===== 08/07/02 === 11:11:46 p.m. ===== Enishi sprawled face-down, barely propped up by his elbows as he recovered his senses. Everything bad in his life seemed to have been wrung out, leaving him empty of anything except Kaoru in his arms. She lay nearly as motionless beneath his chest, but not quite. Even after several minutes, she was still trembling in little aftershocks around him, her fingers tightening on his shirt with startled flutters of breath. He thought maybe it was physically possible for him to move now, though every nerve protested the prospect of leaving her body, even to save it from being crushed by his own weight. But when he tried, she made a faint whimper of protest and pressed her feet against the back of his thighs. He never would've taken Battousai for a fool. Yet the red-haired brat hadn't just kept this sweet bluebird starved for pleasure, he hadn't guarded her closely enough to keep her safe. Well, Enishi certainly wouldn't make the same mistake. She was his now, his from the start as Tomoe never could've been anyway. Steeling himself ruthlessly, he rolled away onto his back, despite Kaoru's indignant squeak. She held on enough to half-roll with him, flopping her head onto his shoulder. Her hair clung damply to his neck. Reminded by this, he slid a hand over her hip and behind it, over her dewdrop-moist skin. "Battousai always used to say this was the best way to tell you'd done right by your woman-- the love-sweat in back of her thighs, just here under the lovely curve of your bum. He hasn't bothered with that for a while, has he?" She made another noise of some sort, but not so he could tell whether she was in any shape to understand him yet. There wasn't any point in taunting her about Battousai now, really. Poor little thing, she must be all in, what with chasing around after Jineh, fighting off a pile of zombies, and ending up with him. Her closed eyelids seemed to have a faint wash of indigo. He wondered if it was from fatigue, or whether it was simply the translucent echo of the deep blue eyes beneath them. "Kaoru, love," he said more gently. "You're not hurt much, are you?" He drew his hand back from her. There was a bit of blood on it, but not enough to look serious. He knew that a lot of pain could be inflicted without ever drawing blood, though. The cloth over his shoulder felt damp. She wasn't crying, was she? "Sweetheart?" When he stroked her face, she moved enough for him to see it clearly, and he smiled with relief. She wasn't crying. She'd already fallen asleep, and the moisture he felt was the slightest trickle of drool from her beautiful mouth. Well, that let him off the hook for now. He eased out from under her and sat up to figure out which corner he'd flung his pants into. Ah, there they were, hanging over the lamp. He pulled them back on and found his jacket in a different corner altogether, though he still felt far too warm to need it again. Kaoru, though, was still curled on top of the disarrayed bedspread. She was starkers except for Tomoe's kimono peeled back from her obi, all crumpled behind her like the wings of a newly-hatched butterfly. He couldn't pull the covers out from under her without jostling her about. Carefully, he unfastened the obi and all the layers beneath it, unwinding them from around her pinched little waist, then spread the kimono back over her and covered it with his jacket. After a moment or two of indecision, he let himself back out of the bedroom and went to do what seemed best. --- Kaoru wasn't really asleep. It didn't make much difference, though, because she could barely move anyway. She felt like she'd been turned into some kind of liquid, just lying in a serene, hazy pool of warmth. This was nice. She was just going to concentrate on experiencing the niceness of it all, because in some ways, this was a lot like fighting Battousai. If she stopped to seriously think about all of the consequences of what she was doing and how it might ultimately affect Kenshin, it would kill her. She wondered where Enishi had gone. Did she still have any chance of escaping? Well, not in her condition right just now, but maybe later? She still didn't know where she was, but there had to be some way to find out. There was an soft knocking echo from the hallway outside the door now, punctuated by occasional more resonant thumps. What was going on out there? It wasn't the right sort of noise for it to be Kenshin or any of the others breaking in to rescue her, because that would involve yells and metallic clashes and meaty thwacking. It wasn't loud enough to keep her awake by itself, but it was puzzling enough to anchor her to consciousness. And now there was the