Chapter Text
Alexandra was lying on her side with her head resting on Spencer’s chest right above his heart, her left leg was tucked over his leg, and she was tracing the scars on his chest inflicted by a leopard’s claws.
Each day was the same since they arrived at this seaside cabin, their door into paradise. They made love whenever the moment took them, which was often, only stopping to eat, rest their satisfied bodies together in their bed, breaking up the activity to talk and learn more about each other, they’d then return to their very pleasant activity of making love.
She could tell he was still awake as well due to the fingers slowly tracing up and down the line of her body’s curves. Alexandra just basked in this moment, feeling such freedom by his side such a contrasting feeling to what she felt regarding Arthur, like chains were woven all around her, getting tighter and tighter. She tucked herself tighter into his side, resting her hand on his stomach and drifted off to the sound of his heart beating joined the symphony of the sound of the sea and the wind rustling the foliage accompanied by the sounds of the birds were their constant companions in their cottage at the sea in Zanzibar.
Alexandra opened her eyes to see she had returned to reality, kicked out of her dream where she was by Spencer’s side. Lifting her head to look out the window, only to see that the edges were covered in snow.
She sighed as she propped herself up in her seat, looking at Paul and Hillary, the window wipers running so Paul could still see the road.
“We seem to have hit a spot of weather,” Paul stated.
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Wyoming.”
“Is there a town ahead?”
“The booming metropolis of Buffalo. Fifteen miles.”
Jennifer turned to smile at her, Alexandra could tell she was trying to reassure her. She smiled back at her, then turned to look at the passing night landscape.
When they arrived at the Buffalo Gas Station, wanting to stretch her legs, Alexandra joined Jennifer in entering the station while Paul remained outside with the gas attendant, monitoring the man as he refueled the car.
They were standing inside the station looking out the window waiting for the all clear to return to their journey on the road.
When she saw that the gas station attendant was holding chains and moving to strap it to the wheels of the car, curiously she asked the woman at the counter, “What on earth are they doing?”
“So you don’t slide off the road,” the old woman stated, Alexandra could tell the woman was exasperated and annoyed that she even asked such a question when there was an obvious answer.
Hearing this, she turned her head to look at the woman.
“Where are you headed? The woman asked her.
“Emigrant, Montana,” she replied
“In a car?”
“Yes.”
“How are you going to do that?” narrowing her eyes at Alex.
“We’ve made it this far,” Hillary deflects back.
“Take the train from Sheridan. Car won’t make it”
“Are there no roads?”
“Yeah, there are roads, just no more of these.”
Alexandra felt a sense of unease rush through her body and butterflies in her stomach. It wasn’t nausea from her current condition.
Ever since she stepped onto the ship to come to America, several times now she had felt this sensation, this sense of unease, a tightness in her body, goosebumps on her skin. Each time she had ignored these sensations, charging forward, ignoring it in order to quickly reach Montana only for this to be the detriment of her mission.
Should they continue in the car to Emigrant, Montana or take the train in Sheridan, Wyoming.
She laid her hand on her stomach and felt a moment of clarity, words that Spencer had told her came to the front of her mind.
I learn from my mistakes, but I still make plenty.
“He’s ready.” Alexandra flinched as Hillary’s voice broke through her out of her thoughts, turning to look at her as she walks toward Alexandra, “Let’s go.”
“Wait,” Alexandra asked, causing Hillary to look back towards her, “Have Paul come inside so we can talk.”
Hillary nodded, went to the front door, cracking the door open, and called out to her husband.
Paul quickly closed the door to protect the remaining amount of heat that was preserved in the gas station building.
“What is it? We need to get back on the road,” Paul asked as he joins them.
Alexandra gestures to the station attendant. “She’s advising us to go to Sheridan and take the train rather than the car, that we’ll run out of gas before we make it to Emigrant.”
Taking this information in, Paul turns to the woman at the counter, “I wouldn’t have gotten to where I am in life if I hadn’t headed the advice of other more experienced individuals. What evidence do you have to make this statement?”
The old woman scoffs back, rolling her eyes, “This evidence is what I have accumulated in my years working in this station. There are no more gas stations between her and Emigrant. Countless travelers that drive through here, not heeding my advice, only to underestimate the distance their car can go and break down in the middle of nowhere. Which if that happens to you three, do I really need to state the obvious of what will happen to you when your car breaks down in this blizzard?”
