Still Standing
Sheila's speech to Ash: "It is not easy for me to sit beside you and pretend we are simply friends. You can
feel the heat in my blood from across the room, can you not? I wish to put my hands upon your face and
kiss away the anger I see in your eyes, but I cannot, for you fear the future. I would let you know that
there is nothing in this world and the next that could ever take me from you." Followed by, "Ashley,
please stop staring at my breasts."
***
But I'm standing here now with my heart held out to you. You would have thought a miracle was all
that got us through. Well baby, all I know is I'm still standing..." - Mary Chapin Carpenter, "This Is
Love"
***
Sometimes she wakes in the middle of the night to with her cheek pressed against his chest, over the beat
of his heart and her fingers uncurled just beneath his sternum. She raises her head and stares at his face in
the subterranean late evening light and is stricken anew by the strong presence that is uniquely Ash's.
Ritualistically, Sheila scans his face and torso for any sign of new cuts or bruises. After seven years of
companionship, she knows too well when something is amiss in his form. But nothing's new today, and
the week-old mark on his forehead has turned pale violet at last.
Relaxing, she takes in the view he provides her - the heavy fringe framing his eyes, his parted lips, the
mole hidden in his eyebrow, the thick carpet of chest hair under her fingers. She can envision these
features with her eyes closed - divine pieces him in their children - in Emily's smile and Jake's quick-
moving legs.
She thinks he's beautiful, and no one can tell her that he's not. Beautiful...and occasionally a selfish
barbarian who had a proclivity for testing the "for worse" part of their vows. His flaws only seem to
enhance her attraction to him - often much to her complete and utter consternation.
Sheila smiles, a secret sort of smile. If I had not tripped and fallen into the well, I would not have
this...
***
"I cannot do it, milady!"
"Well, for heaven's sake," Sheila muttered, hands upon her hips, "whyever not?"
Justine Pilady - who had recently been plucked from the surrounding village of Candide to serve as a
scullery maid within Kandar Castle - shivered as her mistress came around the kitchen worktable. "There
is a rumor about the well..." she whispers, "they say a conduit lies between it and the pit..."
"Nonsense," Sheila insisted. "I was raised in this keep. Were there a monster in the well, I would know."
"Meredith said she saw something scurry 'cross the surface...oh, please, mistress, could ye not help me?"
Sheila glowered. The kitchens did indeed need fresh water, and the little chit wouldn't cease her prating...
"Very well. Bring the buckets and I shall show thee that nothing lives in our water but the occasional
frog."
Shaking slightly, Justine tailed Sheila to the bailey, bringing along with her three buckets twice her size.
Sheila had already cast the first to the well waters and was, with a strength that superseded her size, began
to haul it back to the rim of the well.
With every jerk of the rope, her mind spewed bitter thoughts. MODERN women (women seven hundred
years her junior, la, they were still modern in some other world), if Ash was not an utter liar, experienced
the joy of hot water running from the walls; they could, like his late sister, choose to play at the arts or,
like his dead girlfriend, play with mathematics. They could drive carriages or live by themselves; choose
to have children or to live as spinsters. They were not, as she understood, doomed to walk the earth
forever as living embodiments of Eve's sin upon Adam and thus denied even the common courtesy of
being said to possess souls.
For Sheila, every second passed since Ash's departure had been spent vacillating between loneliness and
anger. The latter she had always lived with but never been so keenly aware of before; the anger, entirely
directed at him, was only new in the sense that she had never wanted to rip a man clean in two before.
It was, she knew, a grave sin. His face had a tendency to appear upon a rug she'd been vigorously beating
or a pot of potatoes she'd been eating from. She'd already been to confession twice to rid herself of these
dark thoughts, but it seemed now as if she might never be clear of them.
It, after all, has been a full year since he'd left her sight.
Sloshing buckets of water over the cobblestone with stronger velocity, Sheila felt incremental douses of
water splash through the hem of her skirt. Her breath billowed out in clouds of pure white, the wind
biting her bare arms under the thin protection of her cloak, but she felt nothing but the heat of her own
rage.
