Two Worlds, One Haven
Two Worlds, One Haven
Dawn promised no mercy; the wooden floorboards greeted my bare feet with a bone-chilling cold. In the belly of the iron stove, only dying embers flickered beneath yesterday's ash. It required the firmness of my fingers and a few dry twigs for the flames to flare up anew, pressing against the cold like a wall.
As he donned his thick leather cloak, he paused beside me for a moment. With my fingers, I adjusted his collar, slowly smoothing the rough fabric. Our gazes intertwined for the span of a single heartbeat. Even without words, we felt the weight of the unbreakable bond pulled taut between us. He stepped out into the suffocating, greyish fog, and I followed him to the open door. Standing on the threshold, barely feeling the bite of the dawn frost, I watched as he swung into the saddle. I followed him with an anxious yet proud gaze until his broad, dark silhouette melted entirely into the waking, ruthless immensity of the prairie. He was the master of the territory out there, but he knew perfectly well that within these closed walls, my laws reign supreme.
The morning was governed by the cruel current of the stream. The water bit into my skin like ice-cold blades as I thrashed the thick, muddy canvases against the stones. The wilderness tolerates no weakness. The wind sifted fine dust into my hair, and the sun beat down mercilessly as the stifling heat slowly settled upon the landscape. My hands were flushed, my lower back ached.
The Wrong Choice, The Mirage
And then, something shifted within me. It was not exhaustion. But something else. Something that had hitherto merely slumbered in the depths now suddenly awoke. The cold water no longer refreshed me; it merely bit into my flesh. I watched his shirt bobbing in the current, still holding the raw, masculine scent of his skin, and suddenly, disgust and rebellion mingled within me. Why me? Why is it always I who bends over the stream, whilst he rules the prairie? My hands went still.
Barefoot, in my damp white linen dress, I set off down the dust-blanketed road, straight into the heart of the scorching heat. At first, there was only the sensation of freedom. The sun scorched my shoulders, the dust clung to my ankles, the wind tore at my dress, and I felt light. Free!
Then, my heart beat faster. I felt someone's gaze upon my back, and for a brief, hot moment, I allowed danger to mingle with desire within me. The damp fabric of my dress clung to my breasts, and the heat between my thighs came no longer merely from the sun. As I moved, desire flooded me in slow, lazy waves. But when the rustling had followed me for far too long, I looked back. It was no man. A grey wolf was stalking me, with hungry eyes, barely twenty paces away. My breath caught in my throat.
I ran. Thorns tore at my feet, dry branches snagged my dress, the air burned my lungs. Then, at a rock face, the path vanished before me. And without thinking, I jumped. The world became a single, long plunge. My white dress whipped wildly around me, and then the deep water swallowed me.
When I finally surfaced, I clung to the rocks, panting. The lake was quiet. The wolf had vanished. The sun stroked the surface of the water with golden light. Slowly, I stripped off my soaked dress. The water smoothed cool and silken against my skin. I laughed. I twirled in the lake, letting the sun and the water together wash away the weight of the woman, the house, the duty. For a single, brief moment, I felt the world wanted nothing from me, save that I live. But the wild grants no freedom for free.
Hunger arrived slowly. Then thirst. The sun burned mercilessly as I tried to kindle a fire with clumsy, trembling hands. By the time I managed to catch a silvery fish, my palms were bleeding, my body ached. I ate like a wild beast. With greasy hands, trembling, ravenously, yet I was not sated. Then I set off again, and the next affliction approached: thirst. I fought against it, dragging my feet, but ultimately it conquered me, forcing me to my knees.
The world slowly began to sway around me. The dust was hot beneath my face. I no longer knew how long I had lain there when a shadow fell upon me. A man's shadow. At first, I saw him as a saviour. A strong hand lifted me, water touched my lips, and for a single, brief moment, I thought the wild had shown me mercy after all. Then I saw his eyes, as he drank in my scent. There was no human warmth within them. But the very same hungry instinct I had just seen in the gaze of the wolf.
