Release (Challenge #2 - Sensuality) - Josef/Sarah - PG13

[Lilly]

I hate long author’s notes, but some things require a bit of explanation. I began working on this piece about five months ago, long before the “sensuality over sexuality” challenge was ever brought up. I felt that there was a critical piece of Josef and Sarah’s story that I had avoided and I wanted to try to do it justice. It was almost finished, but I ended up putting it aside. Then a couple of weeks ago when the second writers’ challenge came up, I took another look at it and thought it might fit within that framework.

Disclaimer: Josef and Sarah inspire me, but I don’t own them. They belong to Trevor and Ron.

Rating: PG13

First published: 12/8/2008


Restraint


Even with his eyes closed, he could see her perfectly, seated with her back to him. He followed the graceful curve of her waist down around the flare of her hip to where it met the seat of the piano bench. Her fluid movements mesmerized him, soothed him, as her delicate fingers warmed the ivory keys of the baby grand.

He was tense, so much so that even those lovely fingers massaging his neck, rubbing the strain of forever from his shoulders, had not been enough to relax him. When she had recognized that her efforts were futile, she moved from behind his chair leaving him lost in his own darkness and settled herself at the piano. Sarah had learned that there were times when the weight of three hundred and fifty years was so great it could not be lifted – it could only be coaxed from the depths of that silent heart.

As the final notes still hung in the air, she felt his hands on her shoulders and she turned, rising with his touch until her lips lightly brushed his. She grasped the Windsor knot at his collar and with only the slightest resistance slid it down releasing the length of the silken tie. Slowly, deliberately, she began to unfasten the top buttons of his crisply starched shirt.

He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply, and breathed into her hair, “Babe –”.

A single finger pressed to his lips and halted further discussion. She raised her eyes, and with only the width of a sigh between them, said everything. “It’s time.”

What she meant was they had waited long enough. He had shared his soul, she had shared her heart and her blood, but they had never joined completely. What he wanted and what she offered were so close and yet, he feared, so far apart. Until now, it had been all about restraint. He had been in control.

Control was everything. Through lesson and loss, he knew this. He had learned to appreciate the exquisite torture of denying himself – because any feeling was better than no feeling at all. Because some risks were just too great.

It hadn’t always been this way, but she changed that. It went beyond holding himself back. He was chained to the past, the prisoner of so many voyeuristic ghosts, the eyes of ten thousand conquests watching, and judging. Who is she? And why is she any different from us? What makes this time so special? How could it be?

He knew well the crash of thunder and the white hot flash that precedes the downpour – that scarlet torrent drenching him and quenching the fire. For more than three hundred years, that was all he knew. There was no remembrance of mortal feeling, of it ever having been any other way. In the time before the eclipse, when the sun was blotted from his life, there were only shadows and murmurs - glimpses of faces and whispers of voices too distant to register. It was a time when his senses were dull and his memory duller still. It was beyond his reach.

Control was power – the power to take what he pleased, whenever he pleased, and the strength to refrain when it suited him. Restraint, like bravado, was a script he rehearsed and replayed, but the audience was growing restless.

Please her or please yourself. If she’s not like us, don’t pretend you can do both.

He had to make a decision, before he was unable to make a decision. He had to give up control.


Release


“It’s time.”

There were promises made in the whispers of wool and cotton, cashmere and silk, as fabrics gave way to the touch of living velvet. A single, shared heart beat between them.

He could not lose himself. He would not lose himself.

Maybe he would find himself – that unaffected youth who could not yet feel the sensations of the flesh so acutely, but who felt the joys of the heart more deeply – whose desire did not stir first in his mouth even before rising in his loins. There was a time, he knew, when that arousal depended on the rush of his own blood rather than the lure of another’s – a time when flesh was all he craved.

Winter’s chill had cooled the satin sheets and he fell back into them like the crisp clear waters that in a summer so long ago had refreshed his mortal body. They surrounded and supported him, and he floated there, free, unfettered with the layers of alternately loose and constricting fabrics that had usually confined him.

When she had poured herself over him and rinsed away the stains of his journey, she lulled him back again to the smell of fresh green grass, her fingers echoing the tickle of its cool, soft blades against his skin, her touch the warmth of dappled sunshine caressing his face through whispering leaves.

He stretched out among fallen apple blossoms, the pale petals teasing against his skin with the promise of such lush red fruit to come.

She breathed on his neck the light June breeze, both warm and cooling, and touched his lips with the sweetest of fruits. She offered him tender ripe berries, sweet on his tongue, and she quenched him with honey and wine.

The scents of bergamot and spice teased at his nostrils, inviting him to explore, and he moved with the music of her soft laughter, lyrical and light.

She enveloped him and wrapped him in brilliant sunshine, warming him not with fire but with light. Lost in this time before memory, nothing commanded him – only coaxed him. As they shared the rhythm of that single heartbeat, balanced on the line between shadow and sun, he smiled at her with soft brown eyes and eternity dissolved away. In that instant – for just that instant – he was young and alive and once again part of humanity.

And as his cheeks were kissed with the first two drops of a gentle cleansing rain – there he found release.


-----------

[ari]

So beautiful!! Amazing use of language once again!

[nutmegger911]

Lilly,
Your imagery is beyond beautiful.

When she had poured herself over him and rinsed away the stains of his journey, she lulled him back again to the smell of fresh green grass, her fingers echoing the tickle of its cool, soft blades against his skin, her touch the warmth of dappled sunshine caressing his face through whispering leaves.

He stretched out among fallen apple blossoms, the pale petals teasing against his skin with the promise of such lush red fruit to come.

