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She came to them on day forty-three, when they needed her most.
Arthur had spent the last twelve hours curled up against the wall of the pit. John had given up trying to talk him up, leaving him nothing to do but stare at the dirt. He didn’t even notice at first that they weren’t alone anymore. It was her song that roused him—a few soft notes hummed through a voice like a bell, in a call to worship. They rippled across his mind, calling forth memories of the great halls of a city, a throne upon a golden sigil, and the delicate figures that ever moved in grace for his pleasure. One of the faceless dancers of the King in Yellow.
Arthur startled and turned. “What was that?”
“Shh,” John quickly hushed him. He thought Arthur’s eyes and ears were playing tricks on him, as if he had finally fallen into a human dream: there stood at the center of the pit was one of the King’s most ardent acolytes. “Arthur, don’t make any sudden movements. It’s one of the King’s.”
At least it got him up; Arthur twisted, putting his back to the wall and drawing his knees up defensively. “One of the King’s what?”
“One of…his dancers.” The longer John stared at her, the more recollection bubbled within him, reminding him of centuries of her devotion. “Tall, and slender,” he described for Arthur’s sake. “Her figure is humanoid, but tapered. She has no hair, and no face—only pale, gold veils covering her, head to toe.”
Arthur’s breath hissed against his dry, cracked lips. “What is she doing?”
“Just standing there. Watching us.” John stared back, studying the subtle curves of her body, each smooth and melting into each other as if her skin was made of liquid. He tried desperately to remember if there was any mark on her that would identify her to him—to call up the series of notes that represented her name, as much as any of them had a name at all. “She doesn’t look threatening, but the dancers are never far from the King. It could mean he’s coming.”
“The King?” Arthur echoed, and his voice sharpened to fangs. “Coming down here?”
It couldn’t be. John shuddered at the thought, though a moment later, he was seized by one even less plausible. “Either that, or she’s here on her own,” he said, and without any idea what might come of it, he lifted his hand to her.
The dancer strode forward. Her steps were light as air and made no sound, save the quiet swish of her veils. Though Arthur tried to scramble away, his limbs were weak and she was too swift; she crouched on the balls of her dainty feet and took John’s hand in both of hers.
Oh, but her hands were so soft. “Wait,” John gasped, a shiver passing over his skin at the contact. “Wait, Arthur.” If she meant to kill them there was nothing they could have done to prevent it anyway, but instead, she only held him, with such tenderness he’d never felt before.
“John, what is it?” Arthur demanded in mounting panic. “What is she doing?”
“It’s…it’s all right.” John watched, mesmerized, as the dancer brought his hand to her blank face. When he moved his fingers slightly, she even nuzzled into his touch; soft, joyful notes hummed from beneath her creamy skin. “I don’t think she’s here to hurt us.”
Arthur did not relax. “What, then?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe…” John rallied himself and pushed his thumb against her; she encouraged him, stroking the backs of his knuckles. Fuck she was so soft, her attention and her voice so nostalgic. He remembered looking down on her like this. “She thinks I’m the King.”
Arthur scoffed; it caught in his parched throat, and he coughed. “Aren’t you?”
John shuddered, but rising to Arthur’s taunts were pointless now; he turned his hand slightly, marveling at how she followed him. “Can you hear me?” he asked, concentrating as if he could direct his voice into her. “Can you tell me your name?”
The dancer cooed softly, but she didn’t seem to be answering him, content to simply keep nuzzling his palm. John sighed. “She didn’t respond to that. I don’t know if she can even hear me.”
“Who are you?” Arthur tried instead. “What do you want?”
“Still nothing,” John reported. “This doesn’t make any sense, though—she shouldn’t be here alone.”
Arthur reached out; John tensed, but he didn’t try to stop him as Arthur felt out the curve of her shoulder. A sigh shuddered out of him. “Oh god, she’s so soft,” he whispered, and her skin dimpled beneath his grip. She paid no mind as he traced the slope of her collar toward her neck. “What’s she doing?”
“Nothing, Arthur.” John felt goose bumps rising along his arm as the dancer continued to press his hand to her face. “She’s, um. She seems to really like my hand.”
Arthur fingered the hollow of her throat, unimpeded. He followed it up, exploring her long neck. Cautiously, he closed his fingers around it.
“If she’s one of his, can we use her?” Arthur asked, his voice cold and thin, like the cavern air around them. “As a hostage?”
“What? No!”
