Rating Change: NC-17. I'm not kidding. (Yay!)
Note:This chapter is dedicated to Dennis. You're not old!
Chapter 37
Amplify
(Oh, no, Willow, this is not the end. This is only the beginning.)Tara had pulled on a t-shirt and gotten up to use the washroom. Willow put her hand over the warm space on the sheets where her girlfriend recently lay. She could smell the lingering scent of the salve on the sheets and on her fingers. Memories of Tara swirled through her mind, the unknown word
(jertfa) still troubling her, but in the thick and warm darkness of the early morning Willow brought other, more pleasant thoughts to her mind.
(If you wish it, I'll never leave you again.)Slim light spilled from underneath the bathroom door. Willow could hear the water running and she wondered, oh she wondered if her spell worked for her beloved. They had come so close, so very close to fulfilling something she could barely imagine, but those demon grooves stopped them every time. With so much pain in Tara's life that she could do nothing about, Willow hoped and prayed that this one thing had worked. There would be no more barriers, no more reason to stop. She could allow herself this, this pleasure in a world where so much had gone wrong.
(I saved the world, Tara, but not for me. Never for me.)But Tara had proved otherwise, hadn't she? Through her sacrifice, her devotion to her patient, Willow had come to realize that, though her friends were gone, she was still alive. And being alive was a very good thing. And more, Tara had shown that being alive was more than monster fighting, and slaying, and thwarting the forces of darkness time and again with no reward to show for it; being alive meant enjoying the simple things, like a durian in a marketplace, like a kiss on a couch, like the prospect of being with a beloved one forever. Who was this woman who had entered her life, and saved her in every single way imaginable?
(I'm the woman who's going to make you happier than you've ever been.)Willow could believe it. The attraction, the longing was undeniable. And this very night, when she pressed her own breasts against the bare back of her girlfriend, she knew she wanted to make love to her, to brand her own name on Tara's lips forever, to make her feel ecstasy and pleasure beyond anything she'd ever experienced before, enough to dull the pain that continually wracked her lover's body. Willow's pain, taken to save Willow.
(Just save me, Willow.)What Willow would have done to take Tara away from this world, Willow's world. Walking the mausoleum
(was it only an hour ago?) only reminded Willow of the terrible sacrifices she and her friends had made, time and again, without anyone knowing. She wanted to take Tara away from it all, and have no worry other than what to eat for dinner. It was impossible, now. The amulet chained Tara in far more ways than Willow could probably imagine, and Willow certainly didn't want Caleb to be a part of her life in any meaningful way.
(Just what does Tara mean to you, Willow?)Tara was no longer simply a woman, simply a nurse. Tara was Willow's new north star, her new sun. It was Tara who illuminated her way into the darkness of the forthcoming years, transformed that darkness into new light and new possibilities. It was Tara who would guide her through it all, that low infectious smile on her lips and three pale lines across her face. Monster grooves.
(I used to have a monster fighting team.)At this moment, more than any other, Willow was consumed with grief for her dead friends. How was she to save this precious woman without Buffy, without Xander and Giles? Giles always had the answers. He had his books, and his connections to the Council, and a great deal more savagery than she had once suspected could exist in a tweed-clad librarian. Xander was more than just the guy that got the donuts and fixed the furniture. He could see to the truth of things, could see into the heart of the matter, even only through one eye socket. And Buffy, dear Buffy. Never just a Slayer, though that was certainly handy. Buffy was courage incarnate; she never backed down from a fight, even when she was reduced to slinging burgers at the Doublemeat Palace. More than a Slayer – she was the first person to awaken Willow to a better, albeit more dangerous, life.
(It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in.)Understanding pierced Willow, with an actual physical pain. It was all Buffy, again. Even from beyond the grave, Buffy and her sacrifice
(jertfa) is what brought Tara to her. Without Buffy, Willow would never have met Tara, and she would have gone on her merry little way eventually, battered, bruised, bereft, grieving for a loss she never could fully comprehend. There would have been a Tara-shaped emptiness in her life, and she never would have known it.
