After the Fall

Chapter 2

THE GIFT

It was late at night a little before the midway point of July.

I lounged on the couch near an open window, where the rising and falling of the ocean waves outside formed a natural pulse.

I had never needed to listen to music here at Illumination Point; the birds and waves always provided sufficient auditory stimulation whether I was working or relaxing.

At my desk sat Aster. His hair had become shorter now, hanging only to his shoulders.

He wore a long pair of tailored tan pants and a white button-up shirt.

He always wore some white. I didn’t know if it was a personal preference or part of his being, like his hair being light or his eyes sky blue.

I was never sure where he ended and his appearance began—it came down to the fact that ephemeral beings like muses didn’t operate like the rest of us.

Aster looked very bookish at the moment, like an old portrait of a literary master at work, missing only a cigar and a glass of whiskey. He posed behind the desk with his head angled down in front of my laptop, lips drawn back in thought, scanning over my earlier lines in silent intrigue.

Just as he was incapable of writing anything for himself, however, he also resisted giving me solid feedback. Every day since I started writing ended with a similar discussion.

“Well?” I would ask.

Well, I can’t tell you, he would respond in turn. Do some more tomorrow.

His response wasn’t encouraging, but neither was it antagonistic, and he frequently ended it with a kiss on my lips or cheek.

We had been kissing more often between segments.

I believed a part of Aster’s intended feedback came to me through the kiss.

Once he slipped up and told me that all he wanted out of my writing was to see things through my eyes.

I should have asked him to elaborate further, and if it weren’t for the wine we enjoyed minutes earlier, I would have.

Instead I only covered his feedback with another kiss.

I didn’t feel bad about it. Kissing and writing were, in a way, the same thing—the desperate grasp for someone else, an attempt to close the loneliness that defined existence.

I shifted from my position on the couch and planted my feet squarely on the wooden floor. “If you’re not going to tell me what to think, then maybe I shouldn’t let you read any of it,” I said.

Aster turned with a shock, and I saw that he had been more deeply engrossed in the words than I guessed. No, no, that wouldn’t be fair, he protested with his hollow ghost-voice.

I tilted my head to the side and shook it in mild frustration. “Then what’s the point of having you here at all?”

Aster pivoted away from the laptop. His eyes bore that hungry look that had festered in them for a while now, the look that could only be eased with touching or kissing. I never would have first thought that he’d be such a physical creature, but he seemed more so every day.

I patted the couch next to me the same way I would to encourage a dog to join me. “Come on. Sit with me, Aster.”

I’d better not.

I recoiled at the answer. These days we never held back from each other. Our connection made us work better together and made both of us much more at ease, and I’d hoped that by now I could better anticipate and defeat his defenses. How many days had passed since he last turned me down?

“Stop joking. My shoulders hurt,” I said.

His brows arched. Who’s joking?

“You are. I know you’re going to come here. Now stop putting it off.”

Aster glanced away for a moment, and I imagined I saw a hint of blush on his pale cheeks.

No, he said again.

“Why not?”

He narrowed his eyes into slits. Because I’m tired too, and if I join you now, I’m fear that I might do something regrettable. It’s better that we keep our distance.

His timidity and the suddenly apparent length of his eyelashes only made him more attractive to me. “I didn’t know you could get tired,” I said. “I thought muses had infinite energy at their disposal. You don’t sleep. You don’t wear out of things.”

Not tired like that, he admitted. Fatigued. Worn through.

“Worn through by what?”

His eyes caught in the light and almost glowed when they lit on mine. It’s you. I can’t stand being around you this much, Stella. I don’t mean it as an insult. I mean, I love the time we spend together. But it… it changes me.

My breath stilled in my chest. “It changes me, too,” I said.

“I mean, I think it’s in a good way. I’ve never written anything like this book before.

My writing has never been this honest, this unhidden.

It’s like I’m seeing everything in a new light.

Like I have this new relationship to writing where I can spill out my thoughts directly onto the paper and there they are.

Like… everything looks different to me now.

If this is a dream, I don’t want to wake up. ”

I stopped speaking. Aster had risen from the high-backed walnut chair by the desk and started walking toward me slowly. The way he stood in front of me brought me back to the first time I saw him, how he looked like he could have been a statue from antiquity brought to life.

He sat next to me after that, in a moment of silence. He leaned forward and clasped his hands together between his knees in deep thought. You are certain that my feedback helps you? he asked.

“If you gave me feedback, I’m certain it would.”

And that we can create something good together?

“Not just good. Something… powerful.”

Then maybe—maybe there’s a greater good—

He looked back up at me. His pupils were dilated with excitement and anxiety and hunger. He looped his fingers around one strap of my tank top and the bra strap beneath, and he pulled them from over my shoulder.

I sucked in my breath. This was one turn I had never anticipated.

My adrenaline kicked in at once, and my thoughts began to race.

Suddenly I felt exposed before him, opened up and vulnerable.

If he could do this to my body, then he could do the same to my soul.

He could unveil me and unwrap me like a Christmas present until all I had was bare before him.

Aster looked up. I can stop if you want.

“Keep going,” I said.

He lowered the other strap and paused for a moment, studying my shoulders bare for the first time.

I began to sense how the rest of the night would play out, and it seemed better than anything I could dream.

Even so it felt surreal. I remembered how dreamlike he seemed when we first met, back before I knew if he even existed on the physical plane.

“Aster?” I said as he examined me. “Where did you come from? From me, or were you around before?”

