Subtext: Yes, yes, and yes. Quite a lot--explicit?

Plot: Can't we please disregard the lack of plot? Just this once?

Please feel free to let me know what you think: bardkelly@hotmail.com I love feedback

Faint breezes brush the tops of the trees, gentle as a lover's caress. A single leaf falls, drifting down towards the campfire below. It spins lightly into a downdraft and comes to rest on the palm of the bard's outstretched hand. A smile rests on her soft lips as she looks across the small fire to watch Xena through the sparks drifting up into the night sky. The warrior applies smooth, even strokes of whetstone to sword.

"Xena, there's magic in the air tonight."

"Mm, hmm," Xena murmured absently.

"It's so tangible; I can almost breathe it in." Closing her eyes, the bard drew in a deep breath of warm night air. Slowly, she opened them to rest her green gaze on the woman across the fire. 'So beautiful,' she thought. For the moment, she was content to watch Xena's slow, graceful movements as the firelight cast her body into a magical mixture of shadow and light.

Xena could feel the bard's gaze, but kept up the rhythm of her movements, even as a shiver ran up her spine to raise the hairs on her neck. She unobtrusively watched the bard watching her. Gabrielle was such a wonderful contradiction. So small and gentle, but possessing such strength and intensity. Somehow innocent; yet, almost more woman than Xena herself could handle. She heard the object of her thoughts chuckle and glanced up, smiling slightly. "Care to share the joke," she asked the bard.

"Nothing, really." The bard chuckled again, shaking her head. "It's just that you're so predictable, Xena."

"Really?" The warrior raised an eyebrow, a silent entreaty for the bard to explain.

"You do your nightly chores, eat dinner, and sharpen you sword before going to bed." Gabrielle's voice deepened slightly and her eyes glinted with mischief as she continued, "If I'm lucky and we aren't too battle sore, we make love? Then we get up in the morning to do all the same things over again."

At those words, Xena's movements faltered. Stilling the stone in her hand, she examined the bard across the fire. The warrior hated feeling so dependent on the woman she watched. She silently cursed the lack of control she had where her bard was concerned. "Are you saying you're bored with me?" Xena asked hesitantly. She needed to know, but was so afraid to hear the answer.

Gabrielle could sense the hurt and fear in Xena's words as she responded. What she had intended as gentle teasing had been misconstrued as criticism. Rising, she moved over to stand in front of the warrior. Taking Xena's sword and whetstone from her hands and setting them aside, she sat on Xena's thighs, straddling her hips and holding her face between her hands. She looked into the deep, liquid blue pools of Xena's gaze, as she whispered past the ache in her throat, "Never." She gently kissed the warrior's lips before pulling the dark head down to rest on her shoulder. "I didn't mean that like it sounded, love." She stroked the long locks of blue-black hair running down Xena's back. "I only meant to tease you into a conversation. I guess I really put my foot in my mouth this time?" She shook her head and smiled deprecatingly.

Xena brought her eyes up to scrutinize the lovely face before her, smiling slowly as she saw the love and sincerity there. "I love you, too," she said quietly.

Feeling the fear that Xena must have felt moments before, the smile faded from her face as she looked into the eyes of her warrior, "Promise me, you'll never leave, Xena." Gabrielle pleaded, pressing herself closer to her warrior.

Xena held the bard against her, lifting her easily as she rose to her feet. "Not even death could tear me from you, my love." She carried her precious burden over to the bedrolls and sat down again. She held the small woman and tenderly stroked the smooth skin along her back. Thinking to lighten the mood she said, "When I'm sharpening my sword at night, you're always writing in your scrolls. So, I guess we're even."

Gabrielle pulled back to frown at the warrior playfully. "I'll have you know that each of my scrolls is quite different; each one unique, special?" She ran small hands over Xena's shoulders and down her back to begin releasing the ties that held her shift closed. "It's like every time with you? new and wonderful," she whispered into Xena's ear, taking the soft lobe into her mouth and nipping it gently.

"Mmmmm," a quiet moan escaped from the warrior as she brought her fingers up to tug loose the laces of her bard's top.

