85. Edith

In the morning, he woke me but not to seduce, although his hardness pressed into me from behind, where he lay alongside me.

His right hand was on my belly and his left propped up his head just over mine.

Into my right ear, he spoke.

He asked me if I knew my time of birth.

I told him the third moon of winter, but by the Tintarian calendar I did not know, as Perpatane had a longer winter.

We surmised it to be right around The Thawing.

He told me his time of birth was just before that.

He asked what age I would be.

I said it would be my thirty-ninth winter.

He said this would be his forty-fourth.

I did not dwell on how that was the time my bargain with my goddess came to an end.

I asked him how he had gotten us wedding rings in such a short time.

He told me Anwyn had forged them when he made my hagstone’s chain, but Alric had kept them in his wooden chest, unsure if he should present them.

“You have had these for some time?”

I asked into the dark, bringing my right hand under the covers to his, interlocking my fingers with his over my belly.

“When I returned from Sealmouth, I had resolved to try and be a good husband.”

“And you were.

You have been.”

He paused.

“I have strived to that aim.

I will achieve it one day.”

I turned to him so that our bodies mirrored each other as much as they could, my round softness with his lean hardness.

I wrapped my left toes around his right anklebone.

I could not see his face in the dark, but I found it and kissed him.

“You are the finest husband,”

I said, unguardedly.

I kissed him again.

“And I love my ring,”

I whispered.

My mouth sought his a third time.

“Do not start something with me this morning, wife,”

he said, but his right hand parted my legs and slid between them.

He did not enter me but his forefinger coaxed pleasure from the knot of flesh there, his calluses instructive and intuitive.

When I cried out against his mouth and reached for him, he stopped my hand.

“I am yet upset with myself.

Though our second time was what I wanted for us, you must make me suffer.

Make my prick weep for the thought of you and your little sex all day.”

We resumed our speech of everyday things.

I asked him to tell me more about his family, if I would meet them another time, with less holiday-making and more conversation.

I asked him to list all eight of his nephews for me twice, trying to remember all their A names as Aines and Artho had kept with their parents’ tradition.

He asked me which book we would read next.

He asked why I liked lavender, why I chose a ranunculus to tattoo on my hand, how I had become a scribe and so on.

“Why didn’t you wake me last night?”

I complained.

“It was early in the morning.

But I did need to know you wore my ring and I was able to slip it on your hand while you still slept.

I just did not wish to wake you or the cat for that matter.”

“You have another woman in your rooms now.

I think I will name her Tabitha.

Unoriginal but it fits her.

She prefers our room to most.

She must have slept in the dormitory last night.”

“She is welcome as long as she does not prevent my touching of you.”

“She will change her allegiance if you scratch her behind her ears.”

We traded kisses, kisses on necks and ears and hands.

He held my left breast in his right hand and with his tongue and teeth, suckled my nipple until it was taut.

I petitioned him again after this.

He said my breasts were far too responsive and thus enticing and he pushed me onto my stomach, rolling on top of me, parting my knees with his own and filling me with his fingers, grumbling about how pliable I was when I lusted, how the back of my sex glistened in the faint light of morning.

He stopped midway and pried my sex open with his right fore and middle fingers.

“Now that is beautiful,”

he said, using his left hand to stay my hips so he could examine me.

“When I think of every sight I have beheld at the end of my life, these lips and their perfections will haunt me even after I am dead.”

I shuddered as he continued, bringing his left hand around my hip and under my stomach to the front of my sex.

It was with effort that I put that raw exposure of myself out of my mind.

I was grateful he had not done that in the middle of the day and I made myself think only on the dedicated work of his hands.

“I thought you didn’t like the word ‘beautiful,’”

I said as he lay atop me afterward, his pelvis lower than my rear, so that his weight was not all on me.

He kissed my spine, his arms going under me, wrapping around my waist.

“I have learned to like it.

For you, because I think you like the word.

But it is the word I will use only for your sex.

I will use your name when I am beguiled by you.”

“You use my name all the time,” I said.

“Exactly, Edith.”