A/N: So I saw Mad Max: Fury Road a few days ago and got totally inspired. There's a fair amount of UST towards the end of the movie (at least in my opinion) and I just had to figure out a way to get these two together. I played around with a few things (the premise, most obviously), but most of it is pretty straightforward canon. This is my first attempt at an M-rated story – and it gets pretty damn M in the second half – so bear with me! And please review and let me know what you think…

With a troubled heart, she watches the winch-chains uncoil, lowering the platform that will take her from the high aerie of the Citadel to the dusty village below. The platform is raised and lowered many times a day now – a far cry from when it unclenched only to send off supply convoys of the war rig or take in the spoils of a raiding party – but today it takes her down for a very specific reason.

Today, this very afternoon, Furiosa, the Imperator, daughter of the Many Mothers, new commander of the forces of the Citadel, must choose a consort from among the people.

It is an old tradition, she is told, from even before the era of the Immortan and his war boy death cult, from the time of the Many Mothers. As a leader, she must inspire her people with her bravery, her resolve, and she must have daughters that will carry on this rule, who will bear the seeds and thus honor the line of their mothers. They tell her it is even more vital now, when their numbers are so diminished. And, yet... She was born to the Many Mothers, but was taken, snatched from that embrace, lived a life unimaginable, many lifetimes in the span of her eleven thousand days, each one seemingly worse than the one before, until now.

Her captors had thought that, as a daughter of the Many Mothers, she would make a good breeder, that she could bear children free from disease and deformation, born as she was far away from the inner rot of the Citadel. So she was branded, groomed, made pliable, kept safe from harm in the upper reaches of the fortress, within the Vault. And just after her first blood, when she was deemed ready, she was brought to the Immortan. There is no point in trying to recall it, nor could she fully, had she even wanted to. As young as she was, she had known enough to take her mind to another place, far away from her body; even in the hours afterward, once she had been spirited back to the other Wives, left lying on the hair-stuffed mattress in a tiny, contracted ball, brokenness and pain radiating from deep within, she could not entirely recall the specific actions that had caused it. She had not been summoned for some time after that, the Immortan having a number of spare breeders, but soon enough she was dressed, anointed with scent, and brought out of the Vault, and again she opened wide the doors to the palace of her mind, finding it with ease. The green place. It was there that she walked, among her mother's people, among the twilight laughter and the swaying palm fronds. It was from there that she watched her tiny body being subjected to brutal use, merely an object, a receptacle.

Hundreds of days and nights blended into one another, a living nightmare, until at last her bleeding ceased and her belly began to swell. She was brought forth and examined, splayed open to a wizened crone, and proclaimed to be with child. The Immortan's summoning blessedly ceased, and for a time she slept less fitfully, until one night she woke to the feeling of wet and warmth around her thighs. Frantically, she shoved the blankets back to watch the product of her body come forth in a rush of blood and anguish, seeping through her linen bedclothes, staining the metal teeth of the belt that locked around her pelvis. It was an unrelenting pattern, until she could count on two hands the failures of her womb, each one offering a glimpse of the pale monstrosity that had temporarily found a home within her.

How long this would have continued, she does not know, but then a chance accident – Lucky? she wonders, or unlucky? – with a pair of hair-cutting shears resulted in a deep, diagonal gash along her wrist and the fleshy base of her thumb. It was washed and bandaged and yet the wound grew red and swollen, angry with infection, streaks running the length of her arm near to the elbow. There had been no other choice, not unless she wanted to die: the arm had to be removed. But she came to understand, after the fever and delirium had passed, that she was now imperfect, and the Immortan wanted no imperfect vessels. She would have been tossed out like yesterday's refuse, left to die below in the trash heaps of the village, but someone had remembered that the Many Mothers had always schooled their daughters in the workings of machines. Nothing went to waste in the Citadel. Her clothes soon turned to oil-crusted rags and she begged for scraps, finding dank corners of the underground passageways to curl into at night, survival her sole focus. Soon enough, however, Furiosa had made herself indispensable to the chrome-fueled mechanicals, fully effecting her transformation by binding herself tightly in linen and leather, shearing her long lengths of hair, and fashioning herself a new arm, one that could be joined to her body and that would never tire, no matter how many hours she sweated and slaved. She was resourceful and she was cunning. Having quickly mastered the complicated machinery of the war rig, she then became fixated on learning the occupations of battle: how to drive vehicles through the chaos of pursuit and retreat, how to fire weapons from a moving car, how to throw punches with the full and fatal power of her mechanized arm. Soon enough, the broken girl had fully disappeared, and all that was left was the hollowed-out woman. Even the Immortan, when he had summoned her into his presence, this time not as a captive breeder but as the new commander of his war rig, did not at first even recognize her.