"Aww, Sheila, don't you get it? It's over...I didn't have what it took....so long..."
The nerve of that man! To declare what they had 'over' simply due to his wish for it to be so! She hadn't
allowed him the succor of the easy way to freedom. Because of that - in her opinion they had reached an
accord, enough of one to allow him to leave without any hard feelings. At least on his part.
For the millionth time, she forced herself to let go of what she felt for him. Jealousy poked her skin - he
could relinquish her easily, for he had lost so much in such a short time that the loss of her must have felt
like the smallest nibble of a flea. But to her - she who had never been in love before - it was the great
bite of a lion upon her neck, filling the room with great jets of her lifeblood.
But her place in his life was naught; she must acclimate herself to this or go mad.
"Milady!" She looked up sharply at Jean. "The buckets are filled."
It isn't the place of a serving maiden to correct the lady of the house - were Sheila a more wrathful
woman, Jean would have been flayed alive for her insolence. Sheila takes the nonconfrontational route.
"So they are. Bring these to Cook."
Jean bows, taking one of the large buckets and beginning the long trek to the kitchen. Sheila - her anger
exhausted at last - leaned up against the side of the well and tried to catch her breath.
No one had warned her that the palisades had been rotted away - by numerous buckshot blasts, perhaps,
or the ruin caused by gunpowder discharge, or simply by the rigors of time. She did not have time to
analyze - she simply tumbled over, into the dark crevice, into the....
Swirling blue vortex.
Too frightened to do more than scream and kick, Sheila felt herself pulled through the ravages of space
and time, followed by the gray bricks of the well, the bucket and pulley, the frogs and their lily pads...
And then she landed, on a pile of something soft, in a dark but confined space.
Light intruded, one second before a large, green frog plopped onto the top of her head.
She never had forgiven Ash for bursting into laughter at the sight of her, sitting indignantly in the dirty
laundry at the bottom of his closet.
***
And she never HAS gotten true revenge on the boy, Sheila realizes, as she traces the curve of his jaw.
Well, she supposes her children count, as they drive him to distraction every day.
She sighs again. If she finds him beautiful in the waking hours, he's stunning in sleep - at least whenever
he's not snoring.
Yes - he's loud, occasionally rude and thoughtless - but he's absolutely wonderful when he touches her,
when he relates to her, when he relaxes his guard and she peers inside of his soul....
***
"Why do you need me to help you with this?" He tapped his fingers against the beer bottle and
squirmed against her doily-covered couch, clearly uncomfortable resting among the frippery in her new
apartment.
That it's entirely her place was what seemingly made him uneasy. Indeed, her dependence on him -
through her sheer indomitability - was next to nothing a year after her arrival in the modern world. She
had a roommate who sang nights in a drag bar, had hung her GED on the wall, and spent long hours at
Martinelli's Flowers as she worked toward a master's degree in French in two-hour night course
increments at Michigan University. She hoped to teach, or become a translator; she had plans to end up
in Washington DC, or perhaps at the French consulate in Chicago. Ash contained no plans - had no
thought process, beyond staying alive for the next few hours. "Tis nay a matter of technical proficiency.
I simply wish for thee to listen to me speak and tell me if it sounds apt."
"Baby, how the hell would I know apt from bad?" The bottle 'dinked' against his metal thumb, and his
eyed dart around the apartment.
A small, smug smile crossed her lips - she wasn't the only one dealing badly with the 'let's just be
friends' edict he had pushed upon her. "Listen but a moment. Can ye not take, Ashley?"
He shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. That he's quiet at all allows her the courage to say what she
wants to say, what she cannot convey to him in English.
"Il n'est pas facile pour moi de se reposer près de vous et nous feindre sommes simplement des amis. Tu
pouvez sentir la chaleur dans mon sang de l'autre côté de la salle, pouvez vous pas? Je souhaite mettre
mes mains sur votre visage et baiser loin la colère que je vois dans vos yeux, mais je ne peux pas, pour
vous crainte le futur. Je tu ferais savoir qu'il n'y a rien dans ce monde et le prochain qui pourraient jamais
me prendre de tu..." she brushed back a lock of hair that had fallen forward and into her eyes, and
glanced at him. She followed the line of his sight and sighed. "Ashley, cessent svp de regarder fixement
mes seins!"