(Could she be in better company? We can care for her here, for she is one of us.)Willow was a witch. She knew what prophetic dreaming was. The Scoobies, they would accept Tara in death, just as they would in life. But not yet. In this, Willow was certain. No mausoleums, no marble slabs, no cold and lifeless hands, no cold lips, not yet not yet not yet.
She didn't even realize that she was weeping until Tara crawled back into bed beside her. Tara's anxious face filled her view, and she found herself aching for Tara's touch. Banish the ghosts, Tara. Banish the demons, banish the dreams. Please.
Why did they need no words?
Willow once wryly thought that there was no force on earth that could shut her babbling mouth. Until she met Tara. At first she kept quiet because she wanted to impress this enigmatic and mysterious nurse, and knew that random spouts of nonsense often erupted from her lips. Then she kept quiet because she realized that there was a wavelength between her and her brown-haired lover, a wavelength she never had experienced with Oz or anyone else. It was like a cord connecting them, eyes to eyes, heart to heart. No lies. No words. Only truth.
In the silken moonlight and streetlight, Tara's eyelashes seemed dipped in gold and stroked with shadow. The three lines down her face were thin and pale, in stark contrast to her luscious and full lips. Her eyes were roiling in joy, in playfulness, and those eyes alone drew Willow from the dark place she had been inhabiting, the mausoleum of her mind. Did the spell work, then?
“You mean?” Willow whispered, pointing to Tara's t-shirt covered chest.
For her answer, Tara gave her that low smile before sitting upright in the bed, the sheet pooling by her waist. Willow sat up as well, aware that the cold draught from the window was making her nipples stand at attention.
(You know better, Willow, you know what is really happening. You want her. With every fibre in your being, you want her. And your body knows it.)For a moment, Willow wondered if she should cover up, lift the sheet in some modicum of modesty. But then that moment ended, and another began, containing the universe within. As Willow watched Tara's fingers seductively pull up the edges of her shirt, slowly tugging the garment up and off her body, revealing impossible smoothness of skin, three long and thin pale lines between her breasts where only hours before Willow knew there were demon grooves, Willow was pierced again by understanding.
She was reborn.
Her old self was consumed in the ashes of Tara's love. Just like a phoenix, Willow stepped forth from those ashes, she was finally sated, she had dined long enough on the ashes to last a lifetime, there was better food now, now there was chocolate. Taraliscious. Tara bared her breasts to her, and in doing so she bared her soul, and there was space there for Willow. Willow could barely comprehend the hollowing that must have taken place, to make such room for her in Tara's very being. She only knew that she would never, could never be the same.
Tara bared her breasts to her, and her eyes looked on her with not just the benevolent love you'd expect from a nurse, from an angel, but the soul-consuming, body-wrenching, cataclysmic romantic love you desire for a lifetime and have never found before, not in anybody. Tara bared her breasts to her, and Willow knew what her new life would entail, now that she was reborn from the ashes.
(You didn't want me to fully understand your sacrifice. If I understood too much, I might have fallen in love with you. There would have been joy, Tara.)There would be love. Nights and days of it. She could make it her life's work to love Tara the way she deserved to be loved, and it would be the most worthy thing she'd ever done. No demon, no dilemma, no apocalypse could even be measured against it. Joy, peace, happiness, these things would be alien to her no longer. Before she died, Tara would know. Not just the pleasure of the most amazing sex she could imagine, and boy would Willow ever deliver, but more than that. Tara would know what it felt like to be the sole purpose and intention of Willow's life. That nothing, no nothing, would ever separate them again. No amulet, no Caleb, no jertfa mausoleum echoing with the prints of the dead.
Because she was in Tara, and Tara was in her. And did it really matter that Willow had come to this point so swiftly? Mere days it was, since she first met Tara in the coma world of Sunnydale. Willow was a seasoned fighter now, and death had come too close. No time to waste, not when you lived as a Scooby.
Tara bared her breasts to her, and Willow licked her lips and stared. The amulet had been swung to Tara's back again. With a soft hand, Tara lifted Willow's hand and placed it fully on the skin between her breasts, the skin that only hours ago had been puffy and inflamed. It was now clear, and smooth, and completely healed. Willow looked at her hand, nestled so gently between Tara's breasts, and with a finger she touched those scars, traced the length of them, noticing Tara's shiver.
