Hi, here’s the latest chapter. Almost at the end. This is also on A03 and will be easier to read. I’m Kris22 over there. I’d link if I knew how.
As always thanks for Ronja for allowing me to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take”. You can read it on AO3 and FanFiction.
Chapter 36
“. . . and so Blake’s wedding was called off. And in the meantime, Celia’s been attending a therapy support group for sex addiction. They think it’s caused by a fear of emotional intimacy or something like that. I guess it’s because she’s been hurt. You know, by Blake. And that’s all I know. I haven’t watched it in a while.”
“And who’s that guy?” Peeta asks. He’s referring to a man in overalls and a straw hat crouched in a field of what looks like withered lettuces. He appears to be examining the soil.
“That’s Celia’s father, Mulch Chastely.” The camera zooms in and ominous music builds. His hands are stained with a black, greasy substance. “Oil!” he screams, as the music reaches a crescendo. He shakes his fist at the heavens. “The Knights will pay for this barbarous act! You’re a dead man, Rigger Knight!”
Then it segues to Rigger Knight who is seated on the porch of the Knight family home as if in wait. Across his lap is a firearm. It looks like a bazooka. The scene ends with Mulch Chastely selecting a pitchfork from his arsenal of agricultural tools and marching with grim determination in the direction of the Knight property.
Peeta bursts out laughing. I can’t help laughing at the ridiculousness of it either. “I told you it was stupid,” I say.
Next, we’re in a large room, mostly empty except for a circle of nine chairs spaced at regular intervals. People start to trickle in and each of them takes a seat. Celia is among them, wearing denim trousers and a blue sweater, her long blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. She looks tired and dejected. Last to arrive is a gaudily dressed middle-aged woman with bright yellow hair carrying a clipboard. She’s accompanied by a younger man in expensive sports clothes. When he sees Celia an expression of deep longing passes over his face. Celia doesn’t look up.
The woman with the yellow hair starts the discussion. “Good afternoon, everyone. We’re in for a big, big session! We have new a member joining us. I know you’ll make him welcome. Blake, would you please introduce yourself and share with the group what’s brought you here today.”
Celia starts at the name and her eyes widen with shock. As Blake speaks, his gaze never leaves her face.
“My name is Blake Knight and I am an addict. My addiction is Celia Chastley. I was a goner from the moment I first laid eyes on her in her family’s orchard when were eleven years old. She became my best friend, my confidant, the object of my adolescent masturbatory fantasies and my great love. I didn’t understand you then, Celia, when you broke my heart when we were sixteen. That you were sacrificing your happiness for mine. That you recognized the impossibility of our situation when I did not. I shut my eyes and tried to forget you in the arms of another but I was deceiving myself. I was a coward – too afraid to confront the reality of my undying love for you. Please forgive me. Give me a chance and I will prove my constancy and devotion. To hell with our families. To hell with everything. Our love is the only thing that matters in this crazy world. Even now, as my father waits for yours to fall into his trap so he can shoot him dead and plead self-defense, our love will endure. Will you, Celia? Please say yes. I love you so much.”
The other members of the group are transfixed, eyes darting between Celia and Blake in mounting expectation. Celia’s eyes are awash with tears. She lurches to her feet and throws herself into his arms. “Oh, Blake!” she cries, “If I have only one life to live, I want it to be with you.” They kiss. The group stands and cheers.
It then goes to a commercial break for romantic getaways in District 4. I look at Peeta. He looks at me. It’s as if we’re each looking to the other for how to react. It was funny. So why aren’t we laughing? Plutarch’s words ring heavily in my ears, “You and Peeta are Celia and Blake.”
“We’re really not like that, are we? “I ask. “I mean it’s so . . . dumb.”
“No, not quite us, but there are a few things in common. What Blake said to Celia is pretty much what I’ve been trying to say to you.”
“Oh.” I say nonplussed. Is that what he’s been doing? “Um . . . which parts?”
Peeta shifts closer to me on the sofa so that our thighs are touching. “Adolescent masturbatory fantasies.”
I pull back, frowning, hot words ready on my lips.
He nudges my shoulder with his. “It’s a joke. Well, actually not quite a joke. You did feature in them quite a lot. But I was Blake. Going around with my eyes shut, too scared to open them in case I remembered how much I love you and then to find out that you didn’t love me back.”
