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Viola never possessed the occasion to consider what she would do, once truly alone. It was never, she thought, to assume a lie as her own, or damn herself as she tears in two between loves. It was never to pursue a small, hard death in a corner of the lady Olivia's manor, crushed into rich curtains as though trying to disappear in their heavy darkness.
The lady Olivia herself is no aging widow, no wintering harvest. She presses herself to Viola, her mouth hot and sweet, her hands questing and singular in purpose. "How now," she breathes, "my youth has no clever words?" Her fingers tug at doublet sleeves, loosening belt and laces.
"I confess not, madam," Viola whispers, her own hands reaching to arrest searching fingers. She skims her mouth over Olivia's curve of neck and collar, swell of breast and hollow of throat.
"Sweet Cesario's tongue is stilled, then." Olivia laughs, low in her throat. "Woeful day." She snatches at the edge of the curtain and pulls it around them like a great raven's wing, black for mourning, black for secrecy from the world without. She flats her back to the wall and draws her fingernails through Viola's shorn hair, her laugh still a purr even as she kisses heat like fire.
Viola puts her lips to Olivia's hand, the hard edge of rings at her lip in an answering kiss of body-warm metal, and kneels, her heart loud as the sea in her ears. As she slides her hands up the seams of Olivia's stockings, Olivia smiles at her from above, queenly, goddesslike, and she rucks up her skirts and petticoats and finally, Viola's fingers meet soft flesh and then short hair and a slick of wet heat. She presses her cheek to the edge of a garter and breathes and kisses the hot curve of thigh there.
Fingers tighten their grip, tying sailors knots in her hair, press her closer, and from above, the lady of the manor commands more from her humble servant, her voice all throat and husk, rich and full. Her skirts bunch at her waist and the curtains muffle their rustle, deepen the shadows around and shut out the burning sun and bright flowers and honesty of day. Viola smiles and slides her hands to cup calf and knee, and she leans in to prove to her lady that sweet Cesario's tongue cannot be stilled.