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Proserpina was last because Proserpina was always last. Not because she was disliked or because she was timid, but because she was dreaming on her feet while everyone else was walking.
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Every road led to another road, every car and bus and train had a destination. Every day had a plan, and every plan had a goal, and every goal had a reason. At Thornchapel, none of this was true.
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A kiss that was almost a bruise, almost a bite, and how he wanted both, he wanted kissing and bruising and holding and biting—and he wanted to shelter them from the rain and force them to kneel in the mud too, and he didn’t know what it meant or why it was happening or even why they were letting him yank them close.
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It’s always seemed like a place apart to me, a place alive, like a temple in a myth or a castle in a fairy tale. It just is, it just exists outside any human intervention,
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“You’re very easy to talk to, you know.” It’s something I’ve heard all my life, and I’m used to it, even if it sometimes makes me feel a little lonely. The person that everyone talks to, but who never gets that comfort in return.
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But I’m so susceptible to this kind of touch; I bloom like a rose when I’m handled like a weed,
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There’s something electrifying about having him touch me like this, in this sort of peremptory, possessive way. Half like he’s a gracious host and half like I’m getting hauled off to be punished. I adore being hauled off and punished, and the bruises on my thighs and ass sing to me again, ready for Auden to add to their number.
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I’m stupider than I give myself credit for, apparently, because that pepper and lavender smell is all I can think about. “Blenheim Bouquet,” I say. Randomly. Like a random asshole.
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Is this how people really used to find people before iPhones? By asking other people? Out loud? With mouth-words? Ugh.
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“You’re so—” he stops saying whatever it is he’s about to say and shakes his head at himself. “What?” I ask with a laugh, still trying to pile all my winter shit onto the seat next to me. “You’re so colorful,” he says. Quickly. “I mean with your cheeks being so flushed and your eyes being so green right now—”
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They get to the front door and she’s fine, and it’s only him who’s not fine, only him who’s jumbled up inside with all the things he could do. He could shake her hand. He could hug her. He could kiss her cheek. He could kiss her mouth. He could tell her that he can’t stop thinking about the way her eyes look like summer. He could tell her that he wants to bite the point of her chin and the arch of her throat. That he’s shaking and sick with wanting to touch her. Wanting to watch her gasp and laugh and smile. Wanting to reach that ever-unfolding bloom of her spirit and cradle it in his palms.
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He could tell her that they did get married once, after all, and why not play husband and wife for a couple hours and drive back the cold and the dark? Why not pretend Auden was there too, pretend each other’s hands were his hands, and each other’s mouths were his mouth?
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I watch him eat, my own hunger tearing at me from the inside. The careful press and touch of his lips against the spoon is killing me. I think I’m just going to have to tell him the truth. Tell him that I’m a virgin and a sex monster and I want him to fuck me. He can even fuck me vanilla if kink isn’t his thing.
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“When Becket gave me the choice to either see you or not see you, I realized it wasn’t a choice at all,” he says, his eyes still on his fingers in my hair. He meets my gaze. “I had to see you again,” he finishes simply. “I had to.”
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Rebecca quickly appraises the scene and what she has to work with—honestly, not much, unless she wants to whale on my ass with a book, which I’d only object to for the sake of the books.
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but I’m drawn to you, St. Sebastian. I’m coded to you somehow, like every part of me just responds to every part of you.
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“Rituals aren’t for wells and livestock, Auden. They’re for the people performing them.” “Well, then? What do those people get out of it? Because they’re not getting magical protection, and they’re not getting the attention of gods who don’t exist.
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Why am I so messy? So eager? I feel like an overgrown garden, lush and crowded, rioted and jumbled, except instead of leaves and roots and petals, I’m jealousy and hunger and pain and thrill.
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“Yes,” he says, louder this time. “I’m saying yes. But I’m also saying—asking—for this not to hurt us. I don’t want to not belong again.”
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He cups one of my breasts in his large hand, plumping and massaging it until it’s so heavy and aching that I could cry, until my nipple pulls into a tight bead against his palm. Then he gives it a vicious, unexpected twist, and I whimper in pure, clean pain. I want to worship him for it.
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Like the magic of Thornchapel is coming into my lungs and from my lungs to my blood and from my blood to every beating, living part of my body, until my heart and my mind and every curve, corner and plane of my skin is tingling with it.
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Auden’s fingers are deft with the button and zipper of my jeans, and then he ducks his head to mine so he can whisper low in my ear, “How can I serve this goddess right now?” My breath is stuck somewhere in my chest and I can’t get it out. “I think you mean ‘saint’,” I finally whisper. “I don’t serve saints.
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Any of us can be anything. All of us can be all things. What’s the point of searching for the divine if that’s not true once you find it?
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It has nothing to do with how skilled I am or even how sexy I am, and everything to do with how gently I held him. How softly I touched him. I was giving him a vanilla hand job, and St. Sebastian, my pierced and sullen library boy, needs something else.
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