| Fantasy Fiction posted July 24, 2018 |
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What if your pieces weren't actually broken?
Pieces of Paradise Found
by Y. M. Roger
To Arms, to arms Contest Winner
The author has placed a warning on this post for language.
The author has placed a warning on this post for sexual content.
The distant growl of thunder rumbled through the bedroom. And through me.
I ventured a single squint – no, the sun had not yet risen. I opened further to focus on the clock – not even five yet. Then the rest of my body got with the program, and I wished it hadn’t.
Good heavens, my head hurt! And so did…other parts. But they hurt in a good way. My head? Not so much.
I took my first deep breath of the April morning and turned slowly so as not to wake…my searching hand found only a cold, empty side of the bed.
Sigh. Why I had thought he would actually still be there, I was not sure. I had never done a one night stand – a stranger in my house? In my bed? Pretty sure I would not survive the anxiety that would cause. But it had been my birthday, and, with him, there had been no hesitation. I could still feel the visceral attraction between the two of us – his striking blue eyes boring into my mind; his hands roaming over my body; his hot breath on my neck, down my back, between my legs…Whoa! My thighs were starting to ache again as that thunder began to crawl repeatedly across the sky.
Wait. Was it really thunder? The booming seemed more of a continuous wave of the same roaring, regenerating itself over and over and…planes! Jets, actually – lots and lots of jets!
I leapt up and began searching frantically for clothes; we had just hurriedly dropped things, something for which my mind was now chastising me. Vibrations shook the floors as backdrop to the jets. I stopped, trying to get a handle on my racing thoughts as too much chaos swirled around me. First, I had to make the bed. Airplanes or not, I had to put that in its proper place. I inhaled his scent on the pillow on which he had lain? Slept? I wasn’t sure, but it was proof outside my mind that he had actually been here with me, inside of me…
A noise from the kitchen broke through my thoughts and the distant resonating bass outside. Squeezing my eyes shut to steady myself, I cautiously opened them and forced myself to walk quickly past the unfinished bed, tip-toeing from the bedroom to peak into the kitchen.
“Good morning, precious,” he said, his lustrous raven hair falling atop his shoulders and down that gorgeously sculpted back. That same barely perceptible visual distortion above and around the area surrounding his upper body still lingered; however, this time the disturbance seemed to have more definition – it was more rounded along the top, and there seemed to be subtle sketching within illusory boundaries. Although, just as it had when I first noticed it last evening, my mind found no reason to question its presence, no caution to employ other than to simply dismiss it. And given those low-riding jeans fitted to that perfect ass? Yeah, there was no distortion in the fact that even his bare feet were sexy as sin from my vantage point.
Suddenly, the unmade bed and that thunder and even those planes did not seem so important. He was not facing me, yet I felt my body respond to his voice. Taking another sip from his mug, he slowly turned toward me.
“Made your coffee when,” that crooked grin of his immediately elicited a return smile of my own, “I fel- heard you wake.” He indicated a mug on the countertop beside him.
His intense stare triggered a flashback to last night, to that moment when I had spotted him striding through all the people on the arena floor.
There were others his height and build clearly searching the masses; although, I simply concluded they were security guards. Standing off to the side near the concert door, I knew I could only take the crowds a little bit at a time. Suddenly, there was this god – this obsidian-haired Adonis that seemingly towered over the mob – walking in my direction. The throng seemed to part without prompting as he moved through them, his cerulean eyes blazing through me even from a distance. I looked behind and to the doorway to find on whom his intensity was focused. When I turned back, he was right there, close enough to touch.
And I had wanted, needed, to do just that, touch him. I raised my face to look into his eyes, feeling my body drawn to his. My head screamed at me to do what I wanted, to touch.
“Finally,” he commented, leaning slightly toward me and taking a deep breath. His charming grin illuminated his face as he held his open palm to me, “Let’s step outside where it’s quieter.”
Shaking away the memory that renewed a physical need for his caress, I mentally prepared myself to act as though I liked the preparation – I was insanely picky about my coffee blend. Always had been. It was one of about a thousand OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) issues that I was in constant pursuit of overcoming. It was a perpetual quest I would never win.
I stood facing the counter and raised the mug to my lips. Just as the hot liquid reached my tongue, I felt his warm body press against my backside. His large arms snaked around my lower abdomen to pull me firmly against him, his obvious erection nestled in the middle of my lower back. I quietly inhaled, whether from my surprise at the perfect coffee or from the desire that zinged through me at our contact, I wasn’t sure. I closed my eyes and let my head relax against his solid chest. The rumbling there was all I heard before his breathy words filled my ear.
“OCD is a human construct, precious,” his huge palm spread across my stomach as his hold on me tightened, “You, on the other hand, are perfect.” He dragged his nose through my hair, inhaling deeply, “And your coffee is just as you prefer.”
I hummed in almost hypnotic agreement as I swallowed a delicious mouthful, feeling his touch in places I knew his hands were not. Or maybe they were. Both my trembling arms and my weak knees certainly thought they were. Another insight from last night flashed brilliantly across my mind.
He’d practically sat beside me instead of across my kitchen table corner; his essence filling all of my senses; our legs somewhat entwined. Yet, there was no mental protestation to his proximity – I sat solely and effortlessly focused on him as we conversed, my being rejoicing at the freedom. We shared the wine we bought on the way home as we talked about me; nothing about him, although he had quite obviously been enjoying himself.
