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witchqueenofthemoon · 5 years

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BODY AND SOUL Part 22 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: If you’d told me at the end of last year that I’d spend the first half of 2019 literally writing so much (so much fiction, nonetheless) that I’d regularly be falling asleep in front of my laptop, I would have told you you were fucking crazy: BUT HERE WE ARE. I can’t get over it, so I have to keep pinching myself to believe it. This part ended up a lot longer with a more meandering path than I expected, but I’m just here to do what Duckenzie tell me to do, y’all--they tell me what they want me to write down, and I do it. I wanted the warmth Kenzie feels towards Annette at the beginning of this chapter to juxtapose with the anger she feels towards her at the end--Annette is a complicated person, and Kenzie is grappling with the ways she manipulates and scapegoats Duncan and her own desire to find common ground with her. She can’t push away all her resentment of his mother, at least, not yet. Annette is changing and growing slowly, but she still has a ways to go, and if you’ve seen Season 6 of HOUSE OF CARDS, you know Duncan withdrawing from her after he finds out he’s adopted will be a catalyst for her. Here’s Doris Day singing DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME. The cherrywood table looks something like this. Here’s Duncan’s cock ring. Here’s his fleshlight. One-pan pasta is truly great and truly easy to make, highly recommend if you’ve never tried it, you can put basically any vegetables you want in it. Duncan’s saute pan. His dry food jars look something like this. Sorry, y’all don’t get a full description of Kenzie’s Gala dress until the next chapter, from Duncan’s perspective; also, I’ll link to the blazer and the gold collar tips I found that look like Duncan’s Gala look next time. Kenzie’s dress with gold flowers. Kenzie’s black sandals. Here’s the ghost story books she chose: 1, 2, 3 (I have the first two). Here’s the fireside cooking kit she chose. She ordered a bunch of bedding from this site. I’ll elaborate on the clothes she ordered in chapters to come--like Duncan, I love Kenzie’s clothes, and can’t resist elaborating on her outfits. Of course Samuel knew that in a moment of distress, Landslide was the only way to go. I wanted to express how much Kenz loves both Samuel and Harris in this part--and how much they are beginning to love her. Cartier boxes look like this. The connection between Duncan and Mackenzie is becoming stronger--that is, awakening to the deepness that is their destiny as soulmates, the connection between them that always has been and always will be, hence Kenzie having a premonition about something happening to Duncan and later being able to feel his sadness from miles away. The photograph of Annette catching Duncan as a child is, of course, canon with Season 6 of HOUSE OF CARDS, though Duncan never mentions it being taken in the fall, I added that. I got chills editing the end of this chapter--Duncan’s devastation soothed by Kenzie’s love. Love is really everything. Her Momby--the memory of Carrie Fisher--loves Duncan very much already (as I feel Carrie would have loved Cody if she had been able to meet him), and she will be a source of great comfort to him. I’m not totally sure how long the Gala stuff is going to be, but we’re finally up against it, and there’s a good chance it’ll be more than one chapter--there’s a lot I need to cover. Love to the Millorys, and, of course, especially my Duckenzies. As always, if you’re following along, your reblogs, likes, comments and asks mean everything to me.

Kenzie hovered at the edge of tears still in the backseat of the BMW, leaning into Duncan’s shoulder with his hand in her hair, lost in the feeling of Annette’s kiss that lingered on her cheek; it was as though she could still feel the pressure of it, the heat of it, the reality of it. I wonder if I haven’t confused the things that truly matter with what seemed to…

When Kenzie had pushed her warmth into Duncan’s mother, the touch of their hands creating a strong connection which she had harnessed, she’d thought: Annette, you are not alone. When Bill dies, you will not be alone. Duncan is your family. I am your family too. I promise, there is great light coming soon. In the years to come, your soul will be at peace. You are not alone. Be brave and go to comfort your brother. She had reached down into the secret gold she could now constantly feel stirring in the center of her body, lifted its strands out to hold Annette’s body and the soft fall of her hair. Annette had sighed--the long, low sigh of the truly contented, caught in this moment, and her face had suddenly lifted and looked younger, and Kenzie was struck by her beauty, by the beautiful, innocent girl she must have been once. And when Annette had kissed her, Kenzie almost felt as though she could smell the soft sweetness of some ancient flower, the smell of a summer long passed, when Annette had hoped and dreamed and been in love.

Kenzie’s phone chimed in her lap. Clairebear. Duncan’s eyes (storms), which had been staring off into space, glanced down at it. Kenzie Lou, your dress and Duncan’s jacket for the Gala are FINISHED. I’m going to send you some shots now, just making sure he’s not looking before I do!

Kenzie turned to Duncan, smiling. His hand fell down to the ends of her hair; his beautiful face leaned towards her, and he kissed her with aching softness, stirring the gold in the center of her up again. His mouth was like velvet, the sensitivity and sweetness of its pressure against hers making her sigh, the scent of him (woodsy jasmine, sandalwood, cedar) bringing her mind up to crash against him. To be kissed by you is always like I’m lost in a dream, and I never want to wake up. “Claire says our Gala outfits are finished. I can’t believe it’s the day after tomorrow. Already. Do you want to see your jacket?”

“I think I trust Morgan, honestly. God, I can’t wait to see what you’re wearing, though...” Duncan’s hands were coming down her arm now, to the crook of her elbow, against the dip of her breast in the lace. Kenzie couldn’t stop herself; the day had already felt so long, its oppressive heat having made her weary of the outside world; in this cool cocoon with the partition rolled up, Duncan in her arms, she felt as though there was nothing else in all the world that mattered. He was so lovely; despite the hotness of the afternoon, he still somehow looked fresh and unbothered, his skin smooth but for the dark stubble along his jaw (I love it so much), his black clothing pressing against his tall form, his hair tossed back in waves from his forehead, his gaze more striking than ever in the dark eyeliner Alister had given him. She moved closer, reaching up to the dip of his jaw turning into his neck, and his hand coming around to her bare shoulder blade. Kenzie leaned into his kiss again, opening her mouth. Doris Day was singing on the stereo, soft, meandering piano behind her--stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you--

“Baby,” Duncan murmured into her, and Kenzie gasped against him in a tiny voice, a sudden terrible need for him crashing into her. “Whatever you did for my mother--thank you.”

“It was for you, baby,” she whispered back into him, and Duncan was pressing her down into the seat, clutching her against him, his hand coming down to press the lace of her skirt up, exposing her thigh to his large, long hand (uh huh touch me touch your angel give me all your need), his elegant fingers sending shivers up to the top of her spine as they gripped her, needy and demanding and leaving long red streaks on her pale skin, drifting up to the dip between her upper thigh and her crotch (today Kenzie wore red tulle panties to match her dress--they were sheer, and Duncan’s insistent hands had exposed them now--she could feel the cool air drifting against her sex and it made her shiver), her body was suddenly pulsing with heat...say nighty-night and kiss me, just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me...He dipped his hand up to the waistband of the panties, his fingers brushing the bare skin of her stomach, and his mouth went to her ear.

“Kenzie, Princess, please, let me touch you?”

“Uhmm, Duncan--Dunny, we shouldn’t--” His mouth was tasting at hers again, snatching her words away. Fuck, baby. Put your hand on my neck. Duncan’s fingers immediately came up to grasp her throat, and they tightened as he stared into her eyes, following her lead. Harder. That’s it. Now kiss me again. Let’s go home and fuck. I want you to lean me over that table and give me your hard cock and wrap my hair in your fist and make me suck on your beautiful fingers and fuck me--

Fuck, Kenzie. I’m wanna fuck you for the rest of the day. I wanna fuck you and make you scream because it feels so fucking good. I wanna lick and kiss and suck your clit until you can’t stop shaking. And then I wanna sleep for the rest of the afternoon with you. And then I wanna wake up and fuck again. Can we do that? I just wanna be alone with you for the rest of the day. I always just wanna be alone with you.

Kenzie was nodding against him as his mouth sucked along her bottom lip, his hands still pressing her down insistently into the leather of the seat, her head resting in the odd crook between the car door and the backrest. Kenzie’s mind was writhing with the feeling of him; she thought of Duncan fucking her ass, the wild sensitivity of it, the insistence of him pressing the plug inside her, the look in his eyes as he tied her up, the demand as he pressed the egg into her clit, or stared at her in the mirror as he buried his length into the space between her legs. She felt her cheeks growing hot with her need; felt the twinge of her cunt spasming at the promise of his fingers and his mouth there, coming soon.

Baby, at the Gala, she thought into him as their tongues clashed together, and Duncan was pulling her up easily into his lap--god, the strength he keeps coiled inside him, sometimes I forget and then he lifts me like I’m made of dry leaves--and her hands were both clutching at the stubble of his jaw, his still pushing the lace skirt insistently from her thighs, thumbs pressing close to the bands of her panties, the only barrier between his fingers and her shaking sex.

At the Gala, I want you to make me wear my plug.

Kenzie pulled back to stare into him, his ocean eyes wet and shining with the intensity of his desire for her, his thoughts drifting against her in hot waves of blue flame. Oh fuck, Princess. Kenzie. Fuck. Yes. My baby, my baby love.

I want you to put it in as we stare at each other in our Mirror, hold my throat as you do it, and Kenzie’s fingers drifted down and gripped his as she pressed the thought into him, whisper into my ear that I’m your Princess, your angel, your only love, your Soulmate. Make sure I know that I’m yours, baby. She tightened her hand and his mouth drifted open, eyes focused on her face.

Uh huh, Kenzie. Yes, Kenzie. I’ll make you wear it all night. He was moaning into her hand, his breath falling against her lips in a labored, lustful gasp. You are my Soulmate. You are my only love and everything I am and have is for you.

Uh huh, baby. You’ll tell me I can’t take it out until you say so. Kenzie smiled into him, teasing, feeling the power drift through her fingers to him. There with all those people and all those cameras and everyone, and I have to wear it for you.

Unng, Kenzie. I want you to make me wear something too. Please, make me wear something for you. Make me wear something to worship you. I have--I have a cock ring that I use to play with myself sometimes--I forgot about it until now, honestly...you’ve been playing with me so much I haven’t needed it, have I, baby love. But I’ll show it to you when we get home.

Kenzie gave him a look of mock severity, lifting away to stare at him, her hand still on his throat. She spoke out loud, quietly, surprised. “You should have told me about that before, baby. What else do you have that you’re hiding?” Duncan glanced down, shyly, then back up into her eyes.

“A fleshlight.”

“Ooooo, baby,” Kenzie ground her hips down onto him, and Duncan arched up into her, groaning, insistently needy. “I wanna watch you use it. When we get home I’m gonna make you use it while I watch--”

“I wish I had one made in the shape of your sweet little cunt, baby,” his mouth pressed under her chin, forcing her head up; Duncan moved his swollen lips down her throat, tongue pressing lightly and leaving a wet trail, into the dip of her collarbones, down between her breasts, and Kenzie was leaning back in his arms to accept his worshipping kisses, the coiled strength of his hands pressing into her spine, keeping her close, her eyelids murmuring open and closed, fighting the building heat in her belly. “Anytime you’re away from me I can’t stop thinking of you, I always need you, Kenzie…I have to go on trips sometimes, what if you’re writing or you’re busy with work and you can’t come with me--I want one of your tight little cunt, god, it’s so tight around my cock, baby--god, please make me wear something at the Gala, make me, please--”

Kenzie quieted, soothing her mind back into his. Okay, baby. Will that make you remember all night that you belong to me? Will that cock ring kindle your need for me for hours and hours? You can’t take it off until I say you can. Okay, Dunny? Kenzie bit into Duncan’s bottom lip, sucking at it, her opposite hand coming up to the other side of his neck to choke him with careful pressure.

Yes, Princess Kenzie, yes, angel, I promise I’ll be good and do what you say, baby.

Good baby. My sweet Prince. I love you so. They’d made it back to the high-rise and Kenzie carefully slid out of Duncan’s grasp, glancing down at his lap; the hardness of his growing erection was pressing into his crotch, and Kenzie longed to unzip him and pull his cock out, longed to press her mouth down onto the soft head of his length at that very moment, but Harris was coming around the door, wearing his dark glasses again. He extended a hand to Kenzie, giving her his friendly grin, the low heat of the day seeping into the backseat. It looks like it’s going to rain, Kenzie thought. A summer storm for us to fuck to. She smiled at Harris, accepting his hand innocently.

“You know, Harris,” she said, stepping onto the sidewalk, feeling Duncan come up behind her; felt his hand press languidly down her bare back, into the strands of her hair. “Claire was asking me about you.”

Harris dipped his head down to her, his sepia-colored eyes flashing over the rim of his glasses, his grin morphing from one of benign friendliness to shy interest. Kenzie smiled at him teasingly.

“Is that so, Miss Mackenzie.”

“Can I give her your phone number? Or give you hers?”

Harris blushed at her, pulling his sunglasses off his nose, glancing at the ground.

“Unless you’re unavailable. I’m sorry, Harris, it’s rude of me to have assumed.” Kenzie felt Duncan’s hand drift down to the zipper at the back of her dress, felt him pressing it down, wantonly, impatiently. She dipped a hand behind her back, fingers pinching at his. Oh my god stop that baby not yet. Kenzie felt a large drop of rain splash against her cheek--here comes that storm.

“I’d very much like to call on Miss Claire, Miss Mackenzie...that is, if that’s acceptable to you.”

“Harris, yes. Definitely. I’m going to send you her phone number right now.” Kenzie quickly went into her contacts to Claire’s number, hitting Share Contact as more rain began to fall around them.

“Come on, Kenz, we’re gonna get soaked,” Duncan slid his hand down her arm, reaching for her fingers. Kenzie quickly typed Harris’ name into the bar and hit Send.

“Claire is the most wonderful person,” she said to Harris as the rain began in earnest, a peal of thunder booming over their heads. She could see the large man’s dark gray suit beginning to grow black with the water seeping into it. “She’s my best friend.” She grasped Duncan’s hand and he pulled her towards the front entrance, beginning to trot as his hair flattened in the sudden downpour. She hesitated, then called over her shoulder, towards her bodyguard--and as she did, she pushed some of her drifting gold towards him, a few strands from the pit of her body.

“I wish you luck!”

She turned back to Duncan, quickening her pace to a slow run to keep up with his long trot--now they were both soaked, and water dripped down in rivulets from her long hair, her dress sticking to her hips. Jerry seemed to be somewhere else at the moment--Duncan yanked the glass door open himself and they ran inside, leaving a trail of water drifting on the marble under their feet.

“Sorry about the water, Anchaly--” Duncan said as they hurried past him. He glanced up, smiling at them indulgently, then returned to The Year of Magical Thinking, not replying. Duncan punched the elevator, staring at her, breathing hard, licking the rain off his lips--he flicked a hand (your beautiful hands, my beloved) through his hair, mussing it, rain cascading out of it to patter on the polished floor. Kenzie felt breathless, suddenly; breathless in the desirous intensity of his blue-sky stare, breathless at how fucking lovely he was. I’m going to rip your fucking clothes off, Kenzie. She swallowed as the door slid open; Duncan suddenly gripped her waist and pulled her inside, and as the door slid shut behind them Kenzie dropped her bag to the elevator’s spotless carpet as Duncan picked her up and pressed her into the side-rail, her back thumping against the wall. She hovered above him, her body stretching almost involuntarily as his open mouth hungrily sucked at the dip of her neck.

“Mackenzie Stone, I fucking love you,” he said, and she nodded against him, leaning into him. “I fucking love you too, Duncan Shepherd,” she murmured, whining into the wildness of his kisses. “I want you to fuck me until I scream while we listen to the storm--”

“Oh, you’re going to fucking scream, baby--” Duncan crushed his lips into hers, rushing his tongue against hers, making her cunt spasm. He’s so fucking tall, he can lift me like I’m nothing, his big fucking hands are gripping me so tightly. “You’re gonna come so fucking hard for me, baby, I’m gonna make you writhe with pleasure, I’m gonna make you come so hard all over my aching cock--”

Kenzie brought the flat of her palm down against his cheek, slapping him with a coiled strength--not enough to leave a mark, but with pointed insistence. Duncan’s words cut off as his breath sucked in sharply, staring at her in surprise--then their blue depth grew darker, like a night sky fading into evening, and Kenzie’s nerves thrilled.

That’s right, baby. You’re gonna fucking fuck me, aren’t you. You’re gonna wrap that leather choker around my neck and yank it tight and make my poor little pussy red with attention. Kenzie grinned at him, shivering in the drift of her thoughts to him in the elevator’s icy air conditioning, water dripping down her back from her soaked hair, pressed into the wall. The elevator dinged; 30. Duncan gripped her under her arms and brought her down, still holding onto her tightly, his breath ragged--Kenzie reached to the floor and grasped the strap of her convertible bag before Duncan insistently pulled her out of the gold interior, his fingers pressing tightly into her wrist. Kenzie couldn’t help but giggle nervously again; I love this. Be bossy with me, go ahead, Prince Duncan. He glanced back at her, his eyes still that dark shade of blue, and goosebumps broke out on her skin finally as he yanked his wallet out, shoving his keycard impatiently into the side of the door. He pulled Kenzie through as it unlocked with a beep, still gripping her wrist; Kenzie could feel her fingers going numb, he was holding her so hard. He turned as the door swung shut behind them and lifted her up again, falling into her as her back smacked against it, his thigh pressing between her legs, her hands falling to the sides of his wet hair, his mouth pressing up into hers.

“It’s like the storm is just for us,” she whispered, her lips brushing down to his stubble, its harshness raking into her skin.

“Yeah, the gods got hot and bothered knowing we were about to fuck,” Duncan laughed into her, his hands flitting over her, slipping through the slickness of her damp hair. He lowered her, reluctantly, and Kenzie went up on her tip-toes to reach for the topmost button of his wet shirt, working it apart.

“Anyone would get bothered, looking at you, Prince Duncan.”

“Miss Stone, I only have eyes for you.” He was pressing her back against the door again, his tall form looming over her, his hands against the black wood on either side of her head, trapping her. “Go sit at the table, Miss Stone. I’m going to get your choker.”

Kenzie bit into her lip, unable to disguise her delight at his commanding tone.

“I like you being bossy with me,” she whispered, still clutching his collar, her lips on his jaw. “I want you to be rough with me, baby.”

He smiled down at her--the smile made Kenzie shiver. My beautiful Duncan. I see the Hades in you when I speak such dark delights. I see the wild wine god. I see the shadowed god who sleeps; with me, he rarely emerges so utterly, for I bring out the light in you. But if I ask for him; ah, there he is. You will always give me what I want. You will always obey my desires.

“I will. Go sit down, baby. Be the angel I know you are.” He leaned down to kiss her softly for a moment; Kenzie shuddered in the gentleness of his embrace, knowing he was hiding the powerful need she’d asked for just beneath the surface of his composure. Then, he lifted his arms away from her and turned his back to her, working at the remaining buttons of his wet shirt, discarding it on the floor as he went to the closet, not looking back. Kenzie unlaced her shoes with quick fingers, kicking them beside the door, nervously stepping into the dining room, where the cherrywood table extended, serenely quiet and polished and long. She hadn’t really spent any time in this room of the penthouse--not since the night I made him chicken and dumplings and he tied me up for the first time, tied my wrists to the bed, fuck, oh baby. The table was indeed a magnificent piece, its dark reddish wood already having pressed itself into her mind; as soon as I saw it I wanted you to fuck me on it, baby. Something about its aged, elegant surface was intensely erotic. Kenzie went to the levered window at the far end of the room, facing the south side of the penthouse--she crooked it open and pushed it wide, the curtains immediately blowing toward her in the storm, rain pattering against the panes, warm, fragrant summer air rushing in. There.

She thought of how soon they’d be in the woods, by the lake, the clear air and the birds and the soft winds in the trees waking them up in the morning, the sharp smell of smoky woodfire and summer grass and the weed they’d smoke at night, the quietness of the evenings to come. Someday, we’ll wake up day after day in the garden house, and we’ll escape from the city regularly and we’ll fuck on a soft bed covered in quilts and twenty feather-down pillows and we’ll sleep until noon sometimes and no one will tell us we can’t--we’ll have a library and a pit for bonfires, we’ll have picnics under the shady relief of the orchard. She let herself imagine it--indulged again in her fantasies, her paddock of three horses, dapple gray, black, and creamy white, her greenhouse, her verdant garden of flowers and vegetables, wonderful dirt under her fingernails and sweet apple trees and honeycomb from their beehives to press against Duncan’s lips. Hey, I can dream. I’ve been dreaming. I’ve been sucked into a dream, only this dream is real.

Kenzie pulled out the heavy chair at the head of the table, closest to the doorway, and sat, breathing in carefully, trying to quell her nerves. She was still soaking wet, and she shivered a little, despite the warmth drifting in from the window she’d opened, her arms covered in goosebumps. She could hear him coming back now towards her, moving through the kitchen--but she didn’t look over to him, not yet--she stared ahead at the window, at the drifting movement of the curtains in the wind, the droplets of rain on the sill.

But I can feel him, Kenzie thought. I can feel the blue flame of him, pressing out, coming around me to stroke down along my hair, to fall down the side of my cheek and the back of my neck and over the rise of my breasts. I can feel his need, his want, his insistence, his lust crashing against me, wave after wave. Kenzie closed her eyes, anticipating the moment of his touch, willing herself to be patient, to be still. She heard him set something on the table, a soft, indistinct series of two taps, then a rustling--then heard the soft clink of the buckle of the choker on the hard wood as he set it there as well. She breathed carefully--in, then out, concentrating on the color of him. She could feel Duncan standing near her, feel his aura, his tall presence, could hear his soft breathing, calmed from its raggedness but still hitched with anticipation.

Kenzie could sense him moving toward her; then she felt the sweet softness of one of his microfiber towels dip down over her shoulders; keeping her eyes closed, Kenzie soothed into the feeling of his hands gently pressing it against her, carefully, into her damp hair and the back of her neck.

“Baby,” and she felt his mouth tickle against her ear, the warmth of his breath. “Stand up.”

