Scribe and Shadow
Chapter 2: Looking Deeper and Going Farther
When I awake, my body feels only half mine. Aniela’s legs are entwined with mine. Her arms are around me as mine are around her. All of my body feels sticky with dried sweat, saliva, and lust. Between when her shadow slid into my ears and now is a pleasant blank. All that comes to mind when I try to remember is a tingle of afterglow.
Aniela only needed one night to redefine sex. I squirm slowly against her to feel the texture of her body rubbing against mine. A shudder passes through me so wonderfully upon just feeling her. I must still be sensitive. Wow.
I never thought such an amazing night could unfold from such a straightforward and blunt invitation. Life keeps diverging more and more from my writing and the existence I used to have. Before, plot twists like last night would have felt hackneyed. Now, I have my mental fingers crossed for them to be a motif.
Aniela’s eyes are still closed. Her lips are twisted faintly into a sleeping smile that gives her a look of joyous rapture. She is rapturous, swallowing up the whole world and cleansing every last inch with the flames of passion. If I trusted myself not to melt back asleep in her warmth I would awaken her with a kiss. Feeling those smooth lips against mine might be too much bliss for me to take without rolling my eyes back into my head.
Pallas, she’s amazing.
I press against her a little harder, mewling as she presses back. A half-moan sounds from her lips as she wakes and I quiver from that even more. Her eyes flutter open and I savor it like a sunrise. Last night was so special, and I only remember the beginning.
“Morning, Yana . . . Mmmm, sleep well?” Not wanting to pierce my veil of silent reverence I only nod and smile wider than I’ve smiled in a lifetime. “I did too. Glad you enjoyed.”
I nuzzle into her neck and press my lips to her tattoo with a sigh. This must have been what it was like for all of my characters when they found love at the end of such trying journeys. My trials are only beginning, but it isn’t as if my characters were given a free ride into ever after. They still had to apply what they’d learned to the rest of their lives, but they were better for the experience.
Aniela . . . a gorgeous name for a magnificent woman. I wish I were any good at poetry, though I doubt the management would enjoy me writing said poems over the walls as I envision doing in my mind. It would be a lasting testament to the magic of our night, but unappreciated all the same.
There are so many things we could say, but all I want is to savor the feeling of her hands trailing along my back as she slowly stretches against me. Nothing could make me happier than how I feel right now. Nothing could make me feel more . . . complete? That feels like the right word, but it’s such a passé concept to be completed by the love of another. Validated? Understood? Savored? I feel the way I would feel before poring through a thesaurus for an hour searching for just the word.
Outside of this motel room, Quillspawn is doing goddess-knows-what. Who knows how many lives she’s ruining through revision. Some things don’t need second drafts. They are forever works in progress, living stories. To undo years of character development is nothing short of blasphemy.
Inside this room, Aniela is teasing along my thighs in a way that makes me shake and cling to her like ice to a tray. I don’t need to find the perfect word for this moment. It’s better than perfection. It’s transcendent.
That’s the word!
I feel transcendent, placed upon the clouds to bask in the loving warmth of a tender sun. Last night was amazing, but it was only our first time. Every time I would reach a new level of storytelling it always felt as though I’d finally channeled perfection. The second step in that level was always so much more satisfying and gratifying.
Maybe we should talk. Talking would certainly get some questions out of the way. Has she ever done that to anyone else? Did she enjoy taking control? Of course, the loudest question is: “Do you want to do it again?”
I know how desperately I do.
“As much as I’m loving this, and I really am, we really should see if we can get back on the road. Quillspawn isn’t going to halt whatever plots she’s working on just because we want to cling to the afterglow a little longer.” She’s right. I hate that she’s right. I wish there were some way to deny it. Oh if I still had my ink . . . maybe if I could get her to stretch out just a bit of her shadow, I could use my magic to twist it back around inside of her to keep us here all day and all night, maybe all week . . .
Her hand slapping my ass breaks me from my reverie, and her scrunched-up cute imitation of a serious look dyes my cheeks scarlet. I stretch a little as she sits up, shaking her head, her lips twisting from an adorably tired smile into a slightly crooked grin. At least on Sylvia her body will still be pressed so close to mine.
I can look forward to that.
Involuntarily my body yawns and I can’t help but pout. There goes my beautiful veil of silence, broken apart by a wave of unwanted sound.
“If you insist, Aniela. I really hope Sylvia is okay, I’d absolutely hate a reason to wait around all day for AAA to show up.” It’s my turn to grin and her turn to pout. “But you’re right, we really do need to get to Twilight and stop Quillspawn before she takes creative license with more innocent minds.”
