private lesson
"Oh," says Flora.
"Oh?" repeats Addam, ticking up with a fine fondness that colors everything he says in minor-major jest, but especially the things he says to Flora.
But she puzzles, too finely focused to be quite consciously taken with his charming ways.
"It can't be true, because we've known each other for so long, but...is it the first time, now, that I've seen you in your undershirt?"
Addam looks down at himself, momentarily alarmed that he's been found in a state of critical undress, but no, Flora's just referring to his compression bodysuit and breeches, soft clothing in dark grays and greens only seen in suggestion beneath all the bits and bobs of gleaming white breastplate, red wraps, gold banners.
It's a big to-do, to be a royal, even if you try not to carry yourself so. The difference between the dress of the common people and the dress of the nobility is stark.
Addam and Flora shouldn't fit nearly so well. But she sees him as he is without all the armors and airs, constantly. She has that superlative brand of vision.
And she's still fully dressed, simple frock and modesty shorts. It could be a horribly scandalous slit, but it's not. It's exactly the way Flora is, sensible and pretty.
So, though it's not that they're chaste and virgin, saving everything for the end, it is indeed the first time they've faffed about in the dining room, shuffling in socks and slips and slippers, going absolutely nowhere at end of day and beginning of evening.
"I hope it's alright," Addam says apologetically. "Not showing too much, am I?"
"No!" Flora blurts out, then blushes and covers her mouth. "No, it's...I like it."
"Ah. Then I like it too."
He's so inviting, this way. He's always lovely to look at, with his darting eyes and his mischievous face and his ridiculous tales of failure, but this is a prize for Flora's eyes only.
The lines of his neck and chest are prominent enough to be spied even in the relative darkness of the room. Though Addam looms over her, Flora feels as if his warmth is everywhere, throughout the space.
It's not at all like being in the schoolhouse, where little bundles of energy are running and colliding everywhere, and any other adult in the room is a pinpoint beacon.
Instead, Addam's presence is as one with her own. It's as if she's twice the strength and none of the division.
"I remember the first time a child came to me for help with their shoelaces - I realized all at once, oh, I'm the one responsible for lifting this...bony little body up onto the back counter so she can sit comfortably and I don't have to bend all the way down."
"You could have crouched," muses Addam. "I'm sure if there were an entire line of children, you would have."
Flora smiles at him, suddenly shy from her revelation. "One forgets to think of these things. You know."
Addam crosses his arms, peers down at her as if underneath the bottom rim of glasses, pretends to consider and judge the esteemed young educational and childcare professional. And what should he know? He's only a lord.
"Well," he says then. "Let's test my strength, shall we? See if I'm fit to work the land."
It almost sounds like an innuendo, but Flora hardly has time to ponder that realization when Addam hooks his hands under her own shoulders and hoists her up to the table behind her, against which she'd been stood.
My, my. He is strong. Much stronger than her - perhaps something for her to work on, if she's to be the wife of a farmer (that means she'll be a farmer herself) too.
Still, it's a low dining table, so she's not much higher up than she'd just been standing on her own two legs.
"Satisfied?" she wants to ask, but she's distracted, meeting Addam's soft and admittedly lovestruck stare down at her.
Stare is harsh, impersonal, searching. Not that he's not searching. Not that he hasn't found everything he wants. Maybe more like a gaze, a leisurely look, meant to use up all the time left in the world, just to see her.
Is that what he meant it for?
Now Flora turns her studying eyes on him, quirking corners of tear ducts to tease out all that Addam's willing to offer (which is, of course, everything). This is a test, you know, of the emergency observation system. Have I got your attention? What are you thinking? What am I saying, without having to say it?
Nonverbal communication to quell the anxieties of an entire small-group instruction is one of her specialties; she has a stern teacher voice, but she doesn't like to use it, so she ensures that she doesn't have to.
Addam waggles his pupils back at her, chasing her amusement round in a circle.
"I'm not going to tie your shoe," he says.
"Obviously," she says. "I haven't got laces."
(She's got buckles, more like a tension-locked belt, hidden behind the miniature versions of the couters that decorate Addam's full gloves-on armor, when he's wearing it.)
