Magnetism

After high school she studied in Istanbul, a city dominated by history. The Campus itself was littered with Roman and Byzantine ruins, and had been the ministry of war of the Ottoman empire.

"Whenever anyone thinks of the Roman empire, they think of Italy- of Rome! But that makes no sense at all, Rome was only the seat of power for a few hundred years, but Constantinople was the seat of the Eastern Roman Empire for more than one thousand years, and they still called themselves Romans!" She shakes her head. "Somehow, when the whole world became obsessed with Rome, they seemed to forget that chunks of it still exist, and because Istanbul is still a living city, still a changing city, it is somehow less worthy of that mythology."

"What was it like- studying there?"

"It was... big. Much bigger than Karasu, and that in a way was frightening, even though obviously I had visited before. The city... the whole country really has this sensation of living on the knife edge, not really being part of Europe or the middle east or Asia. Being forgotten, even with all this proud history, and of striving to be part of the the future, but never... really... being... there."

"Is that why you study? Some sense of Patriotism."

"Ha!" she glanced over her shoulder at me, humorless "Nothing so socially minded."

By now we had reached the entrance to Yellow creek, and conversation stopped for a few minutes as we made out descent of the stairs.

Here, let me tell you about Yellow Creek:

Yellow Creek used to flow through the area that would later become Toronto.

Now... creeks are all well and good for water, but not nearly so good for roads, and so, over time it came to pass that almost the entire thing got built over or funneled into pipes.

Not all of it though, there's still this one chunk of gorge carved out by the little river, too steep to build on and two wide to build across, and so right there in the middle of Toronto city there's this weird, steep sided little greenspace.

There's a rickety little staircase going down into it too, and you can find it if you navigate the fences and railway tracks around the area.

Even then, there's something weird about the greenspace. Its lush, and overflowing, and the stream burbles away contentedly, but it doesn't feel like a park, or like a forest, or like anywhere actually.

It feels overgrown. There's a sarcasm to it, with the road and rail bridges sweeping over top, and the shrubs and creepers crowding around the supports, waiting.

Even on a good day, it the entire place feels like nature's little "fuck you" to the city, as if its waiting for the moment civilization collapses and all the feral little plants will spread out across the city, plowing it under, just as we've been doing to nature for hundreds upon thousands of years.

I thought all this as I stumbled down, each footfall a jolt, not really paying attention to Ezra, though I know I should have.

Its a vengeful place, and by the time we got to the bottom, both of use were breathing heavily, staring up at the Graffiti lining the undersides of the bridges, smiling.

"I love this place," Ezra said.

"The fact that it won't take shit from no one?"

She nods, grinning harder.

"Come 'ere,"

I step closer, and she steps up onto a chunk of exposed concrete, grabbing me by the shirt, and yanking me closer.

Her kiss is hungry and proud, a smirk twisting at her lips, even as her tongue reaches out to me. For a moment I just stand there, before realizing what is happening, realizing that I want her, joining in the game, leaning into her, my hands folding around her and giving the ass of her baggy cargo pants a squeeze.

There is something wild inside you...

This had nothing to do with magnetism, with gravity.

This was something far simpler, a hunger for warmth, for contact. Impersonal.

I want you.

I want you.

I want you...

My hands start to wander, and suddenly she pulls back, comes up for air, her gaze exploring my face, trying to recognize me.

"I know that you want me. I can feel the way you're drawn to me," both of us are breathing hard. Her gaze passes through me, boiling oceans focused on the distance, some alien goddess, her words catching at me, the sense of familiarity hitting in full force:

Magnetism.

Gravity.

I am standing amidst vivid green objects. Shapes cut with crystalline clarity. Clear skies, and the wreckage of a broken city littered round.

The creek is silent. There is no wind, no birds, no insects, no humans driving by in cars overhead.

The only sound is the murmur of her voice, and my eyes are locked upon her black and knotted hair.

I can feel something inside her. Heavy. Dark. A Neutron star spinning at one hundred revolutions per second, tearing up the local spacetime, tearing into everything.

And then there's us.

Trying to resist its pull. Or fall in. Its hard to tell.

