Bayham

A peaceful, easy feeling. Reminding you of the certainty and strength you might find in the softly spoken voice of your Bayham lover. Patient, waiting and capable of control. You look back towards the stone steps, down to where they disappear into the sand, to the single thread of footprints and the rumpled white of your discarded dress, ending at the water's edge, and from there you wonder.

Why am I alone?

~VIII

Your eyes open, your limbs flex, the bathwater splashing, jolted by the sudden shift of your mind and body, suddenly brought back from your Bayham fantasy.

You're reminded of too many mornings, waking as if there's an emergency, as if sleeping has become a dangerous thing. Your heart beating so fast, racing to keep up or escape the buzzing in your brain.

It's as if they're cabled together, the muscle of your heart jumping, trying to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, the extreme procedure intended to preserve brain function and resurrect someone from near death.

Only here your brain seems close to unresponsive, a flat battery, worn out with the exertions of the night, where armies of emotion have come out to fight, and where heavy casualties on either side have left you exhausted from a marathon of erratic peace-keeping and problem-solving.

And so, another day will pass, as if you're hungover, and not from drink, but from the nightmares that demand solutions. Working your way through the fog and carrying all the armor you can manage until eventually you get home, shedding the layers of your defenses and climbing into bed exhausted and desperate for the sanctuary of sleep.

But instead of rest we find our innocence caught in another conflict, an uncivil war between our desire for closeness and our fear of intimacy, where hidden behind our inability to bond is a stark truth: we prefer to be alone. Because for us relationships spell closeness and closeness means pain.

You imagine a coin, with boredom on one side and fear of abandonment on the other. "Heads or tails?", you ask yourself mockingly. Admitting to how survival has pushed you to subconsciously seek out individuals who might on occasion be physically present, but emotionally and spiritually they're absent.

And how much have you forgone to stay within these vapid relationships, even though we both know they've not fulfilled even your most basic intimacy needs? Too much.

In an effort to shift away from the emotional sobriety of your waking thoughts you climb up out of the bath, letting the now lukewarm water go. You towel yourself dry and slip into your bathrobe, carefully taking the candle through to the bedroom and placing it before the mirror that stands on your dresser.

Playfully you consider the silver pendant, surprisingly clean and resilient, recovered from your woodland walk. And holding it up by the ends of the fine chain you wonder whether to wear it. You reach your hands behind your neck and pinch the clasp, fastening it, then let the pendant hang between your clavicles, touching it to your chest, admiring the little glass vial with its clandestine contents.

It's a pretty piece, you admit, enjoying the feel of the fine silver resting against your skin. The serenity and ease of your Bayham fantasy seeming to seep back into your consciousness.

From your dresser drawer you retrieve a small bottle of your most luxuriant lavender oil, one you cherish for special occasions and climbing up onto your bed you unscrew the pipette and begin to administer tiny drops of the sensual oil along the ridge line of your freshly shaven shins, where the excess of bathwater, now evaporating, leaves your skin feeling tight with the drying.

Your waking thoughts begin to drift, floating as if buoyed by that cobalt blue lake, a supple weightlessness seeping in through your skin as your hands soothe to massage over the contours of your slender limbs and the subtle scent of lavender oil unconsciously reconnects you with the wild flowers that flanked your dreaming descent, stepping down, bare feet on smooth stone steps, reaching softened sands, then slipping into the warm azure waters of your own serenity.

Your oiled skin glistens with soothing satisfaction and you carefully return the pipette inside the small glass bottle and screw the cap to a close.

Your fingers feel for the silver pendant, the little glass vial resting beneath your neckline. A conversation transacts within your mind, permission sort and granted, and now your curiosity controls your fingertips, feeling for the thread, they begin to grip and twist, unscrewing the cylinder from the silver cap and revealing the paper scroll rolled tightly inside.