“After stating it so plainly no, I don’t think you need to”, he takes the map from his coat pocket and lays it out on the counter to show it to the woman, “So we will need to take the road north up to Sheridan, correct?”
“You’re correct. There is a hotel across the street from the train station, you can get some rest there, then catch the train in the morning.”
After confirming the route with her, we left the station, Alexandra braced against the sharp cold breeze to quickly enter the car and begin their journey to Sheridan, Wyoming.
They’d arrived at the hotel just before midnight, tired and cold, she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the bed and go to sleep, hoping to dream of again of Spencer.
Instead, she placed her bags down, went to the dresser that was against the wall to the left of the door and pushed it so it was against the door, once bitten, twice shy, she wanted to make sure that before she went to sleep, she was safe.
Alexandra then went to the wood-burning heater in her room, ensured that it had sufficient fuel to last for the night, then collapsed under the sheets of the bed still wearing her day clothes and her coat and gloves, finally allowing herself to surrender to the exhaustion that had built up since she began her journey to America to reunite with Spencer.
The next morning, Alexandra was waiting in the hotel lobby for Paul and Hillary to join her in checking out of the hotel so they could go on to the train station to purchase their train tickets. It was deserted inside, the front desk attendant nowhere to be seen. She was becoming impatient, staring up at the stairs, her patience at an end, she grabbed her bags and was making her way up the stairs to go to their room, when the front entrance to the hotel opened, with it a breeze of cold air flooded the room.
“Good morning, look who is finally awake,” Hillary stated as she and Paul entered the hotel.
Alexandra turned and looked towards them, Hillary gave her a hug while Paul smiled, looking on.
“I’m happy to say, we had a productive morning while you slept away in your bed, we had our breakfast and coffee then popped over to the train station to see what the itinerary was on the next train to Billings, and with that information, Hillary and I had a talk” Paul explained as placed his hand on Hillary’s back.
“Oh, what about?” Alexandra asked, taking her friends in.
“Hillary and I swore that we would see you to the end of your journey, however it seems that Mother Nature has thwarted that wish, we can’t leave the car behind and join you on the train.”
Alexandra’s stomach sunk, locking eyes with Hillary, who smiled sadly at her. She’d only known them for a few days, but in their time sequestered in the car on their journey, they’d become good friends.
“I know you may be nervous about traveling on the train alone again, but we booked you in first class, we will wait with you in the train station and wave farewell to you while you depart on the train,” Paul reassured her. He then took out his wallet, took some bank notes and handed it to her along with the train ticket, “This should be more than enough funds for you to make the final stretch in your journey to reunite with your husband. Our one demand is that you write to us to tell us how the story ends.”
Alexandra held the money and ticket in her hands, struggling to keep the tears from falling out of her eyes. She was so grateful to her two friends, if it wasn’t for them, she would likely be in prison, instead they had saved her and after telling them her story, they had chosen to escort her, wanting to see how the story ended with their own eyes.
She takes a deep breath in, closes her eyes, and looks at the two of them, then stepped forward and wrapped her arms around them.
“These two words can’t truly show how grateful I am to the two of you, but I’ll still say them. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” she keeps repeating those two words to them.
Alexandra hears Hillary begin to cry as she wraps her arms around her, Paul chuckles as he gently lays his hand on her shoulder.
Alexandra was standing at the railing on the last car on the train, waving goodbye to Hillary and Paul as the train departed the station. When she was no longer able to see them, she placed her hands on the railing and took a deep breath, placing her right hand to caress her stomach.
“We’re almost there little one, almost there.”
She entered the dining car then the next, only to discover every table and seat in the dining cars are currently taken, she was ravenous with hunger, but she’ll have to delay that for now, and continued on through the cars to reach the first-class sleeper car she was assigned, which was, of course, near the front of the train.
She had reached the second-class seating cars, weaving her way through past people that were in the aisle as well. Thankfully her bags were delivered to her sleeper car, so it was easier to maneuver around the other passengers. With each step she found herself entering and exiting different conversations being held by the train cars passengers.
She’d entered yet another second-class seating car, it seemed like it was an endless row of cars, put in place to solely make it more difficult to reach her final destination.
She glanced to the right taking in the passing winter landscape in the windows, it was when she turned her gaze to the left, she froze in place.
Impossible.
She was frozen in place, her brain and heart in war with each other to accept the man she beheld was sitting in the middle of the car seats talking to a young boy.
