8: Size

My eyes opened. I was drowsy, with my nose pushed into Nayth’s neck, one of his arms around me, and the other tracing circles down my back. It sounded like he was humming something. I pulled back, blinking, and looked at him. His eyelids opened and deep brown eyes rolled my direction as a soft, dreamy smile graced his lips. “What are you feeling right now, Ahtah?”

His eyebrows raised a bit, and he pulled me against his heart. A beautiful, wordless song rose up from the chest I was lying on. His voice was deep and rich. Was that his way of telling me what he was thinking and feeling? He smiled down at me.

“I don’t always have words, Ryst. But if I could put that song into words it would tell you that I feel amazed, and more content than I ever knew was possible.”

“I didn’t know you were musical, Ahtah. I think I might have heard whispers or hums sometimes in my dreams—“

“You’re right, Methela. It feels like we know each other in some way, some dreamy way. But there’s so much I need to tell you. I don’t know how to find the time or where to start. It’s as though we need four more years just to describe the last four—“

“Well, can we start with something I’m wondering about? It’s not the beginning, but it’s near the start. I don’t know everything that happened to you in the last four years. I only know what happened to me. What I felt— there’s so much I want to talk about. And I want to hear what was happening to you. A long time ago, there were a few months where I kept feeling that my invisible lover was really sad. Really sad, and I went crazy about it. Did that really happen? Were you really sad around 3-4 years ago?” I asked him.

“Umm hmm,” Nayth nodded, “When I was nineteen, I kept dreaming of a woman who was begging me, pleading with me to fuck her. And I was a ravenous beast, desperate to break from my chains and ravage her. She needed me, wanted me, and I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t be savage with her. It was distressing at first. I couldn’t stop the dreams, and I couldn’t do what she wanted. I couldn’t let this violent thing inside me out, but I hated leaving her like that— leaving her alone and needing me.”

“Nayth, did you want to hurt the woman?”

“No!” He said ferociously. “That’s why I kept leaving her alone. Not giving her what she wanted. I didn’t want to leave her to be alone with her need, but I couldn’t hurt her. I could never, never hurt her.”

“And that’s the difference between someone who is truly violent and the rest of us. Truly bad people, Nayth, they don’t stop themselves. They take what they want and do not consider another person’s feelings. The rest of us, you and me? We are capable of great violence.” I plunged into this topic because I knew he needed to hear it, even if bringing his name into our bed was repugnant. “The difference between me and Darwin Coolidge,” I felt him still, “the difference between you and Darwin is that you and I— we are capable of great violence. I mean, think about it, Nayth. I broke his leg, and I was half-dead. If I'd had a just a few more seconds warning, he would’ve been the one mostly dead on the floor. I wouldn’t have stopped at one leg. I would’ve kept on breaking him until he was no longer a threat to me or anything I loved. I'd have zero regrets about it. Because I will use every violent thing in me to protect myself and what I love. So, you may be afraid of how much bigger you are than me—“

He tried to cut me off, “I AM bigger and stronger than you. Do you know how strong I am, Ryst?”

“I do know, Nayth, I am keenly and erotically aware of it at every moment. And I know that you use that power to preserve. I know who you are, and it’s not an aggressor. If you were truly a violent man who wanted to hurt the woman, Nayth, you would not have stopped yourself in the dream. Violent people don’t leash themselves.”

I wasn’t done. I had to keep going. I was onto something though I couldn’t yet see the scope of it. “Nayth, I’m going to keep talking now because I need to. I don’t think I’m going off into space, but I do have the feeling that I’m talking about something that’s important. Like we are having this conversation, but we’re also having a second, bigger, broader conversation. As though I am standing on a path, and in front of me, it has two branches. I’m going to describe both branches, and I don’t fully know what I’m saying. So, I’m just going to keep talking, okay?”

I tried to look at him to focus, but I could tell there was something really important that I needed to get out. “I’m listening, Ryst,” he said patiently.

“The first path I’m looking at, well, it’s the conversation that we are having right now. About all of this need and want. About being powerful, and using all of that power to protect and defend, not to be violent, but to direct the passion towards what we truly desire— connection. And you, heh, heh. Nayth— have you ever seen a baby being born, coming through the birth canal?” I looked at him, and his eyebrows raised in surprise.

“No, have—“ he shook his head and then nodded it in understanding, “of course you have.”

I nodded, “Well, then you’ve missed out on so many wonderful mysteries, my love. Yes, I am smaller than you, weaker than you. But in other ways, my body is capable of such a powerful thing that is so far beyond our understanding that we have to call it miraculous. My vagina seems like a tight, small canal,” he smirked at me, “but a woman’s body is designed to expand. I lifted my fingers up to make a circle. This small vagina can expand out to push a baby through it,” I made a larger circle with the fingers of both hands. “A baby’s skull is this big. As magnificent as your phallus is, and oh, believe me, it is glorious!” We both laughed, and he looked at me with an unbelieving look as if to say, “What bizarre direction is this path you’re describing taking?”

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I continued, “No matter how huge your cock is, it will never be as big as a baby’s head. So, just remember that the next time you’re afraid to let go and fuck me properly.”

He laughed fully and deeply then, and so did I. But I sobered; I had more to say. “And there will be a next time, Nayth, and a next time. We aren’t done with this conversation. I don’t know how long it’s going to take us to resolve this worry about violence. Because we both feel it—the raging, desperate hunger. The awful feeling that it will never be full. That it is an all-consuming black hole, right?” He nodded. “I don’t think that’s all going to disappear in one conversation. It’s part of this bigger thing, this giant thing that I can’t perceive fully yet. Because we’re living it right now. We’re on the path, and we can’t see all the twists and turns it’s going to take.” He nodded eagerly; he understood every word. “But we are together now. Neither of us is alone anymore. We aren’t a galaxy apart longing for each other. We’re here in each others’ arms. Do you think that was, it Nayth?” Excitement rose in my voice. As though something was dawning in me, an understanding I’d been trying to find for a long, long time.

