Sci Spanks (17 page)

“C’mon, love,” he pants. “Do it, let go, I want to feel it.”

And that’s it, that’s just
it
, that’s all Kimolijah can take, it all goes splintery and wobbly, and Kimolijah lets go of everything with a throat-ripping scream. He doesn’t hear it, he doesn’t hear anything but the rush of blood pounding through his head. He only
feels
, so much sensation he really thinks he might die of the overload. And he doesn’t
care
. Bas is still driving into him, still scraping bliss up Kimolijah’s spine, dragging him through ecstasy like it’s a whole new world and he means to show Kimolijah every last acre of it before he lets him die of rapture. It’s wild and it’s sharp, a raw nerve-ending swaddled in acute pleasure, and Kimolijah writhes, bends and twists, arches so hard he vaguely feels the knobs of his spine popping and cracking in protest before his body locks into an arced bow, every nerve awake and hot, and blinding white light pounding behind his eyes.

He can’t move, but it doesn’t disturb him like he would have thought it would; his body feels all fizzy-warm, every inch of him aware and wallowing in sensation, shuddering and twitching as something deep within him listens to Bas groaning release, feels the last jerky thrusts of his body against Kimolijah’s, and Kimolijah thinks he smiles. There’s an odd kind of peace in the frothy stillness inside Kimolijah’s head, where the hour is none and nothing else exists in the world but the two of them.

Kimolijah’s mind has gone blank, everything has gone blank, narrowed down to a pinpoint of warm nothingness, and that’s all right, too, because it’s not a scary nothing; it’s too full of everything to be scary. It could be hours that he floats in this luxurious serene sort of limbo, but he thinks it’s probably only minutes or even seconds, and the next thing he’s aware of is Bas collapsed atop him, panting like a bellows and shaking. Kimolijah wishes he could stroke him, soothe him, run a caress up and down his back; even as he gives his arms a shaky, experimental little tug, he’s surprised to find them lying limp at his sides. He lifts them up, vaguely feeling a slow-sloughing burn work its way from his forearms down to his shoulders and curling around over his back, but that’s for later. He blinks and squints, then stares dumbly at his right arm for a moment, the scarf still wound about loosely and dangling from his wrist, but no longer attached to the headboard.
Huh
.

“Whenna niss—?” Kimolijah realizes he’s mumbling and shuts his mouth, absurdly amused that he’s lost the power of speech.
When did this happen?
was what he’d meant to ask, but decides he doesn’t really need to know.

“Mm?” Bas hums back.

Kimolijah only smiles a little and doesn’t try to repeat the question; it’s really not important.

Bas takes a long, dragging breath, slowly props himself up on his elbows and peers down at Kimolijah. Kimolijah can’t read Bas’s expression, which is odd—he can usually tell what Bas is thinking just by the sort of smile or frown he’s wearing—but something inexplicable winds through Kimolijah’s gut, lays a tiny shrill of unease over him.

Don’t make me remember, don’t make what just happened into nothing, and don’t say it’s everything, don’t say it out loud, don’t say it at all, just let it be…

Bas reaches over, takes up Kimolijah’s left hand, draws it close and inspects his wrist. Kimolijah’s eyes are still a little crossed and blurry, and lighting a lamp was rather low on the priority list when they’d stumbled into the room, so he can’t really see what Bas is looking at, but he’s got a pretty good idea.

Don’t, don’t, please don’t…

But Bas only lays a light, feathery kiss to Kimolijah’s wrist, gently thumbs at the whorls of black ink bisected by scars that aren’t old enough yet. Kimolijah can tell the skin is raw and abraded by the small flare of heat from the contact, but he’s paying too much wary attention to what Bas is doing for it to really register. Kimolijah’s holding his breath, tense, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, fearing, but it never comes; Bas simply lays Kimolijah’s hand back down to the sheets, draws back up onto his knees and gently prods Kimolijah’s hip.

“Turn over, I’ll rub your shoulders.”

Kimolijah didn’t realize it was possible to feel so many emotions within such a short span of time, but it seems like he’s felt everything it’s possible to feel over the past however-long-it’s-been, and yet here’s a new one. He’s not sure what this one is; he thinks it feels a little like gratitude, and he has this odd impulse to thank Bas, but he thinks that might somehow be insulting, so he keeps it in. His mouth is twitching, and he thinks it wants to smile, but if he lets his eyes crinkle, they might start to leak, so he keeps that in, too. He doesn’t really know what to do with himself, so he only does what Bas has asked and turns over.

