I had touched him only once during our first contract, mere days before the incident where he had cast me away. It was on his wedding night.

It had been beautiful; the previous night, rain had gently fallen, allowing for the glow of dew on the garden. You could see it from his room windows if you were so inclined, for it was a rainy season.

Petrichor is the smell of the world after the rainfall—for water-aligned spirits such as I, it was one of the strongest times our plane connects with the human realm.

I admired the glisten of the lights in town and the halo they cast in the water haze. The mist spread along the valleys where the kingdom and by extension its castle overlooked. I remember it because I felt so alive, my magic thrumming in my being.

Despite such great weather, my King had been of all sorts then. In the months before the wedding, he had been astir with emotion, excitement and uncontrolled with all the joys of youth. He had spent the nights talking to me about her, planning his future life with her in mind, as if I was not already by his side during his courtship of his then-princess, now-queen. Enraptured by her, he blindly devoted his foolish heart to someone who could not receive it.

And so the wedding night, he was miserable of his own making. Alone he sat heavily on the rose petaled bed in the candlelight, face in his hands as the drizzle could be heard from the open window. In his study room next door, there was a contract signed ages ago with her regarding the details of their marriage. Of course he knew the wedding night and its responsibilities would not happen. Of course.

I watched him out of the corner of my senses. Despite his fine clothes, the clean style of his hair and the bright smile for the public were nowhere to be seen. His face was solemn, and still he kept looking at the door whenever he heard footsteps from the hall. He had shouted at me as I had tried to be playful earlier; so I left him to the remainder of his tantrum.

He had hoped she’d change her mind, as if it was a mere matter of decision and folly. He had wished so much for it to be so. Deluded himself, fabricating the story of their future together and her life without permission into the person who he wished she would be to him.

My King cried that night, long after festivities had finished. Long after the ceremony where he had dressed up conscientiously, the dances in the ballroom, and the large feast, he sat himself in his bedroom, made himself sad, wept.

I am particularly atuned to him once the first tear fell. A sudden sentiment swept me, so powerful I stopped where I was. I did not flicker in and out with shortening wick’s light. Instead, my corporeal being touched the human world instead of slipping in and out during the witching hours.

I was both judgemental and hotheaded at the time. Indulging his obsession of her, I had been nothing but neutral. But as rain fell with his tears, I was moved to respond.

At the time, I did not know what it was because spirits do not feel emotion. But something stirred in me. Countless humans I have seen crying in countless scenarios, but the vulnerability of his that night unleashed a desire in me.

I know now I wished to possess. I wanted to see more. Know more. Closer, closer, show me. I wanted this to be mine.

So I said to him this on his wedding night:

“You waste the night hours. Shall I comfort you instead?”

Private moments he would spend in the battle tent or his chambers, tending himself to release, so I knew what he liked and how he moved his wrist, and so on and so forth. I usually did not pay much attention, even if I was aware. For me, the only mild interest was to see his face: vivid, expressive and flushed.

He was stunned, mouth parted, tear tracks on his face.

He looked once more to the door, to me, then at something in the distance. He eventually said yes, though I do not know what he thought that made him agree.

I will say this: In only the personal illusion that he was my physical better did he allow me closer. He commanded me to keep svelte and androgynous. He breathed hot drunk breath against my skin and allowed me to wipe his tears only when I did so.

“No,” he said, when I tried to kiss him, because I had seen villager women do this for their men before they left. But then he pressed his mouth against mine, and I learned he wanted me to kiss him in a way that left no escape.

I pushed him down on the bed, and he obediently went.

Perhaps submission was part of his way to cope. Perhaps it was his insecurities, or perhaps it was the way he had been socialized, or perhaps he found attraction in helplessness that was under someone else’s power. He had been the last of a long line of brothers; he had not been the only one to take Kinghood in this dynasty; he had only an abandoned space in his heart she did not take.

I held him as he needed and when he asked me, I murmured the words of sweet love she would never tell him into his skin as he came. I was rough when he wished, and I was as gentle as I coaxed his releases. I became the partner I had sworn to be through our pact: everything that he would ask for, everything that he would require.

