"My love. My love." Marico heaved and groaned over her, panting like a pig. "You like that, don't you, wife? Tell me you like it."
Laura didn't like it, but that didn't stop her from rubbing her breasts against Marico's chest and wrapping her ankles tightly around his hips, hoping to feel his penetration as deeply as possible. Marico's head dropped for a kiss, and Laura's tongue dueled frantically with his, knowing the whole time that she would not reach her goal but unable to stop herself from trying. Her hips thrust against him, again and again, while her whispered words egged him on. "Harder, Marico, faster, don't stop, don't stop, please don't stop."
He laughed. "You're such an eager bitch. That's it, Laura, that's right." Marico's meaty arm wrapped low around Laura's hips, holding her body up for a series of final, deep thrusts before Marico groaned into her mouth while he spewed inside her body.
Afterward, Laura lay on her side, gripping the sheets tightly with one hand, chewing on her own fist with the other. She felt worse than before they had started, but she knew that Marico was not to blame. She tried to hide her distress from him, not wanting him to try to ease her, which he couldn't hope to do.
Laura knew she had a yearning, craving, wanting look on her face at all times. She had seen her family's relief when she married. They had tried for years to see her satisfied, offering luxurious foods and wines and clothes when they could find these things, hoping they would satiate the wild look in her eyes. But none of these things helped Laura.
"Try this," her husband often begged her, pressing some luxury or other to her lips. Earlier today, it had been a savory peach liquor. "Surely it will tempt you." He had watched closely, hoping she would be roused enough to want more of it.
Laura had sipped at the wine two or three times, knowing it would please her husband, although she could hardly remember why this should matter. The yearning in her body was a physical thing, sucking away at her, leaving nothing for this world.
People often tried to tempt her with food or drink or pretty things. Anything they thought might satisfy the longing they glimpsed in her eyes. The desire in her eyes drew men to her, who couldn't resist the challenge of trying to satisfy her. But she looked through them, needing something beyond this world.
Laura suspected that her husband had been drawn to the hunger in her, hoping she would learn to hunger just as intensely for him. But he quickly learned that he couldn't satisfy her, though that didn't stop him from trying. She would do whatever he asked, and never tire, but she was never content.
"She's elf – mooning," people whispered when she walked by. They were right. The last time the world held any color for her was when she was a small child and she had chosen to walk into a world not meant for humans.
When she was young, she had met an older boy, who had coaxed her into leaving the safety of her world. She remembered it vividly.
"You're a pretty child," he had told her. He had strange ears and he had smiled at her, ideas she didn't begin to understand dancing behind his eyes. "How many winters have you lived through?"
"Eight," she had replied, eyes large from his slightly sharpened teeth and the ring of yellow where there should have been white in his eyes.
"A big girl, then!" he said, with nothing in his face or voice to betray the deep mockery laughing out at her from his eyes. "Come with me," said the Elven boy (for she had recognized what he was from almost the beginning.) "My name is Olan, and I wish to show you a pretty little garden with plump fruits for a child to delight in."
Laura had heard of Elven foods and treasures. Once experienced, a person would long for them all the days of her life, until she withered away from yearning. Laura had not hesitated. She nodded and put her hand in the boy's, her heart pounding in anticipation. He squeezed his fingers around hers and escorted her into a glade she had visited many times, since it lay not far from her home. The barefoot boy led her forward to where the water from a small creek splashed against the rocks in a miniature waterfall. She sat silently while he stopped by the rushing water and kneeling, removed her shoes one by one. He placed her shoes by the water, and taking her hand, the two of them stepped into the water.
It looked as if it were only a few inches deep. Laura had waded in this very spot many times. This time, the water sucked the two of them under, so that Laura could not breathe. When they emerged from it, they were in a different world.
That was many years ago. Laura tried not to dwell on the experience, hoping that time would dull her longing to return to that world. She grew into a frail woman, so wan that her parents worried she would die of her heartsickness. She didn't. That was her one victory over the Elf.
It was several months after her marriage that Laura began to dream of the Elf more intensely than she had in years. He was furious with her, because she had wed and suffered the touch of a man's hands upon her body while he was away. She told herself that these were dreams, and that she would not see Olan again in her lifetime.
Marico might have been a good husband; Laura had known no other to compare him to. She didn't know very much about him, even several months into their marriage, for he was often silent and rarely spent time at home in any case. He was well respected by his peers, however, which Laura took to be a good sign.
