Consummation

They married under an opalescent moon in the middle of July. At the reception they spoon-fed each other bits of vanilla-bean cake that melted on their tongues like snowflakes, and they chased those snowflakes with sips of sparkling wine that tasted of stardust and rain. They clung to each other and swayed to a waltz in the shimmering candlelight and completely ignored the congratulations of friends and family. They left the reception early – far too early, as some guests remarked a little nastily - and retired to the small blue house high in the hills where they made love underneath the naked moon and purple mountains. They wrapped themselves in a cocoon of sheets and metamorphosed in the dark, so wrapped in one another they hardly knew where they ended and the other began.

“Why don’t we forgo our honeymoon,” she murmured in the early hours, her head cradled in the crook of his shoulder, “and stay here in our home and forget the outside world.”

He kissed her deeply and they moved together like music. In the morning he called the grocer and ordered food for a month as well as cases of wine and spirits and champagne to be delivered to the house. The truck came in the afternoon, winding up the lonely roads through the woods and the rock to the small blue home they had built together. Together they stocked the kitchen and the cellar, uncorking a bottle of zinfandel and drank it from mugs they rinsed in the sink. They made love again and he admired her tight brown breasts and the way her back arched and she admired the curve of his collar-bone and the flecks of quartz in his eyes.

“We are the most beautiful people in the world,” she announced.

“You make me forget the rest of the world,” he murmured into her breasts which were red and marked by his affection.

“Let’s forget it for a while then,” she said, and together they went and hid the television at the back of the closet and both of them felt strangely poetic and celebratory. He kissed a line down her neck and she laughed. That night he made dinner – teriyaki steaks and steamed asparagus and snow-peas with garlic mashed potatoes. She made apple dumplings, and his eyes were drawn to her hands again and again as she deftly peeled the apples and folded them into the dough. She blushed and laughed and the steaks burned, but neither of them cared. They washed it down with a nice cabernet and in between mouthfuls found their lips pressed together in a repetitive motion that stoked the fire between them until the clinking of silverware subsided and she rose and came to straddle his lap and dinner soon lay forgotten.

“It is not enough to put the television away,” she said again.

He agreed with her whole-heartedly and they placed the radio and the alarm clocks away, and let their phones die and stuck them at the very back of the drawers of their bedside tables.

“Now there is no one in the world but us,” he said, and he kissed her again and again and again.

*

And so for the first week they ate and drank and made love repeatedly in a never-ending cycle of luxury and indulgence that had their heads spinning and their bodies both exhausted and satiated. In the second week, twice people came to the door of the little blue house, knocking insistently.

“Let’s not answer it,” she said with a giggle the first time.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, and the two of them dimmed the lights and waited for the intruders of their private world to go away.

The second time was in the evening three nights later, and the knocks rapped against the door like unceasing gunfire that echoed through the cavern of the house. The two of them crept naked to the window when it wouldn’t go away and saw two shadowy figures stand on the porch shrouded in darkness.

“Perhaps they aren’t home,” one of the figures said. “That would be for the best.”

“Their neighbor says she swore she saw them in the window just a few days ago,” the second one said. “We can’t leave without trying.”

“Nosy old biddy was probably watching us get it on with binoculars,” the husband whispered to the wife as they eavesdropped. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stop herself from giving themselves away as she silently shook with laughter. He reached down a hand and their fingers entwined in a quiet conspiracy.

“They’re newlyweds, aren’t they?” One of the figures said. “They are probably off on their honeymoon, which is why their phones are turned off.”

The second figure didn’t say anything, and after another minute of the two of them bickering, they turned around and began walking down the road. Husband and Wife emerged from their hiding place and toasted their sneakiness, celebrating with crackers smeared with roasted red pepper jelly and cream cheese and two bottles of wine. They danced together until they were too dizzy to stand and then they fell together on the sagging couch to wrap around each other and fall asleep.

*

A few days later he woke and the bed beside him was empty. He could hear her moving around downstairs and could hear the sound of bacon sizzling in their cast iron pan as fragrant clouds of coffee floated through the house. He showered and washed his hair with coconut shampoo and made his way downstairs. His wife wasn’t at the stove and he looked out their kitchen window at the heavy woods that surrounded him. A blue jay scolded him as he opened it to let a cool breeze circulate through the kitchen. A noise behind him had him turn to greet his wife.

“We’re nearly out of alcohol,” she said as she came up the cellar stairs with a long-necked bottle in her hand. “We only have this chardonnay and a bottle of merlot left.”

“I’ll order more,” he said as he nuzzled her neck and took the bottle for them. He poured out two glasses as she flipped pancakes onto two china plates. They took them into the sunroom out back and ate slowly. When they were finished, he took the plates back into the kitchen and called the store twice before they picked up.

After he had given the man at the other end of the phone his order, there was a baffled silence.

“You want this delivered? Tomorrow?” The man’s voice was heavily laden with disbelief.

“Yes,” the husband replied, and hung up without another word.

She came up behind him and handed him a mug of thick, strong black coffee.

“How was the real world?” She asked saucily. His eyes caught on her lower lip.

“Horrible,” he said, reaching for her. “Let’s ignore it for as long as we can.”

*

In the morning the last delivery was left in haphazard piles on their front porch with a note pinned to it that said nothing but “will not be returning”.

