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Message-ID: <27979asstr$977458209@assm.asstr-mirror.org>
From: Delta <Delta@nym.alias.net>
Subject: {ASSM} "Winter's Night" by Delta (MF)
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 23:10:09 -0500
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RE

Should you wish to comment upon my story, I can be reached by 
E-mail at: 

delta @ nym . alias . net

Comments and critizisms are welcome.

Standard disclaimers:  This is a work of fiction - no character 
within is a depiction of any real person, living or dead.  No 
place or event described within exists outside of the writer's 
imagination.  Copyright retained by the author and this post
is for private use of the reader only.  It is not to be published 
in any form whatsoever, including being made available on BBSs, 
or on Web Pages, without the express prior consent of author.
     Any readers who are underage in the jurisdiction in which
they reside are asked to please pass by.


Delta.

                  WINTER'S NIGHT
                      by
                   Delta (2000)

     I guess I shouldn't have been surprised, after all I'd
lived many years in the cold north.  Yet the last several years
on the coast, with rain instead of snow, left me unprepared.
     I awoke, as was my custom, at nine of the clock in the
evening.  After a stretch which pushed me well on the way to
total wakefulness, I rose and left the bed chamber behind me.
To shave or not to shave?  It didn't really matter--I would
not be seeing anyone, not now.  The good people of the town 
would be preparing for bed even as I rose.
     Habit overcame sense and I stropped the razor, testing
its keen sharpness on a hair I pulled from my head.  I poured 
some heated water into a bowl and lathered up my brush.  It
is strange what we will do for fashion.  I began the scraping 
of the dark shadow which adorned my face, 'til at last it was
gone and my face naked.
    The mirror should have broken years before.  Catching my 
reflection as it did must have been quite a strain.  Yet it
continued to serve the purpose for which I had intended it 
when I gave up the good coin required.
     Now, I'm not saying I'm ugly.  My mother, may her soul
rest softly on the other side, would come back and take a
wooden spoon to me were I to do so.  No, I'll be charitable
and state, as I was wont to hear her say, that my face shows
character.
     Just what that character is, I'll not speculate.  However,
children have been known to hide behind their mother's skirts
when they first catch sight of me, and it is said that when I
glare, even strong men are taken aback.
     I laugh when I hear those stories, yet they hurt, 
notwithstanding.  I have naught against any man, and children
can be a joy.  Their lively curiosity and open acceptance of
that which lies behind closed doors in the adult mind is a
blessed thing to see.  So I smile when I see the young ones,
though 'tis likely I'll never have any of my own.
     I patted my face dry and checked the pot I placed on the
stove.  The water was hot, near boiling.  I poured in the oatmeal
and added raisins, nuts and dried apple.  In the measure of a 
man's life, the oatmeal does not take long to cook.  
     I spooned it into a bowl, though none would know were I to eat 
from the pot, and set the bowl down upon the honest kitchen table.
It was only then I looked through the uncurtained window to the
field beyond.
     It had snowed during the day, and clouds in the distance 
told of more soon to come.  The blanket of white now covering 
the ground would deepen.  I stood fast, stunned by the
beauty of it.  It was a different world out there.  A world 
without the knots and pimples and I gasped at the beauty.
     There are those who do not believe that men see the majesty,
the wondrousness, and feel it within the depths of their souls.
'Tis a woman's thing, they tell us.  I wonder who first spoke
that lie--and why, for my many years' experience tells me it is 
not true, has never been true.
     Though eating is a serious business, one which should be
attended to at the table, I picked up my steaming bowl and 
carried it with me out of doors, into the cold, into the white.
There I watched the rising of the moon, saw the brightness of the
stars against the white of the ground.
     Snow has a way of magnifying the light.  A bright night with
snow on the ground is much brighter than that without.  At times
like these I believe in magic.
     The oatmeal was good, much better than usual, though I'd
made it in the usual way.  It sat comfortably heavy in my stomach
and 'twas only the coolness of the air and my lack of a coat which
turned me back and led me inside.  
     That, of course, did not last long.  Now properly prepared
for the night, I ventured out once more.  Quiet.  So very silent.
It seemed a shame to step off the porch and leave tracks in the
earth's mantle, yet I did so nonetheless, cheered slightly by 
the knowledge that they would be filled in by the time I returned.
     The lights of the town were blurred in the distance, and even
as I looked two or three of them disappeared.  On a night like
this there was no reason to remain awake.  More fools they.  On
a night like this . . . I stopped short, counting the days in
my head.  My big smile, slightly off centre because of the
missing tooth, must have reflected the moon's light practically
as much as the snow, so wide was it.
     My only sorrow was that there was none with whom I could
share.  The thoughts of those so safe and warm in their homes
would be on a day soon to come, a day which had usurped this
day.  Even so, I would have enjoyed sharing with another, feeling
her thrill to the sight and lack of sound even as I was now
thrilling to it.
     But this was just a lonesome thought.  I pushed it back
down, hid it deep where it would not get out and looked again
to the fields and roads.  Nothing would rob me of my enjoyment.
I walked on, pulling the flaps of my cap about my ears.  The
joy of listening to the silence warred with the desire of the
ears to be warm.  The ears had won--for the moment.
     With my back to the town, the night's lights blazing above
me, I walked on.  Then the night's lights began to dim as they
were covered from my sight and about me the snow began to fall.
     The flakes were huge affairs, fluffy beyond reason.  They
turned the whole world to white.  Soon, very soon, even the
prints left by my feet would disappear.  
     Hold!  What did my eyes uncover?  A trail of footprints
just ahead, coming from nowhere and leading to another nowhere.