He refilled my glass. It was the last of the bottle of which he had essentially drank most, and, honestly? I detected no change in his speech or demeanor, and his eyes were certainly no less intense.
“Feels good to have you home safely,” he breathed the words so quietly I almost missed them.
I voiced a self-deprecating snicker, raising my eyebrows in question as I drank.
His hand then moved to my thigh – the pressure and contact uncharacteristically welcome – although his voice changed to a decidedly more authoritative tone.
“You and I are more alike than you know, precious,” that was the first time he had used that declaration, “what you are, Charlie,” he leaned toward me, “all the chaos, all the compulsions, everything that makes you YOU,…that seed has been growing for generations,” he finished his wine and pulled me gently toward him.
“Tonight is about reconciliation,” his lips on mine stole my breath and ignited my body. Without breaking the kiss, he tugged me to stand with him, effortlessly lifting me against him. My legs instinctively wrapped around him so that I could feel his hardness press upward against my center. “Tonight,” he growled, “I claim what is ours to begin anew.”
His lips crashed back upon mine.
The thunder resounding through the house jolted me back to the present as another wave of jets roared overhead. My eyes flew open, my head and mind screaming not to let him go; that each time he was this close it could think clearly; that there was no crippling psychic storm at his contact. That my headache had actually disappeared…but, before I could address any of those mental pleas or regain complete focus on my surroundings, he took a playful yet quite firm nip of my shoulder near my neck.
“Stay inside, and work on your designs as you had planned,” his teeth on my ear this time, his authority implied but not threatening, “and do not worry, precious, you are safe.” Another nip as he squeezed tightly once more before releasing me, “Until later.”
His separation left me missing him immediately, both mentally and physically. I’m pretty sure a whimper escaped my mouth before I shut it tightly so as not to embarrass myself. His sensual chuckles were already receding as I turned around.
To an empty kitchen.
I was about to call out to him but had to grab the countertop instead when the house shook once again, this time more intensely than during previous rumblings. That was followed by what could only be the sound of…it couldn’t be! Gunfire? Yes, off in the distance somewhere, that was gunfire.
I tried to get hold of my thoughts and my reality.
Striding swiftly to open the living room blinds, the revelation was shocking. The entire sky burned a pained ruddiness, so much more intense than any sunset I’d seen. There, although my house faced north, brilliant crimsons and golds emanated from a central locus. They illuminated the canopy unlike even the sun was able. Fighter jets streaked across the anomaly, etching trails of fine rose against the scarlet layered therein. Paired with those thunderous booms, plumes of smoke blossomed along the angry horizon, each plume the termination of one of those blushing-pink trails. Straining my eyes, I realized there were what initially registered as paratroopers falling through the radiant center – hundreds perhaps thousands of them – their silhouettes flooding through the unbelievable panorama. On closer inspection, however, I realized those “paratroopers” were actually maneuvering and engaging the jets. Gasping, I dropped the blinds and turned into the room.
In a paralyzing psychological panic, I looked down at my clothing and then around at my living space – my mind screaming at all the problems herein. I needed to brush my teeth, to fix my hair, to … Good heavens! I was still in pajamas! My bed was still unmade! And there were dirty mugs out; and he had probably left the coffee grounds; and where was he? Would he be safe? Wait! Now my blinds were no longer aligned! And there was an air war happening outside my neighborhood – one that the things emanating from a hole in the sky seemed to be winning! I closed my eyes, trying to breathe evenly, trying desperately to clear the storm in my head.
Fiercely seeking to order the chaos…
More gunfire. This time closer, more insistent. It jolted my colliding anxieties into physical action. Straightening the blinds completely, I then rushed to sooth the kitchen’s appearance. I knew the trick to working through a crisis: fix things closest to me and then work my way outward.
Which is what I did until everything in my house, including me, was as it should be.
Periodically, I would peak outside at the slowly calming pandemonium. The jets had stopped as had the ground-trembling explosions. The silhouettes now flowed both into and out of the star-like phenomenon, and, after what resembled the serial ignition of hundreds of fireworks when I was in the shower, there had been only sporadic gunfire here and there.
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop, the circuit designs flowing from my mind with less effort than I’d had to exert in years, when I was startled by a banging on the front door.
I slowly opened the door to a handful of soldiers in full combat gear, their boots already painting my tiny front porch with scuff marks.
“Is everything okay, ma’am?”
I tried desperately to process his inquiry as one of them spat on the grass beside my front step. He didn’t mean anything belligerent by the action; some distant part of my mind knew it was probably just habit. But it was the other part screaming about its wrongness and about the countless black marks accumulating from their boots that I heard.
“Wh-Why-y…?” was all I managed to stammer out before something dripped onto my forehead.
I reached up and swiped my finger through the liquid. Just as I was pulling it away to look at it, I noticed the dead lamb in my front yard. So beautiful, yet, its throat was slit. I felt my eyes widen and my stomach heave as I pulled my focus past my finger, trying hopelessly to re-focus on the soldier. But the mental storm was building too quickly; I could already feel my headache returning.
He raised a gloved hand to the doorframe. “Because of all this…” he swiped the thick crimson liquid there and further indicated the frame’s top and other side. He sniffed it. “Blood!” he barked at me and stepped back, taking his weapon in hand, “Your fucking doorframe is covered in blood, lady! Whose blood is it?!”
