Her fears and her passion

*Zac*
Calliope awoke screaming my name.

I was lost in my own torment, visited by what I cannot remember, which is no visitation at all really, just a bleak emptiness.

I am still awake, drawing comfort by feathering my fingers over her hair, when her shriek rips the night. She is already in my arms, having nestled there after a passionate session of lovemaking once we returned from London. The late hour doesn’t matter. We teased and taunted each other in the carriage on the journey back. It’s a wonder we didn’t rip off our clothes in the entry hallway as soon as we closed the door behind us.

Now she struggles to free herself from my embrace. I only hold her nearer.

“Calliope. Calliope. Sweetheart.” I coo, I whisper, I tenderly stroke her back, but she has none of it. She thrashes about, lost to the demons that torment her. It has been weeks since they invaded her dreams. I had begun to think that she conquered them. She is so strong, so determined that she puts me to shame when it comes to battling the irrefutable horrors of the past.

I have no doubt that I am responsible for her anguish tonight. My damned knighthood has reawakened all her dormant memories. The reason behind the accolades, my actions that are heralded as bravery. They all serve as reminders of where she once was. It probably doesn’t help at all that I had asked so many questions of Calliope concerning Fancy.

I was stunned to see her at the ball Djuna arranged in my honor. Even more shocked to discover she had been in the East, one of Miss Swallow’s angels. I’d never thought she had the inclination to help others. I enjoyed her company immensely, but I always knew she placed herself above all others. I cannot reconcile the woman I knew with the woman Calliope told me about. And pestering her for information has no doubt served to bring to her mind all that she’d done, all she’d seen. All the men who died while she looked on. How powerless she felt. How little she could alter.

But she has done so much good. I am certain of that. I have read the accounts about Miss swallow. Calliope was at her side. She did many of the same deeds. She walked through the wards carrying a lamp, tending to the sick and injured. She tended to me.

I have no memory of it, but I can see her so clearly in my mind. She’s wrong with her insistence that I can’t re-create the memories. Perhaps they are not as vivid or as precise or as true as what I’ve experienced. But still, I can envision her bending over my uncomfortable bed, wiping my sweating brow, giving me words of comfort. Compassion fills her. I don’t know how to grant her the same relief.

I would return my knighthood in a second if it would release her from the bondage of this nightmare.

I trail kisses over her face, repeat her name. Suddenly she is clutching me, her fingers digging into my sides, and I know I’ll be bruised come morning. But it doesn’t matter. My discomfort is nothing if it brings her peace.

“Take me,” she gasps. “Please take me. Make me forget. Make me forget it all."

I kiss her as though I would die if I don’t. She responds as she did earlier, with fire and passion. She pushes on me, rolls me over onto my back, and straddles me. She rains kisses over my chest, doing to me what I wish to do to her. I want to carry her to new heights, want to cast her demons into perdition.

It is not fair that someone like her should be so tormented.

I thread my fingers through her coppery hair, longer now than it once was, not as long as it will one day be. I want to see it spread out over my chest, my groin. When she is over me like this, I want her hair to provide a curtain that closes out the world.

Even as the thoughts scurry through my mind, I know I would be content if she were bald. Nothing is more precious than this moment. The past, the future, what do they matter when every nerve is centered on what she is doing? The caress of her fingers, the swirl of her tongue. The heat of her mouth envelops me.

“Dear Goddess!”

I nearly come off the bed. My back arches, my eyes squeeze shut, my fingers dig into her shoulders, and I force them to loosen their hold. I don’t want to bruise her, but I need to touch her. I open my eyes to the sight of my angel eagerly ravishing me. Sweet Goddess. Fiery molten lava pumps through my veins. Each deep breath into my lungs brings the musky scent of sex: mine and hers. She is aroused by what she is doing as much as I am. I wonder if I might die from the sensations. My heart beats so forcefully that I am certain she has to feel the pounding through my body. She is driving me to madness.

“Enough! Enough, Calliope.” Reaching down, I lift her. “I need to feel you around me.” My voice is hoarse, my throat feels raw.

Grabbing her hips, I impale her. She is hot, so unbelievably hot. Scalding. She cries out, not in pain, but in ecstasy. Tangling her fingers in her own hair, she arches back and rides me. I pump ferociously. I cradle her breasts, relishing the weight in my palms. She runs her hands over my chest. Then she cups the back of my head and kisses me, deeply, thoroughly, in near desperation.

It occurs to me that perhaps she is still locked in the throes of the nightmare. Never has she been so wild, so bold, so… imaginative.

Our grunts and moans echo around us. Everything within me tautens, demands release.

She arches back, calling out my name, her body closing in around me with the force of a vise. Unbearable pleasure rips through me. I jerk, pump, shatter.

Spasms shake me as I fall back from somewhere I have never been before, a height I have never before attained. I swallow hard, my breathing harsh and heavy.

She flops down on top of me, and I feel warm liquid running in rivulets along my chest. Her rasping sobs tear at my heart.

“Calliope, are you crying? Sweetheart, did I hurt you?” I’d rather lose the left arm she told me I fought so hard to keep, or my leg, before hurting her.

“I’m going to lose you,” she whimpers. “I know it. You’re going to leave me.”

Working my hands beneath her, I cradle her face, forcing her to look at me. Tears fill her whiskey eyes, eyes I want to gaze into when I take my last breath.

“Calliope, sweetheart. You’re not going to lose me. And I will never leave you. I have fallen in love with you.”