Autumn had come while he was away.  The September wind was cool now instead of warm and it smelled different, sharper.  I snuggled deeper into the woolen shawl he'd given me at Christmas and stared out over the courtyard that was at the heart of our modest home, sipping steaming espresso as I watched the sunrise.  Maximus is an early riser and he prefers to take his tea outside.  It is a habit of his that I seem to have acquired.  I wondered if somewhere in Africa, Max had noticed he'd picked up a few of my habits too and felt the same touch of latent amusement.   

He had been gone almost four weeks now.  I shivered slightly at the memory of our last night together before he set out for Al Jizah.  How thoughts of that evening warm me.  Max feels things so deeply.  That night, he used his body to impress the depth of that emotion upon me so strongly that if I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could still feel his touch.  Not like a brand.  It was deeper, more profound than that.  Quieter.  Almost as if I resonated on a different measure now, changed forever by his presence in my life. 

And in my heart.

A small brown bird landed in the lemon tree I'd recently planted before it flitted down to a puddle of water that had collected on the ground where one of the cobbles was missing.  I loved it here.  Loved how the small table overlooked this private space.  How the stone held the heat of the midday sun.  How the various pots of herbs haphazardly placed around the perimeter of the courtyard scented the air with a spicy fragrance.  How the cobbles gave way to a larger garden plot.  It was barren now, dark and flat. 

In the spring, I would plant the seed corn held in the small velvet bag I'd given to him at Christmas.  The bag was heavier in my palm than it used to be.  I played with it, rolling it between my fingers.  There were fifty-six kernels now instead of twenty-seven.  One for every time he'd read to me.  I stroked the bag with a fingertip and it brought an involuntary smile to my face.  One would think there might have been even more now that we lived together.  However, our relationship had changed.....  I was no longer simply the girl to his boy.  And though we still read to each other from time to time, typically the evening hours found us engaged in quite a different sort of pleasurable pursuit.

Well, to be honest, our intimate physical relationship is still quite new.  It isn't only the evening hours.  When he was home, we loved whenever and wherever the mood struck.  I felt a blush rise and rubbed self-consciously at my neck as my cheeks warmed with memories of him.  Maximus is quite unlike any lover I've ever had.  Unlike any man I've ever known.  Unlike anything or anyone I've ever known, really.  It's a bit like suddenly discovering a new color within a rainbow's familiar range.

He is a force unto himself.  Raw and wild and unpredictable, like the land he loves.  And strong.  So strong.  There is a timelessness in him that has nothing to do with when he was born and more to do with what lies in his heart.  Sometimes I think it growls from deep inside, driving him the way a storm drives wind before it.  Other times, I think it is as soft as the beat of a butterfly's wings. 

He is passionate.  And uninhibited.  He has an openness that's incredibly endearing, for all its crude candor.  My eyes drifted over the plot of raw earth and I felt my blush deepen.  Not long before he left, he caught me there, working the newly softened earth.....  A shadow had fallen over me.  I had smiled up at him.  There was a pear in his fingers.  He smiled back and took a bite, chewing unhurriedly as he studied me.  He produced a knife and cut me a sliver with that little quirk of his brow that seemed to inquire if I wanted a bite and also somehow managed let me know he was interested in tasting a different sort of sweetness as well.  He held out the bite to me.  My hands are dirty, I'd said. 

He only smiled.

I should have known then.  The knife disappeared.  So did the bite of pear.  Between his lips!  His eyes twinkled at my indignation and then they grew darker, hungrier.  Impatient.  I stood, thinking he was going to lead me to the chaise under the arbor.  It's a cozy place, sheltered by the vines that hang down from the overgrown trellis above.  It's one of his favorite places to read.  We often make love there, or under the warm stream of the alfresco shower we had put in not long after we moved in.

He simply stripped us instead and dropped our clothes (and the half eaten fruit) onto the cobbles as he pressed me back into the soft earth and kissed me without pretense of any kind.  He tasted like pears.  And want.  The sun warmed our skin.  I touched him with my dirty hands and left streaks on his golden shoulders.  He kissed his way down my body and spread me open to his gaze.  I felt exposed.  To him.  To the elements.  The sky was so blue above us.  He buried his face between my legs and my eyes fluttered shut.  It was too much.  He chuckled and held my legs open, aware I couldn't block out his overwhelming presence like I had that of the sun.

