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A focused Emily Dickinson was a frightening but equally exciting thing - and no one knew this to be true more than Susan Gilbert.
She’d been witness to it countless times before.
Emily, at her desk, bent over a poem - trying to find the right words.
Emily in the greenhouse, snipping, watering and inspecting.
Emily between her thighs sewing devotion into the very core of her …
For the things she loved - her focus was as infinite as it was intense, and Sue had seen Emily in just about every shade of obsession and focus
- but never like this.
“I want some time alone with you tonight.”
She whispered - pushing and squeezing at Sue, rendering her lungs empty and mind scattered. It was supposed to be a day of remembering and celebrating George, but when Emily had shown up at her front door - eyes filled with intention and earnest wanting, it was impossible for Sue to focus on anything else.
The entire evening, the only thought in her head -
“Emily, Emily, Emily, Em… ”
Her heart stuttered in syllables, triplets spelling Emily’s name.
“It can’t be said in words.”
Emily had said, the declaration gnawing at Sue all evening, Emily’s words like electricity in her veins. The weight of anticipation had settled like a stone in her stomach - its size multiplied each time she dared to glance in Emily’s direction.
Emily had held her gaze like a dare, a challenge - a promise for what was to come later in the evening. Sue could see the fire behind Emily’s eyes. She felt the same burning within her, wild in her chest, scarlet embers simmering in her gut. She was hardly touched, and could already feel warmth pooling into her center.
It had been so long since their last night together and it would be a lie to say that Sue wasn’t yearning for Emily’s touch.
The entire night had felt like cannon fodder, though the party had been a much welcomed distraction, Sue’s mind was elsewhere. Waiting eagerly for everyone to tire and say their farewells so she could hear - or rather feel what it was Emily had wanted to share so badly was nothing short of torturous.
Though Sue did have a few ideas on what it was Emily was so desperate to share.
“I want something that you can’t put into words.” Sue had asked days before.
From Emily, she craved something intangible, something she couldn’t coat in a brilliant metaphor or rhyme. Amid marriage, war, and babies - their lives were exponentially more complicated. There were now responsibilities and expectations, less time to spend together, less time for Sue to read.
Lately, she’d been craving the soothing warmth of Emily’s presence more than her intellect - undoubtedly a symptom of her tiredness and the general way motherhood had made her feel: exhausted, unsexy, and lonely.
And then today Emily had barged into her house - giving her both. A peace offering cloaked in kisses and smiles. A poem read
just
mostly for Sue. A day where all their problems dissolved, like sugar in water, reassuring Sue that even if just for a little while - things would be okay.
**
The guests were gone, the wine bottles empty and yet - Sue was still buzzing, partly due to the residual energy of the party, but mainly due to Emily. Her throat was still warm where Emily had kissed her earlier - frenzied and so filled with wanting that Sue thought they might both combust on the spot.
Though now, there was no need to rush now or worry about who might see. Alone with their hearts bared in Sue’s bed, the outside world was no longer relevant - not when her entire universe was laying right beside her.
Emily was right to say that this couldn’t be put into words.
She didn’t need words to know what Emily was trying to show her. With Emily across from her, pupils blown, flushed red with want from her cheeks to her chest and mouth shimmering with Sue’s desire - Sue understood.
And when she had come undone, with Emily’s mouth pressed against the warmest part of her - she understood again.
And when Emily crawled back up her body, retracing the path she took down, scoring new bruises besides the old ones, nipping, sucking and licking -
She understood.
The knowledge that Emily had wanted her just as bad as she wanted Emily, kissed into her skin, coated on Emily’s fingers as she touched herself watching Sue unravel. Those same fingers, placed reverently in Sue’s mouth - liquid desire, something she couldn’t put into words.
When Emily finally reaches her mouth again, Sue is quick to taste her - kissing her slowly, and obscenely like she wanted to earlier in the day when Emily had ambushed her.
Emily tasted of Sue, wine and words unsaid - poems not yet written. It was intoxicating - something Sue would spend the rest of her life cataloging, careful to commit every taste and breath that spilled from Emily’s lips to memory.
She pulls Emily closer, and Emily responds with a sigh.
