Chapter Text
Dearest Diary,
Only to you can I confess this. Even Angelica, my sister and muse, may not have room in her philosophies for such an irregularity. I have asked myself, more times than should fit in such a brief day, if we were wrong, if I am forsworn, but as Alexander lies beside me, smiling in his sleep with his bare arm draped across my lap, I can find no fault in the three of us, merely satisfaction, and love.
Yesterday Alexander and I were married. Married! I've longed for weeks, months -- it seems, ages. I have dreamt of our wedding night and woken flushed and warm with my blankets thrown aside. All the more since Alexander brought to me his bosom friend John Laurens, with his curly hair and his merry eyes and how Alexander shines even brighter in his company, two coals heating each other to a blaze.
I had no time to write this then, but five days before the wedding, Alexander and Laurens smuggled themselves into my room, climbing up the wall to my window, hushing each other's laughter. Angelica set Peggy as chaperone and guard, but Alexander brought a pocket-flask of West Indian rum, and two mouthfuls had her asleep on my bed, quiet as a lamb. I sat between them, clasping both their hands -- I'd had my share too, and I still remember my whispered singing as I pronounced Laurens the perfect wedding gift. "For you're Alexander's old friend, and now my new, as he lends you to me in your coat of blue." Not my finest verse, but he liked it well enough, his smile shining. Alexander kissed me and pronounced me brilliant, and kissed me again so warmly I thought it prudent to dismiss my young men before we woke Peggy.
My young men, I thought even then, and last night proved me a prophetess.
Our Laurens climbs like a squirrel, and I can't be surprised he knows the way in through the window of any room Alexander inhabits. The doors had (finally) been shut upon our bridal chamber and Alexander had (finally) loosed my corset and employed himself peeling down my stockings, kissing my bared skin as he worked, every touch imprinting itself upon me, when a double-rap heralded the window opening.
His beautiful eyes alight, Alexander glanced up at my face, at the window, back to me, and I was reminded of long ago when Angelica had read to me and Peggy about planetary orbits. Then, I had wondered on the motion of a planet with two Suns. Now, my Alexander gave my answer as he sprang up barefoot, turning towards the window, as he spun back around and offered a hand to me.
I blushed, in my shift, my hair half-unbraided, one stocking ungartered and one foot bare, and Alexander lifted his eyebrows, inclining his head towards the window as a blue-sleeved arm appeared. I blushed hotter yet but I rose with Alexander, and together we went to collect our Laurens.
Oh, how he laughed, hand pressed to lips, cheeks glowing red and eyes sparkling as we each grasped an elbow and helped heave him over the windowsill. He kissed my cheek and Alexander full on the mouth, and I could see this was far from their first kiss, and thrilled to know it. And then Laurens looked at me, and Alexander looked at me, asking me with their eyes to take the next step.
So I stood up upon my toes, one foot bare and one in stocking, and tasted Alexander's kiss on Laurens' warm lips.
O Diary. I could write a thousand voluptuous words about unwrapping Laurens from his uniform, about casting off my shift and last petticoats to stand bare before Alexander, about how he smiled as he pulled his shirt over his head and stood before me bare as birth. How Lauren flashed all his bright teeth and laughed as he folded his breeches, and I who had never yet seen a naked man before last night now had two flanking me, solid and beautiful. I could write ten thousand lines on kisses exchanged and witnessed, on how Alexander led us both to the bed and laid gentle hands on me, how Laurens's eloquent eyes asked my leave before every touch and kiss while Alexander moved with surety as if he could see into my mind.
The things I could write, but my fingers will cramp and the ink pot run dry and I haven't come near the most important moments as yet.
Living with Alexander I shall have to budget more for candles, if last night is any measure. He'd lit many when we were finally left together, pausing at intervals to kiss me as he moved around the room. He climbed from bed to light more, as I lay trembling cheek-to-cheek with our Laurens, who stroked my shoulder as we watched Alexander, confident in his nudity, making his second circuit.