His comrades, in turn, brandished their weapons. Suddenly, behind them, five angels lighted out of the sky to land swiftly yet so very measuredly on the lawn. Angels?!
I closed my eyes and shook my head, panicking; surely I had finally cracked like all those specialists had warned my parents I would do:
“Without the medications, reality itself will become too much for her.”
But those truly were angels adorned with body-length gray-white wings and armed with swords that reflected the still somewhat carmine hue of the day. They advanced forward as the soldiers, all except the one who had yelled at me, turned in unison to face them. That one soldier’s unbelieving focus fell somewhere behind me, his rifle still trained on me.
It was then that I felt the pressure in my head subside, and the silent mental screaming ceased. The warmth I felt approaching from behind was unmistakable. When his large hand landed on my lower back, I felt all of the chaos and the fear and the confusion drain out of me. I leaned into his touch, feeling his deep hum of approval.
“Lamb’s blood,” Michael’s authoritative voice stated so matter-of-factly as he reached forward and effortlessly pinched the rifle’s muzzle shut.
Before he or the other soldiers could react, I watched in utter amazement as the barrels on each of their weapons arced downward. Immediately, they cursed and dropped their weapons, the now-useless metal frames scorching wherever they landed. I reached behind me and grabbed hold of Michael’s beltloop, my body simply needing that anchor as the events played out in front of me.
His next words spoken over me were to the five angels in an unknown language that, somehow, my head related “Take them. No mercy for resistance.”
One of the younger-looking angels circled behind the men; he turned and playfully winked at me before departing. I felt myself smile at him, even as I glanced at my blood-covered finger again and turned toward Michael – my questioning eyes immediately finding his reassuring ones.
His hand reached out and removed the blood using his thumb and forefinger. He smiled adoringly as he spoke, gently wiping my forehead, “Ignore Sariel,” he indicated the retreating angel. “He is quite full of himself,” he stated playfully.
Michael sweepingly pointed to the doorframe, “This was a necessary marker for Azrael.”
Following his hand’s motion, my eyes were captured by the magnificent, glistening black wings that rose proudly from his shoulders to arch elegantly above his head.
“You see them now, precious?”
He smiled warmly in response to my amazed nod as he reached down and reverently touched my lower abdomen.
“Then our union is complete,” he leaned in and breathed deeply, his smile so blinding I felt it inside of me. “Most humans cannot see our true nature,” he added casually as he urged me forward and closed the door. He walked us down steps that were now spotless, past an empty spot where the lamb had lain.
“After the last great human war, we placed undetectable pieces of us in humans, just enough to slowly alter certain susceptible DNA strands through the generations while we planned and waited.”
My brain – my calm, unhindered brain! – understood he was referencing the middle of the last century.
Other angels, their wings of various colors and shapes, appeared. Each beautifully sculpted and armed with a sword; each acknowledging Michael and even me as they floated or walked by. Some were accompanied by people; some had people in tow.
“Those seeds grew until twenty-two years ago when their fruition was realized, setting our plans for today firmly in motion.”
The entire scene with a true entrance to the heavens as backdrop was breathtaking as were Michael’s words … until the “twenty-two”. Tuning to face him, I frowned in perplexity.
“Angels were created to be eternal, not to reproduce,” a fleeting hint of anger flashed in those cerulean depths, “It was a governor, of sorts, on our powers.”
I couldn’t help but bewilderedly wrinkle my forehead further. I was still missing something.
Michael’s laughter was the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard.
“You, precious, are the key to our dominion on Earth,” he pulled me against him, my back to his front, large hand possessively palming my lower abdomen.
“What was yesterday for you?” he whispered in my ear.
My frown rebounded into wonderment. “My twenty-second birthday!”
Michael indicated everything around us with one sweeping motion, “Happy Birthday, my precious Charlie.”
The distant growl of thunder rumbled through the bedroom. And through me.
I ventured a single squint – no, the sun had not yet risen. I opened further to focus on the clock – not even five yet. Then the rest of my body got with the program, and I wished it hadn’t.
Good heavens, my head hurt! And so did…other parts. But they hurt in a good way. My head? Not so much.
I took my first deep breath of the April morning and turned slowly so as not to wake…my searching hand found only a cold, empty side of the bed.
Sigh. Why I had thought he would actually still be there, I was not sure. I had never done a one night stand – a stranger in my house? In my bed? Pretty sure I would not survive the anxiety that would cause. But it had been my birthday, and, with him, there had been no hesitation. I could still feel the visceral attraction between the two of us – his striking blue eyes boring into my mind; his hands roaming over my body; his hot breath on my neck, down my back, between my legs…Whoa! My thighs were starting to ache again as that thunder began to crawl repeatedly across the sky.
Wait. Was it really thunder? The booming seemed more of a continuous wave of the same roaring, regenerating itself over and over and…planes! Jets, actually – lots and lots of jets!
I leapt up and began searching frantically for clothes; we had just hurriedly dropped things, something for which my mind was now chastising me. Vibrations shook the floors as backdrop to the jets. I stopped, trying to get a handle on my racing thoughts as too much chaos swirled around me. First, I had to make the bed. Airplanes or not, I had to put that in its proper place. I inhaled his scent on the pillow on which he had lain? Slept? I wasn’t sure, but it was proof outside my mind that he had actually been here with me, inside of me…
A noise from the kitchen broke through my thoughts and the distant resonating bass outside. Squeezing my eyes shut to steady myself, I cautiously opened them and forced myself to walk quickly past the unfinished bed, tip-toeing from the bedroom to peak into the kitchen.
