Author's notes:

Writing in chunks like this is hell on the continuity. Each chapter should contribute something to the story. If it doesn't, then why have it? However, each contribution is another axiom, another fact that can only be contradicted carefully.

This means I'm building a maze of glass around me. I can see some of it, but not all. I remember some of the details, but even I can't remember forty thousand words worth. Yes, it's that long. And within those forty thousand words are little factoids.

In the early days, I could read the previous chapters before writing. It'd put me in the mood, give me a sense for the characters. Now, I'm just guessing. I'm hoping that it works out.

My manuscript is in Word, and I'm using the index feature to note down what I think will be noteworthy factoids. I will have entries such as "Chella:First Mention" and "Chella:Full Name." It's still fun, but it's a little harder to juggle the logistics.

The writing itself is fun, the reading of same is fun. It's fun to see it in finished form (which is pretty much as I write it in Word, but I do print it to PDF and pretend to read it in Acrobat.) Reading comments is fun. Staring at the corner I've painted myself into is fun, even. (So I'm a masochist. What of it?)

The juggling, the worry that I'll ruin the fictive illusion by contracting myself. That's unfun.

(Those of you just joining here, start with Sian 1)



His hands ran through her hair, slowly, firmly. She purred, baring her neck to his kisses. Here on the Kestrel's bridge, she didn't feel the sweep of his Power against her. It flowed from him, into the controls, into the craft. In the same way he teased that very last gasp from her, time after another, now he deftly urged the yacht to its destination. One hand at the wheel, the other in her hair. Two women in his hands, and he handled each with care, with love, with an innate talent Sian could recognize, but never imagine equaled.

The Kestrel grounded him. His Power trickled into her brass trim, her wooden paneling and handles. They resonated with it. Even the engine, two decks and many yards away, it lowed in harmony to his soft spill of Power. She responded to him, to his every touch, to his every thought. He guided her through the moon-splashed seas with a maestro's hand, as someone with years of training on top of talent elicited stirring crescendos from instruments beyond value.

Sian relaxed. No longer was she wary of him. Oh, she was sure he could turn it onto her as if a spotlight, blinding, disorienting. She tired of it, of always being tensed. Right now, she wagered on her ability to raise her walls on his first stray motion. Already twice she had done just that, steeling her back and tensing her neck, even seizing her breath lest his very scent intoxicate. Already twice, she inwardly blushed as she stood down from high alert.

She kept sentry only a small part of her consciousness. The rest of it, she relaxed. She relaxed it in a way she hadn't since... She couldn’t remember when she last felt this way. She remembered her companion, she remembered the surrounding place and time. She just couldn't remember when it was. She remembered crying then, and wasn't surprised when one unbidden dewdrop tracked its way down her cheek.

"Little one?"

She heard the words, felt the answering tingle well up in her. She turned and produced a smile, hoping her eyes were...

"Why are you crying, pet?"

Damn.

"Nothing. Nothing S..." She bit back her breath, her word. An inhalation, an exhalation. Her heart still raced. Another sip of air in, out. Slower pounded her chest. One more cycle, and she could think again. She forced another smile to surface. "We never decided what we should call you."

"Well, we know what we shouldn't." His smile was warm, true. It seeped into her, gave life to her plastic grimace.

"Names are important," she said. She wanted to add something to it something to that sentence, something to make it his alone. 'Marc' didn't seem right; she still remembered the sting of him using her name.

"More than you know, pet."

"That's not fair, you know."

"What isn't?"

"You get to call me those damn names. You know what they do to me."

"And what do they do?"

She lifted her hands from the varnished console where they gloried in the strum of his Power. They floated to him, to his cheeks. The clamped him, and he yielded, eyes closed. They guided him to her, and their lips sealed for the briefest year.

"They do that." She let him come up for air, just one gulp, then sucked it from his lungs. "And that."

"You're not the only one, precious pet." His smile, once glowing, faded bit by bit. Like the sun, it dipped below some horizon, and that light dimmed to but a play on distant clouds. "Little one," he whispered. "I don't know how to say this."

She tilted her head to one side, her own smile dimming to match his.

For the first time, she saw that confidence in his eyes crack. For the first time, he did not dovetail his words into hers. For the first time, they looked at each other in that uneasy silence of neither's choosing.

His eyes closed first. The corner of his mouth twitched, but neither smile nor frown. It spasmed, just once. His hands reached out, groped, found her shoulder and worked their way down. Two to one, they embraced her left hand, then guided it to the union of his legs.

"Pet... I don't know how to say this. I..." He swallowed. His eyes squeezed a bit tighter, and he pressed their hands three against his pride. It was firm, ready. Then, with her hand pressed against it, it deflated.

"This is nothing more to me than any other..."

"Shhh..." She laid the index finger of her free across his quivering lips. "It's okay. I know. That's not what drives me mad." She tapped his temple. "This is."

His eyes opened. "You know?"

She nodded. "I know. It's nothing magical. It's completely under your control. No risk, no rush. Right?"

He nodded. "How did you..." His mouth closed, teeth clicking. "Oh."

"It doesn't matter how I know. It doesn't matter who. It only matters that this..." she gave him a squeeze. "That this doesn't define you."

He kissed her. No Power, no hunger. Just a kiss. Just a kiss.

===

"So you're saying you can just make it happen, like that?"

They lounged again in the cabin with the wetbar, bare skin against burgundy leather. Their bodies laid at right angles on the sections; their feet toyed with one another in the corner section.

He nodded. "See? Up... down... up... down..."

"And getting there?"

"There, pet?"

"You know. That little eruption."

"Ah, you mean like this?"

"Oh my gosh! Let me get a towel. Or should I..."

"What do you feel you should do, little one?"

"Bastard. You are such a damned bastard."

"Why, pet?"

"Such a damned..."

The soft sound of lapping finished her thought.