At the Very Ports They Blow
Minisinoo

Summary:  During a vacation in Greece, Cedric considers the phrase, 'and two shall become one flesh.'  One-shot. c. 1850 words
Pairings:  Cedric/Katie
Warnings:  Adult
Notes:  Inspired by erotic_elves' June challenge, and also filling one of the 7spells prompts.  This story uses background from the RPG stoatshead_hill, and is written with the permission of idea_of_sarcasm who plays Katie there.  Readers need only know that Cedric survived the Third Task, is 27, and involved rather seriously with Katie Bell.

The sheets were white, pristine and cool, the duvet at the bed's foot equally white like a fluffy cloud, or the whitewashed buildings of the Greek isles.  White buildings, red-tile roofs, and low hills pockmarked with pine -- green freckles on the sere, brown skin of the Mother, all wrapped in the bright blue apron of the Mediterranean.  It was so very different from gray Britain veiled in fog and drizzle and spring chill.  Here, the quality of light cut sharp lines of sun and shadow, brilliance and darkness that let one see why the ancients had divided their world into dualities.  Men . . .  de . . .  'on the one hand this . . .  on the other hand that . . .'

Beyond the open window, Cedric could hear the lapping of the sea on a rocky shore, hear the gulls and smell the salt.  A luxury cruise ship had arrived in the night, decked with white lights and dwarfing all the other fishing vessels in the little Paleopolis harbor; now, it gave off a great blast that shook the air like Poseidon's earthquake.  But his focus wasn't on what he heard or smelled, but what he saw.

Stretched out on the bed before him was a woman's hourglass form, shrouded by white, a living bas-relief in linen.  He ran hands over her and let his eye trace the arcs and planes of her body, the sloping rise of breasts, the curve of tummy, the triangle of her hips and the long lines of leg and arm, even the little peaks punched up by slender feet.  "There is no more lovely vale than the curve between the breast and hip of woman," he whispered, then smiled because he could just imagine Katie rolling her eyes at him beneath the sheet.

Yet she'd consented to his little fantasy and let him cover her from crown to toe with the bed sheet.  Now he bent, running his nose along the fabric from her right hip over her abdomen to her left breast.  Turning his head, he sucked on the nipple, his tongue working fast against linen roughness.  Beneath him, she twisted, whining slightly and arching up.  Her arms moved, but she was pinned by the sheet and his weight and he wasn't inclined to let her escape.

Climbing between her legs, he lowered his own pelvis to hers, his erection rubbing her with the friction of fabric in between, teasing them both.  He couldn't see her expression, but he could see the hollow created by her open mouth, and bending, covered it with his own.  Her saliva and his made a damp translucent spot on the white.

He couldn't say what about this tickled his fancy.  Perhaps it was just her inability to see what was coming next?  The sheet made a flimsy, voluntary wall between them, more obvious if no thicker than the fences of their skin.  He'd heard sex described as 'two shall become one flesh.'  But they didn't.  They didn't.  He understood the poetic value of the phrase, but in so many cases, they didn't.  Instead, sex became entertainment, or distraction, or even a show of power.  And sometimes that was all right.  Well, at least the first two.  He wasn't sure the third was ever all right, or not without a lot of 'ifs' attached.

But one flesh?

Rolling off Katie, he sat up but still didn't remove the sheet.  Instead he let both hands drift over her, stroking her from toe to crown and crown to toe, not lingering anywhere, erotic or otherwise.  She lay passive and let him, although he knew it must be hard for her.  She wasn't the passive type.

Shifting, he moved down beside her feet and with a little tugging pulled the sheet free from the bed's foot, then pushed it up until Katie's toes were bared.  He took the left foot in his hands and massaged it.  She giggled, ticklish perhaps, although he wasn't trying to tickle.  He let his palms smooth the insole, the heel, the ankle and up over her calf.  Her skin was smooth and warm.  He bent her leg at the knee and set the foot down, then turned to the other and repeated the process, intent on his work.  Both knees raised, sheet slipping down over her upper thighs, he bent to drag his mouth up the outside of her left leg.  She made a hiss, squeaked and wriggled, but he just gripped her legs and held her still, using his nose to edge up the sheet until it fell away, baring her body to her waist.  All her lower half revealed to him now, he used his mouth and hands to set her to quivering.  As his lips traveled up her inner thigh, she whined, "Cedric," from beneath the sheet, and looked set to throw it off.

Rising, he held the sheet over her -- not suffocating, but enough that she couldn't (yet) toss it aside.  "Patience," he whispered, and returned to his task.  She subsided.