“It seems we have driven them away,” she laughed. His eyes caught on the movement of her mouth and he grabbed her dark hands and pulled her inside so that he could see those lips move in more wonderful ways. Afterwards, she stood naked in the kitchen, sprinkling powdered sugar and cinnamon on top of French toast, which they ate with thick slices of pea-meal bacon, the edges crisped and curling. As he cleaned up, she went upstairs and ran them a hot bath. They stayed in there until the water was flat and lukewarm, and they toweled each other off before they went to bed for a long nap. When he woke the bed was empty, and he saw her silhouetted against the window at the end of the second floor hallway. He smiled at her and headed downstairs, rummaging through the kitchen.

She was watching a long trail of cars weave down the road of the mountains onto the highway and into the distance like a caravan of pioneer wagons, heavily loaded down with personal possessions. He came up behind her with his hands around the stems of two glasses of champagne and handed her one and drew her close .

“I wonder where they are going,” she said.

“It is the end of summer – perhaps the whole mountain is going on a quick vacation,” he joked. She turned to him and smiled and brought the glass to her lips.

“Perhaps we should go with them,” she replied.

He wrapped a strong arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. “I would rather stay here with you.”

*

Time crawled by on the dark and lonely mountain. The lovers were left undisturbed, and they preferred it that way. Meals were planned with extravagance and cooked in between bedroom sessions. They dipped into their supplies gratuitously, the world outside the four walls of their home falling away. The cellphones lay at the back of their bedside drawers, forgotten and quietly gathering dust. Their computers remained off.

She woke one day determined to have breakfast on the porch. He smiled at her insistence that they do and agreed. He cut thick slices of honeyed ham and began to boil water for poached eggs and melt butter for a rich hollandaise sauce. As he finished initial preparations he went outside to watch her move about the porch barefoot, tidying it and setting up a cozy little breakfast nook for the two of them.

She swept the porch and he admired her strong legs and the way she moved as if she were dancing, and he went back to that night they were married. He went to her and ran his hand down her back. She looked at him with smoky narrowed eyes and pressed herself against him.

“Bother the cooking,” he said, and he lay her down on the porch and kissed her all over until her breath was quick and her cheeks were flushed and only then did he let himself enter her to find his own release.

Instead of eggs benedict and mimosas, they ate thick slabs of texas toast smeared with wild honey from the same hills on which they lived and slices of tomatoes liberally seasoned with salt and fresh-ground pepper that they popped into their mouths and chewed with slow relish. They passed a bottle of cheap sparkling wine between them, throwing back their heads for long and thirsty draughts.

The smell of fire drifted over the hills and filtered through the trees, a strong acrid smell that made her wrinkle her button nose and comment on it. Great dark clouds begin to roil in the sky like tumultuous whitecaps that lapped and tore at the mountain face.

“One of our neighbours must be having a massive fire,” he said, though the houses were dark and silent and still and had been for almost a week. “And a storm must be rolling in. We should go inside,” he said, and thought of their bed with the warm and mussed sheets and how he wanted to tangle himself up in the sheets and in her.

“Shut up you clever man and kiss me again,” she said and so he kissed her honeyed lips and tasted her sweet warmth. The kiss lasted a very long time and when they finally came up for air small grey flecks blew onto the porch and settled there.

“Snow in August?” She said with delight, and he kissed her laughing mouth because he was unable to stop himself from doing so, and while the great thick flakes began to swirl in a tempestuous wind he scooped her up, their breakfast forgotten, and they retired indoors.

He removed her clothing daintily, ignoring the flakes of ash pile up on their bedroom windowsill like drifts of snow. He kissed down her lean stomach and she grasped desperately at his shaft. She moaned loudly when he entered her soft folds, reaching down with his own broad hands to rub her. Soon he forgot himself, and his thrusts grew frenzied and desperate and she writhed beneath him. The air grew hot and dry and his own moans rasped in his throat but they could not, would not stop.

A savage glow lit their window, a crackling of flame as a fiery river belched sparks as it slowly consumed the mountain. The earth begin to rumble, the bedposts bashing against the wall, cracking it, but still they did not notice, so engrossed they were in each other. A subterranean sun burst through the mulch of their backyard, and she screamed as she came. She continued to scream as he continued to pump into her and as the roof caved in around them. A large chunk of wood came down, cracking against her head as he rolled off of her, his sperm leaving a wet and shiny trail across her slim thighs. He cried out as her eyes rolled back and blood fountained from a cut in her forehead. Her naked body bucked and spasmed, and he curled around her, sheltering her and whimpering as ash choked his lungs. He moved weakly as the floor around began to fall away and the bed tilted. He grabbed for her as she limply fell away, rolling off the bed and into a molten chasm. He screamed shrilly, but before he could do anything the bed bucked again and the floor collapsed entirely, taking him with it.

Hundreds of miles away, people watch on their televisions as the mountain is demolished in great fiery spasms, lava spurting thousands of feet into the air, and whisper amongst themselves of nature and her destructive passion.

***

Hannah Birss is a writer and aspiring magpie based out of Ontario, Canada. She lives with her husband, children, and multiple animals. She can usually be found in a nest constructed of books, writing journals, and shiny trinkets. You can find her work upcoming in Nunum’s “Opolis” anthology, Purple Ink Press’s “Bimbo Feminist Anthology”, and “Critical Failures” by Nat1 Publishing. You can follow her on instagram @hannahbirsswrites for upcoming news on publications, tips, tricks, and other writerly things.