Henry had assured Camilla that they would succeed--of course they'd get away with it. It was them--or, more accurately, it was him. It would never, ever occur to Henry to think that there was anything he couldn't get away with.
Lunch had gone perfectly, without so much as a hint of awkwardness; dinner on Sunday had not been quite so easy, but still more than manageable enough. Class, however, might well prove another matter altogether.
Henry arrived early, as was his wont, greeting Julian and arranging his things at the table. He had a little time to think, before the rest arrived--before he had to see just how much would have changed in this, their most hallowed atmosphere.
Camilla found it obscurely reassuring that Henry had felt the same as she had. "Me too, about you I mean. Especially if you were talking. It's silly, honestly, because I've known you for years now. But telling myself it's silly doesn't really help. I just wanted everyone to go away," she admitted. Go away and leave them alone together. So she could talk to him. So she could touch him.
"It's not silly," Henry said, mainly because he felt the same thing, and he refused to be silly. "We were touched by something divine," and he believed it, he really did "and that alters things. Alters your senses, somehow."
He touched the back of her hand as he spoke, a very light brush of his finger. Since the bacchanal he really had felt so very, very alive--it was not a super-heightening of senses so much as it was bringing him to the level a normal person might feel. The bacchanal had done it, and so had she.
Camilla hadn't needed a god or a ritual to unlock her spontaneity or her capacity for sensation. She'd never been as reserved -- or repressed -- as Henry was. "It altered everything at the time," she said slowly. "I don't know about now. I see things the same as I ever did." It wasn't as though Henry looked or sounded any different than he did before. She was just keenly aware of him in a way she'd never been. She didn't know what to gauge it against. She'd never been interested in anyone the way she was interested in Henry, unless you counted her brother, and the two situations just didn't map onto one another.
Still, there might be something to what Henry claimed. Why else did she shiver at that brush of his finger against her hand?
"It is different," she decided. "But -- in a nice way." A pause, an almost inaudible breath. "Really nice." If she'd been hyperaware of him at dinner or in the classroom, safely separated by tables and chairs and other people, then there wasn't a word intense enough to pinpoint what she
( ... )
In a way, Henry was in the same boat; he'd never been interested in anyone, ever, until her. This was arguably even newer and stranger to him than it was to her, because at least she had a baseline, even if it did consist of an incestuous relationship with her brother.
Possibly the only reason he himself felt things differently was because he had been almost numb, before--so repressed, so locked up inside himself that it even affected his sensory perception. The bacchanal had drawn that out, but it was Camilla all that newfound sensitivity focused on.
He couldn't define, either, just what her presence was stirring in him. No word in any language he knew could be even close to accurate.
"It is," he agreed, and leaned in to lightly kiss her forehead, then her temple, then her cheek. It was, and almost unbelievably so.
She closed her eyes involuntarily for a moment, smiling slightly.
"Only it's terribly inconvenient," she went on, all the same. "It's like -- I don't know, imagine if suddenly everywhere you went it was illegal to smoke in public. So you couldn't, and you had to sneak off by yourself to smoke."
It really was a good analogy, especially given how much Henry smoked--he craved it, though not so much as he now craved Camilla. It wasn't even necessarily a carnal craving so much as a need for her presence, undiluted by that of the others.
"Sneak off where no on might catch you," he said. "It's not enough to simply duck out of sight. It's something you want to properly enjoy, after all." Being around her alone was much, much different than being around her with everyone else present as well. With the others, their interaction must invitably be stilted, but alone they could face one another with as much honesty as either was capable of.
Of course. Henry, who'd watched even less television and film than Camilla had, wouldn't recognize the joke.
"No, I mean that's what everyone says about things like smoking. That they can quit whenever they want. The joke is that it's a false statement because they really can't quit."
His fingers through her hair, and she nearly shivered again.
"Because they don't want to," she finished explaining.
"You're only really addicted if you want to be," he said, low, his fingers slipping down to linger briefly on her jaw, then down along the line of her neck. They traced a fascinated path, pausing here and there on Camilla's pale smooth skin, and he kissed her forehead, the scent of her hair almost intoxicating. There was something rich and heady about her, like honey wine which was a comparison only an infatuated boy could come up with. For Henry, young and inexperienced and intense as he was, it was like someone had opened a door and shown him an entirely different world that rested just beside the normal, but for his mun, older and wiser in her day and generation, it was sometimes an occasion for snickering. Young love, no matter how passionate and soul-searing it might seem, is inescapably amusing to everyone else.
