I Tell Them All to Hold Their Tongues

Word Count: 20.6k

Relevant tags: Implied/Referenced Racism, Implied/Referenced Transphobia and Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Physical Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Sexual Assault, Implied/Referenced Psychotic Depression, Implied/Reference Alcoholism and Drug Use, Friends to Lovers, Physical Comfort, Domestic Fluff, Bathing Each Other, Soft Romance, Emotionally Codepdendent Relationships, Confessions, Explicit Sexual Content, Loss of Virginity, Fellatio, Anal Fingering, Hand Jobs, Vaginal Fingering, Fisting, Size Difference, Riding, Vaginal Sex, Unprotected Sex, Cunnilingus, Cum Eating, Finger Sucking, Nipple Sucking, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Mild Corruption Kink

I.

One could be forgiven for wondering how anyone could end up in such a situation as the one that I have settled into, and whether hysteria or madness controls my actions. I shun those terms, for though I feel deeply, I am not controlled wholly by my deep feelings, and in fact am prone to agonizing over decisions of the heart for far longer than I ought. I have been accused of being reserved and withdrawn from others. While I maintain I am in my right mind, if there was indeed some madness within me, I would argue it has been present since my birth and was not induced by my present company.

From the moment of my birth, my fortune has been poor and my existence deprived of worldly comfort. I was born in the lowest of classes, my father an African slave and my mother an Austrian servant. My father was brought to Austria by his master, who married my mother’s lady, leading to their meeting and falling in love. Though I was born free of the bonds of slavery, the low place of my birth ensured I would never know the full freedoms and joys of my countrymen, who saw me no more as an equal as they saw a rat. My parents were oppressed by the burden of their stations, and saw in myself and my younger brother an outlet for their suppressed rage. Perhaps because of this, or perhaps because of an unfortunate disposition of the spirit, from a young age I have been tormented by anxiety and despondent moods, which only served to further instigate my parents' ire. In spite of this, I cherished dearly those who had given me life, and I hoped in some ways to lift up my parents from their hardships. I toiled hard and set aside what sums of money I could in the hopes of buying my father’s freedom, though in the tar pit of poverty such sums were never long for the saving. Against all possibilities, I dreamed of a happy and content family.

Such dreams died with my father, or perhaps had died several years earlier when my mother married an Austrian man and left my brother and I alone. While my younger brother pursued still the goal of elevation of status, the loss of our parents instead drove me to despair. I found myself in lowly places, where all of society’s discarded and forgotten find themselves, brothels and gambling houses and bars. Here my eccentricities multiplied, and I found myself afflicted by spells of paranoid madness and bitter depression.

It was in this most wretched of states that I would not be able to deny that I fell to madness. I felt like it had always been biding its time over my shoulder, presenting at first subtly and then fully possessing me when I was at my weakest. I had always been tormented by the simplest of sounds and sensations, which became painful to me, and I possessed a peculiarity of speech and temperament that, were it not for my matching the basic level of intellect for my fellow children, would have labeled me a simpleton. All the worse was that I was aware of my shortcomings, but my embarrassment only made my behavior more peculiar. When I fell down with mankind's dirtiest, these aspects did not change but rather multiplied. I began to suffer visions and delusions, spending days and nights cowering in the corners of rooms as imagined devils besieged me.

I fell deeply into the vices of drink and sedatives, the latter of which was my only cure for the hallucinations that haunted me. I suffered greatly, at my own hand and at the hands of those who detestable company I kept. I experienced or witnessed every manner of violence and crime man is capable of commiting, for in the dark-skinned wretch even the lowest of men found a suitable victim.

I had even before this personal fall been prone to melancholia and self-loathing melodrama, and the hardships of poverty and low status had hardened my heart to the wonders of mankind and his society. As a young man, I had been enchanted by poetry, though I could read very little, and had longed to travel the world to see the wonders men wrote of. I thought, surely, even if I should be low, I would still experience beauty. By degrees I found myself not only abandoning those dreams but viewing them with disdain. Beauty and joy were not for those born into my station, and I resigned myself to the struggles of poverty. The best I could hope for was to not starve to death, and if I should make it to old age, that would be the greatest of triumphs.

It was only after a period of miserable years that I was able to rouse in myself the kind of self-disgust that inspired rather than depressed me, and I dedicated a great deal of effort to raise myself up again. I turned my heart instead to appreciate the natural world, which held no contempt nor violence save the violence of necessity. I found meager joy in the successful tending of my garden and companionship in the bleating and squawking of my animals.

The most travel I accomplished was moving from one country to another, and found myself somehow in poorer fortunes for doing so. I moved to Germany pursuing an opportunity promised and then taken away, and found myself stranded. There, I was not only despised for my race and status but my country of origin as well. A foreigner as well an African, I was as low as a dog.

I came to serve the De Laceys, a French family living isolated in the cold countryside, through luck. I was passing through their village at the same time they should have want of services. Having come recently into better fortune of their own, they sought to improve their daily labors with the aid of a few servants and I came to be among that number. I found in them no overt kindness—save from the wife, Safie, whom I suspected saw in me a kindred spirit as a foreigner—but no overt cruelty either. I spoke French well enough and I worked diligently, and so they were endeared to me by a degree. When they spoke to me, it was not unkindly, and when they disciplined me, it was not abusively. My pay was meager, but I was permitted by another man to rent a small cottage he owned, and much of my fortune went to keeping that habitation.

It was not the perfect circumstance, but it was preferable to what I’d experienced before, and so I was grateful.

It had been just a single season that I had worked for the De Lacey family when I first saw he who would change my fortune. I had finished my work for the day, and made it nearly halfway back to my own home when I realized I had left my recipe book behind. With enough light in the day to make the journey, I decided to return to the cottage of my employers to fetch it before the sun fully set. In truth, it likely could have remained there overnight, but I despised anything being out of place or missing in my home.

It was an uncommonly bright dusk for the season, and as I approached I saw movement at the corner of the building. It emerged from the side of the cottage and stepped into the light, revealing its features to me. I froze where I stood, silent, and the thing did not notice me.

I at first thought that he was one of the invented fancies of my mind. Though shaped correctly, his scale was extreme, and his face was a mix of features that, beautiful on their own, were repulsive when combined. He had the yellow pallor of a sick or dead man, and eyes of an unusual color that held an unnatural fire within. He moved smoothly like a man, though my mind would have preferred him as still as a corpse. Long black hair curtained his horrid face. My heart seized in my chest, for having observed the body, I had expected the face of a man, and what I gazed upon instead was something of a different nature.

He stood up to his full height, which in my wonder I estimated incorrectly to be twice that of my own, stretching his limbs towards the darkening sky before moving away and towards the forest beyond. He made no sound as he moved, bounding across the landscape in strides unnaturally strong and swift.

Once he disappeared from my view, I hurried to the cottage and completed my business in haste. The family did not seem in any way disturbed, and I did not tell them what I'd seen. I was briefly anxious, for I was unsure what I had seen, but I convinced myself that I was in no danger when I re-emerged and he did not appear again.

The image of the creature's face was impressed upon my mind, and as the days marched on, I couldn’t forget him. I did not see him again, not for several more months, yet in my dreams there was a figure always out of sight, with a horrible grimacing countenance and bright yellow eyes. When I walked alone I found myself looking over my shoulder, convinced that I should see him standing there, watching me with those eyes.

When I encountered him again, weeks had passed.

It was my habit to forage for mushrooms and berries in the forest. Even in the De Lacey’s employ, I was poor, and the forest provided me what I couldn’t afford. The villagers' tales of wild animals in the woods did not deter me, though I did not abandon caution. To be safe, I brought a large heavy stick to defend myself from any animals that might intimidate me. I ventured deep beyond the treeline, both searching for food and marveling at the beauty of nature, which often took my breath away.

The day was uncommonly beautiful. The autumn was my second favorite time of year, surpassed only by the tranquil beauty of winter. This year the trees made an effort to put on colorful dress and sweet perfume. The wind carried with it a sense of peace and the birds sang pleasantly as the sun sank deep in the sky. The forest had a golden glow and the air was sweet, bringing to my mind happy memories and fantasies of a kinder world. I thought not of the blows and cruelties that had been exacted upon me, but rather of the kindnesses and beauty I’d experienced. In such a state, I could forgive the world its evils for a moment and see only the good that surrounded me.

It was in this tender state of mind that I found him again, and that tenderness softened my heart to his frightful countenance. A stream ran near him, its musical bubbling singing a pleasant song over the scene of his slumbering form. The only blight upon this gentle scene was his wretched face. The light on that previous day had made harsh and frightful shapes with the planes of his face, but now the sun cast him in a golden glow. His blue-and-yellow skin was stretched too tightly across his skull, and I saw no hair on him except those long tresses that flowed from the top of his head. His long, near-skeletal arms were wrapped tightly around his great body, which I could not see beneath the pile of rage he wore, but I imagined was in the same state as the visible parts of him.

I examined intentionally the details of his face and exposed neck, his wrists, hands, and ankles protruding from clothes too small for his great frame. There was such a web of marks upon him, resembling less scars and more unhealed wounds. His mouth was black, though as he grimaced in despair I saw a full set of white teeth like pearls. I saw on his cheek a large bruise and on his forehead a long cut, as if he had been struck hard by a weapon. Was this why he cried out in his sleep? He appeared tormented by nightmares, and even the gentle beauty of the autumn forest did not spare him from terror.

The fear I first felt when I saw him gave way to curiosity and pity. I had seen such wounds before on the faces of those who’d shared my deepest misery, and felt such blows upon my own head. With such a body must come great strength, and yet he had not defended himself and instead slumbered alone in the forest, wracked by nightmares.

He woke as I approached, alerted to my presence by the sound of leaves and twigs beneath my feet. His yellow eyes met mine, and I was pinned in place by his intense gaze. He was more frightful when he woke, and my heart seized within my chest. The unnatural way he moved! It made the baser parts of me shudder, yet I resolved myself to reach out to him, for tenderness still prevailed within me. I now beheld him with a deep sense of pity, for his face showed not rage but bitter fear. It was perhaps this dual understanding, that not only did he feel fear as I did, but that he had experienced pain and injury, that inspired in me a strange desire to soothe him. I immediately threw my stick to the ground, so that he would not fear a blow from me.

“Wait!” I called to him, speaking French out of habit. This was the correct choice, for he heeded my words.

He froze, half-risen and body poised to run. I saw in him a mirror image of an injured animal, which both feared the approaching hand and desired for it to offer respite. Seeing such misery in his eyes, who would not offer respite! I raised my hands to show him I carried no weapons or ill will.

“I will not harm you,” I declared. “Are you alone? Are you hurt?” I steeled myself to step closer. I set down my basket, though not before showing him it contained nothing but the bounty of my forage. With each step forward, I saw his breath growing more still and shallow.

He did not answer me at first, not until I had come close enough that I might have laid my hand upon him. His voice startled me again, for it rumbled from deep within his chest and was at first harsh to my ears, loud and deep and with a peculiar accent. It seemed to be both beast and man in one sound.

“How do you declare you mean no harm!” he asked. “For you are man, who revels in violence and hatred, and I a miserable wretch, hated and despised. Does your hand not move to strike me, does your voice not rise to call upon your fellows to destroy me? You cast aside your weapon, which surely you thought to use against me while I slept!”