Fear sliced through me as if invisible hands were tearing the light from my soul. He seized my defenceless, soft parts with his strong hands. All that I could keep safe at home. But meanwhile, a stone smoothed into my palm almost of its own accord. The next moment was a flash of red, dust, blood, and a dull thud. The man's head snapped to the side. Blood spattered my face, my chest, my dress. Then he collapsed.
With trembling hands, I drew the revolver from his belt and aimed it at him. He was saying something to me. Begging for his life, perhaps. I no longer heard the words, only the beating of my heart. I pulled the trigger. The crack of the gunshot ripped through the silence of the prairie. His blood sprayed warm across my face, my neck. My tears mingled with it. I mounted his horse, and rode homeward, bloody and broken. And then, I found myself back at the lake.
With trembling hands, I washed my face. Over and over. The red slowly blurred beneath my fingers; I felt as if it had seeped beneath my skin. I reached for my neck, as if I could still feel the stranger's hand there, the smell of gunpowder, the hot spray of blood.
And then. I blinked... then shook my head...
The icy water of the stream flowed between my fingers once more. I was still kneeling by those stones. The canvases lay beside me. The sun burned the nape of my neck just as before. Only my heart was beating harder, and somewhere deep within my chest, a warm, familiar feeling began to spread. Slowly, I exhaled, and plunged my hands back into the washing. With an entirely different feeling now. Because I finally understood against what kind of world our house was built around the two of us. Out there, he stares down the wild. And in here, I guard the one place where he can finally remain human.
The wilderness tolerates no weakness. The wind sifted fine dust into my hair, and the sun beat down mercilessly as the stifling heat slowly settled upon the landscape. My hands were flushed, my lower back ached. Yet, as I returned to the house, the kneading of the dough brought true, instinctive release. In the sultry warmth of the kitchen, I leaned over the trough, my fingers sinking deep into the soft, warm, yielding substance. My movements slowly adopted that deep, throbbing rhythm my body had silently craved since dawn. As I folded the forming dough under me time and again, then released it delicately yet firmly, my breathing grew ever shallower. The pressing and the yielding, the tensing muscles, and the almost living warmth pulsing beneath my palms all echoed the scorching promise of the evening's touches. With closed eyes, surrendering entirely to the repetitive, rocking motion, I could already feel upon my skin the heavy, all-consuming force with which we would press against each other in the dark. As I kneaded the fresh bread dough, in the rhythm of the warm, yielding substance beneath my hands, I thought of his movements. In my soul, I rode with him across the endless, dust-blanketed plains. In my imagination, I was the cool wind wiping the sweat from his brow, and I was the invisible shield protecting him from the wilderness's unpredictable wrath. I knew that out there, he was not thinking of me. His attention was bound by the cattle trail, the cold touch of the gun's trigger, and the instinct of survival. It did not hurt that his thoughts did not revolve around me. Quite the contrary: this is what granted me peace. He protected me by remaining vigilant; I held him by waiting for him to come home with every breath I took.
Later, in the sultry half-light filtering through the shutters, I washed the dust of labour from myself. I chose my finest cotton dress. Not out of some sense of duty, but as a deliberate weapon. The lace rested against my collarbone exactly where his gaze always caught; the dense, heavy fabric traced the curve of my hips so that my every step was a promise. In the wild, a woman's softness is the greatest power, that invisible yet unbreakable silken thread capable of taming even the wildest stallion.
When the sun finally bled out in bloody red upon the horizon, I heard the heavy, tired thud of hooves. On the stove, the water was already steaming in anticipation.
