Isolde and I were in the bath and she was explaining to me the names and personalities of each of her bath toys. She possessed a small yellow duck, a huge red crab and a purple dragon.
Isolde squeezed the purple dragon toy in her hand, looking as though she was holding her life's enemy. "This evil dragon is called Ethan. He was reborn as my daddy's elder brother," she said as I squirted shampoo into her wet hair.
I smiled. "How did Ethan treat you?"
She gasped. "Oh, he was a tyrant! My English teacher told me that men who are turna...uh...tyrnan...tyr...tyrants, I mean, are the worst of the worst! She said that they chain you to bed and do unmentionable things at night!"
"..." I immediately knew that Isolde's teacher of English needed to tone it down a bit. Or maybe rethink their career choice.
Isolde adjusted her body in the tub to stare at me, her grey eyes glittering. "Uncle Ethan is an enormous tyrant, but daddy is even worse! But I'll protect you from his flames, so don't worry," she reassured me with a proud, ingenious look and swung her small arms round my neck. She winked at me charmingly.
I couldn't help but giggle. If only she knew...
I finished bathing Isolde and put her to bed with a fairytale about a kind dragon and a sinister witch. Nonetheless, Isolde kept on scoffing at the compassionate dragon's benevolence.
The small girl would poke her head of short, brown hair from her heavy bedding whenever the kind dragon helped someone. She would snort and sneer apathetically. "That dragon is a sheep in wolf's clothing" - I think she meant 'wolf in sheep's clothing' but this doesn't matter because everything that the adorable Isolde says is correct! - "All dragons are evil! And daddy is the evilest of them all!"
I closed the book and focused on Isolde's fiery gaze. I sighed. "Is there any reason why baby thinks so of her daddy?" I asked.
She blew air into her cheeks, as though to protest something, and hastily hid beneath her blanket. She always hid whenever speaking from her heart. "Its supposed to be daddy's secret, but he is an evil dragon. He came one day and took away Isolde's daddy," her voice sounded, muffled, from beneath the blanket.
I patted her head through the thick blue fabric, vaguely hearing Isolde's sniffles. Was she crying? My brows furrowed at the thought. It felt as though a hot knife had dug into my heart.
"Don't cry baby. I won't ever get taken away from you," I said, struggling to keep my voice steady as I caressed her head through the fabric. I couldn't help but imagine how Isolde must have felt, convinced that she was all alone in that huge castle. Some parts of me wanted to comfort both father and child. For some reason, both of them were all alone.
After a short while, I fathomed a gentle snore beneath the fabric and realized that Isolde had fallen asleep. I smiled in relief and got off the bed.
It was only 7 pm, so I choose to go to the library within the castle. The library was enormous, with two floors - each thickly donned with the familiar scent of paper.
My nerves relaxed within the confines of the towering bookshelves as I roamed from one section to the other. As a healthy, growing 20-year-old, I staunchly needed my own dose of quiet time, spent relishing literature and art.
My gaze captured an interesting title at a topmost shelf - shed upon the gentle moonlight from the windows. I stretched my hand as much as I could for the book. At that moment, I wished I had a few extra inches to my height. I felt like a chipmunk trying to climb to the top of Mt. Everest really.
My arm and shoulderbone was aching before my fingertip brushed the edge of the book and it tipped downward. A rough hand grasped it before it could hit my head. I looked behind me as a familiar presence was registered by my nerves.
I turned to face Alexander, with a polite smile, as he handed the book to me after glimpsing the title. In the dark library - especially in that secluded corner we were in - I could barely fathom his gaze or features.
The privacy of the darkness as well as his quiet presence made my blood boil.
"You enjoy poetry?" His voice sounded as his towering figure leaned beside me, though I could feel his gaze scouring me. I only hoped that the darkness would conceal my rather revealing red nightdress. It stopped mid-thigh and did little to hide my dark lingerie.
Clearly, it was a mistake(I was regretting, wasn't I...?) to wander about in a library, of all places, like that.
My voice was raspy...out of breath. "No, it's hard to understand but I enjoy the complexities of its depth," I answered. The word 'depth' did not escape my tongue without me clenching my thighs tighter.
I could hear his amusement floating in the darkness around me as it bridged his tone. "Would you read me the ones from that book then...if you don't mind?" He inquired, placing the 'if you don't mind' almost as an afterthought, as though I was obliged to read him poetry. Making it more of a command than a request.
I opened the book with wandering thoughts, my chest rising softly beneath his gaze.