"And I've seen this story so many times before Leath. And I... I REMEMBER... and... the truth is I think you're a coward... for not fighting against it. I think you're a coward, and I wish that we had nothing to do with one another."

I open my mouth. Open my mouth to apologize. To confront her. To lie and say I could set it all aside, or fight, or beg or demand an explanation.

"Except gravity works both ways," her eyes go still, haunted. "Gravity works both ways, and I want you here with me. And I want you to chose me, again, for the hundredth time. And I've read the script, and I can promise you it ends in tears... but I'm a coward too, and I don't want to be alone."

I step closer. Wrap my arms around her shoulders now, do my best to envelope her in warmth, drench her in sunlight. "I choose you."

"You shouldn't."

"But I have to," I chide "We've got to help each other with research remember. To count the tree rings on the stars"

She laughs, hiccups, a strange and strangled sound. "Oh yeah... The simulations will be done soon... we should head back."

"Not just yet."

"No?"

"Not yet."

...

"Okay."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We pick up our tattered conversation as we walk back. Trying to piece together some illusion of everything being normal as we climb the stairs, trying to ignore the magnetism, the feelings of attachment, even now in terrifying full force, despite spending only half a day together.

I ask her about the simulations, and she answers, pausing for breath as we climb back up the stairs. At the top she turns the conversation around, starts peppering me with questions about my home, about my childhood, mixing in the usual biographic questions amidst a peppering of total non-sequiturs:

"What were your mathematics teachers like?"

"What did you do for your twelfth birthday?"

"Is there anything you can't remember not remembering?"

We got back to the house, and she buried herself in the data from the simulations, and I set to work making lunch.

By the time I was done, Ezra had turned the output of our two computers into graphs and was pestering me for comments, and then we were back at it again, hammering away at impossible questions, trying to decide if the weird results were correct, or the result of bad coding, or bad modeling, or if there was any way to verify the simulated data against some other simpler result (one we were less likely to make a mistake on).

And then she was interrogating me on my research, and since technically it was a week day we both set to it, scribbling away at our papers, and trawling the Internet for papers, and tossing each other references whenever we came upon something that looked like it might be relevant.

I passed out on the couch around 2am, and Ezra was still going, and in my dreams I imagined solving the equation with her- waking up at dawn with some flash of inspiration that turned out to make absolutely no sense when presented to the burning light of day, or even the most cursory scrutiny.

Honestly, I didn't even know how to write it down, the thought somehow involving complex numbers in five dimensions, and some form of orthogonality condition involving... Involving...

I shook my head.

Nothing.

Nonsense.

Meaningless garbage, but even so, the mind was a funny creature, and the feeling of inspiration lasted, even if the idea itself was nonsense.

By now, the lounge itself was a mess, and we had bought take-out, just as Cassie had predicted.

Ezra was asleep at the dining table, lying in a puddle of drool on top of her laptop.

I didn't image that was good for the electronics, but what could you do?

As quietly as possible I padded around the room, tidying up, returning out greasy bowls to the sink, and organizing our papers and notes in various piles. I took a shower, washed the plates, and then, realizing that Ezra's sheets hadn't been washed in a good long while, took them down to the laundry.

Ezra woke up, around noon, and accepted her coffee blearily, giving me a chance to wipe down her laptop and finish tidying the table (now that she was no longer on top of it).

She did not talk for the next hour, and neither did I, communicating with her via gestures alone, in some sort of game, or maybe just instinctive sympathy for her recently recaffeinated state.

She took a shower, and while she did, I lay on the couch and wondered what the hell was going on.

My thoughts didn't get very far, being constantly interrupted by questions of stellar formation, formula, and the nagging feeling that I was forgetting something vitally important.

Ezra emerged from her shower in a bathrobe, wandered over, and lay on top of me.

She didn't say anything, and neither did I, and sooner or later, it seems like both of us dozed off, for I woke up two hours later and she was still there.

"Zee?"

"Mmm?"

"Cassie says I'm not allowed to sleep out here on the couch. She says if I'm staying over it has to be in your room."

" 'kay."

"You still sleeping?"

"No."