He snapped out of his trance. "Huh?"
She took a long, deep sip of her own beer. "I said ye should try the language. It might loosen thy
memory."
"I flunked Spanish 101 back in high school. Words've never been my thing." He shrugged. "S'your
department."
Sheila placed the bottle upon the side table. Intensely, she leaned forward and said, "say 'Je t'aime,
Sheila.'."
"Why?" he wondered, his suspicion in his eyes.
"I simply wish to hear you say it." She crossed her arms over her breasts, taking on a pose of complete
implacability.
He couldn't quite meet her gaze. "You're not gonna give up 'til I do it, are you?"
"Oui."
He rolled his eyes, then looked into hers. "'Je t'aime, Sheila'," he parroted, then frowned. "Whatt'd I
say?"
"You said," she told him with a smile, "that you love me."
His mouth fell open. "That....that's a dirty trick." He pointed at her with his index finger, accusatory and
alarmed simultaneously.
Sheila was beyond pleased - she had succeeded in silencing him - it was a veritable miracle. "Aye," she
told him. "But it is the truth." The oven timer chirped. "Supper's on!"
He didn't call her a liar - that alone gave her a tinge of hope. She reveled in the notion that she wasn't
alone in her desire for a life shared between them - it was enough for the moment, though not for a
lifetime. Leaving him on her sofa, stunned into thoughtful silence, Sheila walked to the kitchenette and
turned to the alchemistic magic of the stove and pulled free a hen, stuffed and seasoned. The modern
world had indeed been very good to her today.
***
Sheila smiles at the old memory. Perhaps her revenge has been meted out over the years. Perhaps it is no
revenge at all, but the foundation of a life they'd managed to make together, against incredible odds. She
presses herself a little closer to his heat. If she has any power at all in this world, they shall not be torn
asunder. She loves him far too deeply to save herself now.
***
She waited for him in her best dress, a bundle of lavender blossoms clutched between her shaking,
pale hands. One hour late, then two.
"Honey, maybe there's a jam over on Michigan..." Tara Bull, her once-roommate, stabbed her Marlboro
Red out against the concrete statue of Saint Peter, winking at the disgruntled priest awaiting Ash's arrival.
"You know how bad it's gotten since they started that construction project."
"'Tisn't that. Something's amiss. I know it, I feel it..."
"Don't run a hole in the rug - I spent three hours helping you pick out those shoes, it'd be a real shame to
wreck them so soon," Tara said lightly, her fingers flicking at a curl draped by her ear. Her bright red wig
and fuchsia colored dress draw more attention than the elegant wardrobe of the bride, and Sheila felt
certain that Tara had intentionally arranged it that way.
It mattered not to Sheila - there's no such thing as a wedding without a groom. The lilac shed in violet
streams over the altar as her hands shook. She hated him - just for a moment - for causing her
composure to shred away to nothingness.
He arrived with wet hair, in a rumpled suit, ten minutes later. Before she could castigate him, Ash
grasped her hand, spinning her back toward the front of the church. He reacheed the altar and pulled her
closer to him as the priest rifled through his Bible, searching for the appropriate passage.
"Don't," he hissed when she snarled up at him.
Fury in her eyes, Sheila prepared a bitter retort, but before she could unleash her anger she noticed the
mark upon his neck, a long, red, angry-looking welt running down his jaw bone. Deadite claw marks.
He squeezed her hand. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?" she wonderd.
"Like the thought of what I just went through's killing you. You knew what you were getting into when
you said 'yes', sugar."
Her jaw firmed. "Aye."
He squeezed her hand again. "I'm okay."
"Are the two of you quite ready to begin?" the priest asked, glancing at them over the top of his wire-
rimmed glasses.