“Good girl, keep it up and I’ll make tonight even better.” She winks before melting her lips into mine. Her shadow slides into my lips and deeper, curling around a part of me I can’t place until she tugs and my eyes stretch open wide as my toes coil tight. Pleasure bursts between my eyes and all over my body. I would scream into her lips if her shadow weren’t keeping me paralyzed but to shake against them, hooked and helpless.
Her kiss is so deep it’s wrapped around my very sense of pleasure and not letting go. Every moment it only wraps tighter and I shake harder as I lose track of how many times another wave crashes against my thighs from another broken dam.
She’s inside of my mind, inside of my body, and all I can do is shake and whimper with wide pleading eyes. Every touch of her fingers tracing over my back is laced with more of her perfect shadow, enhancing her kiss and plunging it ever deeper. One of her hands grasps my ass, kneading so hard it would hurt if it didn’t feel amazing as her shadow laces right into my clit.
From one set of lips to the other her kiss runs through me, tugging me against her so tightly my eyes shake. My vision starts to white as I struggle to get enough air in through my nose. Too much, it’s way too much.
Her lips break away from mine just before my world would have turned from reality with white spots to white speckled with reality. “Mmmm, I think you need another dose of darkness to start off your day right.” Her lips press to my forehead as her fingers claw up my back.
I know what’s coming before it happens, but that only makes it better. Aniela rolls her body on top of mine, pinning me to the bed only a moment before her fingers trace their way into my ears. Nothing happens. She stares deeply into my eyes and doesn’t move. Her fingers don’t twitch. Her body stays perfectly still.
Even without her shadow, she has me hooked and quivering against her barely able to draw breath.
She looks perfect, staring into my soul with her dark shadow-filled eyes. Does she already know what she’ll do once she’s inside of my mind? Will she let me remember? How much longer do I have to wait to feel her tear away my control?
“Shhh, stop thinking. Let me do that for you.” Her fingers twist inside of my ears as her shadow thrusts deeply into my mind. She laces through the same empty places from before that don’t feel anywhere near as empty, grinding her body close as she does. It’s taking so much longer for everything to fade to black as I melt into the sensation, feeling so wonderful as the shadow weaves its way into every thought, slowly clenching around each one and taking them away.
Unlucky me, there are so few to take.
I can see her inside my mind’s eye as she curls around where I’m weakest. She fills me the same way as my ink did so long ago, but she’s not of me. Aniela is external but still inside of me, foreign but so very much at home as she rakes her nails through my self-control.
She’s violating me in ways I could never have asked her to. I’m so trapped in her shadow I can only imagine what my body is doing in her thrall. It’s her body right now, just as this is her mind.
Right now with her so deep inside of me, beyond all of my defenses and all of my ability to worry or fear, she could make me anything. Her tongue flicks against my desire and whatever part of me that can still function this deep groans. She could tear away my thoughtfulness and leave me with only surrender to her shadowy caress.
Maybe she is right now . . .
Her fingers thrust into my passion and I scream as my spirit clenches around her. No, she’s not changing anything. I can feel that. As much as it would thrill me for her to tear away my doubt, for her to cloak any desire that isn’t in matching with her own, she’s not. She’s not manipulating me, she’s . . . oh I know the word, it’s just so hard to think as her fingers keep moving, making me feel molten with need and pleasure and lust.
It’s not the hard-to-think feeling you get from drowning in ink, it’s the way lips suddenly wrapping around a nipple can make you forget a speech you memorized for a year in an instant. It’s the way it’s so hard to form words with fingers stroking you in time to your moans just before you soak them.
She’s not manipulating me - she’s exploring me. She’s learning the me she only tasted through the ink that manipulated her, and it feels so good. I can taste her feeling over my flaws, yet her fingers don’t slow. Her shadow doesn’t withdraw, it only holds me tighter and more spellbound. She’s not losing interest in me. She’s only growing more interested as she finds more and more of me.
Nothing has ever felt like this before.
It’s as if she were reading me like so many read my stories, finding every nuance and delving deeper with it. Her fingers curl as I squeal in shock and epiphany. She really is reading me, turning my pages and raking her nails down along my spine.
I can feel her pulling my book open so wide, licking down the middle of the binding and flicking her tongue just beneath the very top. Quivers course through my conscience, and I mewl in abandon. The only mark her shadows leave behind is their presence.
Her legs wrap around my virtue and squeeze. I let myself dissolve in their embrace.
My tongue continues to lap along her slit as her fingers withdraw from my ears. Only as I realize it‘s moving does it stop as I let out a slow moan. Her eyes are still locked on mine as she quivers, shimmering with sweat above me like the radiant goddess she is. The shadow she commands is as brilliant as any light I’ve ever seen.