His back was to her, he was hunched forward leaning towards the young boy, his hat blocking the color of his hair, her ears were ringing loudly, Alexandra could hear her heartbeat pulsing quicker and quicker, she could barely hear anything else.
“What’s that?” the young boy asked the man, the words barely registering to her.
“A lion’s tooth,” the man replied. Hearing the man’s voice finally broke Alexandra out of her frozen state. Tears began to fill her eyes and fall down her cheeks.
Spencer.
She slowly started to advance down the aisle toward him.
“There’s no lions here,” the boy countered back with a smile at Spencer.
“That’s ‘cause it’s not from here, it’s from Africa.”
The boy’s eyes started to sparkle taking in the treasure that Spencer held in his hands.
“Want to trade?”
“Trade what?”
In response to this question, the boy reached into his right pocket and a pocketknife. He pulled the blade out of the handle and handed it to Spencer.
“That’s a nice knife,” Spencer acknowledged as he was handed the knife.
“Guy I traded for it says it’s from the revolution. The war. Our teachers said we won that one.”
“You and I are living proof of that.”
“Are you sure your mother would be okay with you trading this away?”
“She don’t know I have it,” the boy whispered. Spencer then handed the pocketknife back to the boy, making sure the blade was back in the handle.
“See, I don’t know, I was, um…I was planning on giving this to my son one day.”
Hearing Spencer say this, Alexandra bit her lip to keep her sobs silent. Keeping her eyes fixated on Spencer, she placed her hand on the seat Spencer was sitting in, her eyes tracing over the side of his face.
“What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t met him yet.”
“Don’t think you meet him. I think you got to make him.”
“How eloquently put young man, I can assure you that my husband and I worked very hard so we can meet him,” she addressed the boy, yet keeping her eyes fixated on Spencer.
The moment the first word left her lips, Spencer’s body locked into place. His hands held tight to the lion’s tooth in his hands.
Slowly, Spencer craned his head to the right and our eyes locked. The moment they did, Alexandra could no longer hold back the tears, and they fell down her cheeks.
She could tell he was struggling just as she was a few moments ago, trying to accept that she was in fact standing in front of him.
She couldn’t recall who moved first, yet in the next instant, Spencer was standing and wrapping his arms around her, she threw her arms around his shoulders, Alexandra shoved her face in his neck, her sobs slowly dying down, allowing her to take a deep breath in and his scent entered her lungs, centering her.
Spencer was running his hands down then up her back, when she stopped crying, he placed his hands on her shoulders. She pulled back and looked into his eyes, he brushed her cheeks, wiping the trail of tears off her face.
The two of them gravitated toward each other, each moving at the same time, and she kissed him.
It didn’t take long before his taste, touch, and smell saturated her body, making her melt into him, she slid her arms around his back, tightening her grip to press his body to hers, she felt Spencer do the same.
Spencer then broke the kiss, they were nose-to-nose, his eyes locked onto hers.
“Please tell me you have a sleeper car more conveniently located than mine,” she whispered to him. She didn’t want to delay any longer. She wanted to become one with her husband.
He smiled at her, leaned in to kiss her again, took her hand and pulled her forward to leave the car. Both ignoring the stares of the other passengers in the car that were a witness to their reuniting.
Alexandra kept her eyes solely focused on Spencer, he would turn his head to look back at her to check she was still with him.
Mercifully, his sleeper car was just two cars away, he opened the door and let her enter first, closing the door behind them.
It was a simple room as she looked around, over half the space of the room was taken up by the sleeper sofa, a sink in the corner near the head of the bed, a chair against the wall at the foot of the bed, with just enough space for the two of them to stand without brushing up against the furniture.
She turned to face Spencer, he was leaning on the door, staring at her.
She looked into his eyes and held them, the tension in the room growing, more, more, more.
Until something snapped and she and Spencer lunged at each other, she claimed his mouth, her skin prickling due to his facial hair.
She opened her mouth and thrust her tongue into his, tasting him with her tongue, giving him her own. Their hands were moving quickly, neither had forgotten how to quickly undress the other, through their constant practice of making love since Africa. They may have been separated for several months, their lips parting for a brief moment so Spencer could pull her chemise and shift off her at once, to join together again.
He placed his hands on her hips and backed her up, she followed his desire and lay down on the bed, Spencer quickly joining her, covering her body with his.
Alexandra closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around his back and tugged him down, just enough so she could full the weight of him on top of her. He allowed this but didn’t allow the full weight of him, bracing his forearms on the bed, moving to kiss her again.