Ash's thumb stroked - feather-light - over the back of Sheila's knuckles. He left it - perhaps for the only
time in their joined lives - up to her. But she's never been afraid - she never will be, not of him.
"Aye," she said, her eyes full upon him.
***
He mumbles in his sleep, his head tossing against the pillow. She knows the nightmares plague him still,
and wraps her arms around his middle, trying to soothe him somehow, to reach him in the fog of his
mind.
Her words are mumbled promises of love that settle him gradually back into a deep sleep. The warmth of
his body and the even tempo of his breathing, in turn, send her to her own separate paradise.
***
Sometimes, he wakes up with a mouthful of her hair.
Ash spits it out and struggles from beneath the weight of her dark tresses, but can't manage to free
himself, and eventually settles beneath her arm, a skein of it looped around his throat like a tentacle. He
peeks at her cautiously, just to make sure everything's as he left it the night before.
Sheila is still Sheila. A peek across the room confirms that Jake is still Jake, and the lack of maniacal
cackling coming from Emily's room allows him to infer that his daughter is still herself. He lets out a
long, deep sigh of relief before turning over to study his wife.
Beautiful gal. Sensitive and wrathful, sure, but gorgeous and smart. Accomplished, too. It was his weird
luck, again, that had brought the two of them together in the first place.
It's been nearly seven now - a year apart, six months of quasi-courtship, a six-month old marriage before
Emily's conception. He's well aware of the fact that everything that's happened to him is his fault. No
apologies, no backward glances, even if he's got some regrets.
He's done what he had to do.
***
"You should come in and get that checked out."
Ash glared at the paramedic as he shone a flashlight into his bleary eyes. "I'm all right."
The guy shook his head, pointed at Ash's right temple. "Nasty-looking cut. You probably need stitches."
"I've been through this before, okay? Just go keep an eye on her..." he winced as he tries to turn his
head.
"Your girl is fine," the paramedic remarked. "And you're quite sure you're all right?"
"Yeah..." he cast a look at the destruction laid out before him and felt a strange sort of detachment from it
all. He tossed a glance at the still-smoking body of the formerly-possessed old man; fourth one in two
weeks. "She's not my girl," he said finally.
"She says she is," the paramedic remarked, leaving Ash with a shrug. "If you feel dizzy, the emergency
on Michigan Ave's in triage mode." He then moved along to the next moaning victim of Ash's bad luck.
He caught sight of Sheila as she limped away from a paramedic, an Ace bandage visible upon her knee,
her skirt held daintily up as if she were stepping over a puddle. He - rather foolishly - rushed up to her
and grabbed her shoulder.
Her elbow was at least as hard as her palm, and hurt twice as much as it slammed into his solar plexus.
She turned, gasping in horror, and began patting his now-bruised middle in a motherly fashion. "Ye
shouldnae sneak upon me like that." He couldn't manage anything more than silence as he tried to regain
his breath. "Did ye wish to speak with me, Ashley?"
"Home," he finally managed to gasp out. "D'you need someone to drive you home?"
Her shoulders squared. "Nay. I can manage..." she took a step, winced. "I took the bus..."
He gave her a petulant glare as he tipped his shoulder, looping her arm around his neck. "You're not
supposed to be here."
"Cancelled class," Sheila explained, as they limped toward the front of the store. "The S-Mart remains
the only institution open for blocks."
A bitter smirk crossed Ash's face. "We stayed open during a tornado once..." He yelled over his
shoulder, toward his shell-shocked supervisor. "I'm taking her home, all right?"
"Take the rest of the night," the response came from his supervisor, Ben. "The police're cordoning off
the store. AGAIN, Ash..."
"Hey, I didn't mean for it to get out of hand, but then the bastard picked up that cardboard Elvira cut-
out..."
"You know Mister Smart's gonna make you pay for the candy display. I didn't even know you could do
that with a Mars Bar..." Ben shuddered.
"In a situation like that, you do what you have to," Ash responded.
"Yeah, sure. Did you have to do it in front of a bunch of Boy Scouts, tho?"
"Let 'em think of it as a lesson in manning up," Ash said blithely. "Night, man."
