World Enough

Had we but world enough, and time . . .

Andrew Marvell

She can sense me. That is how I know it is her, it is Xena. Yes, she looks like her; dark hair, blue eyes. But so did the others. This woman looks about, disturbed, whenever I come to spy upon her.

There are a thousand worlds. No, more; more than a billion, I think. Infinite. And there is a Xena in almost every one. In the world I know Xena holds a knife to my throat, and is stopped from killing me by a vision from a saint. Not by my face. Not by my eyes. Not by a word from me, because I choke on words.

Xena doesn’t cut me, doesn’t leave the least mark against my skin. But that dagger slashes any bond between us. Severs possibilities. When I leave her this time, I leave her whole world. If I need a Xena – and I have learnt painfully that I do – it doesn’t have to be this one.

I search. She is absent from many worlds. Her grandfather killed as a child. Life ended from a miscarriage, from an accident at birth.

She is present in many, many more.

Sometimes she wears the weapons at her hip and her back; weapons I gave her. Did I give them to her, here, there? I don’t know.

Sometimes she is dressed as a peasant, with long skirt, embroidered blouse. Sometimes her eyes are clear.

I see her run to a window, and call out a cry of joy. I see her dash from there to the door, and throw herself into a lover’s arms, bury her face into his shoulder, then look up into his eyes, content.

I see her shaking in a cave, her body scarred and ugly, her eyes red and haunted, as she looks around for a thousand imaginary foes. Do I drive her mad once more? I will never know.

I see her with Gabrielle – not once, but many, many times. I see her beckon her blonde-haired servant girl when her lord leaves the house, and then slip a thigh between the girl’s, move her mouth over hers in ownership.

But only this woman can sense me.

I watch her for many days. She goes about her ordinary tasks in an ordinary house. She shares a bed with a featureless man. I think she has two sons.

Finally she cannot bear my watching any further. She looks directly at me, although I am invisible in her room.

Come out.

I appear. She does not appear frightened. She seems resigned.

What is it, she asks.

I don’t know what to say. I look at her, but she waits for my reply. I give a foolish answer.

You look like someone I know.

She nods at that. Then she speaks again.

What do you want to do, she asks.

Everything, I say. Everything.

And I know that is what I want. Not just to see this woman in her nakedness, not simply to touch and taste, or even to lie sated in her arms. I want everything from her. I want her to look into my arms and tell me it was all right, what I did, all the things I did. Or if it wasn’t all right, then she understood nonetheless. That that was who I was, who I am. That I am hers anyway.

I don’t know how much of this I say, but she nods nevertheless, and lets me watch as she undresses. I sit there, on the edge of a strange man’s bed, and I watch her turn herself a little away, unlacing a bodice, bending to tug off a skirt, an underwrap. She folds everything neatly on a chair. Before she turns back to me, she reaches her hands up to unpin her hair.

No.

My voice is hoarse, and it surprises her. She turns to me, with the first unguarded expression I have seen. I reach forward and seize her hand. I let it rest lightly in my own for just a moment, or perhaps a whole minute. Then I tug her roughly so that she falls onto the bed. For the first time she looks afraid.

I blink, and my clothes disappear. Then I lie up my body against hers. I like that she is so tall, her legs long against mine. Her head rests a little beneath mine, and I take my hands and untie her hair, tossing the binds to the floor. I run my fingers through the silky mass, bury my face in its darkness. Then I hear my breaths; they are loud and shaky. I can feel her tremble against me.

Her eyes are shut tight. I move my hand to her face, caressing her soft skin gently. I brush away the tension at her forehead, the lines at her mouth. I run a finger over her lips, and see them relax, fall open a little. Then she opens her eyes. She looks at me wonderingly, as though no one had ever touched her so before.

I moisten my own lips thoughtfully, then move closer to hers, pressing tiny chaste kisses against her open mouth. Then I touch the very tip of my tongue against her upper lip, and feel her respond immediately. Her eyes are wide, now. I press my tongue a little further into her mouth, and suddenly she is kissing me back, strange, awkward kisses. It is so silent in that room. It is so quiet, kissing this woman in this small house.

I move my hand down her body as I kiss her, allowing my fingers to explore the curve of her body, the smooth feel of her skin. I spread my fingers over her belly; she makes a soft noise in her throat, and I look up then. Her eyes are still open.

This is beautiful, I say.

I move down to the hollow at the base of her throat, and kiss her there, listening to her sharper cries of pleasure. I press kisses along her collar-bone, leaving a hand at her face, the curve of her cheek. Now her head is pressed back a little into the bed; her body moving closer to my mouth.

I scrape my fingers along the underside of her left breast, and hear her cry out louder. When I touch my mouth against her soft skin, her entire body arches. It is all new for her. I slip my thigh between hers, and she moves again. Her whole body is beneath me. I raise my head and see that her eyes are cloudy with tears. I move my mouth over her breast again, and feel her fingernails grip my arms. Then I join her.

I think I lose her then. Or at least I lose who I pretended she was. It is not her body. It is not her wordless cries, her pleas. I dive and fall into her, but I am as far away from her as the day she held a dagger to my throat.

Afterwards I hold her in my arms, looking up at the ceiling, our sweat growing cold on our bodies.

You must love her very much.

I start, then, and look at her. Her face is not sad. Her eyes are not dark. They are filled with a kind of understanding, and for the first time ever I think I know what tears are for.

You must love her very much.

She says it again and I nod wonderingly.

I do. I do love her very much.

I leave her lying in the bed, her hair all over the pillows, her body covered with my marks. She is marked by me. I, however, can only be marked by one. There is only one world for me. It is enough. Xena is world enough for me.

She’s down there, in Tartarus; I know it. I’ll go to her. I’ll go to her. I’ll crawl on my knees in the mud at the bottom of the world, and I’ll tell her how I feel. That’s the place for me, her black-hearted lover. In the dark, in the rocky places of death. It’s a start. Everything has a beginning; her baby born, the world about to change forever. I can’t think about all that. None of that. My world has already changed.

...h.o.m.e...
bleeding-heart[dot]net