“I will not harm you. My weapon was only to defend myself, for I am alone,” I said again, and held my hand out to him. “Have you seen no gentleness in man, no love or kindness that you paint us all as brutes?”

“Gentleness! Love! Kindness! Such things are not for me, who is cursed to be alone,” he said. His body moved finally from a hunched crouch and he stood to his full height, towering over me. I then gave a more accurate estimation of his height, perhaps seven or eight feet tall rather than ten. He wore clothes like a man, though they fit him quite ill. The cloak upon his back was better suited to his frame, but was torn and dirty. He looked down at me with naught but anger in his face, his features twisted into something monstrous and frightening. "Look upon me and hate, as all your kind does!"

Though my heart pounded with terror, there was still that pull in my chest towards him, for who more than I understood the wickedness and brutality of man!

I held my hand out to him again. “I implore you to see there is at least one man in this world who does not look upon you with hate.”

I could not tell you what drove my actions. The shock of his appearance was lessened on our second meeting, but that alone was not enough to inspire my desire to soothe him. I couldn’t name what I felt or thought as I approached him. All I knew was that I had a need to make my heart known to him. Perhaps I saw in him a kindred spirit, for his bitter words had been spoken so often by my own heart. Vile, violent beasts were men! Hateful, spiteful creatures who loved only themselves, and spared no love for anyone else. I had resigned myself to being different, and was this the one moment when that was not a curse, but a blessing?

He looked at me for a long moment. He raised his hand, which dwarfed mine by several degrees. It was as strange as the rest of him, one of his fingers stouter and shorter than it should have been. He did not touch me, merely highlighting the disparity between our forms.

“Behold! You see this hand, designed not by God but by some accursed creator who intended for me nothing but misery and pain!” His voice lowered into a growl, bringing to mind the beasts of the woods that might like nothing more than to tear me apart. And yet I saw too the pain in his eyes, and thought back to his sleeping form, shackled by fear. “The strength in these hands, capable of wringing the life from you as easily as you pluck berries from the bush, does it not shock you? Does your skin not crawl at the sight of me? How fearsome my features, how grotesque my form!”

I did not answer him with my words, for I perceived no speech might convince him of my intentions. Indeed, my skin was crawling! I was shocked by his features! But I held myself firm and did not shudder, nor pull away. I instead took the effort to move my hand closer to him, to press our palms together, that I might show the tenderness of my heart by the press of our skins. He started away from me as if my touch was burning, hand shrinking back.

“Does it hurt you to touch?” I asked, immediately remorseful. “I apologize, I meant only to soothe you, never to harm!”

“The pain is not in the skin, but in the soul,” he responded, no longer growling. “When one has known only the hand to deliver great blows, what can I do but pull away?”

I was driven to tears by his words and the way he shrunk back from me while trying simultaneously to scare me away. I resolved to myself to try just once more, and if he rejected me I would deliver myself from him as he wished. I reached towards him and found his hand again, not quite tucked into his cloak, and wrapped his great appendage in my fingers. I held his hand in my own two, holding it as if it were a fragile thing, a gentle thing. I repressed a shudder at the strange quality of his skin, not at all like a man’s, endeavoring to show him only kindness.

“Why?” His eyes were wild as he observed our entwined hands. He had been so eloquent before, and now his mouth seemed capable of forming only one word. “Oh, why!”

“I am moved by your countenance,” I said, “so twisted by pain. How you laid upon the ground, beneath the yellow sun and the grinning trees, and yet you were not permitted to be moved by beauty, but instead were wracked with bitter pain. I cannot imagine a person who could behold such a thing and not be compelled to soothe your hurt.”

He looked into my face intensely. His eyes up this close were equally frightening and hypnotic, bright and cloudy at the same time. “I can imagine such a person,” he said gravely. “Not just one, nor even two, but dozens, hundreds, countless masses who would have brought weapons against me. A fine bounty, to find me slumbering and weak, and yet you did not attack.”

“Then count me not among that number,” I declared. His hand had relaxed against mine, and I squeezed it. I wished to press his palm to my chest, to show him the steady beat of my heart, but I feared he would be overwhelmed. “I would implore you to count me among the number of your friends.”

His face twisted into an exquisite and pointed pain, tears welling up in his bright eyes and flowing freely down his cheeks. His hand gripped mine tightly, to the point of pain, but I resolved myself not to pull away unless damage was caused. How tightly one clung to that from which they had been deprived!

“A friend!” he cried. “How I’ve longed to have one soul on this earth who would call me friend!” He began to weep, falling to his knees and bringing my hand to his mouth. A dozen wet kisses he pressed to my knuckles before pressing my hand to his forehead as if receiving a blessing.

“Do you have a home?” I asked. “Why do you sleep out here in the forest? Is this where you live?”

He shook his head. “I have no home. I have been wandering, wallowing, laying low like a dog in the mud.” He raised his eyes to mine, naked hope overflowing from the depths of his soul. I could not deny him what he longed for, what he was hoping for me to say.

“I live alone,” I told him. “In a cottage not two hours walk from here, neither close to the village nor far from it. It is open to you, should you wish to share it. I would not want you to sleep in the forest alone.”

For a moment, I thought he would accept my offer right away. Then his face grew dark and he said solemnly, “I must warn you…I have been seen by the people of the village near us, and cast off in most violent a manner. If the villagers suspect you of harboring me, their wrath will fall upon you as well.”

I smiled bitterly at him. “They will find an excuse to exact wrath upon me eventually. I am a foreigner here, distrusted and despised, tolerated only so long as I am useful to them. When I quit this place—as circumstances will no doubt conspire to force me—I will endeavor to find a place safe for us both. I am an outcast among these men, who would see me enslaved or dead rather than living free and content.”

His tears had not ceased to fall, and now they came harder. Unable to abide them, I moved my hands to his cheeks, moving my thumbs beneath his eyes to stem the flood. He ceased crying almost immediately, from shock or from good will I could not say, eyes fluttering and nearly closing beneath my touch.

“Weep not bitter tears, friend,” I implored. “I would see you smiling.”

“I will have reason only to smile,” he said, “so long as you are standing beside me, o pure-hearted companion!”

He fell silent, and I held his face a moment longer. By small motions, his mouth came to smile softly, looking at me from the heavy shadow of his brow.

When he had calmed, I pressed him, “Rise now, friend, and let us away! We will deliver you from here at once.”

We stole away then from that spot in the happy woods, taking a long route where no villagers would spy us, until we reached my own cottage. It was smaller than the one at which I was employed, with a meager garden and a small coop sheltering a quartet of chickens with temperaments as sweet as spoiled milk. Every wall was patched by my own hand using wood I gathered myself from the forest, and so every repair was poor. It was the image of poverty, fit only for one such as myself whom the landlord felt did not deserve anything fine. He might have resolved to rebuild or repair it, if any but myself resided within.

To my new friend, however, it was as if I had opened the gates of Paradise to him. He wept as I ushered him in the door. He fell to his knees again, wailing a mournful howl that shook me to my soul. I could not stand it, and rushed to him, taking him in my arms before his countenance could give me pause.

“Oh, glorious days! Sweet beautiful friend, how I kiss your feet,” he moaned. He dared not touch me in return, large hands only gripping gently at the edges of my cloak. “What priceless treasures you’ve afforded me! Is this a palace roof above my head, a bed of silks to lay my body upon? A king you are, generous and rich, to give so much to one such as myself!”

“I fear the roof is only wood, the bed dressed only with rough cloth,” I said, “but nevertheless, I shall share my kingdom with you.”

I held him until he ceased to weep, and directed him to seat himself at my table. He watched me, moaning occasionally in delight as I sorted and washed the forage of the forest. I found myself seized by a powerful hunger, and began to cook a meal for myself and my companion. It was nothing even as grand as what the De Lacey’s ate, for my garden was not as bountiful nor my purse as flowing. I had no meat, only a few spices, and even my cooking pot was a poor, ugly quality. To my companion, however, it seemed as if I were serving him a feast fit for lords.

“I hear by your voice you are not of the same country as the family you serve,” he said after a long while. He appeared ready to say more, but pursed his black lips tight.

“I am not,” I confirmed. “That fair family hails from France, and what a sad tale they’ve endured! But as for myself, I was born in Austria, not too far from here, and have been a servant all my life. It is by the will of my first master that I am fluent in French, for his wife hailed from there and he wished her not to feel alone. I’d never thought that long-ago event would lead me to the circumstances of speaking with you! How crooked the river of life flows!” I gazed at the fire beneath our dinner, seeing it in the phantoms of my troubled past. “I did not imagine I would need to speak that tongue here in Germany, where I could survive only on my mother’s language. Is it only French you speak?”

“Only French,” he confirmed. “I would learn your tongue, friend, if it should please you.”

“Trouble yourself not with language now,” I said. “It is no easy feat to learn a whole language, and besides we can speak to one another perfectly as we are now. Now discard your cloak for dinner, and I shall launder it on the morrow.”

He hesitated, but cast aside the dark cloak that covered him. This revealed to me the extent of how ill-fitting his clothes were, and the odd expanse of his skin. The patchwork of scars covered him from head to toe, some with the unsightly appearance of being tightly stitched. He moved as if they did not trouble him, so I did not speak of them.

“It is simple fare,” I apologized as I presented him with our meal.

“I have eaten nothing the forest has not given me since the last winter,” he said. “A meal! A true meal, cooked by the hand of my friend! What should I want for! Nothing, I say!”

He devoured it truly as if he had never tasted anything so appealing. My heart broke in my chest as I ate beside him. I seemed to know painfully the poverty of my circumstance, having seen what true wealth looked like, but this one here beside me seemed to have no concept of anything greater than that which I had showed him. Was this wealth to him? How deprived a life he had led! Could such an intelligent creature really have survived for so long with so little? I could not imagine the despair he had felt, the loneliness and hunger that must have gripped his body.

Once dinner was complete, I set about creating a space for him. There was but one bed, and it was not large enough to accommodate him. I resolved not to allow him to sleep on the bare floor, however, and gathered what I could, straw and blankets and some spare clothes tangled together to fashion a pillow, so that he could stretch out his great body upon something that might give some comfort. When I tried to apologize for the scarcity of my home, he exclaimed,

“Oh, friend! For a wretch as myself, who sleeps upon dirt, this is the finest of beds! My thanks are a poor offering compared to your kindness.”

That first night, I do not suppose that either of us slept. I laid myself down, but my heart and mind were racing. I found myself asking myself what manner of creature I had brought into my home, and whether he acted in a ploy to gain access to my unguarded person. If this were untrue, then what had transpired to render him so miserable and low? He appeared to me as an adult, and to me that meant he had lived at least two decades. Two decades of such misery? What a fate!

For the creature, he spent the night alternating between complete silence and soft weeping. As the moon cast her light faintly through my single window, I caught sight of him touching his cheeks at the spot that I had held them, as if trying to recapture the warmth of my touch.

In the morning I asked, “What is your name, friend, that I may address you properly.”

“I was given no name, and have been called nothing but beast and monster,” he said. “Address me howsoever you wish, if you would only not call me those names.”