John yanked his hand out of the dancer’s hold so he could instead shove her back. Startled, she rolled over backward, out of reach, and then glided smoothly into a respectful bow.
“We can’t hurt her!” John insisted, something fierce welling up inside him at the suggestion that he couldn’t explain. “The dancers are the King’s most devoted servants—there’s no telling what he’ll do to us if we harm her.”
“All right, all right.” Arthur sagged back against the wall of the pit once more, but he was still tense, even shaking a little. “It’s not like I… I was just asking.”
“You probably couldn’t hurt her if you tried, anyway. Some of them are hundreds of years old.”
“All right, John, I understand.” Arthur sighed with exasperation. “Then what is she doing here? Here to taunt us, test us? Lure us into some kind of punishment?”
The dancer bowed before them, groveling but silent and unmoving, patiently waiting for judgment for whatever slight she had committed. “I don’t think so,” John murmured. He glanced up to the lip of the pit, but as always he could make nothing out. “If she’s not heralding the King, he might not know she’s here. I don’t know how that could be, though. He’d do worse than kill her, if she’s here against his wishes.”
“Fuck, John. I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” Arthur slumped deeper against the wall. “I’m too fucking tired for this.”
“You’d have more strength if you’d eat,” John said, aiming for gentle, but Arthur quaked once and didn’t reply. “Never mind. Get some rest; I’ll keep an eye on her.”
Arthur dragged his knees in again, curling up small and tight, but at least he didn’t turn to face the wall again. John let him be, instead rapping his knuckles against the ground to get the dancer’s attention. She roused, and when he beckoned, she hurried closer again and reached for his hand.
“Wait.” John set his hand against her chest; even her bones bowed a little beneath him, as if every inch of her were just waiting to be plied. It made him feel inexplicably guilty. “Please, can you help us?” He pulled back and pointed to the top of the pit over their head. “Can you get us out?”
The dancer tilted her head, as if she did have eyes, and was following the direction of his pointing. After some thoughtful humming, she swept to her feet and moved away. John watched—he heard Arthur take a breath and hold it in anticipation—as she reached their bucket, empty since the night before. Without hesitation or second glance, she scooped it up by the handle and then leapt, propelling herself in a smooth arc up and over the edge of the pit.
John blinked after her. “She took the bucket.”
“What?” Arthur pushed away from the wall. “What do you mean? Is she bringing it back?”
“I…” John strained his eyes and ears, but there was no trace of her. “I don’t know.”
“What the fuck, John!” Arthur pulled himself shakily to his feet. “Why didn’t you stop her?”
“She can’t fucking hear me,” John snapped back. “You heard me ask her for a way out!”
Arthur followed the wall to where the bucket had been; he felt around in the dirt, tracing the imprint it had left behind. “What if she doesn’t bring it back?” he demanded hoarsely. “What do we do?”
“I don’t know!” Watching Arthur’s hand scramble uselessly against the packed earth, thin and shaking, his fingers scraped raw… He lowered his voice. “She’ll come back.”
“You just said you don’t know that!”
“She’ll come back,” John insisted. “It’s like we’ve been telling each other all along—the King won’t let you die here.”
Arthur shook his head; the scenery smeared dizzily around them. “You just said he doesn’t even know she’s down here! What if she doesn’t know that!”
“Well there’s nothing we can do but wait and see, all right?” John reached for Arthur’s hand, wanting him to stop before he split his nail beds further, but he hesitated before making contact. Arthur hadn’t appreciated any of his attempts to bridge that gap as of late, and he didn’t want to agitate him further. “Just try to relax, Arthur. Let’s wait and see.”
“Fuck,” Arthur hissed, but he did stop. He sat down on his hip and sagged, all his strength seemingly gone just as quickly as it had spurred him. “Fuck,” he continued to mutter, and as John watched, he rubbed his thumb against his fingers—over and over. He wondered if he was thinking about the dancer’s veils against his skin.
All told, they didn’t wait more than fifteen minutes, though it felt infinitely longer. Arthur jerked and reached for his head, and a moment later the dancer hopped down from the ledge. She had filled the bucket so completely that even the muted jostling of her graceful landing spilled some of the water, splashing Arthur’s knees.
