dog eared comic sutra

 

He had promised to be a gentleman. 

And for a moment he did think about having said this even as he was confident of his ability to withstand any great and off-limits temptations ….but this was not really the issue at the moment as ….as Halloween drew to a close with the departure of Aunt Fiona and Arthur ….here he found himself a stranger in a strange land and having to figure out what should happen next with all the legal details ….that Faun was there —it seemed something the Bishops might have done —getting themselves killed even if it got them together ….Aunt Fiona secretly loved her romance novels —he’d recently found her secret horde of Barbara Cartlands and there had been one she had beside her on the bedside table when he —found her

This was hardly a bad incidental outcome and he thought about how Faun looked earlier that day as he was watching her at the shop. 

So….no. The idea of being alone on a creepy night —with ….someone ….who just happened to be the person who had caught his eye ….days before they had met, actually—was not a bad unexpected development. He had seen her from Arthur’s window as she was leaving after an afternoon tea with Fiona. He had been with Arthur in his office, going over ledgers and ….computer files ….but who was she —?had been on his mind just days before they met. And they had told him about her when he finally got to ask—which was only the day before ….the carbon monoxide poisoning 

The gruesome memory of finding his aunt —now made it clear why …. why should this attraction be so strong now with events going on now?—the connection he felt with her; their odd timing —how they always did things at the exact same times —or spoke, sometimes it was like they’d identify too close to the other’s move ending up walking into the other, like senses hyper aware of the other’s….every move

But she lay at present, like dead weight. Staring up into space. As though utterly spaced out. As if the mattress had sucked her into it. Her limbs felt they weighed a ton. The ceiling …..

“The constellations ….” she said looking up at the slanted ceiling and above where she now recognized the plastic pieces that were green, phosphorescent and star-shaped were all grouped like the Milky Way which had to be another Grant trademark thing that —made her at war with her now tangled burgundy dress because this new exposed detail about him made her body crave him more than ever, and so she pressed herself to him as she moved over him to press herself to him there

He said,

“yes.” 

But to what was he answering?

And moving her into a better angle whilst solving the dress malfunction, he bit her neck and said into her ear,

“I keep my word ….just to cuddle—as a gentleman….” even as his hand pressed the backside of her burgundy dress, and flattened his hand as he moved it lower, suggesting otherwise, “or king Leopold will have me sent to the dungeons….”

And that is why another, with perfect timing, by the namesake, made his presence known 

with a round of invading barks and an unceremonious and very clumsy, earth-quaking jump onto the bed