Our Infinite Sadness

Clytemnæstra

Edythe lay spooned in Benjamin's long warm arms, with several blankets between them, which she had arranged in his slumber, since he'd been shivering behind her at times so violently that his teeth had chattered. She had tried to retire to the rocking chair, to let him sleep. He would not have it, and he had clutched her tightly by her tummy and her breasts, with as much strength and force as an amorous kitten, but she melted against him in heaven, never once in her existence ever having felt so wanted or complete.

Her indulgence of his insistent grip on her body transcended mere passivity and acceptance. It was more than that. She wanted to be held, possessed by him. She hated the thought of being apart from him, even as far as the rocking chair. To leave his embrace would have been self-imposed privation, like forcing herself to sit deaf and blindfolded in a strange place surrounded on all sides by perils.

For the brief span that she had separated to let him warm up, the rocking chair had become worse and worse: not touching him, not being held by him, having to look at him from across the room. Unpleasant, a persistent cramp, an unreachable itch, a subcutaneous splinter. He had hated it, too. He'd been sleeping, yet fretful. He had tossed and turned on his bed, arms extended, clenching on the headboard or grasping at nothing. She imagined his dreamscape, a place of torment. So she had rejoined him, had carefully rearranged the blankets to protect him, and then she had nestled into his embrace. Though their bodies did not physically touch, with all the insulation, their indirect contact through the layers settled them both. He calmed into a deep slumber, and the restlessness inside Edythe calmed as well. She herself could rest, because her Benjamin was comfortable and safe.

She lay in bed with him, and she still had a mouthful of his seed. She cupped the thick, copious pool on her tongue and reveled in the core essence of the scent of his blood, which was so maddeningly attractive to her, that same compelling taste yet concentrated a thousand-fold in its pure, unsullied form, infinitely more desirable than Benjamin's blood, so sweet and delicious. Maybe this was why his blood had called to her on that very first day? Maybe the calling had been summoned from deep within her womb, all along, and she had only misinterpreted this sweet new hunger as vile thirst, for lack of a more appropriate reference? Maybe from the first moment that she had seen him in the cafeteria that day and sensed something off about the air in the room, her womb had been a chrysalis awakening from its epochal dormancy? Because now an awareness resided inside her body, awake and yearning, a desperate hunger antithetical to thirst, which compelled her with its own force of will.

She knew that she had to confront Carlisle and her sisters. For the hundredth time she cursed herself for smashing her phone.

It would take her only minutes to sprint home and see them, and she could be back a few short minutes later.

But she couldn't imagine extricating herself from Benjamin's arms and leaving his bed. The newly awoken presence within her wouldn't allow it. Benjamin slept soundly yet actively; she could sense him dreaming; she couldn't read his mind, but it was so plain. He was enormously aroused again, grinding against her bottom in his dreams, a visceral need manifested by his subconscious, deep and fundamental, so affirming and lovely; the layers between them were irksome and irritating but regrettably necessary, and yes, the presence in her womb deeply resented the imposition, but tough; the presence within would just have to wait and be patient along with her. His hands clutched her tummy and breasts tightly, with all his strength, which felt to her like a gentle caress. She slowly twirled the last of his semen on her tongue; her mouth was also full of venom, which somehow didn't dilute it, but only intensified the sweet taste of his gift, almost like one was becoming the other, or maybe even that the two were becoming something new, something even sweeter, a merged and transcendent nectar all their own.