“Arthur!” John exclaimed. “She’s back, and she’s filled—”
Arthur was already surging forward. He plunged his face into the bucket, sucking down gulp after gulp of the cold, clear water. John kept a tight hold on the bucket to make sure he didn’t tip it. He couldn’t taste its chill sustenance plunging down their throat, but even just the wetness against his dry eyes flooded him with relief so profound, he would have shaken if he’d had the body for it. He waited, quietly patient and so happy for Arthur’s sake, until Arthur pulled back with a gasp.
As he wiped his mouth, John looked to the dancer. Once again she had crouched next to them on the balls of her lovely feet, perfectly poised and balanced, watching them with her chin on her hand in girlish amusement. She couldn’t possibly understand what this simple gift of water meant to them, or even the danger she was putting herself in to offer it. Would the King descend at any moment and tear her apart?
“Thank you,” said John, needing to say it even if she couldn’t hear him. “But you shouldn’t be here, if the King didn’t give you permission. You know what he’ll do to you.” A sick feeling came over him. “Like he’s done before.”
Arthur was scooping water onto the back of his neck. “What does that mean?”
“Nothing,” John said quickly. He couldn’t even begin to explain the complicated history he shared with this creature. “I’m just worried about her. She shouldn’t be helping us like this.”
“It’s probably another trap,” Arthur murmured, not with the anger or bitterness John had grown so accustomed to; there was fear tucked behind his tongue, that he would once again be called upon to do the unthinkable.
John quavered at the prospect. “Let’s just try to enjoy it for now.” He dipped his hand in the water, savoring the cold sting. “If the guards don’t know she brought this, they won’t take it into account for their schedule. She might even bring us more herself, so we can use this up now. You should clean up while you have the chance, right?”
“God, you’re right.”
Arthur bent down for another drink and then splashed the water over his face. As he scrubbed the dirt out of his scraggly beard, the dancer reached out to them again.
John rolled his eyes upward, trying to watch as she fingered a lock of his hair. At the first contact, Arthur flinched back sharply as if she had struck him.
“What’s she doing?” he demanded.
“It's okay, Arthur,” John told him, and he clasped the dancer's hand to keep her from drawing back, suddenly fearful that she would feel rejection. “I really don't think she means to hurt us. She's just trying to help.”
The dancer scooted closer. Her knees touched the floor of the pit, and John felt something in him recoil; he did not want her sullied by this place. With one hand still holding John’s, she reached out with the other. Arthur shivered but held still as her long, slender fingers sank into his hair, smoothing it away from his face. To each of their amazement, she dipped one of the veils draping her wrist into the bucket and then brought it back, using it to scrub Arthur’s cheek—tenderly, all the while cooing softly, her voice rising and falling like aimless music.
John watched and listened, absolutely captivated, as the dancer continued to softly fuss over them: cleaning Arthur’s forehead, the slope of his nose, even his ears. An emotion he couldn’t identify clenched around him—around them both. Arthur’s breath was growing quick and hard, and his blood rushed through the arteries they shared, thumping down into John’s fingertips. A terrible, heavy ache throbbed behind his eyes. Before he could collect himself to comprehend, they were crying.
Their vision swam. What the fuck was going on? John squeezed the dancer’s hand, clinging to her as she happily worked. Arthur leaned into her, too, curling in on himself as a quiet sob twisted from his throat. Why were they crying? He couldn’t make sense of it. Her skin was so soft, her attention so desperately needed—so devastatingly welcome—that it hurt, deep down in a chest he didn’t have, shouldn’t have been able to seethe. And yet it shook him.
The dancer edged closer still, and Arthur crumpled into her. He cried into the slope of her shoulder as if wracked by grief, and John with him—sobbing, heaving, arms twisting behind her supple back, fingers digging into her unflinching skin. Were they in mourning? How could they be, in the face of this grace, this generous miracle? John’s confusion bled into desperation as the wholly unnamable sensation washed over and overwhelmed him, pouring from the eyes they shared. Salting the water already coating Arthur’s cheeks.
In time, Arthur calmed. As his tears ran dry, the dancer urged him back, cooing and trilling in what sounded like playful admonishment. Again she dipped her veils in the bucket and resumed cleaning his face, now doubtlessly red and puffy with tears. The cool was blissful against John’s sore eyes, and he worked up his courage.
“Arthur. Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” said Arthur, his voice rough and breathless. “I’m okay.”