Could someone be lost in the unfamiliar, the sense of direction
turned about by lost landmarks?  I turned to follow the tracks,
even as they began to fill.
     The world was close about me, for I could see but a short
distance into the night, into the falling snow.  The faint 
traces of the one who walked ahead of me arced in a large
circle, a sure sign of one lost.  I walked faster, each of
my steps covering three of those before me.
     Gone.  They were gone.  The trail had disappeared.  I
thought I knew where I was and decided upon the most likely
path of the other.  Without hesitating I moved in that 
direction--what good would it do to second guess myself?
     An hour later I knew it was hopeless.  I had chosen 
poorly.  Because of that someone would likely die this night.
A hard thing to place on oneself.  I caught the shadow of a
tree through the falling white and went to stand beneath its
boughs.  Soon I would have to head back.  I had already left
the raising of a search party for too long.  I heaved a sigh
and shivered in the cold which was now making its way through
my coat and deep into my flesh.  I looked hard into the falling
snow.  Nothing.
     "What do you see on such a night?"
     The soft whisper shocked me into immobility.  It came from
behind, from the other side of the great tree.
     "A world reborn."
     "'Tis the end and the beginning," the whisper agreed.  A
woman's whisper.  It fit the small steps.  "Turn, that I might
see your face.  I am honoured that you should risk so much for
one you did not know."
     Her voice was sweet, yet I turned not.  My face was not
one to surprise another with.  I felt her hand upon my arm and
she applied pressure.  
     "Turn and let me see you."  I turned.  Her hand, suddenly
unmittened, rose and traced my heavy brows.  I felt her fingers
only numbly for my face was cold, very cold.  But my heart, oh
my heart.  I could feel great beats within my chest.  It had been
long, far too long since another had . . .
     "Who . . . ?"  Her fingers touched my lips, silencing the
question.  She turned and began to walk away, only looking back
once to make sure I was following.
     How long we walked, I do not know.  It seemed a goodly
time.  Then, of a sudden, there was a tent, pitched between two
strong trees.  She bade me enter, and of a truth I was glad of
this, for I was cold indeed.
     The room inside was narrow and not high.  I crawled in to
find myself on a soft down quilt.  It was good for we would need
its warmth were we to survive.  We had been too long out in the
cold and the nearest house was much too far away.
     For long moment we sat, unmoving in the dark, while our
breath warmed the air.  Then I felt/saw her begin to take off
her outer garment.  A quick movement of her hand to undo the top
button of my coat left no questions.  We would do well to cling
together and share our warmth.  I began to undo my coat's other 
buttons as rapidly as my numbed fingers would allow.
     Her hands stopped mine.  "I did not realize."  She drew my
left hand up and took two of its fingers into her mouth.  The 
warmth!  I nearly cried to feel the warmth. 
     I was undressed.  I do not remember taking off my clothes,
yet I must have done so.  I remember only the warmth.  The blessed
warmth.  Her hand found mine again and pulled it up to touch her
breast.  She, too, was unclothed!  
     She lay down on her side, her back to me and I curled around
her, pulling the quilt over the two of us.  She took my hand and
pulled it up to cup her breast.  So long, so very long since . . .
     "Ah, yes," she whispered.
     My awareness traveled down my body to the swelling and my face
flushed.  It was wrong to take advantage to . . . .
     "Is it wrong when I desire it?"
     Had I been thinking aloud?  Her hand pressed mine more 
tightly against her and I could feel the hard pressure of her
nipple against my palm.  I removed my hand to a sigh of regret.
The sigh turned into a chuckle as my hand stroked her from neck
to thigh, touching lightly, then with pressure, then lightly again.
     She seemed to enjoy most the feather light traces of my
fingertips against her skin.  Finally she could take no more and
turned to me, pulling me close, pulling my head down to her own.
     Her lips met mine and her passion overwhelmed me.
     On my back, she straddling me, hands in my hair holding my
head still while she attacked with her mouth, her tongue, robbing 
me of my breath.  My hands operated without benefit of my brain,
fingers tracing up and down her back until she sat up, head 
brushing the roof of the tent, breathing hard.
     Out of practice I may have been, but slow I am not.  In
sitting she had uncovered her breasts and my hands were over
them in an instant, lightly touching and stroking, tenderly 
drawing out the sighs which so excited me, until she quivered
with anticipation.
     "Are you sure?" I asked.  She was poised above me.  "Oh!"  
She was sure.  She came plunging down, burying me within her. 
Now I truly knew warmth.  As a counterpoint, we heard the cold 
wind begin to moan in the trees.  She began to rise and fall 
upon me and our own moans joined those of the wind.
     Have you ever been to that place where each nerve is
alive? where the physical transcends itself?  I was there and
it was like nothing I'd ever experienced before.  And she
was there with me and I knew her body as she knew mine, as
we knew our own.  
     There is joy in not thinking, in acting only--and reacting.
The time was upon us and she screamed, the sudden squeezing
tearing a gasping roar from me as I sat bold upright, threw my
arms about her and pulled her down with me.  Down we went,
down, down where the intellect cannot intrude.  Deep into
the silence where the only sensation was the beating of our
hearts, each pumping into the other, sending tendrils of
energy circulating through our union.
     Silence.
     Slowly the world made itself known once more.  Her head
came off my chest and she looked into my eyes, though how we
could see each other in that darkness, I do not know.
     "You must leave soon, if you are to get back."
     I didn't move, though I knew she was right.  I had no
desire to return to the cold.
     There was a glow about her which seemed to light the
tent.  "Do you understand?"
     "The end and the beginning.  Death and rebirth."
     Her eyes pierced through to my soul.  "You understand," 
she confirmed.  "But are you sure?"
     I didn't move.  Her eyes began to glow, to warm, to burn.  
     "I'm sure." 

End

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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