hint of a baritone melody? That did it, she had to see for herself. Somehow. The first stage involved crawling off the side of the bed and pouring herself onto the floor. The second one involved standing back up. That took longer. She wasn't about to put the kimono back on, so she simply pulled on his jacket-- its hem fell halfway to her knees, so she felt reasonably decent once it was fastened-- and went out in that, following the sounds down the hallway. "I'm singing in the rain," clop clop, "just singing in the rain," thump, "what a glorious feeling," clop, "I'm happy again," clop thump, "I'm laughing at clouds--" When she poked her head around the corner, Enishi broke off the song. "Cheerio, love, up already?" He was in the kitchen, chopping up stuff for miso soup: daikon, mushrooms, tofu, and he even had a flowerpot growing live green onions to make sure they were fresh. Behind him, steam was rising from a pot on the stove, under a strainer dripping with limp bonito and seaweed. He'd even made fresh dashi? Jeez, even undead demon guys were better at making soup than she was. She didn't say anything. After a blink or two, he resumed the tune as a whistle, scooped up the daikon bits, and put them into the dashi to simmer ahead of the softer stuff. Still whistling, he washed his knife, dried it, and then tucked it and all of the other knives in its storage block onto the top of his cabinets, at least two feet above her reach. Damn him. Turning back to her, he grinned. "All bright-eyed and bushy-tailed now, are we? What're you hiding back there for?" Reluctantly, she edged the rest of the way into the kitchen, wondering why his grin was fading away into a more serious expression. It made her insides feel funny. "That my jacket on you, hanging down off your hands?" She nodded nervously and stopped moving toward him. He closed the gap himself and lifted her to sit on a counter. After rolling the jacket sleeves up, he raised one of her wrists to his mouth. Its warm rhythm against her pulse-point was exactly the same attention as he'd given to more obvious parts of her body before: the same suction, pressure, and movement; the same lips, tongue, wafts of breath, and the barest edges of his teeth. Behind the little tinted glasses-- he must have recovered them from the other room and put them back on-- his eyes were closed, his face and entire body indicating no other purpose in the world but to do this for her. That expression, as much as anything else he was doing, made her completely fall apart. But even as she let herself tumble into the whirlpool of sensation, she couldn't help but compare this to the kiss of Battousai's knife. He'd traced it across that very wrist-vein in the alley beside the Akabeko, months before. Then, as now, there'd been no possible way to resist her body's response. But instead of terror and nausea, Enishi was offering her only bliss. It didn't matter if he was doing this to spite Kenshin. He was offering her pleasure instead of pain, and that would have to be enough for her to cling to. --- She must've had no idea how delectable her lovely bare legs looked from under the edge of his jacket, Enishi thought. They'd be even nicer wrapped around his waist again, but time enough for that later. Meanwhile, she was breathing more of those soft dove-cries into his neck. He loved the way she went all melty and boneless against his body. He wondered why she didn't have the holding-on instinct at all, though. If he put her hand somewhere on him, she wouldn't take it back off, but she wouldn't touch him on her own, either. Was it just him, or was it something Battousai had done to her? Well, he knew one way to test this. Leaning closer in, he tipped her balance backward to see what she would do. Yes, there went her arm up behind him, and when he pulled her forward again, she didn't let go. So it was just a bit of initial reluctance, almost shyness. But once that was overcome, it was in for a momme, in for a ryou, and she wouldn't hold anything back. Or was she struggling now? Doing something with her legs at his side, nudging at his hip with them-- reluctantly, he stopped making love to her wrist so he could ask her about this. "What are you after, sweet? Do you want me to stop? Or are you just hoping to put that kneecap into the family magatama?" She looked genuinely hurt by that suggestion, though he had a suspicion that it was partly because she hadn't thought of it first. When he moved back slightly, with one hand on her leg as a buffer, she slid that knee between their bodies but without aiming it at anything vulnerable. With that paradoxically shy abandon, her knee continued on its way to the other