Canticle

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You know that old (or perhaps not so old) saying about how life is just one long party, and having a partner means leaving early, but wouldn't you rather stay in with them and be cozy anyway?

That's about the size of it in Aletta Manor, circa mid-July 3561, perhaps just before Addam's twenty-first birthday. They are sat, prince and princess, on the floor in the master bedroom, like children with their legs criss-crossed as they hunch over a checkers board.

Truth be told, I don't remember exactly how to play checkers. I haven't re-researched it either, perhaps only to inject mystique into the device for you here now. But I do know that all the pieces of one color must make it to the other side, passing through the opposite color's troops, and in the context of the game as a small-scale march of armies, that's a thing of conquest, but when it comes to people, a microcosm allegory of a macrocosm that actually involves less actors, it might just as well be a thing of connection.

Maybe Flora wins, maybe Addam does, maybe the board gets overturned in true tropish fashion as he keeps repeatedly leaning across it to kiss her forehead, or her cheeks, or her ears, or her nose, or her lips, or her hands, or--

"Wouldn't you rather do all that up there?" Flora starts, finger pointed back at the four-poster behind them and free hand not so free, palming the side of Addam's chest through his pajama shirt. Instead of answering, he presses his lips hungrily against hers again, muffling the end of her question. Up there, down here? It's all the same, as long as you're with me.

Finally, Addam sits back on his haunches once more, but as soon as he flicks his eyes away from Flora to look at the current state of the bed, something intrinsic in his countenance drops, and he darts his gaze back to her again; ah, yes, all is calm, all is right.

"Can we?"

Flora shifts in her seat, shuffles at the skirt of her nightdress which is quite similar to that of her dayclothes (which is to say, this is an old iteration of the classic pink, worn and soft and always Addam's favorite even though he loves her in all colors, every last one).

"We don't have to," comes the prince's hasty amendment. "Only if you're absolutely comfortable."

"It's not that I'm not comfortable," says Flora, uncertain but homing to something, "more that I'm...nervous."

Addam takes her hand, traces patterns over the back and under the palm. Kisses the top, most likely, holds it to his cheek if she doesn't have the presence of mind to do so herself, because that's harmless enough. "I don't quite see the difference."

Her hand molds itself to the shape, the facets, of his cheek, as the first indicator of her positive response. "It's like...oh, I don't know. I'm alright if I'm with you. Because I'm with you. You know? And I want to, with you."

They both grin, and they're breathy things, like as not, and this time as he leans over to kiss her on the lips, soft and sweet, his arms reach to her neck and knees, to cradle her up and off the floor, into his embrace, so that they can both sit on the bed and resume.

At first, it's quite gentle, quite slow, kiss for kiss and touch for touch, hands on knees and perhaps on thighs if anything else. His hand does go up her skirt, in a manner of speaking, but it's only to stroke over the place where her erection is or will soon be (wake it up, indeed, if only so they're not surprised by it later).

"You want to take those off, don't you?" Flora queries at last. Addam nods, doesn't try to hide it, so she lets him: first lift the dress off over her head, then unclasp her bra (which is doing the best it can with her quite modest chest, and she doesn't really mind that).

Sat there in the center of the bed in shorts with an incipient bulge and shirtless with the space below quite flat, Flora could very easily hate herself. Addam looks at her, all adoration, and...well, it becomes a little more difficult, and that's something, anyway. Her grateful smile is also just something, not everything, but then again she'll never know the fullest extent of how Addam takes it.

As for him, he lets her unbutton his shirt, and kiss where each and every hole had been all down his front, and his own loose shorts slip off with a minimum of getting-up-and-sitting-down fuss. "There," says Flora, "now that's...that, done." They're both still wearing the undershorts, though; not quite through yet.

Addam doesn't say anything to indicate the slightest cognitive dissonance that she's produced with that statement, tries to make it as clear as he can with his posture and wandering eyes that he doesn't mind it, because her comfort is the most important thing. Then Flora looks up at him, rummages in the back of her mind for a bit of courage which she had been wanting to find all on her own, and hurriedly slips the undergarment off; Addam does the same.

Their legs are crossed once again, but now there's no game laid between them. Or is there? If sex, foreplay, is a game, then they've got plans, and don't exactly need instructions for all of the broadest bits, but some of it can get tricky, in the end, one supposes.

And oh, yes. They're in the dark. Bit hard to play any kind of game when that's true (the checkers game had been lit by a particularly helpful slice of moonlight shining through the window slats).

"I can't really see you," Addam says quietly, again trying not to make it seem like he's, well, whining.

Flora's answer is just as quiet. "I don't...don't really like to look at it, myself. I'm fine with having it, and it being good for you, but I don't...I don't." She shakes her head, more at herself and her inane hangups than at her slightly unfitting assignment of genitalia which has caused them.