Kenzie stood, eyes still closed, enjoying the sensation of being obedient to him; but I’m doing as you say because I told you I wanted to, she knew, and that thrilled her too. She felt Duncan move the chair out and away; into the corner, or somewhere else, somewhere it wouldn’t hinder them. Then she felt him come up behind her--felt his mouth drift from her ear to her cheek, his fingers fall down her arms. His woodsy smell was tinged with the wild scent of the rain, and the heady undercurrent of his desire, an obtuse scent she had begun to feel intimately familiar with, but one that she couldn’t describe in any worldly sense. It’s just him. It’s just my Duncan. Stronger when he wants me as much as he does right now.

“I’m going to take off your dress now, baby. It’s soaking wet and so are you.”

She laughed a little. Keep your eyes closed. It’s teasing him. It’s making him hard. “Uh huh, baby. I am.” She felt his hands at the zipper at her back now--felt him slowing inch it down, felt his lips fall onto her shoulder. She shivered, let the dress’ straps glide down her arms, let the wet dress drift off her body, pooling around her ankles; Duncan gripped the waistband of her panties and slid them down, too, so they fell around her feet. She felt Duncan soothe the towel down her shoulders again--then, he delicately moved it down her back, around her breasts and down her stomach, over the rise of her ass, the backs of her thighs, whisking the dampness from her skin. She could feel the sweetness of the wind drifting towards them from the window, hear the rain, the sound of his breathing, the pounding of her heart in her own ears, and she could feel the breeze of his thoughts, brushing over her skin--you said you wanted to watch me use it. Open your eyes, angel.

Kenzie did as he said: Duncan was naked before her, his cock achingly hard, his eyes on her face. He reached his hand out to her; Kenzie took it, stepping out of her wet dress and panties pooled at her feet, pushing them aside with her toes. He let go of her, fingers slow and brushing down hers, stepping back--Kenzie sighed at how beautiful he was, his hair damp and falling into his eyes, his height next to hers, his angelic, intensely erotic features. He reached to where three objects rested on the cherrywood table: a soft silicone ring with a bulbous triangular extension, a dark green, long object with a screw-cover that looked like a flashlight, and her rose choker; its silver rose winked at her, its black leather strap seeming to stare at her, waiting, achingly patient, knowing. Duncan picked the choker up in his elegant fingers (your hands, made to delight me) and looked into her eyes.

“Stand still, baby. I’m gonna put your choker on now, okay?”

Kenzie nodded, unable to keep her smile hidden, her body flushed with heat. I want it. I want you. I want you so fucking bad, put those fucking hands on me. She sighed as he came around behind her--wind blew towards them from the window, and she saw him shiver as his free hand came out to brush down her arm.

“Kenzie, you are so beautiful.” His hands brought the choker up around her face, lowered it to the soft, delicate incline of her throat, pushing her damp hair to the side--Kenzie wished they were in front of their Mirror for a moment, so she could see him put it on, but then she remembered how much she had wanted him to press her down onto this table, and thrilled to know it was on the cusp of reality. Duncan looped the strap through the buckle, pulling the choker tight, almost too tight, into her skin--she gasped a little and Duncan’s mouth came down to her ear, his tongue licking against it.

“I want it to be tight so you know you’re mine, angel.” Kenzie gasped, nodded, her eyes fluttering. “Is it okay? I want it to be tight, baby, I want you needy in my arms, is it okay? To control you for a little while? Give me permission.”

Kenzie nodded again, her breath ragged, the rhythm of her thoughts slowing, willing her breath to be small and slow. “I give you permission, baby.”

“If it’s too much, slap your palm on the table, like this.” Duncan brought the flat of his hand down on the table in front of her, slapping it into the wood, firmly. “Okay? And I’ll stop.”

“Uh huh.” Kenzie breathed in again, carefully, slowly, feeling the press of the choker into her throat, its constriction making her cunt twinge; she felt the wetness gathering there drip down the cavity of her, hovering around the lips of her sex. “I want you to fuck me good, baby.” She couldn’t stop the words that tumbled out of her, hungry and imploring. “I want you to fuck me until I’m raw and red from you, till I’m aching.”

“Unng, Kenzie. Shhhh.” His hands came around her, one to cup her breast, the other to trail possessively along the silver rose under her chin, his face drifting down to her cheek, pressing soft kisses there. “You said you wanted to watch me masturbate first. So you’re going to. Be patient for me, angel baby, okay? Put your hands on the table and don’t move them. You can’t touch yourself until I say so.”

“Uh huh. Can I make you wet for it, baby?”

Duncan’s eyes fluttered closed, and he nodded. Kenzie knelt in front of him, willing saliva from the back of her throat forward--she spat onto the head of his cock through pursed lips, using her hand to slide it down onto his length as he moaned, sucking eagerly at him for a moment, until he glistened with her attentions--reluctantly, she leaned away and stood again, and his eyes lingered on her, on the edge of control. Then, Duncan came around to where he’d placed the toys on the table--his hand came up to the aching hardness of his erection, and he eased his hand down it, down the wetness from her mouth--with one hand on his cock still, holding it steady at the base, he grasped the cock ring and pushed it down onto himself, a long, low groan emanating from his throat. Kenzie’s body trembled at the loveliness of the sound; an actual angel from heaven, stroking himself for me, beautiful beyond all my dreams. The ring seemed to make him even harder; Kenzie could see his cock jumping over and over into his stomach now, see its strain, its length, its redness, see the wild light coiled behind his blue-flame eyes, the aching, simmering energy that had begun to build in him.

Then, he reached for the fleshlight, unscrewing the top, turning the pussy-shaped canal towards her for a moment so she could see, his smile setting her skin to embers of fire, he is so fucking lovely, and Kenzie bit into her lip, feeling her cheeks blush. Fuck, baby, fuck yourself for me, fuck yourself, my Prince, my beautiful angel, and she knew he heard her from the look in his eyes, from his reply into the crevices of her mind. Oh, I will baby. For you and you only. Kenzie felt her mouth drift open, longingly, her hands flat on the table in front of her, wishing she could press her fingers into her aching clit as his eyes burned on her, but she had promised him she wouldn’t, and it gives me pleasure to obey you today, baby.

Not breaking their eye contact, Duncan turned the base carefully; a low buzzing emanated from the fleshlight, the vibrator now active--and his full lips opened slightly, slowly, involuntarily, as he pressed his cock into the shivering canal of the toy, and she heard him moan her name, “Uhh, Kenzie, Kenzie baby,” and Kenzie couldn’t help but sigh into a moan of need herself as she watched him drift the toy up and down his length, building a rhythm for her, his head falling back and his chiseled jaw pointing towards the ceiling. Fuck, he’s so fucking gorgeous. Fuck, I can’t even believe how beautiful he is sometimes. How can he even exist at all. How is he mine. Kenzie’s nails dug into the wood of the table, moisture pooling down the lips of her cunt, gathering against her thighs. Baby, I need you. Baby, I can’t stand it. “Fuck, baby, Dunny, oh, fuck--”

“God, fucking god, I love that choker on you so fucking much, baby--” Duncan continued to fuck the toy, the rhythm in his hips building, his thighs keening into the side of the table. “I’m gonna fuck you so good, you like this, don’t you, you like watching me fuck myself like this--”

“Uh huh, please, baby, please let me touch myself. I need you, I need you...”

Duncan slowed, his eyes squeezing shut as he carefully pulled his length out of the toy--Kenzie could see how red his cock was now, squeezed into wild hardness by the ring, pulsing with need, precum dripping languidly from the head.

“Okay, Princess, touch yourself.” Kenzie’s eyes fluttered in relief and she brought her slender fingers down to work against her clit, sighing at the warm breeze that suddenly floated against her--Duncan dropped the toy on the table, and she could see the determined, ravishing light in his eyes. That’s it, baby, fuck, I love that, make yourself wet for me, rub your sweet little clit.

God, baby, I’m already so fucking wet. I need you to fuck me. I need it.

Kenzie curved her body down over the table, staring up into him, leaned onto it so her elbows were crooked against its surface, her breasts pressed into it, nipples achingly hard, her ass pressed outwards to where the chair had been. She refused to look away from his gaze. Duncan gave her a longing, dazed look--then his eyes seemed to clear, he seemed to remember his duty, and he moved quickly so he was behind her--then she felt the coiled pressure of his hand press into the nape of her neck and push her head down onto the table, his fingers coming around to grip her tightly, so her cheek was against its cold, smooth surface--and Duncan kept his hand there, pressing her down as he thrust his cock into her cunt, the wetness that had gathered in her receiving him with covetous thirst. He was so hard that Kenzie felt her body struggling to take all of him, despite the come that had spread down through her--the ring had unclad every last residue of softness, and Kenzie felt her eyes roll back at the intensity of his domination over her in this moment.

As Duncan began to fuck her from behind, his fingers tightened at the sides of her throat over the choker, and she gasped, her voice cracking desperately at the combination of low pain and high pleasure in her body in this moment--Kenzie felt darkness drift at the edges of her vision, felt her body spasm at the lack of air, and her little hand slapped down onto the table, aware she would pass out soon if he didn’t loosen his grip. Duncan immediately lifted his hand, immediately stopped the movement of his hips, his cock still buried in her--he leaned down to her, brushing her hair from her shoulder, his mouth against the side of her head.

“Baby, are you okay, are you alright? I’m sorry, are you okay?”

She gasped air into her lungs--then, she turned her head, eyes fluttering open and closed, and Kenzie said “yes, baby, keep fucking me, Duncan, fuck me hard, I want it, fuck me hard, spank me.”

“Uh huh, angel--” Duncan immediately rebounded his movements against her, immediately ground the entirety of his length back into her, so insistently Kenzie felt her hips lift forward, shoving her into the table’s surface, his balls falling into the lips of her cunt--then his big hand came down and smacked into her, so hard it made her catch her breath again.

“Uhh, Dunny, yes, just like that, fuck yes--” And he slapped her, hard, on the other ass cheek, and she could hear the amusement and affection in his voice as he said “you like that baby, huh, you like me spanking you so hard like that--” and Kenzie nodded into the table’s cool surface, moaning approvingly, loving its heady scent under her nose, loving the pressure of him driving into her, the sound of his voice and the rain and the drift of the summer storm against their flushed bodies. Duncan was pressing down against her, driving himself into her again and again, and then he was gripping her little wrists and pulling them back in his fists, so hard she knew there was no way she could escape from his grasp unless he let her, lifting her a little off the table as he continued to grind into her, and then he dipped down to her ear and said--

“Baby, I’m gonna come now, then I’m gonna suck your sweet little clit on this table until you come, okay, baby, angel, is that okay?” And it was all Kenzie could do to moan a reply, “Yes, Dunny, yes--” And his long, beautiful hand was drifting against the back of her skull, clutching into her hair harshly, longingly, his mouth pressed into the back of her head as he shuddered against her, the warm spurt of his come coursing into her, and she could feel the damp sweat where their thighs touched, where their sexes were pressed together, aching and so fucking close.

Duncan hovered inside her for a moment, then in a smooth motion that stunned her he pulled out of her, gripped her hips between his long, beautiful fingers, and turned her body insistently, so she was facing him, a little line of spittle running down from her lips; Duncan leaned down to her, snatching Kenzie’s breath again, kissing her with terrible need, sucking at the spit that fell onto her skin, tongue tasting into her, and he was lifting her so she was now sitting on the table’s edge, his hands so soft and so strong and becoming so knowledgeable of her curves, the dips of her skin, the corners of her body--Kenzie’s body was absolutely set alight under his attentions this way, and her cunt was aching so deeply she felt as though she were on the verge of tears. Duncan’s smooth hand pressed into her belly and eased her down so her back was pressed into the cold surface of the cherrywood--her hair had almost dried now, and drifted around her shoulders and head as she gazed toward him. Duncan kneeled--Kenzie felt her mouth fall open at the beauty of the image, my sweet Prince, kneeling at my altar, bowed in worship, faithful, prostrate, and entire. His blue eyes pierced through her, and she could see the crown of his head, surely where a circlet of gold should be, my beloved, angelic, divine, and royal, a creature of high heaven. Then Duncan buried his mouth into the space between the lips of her, and Kenzie couldn’t stop the wail that rose out of her, so lovely a mouth it was: the only thing I want in the whole fucking world right now, baby, your mouth on me like this, all your attention, all your love, all the desire in you flowing into me in the most sensitive part of my body, as if to bathe me in moonlight.

I worship you, Duncan’s thought cascaded against her, through her thighs and belly, up to circle her breasts, fanning over her throat like a collar of diamonds, caressing the leather at her neck, thumbing her open mouth, pressing into her tongue and drifting its fingers into her hair. I fucking worship you, Mackenzie Louise Stone, I adore you, I am your most ardent lover, your most supplicant admirer, I bow to you, my love, I want nothing so much as I want your joy, your pleasure, and your delight in all things. I worship you, Kenzie, most fervently, I desire you always, I love the sweet space between your legs as I love your eyes as I love your breath and your sweetness in slumber and your glorious heart, your blessed soul, as I love you always, until the end of time, beloved, my Kenzie, I love you--

A peal of sweet summer thunder burst over the high-rise, rolling through the open window, rolling against them, crashing against the feeling of Duncan’s aching mouth pressed so carefully and insistently onto her sex, and his hands clutched between her thighs, pressing her up into his attention, and Kenzie saw the lightning from the corner of her gaze, felt the drift of the warm breeze down the length of her body, ruffling the drying curls around his head, smell the fierce, lush wave of the rain, and her hands came up to bury themselves them in his hair, against the sweet softness at his head, and his stormy, sky-laden eyes, the blue nebulas he kept hidden swirling there, lifted to stare at her, and Kenzie felt her body jerk forward against him, felt the crescendo of her coming approaching like another rumble of thunder on the horizon, and then she was arching, her back lifting from the table, and his tongue was shifting back and forth on her as she cried into him, remembering the otherworldly glow of his golden hair in the dream, the divine, strange wings that had extended from his back, and she felt, for a small, stolen moment, that she could see them again, growing from his back now as he kneeled against her, felt that in this moment, they were divine again.

-------

Duncan had gently, sweetly eased her back to the floor and unbuckled the choker from her throat, his fingers brushing against her now-sensitive skin as he did, and Kenzie had leaned into his touch, sighed with the loss of him as he lifted the leather away, sighed with relief as he immediately brought his fingers back to knead at the marks on her neck, his mouth coming down to soothe her swollen lips, soothe through her hair, dried to soft waves from the dampness of the rain. Kenzie reached down to his cock, still swollen with the pressure of the ring around it, and eased the silicone toy off his length, achingly slow--Duncan groaned into her as she did, closing his eyes, pressing his forehead against hers, and Kenzie said “that’s it, baby, there we go, god you were so hard for me, baby, you felt so fucking good...” and he nodded against her, contented. The storm was still raging outside, the rain now pounding heavily through the window, and Duncan stepped away from her to close it, but Kenzie whined and clutched him and she felt his mind surge back to her and he forgot the window and gathered her up in his arms.

“My Kenzie, my sweet little Kenzie, my beautiful angel,” he was murmuring into her ear, his fingers (my baby has the most beautiful hands, and they touch me with such reverence, I love his hands) still softly soothing the redness at her neck, and Duncan pressed himself against her, his body smelling of sweat and rain and cedar, the coiled strength of it low from his release, and Kenzie’s body still shook, vibrated with the comedown of her orgasm, hummed to feel so close to him in this moment, sung with the threads that were tying them together, their bodies, their minds, their souls. “You’re my baby, aren’t you, angel, you’re my Princess, my queen, my Persephone, tell me you are, Kenzie--” “Yes, baby, yes, you know I am, I love you--” and she turned her mind towards him, pressed her lips into his where she could taste her sex between his teeth, thought you know that I would die for you if I had to, you know I am giving the most secret, hidden parts of myself to you, and I’m glad to do it, I’m glad to fold myself into you this way, glad beyond all words, my beautiful and dark Prince, my Hades, and I know you bow to me, I see the terrible loveliness of your prayers, and your worship is fair beyond all worship in my eyes, and when we were those other beings with strange wings, our eyes like galaxies, our clothing created from the strange geometries of another world, I thought your worship more fair too, in that place, and chose you to be my dearest love for all time.

“Let’s make something to eat, Kenz,” Duncan said, and pulled back from her, gently. Kenzie nodded up to him, suddenly realizing she was starving. “Then we can take a nap together.” And that she was exhausted. He knows, he can feel me.

“Ugh, Dunny, that sounds fucking perfect.” Kenzie let Duncan pull her through the kitchen, into their closet--he pulled her silk pink-and-black sleeping set down from where it hung, easing the cami over her head, gently pulling her hair out as she pushed her arms through it--Duncan’s hands came down to drift over her breasts under the silken cloth, and she felt her mouth dip open, loving the sensation of his touch. Then he turned from her and rifled through one of his drawers for black sweatpants and a black tee shirt (always black, my Hades), kissing her forehead as she pulled on the little silken pink shorts.

“I’m thinking one-pan pasta,” he said, and Kenzie gave him a questioning look.

“What’s one-pan pasta?”

He laughed a little. “Exactly what it sounds like, babe. Pasta you make using just one pan. It’s so easy, come on, I’ll show you.” He twined his fingers through hers and pulled her into the kitchen, and Kenzie loved the sound of the rain, the softness of his presence, the fall of his hair. Despite everything in the world outside that has tried to harm or damage us, here we are, our love only grows and becomes greater, and being with you is beyond my wildest dreams. Being with you is joy unimaginable. Duncan looked at her, and Kenzie knew he’d heard. He nodded, and she heard him too: yes, Kenzie, yes. I love you so.

Duncan opened one of the high cupboards that rose along the sides of the stove, pulling down a shallow saute pan, dipping it into the sink to fill it with a few cups-worth of water. “Kenz, can you get an onion, some basil, a tomato and a pack of mushrooms from the fridge?” Kenzie nodded, smiling, gathering the things he’d asked for and laying them carefully on the counter as he placed a cutting board there beside her.

“All you do is put everything in the same pan and let it cook until the water evaporates,” he said, his hand coming up to fall down the wave of her hair. He reached to where several long glass storage containers were lined along the counter to the side of the sink (several kinds of dry noodles, rice, flour, sugar, cornmeal, quinoa, oatmeal, granola) and and pulled one with long spaghetti noodles to where their ingredients were gathered. His eyes skirted over her succulents on the sill, across the gray, rainy sky through the window, as Kenzie watched him, enraptured once more with his beauty. The plants were thriving, almost impossibly so--they were verdantly green and bright now, and some had begun to hang heavy growths down the wall. They can feel the love here. They can feel how much I love him.

“It’s supposed to rain all night,” he murmured, and she could see he was suddenly lost in thought, but the thoughts were indistinct to her, then he turned towards the pan on the stove and placed a handful of the pasta into the water, so she couldn’t see his expression. “Tomorrow I’m meeting with the President, Kenzie. I have no idea how she’s going to react to me. I’ve never met with her alone like this. And she and my mother have a very...fraught relationship. Like Annette and Madeline, they went to school together. But they were truly friends back then. I always wonder what happened between them, later. Whatever happened to make them turn on each other as they have.”

“Your mom is like an hawk. She’s terrifying, baby. I don’t doubt that it’s hard to stay friends with her.”

Duncan turned back to her, nodding, reaching for his kenzo knives from where they shone neatly on the counter-top, slicing the onion and the mushrooms with precise strokes, pulling leaves off the bunch of basil (it smells so good, Kenzie thought) and tossing them into the pan as well. Soon, the uncooked ingredients were gathered in a picturesque array, and Kenzie ran over to where she’d discarded her bag in the corner, grabbing her phone out (she noticed she had texts from both Clairebear and Mom, thought I’ll look at them later, I just wanna be with him right now) and snapping a photo. “This is the before, then I’ll take one at the end,” she smiled up at him, and Duncan glanced up at her, his eyes full of affection, as he turned the switch on the stove. “I love the colors together that way. It looks so pretty.”

“You--” Duncan started, but Kenzie gave him a facetious little slap on the arm.

“Shush, you.”

“I won’t. You look so pretty. You are so fucking pretty. Will you be my girlfriend, Miss Stone? I’m in love with you, Miss Stone.” Duncan was pressing his lips down to her cheek, his hand drifting up her arm.

“I am your girlfriend, Mr. Shepherd.”

“I still can’t believe it. That night we met--I’ll never forget that night, Kenzie. How lovely you looked. I knew.” Duncan turned back to stir the ingredients, tossing crushed red pepper and chopped garlic into the pan, grinding his coppery pepper mill over it, glancing at her between his work. The smells wafting from the stovetop were making Kenzie’s stomach rumble, and she pulled down two black plates from the cupboard beside them, pulled out the cutlery drawer where Duncan’s lovely silverware rested quietly, winking up at her, grasping two forks, setting them down quietly on the plates, watching him cook. I love to watch him cook. I love to watch him do anything. The smallest things. The graceful movements of his hands. The way he bites his lip when he’s concentrating. The way he cocks his head, leans his chin down, the small little movements of his eyelashes and his blue blue blue eyes.

“I was afraid of you,” she said, finally. And I was. You were so fucking beautiful, you are truly a Prince, and I thought you were dark, I thought you would be cruel, but no, I found that you were as beautiful inside as you are outwardly. And I found that you, of all the people in this world, were truly the One for me. “You have a reputation. Well, had. You were so tall and looked so sharp and your eyes were staring at me so intently--like they could really see me, like I was naked. Not, like--not that way.” She saw his smirk. “That you could--see my soul. Baby.”

He reached for her hand, the wooden spoon in his other pausing over the pan. “I almost felt like I could. Sort of. The minute I looked at you, I felt like I could see into you, see how wonderful you are. Like I could see your halo, all around you. I would have done anything it took to get you to talk to me.” Duncan tightened his grip on her fingers, his eyes staring at her intently. I could see your wings. “I can’t believe I found you, baby. In all the world, we found each other. But I think that we were meant to. I think we would have always found each other. There’s no way we could be kept apart.”

They let go of each other at the same time, but Kenzie could still feel the gold string that extended between them. It’s always there. It always has been. It always will be. Nothing will break it. Not even death.

“I think the dreams mean something,” Kenzie said to him. She gazed at the pasta and vegetables simmering down, breathed in the spicy scent of it as Duncan stirred, listening to her, not speaking. “I think they’re about who we used to be--or, who we’re going to be? I think we are them. I think those things happened or are happening or...something. I think if we find the right person, I dunno, the right psychic or whatever you want to call it, they can tell us who those people are. The people we used to be.”