“You love me?” I don’t dare look at him. It’s been an impossibility for such a long time, I can scarcely believe it. He was engaged to marry another woman not so very long ago. How can this have happened so quickly? “Since when?” I ask dubiously.
If he was expecting a more positive reaction, he doesn’t show it. He takes one of my hands in both of his. “Since I was five years old and you stood up in music assembly to sing the valley song.”
I attempt to pull my hand back but he keeps it in a firm grip. He can’t just whitewash the past two years like that. Lace happened. “Then what has Lace been about then? She was just a figment of my imagination?”
“No. She was more like a figment of my imagination. I don’t want to discount what I had with her. She’s been a good friend and I’ll always be grateful but a lot of what I felt for her wasn’t real. I’ve gone over this with Dr Aurelius, to make sense of it. She was a coping mechanism in the same way my reluctance to deal with my past was also a coping mechanism. I could give her the feelings I didn’t think you wanted. So, she was sort of you, in a way. I didn’t exactly have a high opinion of myself then either and she didn’t hold back on telling me how wonderful she thought I was. I think I just wanted to make myself feel better.”
Sort of like a rebound then. I want to believe him, I really do. He’s turned to sit sideways, our knees touching, his face close to mine. I look at him beneath my lashes. He’s watching me carefully, with a mixture of hope and uncertainty. Everything that I’m feeling.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” he says.
Be honest. “I’m scared. What if what you’re feeling now isn’t real either?’
“I’m scared too. Scared you’ll reject me and there’ll never be another chance. Katniss, I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life.”
I turn away momentarily to collect my thoughts. As I do, the television screen comes into my field of vision. Rigger Knight fires the bazooka at Mulch Chastely. It misses his head by inches and zooms past to hit one of the oil rigs in the distance. It explodes into flames and sets off a chain reaction until every one of the oil rigs is a massive ball of fire and thick black smoke. Mulch’s face is a picture of glee until the billowing smoke is picked up by the wind and headed over the border towards his prized apple orchard. The drama hasn’t ended for Celia and Blake. And I know it hasn’t for Peeta and me either. We still have things to work through. And there’s also the television special and whatever fallout there might be. But at least we can do it together.
I let out a breath. “Okay.”
“Is that yes?”
“Yes,” I answer, more firmly this time. We both lean in and meet somewhere in the middle. A slow, getting-to-know-you-all-over-again kiss. Soft, tender, shy. This is real. Not a daydream, not the reliving of a cherished memory, but real. In between kisses he tells me he loves me. And when I get the chance, I tell him I love him too. Somehow, I end up lying on the couch with him half on top of me. The kisses have long ceased to satisfy either of us. My t-shirt and bra are hitched around my neck, the nipples wet from where he’s sucked on them, and there’s something iron-hard pressing into my lower belly.
“I think we should have an early night,” he murmurs into my ear.
“I think you’re right.” Our first time together should definitely not be on the couch. The television is still blaring and I grapple for the remote to turn it off but not before catching a glimpse of Celia and Blake writhing like eels on a bed with red satin sheets.
We make our way upstairs and down the hall without touching but immediately upon entering the bedroom we fall on each other and start peeling off each other’s clothes. There’s a struggle pulling off my slim-fitting trousers and he grumbles that I shouldn’t have changed out of my dress. I fall backwards onto the bed and then, with a final tug, my trousers with underwear still inside them, are sent flying. I close my eyes and put out my arms hungry to feel his warmth and weight along the full length of my body. But instead, my foot is lifted high into the air and kisses trailed down my leg until he gets to the juncture of my thighs. The first brush of his tongue is a jolt of electricity, the final one a lightning bolt. “Oh,” I say, when I eventually come down. I hold out my arms and he’s inside me, filling a space so completely, so perfectly, I didn’t know there had been a void until now. Nothing has ever felt so right. When we fall, it’s within seconds of each other. We share a slow, lazy kiss before he rolls onto his back and I nestle into the cradle of his arms. My head rests against his chest, the strong and steady beat of his heart in my ear, and it feels like home.