She was wearing a gray sweater fuzzy with stray strands of angora, an old sweater whose shapeless neck sagged away from the white column of her throat, offering no obstacle to Henry's fingers. Wordless, she stood still, her attention captured completely by that slow light touch. It was almost, almost, like Charles -- the way Charles would slip a hand under her collar in the back when he kissed her -- only Henry wasn't kissing her that way. At first he wasn't kissing her at all, and then when he did, he kissed her forehead. Camilla wasn't even sure what Henry was doing, or what he meant to do.
What he'd said exposed the shaky understructure of her earlier contention. They couldn't really be acting out an unchosen fate if they wanted whatever this was. The thought scared her a little, and thrilled her at the same time.
"Do you want to be?" Tension so acute she half thought she might be shaking, but she wasn't. She was sliding a hand up his back.
At that point, even Henry himself wasn't certain what he wanted to do. Or, rather, he knew in the abstract, but the specifics seemed to be leaving themselves to the mercy of his instinct. That instinct led him to kiss her, very lightly, his fingers curling around the back of her neck.
"I do want to be," he affirmed, and kissed her again, more firmly this time. Fighting Fate was ultimately useless, but this was something he would never dream of fighting anyway.
Somehow at once tentative and eager, Camilla returned his kiss, not too deeply or for too long. "I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing," she confided a little breathlessly.
"Neither do I," he admitted, his arm slipping around her waist to pull her close against him. "And I don't care." He kissed her again, longer this time, careful and hungry all at once. And he didn't care; for now, with her, he had not a thought for past or future or anything. Nothing that wasn't Camilla.
Like the Greeks whose beliefs he taught, Julian generally seemed to think moderation was the best policy when it came to indulgence in wine or women or song. While he found self-denial a puritan affectation, he also spoke in disapproving terms of excessive passion. The excesses of a bacchanal were circumscribed by ritual, kept safely contained within the sphere of the sacred, separated from the everyday. Camilla knew what she and Henry had gotten into -- whatever nameless thing, attachment or addiction or affair -- it did not fall within the category of acceptable indulgence by Julian's lights. It was something that spilled over into the everyday and became a distraction. It burned too bright
( ... )
Lunch had gone perfectly, without so much as a hint of awkwardness; dinner on Sunday had not been quite so easy, but still more than manageable enough. Class, however, might well prove another matter altogether.
Henry arrived early, as was his wont, greeting Julian and arranging his things at the table. He had a little time to think, before the rest arrived--before he had to see just how much would have changed in this, their most hallowed atmosphere.
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He touched the back of her hand as he spoke, a very light brush of his finger. Since the bacchanal he really had felt so very, very alive--it was not a super-heightening of senses so much as it was bringing him to the level a normal person might feel. The bacchanal had done it, and so had she.
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Still, there might be something to what Henry claimed. Why else did she shiver at that brush of his finger against her hand?
"It is different," she decided. "But -- in a nice way." A pause, an almost inaudible breath. "Really nice." If she'd been hyperaware of him at dinner or in the classroom, safely separated by tables and chairs and other people, then there wasn't a word intense enough to pinpoint what she ( ... )
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Possibly the only reason he himself felt things differently was because he had been almost numb, before--so repressed, so locked up inside himself that it even affected his sensory perception. The bacchanal had drawn that out, but it was Camilla all that newfound sensitivity focused on.
He couldn't define, either, just what her presence was stirring in him. No word in any language he knew could be even close to accurate.
"It is," he agreed, and leaned in to lightly kiss her forehead, then her temple, then her cheek. It was, and almost unbelievably so.
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"Only it's terribly inconvenient," she went on, all the same. "It's like -- I don't know, imagine if suddenly everywhere you went it was illegal to smoke in public. So you couldn't, and you had to sneak off by yourself to smoke."
Something you needed and weren't allowed to have.
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"Sneak off where no on might catch you," he said. "It's not enough to simply duck out of sight. It's something you want to properly enjoy, after all." Being around her alone was much, much different than being around her with everyone else present as well. With the others, their interaction must invitably be stilted, but alone they could face one another with as much honesty as either was capable of.
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"Except then we could quit anytime we wanted," she pointed out, voice soft and hoarse, a little strained despite herself.
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"Maybe," he said, brushing the hair at her temple. "Though some addictions are too strong to break."
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"No, I mean that's what everyone says about things like smoking. That they can quit whenever they want. The joke is that it's a false statement because they really can't quit."
His fingers through her hair, and she nearly shivered again.
"Because they don't want to," she finished explaining.
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What he'd said exposed the shaky understructure of her earlier contention. They couldn't really be acting out an unchosen fate if they wanted whatever this was. The thought scared her a little, and thrilled her at the same time.
"Do you want to be?" Tension so acute she half thought she might be shaking, but she wasn't. She was sliding a hand up his back.
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"I do want to be," he affirmed, and kissed her again, more firmly this time. Fighting Fate was ultimately useless, but this was something he would never dream of fighting anyway.
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