This story contains explicit scenes of sex between consenting adults.  If you are under age or don't care for this, LEAVE NOW.  As usual, characters from Highlander:  the Series belong to Davis-Panzer et alia ; I only play with them from time to time without any compensation.  No harm; no foul; no profit.  Anyone or anything new, however, is mine (left-overs again).  Beta-read by Kathy and Carol.  Thank you, merci beaucoup, tapadh leat, gracias, danke, grazie, spazebo, arigato, obrigado.  This one really did come to me in a dream, after listening to Jim Byrnes’s CD, That River .  CLAN DENIAL WARNING:  If read in connection with California Days series, all is well.
Any errors are mine alone.

Between “Archangel” and “Avatar”

J oe was the last to leave.

The band was gone, the customers were gone, the help was gone.  He was always the last to leave.  There were no invitations to decline, no awkward offers of “Let me help you with that,” as he carried his cased guitar from the stage to the door.  He knew that the front door would lock behind him and everything else had been secured.

He clicked shut the latches on the guitar case.  The Fender was his only friend left it seemed, for after Richie’s death both Methos and Macleod had disappeared.  Alone in Paris with only his work and his music, his days were filled with Watcher administrative minutiæ and his nights with the blues.

Blues that seemed even easier to sing since the senseless death of one of his closest friends, a young man just starting a life that could have — should have — lasted forever.  Carrying the flat oblong case he made his way between the tables and the forest of chair legs to the door.

“Hello, Joe.”  A woman’s voice broke the silence and he looked up to see one last customer sitting at the table nearest the door.  “Maurice said I could wait for you.”

He recognized her from the audience.  She had sat near the stage through every set, a half full wine glass in front of her through most of the night.  She had watched intently, Joe remembered, an appreciative smile on her face, a knowing nod after a bodacious riff.

She was so blonde she gathered all the light in the room and reflected it back.  Both her skin and her hair all but glowed in the otherwise darkened bar.  There was an ethereal look to her and at first Joe wasn’t quite sure she was real.  But when he got close enough to look into her eyes, like sapphires so blue to be almost black, he saw in them an intensity that intrigued him.

“Have we met?” he asked.  He stopped across the small table, leaning heavily on his cane.

“No, but I wanted to meet the man behind the music.”  Her voice was low and melodious, his ear dulled to any accent by his months in Paris.

He stood straighter and hooked his cane over his left arm.  Extending his hand across the table he said, “I’m flattered.  Joe.  Joe Dawson.”

She placed her hand in his, then stood.  She seemed to flow from sitting to standing, and still holding his hand moved around the table.  “I’m Arial Sheehan.”  She looked so delicate from a distance Joe was surprised she was nearly as tall as he was.  “I’d like to buy you a drink — ”

“But the bar is closed.”  He still grasped her hand lightly, her fingers cool to his touch, and he could feel a strength in her hand he hadn’t expected.

She wore black, a long dress that clung without being tight and as she stood close to him he felt his body react and he realized how strongly attracted he was to her.

“I’m sure you know somewhere we can get a drink.”  She was so close he could smell the wine on her breath mingled with the clean scent of her hair and the musk of her perfume.

There were a dozen after hours bars he could have named from elegant black tie clubs to leather dives.  The words came not from his mind nor even from his heart, forcing themselves from his mouth, surprising him as he heard them.  “How about my place?”  His head spun with her presence and at the back of his mind he wondered if this was what Immortals felt near one another.

She looked into his eyes and a smile lit her face.  “Just what I had in mind....”
 
 

H e never remembered driving to his apartment or taking her upstairs but suddenly she was in his arms, the silken strands of her hair tickling his nose, her breath warm on his neck.  He drank in the same heady scent as before, intoxicating, stimulating, arousing all at once.  He drew away from her just enough to caress her cheek and tip her face up before he met her lips with a tentative kiss.

That first kiss was but an invitation and after a deep breath he kissed her again, this time with the hunger of a man long alone.  It had been a long year since he’d been with a woman, and much longer still before that.  He held her head to his, and her body seemed to flow next to his, her curves fitting close to him like two pieces of a puzzle.  He felt her breasts pressed against his chest, then her mouth opened to his and he tasted the lingering sweetness of the wine she’d drunk, mixed with a savory flavor that was her.  When he had memorized her flavor she tasted of him, her tongue deliciously searching every part of his mouth before she leaned her head back from him, offering her slender throat to his kisses, and when he reached the base of her throat, that hollow spot just the right size to kiss, he slipped his hands to her shoulders and eased aside the clinging black silk, the smooth skin of her shoulders like satin beneath it.