I wake before he does. He’s on his back, his face relaxed in sleep. I rise up on one elbow to watch him. The long lashes resting against his cheeks, the curve of his lips. It seems such a miracle that he’s here, in my bed, and that he loves me. I was convinced he was lost to me forever. That by this time, he’d be in his own bed, in his own house, with Lace beside him as his wife. And I would be . . . Well, I don’t know where I’d be. I don’t think I could have stood living across from them for very long. So probably searching for someplace else to live like I once planned to. Certainly not having dinners with them, or having Lace drop by for neighborly chats. I still don’t really know why the wedding was called off. That they both lied is the only explanation I’ve been given. Lied about what? I should ask him. And other questions I have too.
I put out my hand to brush a lock of hair back from his forehead and it’s seized and brought to his lips. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long. I didn’t want to interrupt. Do I pass?”
“With flying colors,” I say, and lean down to give him a kiss. His arms go around me and I’m rolled onto my back. The kiss goes on for a long time.
“We should start getting ready for work,” I say, although I make no effort to get up.
“Not yet,” he says. And he says it again when we take a shower together.
There’s no sign of Haymitch at breakfast. Probably slept in after the excitement of last night’s episode of “One Life to Live.” But we figure that now that we’re genuinely in love, no one needs to tell us how to act. So, we walk into town together as we’re inclined to do anyway, and then meet for lunch again at the park near the school as it’s conveniently situated for both of us.
Haymitch is nowhere to be seen at dinnertime either. We delay eating for half an hour in case he turns up but after checking first to see if he’s home – the lights at his house are on – we conclude that he’s decided to leave us alone from now on, and start eating. And delicious it is too. Roast pork with crackling to die for. I guess I’m just a carnivore at heart.
Following dinner, we sit down to watch some television. One channel is covering the mayoral elections in 7. Johanna is well ahead in the count and early predictions are that she’ll win by a landslide. Then Peeta flicks between cooking shows. I don’t care what we watch. I lie back on the sofa with my head on the armrest and my feet in Peeta’s lap. I love having my feet and calves rubbed so much, I think it’s almost as good as sex.
Later, in bed, I decide that it’s not even close. I am blissed-out, and still tingling from our love-making. I stretch voluptuously, like a cat, bury my face into his neck and sigh, perfectly content. His free hand plays with my hair, gently combing out the tangles. If I could freeze the moment, I would. So, I guess it makes it an odd time to ask the questions I want answers to. But on the other hand, maybe there’ll never be a better.
“Peeta, can I ask you some things?”
“Sure.”
“Why did you and Lace break up? Was it because she lied about her background?”
His hand stills for a moment before going back to my hair. “No, it wasn’t that. I mean, I was disappointed she hadn’t told me herself and angry that everyone seemed to know before I did, but it’s not what broke us up. You remember when I said that what I felt for Lace wasn’t real?” I nod against his chest. “I’d been having doubts for a while – almost soon after we got engaged actually – but after that night I couldn’t ignore it any longer. It was seeing you with Marcus that did it. It wasn’t the first time I’d been jealous. I was jealous over Max, even Arthur, but I’d put it down to being possessive over a friend. But Marcus – it was Gale all over again. He was so obviously in to you and you seemed to like him too. And he loved nature, as you do, and you went into the woods together, and he had both his legs and wasn’t a mental nutcase. And then to see you walk away with him, with his arm around you, upset over something I had done, when I’m the one who should protect you . . .
“As for Lace, I’d almost forgotten she was there. And when I did get around to remembering, she was sobbing her heart out to Arthur. She’d seemed to have forgotten about me too.” There’s another pause and a snort of irritation. “And that Max! “
“What about Max?” I ask warily.
“It was like he was selling tickets to a sideshow. Shrugging his shoulders and gesturing to anyone watching. I don’t know how you tolerate him.”
“It has it’s challenges,” I say carefully. “But he does have his good points. They’re just not immediately apparent.” And isn’t that the truth. I recall our first encounters and how much he annoyed me. Still does.
I think I’m starting to get an understanding of Peeta’s relationship with Lace having gone through something similar with Marcus. Desperately in need of affirmation. To feel worthy of love and acceptance. And something, anything, to dull the pain of rejection – either real or imagined – in the arms of another. At least I can take comfort in that there were no hurt feelings when it ended for Marcus and me.
“What about Lace?” I ask. “How did she take it?”
