I am the last of my kind:
those who love you.
I want to love you
I want to love you
as gold must surely love electrons
coursing through
its trembling, empty space,
as stardust must love
the atmosphere
which burns it to nothing,
as water must love the desert
that swallows it whole.
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Pierce
Pin me like
a butterfly;
spread my wings
on velvet
and stab me
while I’m still moving,
still thinking
that I am flying.
Pierce my heart
and label
all the pertinent
bits of me
so everyone will know
what picture-perfect variety
you have claimed
for your own.
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Paid For
It was three days later, while Xand was tending to and being tended by the gaunt, pale, exhausted Master Tynan, that a courier from Master Jack arrived. An armed courier. The man said to Tynan, “My Master insists on another payment if you are to keep the toy any longer.”
“By all means,” Tynan replied, and airily waved another servant to hand over a heavily clinking pouch. “It is well worth it.”
* * *
Two days after that, Xand was bathed by Tynan himself, polished and well-groomed, nuzzled and pleased — long and sweet and hard. Tynan grew more tender, with time, adoring, allowing Xand to sleep with him all the time, to rise late. Tynan fed him, cared for him, and asked for little save companionship. He still slept in fits, waking occasionally in terror, but the fear subsided almost instantly.
What was new was the way his breathing grew heavy and hoarse, rattling, until Tynan coughed and choked, clutching pillows and bedsheets. He seemed only unhappy to have Xand see him in this vulnerable state, and occasionally shook off comfort when he seemed ill, preferring to have a servant please Xand while he watched, and drank a bitter tea, until he was feeling restored.
A day after that, another courier came, asking for money, which Tynan gladly gave, seeming content.
The next day, other servants began to treat Xand with fear approaching anger, but never within Tynan’s presence. Xand overheard two of them discussing the fact that Tynan was growing more and more ill, and that he would certainly die soon, and what would become of them?
“You’re sick,” Xand whispered. “The help thinks you are dying.” Carefully, precisely, he kissed down the man’s chest.
“The help doesn’t think,” Tynan said, pursing his lips as he pulled Xand close and licked his throat. “Ignore them. I’m ill, but I’ve been ill this way for much of my life. It’s nothing to worry about,” he whispers. He made love to Xand, again and again, that night, as though to prove he was fine.
Give Me Strength
“You misunderstand,” the redhead girl tells him, but he is not listening, especially because no one in the world, in their right mind, would ever tell the Emperor that he was mistaken, that he was about to do something that would be a terrible idea.
He goes to her in a rush, and he pulls her into his arms and buries his face in her throat, breathing in the musk and need from her skin, her hair, and he pulls at her fine clothes and her cries and her fluttering hands only spur him on. She utters a low sob, turning her face away, and bites her lip, closing her eyes. Amari, give me strength.
In thinking that word, that name, she seems to find peace; her whole self shudders, and she reaches for him with desire and hope, instead of fear, imagining that since he won’t stop, since he isn’t going to stop, perhaps she can hold his interest, his attention, for longer than a quick coupling — she needs to talk to him, and not be simply set aside once he’s done.
She spreads for him, taunting, teasing, moving in all the ways she imagines Xand would have loved, had they been able to love one another for more than a moment, and when he is in her, thrusting, she turns his face up to hers, cupping his cheeks in her hands, nodding, smiling, wearing an expression of hope and adoration.
“Don’t stop,” she urges. “You have the look of my husband. My Amari,” she whispers.
“I am already taken by that name,” he says, his hips smacking against hers more roughly, as though to prove he is not tender for her.
“No,” she breathes. “No, not you. My own, my love,” she whispers. “You called him Xand. His sister will be your wife. He is my Amari, mine,” she says, and she lays her hands to his hips as the thought hits him, and hits hard.
He bows his head, clenching his teeth, knowing that this woman who writhes for him had also spread for Xand. Xand, who is alive. Xand, who is claimed and joined and bound to another.
Xand.
He moans, clutching at her, and she closes her eyes and folds herself to him when she feels him come, hard, spasming as he fills her. “Please,” she breathes. “Don’t go yet. Help him. Help us.”
“He’s dead. Gone,” he says, sounding defeated. “No,” she breathes, and he tenses, holding her hips. “No,” she whispers, and at her last words, he loses himself again, spiraling into oblivion that is both pleasure and confusion.
“He lives.”