When he came back to bed my eyes fell to his yard, ruddy and upright with a shine to its bulbous head, and I rather wished to reach out and touch it, try its textures in my hand. Alexander saw me looking, and smiled with his sweet devilry, and asked, "Dear wife, would you like this?"
Laurens chuckled softly beside me. I longed, and could scarce imagine what I longed for, but I felt hungry indeed. "Yes, dear husband," I told him, reaching out, "yes please."
He took my hand and kissed it, kissed my arm as Laurens whistled, up and up and up. How Alexander kissed me, between my eyes, upon my mouth, my throat, my breasts and belly and thighs, cherishing every inch of my skin. Parting my thighs with kisses, he laid his fingers between them, his lashes fluttering as he looked where he stroked, and I still can't tell whether it was the feel of his deep touch or the sight of his rapt face that loosed a moan from me, that made my spine draw up like a bowstring.
Alexander kissed me, shifting my thighs up to fit himself between them, and kissed me again, and pressed to me, and I could feel --
I sit here on the edge of sleep, sore with love while Alexander slumbers beside me, and still I shiver with the heat of the memory. I knew the bare details of marital congress, of course; between Mother and Angelica I knew of all my upcoming duties as a wife. But to know is one thing and to feel another, the solid slide of Alexander's member inside me, the steady stream of his breath as he eased forward, trembling finely -- I realized he was holding himself back this once, my Alexander who never takes his time.
His thighs pressed to mine, and sensation sharpened into a twinge, another, my breath catching. Alexander raised his careful eyes to mine, and then glanced sidelong, as Laurens leaned up on his elbow beside us and grasped a handful of Alexander's hair. He leaned in and whispered in Alexander's ear, but we were all so tight together, I couldn't help but hear his word. "Slow," he murmured, and I laughed my delighted gratitude, groping blindly for Laurens' hand.
He caught mine, lifting it to his lips, but all the while held Alexander's eyes with his, as Alexander nodded, and pulled back from me, and the hollow ache of my body already missing him --- I threw my arm up around his neck, and he turned his beautiful eyes to meet mine and smiled, cheeky and sure, as he pressed forward again, until my own eyes fell shut as I moaned.
And so Alexander had my maidenhood, as was his right as my husband, but from all I have heard he made an uncommon pleasure of it for me, with Laurens' welcome help. I felt it at intervals all day today, little flickers of remembered delight along my skin, prickling like gooseflesh of wonder. I clung to Alexander and wept for the voluptuous glory of it, more delectable then any treat I've tasted, sweeter than the sweep of any dance. It may not have been ladylike but I gave myself up to carnal pleasure with my Alexander and yet I still feel there was a delight of the soul there too, an interpenetration and joining that mirrored that of our bodies.
Alexander puffed a whisper to Laurens, and I tried to bite my lip on my own sighs to hear; he leaned on Laurens' shoulder and the feel shifted with the position, smooth pacing now a bouncing trot. And he slipped his hand between my thighs again, between our bellies, and touched me, so lightly, so definitively. I know this, I've touched myself sometimes when washing or in bed, it's a simple pleasure. But allied to the new delight of joining with my husband, I foundered under the cresting waves, I swooned and drowned under the fountaining ecstasy, washing through every vessel and channel of my body.
I tell myself it must be a girl's fancy -- I found no shift in my face this morning, nor in Alexander's as he smiled under my regard -- but I feel different somehow, changed in every particle.
"Well cried," Laurens cheered, and Alexander laughed, and kissed my brow.
"Oh, my Eliza," he said, breathless and deep, and I could only stare up at him. "May I? Please may I?" I barely knew what I assented to, but I nodded, and Alexander kissed Laurens with the bruising force I craved, kissed me just as fervently till my lips ached sweetly, and slid his hands down the length of my back, pulling me to him, shifting us further from a trot to a full gallop. Another crisis caught me up and Alexander groaned and pressed his face to my throat, crushing love words into my skin as his own took him in forceful shudders. I clung to him and felt my eyes go wide, the ceiling shadowed above me and Laurens smiling beneficently upon us as Alexander trembled in my arms, between my thighs, atop and within me.