Nonetheless, my pulse picked up at the first poem in that anthology. I mind-read the first line with parted lips and my toes curled as realization set in.
Still, I could feel his eyes boring into my face, as though to slip into the depths of me. He would definitely notice if I flipped to a different poem, wouldn't he?
Sweat speckled my face and cheeks, my nervous gaze fixated on the texts though my heart only beat for his heat, his touch. I wet my lips, my tongue gliding over the tender, rosy skin. I felt him stiffen beside me.
I steadied my trembling fingertips as I began reading. It was a love poem. The words slid off my tongue like water snaking through a brook in a forest. The night grew older as I read the lines and yet my cheeks remained so feverish.
The metaphors in the text became more erotic - until my mouth became parched and my throat burned. His calm breathing beside me was contained, unlike my own, and his body was immobile.
Our touching shoulders was our only connection, and yet I found myself craving for the moonlight and for him to enact the poem with me. For his compelling gaze to stick to my pleading ones as he made me his own.
I cleared my throat noisily, breathing a bit harder than normal. Then, I continued reading.
A kiss upon perfection
Bore a rise of pulse
To coach a sultry moan
Across a mellow breath of wine.
He knew; he sensed,
And easing loose a clasp of lace,
Another sign of her relenting:
Wild the play of eyes,
A fuller glide of skin;
He felt the now begin –
Her swell, intention in the sigh.
And so to hedge his move upon the cue –
The cry of deep anticipation—
Finally, I felt his hand on my quivering one.
His urgent touch seared my bone and flesh.
"Enough," his low and husky voice rang as he peeled off my fingers, one by one, from the book, wordlessly savouring the length of each of my fingers with his flesh. Until the book had vanished from my eyes and his towering figure was before me, against the silvery moonlight shifting through the quiet library.
Confined in his entrancing scent, my heart beat even more for him and my body pained for his embrace.
There was a seductive smirk to his voice, in the darkness, as his strong hands found the ends of my nightdress. "Are you fond of this clothing?" he asked, his sound becoming more rushed and agonized as he pulled gently at my lewd outfit.
I shook my head quietly, lowering my eyes to his chin, somewhat afraid to gaze into his eyes - the eyes that swallowed me alive.
"Words, baby. I need words," he beseeched me, stroking my chin with his slender fingers and bringing my golden eyes to his quiet, dark ones. My heart was pulled to his in that moment. I lost any will I might have had before.
"Otherwise, how will I have the consent to make you mine?" He inquired further. His finger on my chin deepened and my lip trembled.
I gulped. "Not here." That was the most I could manage, but it was enough for him. It was more than enough.
He wordlessly swept me into his warm, inviting embrace, as though I was but a feather he had plucked, and strode steadily yet urgently past the darkened bookshelves. Pale moonbeams would oftentimes glitter over us.
My heart, meanwhile, was pumping hot, sweltering blood into my veins as his embrace suffocated me in a heavenly way. He led me to a hidden room behind the library and placed me against the soft bedsheets in the well-furnished room.
The renewed silence clasped at us.
There, the gentle amber glow of the lantern shed upon our tensed bodies - ones which yearned for each other as would a drought-worn land for a shower of rain.
We gazed at each other for a long moment. He at me. I at him. It was a quiet, necessary communication before we could mould into one. One in which I recognized and accepted the burning desire boiling in his ravishing body - the body he was now offering to me.
The sound of clothes shifting soon rang as he, quietly, with controlled motions, unclothed me while keeping his narrowed eyes fixated on my face. It felt as though his gaze was making love to me by itself, or rather foretelling of our future oneness.
My naked self was soon revealed to him, my upright breasts making him clear his throat quietly as he drank me in, his knees bent against the bed. My core throbbed for him, awaiting his intoxicating touch as I had felt the heavenly graze of his fingers against my clit as he removed my panties.
He kept on recurring how I was beautiful, in a low, affectionate tone, as he caressed my brown hair, the locks gently slipping past his fingers like dust. His low voice carried much concern than doubt, as though he feared to break me.
I clasped my arm sheepishly at first, somewhat embarrassed, but a moment later I gazed at him emotionally and my arms found the buttons of his shirt.
Slowly and wordlessly as before, Alexander assisted me in peeling of his shirt. Once it was off him, I revelled at the sight of his muscles and at the searing tattoo of a red sun at his arm, before reaching for the buckles of his belt. Nonetheless, his hand stopped mine.
"Not now, baby," he told me breathily, as he pulled my arms behind him and clasped my thighs, parting them. He exhaled gently at the full sight of me.