Madness (11 page)

She made a murmur of protest but he shook his head.

“I don’t dare leave us like that. I can’t trust myself in my sleep. I want you so much, I might just climb right up inside you and never come out.”

She trembled at his word and cradled him against her breast. “Oh Simon, I want you too.”

“What is this incredible gift you’ve given me?” he asked in wonder. “I can’t believe we met only a few short hours ago in the midst of absolute madness and chaos.

"Now my desire for you is both of those things, and so much more. I feel so lost and yet found. Torn in two. I keep telling myself this is terribly wrong. I mean, a young girl like you, so young and tender as I remember from past happy days, yet now so womanly too, and look at me now. An opium addict and an incarcerated lunatic.

“Yet I touch you, kiss you, and I feel such certainty. As if I’m sheltered in the storm and the winds and rain can buffet me, yet I’ll be safe no matter what.”

Gabrielle stroked his cheek gently. “Oh, I wish I could, Simon. I promise you, I’ll find out who you are, why you’re here, where we met before. We can see each other, maybe get you out—”

Simon shook his head bitterly. “They’ll never let me go. Never. And you can’t follow me in here, or into my world. It’s too dangerous.”

“Maybe we can break free—”

He cupped her cheek and shook his head sadly. “Don’t, please, Gabrielle. Don’t make me allow myself to start dreaming. You’re so lovely and warm and soft in my arms now, but there will come a time when you’re going to hate me.”

“No! Never!” she protested, truly shocked, and planted a kiss on his lips which set them both panting anew.

Yet Simon remained adamant. “Yes, love. You will hate me.” His golden eyes blazed with absolute conviction. “You’re going to look at me and there will be doubt in your eyes. And it’ll damn near kill me. Then it will be all over. You’ll walk away from me, and I’ll never see you again.” He sighed heavily.

“No! Never!” she protested again. "There's nothing you could do, nothing they could say, that would make me abandon you—"

“But then you’re really just a dream anyway, Gabrielle. One of the dreams that mock me as I try to escape from this place even for a short time, only to wake up in my cold, lonely, narrow cell and realise that this is all a fantasy. None of it is real."

"I am real, Simon, and I won't forsake you—"

He gave her a loving smile, and she was sure she had never seen a man more handsome.

 
"My darling Gabrielle, even if you were real, and not just a recollection of happier times in my long ago past, your love could never be. I’m blighted, not even human any longer. I'm nothing more than a creature of the night. A savage beast of war and the apocalypse. The pale rider bringing nothing but death with only a word or two. There isn’t a place for me in the real world after the war.”

She shook her head and argued vehemently, “No, it’s not true! Even out of death there comes new life. Just think of, well, bone meal in a garden to fertilise roses. How something as reeking of mortality as manure can also foster such things of beauty."

He gazed at her, startled.
Roses….

He heard her saying as if from a distance, "My friend Eswara is from India. She believes that nothing ever dies, but is reborn and tries to aspire to a higher and higher level of being. To be at one with God at last. Reincarnation, I think is the word. Even if I’m not a very good Christian, I have to believe there’s more than this. Just as you have to believe there’s more than Bedlam. I won’t forsake you, Simon, I swear.”

He rested his hand on her cheek. “That’s exactly what you should do. A quick tiddle or two isn’t worth your life, my dear. There will be other men, and—”

She pouted mutinously. “Even if there ever were, which I doubt, you’re still my friend. I owe you. And I shan’t forget it. Do you hear me, Simon?”

He simply nodded, unwilling to spoil the few precious moments they had left in fruitless arguments.

“Thank you for rising to my defence so stoutly." He stroked one auburn curl, then asked softly, "Kiss me again?”

She did more than that, throwing her leg over his waist and tugging at his trousers until his velvet tip branded into her through his clothes.

The whirlwind was upon them again, but Simon once again was the one who took command and drew back where she would have pressed forward with their passion to its tumultuous conclusion.

He bathed her face in kisses, but finally flattened her leg back down on the pallet before he really did ruin her irrevocably.

“We can’t, darling. It’s going to happen in a second if you do that again. And then your cousin is really going to kill me. I’m not taking you on the bathroom floor like some mindless brute, do you hear me?”

“Then let’s do what you did before. Please. I need you. Need you so much,” she panted, stroking his high cheekbone.

Eventually he gave a reluctant nod. He positioned himself as he had a few moments previously and wrapped his arm around her legs to still her, not trusting Gabrielle to keep herself safe from his huge manhood, which he feared would split her tiny body in two.

For she was certainly most slender, the tiniest and most lithe girl he had ever met, yet all woman with it, her body a lush oasis of delights in the desert of his existence.

