Kit Black by Monica Danetiu-Pana

You’ve coughed a lot today.”
    He sighed deeply and closed his eyes. I stayed there until I was sure he slept. Then I rose to my feet and covered his bare arms with the quilt, letting my fingers stray on the warm smooth skin of his forearms. So smooth, so hard, so male. And not mine.
    ***
    I stayed away from the villa for a few days after we took him to Jean, on the pretext of having things to do. A missive was to be delivered to his family in Paris, informing them that he was alive and recovering. Jean told me that he was expected to return to them in a few months if all went well. I could feel my heart shrivel in my chest.
    I would drop by the villa every few days, stopping in to see how he was doing. Though he was improving, his spirits seemed down at times. More often than not, we would have stilted conversations about the weather and Jean’s propensity for ostentatious architecture and material goods. His hair had grown, though it was shorter than before when I had known him in Ajaccio, and it gleamed with health now. He was dressing in loose shirts, tight black breeches, and Hessian riding boots that belonged to Jean. My handsome Armand looked even more the gentleman pirate than Jean did. Looking at him stole the breath out of my body.
    It was not easy, not that it ever had been. Something ponderous always stood between us. We both knew exactly what it was. We knew what the ending of the story would be.
    I wanted to stay away from him, to pretend that we could remain friends.
    Until the night before he was to leave. He sent a servant to Jean’s guesthouse where I often spent the winter months. He wanted to come and see me before he left for Paris. The note he sent to me was imperious and demanding. He was put out with me, it seemed. At first, I bristled. Then, I found myself laughing. He was like that sometimes, and it was part of what I loved about him.
    I agreed that he should come, I didn’t know what else I should do. I remember pacing my room, and thinking about what I should wear. The question of how I ought to arrange my hair almost drove me to scream. I never cared what I looked like. In the end, I just braided it and let it hang down my back. I wore a loose, cinched shirt, and the breeches I always wore. I wanted him to remember me the way that I always looked, the way that I would always be; raised as a boy, but very much a woman. A woman who loved the sea and the salt wind as much as he did.
    I think we knew it would happen the moment our eyes met. I turned and I started to cry, then found myself locked in his arms.
    â€œDon’t do this. Don’t cry,” he said against my hair. “I came here to berate you for your coldness. I came here to beg you to come with me. I know you will not.”
    â€œYou’re right.”
    â€œI love you. You must know that.” He kissed my eyelids, caught a tear on his tongue.
    â€œI love you, too. I have loved you since that first day. I will never love anyone but you.” I pulled his face to mine. He gave me his mouth. The kiss was not fiery as it had been that night at his grand home in Paris, but it was achingly erotic and full of passion. It seemed that it would never end, that we could not get enough of each other. A good-bye kiss from two souls who could not bear to say good-bye. A kiss borne of loss and longing.
    â€œLet me stay, Kita. One night, and then I promise I will go home and never contact you again. But if you ever need me, I swear I’ll come to you. I swear it.”
    I nodded and led him by the hand to my room.
    We said little about his leaving after that. I carefully stripped him of his clothes, taking great care not to hurt his barely healed scars. He divested me of mine, carefully pulling off my boots; the ones he had given me, still polished and fine. He left my billowy shirt on, open and gauzy, my breasts and the rest of me displayed in a way so lascivious that made me want to tug the panels