don’t think so. I actually feel pretty good.”
“The benefit of a city Fontana’s size,” Ofelia said. “At least a few of the apothecaries are slinging panaceas more reputable than pulped popmites and ink-dyed suet.” She tossed her book into her satchel, and added another laying open on the floor with its pages bent. “Are you mended enough for a hug?”
He held his arms open. She bent by his bed and pulled him into a quick, tight embrace.
“Thank you for coming back, Seth,” she said. “Welcome home.”
This earnestness, coming from wry, dry Ophelia, stunned him too severely to cobble together a proper reply before she hurried from the room.
The bright green day became alpine night.
Seth and Annalise’s room was lit in glittering amber by a wax forest of candles, thick enough to rival the Tower Wick. Thin taper candles in crimson atop the nightstands and the shelves, tea candles and votaries in chipped saucers and travel tins. They’d lit them together, laughing and egging each other on until the shadows of the room were stark and dancing.
Annalise sat at the head of the bed, the light lapping at the contours of her body. It lit the firm grace of her muscles and the proud, beaky prow of her nose in bold geometries. It softened in harmonious contrast with the rhythm of her curves, where they flowed from her exposed thighs and shoulders and the tops of her breasts. It outlined the voluptuous promise waiting in silhouette beneath her lacy black camisole.
Waiting for him.
“So,” she said, and the few feet of bed she said it across was an expanse, suddenly, and to journey it would take great courage.
“So,” he said, and his hand crept the first perilous inch across the silk bedspread.
“D’you reckon if we went to the front desk they’d have more candles?” she asked, and he laughed, and the distance collapsed on itself.
“I think I’ve set enough bedrooms on fire this week already,” he said. “Literally, I mean. I’m open to metaphor.”
“Let’s get metaphorical, then.” The shadows shifted across the fluid movements of her muscles as her arms opened. “C’mere to me, boy.”
He came to her. The bed creaked as they eased further into it. “You in the market for a soul?” he asked.
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“Sure.” Her nails rasped against his back. “Whaddya want for it?”
“Let’s call this the negotiations,” he said, “and see where we end up.”
“Hmm. All right.” She stroked the back of his neck. “I'll start the bidding at…”
Her touch solidified to a firm grip. She brought his face to hers. Her lips found his. The frantic kiss last night had been glorious, but the internal bleeding had put a pall on things. This kiss—this was everything he’d prayed it would be. Slow and sensuous and deep. Annalise’s full lips teasing his further open, her hot, heavy tongue shoving into his mouth with unashamed lust. There was no escaping her, not now. Not with her grip so tight at the nape of his neck.
This was the trap, and he’d taken a long, sober look at it and waltzed cheerfully into it.
She released him, eventually, her breath sharp and shallow and tingling the wetness she’d left on his lips. “Your hands,” she sighed. “They’re…”
He flexed his fingers. “Oh, yeah.” It wasn’t just the pads, now. The gray reached almost to his wrists. “Look at that.”
“It’ll be scary,” she said. “No way around it. When your soul lifts out. When that happens, you’ll want to stop.”
“I promise I won’t,” he said. “You know how hard I fought for this. I’m committed.”
“I’m not doubting your commitment, love.” She lay back and drew him further into her embrace. Their stomachs pressed together. “It’s just what happens. It’ll only go a few feet, right into the sword’s animaxis.” Her foot rose to point at the executioner’s blade in the corner, its bared dynamos pulsing. “Once it’s staying put you’ll feel better again. But the moment you feel it happen, it’s a hard moment. Your body’ll panic. It’ll try and hold on, make you feel like you’re disappearing. When it happened to me, I thought I was dying. It’ll be too late to reverse it at that point. But when you try to stop, do you want me to stop, and wait it out before we keep going? It’ll take a while, but I’ll be there with you, the whole time. Swear on the sword.”
“What if you keep going?”
“If I keep going it’ll be quicker.” Her legs folded upward, easing him into the warm space between them. “And messier. It’ll happen when you, uh… finish. In me.”
“When I cum,” he said.
She nodded.
“You’re gonna make me literally cum my soul out.”
She scoffed and nodded again. An iron blush crept across her face. “If you wanna act the maggot about it, yeah.”
“That’s hilarious,” he said. “Let’s do that.”
“Seth, cop on and take this serious, right? And be sure. Cause when you’re grabbing at me going wait, stop, I need to know not to.”
