<span style="font-family: 'Georgia'">With my teeth on her neck and my hands on her body, Ash’s breathless voice came out in a monosyllabic question, and I realized no such thought had been present in her mind as the one I’d suggested. I smiled, delighted by the mystery of her mind, and answered simply, “Yes.” The word flowed forth from my mouth and it was addressed to the question, and to the situation, and to the experience and desires and intents I could feel roiling in her, darkened for me in detail, but clear and bright in every beat of her heart and tremble of her body and whisper of her skin against mine. <br/>
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At my kiss and final word she moaned, and the sound of it shot through me like liquid lightning, dazzling every last inch of my body and electrifying every corner of my being. There was a release in it, a plunging, like a cannonball breaking through a top layer of ice, and then her hands were on mine, taking mine, guiding them directly to the places on her body where she was most afire, her most exquisite secrets, her impassioned delight. Her words echoed in my mind, only half heard initially in the moment, and libidinous excitement touched the curve of my lips as I whispered against her neck, “Show me, Ash, and I will show you what I see.” My left hand enveloped her plush breast, cupping her with calm patience and a sweet promise of return in my light, heated grip. My right hand she drove between her slender, toned legs, and through the layers of cloth I felt the sweltering heat of her, the fiery hunger that was at once both smooth and delicate, while simultaneously ravenously fierce. Through both hands flowed a sense of belonging, guided by her own insistent action, and I wrapped my confidence around the feel of her under my fingers and palms. This was the body that I would work those most ancient spells upon. This woman was my Ash. <br/>
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Just as the feeling clicked into place, Ash pulled my hands back, spun within my arms, and pressed my back up against the wall. I already loved this about her, the way she always turned the tables and took matters into her own hands. With each advance I made she countered, and upped the ante, even when we were both already so all-in. Her arms wrapped around me, one securing my body and the other sending tingles soaring through my body and it slid up my neck and through my hair. She pulled my head to the side and then her teeth were biting into me, returning the possessive, challenging, affectionate gesture in her own sensually charged way. I sucked a gasp through parted lips at the initial assault, then sighed out a moan as her tongue sampled the taste of my skin and soothed the sting in my flesh. Then she returned her lips to mine, and we shared desperate gasps as she melded our passion in masterful strokes and tender caresses of lip and breath and tongue. I moaned into her exquisite onslaught, and slid one hand up her back to rest at the base of her neck, and the other down to press her body against mine, settling on the round curve of her derriere with that same, newfound sense of propriety and welcome, and burgeoning possession. <br/>
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Then a pause in the kiss as she broke away for air, and a panting for breath before she spoke, and I was grinning at her disbelief, but my eyes were sparkling in perfect happiness at her words. “Ash is the name you gave me, so Ash is the name I will say.” I left unspoken any further insistence, our actions spoke loudly enough on that score, and there were so many better uses for time and tongue. I let my eyes fall from hers to her full and flush lips, and smiled at the mischievous curve even as marveled at the magic they’d worked on me already. Her hands were slipping under my jacket, and I slid the one from behind her to her front, over the peak of her breast to glide along the lace paneling of her neckline. Ash was desirable, beautiful, intelligent, industrious, competent, established, passionate, independent, assertive, and right then, in that moment, both of us wanted to remove the remaining barriers between us. I wanted that to happen in a special place, in a special way, and immediately I knew where I wanted to be. I knew everything about it, except for where it was. I could get us there, but I would need her help. <br/>
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“Ash,” I began, speaking in a voice that would forestall the next escalation of our encounter, but only for long enough to do something wonderful. “I want to take us somewhere, somewhere you would call home. I can get us there, and I can get us back, but I need your help, because I don’t know where it is. I need you to show me, in a way similar to this…” I slid my hand up from the lace of her grey tank, over her collarbone, gently over the swoop of her neck, over the edge of her chin, then poured affection and care into the sliding pass of my fingertips as I cupped the side of her face in my hand.<br/>
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As a conjurer, I’ve learned many languages. It’s important to be able to communicate to the things you summon in a way they understand. Many of the languages I’ve learned are interesting, but none so much as one called envisaging. It’s like telepathy, except its wordless, non-verbal. You picture in your mind the meaning of what you want, what you see, what you feel, your intention, your desire, your hopes, your dreams. Your immediate needs, or your long-term goals. This image is transferred from your mind to that of the being or entity that you are communicating to, in vivid, exacting detail, with no chance of misinterpretation or miscommunication. It’s about as close as a thing as I’ve found to a perfect language. It is the language of the actual and literal aeons. This is what I used to show her, as I said I’d do, what I saw when I looked at her. <br/>