“Where did you learn how to do that with your tongue? It knows just how to move to make me melt.” Aniela’s words bring attention to just how wet my lips are with her taste as I moan at the wonderful truth.
Fluttering my eyelids to regain awareness of how reality changed since I left it helps me find my hands holding her smooth hips. So hotly disorienting it is not to know just how my hands and my mouth found their positions.
Aniela. Knowing that is certainly hot enough and more than a good enough explanation.
“You spend way too much time inside of your own head. Come on, move your lips and talk to me. Let me in on what you’re thinking without me needing to pry you open.” Oh I would love to make her have to, but with how wonderful that felt I don’t want to do anything but make her happy. I want to show her just how much I loved that. I want to show her just how much I’m falling in love with her.
Her body slowly slides down against mine until she rests her head against my chest. “I don’t know where I learned it. I know I’ve had a lot of practice, though not with anyone like you.” Shakily, I slide my fingers through her hair and watch her body quiver with every quick breath she takes. “Sorry I don’t vocalize much, I’m still getting used to well, needing to. I spent so long just thinking, just willing it to be known how I felt. Unless I was plotting something it feels strange. I’ve always savored that feeling of my lips pressed together, of my throat being still and relaxed. Even before I became Quillspawn, I didn’t talk that much.”
Of course she knows I used my ink to get what I wanted well before I took on that name, but I know she can follow my meaning. If she needed someone literal she wouldn’t have shacked up with a writer. Metaphor is my immune system to protect me from the ordinary.
“It’s okay, Yana. You know I’m not exactly normal either. I spent a year barely able to talk.” She giggles and shakes her head before reaching up a hand to knead at my breast in a very feline gesture. “Me-ow.”
Laughing, I bat at her hand before closing mine over hers. “You’re right, you’re not normal, and I love it. A normal woman wouldn’t be able to reach inside of me like you can, but even more she wouldn’t be able to understand what she found. If she did I doubt she’d be entirely eager to just rest against me and let me play with her hair. I really don’t want to get up, but we should probably shower and see just how bad Quillspawn broke our wheels.”
“A shower sounds like it would be wonderful. Mine’s first - but you can feel free to join me.” Recovering her breathing in an instant, Aniela withdraws her hand with a meow, winks, and bounds into the bathroom.
How she can do that, much less make it work, I have no idea. She must have learned more than I thought during her year as a bed-warming kitten.
I rise, licking my lips to feel her taste overtake me. The shower turns on and I move as quickly as I can to catch up. With how wonderful she made me feel, I would hate to keep her waiting. As fun as it was to make her sticky, I know it will be so much fun to rub all of that away with a little soap and a lot of repetitive finger movement.
After a very long shower, and the agonizing process of dressing while knowing clothing meant we wouldn’t end up ruining the bed all day, I tried to start Sylvia. I was expecting at most a burst of engine sounds followed by nothing. Instead, I could practically hear her asking me what I thought was wrong.
The brakes were fine. There was no damage to her body. Not even her paintjob looked scratched. It’s as if she healed overnight or nothing happened.
It’s not as if we were so stupid that we didn’t test her out at least five times on the way to the motel. That was a fun but exhausting walk. So, either Sylvia has more magic in her than Sarah made me aware of, or something is amiss. Did Quillspawn somehow make it so we’d have to stop at the motel?
For now it doesn’t matter. We’re back on the road and all of these questions aren’t going to get answers through force of will alone. There’s only one person who can truly give us those answers.
Knowing that woman used to be me makes this even more amusing.
Hours pass without development. Nothing on the police radio sounds anything like our prey. Some of me wishes I could be there to get my first taste of action, but at the same time I realize that wouldn’t be true. My first taste of action was with Mourning Frost, and I horrifically blew that chance to shine.
This time I need to be ready for anything and anyone. Mourning Frost could be waiting right beside whoever Quillspawn is possessing now, recruited again for one last job. Thinking about the past to stare at failures helps nothing, but staring at the past to prepare can’t hurt.
Twilight Falls can’t be that much farther. Once we’re there I know that all of the answers will fall right into our laps. Perhaps Quillspawn wanted us delayed just long enough for her to prepare one last trap? She does seem to be drawing a line in the sand. We weaved a little magic before leaving, and all of it gave the same answers. Quillspawn must be feeling very comfortable wherever she’s holed herself up.
This time, even as the sun starts to lower in the sky, I don’t fall into a road trance. The texture of the road is just as it should be. All of the road’s lines are precise yet imperfect. None of it bares us any malice.