It’s wonderful, Bas’s broad hands on him, stroking peace back into Kimolijah’s skin, and drawing serenity up with careful fingers. Just lovely, there’s no better word for it, and Kimolijah relaxes into the soothing touches, lets Bas manipulate strained muscles and coiled tendons from arms to shoulders and on down Kimolijah’s back. It almost seems more intimate than what they’ve just done, the quiet wrapping itself inside him, stilling everything that threatened chaos and taking it down to a low, melodic hum behind his eyes.

It’s times like these that Kimolijah really and truly understands how much he loves Bas, and that usually scares him so badly that he only looks at it for a second or two before pushing it into his back-brain. Right now, he takes it out, peers at it closely, and decides it’s worth savoring, even if this is the only time he’ll let himself do it.

“Are you going to want a bath?” Bas asks; his voice is soft but awake and clear.

Kimolijah almost growls. Because
he’s
so bloody exhausted he doesn’t know if he’ll ever move again.

“Mmrph,” he replies. Let Bas make of it what he will; Kimolijah will go along with it, whatever it is.

Bas snorts a little. “Well, since you
always
want a bath, I’ll take that as a yes.”

And that’s just… it’s just
right
, so quietly
right
that Kimolijah squeezes his eyes shut tight, sucks in a shaky breath, and what
is
all this, anyway? When did he become this raw disarray of emotional penury?

“Not yet,” Kimolijah whispers, “don’t go yet,” and he doesn’t even care that he’s apparently not done with the needy begging thing yet.

Bas only stretches out alongside him, slides a knee over Kimolijah’s thighs and keeps one hand moving up and down Kimolijah’s spine. “Later,” Bas agrees. “I’ll put some coppers up and get you something for your throat, shall I? Sounds a little sore.”

That makes Kimolijah smile, small and wobbly, because that’s right, too, Bas mother-henning, and a little piece of Kimolijah’s world clicks back into place. His throat
is
sore and just as sensitive as everything else seems to be, and it keeps accumulating these mystifying lumps that Kimolijah has to swallow down or breathe around, and both are getting more and more difficult. For all that tonight has been astonishing and revelatory, he’ll be just as happy when it’s over and he can tuck his emotions back inside where they belong, instead of having them dripping out of him like this and him not able to stop the flow.

Kimolijah takes a deep breath that’s a little more steady than the last had been, ventures, “I see my nefarious scheme is working, then,” and sighs a little when it comes out slightly mumbled and slurred, but clear enough.

Bas’s hand pauses for a moment. Kimolijah can’t see him, can’t see anything but the insides of his eyelids, but he knows Bas’s eyebrows have gone up and one corner of his mouth is quirked.

“And which scheme is that? There are so many, after all.”

Kimolijah stretches, rolls his shoulders beneath Bas’s hand; Bas takes the hint and resumes kneading at them. “The one where I get you to shag me witless and then coddle me until I can move and think again.”

“Ah,” Bas says. “And did this scheme entail tea or port for your throat?”

“Um…” Kimolijah frowns. “That’s… sort of an odd choice, isn’t it?” He grunts a bit when Bas’s hand cups the entirety of his right shoulder blade and digs into the muscle.

“When I was a boy,” Bas tells him, “Mam always insisted that tea with honey and lemon and a touch of freesia would cure anything from a runny nose to the loss of a limb.”

Kimolijah smiles, relieved that it doesn’t feel so shaky anymore. “’S nice,” he mumbles.

“But Gran used to sneak me a glass of port after Mam had gone off. Told me that even if it didn’t cure whatever was ailing me, at least it would make me feel like it had.”

Kimolijah chuckles at that one. “And did it?”

“Oh, yes,” Bas answers, the smile plain in his voice. “I was—what?—five or so, I imagine, when Gran started sotting me with the stuff, and it always did go straight to my head.”

“Still does,” Kimolijah observes wryly.

“Whatever,” is all Bas retorts. “Anyway, I never was quite sure which did the job, the tea or the port, so you’ll have to tell me which.” He burrows in a little tighter, mouth resting warm against Kimolijah’s shoulder. “When I get up, that is. Which is not right now.”