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First was beauty, eternal and desirable, with every shapely curve and broad plane and exquisite corner and fluttering secret. Something that captured the breath and held it ransom for awe. Something amplified by a multitude of feelings, some objective, some not, but all true and honest and centered wholly on their subject. I saw her as beautiful, for what she was, and what she is, and what she will be. My sight of her allowed for flaws, true or perceived, without which she would not be who she was standing before me, entwined with me, in lust with me. I saw her as whole and complete, a person with dimension and reality that extended far beyond what immediately met the eyes, and even still beyond what could be seen upon spending every waking moment in her presence. <br/>
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Second was her capacity, her independence, her skill and craft, the world she’d built for herself, worthy of respect and honor. She was an established member of her community, a leader of her people, and one who was caring and kind and compassionate in equal measure to her competence. I showed her my vision of her skill and talent, the uniqueness about her that she could never have seen but from another’s eyes, the perspective of having seen the lowest of the low, and the highest of the most high, and placing her as a powerful, self-reliant individual who owned her own choices. <br/>
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Third, her virtues, those things about her that were so admirable as to be wise to imitate with intent to replicate. Her wine was so much more than a bottled drink. For her it was an accomplishment, for me it was a baffling wonder. So, so, so few of us ever create anything truly unique. A vanishingly small number of people out of billions ever create something that gets their name put to it by everyone who knows it. Her elemental creativity was a priceless gem, and I showed her the lustre of its shine. <br/>
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Fourth, the knowledge that she was imperfect. That her place was simply what it was, nothing more, nothing less. The understanding that overwhelming expectation would never serve, and that in time there would be pain, suffering, misunderstanding, loss, and perhaps even betrayal and hurt. With this, I focused on the Name I had given her. My Name as I saw it. A Name was what I used to wield power over other beings. Someone calls your name from down a hallway and you turn around. Someone calls your Name from across the universe and you are driven beyond reason to immediately and unfailing heed that call, no matter what form or function it takes. I showed her simultaneous fallibility and trust, both extended in good faith, regardless of outcome. <br/>
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Last, I showed her what I wanted. Moments of passion and entanglement, driven by lust and need and joy and play and communion. Hours of intimacy and conversation, both verbal and in forms that words pale to describe. Days of companionship and company, full of effort and reward, and swinging with the dance we’d already begun. Weeks of growing familiarity, of knowledge shared and secrets gleaned for keeping. Months of normalization, of growing accustomed to the constant presence of the other, in body and in mind. Years, hopeful years of relation, of wishes untold waiting to be fulfilled. And last, the central desire: a lifetime. A mate. Something more than a legal agreement, or a social union. Someone whose soul was drawn up and intertwined with my own. A partner in all things. An ideal so evanescent that it could barely be held at all. <br/>
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I moved my hand back, but couldn’t quite bring myself to break contact entirely, so my fingertips were left touching her face as I gazed into her eyes. “An emotion. A familiarity so strong that you could never forget, down to the tiniest detail. Show me, Ash. Show me the place on your masterpiece, the one that bears the spirit of your home. Show me your mountain, where your spirit soars and your heart rejoices. Show me that place, and I will take us there.”<br/>
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Then, for the first time, I used magic to reach into her mind. I did nothing there, except to politely knock. I formed a connection, so she could do as I’d asked. Envisaging was one of the more difficult languages that I’d learned, but enchantment was, for me, literal child’s play. The spell I worked effectively gave her a window, or a door, that she could use to pass me what she would. True, I had asked for the mountain, and her familiarity of it, but the spell was a versatile one, which I’d tailored down to the finest detail so that it was as polite an enchantment as could be. It was the same as her voice: I would only hear what she chose to say. Into that window I presented a concept of the next spell I would use, one of greater teleportation that would unfailingly take both of us, the boxed bottle of wine, a blanket that I had in mind, and any other object up to the weight we could carry with us to the destination she showed me. <br/>
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I smiled. “And then, in the morning, I’ll bring us back.” I set a duplicate of the spell into the window, showing that there were, in fact, round-trip tickets. I slid my hand down, sliding my fingertips over her cheek, down her neck, to rest in the center of her chest. “Right to this spot, if you like, or any other at least one of us is familiar with.” I looked back up to her eyes and watched her from where she had me pinned to the wall, waiting.</span>