Page 6 of We Were Eternal Once

I no longer feel the heat of the night. Instead, I shiver with cold, my body tense and trembling. My heart races, I can feel it stuttering in my chest.

Still your mouth is on me. Still your fingers bury inside me, drawing out the last vestiges of my pleasure as I die.

I am dying.

But I don’t care, because if this is death, it is exquisite. The night fades around me, reduced to just the beating of my heart. It no longer races, but slugs along, each beat laborious. I fight to breathe, to think, to feel.

Your teeth pull from my neck and I whimper.

“No,” I plead. I fear once you pull back my heart will cease to beat, and I’ll never feel this again. Or worse—I’ll return to my old life, the life before this moment. I don’t want it anymore. I want whatever this is, I want to be consumed by it.

“Drink,” you say. At least, I think you do. I don’t see your lips move, don’t see much of anything. The ceiling above the altar is a blur.

Something wet on my lips, down my throat.

I try to swallow but my muscles don’t work.

More wetness, rivulets down my lips, into my mouth, choking me. Swallowing is a reflex, then it’s instinct. Somehow my hands move, pulling the source of liquid to me.

Your wrist. Your blood.

I swallow and drink and gulp.

You’re on top of me, grinding against my body, the wetness between your legs coating my thigh. I reach for you but you pin my hand down, using me for your pleasure instead.

You bite my collarbone and moan, your body shaking as you climax.

“Melinoë,” you whisper into my skin.

“Aletheia,” I mumble around your wrist, unwilling to let go. To stop.

There is a noise—is it me? Is it you? There is a noise and movement and⁠—

The path splits, and I am on a different road. After.

A Flight, A Night

We leave the temple.

I don’t know where we’re going, I don’t know anything outside of the temple. My head swims, my body one giant ache. You warned me the change wasn’t pretty or easy or quick. How long has it been?

I’m grounded by your hand in mine, by the gentle but incessant tug that keeps me towing after you. I smile at your back, remembering the euphoria, remembering the high. Will it always be like this?

You glance over your shoulder. I spoke aloud.

“No,” you say quietly.

I frown. “It won’t? If you were to bite me now, I wouldn’t feel as I did last night?”

“That,” you say. “That is forever.” You stop and turn me to you, your hand raised to push my hair from my face. You hesitate. Your gaze rubs my skin raw, I feel blisters where you look. Have you ever looked at me like this before?

“I promised you forever together,” you say. One of your many lies.

(“I don’t recall leaving you.”)

“Do you think forever is but a day? A week?” you continue. “Forever is a very long time, Melinoë. You will come to understand this, and only then will you understand the depths of my affection for you.”

I smile again, stupid child that I am.