"Your cunt smells like earth."  It wasn't a whisper.  Hearing it spoken aloud so plainly was shocking.  He said it starkly, and with the same intensity he gave to the act itself.

It was the first and only thing he'd said to me since coming outside.  I was startled.  It was another of those comments of his that were almost too honest, and also somehow so without artifice they seemed painfully innocent as well.  I couldn't help but laugh, even as I writhed against his lips and tongue.  Dirt?  Maybe that was what passed for romance in his day....

"I smell like dirt?"

He pulled away and then caught my eye before he very deliberately spread my folds with his fingers and pressed his face to me, smelling me like an animal might.  I could feel the hard bridge of his nose and his fleshy lips beneath.  There was no pretense of a caress.  It was a sniff, done for no other reason than because he wished to do it.  Because he wanted to smell my most intimate scent.  And he wanted me to see him do it.  His eyes closed and he inhaled again before lifting his head.  His nose and chin glistened wetly.

"No, Papilio.  You smell like earth....."  He moved over me and penetrated me slowly, watching my face the entire time as my body struggled to take his.  "Fecund and ripe.... like the deep, wet earth that nurtures life."  He stilled when he was fully seated.  "You smell like life," he murmured, still not moving.  Simply enjoying the sensation of his lover pierced upon his strong, hard body. 

The way he speaks- it's like touching the sun.  So pure at times, it's almost painful.  Masculinity distilled down to something so potent you can't help but respond to it.  Boys idolize him.  Men follow him.  Women want him.  And me?  I'm as spellbound as all the rest.  He's a bit like that Admiral Jack served under, I think.  Being close to him made your heart glow.  The only difference in that I made his heart glow back.  I still can't quite wrap my mind around it- that he sees in my femininity the same thing I see in his masculinity.... and for all our differences, we just somehow fit.  

Still, for all that.... he is my Bellus, too.  The boy lives in him as well, and I saw them both that afternoon.  Pierced upon the body of the man I love, the boy smiled at me from his eyes- a moment before he dug his big hands into the damp earth at my sides and smeared it down my neck and between my breasts.  It took only a handful of moments for the girl to answer the boy's playful call.  I smeared it on him too.  Down his throat, under his arms and into his beard.  He roared, a happy sound that startled a bird from the trellis.  We squirmed and slipped, working our way deeper into the earth as we played until I cried out as a rough stone dug into my shoulder.

He rolled us instantly, turning my soft skin away from the sharp abrasion.  He simply took it for himself and paid it no mind, panting softly as I settled back over him.  "Ride me." was all he said.  I hid a smile.  The boy...... he never stays long.  The woman answered the man's call and we struggled together under the summer sun until he was grunting as he thrust up into me, holding my hips down against his with dirty hands.  My toes curled into the earth as the rough surging of his powerful body brought me to a heady orgasm, made more intense by the elemental nature of our joining. 

He cupped the back of my neck just as it took him too, willing me to experience the moment with him.  His eyes slipped shut and he shuddered under me, his heels digging into the soft ground as a wet heat began to accompany the throbbing I felt deep inside me.  His eyes opened, bright as the summer sky, and we sunk back into the earth's embrace.

"Why here?" I asked him after we'd recovered, letting the black soil trickle through my fingers.  It was somehow more shocking than the strangest sex toy or any erotic game that I could think of, probably because for all its simplicity, it was just so different.  Something I'd never imagined doing before.

He just shrugged.  "Because I wanted to."  He had on that face- the one all men have, no matter what age they're from.  The one that says he'd rather be sleeping than entertaining his lover's questions.  I laughed and he slipped out of my body.  I looked down between us.  His penis lay spent and limp on a nest of wet hair.  It was simply too much to resist.  I thought he would growl and rush me as I grabbed two big handfuls of dirt and (with a care for his sensitive flesh) gently ground them into the wiry curls at his groin, making a sort of paste as it mixed with the remnants of our lovemaking.  He just grunted and opened one eye.  "Papilio-"

I reached for his scrotum.  He tweaked my nipple hard enough to make me squeak and tossed me over his shoulder as he stood easily, even with my added weight.  He swatted my backside when I thrashed, but when I felt the warm water of our outdoor shower, I settled.  He set me down and we stood there together, letting the hot spray soothe us as we washed each other clean and exchanged soft words of love. 

