The horse and the man surrounded her.  Their movements all blended into one until Claudia lost herself in the motion.  The smooth feel of the horse underneath her bent legs and Bennett’s warmth at her back seemed to come from the same being.  Only the taste of the wind rushing by was of a separate world. His mouth was on her neck. Hot breath steamed outwards into the chill air.  The horse’s mane twisted around her fingers on her left hand.  Her right hand enmeshed in Bennett’s hair.

Horse and rider both tightened as the steed came suddenly to a halt. A field, covered in bright autumn leaves swept out. They were surrounded by barren trees. The location was familiar by now, and memories of leaves in her hair and bark scratching her back flooded her made her feel flushed.

Bennett slid from the horse.  The world around them felt empty, like some beautiful haven from the t of the world. Claudia remained astride for a moment pressing her bare knees against the horse’s sides and feeling her heavy skirts on top of her legs like a barrier between her and the real world.

As Bennett set out his throwing knives on a stump, Claudia slid from the horse’s back. His fingers slid over the blades’ hilts in the same fashion they caressed her flesh. All men she knew hunted, even her step-brother who had the finesse of a sledgehammer, but this art of throwing knives seemed barbaric to her.

It fit Bennett who tasted of sweat and often had a slight lingering smell of booze.

“Teach me?” Claudia said as she moved behind him and slid her hands under his shirt. Anything he touched with such gentleness was something special. Though she’d seen him throw, it had never occurred to her that she might try it. Certainly, this was not a woman’s art, but in the end, she felt more like his possession than a proper woman.

Bennett picked up one of the knives and his thumb slid up and down the hilt, “These are your lessons after all.”

“Who knew the piano could be so fun,” Claudia said into the hair on his neck. One hand detached from him and took the blade. It held his warmth.

“You should be marrying me,” Bennett said. His hand curled around hers and helped her support the weight of the blade.   

“I love you,” She said and it was true.  He was her universe in the sunlight with the gleam of sweat on his brow.  No one and nothing else could matter.  His words were strange and out of place, her mind couldn’t hold them and as he guided her hand in throwing the blade, she tried to release the muddled confusion in her brain.

The knife was off target, the hilt striking the tree. Only when the silver gleam had disappeared into the grass did Bennett turn to face her.

“If I loved any woman it would be you,” Bennett said.  His eyes were strangely kind when she turned to face him.  She did not like it.  “We are cut from the same cloth, you and I.  How could I let you marry him? I can’t let you marry him.”

“He is my fiancée.”

“Break the contract. We will deal with the consequences. Neither of us will be happy with you married to him.”

“I cannot break the contract.”

“You mustn’t marry that man.  Do you want to be his?”

“No.  He is a fool,” Claudia smiled.  If her teeth had only been sharper, it would have been a cat’s smile.  “But never the less he is my betrothed.  We have what we have.”

Her hands busied themselves re-pinning her hair while Bennett turned and picked up another knife. He threw it with force and when it collided with the tree shards of bark flew free.  

“You will not marry him, Claudia,” Bennett said.  And how could she disobey him?  She had given him her everything.  She had given up her will and her soul.  

“The agreements have all been made. There is no backing out.”

“Your word only meant something with your chastity, and that is mine.  That was the only bond you had with Victor to earn his name and his protection. You are despoiled and contemptible.  He would condemn you if he knew.”

“You would tell him?”

Bennett said nothing in response.  She stared at the back of his head.  His shirt moved against his back beautifully.  She wanted to touch him.  Someday, he would dematerialize in a puff of black smoke, and she would breathe him in.  They would be one as they were meant to.  He would be inside of her always—contaminating her body and soul.  Oh, to be in that day now.

Claudia twisted her hair up even as her heart raced.  How could she bear to be without him?  Wasn’t he right? She took up one of the carefully laid out knives and stepped up until she was even with him.

“You will marry me,” Bennett said.

“Of course,” Claudia replied.  This time her throw did not even carry the blade as far as the tree.  With eyes that burned, he perused her body even as he handed her the next knife.  A gaze like that would leave scorch marks across her breasts where they lingered.  Her dress would blacken into cinders.

Her hands lifted to hold her dress in place.  The metal tip of the dagger brushed her neck.  

“I am yours,” she said.  His hand joined hers again as she threw and this time the tip of the blade tapped the tree before falling. “I am always, always yours.  We must return.”

“I’d brand you a whore if it would keep you with me, away from him.”

“And then I would be no wife for anyone.”

He smiled.  He was a snake in the garden.  That smile could convince anyone of anything.  His eyes gleamed like scales rippling as the snake moved.  Yes, this was why Eve ate the apple.  Claudia was suddenly very sure that Eve never regretted the moment.  Being fooled by the snake must have been worth every moment of exile and shame.  A moment in a snake's embrace was more than worth the poison.  

“You will be mine,” he said.

“I am already,” Claudia said as she lowered herself to the ground.  Bennett followed ready to claim her. As it had been every time over the past two months, Claudia lost herself completely in coupling. She was one with the universe and knew that nothing could harm her.

For the first time when they physically parted, she immediately felt the world swarm back in around her. The wedding seemed very immediate. Five months.

Bennett helped Claudia back onto the horse and gathered up his knives.  She turned to sit demurely side saddle. An hour was no time at all and it was all the time they ever had. Sixty minutes form when she was dropped off for her music lessons to when the driver expected her to emerge.

“Inform your parents that you will not marry Victor.”

“As soon as a moment arises,” she lied. She didn’t believe in such a moment. The world in which she was to be wed did not share a plane of existence with this moment.

***

Victor’s golden hair fell across his forehead as he bowed over his clasped hands. The solid wood floor was rough and thankless against his bare knees. For two hours, he had prayed in front of the small shrine in this room, occasionally lifting his eyes to the five foot wooden cross that was the only ornamentation in his bedchamber.

Such wickedness, a world of wickedness, and I have fallen victim. When he looked up this time, he eyed the switch on the wall. His shoulders and back were still raw from the last time God guided his hand that way. As a man of the upper-class it was his sole purpose in life to guide those with lesser minds and bodies to God. Even the smallest sin was abhorrent and needed punishment.

As always when he thought of punishment, he pictured the blue-eyed street wench.  The one sin he hadn’t regretted until it was too late. Until the whore thought to saddle him with a child. But now he was to have a proper bride, and he needed to burn all traces of sin from himself.

He stood and grabbed down the leather switch. Its familiar weight in his hands, his shoulders relaxed, and a brief smile lit his face. Yes, this is the proper thing. Pain in this world to save from pain in the hereafter.

He grimaced at his crime. It had felt righteous to strike the pushy old peasant woman. Yet to hit a woman was not a Godly act. They were weaker, fragile, precious things.

Victor lifted the switch and swung it over his shoulder. Like the teeth of a small animal, it bit into his shoulder and gnawed down his back. The beast bit over his other shoulder, and he saw Claudia kneeling by the altar. Her empty feral eyes shone with the same thirsty smile as her mouth.

Again, she whispered, again.

Anything to please his future bride.

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