I had been told how it would be to have a husband. Now I felt it.
Oh how I like the feel. I have heard women speak of it with drawn faces and winces of displeasure. They must not be as blessed as I, with a husband as talented as Alexander, and his boon companion besides. "Again," I sighed, "Again, please again," and they both laughed, Alexander's breath tickling my throat.
"My nymph, my angel," he breathed, into my skin, into my heart, "you must grant me a small respite. But --" He raised his head, setting a hand on Laurens' thigh, who was every bit as ready as Alexander had been, his erect yard hard by his belly. He glanced to Alexander, and Alexander looked to me, and I looked over at Laurens, up his sculptured body to his handsome face, and back to my beautiful Alexander, to the question in his eyes.
I nodded, and lifted my head to meet him in a kiss. Alexander shifted from me, and our Laurens reached for me, wreathing me in his arms, settling us on our sides, tucking my leg beneath his waist. Contemplations flickered like candlelight of how he'd come by this grace in bed and elsewhere; I blushed and ducked my head, and he pressed a smile to my brow and lifted my chin to look into my face. "Ready for me, Mrs. Hamilton?" he asked, and oh my heart was too full to speak, but I could nod, and I could kiss him. And he could slip us together, neat as a dance.
Is it vulgar to compare two men in this? Diary, you won't tattle on me? Alexander's member is thicker, Laurens' longer, which accords with their heights if not their frames. (Alexander's build is almost delicate in his slenderness, his legs long and graceful, and that gives me an idea for the morning. Laurens is a little more square of build, somewhat thicker of limb, and dusted all over with crisp curls to match his hair.) Laurens hissed in effort but took his own advice, moving slowly, pausing when I twinged and gasped until I had adjusted to him. I wonder how much he and Alexander have taught each other, they both have a great facility. I am but an initiate, but talent speaks for itself.
Alexander stroked my hair across the pillow and kissed my nape, then rose, and I looked to him even as I held Laurens. He smiled at me as he lay behind our shared friend, fitting their bodies together, his eyes shining as he kissed Laurens' shoulder. He gathered my upper leg and kissed my ankle and pushed just so, so that I could push back, striking a glorious angle. And he murmured to Laurens, to both of us, between kissing us both wherever he might. He told Laurens to "please my wife until I'm ready for her again." He told me how beautifully I shone in my exaltation, and I think it was his very words which tipped me over into my next crisis.
It was Alexander's clever fingers, slid between us, tracing our bodies' join, stroking up my pleasure, which drove me to the next, and the next, and the next. I'm still not sure of the count. I do know I'll never forget Laurens' wailing cry as he threw his head back and rose to his own, as I pushed my face beneath his chin and felt his pulse surging in his throat as he surged within me.
The candlelight shone like noon sun behind my eyes, Laurens' breaths rolled across my hair like stroking fingers, Alexander's voice both blanketed and suffused me as he murmured praise and love in both our ears. I still feel the glow within me when I think of it, how I settled to drowsy euphoria in Laurens' arms with Alexander's around both of us.
At length Alexander murmured something so low and soft I didn't hear it, but Laurens' whole body firmed to action. I raised my heavy head and he smiled at me, saying, "upsy daisy my lady" as he rolled, carrying me with him over into Alexander's hold. I might have huffed -- I am a grown woman and can move on my own -- but one glance at Alexander's merry mischievous face and my misgivings faded into desire and delight.
"My Eliza, one more go?" he asked, his hands spread across my skin, his lips hovering over mine, and I shaped my astonishment to an acquiescent smile, to an eager kiss as he tipped me upon my back, as Laurens eeled over just enough to make space.
