Teryte art // Reciprocation (Patreon)

For people who enjoy my attempts at drawing humans, here's another wonderful book heroine - Jonina. And as always she is accompanied by a precious story written by Aksan! I won't even try to sumarize the art, since the story does it so well, so I invite everyone to give it a read!

This time it's also rather spicy ;)

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Rhythms consumed and defined Jonina in that moment. Heartbeat, thudding out of her chest, demanded her attention. Breath, hitching and gasping, threatened to drown her in this moment, each final breath laced with her living essence. Twitches, from her bare feet against the upholstery to the intense squeeze upon her fingers, would be the only ones to fully fade. But they did not go quietly, flicking her eyes beneath their lids, shuddering and twisting her body like there was more than this divan to find friction against. A few faltering uncontrolled breaths gave sound to her intensity, echoing between the stone walls of the chamber like beautiful fluttering butterflies. Slowly they settled in the bookshelves, the hanging banners, and the bed. As quiet finally settled they disappeared into the cushions of the divan, joining their creator, and the great flights that had come before.

The vast windows of this highest reaching tower held firm against the lashing wind. Their afternoon light crept east towards her bare skin. Its kiss of warmth a fresh delight, but a contrast too, one that squeezed her feet with blunted teeth and took its turn to cast her exposed nipple firm and tender. Even once her eyes fluttered back open she felt no impulse to move, body immobile except the small movement of her hand to find the harshest cold of the air. So many nights in the dragon-sized bed, sat in the window admiring the castle and the mountain, enough days sat on the divan reading that she knew the time by the arcing progress of the sun. It would be hours before Mercy and The Tower returned.

Thoughts of family were uncompelling as the book held so tight in her hand offered once more its gentle pleasure. Her gaze danced over the story that began a few pages before: a romanticised retelling of the author's first discovery of her own body, no doubt a fusion of many nights of exploration. Even as the openness told of a girl’s surprise and a young woman’s first revelations, the motions she had followed along with were too sure and practised. The dishevelled state she was in after her half-planned indulgence pointed to the experience behind the words on that page. There was a beautiful illusion of graceful youth, without the clumsy faults of the learning. Feeling the tension once more within her breast, she turned her eyes away, back to the room, parting with a final wonder: if the trick was played by the author’s pen or by their memory.

Reluctantly, she caved to the pressure on her bare feet, the pain it had become, missing the warmth that either of the room’s other occupants could not help but bring to the chambers. Stretching her fingers and toes she smiled a self-knowing smile, her lips parting from it to lick ring and middle clean. A wipe across her overalls dismissed the last grasp of cold as she chose comfort and unbuckled them. With a frictious wriggle and a childish kick, she left them at the distant end of the divan, rolling from it onto her feet. She was quick across the stone floor, refreshed by the brisk touch of it. With a light dancing of her feet, she bounced along, flicking through the treasured binding until her hand was needed to grasp the wrap from the foot of the bed. Returning to the divan it soon became her blanket, wrapping her in the horizons of Castine and a scent, familiar and familial, but not her father’s alone.

Settling beneath it, with warmth’s soothing touch nuzzling its way towards her core, she returned to her meandering through the book. She knew she could have simply closed it and had it open to the poem she sought, a natural inclination of the well-loved pages. Instead she took this patient, indulgent, path and with every sheet of paper imagined the fingers which had caressed them for years before hers. As the volume found its comfort, the thought of how many times this had been read drew up the corners of her flushed lips. A poem that could not help but evoke a certain face in the minds of those who understood it. Her hand stroked over the words, concealing them even as they slipped softly from her lips. She was not here to read the words, but for the company of another who lingered.

Look to me as your mirror,

And so call me by your name,

Speak to me words that you need,

Give me the love you long for,

And I will return it twice.

Mimic me until we meet,

Like the rain upon our lake,

Let the ripples shimmer us,

Our bodies broken, ready,

To join like mist and bubbles.

Search everywhere with your touch,

Find no difference between,

What is mine and what is yours,

We caress them both the same,

And only pleasure is found.

Do not think that you must ask,

Just because I silent beg,

Without words, but with all else,

Touch me like you touch yourself,

After intimate evenings.

I cannot bear them to end,

Parting pains my heart and lips,

Words in your enchanting voice,

Can no longer sustain me,

I need your breath, moans, raw sounds.

We share so much unspoken,

Lives entwined like woven thread,

One more thing unspeakable,

A night we can remember,

But never truly recount.

No distant cousin’s face, nor one that could have passed for a sister, but one framed by brilliant copper lingered in Jonina’s mind as she revelled in deep, breathless longing. On a leash of reason she had held back that roaring passion. Called it kindness to the delicate and innocent beauty that lingered before her closed eyes. Better herself by keeping the image from her bed, and from her mind, even as this book in one hand had become as common in her lonely pleasure as the sweet taste upon the other. Brief brushes of lips, gentle touch of hands, naked honesty freely given. Justification of the intimacy she beguiled herself for. This book in her hands. Against her skin.

Unrealised, the book was now clasped to her bare chest beneath the fabric of the wrap. It’s soft binding gently curving with her form as she had nestled it close to her heart. As it was warmed by her core the volume took on new weight. It had spent so many nights with its owner, not beside the bed but beneath the sheets. By its words so many dreams had been birthed, with them a sexuality, an identity, formed and grown from its crystal seed. In its pages lay patterns now inked upon pale, freckled skin.

Keepsake was an alien word to a girl that had owned naught beyond the hammer she was bound to use. Its meaning known from those that filled the room, the lives and loves of her family shared. In the back of her mind she thought to ask that night the story of the wrap which embraced her, to know the character of the soul that hung from and stained every fibre of it.

Jonina didn’t need to be told what the book meant, not anymore. She had been given her first keepsake. She had been given the invitation to spend a lifetime marking it with her own meaning. She had been given everything that those hands could, and needed but to accept. The sun’s warmth touched but one of her burning cheeks, as if intending to assure her that she would be alone for hours yet. The book was wrapped in her embrace and held close to her heart, her arm not all that squeezed it as she put a bruise upon her lip. Influential as those writings were, they were no longer needed to paint the vivid pictures of fantasy. Making do alone, she felt gentle touch circle toward one of her blanket’s emerging peaks over her chest. Beneath closed lids, locks of copper and steel bounced unbound over skin as pale as the snow. Woven landscape gave way as her hand brought disruption, pressure, and just enough pain. In flashes between hitches of breath she saw freckles and ink blurring past skin marked by the caress of pitch black lips alone. Readily, desire sprang from her mouth, soon to rise as the great flights that lay with her awoke. Forces imagined imprinted teeth into her neck, fingers into her curves, ears and jaw into her thighs, and then held her gaze on smoky eyes reflecting her passion. At last convinced to part from rubbing together, her legs spread what little the blanket allowed. In a single irrevocable moment, Jonina’s lips accepted her fingers as she accepted Lucy’s love.