“I’m sort of afraid to know, Kenz. There’s something about all of it that really unnerves me.” Duncan turned the stove off, using a long pair of tongs to scoop the pasta and veggies on the plates. Wow, that really was so easy, Kenzie thought. I love it when you cook for me. Love you, love you, love you. “I feel like there’s something dark hidden in all of it, dark for me, I mean. Like whoever I used to be was...I dunno. That I was a bad person. Worse than anything I’ve been in this life, and I--I really haven’t been a saint.”

Kenzie let her fingers drift down his arm--when Duncan turned to her she could see that his eyes were clouded with vague pain.

“Duncan. You aren’t a bad person. You are going to do wonderful things--you’re going to help thousands of people, baby. And I’m going to help you. Duncan, listen to me.” Kenzie’s hands went to his cheeks--Duncan turned into her palm, kissed it, his eyes closing. “You are good and sweet and kind and your soul is so beautiful and I love you so much, forever and ever. Whatever you used to be, it doesn’t matter now. What matters is what you are now. And I will love you no matter what. I swear I always will.”

“You’ve fucking saved my life, Mackenzie Stone.”

Duncan opened his eyes, staring into her as she let go of him, as she reached her hands down to their plates, passing his to him, twisting her fork immediately around the pasta and blowing on the steam. She popped her fork into her mouth, his gaze unnerving her as it always did--filling her nerves and her thoughts with his blue flames, his endless desire for her. She chewed and swallowed. Ugh, delicious. Everything he cooks is perfect.

“I didn’t. You saved yourself. I just gave you a little push in the right direction.”

“It was you, baby. It was all you.”

Kenzie leaned up to him, Duncan leaned down, and his lips were warm and soft and his mouth still tasted of her sex. The clouded quality of his gaze seemed to have dissipated, and his expression was calm and adoring of her.

“Let’s go in the bed, baby. Let’s go eat in bed and listen to the rain.”

Duncan went to the study to get a bottle of wine--Kenzie had taken his plate back from him and brought them both carefully through the bedroom, loving the quiet quality of the shadowy light today in the penthouse, her eyes lingering on her white and pink peonies on the coffee table, then on Athena’s bent head as she passed the statue, bathed in umbrage. She settled onto the bed, balancing the plates carefully and setting them on the black duvet, then she angled her phone down onto their dinner and posted the two photos together on her Instagram--get yourself a boo who can cook like @duncanshepherd, she typed. She noticed River had made a post about their interview today, including a side-angle photo, clearly one River had taken with her phone, of the two of them posing towards Anna--met Annette Shepherd, Duncan Shepherd and Mackenzie Stone today, and these two are serious #couplegoals. Look for my editorial in @vanityfair in a few weeks and @annapeterson’s breathtakingly gorgeous photos of them. #duckenzie #bestcoupleever There were over 3,000 comments under the post--Kenzie went to her profile and saw that she had over 2.5 million followers now. Sheesh. She went out of the app, feeling dazed and a bit afraid of it again, opening her text messages as Duncan came into the bedroom, two of his beautiful Waterford wine glasses clutched in one hand, a bottle opener in the other, and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon with a handwritten label pressed under his arm.

Clairebear: Kenzie Lou, voila, the gown of a goddess. And clothing fit for a prince. Kenzie quickly angled her phone so Duncan couldn’t see the screen--Claire had sent her multiple pictures of their finished Gala looks, and her breath caught in her lungs. Oh my god. Morgan has outdone herself. I can’t believe how beautiful this is. I’m going to feel like a queen. The paps are going to lose their shit. Gold in the darkness. Gold for you, my love. Duncan’s jacket was exquisite--Morgan had made the metallic gold that dripped from it look painted, as though from a brush held by Van Gogh. Kenzie’s eyes skirted up to Duncan, unable to hide her wide smile.

“Baby, our Gala looks, oh my god. Wait till you see my dress.”

“I’m going to fucking die when I see it, I already know. Everyone will. I can’t wait for everyone to see--to truly see how radiant you are. They won’t be able to look away.” Duncan rested the bottle on the nightstand on his side, deftly uncorking it, pouring the dark red wine into the glasses. He handed one to her, sliding onto the duvet carefully so as not to upend his plate there, leaning down to kiss her, his hair falling on his brow. My warrior prince. Michael the archangel, too beautiful for human eyes. Hades, his eyes burning with blue flame, ever desirous of me.

“You’re going to look beautiful too. You always do. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen. Why do you think I said yes as soon as you asked me to come home with you,” Kenzie laughed. “We’d been talking for what, ten minutes?”

Duncan was spooling pasta around his fork, his radiantly happy smile melting the center of Kenzie’s heart into warm toffee. “If you had said no, I think I would have died right there of an utterly broken heart.”

“That smile alone. My Prince. They should paint you.”

“That reminds me, Kenz. I want to commission a painting. Of us. One of me and you. One we can hang in the garden house I’m getting for you when the company reverts to me.”

Kenzie’s breath caught. Duncan Shepherd, my billionaire boyfriend, wants to commission a painting of us. Like we’re a king and queen. To put in the house he’s going to buy for me. Fuck, Kenzie. Here you go, another reminder that you’re not in Kansas anymore. You really, really fucking aren’t.

“Dunny--I. Fuck.”

“You said you wanted a garden house more than anything, baby. Your eyes were shining and your face was glowing, and you were so beautiful, telling me about your dreams. Well. I want to give you everything you’ve ever wanted. I told you before and I’ll say it as many times as I have to until you understand that I really meant it. That I mean it. That I will.” He reached for his wine glass and clinked it against hers, drinking deeply, as if in need of the rich wine’s heady courage. Kenzie swallowed, her heart having floated into her throat, stealing her breath and her words and bringing tears into her eyes again.

“I’m sorry I cry so much lately,” she said, finally, and could feel her lips trembling as she did. “But tears seem to be easier than words these days. I don’t know what to say, Duncan.”

“Say you’ll marry me if I ask you.”

“Fuck, Duncan.” Kenzie felt tears course down her cheeks now, one from each eye. She saw the flash of her imaginings again--Duncan pushing a ring down onto her finger, her pushing one onto his (his beautiful hand, wearing the proof of his devotion to me always from that day on), thousands of flowers, Claire in a beautiful velvety bridesmaid dress, Momby giving a speech that would send everyone into a wild fit of laughter, the sweetness of his arms as they danced for the first time as husband and wife, surrounded by a hundred fairy lights. At last, my love has come along, my lonely days are over, and life is like a song...

“I won’t if you don’t want me to, I know, it’s wildly soon--but--but Kenzie. Oh, baby. I just--I want to ask you so much. It feels so right to ask you. I can’t stop thinking about it. It feels so right to want to be with you always that way. I want to give you my name and all its protections, everything. If you’d have me.” He had lowered his plate onto his lap, and they were both very quiet now, looking at each other in the gray light of the clouded, late afternoon, Duncan in his dark shirt and sweatpants, Kenzie in her little silken pyjamas, listening to the rain falling overhead and against the windows. Kenzie realized she was holding her breath, and let it out in a shuddering wave toward him. The most beautiful boy in all the world wants to marry me. Kansas is so far away, and I think it always will be now. I think life is going to be so insanely beautiful now for as long as I’m alive, and I can’t bear how it makes me feel. To be loved so utterly is overwhelming. To love someone this much is like a long dagger in my heart, and I worship its pain.

“Dunny,” she whispered. “Duncan. Ask me when I don’t expect it. Ask me on a random day. One of the beautiful days we have ahead of us. But I will say yes. Yes. I will. I love you.”

Duncan didn’t say anything--Kenzie could see the emotion gathered in his eyes, and knew he was as overcome as she was in this moment. He nodded, his hand coming to his jaw and along his bottom lip, then brought his fork back up to his mouth. Kenzie breathed carefully, willing her tears to dry. She remembered Momby’s text, and looked down at it, sniffing, wiping at her cheeks.

Mom: Look what just arrived via private messenger. To say I’m surprised is a bit of an understatement. Does this mean you finally weaseled your way into Annette Shepherd’s heart, my Kenzie Lou?

Attached was a photo of a gold envelope with black swirling print in the center. Madeline Stone, and then a second photo of the card inside it, where embossed gold print read: To: Ms. Madeline Stone. Your presence is cordially requested at 4th annual Shepherd Freedom Foundation Gala, on June 7th, 20XX. The theme for this year is GOLD IN THE DARKNESS: the juxtaposition of light and shadow in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Attire is to strictly adhere to theme. Please bring this invitation to the event. We look forward to seeing you. Most sincere regards--the Shepherd family.

Kenzie squealed and held the phone out to Duncan, wiggling her knees back and forth against the bed. He squinted at it for a moment, then he let out a laugh that made the hairs on Kenzie’s arms rise, the sound of it wildly beautiful to her.

“Oh, baby. Fuck yes. I’ve missed Madeline like crazy. I don’t know what you did to my mom today, but fuck, it really fucking worked.”

“Dunny. I’m so fucking happy. This pasta you made it so good. I love you and the rain and this bed and this wine and everything.” Kenzie glanced to the Mirror that watched them in its regal, mysterious way, reflecting them in the gray shadow of the now-stormy day--the chain glinted down, winking in the low light. She was struck by how ethereal they looked in the reflection--my eyes look almost gold. She felt Duncan’s mind drift against hers. They do. They looked like that last night, too, baby. They looked like that while I was fucking you. They looked like that in the darkness. Gold in the darkness. You.

Duncan was finishing the pasta on his plate--he set it on the nightstand, finishing off the rest of the wine in his glass, then leaned across the bed to press a soft little kiss on her lips. Kenzie could feel a wave of sleepiness washing over her, and she handed him her plate and glass, which he moved to the stand as well. Kenzie folded against Duncan with relief as he eased them both down to the pillow, not bothering to get under the covers--the penthouse was cool but not cold, the temperature in the room dry and comfortable now that they were no longer wet from the rain. We’ll just sleep for a little while, Kenzie thought to him. Just for an hour or so. God, taking a nap with you baby, just sleeping with you this way, I love you so much…

Duncan’s nose and mouth were pressed into the back of her hair, arms enfolding her, his hands clasping her fingers which were nestled between her breasts. She could feel him, feel the sweetness of the thoughts he was drifting towards sleep inside--he was thinking about them getting married, thinking of flowers in her hair, thinking of her saying yes to him, thinking of a ring with a huge round moonstone, the color of sweet cream and iridescent like a rainbow as it caught the imaginary light. A moon for my little moonbeam, my moonlight, my beautiful moonlove, my moon, my sunlight, my starlight, my evening mood, my Ariadne, my Persephone, my baby, angel, my dearest love, body of my body, soul of my soul…

------

When Kenzie surfaced back to reality, it was from another dream. In this one she had been in a huge, terribly beautiful chair of gold, some kind of intricate, whirling golden sceptre extending from her hand. A throne, she knew. My throne. Duncan was kneeling before her from her place on a raised dais, and he was the impossibly strange, ethereal Duncan who had imperceptible wings, long, flowing golden hair, eyes like the blue nebulas, cosmic and infinite. He’d been gazing at her with eyes that told her he was lost to her--my Duncan sometimes looks at me that way, Kenzie had thought, knowing. But when this happened, it was for the first time, and she knew that, too. This was the first time he saw me. The first time any Duncan ever saw me. It was before time began; before the wheel of the universe had begun to spin. In this place, at this moment, the wheel started to turn. Because he saw me. And he knew that I was the beginning and the end and also that I was infinitely his; that he was infinitely mine. That we would forever belong to each other. For all ages. For all of time and beyond time.

Duncan stirred, his arms still around her--the bedroom was dark but for the moon in the window, almost totally full (the day after tomorrow, the Gala, the full moon), and it was deeply quiet, the rain having slowed to an almost imperceptible drizzle. Kenzie turned towards him and he nuzzled his face against her neck, sighing. “What time is it, baby?” she murmured into him. She felt his head fall back to look at the nightstand.

“Shit, it’s already 11. We slept for a long time, baby. We must have been tired.”

“I’m still tired, baby.” Kenzie leaned her face into the softness of his shirt in the dark--wanna fuck you, baby, but also wanna sleep, she thought against him. His hand stroked through her hair, bunched it at the base of her skull as his fingers grasped her against him.

“Baby, were you having the same dream?” he asked, his mouth pressing gently to her forehead. “You were on a throne. You were so magnificent. So incredibly beautiful. There are no words for how beautiful you looked.”

“Yes, baby. I was having that dream too. You were kneeling to me. You were too beautiful to be human. You were like a god.”

“I do. I do kneel to you. Should we get ready for bed, Kenz? We can fuck again tomorrow, baby, we can fuck when I get home and tell you about my day with the President, and you tell me about what you did, every detail, everything.” His voice was soft in the dark and Kenzie dreaded the moment he would have to switch the lamp on--I can feel him so well this way, feel his colors in the dark. We don’t need our eyes to see each other, I can see him, I can see every little fiber of his soul when he’s holding me and speaking to me so sweetly.

“Uh huh, yes, please.” Duncan let go of her, and a moment later the bedroom flooded with the low lamplight. Kenzie sat up, dipping her feet down the side of the bed, turned away from the Mirror, yawning, stretching her arms up to the ceiling. Duncan was gathering their plates and wine glasses, moving out towards the kitchen with them. I wonder what will happen tomorrow with Claire Underwood, Kenzie thought to his back, rubbing her eye with a sleepy hand, then remembering all the makeup she was still wearing, wincing as mascara stung under her eyelid. She went to the bathroom, tying her tawny hair back with a tie she’d left on the sink at some point, squeezing face cleanser into her hand, scrubbing it into her cheeks and eyebrows, washing the day away. Another very long day. We’re not done with those yet. But oh god, the way he fucked me today. The way we are starting to be able to anticipate each other’s needs, the way we can speak to each other in the throes of it, that’s beyond anything I ever imagined. True Soulmates. That must be what everyone sees--they don’t know they see it, but that’s why people react to us together the way they do. They see that we’re Soulmates. That we really, truly are.

Kenzie scrubbed her teeth as Duncan came up beside her, pressing his mouth against her hair. “Wait till you see the lake at the cabin. It’s so clear, on days when the sky is blue it’s like it fell into the water, like it’s liquid sky. We can swim in it or take the canoe out. We can build a bonfire, Kenz, howl at the moon.”

“I wanna roast marshmallows and read ghost stories to each other.” She spit in the sink and smiled, glancing at him in the mirror, her face damp, his expression sleepy. My sleepy Prince. I’d wake you up with kisses, but I just wanna go to bed with you and fall back down into the dream where you kneeled before me, your eyes deep galaxies of worship.

“You got it, baby. You should find some that look good tomorrow and order them for us to bring along. And anything else you think we should bring. We’ll take the picnic basket and eat lunch every day under the trees. We should get used to it, we’ll be doing it all the time when we have the garden house.”

“Ugh, that’s too beautiful, baby. I can’t even imagine that. The garden house.” Kenzie watched him brush his teeth, loving the way he scrubbed with broad, even strokes, loving the squint of his eyes as he concentrated, loving the rise and fall of his arms and the little movements of his fingers. You’re so calm about it, but my heart is full to bursting with you. With what you’re promising me. With all my dreams coming true.

“Soon you won’t need to imagine it. Soon, it’ll be real. It’ll be ours. We’ll find the perfect house, tucked away somewhere quiet and serene, no neighbors, just nature and the horses and me and you. You can scream as loud as you want when we fuck and nobody will hear, we can fuck outside under the stars and nobody will see us but the gods.”

“They’ll like watching. The gods are perverse.” Kenzie pulled her hair out of the tie, shaking it out around her shoulders again.

“They brought us together. I’m grateful to them.”

“Maybe we brought ourselves together. When I was dreaming, I thought: this is the first time I ever saw you, this is the first time I knew you were my beloved. Did you feel that way, baby?”

“Yes, Kenzie. I knew that too. I knew it was before time had...before time had really started. Before the universe had begun. I don’t really know what that means. But I knew that.”

“Uh huh. Me too, Dunny. Me too.”

He tucked his toothbrush back in the glass on the rim of the sink, Kenzie’s beside it (hers was orange, his dark blue; together, as it should be), then pulled her into his arms, picking her up at the waist, carrying her out of the bathroom easily. Kenzie looped her ankles behind his back, hands drifting around his neck. He threw her down softly, his lips finding hers again, and Kenzie felt the deep, immersive need for sleep crash down over them again. “Sleep, baby,” she whispered against his mouth. “Sleep with me, let’s go back to the dreams, I wanna be there with you, in the dream world.”

“Yes, sweet Kenzie.”

Kenzie didn’t remember falling asleep again, and though she knew she dreamt again with him, dreamt once more of that ethereal, lovely place where his eyes looked like nebulas and his hair was long and golden, she couldn’t remember what had happened in the dream the next morning, and she knew he didn’t, either. She only knew they’d dreamt it together. As it should be.

-----

It was still cloudy the next morning, but the rain was over, and Kenzie woke to find she had turned toward Duncan in sleep, so their faces hovered close. In the half-space of waking she watched the tiny shivering of his eyelids, the dip of his lips, parted slightly, his hand under his cheek. For a long moment she admired him; then Kenzie sat up, desperately craving a coffee right away today. The room was cool, the light still quite low. She glanced at his silvery alarm clock; it was just after 7.

As Kenzie moved into the kitchen she felt a warm burst of air drift through the doorway of the dining room, and realized: we left the window open all night. She shivered a little in the draft, her eyes glancing over the toys they’d left scattered on the cherrywood table; she grasped the edge of the window and pushed it closed, twisting the lever so it locked into place, her thoughts falling over the picture of Duncan using the fleshlight on himself, the wildly erotic expression in his eyes. Kenzie imagined the nights he’d used it alone; my beautiful Prince alone in his penthouse castle, overcome with longing, using it on his gorgeous cock in the silence of his lonely bed. She had no doubt he’d enjoyed many partners in the past, but she seemed unable to put a face on any of them, and they seemed indistinct to him now, too, when she’d felt his thoughts drift there--even Misha and Evan, the two people he’d told her he loved before. The pleasures of the flesh. Not meaningless, but--where is true pleasure without this love. It’s as though they never existed; fading shadows in light of the intensity of this love.

As she passed the table coming back, her hand reached out to fall over the leather strap of her choker, unbuckled still and left to wait quietly until they had need of it again. I love this. I love the feeling of Duncan pressing it into my skin. I love the look in his eyes when he sees me wearing it. I love the strain of it, the pressure, the slickness of the leather, the sound of the buckle as he closes it and pulls it tight. It’s a chain between us, a chain of such terrible sweetness. Kenzie moved her fingers along the silicone cock ring next--imagined Duncan wearing it in agonizing anticipation all night tomorrow. Surrounded by hundreds of other people in their finest, and we’ll still only be able to think of each other.

Kenzie made two coffees with Duncan’s imposing black Keurig, thoughts drifting over their beach day, the sweetness of his mouth, the feeling of his tall form huddled against her. When Duncan buys the Post, maybe I can write something about the company and we can publish it. Something about how it’s changing, and what our goals will be--how we’re going to change the Foundation, and move towards sustainability. I wonder if Duncan can convince Claire Underwood that she’s not his enemy. I doubt that will be easy. I think she and Annette have been on bad terms for a long time. Kenzie worried vaguely about Duncan’s meeting. I have a strange feeling about it, a nagging that wouldn’t dissipate. I feel like something is going to happen today, something that’s going to hurt him. The nagging suspicion filled Kenzie’s mouth with acidity, made her shiver despite the coolness returning to the penthouse now that she’d shut the forgotten window. I want to give him my courage, wrap him in that thin gold armor that protects him from all harm. But I think there are some things I can’t shield him from. Some things, I think, I can only give him comfort for. I think this might be one of those things. Be patient, Kenz. Be the constant thing for him, as he is your constant thing.

Kenzie came back through the bedroom, Duncan’s back still turned to her in sleep. She set the coffees down, watching him for a moment, hesitating, then Kenzie lifted her silken top over her head, pushed her shorts down, and climbed onto the mattress, naked and breaking out into goosebumps. She slid a hand down his arm, down into the dip above his hip, and Duncan stirred, eyes coming up to fall over her, turning his head. Kenzie grasped his fingers and lifted them up to her breast--his hand stayed there and began to knead at her, fondling between her nipple, back and forth. Neither of them spoke.

Good morning, angel, she heard him drift into her. You’re so fucking lovely. You’re naked.

Uh huh, baby. I made coffee, but it’s gonna get cold. Come fuck your baby. She leaned close to him, her mouth hovering near, but as Duncan tried to kiss her she pulled away, out of the grip of his fingers at her breast, and slid off the bed, stepping towards the bathroom. Duncan immediately seemed to lift away from sleep and came after her, pulling his black tee shirt off and to the ground, pushing his sweatpants off. Hard as usual, Kenzie glanced back at him, pulling the shower door open, turning the knob so hot water immediately cascaded onto her, but leaving it slightly open to receive him. She kept her back turned for a moment until she felt his hands come down, insistent, at the back of her elbows--then she turned, and immediately his mouth was crashing down against hers, his tongue insistently brushing against hers, his fingers finding the lips of her labia and lifting into her so she whined into his kiss. Duncan pushed her back so her shoulder blades knocked into the glass shower wall--the steam was rising already and his eyes were wildly tender, needy, as if he was half-stuck in the dream he’d just left in sleep.

“Are you my baby,” she whispered to him, and Duncan pressed his mouth down to the soft space of her jaw beside her chin, lifting her thigh with one hand to open the space between her legs to him.

