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oh, dear, it's been hardly a moment
and you are already missed.
there is still a bit of your skin
that I've yet to have kissed.
/
jester won’t ever tell her, but beau glitters in the mornings.
maybe it’s a trick of the light, or a trick of love. her mama used to tell her about that, how sometimes love makes you see things differently. jester thought that meant, like, everyone turned pink and they only smiled and whenever they walked it looked like they were skipping because you loved them so much. she knows now that’s not true, that what it means this morning is that everything is a little sharper, a little brighter. beau’s skin is softer and smoother and it shines even before the sun rises, and jester loves her. jester knows that when she turns over, when a smile rolls onto beau’s face at the same time she’s rolling closer to jester, that will be more, too.
jester has never been happier to have curtains. maybe this is the first time she’s been happy to have them at all because before they were blocking her from the world. but without them she wouldn’t be feeling this kind of love right now, the kind that keeps billowing and blooming in her chest—kind of like the moments when a bit of milk mixes with tea and it looks like a huge flower is slowly blossoming to the surface. jester feels like she’s stuck there, constantly opening herself for more love while waiting for the flower to break and disperse. it should have by now. maybe it won’t.
anyway, she loves her curtains because they catch the sun and dapple it across beau’s back. the sun is the same everywhere, jester knows that. but also this nicodranas sun was made for her and beau specifically, right now, this morning. sunlight dots and drips over the curves and angles of beau’s body. jester walks her fingers lightly across the shapes—one of them kind of looks like when jester accidentally spilled a potion off the roof when she and caduceus were working on the lights. she watched it creep slowly down the brick, catching in the grooves and cracks until there wasn’t enough left to keep going. jester traces a finger down beau’s shoulder in the path she imagines it might have taken.
there’s a cluster of four dots lower down, near beau’s hip, and jester skips her fingers down to it, dancing between them without any sort of pattern. she bounces across them diagonally, then sort of in a line—sometimes fast, sometimes slow; a strong bounce followed by three feather-light touches. she gets kind of lost in it, actually, but that’s nothing new when it comes to beau.
jester lands on the lowest dot and pokes more of her nail in than she intended, and beau lets out a hoarse little grunt.
oh.
“jes,” she laughs, deep and rumbly, “what are you doing?”
“oh, um.” jester stills her fingers but doesn’t withdraw them. “i forgot this was your back? or that, well, that your back was attached to you. i mean, well, that sounds weird. i got distracted.”
beau moves slowly as she turns, like jester imagines a mountain might. she kind of laughs like one, too, and jester would like to remember that sound forever.
“you’re always distracted,” beau says when she’s finally facing jester. she reaches out to tuck a piece of hair behind jester’s ear. beau’s eyes are stars. (jester wonders if beau can feel that the same way she can see it).
“well, not always,” jester pouts. “but definitely more often when you’re around.”
“yeah?”
“mhm.”
jester’s arm has moved with beau, resting over the sheet and missing her skin. she fixes that almost without thought, trailing her hand up beau’s body and coming to rest at the base of her neck. beau has a very pretty neck—well, beau is just very pretty all over. but jester likes her neck a lot. she brushes her fingers across the skin here, too, taking care not to poke too hard. she knows how sensitive beau is.
beau’s hand does some traveling of its own, into jester’s hair, down to her shoulder, tickling the back of her ear. she seems to mirror every way jester touches her, and it isn’t too long before they’re loose and giggly.
“you paintin’ me or something?” beau chuckles.
“nooo, beau.” jester pushes beau—not that hard, but she falls on her back anyway. “i don’t have a brush or anything.”
“you, jester lavorre, definitely don’t need a brush to paint something.”
jester scoots closer, folds her hands over beau’s chest, maneuvering so she doesn’t crush her boobs. she rests her chin on her knuckles and looks up to find beau grinning so much she almost looks crazy.
jester blushes and grins back. “good morning,” she whispers.
“it is so far, yeah,” beau winks.
“beau, you’re silly.”
“yeah, well—yeah.” beau shrugs.
jester leans forward, pushes with the tips of her toes and tries not to sink her weight on her hands too much, dots kisses along the edge of beau’s chin as far as she can reach. beau laughs, preens for just a little bit, before she lifts her foot under the sheet and pushes jester’s butt, scooting her up the rest of the way.
jester lands a little higher than eye level, actually. she presses an awkward kiss to beau’s hairline, then shimmies down until they’re looking at each other.
“hi,” jester whispers. “i love you.”
“i love you, too.”
jester scratches an errant hair from beau’s cheek. “you kind of ruined it though.”
“what? i did not. ruin what?”
jester smirks, laughs at beau’s indignant scowl. “i was going to kiss you awake. you know, start reaaaally low on your back and just keep going up until you noticed. i probably wouldn’t have made it to your tattoo; your shoulder blades are so ticklish.”
“everyone’s shoulder blades are ticklish,” beau protests.
“i promise they’re not, beau. but i like that yours are.”
beau reaches down for jester’s hand, watching as her slender fingers tangle with jester’s shorter ones. jester watches with her. she could probably watch this all day, if they ever had the time.
“well,” beau murmurs, bringing jester’s hand up so she can kiss the back of her knuckles, “i’m sad i missed out on that.”
“like i said,” jester smirks. “i got distracted.”
“i’ll try really hard not to roll over next time.”
“okay.”
jester’s voice is barely a breath as she relaxes, sinks into the warmth of beau’s hand on her cheek. she closes her eyes and just lets herself feel it, blocks out the sound of birds and dock workers and the ocean. nothing exists right now except beau—the closeness, the patience, the safety of her.
jester hears the sheets rustle as beau scoots closer, releases jester’s face and drapes her arm over jester’s torso, her fingers hanging playfully and dangerously low. jester can’t help but giggle.
maybe it’s another trick of the light; maybe it’s just that beau’s blue eyes are sensitive. but they look a little wet and they’re shining like the rest of her.
“i love you in the mornings, jes,” beau whispers. “i mean, you know, and all the time. but i also kinda think daylight was made for you.”
there’s a smile on beau’s lips, and jester could tease her a little bit. she could call beau out for being cheesy and they would laugh and roll around and probably there would be a pillow fight. but beau looks like she’s going to cry, and jester feels her heart expand like a balloon.
instead she leans forward and kisses beau, slides their joined hands underneath the pillows and leaves them there. not in a sexy way, just so they’re there and she can take her time. that’s maybe her favorite part about mornings, the way time seems to stretch and pull every second to its limit. time stops for lovers while the sun rises, jester is pretty sure.
she kisses the seconds into beau’s lips, slow and indulgent and full. jester presses against her, envelops beau in her certainty and strength. she finds every corner of beau’s mouth and makes sure it knows that it’s seen. jester kisses beau like a confession.
beau follows her as she always does, calming jester and lulling her back into a foggy, sleepy space. they kiss until they can’t move anymore, until jester feels like her limbs are fuzzy and her stomach is floating in the ocean. she rests her head against beau’s chest, tucking in her horns as best she can. beau wraps an arm around her and pulls the sheet over jester’s shoulder, pressing a lazy kiss to her forehead.
“can we stay here forever?” jester mumbles into beau’s neck.
“absolutely.”
beau’s reply is low and deep, and jester can feel it hum through her chest. she thinks if they could do it like this all the time, maybe jester wouldn’t have such a hard time meditating. jester feels tethered to beau right now, and beau is everything, so. that’s kind of the whole point of meditation, right?
the monks probably taught beau with knowledge and books and rules.
jester wonders if they should have tried falling in love.