Read Online Aaaiiieee by Jeffrey Thomas - Free Book Online

more, and I filled a plastic basin with soapy water. This time he spread his trembling wings to their full span, and remarkably they filled the room, nearly touching opposite walls, majestic and black, narrow and tapered like those of a falcon. His shoulders shook with the strain of holding them aloft for me, and in reverence I stroked them with the sponge. And then I realized that his shoulders were shaking harder because he was sobbing. Whether he was sobbing in pain or in gratitude I could not know, but I put down the sponge and began to smooth his feathers under my bare palms, as if I thought this alone might balm his pain somehow. Without really willing it, I began to run my hands down to his back, where I caressed his marred white flesh.
    He rose, turned to face me, tears streaking his face. They were tears of blood, making the whites of his eyes glisten red as well. But I took his hand, and followed him from the room.
    I didn’t reach out from the bed to shut off the light. I didn’t care if he saw my legs. I was too intent on seeing him.
    As we made love some of the barbs still in him scratched me, even drew blood, but in our passion I was needless, and it only made me feel closer to his pain, closer to him, merged as we had been in dream. He raised himself on his arms to look at where our flesh was joined, and then stared down at my eyes, and again his great wings spread, almost to their fullness, making a canopy over us. I kissed the brands on his chest to cool them, licked his nipples despite the rings pierced through them, slicing my tongue on their edges. When we kissed he sucked the blood from my tongue, and I in turn licked the blood from his face, kissed the blood from his eyes. Then he arched his back and moaned in climax, the first sound I had heard him utter. When he collapsed upon me, spent, his wings covered both of us in a blanket.
    When at last he stirred he lay half atop me, his face almost shy with reverence as he stroked my breasts, my belly. Moving off me further to stroke me lower down, at last he noticed my legs, and I tried to take his chin and angle his face away. Instead, he gently slipped out of my fingers and shifted to the end of the bed. Bending over my legs, he lightly kissed my shattered knees, and then slowly began to trace his tongue along the white scar that wound up one thigh. I put my hands to his head to move him away, but then they held him there instead, as his tongue moved from the source of my pain to the source of my pleasure.
    I did not go to my classes for several more days.
    After those several days, Mrs. Hanson called to check in on me, since she hadn’t seen me about. I told her I had a slight bug. She asked if the brothers had come upstairs to see me. “Brothers?” I asked.
    “From the monastery, I think,” she said. “I think they were monks. Priests, maybe; they had collars. They wanted to know if I’d seen anyone strange around the yard. I guess there’s a brother they keep locked up because he’s ill or something. I don’t know why they don’t have him in the hospital but I guess they’d rather care for him themselves…”
    “Did he escape?” I asked, my heart blundering through its actions.
    “Yes, the other night when it stormed.”
    When I made love with the seraph that night my passion was clouded with fear for him. Lying in bed beside him, I begged him to talk to me, to tell me his story, to tell me about his former captors, the monks. And after a while of coaxing, he did try to tell me, but he spoke in tongues. Not in a frenzied rapture, however; his voice was deep, somnambulant, like a single voice lifted from a Gregorian chant. It was both weirdly beautiful and terrifying, and I put my finger tips to his lips to stop him.
    I couldn’t avoid my former life forever, despite my fears, and after a week I returned to my classes. The first day was difficult, and I came back to check on him several times, but he was fine, either looking through the