“Yes,” and he pushed into her and filled her utterly, his groan echoing from the circle of steam and heat that enclosed them. “Your--baby--totally yours, Kenzie--forever--your baby is gonna fuck you good, make you come--” and she was whining, bucking her hips up into his cock to receive him as he lifted her, his thumb pressed into her clit to coax her (come, angel, come), the hot water’s insistent rhythm building their lust (she could feel his, like a wave, rising with hers) and Kenzie looked down to watch his thick length bury itself inside her, back and forth, fill me up, baby, Duncan, fill me with you, only you, just you, and he was lifting her other thigh up so he grasped her, hovering, over him, her toes curling as they knocked into his sides, her hands (god they look so small on his skin, on his neck, like tiny insect wings) coming to grip his neck, to choke him, to hold herself up, and his mouth fell open, his wet hair falling onto his forehead, and his eyes fluttered, and he gripped her, fingers tightening enough to leave bruises on her skin, as he jerked and his cock was buried in her utterly and he didn’t move again, steadied, waited, their bodies so close that Kenzie truly felt she didn’t know where they came together, only that it felt more right than anything else, that it was truly her Fate to be pressed irrevocably against him this way. He kissed her, his mouth open, tasting her, and then she felt his moan vibrate into her, and Kenzie pressed two fingers into her clit as her other hand grasped the skin of his neck, and she said, clearly, demanding: “Duncan, come right now, come with me--” and they were gasping into each other’s mouths, Duncan’s arms shaking as he held her up to take all of his release inside her, and she felt the shudder of both their sexes clutching the other, and Kenzie felt once more that she didn’t know where Duncan began, where she ended, where her body broke away from his, but felt that his length inside her was the true state of being for both of them, the one true contentment.

Duncan let her down, planting a dozen kisses on her mouth and cheeks and hair, and they showered quietly together after that--Kenzie could see the solemnity in him, see that he felt the strange thing coming, too, whatever it might be. What was it. What was going to happen? But he also seemed to sense that it was unstoppable. I’m here, baby, she thought, catching his blue eyes, holding them. Don’t worry. Don’t be afraid. I’m here. I’m with you even when we’re not together. You know I am. I’ll be thinking of you all day.

Today Kenzie chose a little black v-neck dress with sleeves that tied on the upper arm; it was covered in print of tiny golden flowers and dots and fell only to her thighs. Summer is here and summer is for tiny dresses, she thought, slipping on her black triple moon necklace (Fates, three-headed goddess, bless him today), watching Duncan watch her, loving the intensity of his eyes, loving his love for her there. She buckled on a simple pair of black heeled sandals and sipped at her coffee, long cold, watching him. It was going to be warm today, but Duncan had chosen a long-sleeved black mock neck shirt and a tailored black blazer; his uniform, Kenzie thought, coming up to him, drifting a hand down the lapel as he buckled on his black Movado. It’s like armor.

“I’m nervous, baby,” he whispered, looking down, sighing. “I suddenly feel like this meeting is somehow a mistake. Mom doesn’t know I’m meeting with Claire Underwood--nobody does, honestly. And I have no idea what she’ll say to me. I want to help...I want to fix the rupture between the White House and Shepherd Unlimited. But maybe Claire doesn’t. Maybe I’m alone in that. Maybe I won’t say what she wants to hear.”

“You have to try, right?” Kenzie reached up to his cheek, I’m so in love with the stubble here, it’s as innate a part of him as anything else, I think I’d be heartbroken if ever if he decided to shave it away more often. The feeling of it in my fingers is the deepest comfort to me. She breathed in the close smell of him; cedar, jasmine, woods in the rain. His hand drifted down her hair, his lips pressing to her temple.

“Just think of my gold all around you today, baby,” she whispered, and felt him nod against her. “I’m there with you, even though you won’t be able to see me. I’ll be invisible, but I’ll be there. I was thinking--when you buy the Post I can write something, something about the new model for the company, and we can set the record straight, publically.”

Duncan’s smile melted down onto her. “That would be perfect, Kenzie. If you’d do that, it would be such a comfort to me.”

“Then you know I will. I love you, baby.” Kenzie pressed her cheek into the warmth of his chest, her head against his ribcage. She could hear his heart beating too fast against her ear; she pressed into him, pressed a wave of love, and she heard it slow a little, to her satisfaction. You are not a bad person, she thought. You are beautiful and good, and you were before we met, and I reminded you--I pushed the shadows away from your heart, and kissed it with abandon.

Duncan’s hand came to her cheek, holding her against him, and their minds drifted against each other until Kenzie heard her phone chime on the nightstand--Samuel and Harris, waiting downstairs, time for work, Kenzie, time for strangers to snap photos of both of you, time for paps to chase you to the door, the world always waiting for them, the day ready to pull them away from each other again. She’d be driving with them alone today, too--Duncan had work to do at home before the meeting, finishing correspondence with Gala coordinators, various episode and app duties for Gardner Analytics.

“I’ll find some good ghost story books while I’m at work today,” Kenzie said, slinging her satchel over her shoulder as Duncan walked with her to the penthouse door. He went to a cupboard in the kitchen, pulling down a packaged granola bar, opening the fridge and retrieving a golden pear from the middle shelf, which always seemed to have an abundance of fruit--he came up to her and slipped them inside her satchel, giving her a chaste kiss as he did. His eyes still looked worried, hazy--but a little of the feeling she’d pushed into him seemed to be calming him now, seemed to linger, and that was good.

“Do you get scared easily, baby?” She trailed two fingers down the dark blazer over his arm.

“As a matter of fact, I do. When I was little I accidentally saw The Exorcist on TV and needed a night light for the next three years. Now you know my other weakness.”

“Wahaha!” Kenzie hopped on her heels, advancing on him, tickling her fingers into his sides. Duncan grinned. “Stop, fuck, Kenzie, don’t--”

“I’ll read you ghost stories and scare you and then I’ll tickle you to death--” Kenzie was murmuring up into his ear, her hands still flitting over him, and Duncan’s much larger, stronger hands came out to grip her under her elbows, forcing her closer to him, his mouth searching for her, finding her cheek, the space under her ear. “Ugh, don’t, baby, just kiss me, I can’t wait to kiss you under the stars, I can’t wait, we’ll sleep until noon every day--”

“Soon, baby, so soon,” Kenzie heard her phone chime again, knew she was going to be late if she didn’t leave now, but she ached at the knowledge that she’d have to leave his cocoon in a moment, leave the circle of his scent, his body, his mouth. “Kiss me, Dunny, then I have to go--” and Duncan leaned down and kissed her, his lips flush to her, and she thought let this moment linger with me all day, let him feel it too when he’s afraid and she pulled away from the taste of him with agony, and ran away from him, her hair tossing back, afraid that if she didn’t, if she looked into his eyes again, she simply wouldn’t be able to go at all.

--------

Kenzie tried to focus on her work; it had been several days since she’d really been present at the Post, after all, and she felt vague and far away from it, disconnected from the usual flow of emails, copy, and writing anything in general, worrying over Duncan’s meeting, thinking about the Gala tomorrow, continually going back to the photos on her phone from Claire, feeling her nerves thrill every time her eyes fell over the dress--it’s truly spectacular; I’m going to FEEL so beautiful in it. We both will--we’ll be together. And everyone will see. Everyone. Her stomach dropped, did somersaults, and she felt hot and cold at once. Kenzie realized that she was now, truly, beginning to feel as though she belonged in Duncan’s world. And my connection to this one is fading, isn’t it. Soon, the door to the other things I’m supposed to do is going to open. And I have to go through. I have to help Duncan turn the company into something good. And I think--as much as I’ve always loved being a journalist--I think I need to write my book. I think, now that I’ve found him, now that we’re finally together. I think it’s time. Like this was the thing I was waiting for, the thing I needed to inspire me to do what I’ve always wanted to do.

She gazed over Duncan’s Instagram profile, absently, turning away from her emails; oh my god, I hadn’t realized he took a picture of me in the car yesterday. And it’s lovely. She read his caption, her face flushing with heat. On our way to talk to @vanityfair, did you know my @kenzielouwho has a beautiful singing voice? #comeletmeloveyou #letmegivemylifetoyou There were thousands of comments on it now (Kenzie realized Duncan’s profile now had over 9 million followers--god, what’s going to happen when we announce the changes in the company, she thought, balking) and over 200k likes, and she winced as she peeked at them, noticing the #duckenzie hashtag almost alarmingly often. But most of the comments were sweet, lovely, adoring: #duckenzie are legitimately the most beautiful love of all time, while many others were openly lustful: #duckenzie lol more like #fuckenzie, I want these two humans to sit on my face.

We have some real, uh, fans out there, this is so fucking surreal, Kenzie thought. God, if you had told the Kenzie from just a month ago that this would be her life now, I would’ve told you you were insane. Old Kenzie would have burst out laughing if you’d told her she’d have a bodyguard hanging out with her all day for the rest of her life or--I don’t fucking know, for a long time, she thought, glancing up at Harris. So that’s been an odd thing to adjust to. But I’m starting to get used to him being around. He was staring down at his phone, his sepia-colored eyes smiling at the screen from his seat by the elevators. Maybe he’s talking to Claire, and the thought made her smile. She went back and forth for awhile about mentioning Duncan’s plans to buy the Post to Candice, but decided it was still probably best to postpone that conversation until after things were more settled.

There had been a large crowd of paps outside One Franklin Square today too, as seemed to be the new normal now (Duncan seemed to think their interest would fade over time, but something tells me that time is far away), but Kenzie no longer felt the twinge of fear that she’d initially experienced; I’m gonna make them do what I want them to do, she thought. If I have to have them around, I’m going to get them to work around me, be respectful of me. I can accept this if it’s the price I have to pay for Duncan and I to be together.

She’d paused today to talk to Sissy Conners, who had been wearing a very tight beige bodycon dress and many tiny gold necklaces with heart charms--Kenzie had noticed her nails were dark purple when the other woman had pushed a microphone out under her chin, and she quietly, calmly answered questions for a moment, mentally humming the din of voices and cameras, plastering a sweet smile on her face, taking off her round sunglasses to look the other woman in the eye. They love me. They’re already a lot calmer than they have been lately--it was how I was with those girls. It affected them. They saw that and they loved it. Not sure how long this will last, but I think I’m getting the hang of it, anyway. After a few questions about their Instagrams and Annette, Sissy had asked her “and who are you wearing to the Gala tomorrow?” in a simpering voice.

“Morgan Winthrop,” Kenzie had replied proudly. “And Duncan is too. She’s a close personal friend and what she’s done for us for the Gala is truly extraordinary, I can’t wait for everyone to see tomorrow.” Kenzie had turned and ducked through the doorway after that--exposure for Morgan, but leave them hanging a little.

Around lunch Kenzie asked Harris to go on a walk with her to her favorite corner store, and she dipped her round sunglasses back over her eyes, his large form hovering near her shoulder as she perused the aisles, choosing a chicken salad sandwich on multigrain bread and a little fruit salad with grapes, watermelon and pineapple, asking him shyly to hold two bottles of Evian in his large fingers. She watched him carefully check the aisles as she walked down them--a tall young man with squarish glasses and tattoos standing by rows of snacks was staring at her intently, knowingly, until he noticed Harris, then he nervously looked away.

“Harris,” she asked, glancing at him over the rim of the sunglasses, smiling coyly. “Did you talk to Claire?” A woman with a small toddler in her arms walked past them, her eyes peering at Kenzie intently. Got another one here, Kenzie thought, but the woman kept going, giving her a shy smile and a little wave. Kenzie smiled back at her, then looked back at Harris.

Her bodyguard, huge and imposing as he was, blushed instantly down at her, his infectious, friendly grin bursting over his face. “I certainly did, Miss Mackenzie. We’re going out on Saturday. To a jazz club I’m partial to. Miss Claire is kind enough to humor me there.”

“Ugh, yes, Harris, yes!” Kenzie couldn’t stop herself; she hopped back on her heels, then threw her arms around his large form, feeling her hair toss around the back of her arms, almost dropping the packaged food she was holding. He laughed, hesitated, then said, “I don’t know what it is, Miss Mackenzie, but somehow it feels as though you were a great help in all of this--an essential help to me. Thank you for that.”

“Harris, I’d do anything for you and I’d do anything for Claire. You’ll see--you’ll see how wonderful she is. Yes, yes, yes! God, that makes me so happy.” Kenzie thought of her dear Claire; Claire’s open smile and her tear-prone eyes, her pink lipstain, her blonde shag, her colorful patterned dresses. My Clairebear and Harris together. Ugh, I love it so much. All my dreams are coming true, even the dreams I have for the people I love so dearly.

A couple passed her, the girl with long dark hair and a bright smile in a pink dress with a full skirt and a denim jacket, the boy with a sandy-colored beard and a graphic tee for a beer company. They were chatting amiably, looking along the shelf of packaged snacks beside her, when the girl glanced over at her and made a gasping sound. “Oh my god,” Kenzie heard her whisper to the guy beside her. “That’s Mackenzie Stone, isn’t it? Oh fuck, oh shit.” “Go ask her for a photo,” the boy whispered audibly. Kenzie shyly tucked the hair falling over her shoulder behind her ear. She saw that Harris was watching them carefully. The girl glanced at her, noticed that she had noticed them, and blushed, her eyes blinking rapidly.

“Are you--are you Mackenzie Stone?”

Kenzie smiled a little, nervously. “Yeah. Yes. Hi.”

“Oh my god, your Instagram is absolutely my favorite thing, you and Duncan Shepherd, like wow, can I--can I take a photo with you? I love your dress so much, oh that photo he took of you yesterday, that was so beautiful--”

“Sure, yeah, okay. I love your dress too--you look so cute with that denim jacket.” Kenzie smiled at her, taking her sunglasses off, letting the girl dip her arm around her waist, both of them turning to the girl’s friend as he snapped a photo with his phone. God, what even is my life now. Everyone I’ve made eye contact with in this store so far has seemed to recognize me.

“Thank you so much, Kenzie! Duckenzie forever!” The girl smiled brightly at her, her expression elated, and she and her friend walked away--Kenzie could see the girl whispering excitedly into his ear, looking down at the photo he had taken of them, gleeful.

“Miss Mackenzie, you are so kind to everyone. More people would do well to be like you.” Harris was looking at her with an expression that Kenzie couldn’t quite read--adoring was the word that came to mind, and she pushed it away.

“I just think--if I saw someone who I really like and asked them for a photo, I’d hope they’d say yes,” Kenzie blushed. “I’m--this is all so new. But people have been really lovely. I think people are generally okay. Most people are good, they just--they just need someone to be kind to them, too.”

“As you say, Miss Mackenzie.”

She stepped towards the checkout counter and Harris followed close behind--Kenzie took the lunch items he’d chosen for himself and put everything together, the cashier ringing it up as he began to protest. “It’s Duncan’s card anyway,” Kenzie laughed a little. “He wants me to use it, so I’m using it.” The cashier was an older woman Kenzie knew well--Tippy, who always wore huge glasses and had her hair in two long braids, her gold tooth glinting at Kenzie as she smiled.

“Oh hello there, Miss Mackenzie Stone,” she laughed. “Glad that you’re still coming around to visit us regular folks, now that you’ve been living in the clouds. Ooo, now look at this card.”

“I really have, Tippy,” Kenzie shook her head. “I can’t believe it myself.”

“You look beautiful today. All that love. Get it, girl.” Tippy handed her a plastic bag with their lunches in it. “But get those Shepherds to share some money with the rest of us.”

“Working on it, Tippy,” Kenzie nodded, and slipped her sunglasses back over her eyes. All that love, indeed.

-------

Kenzie had found a few good ghost story books online between the work she did that day--she’d begun a new editorial on Claire Underwood’s recent nominee to the Supreme Court, undoubtedly another work Annette Shepherd would frown upon (but something happened between Annette and I yesterday, and now I’m not so sure--maybe she can change, too). Kenzie added several to her online cart: a beautifully bound edition of the tales of M.R. James, one edited by a famous horror historian, and one that had been edited by Roald Dahl. She typed her new address into the checkout, shaking her head in wonder again--oh, here you go, the address to my penthouse. Please deliver all packages there in the future. Like, WHAT. Kenzie ordered a few down quilts, a pile of other bedding, and a fireside cooking kit--for all the sleeping and bonfire building, she thought excitedly. I can’t wait to kiss you under the stars, away from the madding crowd, beloved. She went to a few online clothes retailers as well, searching for summer looks; Duncan fucking loves my clothes, which is fine by me. I love clothes too. And that’s what he gave me the card for. I can’t deny that being able to buy whatever I want is fucking amazing. It’s hard to resist.

It was past 5 by then; Kenzie looked at her phone, a sudden wave of apprehension falling over her. No messages from Duncan today. That’s odd. She’d sent him a text a few hours ago, mentioning her shopping with smiling faces and arrow-pierced hearts and ghost emojis. But no reply. That’s not like him. She remembered the strange feeling she’d had this morning, felt the claws of it hook into her mind again. She sent him another text.

Hope everything went okay with You Know Who today, baby. When do you think you’ll be home? What should we do for dinner? Are you with Samuel? I was about to text him, I’m done with work for today.

She gazed at her phone for awhile, heart thumping. Still no reply. She glanced up to Harris in the corner, and he smiled at her, then his expression turned to one of concern at her face. Kenzie stood, slipping her Macbook into her satchel, clutching her phone in a hand that had begun to shake, to her dismay. She stepped up to him, biting her lip.

“Miss Mackenzie, is everything alright?”

“Duncan just hasn’t replied to any of my messages today, which isn’t like him. He had a really important meeting today and now...now I’m worried about him.”

“I’m sure everything is fine, Miss Mackenzie. You know how his meetings are. Sometimes he can’t get out of them for quite awhile. Remember the day of the incident--he said he didn’t have access to his phone.”

“Yeah...but his meeting was around 2. It’s been three hours. Umm. I guess I’ll text Samuel.” Kenzie looked down at her phone, and noticed with an intense wave of relief that she had a text from Duncan, not having noticed her phone was on silent.

Kenzie, something happened. I’m not with Samuel. I have to go talk to my mother and my Uncle. I don’t know how long this is going to take. Just eat dinner without me. I’ll message you when I’m on my way home.

Oh my god, Kenzie thought. This message. Something is really wrong. There was a deeply distressing feeling to the text that made her blood immediately go cold. He’s really upset. What happened. Oh god baby, what happened. Kenzie looked up at Harris and he stood, his large arm immediately coming around her shoulder.

“Miss Mackenzie.”

“I want to go home now, Harris.”

“As you say, Miss Mackenzie. Is Mr. Shepherd alright?”

“I don’t know, Harris. He just sent me a strange message. But I think I need to go home. I think I need to be there when he gets home. I think...I think he needs me.” Something happened that has hurt him very much. What on earth? Kenzie could feel a needling, latent pain in the text, one that made her stomach flip. Oh god, fuck, oh god. What is it. She sent a text to Samuel, and (oh god, thank you Samuel) he replied almost immediately that he was en route, ten minutes away. Kenzie shakily grasped her sunglasses from her bag, pushing them over her eyes. Can’t let the paps see that I’m upset. All the work I’ve been doing to get them on my side would go right out the window with that. Oh my god, I wish Duncan was here. I wish I could hold him right now. God, what happened.

As Samuel had promised, a text dinged through her phone a short while later--Kenzie had replied to Duncan in the meantime (I’ll be home, baby, I love you so much, whatever happened I’m here and I can’t wait to hold you), and now she was chewing her thumbnail, her eyes skirting back and forth from her phone (no reply from Duncan) to Harris. Her bodyguard whisked her downstairs and she moved past the paps who still lingered, covering her face with a shaking hand as Harris shielded her from most of their camera shots--the telltale BMW sat on the curb and Harris held the door for her as she slid into the backseat, Samuel’s kind face gazing at her through the rearview, Harris sliding in beside him quickly, snapping the door as Samuel put his foot on the gas. She felt her heart soothe immediately as she heard the strains of music that pumped through the speakers: oh mirror in the sky, what is love?, can the child within my heart rise above, can I sail through the changing ocean tides, can I handle the seasons of my life…

“Miss Mackenzie, what is wrong.” Samuel’s eyes were knowing, full of empathy. Kenzie slid the sunglasses from her eyes, looking down at her hands as they drifted into rush hour traffic. The afternoon sun dipped behind a cloud and she could feel Harris glancing back at her with concern.

“I don’t know, Samuel. Something happened to Duncan. He had a meeting with the President today--he was so nervous about it, I’ve been so nervous for him--he didn’t message me all day and then he just did, finally, and he sounded terrible--and god I don’t know what happened but I’m so afraid for him--” Kenzie felt her voice crack and she couldn’t stop it, couldn’t stave off the sudden sob that fell from her. She threw her face into her hands, feeling the tears falling through her fingers. “I don’t know why but I just feel so sad for him, I don’t know, I just wish I knew what happened--”

Harris reached a large hand through the partition window, reaching out for her. Kenzie grasped his large fingers, wetting them with her tears, sniffling piteously, closing her eyes, trying to gather herself. Samuel passed Harris a tissue and he dipped it through the window.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, Harris. Thank you, Samuel. I’m sorry. I don’t even know what happened. But I have such a terrible feeling. Like I can feel--whatever it was, whatever happened. I can feel how much it hurts him.”

“You and Mr. Shepherd have a connection unlike anything I have ever seen before,” Samuel said, his voice quiet and soothing. The car drifted finally out of the congestion of the traffic, and smoothly headed to Georgetown. “I do not doubt that you can feel some of what he feels, whether you are near or far from each other. It’s juju between you--the feeling of each other. There are not many in this world with that much feeling for another person. But if you feel that he is full of sadness, I don’t doubt you. You will comfort him. I know you will. You are his bright star.”

“I just wish--I just want him to come home.”

“Be patient, Miss Mackenzie. All things that are meaningful in life are made of hardship. You are together because you will help each other survive the pain of living.”

Kenzie felt too overwhelmed to speak--knew if she tried to, she’d burst into tears again. Samuel turned the dial up on the stereo--Stevie’s voice drifted over Kenzie, soothing, knowing. Well I’ve been ‘fraid of changing, cuz I’ve built my life around you, but time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m gettin’ older too, well I’m...gettin’ older...too…

--------

Anchaly looked up at her with concern as Kenzie walked into the high-rise’s foyer alone--Samuel and Harris had both asked if they could escort her upstairs, but Kenzie shook her head. Honestly, the only person I want to see right now is Duncan--and if I need to cry I should cry now. I need to gather my strength for him. I feel it. He feels alone. I have to reassure him that he isn’t.

“Miss Mackenzie, a package arrived today from Cartier. I had it sent up to the penthouse.”

