#14days

“What is?” he asked again, amused.

The fingers tapped lightly down the length of his spine. “Quod de Corycio quae venit aura croco.”

He dabbed his tongue to his lips, fighting a tremulous, too revealing sigh. “Oh?”

“Vinea quod primis floret cum cana racemis.”

Dorian shivered, skimming his own fingertips over Tristan’s clavicle; the air suddenly bright as it touched his palate, the words caressing his mind as surely as Tristan caressed his skin.

“Gramina quod redolent quae modo carpsit ovis.”

He bit the inside of his cheek, turning away to rest his other cheek against the pillow. Was one supposed to feel their heart so clearly? The gentle tripping cadence of it? The language of his homeland on the lips of his lover. His lover, who, only the night before, had been slick with sweet sweat; earth and spice, as he was describing. Dorian and the lover he had shared again. Three times now, they’d succumbed. Three times three. Once could be a happy error in judgment, easily brushed aside. Twice was amusement, for the sake of memory. Thrice… three times was dangerously close to becoming a habit.

“Quod myrtis, quod messor Arabs, quod sucina trita, Pallidus Eoo ture quod ignis olet…”

On fire was right. Vacillating between warmth and searing heat. Pleasant, oh, very pleasant certainly, but he couldn’t help wondering what it meant. It was far too early for thoughts like that- if he should have them at all. But watching them together, his thoughtful lover laughing and cavorting with his decadent hedonist accomplice while Dorian looked on. Touched. Tasted. Allowed himself to be drawn into and between them like thread into their loom.

“Gleba quod aestivo leviter cum spargitur imbre, Quod madidas nardo passa corona comas…”

“Tristan…” Dorian murmured, heart tight, turning again to watch Tristan’s lips move over unfamiliar words; he brushed his thumb over one pale, beautiful nipple until it began to pink and tighten. “What-“

“Hoc tua, saeve puer Diadumene, basia fragrant. Quid si tota dares illa sine invidia?”

His fingers stilled. Tristan lifted one pale brow without effect. Genuinely curious. “It isn’t that simple,” he whispered.

“What?”

Dorian searched his eyes. “When did you start studying Tevene anyway?”

“About a month ago.” His cheeks warmed in the morning light. Afternoon? Evening? “What does it mean? What I just read?”

“Read?”

“On your back.”

“On my…” Dorian frowned, sitting up on his elbows to peer over his shoulder to see in the mirror. Words scrawled, calligraphic, across his back in black marker. “What in Thedas?”

“I should have warned you…” Tristan smiled in the reflection, kissing his shoulder. “Aran has a thing about drawing on people.” He turned onto his stomach and eyed his own back in the mirror, similar handwriting scrawled across his shoulders and cascading down his spine. More Tevene.

Ask him to read your shoulders to you, my friend. He’s been working on improving his pronunciation and it would mean a lot to him for you to tell him he’s coming along. You mean a lot to him. I don’t know if he’s told you. Sometimes it’s hard for him to speak the things that mean the most. Sometimes I think I see you worrying about that, so I thought I’d be a pain in the ass and tell you, just in case. This is nice, eh? Hope you enjoy the poem. You smell really good. Wish I could stay. You’re both bloody beautiful.

“Only a month?” Dorian spoke slowly. Carefully. “You have an excellent grasp of the pronunciations.”

Tristan flushed, resting his cheek on his folded arms as Dorian traced the note. “Really?”

“Truly. It is... an unexpected pleasure to hear my mother tongue from your lips.” He watched goosebumps raise beneath his fingers, texturing text. “You didn’t have to trouble yourself.”

“It’s no trouble. I want to learn to speak your language.” Tristan’s gaze slipped shyly away. ‘You mean a lot to him,’ the words flexed as he moved. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

“Very much so.”

“Good,” he breathed. “Good. So what does it say?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Dorian smoothed golden hair from the back of Tristan’s neck and kissed the tender skin there.

“...it’s not a dirty limerick, is it?” he asked, suspicious.

“No.”

“What does it say then?”

“Your boyfriend wanted us to know that we smell good.”

Tristan laughed. “In as verbose a way as possible, I guess?”

“He is certainly… periphrastic.”