“You did this for me,” Tara whispered. “Now we can,” and she paused long enough to push Willow's body back down on the soft bed, looming over her with ardent intensity, a desire Willow had never seen in anyone's eyes, not Oz, not anyone. “...do this,” Tara completed, before kissing Willow, hard.
Oh. My.
Tara's lips were crushed on hers; Willow opened her mouth and Tara's lips tilted sideways, her tongue lightly ran over Willow's teeth before dipping inside. A gulf was emerging deep in her gut, as aching joy built deep inside. Because it wasn't just Tara's lips, it was Tara's hand, which was drawing slowly down from Willow's face, stroking her neck, running down and over her collarbone, then latching onto Willow's small breast, cupping it in her hand, then rolling the nipple lightly in her slender fingers.
Willow moaned into Tara's mouth; it felt like there was a live wire connected between her breast and her core, a wire that sparked her, and wetness pooled between her legs. Tara was kissing her, almost bruising her with her desire, and Tara's leg insinuated in between Willow's. Her foot slid between Willow's ankles, pushed them apart. Still her fingers played with her nipple, rolling and lightly pinching, each touch setting off a cacophony of nerves. Pierced with joy, wallowing in ecstasy, Willow wanted to touch Tara as she was being touched, but it seemed she lacked some essential motor function. All of her attention was on Tara's foot, Tara's hand, Tara's mouth.
Tara's mouth, which moved to kiss and suck at Willow's neck. Willow arched her neck back, opening her eyes briefly to see the ceiling and the top of the headboard, the prints Tara had placed on the wall. But she closed her eyes again, panting slightly as Tara began to kiss her neck. Willow jolted as Tara pressed her tongue into the hollow at the base of Willow's throat as she simultaneously kneaded Willow's breast.
“Please, Tara,” Willow whispered, a torrent of wet desire running through her limbs. Tara lifted her head long enough to look Willow in the eyes; she gave a hot, searing glance, then shifted her body so she was laying more on top of Willow, her foot scraping lightly up Willow's calf, deliciously spreading Willow's legs. Willow could feel the fabric of their shorts underneath them both. Tara's head then dove down again to Willow's body, her hot mouth closing over Willow's nipple.
Oh. My.
Tara's other hand swiftly found a place at Willow's neglected breast. As her tongue rolled lightly over the sharp nub, her fingers alternately rolled and lightly pinched her other nipple. Willow gasped as Tara suckled at her, her other hand hot at her breast. Then Tara took the nipple in her teeth, and Willow felt the jolt deep inside her, deeper than ever, somewhere near her very soul. Willow ran her hands over Tara's back, touching the beloved skin, running over the amulet which had canted off to the side.
Unbelievable. Both of Tara's hands were now drawing slowly, languorously down Willow's sides, descending until they touched the elastic waist of Willow's shorts. And there they hovered, for Tara was asking a question, unspoken she was asking a question.
“Yes, oh please, Tara,” Willow panted, and some part of her was keenly aware that this was the moment it would all change. This was the universe within. Her north star was about the shine the way for her, into a new life and new understanding.
So Tara drew down Willow's shorts and her panties, lifting them over Willow's pert ass, drawing them exquisitely down her legs and finally tossing them over the side of the bed.
My turn.
Willow grasped Tara's waist as she hovered just above Willow's body; she rose up enough to turn the tables, to push Tara down on the other side of the bed. Willow was afire; she wanted to feel Tara's skin on her, all of it. She looked into Tara's eyes as her fingers grasped the waist of Tara's shorts and Tara nodded, breathing heavily. There wasn't much seductress yet in Willow, but she knew she would learn, that Tara would teach her all sorts of things. So she pulled, over the roundness of Tara's buttocks, down her long and shapely legs, and the moonlight and streetlight splashed over Tara's chest, making her glow. Willow dropped the shorts over the side.
Immediately Tara wrapped herself on Willow's lean frame, her arms crushed tight around her, their breasts pressed together, her leg curling around Willow's leg possessively. Skin on skin, the whole length of her.