Kenzie blinked at him from behind her sunglasses, aware that her cheeks were visibly tearstained. Cartier. What. Duncan. More presents. Oh, baby. How I wish you were back so I could fucking hold you.

“Mackenzie. Are you alright?” Anchaly’s face clouded, and he closed The Year of Magical Thinking, which Kenzie could see he was already almost done with.

“I’m--yes, I’m okay. Thanks, Anchaly. When Duncan gets back, tell him I’m home, will you?”

“Of course, Miss Stone.”

Kenzie managed to hold off until she made it inside the elevator--as the gold doors slid shut, she slipped her sunglasses from her eyes, took one look at her tear-streaked face, and began to cry again. She buried her face in her hands and cried--cried all the way to the penthouse door, cried to see the lovely little red boxes that rested quietly on the center island as she shut it behind her. She dared not touch them--whatever they are, I could never look at them without him. Kenzie dropped her satchel to the tile in the kitchen, unbuckling her sandals, still sobbing, her shoulders shuddering with her tears. She felt exhausted--her mind was aching with the sadness she could feel from him, the wave of it sent out, impossibly, through the city, cascading 30 stories up to her. Come home to me, my love, come to me so I can hold you in my arms, she prayed. You aren’t alone, not as long as I’m in this world. Come home, come home.

Before Kenzie even knew what she was doing, she’d collapsed into the quiet black cover of the duvet in the bedroom, barefoot, the hair around her face damp from her crying, and as she clutched the pillow to her tear-soaked face, her sobs began to quiet, and without realizing it, she fell asleep.

-----

She woke to his arms clutching her, his nose against her cheek, his breath ragged in her ear, as if he’d run or held his breath for too long. Kenzie jolted awake--she immediately pressed against him, lifted up into him, immediately twined her fingers around the back of his hair, deep into his burnt amber curls, and a little sound of relief and agony escaped from her throat, muffled against his dark shirt, terribly soft against her, the smell of him (the woods of you, my love) immediately bringing tears into her eyes again. The light was low, but hadn’t yet faded--sunset was seeping into the bedroom, and she could see the hunched shape of him against her, the outline of the sadness she’d felt, a sadness so deep I felt it across the city. I felt your sorrow.

He was so quiet for a moment, his eyes squeezed shut against her, his face down, refusing to look at her--his quietness struck fear into her heart again, and Kenzie whispered “Oh, baby, what happened, please tell me, I felt you, I felt your heart breaking, I can feel it still, I’m here, I’m here--” and he still didn’t speak, just buried his face against her, and she could feel, with wrenching clarity, the dampness of his tears against her shoulder, pattering through the wave of her hair there. He was shuddering into her now--he was truly crying, and she felt the breaking of his heart again, the rending of it, the softness of it dissolving against her. My beloved, your pain is mine, oh Duncan, how I wish I could take this from you, bear it for you, whatever it is, I don’t care, I would take it away if I could.

She held him--the light continued to fade and his tears soaked the back of her dress, soaked her hair, and Kenzie felt her own tears murmuring at the edge of her mind again. She clutched him with all her strength, and Kenzie thought it doesn’t matter my love, cry as long as you need to, with me you can cry, with me your heart can be broken and I will kiss every piece of it and sew it back together.

The minutes wore on--Kenzie stroked Duncan’s hair, stroked down his back, stroked his wet cheek, the corners of his eyes, wiping the dampness away. The pain inside him was jumbled, too loud--she couldn’t find a foothold in it, couldn’t see his thoughts clearly, just their sharpness, just their pain. Finally, his eyes opened to her--the intensity of the hurt she could see reflected in them snatched her breath away. Blue fire, but this fire is like the depth of the flame, the center of it, dying and desperate, lit with painful heat.

“Annette is not my real mother,” Duncan said, and his lip trembled in the fading light of the evening. His eyes burned.

“What.”

“Claire Underwood. I had such a bad feeling today--like I knew she wouldn’t be happy to see me. Like she assumed I was there to betray her. I thought I was asking to see her, but really, she was inviting me in--luring me. Because she thinks I’ll do whatever it takes to bring her down.”

“Baby--what do you mean. What are you talking about?”

“She told me to ask Annette where I came from. She asked me about my first memory with my mother--my first--” Duncan pulled away from her, rushed away from her through the bedroom door. Kenzie went after him, her heart in her mouth--she saw him disappear into his study and ran into the room behind him, hand pressed to her lips.

Her eyes fell on him, leaning over his desk--he was gripping a gold-framed photo that rested there, a photograph Kenzie had noticed the day she stayed home, hanging her photos in the bathroom, organizing her birds beside the Atlas paperweight. In the photo, a younger Annette (the Annette I’ve only glimpsed once or twice, and then only for a moment) was clutching a very small Duncan in her arms, her eyes full of joy, her expression radiant. In the photo Duncan couldn’t have been older than 3 or 4, maybe even younger--his hair was falling back and his little eyes were closed, a giggle of laughter on his face, his cheeks bright. They were both in sweaters--it seemed like it had been a chilly autumn day and the light was sweet and low, almost sepia.

“This is my first memory of her.” Duncan brought it over to her, and Kenzie could see the silent tears still staining his cheeks. “I told Claire about it. I told her that--that this is how I like to think of her. Happy like this. Instead of cold and cruel as she can be so often. And then Claire told me to ask my mother--ask Annette--where I came from. So I went to see her and my Uncle. Bill was angry that I went to see Claire without telling them--he’s not well and he was raving. And then I--I told Annette what Claire had said. And then...then I knew, Kenzie. From the look on her face. I knew. She’s not my mother.”

Oh, Duncan.

“Did she say anything?”

“No. She walked away from me--she told Seth something, something about telling everyone Claire had an abortion when she was younger. Something to blackmail her. In that moment, she didn’t even care enough to explain--she only thought of how to get back at Claire. I couldn’t stay any longer. I couldn’t fucking bear it, baby. I couldn’t--” Duncan tossed the photo onto his desk with a careless, devastated gesture--it cracked against the mahogany surface, and the frame snapped apart, falling face-down.

Suddenly, a wave of hot anger washed over Kenzie, and she wrapped her arms around Duncan’s waist, clutching him against her--he held her tightly, his face against the top of her head, and she could feel the racking of his body as he tried to hold his sobs in. Annette. You’ve never really cared about how Duncan feels--what really matters to him, or how what you do and say affects him, or what really moves him, touches him. About what he loves. You never bothered to try to nurture all the loveliness I see in him. You tried to steel him from the world, but you forgot, or you’ve never known in the first place, that his tenderness is what makes him so easy to love. How could you. How could you be so cold? How could you keep this from him for so long and let him find out from someone who wanted to hurt him?

“Who the fuck am I, Kenzie?” She heard his voice crack; heard the desperate sadness, the loneliness.

“You’re the person I love most in all the world, Duncan.” Kenzie turned her face up to him, looking into his face, aching with the love she felt for him, speaking quietly into him, her words for him and him alone, lost in the loveliness of his face despite the depth of sorrow she could see creasing it--she reached her hand up to his cheek, and he looked down at her, eyes glittering with tears. “You’re my beloved and you are greater to me than every star in the sky. You are the one I love. That’s all I know, and all I need to know.”

“I love you, Kenzie, I love you, but I’m not a fucking Shepherd, I’m nobody, I’m no one, baby--”

“You are not no one. Don’t say that. Without you--I couldn’t--I couldn’t bear anything again without you, Duncan, I don’t love you because you’re a Shepherd, that doesn’t matter and it never did, it never fucking mattered, what matters is you, your soul is what I love--”

She saw his face crumble again--saw his tears glitter as they fell in the fading light.

“Baby--baby, I know what to do.” She stroked at his shoulders, at his arms, his elbows, gently, feeling the warmth of him, the weight of him under the dark fabric. He wiped at his eyes.

“What, baby? Tell me what to do. I’ll do whatever you want. I feel so lost.”

“Shhh. I’m here. Let’s go see Momby. Let’s tell her what happened. I love you, and my Momby loves you, and she’d love to see you, and we can have dinner with her, and you’ll love her warm house and we’ll sit on her deck with her and smoke some weed and watch the moon rise, okay? Let’s go see her.”

He was nodding. “Yes. Yes. I’d really like to see her. I’d really like that. Yes, baby. Yes, please.”

Kenzie grasped his hand, kissed his mouth, his tear-stained cheeks, raising herself to her tip-toes. I’m here baby. I’m here. Together, we’ll survive the pain of living. I promise. Now, let’s go see my Momby, who loves you almost as much as I do. Momby will know what to do.

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witchqueenofthemoon · 5 years

Text

BODY AND SOUL Part 21 (Duncan Shepherd/Mackenzie Stone Millory AU)

BODY AND SOUL MASTERPOST

Author’s Note: Moved several things to Part 22 to make this chapter more concise (table fucking included, but you get fucking in the beginning, so don’t complain!). The album they’re listening to after Thai food is obviously Jefferson Airplane’s absolutely iconic SURREALISTIC PILLOW; the songs are two of my favorites, which indeed play adjacent to each other on the record: TODAY (one of the most beautiful love songs of all time) and COMIN’ BACK TO ME. Please note how careful Duncan is about waking Kenzie up before they fuck; autonomy, people, consent is hot! Their Exalted Selves (which is what I’m gonna refer to their angelic divine other selves as now) are based very vaguely on the Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion versions of Usagi and Mamoru in Sailor Moon, which I’ve loved since I was a child, but they’re far more ethereal and obtuse--it would be impossible for a human artist to draw Kenzie and Duncan’s Exalted Selves, for instance, as their beauty is too incredible and intense for human eyes. Kenzie’s makeup look for the photoshoot is based on Billie’s look here. A reminder that this is her red dress. The Cartier LOVE bracelets Duncan orders are here (for him) and here (for her, with diamonds). Duncan’s Givenchy star shirt. Duncan’s watch. This is his silver Cartier he’s wearing in Part 1. Here’s ANNIE’S SONG (another absolutely iconic love song I’ve loved forever). I found multiple meanings for the name Mackenzie, but in Gaelic it apparently means “comely”, which I used the synonym “lovely” in place of. The Rose Garden at the Botanical Gardens is real, but there’s no gate akin to the one I created, and I added a lot more roses than I think there usually are (there is a fountain)--MY STORY, MY STUFF. Annette’s dress. I’m seeing Fleetwood Mac tomorrow (it’s been two years since the last time I saw Stevie and I’ve missed her more than I can describe), I work on Saturday mornings, and it’s one of my best friends’ birthday party on Saturday evening, so Part 22 is going to take a bit; it’s also going to be the chapter where my!Duncan finds out from Claire Underwood that he was adopted, though the way I navigate that scene is going to be slightly different than the way Beau Willimon’s Season 6 did it; a reminder that my fic is a House of Cards AU in addition to being a Millory AU, and I’m throwing out canon HoC stuff that doesn’t fit into my narrative (such as @montenegro-style noticing I threw out Duncan’s super-Modernist apartment from the show and replaced it with a Romantic one), so don’t expect things to unfold the same way--I said this before too, but Duncan’s definitely not going to jail in my story, so forget about that. I may be borrowing characters and some vague plot elements from Ryan and Beau, but this story is mine. Love to the Millorys, as ever, and especially my Duckenzies.

Duncan stared up at the ceiling far above them, his fingers in Kenzie’s hair, his own hair tossed against the black pillow as music pumped quietly from the hidden stereo in the bedroom wall. To be living for you, is all that I want to do, to be loving you, it’ll all be there when my dreams come true...Kenzie was tucked under his arm, her head against his shoulder, the softness of her breasts and stomach pressing into his side, her body naked now--they’d ordered a mountain of Thai food, and she’d kept the tulle lingerie on while they ate, a linen spread on the floor in front of the picture window in the penthouse living room as the night fell, Dike, Nike and Athena gazing down on them on either side, Kenzie facing the Bouguereau prints, her little legs stretched out in the silky sheer stockings, bowl in her lap. The picture of her eating so hungrily in the delicate attire would forever be seared on his brain from this day on--my Kenzie, her essence, her goodness, her sweetness, her staggering beauty, not just her body, but her soul. Her wide-eyed gaze skirted up now and then to admire the prints (Duncan noticed she looked at Evening Mood the most), then fell back into his to give him coy looks, languidly licking curry from her spoon.

“I think they all look like you,” he’d murmured to her, the sincerity in his heart making him dizzy. “I can only see your face in them now, you in the evening, you at night, you waking up in the morning…” He reached for a spring roll but forgot about it halfway to his mouth as Kenzie had come up on her knees, her breasts pressing together in the elegant criss-crossing design of the black bra, tossing her golden hair over her shoulder in the fading light, her (sweet budding leaves and chocolate and the saffron light of autumn mornings) eyes laying him bare. Her beauty in this moment struck him dumb--Kenzie set her bowl down and crawled over to him on the linen, languid, knowing. Duncan had put on a pair of black gym shorts and a fitted black tee shirt to retrieve their takeout from downstairs a few minutes before, and as she reached him Kenzie tugged the hem of the shirt up, little hand soothing over his bare skin underneath.

“Call me your moonlight again,” she whispered against him, her eyes trembling open and closed, her little pink lips shining with the residue of spice and saliva. Her hair brushed against his neck and cheek, the sweet smell of rose and vetiver and jasmine, and Duncan had set the spring roll down uneaten, brushing his hand against the napkin in front of him, then bringing it up to press the cascade of her hair into his nose. She is my favorite smell. I’m at peace inside the scent of her.

“Moonlight. My moon princess. My moonbeam.” He kissed her hair--let his lips slip down its waves, intoxicated. “You know the full moon is on the night of the Gala, baby? A full moon just for you. It’ll shine down on you and everyone will be struck with longing for you. But you’re my baby, aren’t you? You’re my moonlight. They’ll pine for you because you’re mine.” He blushed at his need, his desire to have her all to himself--but as he said it, Duncan knew it was true. We belong to each other.

“Yes, Dunny, I’m your moonlight, I’m yours, my love. I belong to you.” Kenzie climbed into his lap, sliding against him in the achingly soft tulle, her ass settling down on his calves crossed together, and she was so small and felt so delicate and she smelled so lovely, he could feel himself growing hard again--her little arms came around his neck and he lifted her up into his mouth to kiss her, his mind awash in a cloud of gold. He was struck with a vision of her as Artemis, naked and white in the reflection of the moon, bathing in a midnight pool, her bow and arrow made of the gossamer strands of stars sitting on the bank of the water, singing moon hymns in her sweet voice to the owls and the deer and the foxes flitting through the undergrowth. Too beautiful for any ordinary man’s eyes. How am I so blessed. Their kisses extended for a long while--Kenzie went to lift away but Duncan needily brought her back against him and she let him, she fell into him again, she arched into him and he could feel the way she was giving herself to him, coaxing him back into arousal to do what she asked him for later tonight--his nerves were alight at the prospect of bringing her body out of achingly lovely sleep with insistence, enticing her under his continuous touch to give herself over to him in the dark with only the moon to see their desirous tangle.

Now they lay in bed (our bed, the bed of our adoration, our love, my favorite place now that she lays beside me in it), sleepy and full and naked and ready for bed, the duvet pushed down to their feet, speech seeming a very dull and faraway impulse. I can hear you this way, can feel you better this way, he thought into her, and she nodded against his skin, her cheek against his nipple as the music drifted around them. Please, please, listen to me, it’s taken so long to come true, it’s all for you, all for you...Duncan gazed down at her--her eyes had fallen closed and she had begun to breathe slow against him, her leg crooked over his thigh, her little mouth open just a touch. He could see there were still lingering red marks at her neck from his ardency, a tattoo that told the story of their nights. He thought of how she’d looked that morning, still stuck inside her sleep, stuck in her nightmare--her face had been creased with fear, and it had clenched an icy hand around his heart, rattling a panic into his lungs--he’d run to the bed and gripped her and shook her, his desperation strange and immediate. Wake her up, his mind had urged. Don’t let her see it, don’t let her suffer it. What it was still didn’t seem clear, but Duncan remembered what she’d said upon waking, that in her dream there had been a man with his face, a man who was like a black hole in the void.

It was like he had eaten you.

Duncan shivered against her and slid his arm out from underneath her head--Kenzie stirred, her head turning, her body shifting with aching loveliness--Duncan’s heart and the heat in the pit of him clenched as he watched the incline of her ribs shift, the refracted light on her breasts, heard the a tiny sigh fall from her mouth--but her eyes remained closed. He carefully moved from the bed and pulled the switch on the nightstand, his eyes still lingering on her (exalted), and the room plunged into blue-and-white darkness, Jefferson Airplane still quietly drifting into the room: you came to stay and live my way, scatter my love like leaves in the wind, you always say you won't go away, but I know what it always has been, it always has been...Duncan moved through the living room, stepping to the reading lamps to switch them off, bathing himself in darkness, his eyes falling over the expanse of the city through the picture window that encompassed the entire west end of the room. The night was very clear and the sun was gone--the only indication it had been there was a line of mauve and dahlia color lingering at the horizon before the sky bled into darkness pinpricked with stars, hazy in the reflection of the city.

Strolling the hills overlooking the shore, I realized I've been there before...the shadow in the mist could have been anyone...I saw you…

What do the dreams mean? At first Duncan had been sure they’d been brought on by the mad mix of emotion inside both of them lately--just dopamine, seratonin, oxytocin and endorphins, just our brains in a mad rush of ecstatic happiness, and the residue is our minds going haywire at night. He moved on to his study, the carefully controlled temperature of the penthouse cool on his bare skin, an oasis in the hot June night. This one seems to have been the clearest for her, and the most frightening. Is it fear that I’ll betray her that would make her dream of an evil version of me? His heart ached at that. I never will, baby. I never fucking will. I’d die first.

I saw you, I saw you, comin' back to me

Duncan glanced at the huge expanse of The Youth of Bacchus as he moved towards his turntable, the song’s final longing guitar and melancholy hum bleeding out into silence. The woman in the center, her arms thrown back ecstatically, her head tilted towards the consort at her feet, collapsed in revelry--Duncan had studied her many long nights, studied her abandon and her achingly white, almost translucent beauty, but now, like the prints in the room beside this one, he could see only Kenzie in her form--Kenzie dancing in the living room, singing in drunken joy (I’ll never live to match the beauty again), Kenzie running away from him into the ocean waves, Kenzie’s glittering eyes on him as he tied her to the chain. The whole of the world turned around her; she was the sun, and also the moon, and also every other star, and everything that encompassed the universe was because of and according to her--for me, that’s the end of it.

Duncan pressed the button at the side of the record player and the needle lifted away, settling back into its resting place. He turned to look at the painting again--the painting Annette had gotten him as a moving gift, and over time the painting that had begun to feel as though it were an irrevocable part of him, an extension of him, a friend to him as he stared at it long on lonely nights. He thought of the mesmerized way Kenzie stared at it, as she had since that first night when he pressed his mouth to her clit as she hovered on the edge of his desk, her head thrown back; as if she sees me in it, when now I see her in it. It’s almost too much to look at it for too long now; because it reminds me of the one I love most in all the world and she is blinding in her loveliness. It was always beautiful. But now it’s exalted to me because she loves it, and anything she loves is beloved to me.

He thought again of Ariadne, the painting he knew would be for her now, too; the auction was in a few weeks’ time, just before the beginning of July when their birthdays would be coming, and he smiled, his hand coming up to his jaw, his thumb pressing against his bottom lip, though he didn’t realize it, eager to have it hanging on the wall beside their bed, eager to see her face when she saw it and knew it was for her. When she died Dionysus took a crown he had given her and placed it among the stars. The idea of her dying someday was one he couldn’t begin to fathom; the despair of it was beyond words in its agony. But Duncan felt a drifting calm fall over him after the stab of pain--we found each other in this life, didn’t we. We finally found each other. I think we would find each other again. I think we’ll always find each other. I really fucking do. I think that’s what the Fates wrote for us. That we’re meant to be together--really, truly fated to be together. Like two stars in a constellation that endures until time no longer has any meaning. And there can’t be one of us without the other--not for long.

Duncan switched off the Tiffany lamp--now the penthouse was truly in darkness but for the light that came from the night outside. O Fates, I wish you could tell me what the dreams mean. They don’t feel like they’re just dreams. I know I said that to Kenzie--but I said it because I wanted to believe it myself. Lately, everything seems to mean something. Everything seems to have a hidden clockwork of purpose behind it. When we met I think we kicked something into motion, something ground out of a long sleep into a great predetermination. Now everything is vibrating with destiny--our destiny. Our love. Whatever she and I are meant to do with our lives, we are meant to do it together. Whatever I’m meant to do, I can’t do it without her. And I wouldn’t want to. I ache for her every moment--she has pierced the deepest part of my soul.

He carefully moved back to the bedroom in the dark--his eyes glanced up at Pallas Athena as he passed her, and he couldn’t help but send a prayer out to her (gray-eyed maiden, in whose wise gaze all truths are laid bare--give us wisdom, my sweet lover and I, to give to those who need it most, to move the pathways toward the greatest good--I’ve wasted time, Athena, I know it, but I swear I won’t again, I swear I’ll cherish every moment with her); he’d had the goddess statues for over five years now (they’d come from Stapleton’s, Frederick had found them for Duncan carefully when he’d asked for Greek goddess motifs), but never had he so often had the impulse to pray to them--I never prayed to anyone before, he remembered, and now I’d pray to anyone if it meant she would always be safe and happy. He thought of the Fates again (Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos), spinning the threads of their two destinies together many ages ago--most deep and unfathomable love, a love for all of time, he thought, and did not question where the certainty had come from, only felt acutely that it was not misplaced.

