(This was a little mini-fic I wrote on my Twitter that I never got around to cross-posting here!)
“It’s just lovely,” I said, turning toward her. She’d just given me the tour of her new place; I’d seen the pictures she’d posted, but they really didn’t do it justice. The difference between seeing it through a lens on a screen and seeing it in person really was vast.
Of course, I could say the same for her. We’d been friends - real friends, the kind whose number you call more than your own family - for ages. Two years of being stuck on video calls were two too many, and seeing her that morning was part relief and part elation.
A friend of mine lost his smell for a few years and said when he got it back, it was “like smelling in 3-D.” Take long enough away from something, and you see it (or smell it, as it were) in a different light.
I pondered that as I pondered her - our friendship had been through a few waves of being something more than “just friends,” so the occasional lingering look wasn’t so out of line, but my eyes caught hers and we both grinned a bit.
“It really is good to see you,” she said. “I mean, see you for real, anyway.”
The levity was a graceful way to break the moment, and as we walked back down the upstairs hallway, a gust of early winter breeze blew outside and a hint of the crisp air seeped in.
“It’s beautiful, but the building is 100 years old,” she said. “Drafty is just part of the charm of life by the water.”
I could hear the waves crashing outside and remembered how envious I was that she had the world’s best white noise machine built in. As we passed her bedroom, she stopped.
“I forgot to show you the best part!”
She took my arm and guided me into the room.
“I’d been waiting for the right moment to officially make use of the house’s best feature… drum roll, please.”
I did my best tapping on the doorframe, and she strode to the wall and flipped a switch by the door… the “foomf” noise caught my eye and the fireplace in the wall sprung to life.
I’d not even noticed it as we went through her bedroom before - it was the back side of the fireplace in the living room, but I’d been too taken by the tour guide to really pay attention to that detail. Now that it was on, though, I watched the way the flames danced and leapt among the fake logs.
“It’s great, right?” She was beaming. I’d missed that smile.
“It’s perfect,” I replied, looking back at the flame. “How long does it take to heat the room?”
“You know, I’ve never checked. It’s just now cold enough to really need it.” I noticed out of the corner of my eye she was looking at me instead of the fire.
“I like the way the flames seem to move around,” she said. “It’s built to match an actual flame, where the pattern is really unpredictable.”
I nodded and kept looking.
“There are even little hot spots where the wood begins to glow with the heat. It takes a while for that to happen, but it’s really nice when it does.”
I thought I saw a corner of a log start to glow, but I wasn’t sure.
“I find the warmth really moves up by body as the air heats up. It’s slow. Steady. I watch the way the smaller flames flare up here and there, adding little bits to the radiant heat. It’s just fascinating, isn’t it?”
I nodded, still looking for the glow she’d mentioned, but getting distracted by the smaller flames.
“That cozy warmth, and the flames, the way it glows and flickers… and it’s perfect with the bed right here.”
I’d forgotten where I was. Her voice was warm and comfortable and I was so focused I had really started to tune things out. It sounded so much better in person.
“Keep watching the flames. You’ll see it.” She said it more directly, but still with that warmth. I was aware, tangentially, that she’d moved right beside me - her voice sounded closer; it felt closer.
“See? Right there,” she said, and my eyes followed her finger, pointing at the fireplace, but as soon as my focus shifted, she raised the finger right toward my face.
“That’s it. Perfect. You are so good at this. You’re such a good boy.”
I felt myself shudder at that phrase. She felt it, too, taking advantage of the moment to press her hand to my forehead.
My knees buckled as she lowered me back to the bed. It’s trite, but it really did feel as if the world was falling away. My body — tense after years of All Of The Bad — was desperate to melt. My mind, just as tense, was desperate to yield.
“Such a good boy,” she said with a gentle chuckle that said she was even caught a bit off guard at how easily I’d relented. But of all the things I’d gained from the isolation from this part of my life, the strongest was the sense that I’d never take a chance for granted again.
As I felt myself slide on to the bed more fully, I could still feel the warmth from the fireplace warming my feet.
As she positioned herself over and above me, I could feel her warmth on my torso.
As she leaned close and whispered, “What are we going to do with you?” I felt the warm, swimming fuzz in my mind.
As I felt her breath on my face, my body yearned to lean up and kiss her deeply, but my mind, and her words, held me perfectly still.
“Whatever you ask, and nothing more, ma’am.”