He blinked a few times, and his lashes appeared thicker than I remembered.

Then he helped me to my feet, and he caressed my bare shoulders with his fingers.

I’ve been around since the dawn of humanity.

I’ve worked with many artists before now.

But I’ve never been the way you see me until you thought of it.

That’s how we are as muses. One life, many incarnations.

Very old and very young at the same time.

Then he kissed the tip of my nose and stepped back.

A breeze caught me through the window. Darkness had fallen outside, but I hadn’t thought to pull down the curtains. Right now I enjoyed the feeling of being so close to the open darkness of night.

“I’d like to hear about it,” I said.

Aster nodded, but I didn’t know if he heard my words or only my voice. Do you mind?

I didn’t need to ask him to explain his request. He liked the curved slope of my shoulders, and he wanted to see more of me.

Nothing about his desire felt wrong or shameful or even out of place.

It was like a photographer asking me to stand a little further to the right or a doctor asking me to stick out my tongue.

I started with my tank top. The air felt cool, brisk, around my shoulders, and it lacked the humidity often present this time of year. Then I pulled off my shorts. There was less than ever between me and Aster, and my heart pounded when I wondered what he would ask for next.

For several seconds Aster stood transfixed with an expression of intense concentration—brows lowered, valleys creasing the space between his eyes. He squeezed his hands together, and his knuckles turned white.

“Is it all right?”

His eyes traced a line from my toes to my face. Stella, you’re beautiful. I said that when we first met, and I still mean it. I could look at you all night and I’d never tire of the sight.

I bit my lip. “Should I remove more?”

Please do… if it’s not too much to ask.

I adored that even now he retained a sense of propriety about him.

He could not forget the nature of his being, not for one moment, not if the two of us were the only survivors left in the world.

He wanted to be professional, polite, detached.

But I had a power over him. I was the one who made him forget himself, who made him lose control.

Later, I would look back on this moment and not know for sure whether to laugh or cry at the memory.

Keeping my eyes locked on Aster’s, I unhooked my casual white bra from behind.

I pulled it off one arm at a time and then dropped it to the floor.

Then I removed my panties, also white, silky with a lace trim.

I was clean-shaven, though I had been preparing for the beach at the time.

My skin had only begun to bronze from our excursions outside, but my midriff looked almost as white as Aster’s.

Then I stood still in front of him and a moment passed. I wondered if he would follow through on his unspoken promise and join me in my state or if he would not allow himself to go further than allowing me to model for him.

But already his hands flew to the buttons on his shirt, and he unhooked them one at a time at a rapid pace, not stepping back or pausing to enjoy the view as he moved.

He climbed out of his pants and stood before me in a pair of simple black boxers.

A fine layer of silvery hair covered what I found to be a set of solid abs.

The man might have been carved from marble by a master of the Italian Renaissance and he would not have been more perfect.

He walked to me. He reached around me and planted his palms back behind my shoulders. His chest closed in over my breasts. He was warm. Hot, even, but not sweating. Hot like a hot stone on a sunny day.

He ran his fingers through my hair and tucked a few strands behind my ears. Then he kissed the side of my cheek. I love you, Stella. I love you; I love you; I love you.

The words sent a shock wave through my system.

I felt frozen, paralyzed. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t respond to his statement or the series of kisses following because time had broken just then and frozen us both in this ambiguous hour of dark.

I mouthed that I loved him too, that I couldn’t believe he could love me like this, that I didn’t know he possessed this much humanity.

On the physical front, my legs weakened.

I stumbled as he held me closer to him. Aster caught me in his clutch and walked me to the couch, where he set me down and posed me with my legs crossed and my arms folded across my lap.

I saw a dark spot near the top of his boxers.

He took them off and stood erect before me.

“Please join me,” I said. “I feel too alone down here without you.”

To the end of the world and back.

I parted my legs and he climbed over me, planting one knee on either side and then cupping my chin in his hands.

“Aster, do you mean it? Do you mean this?”

I could feel him against me. I could feel the stickiness of his member hard over my belly, waiting to enter from below.

And I wanted it. I shivered all over and grabbed onto him.

I wanted him to keep going and never stop.

I wanted to keep touching him like this, to know that he’d always come back to me, to know that I mattered more to him than anything else.

Oh, Aster, what? he challenged, responding to my earlier moan.

“I…” The words faltered. I wanted to choke on the energy of the moment. “I love you. Please don’t go away tonight. I want you to stay with me forever now.”

Aster’s lips parted in a delighted grin. He let go of my chin and pressed on my nose with his index finger. I promise you I will never leave you, Stella. Not while you draw breath. We will ride to immortality together.

I took a breath.

What’s that? he asked.

“Nothing,” I stammered.

He placed his hands on my shoulders and kissed my collarbone and the center of my neck. Then he straightened. Say my name, he said.

“What?”

My name. Say it.

“Aster?”

He flashed a dirty smile. Say it again.

“Aster.”

Again.

“As—”

He covered my lips with a kiss.

“—ter,” I finished, again breathless.

I had no chance to lie down before Aster threw me onto the cushions.

Aster crawled over me. He planted his mouth over mine and sucked the air out of my lungs while infusing me with a new energy of his own.

He entered me below and I grabbed onto the cloth cushions of the couch for support while he began riding me in and out, in and out.

I relaxed. I basked in the reality of the moment, the feeling that Aster could provide all I needed.

When I felt ready, I released the cushions and grabbed Aster instead, and I realized that I never could have loved anyone else.