He left two mornings later.  I woke sleepily, slow and sore from a night of intense passion.  Something was tickling my skin.  I tried to brush it away but a hand caught mine.  I opened my eyes to find Max had thrown back the covers.  We were both nude.  In his hand was the bag of seed corn.  He'd made a line of them, from the hollow at my throat to my bellybutton- the tickle that had woken me, I realized now, watching him pick up the kernel that had fallen and carefully replace it with the others.  "Thirty-seven." 

Gesturing to the line on my belly, he pulled another from the bag and held it up in his big fingers before adding it to the growing line.  "Thirty-eight." He said. 

"I'm going to miss you." I said.

He extracted another from the bag and then tucked the soft velvet pouch into my hand, keeping the last kernel for himself.  "Fifty-seven."  He ran the kernel down my nose and lips.  "I might be gone that many days."  He sighed softly.  "I hope it is less."  Running the cool golden nugget down my skin, he kissed me softly.  "What is important to remember is that even if it takes a thousand days, I will be coming home to you."  He held my eyes as he slipped his fingers between my legs and pressed the kernel up deep inside.  I was sore but there was another kind of seed there too and it eased his passage.  

His thick fingers stretched my tender flesh.  My heart felt just as bruised.  I touched stroked his cheek gently and gave him soft words from that secret glowing place inside me.  "You are my air, Maximus."

He nodded and withdrew his fingers slowly.  "And you are my earth."  His earth.  The place that nurtured him.  That gave him life.  Is there a deeper expression of love?  While he dressed, I carefully collected and returned all the seeds back to the pouch. 

Save one.

That one, that last one...... I retrieved and pressed into his hand as he was leaving.  He turned.  "I will bring it back."

"Bring yourself back.  I'd like that more, Bellus."

He closed his hand into a fist and pressed it over his heart as he made a slight bow.  

And then he was gone.  

So..... here I sit.  Counting the kernels each morning as I have coffee in the courtyard.  Today is day twenty-six.  It felt like one thousand.  Pouring the seed corn in my palm, I made random geometric patterns with them on the mosaic tabletop while my mind wandered back over the events of the summer.  Our day in the corn.  His uncharacteristic nervousness as he asked me to share his life with him here in this beautiful place.  The night of unrestrained passion that followed.  Settling in together. 

Now that was something.  I felt my lips twitch.  There is always a period of adjustment when you live with someone- a sibling, a roommate, a lover.  Learning to live with Maximus, however, was a singular experience to be sure.  He is so very different.  Shaped by a different time, by a different moral code, by a different world altogether.  We aren't even on different pages.  He is reading from an entirely different book.

As the weeks and months passed, I often found myself surprised or shocked, both by the things he so easily accepted and by the things he rejected out of hand.  It was not easy finding a balance between our two worlds, but then again, nothing worthwhile ever is.  And for all its aggravation, the marriage of our two different worldviews has been a journey without equal.  I am the first modern woman he has lived with for any real length of time. 

It has been.... interesting... to say the least. 

We have such different expectations- and yet, some things never change.  He is a man.  I am a woman.  We are in love.  It is enough.  More than enough.  We still regularly shock each other.  Annoy each other.  Surprise each other.  Pleasure each other.  He finds me insolent, untrained..... delightful.  I find him obstinate, highhanded..... adorable.  And at the end of the day, when he climbs down from his high horse and I leave my moral high ground, we not only find that we've learned something new about each other, but that we're really not so different from each other after all.  Not where it matters. 

And through it all is twined this new erotic thread.  I think he delights in surprising me.  There is an earthy quality about him I find incredibly attractive.  He has not been shaped by modern convention when it comes to sex.  He did not grow up with Playboy and pornography.  He finds the strangest things distasteful and yet, his he has an entire set of preferences that are wholly outside the bell curve of what we consider 'normal'.  It has been grand fun testing those boundaries together. 