side of him. Her hand still curled around his shoulder flexed ever so slightly in a tentative invitation to return. It was a good thing daikon took a while to cook, because this lot on the stove wouldn't be going anywhere for a while. --- The countertop had obviously not been designed with this in mind, Kaoru thought, exasperated. It was higher than his hip level, and the stupid rounded edges were impossible for her to hang on to. On the other hand, she'd never previously considered the advantages of having separate ties for the front and the back of hakama-style pants, so you could undo one or the other and still have them stay on. She lost her grip on the counter's edge again and produced a really embarrassing squeal as she slid off it and all the way down onto him. It was his turn to hang onto the counter, she decided. She had other things to pay attention to. --- He was in her so deeply now that he was afraid he might be hurting her. But if she was hurt, she'd be trying to get away instead of clinging like an amorous limpet, with arms and legs all locked tightly around him. The trouble was, no matter how warm and welcoming she might be, there wasn't any bloody friction this way. Bugger this countertop for a lark. He was declaring a change of venue. What did that particular squeal of hers mean, anyway? She made it again when he lunged a few steps off to the side, carrying her with him and pinning her up against the wall. He planted one arm on each side of her, giving her something else to hang onto, and oh yes, friction, sweet friction. He could move against her now, fast and hot, like the wooden shaft whirled in a bowstring to rekindle the sacred fire. She was the bow and the fireboard and the nest of tinder all at once-- smooth curves tautly flexing against his grip; relentless pressure grinding up to blood-bright heat; and suddenly the white smoke pouring out from him as she burst into blinding flame. He slid to the floor as she collapsed onto his chest. Belatedly, he took off his glasses, letting them thump down in his hand off somewhere to the side. There were cobwebs under the baseboard. He'd have to talk to the maids about that, somewhere off in that other universe that didn't involve lying here with Kaoru's hair half-covering his face. The daikon was still simmering on the stove. He didn't care. They hadn't taken more than a few minutes here anyway, though it'd been quality time for certain. His pulse was still thundering in his ears, so it was almost as much by resonance through his chest that he heard her voice. "Oof. 'Nishi?" "Yeh?" "That was nice." He thought this over, hoisted his glasses-holding hand back into the air, and let it smack him in the forehead. "Woman, you've just exploded the very marrow from my bones, and the best you can say for yourself is it was nice? I should give up and go back to the bloody Taoists to squirrel away my qi, if it's not doing you a bit of good." Now, that was a muffled snort of laughter from her if he ever heard one, and he'd made a few in his time. "But it was nice. What'm I supposed to say?" "Hm. 'I worship your manly thews, you peerless love-god' has a good ring to it." "What's a thew exactly?" "Damned if I know. Think you've exploded those too, anyway." He tugged at her hair with his mouth as she laughed, until she made a startled eep and pulled away to look down at herself. He lifted the edge of his jacket for a peek. "What's all this then? Oh, you've just burped out some of our juices from your pink parts, not to worry." Dabbing a finger against her leg, he held it up in demonstration before popping it into his mouth. "I could clean you up, if you like. Wouldn't mind an aperitif myself." If only he could bottle that look on her face and sell it to dab behind the ears. "Um?" "Need a bit of a vocab lesson, do we? Well, first, stop lying on my pants strings so I can tie them back up and recover my manly dignity, as it were. Ta. No, you stay there." Lightly, he elbowed her back down, then settled between her legs and tucked her knees over his shoulders, firmly anchoring her hips in his arms. He'd actually forgotten how lovely and smooth a girl's inner thigh was against the face, just right for nibbling on like a squeaky toy. She did squeak very obligingly, though she also wiggled her foot against his ribs in revenge, at least at first. He smacked it with his glasses before spinning them off across the floor. Spread out like a smorgasbord before him were the whorled orchid-petals of her girly bits, all ripe and dewy, even when faintly stained with the last traces of her maidenhead. It just added to the palette of roses and fuschias and mauves, layer within layer of rich