Without a word she unfastened the dress at the waist and it fell open, then slid from her shoulders at his touch.  She wore no underclothes and with her dress puddled on the floor he saw that several inches of her height was in her shoes.  His gaze lingered on her body, slender and lithe, her breasts full and firm, her trim waist curving to her hips, sleek and inviting, her legs long and lean.  Her ivory skin was smooth, unmarked by tanning lines, and he couldn’t see a single blemish or scar as the glow from the lone lamp seemed to light only her.

She stepped out of her shoes, reached to his chest, and carefully, deliberately unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it loose from his pants and slid it off his shoulders.  His breath quickened as she ran her fingers over his bared chest, through the grizzled hair that covered him, to his belt.

He pulled her close to him again, the smooth skin of her back like satin beneath his hands.  He felt himself responding to her, the fire in his loins, the swelling in his groin undeniable.

“This is so fast,” he whispered, his lips brushing her ear.

Arial leaned her head on his shoulder.  “If you don’t want me...”

“Oh, I do,” he sighed and stroked her cheek.

She caught his hand with hers and held his fingertips to her lips then pressed his hand to her heart.  “I think we’ll be more comfortable in there.”  His cane was suddenly back in his hand and she led him to the bedroom.  They stood beside the bed, the only light filtered though the window shade, the light of a Parisian night more than enough to love by.

Her hands went again to his belt and he knew he should say something, to warn her of what the pants legs hid, but long years of silence kept the words from him.  As his trousers fell to the floor he closed his eyes, steeling himself for her shock, her revulsion, but when he looked at her again he saw only the same appraising look up and down he had given her.

“I’m sorry.  I should have warned you.”

“Don’t apologize, Joe,” she said.  “I knew.”  She pushed gently with her palms on his chest and he sat on the edge of the bed.  Without another word Arial knelt at his feet and gently removed his shoes, letting his trousers slide over the permanently flexed ankles of the prosthetic legs.

What was he doing? he asked himself.  How did this happen? A beautiful woman he he’d just met was kneeling naked at his feet and he was asking questions?  This must be a dream, he thought, too much like so many fantasies he’d briefly caressed then dismissed in the years of living alone.

Ian Bancroft and the Watchers had given him a new life, a reason for living after Vietnam, but even they could not give him back his legs, make him a whole man again.  There had been women in his life, to be sure, but he usually shied away before becoming intimate.  Even in other relationships — friends, co-workers — he never talked about his disability, seldom mentioned Vietnam, even with Macleod or Methos.  Oh, they knew.  Everybody knew.  It was the town secret everyone knew but never mentioned.

His feet free she sat next to him, pulling her feet up under her, settling into one of those feminine postures that has excited men since time began.  She lay her hands on the back of his shoulders, her touch light and tantalizing, and he hurried to pull what remained of his legs from the prosthetics, rolled off the stump socks, then turned to her.

The light from the window lit her from behind, an aura glowing around her.  She too was aroused, her nipples already hard.  She leaned even closer to him, her breasts brushing against his arm.  He ran his thumb across one rosy tip and back again as his fingertips, callused from guitar strings, lightly stroked at the heavy undercurve.  With his other arm he drew her into an embrace, their lips meeting again with no hesitation, their kiss deep and intimate, melding them together.  She bore him back onto the bed and leaned over him, kneeling at his side and kissed and caressed his face, his neck, his chest, then finally took her hands to his briefs and slid them away.

Freed from the confines of his clothing, his erection stood tall, inviting her caresses, her kisses, and as she took him into her mouth a long moan of pleasure, a sigh almost, escaped his throat.  She smiled to herself at the evidence of his desire and continued.

His hands reached into her head and he drove his fingers deep into her hair, loosening her coiffure and her long hair fell over him, stimulating him even more as she took him towards an ecstasy he’d never known before.

His chest heaved with his breath when she released him, and he guided her head back to his, and though breathless met her lips again with a powerful kiss.  He turned her to lie on her back, lifting himself up onto one hip and elbow so he could lean over her, taking his kisses down her throat to her breast, and as he suckled at one his hand caressed and kneaded at the other, bringing sigh after sigh from her lips.  He ran his hand slowly along her side from her waist to her hip, then down the outside of her thigh to her knee, then gently, slowly up the inside of her thigh to where the satin smooth skin changed to velvet.  She opened to his touch, the moist darkness waiting for him, and he played her secret places like his favorite guitar, bringing a music to her soul, exciting both of them all the more.

“Joe,” she said, her voice husky, from deep in her throat, “Oh, Joe.”

He raised his head to look at her again, her eyes glowing, her lips swollen from their kisses.  He smiled, still not truly believing this was happening.  “This has got to be a dream,” he said half to himself.