"Night."
"What in heaven's name is a Mars Bar?" Sheila asked, as they cross the threshold and head into the S-
Mart's crowded and very chilly parking lot.
"A candy bar. I'll bring you one," he shifted her weight to his right shoulder, digging into his back
pocket for his car keys and, on retrieving them, slipped them into the lock. He grimaces as he helped her
into the passenger side seat, an unidentified pain in his left wrist. "I'll have boxes to spare." After
securing her inside, he took his place behind the wheel, pulling slowly out of the lot. "You didn't see
what happened?"
"I took refuge within a wheelbarrow when the light dimmed. I saw little else." Her eyes were distant,
sort of glassy, and he knew that the night's events have hit home with her. She frowned as the car
slowed several blocks from her place. "Why have we stopped?"
"This is my place. It's closer," he offered before she can protest, "it's gonna start snowing soon. Don't
wanna risk losing this baby to the plows." He patted the steering wheel of his third-hand Olds, which,
paradoxical to its forefather's bland shade, was a bright blue.
"Aye...I 'pose 'tis something a friend would do for a friend." He helped her to her feet, leading her into
the building. "Hath been a month or more passed since I have seen within thy sanctum."
He wrenched open the door, causing something in the far distance to crash to the floor. "It's still not
much to see." She stood in the dusty, clothing-strewn living room, apparently horrified by the way he'd
chosen to live. She lands upon the couch as he heads to the kitchen. "You want something to drink?"
"Water."
He turned on the taps and ran a half-glass into a clean-looking red plastic cup. Returning to the couch, he
held it out for her to take.
She touched his hand and gasped.
Looking up, he saw her horror-stricken gaze and followed her eyes to his hand - the skin had peeled back
from his middle knuckle, a hanging tag of flesh that flashed open whenever he flexed his finger.
She took the cup, placed it on the floor beside the couch, then nudged him onto the couch and rose to her
feet. "Thy plasters - where do ye keep them?"
"Huh?"
She frowned. "I believe ye call them 'Band-Aids?'"
Ash stared at his own hand, flexing the muscles, wondering how the hell he'd never noticed the gash
marring his skin. "Uh, bathroom. Cabinet."
Sheila returned moments later, with a bottle of alcohol and the band-aids. "I believe this shall prevent
infection."
He snorted. "I lopped this off with a chainsaw and then spent four days running around your neck of the
woods..." he lifted his right hand and rolled the wrist. "Nothing happened. I don't think youSHIT..."
He tried to jerk his now-burning hand out of hers, but Sheila - whom, he later found out, had cauterized
the wounded flesh of Kandar's soldiers with a burning-hot sword and thus has experience in treating the
unwilling-to-be-healed- and-much-larger-than-she - had a solid grip on his hand and wasn't about to
relinquish it.
"Must ye bellow like a sore-headed bear?" she wondered, dabbing his cut with the alcohol-soaked hem of
her dress.
"Stings like a bastard," he muttered, then felt like an idiot for whining about a little cut, but still couldn't
help but sigh in relief as she pressed a band-aid against his skin. The cheap covering - plastered with the
creepy S-Mart logo - peeled up an instant after she released it, resisting the dark hair curling against the
back of his hand. "Thanks," he grumbled.
She pressed her lips to the wound a tad longer than necessary - then pulled away from him. "Ye must
require an entire host of guardian angels, Ashley. I cannot fathom the strife they must go through to keep
thy soul intact."
He gave her a crooked grin. "You tellin' me I need looking after?"
She watched him, her direct, unflinching eyes trying to burn holes through his face. "Aye." She leaned
toward him as he leaned forward, unquestioningly, drawn without thought into the heat of her presence.
***
He made love to her.
They need it, he reasoned - need to feel alive after what they've been through, need to touch and taste
something real after so much insanity. But it's different from the last time - absorbing, comforting,
somehow.
He'd been shaken by the experience, but he can't tell her that. Instead he brushed back her hair and felt
her pulse jump against his caressing thumb. "Tonight shook you up."
