Content

With claws and biting,

Scratchign at each other’s

Nerves fraying,

Passionate kisses,

Sometimes staying

And sometimes going

Far and wide,

Off the handle

Anger, pain,

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Tender and caring,

Tracing hearts on his

Skin tingling,

Caress your lips,

Come home bringing

Gifts and sweets

Or plenty cuddles,

Affection,

Contentment makes my heart sing.

Coffee Girl

She was in the cafe nearly everyday.

She didn't think I'd noticed, but I had. The first time I saw her, I couldn't help but think how beautiful she was. Her hair was long and curly, a dark chocolate colour that owed everything and nothing to the light. When the light fell on her hair, it shone as though it had its own light, and when she passed under a shadow her hair seemed to glow in the darkness. I wanted nothing more than to reach out and run my fingers through it.

We were opposite sides of the counter, her the customer and me the barista. When she asked for her food, she did so shyly and with her eyes cast down so that I didn't see their colour. She nibbled her top lip, nervously. Her long lashes cast intricate shadows on her pale cheeks.

The next day, she came again. I noticed her and smiled, but she kept her eyes cast down.

It was 2 weeks before I saw the colour of her eyes. They were the clearest blue, like the sky on a summer's day in Switzerland, with a collection of dark lashes framing them perfectly. This time when she approached the counter, she dared to look up at me and I saw them. It made me smile in a way that felt like I had no choice in it, entirely instinctively. Her smile in return was tentative and she glanced down once more.

Sometimes she could come into the cafe and meet people, sometimes she was alone. When I saw her with her friends, she was animated and joyous. She wasn't shy or quiet, full lips forming a perfect grin with barely a pause. I came to know the way she would react to each person before she did it. I knew by the way she sat, the things she ordered, whether someone was meeting her or not.

She didn't think I saw her watch me.

Every now and then, I would look up and see her looking in my direction. At first, I thought it was just that she was thinking about ordering something else. But the more I watched her, the more she watched me, even as I moved around the room. I saw her watching when I cleared tables, and when I wasn't the one serving her she still looked at me, though never long enough to let anyone catch her, or so she thought.

Over the next few months, she became confident enough that she could maintain eye contact when she ordered. She thought I smiled at everyone, but my smile was just that tiny bit wider with her. I wanted to ask her out, but I was too shy, worried she might have a boyfriend or that she would say no. I worried it wasn't appropriate.

Some days I saw her perfect blue eyes turn sad, and I wanted to cheer her up. I couldn't bring myself to break that barrier, the one that the counter represented. I watched her for several months, wishing I had the courage.

Then one day, I didn't see her. Nor the next, nor the next.

The beautiful girl didn't return to the cafe. I wondered what had happened to her, feeling as though she had been a friend and not just someone I'd served, absurd as it was. I missed seeing her light up when she spoke to friends and light up the room in return. I missed seeing her.

I Hate Birds

I stalk the velvet shadows once again and wince as the witches reach their claws out from within the branches of the trees and the wind howls with laughter when I flinch away. Something twinkles in the eyes of the puddles in the gutter and something tinkles in the bushes, a bell, one akin to those the witches pin to their companions to signify where their loyalty lies or perhaps whose orders they follow when it’s time again to watch street wanderers and claw out eyes.

The animals don’t realise I’m from their world. My body is confused too, as it startles at every patch of gloom or foggy figure, sending a tremor through my empty heart. Perhaps it has merely forgotten how to ignore the looming swaths of black, like babies swaddled in death, how to quell the uneasiness, the discomfort, of this world, how to keep it all at bay. Only light does that and I am not allowed it anymore, no glimmer to cast a shadow of a doubt on reality for the brightness will cast a shadow of its own and the darkness does not like that.

Things can only get worse. The animals can tell, as they peer with little sparks of electricity, the very same that jumps through their veins and that jumps through my sense of yearning when we spot each other. They can smell that I’m not right and scatter, like so many leaves that try even to avoid my boot. It’s as though I’m contagious.

I stop and listen. A titter, like the bells, and I glance around to try and spy their hiding place, as though I can leap up after them into the sky when they do, and follow them somewhere where I ca taste the sunlight again, or even something more than the juice in their veins. I hate birds, for they embody all I love and had to leave, and all that I have lost as it sank into the ground with the last sunset.