Pinching your thumb and forefinger you tease out the paper, such a thin strip, so tightly rolled, your eyes straining in the mellow light of the lone candle, squinting to read the tiniest font, slowly revealing the mystery of a verse:

"In your hands these words unfurl, their romance written inside your eyes, where amber embers of amethyst await, sensing fables of my return. The ink that stains this paper might someday fade, but the memory of you against my skin remains. Remember where our love is made? Now put this promise to the flame and smudge my ash, down, below. Xx"

With a deep and heartfelt groan, you flop back onto your bed overwhelmed by the intensity of this lover's confession and the rawness of their romance, wishing these words were written for you.

Cards. Candles. Stones. Your imagination begins to assemble the accoutrements of a game to play. Solitaire. La petite mort.

Inspired by the possibility of intense pleasure leading to a brief loss or weakening of consciousness, you climb up off the bed and collect your many treasures, convinced of reconnecting with your Bayham lover.

Ritual, you stand before your dresser mirror and arrange the chosen cards from your Tarot, then pair your treasured gemstones, placing them with each card.

You unfurl the scroll of paper and slowly reread those chosen words, glancing in your mirror, finding the truth within your eyes and remembering how you could always find the same truth in mine.

You strike a match, the flame flares, bright with a phosphorous white that mellows to a softened yellow.

You touch the edge of the paper scroll to the tip of the flame, the scroll ignites, blooms, as the flame leaps, immediately possessing the paper, combusting and consuming every word.

You drop the scroll onto one of the waiting Tarot cards and watch the tiny fire consume all of the available fuel, then slowly fade to a silver gray with singed edges of orange embers.

Shaking the match, you extinguish the flame then use the spent, charred matchstick as a utensil to break the burnt remains of the paper scroll down into flakes of ash.

Discarding the matchstick, you lick your fingertips and dab them into the ash, then reach between your thighs and press your fingers to where the waiting wet of your sex soaks up the soot.

You pause, looking deep into your reflected eyes, your fingertips poised, pressing gently to the split of your labia, remembering the feel of my hands reaching around you.

You feel the soft sapling of your sex splitting open as you smear your fingertips into the soft folds, before drawing them back to your tongue. Tasting the ash, bitter with burnt carbon, thuggish, earthy, smoky and raw. You suck your fingers, searching for the soft vanilla of your sex. Then dabbing the Tarot card for more of the ash, seeing the cinder cling to the saliva of your wetted fingertips.

Reaching down between your thighs, smearing more of the burnt scroll into the folds of your sex, feeling your cunt inhale, sucking the tips of your dirty fingers until they're clean.

Opening a drawer, you tease out a pair of fine lace knickers, a pair you remember, wrapped as they once were around one of your treasured gemstones.

You slip them on, hitching them home, high on your hips, feeling the wet of your sex aching against the soft fabric and lace.

On the dresser, paired with a Tarot card, the once smuggled, smooth, rounded stone now rests. You lift it to more closely peruse its grain and color. Such a beautiful piece. You uncap a small bottle of lube and smear the clear oil onto the surface of the stone, watching its cleavage, color and sheen, deepen.

How these grains and veins brighten, their geology eliciting organic shades of deep ruby, plum and purple, such evocative colors, reminding you of the smooth hardening tip of my cock.

You slip the smothered stone down inside your knickers and feel the contoured hardness pressing to your sex, reminding you of my wanting you.

Rummaging in the same open drawer you retrieve your Lelo Soraya and with that trusty tube of uncapped lube you climb back onto the bed, rolling onto your back, your bathrobe falling open, your hands running over your thighs and circling your breasts summoning the sensations of my touch.

"The ink that stains this paper might someday fade, but the memory of you against my skin remains."

You cup your breast in one hand, gripping and squeezing your hardening nipple, while reaching your free hand down between your open thighs, your fingers pressing through the fabric of your knickers, pushing the smooth curve of the stone against the soft flesh of your cunt, aching for the flexing feel of my cock when I'm between your thighs and throbbing for you.

Impatient, you dig your fingers under the fabric, your knickers stretching as you claw at the stone, scooping it away and sinking your fingers into your sex. Hips rising, spine arching as you finger fuck with tightening frustration.

You reach for the Lelo and the lube, slick the shaft, pulling at your knickers with one hand while guiding the toy inside with the other, thumbing the button to ignite your clit with the thrum of those tiny motors. Come on, you beg.