“There’s a word. Remember when you thought he was quiet?” Tristan glanced up, eyes dancing. “You can never trust a linguistics major to keep things simple.”

Not simple, Dorian thought. No. But clear. He was beginning to have a great deal of clarity where he’d been confused before.

———What’d the Latin Say?———

A poem by Marcus Valerius Martialis, 1CE (translated by me and Google, interpreted/interfered with by me):

That breath of an apple when a young girl bites into it;

The perfumed effluence that comes with saffron;

The first vines, in the spring, blooming with clusters of new flowers;

The grass, sweet-scented, newly nibbled by a lamb;

The odor of myrtle, of the Arab spice, blended with

Pale eastern frankincense, on fire;

Or lightly sprinkling summer rains on freshly turned soil beneath

The crown of your hair slicked, aromatic, with muskroot...

As all these, your kisses, boy Diadumenus, are fragrant.

I had literally never considered that. Family teased me growing up for hyper-extroverted tendencies. In high school, my social circle swelled and overlapped and jutted off in differing directions, stretching into college where I was notorious for throwing theme parties that crossed various bubble lines. Although in recent years I noticed a developing aversion to too many large group settings in a row, I always considered myself fluent in socializing. However, at least for the past 15 or so years, I secretly (to me) found a crutch with alcohol. Rum then gin then IPAs then whiskey then tequila, wine all along the way, too.

Yesterday was trying in a slightly stunning way. Rick and I spent the weekend in Rhode Island for a dear college friend’s wedding and as soon as we landed back in Atlanta at 9:30 Sunday night, we beelined for his BFF’s elopement party in Tucker till 1ish. A couple hours into Monday, my old friends the Stewarts arrived at mine with three children (who call me Aunt Beca) in tow. When my sister and her kids visited during December’s snowstorm, I quieted the quell of inner-unrest with more and more red wine—till I could take in the blooming mess around me, watch the sink fill with half-used dishes and glasses, and not curl claws into little T-Rex arms. But. In this scenario, I couldn’t. Well, I could, but I shouldn’t. After all, this was Day 1 of 14—which doesn’t sound hard, but sadly immediately revealed itself as very difficult.

The Stewarts arrived and Daniel, the dad, cracked open a Tennessee beer that looked hoppy and delicious. I wanted one, it was hard.

Then Rick came over and his discomfort—although 900 percent understandable and not a thing I hold against him—seamlessly transferred to me. I thought about the tequila in the freezer and how mixing some with a lime LaCroix would melt my shoulder knots. I wanted one, it was hard.

Then dinner at Escobar Lounge, 2 Chainz’s spot in Castleberry. We stuck out like sore thumbs in the decidedly not kid-friendly spot. I watched as Daniel slurped a small vase of bourbon and raspberry syrup. I wanted one, it was hard.

Then after dinner, we hung around my house till Haley’s (the mom) and my high school friend, Elizabeth, and her partner came. Elizabeth presented a long, elegant-looking bottle of rosé with a fancy glass cork. I poured glass after glass for her and Daniel. I wanted one, it was hard. Instead, I drank something insane like four LaCroix in two hours, peeing close to a dozen times. My poor nephew, Benjamin, misplaced his seltzer and as I watched the fridge supply thin, I heard him open a new lime can and immediately stormed into the kitchen. “My dude,” I pleaded with him. “You already had one of these open.” I even more immediately noticed how my intensity scared him and scaled back.

Rick and I left early to sleep at his and give the Stewarts full reign of the house. Riding back, I thought of raisins ground into the floor boards and the half-joint waiting for a spark in my purse. When we got to Rick’s, I saw a bottle of red sitting quietly on the bar cart and some small Mason jars near by. I wanted one, it was hard.

Rick pointed out we maybe picked an especially trying day to start; one that involved some social discomfort, kid-born chaos, weird logistics (parking on Walker is so dumb), etc. But I kinda try to see it like how I also try to tackle challenges: head on. Baptism by fire. You know? There is never a convenient time to embark on something you know will be difficult. And hopefully this is just the beginning hump. If nothing else, this has already been wildly illuminating, not always in flattering ways—however, I want to think I can effortlessly exist around my nieces and nephew, catch up with friends, and so on without the helping hand of a substance—but probably very important ones.