I would say there is a generous amount of overlap.

He bit me once.  Well, lots of times actually... but this one time stands out particularly.  It happened without warning while we were sharing a coffee at a quiet bistro.  It was early and we were the only couple there.  The owner stepped in the back for a moment and Max took my arm and bit the tender flesh on the inside of my elbow.  Right there.  In public.  It wasn't a kiss.  Or a hickey.  It was a bite.  And it left a mark.  An indent of the curve of his teeth that rose to a red wheal by the time I'd caught my breath.  It was startling erotic.  A claiming.  And all day long, as I walked through the market, from time to time, I could catch a glimpse of it or feel a twinge if I moved my arm in a certain way.  And I would know.  My fingers would brush it and I would feel his eyes on me.  We would share a look.  A lover's look.  And he would know too.     

But it was more than simply the erotic.  It was beginning to learn all the other little things you only learn when you live so intimately with someone.  Coming to recognize the sound of his breathing at night, when he was restful and when he was disturbed.  Learning other things too.  When he's home, he could care less about his hair and his clothes, but he's always picky about grooming his beard.  He has to have it just so.  His one vanity.  It amuses me.  So does the fact he never wears shoes unless he absolutely has to- and he's not a big fan of pants either.  He dislikes television and shuns it, preferring to read the news from his laptop.  He adores music and has a habit of playing it loudly.  He loves Mozart.  And Sting.  He pees in the shower.  He likes carrots- but only if they're raw.  And sweet.  He finds most modern desserts too heavy- but he has a weakness for fruit sorbet, lemon in particular. 

When I first served it to him, his eyes closed as he tasted the first bite.  By the third, he was groaning.  By the fifth, he'd insisted on having it for breakfast in the morning.  He is so utterly without any modern notions of nutrition.  I could only laugh.  When he liked something, he wanted it a lot.  Quite like a child in that way.  He ate it every morning for two weeks.  The memory made me laugh.  

"Lemon ice?  You can't eat that for breakfast, Max!"

"Why not?"  He'd made short work of the portion I'd served him for dessert and was steadily (and without shame) working his way through mine.  "Well.....?"  Watching me curiously now- testing me, perhaps.  It would have been more effective if his spoon wasn't in my bowl when he said it.  "If I want to- why not?" 

"It's dessert."  What can I say?  It was the same thing told to me as a child when I wanted to eat chocolate ice cream for lunch.  Or dinner.  Or breakfast.  Odd.  Why had I warned him off?  Am I turning into my mother? 

"But I want it now.  What's the harm?"  He was so adorably earnest.  And yet, there was something else in his voice as well.  Something with a much less jovial edge.  It touched on that part of him that was utterly male.  He doesn't play at being dominant.  He is dominant.  And I respond to it.  Even when it's making me nuts.     

And I had to give it to him; he had a point.  What harm was there?  None that I could see.  I fetched the chocolate ice cream for me (and the carton of sorbet for him) and sat down on his lap with a grin and a shrug.  "Fair is fair, Max."  I'd always been a strange eater anyway.  "I like hot soup for breakfast and having eggs and pancakes for dinner- so who am I to complain?"

He gave me the eye.  A twinkling eye- as he licked his spoon.  "That is the sort of thing women do when they are menstruating or pregnant."

I felt my eyebrows go up.  "Oh yeah?  Well.... I eat like that year round- so you have a smart answer for that?"

"Yes."  He kissed me with cold lips that tasted of tart lemon ice.  "I will have the sorbet for breakfast as many mornings as I desire.  And then I shall have you for dessert.  For I also desire that."

He sat back very smug, watching me as he dug the last soft, drippy spoonfuls out of the sticky carton.  My Bellus.  He's much more of a ladies' man than he lets on.  He puts on this sort of act.  A bit like: 'What?  Me?  I'm a serious warrior....'  He may play that helpless bit to his advantage, but he knows full well exactly what's happening.  He is the original phasmid.  And I see right through his little games.  Which always makes him grin, even if he doesn't ever admit to it.  He just shakes his head at what he calls 'my nonsense'. 

