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She shifted in the hay, feigning boredo it poorly She was transfixed by his every movement, he could see that now

"I do have one more trifle Should my lady like to hear it?" his past self said

Roland recalled the eager tilting of his past self’s chin and burned with sha to agree to meet him in the barn

All he did was assault her with bad poetry

The boy on the stool did not wait--he clearly could not wait--for Rosaline’s ladylike groan And when Roland launched into his gruesouessed that this failed sonneteer had once been the Angel of Music

"Snowy peaks are sub-subli Rosaline

Soft-eyed kittens are unkind,

In the lap of Rosaline

As a poem’s made of lines,

So am I of Rosaline

They that toil to sheaf and bind,

Then to cart with Rosaline

As the nut transcends the rind,

Such a nut is Rosaline

He that mysteries would find,

First must eyeball Rosaline"

At the end, Roland looked up to see Rosaline’s face pinched into a frown He reled to endure it a second time, and felt the sa off a cliff

She said: "Why do you infect me with such clumsy verse?"

This time, in his me him

He should have known it when she reached for his hand and drew hi too loudly for him to hear her implication, which now, clearly, was Shut up and kiss me

And how he had kissed her!

That first tinited within Roland, as if his soul had been electrified His body had gone rigid with the effort of trying not toup His lips elded to hers, but lilued to her shoulders Rosaline writhed against his grip, but for the life of hiiggle and snaked free from his arms She leaned backward in the hay, her pink lips pursed and off-liain She eyed hirace"

Roland lurched forward on his knees, his hands planted in the rough hay "Shall I try again? I am certain I can do better--"

"Well, I should hope so" Her laugh was coy and elegant She leaned away just long enough to tease him, then lay back in the hay and closed her eyes "Youin the sweetness of every part of her But just as he was about to bestow another aard kiss, Rosaline pressed a hand against his chest

She must have felt his heart race, but she didn’t let on

"This time," she instructed, "not so stilted More … fluidity Think of the flow of a poem Well, perhaps not your poems Perhaps your favorite poem by another Throw yourself into my kiss"

"Like this?" Roland all but fell on top of her, rolling to the side and finding himself facefirst in the hay He turned toward her, flushed

Side by side they lay, facing one another She took his hands Their hips were touching through their clothes The tips of their feet kissed without embarrassment Her face was inches away from his

"Youso, trusting that I will desire everything you have to offer Do you understand?"

"Yes, yes, I understand!" Roland breathed, shi closer for his next atte with expectation Tentatively, he reached for her--

"Roland?"

What is it now?

"Hold ht, sir, you won’t break me"

As he kissed her, it seemed to Roland that not even the call of Lucifer hio

He would follow her advice a thousand times with other ladies in the future, and so, and never, never like this

THREE

COUNCIL WITH DARKNESS

Roland ca queasy and lost

The sweetaway He touched his throbbing head and realized that he was lying on the ground

Slowly, he rolled to his feet He ached soiven tilanced back up at the balcony He’d never have fallen from it in the old days Probably shouldn’t have worn full ar rusty How many ti her? Howblond hair beckoned him like Rapunzel’s locks?

Usually, when Roland reached the balcony, she would be waiting, purely elated to see him She would cry out his name in a hushed whisper, then bound into his arainst him, her skin scented with rose water fro with the power of their secret love--