On his part, he sobbed and moaned beneath my body as I took him, but would not look at me in his shame. Nine days later, he abandoned and broke the pact and I returned to my plane and he remained in his.

And years later, we were there in his bed chambers again, him a decade older and I timeless eternal. There are historical records of contracted spirits being made familiars, but not for personal bed companions. I said as such.

It made him laugh a little nervously until I stroked his cheek and neck. We were on his bed now. He had pulled me on his lap, face close to mine, evidence of his arousal flush between us, and I had kissed him twice more since.

“Kiss me again,” he demanded me, once we had shed him of furs and fabrics. He was vulnerable; I adore vulnerability. I adored him as he gave himself to me that night, the shy, self-conscious way he was aware his body was no longer was as hardened as it used to be. It made him more interesting to me.

Kiss him again I did.

“Again.”

Again. His lips were cracked, his mouth trembled. 

“Again.”

Voice hoarse, pupils dilated. I slowed down just for him so that his whimpers stayed longer.

“Again.” Although I had no clothes, he clutched at my shoulders. His voice was so weak, it tickled.

I kissed. Again and again. The side of his mouth, the inside corner of his eye, his eyelids, his cheeks.

“More,” he begged, and mouth met mine.

That night I kissed him more; more and more and more.

He lay in bed exposed to me, so I mouthed up his scarred torso and ghosted corporeal fingers at all the old wounds of battles and mistakes that would remain with him till death. I saw him all—time and life’s impact on mortal flesh and human soul. 

He impatiently pulled at me, hands frantic to grasp me by my neck and shoulders as if I would disappear, as if losing my mouth meant losing connection to the world. But I kissed the palms of both hands, nipped my teeth at his jawline, and took my time.

The people in this world who might’ve fulfilled him would never have been able to touch even the toe of his shoe. They would have spread the news if it was known, or used him to their advantage. I was the only one he could trust; I held no judgment outside my own, I would neither manipulate nor blackmail him with his knowledge. I was safe: a companion who was ever so good to him until his wife had emotionally betrayed him with me. 

But my King is a good man, though he is a foolish man. He understood after time that it could not be called betrayal if it was never an expectation.

Spirits do not feel guilty. We thrive on such things. The strength of such emotion is an experience of life--to feel is to know you exist. So while I did make him despair, I also brought him pleasure. I was cruel and kind. A little life, a little death, and so forth. I made sex very worth the long years we had been apart.

Perhaps he thought she could have offered this to him. Maybe that was why he had fallen for her so. But no--she could not.

I kept kissing him. I kissed at his throat, I kissed his mouth, I fulfilled him until he was righteously undone, with kisses everywhere. 

Centuries later, no one will remember him as anything but some name. But I remember and I know, where he was most ticklish and how he breathed when he was overwhelmed, and how his breath ached when I skirted the skin over his ribs with my fingers. I know the count of freckles up his skin, the way the small of his back dipped at that age, and the way he pressed closer because skinship was so rare and he was so sensitive, and I alone know the way he wished all his life to feel with his body wrapped up in someone else’s.

I remember what he looked like when he woke up that morning in a soft sleepy smile. I sang playful praises into his skin to make him laugh--about how well he had done, how excellent my King was--I remember it all. I remember who he was in the brightest shine of his soul, even if in the afterlife he is no longer as warm, and obsession now warps him into an echo of his former self.

I should explain myself. Spirits are not really anything, but we can be anything. Only the human imagination limits us. Most of my kind are content to remain in our plane, never to engage with the other realms. Some like I form pacts. But I was always different, you see.

The morning after, when the King went to his meeting, I returned to her side in a good mood. I hummed, I hawwed, I mimicked the humanity that I had been able to experience, and then I became sombre.

Where the King's chambers had been wreathed in sunlight once he had thrown open the curtains for the day, the Queen's chambers were dark with barely a sliver allowed in. She was in tears, and as I had been a decade earlier for him, I felt so suddenly I became instantly corporeal.