I could not imagine to have lived so long without a name, addressed only by insults. My heart was greatly moved by his confession, and I decided, “I will speak of you only kindly, and I shall call you only friend and companion, unless you should desire a new name.”

This was pleasing to him, which I knew because he began again to weep.

II.

The next days were as a dream, for they passed in a manner that was whimsical and illogical. I washed his cloak and mine, and offered to better tailor his clothes to fit his great frame. He revealed to me a bag of books, his only treasures, excepting one he refused to even open, stating only evil was within. I left him after a few mornings to go and work, but when I returned to the De Laceys’ home, I found it empty. I walked to the nearby village to ask after them, and there I heard tales of a terrible beast that had come upon their house and intimidated their ailing father. The son had described it as a a great brute of a beast, speaking sweetly while hiding evil intentions. I knew at once by the descriptions that this was my companion, though I could not imagine him capable of attacking such a soul. If he were so generous to me, surely old De Lacey could do nothing to incur his wrath! I listened closely to the stories, and when I returned home, I relayed to him what I’d heard, and saw in him a great sadness.

“Ah! So they think me a monster! Perhaps they are right. Look upon me! What have you ever seen that looks so ugly as I, with origins so cursed? Nothing! There is nothing like me in all of the world.”

He fell then into a deep melancholy, and spoke little for the next day. It pained me to see him so sorrowful, and I did my best to bring him cheer. I had a guitar that had been in my possession for a number of years, and played for him in the evening after supper. I sang songs I’d learned from my mother and father, and though he did not understand the words, I could see the music brought him so light. By the morning, he had recovered somewhat from his gloom, and I did not mention the De Laceys again.

I learned many new things about my new friend. He offered to help me with my tasks, though I cautioned him to wait until the villagers were not whispering of his presence. When I did allow him to assist me, he revealed to me a strength unrivaled by any man, capable of easily performing great feats. The cold that made me slow did not seem to bother him, for he strode out even in the cold evenings in only his clothes and did not even shiver. He ate little, and seemed not to hunger as harshly as a man. Though cooking our forage made it pleasing to his mouth, he could eat it raw and did not suffer illness. He was capable of speaking as a man, but also of producing sounds both fierce and low like a beast, especially when his misery drove him to moments of bitter rage. Never in those moments did he move to harm me, instead spiriting himself outside to rage at the ground and trees.

More often than rage, he was prone to fits of sadness, and in those moments only through great effort could I draw him out again to happiness. I spoke gentle words to him, reminding him of my friendship and the safety of our home.

He was utterly ignorant to the simplest of manners and excepting for the hideousness of his form seemed to experience no shame. He stared plainly at anything that intrigued him and wore without reservation on his face every emotion. It was innocence in its purest sense, an openness of soul without the ignorance of youth. It was equally endearing as unnerving, for I felt at times as if I co-habitated with a grown person my own age, and others it was as if I were teaching a babe.

I felt a perverse pleasure having him near me. In many ways, he did not need me at all, for he was a fully grown animal who possessed great intelligence and the curiosity to apply it. He had the ability to be independent, yet he lacked the inclination. Indeed, his heart had suffered such injury that he often looked at me as if I had hung the sky above for him to marvel at. Having been starved of affection from a tender age, I found myself indulging in a rush of joy when he looked at me so. I supposed that I must have looked at him sweetly as well, for I often noticed that when our gazes met, he would flush the most unusual colors. If he happened to be speaking when it happened, those were the only times I knew him to hesitate or stumble over words.

It was difficult—nay, impossible! to persist as I had before, wallowing as I was prone to in misery and bitterness. In my own heart it had always felt natural, but to see such misery in my companion upset me. I found myself speaking softly and shunning no longer the bright beauty of the world so that I could preserve his pleasant moods.

I noticed my friend observing me one evening as I washed my face and arms in that particular way he did when he was trying to learn without asking me to teach him.

“Have you never bathed before, or been bathed by another?” I asked. I had striven to speak to him in a neutral tone when discussing those things to which he was utterly ignorant, to avoid offending him.

“I have seen it,” he said, “but save for the springs of the forest, I have had no instruments with which to do so. And certainly no one would had been of a mind to touch me in such a manner.”

“Come, then.” I beckoned him closer. Despite the lowness of my station, I prided myself on being as hygienic as I could, and resolved to instruct him. I had endeavored to be polite, but I had been known to suffer a manic kind of insanity if I were confronted with anything I determined to be unhygienic. It had taken a great deal of temperance to keep from giving into it, given that he had not bathed himself nor changed his underclothes since he'd come to my home.

He moved closer to me, and I wet another cloth. I held out my hand and with much hesitance he placed his own upon it. I was gentle and careful, for his skin appeared to be very thin and I didn’t want to hurt him. It took some time by this method to remove the layer of dirt that covered him. His hands were large and not symmetrical at all. One was broad and square as a worker’s hand, while the other resembled what I imagined an aristocrat might bear, with slender and graceful fingers.

When I had finished his hands, I stood so that I could properly tend to his face. I was even more careful here, for I could not put out of my mind that bruises I’d seen when we’d first met. At this closeness, his features were even more odd, but they had developed a charm to me. He shivered beneath my touch, though I had endeavored that the water not be frigid. I moved then to his neck and shoulders, and revealed beneath a layer of dirt an expanse of skin in a variety of yellow colors. He was a diligent pupil and by the time his back and chest had been cleaned, he said,

“I believe I grasp now the method,” he said quietly, though did not reach to take the cloth from me, and I did not offer it to him.

I realized that I had done no instruction and began to speak. “You must wash your face and hands every day,” I said, “especially if you work or venture into the forest. Your body can be washed perhaps every ten or twelve days, but I will have to tailor for you a few sets of undergarments to keep you clean. When you wash your body, you can do it in the same manner I am doing now, only all over. It is one of the ways to be pleasing to others,” I said, “as well as being good for your body. If your odor is inoffensive and your skin free from terrible dirt, other crimes may be overlooked.” Such is what my mother taught me, and so I relayed it to him. “Besides that, if you find yourself feeling overly ugly and low, it can lift your spirits to take an evening to clean yourself.”

“I have not observed you bathing your body,” he remarked.

“I have done it while you were in the forest,” I answered honestly.

I passed the towel once more over his brow and was seized by an urge that I did not realize had come to me until I had given into it. As my mother and father had done to me after washing my face as a child, I leaned down and pressed my lips to his strong brow in a kiss. I only knew what I had done when I saw that he was looking at me as if I had struck him, and I felt an unusual chill on my mouth.

“I apologize!” I quickly moved to mend my misstep. “I did not mean to be forward or to offend you.”

He raised his fingers to where I had kissed. He blinked his eyes several times, and I realized that he had begun to cry. “I have never been kissed,” he said with a tone of wonder. “I had not imagined such tenderness could be reserved for me.”

He did not speak again the rest of the night, and when I laid down in my bed, I did not sleep. Whenever I opened my eyes and looked through the darkness, I saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes fixed unmoving upon my own form.

It took me several weeks to tailor even one set of underclothes for him. It was difficult to get enough fabric that could cover him, and more difficult still to bend my mind towards creating something that would fit him.

I waited for a relatively warm autumn day and approached him with an offer to launder his outer clothes.

“If you give me your clothes, I will wash them. You can clean your body, and I will give you these,” I presented here the set of undergarments I’d fashioned, “so you have something clean to lay on your body. I will craft some more for you as I’m able.”

“You have my sincerest gratitude,” he said, taking the white garments with care. “I can never repay your kindness to me.” He removed his clothes with some hesitance, though with the closeness of our dwelling it was not a trouble to me to see him undressed, and I told him such.

I learned then that there were more ways that he differed from man. His clothes, having been worn for weeks or months, should have had a horrendous smell to them, but were coated in only a mild odor. Though I could see from the state of his skin that he had not bathed in some time, his stench was not obnoxious. I had previously gathered up an amount of water and some cloth, and I taught him how to wipe his body, which would require a firmer hand than his face and hands. I was careful not to cause discomfort by staring, though his body was something to behold. He truly was scarred all over, though the wounds did not impede the supple movement of his muscles. I did not wish to embarrass him, but what a shock I felt looking on him! Though his skin was thin and his face was odd, his body was shaped in the same way a man’s should be, and to scale!

I did not watch him wash his groin or legs, leaving to wash his clothes and offering him privacy. I was grateful that my complexion hid the burning in my cheeks from him. I found myself thinking as I worked what manner of mate he would need to please him, for I could not imagine a human could join with him comfortably. He had never shown to me any indications of carnal desire, and perhaps for the best! Surely he would simply break whatever mate he found, unless she be sized as he was. I immediately scolded myself for my rude thoughts, and as punishment allowed myself to think of nothing but my task. It took three washings before I deemed his clothes fit to wear, and in that time I discovered a number of holes that would need patching.

When his clothing was dry, I brought it in and began to mend it, one article at a time to spare him having to remain bare. I returned his socks and pants to him first, and began mending his shirt. I decided to tailor it then as well, using fabric taken from my own spare clothes to extend the limbs and body. They were an ugly patchwork, but he did not seem to mind.

He watched me work, mesmerized like a child watching a play. He asked many questions about my work, and I answered what I could. When I presented the shirt to him, he did not weep, but smiled so widely and wildly that he looked wicked as a devil. I found the sight did not inspire fear in me, for I’d known him only to be a gentle companion. I moved onto his pants, and then finally his great cloak.

The winter passed thus. Many nights he ventured out in the forest, wandering or foraging or gathering firewood for the house. I gifted to him some books that were in my possession, as I lacked the education to read them and held them purely for sentimental purposes. The evenings passed with either his reading to me or my singing to him, offering each other the comfort of another friendly voice to ease the pains of the day. I finished tailoring his clothes, and even knit him a pair of gloves and socks to protect him from the bitter winter cold. Attempts to teach him to knit or sew went poorly. For leisure I taught him a number of cards played with cards and dice, which he found very pleasing.

As the season passed, he knew more of me. I related to him my own history, that I was destined a life of servitude, never afforded the freedom of society as those who would otherwise be my peers, save for the accident of my birth. I’d spent the last decade of my life wandering from place to place, taking employment where I could. Never had I been invited into that sacred space called society, not only for my race but for my other oddities.

He implored me to teach me German in addition to French, wanting to speak to me in the tongue that pleased me best. Perhaps he supposed that by imitating the speech of my mother and father, it might inspire more affection for him in my heart. I did not wish to discourage him by telling him that I had experienced very little kindness from those with whom I shared my blood and name. I knew that he only wished to be pleasing to me, so I set out to teach him. Though I did not think myself a fine teacher, he was a devoted pupil and his enthusiasm filled the gaps left by my poor skill.

I should not have been surprised, given his inquisitive mind, that he would long to know more.

“I have often wondered how anyone could hate you?” he asked me one night as we played a game of cards. “How could such a virtuous heart be despised so completely, to have developed such bitter feelings for all of mankind?”