That put a shiver in his skin, but he shook it off. “Don’t,” he said. “I want this.”
“I believe you,” she said. “And it’ll be a grand ride before, and after. But just… be prepared. It’ll be hard.”
“I hope it’ll be hard. I’ll try not to wilt.”
“Little fucking gobdaw.” She nestled him further up her body and rubbed her nose against his. The lacy fabric of her thong was pliant with humidity where it pressed against him.
He gathered her camisole’s gossamer material at its short hem. Slowly he uncovered the gorgeous body beneath it, shining in the candlelight like a mastercraft in porcelain. As the garment rose to her chest, it gathered and caught at the heavy globes of her breasts. Her arms tightened against her sides. A plaintive little noise rose in her throat.
“Hey,” he prompted. “You good?”
“Everything I said.” Her eyes were dewy. “All that I was afraid of. It’s still… you’re young.”
He wasn’t trying to fight this anymore. “I am.”
“And I’m trying not to feel wrong. I’m old, I’m used up, I’m…” Her stomach rose and fell. “I’m trusting you, ‘cause you’ve earned it. That you know what you want. But we’re going down a path I swore I wouldn’t, and… and I don’t know where it goes.”
“Me neither.” He resumed his slow unsheathing, coaxing her tight posture open. “Wherever it is, it’s together. That’s all I want.”
He kissed her again. A feathery sigh loosened her. She lifted her arms and the fabric slid away. The weighty bounce of her breasts as they were freed put a momentary halt to Seth’s simian brain.
“Holy fucking Saints,” he whispered. He reverently lifted one, felt the chubby heft. Watched the milky flesh spill from his palm.
Her laugh was pinched and breathy. “You’re such a kid.”
“Nuh-uh.” He brought his mouth to her chest. “Young, yes. Kid, no.”
“You. Mmm.” She squirmed as he laid a kiss on the mole that had hypnotized him for weeks. Her nipple was hard on his cheek. “You are. I’m—for fuck’s sake. I’m old enough to be your mother.”
“Uh huh.” His thumbs hooked into the pinching black waistband of her panties. “But you’re not.”
The tension returned; her legs tightened across his waist.
“I’m sorry.” Her eyes flitted away from his. “I’m—I’m trying.”
“It’s okay.” His thumbs caressed the lines of her quadriceps. “We have all the time we want. Any way I can make you more comfortable?”
“It’s not anything to do with your choice anymore, it’s just…” Her clavicle stood out as she swallowed. “It’s been a while.”
“What’s a while?”
“I haven’t really, seriously fucked since, uh. When I was pregnant, their father didn’t want to touch me. And I suppose the frigidness just sort of… carried on, after.” Her ankles brushed together at his back. “Just as well, ‘cause when I found out the kind of dad he was, I wanted him nowhere near me. And then he died, and I went north, and I went unlit. And that was that.”
“That was that, as in… nobody since?”
She shook her head. “I’d just—I’d always been a big lass, but I put on all my soldier weight, and I got all my scars, and I went unlit, and sort of came out of the Winter War feeling… uh. Feeling like a monster. Hating my body. And I had my kids and my job, and it just didn’t… it just felt like that part of my life was done.”
“Annalise,” Seth said, in rising horror. “You are telling me you haven’t gotten laid in twenty-five years?”
“I guess not. Saints.” Her face darkened with embarrassment. She covered it with her hands and laughed helplessly. “Saints, what are we doing? Last time I was with a man, you were in diapers. D’you realize that?”
Seth’s jaw hung agape. This was cosmic injustice. This was slapping a loving Creator in the face. To have an absolute smokeshow like Annalise on the face of the world, too afraid and ashamed to let herself be loved. With a cold shock he wondered whether she was interpreting his nerves as reluctance.
“Even before the unlighting, and the tats, and the crow’s feet, I was an acquired taste,” Annalise was saying, over the hum of the blood in his ears. “Now I’m—I’m spent brass.”
“No fucking way.” He snapped out of it. “I’m fixing this. Right now.”
“Fixing what?”
“I know what to do.” He kissed her sternum. “To make you understand how sexy you are.”
She chuckled uncertainly. Her muscles flexed below the cushion as he inched lower. “What’re you doing?”
He peeled her panties off; her illustrated thighs pinched and then bloomed as the waistband slid away. “Acquiring your taste.” he said, and parted her elegant legs.