“Sue …” She breathes, pulling away just to stare.
They stay like that for minutes - in the silence filled only by their labored breathing and the crackle of the fireplace. This visual of Emily was enough to sustain her forever - food and water be damned.
Why would she need anything else if she had this?
Emily on her bed - bathed in the glimmering embers of candlelight and fireplace. The brown of her eyes made black by a wanting that would ruin them both if they weren’t careful - reflecting both Sue and the flames of the fireplace - almost as if she was burning amongst the fire.
The delicate parts of Emily, in varying splotches of pink, and red, and wet. Her body upon an altar of white sheets, showing Sue the thing that couldn’t be put into words.
“You know this, this right here, this is better than any poem.” Emily whispers, her long fingers gentle against alabaster skin.
Though not as proficient a writer as Emily, Sue agreed. America’s greatest poet putty in her hands. It was doing everything for her ego and nothing to quell her need to be completely absorbed in and by Emily.
Sue kisses her again - unsure if the moan she hears in response comes from her or Emily. It didn’t matter - not when Emily was pleading against her lips to be touched in a tone, she’s never heard from her before. It was yearning, desire, and an apology all in one.
“ I need you.” She pants against Sue’s lips - her hips desperate for friction.
“I know … I know,” Sue whispers back, testing the press of her knee against Emily’s center, capturing the moan it draws out of her.
Emily’s reaction only serves to spur Sue on - letting them build up a rhythm. Sue leans her entire weight into Emily now, pressing her thigh harder into her center and letting their foreheads touch.
It’s all sighs, and sweat as Sue lets her hands wander - first along the contours of Emily’s cheekbones, her jawline, and then down to the soft swell of her breasts where Sue captures the peak between her fingertips.
Sue watches, entranced, as Emily’s eyes flutter shut, each twist and squeeze drawing a new high-pitched whine from Emily.
The flush in her cheeks and the way her hips stutter let Sue know she’s close. They’re sharing one breath now and Sue’s sure that a few more calculated thrusts would send Emily directly over the edge.
Oh how’d she’d missed the feeling of Emily’s body underneath hers; The way Emily wore her desire on her sleeve - not afraid to hide any of it from Sue. Though she was a master of words, this right here was when she was most expressive - on her back, beautiful as ever pleading for Sue to touch her.
Sue wanted this moment to last forever.
The gentle press of her lips and tongue against the column of Emily’s throat in stark contrast to the frantic rhythm of Emily’s hips against hers.
She could feel the thud of Emily’s heart beneath her lips, red and vibrant, desperate for Sue to bring its pace to a crescendo.
“Please, Sue.” She rasps again, voice sharp with desperation.
And Sue doesn’t have it in her to prolong this any longer.
She lets Emily guide her down between spread legs, bringing Emily’s thighs over her shoulders and their hands together - tethering herself to Emily and the earth. She felt so much in this moment that she feared she might fall off. Reconciliation had never looked so beautiful or tasted so sweet.
Sue lays her tongue flat against the seam of her, warm tongue meeting liquid heat - another thing that couldn’t be put into words.
Emily gasps, her hand shooting from Sue’s grip to the crown of her head, tangling her fingers in Sue’s hair, bringing her impossibly closer.
This restricts Sue’s breathing, but she can hardly bring herself to care, not when she looks up to see Emily looking down at her - completely ruined, her red lips parted, brown hair wild against the pillow.
Sue holds her gaze as she works to bring Emily to orgasm. Emily does her best to maintain eye contact, but when Sue drops one of her hands from Emily’s hips into the softness of Emily’s cunt, two fingers curling into her - there’s really nothing she can do except close her eyes and let herself be bathed in the unadulterated pleasure of Sue’s love.
And as she comes, with her fingers twisting into Sue’s hair, and her greedy hips canting into Sue’s mouth and onto her fingers, she cries, “It’s yours, Sue … I’m yours!”
Spilled from her lips like a prayer.
And after they’re both spent, slick with sweat and each other, limbs tangled, filled with love and content - Emily adds, “Nothing I’ve ever written will be more true.”
Sue smiles as she whispers into Emily’s hair,
“I’m yours, too.”