It was then that she conceived the idea, one that had taken hundreds of days to finally be put into action. If she could not put an end to the Immortan, she could at least take from him what he most valued. If she could not save herself from what he had done to her, she could at least save others. Thus she would redeem herself, erase the thousands of days she had enslaved her body and mind to the Immortan, show herself worthy of her mother's womb.

But she had put an end to the Immortan. She had saved the others. With assistance, she had to admit, from perhaps the most unlikely of allies – a blood bag, for chrome's sake. It had never been in her nature or in her blood to trust a man, but he had surprised her, had saved her from death just as she had saved him. And then he had left, with no farewell, his name lost to the high winds that caressed the finely-ground desert sand.

The platform sinks into the battered earth, the chains falling loose without the strain of weight, and she looks out, surveys among her people. Their faces are weathered, lined, hunger and deprivation and disease written into their bodies. The women range in age – although there are few that would be considered handsome and well-formed – but the men are all older, none under fifteen thousand days, the result of taking boys as soon as they are weaned and giving them over to be raised and trained in the Citadel, covering them in war paint and filling their eager minds with stories of gloried death and Valhalla. She will not take a war boy as consort, though; this much she has promised herself.

She curses herself for agreeing to this ridiculous idea. What of tradition? She is the Imperator. Traditions bow to her command. And yet… There is the dream of a daughter, if such a thing is possible, if her own womb was not destroyed so many years ago as it bloodily rejected what had been put into it. And a consort would share only her bed at night, never her counsel in the day, dismissed once she was certain she bore seed.

The crowd parts as she walks among them, and they are silent, their heads bowed in genuflection. She does not wish this kind of reverence, but they are well-trained, expecting little but the lash. This is a fool's errand, she now realizes, as she cannot in good faith take a consort who would cower to her. And neither would she cower. She wants an equal, and in this place, at this moment, there is none. This turn of events will no doubt disappoint and sadden her advisers, the Many Mothers who survived the attack on the Immortan with her, those who had trekked through the desert at her request so they might have a place of respite, a growing place of green.

She turns her head, as though to indicate her intention to move back to the platform, and thus to return back up to the heights of the Citadel, her purpose unfulfilled. And there, among the downturned faces, she catches a set of blue-gray eyes, staring right back at her. She cannot fathom why he has returned, but her heart lurches regardless, some part of her wondering if any of his blood still flowed through her veins. He cannot have been here very long – she would have heard news – and so cannot possibly have learned why she has decided to descend to the village, why the people have been so assembled. Yet the small set in his jaw, the defiance of his gaze, makes her want to believe he knows exactly why she is here.

It is foolhardy, reckless, impulsive beyond all measure, but still she raises her chin proudly and points the pale flesh fingers of her right hand in his direction.

"That one," she says, loud enough for her attendants to hear.

She swivels back to the platform, not waiting to watch as he is pulled from the crowd and escorted away to wait for his separate ascent, tradition dictating that the consort be privately informed of his role and felt to be of sound enough mind to rightfully consent to it.

The metal foundation shakes under her feet as it is hoisted into the air, the chains creaking in protest, and now she begins to regret her boldness, nerves and something else she can't quite identify burrowing deep into her belly. She clenches her flesh fist, tight enough that her nails bite crescent moon marks into her palm. What will he think of her, once he understands what she is doing? And why would he consent to it? How could this – how could she? she muses bitterly – ever be something he would want?

But all these thoughts, buzzing around her head like relentless insects, she recognizes for what they are: nettlesome, foolish, of little use. She will keep the tradition, do what is required of her, put aside feelings – the refuge of the simple and the weak – and thus find a way to continue the line of the Many Mothers. That is the path to her redemption.