Duncan saw that moonlight now fell on the bed as he re-entered--the moon was waxing strongly now, and his breath felt caught in his throat as he looked at Kenzie in the throes of sleep, turned towards the door, the duvet still pushed down around her feet, so her body was bare to him. The silvery wave of the low light fell over her cheek and the tawny-gold of her hair, making it seem almost white, giving it a sheen that seemed otherworldly. But she is, he thought, emotion clouding into his mind, stunning him with her again (and again and again) as he watched her sleeping form, her silvery nakedness, the dip of her waist and one arm crooked around her hip, hand dipping down in front of her sex, the other pressed against her mouth, sweetly--she was more profound to him than anything, more breathtaking than any art of any age. It’s like she is from another world--it’s like she was snatched from heaven and fell down into my arms, into my bed, fell down onto that balcony where I beheld her, trapped here on earth, for the first time. I felt that I knew she was more than what she might have seemed to an untrained eye. And I still feel that I know it. She has an effect on other people that they don’t seem to really recognize or understand. But I see it. And I think I understand. My Kenzie isn’t just lovely and kind; she has real power to heal, to alter the pain others feel and alleviate their suffering. Kenzie has a healing touch, one that can knit together and remedy a distressed soul. It’s almost like she really could bring something back from the dead. It’s like she could sew back together, using only her hands, her energy, something that had been ripped apart, reverse fucking time--it’s like she somehow willed me onto that balcony, so I could find her, so I could touch her and in that touch know her immediately as I always have, and know she was the half of me that had been lost, but no longer. Because she had willed us back together. She had willed us to find each other again, and so we did--she attached a golden string to me long ago when time began, whispered to me that it would help me find her if we got lost, if we got separated from each other--and I finally saw it glimmering between us, and followed it to where she was. Saint Mackenzie, goddess of lost things, goddess of binding, of rebirth, of transcendent healing, of perfect love. My moonlight, my sunlight, my starry sky, beloved.

He could feel himself growing hard again, thinking of her sliding onto his lap in the tulle lingerie, the demanding croon of her voice (call me your moonlight again, I want you to wake me up with kisses and fuck me in the dark with your lips pressed into my shadows, I want you to kiss my shadows, and touch them with aching hands), and Duncan knew it was the right time--that it was time to press his mouth into the soft space of her in the darkness. His eyes had begun to adjust to the dark now and he eased down onto the bed, its cool sheets shivering up his thighs, urging him toward her--Duncan reached down to where her arm crooked over her hip and slid his fingers up her torso to the sweet roundness of her breasts, achingly slow, willing himself into tenuous control, overwhelmed with the relief of touching her without any constraints, without his hands tied or the lingerie covering her or anything in the way of her, Kenzie, my solace, the home of my heart. He eased his body down next to hers, his hands still cosseting around her, fingers drifting back and forth on her nipples, and he felt a surge of blood into his cock as he felt them grow hard under his touch, though she didn’t stir yet (wake me up with kisses) and Duncan leaned his face to her across the pillow and pressed a soft, aching kiss into her forehead, her temple, each eyelid, shivering in sleep, the dip of each cheek, over her nose and the incline of her jaw, and then he pressed down, sliding against the coolness of the sheet again, to bury his face against her neck, his kisses becoming more insistent, more exacting of her--wake up my love, Duncan pressed into her mind, feeling her head lift as she stirred, slowly beginning to register him, wake up baby, and he felt strange for a moment, caught up in her unconscious mind, as if he was brushing up against another self, another Kenzie--then the feeling cleared, and he could feel her golden waves of energy. And he said again, into her: wake up my love, wake up baby love, wake up so I can fuck you, wake up so I can press my kisses into your shadows, wake up so we can be together.

Then--Duncan was stunned with the feeling that surged into him in that moment. It was almost painful, the brilliancy and power of her energy as he lingered inside her in that in-between place that wasn’t waking and wasn’t sleep for her, and he felt minute inside it, wildly small to behold her this way; fucking goddess. Oh fuck, Kenzie. You really are a goddess. You have all of this inside you and I am staggered by you. I can’t begin to fathom this. Is this where you go when you sleep? Back to the secret expanse of everything you keep hidden, this place of resplendent power that has colors I’ve never seen, colors I could never describe? Is this where you came from? And even more unbelievably, he heard her voice inside that in-between place, calling out to him, and her voice was full of so much joy it immediately made him want to sob against her, and she said yes baby, Duncan, exalted, beloved, this is where I came from, and where you came from, and you come here too in your dreams, but you never remember, but you will. Soon, you’ll start to remember. What we were before, what we are, and what we will be again. Soon we’ll both start to remember, for our destinies were written when the stars were just dreams themselves, and our destinies will live on when they’ve burned out.

Duncan’s mind felt like it was on fire with the feeling of her, the words she spoke that made no sense to him, and yet made every sense, a deeper sense, their hidden meaning touching against the shadowed hidden heart of him, and he lifted his mouth up to the space under her ear, one hand cradling up under the back of her head to pull her more firmly against him and the other sliding down the intoxicating softness of her rib cage and her belly to hover at her abdomen, hover above the mouth of her sex, waiting for her eyes to open to him, to give him the yes he longed for, and he felt the intensity of the in-between place begin to fade--felt reality seep back in, like milk stirred into dark coffee, and Kenzie was stirring more strongly against him, leaning into his mouth tasting at her skin, and a moan escaped from her that stirred the building heat in his groin and he spoke into her skin, his own words bleeding into a moan, a reply of need for her--”wake up baby, wake up all the way for me, wake up and tell me to touch you, tell me to fuck you, Kenzie, uhh--” and despite the darkness, he felt her eyes open, their golden depth unnerving him for a moment (how can they be glowing like that, like a ripe harvest moon), focusing on him as though he were the one pinprick of light in a long darkness, and then they seemed to fade back, fade to the forest-and-burnt-acorn he recognized--he had leaned back to look at her, his lips lifting away from her skin, and he gasped as her little hand came down, exacting, and slid from the dusting of hair at the top of his groin, closing around the length of his stiffening cock and dragging her achingly soft grip to the head of him.

“I’m here, baby,” she whispered, and he felt his need kindle up like someone had thrown gas onto a bonfire, felt his cock jump inside her grip, and then she said “touch me,” and he slid his fingers, middle first, down between the lips of her cunt and pressed, harshly, into her clit, so warm and so wet and sending a spasm of want through his body--Kenzie lifted up, almost involuntarily, and her moan was longer now, focusing on him, inside the sensation of his touch, beseeching him for more. “Yes, baby, fuck yes,” Kenzie moaned, “more, more,” and Duncan pressed the lips of her sex outward with his other fingers, his long middle finger still working down into her clit, strictly, then finally, he kissed her, open-mouthed, and her sweet little tongue laved out against his, her slender hand still gripping his cock with a strength that addled his senses. In the shadows, with only the moon to light their bed, Duncan felt he could feel the way she was sending little pinpricks her power, that terrible gold energy, too beautiful to behold in this world, into his body through her grip, as if she were sending it into his spirit, giving him strength, kindling his desire to a high place he had never imagined, residue from that in-between place, residue from another world where such things were commonplace, so much power was the natural order.

But Duncan knew what she wanted then, and he broke their aching kisses apart, moving his hand up from his attentions at her sex, pushing her little body down forcefully so she was on her back, pressing her legs wide apart and coming up between them on his knees, and Kenzie lifted her hips so she was poised against the head of his cock, her hair falling down in the moonlight, her hands coming up to his arms and then sliding down to his wrists to clutch him against her. Duncan gripped her carefully at the small of her back, his thumbs pressing across her hip bones (god I want to kiss them)--then he thrust into her with an ecstatic groan, marveling at how wet she was, how perfect it felt to be inside her in the dark this way. Kenzie shuddered into him, a little cry falling from her lips, and in the dark he could see her mouth lingering open, her eyes rolling back for him, “that’s it, baby,” he couldn’t stop himself, needed to speak his desire aloud to her, in the dark, where no one else belonged but the two of them in this moment, “give yourself to me, everything, the shadows too, I’ll kiss them, I love you--” and he felt her nails dig into the skin of his arms as he pounded into her, wondering at the intensity of his hardness, the lightness of her body against him--god baby, I don’t want to crush you and she said “fuck, keep going, do not fucking stop, god you feel so fucking good, fucking fuck me Duncan--”

Her little hand reached up to him, lifting from his arm and he leaned down to her, pressed down into her, easing her back down onto the bed and fucking her achingly close now, their stomachs pressing against each other, her hand coming under his jaw to pull his mouth into her, tasting him breathlessly as he drove his length into her again and again, and her scent was rose and vetiver and her sweet, heady sex, and her yielding mouth was almost too wonderful, too much to bear, and his hands came around to cup her breast and against her neck to press there softly and she wrapped her little feet around his back and her fingers twined into his hair at the nape and Kenzie whispered “my sweet baby, my beautiful Prince, fuck me--” between their kisses and Duncan felt faint with her realness again, faint with the feeling of her cunt clenching around him, faint in her arms, her loveliness, her silken skin, the slight, achingly sublime sounds she was making overwhelming his senses.

His hand came down between her legs again and his fingers pressed ardent circles against her and he said “baby, do you want me to suck on you, do you want me to kiss your clit--” and Kenzie shook her head against his lips and said “no, baby, no, don’t stop fucking me, just touch me like that, touch me in the dark, I love you, Duncan, I love you with every part of me--” and he was nodding against her--”I love you too baby, Kenzie, I love you, oh god I love you, I can’t describe--”, his memory drifting against the power he’d felt from her as she floated out of sleep, absolutely in awe of her again, absolutely at her mercy, inside her grace, and she shushed him as his fingers flicked back down to the wetness that coated her cunt and his cock as he thrust his whole length into her, then out, then back again, and redoubled his effort with his fingers at her clit as their mouths came together again and she began to shake in his arms, a shaking that began at her shoulders and cascaded down her body into where his cock was buried inside her and she moaned into his mouth, a moan that became a prolonged wail into him, her words muddling into incomprehensible murmurs that Duncan could almost see, like colors, floating around them--”Dunny, oh, fuck--oh fucking fuck baby oh ohhhhh beloved baby my sweet fucking babyfuck love you I love you--” and Duncan breathed in carefully, deeply, keeping the rhythm of his movement into her steady and concentrated as she came, her little hands clutching his head down to her, twisting into his hair and pulling it harshly as she cried out, and he thought oh Kenzie, you’re bathed in moonlight, you look like an angel, you’re too beautiful for words--

Suddenly, inexplicably, inside her release, Duncan’s mind was jerked back into wherever it had been before Kenzie woke up--into where he’d hovered inside her psyche, in that in-between place, and he remembered her words again, still locked against her, inside her, the rhythm he’d built unceasing, words that she seemed to speak from another self floating back into his mind, a version of her that had immense power, an energy that seemed too great for reality, too beautiful for human eyes--soon, you’ll start to remember, what we were before, what we are, and what we will be again--and Duncan saw a version of them in his mind, as though in a memory, where they were both in that place that seemed to be made of those inexplicable colors that he’d felt inside Kenzie, colors that felt like emotions, like the love he felt for her, like the love he could feel coming into him from her. Kenzie’s hair was longer than it was now, it was so long it fell to her knees, and it sheen was indescribably lovely, paler than the tawny-gold he had begun to know so well, a white-gold that was almost silvery, in magnificent waves, and he saw tiny flowers woven through the strands, their color indescribable to him, their shape unlike any flower he could think of--each one seemed to have a hundred tiny petals. Around her forehead was a circlet of gold so thin and fine it seemed an impossible thing to exist at all. Her dress was unlike anything he’d ever seen, either--it seemed to be made of the gossamer strands of a thousand spider webs, a hundred intricate honeycombs of some vast, beautifully geometric design that was simply too complex to ever create, and yet she wore it, and it fit her as though it were her second skin--intricately woven, rose-golden embroidery fell over the dress--its pattern was like a language he could not comprehend. And her eyes--inside her eyes in that place he felt he really could see a universe turning, so magnificent and so golden that they threatened to rend his heart into a thousand fragments. He realized he was inside some other self in this moment--he couldn’t see his own face, but could see his own clothing, the intricately woven sleeves over his arms, in a similar incomprehensible gold embroidery and geometry that made him dizzy to even attempt to contemplate--he wore a kind of thin, woven gold breastplate that was akin to the aegis on likenesses of Athena, but its quality also seemed incomprehensible to him, a weave that seemed to shift and change under his gaze, and he could feel weight at his shoulders--a strange weight that felt familiar, but also heavy beyond all understanding.

And in the memory, or the imagining, or whatever the vision was that he had tumbled into, he noticed with a wild, fierce surprise that Kenzie, this other Kenzie, this Kenzie wrapped in intricate golden lovely things that were not of earth, with shimmering hair twined with tiny universe flowers, had wings extending from her back--wings that were gold and silver and iridescent rose and other colors that he didn’t know the names for, wings that were unlike any wings he’d ever seen on a bird or a bat or any earth-bound winged creature, but he knew they were wings just the same, knew they were wings for a certain kind of being--a divine being.

And then he resurfaced back into the dark of the bedroom, their bedroom, and he was still moving with an intense rhythm against her and he was coming deep inside her now and Kenzie was clutching at his torso between his hips, her cries quiet but her mouth hovering open, and her eyes had that strange glow again, intensely focused on him, the one he’d seen when he woke her from her sleep, and then it faded as he emptied himself into her, his moans extending into deep silence, and he pulled out of her and collapsed beside her, his head falling into the pillow, and clutched her desperately against him and felt her mouth come against his chest and her little hands clasp against his ribs, and Duncan remembered nothing else until he woke the next morning at sunrise in the same position, with her still clutched in his arms, her little breath having left a damp pool against his skin, her face cherubic and far away in her sleep in the dim morning light, and he wondered upon his waking if it had all been a dream. And then he fell back into sleep, his hand coming up to bury in her hair.

-------

“Babyyyy, Dunny…” Duncan felt her little mouth pressed into his ear and his eyes opened--full sunlight was streaming into the room now and Kenzie was leaning down to him, kneeling on the bed, wearing her satin kimono, her eyes (your earthly eyes, baby, not your divine eyes, you keep those hidden most of the time but sometimes I can see a little bit of them, that gold whirling around, and last night I saw all of them and they were beyond words, they were ethereal as the first dawn--) open and awake to him, a little smile playing around her mouth.

“I brought you coffee, baby,” and Kenzie’s hair fell against his collarbone as she dipped down to kiss him, and Duncan’s hand immediately came up, needy, to the space under her ear.

“Kenzie, baby, do you remember that? Last night?” His eyes searched hers--please tell me if that was real, beloved angel. Please tell me that wasn’t a dream. Did you see the vision? Kenzie stared at him, and her mouth dipped open, and Duncan was suddenly hazy with her loveliness again, hazy with longing. I love you more than the morning sunlight, wondrous Kenzie. “You said something to me--that I’d start to remember something, about who we were, who we’re going to be--”

Kenzie eyes lost some of their clarity, and she handed him one of his glass coffee mugs, carefully. He sat up, leaning into the shape of her hand--she dipped her head down and her hair fell over her shoulder again, the strap of her top falling down onto her arm. Duncan wanted to press his lips to the bare skin there--wanted to press his mouth against her heart, the delicate space between her breasts. There is never a moment where I wouldn’t rather be kissing you. He knew she heard him--her face became even more radiant in the daylight, her hand coming up to brush shyly against her cheek at his thoughts.

“I...I don’t know...sort of, baby,” she said finally, eyes flitting up into his and then away, towards the great mirror, towards the window, its curtains partially drawn but the sliver of day visible beyond. “It was like a dream, wasn’t it? Like we both slipped into a dream.”

“Yes, baby, it was, but I don’t think it was a dream.” Duncan brought the coffee to his lips and drank, the hot, bitter liquid coursing down his throat, immediately stirring his senses more sharply. “I think it was like...a memory.”

“How can that be,” Kenzie laughed a little, inside her words. “Dunny, baby, the way you looked to me--you were so radiant, so beautiful, it was too much to bear. You were...you were a real angel, you had wings, but they were--” Duncan was putting the coffee down on the nightstand, his heart suddenly rattling inside him, and he reached out and grasped her hands tightly, pulling her closer. “--they were not like any wings I’ve ever imagined, they were in colors I’ve never seen--” “Kenzie, baby, I saw you that way too--” “And your clothing, it was like, gold and had this design to it, but I couldn’t figure out the--the design, it was like, it was made of something that doesn’t exist in this world--” “Fuck, Kenzie, you looked that way too, baby, your hair had a hundred tiny flowers in it and each flower was made of its own universe, and your eyes were like a gold galaxy spinning--” “Fuck, Dunny, that’s lovely, how can you say that to me, that’s too lovely--but--but you looked so amazing too, your hair was longer and more golden and your eyes were like a blue nebula, but the blue was not any blue I’ve ever seen before, it was--”

Their lips were rushing together again, and he was pulling her against him, sliding towards her, and her little hands came up to twine inside his where they clutched her face tenderly and he thought I love you Kenzie I love you fuck I love you I’m yours I’m yours and when I die my spirit will call out to you through time I’ll still be yours forever never doubt that I am yours my beloved my exalted beloved most hallowed of all most unearthly and divine love and he knew the dream had not been a dream, knew they’d seen something that seemed impossible but was not, something that was hidden deep in time that somehow they had glimpsed, that their love had uncovered the great secret of it, that finding each other here had opened the door on that other place, and he was overwhelmed inside the knowledge, and it was all he could do to hold her against him and taste her, her little face lifted up to him, her eyes closed, her face ecstatic (saintly, her pleasure in this moment sacred), the feeling of her under his hands so intensely real he wanted to cry.

“I--Kenzie, I want--”

Her eyes opened to him--hazel, depth of green--his hands still clutched her and their mouths hovered over each other, pulled back for a moment. I want to marry you. I want to be tied to you in the eyes of all, your most loyal, most faithful, most devoted husband.

He knew she’d heard, despite the words un-escaped from his lips. She looked down, suddenly shy again--her cheeks dusted with color immediately, and she felt achingly warm under his fingers. She was so lovely here, in reality, in his arms, to try to contemplate her in that other place was like trying to contemplate the mathematics of the universe in the face of the glory of one star; there was too much, and she was too great, and her multitudes were staggering, and he felt his breath hitch--felt the tears come against his eyelids. Neither of them said anything, but he could see the emotion gathering in her face towards him; he knew Kenzie could see how close to tears he was, and saw that it was moving her to tears, too.

“After the Gala, when we go to the cabin,” she whispered to him. “We’ll have time and space--to, to think about all of this. To figure it out. To figure out what all of this means. Okay? Duncan. I love you. I love you so much. You are beloved to me. You are the only one for me. Just be patient, okay? Be patient with me, baby. I’m here and we’re together. We just have to get through this first. We’ll be alone so soon. Alone to--alone to--to see each other. To really see.”

Duncan dipped his head away from her--he felt utterly overcome, and tried to gather the many threads of himself that had scattered and dispersed, as if in a gust of wind. He nodded--he knew she was right, knew that his patience was required, knew the rush he felt wasn’t a true need, rather his own deep desires. But he couldn’t help it--he wanted their life to begin so much. I want everything to fall into place, I want us to move the company forward to help others and the wheel of fate to grind toward the greatest good, I want you to have everything you’ve ever dreamed about, Kenzie, angel, I want the sweetness of you in the quietness of the woods, under the starry night sky where there is no one but us.

Baby, she thought into him. Dunny. I love you so much I can’t speak it. I can’t tell you. You have to feel it from me, just feel me, feel that I love you more than life, more than every flower, every living breathing thing, know that you’re the angel of my heart, the light of my body and my soul. And he did--he could. He could feel the golden wave she pushed down into him, the inexplicable touch of her so fine that it felt as though she were wrapping a second skin around him, this one radiant and impenetrable, this one the skin that would protect him from the outside world, invisible but inviolable, his hidden armor, woven by her little slender hands, all her love whispered into each strand, all her divinity blessing him. And my love shall protect thee, guide thee, and keep thee always, for thou art exalted in the light of my adoration, my divinity I give to thee, my sanctity I have divided unto thee, my soul I have split with the aid of the three-headed goddess, my golden thread I have tied to thee, and so thou and I art the same. And Duncan knew these words weren’t really Kenzie’s words--they were the words of the other Kenzie, the one with the silvery hair and the eyes like planets made of gold, the words that winged, ethereal creature had spoken to the other Duncan he had hovered inside last night, the one who wore the golden aegis, the other him with the colossal weight of his own wings.

Then the spell seemed to break, and he felt the tears drift away from him--he gently let go of her, and she slid away from him off the bed, and he felt the peaceful gold she’d borne down on him wafting inside his chest and his belly, in the core of his body. Duncan reached for his coffee again, watching her step into the walk-in, glancing at him over her shoulder with a peaceful, knowing smile. “Time to go see your mother, Duncan.” He groaned a little, smiling back at her--reality seeped back in strongly, and he reached for his phone on the nightstand, turning it over.

There was a text from Annette, confirming that the Vanity Fair interview and photoshoot would be at the Botanic Gardens in a few hours, the one for Forbes at The Lafayette after that, a restaurant inside the Hays-Adams hotel that he’d been to for several interviews in the past, most of them for Gardner Analytics. He had ignored her text from yesterday, wherein she’d called him ludicrously naive, their moving in together preposterous and claimed Kenzie was a greedy little social climber, a phrase that had made him want to hurl his phone across the room despite the heights of his mood with Kenzie in the kitchen only moments before--he looked them over again, scrolling up, fighting the anger seething back into his mind, urging himself to calm. I refuse to let her get a rise out of me today, he thought, and answered his mother today with nothing more than a clipped “Okay.” You can’t make me turn on her, Mom. It’s not going to happen. Never in a million years. You might as well try to make the sky fall down or stop the tides or keep the sun from rising and setting. You will never break us apart. Not only do I love her more than I love my own life--I know, I feel like I know that we’re actual fucking Soulmates, we can hear each other’s fucking thoughts, and I think these dreams and visions we’ve been having are the future, the past, or some strange parallel present. You really don’t fucking get it, but I think eventually you will, because you won’t have any other choice. Eventually everyone will get it. We’re together and I think...I think we always will be, if there are other lives after this one. I think...we always have been.

“I can’t believe we have a fan club now, baby.” He heard Kenzie’s voice drift towards him from where she was hidden from view in the closet, and he came out of the soft gold of the thoughts he’d begun to delve down into.

“You were so sweet to those girls, Kenz. The paps noticed right away. You handled that like a pro, I was so proud of you. I bet Claire’s texted you a BPF post about it already.”

“Check my phone, baby, it’s on my side. My password’s 0717.” Her birthday.