“Good morning, precious,” he said, his lustrous raven hair falling atop his shoulders and down that gorgeously sculpted back. That same barely perceptible visual distortion above and around the area surrounding his upper body still lingered; however, this time the disturbance seemed to have more definition – it was more rounded along the top, and there seemed to be subtle sketching within illusory boundaries. Although, just as it had when I first noticed it last evening, my mind found no reason to question its presence, no caution to employ other than to simply dismiss it. And given those low-riding jeans fitted to that perfect ass? Yeah, there was no distortion in the fact that even his bare feet were sexy as sin from my vantage point.
Suddenly, the unmade bed and that thunder and even those planes did not seem so important. He was not facing me, yet I felt my body respond to his voice. Taking another sip from his mug, he slowly turned toward me.
“Made your coffee when,” that crooked grin of his immediately elicited a return smile of my own, “I fel- heard you wake.” He indicated a mug on the countertop beside him.
His intense stare triggered a flashback to last night, to that moment when I had spotted him striding through all the people on the arena floor.
There were others his height and build clearly searching the masses; although, I simply concluded they were security guards. Standing off to the side near the concert door, I knew I could only take the crowds a little bit at a time. Suddenly, there was this god – this obsidian-haired Adonis that seemingly towered over the mob – walking in my direction. The throng seemed to part without prompting as he moved through them, his cerulean eyes blazing through me even from a distance. I looked behind and to the doorway to find on whom his intensity was focused. When I turned back, he was right there, close enough to touch.
And I had wanted, needed, to do just that, touch him. I raised my face to look into his eyes, feeling my body drawn to his. My head screamed at me to do what I wanted, to touch.
“Finally,” he commented, leaning slightly toward me and taking a deep breath. His charming grin illuminated his face as he held his open palm to me, “Let’s step outside where it’s quieter.”
Shaking away the memory that renewed a physical need for his caress, I mentally prepared myself to act as though I liked the preparation – I was insanely picky about my coffee blend. Always had been. It was one of about a thousand OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) issues that I was in constant pursuit of overcoming. It was a perpetual quest I would never win.
I stood facing the counter and raised the mug to my lips. Just as the hot liquid reached my tongue, I felt his warm body press against my backside. His large arms snaked around my lower abdomen to pull me firmly against him, his obvious erection nestled in the middle of my lower back. I quietly inhaled, whether from my surprise at the perfect coffee or from the desire that zinged through me at our contact, I wasn’t sure. I closed my eyes and let my head relax against his solid chest. The rumbling there was all I heard before his breathy words filled my ear.
“OCD is a human construct, precious,” his huge palm spread across my stomach as his hold on me tightened, “You, on the other hand, are perfect.” He dragged his nose through my hair, inhaling deeply, “And your coffee is just as you prefer.”
I hummed in almost hypnotic agreement as I swallowed a delicious mouthful, feeling his touch in places I knew his hands were not. Or maybe they were. Both my trembling arms and my weak knees certainly thought they were. Another insight from last night flashed brilliantly across my mind.
He’d practically sat beside me instead of across my kitchen table corner; his essence filling all of my senses; our legs somewhat entwined. Yet, there was no mental protestation to his proximity – I sat solely and effortlessly focused on him as we conversed, my being rejoicing at the freedom. We shared the wine we bought on the way home as we talked about me; nothing about him, although he had quite obviously been enjoying himself.
He refilled my glass. It was the last of the bottle of which he had essentially drank most, and, honestly? I detected no change in his speech or demeanor, and his eyes were certainly no less intense.
“Feels good to have you home safely,” he breathed the words so quietly I almost missed them.
I voiced a self-deprecating snicker, raising my eyebrows in question as I drank.
His hand then moved to my thigh – the pressure and contact uncharacteristically welcome – although his voice changed to a decidedly more authoritative tone.
“You and I are more alike than you know, precious,” that was the first time he had used that declaration, “what you are, Charlie,” he leaned toward me, “all the chaos, all the compulsions, everything that makes you YOU,…that seed has been growing for generations,” he finished his wine and pulled me gently toward him.
“Tonight is about reconciliation,” his lips on mine stole my breath and ignited my body. Without breaking the kiss, he tugged me to stand with him, effortlessly lifting me against him. My legs instinctively wrapped around him so that I could feel his hardness press upward against my center. “Tonight,” he growled, “I claim what is ours to begin anew.”
His lips crashed back upon mine.
The thunder resounding through the house jolted me back to the present as another wave of jets roared overhead. My eyes flew open, my head and mind screaming not to let him go; that each time he was this close it could think clearly; that there was no crippling psychic storm at his contact. That my headache had actually disappeared…but, before I could address any of those mental pleas or regain complete focus on my surroundings, he took a playful yet quite firm nip of my shoulder near my neck.
“Stay inside, and work on your designs as you had planned,” his teeth on my ear this time, his authority implied but not threatening, “and do not worry, precious, you are safe.” Another nip as he squeezed tightly once more before releasing me, “Until later.”
His separation left me missing him immediately, both mentally and physically. I’m pretty sure a whimper escaped my mouth before I shut it tightly so as not to embarrass myself. His sensual chuckles were already receding as I turned around.
To an empty kitchen.