She shrugged. "I have seen thee at thy work afore - ye've passed through trial after trial with nay more
than a blister. To see thee cut to the bone is...a sight disquieting to me, aye."
He knew how proud she was, how much effort it took for her to admit that something's frightened her.
Yet her surprise amused him. "I'm just a guy, baby. Stick me and I bleed like any other bastard."
She grasped a handful of his chest hair. "Ye're nay any bastard...."
"I know," he grunted, trying to pry loose her fingers. "Chosen One. Destined. I remember..."
She silenced him, her finger pressing to his lips. "Ye're nay 'any' man to me, Ashley. I love thee."
He watched her face for a long time - they've gone through this before. He won't bungle it again; head
turned toward the wall, and sternly delivered his speech. "If you go bad again and I'll do what I have to
do."
She cupped his chin, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "Aye, love. And ye can expect the same of
me." She smiled and pressed a kiss between his eyes before resting against the inside of his arm, drawing
him into the depth of his own dreams.
***
Iron-willed woman that Sheila is, Ash's never questioned the notion that she'd kill him if he went Deadite
on her. She's under explicit instructions to save the kids if it ever goes down that way; to get as far from
him as she can manage. He's taught her how to shoot and how to drive expressly for that purpose.
On some level, he understands that it won't matter if it happens that way. He's been happier these past
seven years than he's been in the twenty three that preceded them - happiness he does not deserve,
happiness that he fears won't last (those voices again - the ones he tries to shut out - are whispering).
Maybe it will end in fire - maybe it will turn to gold as he calcifies on his Laz-E-Boy, a Pabst in his fist
as the Lions break themselves on the muddy earth. It's all been a surprise thus far, but maybe the end will
be predictable...
"Daddy?" the treble of her voice comes from the doorway. "Can I have some water?"
***
The edict was sober, delivered by an exhausted Sheila as she looked into the brown of her daughter's
eyes. "Her name is Emily, milord."
Ash, still vaguely woozy after dealing with six months of nausea (his own) and mood swings (hers),
nodded thoughtfully. "Emily Williams. Nice."
"Would ye hold her? Art famished," she moaned - the hospital-provided meal looked just delicious after
two days of ice chips.
"Mmm." He remembered how to do that - support the head, keep the body tucked close to his own. He
looked down at her and smiled - she's a beautiful little thing. "Hey, sweet girl," he mumbled, and
receives a burble of sound. "Emily..." It suddenly occurs to him why she's 'Emily' - after the Labor
and Delivery nurse who coached Sheila through two straight days of contractions while Ash had melted
into a useless pile of hyperventilating goo.
Gratefulness is something he understands. And there are some women he's grateful to as well, after all.
"Hey baby? How do you feel about the name Annie?"
***
"Did the Checker bin people call mom yet?"
Emily is half-asleep when she asks Ash this. "Not yet, kitten." She means "Chateaubriand," but Ash
can't pronounce it, either. "Tomorrow."
"M'kay." He's rubbing her back, urging her to go back to sleep (it's Saturday night - he wants a few
more hours before he has to get up, himself). "Daddy?"
"Yeah?"
"Will you be scared, if we gotta go live in France?"
Ash doesn't say anything. Really, he's terrified. He can't speak the language. He'll have to
buy new weapons so there won't be any pesky questions at customs - he'll have to learn what a Franc is
worth. He'll have to get a new job, get used to a new apartment, learn to trust a new group of strangers
(he doesn't trust any of the ones they already have in Dearborn). But he gives her the standard Daddy
Answer. "No, baby. Are you scared?"
She gives him a thoughtful look. "Will Jake come?"
"Uh huh - you, and me, and mommy and Jake - we'll go together."
"And Mister Tiger?" she holds out the stuffed animal, with its missing plastic eye.
"Mister Tiger can come. If he'll be good, and he promises not to try to eat Charlie the Lion again." Ash
just barely manages to mask his snickering. The girl has an overactive imagination (something relatives
and teachers love to blame on him).
"He promises," Emily says, quite gravely, and Ash nods his head.