hues and textures. He worked his way up her legs to the edges, nuzzling his hair against her skin to dry it, and then craned up at her again. "Oi. You still awake there?" She stopped gasping for breath long enough to bat him on the head. He caught her hand and nipped it. Around her fingertips, he said. "Right. Word for the day is 'aperitif'. Short for the French 'vin aperitif', a bit of grog before the meal to make you more peckish, like. I'm going to spell that word out for you so you don't forget it, so mind careful now." Neatly, he spat out her fingers and dipped his head back down to trace out each letter with deep swirls of his tongue, warm and probing. And there was the rest of the liquor they'd pressed out together from her body and his, creamy, sweet, and streaked with red from the cherry garnish. He always loved doing this. Especially the part where he dotted the Is like a schoolgirl or a diner waitress, with happy smiley faces up top. He bobbed his head back up with a grin. This jacket of his had never looked so good on him as it did writhing off of her. "All right, guess you can't read plain print in Braille, coz you keep saying all of them are some kind of vowel. How about we try again in cursive?" A minute or two later, he checked on her again. Now she looked as if someone had dropped her from two floors up. "...Not yet? How about Gothic blackletter?" Or maybe six or seven. "Katakana?" Well, if he kept this up too long, her warranty would run out for certain. "Oh, you're just hopeless, love. One last try with the hiragana, and then I'm going back to finish making the soup." --- Ow. Her hair was pinned beneath her again. If she'd thought she couldn't move before, she was way wrong compared to now. Now she really seriously couldn't move, possibly not even if... if... okay, she couldn't think either. Ow. And yowzah. But also ow. She could hear Enishi walking around the kitchen again, whistling at the top of his lungs and occasionally making a cheerful "whup!" or "ho!" as he probably did some show-offy thing like tossing mushrooms into the soup pot from behind his back. Gah. If he'd learned most of this stuff just from watching Battousai with Tomoe, then Kenshin also had to know all of this, and maybe more. She wasn't sure whether she felt resentful or grateful that Kenshin had never done this to her himself. But mostly at the moment, she felt ow. There were probably a lot of muscles involved that normally didn't get used much otherwise, and right now they were all upset at having their test-drive go on for longer than they'd bargained for. And now he actually stepped over her to return to the main room, carrying a bunch of stuff clacking together on a tray. At least he came back to get her, though. Could she even open her eyelids? The answer seemed to be no. When he sat her up, she just flopped over again. He snickered. Bastard. "All right, bluebird, let's take these broken wings and learn to fly again." He scooped her up and carried her back to the same table where he'd poured out tea for her, several versions of reality ago. Or at least she assumed it was the same table, because the cushion he draped her over felt about the same as before. After a moment, he pulled her back to prop her up in his lap, stroking her face. "You going to make me feed you like a little baby chick?" He sounded half-amused, half-tender. She attempted to pull together some sort of shred of dignity, but evidently she'd run out of them for the night. The only thing she managed was a ridiculously appropriate weak squawk. "Open your mouth, then," he said, as if she probably weren't already sporting the latest slack-jawed drooling look of idiocy. Well, it wasn't as if she could close her mouth either, so she waited for a spoon to approach with an airplane zoomy noise and a payload of soup. What came to her lips instead were his, bringing her the mingled warmth of miso and broth and their own two bodies, nudging bits of tofu into her mouth with his tongue. ----- (I am sooo doooomed. Instead of providing catharsis for all of the bottled frustrations of the characters in the main Edodale project, this tangent seems to be spreading back to them. The current draft of chapter 14 just has all of these random couples pairing off-- it's bad enough Yumi's been doing costume changes from Faith to Anya and is now angling for Jenny Calendar, but would someone tell her for me that the last one does not automatically mean she gets to jump Hiko's bones? Oh, and if JML is still wondering how Battousai would be like with Kaoru, he'd be a lot like Enishi. Except even more so. She would need the extended manufacturer's warranty for sure, and lots of WD-40.)