The ascent seems somehow quicker than the descent, as if time itself mocks her uncertainty.

Once inside the heart of the Citadel, she finds her chamber, her blood beating deep within her veins, a roar in her ears. Upon taking command, she had first insisted that the Immortan's quarters be cleared, its contents thrown into the fire pits, and then the mechanicals worked into the night to extract the thick door to the Vault. The door itself was melted down, its constituent metals refashioned into tools, replacement vehicle parts, pipes to bring up water from the bowels of the earth. One small bit of the door she kept, molded from the lock mechanism, a flat, unmarked disc that she wears on a leather thong around her neck, worn against her heart so she might never forget.

Even still, she could not bring herself to reside in the Vault. Nor even in her old quarters, where she lived during the rule of the Immortan. After some searching, she found a small room for herself, empty of memories, and at night she can look out from the balcony and quietly count the stars, something she loves simply because she knows she will never finish. Not in a hundred lifetimes.

The sun is setting and she goes out to the balcony to watch it burn away to ink and ashes, but even so she is waiting, steeling herself, donning her armor without moving a muscle. The last light begins to fade into darkness when she finally hears a door opening and closing on its hinges, followed by slow, deliberate footsteps.

The footsteps stop somewhere near the middle of the room and she knows she must turn and face him. Eventually, over the course of the night, she will have to do much more than that, but even the first step of merely looking at him is proving to be remarkably difficult.

She had believed herself to possess some authority on the workings of men – she had lived among them for half her life, among their smells and scratches, their rough, drunken laughter and their ego-driven posturing that always seemed to find its fullest expression in an exchange of blows. And even though it had been many years, she has fully known a man's touch. It is something of a shock, then, to realize that she cannot make much sense of this man at all, that he does not fit neatly into the confines of her expectations. She wonders if it will also be different when he touches her.

As she turns towards the room, she allows her eyes to merely drift across the floor, seeing first his weathered boots, and then, as she gazes upwards, she follows the long line of his body, her breath tightening slightly as it forces its way out of her lungs. He is well-made, she has to give him that, none of your under-fed war boy lankiness, but neither is he like the ballooned meat machines that the Immortan so favored as his minions. She finds it hard not to stare, finds it hard not to briefly speculate on what he might look like underneath all his tattered and dirt-covered clothes. His eyes catch hers again, gleaming and hard-edged against the shadowed planes of his face, while his expression remains enigmatic. Her hard-won resolve crumbles slightly, the impassive mask of her face loosening as she finds herself taking smaller, quicker breaths.

"I'm sorry," she says, without thinking. "I had to choose."

He does not respond, but continues to look at her. His directness is unnerving, and stirs something in her.

"If you'd prefer, I could find you another room… to rest in…" She realizes that she has just given him an escape, a choice between staying and leaving, and she is immobilized in the knowledge that she cannot decide which of the two she would prefer.

He shakes his head a little and grunts an answer that she interprets as negative. Her heart beats slightly faster, now that he has fully voiced – as much as he seems able – his consent. Of course, it is unlikely he would have come this far without already agreeing to take on the role he had been offered. Yet a small part of her is surprised; she had been forced into this by circumstance and a sense of duty. He is beholden to neither. What has brought him here, then?

He shifts slightly in his stance, but does not move any closer towards her. For a few moments it is not entirely clear to her what is happening, but then she notices the tiny curl forming on the side of his mouth. She realizes that he is simply biding his time, waiting for her to approach him, making her take the lead. Bastard.

