Miranda and Caliban(68)

“A constellation of stars,” I whisper again, touching his throat, his shoulders, the broad expanse of his bare chest, making a pattern with my fingertips. His skin is warm, so warm! At the base of my own throat, my pulse flutters like a dragonfly’s wings. “Will you not look at me, Caliban?”

The sun climbs higher into the sky and the stream sings a fast, burbling song to itself as it rushes over the rocks.

The scent of bruised flowers hangs in the air.

Somewhere, a bird is singing.

Caliban raises his head and looks at me with dark, dark eyes filled with longing and misery and desperate hope.

Now he touches my face, and though his hands are rough, his touch is oh, so gentle. He kisses me, his lips soft on mine.

Now I am trembling.

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

The understanding I have gained unfolds and unfolds and unfolds, growing vaster and deeper.

I am a woman.

Caliban is a man.

Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.

He kisses me and kisses me, and I kiss him and kiss him in turn, both of us trading kisses back and forth like presents we demand and exchange in a game of rewards in which every player wins, and although I do not know what wine is, I think it must be a heady thing, for it seems my head is spinning with pleasure, and I find that I am no longer kneeling but lying on the green bank of the stream, the green bed of Solomon’s song, Caliban’s weight pinning me to the sweet earth.

I hear my bodice tear.

A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts.

Caliban’s mouth is at my breasts. My nipples are yet hard and tight from the coldness of the stream, exposed in the morning air. I sink my fingers into his thick, coarse hair and guide one into his mouth and moan when he suckles it, drawing hard on my taut flesh.

I welcome it.

There is a hardness that presses at the juncture of my thighs where Caliban lies between them and I understand that this is the immodest thing, the part of a man that I am forbidden to see; and yet I feel no wrongness in this moment. My hips lift of their own urgent accord to push against the hardness.

Later I shall wonder if there was a moment when Eve first ate of the apple and gained forbidden knowledge that she reckoned it worth the price.

Mayhap.

Mayhap not.

“Oh, vilest of wretches!” Papa’s voice breaks like thunder over the isle, deep and resonant with fury. “I’ll flay your muscles from the bone!”

I do not see him stride across the field of yellow broom to grasp the hair at the nape of Caliban’s neck and haul him off me; I know only that Caliban’s weight is gone. I clamber to my feet in horror, grasping the edges of the torn bodice of my gown.

Caliban staggers and Papa stalks after him, amulet clutched in one hand as he calls down all manner of torment upon him. “Knave! Villain! Did I not forbid you to lay so much as a finger on my daughter?” he asks grimly. “And instead you attack her and seek to violate her innocence?”

“Papa, no!” I cry. “It’s not his fault!”

Papa ignores me. His hand clutches the amulet so hard I think he will crush it. With a groan of agony, Caliban falls to his knees, and then to his side. His body twitches and convulses. The skin that I have just touched writhes unnaturally as his muscles cramp and twist beneath it. The hands that have just touched me with such tenderness scrabble at the earth, pulling up stalks of broom.

“Piece of filth!” Papa’s face is purple with rage. “Oh, ungrateful beast! Would you flee the scene of your vile deed? Would you flee the righteousness of a father’s wrath? Then crawl on your belly like the worm that you are!”

“Papa!”

“Crawl, I say!”

Caliban attempts to crawl on limbs that do not obey him. It is a piteous sight.

“Shall I let you flee? No, I think not.” Papa plants one foot on the back of Caliban’s neck, shoving his face into the grassy bank. He lifts the amulet high. “Indeed, I can think of no reason to suffer you to live.”

There is murder in his voice, and the sound of it makes my blood run cold with terror.

Letting go my torn bodice, I catch Papa’s arm in both hands. “No!” He looks at me in disbelief, but I do not relinquish my grip. “Caliban did not attack me,” I say to him. “How could he? Caliban cannot raise a hand against me in harm. Your own magic precludes it.”

I see myself reflected in Papa’s gaze; bare-breasted, wet-haired, and bedraggled in my torn, soaked gown with grass and petals clinging to it, my skin still flushed with desire. I see him take in the truth of my words, and understand the meaning of them. A look of profound disgust suffuses his features.

Although I am ashamed, I do not let go his arm. No matter what punishment I suffer for it, I will stay his hand.

In the grass, Caliban groans.

“So be it.” Papa jerks his arm from my grasp, lowering the amulet. He takes his foot from Caliban’s neck. Breathing hard, he lowers his voice. “The lad lives. I’ll not shed innocent blood.”

“Thank you, Papa,” I whisper.

Papa shudders and looks away from me. “Begone from my sight, Miranda,” he says. “I do not trust myself to mete out a fitting punishment to you. Until such time as I send for you, confine yourself to your chamber.”