She squirmed closer against me, her fist clenched through my shirt.

"What'cha thinking about?"

"Magnetic surface energy of a collapsing accretion disk."

"Ah,"

"We've been assuming the collapse is spatially uniform, but I've been trying to figure out if heterogeneous perturbations have positive or negative eigenvalues given the parameters."

"Of course."

"Also, I could feel your cock earlier, pressed against me, while you were sleeping."

Silently I try not to die of embarrassment. "...Right."

She lifts herself up onto her elbows, staring down at me, drowsily.

"It was nice. We should do this again some time,"

"We could do something right now if you like,"

"No, now I have to go check those eigenvalues," and then she's up, drifting back to her desk like a ghost amongst the world... or perhaps like a girl amongst ghosts.

I got up, went to the bathroom and jerked off.

I jerked off thinking about the dusky look in her eyes, the warmth of her body against me, the taste of her tongue down my throat, and the thought of stripping each other naked and grinding up against one another in the darkness, in the sunlight, forever, anywhere, and always.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

That night I dragged her to bed at 11pm.

"You've got meetings in 12 hours time- Cassie told me about them."

"Just another hour Leath- I think I've got this,"

"No, It can wait,"

"If you're so tired, you can go to bed, I'll be along soon,"

"If I fall asleep, you'll be up for another five hours,"

"Its fine, I'll just drink coffee in the morning,"

"And you were the youngest child, weren't you?

She scowls up at me, dark hair already returning to its scarecrow tangle. "And you were the middle brother,"

I smile, "How'd you know?"

"If you were the oldest you would be far better at this, and if you were the youngest you'd be staying up with me,"

"Oh ho!"

I slam her laptop shut with a flourish, and gesture to the bedroom. "Come. I want you."

Her eyes go wide like saucers. She stands, steps towards me, takes my hand, and gently she pulls me along with her to the bedroom.

We stepped over and around piles of books and clothes.

We didn't turn on the light.

Silently, we climbed up onto the bed.

She pulled my shirt off- up and over my arms, and then pulled my arms around her.

Her body was warm, cool, the perfect temperature. Human.

And now dear reader, as I'm sure you know the genre of this story, I will have to beg even more of your patients.

Nothing happened that night.

Within five minutes of wrapping Ezra up in my arms, I felt her breathing become slow and regular.

I dozed off myself a shortly afterwards.

It was the best nights sleep I've ever had.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I woke at dawn, with our arms and legs tangled together.

Zee was still wearing Cargo pants.

I was still not wearing a shirt.

Ezra snored contentedly, and for a long while I lay, perfectly motionless, wondering what I thought about her.

Feeling warm.

Eventually, just for mischief, I push my hips up against her.

By about the third time, she starts pressing back, and by the fifth she is smiling, running the backs of her fingers against my arms.

"Good morning Ezra,"

"You know this is no time for a gentleman to wake a lady,"

"Well... Perhaps I'm not a gentleman."

"Perhaps I'm not a lady,"

She meets my eyes, and then wriggles forward and pecks me on the cheek. I kiss her back, on the nose, and a moment later we are fall into a flurry of them, peppering each others faces with lips, nibbling at each other, feeling playful, feeling foolish, falling into the game of it, until abruptly we are clinging to one another, and she's breathing in my ear.

"I want you,"

She nods.

"And I want you to want me."

Again, she nods.

My hands slip beneath her shirt, run up the length of her spine as I drag it up with me. I lift up past our heads, and for a moment our fingers intertwine as she holds me at the pinnacle: outstretched beneath her.

Her belly is warm. Her flesh, press down against me.

Her eyes are closed, her breathing steady, firm.

"This has all happened before you know,"

"You said,"

"No, I mean it. Me, You, Long ago. Another life."

A tale spread over eons...

"Husssshhh..."

My hands slip down, unbuckle her bra. We rearrange ourselves, me slipping down to the end of the bed, while she lies on it. Limp. Compliant. Completely relaxed. Watching me.

"I don't care about that," I tell her "I don't care about the past. I care about you. Here. Now."

Her foot rubs against my leg as I stand over her. As I'm talking, a smile curls against her lips.