The dancer cupped her hands in the water and ladled it over Arthur’s head. He shivered and then reached up, helping her to comb it through his matted hair. “Sorry,” he murmured as they worked the worst of the dirty clumps from it. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“Neither do I,” John admitted, quietly, as if some thin filament was stretched between them that he dared not disturb. “I don’t understand what… I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
The dancer pulled back suddenly. Without a sound she darted away from the bewildered pair, and with one great leap, she fluttered back up to the edge of the pit. Only a whisper of damp fabric served as farewell, and the darkness swallowed her.
John sighed. “She left.”
“Oh.” Arthur swallowed and worked his jaw. “That’s it, huh?”
“I suppose.” Though his disappointment was profound, John did his best to rally himself—and his partner. “At least she left us the bucket with plenty of water. Let’s keep cleaning.”
“Okay.” Arthur too made an effort to recollect his wits as he stripped out of his tattered clothing. “Let’s.”
***
That wasn’t the last they saw of her.
Some days later, just as they were resigned to thinking of her as little more than a pleasant dream, she returned. She crept into the pit while Arthur slept and took the bucket, returning with it full again, clean and crisp and life-saving.
Once Arthur had drunk his fill, John encouraged him to mime eating, which he reluctantly conceded to. After some thoughtful trilling and head tilting, the dancer was off again, spiriting herself out of the pit. Arthur shook subtly, refusing to speak, for the hour it took for her to return. Blessedly, the meal she returned with wasn’t anything like what they had been served in the pit time and time again: a large, oval-shaped melon with blue skin speckled white. Arthur cracked it open against the edge of the bucket, dug his fingers into its bright, pulpy flesh, and scooped a hesitant morsel into his mouth.
“Well?” John asked anxiously.
Arthur hummed with appreciation that was practically a moan; he swallowed the chunk and then sucked the juice from his fingers. “Oh, Jesus Christ,” he whispered as he hastily dug in again. “It tastes like honey.”
And he ate ravenously, shoveling clumps of the sweet fruit down his gullet. John kept a keen eye out for its oversized seeds, snatching them up whenever he spotted one; Arthur was gobbling the meal up so voraciously, he worried he’d choke if one made it to his mouth. The dancer watched, tittering with good humor.
Arthur was eating. Once again John had to wonder, did she have any idea what that meant? Could she ever comprehend the relief it gave John, so fierce and fiery that it twisted inside him like red-hot pokers jabbing into the gut he didn’t have? That same pain rose up, hitching Arthur’s breath and whipping their shared heartbeat into a frenzy. It nearly brought them to tears again, and Arthur had to stop eating until it had passed, unable to get more fruit down his swollen throat.
John still didn't understand it. What was this emotion that was so welcome and hurt so much? Elation, joy? He was too afraid to ask.
The dancer didn't appear often enough to call it a routine, but she did keep coming back after that. John and Arthur each tried over and over to ask through gestures for more things, begging her to bring them a rope or a ladder, to boost them up over the edge of the pit, to carry them herself. Either she didn’t understand or simply wasn’t inclined to offer that much salvation to her new charges, but she refilled the bucket whenever she came. She brought more of the sweet honey-melon, letting Arthur gorge himself, sinking his teeth in down to the rind. It gave him the strength to start digging again.
“This is a test,” Arthur muttered, not nearly for the first time, as he clawed dirt out of the wall with what had once been a human scapula. “Is the King really so negligent, that he wouldn’t notice her coming down here so often? No, no no no, he is sending her here to fuck with us. It’s another fucking test.”
“Maybe,” John conceded, helping to drive the bone in. “He could be giving us relief, so that it hurts more when he takes it away. But we’re not going to let that get to us, Arthur.” His fingers tightened, trying to cast out the sensation of her tender skin beneath them. “Any one of her visits could be the last, so let’s just…take advantage of whatever she gives us, and not get attached.”
“I’m not attached,” Arthur replied immediately. “She’s still one of his.” He cleared his throat. “But yes, you’re right. Enjoy it while it lasts, without ever forgetting that it won’t last.” He nodded to himself. “I’m not going to lose at this game of his.”
Was this really about Arthur? John couldn’t be sure. But he kept his mouth shut.
The next time the dancer came to visit, she brought them something new: a flower, vibrant orange blossom with hundreds of tiny petals, and indigo leaves thin as the dancer’s veils. They held it between their two hands, fingering its soft edges over and over, as the dancer sang proudly—as if she were crowing over some success. John clenched his toes until they hurt.