And then I squeaked into the kiss, as Alexander tucked his elbows beneath my knees, opening me to him like a full-blown flower. "Oh!" I cried as he looked at me with dear concern. "Oh, I had not known there were so many different manners of effecting union!"
For all the candles, Alexander's smile alone could have lit the room, and Laurens pressed his cheek to my hair, his hand to Alexander's shoulder. "Wait until I teach you to ride me as your stallion," he told me as he pressed forward, "but for the moment," as he slipped inside me, inch by solid hot inch, "let me, let me?"
"Always," I gasped, rocking to meet him, already using my new knowledge, and he smiled into kissing me sweetly, so sweetly, as he sank himself within me till I almost could feel him back of my throat, till I felt his stones settle against my arse, till I trembled with fullness. And then he began to move.
Thinking on it now I remember how his pressing my knees back changed the angle and the effect. I look forward to learning more of this wondrous new geometry; Alexander shall find me the most eager pupil. Provided I can keep my concentration! Then, Alexander groaned low over me, plunging within me until another crisis wracked me, and the whole memory is rum-punch hazy, I was so drunk on love. Laurens sighed appreciation and kissed us both, over and over, and when Alexander came to his peak of pleasure he wailed into Laurens' mouth as he spent within me and Laurens squeezed my hand.
I found my other hand pressing sharp nails into Alexander's back, and cried out in remorse as I pried it away; Alexander hung his laughing head, his undone hair brushing my cheeks like gentle fingers. "My lady has marked me with the sweetest wounds a man could ever bear," he said, and kissed me once more as he let my legs down upon the bed. "And my lad needs my assistance," he added, casting his eyes towards Laurens, who pressed a smile to my brow, "may I attend to him?"
I nodded, wondering and eager even as I lay replete, and Alexander tucked another pillow behind my head, propping me up as he shifted onto his knees -- and took Laurens' straining yard directly into his mouth.
Another discovery! I had not known that could be done. There are passages of our Catullus which Angelica refused to help me translate, and I suspect I witnessed one in that moment. Another idea for the morning, if I can remember.
Laurens threw his head back, throat working, eyelashes fluttering, and I thought tucking myself to his side might buoy his pleasure. It seemed to; he gasped, pulling me tightly to him with one hand, burying the other in Alexander's hair, which he does seem to like more than I would care to have mine pulled upon. (Perhaps he divined this, as he has been careful of it.) Alexander gripped Laurens' flanks in both hands, his thumbs pressed to those little slants that border the hips, and I didn't even know where to look, at Alexander's stretched lips and working throat or all the muscles taut and defined in Laurens' belly or his rapturous face as he let loose a set of soft lush noises and spent in Alexander's mouth.
"Let me taste," I heard a girl say huskily, and recognized her voice as mine. Alexander sat back smiling, licking his lips, and leaned in to kiss me. The savor was slippery, warm, and bitter, but not unpalatably so. I think I would not mind it to watch such raptures cross Alexander's face.
He kissed Laurens next, who panted into his mouth, and lifted my legs over his waist like a blanket as he leaned upon Laurens like a cushion, sprawling across us in feline grace. I laughed for sheer joy and reached for his hand, and so we lay, all three of us, cozy and warm and full to overflowing.
You might have thought I should have been done, I would've thought, but watching had fanned the embers of my desire, and lying with my cunt pressed to Alexander's belly provided an itch of stimulation until I tried to shift, towards or away I could not say.
Both my lads noticed my wriggling. "The calm river hides a mighty current," Laurens murmured, and Alexander smiled and kissed my fingers' tips, his lifted eyebrows asking the question.
"I don't know," I answered truthfully. I never wanted the night's pleasures to end, but I remembered the morning after my first ball, my legs' crampings then echoed in how I ached within now. I thought to gather my wits, be a lady, not do to excess --
"Hamilton," Laurens said, softly, firmly, "go kiss your wife as you just kissed me."