But he likes it anyway. 

He likes me fussing over him.  After countless days and nights in impersonal hotels, facing the harsh reality of life day after day, to have the comfort of home and to receive attention out of love is so special for someone like him.  He tries to deny it, of course, as all men of his ilk do.  Tells me 'you didn't have to do that' if I bring him a cold drink or waves me off if I make an extra trip to bring him the lighter for his cigar (even as he takes it from my hand).  But if I actually do as he says and go off to do something, he eventually wanders in to where I am, slips up behind me with a soft kiss and an affectionate embrace before he settles down into a chair somewhere nearby and picks back up with his reading.

He never says anything.  He just comes to me in his own way.  Almost as if he does it for some sort of reassurance.  Those sorts of moments, they are more telling than a hundred declarations.  Quiet need.  Given and received, not in a moment of passion when a man's tongue may say anything, but at a time when two people really find the heart of what they are to each other.

However, for all of that, our settling in was not without its ups and downs.  There was the matter of the apartment I'd purchased in town.  I had decided to keep it.  We argued.  He thought my place was with him, in our home- even when he wasn't there.  I agreed.  Which only wound him up more. 

"Women are so illogical!" he'd said, uncharacteristically raising his voice.  "I do not understand why you wish to-"

And then suddenly he did.  When I explained I wanted it for visitors; that I would not ever receive another man in our home.  To be honest, I was unsure if I wanted to be intimate with another man ever again- even Terry and Dino, two men who had held a special place in my heart for a long time.  I was coming to understand that even though I existed only at the fringes of this strange world, free love was never free.  I wasn't sure it ever had been.  It was different for Max.  He is a man.  And he was a part of the family the Creator had made, in a way I never could be.  I would not place limits on him even if I could.  One does not cage a wild thing.       

In addition to that can of worms, there was also the fact that although all my worldly possessions were here, what little he owned of a personal nature was still back in the States.  He returned from his brief trip to California in a dark mood.  He would not speak to me about what had transpired.  That spoke volumes in and of itself.  So did the call I got from Arthur not long after.  It seemed he had a number of Max's personal possessions in his keeping.  He wanted to know what address to send them to.  He was his usual cheerful ebullient self.  Nattered on about how much he'd enjoyed his part in Max's New Year's traditions.... but his parting comments were so curious.

Sorry about that last homecoming, hey?  Nasty business, that.  Thought it might have gone that way.  Gossip gets round.  Especially here, you know?  That's why I took liberties.... Ah- well, I reckon you know plenty about that, already.  No need for me to go on about spilt milk.  Angharad sends her love.  Take care! 

 

There was a bit of a squeak in his voice and a muffled giggle just before the call disconnected.  I think it was quite possible Angharad was well on her way to sending her love.  By way of Arthur's dick.   

However curious I was about what had happened, one look at Max's face said I wouldn't be getting anything out of him.  He can be so frustrating.  But whatever it was, it had bothered him.  That night he made love to me aggressively, only for it to turn almost desperate in its last moments.  I rocked him afterwards.  He slept restlessly.  It made me glad he felt no need to sleep armed.  It spoke of the safety he felt here.  This was his home.  Our home.  I hummed softly to him as he slept and eventually he settled.

In the morning, he woke me softly and we made gentle love.  He slipped in on the previous night's leavings and groaned at the sensual feel of it, moving in long easy strokes to prolong the sensation.  My breasts were tender.  I was due to come on.  He suckled lightly, letting my quiet gasps and moans guide the pressure of his mouth.  The exquisite tenderness heightened my orgasm.  Afterward, his rhythm changed as he chased after his own release.  I felt the flexing in the powerful muscles of his back and thighs as he tensed.  His fingers tightened on me and he grunted softly into my hair as he juddered in my arms and slumped down against me, weak and breathless.  His hand was warm and strong in mine.