“You didn’t go into the garden for this, did you?” he demanded, not that he expected her to answer any more than every other attempt he’d made at communicating with her. Even so, she seemed to puff herself up, swaying back and forth ever so slightly with coy pride. “Are you mad? You’re going to get caught—he’s going to hurt you!”
“The garden?” Arthur repeated. He couldn’t stop touching the flower; he brought it to his face, nosing its petals. Breathing it in. “The one we were in?”
“She’s not allowed in there, Arthur,” John insisted, despite his best efforts unable to stave off the panic biting at his edges. “The King would—”
“What’s your name?” Arthur asked her yet again. “Who are you? Why are you risking so much for us?”
The dancer continued to sway her hips, playful and boastful, and she hummed four clear notes. When Arthur hummed them back to her, she stood up straight on her narrow toes, shoulders hitched in delight, and replied again with the same notes.
“Dee, ee, gee, dee,” Arthur sang, and goose bumps rippled up John’s forearm to hear Arthur’s voice so clear and musical—when he chuckled, even more so. God it had been so long since he’d heard a genuine laugh come out of this man. He didn’t know what to do with himself. “Is that your name?”
The dancer drew one leg up, tucking the arch of her foot into her knee, and spun in a circle. “I think that’s a yes,” said John.
“It reminds me of a song,” said Arthur fondly, though after a moment he shook himself. “No—no. We agreed not to do this.”
John curled his fingers around the flower’s stem. “What song?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Arthur lowered the flower to cup in his lap; John shifted his grip, and in doing so his fingertips brushed the base of Arthur’s palm. The contact startled him at first, but he soon relaxed; he let John settle close to him so they could savor the blossom’s tickle together.
“Please, Arthur,” John murmured. “What song?”
“It’s, um…” Arthur licked his lips and took in a huge breath. “It goes like this…”
And he sang. His poor Arthur, run ragged from more than a month of deprivation and torture, opened his mouth and a song came out. “Willow, weep for me,” were the words, the dancer’s name in the notes. “Bend your branches green along the stream that runs to sea…”
The dancer straightened, and John watched excitement ripple across her sublime skin, like a pebble striking a still pond. She swayed deeply then, letting Arthur’s melancholy song guide her slender limbs to movement. Her veils fluttered as she began to dance, with such perfect, liquid elegance that John gasped.
Arthur stopped. “What?”
The dancer sagged with disappointment; John tugged at Arthur’s hand urgently. “Keep going,” he said, all but begging. “She was starting to dance.”
“Finally living up to her name?” Arthur teased, but he sounded intrigued, and with another deep breath he carried on with the song. “Gone my lover's dream, lovely summer dream…”
The dancer resumed as well, matching him in tempo and tone so well, it was as if she knew the melody already. Her movements were smooth and effortless like twisting vapor, her grace uncanny. John gaped openly, drinking in every turn, every glide. He remembered this. Arthur’s charming voice and the dancer’s tithe swirled through his borrowed senses, igniting in him nostalgia new and old, two histories that were equally out of his reach now. To have them joined so completely, just for these few minutes of song, shook him dearly.
“She’s beautiful,” John whispered, captivated by the flowing fabric, her unfaltering balance and serenity. “I wish you could see this, Arthur.”
Arthur brushed his thumb against the flower, over and over, until the song ran out. As he caught his breath, and the dancer approached on happy steps, he reached up to rub his chest. Had he felt some of John’s awe after all? “Are you okay, John?”
John blinked several times as the dancer rejoined them. “Yes, I… I mean, thank you, Arthur. That was lovely.”
Arthur scoffed quietly, but before he could come up with some other reply, the dancer sat herself down in her lap; he only just managed to move their flower out of the way in time. Though he tried to squirm away at first, her body molded to his so easily, her warmth so welcoming. Arthur relaxed with a sigh, and in resignation he wrapped his arm around her thin waist. She melted against his chest and tucked her faceless face under his chin, content and undeniable.
“John,” Arthur murmured, turning his nose against the fabric that served as her hair. “This is so damn cruel.”
“I know.” John offered up his hand, and the dancer took it with both of hers. With happy murmurs she caressed his fingers from knuckles to tips. He couldn’t look away. “Just while we have it, though.”
She spent the night with them. When exhaustion urged Arthur to lie down, she followed, unwilling to put any space between them. She clung to Arthur, twisted her arms around his neck and twined his legs with his. Her shapely foot nudging John’s took his breath away. Despite John’s earlier misgivings, the dirt of the pit refused to stick to her; she remained radiant and unblemished, welcoming Arthur’s head against her chest. As he sank into her, too soul-weary to protest, John felt it again: that pang, deep, deep within the pieces they shared. He squeezed their eyes shut and let it wash over him.