Peeta gives a short laugh. “She was as relieved to be out of it as I was. While I’d been projecting an image on to her, she’d been doing the same to me. In her case, the celebrity she’d seen and fallen in love with on television. And then she said she realized that she had feelings for Arthur. I doubt she’d admit it, but I think Johanna’s flirting that night had a lot to do with it.”
I smile to myself imagining Johanna’s satisfaction that her scheme had worked. She’s pretty people-smart, when you think on it. A useful attribute for a politician to have.
“But you didn’t break up straight away.” Peeta was still wearing the ring Lace had given him the day he called around to apologise for yelling at me and to give me cookies.
“That’s because neither of us wanted to be the first to tell the other they’d made a mistake. But once it was said, it all came tumbling out. Whatever we once had was gone except maybe friendship and a few superficial things we had in common. A marriage wouldn’t have lasted long.”
Another thing that Johanna had got right. Trying too hard, she called it. It makes sense in retrospect. As doubts surfaced, so would efforts to alleviate it in the form of frequent and overt shows of affection and more money thrown at the wedding, as if a lavish display of either could cover the deepening cracks. One thing puzzles me, though.
“Why were you so upset when it ended, then? Johanna told me about the flashbacks.”
“I was upset over a lot of things. All that money wasted, feeling like a fool for letting it get that far, but mostly I was upset over you. I thought I had ruined any chance I might have had. And I had no one to blame but myself.”
I feel a stirring of guilt. There was someone else to blame. And that was me. I ran hot and cold, giving mixed messages of my own. I could have been more open with him. Risked rejection, see where it led. Because I couldn’t really be certain of anything until I did. And I was the one who put it into his head that Lace was his girlfriend. And that he should marry her.
I open my mouth to contradict him but Peeta starts speaking again. “You and Marcus were so cozy that night at the pub, holding hands on the way into town and then making plans for a weekend in the woods together. I just couldn’t get it out of my head, imagining what the two of you were up to. That’s what triggered the attacks. It was jealousy, pure and simple. The same emotion the Capitol worked on to get me to hate you. And after they were brought under control, there was still despair and self-loathing to contend with. How could I have been so blind and stupid?”
“I – “
“And then having to watch those tapes. I didn’t want to. I knew the “to be watched with Katniss” label could only have meant two things. It was either confirmation that you’d never loved me, or confirmation that you had, which actually would have been worse, since I’d messed things up so spectacularly.”
My mind goes back to that day. Peeta at the door, looking harried and nervous. That speech about us trying for friendship. It’s obvious to me now that he made it because he thought that’s what I wanted. His careful examination of any nuances that would give at least some hope that he was wrong.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “I’ve messed up too. You’ve no idea. I don’t know why you just didn’t leave me to my fate after seeing that video of Marcus and me. I wouldn’t have blamed you. Wanted you to, actually. Weren’t you . . . you know, disgusted?”
He pulls me closer and kisses the top of my head. “No. Why should I be, after what I’ve done?” My body stiffens at the implication. That’s right. He’s been in the same situation, only he was lucky enough not to be caught. He’s talking about what he got up to with Lace. The Mayor’s party. When he fucked Miss Facelicker up against a wall. Hot jealousy surges through my veins and it takes all my self-control to squash it down. It’s hardly reasonable is it, for me to feel this way? Not when I practically did the same thing.
“Weren’t you even jealous?” I ask. That would make me feel a little better if he had.
“Katniss, all that concerned me was that you were in trouble and how I could help.” His arms tighten around me. “I want to protect you, keep you safe. And in some way, begin to make up for the poor job I’ve done of it lately. I just wanted you back. There was simply no room for a petty emotion like jealousy.”
Instantly, I’m ashamed of myself. Peeta has always been better than all of us. “You could live a hundred lifetimes and not deserve him.” They were Haymitch’s words, and so true.
“Besides,” says Peeta, “You didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself. And who would? Being pounded into against a hard surface like that.”
Not jealous, huh? So that’s what he was doing when he kept watching that tape over and over. He was actually studying my facial expressions and taking comfort that I didn’t seem to be having a good time. As if Lace would have enjoyed being whisked into a dark corner on an important night of her life to have her new gown pushed up around her waist and thrust repeatedly into against a hard wall. But I say nothing. At some point you do have to put aside the negativity and move forward or you might as well give it up right now.