His doesn't bother him, so much; it's a different form of name he had wanted, and yes, to be a man, but he doesn't mind being referred to as "she" occasionally, by the right people (which is to say, not Zettar and kin, though he's trying to learn his way past that), or as an ambiguous party with a neutral pronoun.

He likes his chest the way it is, and he wouldn't, doesn't, even care about the way his pants fit because, completely by chance, his are always baggy anyway. (As it happens, Flora's are tighter, little spandex shorts. So maybe that means something - I'll tell you full out, it does.)

Simply put, Addam Origo is one with contentment. In this way, then, Flora is slightly more neurotic. As any reasonable person would, she likes things to make sense, she wants things to make sense, she needs things to make sense. So, how to make sense of this? "I'll just have to find my way down to it, then."

"Oh." Her shivering just barely pronounces her silhouette in the half-dark of the room (the very condition, of course, that Addam had complained of).

"Oh?" Of course words, communication, are very important, all the more so, in a setting like this. Sometimes the Origos talk in useless platitude; sometimes being blunt by way of simplicity wholly wins the day. And sometimes, they converse in exchanges of onomatopoeia that serve no one but an atmospheric observer listening for the right measured, countermeasured, give and take.

Flora gives, for Addam to take: "Y-yes. I would like that...very much."

They talk of "it", and of course you know what it is, but the correct plain-language term for it happens to be one of Flora's least favorite in existence, and mine as well, so we won't use it. Not much, anyway. There's really no use, after all. At least, I hope there isn't. But enough about me - and you, for that matter. This isn't about us. It's about them.

He reaches for her shoulders (perhaps the "really" in "can't really" was less of an exaggeration that it might at first have seemed; he can see better than would really [really!] merit making a fuss over it, that is to say) and pulls her into his lap, settling her knees at the corresponding angles to his and feeling that crucial appendage brush across the base of his stomach.

She feels it too, of course, and winces, maybe more grimaces; with his hands where they are, he can tell. "I do like it," he reassures her, answers the unspoken question as if it was even one that she would have asked, which it wasn't, isn't. "Very much. If that's alright."

Flora wrinkles her nose, screws up her lips. "I can't imagine why anyone would. It's so..."

"Floppy?" Addam offers, skipping all those tender steps from to to fro that he had promised and gently taking it in his hand. And of course then, it's...not so floppy, you know, with something else guiding it, to rest against.

"That's one word for it, I suppose." She almost laughs, but doesn't. He runs his thumb up and down the shaft, delicately over the tip, and then kisses her to distract away from it on the off chance that she doesn't like what she's feeling, and he's, she's, they've got to regroup.

Flora marks no displeasure, however, before, during, or after the kiss, so Addam continues. "I think she's very pretty."

"She?"

"Well, it's better than just calling it an it." Since we're on about pronouns, all the time. Maybe that's worthwhile, maybe it's not - you tell me.

"You're daft, I think." Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Maybe it doesn't matter.

Flora keens underneath him, on the final flicker of the last syllable, and Addam loosens his grip, ever-so-slightly. As she peers up into his face, fingers tracing over and cupping at his breasts (for they still are that, all in all, and again as we've said he's perfectly content with that truth), she seems to catch onto and then promptly lose a thought that might clarify, might qualify, might quantify. Addam cocks his head to the side; she bids him continue.

"Another word for daft is crazy. And I am crazy about you." So he is. So he is, so he is, and so he is.

"Even with that?" She tries not to pack disdain into the demonstrative thing, but the caveat is still pointed.

"Especially with that. Because, as it stands, that's part of what makes you Flora. My Flora. Not any other, ever. I won't ignore it. Not unless you truly want me to."

The warmth makes her full prone to melt. "Oh, when you say it like that..."

"Like what?" Oh, and isn't he silly?

Both of their voices have now softened immeasurably. They are tangled in each other's tenderness, in something soft like-unlike cotton wool that spools about their eyes and ears, horse's blinders for people who would be neither more wrong nor more right to not have them on. Long have I, and they, abandoned saying that they're not in love, and that it's only a marriage of convenience. There is no more sensible way and mean than that which they live through (through which they live) every day, and it is one colored, painted, sculpted in love.

"You're...you're a man who is in a position to put whatever conditions he likes on the women whom he courts. That is, you could ask for any woman, and any woman would take you, whether it was in the name of the royal family or not."

Addam laughs softly, doesn't bother to frown. "I don't think so. I don't think any man is in that position - rather, has that right. Or woman, either."

"Oh, and that's what I mean. There aren't any conditions to it, when you say you love me. You just mean it."

"Of course I do." Of course they do. You see?

It is dark, ether lamp long burnt out, just as Addam had said, but it is not cold. It would not be cold even if they weren't holding each other, of course. Remember, it's the summertime. The slightly sticky, sweaty sound of skin on skin, both surfaces in a state of completely normal unmoisture but yet being human, still, always, cuts counterpoint to the more hushed, rounded sounds of their voices.