I was about to call out to him but had to grab the countertop instead when the house shook once again, this time more intensely than during previous rumblings. That was followed by what could only be the sound of…it couldn’t be! Gunfire? Yes, off in the distance somewhere, that was gunfire.
I tried to get hold of my thoughts and my reality.
Striding swiftly to open the living room blinds, the revelation was shocking. The entire sky burned a pained ruddiness, so much more intense than any sunset I’d seen. There, although my house faced north, brilliant crimsons and golds emanated from a central locus. They illuminated the canopy unlike even the sun was able. Fighter jets streaked across the anomaly, etching trails of fine rose against the scarlet layered therein. Paired with those thunderous booms, plumes of smoke blossomed along the angry horizon, each plume the termination of one of those blushing-pink trails. Straining my eyes, I realized there were what initially registered as paratroopers falling through the radiant center – hundreds perhaps thousands of them – their silhouettes flooding through the unbelievable panorama. On closer inspection, however, I realized those “paratroopers” were actually maneuvering and engaging the jets. Gasping, I dropped the blinds and turned into the room.
In a paralyzing psychological panic, I looked down at my clothing and then around at my living space – my mind screaming at all the problems herein. I needed to brush my teeth, to fix my hair, to … Good heavens! I was still in pajamas! My bed was still unmade! And there were dirty mugs out; and he had probably left the coffee grounds; and where was he? Would he be safe? Wait! Now my blinds were no longer aligned! And there was an air war happening outside my neighborhood – one that the things emanating from a hole in the sky seemed to be winning! I closed my eyes, trying to breathe evenly, trying desperately to clear the storm in my head.
Fiercely seeking to order the chaos…
More gunfire. This time closer, more insistent. It jolted my colliding anxieties into physical action. Straightening the blinds completely, I then rushed to sooth the kitchen’s appearance. I knew the trick to working through a crisis: fix things closest to me and then work my way outward.
Which is what I did until everything in my house, including me, was as it should be.
Periodically, I would peak outside at the slowly calming pandemonium. The jets had stopped as had the ground-trembling explosions. The silhouettes now flowed both into and out of the star-like phenomenon, and, after what resembled the serial ignition of hundreds of fireworks when I was in the shower, there had been only sporadic gunfire here and there.
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop, the circuit designs flowing from my mind with less effort than I’d had to exert in years, when I was startled by a banging on the front door.
I slowly opened the door to a handful of soldiers in full combat gear, their boots already painting my tiny front porch with scuff marks.
“Is everything okay, ma’am?”
I tried desperately to process his inquiry as one of them spat on the grass beside my front step. He didn’t mean anything belligerent by the action; some distant part of my mind knew it was probably just habit. But it was the other part screaming about its wrongness and about the countless black marks accumulating from their boots that I heard.
“Wh-Why-y…?” was all I managed to stammer out before something dripped onto my forehead.
I reached up and swiped my finger through the liquid. Just as I was pulling it away to look at it, I noticed the dead lamb in my front yard. So beautiful, yet, its throat was slit. I felt my eyes widen and my stomach heave as I pulled my focus past my finger, trying hopelessly to re-focus on the soldier. But the mental storm was building too quickly; I could already feel my headache returning.
He raised a gloved hand to the doorframe. “Because of all this…” he swiped the thick crimson liquid there and further indicated the frame’s top and other side. He sniffed it. “Blood!” he barked at me and stepped back, taking his weapon in hand, “Your fucking doorframe is covered in blood, lady! Whose blood is it?!”
His comrades, in turn, brandished their weapons. Suddenly, behind them, five angels lighted out of the sky to land swiftly yet so very measuredly on the lawn. Angels?!
I closed my eyes and shook my head, panicking; surely I had finally cracked like all those specialists had warned my parents I would do:
“Without the medications, reality itself will become too much for her.”
But those truly were angels adorned with body-length gray-white wings and armed with swords that reflected the still somewhat carmine hue of the day. They advanced forward as the soldiers, all except the one who had yelled at me, turned in unison to face them. That one soldier’s unbelieving focus fell somewhere behind me, his rifle still trained on me.
It was then that I felt the pressure in my head subside, and the silent mental screaming ceased. The warmth I felt approaching from behind was unmistakable. When his large hand landed on my lower back, I felt all of the chaos and the fear and the confusion drain out of me. I leaned into his touch, feeling his deep hum of approval.
“Lamb’s blood,” Michael’s authoritative voice stated so matter-of-factly as he reached forward and effortlessly pinched the rifle’s muzzle shut.
Before he or the other soldiers could react, I watched in utter amazement as the barrels on each of their weapons arced downward. Immediately, they cursed and dropped their weapons, the now-useless metal frames scorching wherever they landed. I reached behind me and grabbed hold of Michael’s beltloop, my body simply needing that anchor as the events played out in front of me.
His next words spoken over me were to the five angels in an unknown language that, somehow, my head related “Take them. No mercy for resistance.”
One of the younger-looking angels circled behind the men; he turned and playfully winked at me before departing. I felt myself smile at him, even as I glanced at my blood-covered finger again and turned toward Michael – my questioning eyes immediately finding his reassuring ones.
His hand reached out and removed the blood using his thumb and forefinger. He smiled adoringly as he spoke, gently wiping my forehead, “Ignore Sariel,” he indicated the retreating angel. “He is quite full of himself,” he stated playfully.