Dark hair sprawls out beneath her, and her breasts, stamped with dark little buttons of flesh, slump out to either side.

"Is this what you want Ezra. This. Here. Now."

"Yess," She smiles even more, apparently relishing the husky sound of her own voice. "Bana neden bu dünyada doğduğumu hatırlat"

While she speaks in Turkish I take off my pants, and then hers, fumbling with the belt buckle for a moment and then tugging them down.

Ezra does nothing to assist me in all this, instead waxing poetical in her own language, and allowing her body to be moved.

"Hadi," She breathes the word, beckons, the meaning all to clear, and a moment later we are lying together, folded into one another, side by side.

My entire body is made of points of contact, her skin pressed up against mine, and I can feel my cock, nestled against her hip, and the tips of her breasts poking into my chest. We shuffle, rearrange ourselves, getting comfortable, and she is lying on my arm, her eyes studying me, boring in to me, and for a while it feels like the pair of us are trying to memorize this moment, feels like we might go cross-eyed with the effort of it, and then she leans forward and into me, and again we kiss.

A chance collection of particles...

Its not the same kiss. Not the silly little kisses from minutes earlier, nor the consuming hunger of the day before.

The kiss is solid. Firm. A commitment, of sorts. Something thought out, and decided upon, and I meet it with a kiss of my own, and then, with the decision made, we give up on making choices altogether.

Our lips lock together, hungry for one another.

Ravenous.

Her hands move.

So do mine.

Rearranging, controlling, exploring.

She presses me down, pulls herself up on top of me, hands tangles through my hair, around my shoulders, hips pumping.

I reach around her ass, between her legs, rubbing at her gap, squeeze sweet juices out between her lips. Each time I press down at her, he body goes ridged, interpreting the rhythm of her hips.

Already her breathing comes in short shallow breaths.

My second hand explores her breast, and she leans into that as well, offering her other breast to my lips.

I take it happily.

We lie there, locked together for a while.

I don't feel excited. I don't feel afraid. Everything is simple. I feel hollow.

Drifting.

My tongue circles her nipple, first one way, then the other. She tastes salty, sweet, the texture of it slightly uneven, and for just a moment I allow my tongue to go flat and push it down.

Like pushing a doorbell.

I switch to the other side.

Our breathing is slow, and yet, over time, I can feel us catch. Pulling at one another, the momentum builds, until she slides back, down across my body, and with one hand she takes hold of my cock, aims it, and looks me in the eye.

I thrust.

Up.

Into her.

Collision.

She yelps, as I hammer up into her, as she hammers down. Both of us covered in sweat. Both of us grunting, shaking, staring at each others body. We get into it. Fucking like a two stroke engine- first her, then me, that painful moment as she withdraws... and then her body slamming into me.

Momentum.

She's perfect. I want her. Fucking her feel right. Righteous. And I can feel her staring down at me, exploring me with her eyes, the smug snarl of her lips, disgust and desire, arousal, contempt, and I want her.

Contradictory forces, a building pressure.

I want to lose myself inside her, to give in to her body. I can feel her, gripping at my shoulders, my hair, my cock, both of use approach the brink, the pinnacle.

My hands reach out, and pull her down, crush her body against me. I can feel the connection between us, feel her desire for me, my desire for her, our desire for THIS, played out in her little grunts and whimpers, muffled against my shoulder, as I squeeze her body against me, as she grinds against our sweat, my cock deep inside her, no questions, no questions-

Magnetism.

Gravity.

And then...

Fusion.

Hot, burning release. Our bodies are ridged as we give away all hesitation. I belong to her. She belongs to me.

That is all there is.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When two atoms merge, two indivisible units becoming one, indivisible, a tiny something is lost. A piece of each individual atom gone.

When I first heard about this it seemed sad- a piece of the universe destroyed forever, annihilated.

But its not. Nothing is ever truly destroyed.

Instead that fragment is released, turned back into energy, because the two atoms do not need it any more. They have one another.

That energy spills out in all directions, and that's what makes the stars glow, the sun shine, the furnace that pours light down across this wild world, pours life into plants, animals... us.