You told me you’d let me know when you were ready. I’m content to wait, because each morning I get to see your face, and we get to eat breakfast together as the sun comes up.

We made an agreement to always say positive things over breakfast. If the whole rest of the day goes to hell, at least we got one pleasant moment together. I get to watch the golden light glint in your tousled auburn hair, and sometimes I imagine that I see more than just friendship lurking in your beautiful emerald eyes.

And if we’re pissy that day, we eat in silence. Friends sometimes get annoyed at each other. I know I can leave a mess in the maintenance bay, and sometimes your incessant channel surfing gets on my nerves. We learn to shut our traps, suck it up, and drive on. We take turns cleaning the shitter, remember to save some hot water for each other, and even manage to keep track of the grocery list. Things that sound so simple when one lives alone can become so complicated in the face of compromise.

So I’ve settled into this new pattern of living, and then one night a shadow falls across my bed.

I take you into my arms in silence. For once, words fail me. I never thought you’d come around- I mean, I had this sort of sickening, clingy hope that you might one day return to me, but it was, in truth, more hopeless than hopeful. And now here you are, and it’s your lips seeking mine, and suddenly I realize that I’m brand new, I’m vestal again, and your touch is awakening desires in me that I had thought I’d have to bury for good.

I start to cry. You draw back, surprised, and then realize that my tears are of joy and relief. For a long time we hold each other, and I cry into the now bare skin pressed up against mine. Strange that after all this time, I’d be the one who wasn’t ready for intimacy. But how can I make love to you, when I’m rendered helpless by the sobs that rack my body?

It takes a week for my hands to finally remember their purpose. I temper each touch, each caress, each venture into new territory with endless kisses and long pauses that speak to you of my eternal devotion. When I look into your eyes, I see the passion that I’d missed that night so many years ago- and yet it’s a different sort of passion, not the flash in the pan sort of passion that melts under the morning sun, but the slow burn of a steady, undying love, and I know that it’s echoed in my own eyes. I take my time with you, and you with me, and we cherish these special moments, relishing the sweaty press of skin on skin.

I let you guide me. You control the pace. I only take you when you are ready. You’ve gone through a lifetime of being rushed, conforming to another’s abuse, fulfilling another’s needs and laying yours aside. It’s your time to decide when the time is right. I am prepared to pull back and wait again. During the war, I waited for you. I waited for you in the time between, the time neither of us likes to talk about; the time when my body was sacrificed to another, and yet, somehow, still managed to hold its breath for the day when you would touch me again. And I waited these long months on Arus, patient as always, content to just be near you, content to listen to your quiet snoring in the room next door, knowing that at last you were safe.

Your legs curve around my waist and I feel you open for me, and I slide into you slowly, the two of us shivering together as our flesh melds. My eyes sparkle with tears and I almost lose my composure; only by biting my tongue can I restrain myself. For a moment I forget where I am, eyes closed, breath ragged as the tingles of pleasure nearly overwhelm my senses. The strong grip of your thighs brings me back to reality, and I concentrate on the task at hand. I find that innermost secret within you and touch it again and again, kissing you from within, sending joyous ripples throughout your body, as if I were casting stones into a pond. I force my eyes to stay open, watching the ecstatic abandon wash over your face as I gently nudge you towards your release.

You’re not doing this just for me. You’re enjoying my body, too; perhaps for the first time in our lives we’re truly relishing each other physically as well as spiritually. Your moans come rhythmically with my thrusts, and I know it can’t last forever. By some superhuman effort, I manage to wait until you clench around me and hiss between your teeth. A strangled groan escapes you along with your essence, your muscles quivering beneath me, and I cannot hold my flow any longer. For a moment we lock together in silence, and then I withdraw, suddenly aware of the reality of my limp and sticky biology, whimpering softly at the loss of that fleeting moment, so beautiful and so perfect.

All this time I’ve fantasized about what this event might be like, and in the end, I didn’t even make a sound- actually, I was so overwhelmed, I forgot to breathe. We have to chuckle about that.

And how ironic, after all the adventures and the perversions, that plain old vanilla sex could render the two of us so helpless that we can do nothing but clutch at each other and cry bittersweet tears of regret and relief. It drives home the stark reality that in the end, it is ultimately love that makes sex great, not the other way around; and, after a lifetime of athletic contortion and living through chemistry, we’re finally ready to accept that fact.

We spend the night wrapped around each other. There will be other times in the future, times when my impassioned cries ring out across the entire east side of town, frightening the general populace. There will be the time on the balcony, on the roof, on the couch, on top of the refrigerator… we’ll get plenty of practice in the nights to come. You’re always nudging me in the gut and joking that you’ll finally get me to lose the last of my potbelly. We’ll be ok, you and me, and in the end, we’ll manage to get it right.

We’ll get it perfect.

~owari~

Forest's side story, the reporter's POV

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