She felt so good—she smelled so sweet. As Arthur sank into dreams, John took the opportunity to enjoy her alone for a while. He traced her long spine, swirling his fingertips over each round vertebrae. He splayed his fingers along her ribs, imagining that his hand was broader—wide enough to encircle her completely, to feel her chest expand against his palm. He caressed the slope of her waist. Over and over, as the time passed.
He hummed the notes of her name, and she purred close to their ear. “Did he really send you here?” John wondered aloud, slipping his fingertips beneath the veils to touch her naked skin—smooth, and warm, completely without friction despite how rough his printed fingers were by comparison. “Or do you really think I’m… I’m him?”
His hand drifted lower, trailing over the outside of her strong thigh. She pushed against his touch, rubbed their calves together. His toes tingled. They stayed that way for a while, the dancer patiently accepting his explorative touch, until her hand closed firmly around his wrist. With a slow melody and an arch of her back, she guided John’s hand down between her legs.
“Wait,” John gasped, resisting. He pushed his knuckles against the top of her thigh as raw heat coursed through him. “I can’t.”
The dancer cooed a series of notes that coalesced, finally, into a familiar melody, unlocking eons of memory. “My King,” she sang, rubbing the back of his palm in encouragement. “My King, my King, I am for you. I’m all for you.”
John shuddered with restraint he couldn’t cling to. When she nudged her thigh higher, when she clutched the slumbering Arthur to her chest, his resolve cracked; he let her guide his hand beneath her most intimate veil.
Oh god, she’s so soft. John stretched his fingers against the warm folds between her thighs. She arched into him, as smooth and graceful as her dance, welcoming him inside. John cursed quietly, utterly bewitched by the slick heat of her sex, which was both so new and so nostalgic to him at the same time. When he crooked his fingers inside her, when he stroked just so, she shivered and mewled with such bald delight that every one of John’s nerves tingled with arousal he had no idea how to express. He felt a tightening, a pressure in the pit of him. A flush over every inch of skin, a rush of blood and breath and urgency.
Arthur stirred, his swift intake of breath half smothered against the dancer’s chest. Immediately John pulled his hand back, doused with embarrassment and guilt. Before he could decide if a preemptive apology would do more harm than good, the dancer whined in complaint. She squirmed forward, pushing her knee insistently between Arthur’s thighs—he quivered, instinct and logic at war in the tiny, token protests he tossed against her. “Oh god,” he whispered, and suddenly he relented. He let her in—he drew her tight. John marveled as adrenaline flooded between them, and he dug his fingers into the underside of the dancer’s thigh—pulled it higher to grind against Arthur’s crotch.
And fuck, there was no fighting it now. Arthur groaned, open-mouthed against the dancer’s throat, as his hips pushed eagerly into that contact. Her body was so pliant and giving that it was only with John providing some brace that he was able to gain any real friction against her at all. Half formed obscenities dribbled off his lips as they twisted and writhed against each other. John couldn’t feel the pulse of arousal Arthur did—it couldn’t possibly be the same—but his skin was electric, his hand shaking with need as he pawed the dancer closer, harder, wanting and needing something he couldn’t reach. Arthur’s desperation was in his blood.
“Yes, yes, I am for you,” the dancer sang as Arthur sucked breathless kisses at her throat, and John burned with jealous enthusiasm beside him. “Take me, take me, I’m yours.”
“Please,” John begged, squeezing her toned buttocks; Arthur moaned, pushing more insistently against her: as if John’s partaking had translated into Arthur’s lust, a signal shared between them that neither could decipher alone. The thought spurred John on—finally, Arthur was listening to him—and he groped up and down the dancer’s shapely thigh, plunged down between their bodies to tease her warm cunt, by now slick and waiting. Arthur’s cock butted against the back of his palm, and with a sudden, bizarre curiosity, he twisted his wrist about to give Arthur a squeeze, too.
Arthur shook, a startled sound of pleasure springing out of him. “J-John?”
I just wanted to know if I could feel it, John wanted to say, but he couldn’t—he could barely think at all. Arthur’s cock swelled against his palm, and he stroked it firmly, at first through his tattered slacks and then beneath. He just wanted to know. As before the sensation itself didn’t quite reach his limited flesh, but the pleasure seethed behind his eyes all the same, and a low growl of arousal and relief rumbled free.