"Well said, sir," Alexander answered, sitting up, parting my knees. I looked on him wide-eyed as he kissed my thighs again, one and the other and back and forth, drawing his tongue along my bedewed skin, until he settled his face right between them, set his hot open mouth upon me and licked and suckled until I cried out, helpless as a baby.
Laurens tucked his arm around me and let me grip his hand, stroking my breasts gently with his thumb, one and the other and back again as he murmured in my ear, as Alexander loved me with all the cleverness of his orator's mouth. "When you would have him be quiet," he told me, and I shall surely remember it all my life, "offer him this to stop his mouth. He prefers it even to speaking."
Caught between the wonder that Alexander would prefer anything to words, and the rich voluptuous pleasure of his mouth upon me, I could only tuck my face into the crook of Laurens' throat and shiver and sob into my last, drawn-out crisis. A great wave of lassitude rushed in behind it, and with my last strength I patted Alexander's bowed head, at last sated beyond measure.
He left off, slowly, almost reluctantly, kissing my belly, sitting up to one side of me. Laurens let me down to the mattress again and both of them smiled upon me, and that was my last sight of them as my weary eyes fell closed. The last I heard, however, was Laurens' murmur, "let me taste," and the slick hot sound of a kiss.
After such a night it is no wonder I slept as deeply and dreamlessly as a swoon. I woke to find myself facing the deep blue beyond the window, with Alexander tucked to my back and Laurens behind him, arm thrown over us both. I woke and stirred and found Alexander watching me with half-lidded eyes and the softest, sweetest smile. "Good morning," he murmured, "my love, my wife. How do you feel?"
Like singing, like dancing, like sleeping another three days full. "So happy, my love, to be alive right now," I told him, and he kissed me to mark our first morning together.
Then he turned and gently shook Laurens by the shoulder, and as I watched him wake I understood. I rose, looked towards my fallen shift, and decided to let my happiness be my garment, scooping up Laurens' uniform instead. He groaned and rolled his eyes to make us laugh, but between us three he was dressed swiftly and standing by the window again just as the sky was paling to gray.
I will not soon forget how it felt to press my nude body to his thick buttoned jacket as our friend pressed his soft lips to mine. Nor how, as Alexander kissed Laurens goodbye like they would drink each other's breaths, my husband twined one hand's fingers with mine. We let Laurens down from our window and turned to each other in the light before morning, bare as the first couple before their Fall.
Alexander was up again, hard and ready, and this time I lifted my hand and eased it down to curl around his yard, as he stood still and watched me with his beautiful eyes. It felt -- alive was my first thought, the thrumming rigidity of it, the fine soft skin cushioning it, the slickness of the head beneath my thumb. A twitch of my fingers and he trembled within and without, and lifted my other hand to kiss it, then kissed my brow. "Oh my Mrs. Hamilton," he told me, as I looked up at him, as I tried another stroke and watched the pleasure flicker across his face, "there's still a thousand things we haven't done, but just you wait..."
I could detail this morning's revels too, how he taught me the pace of stroking he prefers, how he laid kisses down my spine and so many other places I'd never thought to be kissed in my deepest midnight dreams, and how merrily Angelica laughed when she knocked us up in full daylight and found us sound asleep together, but there must come a time when I cease filling my journal with every single intimacy of my marriage bed. Besides, my fingers ache.
Alexander shifted just now, scruffing his cheek against my thigh, and the candlelight catches upon every silky little hair along his arm, limning the curves of strength in his shoulder, raising such a swell of tenderness within me. We have five days and nights left to us before he returns to duty, or less if developments in the war call him away. I had thought of arranging the house tomorrow, but after writing this chronicle of delights I think a better plan might be a quick breakfast, a wash and back to bed, to see how long it takes to sweetly wear each other out.
Perhaps I'll sell my nightgowns to purchase Alexander's candles. I think I shan't wear them ever again.