Michael sweepingly pointed to the doorframe, “This was a necessary marker for Azrael.”
Following his hand’s motion, my eyes were captured by the magnificent, glistening black wings that rose proudly from his shoulders to arch elegantly above his head.
“You see them now, precious?”
He smiled warmly in response to my amazed nod as he reached down and reverently touched my lower abdomen.
“Then our union is complete,” he leaned in and breathed deeply, his smile so blinding I felt it inside of me. “Most humans cannot see our true nature,” he added casually as he urged me forward and closed the door. He walked us down steps that were now spotless, past an empty spot where the lamb had lain.
“After the last great human war, we placed undetectable pieces of us in humans, just enough to slowly alter certain susceptible DNA strands through the generations while we planned and waited.”
My brain – my calm, unhindered brain! – understood he was referencing the middle of the last century.
Other angels, their wings of various colors and shapes, appeared. Each beautifully sculpted and armed with a sword; each acknowledging Michael and even me as they floated or walked by. Some were accompanied by people; some had people in tow.
“Those seeds grew until twenty-two years ago when their fruition was realized, setting our plans for today firmly in motion.”
The entire scene with a true entrance to the heavens as backdrop was breathtaking as were Michael’s words … until the “twenty-two”. Tuning to face him, I frowned in perplexity.
“Angels were created to be eternal, not to reproduce,” a fleeting hint of anger flashed in those cerulean depths, “It was a governor, of sorts, on our powers.”
I couldn’t help but bewilderedly wrinkle my forehead further. I was still missing something.
Michael’s laughter was the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard.
“You, precious, are the key to our dominion on Earth,” he pulled me against him, my back to his front, large hand possessively palming my lower abdomen.
“What was yesterday for you?” he whispered in my ear.
My frown rebounded into wonderment. “My twenty-second birthday!”
Michael indicated everything around us with one sweeping motion, “Happy Birthday, my precious Charlie.”
I ventured a single squint – no, the sun had not yet risen. I opened further to focus on the clock – not even five yet. Then the rest of my body got with the program, and I wished it hadn’t.
Good heavens, my head hurt! And so did…other parts. But they hurt in a good way. My head? Not so much.
I took my first deep breath of the April morning and turned slowly so as not to wake…my searching hand found only a cold, empty side of the bed.
Sigh. Why I had thought he would actually still be there, I was not sure. I had never done a one night stand – a stranger in my house? In my bed? Pretty sure I would not survive the anxiety that would cause. But it had been my birthday, and, with him, there had been no hesitation. I could still feel the visceral attraction between the two of us – his striking blue eyes boring into my mind; his hands roaming over my body; his hot breath on my neck, down my back, between my legs…Whoa! My thighs were starting to ache again as that thunder began to crawl repeatedly across the sky.
Wait. Was it really thunder? The booming seemed more of a continuous wave of the same roaring, regenerating itself over and over and…planes! Jets, actually – lots and lots of jets!
I leapt up and began searching frantically for clothes; we had just hurriedly dropped things, something for which my mind was now chastising me. Vibrations shook the floors as backdrop to the jets. I stopped, trying to get a handle on my racing thoughts as too much chaos swirled around me. First, I had to make the bed. Airplanes or not, I had to put that in its proper place. I inhaled his scent on the pillow on which he had lain? Slept? I wasn’t sure, but it was proof outside my mind that he had actually been here with me, inside of me…
A noise from the kitchen broke through my thoughts and the distant resonating bass outside. Squeezing my eyes shut to steady myself, I cautiously opened them and forced myself to walk quickly past the unfinished bed, tip-toeing from the bedroom to peak into the kitchen.
“Good morning, precious,” he said, his lustrous raven hair falling atop his shoulders and down that gorgeously sculpted back. That same barely perceptible visual distortion above and around the area surrounding his upper body still lingered; however, this time the disturbance seemed to have more definition – it was more rounded along the top, and there seemed to be subtle sketching within illusory boundaries. Although, just as it had when I first noticed it last evening, my mind found no reason to question its presence, no caution to employ other than to simply dismiss it. And given those low-riding jeans fitted to that perfect ass? Yeah, there was no distortion in the fact that even his bare feet were sexy as sin from my vantage point.
Suddenly, the unmade bed and that thunder and even those planes did not seem so important. He was not facing me, yet I felt my body respond to his voice. Taking another sip from his mug, he slowly turned toward me.
“Made your coffee when,” that crooked grin of his immediately elicited a return smile of my own, “I fel- heard you wake.” He indicated a mug on the countertop beside him.
His intense stare triggered a flashback to last night, to that moment when I had spotted him striding through all the people on the arena floor.
There were others his height and build clearly searching the masses; although, I simply concluded they were security guards. Standing off to the side near the concert door, I knew I could only take the crowds a little bit at a time. Suddenly, there was this god – this obsidian-haired Adonis that seemingly towered over the mob – walking in my direction. The throng seemed to part without prompting as he moved through them, his cerulean eyes blazing through me even from a distance. I looked behind and to the doorway to find on whom his intensity was focused. When I turned back, he was right there, close enough to touch.
And I had wanted, needed, to do just that, touch him. I raised my face to look into his eyes, feeling my body drawn to his. My head screamed at me to do what I wanted, to touch.
“Finally,” he commented, leaning slightly toward me and taking a deep breath. His charming grin illuminated his face as he held his open palm to me, “Let’s step outside where it’s quieter.”