But one more question. I’ll always wonder about it if I don’t ask.
“Would it have made any difference if I’d told you how I feel about you? You know, when you were going out with Lace? Or before?”
There’s a long silence. I wait nervously for the answer. Please say it wouldn’t. Please say it wouldn’t.
“It might have. I don’t know. I guess it would have depended on the timing. My mind was so stuck on the impossibility of you loving me, that I might not have heard it. Or not believed it if I had. But it could have changed the trajectory and ended my relationship with Lace sooner.”
Haymitch kept nagging me to. I should have listened to him. Taken that risk and kept on trying until Peeta understood. But then, how could I have known? And when would have been the right moment? Sometime before the marriage proposal, it seems. But not before he’d slept with her and banned me from using his guest room at night. And wasn’t it these two things that had crossed a line for me? There was no going back for us after that. It had changed our relationship irrevocably and we had to come back as two different people. That’s what Arthur said about Celia and Blake. And there was something Max had said too. That if they did get back together, they’d need to bring the same level of experience to it. Celia had to, at least, try another relationship, otherwise Blake would always be the one who’d broken faith and she’d be the one who hadn’t spread her wings while she had the chance. Marcus had to happen. I can’t regret that. Not only because it would betray what we had, but because I would always wonder what it’s like to be with someone not Peeta, when he’s been with someone not me, and possibly resented him for it.
“I did tell you this one time. That I love you, I mean. It was when you started to get serious about Lace. We were sitting on your back porch and we got to talking about her. I kept coming up with reasons for why you should be careful of her but what I really wanted was for you to stop seeing her and to notice me. And then I decided to just come straight out and tell you how I felt. But you misunderstood my meaning and said I was like your family and what you needed from me was to accept her. That’s why I never said it again. It hurt so much to hear it the first time, that I didn’t want to risk hearing it again when there was no sign that you’d changed your mind. But I should have. Kept trying. Maybe – “
Peeta doesn’t let me finish. “And maybe I should have faced my demons instead of running from them. And maybe I should have asked about the blanks in my memories instead of filling the spaces with what I thought I knew. And maybe I should have told you of my feelings for you once I became aware of them. And maybe I should have ended my relationship with Lace when I started having doubts. I think if we added up all the ‘maybes’ they’d be mostly on my side. I don’t blame you for any of what happened. It all started with me.”
I shake my head. “That’s not true. It started with Snow. That’s where the real blame lies.” We lapse into silence for a few moments. “I wish . . .” I begin.
He brushes a tendril of hair from my forehead. “What do you wish?”
I sigh deeply. “That it could have been different. That there’d been no Lace. Or a Marcus. That when you came back from the Capitol there was only the two of us, growing back together. It seems to me that’s the way it was meant to be but somehow it got all messed up.”
“Yeah, me too. But we’re together now. That’s what matters.”
“I would have liked, at least, for us to have had our first time with each other. I feel like we’ve missed out on something special. We should have . . . before. You know, before we went into the Quell.”
There’s a long pause. “Didn’t we?”
“No.”
“Well, I just thought . . . are you sure?”
“Peeta, I would remember something like that. We didn’t. Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know. I just thought we did. I remember make-up and showering or something and it was in your room.”
“That would have been the night before we went into the arena. After the interviews. But all we did was sleep.”
“Oh. I guess I must have imagined it then. There are still memories I can’t be sure of but this one seemed so real.”
I pull his face down to mine. “This is what’s real.” I give him a long kiss and then settle back into the crook of his arm. But before I drift off to sleep, my thoughts go to that night before the Quell. I recall pulling Peeta into my room and a state between wakefulness and sleep. But between times is a complete blank. I don’t remember showering for instance. Or Peeta showering. Or of us getting into bed. But we must have. Without thinking, I press my hand to my left temple. Right on the spot where Johanna hit me with the coil of wire. There’s no pain anymore, but the memories swirl just as they did then as I try to sort out what is true and what is false. Maybe . . . maybe, it happened? Peeta and I were very familiar with each other with those kisses on the beach for people who had, up until then, only shared chaste kisses. And it didn’t hurt at all that first time with Marcus. But I just don’t see how I could forget.