I fell back asleep before he'd even softened enough to slip from my body.  When I woke, it was to his voice.  Not raised in anger, but quietly hissing in Latin at the computer screen.  'Moechae putidae et turpes foetidae in lustro confutunt!  Quod hoc lupanar quisquis frigida deserto tepefactat membra cubili?  Scortari me putis?  An nescire?  In quo nunc miserabile venenum,striga?  Me aucupari in retis non potes.  Vos omnes fute!'  It took some time for the words to penetrate my sleep-soaked brain.  Fute.  Now- that one I recognized.  But lupanar?  Venenum?  Not a clue.   The long, low string was followed by a masculine snort of disgust.  And then he laughed.  It wasn't a nice sound.

And to be honest, it was a sound I'd heard before.  He has precious little patience with modern technology.  In fact, once when we'd shared more than a few glasses of wine, he'd admitted to crushing a new DVD player he couldn't get to work with an axe before he soaked it in lighter fluid and burned it in his fireplace.  Watching with no small amount of satisfaction, he informed me with a sheepish grin.  That is so Max.  I had laughed till I cried. 

I wondered what the problem was this time.  Pulling on his discarded shirt, I padded over to his desk.  He closed the laptop's lid before I could get a good look, but I recognized the screen.  I'd seen one like it myself not too long ago.  I gasped softly.  Surely not Max.....  He was something of a father figure.  What good was a headless snake? 

"All of it?" I asked.

He nodded.  I tried to protest.  "You can't do this, Max."  The idea that he would suffer because he had chosen me over-

"It is already done."  He lifted his chin, for a moment appearing as if he still intended to keep me at arm's length.  And then he sighed and drew me down into his lap, tucking my head under his chin.  "It means nothing."

"How can you say that?!"  There were obligations.  Rules.  And a hell of a lot of money....  "This affects everything." 

His hand on my back stilled.   "Did it when it happened to you?"  That drew me up short.

"Of course not."  I hadn't lost touch with any of the people who were important to me.  Not one.  In fact, I'd called both Terry and Dino not long after Max and I had moved in together.  I was bursting with happiness and I'd wanted to share it with the people I cared deeply about.  In truth, the biggest change for me had been the money.  Or lack thereof.  But Max was independently solvent.  He worked a very dangerous job and was paid accordingly. 

We fell silent, each lost in thoughts of what this would really mean for us.  And for the others as well.  In a small pond, one person's ripples eventually touched everything.  I sighed and held him tighter.  I was so afraid of losing him, but I would let him go if that was what he wanted.  I could hardly speak around the lump in my throat.  "Are you sure, Bellus?"

"With all my heart, yes."  He said, gently sweeping my hair back from my face before kissing me tenderly.  We shared a look that needed no words.  And then, the look in his eyes changed.  "I do not wish to speak of this anymore." 

I raised my eyebrows at him.  "What do you wish then?"

His grin widened.  "Lemon ice, for breakfast.  And I wish to eat it in bed."  His touch became sexual.  "And then I want dessert...."

Reliving our intimate moments over coffee every morning....  I wonder if it means I am well and truly gone?  It certainly feels like it at times.  Just as I was putting the last of the corn into the small pouch, the phone rang.  I jumped to answer it, hoping against hope it would be my Maximus even though I knew it was a foolish girl's longing.  He preferred to keep the two spheres of his life - public and private - as far as possible from each other.  He no more wanted my intrusion into his work than he would have wanted Serena on the battlefield.  I understood.  How could he concentrate on the job at hand, something critical to him staying alive and unhurt, if he was distracted and worrying about my safety before his own?

I had received only two mails from him the entire time he'd been away.  They were both terse and yet so achingly honest.  His longing resonated from his every carefully measured word.  As did the sense he was almost savoring the feeling of loneliness and taking a quiet satisfaction in the simple knowledge that someone was waiting for him.  I wouldn't put it past him.  There is a part of him that is quite given to romantic gestures.  His life was finally in balance.  He had the knowledge he was again the great warrior on the field of honor, unfettered- and yet he was also aware that no matter which road he took now, they all ended in the same place.  At home.  In the arms of his love.

Twirling the little velvet back around my finger, I raced inside at the sound of the phone- only it wasn't the trill of the phone.  It was the fax.  I felt a little flutter of disappointment that suddenly turned to a sickening dread as it spit out the paper and I read the familiar scrawl.  It was the name of an airline and a flight time.

Get here.
Ticket at the airport waiting.
He needs you. 

TT