She clenches her mouth slightly, biting her lips together, as she finds the wherewithal to walk towards where he stands in the center of the room. He is not so much taller than her – in fact, they stand near the same height – but he has a presence, even in his almost-silent state, that is all but impossible to ignore. Within a foot of him, she stops, entranced for a moment at the cowlick whirls of his close-cropped hair, the rough plush of week-old beard that lines his jaw, and his mouth, with lips so full and round they seem almost misplaced on a man. His eyes meet hers, direct, without a hint of judgment, and then he tilts his head ever so slightly, in apparent invitation. Look all you want, his eyes seem to say. Take your fill. Take what you need. With their gazes still locked, she reaches out her right hand, but she cannot yet find it in herself to touch him. So instead she grasps the zippered lapel of his jacket, her mechanical hand finding the other side, and she curls the collar back, gently sliding it over the protective shoulder guard. He threads his arms out of the sleeves and she is left with the full weight of the jacket in her hands. She sets it on the floor, bending slightly, and as she raises herself back up, they are standing face to face, eye to eye, close enough for her to see the pulse beating in his throat. Close enough that she can smell him, a mixture of salt and sweat, leather and guzzoline. He smells like the road: its openness, its emptiness.

Even though she knows she must continue, she is hesitating, holding back out of fear and anticipation. He must sense this, because he leans his head forward slightly, his face mere inches from the junction of her neck and shoulder, but he does not touch her. His eyes close and he inhales deeply, the pull of air cool across her skin, and then warm again as he breathes out. At this sensation, her lower belly clenches and all she can think to do is use her hands to find the hem of his napped, worn shirt and pull it upwards roughly, his arms quickly reaching towards the ceiling and then freeing themselves of the fabric.

She stares in surprise: his upper body is covered in tattoos. These are not the intricate, pale protrusions of the war boys, nor the pink-tinged brand of the Immortan that sits at the base of her own neck, but meandering patterns of dark ink, dancing across his upper arms, his shoulders, the top half of his chest. They twist into lines and shapes, forming a few familiar images – a bird, a desert scorpion – but there are also words, at least as far as she can tell, as they are written in an alphabet she does not recognize. Seemingly of their own volition, her flesh fingertips reach up towards the space under his collarbone, lightly tracing along the contours of a word whose meaning she will never know.

Part of her wonders whether the patterns continue onto his back, and she turns slightly so that she can circle around him and indulge her curiosity. Before she can take a step, however, he quickly grabs her fingers, locking her wrist and forearm against his so that she cannot easily move behind him. His grip is firm, but not tight, a wordless expression of his will. She nods slightly, knowing that whatever he wants to keep from her – slave tattoos, the raised ribbons from the lash – she probably does not want to see anyway. The tension in his grip relaxes, but he does not release her. Instead, he takes her fingers and flattens them against the plane of his chest, his hand over hers, the rhythm of his heartbeat steady under her palm. For a moment, she listens to it, the language of flesh and blood, perhaps the only one they will be speaking tonight.

She had thought that bringing herself to touch him would be the hardest part, but she realizes that what she must do now will take every bit of strength she has. Slipping her hand from the enclosure of his grasp, she turns her attention to the metal buckles that are arrayed down her torso, loosening each tongue of leather and freeing each prong from its eyelet. The harness undone, she lifts the cross-body strap over her head, before she shoves the cuff down her biceps and delicately pulls the stub of her arm from the leather socket. Once the mechanical arm and harness have been laid out on the floor, she reaches up instinctually, without even thinking, and rubs her shoulder, easing the rawness where the harness chafed against her skin. This particular harness has been used somewhat infrequently – it was an auxiliary device, made in case something happened to her first – and she has not had much time since they returned to the Citadel to break it in fully. She turns her glance towards him, realizing that he has been carefully watching her all this while, and she swears that if she sees the merest trace of pity in his eyes she will order him to go and never return. But she searches his face, finding it hard to interpret – it is difficult for her to recall any man ever looking at her for so long a time, except out of primal terror – but she cannot sense pity, nor anything resembling it, written into his eyes.

Reaching behind her, she unties the laces of her leather bodice, pulling the length of them through each of the tiny openings, until at last the final one comes free and the piece itself tumbles to the floor. She then untucks the end of the linen bindings, swiftly unwrapping them from her chest. Her undershirt is sticking to her body, molded by sweat and dirt, and she wonders how exactly she will take it off with one arm while still maintaining a shred of dignity.

When she had first agreed to this, there had been little thought to the mechanics of it; it was something she would simply get through, endure for a few minutes, before returning to the necessary business of her command. Even after she had chosen him, she had not considered how exactly it would happen, nor had she anticipated how terribly self-conscious she might feel before they arrived at the act itself. She, the Imperator, who had commanded fleets of war boys, killed scores of men along the Fury Road – some part of her, she realizes, is fearful of bringing this man to her bed. She wonders if perhaps it would be better if she simply knocked him to the floor and straddled him, quickly taking what she needed and then sending him on his way.