Pillow talk. That’s all.

No
are you all right
? No
did it remind you
? No
are you over it, finally, can you live now, can you be a whole person, can you forget, should you
?

Nothing.

Kimolijah is so relieved that they are decidedly
Not
Talking About It
that he feels a sudden and irresistible urge to let Bas know how grateful he is. With some effort, Kimolijah turns his head, lays a kiss to Bas’s hair before sinking like a stone back into the pillows; it’s perhaps a smallish token, but it’s all he can manage right now. Bas’s hand sweeps over to Kimolijah’s arm, gives it a light squeeze in acknowledgement before sliding down to stroke firmly over ribcage then backbone.

“You decide,” Kimolijah eventually answers, exhaustion thickening his tongue, spiraling behind his eyes and pulling heavily at his body. Sleep is rolling right over him and he doesn’t have the inclination to resist it at the moment, so he just sighs out a long breath, smiles a little. “I trust you,” he slurs into the pillow, then gives in and dozes.

Carole lives with her husband and family in Pennsylvania, USA, where she spends her time trying to find time to write. The recipient of various amateur writing awards, several of her short stories have been translated into Spanish, German, Chinese and Polish. Free shorts, sneak peeks at WIPs, and other miscellany can be found at
www.carolecummings.com
.

By

Anastasia Vitsky

The following excerpt is from Taliasmin, my newest project for Decadent Publishing’s Beyond Fairytales series. Based on “
Our Lady’s Child
,” the original tale depicts the Virgin Mary taking a babe to Heaven and casting her out after the girl fails to restrain her curiosity. In my version, aristocrat Vina appears at the cottage of Talia, a nineteen year old whose family is too poor for her to marry. Vina takes Talia to her palace, and the girl discovers unexpected love.

Taliasman will be available in the fall of 2014. For more details, visit Anastasia Vitsky’s blog at
http://governingana.wordpress.com
or Twitter at @AnastasiaVitsky.

If I had been born a boy, I would have followed in my father’s footsteps to become a tradesman. Because I was a girl, he sold me instead.

“No,” Vina corrects me when I bring up the story, which is not often. She doesn’t like the facts, and I dislike her pretty lies. “Your mother agonized whether to let you go, but she knew you would be better off here. She wanted you to have a better life.”

I would call Vina on her mistruths, but she claims I still reason as a child. All of my protests to the contrary serve to prove her right, at least in her mind. Only when I agree with her does she admit I am a full-grown adult.

“You’re happy with me, aren’t you?” Vina makes me sit next to her at the formal dinners she hosts most nights, and she dresses me in rich silks with real lace. If I tell her “no,” she sends me to my room as punishment for my petulance. If I resist, she gives me one of her lessons in obedience. Some are painful, some pleasurable, and all serve to narrow my world and make me focus on her. How could I not, when she owns me?

“No,” Vina corrects me when I call her my owner. “I set you free, and I gave you the life you never could have had otherwise.”

When I turned nineteen, no one wanted to marry me. My mother fussed with my “hope chest,” if it could be called that, and arranged the one cotton handkerchief as if it could attract a suitor.

“Let me stay with you,” I entreated, and I won. I always did. The house needed new walls, and I wielded the power tools.

“You’ve turned her into such a tomboy no one will want her,” Mother chided Father, and the truth stung. I could have cared for my parents into their old age, but they wanted me gone.

When a visitor arrived unannounced, I scrubbed our last two potatoes. The striking woman in her red hooded cloak would get an entire potato to herself. Father and Mother would share the second potato, and I would boil the peelings in the leftover water for myself. My mouth watered, and I gave thanks for the visitor’s coming. I could fill my belly for the first time in months. Curious about the newcomer, I eavesdropped on the conversation. Vina punishes me now for listening, but I hadn’t learned her rules yet.

“You can’t provide for her,” the stranger said, and Father’s shoulders sagged. “She will give her youth to you, and what will happen after you die?”

If I had been a boy, the stranger would have asked me about my life. I would have learned Father’s trade, become the “& Son” of his third-generation woodworking business, and taken my rightful place as heir to the master of the house. As a girl, I cost Father a dowry he couldn’t afford to pay.