“No, Joe, this is real.”  A shadow crossed her eyes, but she shook it off.  “I’m real.”  She cupped her hand to his cheek and he turned his head to kiss her palm, then he pulled her head to his, turning onto his back, pulling her to lie on his chest.  She swung her leg over his hips to straddle him, trapping his manhood between their bodies.

A hum of pleasure rumbled in his chest and he sang her name against her lips.  She moved her body against his as she kissed him thoroughly.  His hands ranged over her back, holding her close.  She lifted her hips away from his, and with a twist of her body she engulfed him, sliding down the hard shaft until he was deep within her.  He clutched at her, but she pushed up from his grasp, and she knelt over him, still impaled on his manhood, her hair streaming over her shoulders.  He ran his hands along her flanks, over her ribs to her chest, fondling both her full, heavy breasts at once.  She arched her back, offering her flesh to him, her head flung back, clenching around him as they moved together in an ancient rhythm.

He pulled his shoulders off the bed to sit up, embracing her once again, and she wrapped her legs around him, holding them tightly together, his manhood still deep within her, and they spiraled towards their ultimate release, and when that came they were both panting and breathless, both crying out with their pleasure and joy.

Joe lay back on the bed, pulling her with him, and before he slid away from her he turned so they lay side by side, still in each other’s embrace, each still part of the other, the oneness of their love lingering.  A chill crossed her skin as the night air touched her sweat-dampened body and he pulled the coverlet out from under them and over both of them.  She curled around him, her legs still encircling his body, her head on his shoulder, their arms holding each other tightly, as though they were afraid of losing one another, that one of them would disappear if they were to let go of the other.

Joe stroked her hair, reveling in the sensations that coursed through him.  There was still a voice far in the back of his mind that this couldn’t be happening, that it must be a dream, a fantasy, impossible to be true, but the evidence of the reality lay in his arms, her breath warm on his chest.

In the drowsiness that follows love Joe drifted, anchored in reality by the touch and scent of the woman in his arms.  Her fingers toyed with the hair on his chest, twirling strands together and apart.  As his breathing slowed to normal he kissed her hair, their euphoria stretching on, wrapping them both in its rapturous fabric of timelessness.  He wanted to float forever with her in this fantasy, feeling nothing but the skin beneath his fingertips, the weight of her arm across his chest.  But he had to know.  He had to ask.

“Arial?”

“Hmmmm?” she hummed.  He felt her response as well as heard it, the sound vibrating through her into him.

He kissed her hair again before going on.  “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why me?  Why tonight?”

“Joe,” she said, a caution in her voice.  “There’s no answer to that question.”

“Just because?”  he offered.

“Just because,” she repeated.  “Because you’re the man you are, and I am who I am.”

“Who are you?”

She lay very still, barely breathing, her fingers motionless.  “You deserve an answer.”

The silence in the room was oppressive, weighing on both of them.  He could hear the traffic outside, loud enough in the middle of the night to be heard high above the street, though the closed windows.  He waited for her to continue.  He didn’t want any answer, if she couldn’t or wouldn’t tell him the truth, he didn’t want to hear a lie.

“You deserve the truth.”  She sat up, pulling away from him, leaving a chill where her warmth had been.  She pulled her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, sitting with her back to Joe.  She bent her head to her knees, her hair falling over her legs.  She turned her head, looking over her shoulder at him.  “You might even believe me.”

He pulled himself up, propping his back on the pillows.  “I’m listening.”

“Hundreds of centuries ago,” she began, “when mankind had just become what is called human, a small group kept changing — evolving.  At first the changes were hardly noticeable but through generation after generation, century after century, the differences became more obvious.”

“What differences?”

“First they only lived longer — much longer.  Then they stopped aging — wounds healed instantly.  They didn’t get sick.

“Maybe it was a mutation,” she suggested, “because there was a terrible price paid for their longevity.”

“No more children.”

She nodded, not surprised at his insight, for she knew the meaning of the tattoo on his wrist.  “They — we,” she admitted, “lived side by side with humans, but as the changes became more apparent — as we learned how to manipulate time and reality — they became fearful.  They learned the one way to kill us, and drove us away, into the forests and mountains, and then as their cities and farms kept expanding, and they established trade routes even across the most inhospitable areas, we made our own places, where humans could no longer find us.  They called our abilities magic, set out to destroy us when they could.  Our numbers dwindled until we could barely keep going.

Joe kept silent, fascinated by the story, wondering what more she would tell him.

“Then one of us bore a child by her human lover, and the child was like us — immortal, able to use the magic.  As more of us took human lovers we found that only a few of the children were born like us.  A few were born like their fathers — like you, Joe, mortal, totally human.