At this moment, though, she cannot even bring herself to look at him, so she glances down absently, trying to figure out what she will do next. It is then that she sees him move, out of the corner of her eye, his hand reaching up to the side of her face, grasping her so that his thumb rests on her cheek, his fingers spanning her neck and nestling in her cropped hair. He gently pulls her towards him, their foreheads touching, their mouths so very close as they begin to breathe from the same air. Not that she is breathing, really, not while his other hand is heavy on her waist, not while his fingertips gently push aside fabric and find her bare skin.

He uses his grip on her jaw to tilt it slightly upwards, and his lips brush against hers, softly at first, as if taking her measure. The sensation is so foreign to her, so different – is it possible that she had never truly kissed anyone before? – but she finds herself responding to him, moving her body slightly towards his, grasping the curve of his shoulder with her hand and feeling the flesh warm beneath her touch.

From somewhere unknown, deep within her, there is simply the demand for more. More pressure, more contact, more skin, more everything. It is what compels her to slant her head slightly and open her mouth against his, finding warmth and moisture, the slipperiness of his tongue, the sharp edge of his teeth. He seems to understand and share this need, shifting both his hands to her waist, like lightning against her skin, pushing under her shirt and palming the broad muscles of her back. She feels an immediate tense, almost a pull, from her pelvis, and it swiftly radiates through the rest of her body.

She cannot help it; she moans into his mouth. Her heart is beating like an impatient war drum and her arms encircle his neck, the fingers of her right hand sinking and clutching into his hair.

For a moment, she recalls the last time they have been this physically close, their first meeting, when they scrapped and scrambled in the hot dust, each intent on killing the other. Their embrace had been passionate, but a passion based in fury and an instinctual need to survive. The same arms that sought to subdue and disarm her were now clutching her body against his own, perhaps subduing and disarming her in an entirely different way.

After a time, his mouth pulls away from hers, shifting over to her neck, and she feels the rough urgency of his tongue, his lips, his teeth. Without thinking, she turns her head to grant him more access to areas of sensitivity she never knew she possessed. She doesn't understand how he knows to do these things. How can he know how astonishing this feels? How could she have never known?

Underneath her shirt, his hands trace up her back, parallel with her spine, until his fingertips are nearly curled over the top of her shoulders. It is impossible to take any longer, this feeling of the fabric separating them, so she reaches back, grasping a fistful of her garment, and pulls it up over her head, divesting herself of it completely. His eyes are slightly wider, as he takes her in, and part of her wonders what he is thinking, whether she is enough for him, and then she curses herself for such ridiculous sentiment. Her body was a negation, not something to be flaunted or caressed in tenderness. She had not refashioned it for anything other than function, as a finely-engineered war machine.

Gently, tentatively, his hands return to her body, cupping around her ribs right below her breasts. The fingertips of his right hand find the tiny, raised scar along her side, marking the wound he gave her, the wound that saved her. She glances down at it quickly, then back to him, offering a tiny nod of her head, a show of her recognition and gratitude. He tightens his mouth slightly in acknowledgement, but then she watches as his gaze drifts back down, his attention refocusing.

His thumbs begin to trail upwards, moving hypnotically across her skin, and she feels her breath catch deeply in her throat, a result of what is doing to her and what she knows he is about to do. Stilling his left hand, he traces the back of his right thumb against the soft underside of her breast, eyes carefully observing, as if he's trying to read her, as if her body was a map of an unknown land. Then finally the callused pad of his thumb brushes against her nipple, sending – an impossibility, she knows – shock-wave reverberations directly to her pelvis. She offers a sharp intake of breath, and the outward expansion of her chest pushes more of her into his grasp. In response, his entire hand shifts upwards and he lightly cups the fullness of her, his thumb circling so slowly and tantalizingly around her nipple, the edge of his nail raking against her hardness. His touch is like a live wire, a brand, a fire across her skin, even more so when he begins to move his other hand, mirroring his actions on the right.