It was more exquisite than anything Willow could ever have dreamed. For days now she had been drowning in Tara's scent, had cherished every moment they spent together, from the hand-in-hand shopping to the kissing on the couch, and to have it all culminate in this moment was almost more than Willow could bear. But there really wasn't much space for thinking, not with her brain dealing with an overload of sensation never felt before.
So she drew her fingers over Tara's back, skirting the amulet that fell to the side, drawing her short nails down the fragrant skin, kissing whatever part of Tara happened to be close; her lips, her forehead, the crown of her head. On her back, Willow again felt Tara's foot sliding along the inside of her calves, gently pushing her legs apart. Tara's fingers were sliding down Willow's body, cupping a throbbing breast, skirting her belly button, drawing ever closer to the place Willow most wanted those fingers to be.
She was breathing heavily now, and thrusting her hips upward as Tara insinuated her thigh between her legs. Willow wrapped one leg about Tara's thigh, felt a circle of warmth and wet where Tara's core rubbed against her. Tara was moving back and forth, subtly, in gentle motions, that portion of her upper thigh rasping against her center. She lifted her head from Willow's breast, her eyes closed for a moment as she rose up, her breasts swinging with the movement of her hips, and the moonlight struck her back and cast her into partial shadow.
Willow looked at her then, and her own hands, which had been grasping the sheets or the pillows, her hands ventured up to caress those glorious breasts, nipples hardened into sharp little nubs. Willow had wanted to touch them for so long; she remembered their time under the willow tree when she was enthralled, her hands moving of their own accord, seeking, seeking the touch that would define her. Only to be thwarted, every time, by the inflamed demon grooves, those terrible wounds Tara had received for her.
Now to touch those breasts, and they were soft globes of perfection, and they were warm and entrancing and Willow wanted to not only touch them, but taste them, worship them, revere them with her lips and tongue. Tara's breasts were magical; they opened a space inside her, a space of pure love and intent, and Willow knew she would never be the same. They were Tara's gift, all for her.
So with delicate fingers, a delicate touch, Willow caressed Tara's breasts, ran her fingers over the impossibly smooth and creamy white skin, her thumbs running over her hard nipples. At this touch Tara opened her eyes, and Willow tore her gaze away from the breasts to communicate her gratitude to her girlfriend, to look at her in the eyes and thank her.
And Willow knew. Swimming behind Tara's eyes was a vast purple curtain, the word jertfa hovered just beyond, and there was a great and terrible shadow, stung in the center with a single point of light; the white spot at Caleb's collar. They were not two, they were three.
Willow saw herself as she must have been that day when Tara took it all, she took it, and she can't give it away, she took the broken skull, and the broken rib, the sword puncture wound and the inflamed scrapes and the vampire bite at her neck, she took it and she kept it and there it was and how could Willow have forgotten?
No more tears. Willow felt all this in a flash, and in that flash she vowed to fight, to give, to battle, and to love. Love like there is no preacher in her brain. Love like there is no medical test awaiting. Love like Tara deserved to be loved.
Tara may have stopped then, in that stark moment when Willow realized all this, she must have sensed Willow's slight hesitation, but then Willow rose up, just slightly, just enough to draw Tara's breast into her mouth, enough to cup Tara's bare buttocks with her hands and press her closer. At her electrifying touch on her nipples, warm wet lips suckling at her breast, Tara lifted her head and moaned, a deep guttural sound that resonated in Willow's depths, triggering yet another flood of warmth and wet to her core.
Willow released her suckling hold on Tara's breast only to move to the other, feeling Tara's thigh continue to grind against her core, rejoicing in hearing her lover pant. Her hands, moving up from Tara's ass, drew up the silky length of Tara's back and once again encountered the spokes of the amulet. Sharp grief stabbed her; she released her mouth hold on Tara's breast to pull Tara's body close once again, needing to feel the length and breadth of her, tucked in the spare corners of her heart and limbs.