Muscles flexing, abductors clenching, you arch up from the bed like a bow being drawn, your head tipping back off the edge, finding shadows cast by your candle, shifting across your upside-down ceiling, reflecting in your wardrobe closet mirrors.

These shadow shapes serve to seduce your subconscious, reminding you of those cloistered archways, hidden beyond the iron wrought and heavy wooden door, and you close your eyes, reaching within, summoning the memory:

"Sensing fables of my return..."

You hear the floorboards creek under the weight of my approach. My hands brushing around your neck, fastening something leather, buckling the collar, clipping the clasp. An imagery of obsession and possession.

Imagining a thin leash falling to the floor, my bare foot gently stepping onto the supple strip of leather, applying just enough pressure for the collar to grip your neck and remind you I'm here, and in control.

You wish your hands were free to grope the girth of my cock as you imagine me leaning over you, naked. Uncapping my pen, a felt tipped Sharpie, a permanent marker.

Gripping your thighs, my confident hands conspire to spread you wider, pressing the soft nib of my pen into your skin and slowly marking your inner thighs with runes and glyphs of my own design.

"but the memory of you against my skin remains"

You work the Lelo against your clit and cry out with frustration, reaching for your climax and cursing with impatience, the pleasure building, knowing she's allusive, staying in sight but remaining deviously out of reach, and all the while you're growing desperate for her capture, and then her release, edging you ever closer...

Stretching your imagination, you search for memory and find me, my cock throbbing in the loose grip of your hands as you slow stroke my shaft. Your mouth watering with a flood of fresh fantasies, the decadent taste of creme de cassis, cherry liqueur, caramel and sweet buttered toast.

Standing over you, with a handmaid's mirror held close, I offer you your own reflection and you consent, watching my cock closely, your lips stretching open, feeling the rub of our love moving inside your mouth, pushing over your tongue with soft and sensual fucking.

Your thighs stain with ink as I scribe my intentions, symbols and scrolls coiling over your skin, my cock flexing, hardening with sucking. I groan loud, desperate for restraint, edging closer to my climax, your head tipping back off the bed eager to take more of me in your mouth.

Imagining my reaching over you, my hands confidently gripping inside your thighs, claiming you, pushing you wider open, discarding my pen to draw and rub my fingers over the stretch of your knickers, seeing the thin lace of their fabric staining wet as your cunt weeps with wanting me.

Your knickers stretching against my wrist, my fingers digging underneath, pushing to reach the split of your sex, my cock flexing in your mouth as I find you soaking.

You shudder against your Lelo, flipping yourself over and scooching up onto all fours, imagining my hands, pressing to your flesh as they move you, shaping you to my will.

My fist gripping, pulling your hair, forcing you to look up into the wardrobe mirror, to find my eyes, purposeful and possessive, reflecting their light from behind you, impassioned and brightly lit.

Greedy fingers snag at the gusset of your knickers, tugging the fabric, stretching them aside, my grip tight in your hair, my bone hard cock splitting you open, stroking deep. You cry out into our reflection, begging me to come.

Your eyes surrender to mine, wet with their submission, you're losing all control, unraveling from within, your body softening, weakening with the ravaging of such a good, hard and dominant fucking.

You shudder against your Lelo, your clit igniting with sparks of pleasure, muscles convulsing as they spasm, a dam bursting, warm waves of cobalt-blue water come flooding through your senses.

Collapsing to the bed, clumsily fumbling to find the button you silence the thrumming, gasping in the stillness, listening to your Bayham body, "sensing fables of my return".

Resurrecting the memory of my coming inside you, the raw vibrations of our love locked in the bruises we left beneath your skin, our bond braised in the marrow of your bones. Knowing the myth might wear away, but the truth remains, revealed.

"Remembering where our love is made..."

Your inner thighs ache for my ink, where glyphs and runes wait to be written. Our fingers slick and forever stained, standing in the ruins, where our love remains, wet with ash and cinder.

"Now put this promise to the flame!"