And so they leave me, knowing if they stayed, their time here would be as short as mine is long. IT feels as though only I pass slowly through this world, in desperate unaging, and terrible lust. There must be others, but they do not show themselves, as though they too fear what I might do. Unless that is our curse, to never see another but to know they must be there, and to wander searching for what we have lost and what we could have. I’m sure we cannot know, just as we cannot return to the day, nor curb this insatiability. And so, on we stalk the velvet shadows until the beautiful gold of dawn one day takes us.

Reunions and Departures

This is a passage revolving around the same two characters as in "An Encounter" only far earlier in their timeline, about a decade previously. They thought themselves in love, but it soon became clear that their ideas of the future where not entirely compatible.

It must be mentioned that Eglantine House is the House by which she is employed.

It had been a long time in the coming, or so it seemed, but finally she had made her marque and was able to do aught that she wanted. Velvette no Eglantine’s first endeavour was to visit her beloved.

Taking leave of Eglantine House and Mont Nuit, she rode astride, hell for leather, revelling in the freedom it afforded her. Her long mahogany locks flew behind her like a train. She made the journey to Azzalle last but two days where it would ordinarily take three or longer. Well and so, she was 19 and needed less sleep than her superiors.

When she arrived, guards heralded her arrival, recognising her. D’Azille was out of the manor in a second and she launched herself off her borrowed steed in a mad, desperate panic. The reins somehow found their way into a stable boy’s hand. Velvette ran; she hoisted her skirts up so all could fair see her knees and ran towards her beloved, flinging herself into his arms and her arms around his neck. In a rare show of affection, Carrock caught her; he couldn’t help himself, and swung her in a circle while she kissed his face.

Thus was their long awaited reunion.

That night they went to bed. Neither was sure what would happen now that she was free to take him as a lover, but that she did and they lay together for hours revelling in Naamah’s Arts and enjoying each other’s pleasure. Then they needs must talk.

“What are your plans?”

His question did not surprise her, but she found she was unready to answer it. She did not know what she wanted, nor what he wanted of her. “I don’t know.”

“Leave Eglantine,” he replied. He was not normally one to speak so bluntly, but in his desperation he opened his mouth and the words leapt out of their own accord. “Leave Eglantine and come to Mapperley. I would that you would take me as your consort, allow me to love you. Only me.”

It was at that moment that Velvette realised she did not want to leave Naamah’s Service, nor Eglantine House. She tried to imagine it, imagine herself happy at Mapperley, D’Azille’s major holding in Azzalle, but she could not see herself walking the halls and playing lady of the manor without the actual title. Nor, she thought, with the title. “Would you not take me as your wife?” In truth, she did not want to play house with him.

Carrock’s face twisted in pain as she watched and he but shook his head. She had known that would be his answer. There was a long silence.

There, naked in his bed, Velvette gazed at Carrock’s beautiful face and porcelain skin, stroking her elegant fingers over his pale flesh. But the gesture, where before it may have made him shudder with desire, fell flat and ineffective and she felt the lack of reaction like a stone in the pit of her belly.

“That’s it, then, isn’t it?” she said. It wasn’t really a question, not one that required an answer.

Carrock nodded. He realised she didn’t want to leave Eglantine, and perhaps he had always known she wouldn’t. Perhaps if he had suggested lovers, while she remained in Naamah’s Service, she would have accepted. He hadn’t, and that was that.

Carrock reached for her and pulled her soft white body against him. “At least let’s enjoy each other’s company while you’re here,” he whispered into her hair, before he buried his fingers in it and brought his mouth down to hers. Then he pulled her legs up and around him, entering her, and ensconced their hurt in the arts of Naamah where the love they made would provide the best balm they could muster.

Finally

This is the last of my random bump, which is good because I'm getting pretty sleepy. This started out as yet another doodle. I hate drawing on note paper, so my arm was preferable to be lecture notes. Pretty, no?

Riverside House

This was another of those kits I bought for the sake of it. It was surprisingly challenging, which I liked.

Butterflies

I went through a phase where if I saw a cross stitch kit in a charity shop and it was complete and worth the money, I bought it. I'm still working through the huge backlog of kits I have. This was one such.