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The stars overhead never moved from where they hung. Anthy checked. Most nights, when the burning was too much to sleep, she watched them in their stillness. Utena breathed besides her, steady and untroubled. Idly Anthy played with their hands where they were intertwined on the mattress. Her prince had been nervous lately-her nails were bit down to the quick and scabbing over. There were scrapes on each knuckle, which Anthy kissed, rough on her lips. She flipped Utena’s hand over and kissed her wrist twice.
“What are you doing?” Utena slurred.
Anthy dropped her hand and pulled away. “Nothing of importance.”
Privately, she desired. But Utena could never see the wicked witch that lay at Anthy’s heart. If she did she would run away. An evil festering thing like the Rose Bride was only good for how much it could take, not for what it wanted.
“You kissed me.”
“I did.”
Utena looked at Anthy with the screwed-up face she always got when her innocence brushed up against adulthood. “Why?”
“Because I wished to.” She laid her head back down to sleep.
It was ten years before they slept like that again, although in that decade since Utena had grown a lot wiser. It was her who found Anthy at the skeleton of the old observatory tower which was surrounded by blackened roses. Her body was covered in paper thin scars, white and raised, underneath which was powerful muscle. Anthy had begun to show her age. The backs of her hands were wrinkled and her hair was silvery.
“You kissed me,” Utena said in the shade of the telescope. “When we were children.”
“You were the child.”
“And now I am a woman.” She took Anthy’s hand and intertwined their fingers like the briars which covered the school. “I forgot you for several years. It was like I was underwater and hearing voices from a boat sailing over me. I smelled roses in my dreams, but I never knew it was you.”
“It seems like a dream. A very long dream, and I’ve just now woken up.”
Utena kissed her, laying one hand on Anthy’s face and the other one between her breasts. Inside her was still warm with want. She felt Utena’s sides, the firmness of obliques and dorsi. The buttons of her shirt fell open as Utena kissed down the sides of her neck.
“You’re so small,” Utena said as she picked Anthy up and laid her upon the old divian where she’d lain with Aiko so many nights. This night, however, was to be different. Above them was the open night sky. Otohori was as silent as Nemuro Hall had been after the fire, silent as the coffins both women had once been hidden in.
“My brother slept with you.”
Utena looked up from between Anthy’s breasts and nodded. “He took me for a car ride.”
“He did that to Saionji and Touga too.”
“Who?”
“Other children. Shiori. Ruruka. Miki, once. He wanted Kozue but she’d only have me.”
“I think I remember others in the car, sometimes. He’d tell us to touch each other and then watch.” Her mouth dropped lower. “I thought about you.”
Utena slid Anthy’s underwear off and threw it aside. She devoured her, sucking her clit while pulling her ever closer. Anthy pulled Utena’s short hair and moaned. This was what she’d dreamed of. Not a man, but a woman upon her, a woman with sword callused hands and blue eyes. A lover, not a possessor.
It took four orgasms before Utena decided she’d done enough and crawled up to rest.
“I’ve been practicing,” she said. “But always in the dark. My body scares people.”
Anthy felt the fine lines of Utena’s scars, thickest over her breasts and heart. They still weren’t as rough on her lips as Utena’s scraped knuckles had been.
“What do you tell them?”
“That I’d been in a car accident. That’s what the doctors said at the hospital when I woke up.”
“There was one. A tragic one, right outside the academy. The chairman and his fiance didn’t make it.”
“Tragic.”
“Yes, tragic.” Anthy smiled into Utena’s hair. “Would you like to kiss me again?”