“Is that what was happening?” I asked with wonder. “We were so far apart, and we had to find each other. In order to draw ourselves together, we had to reach across the whole galaxy! We had to have a powerful need. How could we have reached across light years to find each other if it hadn’t been a powerful need, Nayth? There was so much distance between us, that it had to be a violent, all-consuming desire, didn’t it? We weren’t two star-crossed lovers destined to be separate. We were two stars on a collision course.” A look of awe dawned across Nayth's face, and his eyes moved back and forth, taking in my whole face. I had to keep going. I had to keep talking. I didn’t know what I was saying, but I had to spit the words out!

Images popped into my mind so quickly, I had to blurt them rapidly! “Two paths merging, two cords coming together like thread, two strands of DNA—a double helix.” I picked up edges of something in his mind. Something about the double helix. I opened my eyes; I hadn’t realized they were closed. He looked at me eagerly, so excited.

“The double helix,” he nodded rapidly. He knew.

“Well, our DNA, our cells, every moment, right now. The strands come apart. And cells die, what isn’t needed is washed away and expelled, but our bodies take all the usable parts, every molecule that can be reused is like a brick in a building. You take apart an old, crumbly building, and you can reuse parts of the structure, right?” He nodded, that was what he knew. That was what he did—he had built a hotel empire buying old properties and remaking them. “Our bodies are like factories, always breaking down the old and rebuilding it into something new. A constant cycle of creation: take everything that is used up and spent, break it down into pieces, and remake it into something new.”

“And that’s the two paths you keep talking about, Ryst,” Nayth nodded. “You’re talking about the literal pieces of our DNA, but that’s a metaphor for our lives. We break down, and it seems like the suffering will never end. We can’t see that it’s just the path our lives are taking us on to build us into something new.”

“Yes! It’s that and there’s more layers to the meanings as well. Yes! All this time, Nayth. It was horrible. All those years of longing, and feeling like we’d never be full. All that ferocious desire, it was us creating something new! We just couldn’t see it because it was so big, so vast! AND WE AREN’T DONE YET.”

I was on my knees, kneeling between his legs with my fists against his chest. Like I had an invisible suit jacket in my hands shaking him with enthusiasm. “This is something big, Nayth. You and me. I feel it; I know it. Something has been coming for a long, long time. And the two of us are wrapped up in it. It’s a storm in the sea, and I can’t see the whole scope of it. But that wild passion was us reaching out to each other, across the galaxy because we were hungry for connection. Like DNA. The double helix separates into two strands. And a single strand cannot survive on its own. It has to have its match so it can live. We were two strands, separated, and the powerful urge to live drew us towards each other. That woman in your dreams… you felt it, didn’t you? You felt her needing you to fuck her didn’t you?”

“Yes,” he moaned. His face look agonized. “She needed me to—fuck, I can hardly even say it it’s so horrible. She needed me to fuck her, not make love to her. She wanted savagery, not tenderness. I can’t let go like that, Ryst. I can’t.”

I consoled him, “It’s okay, my love, it’s okay. Think about it Nayth,” my eyes roamed his face, willing him to make the connection. “You were feeling what you felt, but you were also feeling what she felt. Like her need for you amplified your need for her. Me, Nayth. It’s me. It was me wanting you, needing you, reaching out across the galaxy trying to find you. I dreamt it too. I wrote down all the dreams. I have them, in my journals. I wrote you letters. There’s so much I have to tell you. I’ve been trying to get to you. And we found each other in dreams. You felt my desire, and I felt yours. We were blended together like two strands of DNA— breaking apart alone and rebuilding into a double helix. It wasn’t just your need. It wasn’t just my need. It was our need. Two powerful urges combining to make a third.”

“I’m here, Nayth. I’m here, now, in your arms. And I’m not going anywhere. We aren’t done yet. And this conversation isn’t over. Because someday I will beg you to fuck me. I’ll cry, and I’ll plead, and I’ll beg you to ravage me. And it will hurt letting all that need out in a single moment. All that desperation we’ve been facing alone for years will come out in a torrent. And when the time is right for both of us, we will plunge into it. We will be able to handle it—together.”

I spoke with a savage growl that was half screech, “Nayth Carmidee, I’m in your bed, and you aren’t the only starving, vicious thing here.”

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“Nayth Carmidee, I’m in your bed, and you aren’t the only starving, vicious thing here.”

It was a challenge. It was a demand. It was a taunt. Oh, you starve for me, love? I lunged for her, and she reached for me. I was on top of her. You want, me, Ryst, have me. Have me. Take all of me. All that I am. All that I was. All that I will be. I’m yours. I wouldn’t give her savagery, but I could give her passion. And lust. I would not be unchained, but I could give her everything else. She wanted me, and I could fill her up with me. All that I was. Every thrust of my body, pounding into hers, pouring myself into her, saying without words, I won’t leave you alone in this anymore. Methela. My darling, my love, my life! I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours. Take me. Keep me.

There was a beast inside me. It was chained. There were words inside me. They were chained so she wouldn’t hear: Marry me. Keep me. My wife. My life. My wife. My wife. My wife. They desperately wanted to claw their way free. I chained them. Marry me, Ryst. Marry me.