I did not answer him right away. I had faced too much rejection to be in the habit of freely sharing my heart with others. I had resolved from a young age that, if friendship should be denied me, I would harden myself to enduring my moods alone, be they pleasant or unpleasant. And the question he asked could only be answered by revealing my deepest shames. I could not fathom, however, him turning away from me. He had expressed such an intelligent gentleness, such a passionate love for the quiet beauties of the world, that perhaps he could forgive me my sins.

“I have related already those basic facts that have turned many against me, my race and my country of birth,” I began. “But even if those facts were changed, I would still be despised. I had always felt a mistake must have been made at the moment of my conception, but surely no human can control the form of a babe…so I determined that it was the one who had formed me before my birth, that God to which my mother and father prayed.” I laughed, but it was a harsh sound. “I made the grave error of confessing such to them, and was brought at once before a priest. He told my mother that my soul was corrupted by wicked temptation.” I spoke softly, remembering so plainly the day of which I spoke. My skin began to prickle and burn with the memories. “All manner of punishments were tried in order to mend me—cruel beatings, forced confessions, all manners of medicines and depriving me of various comforts, and yet I am here, twenty-nine years of age, and still I am the same sinful and impure creature I was back then.”

I had to remove myself from close proximity, for my mind imagined the horrors of the past visited upon me again. Fearing such pain, which would surely be more painful coming from someone from whom I had only known tenderness, I went to stand by the cottage's only window, looking out into the night. The sight of the snow calmed me, inspiring my own heart to settle into stillness.

He did not follow me, but I felt his gaze upon my back. “Your heart is pure!” he insisted. “What crime could you have committed to earn such punishment? There is not a thing about you to be corrupted, my friend, and I declare it so! I have seen the wickedness of man, and I see nothing of the sort in you.”

“Do not speak so confidently, my friend, for there is yet more to which you are ignorant. My heart and body are defective. Perhaps it was my conception, which the holy men say was unnatural, or perhaps the God of these lands holds contempt in his heart for one such as myself, for by an accident of biology my body is not as it should be. A man’s soul I have, a man’s heart and mind, and yet all who look upon my unaltered countenance see a woman.”

This was why, though we had lived together many months now, I had not revealed my naked body to him as he had to me. I wore a number of garments beneath my outer clothes that I had tailored myself, which hid the feminine aspects of my body from the casual eye. I had not been seen without them in many years, not since leaving my family years ago. This I did not relate to him, for I felt too much pain. Instead, I rushed ahead in revealing to him the true severity of my defects.

“That crime may have been forgiven, if only I was the right sort of man. But I am not. I have never looked upon a woman and felt what I ought to as a man, that desire and softness that drives men to great evils and great accomplishments. It is only the sight of a man that could drive me to such heights of passion. If I could only be happy to live as a man’s wife, but alas! My evilness drives me away from civilized company, for I cannot pretend to be as as I ought to be, though I long to be accepted and love. I am certainly defective, or else corrupted, or else something altogether different is amiss in my soul.” I turned at last to face him, steeling myself to what I would see on his face.

He had listened to my speech without speaking again, and I knew that he understood the wickedness of which I spoke, for his expression was serious. But when he spoke, it was not in the manner I expected.

“My dearest friend, my savior!” he cried. “You call yourself defective—corrupted!—and yet you alone have the goodwill and kindness that God desires all men to possess. Of all mankind, I would instead say it is they who are wicked, and you alone who are good!”

His words were nothing like I’d heard before, not even from others of my kind, and I could not stop myself from weeping. As I had done for him so many times in these months past, he now offered me comfort, drawing me away from the window, holding my face and kissing my brow and pulling me into his chest.

“Weep not bitter tears,” he said to me, repeating what I told him when he felt despair. “Weep not, for I have resolved myself to be your companion, and you shall fear no such violence from me. I see no defect in your soul, no defect with your body, no corruption that brings you low.” He sighed deeply. “I am accursed, spurned by God and man, and now it is revealed to me how you are spurned as well! Within your heart is such a bitterness to your creator, who surely betrays you as surely as I am betrayed! This I cannot abide. To this I say, it is they who are wrong, the creators and not the creations! For no crime are we judged but to have been born, and to have been as we are.” He held me tightly to his breast then and fell silent.

I wept a while longer, and he held me until I was calm. I felt a sense of peace in his presence, he who saw me as I was and did not recoil. I was comforted by the steady beat of his heart. What a sweet lullaby it sang to me, who had been denied such sweetness for so long!

“I shall weep no more,” I promised him. I took his great hands in mine and kissed them. “I am grateful to you, and that wondrous day that saw our meeting! Will you read to me, sweet friend, and ease my troubles?”

He did read to me, setting himself up at the foot of my bed and choosing one from his pile. It was one that I had gifted him, a book of fables both whimsical and frightening. When he finished, I served us both dinner.

Before we retired to sleep, he came to me at my bedside again with a book in his hand, but this was not a storybook or a history book, but the one book he had never opened to me. He held it tightly and offered it to me, but spoke before I accepted. His voice was low and grave, his eyes dark and wet.

“You have shared your secrets with me, and it is only fair I give you mine in turn. I have told you I am wretched, accursed and alone, yet I have hidden from you the full truth of it. You look upon me and wonder what could have made such a creature! Well! Now you shall know! The method of my making is here in this book, and be warned it is only horror! You speak of wickedness, yet you shall find no greater wickedness than this.”

I had come to know my friend very well by now, and I knew he was both intelligent and passionate. He desired nothing greater than for me to read this book, yet I could see just as clearly that he feared what I would uncover if I did so. Always he waited for the coming blow, the day I woke up and brought the wrath of my anger upon his head as he had experienced before. And yet he trusted me so that he bared himself before me yet again. I privately decided to hold myself firm, no matter might be contained within this book.

Alas! I could not have prepared myself for what I read in that journal, an accursed detailing of a horrific endeavor of scientific exploration! Science? No...of madness and of depravity, surely! Such horrible techniques were described, at times I felt the specter of that man at my shoulder, his wicked instruments in hand. An affront to nature, a tapestry of corpses coaxed to life! My companion's unnatural size, his assortment of features, so like and unlike a man’s, had been designed and created by a madman.

When I finished reading, I found that I was weeping again, terror gripping my heart. I shook so greatly that I could not contain myself, moaning wretchedly. My mind spun, my heart skipped beats, my stomach twisted such that I thought I would lose my dinner. Only my feet on the floor remained in place, my legs so tense that it was the pain of cramping muscles that pulled me abruptly out of the drowning depths of my wild despair.

I looked upon my friend and recoiled, for now I knew the secret of how he had been formed, what terrible methods had been involved in his making. I saw him anew. His face was twisted, wet eyes wide and shining, black lips hanging open to reveal those straight white teeth. Was it a snarl on his face, or a growl? Was he thinking to rip me limb from limb to avoid my rejection? Had he killed before? I had known him before to succumb to rage, to roar and thrash about as a wild animal does. How foolish of me to think him as I thought of a man!

He must have seen my thoughts in my face, for he whined not unlike a kicked dog, and fled the cottage.

In the swift silence that came from his departure, my heart fell out of its crazed state. I gasped aloud and cried out. Only a fool, I was! Who was he? Not a man, but my dearest companion and friend! He whose tears I’d soothed, whose laughter I had teased out, whose voice read me stories in the evenings. Loneliness banished, misery banished, and I looked on him with fear! How dare I!

I threw the book aside and followed him quickly into the cold. Though I was dressed in my nightclothes and it was bitterly cold outside, I threw the door open and descended upon him before he had a chance to disappear into the night. I gripped him about his waist, knowing it was not within my strength to hold him back. He froze at my touch, a despairing moan on his lips. He did not fight my grasp, though I felt him trembling.

“Now you know!” he declared. “Now you know what monster you harbor! Do you seek now to destroy me, or to drive me out with bitter blows?”

“I seek no such thing!” I cried desperately. “Oh, my poor friend! Now I know the reason for your wretchedness, you who were created by such a man!” I held him tighter, as I did on the nights he awoke from unkind dreams. I dared to press my palms flat against his skin, to feel proof of his life beneath my hands. How he trembled, though I knew he did not suffer the cold. “What crimes have been pinned on you, who are innocent! If there is a wicked actor in this story, it is the man you call creator! We cannot fault the babe being born, no more than we can fault the sun to shine. I see now how deep your pain, how complete your isolation.” I began to weep anew, not from fear but from pity. “Do not abandon me, my dearest friend, for I have resolved not to abandon you! Will you not remain with me? We have each other’s secrets, and surely there is now no greater bond than ours.”

He turned quickly, staring down at me with his bright eyes. Tears flowed down his cheeks and he stood too tall for me to wipe them away. He took my hands and pressed them again to his chest. His heart beat furiously.

“Do you not look upon me with fear, with horror at my hideousness! The God that made your form so pleasing had no hand in my own formation. Nothing is the same between you and I save for the most shallow of details, behind which hide such wicked differences!”

“Don’t speak such things!” I begged. “Are we not the same, not in our body but in our heart? Do we not weep the same when our hearts are low, do we not laugh the same when they are high! Do we not sleep side by side, and eat together the bounty of our garden! Your heart beats to the same rhythm as mine, don’t you feel it?” I pulled his hand to my own chest that its rhythm may also be known. “I see no horror before me, and if anyone it is horrible, it is the man who made you, and then left you to be abused! Would you not be contented and happy, my dearest companion, if you were not alone? Would all your rage not be soothed? Feel my own heart beat, for in its rhythm you will feel only pity!”

He fell to his knees then, howling. He buried his wet face against my chest, and cried out, “Oh! You do not lie, do you? You truly see me! You see me, and you do not flee! You truly desire me, who no one desires! You love me, who no one loves!”

I threw my arms around him. “Do you not love me as well? You have seen my own wickedness and seen only goodness! I see no monster before me, but a kind soul, with wisdom beyond that of all mankind.”

“Oh, my friend, how I love you!” His great arms wrapped around me, clinging to me as a babe to its mother’s skirts.

I held him with all the strength I could muster, but the cold quickly drained me. I was shivering terribly, though through effort I ignored it. I feared that if I should falter, my one companion would disappear. It was not long at all, however, before the violent clattering of my teeth alerted him to my state.

He gasped, and gathered me up in his arms. “We must return to the fire, lest the winter claim you!” he cried, and indeed spirited me back towards the hearth of our shared him.

He did not flee from me that night, nor I from him. He returned me to the cottage, both of us weeping still. He placed me gently by the fire, wrapping me up in many furs, and held my hand in his two great ones.

“I feared,” he confessed, “that I would be parted from your sympathetic heart. Though I had resolved to share with you even the most despicable details of my self, how I feared your rejection! Now I fear again, that you shall fall deathly ill for my foolishness.”

We wept together until the late hours of the night, and when the time came to sleep, I did not retire to my bed and laid down with him upon the ground and pulled him close to me, unwilling to part. I laid his head upon my chest, that he might know my heart.

“Hear how it beats,” I told him. “You shall not have to part from it, I swear.”

In the morning, the world was softer and brighter to my eyes. The bounty of our garden seemed grander, the coin in our purse seemed overflowing. There was nothing to dampen our mood, though we found ourselves often weeping again from tender joy.

III.

