Death and the Maiden

"On the pillows?" she asked, still not looking at me bar one brief flick of her eyes.

"Yes. Um... I can pile up the blanket, and lean on that. And then when you want to do my wings we can... make a plan, I guess?

"Okay..." she said.

"Caitlyn?"

"Yeah," she quavered.

"You're... look, if this is going to make you uncomfortable..."

"No... no... I'll be fine. It's just... I've never had a naked girl in my room before and... and my mind is just being stupid and... I'm sorry. You must think I'm a complete mess..."

"It's fine," I said, gently. "How can I help?"

"Lets just get started," she whispered, still pink as dawn. "I'll... get over myself. Somehow or other."

I sat down on her bed, and then nestled back against the pile of pillows and blankets. I lifted a knee slightly and twisted over towards her. I rested my head on my folded arm, then waved the second one at her. "Not sure what to do with this one," I announced.

"Just... let it rest across your tummy, I think," she managed. "No... not that low," she said, with a choking laugh, as I curled it over my mons. "It's... distracting. Shit."

I watched her, sympathy and amusement warring.

"Cait?"

"Sorry. Just... just spazzing out. It will pass."

"You haven't been with anyone in a while, have you?" I asked

She started to place long, curving lines onto the fresh sheet of paper she'd clipped to her easel.

It took her a while to answer.

"I've... never been with anyone," she said. Her ears were flaming.

"Oh."

"I was, stupidly, saving myself in the hope that... fuck, I don't know, that a bolt would come down from on high and Annie would... come to her senses. I'd have... I'd have let her have me. I'd have enjoyed letting her be my first."

"It was a hard place to be," I sympathised. "But... it's been six months. I know that it's probably still a raw wound, but has... has there really not been anyone?"

"You're the only girl I spend any time with these days," she murmured.

"Oh."

I mulled that over for a while as she pinned more of me to paper.

"That sounds very lonely," I said, softly.

"It is. I have... guy friends. But..."

"You're gay," I answered, without judgement.

"Yes," she whispered. "Such a cliché. The gay and haunted artist. How droll."

"Not at all."

I watched her as she gave shape to my hips.

"Jenny?"

"Yes?"

"Do angels... um... you know..."

"Have sex?"

"Yeah," she breathed.

"Not so much them, no. But... demons and Revenants like me go at it like bunnies," I said. "Demons because, well... it's their nature. And I guess it's ours too, what with being... almost human."

"Oh. The Church would throw a fit."

"The Saints stick their fingers in their ears and pretend it doesn't happen, but... everybody needs to be touched, and... the work is hard. Soul-destroying in some cases. Sometimes you just need someone to hold you."

"And... do you?"

"Sometimes," I said softly.

"With... boys?"

"No," I said, with finality.

"Oh," she whispered. Her pencil paused, then resumed.

"So you're... like me?" she asked, softly.

"Very similar, in many ways, I think," I answered. "But... gender doesn't matter much up there. It's just for me... it's... it's still hard, sometimes."

She glanced up at me; still flushed, but also very grave.

"I... think I understand," she said. "For what it's worth... um..."

"What is it?" I asked, curious.

"It's just... I wish..."

"Wish what," I breathed.

"Wish I could meet someone like you," she said.

She raised her haunted gaze to me, then looked away again. She rolled her shoulders and started shading in the shadows around my ribs and breasts.

I shifted my hips slightly, intensely conscious of two things. Firstly, we'd strayed into shifting sands. And secondly, my nipples were hard and there was a growing heat in my belly.

I was very aware of her gaze; she was trying desperately not to stare at my breasts or the framed vee of my sparsely-haired groin. There was a high colour on her cheeks and throat; I suspected that she, too, was not as unaffected as she might hope to be.

"Do you have a... partner?" she asked me, stammering slightly.

"Sometimes. But... her work is hard, so we don't see much of one another."

"It must be lonely."

"It is very lonely up there. That's part of why I enjoy these times with you."

"I enjoy them as well," she whispered. "They... you give me something to look forward to."

"Sorry it's so complicated."

"Yeah. It's... odd, isn't it. It makes me wish you were human so I could see you more frequently."

She sighed, and tried to roll some tension out of her neck.

I watched her, noting the way she winced.

"Cait? Are you sore?"

"Very," she breathed.

"Hang on," I said. "Let me help."