"There's so much beauty in finding the right words, the perfect turn of phrase," the bard continued in a slow, husky tone as she pulled the shift over Xena's head. She met Xena's kiss with her own, allowing the warrior to slip her top over her shoulders and down her arms to drop carelessly onto the bedrolls beneath them. She withdrew for a moment to pull her skirt off, "knowing that the right combination can hold your audience spellbound." She smiled noting the way Xena examined her body as she disrobed. 'She's rather spellbound herself,' the bard thought wickedly. She lowered her nude form back onto Xena's thighs and dropped her head to kiss the swell of Xena's breast, whispering against it. "Each idiom is like a kiss?" She moved to kiss the other breast. "or delicate caress." She slid her hands under Xena's arms and skimmed them sensuously up her back. "It's wrapping the words around my body," she continued as she pressed herself against Xena's breasts. "Molding them to fit my skin."

Xena could only moan her desire. Gabrielle's voice was so hauntingly beautiful and as potent as any drug. Her eyelids drooped as the bard continued vocalizing her bardly pursuits.

"Pliable and soft," she pressed her lips against the warrior's soft mouth, whispered against them, "I like to twine them together around my tongue," then slipped her tongue in to rub against Xena's velvet softness. She felt the warrior moan into her mouth before she pulled away, "And dip them into honeyed thought." She bent to take a hardened nipple into her mouth as she pushed her warrior to lay back onto the bedrolls. "Savoring each sweet morsel," she moved to lavish the other nipple with her tongue.

As Gabrielle ran her tongue across the puckered flesh, Xena was overcome with sensation. She arched her back in an attempt to press herself closer to her lover's mouth. Sound and touch encompassed her entire world; reality became the illusion. An instant became eternity. The universe compressed to contain only herself and her bard. She thought only of that husky, sensual voice consumed by the erotic images and the feel of Gabrielle's caresses as they carried her into that joyous existence beyond?

Drawing the warrior's soft flesh deep into her mouth before releasing it, the bard moved to press kisses along the firm muscles of her lover's abdomen as she eased backwards to rest between the warrior's thighs. "So provocative as they trip across my lips," she dipped her tongue into Xena's navel before moving down to whisper into dark, wet curls, "and onto the page." The bard pushed the warrior's knees out to spread her lover open to her view. "Lustfully leading me into a consummation?" Gabrielle beheld Xena's innermost sanctum, wet with desire for her. She leaned down to blow across the heated flesh of Xena's sex and watched the warrior's muscles quiver in response. Her warm breath caressed the velvet folds as she whispered, "with the passions of my soul?" Overcome with the desire to taste, the bard dropped her head to run her tongue along the sensitive bundle of nerves at the top of Xena's sex, sliding it down to dip into the well of her lover's desire.

Xena arched her back and whimpered. "Oh, Gabrielle."

Pursing her lips, the bard took the sensitive nub back into her mouth. She sucked gently, running her tongue in circles around it. She slipped her fingers up inside her lover, then curled them in and up to rub that area inside that always brought her warrior so much pleasure. She quickened both the strokes of her tongue and her fingers as the warrior began to thrash beneath her. Finally, she felt the contractions begin, signaling the warrior's climax.

Xena toppled over the precipice and into her moment of release. Waves of intense pleasure coursed through her body. She felt her inner muscles tense against the bard before she lost herself in the flames of fulfillment. Swept away in a transcendental experience that ranges far beyond this fleeting physical domain and into that realm where kindred souls unite, she found rapture in the love that so many have failed to find, but search for throughout eternity?

Xena slowly came back to herself; held in Gabrielle's loving embrace. "Ssshhhh, it's alright. I'm here, love. I'm here." Gabrielle stroked Xena's hair back away from her forehead and kissed a sweaty temple as Xena's sobs quieted.

The warrior raised her eyes to gaze into Gabrielle's emerald depths. The bard smiled lovingly, "Hi. Thought I lost you there for a while?"

After several moments the warrior was able to whisper, "I love you, Gabrielle." She scooted over and pulled her bard down to lay beside her. Exhausted, she soon fell asleep, the bard's head resting on her chest.

Gabrielle smiled contentedly. 'Hmm, I need to write that down,' she thought. "In the morning," she whispered towards the gently swaying treetops. Snuggling more comfortably into her lover's embrace, she drifted off to sleep.

END

For those who would like to read this poem straight through without those arousing interruptions? here it is.

IDIOMS ©

It's wrapping the words around my body
Molding them to fit my skin
Pliable and soft
I like to twine them together around my tongue
And dip them into honeyed thought
Savoring each sweet morsel
So provocative as they trip across my lips
And onto the page
Lustfully leading me into a consummation
With the passions of my soul?