She breathed on his neck the light June breeze, both warm and cooling, and touched his lips with the sweetest of fruits. She offered him tender ripe berries, sweet on his tongue, and she quenched him with honey and wine.

This is young love incarnate. Tender, gentle, temptation and intoxication.

Control was power – the power to take what he pleased, whenever he pleased, and the strength to refrain when it suited him. Restraint, like bravado, was a script he rehearsed and replayed, but the audience was growing restless.

Please her or please yourself. If she’s not like us, don’t pretend you can do both.

He had to make a decision, before he was unable to make a decision. He had to give up control.

This convey's Josef's view and his dilemma so well.

You have a talent. Please keep using it.

[RangerCM]

Brilliant, as always, but I found this paragraph particularly unique.

It hadn’t always been this way, but she changed that. It went beyond holding himself back. He was chained to the past, the prisoner of so many voyeuristic ghosts, the eyes of ten thousand conquests watching, and judging. Who is she? And why is she any different from us? What makes this time so special? How could it be?

*Great big sigh*

[librarian_7]

I don't know what to say, except...I love this.

Lucky

[Lilly]

ari, NM, and RangerCM and Lucky -- thank you all so much! I felt like I was walking a fine line with the imagery in this piece. I'm so glad you feel that it worked.

By the time Josef met Sarah he'd had so many experiences (and lovers) I felt that I needed to find a way for their first time to transcend anything he'd ever experienced before. The only way I could see that happening was for him to give up the one thing he never did. Without control, he was truly naked and vulnerable. The trust he gave her was his greatest act of love.

[eris]

Pretty words. Pretty pretty words. *sigh*

[allegrita]

Oh, Lilly, I went looking for your Josef and Sarah stories to recommend them in the coffee house thread, and I found one I'd never read!

This is just... amazing. I can imagine that you were nervous about this one, because it could so easily have gone over the top into schmaltz... but you kept it perfectly balanced. It's about love and remembering and letting go... and finding that in the process of letting go you actually gain so much. The imagery of Josef's long-buried mortal memories, especially his sense memories, is just heartbreakingly beautiful.

[MoonShadow]

I can not believe that I missed this one. Lilly I am sorry it took me so long to find the vibrant jewel and to compliment you on it's creation! What a beautiful piece of writing. I love the angles you take with stories, you have an ability and a gift to look at life, relationships and the myriad of complexities they hold, spin them all together and select the unique to expound upon. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I love reading what you create.

hugs,

MoonShadow

[Lilly]

I've been out of town for a week, so I'm a bit slow repsonding here.

Alle - "Schmaltz" is exactly what I was afraid of here. I tried to tiptoe on the right side of the line -- I'm so glad you think I succeeded.

Moonshadow - I am always humbled by your comments. Thank you so much.

I had wondered about Josef and Sarah's first time. It occurred to me that it had to be more than him making love to her like he undoubtedly had done with hundreds of women. She had to be a unique soul -- despite her age -- for him to have fallen so hard for her. Working within that framework, I just felt that she had the capacity to take the lead and in doing so to give him a truly unique gift.

[allegrita]

Back for a reread. And this time, I was struck by "Restraint" even more than by "Release." This paragraph is just so beautifully constructed. It has such poignancy, and it says so much about why Sarah was the one who could break through hundreds of years of Josef's built-up protective walls:

He was tense, so much so that even those lovely fingers massaging his neck, rubbing the strain of forever from his shoulders, had not been enough to relax him. When she had recognized that her efforts were futile, she moved from behind his chair leaving him lost in his own darkness and settled herself at the piano. Sarah had learned that there were times when the weight of three hundred and fifty years was so great it could not be lifted – it could only be coaxed from the depths of that silent heart.

She really, really "got" Josef. And something in her did coax him out... and somehow, together, they discovered something incredibly beautiful...and tragically fragile. But how priceless was that gift that Sarah gave Josef. How perfect that year they had. No wonder he can't let her go.

[Lilly]

Thank you again, Alle. I was particularly fond of that passage myself. Three hundred and fifty years is a long time. I think for the most part Josef protects himself by living in the "here and now," but there have to have been many ghosts that have haunted him in one way or another. I wonder how many times he might have thought someone was "special" in that stretch of time. To find someone who truly was -- after so long -- was the rarest of gifts.

[Luxe de Luxe]

I'd just popped in to have a look at indexes and this one tempted me (in light of upcoming Valentine's day)... this is masterful. such beautiful metaphors in this Lilly, like

only the width of a sigh between them

..and...

He knew well the crash of thunder and the white hot flash that precedes the downpour

and this is pure gorgeousness,

there were promises made in the whispers of wool and cotton, cashmere and silk, as fabrics gave way to the touch of living velvet.

And this is the question I'm always left with when I think about Sarah...

Who is she? And why is she any different from us? What makes this time so special? How could it be?

For some reason, while both sections are lovely, the 'Restraint' section speaks to me a little more.

[Lilly]

Thank you, Luxe. The first bit you quoted may be one of my favorite strings of words that I've put together.

At one point I had thought of separating the two parts, but in the end I just liked the juxtaposition of the two -- tension of the first hopefully playing against the flow and imagery of the second. If I had to choose, though, I'm partial to Restraint -- but that may be because I'm much more comfortable writing angst than, um, sex.

[susieb]

OMG.

In the time before the eclipse, when the sun was blotted from his life

That sentence stopped me dead in my tracks and gripped my heart. What a metaphor for losing one's humanity and being turned into a vampire.

I am too breathless to quote more lines from this beautiful piece. I am without words. This story is gorgeous in so many ways.