I did take ill from being out in the cold, but it was only a mild spell and my companion was the most compassionate and careful of nurses. He at times fell into fits of anxiety, convinced of my impending doom. I could do little more than press his hands in these moments, for my strength did not recover for many days.

While I was ill, he saw my bare form for the first time, for I was too weak to bathe myself. He saw for the first time the distance between my body and soul, though he resolved firm in his oath to be only respectful of me.

“While you are alone with me,” he told me as he wiped the sweat from my feverish body, “you should feel no need to disguise yourself. If it brings you comfort, I shall not deny you, but do not think me the same sort as those who would shun you! You have told me your plight and I have understood, and no matter the shape of your form, you are the man who has shown me grace.”

I wept at his kindness, and he wiped away my tears as well.

I recovered completely from my illness before the winter was over, and found that it was not uncomfortable to cast aside my disguising dress while I was alone with him. In turn, he no longer shied away from the subject of his origin, nor his relatively young age, nor the extraordinary extent of his abilities.

When the spring came, our hearts grew lighter still. I had found another family to serve, and the villagers stopped whispering of monsters after half a year without incident. With coin now to pay for our lodging, a bit of stress fled from me, leaving more with more tenderness for my dear friend.

Some evenings, we ventured into the forest together, filling our basket. He at times wandered far from me, showing his strength and speed by hiding from me in the most unusual of places. If I took too long to find me, he would lure me to his hiding place by whistling back to me the songs I sang to them, and often in this way revealed to me hidden beauties of nature.

Unlike myself, my companion found the greatest of joy in the waking-up of the world in the springtime. His eyes delighted at the blooming of the flower and the singing of the bird. He stood often in the light of the sun, though he overheated easily and would have to spend the rest of the day in the bedroom, sipping on cold water that I brought him. His joy inspired similar feelings in myself, though I remained primarily enchanted by the eerie beauty of a winter evening.

I found it now impossible to be happy while he was unhappy, but nor could I avoid sharing in his joy. As the days passed we became more sensitive to each other’s moods and desires, and learned intimately what might make the other smile.

At his insistence, I allowed my companion to enter in the domestic domain. I instructed him in tending the garden and the chickens, and he took a particular interest in the gentle care of other living things. The chickens took a liking to him more than to myself, much to his delight. He assisted me in the frequent repairs of the cottage, which often exceeded my strength and skill. He found great joy in manipulating wood, not only in repairs but in simpler methods as well. He often presented his crafts to me, spoons and cups and then little animals carved in profile. He found some peace in the garden as well, but due to his aversion to great heat, as the season warmed he preferred to do this only in the evening.

I was happy with my duties as well, bringing home not only money but new books, spices, and fabrics to enjoy. He responded with each gift I provided with a child's delight, which often infected my own soul with joy. He still had no talent for fibercraft, but he would read to me while I worked to keep our garments in good condition. I cooked for us, which he was more pleased to assist with.

Whenever the landlord came to collect rent, my friend took flight to the forest, returning only after the man had gone for an hour or so. He took great care to avoid being seen by anyone besides myself, for he suspected—and I could not dissuade him, for I was of a mind—that if news spread of his presence, he would swiftly be chased off, and I would suffer greatly for harboring him.

It was after one such night that I saw in him an unusual melancholy. He returned from the forest with head bowed, and spoke not a word. He was still prone to suffering such spells, and now that I knew the source, I felt all the more deeply for him. He retreated afterwards to the garden to sit silently for a while, watching the sky. The emerging stars held such a spell over him, particularly those in this lively season. I resolved to attend to him with tenderness until he felt light again. When he came in for dinner after harvesting from the garden, I washed his face and hands with a cool cloth, and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

He ate dinner silently, and I could not bear it. Before he could disappear to sleep, I told him,“Kneel by the fire, and I’ll brush your hair.”

It was a familiar ritual for the two of us. Not often, but at least once a month I would care for his long hair, which never seemed to grow or shed. Sometimes I washed it as well, but he needed no such tending now. I longed only to comfort him, so it was only the brush I needed.

He bowed his head and allowed me to dote on him. I worked twigs and leaves free from his hair with a comb and untangled stubborn knots with my fingers. Only once I'd ensured I could cause him no accidental pain did I use the brush to lay it all flat again. Usually, he talked to me while I worked, relaying what he saw in the wild or what he read in our books. That night, he was silent.

“What ails you?” I asked softly. He did not always want to answer me, but I knew that what comforted him the most was that I asked. He took a long moment to answer, so long that I decided that it was one of those occasions.

He proved me wrong when he finally said, “I saw something while I was in the forest, and it has sparked my imagination. I imagined that I possessed something I have never before possessed, something I dare not hope to ever possess.”

“What was that thing?” I asked. He did not always wish to share, a choice I too deeply understood, tormented as we were by the wicked ways of mankind’s world. How painful it must be, to speak aloud what you knew you could not have! “Perhaps it is within my power to create it, or else I shall soothe your hurt if it is out of reach.”

He hummed tunelessly, eyes staring out to a hidden world that existed only in his mind. After a long time, he finally answered me. “I imagined that I had received a kiss from you. No, not one! A quantity beyond measure.” How passionately he spoke! How his voice conveyed pain when his words spoke of only joyous things! Did he not deserve such affections, such kindnesses?

“I have given many kisses to you before, I can surely spare more,” I answered gently. Truly, I did not mind any longer the feeling of his skin on my lips, knowing that beneath it was a soul as bright as his own. I continued to brush his hair gently, hoping that if I remained calm it would coax him to speak frankly.

“I imagine a kiss unlike any I have been given before,” he said. And then, to better explain himself, he shifted topics. “Do you know what I saw in the forest, which inspired this fantasy in me? How the sun shone golden and warm, but those rays of light did not warm my heart. How the colorful flowers perfumed, but those sweet scents did not sweeten my mind. No, it was nothing of that sort that moved me so.”

“What did you see?” I asked.

“I saw a couple walking in the woods. They were walking along the river and the sound of the water distracted me until they were nearly upon me. By chance the woman laughed, and I knew their approach and hid away from them. They did not notice me, and continued on as lovers do. They sat themselves down beneath the tree in which I hid. The woman passionately called the man husband and lover and other such names, and he kissed her.” He sighed. “After a little while, they picked themselves up and walked away from me again, giving me a chance to slide down the tree. As I found my way back home, I found the scene quite strongly impressed upon me. What a life that woman had! When her husband returns from his work, she receives him with a kiss, not upon the brow or the cheek, but upon his smiling mouth. They do not need to speak aloud, for their mouths can convey their thoughts without words. I thought to myself, what a kiss would that be! I imagine that gentle touch, which burns with the passion of shared devotion and love.” He fell silent again, and then said, so softly I strained to hear, “I imagined that when I returned to you from the woods, you would kiss me as a wife kisses a husband, or as a husband kisses a wife. How I would be overcome, should I possess the kind of devotion that I have never imagined before.”

I was stunned into silence by his words. To my shame, I realized I had never considered him capable of such feelings. He sought physical pleasure, certainly, but it was until now always the simple variety of warm sunlight on his face, pleasing floral scents in the air, or soft fabrics to caress his skin. He was drawn to sweet music and stirring words, and the sound of my heart beating beneath his ear at night. I frequently kissed his brow and he reveled in it, having had no mother, no father, no friend to kiss him sweetly before. He had never spoken before of desiring anything else, and I had not considered he imagined or conceived something different than what I had given.

What a kiss, indeed! He imagined a kiss as a husband to a wife! How absurd a thought at first, but upon reflection, how fitting that he should be inspired to think of it. Had I not provided already for him a home, as a husband would give his wife, and did I not care and provide for him, as a husband provided his wife! Was it not natural then that his heart may wish to possess me as a husband, to seal our life together, thus unnamed, into something solid and eternal.

“What do you think of this scene?” he asked. I observed in him then a new kind of tension, a bowing of the shoulders as a child shrinks back from a coming blow. “If you had seen what I had seen in the forest, what fantasy would it have sparked in your mind?”

What a question! Since taking him in, my foremost fantasy was the two of us safe from the violence of man and happy in our simple life, and the world safe from the violence of his triggered rage. He had known no kindness before myself, no love, and while I easily could have turned him away or fled, I felt a movement in my soul that forbade me from such cruelty. And in turn, he looked at me as no man ever had, forgiving easily the accident of my birth and the queerness of my heart, for who knew more intimately than he the fickle judgments of mankind. He, mankind’s enemy, and me, mankind’s discarded, were of a kind. Though different in body our souls were alike, drawn together by that invisible thread of pain and bitter loneliness.

I placed down the brush then and walked around so we might face each other. His face was clearly pained, a nervous light in those yellow eyes, and as it always did, such an expression compelled me to hold his face in my hands. By a degree his disquiet melted as he pressed his sunken cheek to my palm, but I saw still the wretched desire in him. But he did not force me, and yet had asked what I imagined! I pondered a moment longer that question.

“You ask, if I came across that man and his wife in the wood, what would I would imagine?” I repeated, and after a moment of reflection, had an answer. “I would have seen that couple in the woods, and I would think to myself how alike we are to them! They have sworn before God an oath of devotion to one another, and have we not exchanged such vows? Recall our kneeling in the snow! We have sworn not to abandon one another, to hold each other’s secrets and to forgive each other’s sins. And yet what separates their bond from ours? Only one thing, that thing that you described! Only a kiss, of the manner I have not yet given to you.”

The same thought must have come to his mind, for he declared,

“Then let us be no longer alone!” He reached out and held my face as I held his, great thumbs moving over my cheeks though I was not crying. How gentle his touch, though his fingers were trembling! “Though mankind has cast us off, we wretched beasts no civilized mind can abide, let us be content with one another, bound together as God would bind a wife and a husband. Ah! No God looks upon us with benevolence to bless our union, but see here! See the fire we have made this night, by the marriage of our efforts! May that light we create be the witness to the marriage of our souls! May our kiss seal that oath of devotion!”

I was struck by his words, rendered briefly frozen by how powerfully he spoke. How could anyone consider him a simple beast! Inhuman and odd, and though surely his temper was fierce, did many human men not suffer that same affliction? And yet unlike human men, never once had he laid his hand upon me in anger, nor forced his will upon my body through strength. By his hand I had known only kindness, only devotion.

Would reality be as he imagined it? Only I could decide that. Our hearts were in harmony, not only now but for ever, and it was within my power to decide what manner of harmony we should enjoy.

I took a step closer to him, and with the way he knelt, I was now standing over him. He looked up at me, eyes filled up with bitter hope and tender fear. How I longed to soothe that fear, and feed that hope.

It felt a moment deserving of ceremony, for we stood now upon the precipice of a different life. I stepped so close to him that our chests touched, and told him, voice low as a whisper, “I shall gladly seal this oath, and take you forever not only as my companion, but as my husband.” And with that declaration I kissed his waiting mouth.

Oh, what a kiss! What a mouth! That beloved mouth from which poetry flowed was now kissing mine. Those black lips which had at first to me seemed so unnatural were now upon my own as if they had been made to be just there. For a moment, he was too stunned to respond, but upon our second attempt, he had gathered himself and kissed me in return. My heart began to soar, a previously unimagined kind of delight lifting me high out of our squalid surroundings. By the light of that fire, which we had built together in the morning and had tended throughout the day, our oath was sealed as sacred.