I roll over onto my other side and Peeta rolls with me, cradling my back. I sink down into sleep, enveloped in his warmth, and dream of seventeen-year-old Katniss and Peeta and their very first time.
Addendum. The following excerpt was discovered among notes made by Katniss Everdeen for her memoir on the Hunger Games and her role in the Rebellion. For reasons unknown, it was not included in the final draft. Historians have speculated that the omission could be due to a number of factors: that it lacked relevance to the central theme of war and oppression, that it was too personal in nature, or because the prose resembles that of a particularly bad romance novel.
It is also notable for the difference in point of view narrative from first person to third person. Various theories have been put forward. Does this suggest the introduction of a fantasy element, that this is what author would have liked to have occurred? Or is it due to prudishness on the author’s part? As a teenager, Katniss Everdeen had a reputation for purity. Her memoirs, written when she was in her mid to late thirties, take on the language and tone of the adolescent she was at the time the action takes place. Could this be teenage Katniss distancing herself from her burgeoning sexuality? Evidence to support this is her account of the famous “kisses on the beach” which, in her memoir, was confined to prolonged kissing but in actuality was more akin to heavy petting. In addition, is her tendency to cloak feelings of sexual arousal behind euphemisms such as “that thing,” “a stirring inside my chest,” and kisses that don’t satisfy.
Contentious, but also worthy of consideration, is hijacked Peeta Mellark’s insinuation that more happened on those “nights on the train” than Katniss Everdeen admitted to. Was the accusation simply an attempt to embarrass her in front of her friends, or was this the resurfacing of a genuine memory? Eminent psychiatrist Dr Lucius Aurelius, a descendant of Dr Gaius Aurelius, the same psychiatrist who treated Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, proposed that Mellark had confused adolescent masturbatory fantasies with reality as a form of wish fulfillment. At the time, he had great difficulty discerning the real from the not real. However, it should be noted, that this recollection, no matter how nebulous, is given greater credence by Everdeen’s own telling of this one event.
From “Catching Fire” the second volume of the trilogy “The Hunger Games.” The omitted passages are in italics.
We walk down the hallway. Peeta wants to stop by his room to shower off the make-up and meet me in a few minutes, but I won’t let him. I’m certain that if a door shuts between us, it will lock and I’ll have to spend the night without him. Besides, I have a shower in my room. I refuse to let go of his hand.
She showers first and while he is in the bathroom, she searches for something he can change into.
“This might fit,” she says, holding up a voluminous nightgown with a ruffled high neck.
“It won’t fit across the shoulders,” he replies. “Maybe a robe?”
She retrieves her discarded robe from the floor and hands it to him. Aside from being too tight around the arms, the front edges don’t come together.
“Perhaps you could wear it backwards,” she suggests. “Like a hospital gown.”
“That could work,” he says with a wry smile, “Except my backside will be hanging out. I’ll just wear the towel and hope it stays put during the night.”
“It won’t. Look, I’ve seen you almost naked before and you didn’t care about me seeing you then. Don’t wear anything. I don’t mind. I’ll even sleep naked too so it doesn’t seem so strange. I often sleep with nothing on anyway,” she says with a nonchalance she’s far from feeling. She hasn’t forgotten the naked Johanna in the lift or his laughter at her reaction and her so-called “purity”. She’ll show him she’s neither pure nor has a problem with nakedness, either his or her own. She starts to lift the hem of her nightgown but drops it again. “I’ll just turn the lights out,” she says.
They get into bed. She lays her head against his chest as she always does and his arms go around her. But the skin-on-skin contact evokes sensations previously not felt before. Her breasts are flattened against his side and she’s conscious of her bare pubis, recently divested of its hair, pressed against his hip. The sensation builds and demands some kind of release. In an attempt to alleviate it, she moves onto her back, and as she does, she inadvertently lowers her arm and it brushes against the tip of something long and hard.
He gasps and tries to twist away from her. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean – “
“It’s all right,” she says quickly. “That happens to boys, doesn’t it? I’m not offended, really.” She had known about, and ignored, other times in bed together when his body had acted without his permission. And this time, with her lying naked next to him, she would have been more offended if his body hadn’t reacted.
“Please stay,” she says. “I need you to hold me. I don’t care about that.”