I sat up and swung my legs off the bed, then padded softly over behind her. I put my hands on her shoulders, and pulled her backwards until her head rested against my belly. I began to rub her shoulders, to massage her, hyper-aware of the intensity of the sensation of her hair against my skin, of the warm and almost romantic soft lighting of the room, and of how my heart was racing.

Caitlyn let out a pathetic little whimper.

"That's so nice," she whined. "Oh, that's so nice. Oh, your hands are so soft, so warm..."

I stared down at her, down into the gap between her small breasts. She was shivering against me and goosebumps had appeared on her arms. Her head slumped sideways, exposing the curve of her ear and sweep of her pale white neck under her shadow-black hair.

I stared at her earlobe, at her throat, at the small line of blue buttons that were all that kept her blouse on and the rest of her hidden from me.

I teased my fingers in under her collar, she moaned softly, turned her head further so her cheek was hot against my skin.

And I was led directly into temptation.

Her bra straps were in the way; I slowly nudged them outwards over her shoulders, enjoying the way her blouse hung just that little bit more open, exposing just that little bit more to my over-the-shoulder view.

"You're...so nice," she whispered.

She reached up, caught my hands in hers, held them for a heartbeat.

Then, not shifting in any other way, she fumbled at her buttons and popped them one after the other.

The fabric of her shirt fell in folds away from her; I could see her nipples peeking out from the gap between her little lace cups and the pale alabaster of her breasts.

She took my hands again and slowly, infinitesimally, eased them downwards and under the lace with a shivery little sigh.

I let out a low moan of need as I felt her nipples between my fingers. She shuddered, knees squeezing tight together, a wordless sound escaping her. I folded her top back, found the clasp of her bra, and unclipped it. I let bra and blouse slide down her back as I reached down and began to kiss the graceful arch of her neck. Her exquisite breasts were small and firm under my hands, and her heart was racing even faster than mine was.

"Tell me to stop," I whispered to her.

"No," she moaned.

"Tell me to stop or I'm not going to."

"Never," she whimpered. "I... I want you to touch me like this. I'm... ready for this..."

I bent forward further, began to tug at the fabric of her skirt, pulling it upwards along her thighs. She whimpered, squirming against me.

"Caitlyn", I breathed.

"Uh... huh..."

"Do you... touch yourself?"

"Sometimes..." she gasped.

"Okay. So... you know what I'm about to do, then."

And I slid my hand down between her thighs and found her panties and dragged them aside; she cried out in shock, then subsided in to a low, throaty moan as I found her soaking slit and fumbled for her firm little clitoris.

"Oh... oh God," she whimpered as her thighs spasmed closed on me.

She was soaking wet, hot and ready.

I wanted her.

But the angle was too awkward.

So I pulled away and stepped around her.

She'd just drawn breath to begin to complain when I got my arms under her thighs and lifted her straight upwards.

She squealed, clutching her arms instinctively around me and staring down at me with an almost scared expression.

"Oh fuck me, you're strong," she said, shakily.

"No. You're just very slender. Cait?"

"Yes?"

"Your bed would be... better... for this," I whispered.

She nodded hesitantly.

And I carried her over and set her gently down. I tripped the buttons on the waistband of her skirt, and undid the little zip. I pulled it gently off her; she swallowed and then pushed her lavender panties (with their pronounced damp patch) down her legs so that I could finish the job for her. She struggled out of her bra and shirt. then eased backwards, staring up at me.

She was flushed, shivering slightly. Her nipples were pink and erect; I could almost hear her racing pulse. The thick black curls of her pubic hair - so foreign to me - were an enormously erotic marker. She saw me looking, squeezed her legs together as if shy before realizing what she was doing and slowly, hesitantly, opening herself for me.

Her lips glistened under the soft lighting, wet and ready; I felt a hot pulse of need.

"Cait," I said, softly. "I'm not going to do this if you don't want me to..."

"I do, I do," she stammered. "I'm... I'm just so..."

"Nervous?" I whispered. "Don't be."

I sat down on the bed and curled my legs up. "We don't need..."

"No!" she gasped. "I'm... I'm tired of not knowing. What it's like. I want to do this. Please, just... can you take me?"

"I'm not going to take anything," I said. "That's not how it is at all. Not when it's... agreed. Gentle. I want you to be comfortable. Will it help if... if I let you touch me?"

She swallowed hard, nodded.

"Okay. I'm... going to straddle you, okay?"

"Okay," she said.

