69. Helena
Helena
Ever since the snowstorm when Lovey first flew, waking up in Bertram’s bed, held tightly in his arms was not an uncommon occurrence for Helena.
But this was the first time she had woken in Bertram’s tent naked, in naked Bertram’s arms, and she immediately found this to be an improvement.
They showered, together, which started platonic because Lovey insisted on supervising, stretching out her wings so that her feathers caught the spray of the shower.
But then Helena popped out of the shower long enough to give Lovey a puzzle box with a treat inside, and Helena and Bertram were able to finish their shower in a much less platonic way.
They dressed together, still sneaking shy glances at each other’s naked forms, Helena admiring Bertram’s thick legs and soft stomach.
When they went to clean up the lab, they found that the underwear they had left behind had been shredded by Lovey, which was admittedly their own fault.
They fed Lovey then headed back to bed, where they fell back into the delight of simply kissing each other as Lovey kneaded Bertram’s legs with her talons through the blankets.
“Delivery!”
Helena and Bertram stumbled out of the tent at the same time, more disheveled and red-faced and embarrassed than they had previously.
Diana grinned broadly as they emerged.
“Finally,” said Diana.
“I know,” Helena said, sheepishly. “And thank you, for the role you played in . . . all this.”
“Me? I did nothing!” Diana fluttered her eyes innocently. “And let me tell you. I’ve never had to do this much nothing to get two smart People to stop being idiots.”
“I appreciate you putting up with our idiocy,” Bertram said.
“I love a shenanigan. A scheme. A bed trick. Whatever I can find or make.” Diana smiled. “Anyway. New planks are in a pile over here; locking mechanisms in the box next to it, and I’ll leave you two to it!”
“Wait!” Helena asked. “You’re not gonna stick around?”
Diana laughed. “You guys are together now, so . . .”
“So, you think we would stop being friends with you because we banged?” Helena asked.
“Well, yeah,” said Diana, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Once People get together I . . . kind of . . . you know . . .”
“What?” Bertram asked.
Diana shrugged. “I kind of stop mattering at that point.”
“Not to me. Not to us.” Helena turned to Bertram. “I mean, right?”
“Of course,” Bertram said. “If anything, the fact that you helped bring me and Hel together makes me all the more grateful that we have you.”
Diana looked genuinely shocked, and Helena wondered if maybe she didn’t have any actual friends. She deserved friends.
“Do you want to stay for a game of cards?” Bertram asked. “You don’t have to.”
“I would love to,” Diana said, and she joined them for a game of cards, while Lovey automatically did a whole lot of wing-flapping at the sight of Diana.
And that’s how the days progressed.
It was a lot of cards when Diana was there, mostly the human game Poker and a trick-taking game called Changeling that Diana taught them. She always won, and Helena had a sneaking suspicion Diana was maybe changing the rules every time, but she didn’t mind.
When Diana wasn’t there and it was just Bertram and Helena, “Poker” became “strip Poker.” “Changeling” became “strip Changeling,” which was a little difficult because neither of them seemed to ever remember the rules when Diana wasn’t there.
“Sorry that we weren’t doing this five years ago,” Helena said as she removed the shirt she had just lost to a king-six combo.
“Agreed. What a waste of time,” Bertram said.
“No. I just meant, six years ago I was . . . less lumpy.”
Bertram’s eyes widened in genuine shock. “You’re perfect.”
Helena rolled her eyes.
“No, you are,” Bertram insisted. “Your body is perfect.”
“Yeah, but you said my body was perfect five years ago and it was less lumpy then.”
“Your body was also perfect then. Your body is always going to be perfect as long as you’re the Person inside it.”
“Okay, except now I want the Person inside this body to be you,” Helena said.
“Thy will be done.”
That’s when “strip Changeling” became “get these cards off the fucking floor, I need you right now Changeling” which quickly became “fuck it, we’ll just have sex on the cards Changeling.
” They put in an order with Diana for a new set of cards, apologetically explaining that their previous set blew away in a hailstorm.
Which wasn’t that unbelievable. Hailstorms were becoming more frequent, and Lovey would climb into bed and nest right between Bertram and Helena on nights when she was scared, which was better than tearing through the tent.
Cuddling with Lovey and Bertram was nice.
Cuddling with just Bertram was nice. It was nice cuddling Bertram after sex, cuddling Bertram before sex was nice, and cuddling Bertram was nice when there was no sex on the table at all.
Everything with Bertram was nice.
Unlike their delicate friendships in the months before, and the even more delicate flirtations, this no longer felt delicate. This felt safe. This felt real. This felt rock solid, and a lot of the time, so did Bertram.
“I wonder if I’ll ever stop wanting you this badly,” Helena mused aloud as she took him inside her for the second time that day.
“Gods, I hope not,” Bertram groaned.
Her entire body flushed with warmth—the heat of arousal, and of passion. Helena knew that for some of her friends, having sex with one Person was just the same as having sex with another, and it didn’t matter what was there or not emotionally.
For Helena, sex was only ever this intense if her feelings were as well.
And Bertram was the only Person for whom her feelings had ever been this intense.
Which meant it had been years that the feeling of someone else’s body against her own, within her own, had left her feeling quite so breathless, so out of control and lost to her own self.
Those sentiments seemed too precious to express aloud, though, when everything was still fresh and new and fun and needed far more care than a newhatched bird, precocial or altricial.
Instead, Helena spoke with her body on his and his on hers, and she somehow hoped that he intuited—and somehow simultaneously hoped he could not possibly intuit—that her moans of pleasure meant something greater than simple physical satisfaction.
But she certainly wasn’t mad about all the physical satisfaction.
She wasn’t sure where their relationship was headed, exactly. But she vowed to enjoy whatever it was Bertram was willing to give her, for however long he was willing to give it to her, however hard he was willing to give it to her.