It is all too much, too new, and she longs to make it stop, just as she longs to have it continue. Still, she cannot forget why they are both here; she cannot shrink from her duty. She is dazed, chrome-high with the awakening of her body, but she knows they must get on to the business at hand.

She takes one of his hands and pulls him towards the side of the room, where her bed is pushed up against the wall. The bedding, like all her furnishings, is nondescript and spartan, just a rough blanket and an old bed roll as a pillow, and for a moment she wishes she could offer him something more comfortable. She stands in front of him, not meeting his gaze – it is easier not to – while her hand reaches down towards the lacings of his leather trousers. Her knuckles briefly graze against his skin and she hears a catch in his breath as the muscles underneath contract. She focuses on the roughly-tied knots, but it is more complicated than she thought and she struggles with one hand to undo them. So it is with both embarrassment and relief that she watches him take over and begin to untie them himself. After he has fully loosened them, he drops down to sit on her bed, unclipping his side holster and pulling off his boots one by one. There is a supportive brace wrapped over his left calf and as he begins to unbuckle the fastenings, she turns her attention to the removal of her own clothes. With a push of her toes against the heel, she shucks off her boots, and then begins to tug at the series of zippers tucked and hidden in her trousers, designed so that she could quickly dress and undress herself with one hand. Once she is entirely uncovered, she looks up and sees that he is standing again, pulling at the waistband of his trousers and pushing them down his legs. As he steps out of them, he kicks them aside, pulling his gaze up to meet hers.

They stand there for a moment, quietly taking their fill of each other.

He is all lines and planes, muscles meeting each other along the contours of his hip, along the length of thigh and calf. But there is a grace in him, too, in his fighter's frame, strange for a man so built of power and strength. And he is clearly ready for her, that even she could recognize. She knows she has chosen well; this man could give her a daughter, a child born of her strength and his, a child that could live and thrive in this broken world.

Armed with that knowledge, some fleeting sense of assurance, she lowers herself and sits on the edge of the bed, pushing herself backwards as a silent invitation for him to follow. Once she has moved far enough, she leans onto her side, watching as he climbs onto the bed, taking the space beside her. From this point, she knows well what will follow, from her own fractured memories and the stories the other Wives told each time they returned from the Immortan: she will lie back and open her legs, and he will be on top of her, inside her for a time, and then it will be done. All very simple.

She begins to turn onto her back, but he reaches out and grasps her around the waist, bringing her body up alongside his. His face is close enough that he can graze his nose gently against hers, a strange sensation that causes her breath to catch in her throat, and then he finds her mouth again, the firm pressure of his lips so insistent and inviting. She presses back against him, a reaction stemming from her body's demands, yet she does not understand. Why does he delay? Does he not know what needs to be done? It will be up to her, then, to show him. So she wraps her arms around his neck and rolls back, pulling him on top of her. He lands between her legs, and she can feel his hardness push up against the top of her thigh. She tenses slightly in this, wondering if there will be any pain, and then she is ashamed of herself, of her own weakness. She is no longer a girl of five thousand days, so green and unripe, being summoned out of the inner chambers of the Vault.

She closes her eyes, preparing for him to push himself inside her, when she feels his fingertips begin to slowly trace down her side, from hip to shoulder, and he buries his face in the hollow above her collarbone, sending shivers through her with the warmth of his breath, the roughness of his beard, his lips, the tip of his tongue. It is so strange, the sensation of every part of her body being alive all at once, but still she cradles the back of his head with her palm, overwhelmed, intoxicated, surrendering herself entirely to what he is doing. Her eyes fly open in shock, however, as he starts to lower himself down the length of her, his hand pressing against her hip, while his mouth trails a path of fire down the center of her chest. He pauses for a moment over the metal disc lying flat against her sternum, his head tilted in curiosity. She cannot believe he has not noticed the quickened pace of her breathing, the anticipatory tension written into her limbs, yet his mouth continues to press into the valley between her breasts, the fullness of his bottom lip catching against her skin. It is almost too much to bear as he begins to follow the curve up into the softness of her breast, laving tiny circles with his tongue. He pauses, his breath a whisper against her, the moment stretching on unbearably, until finally she feels him brush his tongue against her nipple. Her back arches, straining with sensation and pleasure, and she feels herself wanting to wrap her legs around him so that she might somehow contain it. He opens his hand along her hip, pressing his fingers into the taut, round muscle, this thumb flat against the crease below her hipbone. She can feel his tongue circling around her, much as he had done earlier with his thumb, but this is so much more, the moisture and movement causing her to clench the muscles of her pelvis, the pressure continuing to build, but to what, she has no conception.