Duncan reached for Kenzie’s white iPhone in its iridescent gold case--he smiled down at the black inverted moon sticker, beginning to rub away into white, running his finger over it, then turned the phone over. Clairebear had indeed texted her (how did I know), a telltale BPF link visible in it, and behind the text Duncan could see her lock screen was ones of the Esquire shots of him--the one where he had a thin circlet of silver around his forehead, his eyes skirting to the left of the camera, their blue emphasized to striking brilliancy by the filter used on the shot, his hand adjusting his cuff facetiously. He thought of his own lock screen, with the shot of her smiling down at the breakfast he’d made her, sunlight on her cheek, grapefruit juice and Adelaide’s silver spoon in her hands--wait until we do a photoshoot together, baby, he thought. God, you’re going to look so beautiful. You always do. I should commission someone to paint you. Fuck, I should fucking do that. I’d die to have a painting of you. A huge one, colossal as The Youth of Bacchus, of you with flowers in your hair, you in wild moonlight, you as the goddess you are, you--

Duncan got up from the bed, glancing up at his naked reflection in the mirror (no wings, no aegis, no long gold hair, that’s for damn sure), then back down at the phone, slowly moving towards the closet doorway with her phone still clutched in his hand, thumbing her password into the surface, reading Claire’s text.

Clairebear: Kenzie Lou, look at this. They LOVE you. You knew exactly what you were doing with this. You wily little lady! I can’t believe you have a fan club now. You have to look at the website these girls have created. I’m just screaming over it, it’s insanely cute. They have like 15,000 members already. It’s insane!!! Also, is Harris single? He’s so hot, oh my FUCKING GOD.

He grinned at her message--I love how Claire texts Kenzie, he thought, and clicked on the BPF link. DUCKENZIE GREET FANS WARMLY OUTSIDE ONE FRANKLIN SQUARE, POSE FOR PHOTOS--the first shot was Lindy passing the roses to Duncan in his sunglasses, the second was a lovely shot of Kenzie smiling at Gabby (god look at her, an angel), then one of her leaning over the newspaper, writing, one of her tucking her hair behind her ear, face still dipped down, Duncan’s hand pressed against her back, his expression unreadable behind his sunglasses (I was worried as fuck), her smile still apparent--how could anyone look at these and not fall in love with her, Duncan thought, his hand coming up against his jaw, trailing there, lost in the photos. There were a few more: side-angles of them posing with each of the girls, then Duncan pulling Kenzie away from them, Harris close behind, glancing darkly into the camera. Duncan turned into the closet, his eyes still on the phone--he tapped one of the photos of her looking up at the girls over the newspaper, the sharpie poised in her hand, enlarging it.

“Baby, look at this--” Duncan held her phone up to where he knew she would be standing, eyes rising to look at her, and then he stopped dead--Kenzie had slipped on the red dress, the lacy red bodice hugging her tiny waist and her round breasts (I fucking love them, I love her), the full lace of the skirt fanning out beautifully down her hips, and she was throwing her chestnut hair over her shoulder, her head still tilted to the side, away from him--she turned and met his eyes, and she smiled at him, her eyes roving up and down his nakedness. “Hey baby,” she murmured, her voice husky.

“God, I love that fucking dress.” His thoughts immediately drifted to when she’d been wearing it as she eased onto his lap in that makeshift dressing room, his fingers coming between her legs and coaxing her into a secret euphoria, the way he’d wiped his fingers after on a tissue and brought it to his nose, the heady scent of her sex making him wildly dizzy. “My mother’s going to flip her shit, baby, and I honestly can’t wait to see it.”

Kenzie stepped toward him, hands coming out to take her phone, her fingers brushing along his as she did, making the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up--she stared up at him for a moment longer, the depth of green hovering behind her corneas--and I love looking at you naked, baby, was the thought she pushed into him, and Duncan bit into his lip, goosebumps breaking out on his skin--then she looked down at her phone and he was staggered again by the loveliness of the smile that fell over her face as she saw the photo.

“I look nice, don’t I?” She said, looking up at him again. “I mean...I look kind, I mean.” She blushed--Duncan melted at the sight of her shyness.

“Baby. You are kind. You’re kind to everyone. And you look fucking beautiful in these. Everyone is in love with you now. I have to admit…” Duncan stepped closer to reach her, his hands falling down her bare arms and the sides of the lacy red dress--Kenzie wore no makeup yet, but her eyes were so wide and so beautifully colored they seemed illuminated somehow--”It makes me a little jealous. I selfishly want you all to myself sometimes. I don’t want to share you.” Kenzie’s eyes fell into his again, and her little hand was falling down his bare torso to trail over his hip bones, needling with her thumbs and forefingers, her mouth opening to him.

“I was thinking, later...” and Kenzie was reaching up to him, tiptoed, her mouth pressing into his jaw as he leaned his head down to her, his hands at her shoulder blades, pressed into her hair. “You could throw me down onto that big, beautiful cherrywood table--” and her mouth was edging along to his chin and to the other side of his jaw, and Duncan couldn’t stop himself from leaning into her, moaning against her, his cock stiffening--”and fuck me on it, baby, fuck me standing while I wear this dress--” and Duncan was nodding against her, his eyes closing with the sensation of her, her little hand flicking down to play over his length, then teasingly away. “--I was thinking I’d really love it if you’d do that…”

“Yes, Princess. Yes, I will--” Duncan’s mind thrilled, imagining her body prostrate against the beautiful antique table, her golden hair tossed onto it, the sound of its creaking as he thrust into her, his mouth on her body. We can finally use that table regularly, he thought. We have to fuck on every surface of this penthouse, baby, every square inch, I need to fuck you as often as you’ll permit me, as often as you’ll desire my attentions--

“Good.” Kenzie moved back from him, eyes intense in his, her mouth and hands sliding away from him, and Duncan groaned desperately at the loss of her touch. “Now, get dressed, baby. Do as I say.” Her eyes skirted down to his cock and Duncan shivered at her eyes--look longer, baby, look at me, I’m yours, my aching sex is all for you, my body, my desires, all for you. But her eyes lingered for only a moment, as if to tease him, then she moved past him on her fast little feet, towards the kitchen. Later, baby. You know later I’ll be yours. Later I’m gonna tell you to fuck me good and you’re going to do it, aren’t you, baby.

Yes, Kenzie. Duncan had half a mind to go after her, to grab her wrists and press his mouth against her, but he knew he wouldn’t, couldn’t--Kenzie told me to obey. Her desires come first. He let out a long, shuddering breath, then turned to where his shirts hung in their quiet, pressed, dark row. He pulled down a black cotton Givenchy shirt with stars embroidered along the collar--all the stars in the sky are for her, he thought, drifting inside his desires as he began to dress, thinking of tiny flowers with a thousand petals, each one containing a universe.

---------

“Kenz, Samuel and Harris are downstairs,” Duncan looked up from the text on his phone to where Kenzie was sitting across from him at the island, about an hour later. She clutched a little bottle of Pellegrino in her hand, a piece of half-eaten sprouted grain toast with unsalted peanut butter in front of her (Duncan had made it for her alongside a sliced, skinned kiwi and a carefully squared mango, which she’d already devoured), hair falling over her shoulder, the Tiffany moon necklace at her throat, glinting at him--she’d applied a little makeup now, though he knew undoubtedly the stylists would want to put more on her for the photos they’d be forced to take today (not that I mind sitting around staring at you, baby, that’s all I ever want to do now)--and she’d been looking at her phone too, grinning at something unseen to him, some secret pleasure on the little screen.

“Baby, look. Look at this. I can’t believe it.”

She pushed her phone across to him--with a little jolt of nerves Duncan realized Kenzie had gone to DUCKENZIEFANS.COM. Holy fuck.

Duncan was used to fans--that is, a certain type of fan. They tended to be women, many of them middle-aged and as questionably-mannered as the two women in the coffee shop who’d taken photos of him and Kenzie without asking, or DC socialites with a desire to climb (that is, fuck) their way up the social ladder of the capital city. Duncan couldn’t deny he’d slept with several such socialites, but they all seemed to be part of a distant past he could barely see now--part of another life, another Duncan, a man who hadn’t understood himself at all, hadn’t bothered to pay closer attention to his real desires, his hopes, or the sources of real happiness he had encountered. Kenzie has awakened my senses to the world that is always hovering just outside our eyesight--the hidden world that is seeped in delicate beauty, the world that comes out when one looks at art, or hears beautiful music, or is present in nature. Love is, I think, all of these things--and all of these things remind me of love. Of the one I love. Of her.

The website had clearly been made by someone with graphic design experience--the interface was lovely and easy to follow, and the aesthetics were pleasing. The home page was tasteful and minimal, gold and soft cream with black lettering--he thought of the two teenage girls who had greeted them--those girls made this website? The headings were in Lobster script, and the text in soft Playfair Display. WEBSITE UNDER CONSTRUCTION, thanks for your patience, read a header near the top. Above it was the photo of the two of them at Le Diplomate taken by some random iPhone camera, but sharpened and filtered to be maximally flattering. A bar down the side had directives neatly listed: DUCKENZIE FAQ, HOW TO JOIN THE FANCLUB, DUNCAN SHEPHERD PRESS RELEASES, MACKENZIE STONE PRESS RELEASES, DUCKENZIE PRESS RELEASES, DUCKENZIE MERCH & FAN CLUB EXCLUSIVES, COMBINED GALLERY, CONTACT INFO, FAN MAIL INFO, MEMBER FORUM. He marveled at the page for a moment, lost in it--Duncan knew he had had fan sites before now, but he’d never looked at any of them beyond Instagram, the site he tended to frequent the most when he had bothered with social media at all in the past. But this website was exceptionally ordered, clearly by someone who was interested in design and who also had developed a serious fascination with the two of them. He clicked on the link titled DUCKENZIE PRESS RELEASES--sure enough, the topmost result was the series of photos from the article posted today on BPF, with Kenzie smiling at Gabby and Lindy, the camera facing her. Under it was a link to the gossip site and a long series of paragraphs, clearly written by the two girls, about how friendly and warm Kenzie had been to them. Duckenzies, you wouldn’t believe how lovely she is in person! It’s like she’s surrounded by a warm ring of sunlight and being near her makes your whole body tingle. She smelled like roses and flowers, like a goddess of spring. Just being close to her was so incredible. Below a few paragraphs was another photo, this one a close-up of Kenzie’s signature and the message she’d written out on the newspaper. A special message to us and all of you from Kenzie herself. Below that was the iPhone shots of the girls posing with them. They were so kind and gracious to us! Everything we hoped and knew they would be!

“That’s just insane to me,” Kenzie said as Duncan continued to click through the site. “‘Duckenzie Merch’,” and she lifted her fingers up on either side of her head, feigning quotations. “Stickers with my face on them for everyone!”

“I want stickers with your face on them, too, they better send me some.”

Kenzie made a face at him and Duncan grinned. I mean it, though. I’ll put them on everything I own, I don’t care. I’ll buy every fucking sticker they’ve made. He glanced away from Kenzie’s phone reluctantly, at the face of the black Ballon Bleu Cartier he’d chosen for the inevitable photos that would be taken of him today--different from the silver one he’d worn the night he met Kenzie on the balcony. This one was framed in rose-gold (and the gold reminds me of her). He noted it was a quarter till noon. “We gotta go, baby. They’re expecting us at 12:30. In the Rose Garden, can you believe that?” He smiled at her; roses for my Kenzie. He looked at his Cartier again, thoughtfully, as Kenzie finished her toast and stood to put her plate in the long steel sink, washing her hands, staring at her succulents along the windowsill. He admired her tawny blonde hair, falling down her back from the crown of her head in soft waves. I’m going to get her something to adorn her lovely little wrists. I want to give her more tokens of my love, one for each part of her body. He thought of the rose choker, coiled in one of the drawers in their closet--I’ll strap it to your soft little throat tonight, baby love, I’ll kiss you all along its smooth leather as I plunge into your sweet rosy cunt. He looked up to see she’d turned and was staring at him, and knew she’d heard the thought--the color of her gaze shivered with hidden arousal, that hidden, golden power he knew she had over him. “Anything in my teeth, baby,” was all she said, though, baring them at him. He laughed, delighted at the feigned ferocity in her gaze. “Just your sweet smile.” Kenzie rolled her eyes at him, coming around the side of the island, languidly leaning down on its smooth surface to dip her face towards him, the red lace dress hugging her waist and floating around her beautifully, sending warm waves of tingling longing down his spine. “Mr. Shepherd, you’re infatuated.”

“I love you.” And Duncan pulled her arms insistently into him, burying his face in the crook of her neck, breathing her smell in deeply. How I feel, baby. How I feel with you. Like I can’t help but be sincere. My heart is so full of you there’s no room for anything else.

“Can’t wait for your mother’s head to spin when she sees my dress,” Kenzie’s tone was playful and her hand fell down the side of his hair, her cheek at his temple. He closed his eyes, still pressed against her neck, lost for a moment in the feeling of her little fingers, the pressure of her skin under his eyelashes.

“It’s a Kenzie dress,” he murmured against her. “Not like the other one. This one has you all over it. I love it so much. I think it’s perfect. And whoever’s doing the shoot is going to love it too, I bet.” He leaned up to look at her and her face was suddenly hovering very close to his, her lips whispering over his, her eyes half-lidded, looking down into him.

“I love you, Duncan Shepherd.”

“What did I do to deserve the love of an angel?” He couldn’t stop the words from falling out of his mouth, falling against her lips, hovering so close to him. Her leg was crooked into his thigh, her little stomach breathing against his, his hands pressed insistently into her hair along her back--you fit so sweet and small into my arms, my beloved. I could hold you this way all day, drunk on the scent of you, drunk with your softness. She was wearing the golden-strap heels again, and his hand came around to her foot, trailing over the laces.

“Oh stoppit.”

“I won’t.”

“It’s time for us to go, baby,” Kenzie tried to extract herself from his arms, but Duncan held fast to her, pressing his lips, then the tip of his tongue to the bare skin under her ear. She softened in the tenderness of his mouth; he heard her moans against him and wished the day would fade back into night for them, wished they were in the woods, under a night sky in a hidden forest, wished the world would just leave them be, let him kiss her, turn the sun away from them and bathe them in the shadows of their bed. But no, the world was waiting (Duckenzie, here they come, quick, take a picture), and so was Annette Shepherd. When Kenzie tried to pull away this time, Duncan let go of her, heart bruising at the sudden coldness of his lap. Kenzie slipped her convertible bag over her shoulder from where she’d left it by the penthouse door. “Pass me my phone, baby,” she said, her eyes bright on him. “Let’s go. The sooner we leave the sooner it’s over with.”

Duncan clutched her little gold iPhone, sighing deeply. “Don’t let Annette give you any shit today, baby,” he said, standing and handing it to her, fingers brushing down her wrist, her little face looking up at him, her expression one of aching trust, as he leaned protectively over her. “You’re a Shepherd now too, as far as I’m concerned. If she wants to insist you belong there, we’ll show her that you really do.”

Kenzie’s eyes flashed at him, and she lifted her chin in that defiant way--his throat clenched, head suddenly hazy with adoration. You got it, baby. Duncan barely had time to slip his wallet into the tailored pocket of his slacks before Kenzie clasped his hand in an iron grip, pulling him out the door and down the hallway. You got it, baby.

---------

Duncan remembered his meeting with Claire Underwood tomorrow as Samuel drove them towards the Botanical Gardens--a meeting he had no real idea of how to navigate, considering Annette’s insistence that the President was, in fact, her enemy, therefore the enemy of the company. What can I say to convince her I’m not, he wondered. Especially being unable to disclose that I’m gaining majority share once BIll dies? Nervously, he wondered if it was indeed possible without making her suspicious of him. Maybe meeting with her before Bill’s death wasn’t such a good idea after all. Too late now, Duncan. You’ll have to play like the old Duncan. The one who was ruthlessly loyal to Annette, and Claire Underwood knew it.

Kenzie’s hand was tucked under his thigh, and he glanced at her; she was staring out the window, seemingly admiring the historic Georgetown colonials they drifted past, her little lips mouthing the words to the John Denver Samuel had playing low--you fill up my senses, like a night in a forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain--the lovely dip of her collarbones lifting in her quiet breath against the fitted lace bodice and her diamond moon necklace, the lacy folds of the crimson skirt fanning out around her legs. Her phone was in her lap and he could see the outline of her Instagram profile open on it--2 million followers now. He could see she’d made a new post, featuring the photos of them posing with the two girls from DUCKENZIEFANS. My sweet Kenzie. Duncan made sure she was still distracted by the music and the scene outside her window, then angled his phone up to snap a discreet photo of her--her hair fell beautifully across her shoulder in the sunlight, and her mouth was open a little, mouthing the song, her cheek turned to the side and her eyes lifted away from the shot. On our way to talk to @vanityfair, did you know my @kenzielouwho has a beautiful singing voice? #comeletmeloveyou #letmegivemylifetoyou

Kenzie still hadn’t noticed anything--he could feel the drifting cascade of her thoughts falling against him every few moments, and knew; you really love this song, baby. It’s making you think of me. It’s making me think of you, too. Let me drown in your laughter, let me die in your arms. He opened the browser app and typed cartier.com, highlighting Jewelry, then under COLLECTIONS, he double-tapped LOVE. He chose two bracelets--one band of 18k yellow gold, and another band, also yellow gold, smaller, with 4 brilliant diamonds. He tried to keep his mind quiet as he did, tried to think of his mother and his meeting with Claire Underwood. He finished the order and closed out of the Cartier website--there. All done.

“All done with what, baby?” Kenzie turned to him, blinking. Annie’s Song had ended, and she seemed to resurface from a dream. Duncan noticed that they were a few yards back from pulling up to the Botanical Gardens; he lifted his thigh a little to grasp her hand. “Nothing, baby, just something I had to take care of for work.”

“Hmmmmmm,” Kenzie replied, giving him a suspicious look. “It doesn’t seem like that’s quite right.”

“It’s a surprise, baby.” Get out of my head, let me surprise you, my love.

“Stop buying me things.” He could see she was trying to hide the smile that wanted to fall over her mouth--she pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes at him.

“I won’t.”

“Duncan Shepherd.” She crossed her arms.

“I want to, baby. Please let me.”

She gave him another long look, pouting her lips a little.

“Please, Miss Stone. Let me bring you tribute for your altar.”

Kenzie blushed deeply at that, turning away from him. Duncan leaned down to her little cheek, bringing the hand that wasn’t holding hers tightly up to the dip under her chin, turning her jaw towards him.

“It’s a way I can worship you,” he spoke down to her ear. “Let me worship you, Kenzie.” He felt her shiver under his touch; he dipped his lips down to her skin and let them linger there, closing his eyes, savoring her softness and the sweet scent of her perfume (rose, vetiver, geranium, no, I’ll never tire of it).

“What’s your middle name, baby?” He heard her ask softly. “So I can use it when I’m annoyed with you.” He laughed into her cheek at that and felt it rise as she smiled under his fingers.

“It’s Malcolm. Follower of the Saint. Mom told me it was going to be my first name for awhile, but she decided she wanted it to be Duncan after all. The Warrior. Fearless.”

Kenzie gazed at him for a long moment as the BMW drifted to a stop on the curb. Then she mouthed his name, quietly. “Duncan Malcolm Shepherd. Warrior, follower of the Saint.”

“And what does Mackenzie mean?”

She smiled at him, winsome, charming him, teasing.

“Guess.”

“Fast as a falling star.”

She grinned. “No.”

“Lover of horses.”

She laughed at that. “No.”

“Beautiful as a rose kissed by spring dew at dawn.” He dipped his head to her, breathing along the delicate space between of her neck.

Kenzie looked away from him at that; he saw the shyness fall into her, felt it; the gossamer wave of her affection, the demure tinge of her longing for him.

“Kenzie.”

“It means lovely.” Harris was coming out of the front passenger door, buttoning his jacket, wearing dark sunglasses, stepping to open Kenzie’s door. The partition was floating down. Duncan could see several people walking on the sidewalk outside; some of them were turning, curious, to look at the BMW. He turned back to her, and he and Kenzie stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment; hers with gold discs floating behind the hazel--Duncan thought for an instant he could see his own eyes in her mind, you pierce my spirit with them, she thought, blue like the sky after a storm, the storm you’ve stirred in my soul, the wild love you’ve given me, every kiss and every touch too beautiful for words, every instance of your love a miracle.

“Of course it does,” he breathed.

Kenzie smiled at him. In time I’ll memorize every tiny detail of your face--I’ll remember everything, he thought. Beloved.

Harris opened the door and she slipped away from him, her little golden iPhone clutched in her hand, her hair falling back, the red lace of her skirt sliding off the leather seat. Duncan followed her out, squinting into the summer sunlight. He glanced to where several pedestrians had stopped to watch the car (two middle-aged companions, a man and a woman in professional attire; a younger woman in jogging clothes with a German Shepherd on a leash); there was dawning recognition in their eyes and the jogging girl immediately lifted her phone up. Duncan turned away, annoyed, certain she’d snapped the picture anyway. He reached for Kenzie’s hand as she slipped her round sunglasses over her eyes, and Harris moved in front of her, blocking her from view from the people watching. There were a few more people inside the front gardens to the southwest, and they stared after Duncan and Kenzie with obvious interest, but Duncan was relieved to see that the Rose Garden had a sign on the gate saying it would be closed for maintenance for the day--the “maintenance” in this case being their interview and photocall with Vanity Fair. As they approached they saw a tall Asian woman with very long, straight black hair and razor-cut bangs, in a smart short-sleeved navy blazer, a black v-neck blouse and a pencil skirt, standing at the gate from the other side. She waved to them a little, giving them a small smile, using a key to unlock it; she pulled the gate open and Kenzie and Duncan stepped through, Harris tight on their heels, and the woman locked it securely behind they moved further in, shielded by tall arborvitae bushes.

“River Tsukamoto, staff writer for Vanity Fair.” She reached out a hand first to Duncan, then to Kenzie, who grinned at her. She had a coy, small smile, and very dark eyeshadow and lipstick, almost black, and no accent. “So wonderful to meet you both. Annette arrived a few minutes ago--she’s in hair and makeup. We don’t always do it this way, but she said you have another interview later today--is it okay if we conduct this one as we shoot?”

“That’s fine,” Duncan replied. “Whatever’s easiest for you.”