Shaking away the memory that renewed a physical need for his caress, I mentally prepared myself to act as though I liked the preparation – I was insanely picky about my coffee blend. Always had been. It was one of about a thousand OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) issues that I was in constant pursuit of overcoming. It was a perpetual quest I would never win.
I stood facing the counter and raised the mug to my lips. Just as the hot liquid reached my tongue, I felt his warm body press against my backside. His large arms snaked around my lower abdomen to pull me firmly against him, his obvious erection nestled in the middle of my lower back. I quietly inhaled, whether from my surprise at the perfect coffee or from the desire that zinged through me at our contact, I wasn’t sure. I closed my eyes and let my head relax against his solid chest. The rumbling there was all I heard before his breathy words filled my ear.
“OCD is a human construct, precious,” his huge palm spread across my stomach as his hold on me tightened, “You, on the other hand, are perfect.” He dragged his nose through my hair, inhaling deeply, “And your coffee is just as you prefer.”
I hummed in almost hypnotic agreement as I swallowed a delicious mouthful, feeling his touch in places I knew his hands were not. Or maybe they were. Both my trembling arms and my weak knees certainly thought they were. Another insight from last night flashed brilliantly across my mind.
He’d practically sat beside me instead of across my kitchen table corner; his essence filling all of my senses; our legs somewhat entwined. Yet, there was no mental protestation to his proximity – I sat solely and effortlessly focused on him as we conversed, my being rejoicing at the freedom. We shared the wine we bought on the way home as we talked about me; nothing about him, although he had quite obviously been enjoying himself.
He refilled my glass. It was the last of the bottle of which he had essentially drank most, and, honestly? I detected no change in his speech or demeanor, and his eyes were certainly no less intense.
“Feels good to have you home safely,” he breathed the words so quietly I almost missed them.
I voiced a self-deprecating snicker, raising my eyebrows in question as I drank.
His hand then moved to my thigh – the pressure and contact uncharacteristically welcome – although his voice changed to a decidedly more authoritative tone.
“You and I are more alike than you know, precious,” that was the first time he had used that declaration, “what you are, Charlie,” he leaned toward me, “all the chaos, all the compulsions, everything that makes you YOU,…that seed has been growing for generations,” he finished his wine and pulled me gently toward him.
“Tonight is about reconciliation,” his lips on mine stole my breath and ignited my body. Without breaking the kiss, he tugged me to stand with him, effortlessly lifting me against him. My legs instinctively wrapped around him so that I could feel his hardness press upward against my center. “Tonight,” he growled, “I claim what is ours to begin anew.”
His lips crashed back upon mine.
The thunder resounding through the house jolted me back to the present as another wave of jets roared overhead. My eyes flew open, my head and mind screaming not to let him go; that each time he was this close it could think clearly; that there was no crippling psychic storm at his contact. That my headache had actually disappeared…but, before I could address any of those mental pleas or regain complete focus on my surroundings, he took a playful yet quite firm nip of my shoulder near my neck.
“Stay inside, and work on your designs as you had planned,” his teeth on my ear this time, his authority implied but not threatening, “and do not worry, precious, you are safe.” Another nip as he squeezed tightly once more before releasing me, “Until later.”
His separation left me missing him immediately, both mentally and physically. I’m pretty sure a whimper escaped my mouth before I shut it tightly so as not to embarrass myself. His sensual chuckles were already receding as I turned around.
To an empty kitchen.
I was about to call out to him but had to grab the countertop instead when the house shook once again, this time more intensely than during previous rumblings. That was followed by what could only be the sound of…it couldn’t be! Gunfire? Yes, off in the distance somewhere, that was gunfire.
I tried to get hold of my thoughts and my reality.
Striding swiftly to open the living room blinds, the revelation was shocking. The entire sky burned a pained ruddiness, so much more intense than any sunset I’d seen. There, although my house faced north, brilliant crimsons and golds emanated from a central locus. They illuminated the canopy unlike even the sun was able. Fighter jets streaked across the anomaly, etching trails of fine rose against the scarlet layered therein. Paired with those thunderous booms, plumes of smoke blossomed along the angry horizon, each plume the termination of one of those blushing-pink trails. Straining my eyes, I realized there were what initially registered as paratroopers falling through the radiant center – hundreds perhaps thousands of them – their silhouettes flooding through the unbelievable panorama. On closer inspection, however, I realized those “paratroopers” were actually maneuvering and engaging the jets. Gasping, I dropped the blinds and turned into the room.
In a paralyzing psychological panic, I looked down at my clothing and then around at my living space – my mind screaming at all the problems herein. I needed to brush my teeth, to fix my hair, to … Good heavens! I was still in pajamas! My bed was still unmade! And there were dirty mugs out; and he had probably left the coffee grounds; and where was he? Would he be safe? Wait! Now my blinds were no longer aligned! And there was an air war happening outside my neighborhood – one that the things emanating from a hole in the sky seemed to be winning! I closed my eyes, trying to breathe evenly, trying desperately to clear the storm in my head.
Fiercely seeking to order the chaos…
More gunfire. This time closer, more insistent. It jolted my colliding anxieties into physical action. Straightening the blinds completely, I then rushed to sooth the kitchen’s appearance. I knew the trick to working through a crisis: fix things closest to me and then work my way outward.
Which is what I did until everything in my house, including me, was as it should be.