He then takes her fully into his mouth, and she gasps, not understanding how so small an action can cause her body to react so forcefully, feeling only the warmth and the exquisite pull against her sensitive skin as he begins to roll against her with his tongue and lightly press her against the hardness of his teeth.

The sensation radiates everywhere, but seems to find its focus in the deep center of her pelvis. His hand begins to circle around the circumference of her leg, his fingers first running against the crease below her ass, then his thumb moving inwards, pressing on the taut ligaments of her inner thigh. Her skin is so responsive and his touch so close to the apex of her legs, and she wonders if he is going to touch her there and cannot fathom any reason why he would. But she realizes that she desperately wants him to, and as his fingers get closer and closer she finds herself widening her thighs to give him greater access. His lips and tongue are still soft and urgent against her, and as he moves to take her other nipple in his mouth, his fingers trace lightly against her center, beginning to part her folds. She cannot breathe, she cannot find a way to bring air to her lungs, not as he continues to run his fingers along her, every slick movement bringing wave after wave of sensation. She can feel him slipping two of them partially inside her, the pad of his thumb rubbing against a spot slightly above that, and now she is burning, the flames licking against her, quick and brilliantine, and she wants to scream, her entire body revving and exploding like a nitro-fueled engine. The pressure of it all is too much, as his thumb circles and his tongue flicks, and she squeezes her eyes shut, not understanding how he is making this happen. But it is building, reaching deep inside, her limbs beginning to tremble, and suddenly the tension breaks and something is released, within the depths of her body, splintering and reassembling, transforming itself into a radiating, pulsing warmth that makes her cry out despite herself.

It is unlike anything she has ever felt. It is unlike anything she could have possibly imagined. And had he not shown her, she realizes, she might never have known.

She returns to herself after a moment, her limbs weak and lifeless – she cannot even fully clench her right fist – and she notices that his hands have stilled, as he positions himself over her, eye to eye, hip to hip. His eyes catch hers, searching them out, as if looking for her permission before proceeding. She might have simply nodded, but instead she wraps her heavy arms around his neck and pulls his head towards hers, kissing him deeply, as if somehow to show her gratitude for what he has just given her.

Even as their mouths are joined together, she can feel him reaching down once more, taking hold of himself, and she opens her legs more widely in readiness. He begins to press into her, gently, slowly, but even so she feels a sharpness, a rough stab of tight pain, as if he will be too much for her, as if he will tear her in two. She wills herself to breathe, to relax through it, even as it brings to the surface blurred and misshapen memories, as if she is seeing through a broken pane of glass. She had lain like this once, twice, too many times to possibly recall, open wide and exposed, and she was shown no mercy. She had screamed and struggled, and it had made no difference. There was no one who listened, no one to care. She tries to shake the vision from her head, and for a moment contemplates walking through the doors that will bring her mind back to the green paradise of her childhood, but somehow she knows she wants to stay here, with him. He has given her tenderness, shown her something of herself she never knew, and for all that, she trusts him.

He pushes more deeply, filling her, until finally his hips are wedged deep against hers, and he can go no further. The pain has dulled to a slight ache and she is overcome by a sensation of fullness that is in itself strangely satisfying. His fingers reach up, tracing against her cheek, and she places her hand against the strained muscles of his back, his skin warm and covered in a sheen of sweat. She feels him begin to move, withdrawing slightly only to thrust back in, a slow rhythm, and each time he enters her it becomes less and less uncomfortable, and she finds herself savoring the rough contact each time they fully collide. She wants him closer somehow, her legs soon tightening around him. The speed begins to build, relentlessly, and she is caught up in the pace of it, lifting her hips slightly to meet him as he thrusts, and he buries his face against her neck, his breathing harsh and labored.