I shifted closer, threw my leg over her. She stared at my exposed and open crotch, and I felt a little shiver of delight as she swallowed, hard.

"You're... so clean," she whispered. "Do... do you shave?"

I grinned. "No. I just... never seemed to grow much down there, even when I was... alive. Only ever the lightest of dustings."

"It's really hot," she said. "Can... can I..."

And I found her hand and put her fingers to me and closed my eyes, shuddering hard as she fumbled at my slick, wet parting.

"Oh," she breathed.

I opened my eyes, stared down at her, at her little hard nipples and her flat, lithe little stomach.

I leaned forward and tongued her left breast; she shivered. Her finger moved and squirmed slowly against me; her inexperience was clear.

"Like this," I breathed, showing her what I liked - how to slip her fingertip back and forth over me from the little fold of my nub down to the parting of my entrance. I shivered again.

"Oh my God," she whispered, and I realised that my wings had joined the party.

"Fucking things," I groaned. "Mind of their own."

"They're.... beautiful..." she managed. "Oh, oh wow, you're so hot inside..."

I laughed, captured her nipple gently between lip and teeth.

"Never... put your finger up... in you?" I teased, words muffled.

"No," she whimpered. "Don't... like the idea of... being penetrated..."

"I love it, when it's... fingers. Put your fingers in me again."

And then I started to slowly grind along her, driving her curled digits in and out of me.

It felt good. She was nice, and warm, and alive.

I enjoyed watching the expressions on her face, the way she stared at my breasts or lifted herself to watch my lips move around her questing little fingers.

Something wasn't right though; something was missing, my frustration was ramping up but not any... foreshadowing... of release.

No.

Not something.

Nothing.

Nothing felt right.

Nothing was as it should be.

No heat, no spices, no deep and sultry breath from this child of Man...

This was sex, not lovemaking.

"Need some help," I gasped. "Nerves or something."

I fumbled down, found my clit, started to finger myself as she probed in and out of me. She was panting now, mouth open, eyes wide and pupils dilated.

Lust, I thought to myself. She lusts for you, for this. Lust, but nothing else. Nothing more profound for us.

Base need. But nothing beyond that.

A shudder of something near to despair rippled through me; I gasped, fell forwards.

"Harder," I begged, desperate to fend off the realisation of my catastrophic error.

She did her best, panting sweet little breaths as I rode and ground and used her, and between her and my fingers I finally found release of a sort - a brief, almost apologetic anticlimax, not even close to my usual run on, spasming loss of self with...

Jezebel, I almost voiced. And I bit down hard on my tongue to numb the pain with other pain.

Caitlyn didn't notice. She was too consumed with the feel of me on her, with the feel of the nipple that trailed close enough for her to reach, with the sensations of the sweat beading on our inner thighs.

I stared down at her.

She was beautiful.

Truly beautiful.

But... it wasn't my kind of beauty.

It wasn't what I needed, deep in the heart of me.

I lowered myself, and tucked myself in against her, and wrestled my blackness away for a heartbeat.

I was still aroused.

And I could feel that she was, too.

And... it had been nice to have her in me.

Even in this deeply unsatisfying way.

I lifted myself off her and shifted back.

"My turn," I breathed, doing my best to hide my change of mood. "May I?"

She moaned assent,

I gently lifted her legs, opened her, spent a moment admiring her. Her lips were tiny, thin like her, but blushing almost carnation red with her arousal.

A work of art; I caressed them briefly, amused by the way she flailed and moaned again.

I lowered myself to the bed and eased in next to her, managing somehow to make my wings slightly less present if not entirely gone. I hooked her leg over me, and tucked my face back into her neck, enjoying her racing pulse, her brightly-burning inner vitality, and using that to camouflage myself.

I could at least make her feel good.

I could give her that.

I fumbled for her, found her.

She was soaking wet now; the dark hair that lined her lips matted and plastered to her skin. I teased my finger along her, enjoying even in my disordered state the way she moaned and arched upwards from the bed.

She was so ready.

"Cait?" I whispered.

"Uh... huh..." she moaned.

"Tell me if... I do something you don't like..."

And I parted her, and found her clit, and began to gently circle it with my fingertip.

She spasmed, clutched at my hand.

"Gently," she gasped. "Gently, I'm... very sensitive..."

And she slowly guided my fingertip - tentative, cautious, almost like brushstrokes over her slick and sticky sex.