"I never found my way down there, did I?"

"No, you didn't. Do you still want to?"

"I want you. I always want you."

Gingerly, reluctantly, he lets her out of his arms, lays her down and pulls his hand back along her arm to grasp her hand and squeeze. "Darling..."

"What?" Yes, hushed tones, they call it. They're certainly what she has.

"You do look so like a princess."

There's nothing so regal about her subtle squirm, hipbones jutting and hair flowing everywhere. Oh, but isn't there? She blushes, doesn't say anything comprehensible in response.

"More than a princess," Addam presses, soldiers, on. "A queen." My queen, wouldn't you be? That is, would you be, by acceding to it, and wouldn't you be, by reinforcing the logic? It is only the highest of honors, that the Architect or his more human scions have given me, to be...to be with you.

Flora blushes again, but this time she reciprocates, chin lifted up with hand propped prettily underneath, horizontal with fingertips clipped together, the primmest, again prettiest, of smiles gracing her lips. If he squints, Addam can maybe, maybe, maybe see what she means, about how the penis hiding below her navel does something inappropriately masculine to the rest of her otherwise perfectly goddesslike form, but squinting too long or too hard hurts your eyes, doesn't it? And in his, she could never be anything but perfect.

His next thought is to kiss it, her, directly, but then he remembers his pretense for a third time, and consents to lying down next to her, cocooning himself about her, and tracing a path over cheek, neck, collarbones, down between her breasts, over the light depressions that indicate her abdominal muscles, into those very same dips between bone and flesh...and finally he has reached the base of the shaft once more.

The dark, curly hair that surrounds it is coarse, not quite silky to run his fingers through (his, by the alternate token, is), and yet it does well to create a middle ground between not touching her there at all and grasping at the shaft or, bluntly enough, sucking on it with no discretion involved. A few kisses, Addam leaves, up and down the length, and some on the tip, before glancing up into Flora's whisked-out face and remembering something.

Maybe it's not important, but it's special, anyway. At least, he thinks it is. He hopes it is. "Oh. Shall I do the other thing, first?"

Flora frowns, lightly. "What other thing?"

"You know, this one." Addam hadn't been about to interrupt his wife in the middle of her clarifying question, but now, before she can say anything else, he moves upward to lie alongside her once again, to be alongside her once again, though still positioned over her middle, her center of gravity, and takes one of her bare nipples between his fingers, the other hand arched behind her back.

Both of their sexes, the ones that should "by rights" be swapped, press against each other, and surprisingly enough, that is only a side detail. Flora's mouth hangs open; she cannot school the appropriate muscles to get it to shut, for her facial orchestration is preoccupied with eyes tight shut instead, and the rest of her body with squirming underneath the careful but still appropriately rough touch.

For a few minutes, that's enough (more than enough) to concentrate on. It is only when Addam feels that Flora is fully accustomed to the sensation that he adds the second component, switching sides and pinching and rubbing about the other areola, and taking the first in his mouth.

Not for quite some time have there been pet names, sweet nothings, loving words exchanged. No one talks at all, as Flora is once again struck with the fresh shock and pleasure. She doesn't know if he's, quote, "good at it", and she doesn't care to know - what other standard holds absolutely any weight? There is only Addam, always, always, always. Soon enough, however, she regains her words.

"Oh, Addam..." He peers up at her from the tops of his eye sockets, golden eyes never more liquid crystal emotion. "I love you." It seems calm as written, but it comes out almost frenzied. The corners of his lips smile, his bottom half grinds closer and she feels so warm, so warm, so warm. "I love you, I love you, I love you." Over and over, the words spill, until at last Addam is overwhelmed too, and pauses his dutiful task to kiss her, hard, on the mouth.

"I love you more," he says, mumbles, as he pulls away. The passing thought comes to do the same for him, either on his chest or at his clit (and no, she has no idea how she would even begin to try to bring that off right), but there is no time; he moves down to the corresponding place himself. Oh, but isn't there?

"Addam, wait." His head jerks up, topmost tufts akimbo. "Anything wrong?"

She reaches limply for the switch on the lamp, and tells herself that it's so she can do a good job seeing everything there is to see, instead of just that she wants to see everything that there is to see hunched low in front of her, pale skin and warm eyes and firm arms and wide thighs. "I should do something for you, I think."

Ah. His head hangs embarrassment, his fingers yet lingering over the shaft, far too fond for...not her tastes, but her own internalized sensibilities. Pretty, he'd said it- no, she, was, and you'd best remember it, hadn't you, Flora? It wouldn't do to dislike a part of yourself that he says is so beautiful, because then that would mean that he's lying to you - either that or he's stupid, and the kind of stupid that Addam Origo in fact is is not in fact that one.