As he crossed the threshold, the bleakness of the outside world shattered instantly. The scent of earth, sweat, gunpowder, and raw leather radiated from him. Wordlessly, with heavy steps, he went to the washbasin. I stepped silently behind him. With the hot, damp cloth, applying a slow, firm pressure, I traced the line of his spine, but this time I did not stop at his back. The warm fabric glided along his shoulders with almost torturous deliberation, down the tense muscle bundles of his arms, then, reaching the edge of his chest, I washed away the hardness of the outside world. As I leant closer to reach the nape of his neck, the thin fabric of my dress pulled taut, and in the lamplight, the hidden, inviting softness of my body was revealed. I felt his gaze fix upon me hungrily, almost achingly. His fingers rose slowly, carefully, and touched my skin with a delicate yet possessive motion right where I desired it most, then glided lower, down to the deepest, hot throbbing of my yearning. His touch was like the first lightning of a summer storm over the prairie. I welcomed it with pleasure, my spine instinctively arching, my lips parting in a soft, voluptuous sigh; the tension that had long been gathering within me now answered his fingers scorchingly, silently.
The air stood still. The clean, sweet, delicate feminine scent radiating from my skin slowly wove around him like an invisible web, entirely overpowering the raw scent of the prairie. His muscles gave a crackle, then, yielding to my will, slowly unwound beneath my fingers. My every stroke was an unspoken command: Here, you cast off your armour. Here, you are under my power.
Slowly, he turned towards me. His gaze was dark, hungry, and inscrutable, but in its depths smouldered unconditional surrender. I took control from his hands. With a single delicate, yet irrefutable movement, I guided him into the room's half-light, towards the bed made with thick blankets. He did not ask; it was I who decided, forcing him to step backwards in silence. As he stretched out upon the mattress, his immense, exhausted body surrendered entirely. I towered above him, then slowly, measuring even the seconds, settled upon him as a sovereign.
My every tiny, scorching movement was a voyage of discovery; my fingertips traced an invisible map along the tense lines of whipped-up desire, awakening the fire long and with torturous slowness. I dictated the tempo. The rocking began slowly, like a long, measured ride across the endless plains, where only the two of us exist in the world. With my body and my movements, I held the course, whilst his rough fingers gripped my hips, entrusting himself utterly to the rhythm throbbing within me. The air grew ever denser, more stifling in the closed room; the tension drew taut between us like a bowstring stretched to the breaking point.
Every fibre of my being burned from his proximity, my skin felt almost taut in the air, drawing a soft, voluptuous moan from me with every movement. The rhythm I dictated was at first slow and deep, then grew ever more demanding, more feral. When the chain of movements sought a new path, and our bodies smoothed together again at a different angle, I allowed his presence to permeate me even more deeply, with even more elemental force. He, too, granted me fiercely, wildly that ancient, all-consuming ecstasy that only a man is capable of giving his woman. When the slow, sweet undulation was ultimately replaced by the stormy, unbridled tempo, our breaths melded into a single gasp. The primal force finally tore free from him, entirely surrendering the very depths of his scorching being to me, whilst I, trembling and crying out, welcomed into myself the final, blinding plunge, like a summer lightning strike upon the parched prairie.
As the storm passed, he rested beneath me in the darkness, exhausted, breathing heavily, yet utterly conquered. We curled together delicately, our bodies still joined. My fingers gently stroked his taut, sweat-slicked muscles, then glided lower, to where his masculine strength now rested peacefully, tamed beneath my hand. I felt the hot, throbbing aftershock of our shared rapture, the silken, trickling, tangible trace of consummation, smoothing against the sheet like the quiet rain left behind after a storm rolling across the prairie. We were happy. The fire crackled in the stove, the hum of the evening wind could be heard through the open window, the soft, contented neighing and snorting of the horses accompanied the moment, while the wind gently fluttered the curtain, as if the wild itself were giving us its blessing.
I knew perfectly well: he ruled the wild out there. But the reins in here, to the very end, are held in my hands.
Two Worlds, One Haven / Amalia Capri Tumblr: video 1: https://www.tiktok.com/@amalia.capri/video/7639406771710201110 video 2: https://www.t