Periodically, I would peak outside at the slowly calming pandemonium. The jets had stopped as had the ground-trembling explosions. The silhouettes now flowed both into and out of the star-like phenomenon, and, after what resembled the serial ignition of hundreds of fireworks when I was in the shower, there had been only sporadic gunfire here and there.
I was sitting at the kitchen table working on my laptop, the circuit designs flowing from my mind with less effort than I’d had to exert in years, when I was startled by a banging on the front door.
I slowly opened the door to a handful of soldiers in full combat gear, their boots already painting my tiny front porch with scuff marks.
“Is everything okay, ma’am?”
I tried desperately to process his inquiry as one of them spat on the grass beside my front step. He didn’t mean anything belligerent by the action; some distant part of my mind knew it was probably just habit. But it was the other part screaming about its wrongness and about the countless black marks accumulating from their boots that I heard.
“Wh-Why-y…?” was all I managed to stammer out before something dripped onto my forehead.
I reached up and swiped my finger through the liquid. Just as I was pulling it away to look at it, I noticed the dead lamb in my front yard. So beautiful, yet, its throat was slit. I felt my eyes widen and my stomach heave as I pulled my focus past my finger, trying hopelessly to re-focus on the soldier. But the mental storm was building too quickly; I could already feel my headache returning.
He raised a gloved hand to the doorframe. “Because of all this…” he swiped the thick crimson liquid there and further indicated the frame’s top and other side. He sniffed it. “Blood!” he barked at me and stepped back, taking his weapon in hand, “Your fucking doorframe is covered in blood, lady! Whose blood is it?!”
His comrades, in turn, brandished their weapons. Suddenly, behind them, five angels lighted out of the sky to land swiftly yet so very measuredly on the lawn. Angels?!
I closed my eyes and shook my head, panicking; surely I had finally cracked like all those specialists had warned my parents I would do:
“Without the medications, reality itself will become too much for her.”
But those truly were angels adorned with body-length gray-white wings and armed with swords that reflected the still somewhat carmine hue of the day. They advanced forward as the soldiers, all except the one who had yelled at me, turned in unison to face them. That one soldier’s unbelieving focus fell somewhere behind me, his rifle still trained on me.
It was then that I felt the pressure in my head subside, and the silent mental screaming ceased. The warmth I felt approaching from behind was unmistakable. When his large hand landed on my lower back, I felt all of the chaos and the fear and the confusion drain out of me. I leaned into his touch, feeling his deep hum of approval.
“Lamb’s blood,” Michael’s authoritative voice stated so matter-of-factly as he reached forward and effortlessly pinched the rifle’s muzzle shut.
Before he or the other soldiers could react, I watched in utter amazement as the barrels on each of their weapons arced downward. Immediately, they cursed and dropped their weapons, the now-useless metal frames scorching wherever they landed. I reached behind me and grabbed hold of Michael’s beltloop, my body simply needing that anchor as the events played out in front of me.
His next words spoken over me were to the five angels in an unknown language that, somehow, my head related “Take them. No mercy for resistance.”
One of the younger-looking angels circled behind the men; he turned and playfully winked at me before departing. I felt myself smile at him, even as I glanced at my blood-covered finger again and turned toward Michael – my questioning eyes immediately finding his reassuring ones.
His hand reached out and removed the blood using his thumb and forefinger. He smiled adoringly as he spoke, gently wiping my forehead, “Ignore Sariel,” he indicated the retreating angel. “He is quite full of himself,” he stated playfully.
Michael sweepingly pointed to the doorframe, “This was a necessary marker for Azrael.”
Following his hand’s motion, my eyes were captured by the magnificent, glistening black wings that rose proudly from his shoulders to arch elegantly above his head.
“You see them now, precious?”
He smiled warmly in response to my amazed nod as he reached down and reverently touched my lower abdomen.
“Then our union is complete,” he leaned in and breathed deeply, his smile so blinding I felt it inside of me. “Most humans cannot see our true nature,” he added casually as he urged me forward and closed the door. He walked us down steps that were now spotless, past an empty spot where the lamb had lain.
“After the last great human war, we placed undetectable pieces of us in humans, just enough to slowly alter certain susceptible DNA strands through the generations while we planned and waited.”
My brain – my calm, unhindered brain! – understood he was referencing the middle of the last century.
Other angels, their wings of various colors and shapes, appeared. Each beautifully sculpted and armed with a sword; each acknowledging Michael and even me as they floated or walked by. Some were accompanied by people; some had people in tow.
“Those seeds grew until twenty-two years ago when their fruition was realized, setting our plans for today firmly in motion.”
The entire scene with a true entrance to the heavens as backdrop was breathtaking as were Michael’s words … until the “twenty-two”. Tuning to face him, I frowned in perplexity.
“Angels were created to be eternal, not to reproduce,” a fleeting hint of anger flashed in those cerulean depths, “It was a governor, of sorts, on our powers.”
I couldn’t help but bewilderedly wrinkle my forehead further. I was still missing something.
Michael’s laughter was the most beautiful melody I’d ever heard.
“You, precious, are the key to our dominion on Earth,” he pulled me against him, my back to his front, large hand possessively palming my lower abdomen.
“What was yesterday for you?” he whispered in my ear.
My frown rebounded into wonderment. “My twenty-second birthday!”
Michael indicated everything around us with one sweeping motion, “Happy Birthday, my precious Charlie.”
To Arms, to arms Contest Winner |
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