Looking up at him, I nodded.
Inexplicably, I could feel nothing but relief.
48
THE LAST TIME ALONE
IN THE SAME way I’d been him, living those moments with him, he was me.
It was almost stranger, being on the other side of that.
It was both a relief and a source of guilt, feeling him so far in me. It was like we shared the same skin, the same light, the same breath in our lungs, the same mind.
I wondered at the Cave of Dreams aspect of this.
I wondered if it would have been this intense regardless, or if the human magics in this place were helping us, even now––by speeding things up, by not letting us duck or sidestep anything we needed to see or feel, by helping us finish this, once and for all.
Either way, living through all of that again, with him there, somehow made it easier on me.
Some of my guilt may have come from that, truthfully.
I knew it probably didn’t ease anything at all for him, having me there, but having him there was an enormous relief for me. I still had to experience those ten horrible months all over again. I had to remember everything I felt, every mistake I made, every stupid thing I did and said.
The difference was, this time, I didn’t have to do it all by myself.
He was there, with me.
I wasn’t alone, and I felt that. Somehow, that made all the difference.
It was still hard as fuck at times, yes.
I felt his pain and fear. I felt his guilt around things that happened to me, positions he’d put me in, things he’d pushed me to do for us, for him, for Lily. I felt his fear when I fought Dragon in those caves. I felt a flicker of his pride and wonder when he saw me go all-out on him with the telekinesis, when I pushed Jem aside and fought the intermediary on my own.
I felt his terror when Dragon got free.
I felt his horror at what Dragon did to me after.
I heard his scream as he watched Dragon brand me, as he heard my screams echo in those tunnels under the rock.
Revik was with me when I drove back to our camp in the SUV, listening to Jem yell at me while I was too numb to even make out most of his words. Revik was there with me when I met with President Brooks in that farmhouse outside of Denver. He was with me when, a few hours later, I felt him in China with someone else.
His grief nearly overwhelmed me as I felt him realize just how bad his timing had been for that first time he’d let another woman touch him.
It got worse for him, in ways I could tell he hadn’t expected, in ways that had more to do with how miserable and lonely and conflicted I’d been with him and Lily so far away. I felt him react to how much I’d dragged my feet in getting involved with Jem in the first place.
He saw my guilt that I was putting it off, knowing Revik was waiting for me to do my end of things. I felt his confusion mirror mine at how Jem treated me over those first few weeks, and my embarrassment the night I tried to seduce him, only to have Jem kick me out of his room.
I felt his bewilderment at my worry that I wouldn’t be able to seduce anyone––not only Jem, but anyone at all––that I’d fail Revik entirely, when he was counting on me.
I felt Revik react to Jem’s anger at him.
I felt his confusion around what might have been jealousy on Jem’s part, or fury at Revik for putting him in that position, knowing I didn’t really want it, or that it would get complicated no matter what we told ourselves.
I felt his empathy for Jem in that, maybe for the first time.
Revik’s confusion only worsened when Jem and I started sleeping together.
I felt his grief in that, the irrational heat of his jealousy and fear, even from that very first time in my room at Langley. I felt his anger at Jem for things he’d said to me, for the kind of sex he’d wanted, for the way he’d talked to me, the way he’d treated me. I felt his anger at Jem for pushing me to admit I wanted him, for pushing me for intimacy even that first time we were together. Through all of it, Jem’s way of interacting with me seemed to bother him the most. The lack of respect, the presumption, the aggression… the raw sexuality behind it.
I could feel it shocked him, too.
It wasn’t how he remembered Jem, or Jem’s sexuality.
It wasn’t how Jem had been with him.
That bothered him.
It bothered him how little softness lived there, how little Jem comforted me during that time, when Revik felt I needed it. It bothered him how angry Jem had been, how he’d projected that anger onto me.
Conversely, it bothered him that Jem treated me more like an adult than he’d ever treated Revik himself.
He’d treated me like an equal: someone he could be straight with, crude with, argue with, play with, power struggle with. He’d opened up to me––verbally, with his light, with his emotions––even as he tested me in various ways, trying to understand me, to see behind the mask I wore with him and everyone else during those months.
He took my orders, even when he thought they were stupid.
He’d been aggressively possessive with me, but he hadn’t been as careful with my feelings, or as mindful of my traumas. He’d challenged me instead, intentionally pushing my buttons, attacking my issues by forcing me to confront them, and to confront him.
With Revik, he’d been more careful.
He’d been more paternal, too.
I could feel all of that confusing Revik now, making him question himself as much as it made him question Jem. I felt how Revik was threatened by how Jem saw me. I felt the fear behind that, even as he recognized the accuracy of Jem’s view of me in some ways, even over his own.
When we got to the point where Jem and I shared light, that fear in Revik grew debilitating. He watched us together, watched us argue and fuck and go on ops together. I could feel the wanting in his light of that, a deeper jealousy in that friendship and companionship, even more than the sex. I felt him struggle with trying not to compare himself to Jem, or my relationship with Jem to our marriage.