He brought them to another incredible climax even more powerful than all the others combined. She clung to him fiercely, almost sobbing out her need for him.

He sushed her with his mouth, curving her neck backwards to deepen the kiss so that she would not try to pull him into her more than welcoming body.

But she could see what he was doing. “Please, if this is all the time we have...”

“No, I’ve told you. I just can’t do this to you. And they will be here soon. Try to sleep.”

“I can’t. I don’t want to lose you. Have you vanish into thin air.”

He shook his head sadly. “I’m a ghost, a dead man.”

She ran her hand along his abdomen before he could stop her. “You feel awfully lively to me.”

“Stop, please. Don’t you understand, I feel dreadful enough about what we did already?” he hissed.

“Was it so terrible for you?” she asked, her hurt unmistakable in her tone.

He kissed her hard, then said, “It was heaven on earth. But I’ve awakened something inside you now that it will be hard to quench. Just think of this is a pleasant fantasy. But I’m not a real man. The terror of the circumstances has made you feel, well, romantically inclined towards someone you would never otherwise give the time of day to.”

Her eyes flashed fire. “Is
that
what you think this has been between us? Some mere reaction to the danger and my near-rape? I'm so hysterical that I've decided to throw myself into the arms of the very next man I meet?” she accused as she jerked her body away from his.

Simon nearly cried out at the loss of her warm softness. “Not exactly. Just that you would be inclined to view your rescuer as some sort of hero. But I’m a madman.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You’re more sane than most people I’ve met outside these gates. A real madman would be gibbering and would most certainly have taken all I had to offer, and more.”

He moved his head to nuzzle her hair. “Please, dearest, it’s getting late. I would like to spend our last few minutes in your arms, revelling in your softness, not arguing with you about what’s really for your own good.

"You’re so young. It would be a dreadful mistake to rob you of that which can never be replaced. And while some women can have many partners without any thought for the consequences, I suspect you’re not one of them. I think once you give your body and heart, they can never be regained.

His hand moved
 
from her shoulder down the curve of her back to cup her more tightly to him.
 
“It would be the height of folly and selfishness to become your man for one night and leave you with nothing but memories and regrets.”

“But it doesn't have to be like that, Simon. I'll come see you whenever I visit Lucinda and—”

He shook his head regretfully. “I told you. I don’t know what lies they will tell you about what I've supposedly done. All I can say is I served my country loyally, and this is the way they’ve repaid me.”

“But why—”

“Please, don't ask me any more, lovely Gabrielle. I’m going to have another seizure and might wake your cousin. It's a miracle we haven't already."

"He works so hard, he must sleep like the dead when he does finally get a chance to rest," she said with a sad smile.

"So no more arguing. I don't want to lose a moment of these precious moments together, for however long we're gifted with them. Let me just kiss you, feel you beside me, feel your lush softness? I promise I shall be careful, not take your maidenhead.”

“Do it, please, just take it. I need—”

He shook his head and kissed her, lifting his head many moments later with a sigh. “I never knew there could be such pleasure in something so simple.”

Of course his hands had not been still, and Gabrielle barely had the strength to reply. Her whole body had vibrated like one of the celestial spheres as he had brought her to some strange fit of her own.

“What, what did you do to me? This shaking, trembling?”

“It’s called an orgasm or climax, my dear.
La petite mort.
The little death. It’s the pinnacle of pleasure in the act between a man and woman. If a man is patient with you, you can experience it over and over again. With a man it is as you’ve seen, sound and fury, then nothing for a time. A good lover can keep you on the edge like this for hours—”

“And how is it you know so much about women's pleasures?” she asked, with a sudden stab of jealousy the likes of which she had never known.

“Before Bedlam, during the war, I lived in a brothel. The army put me there for safe-keeping. I talked to the women, learned about their bodies, what pleases a woman.”

Her eyes widened in horror.

“Yes, I did more than talk too, but you have to believe me when I say I’m not the rake you would imagine me to be. It would be like, er, living in a bakery. After a time you’d get sick of cake."

She gave a short laugh of disbelief, but from the serious expression in his eyes, she could see he was in earnest.

"I also have to like the woman I bed. And while there are many admirable things to like about many women, they were a temporary solace, and only ever willing. No money ever changed hands. If they were willing to teach me, I learned. Otherwise I performed my duties in the war as and when required."

"I see."

“And I want you to see more, so you don't make the mistake your sister made, and give yourself to a man who is unworthy of her.
 
Most men only care about their own pleasure. But lovemaking can be a fine art. I longed to possess those skills to do as the marriage service says, worship my wife with my body. When the time came of course, for I have never been married.”