I took care to be soft with him, his face in my hands touched only with tenderness. He was a diligent pupil in this new study, taking heed of my wordless instruction in how to be pleasing to my mouth. In turn he gave me confirmation of his pleasure, groaning in delight.

We pulled away for a moment, our breath mingling in the dim light of the evening.

“Is this a dream?” he asked, so close to me that I felt the way his lips formed the words against my own.

“Not a dream,” I confirmed. “No, this is the world, which has been so cruel to you, and I endeavor it is no more to be so.”

He had begun to tremble greatly, and I pressed his hand to my chest, as I often did when I struggled to speak my feeling aloud.

“Feel it,” I commanded softly. “How it beats a rhythm so tender for you.”

As it often did, passion seemed to erupt from him in a sudden flood, as if a dam had burst forth within his heart. My words gave him bravery, for our next kiss was initiated by his own mouth. His kisses grew stronger and his arms wrapped around me, pulling me tightly to his chest. He kissed my mouth, my cheeks, my forehead, and returned to my mouth again. His body trembled violently with ecstasy and he wept. As he became overwhelmed, he pressed his face between my neck and shoulder, trembling lips pressed to the skin there. I held him, caressing his wide back and long arms, both soothing his joy and fanning the flames of his triumph.

“Now we are bound!” he cried. “Oh! Now we are wed, by no God’s will but by our own.” He kissed me again. “I shall call you husband from this day forward, and so you shall call me! Let us hide here from God and man, and want for naught but one another!”

IV.

Following our unorthodox marriage, I moved through life as if in a trance, as if we lived just outside of the world in that place where spirits and angels walked. I went away to work in the day, surrounded by ordinary men who looked at me unkindly, and returned to my isolated home and my devoted angel. When I arrived he bestowed loving kisses upon me, which I enthusiastically returned when he returned to me from the forest. The days passed as if a happy dream, my mind elevated beyond the mundane troubles of the world. Even our poverty, which weighed so heavily upon my spirit, seemed a fine burden to bear so long as we bore it together.

To be frank, many aspects of the day did not change. We still bathed together, worked our chores together, ate together, and shared troubles as we did before. When he wept, I kissed his large brow, and when he laughed I laughed along. I tailored and mended our clothes, and he provided bounty from garden and wood.

We did, however, make a small amount of necessary changes befitting our new status as newlyweds. We touched each other more often, sharing warm embraces and soft kisses many times an hour. We sat very close together, and walked hand in hand in the forest. He crafted for us two rings of smooth wood that we always wore on our fingers. Though there was no one else around to see them and know what they meant, often we would spy each other's ring and become overcome with giddiness at the reminder of our matrimony.

The most significant of these changes was the bed. Until that point I had slept on my own bed and had fashioned for him an assemblage of crude comfort on the floor, comprised mostly of straw and rugs. We agreed that, since we were now a family, a separate bed was not only improper but simply impractical. I could not afford to purchase anything with my meager salary, yet my husband sought to improve our furnishings. He spent days examining the construction of the bedstead, and once he had impressed upon himself the requisite knowledge he set about constructing a marriage bed for the two of us to share. It took a month of tedious work, during which I soothed many splinters and scrapes, but his pride when the project was complete rivaled that of a master carpenter. I was able to procure enough fabric, set aside to be discarded by my employer and purchased with the forfeit of several days’ wages, that I was able to expand the mattress. I spent several days washing all of the rugs and stringing up the bed hanging to allow him the hitherto absent luxury of privacy. The day it was complete and we had set it up with the pillows and rugs, he clapped his hands in delight like a child, and christened it with laughter.

“Our home is complete now, and we shall want for nothing!” he declared.

From then on he would be able to sit besides me while he read, rather than laying upon the floor, and of course he could now sleep beside me. I had not shared my bed in many years, and he had never known such intimacy. He was skittish at first, but even the meager comfort of our bed was like the wealth of kings to him. I coaxed him to sit upon it and lie upon it, but it took several days before he was brave enough to share with me.

The first night I was able to persuade him to lie down beside me, he drew me up in his arms and did not let go of me. Several times I roused half-asleep to the sound of quiet weeping, and through the haze of heavy slumber soothed him, only to rouse again several hours later to soothe him again.

I woke up myself sometime deep in the night. This was not unusual, as my sleep was often restless. I was much relieved that I heard no weeping, only the deep breath of slumber beside me. Outside, the wind howled and rain fell, but this had not woken me. Only my own frenzied mind had refused to rest. I sat up, seeking to find something to occupy my hands until I could doze off again, and besides me, my husband stirred to life as well.

“Trouble yourself not,” I told him. “Sleep peacefully, my disquiet will pass.” I made to leave the bed, but I found a hand on my waist stopping me.

“How can I sleep in peace knowing you wake! Now that I’ve known that utter bliss of your form beside me, no longer can I close my eyes without it. No, do not bid me to deprive myself of your company, for it is never a burden upon me to seek it.” He had resolved himself to lay awake with me. “Fetch what you must, but do not leave me alone in this bed made for us both!”

“Very well, I shall return,” I promised. I was out of bed only a moment, fetching the pair of socks I had been knitting for him to wear in the coming winter, and returned quickly. “Now rest against me,” I told him. “Lay your head upon my lap and we will pass the night together.”

He laid his head against my thigh, sighing deeply in contentment. He watched me work from the corner of his eye, evidently resolved to stay awake as long as I did. He distracted me from my work, however, for as long as he was awake I wished to be the object of his attention and make him the object of my affection. I ran my fingers through his long hair, marveling at the softness. It occurred to me then, as it did less and less, that he was an odd creature. To have such a creature slumbering beside me, growling in his sleep and laying his hand upon my ribs, my heart should be seized with terror! But by degrees, all disquiet and disgust had vanished and my heart was suffused with such tenderness that his form was pleasing to my eye. His soft sighs of pleasure as I caressed him soothed me into contentment and his kiss upon my bare knee sent a thrill of excitement through me, encouraging me to lean down and kiss his lips.

“A kiss in my marriage bed, from a husband as lovely as this! What more could I desire from life,” I declared, and the statement clearly filled him with delight.

He coaxed me to lie back down beside him so that he could kiss me at his leisure. I could not resist his entreaties, and set aside my needles and yarn. He held me so tenderly, yet his kiss! His kiss was firm and wild, his black tongue and white teeth delivering us both to excitement. His broad shoulders and chest blocked the world from my perception as the clouds hide the summer sun to provide cool relief. I saw no more the flashing thunder nor heard it, nor did I wish to. I desired to know nothing but him in that moment, not even the silver moon or shining stars nor the company of my fellow man.

As he moved by small degrees to find comfort on top of me, something in his shifting brought him to breathless moaning. I could guess the source of his pleasure. Despite the great difference in our size and origin, our bodies were similar enough, and he moved just as any man or animal would move above his mate. This excited me greatly, and I found myself seized suddenly by shyness at the realization.

He perceived my sudden mood immediately and asked, “Husband, what troubles you?” His voice! Our activities, though comparatively tame, had roughened his voice by degrees, the animalistic growl from his chest sending shivers through my body. I found myself not at all repulsed by the differences between us, but rather set aflame.

“I am compelled to ask of you to fulfill a desire I do not know that you share, and I fear greatly I may subtly press you to perform acts you may find repulsive,” I confessed softly.

“Name your desire, and I shall judge its merit,” he said. He lowered his mouth to my cheek and neck, kissing me there and sighing. “I will find no words from your fine lips repulsive, lest they command me to quit your company.”

“Nothing of the sort.” I gathered my courage, of which I typically had very little, and said, “I desire to see our marriage consummated. I am driven not by obligation to church or law, which demand it, but to my own body and heart, which desperately want it!”

I had stunned him into silence for a long moment. He went still and let out a small, cold laugh against my shoulder.

“Husband, I beg you not to tease,” he spoke in a rumble, and shook his head softly. “To consummate our marriage! Surely you are being cruel in jest, to speak of such a sacred act with such an unholy body as mine, which I declare is too hideous to desire! Tell me truthfully what you want.”

“I speak truth!” I responded, somewhat annoyed. He challenged my devotion not just now but in other moments that he felt too low to love, and I found myself displeased that he did not take me at my word. “I have spoken my desires to you, not in jest but in earnest.” I laid my hand flat upon his back, seeking through the muscle and bone to feel the hard beat of his heat. “I find your body not hideous, but pleasing, nay, beyond pleasing! I crave your touch and I desire to have you carnally as a husband. If you should find this repulsive, simply deny me and let me nurse my wounded pride, but do not mock me! From your mouth I cannot stand such treatment.”

He gasped at my words, burying his face in the pillow beside my head. The sounds that came from him, like a wounded animal! They pierced my heart and I embraced him.

“Do not weep!” I begged. “Forgive me, please, I did not mean to be harsh with you!”

He lifted his head and I found not pain in his face but wonder. “You do not jest,” he repeated. “You desire to consummate our marriage, to have me as a husband…! Not from obligation, but desire!” As he repeated my words, he moved his face close to mine, staring deeply into my eyes. “I see it on your face, you speak truth!” He began to weep, tears falling down to my cheeks and mouth. “Oh, my sweet husband, I rejected you not from repulsion! You have kissed me and sworn to me an oath of lifelong companionship, yet to think of consummation! That sweet intimacy Adam and Eve shared after their fall, that all mankind shares with their lover, should be offered to me, the fallen angel!”

I kissed him tenderly, for my heart was moved greatly by his tears and his words. I had no words to comfort him, and could only use my hands and mouth.

He pressed his face to mine. “You have stirred awake within me such desires that I had long discarded, for I believed them monstrous and unfair to you. Do you know, dearest one, that upon seeing that husband and wife in the wood, I had thought to myself not only of a kiss! No, I imagined what it was that married couples do, which I had seen a while ago in the bed of Felix and his Safie. In the evenings when they were weary from work, they moved together in ways that brought them much pleasure. But in my mind’s theater it was you and I entwined in passion. The thought drove me to intoxicating madness! I told myself that though you grant me companionship and love, to join our bodies together was beyond your tolerance. And now I know it is not! You desire me!” He laughed and kissed me as he had before, eager and wild. “I desire you, husband,” he declared. “Your body is pleasing and warm beneath my own, and compels me to join with you as befits our marriage.”

I found myself weeping with him, joyous and short-lived tears as we kissed again. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him close to me. He shuddered, releasing all at once his tension and inhibitions, and descended upon me.

I imagine that many wedding nights went as ours did, and I imagine that none at all ever have. Though consummation was our goal, what delight we found in exploring one another! Motivated not by Godly obligation but by our own hearts, we danced around that final act, teasing each other to desperate wanting.

He was not wholly ignorant to these acts, but to see them and to perform them were two separate experiences. At first, I guided his hands across my skin, but he grew bolder and began to explore without my coaxing. His body, built to resemble man’s, responded like a man’s, the impressive length of him heavy between my legs. He moved himself against the bedding beneath us, rocking the stead with the force of his desire. This too should have frightened or intimidated me, but there was only anticipation within me.