But suddenly he wraps his arms underneath her, encircling her, pressing her chest against his, and he hauls her upwards so she is straddling him, sitting on his thighs, even as he is still firmly settled within her. It is a surprise to her, to say the least – she had never considered the idea that this could be done without her being underneath him – but the position is not unpleasant, and their eyes meet with a directness that sends a rough tug down to the point of their joining. His hands move down towards her hips, pushing them up and down as much as her weight will allow, until she finally realizes what he wants her to do. Tucking her calves underneath her thighs, she begins to follow the direction of his hands, raising and lowering herself onto him like a piston, finding the rhythm yet again, feeling her breath begin to catch in her lungs. One of his hands migrates inward, tracing against her hipbone, and then she feels his fingertips approaching the spot he had found before, his touch feather-light. As he circles, pressing gently, she feels her entire body stiffen with a flash of pleasure and, instinctively, she clenches around him. His touch intensifies, the contact more forceful and vigorous, even as their hips continue to thrust and collide. All the pressure and warmth is building, he is making it happen yet again, and she can hear tiny cries escaping from her lips, just as he moves his other hand flat up against her back and leans her slightly away from him, his head lowering down so he can catch one of her nipples in his mouth. She has brought her right hand up to the back of his head, and now she clutches frantically at the short lengths of his hair. Everything is connected, her pelvis, her chest, all filled with a liquid fire that ignites and burns, leaving only a burst of heat and white light, a throbbing reverberation that she feels all the more strongly with him inside of her. She can feel all his muscles tense, and he offers one final thrust inside her before he starts shaking, his eyes squeezed tight and his mouth open in a stifled roar.

And then everything is quiet and still, like a silent prayer.

They hold each other for a moment, catching their breath, until he gently lowers her down, and they separate, falling onto their backs next to one another in sweat and exhaustion. She cannot move her arms and legs, nor would she want to, not when her eyes are so heavy, and sleep beckons like a warm, enveloping blanket. Before she succumbs, she glances over at him, this stranger, now her consort, watching his chest softly rise and fall, his limbs splayed and his roughened face relaxed like that of a child at rest.

It is a strange dream. She is in the green place, walking among trees laden with ripe fruit, and he is with her, their hands entwined. She cannot recall a man ever having been in the green place, although there must have been a few at some point, otherwise how would there ever have been daughters, how would she herself even exist? The air is honeyed and warm, the breeze light against her skin. She hears the sound of birds: not carrion crows, but the plaintive trill of nightingales.

And then, suddenly, she jolts awake. It is still dark outside, the moon throwing a pool of light onto the floor beside the balcony. He is thrashing next to her, his face lined with strain, even as his eyes remain closed, and she realizes that his movements must have roused her from her sleep. She would like him to be calm – and to be free from dreaming about whatever seems to haunt him – so she lays her palm against his chest, stilling him, if only for a moment. But then his eyelids open, blinking with awareness, and he looks over at her, his eyes bright in the darkness like those of a watchful animal.

After a time, the haze of the dream still upon her, she turns towards him, her hand flat against the inked patterns on his skin.

"Why did you agree to this?" she asks. "I would like to know."

He does not answer at first, but only shifts his gaze upwards, staring emptily at the ceiling. When he finally speaks, his voice is foreign and guttural, almost a grunt, as if it were a rusted engine sputtering back to life.

"They told me… what you needed…" He pauses, his features hardening, his eyes focusing on something far away, in a place far beyond this room. "I had a daughter once. I… I couldn't protect her… If I had another, I know she would be safe with you."

She glances down towards her belly, wondering if it already sparks with the life they both have given it. Does it hold her redemption? Does it hold his?

"What's your name?" she asks, looking back at him again. She has shared so much with this man, she has known so much of him, yet she still knows so little. "You never told me."

"I did," he half-mumbles.

"When? I don't remember."

Again, he says nothing, offering her only a tiny ghost of a smile, written on the corner of his mouth and deep within the light of his eyes. Rolling onto his side, he brings his face up alongside hers, his lips soon finding the curved shell of her ear, his breath a hush against her skin. And then his name is carried on a whisper, lost to all but her.