Not at all the way my lover loved it, came the traitorous thought, and I snatched a painful breath and bit my lip.

"Oh, oh wow," she whimpered. "Oh, oh, this is so amazing, oh you're so nice, oh... "

And like the liar I was I lay there, and made all the right noises and said all the right things and held her as we played her upwards and over into a massive, rib-shaking orgasm that left her breathless and whimpering, curled up against me.

She arched in hard against me; I was almost quick enough to turn away.

Almost.

But not quick enough, for even in my confused and cold state I didn't want to hurt her.

So... I let her kiss me. And pretended to kiss her back.

And lied with my body even if I told some truth with my words; telling her how special she was, how beautiful, how nice it was to feel her, how wonderful it had been to make her come..

And then I held her to me and stared up far beyond her roof and tried, very hard, not to think about Jezebel.

We didn't move for quite some time; both breathing softly, thinking, the smell of us pungent in the stifling room.

Caitlyn's mood also seemed to have changed; perhaps she felt like she'd rushed this, that she hadn't been ready. Maybe the clarity of afterwards had come upon her and the madness of what we'd done had registered.

Whatever it was, awkwardness blossomed between us where before there had been understanding.

We tried to talk, to carry on.

Brave little gambits, some light touching, a bit of abortive flirtation.

But the moment had passed.

And neither of our hearts were in it any more.

We'd asked the great What If, and I'd found the answer not at all to my liking.

And so, in the end, I got up and pulled my frock back over my body, abandoning my bra as too much effort and letting it fade.

She sat on the bed, watching me, eyes dark and unreadable.

"Do I at least get a hug?" I asked, feeling downcast and filthy and utterly low.

And she came to me and hugged me and pressed up against me.

"That was nice. Perhaps again, sometime. See you," she whispered, in as weird and stilted a manner as I'd ever heard her use.

"Yeah," I managed. "Sometime."

"Safe flight," she said. She grinned a fake little grin.

I kissed her brow.

She stepped back, and I spread my wings, and shifted away.

It had been a week, and my guilt had grown unbearable.

I was miserable, tattered and torn, falling.

I was hiding from Jezebel, and I suspected she was well aware that I was far from okay.

I was also pretending hard to Lucius, but I knew that neither he nor Azrael were fooled.

I was running out of borrowed time, and the interest payment was coming due.

I knew that Lucius was following me; desperately worried that I'd do something... impetuous.

Instead, I just... sank into melancholy.

(It's a hazard of the job for us.)

And so I'd decamped to Arcadia.

And the landscape picked up and amplified my depression.

I sat, wings wrapped partially around myself as a screen - so dramatic and moody, the newly-rejuvenated self-deprecating part of me was quick to sarcastically point out.

I stared around at the gloomy, desolate moorland that was today's version of my world.

It mirrored my mood perfectly.

I'd... failed. I'd failed myself, and I'd failed Caitlyn. I should never have let her begin to draw me; I should never have given in to the tempting urge to... mingle.

I should never have touched her.

I should most certainly never have fucked her.

I'd destroyed absolutely everything I valued.

I looked out from the top of the small tumulus, gaze fixed on the far-flung horizon.

Curtains of rain moved over the distant hills, and the wind soughed through the long stems of grass, rattling the dry seed pods and leaves like old, long-dead bones.

Moss and lichen covered old stone, not even a bird moved through the bitter sky.

My sense of Caitlyn was still there; she'd spent part of the day after our... liaison... at her friend's grave.

Probably confession.

And now she seemed have elected to roam at random.

I'd tried, desperately, to sink myself in work and alcohol. I'd rebuffed contact from Jezebel and Lucius both.

I'd snapped at Azrael and earned the terrifying manifestation of his Aspect for my temerity.

I was circling the drain.

So today I'd (metaphorically) prostrated myself before my master - begging him for forgiveness, asking for time. He'd stared hard at me but said nothing, merely nodding curtly in answer to my desperate request.

And I'd left his presence and fled here.

To sulk at first.

But, soon enough, to wallow.

To mourn.

I wrapped arms and wings around myself, miserable.

Gusts of wind ruffled through my feathers, disordering them - Arcadia once again mirroring my own regrets and internal distress.

A horrible task awaited me.

I had to tell Jezebel.

I had to tell her what I'd done.

I had to find the courage to... confess to her.

It was... killing me, as wrong as that word was, but... everything was a disaster and I needed her to know.