I had imagined, a few private times, exploring his body in such a manner, and now that I had the opportunity I was giddy. I had seen him naked many times and knew the outward similarities, but this inspired in me only further curiosity.

“Humor your devoted husband,” I said to him, and maneuvered our bodies so that he was lying beneath me. I ran my hands over his front, and I found immediately that his body had spots of great sensitivity and spots where he felt very little at all, as many do. His skin, which was numbed to the bitterest of colds, shivered at my hands stroking and gripping him. I found which parts of his body craved my touch and which shunned it. The softest drag of my fingertips across his chest and stomach set him to trembling, though his shoulders and legs inspired no such reaction. He enjoyed feeling my fingernails digging into him, especially down the sides of his body, but not enjoy being pinched in any spot. I gave him forewarning of every thing I subjected him to, which seemed only to excite him further before he endured it. The moments between my words and my touch seemed to be an eternity for him, if his stuttering breath were an indication of his thoughts.

“What magic you possess, to render me so!” he marveled in a whisper, and this only further encouraged me. “Oh, what delights are these you have revealed to me!”

I became aware in the corner of my vision of his prick pulsing neglected behind me, and had the idea to introduce him to further delights. I pulled away from him for just a moment and told him, “Give me your hand.”

He did without question, and I guided him to stroke himself. At first I controlled his movements, looking into his face to ensure he was enjoying it. He watched our hands with wondrous curiosity, eyes following the motion upon his skin, and I asked slyly, “Does it feel good?”

“Yes,” he breathed, eyes moving to my face. “Yes, what novel pleasure!”

I removed my hand, ensuring that he remained stroking himself, and I resumed my exploration of his body with my mouth. His throat was particularly sensitive to my mouth and tongue, and I delighted feeling the rumble of his moaning against my lips. A kiss upon his chest and a drag of my teeth across his collar excited him greatly, and his pleasure delighted me. His fingers, nimble and skilled, were also remarkably sensitive. He reached for me, no doubt intending to draw me in for another kiss, and I foiled his design by drawing them instead into my mouth. This inspired such a powerful reaction that I was nearly toppled over by his driving hips. His free hand gripped at the rugs beneath us, his yellow eyes watching me wide and wild as I began to suck upon his fingers. He cried out from deep in his chest again, but was capable of producing no more words.

A unique bliss settled upon me with the knowledge that I was causing his delight, and that I was providing him with pleasures he had never conceived. I could feel my heart beating all through my body as I observed his response, feeling a burning and perverse pride. He had drawn out of me that dark wickedness that I had long sought to stifle, and I was losing will to fight it.

I leaned back and settled myself between his legs. I pressed my mouth hard to his knee. I felt some bitter rising of shame inside of me, for I had learned these wicked pleasures in the lowest of places, and could not escape the thought that I was corrupting my pure and innocent husband. The thought did not shame me as it should have, but instead had me shuddering with excitement, and it was that second reaction that shamed me.

“What darkens your gaze?” he asked.

“If you’re inclined to take it,” I said, “I have other ways to pleasure you, that might not have ever played out in your mind’s theater.”

His breath came out of him in one great shudder. “I would take any pleasure from your mouth, anything at all from your hands,” he declared. His voice, typically so strong, was wavering with the intensity of his feelings. He reached out to me, pulling me close to him again so he could kiss me. Though he could not have guessed the manner of my thoughts, his sweet acceptance of my confession buried my shame beneath the weight of shared desire and contentment.

WWhat calmness he brought with his kiss! Though desire clearly burned in him, he kissed me with the same sweet gentleness with which he had always handled me, which in my perversion only made me desire him more.

My plans bordered on hubris but I had found an abundance of bravery since making his acquaintance. I returned to my previous position between his legs.

The great scale of him extended to the organ between his legs, which was nearly as long as my forearm and as thick round as my wrist. Simply seeing the sheer size of him made my jaw ache, but it made my pulse quicken just as much. It was, unlike the rest of him, comprised all of one piece. The color of it may have been disturbing to anyone not familiar with his physique, for when his blood flushed his skin went from pale yellow to a white-ish pink rather than the gentle glowing red of an average man’s blush. It did not disturb me, but rather whetted my appetite for him. His cock was shaped in a way that was pleasing to me, and inspired in me that peculiar kind of bravery found only in brothels and the back alleys of bars. I resolved that I should have him every way I could.

“What is your intention?” he asked curiously as he settled himself to my liking. He was ignorant to anything but the most basic of acts that we could perform, and even what we had done thus far was wondrous to him.

“I shall take you into my mouth, which will bring you a different kind of pleasure,” I said plainly. “If you do not like it, I shall stop, but I do not imagine you will dislike it.”

I imagined correctly. From the first soft kiss to the tip of his cock, he could not help himself from making his pleasure known. As he always had, he made no attempts to stifle his reactions, nor stem the flood of broken poetry from his lips. At first I gave him only my lips, placing soft kisses upon his pulsing organ, and then I dragged my tongue across him. He had been holding himself stiffly, but with my whispered encouragement he began to relax into the pleasure. Just when I saw that he had accustomed himself to the feeling, I sought to overwhelm him. I moved back the skin covering the fat head of his cock, and took it wholly into my mouth.

Of all the reactions I could expect from him, that sweet whimper that flowed musically from his throat was the most delightful of all! He sang so sweetly for me as I moved my head up and down, using my tongue liberally to stroke him. I took in hand what would not fit in my mouth, wholly dedicating myself to giving him as much pleasure as possible. He sought more of it, but having no idea that he could guide me with his hands, had only his hips to seek. I had foreseen this, and purposefully positioned myself so that I could move with his hips rather than injuring myself upon him when he bucked upwards. He made an effort to be still when he saw my predicament.

I pulled off him and bat my lashes at him in a teasing manner. “Am I pleasing you?” I asked and laid a trail of kisses down his shaft. It pulsed greatly in my hand and wept lustily at my attention.

“Heavens and angels could not have brought such bliss,” he declared in a breathless and shuddering voice. “Oh, my savior, my teacher, my beloved husband!”

His words set my heart to fluttering, and I rewarded him by using my free hand to fondle the skin beneath his prick and between his buttocks. His cool skin was covered with only a thin sheet of sweat, but with my mouth I provided lubrication for a pleasurable massage. I knew which places on a human man to press to give pleasure, and by some miracle he was constructed in such a way that he too was greatly pleased. I placed him again in my mouth, and with those dual pleasures endeavored to render him wordless.

And success! His excitement grew so great that he ceased to speak and began to make noises inhuman and wild, open-mouthed growls that shuddered through his being.

While taking the entire length of him into my throat was impossible, I sucked up an admirable amount and set all my energy to bringing him new pleasure. I was rewarded shortly for my effort when he let out of a shuddering groan and released himself into my mouth. The taste of him was wholly unlike that of a man, slightly sweet beneath the salt, and it was thinner than I expected. There was enough to flood my throat yet I was determined to drink it all. I was halted by a hand upon my cheek gently guiding me off of him. Our gazes held, mine hazy with tears yet to fall.

He looked as I had imagined a fallen angel in my most disgusting of fantasies, his beautiful face flushed, his bright eyes glazed over, a smile of debauched ecstasy painted over his sweet mouth.

My mouth hung slightly open, for my jaw was quite sore, and with a look of wonder, he pressed his fingers into my drooling maw. He curiously swirled his fingertips over my tongue where spit and spend were mingled. I treated his fingers as thoroughly as I had treated his cock, and his eyes briefly closed. He pulled them out after a moment, and spoke hoarsely,

“If I may impose, I have gone too long without your mouth upon mine,” he said. How polite his words, and yet his voice was begging! He whined like a child denied a favorite toy. How I’d spoiled him!

He drew me up to him, and I had no inclination to resist. Though my mouth still contained some of his seed, he pressed our lips eagerly together and kissed me deeply with a pleased moan. He then moved away from my mouth, mouthing instead at my throat and shoulder, using not only his mouth but his teeth. His lips were slightly cool despite his arousal, and the sensation had my entire body shivering. He kissed the whole expanse of my neck and chest, exploring my body as I did his, and I could do little more than clung to his shoulders as he searched out what might bring me to bliss.

I opened myself to him, for I had much to give if he were in a mind to take. Those parts of my body I normally shunned, my heavy breasts and that throbbing organ between my legs, I knew that he alone could entice to pleasure. Though I did not coax him to, he of his own will took my breast curiously into his mouth, and rather than shame or disgust I felt only delight at his attention. He sucked at it vigorously like a babe and dragged his teeth across the sensitive skin. We moaned together, and I cradled the back of his head, unwilling to end the sensation. He let out that delicious whimper again, somehow finding his own pleasure from my teat. I felt my body beginning to relax and loosen, eagerly awaiting him. He pulled away only to descend upon my other breast, wrapping his arm around my ribs and holding me fast to his face.

Perhaps mimicking what I had taught him to do to himself, he moved his hand down between my legs, exploring me without seeing. I began to slide my meager manhood over the expanse of his palm and the planes of his extended fingers, first shyly and then with vigor when he did not stop me. I whispered instructions in how to move his fingers in circles over that part of me that wanted so badly. By this manner he sought to coax pleased cries from me such that I had never been coaxed to make. The storm outside did not rival the storm that was brewing within my own soul as I rose to unspeakable passion.

“Do not quiet yourself,” he begged when I raised my hand to my mouth, ashamed of my volume. Though his tone was pleading, his voice was a low growl, both of which drove me to higher arousal. “I have been deprived all my life of hearing such sweetness, do not be so cruel as deprive me further.”

He resumed his attention, sucking and biting at my chest and stroking hard at my manhood until I released all my body’s tension with a hoarse cry. He stopped all his motion then, falling back to stare up at me with a trusting bliss that again brought to mind that angelic innocence that I wanted to devour.

We became of a united mind to move towards that final act and I moved to lie down upon my back. I guided his fingers within me first, for I was not so foolish to ignore that his size too great to proceed without care and caution. I mimed with my own fingers how he should move to stretch me and please me, and he was a diligent pupil as always. Oh, his fingers! In learning to garden and carve he had become skilled with them, and through my own instructions and his own great curiosity he brought me to such pleasure that I could have wept. His fingers were stronger than a man’s, and with firm strokes he discovered precisely how to make my body unleash a flood for him.

"Does it feel good to you?” he asked with an earnest hope befitting his innocence. His eyes were now fixed solidly on the slide of his fingers in and out of me, a wondrous smile on his face. He looked up at me, almost demure in his manner. “Am I…good to you?”

“You’re so good,” I promised. I reached down and pressed my palm to his cheek, and he ceased all motion to bask in the caress. “You are so good to me, I shall never want again but for you, I swear it.” I stroked my thumb near the corner of his mouth and he turned his head, taking it into his mouth and sucking it as eagerly as he had sucked at my breast. The feeling of his sweet tongue moving across my skin had my body fluttering around the fingers that were still inside me, something he immediately noticed.