I think pacing is the biggest difference between this life and my last. Before, I could savor each small victory and savor each stroke of my finger as words weaved into fiction. Now, every moment is so insistent on becoming the next that there seems to be no present, only a constant race into the future. If I were to slow down for more than a moment to catch my breath I would be consumed by the wave ever cleansing away the remains of the past.
“Patina! Look!” Aniela’s - no, Silhouette’s - hand stretches along the right side of my vision, but I’ve already seen where she’s motioning. Not too far ahead of us, past two cars still on the road, is a sign marked in black spray paint, at least that’s what it’s supposed to look like. My eyes have gazed upon far too many variations on that shade of black.
Twilight Falls wasn’t that far after all. The street sign reads “Welcome to Twilight Falls!” and below lists its sizable population rivaling that of Midas. Scrawled just under the number is the word “slaves” in black ink.
Quillspawn is either overconfident, or she wants an advantage by leading us to think such. That could just be spray paint but by that same token I could have come up with the same name for an alter ego as Sarah. Coincidences like that don’t happen, even in fiction. This is nothing less than a calling card that only Aniela and I would recognize. Only the two of us are looking for her while possessing this much intimate experience with that ink.
I nod, speeding up to overtake the two cars ahead of us. It’s not as if a few minutes moving more quickly will make any difference. Knowing that doesn’t change the fact that Quillspawn needs to be stopped, or the urge to hurry pulsing through my veins. “I know! She’s taunting us!”
Silhouette clings a little tighter and I squirm back against her. The sooner Quillspawn is out of commission, the sooner we’ll have some time to truly explore each other. With no immediate threat to remedy we’ll be able to see just how far the two of us can go as we solve whatever problems find their ways to us. We can have the kind of time Olivia and Sarah shared after the Argentum Project was brought to a premature end.
“We should find a hotel to regroup! This close we should be able to pinpoint her exact location and come up with a solid plan to bring her down!” Silhouette sounds just as eager as I feel. Is she having the same thoughts or is that too much to hope for?
“Sounds like a good idea to me!” Realizing the symmetry my words give yesterday and today makes me groan. Yesterday, the thought of motel sex with Aniela was great. I should have said “great”, or “wonderful” - more, not less, or at least the same! I must be thinking about this far too hard. It’s not as if Aniela has a photographic memory.
Neither do I of course, but sometimes life’s little moments write themselves a place in your mind so deep that very little will remove them. I stop at the first hotel I see and stare up at the sign. The Twilight Inn is not a building I made a home away from home during book tours. It was far below me.
All the more certain that means I won’t be recognized, I drive a little farther to find a better place to park Sylvia. It feels strange to know that it’s best to be myself only behind closed doors, but that’s not anything new.
This time it’s for a much better reason.
“Not bad. Now let’s get a room and see if we can’t think of any fun ways to brainstorm. I’m sure we can come up with something.” Her voice lingers on the final word as her hand slides down across my thigh. Motorcycles have many perks and Silhouette manages to find them all.
“With you, I imagine it’s either going to be overcast . . . or a downpour.”
My lips are probably between her legs again. Knowing that makes my desire pulse as her shadow moves through me. Again she’s robbed me of my control, of my consciousness, and this time I can feel the sensation even better than before. I can feel the subtlety to each fluid motion as she swims into me, through me, and tugs me so close behind.
Being hooked to her in a sea of lost thoughts and forgotten memories is almost too perfect as a metaphor. Unlike a fish the hook isn’t through my lip, but squarely between my eyes with a line so fine I couldn’t see it if I looked for a thousand years.
Even bathing in ink wouldn’t dye such a fine strand and, besides, it’s a part of her shadow. You can’t darken a shadow. There’s no darkness stronger than the absence of light.
Her legs twine with mine and the feeling of her lust grinding so close to mine sends shockwaves through my psyche. It’s a paradise of paralysis as her shadow pins my arms to my sides and twines around my ankles. Wrapped up in her shadow more tightly than any rope could ever bind I feel so much freer than I have since leaving Clearview.
Our link is growing so much deeper every time she penetrates my mind. Either she’s growing accustomed to shattering my resistance, or my yearning to yield is almost frighteningly strong. Already I’m not sure if I could resist her had I tried even before her shadow slid into my ears, but I wouldn’t dare try.
She might stop.
Having felt this freedom of bondage within my own soul there’s no way I can have that torn away without feeling the loss in each breath. I need her now, forever. She’s as much a part of me as my mind, as my memories, as my desire to be with her forever.
My last thought as her shadows take me away from the notion of conceiving them is how thankful I am for Quillspawn. She brought us together. My writing always led to such happy endings.