But back to the man himself. "You're already doing so much," Addam protests, and it's just as weak as Flora just was, aloud. "And you're already quite hard," he adds, "I can't just leave you there like that."

Privately, Flora thinks, I think you could, it's not as if I very often finish with it. It's just...there, and when you do something to me, or near me, that's especially special, well, then it wakes up, but I don't particularly care if it's gotten a fulfilling sleep, and all. But nevertheless.

"Well, we could..." Flora draws herself up onto her knees and shuffles right next to where Addam is sat, back on his haunches once more. "Can I try something, while I think? Down there?"

Addam's smile is goofy, whimsical. "Yes, dear." He kisses her forehead, but gets only a mouthful of bangs, because she's already ducked her concentration down to inserting her index and middle fingers into the only place where she'd ever dare to put them, down there.

Sounds a little clinical, doesn't it? And that's right. Quite alright, even. She's never had much success before, so she has to keep trying. A little faith will do you wonders, after all.

Each of the folds she finds is perfectly accommodating to each of the fingers she uses, even if there isn't much of a reaction. She studies Addam's face, which is plastered in mostly a dreamlike infatuation, and tries to ignore the dreadfully unsubtle squelching noise that she - or he, whichever - seems to be producing.

"This isn't doing much, is it?"

"I'm afraid it's not."

If either of them had been hoping to ramp up to something more sexual than romantic, more sexy than lovey-dovey, it doesn't appear to be happening here. Flora removes her fingers, tries to ignore Addam's eyes watching them looking very much like he'd like to lick them clean (it's a confusing thing, yes, and maybe that's the only, only, only reason he wishes the pussy were installed on her, and not him), sits back, buttocks to heels, and thinks, thinks, thinks. Addam, idly, reaches down to stroke at her cock; she doesn't stop him.

"Did you-" His eyes flick to meet hers, passes halted, and she falters. Damn. Try again. "Did you want to try...me inside you?"

Addam's gasp is palpable; she feels it in her own chest what must be twice, three times, four times as powerful as it emerged from within his own. He nods, again once, twice, thrice. "Yes. Please."

She could ask him if this has been a frequent fantasy - she could ask him if he ever fantastizes about her at all, and the answer would probably be mostly no, because he sleeps with her every night, and is perfectly content just to cuddle, maybe fondle a touch - or what exactly he'd like so much about it, but Flora is tuned to all business, now. She nods, brushes his hand aside to take her own length in hand, and then...stops.

Why does she stop? "Oh, we're forgetting something, aren't we."

Addam nearly jumps. "Titan's foot, yes." Probably, he bites his tongue soon (immediately) after for having sworn upon Azurda's claws in the middle of almost-sex. That aside, Flora eyes him. Perhaps nervously, perhaps warily.

"You seem very relieved...?"

"Well, of course. I mean, that is to say, I would have your children, if that's what you wanted- no, what I mean is, in spirit I would, but in actuality..."

Oh, how his eyes plead. You silly, silly, silly man. She kisses him to let him know it's alright, and strokes careful fingers over his vulva, and through the thicket of gray hair laid thereover, for good measure. "I love you." She laughs; some if not all of her confidence has returned, and the action isn't mean-spirited in the least.

No conditions, no complications, hardly even any reasons except that I love you, and you love me. Well, but there is a complication, as we've well taken, and they produce it from some hidden-away drawer or other, and work together, fingers bumbling-stumbling with all manner of kisses being exchanged above, to get it sorted, and then...then they hesitate, again. Because it is the first time, and it is precarious, even if it is precious, and not so precocious.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure I want to. And even if I'm a little bit afraid, what's the worst that could happen?"

I could break you, Addam thinks, we could get...stuck, if that happens, which it probably doesn't, but it might, my luck has to run out sometime, and for all the good that I've gotten I would just happen to get the bad here, only it wouldn't be so bad, no, Architect, of course it would--

"Whatever it is, we'll do it togther."

"That's right," Flora agrees, even though the sentiment is far and away too plainly gung-ho for such a time. Her thoughts hadn't been half so scattered as his, in that deciding (not decisive) moment. Straightforwardly, I have thought my way through to it many a time, and this time I would at least like to try. At least.

His fingers dance, nervy, over her hips; his palms move and press and swell against the fullest parts along the sides in a futile effort to calm himself.

"Now, you're sure? You're sure you're sure?"

She nods, bites her lip to keep from giggling. And then he is over top of her, hands holding her torso on its sides just at the line of her breasts.

Once more, he inquires, but this time only with his eyes. Flora glances away, for the briefest second, and spies the checkers set strewn forgotten on the floor.

Oh, indeed. They lock eyes again, and she whispers, for it is too tense (in the right way, the right way, only ever the right way) for anything else.

"King me."