Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Leechtin (December 2013) - You Won't Tell Them, Will You?

(disclaimer: This oneshot is extremely spoilery of the last quarter of "The Story of the Vampire, L", which is as yet unpublished. Especially if you think about it too much.)

There was a lover in Egypt. You won't tell them, will you? If I tell you this, sweet, purple lotus, you won't tell them? Please tell me that you will keep it close to you, because betray you I would never, and can you say the same?

You taste of the inside of a tortoise shell. Your skin pales behind the ears. Always quiet. Always listening. Open, little seed. Burst. Will you say something to me? Are you still crying? Wipe them. Here. Wipe them on my robe. I will have your blood. I will. Come. Hush, and I will tell you a secret.

I was your same age. Yes, you see? You have some five centuries, now, yes? I am counting. Yes, see? I counted them on my hand. Stop crying, oh, cry. Here, on my sleeve. Here, it is no matter at all. Yes, with you head against my chest. It is no weight upon me at all, is your head, and I will stroke your nice, black hair. 

We count ourselves by those we love, don't we? Truly, I will tell you about the boy who killed me. Oh I am not the same as I was. My eyes are many-fractured, and I see many lives, and in them have been lovers, but when I close my one eye, I think I might see him. If I focus my eye, he is there far away, so distant that I cannot be sure that he is there or some far shadow, some illusion of the light. He wavers in my memory, like the heat of the desert. He quivers, small shadow, small fly, flicking and darting.

But at other times, when I breathe deeply, oh, I smell him, whose name I cannot remember, as if he is standing at my back, and smiling his secret smile, and turning as I turn, so that I can never catch him, or see his sneaky face. He had dark eyes, very dark, and skin hot under my hands, and I think that his nose was long, and that his chin was sharp, but I don't know. I do not know, because he is always turning with me when I turn around, so that I never see him, never. And like you, he will never speak to me, even when I feel his heat upon my back, as if we are in Egypt again, and he is pressing his hot body against mine. We can call him "Sabni", if you want to give him a name. 

Protest? I was different then. I have told you. Do not struggle. Be still. You have asked for this. You have asked! Be still and be at peace or be warned, my patience is short! There, we are quiet. We are beautiful. Peaceful. Will I take you away? You are very light. What will you be, little seed? His face so young and seeking for his dead. I will hold his head. It is good to be afraid. He is a clever flower, very rare. Open, let us see him. Hush.

I came to Egypt overland, and I think he was a ferrymaster's son. I think that is true. When he sucked in a breath, when he swallowed his air, at an insistent touch, the way his throat would hollow, and when he inclined his chin, how the shadows of his neck would swiftly darken, and his skin, depthfully ambered, would color with a blush which rose from loins, to belly, and chest, and soft throat, and gasping lips, and when I feel his spectre at my back now, I hear his gasp, and the silken touch of a dozy lover, who fears his father, and tells me his secret wants as he drifts into satiety, into sleep. 

He used to take me on the river, the gentle Nile of winter, and say, "I know the path, lover, rest awhile," and stand at the head of our narrow boat, so that I might lie in the back, drunk of the warm air and of love, letting my fingers trail across the water in our wake. I would say, "Sabni?" and he would hush me, and laugh, and I have always loved a boy who can laugh, and who is brave, and who says, "Care not at all, I know the way." I think that he was not very young. I think he had brothers. Or maybe he did not. Perhaps he was the only one. Perhaps he was delicate, and ill often. I think that is the case. I think that is why his father kept too hard a hold upon him, and why when first I touched him, he had never been touched before, even of his own hand, and every time he whispered, "Aurvha?" as if my name were a question, eyes rolling back, wet breath, in my ear.