He lies back down and she lays her head on his chest but it’s impossible to relax. All her senses are heightened and she’s acutely aware of a corresponding tension in his body. How are they to sleep? And they so need to sleep, tonight of all nights. Who knows when they’ll be able to sleep next?
Maybe if they. . .? She agonizes over it, uncertain of what to do. Her experience at this kind of thing is almost non-existent. The most she’d ever done is kissing, and the most she’d ever felt before is a stirring inside her chest. And then to make the first move? She knows it will have to be her because she’s certain that he won’t. He doesn’t even kiss her unless there’s a camera or someone around to witness it. She can guess why. It’s because he’s not sure of her. He doesn’t want what happened before to happen again.
Very gradually, she lowers her arm again, over his ribs, over his taut abdomen. There’s an intake of breath and she can feel the rigidity of his muscles. Lower goes the arm until it glances against that thing again. With almost certain death in the arena perhaps only hours away, this might be her last chance to engage with one. She gathers her courage and puts out a timorous hand to encircle its girth and is amazed at how soft it is over the steel. He moans but makes no attempt to take her hand away. She’s unsure how to proceed and moves her hand gently up and down the shaft. She doesn’t want to hurt him. He puts out a hand to encircle hers, tightens her grip and gives a firm tug. He takes his hand away and, taking his cue, discovers that the tighter and faster she employs her hand, the more intensely he reacts to it, until there’s a series of shudders and a viscous liquid spurts out over her hand. She discretely wipes it on the sheet.
“Thank you,” he says, and kisses her softly on the lips. Then, shyly, “Would it be okay if I touched you?”
“Yes,” she breathes. She moves onto her back and opens her limbs. Reverently, he starts at her shoulder, trailing his fingers down to her ribs, skirting her breast, and then back up, cupping it fully, thumb brushing against the nipple. A pulse beats insistently between her legs and she shivers.
“Do you like that?” he asks.
“Mm,” she murmurs. She parts her legs a little more in anticipation, willing him to take his exploration there next. But he takes his time, skimming the curve of her waist and then her hip and inner thigh, perhaps hesitant, perhaps teasing. Either way it gives rise to the most exquisite torture. Please, please, she silently begs.
And then his fingertips softly trace the line of her sex, pressing deeper between the slippery folds, finding first a cavity into which he inserts a gentle finger, and then higher up, encountering a hard little nub that elicits the most intense of sensory delights.
“Oh,” she cries, and with that small word she eloquently conveys the place where he should focus his attention. With the lightest touch, he strokes and circles, keenly attune to how her body reacts to him. He covers her mouth with his own as she hurtles towards the pinnacle, and with one delicate flick of his finger, she tumbles down, down, down into an abyss of the purest pleasure.
“That was amazing,” she says between kisses and he smiles against her mouth. He’s half lying across her, and she becomes aware of that long hard thing again. It’s seemingly sprung back to life. She takes it in her hand feeling its weight and length, and thinks, “This should be inside me.” She turns towards him and guides him between her legs. He needs no further encouragement. Lying fully over her now, he presses his hardness at her entrance and she tenses at the unfamiliar intrusion.
“You need to relax,” he tells her.
She nods and turns her attention to loosening her muscles and more of him glides in. There’s a kind of burning, but not too unpleasant. A final push and he’s all the way in. He moves slowly at first, but then, seemingly overcome with passion, and with a few vigorous thrusts, he finds his release and collapses on top of her, panting against her neck. She kisses his brow and brushes back his damp hair.
“Sorry,” he says. “I couldn’t – “
“It’s okay. There’ll be . . .” she starts to say but then stops. By this time tomorrow, one or both of them could be dead and there will be no other times. She begins again. “I’m glad I did it. And with you.”
He kisses her and moves onto his back. His arm is around her shoulders and she rests her head against his chest. “I love you,” he says. She doesn’t say it back. It doesn’t seem the right time, somehow. But she takes his hand and kisses it.
Do we sleep? I don’t know. We spend the night holding each other, in some halfway land between dreams and waking. Not talking. Both afraid to disturb the other in the hope that we’ll be able to store up a few precious minutes of rest.
Cinna and Portia arrive with the dawn, and I know Peeta will have to go. Tributes enter the arena alone. He gives me a light kiss.
“See you soon,” I answer.