He watched me reaching for him, too––meaning for Revik himself, trying to find him in the dark of Menlim’s construct. He felt my grief over him, my longing for him, my longing for my family, my terror that he was dead. He heard Jem insist he wasn’t dead, that he was alive, even as he offered to take Revik’s place if Revik never returned.
That fear in him grew numbing.
It mixed with the grief I felt on him before, the self-blame, the hate, the terror––until the emotions bled entirely, growing so intense I couldn’t breathe. When he got to Jem showing up in those trees outside the wall of the Forbidden City, Jem kissing me goodbye even as Revik half-sprawled in my lap, that grief blinded him.
I don’t know quite how or when we both snapped out of it.
It wasn’t a strong cut, like before.
It was gradual, like the pulling back of a veil.
Even then, I wasn’t sure when I came out of it exactly. I grew aware that I was staring up at the torch-lit ceiling. I could hear breathing next to me, but I could barely comprehend it.
I turned my head.
Revik lay there, panting, gasping for breath, pain coming off him in clouds.
He half-lay on his stomach, holding his weight up on one elbow and arm, his other arm wrapped around his gut as he fought to see through his own pain. His eyes were glassed, tears ran down his face. I’d never felt anything like it on either of us.
He let out a heavier sound when I caught hold of his arms. He flinched away, but I gripped him tighter, wanting to help, to ease it in some way, but he wouldn’t look at me, could barely take in my offered light.
He closed his eyes, leaning his sweaty forehead against his arm as his muscles tensed. I felt him fighting that pain in his belly, in his chest. I wrapped my arm around his back, feeling helpless, feeling unsure what I should even try to do.
It was so bad, I let out a low gasp of my own.
“Let it go,” I told hi
m. “Gaos, Revik… let it go. Open your light.”
He closed his eyes, letting out a heavy sound, killing it by pressing his face against his arm.
I felt the pain in him turn liquid as he fought to do as I said.
He tried to let it go, to let himself feel it.
Another part of him fought against that very thing with every ounce of his being. That part fought unconsciously, instinctively, like fighting to breathe, or fighting not to drown, or to free oneself from restraints. I felt that intensity of fighting come from his childhood, that need to hold it together at all cost, to move forward at all cost, to stay alive at all cost––
“Let go,” I murmured in his ear. “Let go, baby. I’ll catch you. Promise.”
He let out a heavier gasp.
So much pain lived in that, I closed my eyes, pressing my face against his neck. I clutched him so tightly by then, digging my fingers into his flesh, I must have been hurting him.
If I did, he barely seemed to notice.
Pain seeped out of his light as he gasped thick breaths, that initial trickle gradually growing denser out of a darker, deeper spot in his chest. I felt the light he’d held there, the heat of it, the dark, deep desperation of it. I felt his parents there, his sister––the last remnants of the parts of himself he’d tried to keep safe from the Dreng.
I felt him let that wall go, even as his fear worsened, exploding out of him so intensely, I felt him go away entirely for those few minutes.
During that time, his eyes blanked out, his light.
He just lay there, gasping, as that darker part of him opened.
His eyes glowed a bright, brilliant green in the dimly lit cave.
I felt so much surrender in that.
Some part of him let go, gave up––but not in the usual sense of giving up.
It would be difficult to put into words just what it was I felt him giving up. It didn’t feel defeatist. It didn’t feel like he’d stopped trying, or closed down, or stopped caring. It felt more like admitting he cared a lot. It felt like an acknowledgment of his lack of control, of his ability to die, of the impossibility of controlling anything in his light or life that truly mattered to him.
Somewhere in that, he gave up his claim on me.
I felt a kind of permission in that, a willingness to let me go, if I’d be happier apart from him.
I felt him admit to himself how much I mattered to him.
Love lived there, but it was like no love I’d ever felt before, not from him or anyone else.
I’d never felt love so utterly unselfish, so completely without awareness of itself, or the needs of the person who generated it. I’d never even felt that from my parents. The intensity of it cut my breath, even as it opened my light, bringing up a surge of feeling in me unlike anything I’d ever felt before, either. I felt my own willingness in that. I felt my own willingness to give him whatever he wanted, whatever he needed, to give him as much freedom or constriction he wanted, to do whatever I had to do to make him happy.
I can’t explain it really, how that felt.
Maybe surrender isn’t the right word.
Maybe it was love I felt. Maybe it was what people truly meant, when they talked about love, in the sense of real, unconditional, selfless love.
Maybe that’s what I felt, maybe for the first time in my life.
Whatever it was, it felt more like a giving than a taking.
It felt less like something that happened to me. It felt more like an act of will––which I guess, come to think of it, is pretty much the opposite of how people usually think of surrender.
Maybe it was simply a willingness, even a promise, to put someone else first, to really put them first, even when it inconvenienced me. Even when it went against everything I thought I wanted from that person, or even how I saw myself.