He gave her a small, close-mouthed smile, and still saw the telltale sag in her features that his smile tended to cause with people. River’s eyes flicked back and forth between him and Kenzie; down the length of Kenzie’s lacy red summer dress, the fall of her tawny hair, up his tall form and the smart cut of his clothing, lingering in his blue eyes and flitting over to Kenzie’s, their depth of green and gold making the other woman blink rapidly. River’s eyes fell to Kenzie’s moon diamond necklace--she seemed to recognize it. We must have an Instagram follower here.

“God, I have to say, you’re both just stunning in person.” The woman’s cheeks turned a deep crimson almost instantly, and she crooked an arm around her stomach. “I have to admit I started following both of your Instas since your relationship became public, they’re just--ugh, I love them.”

Duncan hesitated and Kenzie immediately stepped towards the woman--”What’s yours? I’ll follow you back.” Kenzie was holding her phone up, opening the app.

“Oh, oh my god, yes. It’s just @rivertsukamoto. Ugh, that would be so great.” River smiled again, this time dipping her body down and clenching her fists a little, bouncing in the black open-toed boots she wore--her toes were painted black. “I just loved those photos of you guys at the beach, so gorgeous.” Kenzie grinned up at her. “Thank you, that was a really wonderful day. There, now we’re Insta friends.”

“Right this way--” and River extended her arm, the blush still on her pale cheeks, leading them towards the center of the rose garden, where several stone benches surrounded a fountain, with dozens of rose bushes in different colors and varieties circling all around the courtyard, deep damask red, rosy-white bourbon, burgundy-colored hybrids, creamy york, sunny yellow--a tall sandy-stone building rose ahead of them with pointed turrets and art-deco glass windows. Duncan’s eyes skirted to where there were two trailers set up along one side of the bushes--River ushered them towards the one at the right, opening the door and beckoning them inside, wherein a very large, hairy man in suspenders and combat boots with a very curly mustache, long hair tied in a messy bun, and very glittery eyeshadow greeted them with a screech of delight.

“Alister at your behest, dumplings,” he said, gasping in a high voice. “Duncan Shepherd and Mackenzie Stone, sit down. God, you two are like sweet pastries, Duncan, you’re a chocolate eclair, Miss Kenzie, you’re a little pink macaron. You’re first, prince of the piercing blue eyes. Sit.”

Duncan settled down into the nearest styling chair, and Kenzie settled into one beside him, two circular mirrors mounted against the trailer’s back wall wherein Duncan could see her nervous expression across from him. Alister was washing his hands at a basin sink in the corner, and Duncan saw Kenzie take her phone out, snapping a picture of their two reflections, him side-eyeing her with a bemused expression, the phone angled over her mouth, her eyes skirting back to him. Then Alister was gripping his jaw carefully and pressing a pencil onto his eyelid.

“God, you don’t even really need anything, do you,” the big man spoke down to him in his high, lilting voice. “Your skin is gorgeous. This jaw could cut someone in half. Your eyes are out of control. Your lips are like fucking pillows. Just kill me, honey.” Kenzie was laughing into her hand, her eyes squeezed shut.

“Honey, you don’t even get to laugh, you’re fucking him, that’s not even fair,” Alister pointed the brush in his hand at her in mock-severity, rolling his eyes, turning back to Duncan--this just made Kenzie laugh harder. “God, you smell like a fucking Tom Ford runway, too. And what are you wearing, it fits you like a second skin, oh my fucking god, who does your tailoring?”

“A gentleman never reveals his tailor,” Duncan was trying not to laugh himself; Kenzie’s wild amusement was making him want to jump out of the chair and tackle her with kisses.

“Is he a gentleman?” Alister glanced over at Kenzie, using the brush to swish powder across Duncan’s cheekbone. “I bet he is to you, honey, you little sugar plum.”

Kenzie was coming down from her laughter, brushing tears from the corners of her eyes.

“He is. He’s an angel.”

“Oh shut up. You’re both stupidly beautiful and wildly in love. Sickening. Your Instas are the hottest thing online right now, I saw you taking that photo honey, make sure you tag me, @alisterrichardsstyle.” “I promise I will, thank you, Alister.” Kenzie snorted into her hand again. Seeing her laugh this way made Duncan feel absolutely dazzled. I’m your biggest fan, baby love.

“There.” Alister hadn’t done more than add some dark eyeliner and very light contour to Duncan’s face; Duncan had had this reaction from stylists before, and was used to light “touch-ups” versus any kind of lengthy makeup for shoots. “You honestly didn’t even need that, but keeping up appearances and all that. You might be the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, baby. And I’ve seen some boys.” Alister moved over to where Kenzie sat, glancing up at him nervously.

“Now, you, little baby angel. Let’s give you some lips to go with that dress, mama.” As Alister worked on Kenzie’s face Duncan couldn’t help but stare--her eyelashes darkened and became longer under his hands, her eyelids painted a iridescent pink, her cheek rosied, her lips dark crimson red to match the lacy dress. Duncan was struck by the romanticism of her hair over her shoulder, the glance she gave him as Alister finished on her--suddenly, my dark fiery goddess of blood-red wine.

“I guess you’re more like a little red box of Valentine’s Day chocolate now, baby,” Alister said to her as he moved the lipstain wand from her mouth. “Stay still while I document.” Alister pulled his phone out of his large pocket and took several snaps of her face from all angles, then moved over to Duncan and did the same thing to him. “Gonna pretend like I created all this beauty myself,” Alister smirked. “You are free to go, my angelic darlings. I shall wave to you from your place in the heavens.” Alister gave them a little bow just as River pulled the door open. “Alister, are you done on them?” Duncan was going over to Kenzie and grasping her hand--they thanked Alister, Kenzie still giggling into her palm.

“Oooooo, gorgeous,” River cooed, staring at them openly. “Annette’s over here.” Duncan’s heart rammed up into his mouth as he saw his mother, her beauty clouded with annoyance (as was her usual with him lately--Duncan remembered how he’d brushed her off the last time he saw her, and her angry texts regarding their living together), staring down at the large screen of her phone, typing quickly. She looked up at them and Duncan saw her clouded gaze darken further at Kenzie’s appearance.

“Mackenzie, what are you wearing.” It wasn’t a question as much as a demand--an angry demand for a satisfying answer.

“Mom, please, lay off her.”

“Duncan, don’t take that fucking condescending tone with me. And you’re living together now, what a fucking joke. Absolutely thoughtless.” Annette stood and her eyes flashed--she wore an asymmetrical black crepe dress with a draped neck, and pointed black stilettos. Today she also wore a gold necklace with three round diamond stones in addition to her customary diamond earrings--more jewelry than Duncan had seen on her since the last photoshoot they’d had, which was several months ago. Her look was undoubtedly, undeviatingly Annette. But what you don’t seem to understand is Kenzie is not going to dress like you. She’s going to dress like her.

“Annette, the paparazzi swarmed my apartment building--” Duncan looked down at Kenzie to see her face creased with anxiety, her little voice distraught, floating up to his ear towards Annette. He could see how much she was trying to keep her temper, and it made him want to shield her from Annette’s cruelly dark eyes.

“Then you find another fucking apartment, sweetie,” Annette snapped at her, and he felt Kenzie flinch in his hand, as if she wanted to run away from the scene. No, baby, no, remember what I said. Show her who’s boss. You’re the boss now, Kenzie. You’re in charge. You belong here. Show her.

Annette was openly sneering at Kenzie now, her eyes taking on that unnerving, deeply dark sheen they’d had over dinner at Plume. River was standing by nervously, not speaking, seemingly afraid to butt into the sudden vehemency of Annette’s manner--a photographer, camera in hand, a woman with boxy glasses and salt-and-pepper hair, had come up to her and whispered in her ear, and she was hurriedly whispering back, head turned towards the encounter. Clouds had drifted over the sun while they were in the trailer, and it suddenly seemed as though it might rain--yeah, really fucking rain, Duncan thought. Kenzie suddenly gripped his hand so hard it hurt, and he flinched, looking down at her--her eyes were staring into Annette’s, and they were swirling with the gold sheen usually saved for him alone--a sheen so bright it almost hurt him to look into them. Her other hand had come around to grip at the diamond moon around her neck, tightly, so tight he could see her fingers turning red. His head snapped up to his mother’s face; she seemed caught inside Kenzie’s whirling gaze, and her own took on a dazed expression, as though she were trying to remember something she’d forgotten.

“Duncan and I are together now. You can’t tear us apart.” Kenzie’s voice was trembling at first--then, it evened and soothed, and became very clear. “Please accept my presence in his life, Annette. He’s told you this before: your disapproval will not end our attachment. But it will bring him sadness. And it will bring you sadness, too.” Kenzie’s voice was mesmerizing in this moment; Duncan remembered flashes of the vision of her last night, a vision that seemed to be slowly fading from his understanding in the fabric of reality; the Kenzie with white hair that had flowers like little universes, eyes like whirling cosmic vistas, a gown made of the intricate geometries of some unknown intergalactic fiber, wings of some unfathomable divinity. This voice is like the voice of that Kenzie. That Kenzie is afraid of no earthly being. The air suddenly felt very heavy, as though a thunderstorm were about to begin.

“Please, don’t direct your anger on us anymore.” Duncan felt Kenzie’s hand grow strangely cold for a moment--cold, then surge back into warmth, like hot water dumped over ice. Her grip on him relaxed--the heavy feeling in the air seemed to dissipate, and he took a deep breath.

The clouds moved a little from their place over the sun, slowly allowing it to peek out again. Annette was strangely quiet--her expression had changed from one of anger to the dazed expression of confusion to one that now seemed to have forgotten her anger entirely; her annoyance remained, but it was less pointed towards Kenzie, now directed at River and the photographer standing to the sidelines. They didn’t seem to really understand or recall what had just happened--River was blinking rapidly, as though disoriented from a loud sound.

“What are we all standing around for?” Annette barked at her. “Are we doing this or not? I have a full schedule today, Ms. Tsukamoto.”

“Kenzie,” Duncan leaned down to her, his lips to her ear. “What did you do?”

“I--I don’t know,” she whispered, looking at Annette. Duncan’s mother was moving away from them, talking to River with a clipped voice. The photographer was interjecting, pointing to the fountain and gesturing. “I think...I just told her to stop. Stop being the way she’s being to us, to me and you, to us being together. I think it was like...a kind of command. Baby, I don’t know.” Kenzie was pressing a hand against her forehead, breathing slowly through her nose, out through her mouth, her red lips shining in the afternoon sun.

“Okay, baby. Okay. Let’s get through this, okay? We can do this.” He soothed his thumb over her hand. Kenzie nodded, weakly. He led her over to where Annette was now sitting by the fountain.

“Hey, I’m Anna Peterson.” The photographer approached them, peering at them over her glasses, pushing a hand through her hair. She seemed either unfazed by what had just happened, or seemed to have forgotten it entirely. Kenzie was still pressing her hand on her forehead, but Duncan nodded to her.

“You two are...really something. I have to get some shots of the two of you alone, I think. We’ll do something with Annette while River’s conducting the interview, but I’d love for you to pose for me a few times together without her. If that’s alright with you.”

“Is that okay, Kenz?” Duncan looked down at her. She nodded a little. He turned to Anna. “Do you have any water bottles?” Anna trotted over to one of the trailers and emerged a few moments later with an unopened plastic water bottle, handing it out to Kenzie. Kenzie reached for it with shaking hands; Duncan grasped it, opening it for her. “Thanks baby,” she whispered, sipping at it carefully. River was already asking Annette questions--Duncan felt weary at the prospect of trying to lie about his intentions for the company, and the longer he could put it off today, probably for the better. Anna eyed them both again--Duncan noted how impatient she seemed to start with the camera on them, fiddling her fingers over its black-and-silver surface, hopping from side to side--and said “How about we do a couple shots right now? Just some warm-up stuff. How about over here?” She gestured with one hand to where groups of blushing bourbon roses were clustered in two adjacent bushes, about a yard away from where River and Annette were going back and forth, Annette’s clipped voice carrying over to them.

Duncan nodded, gently pulling Kenzie in front of one of the bushes, to a spot of partial shade under an oak tree that grew beside them--she still clutched the water bottle in one hand, and Duncan could see the moisture gathering along the outside trembling as the bottle shook in her unsteady grip. Anna was already snapping away, having started as soon as he and Kenzie began to move; Duncan kept his hand threaded through hers, thinking soft waves of love towards her. I don’t know what you did to Mom, Kenz, but it worked. It’s like she forgot we’re even here. It was like the power we pushed over her at dinner, but even stronger. I think the powers we can use, whatever the fuck they are, whatever they mean--I think they’re getting stronger. I think we can direct them better, control them better. Kenzie set the water bottle down in the crook of the oak tree’s roots, and came close to him, her hands reaching out for him. Duncan couldn’t stop himself; he pressed his palm against her jaw, heard the furious clicking of Anna’s camera.

I still don’t really know what I did though, baby. Kenzie was looking up at him, her hazel eyes drifting into different colors as the clouds partially obscured the sun again--Anna paused for a moment, and said “God, that’s lovely, just keep doing that, the way you’re looking at each other, Duncan, keep touching her that way,” towards them. Their bodies were leaning close; the roses framed behind them. Gladly, he thought. I’ll gaze at you and hold you all day, angel baby. Kenzie seemed to be calming, the trembling running down from her limbs. Duncan moved his hands down to hold Kenzie at the waist--she pressed into him, sighing, her chin angling up. Gaze away, her gold thought drifted against him. I love you so. In your eyes I am content. They’re home.

“Mackenzie, look over here.” The camera was snapping rapidly, repeatedly. Kenzie glanced to Anna--almost involuntarily, it seemed, she laid her temple against Duncan’s chest, and his hand came up against her hair--he gazed down at the aureate crown of her golden-chestnut hair and pressed his lips against it as she glanced over at Anna, her little red lips parted just slightly, her eyes shining with the damp residue of her emotions. Duncan savored the warmth of her despite the hotness of the day, the feeling of the lace of her dress under his fingers, the dip of her waist, the cascade of her hair, the heady scent of her. You’re my home too, baby. You’re the resting place of my soul.

“Wow,” Anna said. She seemed to have forgot about them, in a sense; seemed to be thinking about the photos rather than their physical presence. “That’s going to be a final shot for absolute certain.” Kenzie turned her face into him now, her eyes fluttering closed, overwhelmed; Duncan looked to Anna’s camera now, and couldn’t stop the protective wave that fell over him, his resentment towards the world around them that didn’t seem to grasp how extraordinary Kenzie was, how luminously beautiful within, brighter than a hundred other souls combined, how desperately she had to be protected from anyone who would wish her harm, how divine it was that her spirit was on earth at all. “Gorgeous, gorgeous, fuck, perfect,” Anna was murmuring, coming around their right side. “Like a fairy tale. Your eyes, Duncan, they’re like sharp little polished sapphires. Hold that pose for me, please.” Kenzie looked up at him; they really are, she thought to him. They are like sapphires. I love your eyes, baby.

And your eyes are like autumn leaves dusted with golden evening lights. She pulled away from him, grinning in embarrassment--Duncan clutched at her arms, pulling her back to him, pressing his lips into the bottom of her jaw as he lifted her little body up to him, Anna clicking her camera all the while. No baby, let me. Let me tell you how beautiful you are, Kenzie. Let me tell you and know how sincerely I mean it, my body and soul aching for you, hungry for you every minute. Please know how much I love you.

I know baby, I know. And I love you--so much. So fucking much. So much it’s almost hard to look at you, to feel all that love from you, because I feel like the love I feel for you and the love I feel coming from you is so great--together, it’s like they’re going to burst my heart into a thousand pieces.

Let it burst, then. Mine will too. The fragments of both of us will still find each other again. I’d find you if you were at the opposite end of the universe, baby. I’d search for you until I found you. I swear on everything. On my life, on my death, on every star. I promise. I would fucking find you. His hands were threading through her hair, their lips not quite touching but their mouths hovering near each other; Duncan resurfaced from the intoxicating nexus of her, glancing over at Anna again; the older woman was gaping openly at them, her camera hovering in her hands, forgotten. Then she shook her head as if to clear it, and nodded at him, mouthing the word again. Perfect.

------

The interview, so far as it concerned him and Kenzie, went surprisingly smoothly--whatever influence Kenzie had had on Annette seemed to extend through the remainder of their time with River and Anna; the photographer took several shots of them around the fountain, Duncan standing behind his mother in one with Kenzie sitting in the opposite direction, and another with Kenzie and Duncan sitting together and Annette standing, her gaze off to the side. Duncan wondered with mounting impatience what the photos would look like when the article was released; wondered if by the time it was published it wouldn’t already be obsolete in context. Annette had already given answers to several questions from River regarding the company that Duncan knew were not entirely accurate or truthful--and answers he knew would not coincide with the new model for the company when he gained majority share. Duncan knew Kenzie was getting glimpses of his inner frustration as the afternoon wore on; she would glance at him with concern deep in her eyes, and reach for his hand, her lips pressing together. Better not to talk much anyway, baby, she said to him, secretly; that way you won’t be branded a liar later. And Annette can’t pretend like you went along with all of this just to turn on her. I’m with you, baby. We should talk to Momby soon about the board of directors. I’m sure she’ll say yes. We’re going to make it through all of this--and then we’ll have our whole lives ahead of us.

Her voice inside his head had soothed him as the afternoon wore on, and by the time River was turning off her recorder and closing her notes, Annette seemed to be in a mood that could almost approach good for once. She was glancing down at her phone with a neutral expression; then, it seemed to cloud again as she received a text. Kenzie had been whispering into his ear, giggling over Claire asking if Harris was single, trailing kisses along his skin there. Annette looked up at him, and he knew something was wrong.

“Your uncle’s been taken to the hospital again.” She was standing, her lips pressing in a thin line, the clouds having returned strongly overhead--this time they seemed to be here to stay, having multiplied and extended over the sky, so the day was no longer bright or as hot. Annette’s hand was coming up to brush her hair off her shoulder, and her expression became unreadable, dark, hidden. “I have to meet him there. We’ll have to postpone the Forbes interview.”

“Mom, I could do it without you--”

“No. I don’t think so.” She seemed to falter for a moment, her eyes skirting over to Kenzie beside him, who was staring back at her solemnly, sympathy in her hazel eyes. Kenzie forgives you for everything, I know she does. She always does. She wants to be your friend. She wants to be a daughter to you. I know that, even if she won’t say it, won’t really say it, not yet, not even to me. Annette’s tone wasn’t angry and incredulous, as it had been--now, it was tinged with a sort of weary resignation, and a hidden sadness that she refused to show outwardly. “I think perhaps it’s better to cancel it entirely. There’s too much happening in the company right now to give a business-forward interview, anyway. With the company itself soon to be in such flux--it seems unwise. This one is done, besides.” Annette suddenly looked very tired. Duncan reached out to his mother--she gripped under his arms, and he knew in a rush how badly she had wanted to touch him, then. Knew that she was mourning his uncle already, in her heart of hearts, a heart she never showed to anyone but him, and then only in rare flashes that seemed to disappear right after the instant they emerged.

“Mom. I love you.”

“My sweet Duncan.” River and Anna had gone away, back to one of the trailers, and Harris stood with his mother’s bodyguard, Becket, a huge, menacing man who rarely spoke, at the far edge of the garden by the gate, too far away to hear any conversation from the distance; the Rose Garden had grown oddly quiet, the only sounds the drift of the summer wind and the trickle of the water, and Kenzie was sitting on the fountain beside where he and his mother stood, staring at the ground, her hair falling down her shoulders, her hand clutching at the moon pendant at her throat. As he glanced at her he could see that she had tears gathered in the corners of her eyes--he glanced back at his mother, caught between their emotions.

“You were always such a perceptive, sensitive child.” Annette was loosening her grip on his arms, stepping back from him. “I fought to steel your nerves for the world outside. It’s cruel and unkind and ruthlessly hard, and I knew it would crush you if I didn’t prepare you for it. I’m sorry if I...I’m sorry if I have sometimes been cold to you. I tried to...I tried to protect you. I have tried to. You had to be fearless to survive this world, and I knew it, and I became obsessed with my need to prepare you. I wonder if I--” she turned her face to look over his shoulder, into Kenzie’s eyes--seemed to notice the tears there. “I wonder if I’ve been too stubborn regarding certain...things. As your uncle worsens, I...”

Annette’s eyes grew misty--she smiled, but the smile was achingly sad to him.

“I wonder if I haven’t confused the things that truly matter with what seemed to for so long.”

Duncan watched, his body going stiff with shock, as Annette went around him and reached down to Kenzie with one shaking hand. I’ve never seen Mom shake like that. It’s my uncle. Bill’s dying. He’s really dying. And I think she just realized that. Really realized it, and began to accept it. He’s going to die very soon.

Kenzie reached up to her--as their fingers grasped each other, Duncan watched (felt) the golden wave of Kenzie’s energy (her attention, her kindness, her goodness, her love) fall down over his mother in its quiet, cascading swell. Annette sighed--the sigh seemed to be tinged with surprise, as though whatever she was receiving from Kenzie was moving beyond words, tinged with too much feeling to resist. Duncan couldn’t quite glimpse it in its entirety--it seemed to be a secret of some kind that Kenzie passed into his mother, something for her and her alone. Duncan felt another sharp wave of shock as he watched Annette lean down to Kenzie’s little cheek and kiss it, a tiny, short peck of her lips to the soft skin of his beloved’s sweet face. The kiss, he knew instantly, was sincere.

And then the moment passed, and Annette walked away from them, towards Becket and the gate, slipping her dark sunglasses over her eyes, shielding him and Kenzie from her emotions entirely. The big man ushered her through the gate, and they were lost from view.

“Dunny,” Duncan heard Kenzie’s little voice before he turned to her, heard the tears in it, and they weren’t tears of sadness, not really--they’d become tears of relief, he saw as he looked into her eyes, their whirling gold telling him clearly, and he rushed to her and gathered her up in his arms, and she was so small and her body shook against him, and Duncan touched her cheek where his mother had kissed her, and it seemed to burn under his fingers, burn like it had been held close to a flame, and he held her among the quiet roses, the sweet-scented summer wind falling against them, and the moment soothed and dissolved, and they lingered in it for a long while.

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