She began to trace her fingers all along his back, feeling the muscle in his back tighten and release. He began to explore her body as well, first tracing her face moving down slowly, his fingers feather-light, moving down her neck, her collarbones, her breasts, down the side of her waist, ending at her waist.
Feeling where his hands were located, brought Alexandra back into coherent thought for a moment. Breaking their kiss, Spencer looked down at her curiously, she smiled up at him.
She took his hands and guided them to her lower stomach, pressing his hands down lightly so he could feel and discover her secret.
While she did this, Alexandra held Spencer’s gaze, watching his face, so she could remember this moment, as he registered what it was, what he was feeling.
She gazed lovingly up at him, “It’s a good thing you didn’t do that trade I’m sure our son would rather have that lion’s tooth than a pocketknife of questionable origin.”
Oh, how she loved to see Spencer smiling and this moment was no exception. This time he was grinning, his eyes glistening with tears.
“Truly?” Spencer asked.
She smiled and nodded her head, “I expect he’ll be tall like you.”
No more words were said after that, other than each one calling out the others’ name, he quickly reclaimed her mouth, their tongues dueling each other, exploring the crevices of each other’s mouth.
When his hand cupped her sex, she arched her back and gasped as her body’s senses were charged even more. His fingers
Not to be outdone by him, she sent her hands to work, using her well-earned knowledge of his body to bring him pleasure as he was to hers. With one hand she traced her nails up his spine and the other she reached down and gently wrapped her fingers around his erect member, causing Spencer to growl and lightly thrust his hips forward.
Not to be outdone by her, his fingers parted her sex and began to tease her. First he gathered her wetness onto his fingers before he moved his fingers up and pressed his thump onto her clit, flicking it back and forth.
She mewled his name as her hips thrust up to increase the pressure on her clit. He swallowed her gasp with his lips as he took a finger and penetrated her, thrusting it in and out, before a second finger quickly joined the first.
He broke the kiss to look into her eyes, she struggled to keep hers open as the pleasure increased. Only after her body adjusted to having three of his fingers inside of sex did he pick up the speed, cocking his fingers inside her and began to thrust them in and out with increasing speed.
It didn’t take very long for her climax to rush through her, she closed her eyes and embraced her body’s surrender.
Once the last wave of pleasure retreated, she opened her eyes again, reached down and guided the head of his member to her entrance.
Spencer laid his forehead against hers, he lightly trailed her sex his member, gathering her nectar onto the head, before he was returned to where she had placed him and poised at her entrance, when he slowly advanced his hips and entered her.
She felt her muscles stretch to accommodate her husband. Once he was fully inside her, he stopped, the head of his penis resting against her cervix.
Finally, they were one again.
Alexandra felt Spencer trace her nose with his and opened her eyes to look at him. He smiled down at her, leaning down to kiss her forehead, her eyelids, her nose, then a quick peck of her lips.
She wrapped her legs around his waist, wrapped her arms around his back, his hips slowly drew back from hers and then slid inside again. With each thrust she arched her hips to meet him, chasing the pleasure that was building up within her body.
For a second time, her climax rushed through her, she arched her back and buried her face into his neck and cried out her released.
The speed of his trusts increased, more and more, as her muscles milked his member, her bodies instinctive act to milk his seed from him.
Spencer buried his face into her hair, burying his cry of pleasure into her hair. She felt his release inside her, the warmth running through her as he spilled his seed inside her. His hips slowly continuing to thrust into hers, once, twice, then on the third time he remained planted inside of her.
They remained still as they caught their breath, when Spencer tried to move off of her, she tightened her arms and legs around him, not allowing him to separate from her.
“Not yet,” she asked him. “Stay, I don’t want to separate yet, I want to hold you inside me, let’s remain one for now.”
At her request he remained inside her but braced his weight on his arms and legs, so she wasn’t taking his full weight.
They remained like this for a time, their pants slowly calmed down as they caught their breath from making love.
After some time, she released his hips and allowed him to slip out of her sex.
He moved to lie down on his back, she moved to her side and tucked body to his side, he tugged the blanket of the bed over their bodies. She laid her head down on his chest and listened to his heartbeat, breathing in his scent, feeling the heat of his body.
Alexandra surrendered to her body’s demand for sleep, knowing she could fall into its embrace with no worry, for Spencer was by her side and he would protect her.