“Arthur,” he murmured, but he couldn’t explain any better than that, and the dancer was pushing them onto their back.
Arthur surrendered completely. John shoved their pants down, and as soon as his cock bobbed free, the dancer straddled his hips and took him in. Arthur’s breathy moan was music itself. Each of them took hold of the dancer’s waist, so narrow and pillowy they could nearly touch fingers. With her hands braced delicately to Arthur’s stomach she began to move, so slowly at first, so attentively. She rolled her pale hips, sensual, patient. Her voice traveled like fluttering bells. Arthur could barely collect himself to arch into her, gasping and sighing as she made love to them with the unhurried ease of selfless devotion. John watched every second of it. He gaped greedily at her tender body, taking them in—he memorized each ripple of gold beneath her veils that rose to her surface like a blush. He bathed himself in Arthur’s blood, ripe with arousal, clawing out from his mind as much of what Arthur was experiencing as he could. He felt subsumed, truly saturated, at last.
“Arthur,” John whispered as the dancer began to speed up, and a glorious pressure built inside him. He wanted to bite down, but all he could do was clutch the dancer’s waist more tightly. “Arthur, I… I feel you.”
Arthur groaned in reply, and he tried to answer properly, but his breath unraveled before he could form it to words. He thrust upward into the dancer’s grinding hips, panting and whimpering. John clung to her, to him, until all that mounting euphoria overflowed. Light and heat crashed through him, not just through his white-blinded eyes, aching fingers and clenching toes. It sparked like meteors colliding against his nerves, spun him about and unfolded him. As Arthur keened and quaked, John floated atop his surfaces like a leaf on a hot spring, buoyant and blissful and aching. Fuck, the aching. That brilliant, terrible pain that clawed tears from their eyes and stripped them bare.
The dancer trilled, lazy and sweet, rubbing against Arthur’s cock until he was utterly spent. Then she stretched over them again. She nuzzled Arthur’s cheek with hers and then settled, as if ready to drift off to sleep with him—as if nothing had just happened. Arthur accepted her but his breath was still shallow, and a quiet came over him. As John slowly came down from the high of so much visceral sensation, the tears still slowly dribbling from them gave him a chill.
“Arthur?”
“Don’t,” said Arthur. He made no attempt to wipe their eyes, instead tugging weakly at his trousers. “Not yet, John.”
John helped him pull the pants back on, though he left them unfastened. The silence that followed dampened what had been a fiery and well-needed reprieve; he shivered, wishing he had the courage to tell Arthur everything he had felt, what it meant to him. Only moments ago they had felt so close—in each other’s skin, partaking together. Could everything really go back to where they had been so unceremoniously?
Maybe it was just too soon. John sighed, and when he felt a tug, he let the dancer draw his hand to her chest. She pressed him against her sternum as Arthur sagged wearily into proper sleep.
“I am for you,” the dancer sang quietly. “I am yours.”
“You know I’m not him, right?” John murmured. “I suppose I used to be, but…I’m not, now.” He pressed his nails into her skin. “Not ever again.”
“I am for you,” she repeated, and she raised his hand one more time to her face. She pressed her shapeless mouth to his palm. “I know you.”
She left just before morning. She didn’t come back to the pit after that.
Their usual gaolers refilled the bucket sporadically. They tore chunks out of the wall with each bone for as long as it held. They didn’t talk about the dancer, though John sometimes caught Arthur cocking his head toward the lip of the pit, silently waiting as if he might catch the sound of her whispering veils. They didn’t talk about the sex.
This pain, John knew. He had grown very familiar with grief. With loneliness. Part of him became convinced that this was what the King had been after all along: not to tempt them with one of his sirens, but with each other. To unite them before any wounds had healed, spoiling it. Even so, they continued to survive.
Breakfast was served: a cooked set of ribs that had been allowed to grow cold by the time it reached them. Arthur ate without complaint, and John didn’t have the courage to praise him for it. But when the meat was licked clean, and Arthur leaned his back against the wall of the pit for a few minutes of rest, he suddenly spoke up.
“While we have it,” he said, and with a deep breath, he began to sing.
John ached. The flower the dancer had left them was long since withered and gone, but when he rested his hand in their lap as when they’d had it, he found Arthur’s there. Their fingers brushed each other and stayed there for the rest of the song.