The Night Before She Turned Eighteen

Candice's P.O.V

Everyone in the villa was asleep.  

Even the guards were now posted to the extreme fringe--the silent command of Mantovani after dinner, a present of privacy, my last night as a seventeen-year-old.

Midnight had come and gone. My birthday was fainting over my neck, and it came out in freedom, and in war, and all that we had struggled to keep.

He discovered me in the music room, with one of his black silk shirts hanging on my bare feet, and cello lying unplayed on its stand. The moonlight shone in the tall windows and made the marble floor silver.

Mantovani was standing naked in the door, with low-sweat pants. The shades had moulded into antique thing, into sanctity, all lines of muscle, all scars, all tattoos. His eyes (burned) the present between us.

No more waiting, he said, with everything we had not said all day in a rough voice.

I moved gradually, deliberately, across the room, till we were sharing the same air.

I mumbled tomorrow I am eighteen. Tomorrow the world tries to steal you out of my arms.

He put both his hands round my face and thumbs caressing my cheeks like I was both glass and fire simultaneously.

Then this very night, I said, I am going to love you so utterly that not a war, nor a sheriff, nor a distance would ever put you in doubt of your place.

His mouth fell on mine--slow, tortoise, destroying. Not the desperate hunger of old times, but a deep possessing kiss that had a touch of promises and eternity. I dissolved into it, hands creeping up his chest, his heart thumping at my palms.

He took me in a reverse walk until my thighs struck on the grand piano. One movement of his arm set the sheet music fluttering down. Then he picked me up on to the polished lid and the cold wood startled my bare flesh.

His hands went under the silk shirt--his shirt--and moved it up and off until I was in the moonlight naked. He retreated only far enough to view me where his eyes moved along every line as though he were committing to memory the fights to come.

You are the prettiest thing I ever fought, said he, breaking his voice just a little.

Then he was back to me--his mouth upon my throat, my breasts, my stomach,--worshipping with his lips and tongue and teeth until I was trembling. As he fell on his knees between my thighs, I had to hold on to the side of the piano so as to remain standing.

He took his time.  

Long, indulgent licks which made me up until I was sniveling his name into the silent house. The first time I arrived there he did not make a stop--pushed still on tasting me with the aftershocks until I was pleading, pleading, to have him inside me.

He got up, pushed his sweat pants down, and dragged me to the very edge. We glued our eyes as he slipped into me--inch by inch so slowly I could feel all the pangs, all the aches of the heart.

After his interment, he quieted down.

I love you, he said, shaking and uncured. I love you when you are nice and when you have a rifle. I adore you when you are picking your mother and when you are picking me. I love you to burn it all down, and love you enough to make the world a better place to you.

The tears ran down my temples in my hair.

"I love you," I whispered back. All dark and beautiful and broken of you. And every part that's mine."

He did not move until then--strokes long and deep which dragged at each point of my sensibility. The piano was squeaking under us, keys playing soft random notes as we rocked together, it was a private symphony.

He put my legs on his waist, and lifted me up and took me to the thick rug before the dead fire place--without ever breaking the connection. Put me to bed, wrapped me round with his body, and made love to me as though we had all the time in the world.

We united-- silent, and breaking and falling on each other like the sunrise might separate us.

Then he took me on his knee, and my back to his breast, and his arms round me. There we remained on the rug, as flesh grew cold, heart grew slow.

I always thought freedom was going away, I said into the darkness. Running back to New York, to my old life. But this is the freedom-making choice of you, of us, each day.

He kissed me, his voice deepening.

"Tomorrow you turn eighteen. The world would attempt to drag you in all directions. But you will have a home here always. He put my hand on his chest. And I would come to you continuously, Candice. far, far, however much blood.

I crossed over his arms, mounted him, kissed his face.

Come to me one more time by night, I said, cower down on you, put him inside.

We went slowly, cheek against cheek, forehead against forehead, saying I love you, each time hips rolled, each time we breathed together.

We were still together--tired and filled and indestructible--when at last the dawn sneaked through the windows which gilded us.

Outside, war waited.

We had made something more inward.

And with the hour of my eighteenth birthday Mantovani kissed me and kissed me sweet and cruel, and whispered into my mouth:

"Happy birthday, my queen.  

Now let's go win your war."