He began to touch himself again, evidently overwhelmed by my growing pleasure. He did not let up touching me, and though his movements on both of us were more uncoordinated as a result, his enthusiasm was too precious to stifle. After a few moments, he stilled his entire body, eyes closing as he found his end again. The sight set my own soul to bliss and I sighed breathlessly as I followed him over that sweet edge for the second time. He pulled his fingers from me and examined in the low light the proof of my passion. He brought it to his own mouth, humming at the odd taste. For a moment I thought he might clean his fingers eagerly on his own, and then he surprised me by pressed his fingers to my own mouth until I opened and he forced me to taste myself. He curiously moved his fingers between my lips as he had between my legs, and we groaned in unison. I raised my hips hopefully, already wanting desperately to feel him again. He obligingly moved his other hand down between my legs to continue to prepare me at his own leisurely pace. His fingers were coated in his own spend, which further eased his intrusion inside of me.

“How marvelous your form,” he sighed. As my body relaxed further, he forced not only his fingers but his knuckles inside of me. “Though we were not designed to mate, how eagerly your body prepares itself for me.” Where another man might speak lustfully or mockingly, my husband’s voice held only wonder.

It could have been days or hours we spent thus in our marriage bed. Our sighs were a symphony, drowning out the wind and rain outside. I kept time only by the beating of my heart, which leapt and danced in my chest. Though my head was thrown back, I felt as he was able to push his whole closed fist inside me, a fine approximation of his cock, which he had begun to stroke again. He forced his entire hand and wrist up inside of me, continuing to whisper poetic odes to my body.

I soon became so impatient that I could not bear it any longer.

“Come, my love, sit up on your knees and prepare for the final act,” I murmured to him, and began to guide him to a position that we could join together at last.

With the great difference between our sizes, it took a moment for me to understand the best way to move. He held himself up on his elbows, and with my instruction guided the tip of himself to my waiting hole. I longed to kiss him as he slid into me, but his size required instead that my head was down beneath his collarbone. He held my hips up easily to make the first entrance easier, elevating my lower half with one hand. I endeavored to lift myself up with my legs to meet him. His body bowed over me as if he sought to envelope me completely, and he pressed his lips to the top of my head.

“How I adore you,” he whispered, and with the smallest movement of his hips, pushed his cock into me. He had only gentleness for me, only sweetness, and he was so careful not to hurt me.

All the gentleness in the world could not have neutralized the sheer size of him! At first I thought surely I would die, whining and panting beneath him, but I resolved to endure even that sweet death, for the moans and growls above me set my heart and sex fluttering eagerly. I found equal parts pleasure and pain in his intrusion, body stretched past even what he had done to prepare me. By sheer force of will, I forced my body to relax to such a degree that he fitted himself entirely within me, body trembling. He let out a savage growl above me, a possessive sound as one might hear from a beast. I whined in response, for words had long abandoned me.

He moved back and forth slowly, not enough to bring himself any relief but enough to coax me to relax even further. The more I relaxed, the more pleasure his little movements gave me, until I only relished our joining and did not fear it.

“There you are, my love,” I whispered to him. I placed a kiss upon the areas of him that I could reach. “You have me at your mercy now, and I can only obey your wish.”

“If you would obey any wish, let it be that I should hear your passion,” he said, breathless. “Sing for me, my love” he asked, and our love-making began in earnest.

What music we made! With every movement he pushed all the breath out of me and with it an assortment of whines and wails such as I’d never made nor heard before. Above me he growled with such ferocity that anyone might think I was being devoured by an animal. I felt as if my body and heart might be torn apart, and I would not have begrudged him delivering to such a sweet death. The force of his thrusting may have bruised me, but that sharp ache only served to lift me higher in that plane of ecstasy. I gripped his forearm tightly, his body my sole anchor to the world. Forgotten was any thing but him.

Pleasure was too weak a word for what I felt, and I surely felt no word in any language could describe the sensations that took me. His hand had already coaxed such sensitivity within me that his prick, cool and hard, was equally a relief and a new torture. I had never felt such pleasure from coupling before, requiring usually a mouth or hand to please me. Yet by his sheer size and the fevered rhythm of his thrusting he endeavored to leave no part of me untouched.

We were soon forced to move our bodies in a new configuration, for my legs could not support my weight at such an angle any longer. My husband laid himself down upon the bed, pulling me atop him where I’d been before. He guided me down onto him, letting me move myself at my own pace until he was buried fully within me once again. I paused a moment to collect myself, looking up at him through my wet eyelashes. Tears of pleasure and love shone on my cheeks, which he reached to wipe away. I turned to kiss the inside of his wrist.

“Do not ever leave me,” he asked—nay, begged! He cradled my face between his two palms, shaking as tears began to well up in his own eyes. “I swear, I shall be so good, I shall be the sweetest and gentlest of all creatures, if only you would grant me this pleasure forever.”

I could have laughed, though my mind was so overwhelmed that I hadn’t the facilities. I could only promise him, “I shall never leave, I swear. Make no promise to me, do not swear to be anything but as you are, I do not need anything but you, I will never need anything but you.”

I began to move my body, unable to raise myself but instead circling my hips to grind him deeper inside of me. It felt as if I could make us truly one body if I could just move in the right way, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than for us to be joined not only by sex but in some deeper way.

He sobbed and moaned in one exclamation, and put his hands upon my hips. He held me steady as he began to move up into me. I leaned forward, bracing myself against his broad chest, unable to do much more than shift the angle of my hips to bring us both nearer to absolute pleasure.

In this new position, I could see as well as hear clearly how our love-making affected my new husband. His head was thrown back, a blissful open-mouthed smile on his lips, his black hair spread around his head like a perversion of an angelic halo. I had never in all my life seen anything so beautiful, nor heard a song so sweet as his groaning voice. I could not contain myself, my body shaking with such force that I nearly wept. Rather than weeping, I moaned declarations of love and of my devotion to him. I made anew the promises we’d shared, to never abandon nor forsake him, to always love and cherish him, to be completed by him. Far from my mind were the painful couplings of my past, for he had treated me with only loving passion.

Never in my life had I been brought to completion simply with a man’s cock before, but now I found myself shaking as my body flew beyond what it could stand. It took all my strength not to go utterly limp against him, holding myself up weakly so that he did not have to fully hold me up.

It was not much longer that he followed me into overwhelming bliss, and every second was an eternity of pleasure for me. When he spent himself, he pulled me hard down against him, stretching my body to its limit to seat himself as deep as possible. His face twisted greatly, though no grimace on his face would inspire any fear or disgust in me any longer. My name fell from his lips as if in prayer, and thunder cracked outside as if the world were born anew in light. I could have remained for eternity where I was impaled by him, even as the aftershocks raced down my limbs. I was loathe to part from him. If only I could have melted down and pressed my essence between the stitches of his skin to join him inside of his own body.

When my strength returned I crawled up to his face, taking him in my hands and kissing him until I was breathless. He kissed back sluggishly, overwhelmed. Tears shone on his face, tears of joy and bliss. I wiped them away with my fingers, stroking over his cheeks and jaw.

“My angel, my sweet beloved creature,” I whispered against his lips. “How I adore you…!”

I collapsed upon the bed beside him and thought our night spent. After a few breaths, I felt him moving. I assumed he was going to fetch cloth to clean us, until I felt my legs were pushed apart and I felt a cool touch upon my manhood that I did not expect. I had no strength to move away, but I made a noise of surprise and confusion. I looked down and saw him between my legs, a look of contemplation on his face.

“May I glut myself?” he asked. He sounded so breathlessly eager, utterly ignorant to the sinful things he spoke of. He cared not for the judgment of God or man, seeking only to drive us both to madness with pleasure. “You have feasted upon me, and I have yet to feast myself.”

“Oh, my dearest husband…I can withhold nothing from you,” I said with the last of my strength.

I felt his lips widen into a smile against my thigh. He turned his head and pressed his mouth to my sex, which was still wet from our coupling only moments before. Though he had no reference for this act, he mimicked the movements I had taught him with his fingers, and his sloppy enthusiasm was enough for my oversensitive skin. He moved as if kissing my lips, drawing my hips up to him as he truly were indulging in a feast. His tongue delved inside of me, for I was still stretched opened wide by his cock. I nearly pulled away when I heard from below me an obscene slurping sound as he supped not only on my arousal but his own seed. But I could not bear to move, and he made such pleased noises, I remained just where I was. With the treatment I had already received from him, it was not long at all before I was sobbing, shuddering once again with the exultation of love.

He laid his head down upon my stomach, and reached up to take my hand. Our fingers tangled together as our bodies had, so unwilling were we to be apart.

I must have dozed in that position, for when I opened my eyes again, the fire had nearly died and the storm outside had quieted.

Though it felt as if I had used all of my body’s strength, I gathered enough of it to pull myself out from underneath him, and slide out of the bed. I wet two cloths to clean our bodies. He did not stir so I wiped down his body and removed the rug upon which most of our spend had soaked. I took a moment to clean myself as well, though I was so sensitive that I could only be half as competent as was my usual habit. When I was finished washing up, I crawled back beside him and he rolled his body over, pulling me as he had before to his chest. We held each other silently for a while, until a thought came to my mind.

“It occurs to me, husband,” I said, “that when a couple marries, it is customary that one may receive a name from the other.” He only hummed in response, and I made my intention known quickly. “You have no name at all, having received nothing from your creator, but if you wish it, I would give you one.”

“Oh, beloved husband…how abundantly you treat me with gifts. Your home, your heart, your body…now you wish to give more! What have I done to deserve such benevolence!” He buried his face in my hair.

“Only live,” I assured him. “You need to do no more than be alive to receive such from me.”

“I am not fit to carry a name,” he said, “nor have I considered myself truly in want of one. But from your lips, I shall accept any gift.”

“Then I declare from today I call you not friend nor companion, but Beloved, until the end of our days.” I pressed my lips to his chest, just over where his unusual heart beat. “No name fits you so much as that, for you are dearer to me than my own life.”

He began to weep again, softly now. I kissed the corners of his yellow eyes and the peaks of his gaunt cheeks, and pressed myself against his chest.

“I am not fit for your love,” he cried, “and yet you bestow it so easily!”

I moved myself so that I could pull his head to my chest. “Do you feel contentment as I do?” I asked softly. “I feel as though my heart shall never break again. I have you, and I know you, and I love you, and I shall want for nothing else forever! If you feel as I feel, you know I can imagine nothing but to give to you freely.”

He laughed softly and clung to me. “I feel such peace with you here against me,” he said, “it is as if all the evils of the world do not exist. I had never imagined myself capable of receiving such love, nor of feeling it! Here you are, who knows me wholly and still presses me to your heart. The love I feel for you has never been felt so fiercely in all of time!” He sighed. “I accept your love, and the name you bestow upon me.”

We slept only a little that night, or I did at least. I found myself too preoccupied by joy to sleep, and looked often into my lover’s face simply to know it again. How could I have ever been repulsed by him! His features, selected to be beautiful, were just so to my eyes. His heart, though greatly injured by the world, was such a tender thing, capable of such depth of feeling as to overwhelm him. He had known such agony, tormented by wickedness and isolation. But was I not here now? Had I not chosen, first by action and then by oath, to always be there beside him, to press my lips to his weeping eyes, to hold his weary head to my loving heart?

The world beyond our bed was wicked, and the men who walked it were full of hatred, and I found I did not care. We had each other, and we loved each other, and from that moment on, I resolved that I should want for nothing.