In those few minutes, all the things I’d thought of as myself––my ego, my identity, my so-called mission or purpose, my sense of self-worth, my title, my myth, my desire to be married, to have a family, to have friends, to beat the Dreng––none of it mattered. At the same time, on a level I couldn’t even articulate to myself, I mattered more than I ever had.
The part of me that was unchanging, made of light––that mattered.
My heart mattered.
He mattered.
More than anything or anyone I’d loved until now, anything I’d ever wanted from him or for him, anything he’d ever been… he mattered.
More than I could explain to myself, he mattered.
Lily mattered. Our children mattered.
Our friends mattered.
Somewhere in that, I realized I’d already crossed some invisible line. I was already something different than what I had been before we started all this.
I would give them all of me.
I would give him all of me.
I would give them all of me, because that’s why I was really here.
I would give them all of me, because that was who and what I was always meant to be.
WE WENT OVER a few more memories.
That time, it felt like curiosity.
That time, it felt like completion, like closing the last chapters in a book.
Both of us were exhausted, wrapped in one another, body and light.
Yet, we each asked the other to see more, and we each obliged the other with whatever memories the other wanted to see. As a result, we looked at things that happened in Dubai. We looked at everything we’d gone through together on the aircraft carrier, before Dubai.
We went through New York, through him finding me in San Francisco.
We went through him taking care of me in San Francisco. I watched him and Wreg and Jon and Maygar in San Francisco.
We went through his attack on Manhattan.
We went through what he experienced while he thought I was dead.
By the end of it, we were both swimming in so much light, I felt completely underwater.
I definitely felt drugged.
He felt drugged too.
When he kissed me after we finished the last memory either of us wanted to see, I found I couldn’t get close enough to him. Even still feeling lost inside his skin, something about the reality of physical bodies still managed to both fascinate and frustrate me.
We kissed, lying on those skins, and he wrapped his arms around my back and waist, lying between my legs, massaging my spine with his fingers. A sound came out of his chest that honest to gods felt like a heavy purr.
That time, when he raised his head, he asked me for sex.
He asked me for it again before I could answer, half-groaning the words in my ear, gripping my ass in his hand, massaging my thigh, wrapping his hand around my knee, sliding his fingers into my cunt. When he pressed his weight down on me, kissing my mouth harder, pulling on me with his light, I found myself answering in his mind, sending him images until his breath caught in his chest, making him groan against my mouth.
Both of us were clumsy as hell, blind with pain.
The actual sex probably would have looked comically desperate from the outside.
I was massaging his cock, exploring him with my hands before he’d fully raised himself up, but it took both of us to position him correctly. We were so out of our heads, we could barely make sense of the mechanics of what we were trying to do.
By then, he was already half-extended. I didn’t let him stop. I didn’t even let him wait a few seconds to try and control it. It hurt, because of that, but we didn’t stop for that, either. We couldn’t even manage to slow things down.
He slammed all the way into me and extended fully.
Both of us whited out again.
I don’t remember sex ever feeling like that before.
I’d had firsts with him before, not only at that cabin in the Himalayas, but firsts after we’d gone too long without, after one or both of us changed a lot, the time we’d made Lily together, other times where it felt so good I wanted to scream.
&nbs
p; This was different, even compared to those.
I know how this sounds, how insanely inadequate words are for what I’m about to say, but it felt like reconnecting with a part of myself that was missing. It felt like returning to a part of me I’d been without for so long, I’d simply grown accustomed to the hole it left.
I’d never felt so much relief in my life.
I’d never felt something so simple, nor something that felt so utterly true.
I’d never be alone again.
It wasn’t hyperbole. It wasn’t wishful thinking.
I knew it was true. My hours and days, months and years of feeling half-missing, half-broken, disconnected––all of that was behind me now.
My last day of being alone had passed.
I wouldn’t have to deal with that particular feeling again, not in this life at least.
I don’t know how consciously I thought about that at the time, but the knowing was there, so strong, so unassailably strong, all I could do was breathe him in, lost in that relief.
As for the sex itself, that got better as we went.
Most of that first time… and the second…
And maybe the third…
Those times were pretty much a blur.
I couldn’t really even pull them apart into separate events, much less make up starting and ending points beyond watching his face while he came, or feeling his heart open when I came with him or after him or before him, our light so entwined I could barely make sense of what was light and what was fingers, tongues, his cock, my pussy, my ass or his.
I used my telekinesis on him––for the first time, at least in sex.
He came somewhere in that, too, his whole weight pressed into me as he leaned his face against mine, groaning.
I felt surrender on him that time, too.
I felt it through most of the time he was inside me. I felt it in how he opened, all around me, without any part of him holding back. I’d never felt the blocks in him before, not the one in his heart or anywhere else, but I felt their absence now that they were gone.
We fucked for the sheer pleasure of it after that.
After that, he slowed down.
Sun Page 66