“Most of the children were true hybrids.”

“The Immortals.”

“Like your friend, Duncan Macleod.”

“You know about Macleod?”

Her blue eyes looked directly into his, her gaze steady.  “Oh, yes,” she said, “I’ve always known about him.”  She paused, a wistful smile on her face.  “You see, Joe, he’s my son.”

Joe reached a hand to her shoulder, not wanting her to turn away.  “You’re Macleod’s mother?”

She nodded, her mouth closed in a tight line, the expression so much like Macleod’s own a chill ran down Joe’s spine.

“Well, I’ve been attracted to older woman in my time, but I never thought...” She continued to sit hugging her legs, and turned her head back so her chin rested again on her knees.  Joe could feel the silence around them.  “There’s more?”

Without looking at him she answered.  “We choose the fathers of our children carefully,” she began.  “We try to choose men of honor, courage, compassion.”

He blushed at the accolade.  “And you picked me?”

“I’ve never seen a human put his life on the line for an Immortal like you have.  Duncan could not ask for a more loyal friend.”

“He’s stuck his neck out for me, too.  Literally.”

She nodded an acknowledgment.

Yes, Joe thought, he’d risked his own life for Macleod — for Richie — even for Methos — but only in the past few years.  Nearly thirty years as a Watcher — most of his life — aware of Immortals as a race and only in the last four years had he done anything more than Watch.  There are those who Watch and those who do, Macleod said to him once, and ever since he had tried to be a man who did. Twenty-five years of standing by and doing nothing.  Half his lifetime passively Watching.  He had Watched Immortals live, he had Watched them love.  He had Watched as they fought and killed and died.  He had Watched as the mortals that were part of their lives grew old and died or were gunned down in the street.  All the times he had stood by in the shadows and done nothing came flooding back to him.  He remembered the times he had been Watcher before friend, the times Macleod had turned away, his judgment absolute and unswerving.  Those were the times of the life he was less than proud of, though he would not deny them.  A man of honor lives with what he does. “I’m not that different.”

She turned completely around and faced him.  Naked though they were she was totally unselfconscious.  “You’re more a man...”

“Nah — “ he interjected.  “Half a man at best.”

“Joe, it’s not about legs.  It never could be.  It’s what’s here — ” she placed one hand on his chest, just over his heart — “that counts.  You have to know that.”

“Yeah, sure.  Everybody says it doesn’t matter.  But it does.  It matters to me.  After all these years, it still matters to me.”  His voice was thick and he nearly sobbed before he forced back the grief, a dark morass that threatened to suck him under.

“Joe,” she whispered in a mother’s voice.  She moved to sit beside him and pulled his head to her shoulder, her arms around him, soothing as she would a child.

A deep breath, long practiced, dispelled the melancholia and he felt a sense of balance returning.  “I’m sorry,” he told her.  “Sometimes it just gets to me.”

Arial didn’t speak, she stroked his face, his beard at the point between bristly and soft, and raised his chin so she could kiss him again, a kiss that healed and comforted, the passions they still felt set aside.

A feeling of warmth spread from deep within Joe’s chest, driving out the cold miasma of doubt and grief, energizing and rejuvenating.

He pulled away from her kiss, smiling broadly.  “What did you do?”

“That’s part of the magic.”  She grinned, then reached to tweak a twist of hair on his chest.  “Again?”

“I don’t know how you did it, but yeah,” he nodded, “again.”
 
 

J oe was soundly asleep when Arial slipped from his embrace and dressed silently.  The sky was lightening with the dawn when she held her hand over his temple.  “I wish I could let you remember, Joe.”  With a crackle, a spark jumped from her hand, wrapping around his head before it dissipated.

“Someone should know the truth.”  She moved her fingers and a golden glow enveloped him.

“Someday you will.”  But for now, she thought, this will all be but a dream.
 
 

“B onjour, mon ami , Joe.”  Maurice glanced at his watch.  “The others they have been here for an hour.  I was beginning to be worried.”

“What did I drink last night?”

“What do you mean?  You had a couple of beers, no more.”  Maurice tipped the last of the chairs down to the floor.  “Is everything h-okay?”

“I don’t know.  Everything’s a blur from the end of the last set until I woke up this morning.”  He shook his head, trying to remember.  “There was a woman?”

The Frenchman clapped the American on the shoulder.  “It is always a woman, my friend.  But I don’t remember anyone last night.”

“I coulda sworn...”  He headed back toward the stage where the rest of the band rehearsed.  “It must’ve been a dream.”

This page last updated
21 August   2002

© 1999 Emma Keigh