He didn't neglect her crotch, but also didn't linger there anymore than he had on other body parts.  He spread her outer lips with his fingers and dragged his tongue up and down the red, hot skin inside, once, twice, three times.  It was enough to make her gasp and twist and cry out.  Enough to make her even wetter.  Not enough for more than that.

Still settled between her knees, he leaned over her to roll up the white sheet until it was just below her breasts.  He kissed her tummy then, and all the little moles.  He loved her little moles -- on face, neck, belly, back, even legs.  They made curious constellations in the sky of Katie Bell and he made up stories about them like the Greeks had done for the Zodiac -- more whimsical perhaps than vain princesses or poisonous scorpions or bow-laden hunters.  This little circle here was a Quaffle, and the line behind was the broomstick of a Chaser bent on interception.  He let his fingers trace them and she grunted.  "What are you doing?"

"Making up stories about your moles."

That brought a beat of dead silence, followed by, "Stories about my moles?  I don't have to tell you you're a strange man, do I?"

He didn't reply, just smiled and leaned down, pressing light kisses from her shallow belly-button up to her sternum, using his nose again to push the sheet away from her breasts.  But he didn't kiss the nipples, not immediately.  Instead he laid his cheek in the valley between them, settling his body all along hers, damp skin to damp skin.

Not one flesh.  Just two bodies, two people struggling towards each other mentally and physically.

The roll of sheet now rested against her clavicles, the sheet covering only her face.  Raising up on all fours, he moved until he straddled her beneath him, his face directly above hers.  He could hear her breathing -- not fast, not aroused right now.  "What are you doing?" she asked after a moment.

"Studying you."

"You can't see me."

Which wasn't, of course, strictly true.  He could see all of her but her face, yet he thought he knew what she meant beyond the literal.  Bending he kissed her, his lips the only part of him touching her, and that only through the sheet.

He wanted to become one flesh.

He wanted to find that alchemy, that communion of souls.  It might be impossible, but he wanted it.  He wanted to know and be known like that, to be that naked.  Like the big ocean liner in the harbor below, he wanted to sail into her and sound at her ports -- and he didn't mean sexually.  'Know me,' his blast would say.  'Love me.'

Romantic, poetic drivel.  Like two becoming one flesh.  But he wanted it . . .

Drawing back, he shifted weight again until he was back between her thighs, cradled there.  Reaching down, he pumped himself with his hand a few times until he was ready, then, gently, sought her entrance as she spread her legs, letting him.  She was still wet, but not fully open to him yet.  He took his time, filling her slowly.  He'd been doing that all these last months, if less concretely, giving her pieces of his heart and soul and mind even before he'd been aware that was what he'd been doing.  They'd had a connection almost from the start, but it took tending to make it bloom.

Finally all the way inside, he drew out equally slowly, then pushed back harder.  She gasped.  Her arms, which had heretofore lain at her sides, obedient in his request that she stay still, now came up around his back.  "Cedric -- "

"Shh," He pulled out, then pushed back in, pulled out, and pushed back in.

"Cedric --"

Bending, he kissed her to stop her talking.  Still through the sheet.

In the distance, the ocean liner let out one of its periodic bellows.

And reaching up, he swept back the white from her face, pausing in his motion, still raised above her, his eyes finding hers, her irises blue like the Mediterranean.  "Know me," he said before returning to his in-and-out movement.  His words drew a puzzled expression from her -- she hadn't been privy to his mental musings -- but she didn't ask.

Instead she said, "I'm trying."

"I know," he replied.

His eyes never left hers, his motion like the waves lapping her shore and their yoked pleasure spiraled up from the depths of their isolation, seeking sunlight, seeking air.  Faces inches apart, he was panting now.  So was she.  In and out, in and out, in and out.  Faster.  He wouldn't look away from this.  He wouldn't close his eyes.  He wanted to see her come.  And he wanted her to see him come.

When it happened, it took him by surprise, a bolt of Zeus striking his body like a lightning rod, causing him to arch and jerk.  He emptied inside her, her thighs around his hips, pulling him deeper, closer, nails digging into his back a little, drawing droplets of blood.  Her own climax hit her only a little after and she gasped, teeth gritted.  But she didn't look away nor close her eyes.  Neither did he.

After a minute, they sagged back together, still locked inside their fences of skin.

But it wasn't, Cedric thought, the body that counted, and naked skin was just naked skin, sweaty and sticky now.  She saw inside him.  She always had.  So he was willing to let her see inside him at his most vulnerable.  Two became one not as an act of passion, but an act of will, a choice to accept the Other in all his glory and imperfections.

To look another in the eyes and not glance away.

Reaching down, he pulled the sheet up over them both and snuggled down, eyes shut finally, his face pressed against her neck.  He licked the sweat there.  Out in the bay, the liner blew again, the bright sound cutting through the salty-sweet evening air.