Tara's hair tickled her shoulder; Willow grasped Tara's face between her soft hands, tilted it so she could nibble on her ear lobe, her heart burning in Tara's flames. Love expanded in her chest, exponentially, thick and deep and delicious, aching in her stomach, painful it was, lurching throughout her entire frame. “Tara,” she whispered, her lips brushing Tara's ear, “I love you.”
And Tara turned to face her, her eyes soft and vulnerable, her face constricting in great emotion. Then she gave a low cry and swooped for Willow's lips, bruising her with her need. There they latched, kissing each other slowly, deliciously, Tara's tongue dancing in her mouth. Tara then pulled away her thigh, wet with Willow's nectar. Just before Willow could complain, somehow, into Tara's mouth, she felt Tara's hand, not stopping at the soft curls, but descending, descending to the place that throbbed, that ached, that begged for release.
Tara's thumb barely stroked her clit, and Willow thrust her head back, breaking her incredible kiss, breathing in heavy gasps. Tara smiled, the moonlight glinting off her perfect teeth, a low and knowing smile that Willow caught only a glimpse of before her eyes rolled back again. She was vaguely aware that one of Tara's hands was kneading her breast, but all of her attention was focused on the other hand, the one with fingers that brushed her velvet opening, swirling around the silky depths. Another swoop over her clit, and Willow writhed underneath her. “Oh, Tara, please,” she gasped, not really knowing what she wanted to ask, just wanting to be fulfilled, to be filled, to be brought to a place she rarely experienced.
“Please what, my love?” Tara asked, low by her ear, actually licking it with her tongue.
“I need you,” Willow begged, and it was just enough, for two of Tara's fingers thrust easily inside her, reaching for a place that wasn't really physical; it was spiritual and emotional and metaphysical and easily not of this world or this plane, but part of that cord that connected them, the fingers tugged at the cord, made it stronger, fiercer, unbreakable adamantium, something that would exist far longer than this pitiful world. The fingers drove her, filled her, and with each thrust, Willow felt herself get closer and closer to something she could barely name.
Another smooth brush of her thumb over Willow's clit, and Willow's hips rose from the sheets, never displacing the fingers that continued to thrust, now a little harder, now a little faster. Her climax began to roar in her ears, and she gasped with a raw breath. She was almost too far to hear Tara's words, “Come for me now, Willow.”
And the fingers inside her, they paused there at the top, and rasped against her slippery channel and vastly, mightily, Willow came. Arching her hips and crying out, her walls clenched against Tara's slick fingers. Tara continued to fill her, her fingers inside her a comfort now as Willow slowly returned to earth, riding the bucking contractions of her orgasm. Only long moments later, as she reigned in her breathing, exhausted with too little sleep and too much emotion, Willow clutched at Tara's body, pulled her in close, tucked her along her bare limbs as she tucked her by her heart. Consumed by love, thick and heady along her limbs, Willow wished she could fight off the sleep, but she'd never experienced anything like what Tara had just given her. The depth of it, the tender care, it suffused her muscles and left them viscous like honey. Fading rapidly, Willow felt Tara pull the sheet over them both, felt Tara's head on her shoulder, her hand possessively cup her breast.
And there. Her core still throbbing, the sleep overtaking her, she heard the whisper like a puff of breath against her breast. “And I love you.”
Moonlight and streetlight spilled over them both, until the first lightening rays of dawn began to steal into the bedroom. It was Monday morning, and neither of them knew that their lives were about to be inextricably altered forever. It would be Ethan who would eventually reveal the calamitous nature of Caleb's gift. Althanea and Angel searched for a demon for Tara and for a knife and found instead a disquieting amount of Bringers, all blindly seeking for the girl. Faith, across the ocean, waking in the afternoon with Jude's slender body beside her, the scent of their love-making sweet in the air, had no idea that she would once again hold the scythe in her hands.
And Donnie waited.
TBC on Tuesday, February 5 with Chapter 38: Caleb's Gift.
I know, I've been teasing you with this chapter for a long time. It's coming now.
Phoenix
ETA: Edited on Feb. 4 to include dedication I shouldn't have missed.
I can't wait. I'm getting all tingly again, just thinking about it.
at the end was nice...
