Late-night assignment

[Noémi Jourdain]

Noémi regretted the distance as it opened between them, but not the view afforded. Nikolai was beautiful in contemplation, and she craved the intimacy of such moments as much as the touch of his lips. She could barely fathom the way he affected her. The hearth’s flames limned the severe cast of his features; the perilous depths of his gaze silent and intense. Yet she willed him to speak, and when he did, she felt herself moved by it.

She listened, and the words did not skim unheeded across her soul. She understood. He spoke of a future she would never live to see. In even the first jump of time Noémi’s own bones would be naught but ash, as would practically everyone he now knew. Even her children, should she have them, would be gone in a hundred years. Until recently, that had been Nikolai’s reality, and his burden. Appearances might suggest only a handful of years between them, but sixty-five had passed for him; more than twice her own. None of it showed. He really might spend an eternity in such a way. And for years he had believed himself the only one.

When he summoned she uncurled from the sofa without hesitation. She did not answer his question with words, for they would be trite comfort. Noémi was not immortal; she had no god-blessed blood in her veins, offering the possibility of a beyond natural lifespan. But she knew better than most the impermanence of this world, and found sanctity in grasping each moment of contentment for as long as it allowed itself to be captured. His vision was beautiful and masterful and passionate, but what was victory without someone to share in the secrets of success? To soothe the moments of hardship? To commemorate the losses along the way?

“You will do all those things, Nikolai,” she said as his hands grazed the length of her arms and he leaned close. The whisper of his words shivered her skin with desire; the sound of her own language on his tongue as much as the command tickled into her ear.

"Enlève tes vêtements"

Take off your clothes. Heat flushed deep into the gaze she turned upwards. Her breath quickened through parted lips. Connection sparked like those conjured flames as her fingers drifted sultry to the buttons at her collar. Her eyes did not move from his. "I cannot promise you forever,” she whispered. A single night, or a lifetime; either would pass like the blinking of an eye to him, whatever he chose to take of her. Still she offered everything, knowing it was finite; confident that it diminished nothing. Artistry courted the hunger of his gaze; Noémi had a performer’s allure, blossomed for his eyes alone. The fabric teased from her shoulder. "But I promise you, Nikolai, that in even five thousand years, you will not have forgotten me.”