XXXV

“Come to bed and we can make the majestic moth together,” the Nameless One’s wife said to him. She lay in their bed, with an imploring look upon her face. He looked at her for a moment and then said, “Of course.”

He took his time undressing though, as if it were vitally important that each item of clothing be folded just so. “Do you remember when we were younger and spent a week on that small farm in the hills?” she asked him. She often let her memory roam back to their youth. Back before everything. But they were painful memories to him as they were so wonderful.

“Yes,” he said. “It was a blessed time.”

“We made the majestic moth together endlessly,” she said.

He nodded his head, recalling it. It was warm and they were alone in the farmhouse and had dismissed the servants whenever they were able and spent the day in each other’s embrace. “Truly blessed,” he said. But it was a different time too, he thought. He had been much younger and she had been, well, she had been the woman he had married. Had been young and vibrant and full of wit. This evil disease had left but a shadow of his wife. A woman who was like her in so many ways, but also not quite her.

Finally he stood there naked and she held out a hand to him. The way she had when they were younger and alone in that farm house. He wanted to take her hand, but he also wanted to weep at the sadness that was filling him. “Come,” she said.

Wordlessly he climbed into bed beside her and lay down next to her. “Stroke my hair,” she said, and he did. “Hold me,” she said, and he did. Her good hand touched his bare chest and he closed his eyes and tried to remember the feeling of being in the farm house with her. Any glimpse of a naked part of her body had filled him with passion. He had wrapped his arms around her tightly and they’d flown on the breeze like a majestic moth, to all corners of the house, settling on a couch in the sunshine, or on a rug on the floor.

He screwed his eyes tight to try to recall it now, but he could not feel the lightness filling him. She ran her hand lower down his stomach, but he was still failing to respond. He tried to think of her when she was younger. And then he felt himself stirring. She grabbed hold of his ivory tower and felt it rise in her hands. “Come,” she said again.

He had to do the rest of the work. Her limbs were too weak. She could but lie there and let him enter her cave of wonders. Let him climb the heights of the mountain of desire. Let him try to carry them both away in the flight of the majestic moth. But all he could feel was his weight upon her. She had been the one who’d filled him with lightness. She had been the soft wings that had beaten for them, bearing them aloft. And now she was broken and he felt his mortal weight pushing her into the mattress of the bed each time he plunged inside her.

And he felt the passion leaving him. Felt himself getting heavier. Felt like weeping aloud for the frustration of it. He cupped one of her mountains of the goddess in one hand and then found an image of Lucia’s bosom in his hand filling him. Her body beneath him. And he resumed his climb up the mountain. He imagined it was her he was embracing. Imagined her arms and legs were metamorphosing into the limbs of the butterfly. Imagined the wings were spreading out beneath him. Then he felt the lightness filling him. Felt the wonderful weightlessness come upon him.

He wanted to hold the moment as long as he could. It had been so long since he had felt it again. But he continued climbing the mountain, faster and faster, floating higher and higher until he reached the pinnacle of lightness. He moaned aloud, suspended in that moment of apogee, and then felt the soft sadness of the falling start to fill him. He lay his body down upon her and felt her push back at his weight. He rolled to one side and opened his eyes. She was staring at him and had a curious look on her face. What had she felt? Did she know he had just betrayed her in his mind?

“Was that good, my love?” she asked.

He worked his jaw and then said, “Let us rest now.” He closed his eyes so she would not see the sadness welling up in them. He reached out one hand and cupped her mountain of Aphrodite again. Tried to think of his wife in that farm house, but could not prevent himself thinking of Lucia lying there beside him, her soft moth wings slowly folding back into her body as she lay there, breathing softly beside him.

“Yes, let us rest and dream of happier times,” his wife said.