"Then we'll all go together. But mommy doesn't know if she won the grant - don't be mad if we don't
go anywhere."
"I won't," she yawns. "Night, daddy."
"Love you, Emily Anne." He watches her drift away, amazed by the speed and ease that takes her under.
The kid's never had a nightmare in her life. She's not afraid of anything.
She gets it from Sheila - looks like her, has a little British lilt in her voice like hers. Yeah, she gets it
from her mother, everything that makes her strong and smart.
The origin of her strength stands in the doorway as Ash vacates the room. "She wanted water," Ash
explains.
Sheila loops her arms around his neck. "La. And I want thee."
He laughs against her mouth. The fact that he's a pretty good father turns her on (the sight of her in
anything shorter than a beekeeper's outfit does the trick for him), and that's such a chick thing that he
can't wrap his mind around it. "What is it about you and October?"
He never knows whether or not to celebrate it or mourn the month when it rolls around. Sheila considers
it a time to celebrate their first meeting. "It wakens my blood," she says, nipping at his earlobe. "I
learned much within the course of those simple days."
"Duh," he remarks fondly. He knocks the door closed with his hip, then pulls her against him, flesh to
flesh. His lips close to her ear, he repeats the question she asked him seven years and a million lessons
ago. "Does...it get bigger?"
She chokes on her laughter, shoving him gently, though he's planted himself firmly before her. "I had not
seen a man in such a state afore thee," Sheila points out. "For all the preparation I had received, the
thing...aye, thing!" He has interrupted her with his laughter. "Thy THING may have sprouted teeth and
eaten me whole."
He tilts his head. "Hasn't tried to bite you yet. The rest of me, on the other hand, wants to eat you up,
brown eyes."
Sheila beams. "If I eat thee, there shall nae be left for me to enjoy later. Surely ye know how to prolong
the pleasure?" He knows of a few, and suggests them all, vividly, with earthy language. She shakes her
head at his boldness. "That," she declares, at his final notion, "is nae possible."
"It would be. If we bought a ballet bar," he says, with great confidence.
She laughs, throwing her arms around his neck. "Take me to the couch, Ashley."
He grunts, picking her up, carrying her the short distance. "We could do this in bed," he tells her, lying
her gently against the material and pulling off his shirt, "if you weren't a moaner."
She gasps, unpinning her braids. "I am not a moaner!"
He growls, coming down on top of her body and kissing her throat and ears. She moans - loudly - for
him before he's finished. "Wicked boy," she complains.
"You love it," he tells her.
His kisses evaporate any question of him being wrong.
***
"...heaven's sake, GET UP!"
Ash rolls off of the couch, landing in a naked heap on the carpeting. "Damn it, just shake me next time!"
He glares up at Sheila, who watches him, hands on her hips.
She's pretty breathtaking from this angle, even with bed head and in a baggy night gown. "Ye wouldn't
awaken. Tis past ten, love."
"Guh? Oh," he hurriedly starts dressing. "Why didn't ya get me up sooner?"
She's glaring at him. "Run the bath. I shall wake the children."
"Right, right." He tries to rub the sleep from his eyes as he staggers toward the bathroom and runs a tepid
bath for Emily - he and Sheila will shower later, when the kids are down for their afternoon naps and are
therefore unlikely to hear their mother's moaning.
"Love," she calls softly from the doorway. "Come. Ye must see this."
She takes him to their room, where Emily is putting on a puppet show for Jake with her stuffed animals
(Mister Tiger is marrying Hessie the Elephant). Jake kicks happily, his baby-laughter the same sort that
greets Ash every day on returning home. She tells him that daddy's gonna take them to the zoo (he is?
He supposes so), and then they're gonna go to the candy store! Won't that be fun?
She looks up and runs to him. "DADDY!" she says passionately. "You'll never GUESS what I had a
dream about..."
He listens as he picks up the girl and carries her toward the bathroom, glancing over his shoulder at
Sheila, who's whispering to Jake in French. They lock eyes, and, automatically, he smiles.
Best mistake, he decides, that I ever made.