"And I'm not going to ask you your times tables."
"You'd be asking for trouble," Flora replies. What she implies is that she'll be so fast rattling off the fours that Addam, not stupid but never quite as quick except in rarest moments, will have to pause to double-check, brow furrowed and eyes zoomed wide. And she's right. Of course, she's right.
She sits primly perched, ankles crossed, feet lightly swinging. Her calves and thighs flex where her knee is bent over the edge of the table, past the end of the runner.
Forward, back. Forward, back. Of course, she's in time with the grandfather clock.
And Addam watches her. She looks a little coy. She looks poised to do something, be someone. She looks content to go nowhere at all.
He leans in, left hand hovering and right hand keeping him stable, to kiss her forehead through the thick, messy bangs.
He doesn't grab her ass. It's not that kind of lesson. He's careful, hesitant, ginger with her freckles. Her shoulders provide a window, but he's too embarrassed to look.
Flora, none so timid, lays a short-nailed hand on his chest.
Right there, with no chainmail, his heart beats steady, thumping loud.
"You're not nervous," she says, half a question and half a statement and half a declaration to God.
Addam closes his eyes. Breathes. Her hair clings to his nose. Her skin is soft and cool. The palm of his hand is her only gracing crown.
"You're my wife," he says, still speaking into her forehead. He's talking more to himself than he is to her, however. Maybe up to the Architect, again.
"I believe that's the contract I signed, yes," Flora replies lightly. She won't tease him, but yes she will, because it's only her way, only how she's always been, since she was just a very little girl.
(She used to tease her father, but then her mother began to take a greater interest in how the little girl was growing up, and if she was proper, and if she wanted the things that her mother wanted for her, which once upon a time were probably the things her mother wanted for herself, because that's how these things always seem to go.)
Now Addam rests his cheek on her forehead, turning his face away to the far wall. She could say something sarcastic about how he only lifted her up so that he could use her as a headrest, but the peculiar kind of support that that is, to be so close to someone, makes it sweeter to remain in silence.
He breathes. She listens to him breathe. His heart beats. She feels it, fingertips molded to the contours of his chest with each rise and fall.
She starts to walk her fingers around through the hills and valleys of Addam's front, then, occupying herself with the dutiful task of marching in a complete loop, from sternum to clavicle and back again, taking the long way round.
"You're my husband," Flora says, idly, as she does it. Rather than respond with his own end of the bargain, and how his word is his deed is the law, Addam draws a deeper sigh - frankly, as if he's been punched softly in the diaphragm.
He's so strong. So willing. She truly feels as if he could accomplish anything - and she, too, by extension, but being accomplished is no object for her, and that's why the two of them are married. Standards, her mother could speak of. What does she know?
These are the privileges afforded, between husbands and wives. You hold each other. You see each other without all of the things arrayed upon you for the outside world to see. You answer questions that may be pointless, may be philosophical, may have no real answer unless spoken out by you, in your own particular voice among all the voices and thoughts in the world.
All the clamoring children. All the newfound minds.
It might truly be the first time Flora has sat and spent time with Addam, in his underclothes, but she's always known him to be just this way. She's always seen his manifest sweetness.
"Addam..." she mumbles, fingers tired of their trek. She flops her arms out just far enough to wrap around his waist, the squishy flanks with no ribcage, only organs, and no spiky armor at all. Without saying anything, and without leaving his dream, Addam steps closer, sighing again, letting Flora cling onto him as he rests the point of his chin in the very center of her skull.
Can't we stay like this forever? What is it we perceive that prevents us? Just like when children are enjoying their quiet time, and we wonder what it is about them that makes them cause such a ruckus...why are we not so gentle, within the world?
They rock from side to side, Addam stepping and Flora swaying. Still, they're following the pattern of the clock. When had they last pulled the pendulums to wind the chains, to give themselves another week of precious time?
"You're my everything," Flora whispers, right into Addam's heart such as only she could manage.
She hears the telltale sniffle. She feels the clutch of his breath.
"I'm with you, Flora." He sobs. She smiles. "I'm whatever you need me to be."