The Grotto

Chapter Seven

A Birthday Gift

 

Decorum required that you dress for dinner. Frodo managed to retrieve his pants, but you beat him to his shirt.

“I’ll take that!” you insisted, and with a playful snatch, you whipped the garment off its perch. “Mmmm,” you sighed, snuggling into the sun-warmed cloth. It was cotton, and of a rather coarse weave, but something about the way the elves wove it made it soft as a lamb’s ear. You wrapped the shirt around yourself like a robe, not bothering to button it up. The sleeves and tails hung off you, hopelessly too long, but you did not care. You stroked the soft fabric with your cheek and drew in a deep breath of his faintly musky, delicate scent.

Frodo stood over his pack, eyeing you with exasperated amusement. “I hung that out to dry for a reason, my dear. I imagine it is a bit rank after my long walk.” He wrinkled his nose at the thought but you simply laughed.

“I love every part of you,” you said and breathed in deeply again. “And yes, it does smell like you, but not unpleasantly.” You whirled in the sunlight, delighting in the soft brush of the cloth against your skin. Frodo shook his head in bewildered amusement and collected his pack. It was shady beside the freshet where you dropped your bag and the cool water that trickled there would provide drink your feast. He left you dancing in the sunshine and examined the contents of your packs to see what he could make of them. You had brought apples and cheese, a seed cake and an old leather water flask. He had grapes, cold meat rolls, a hard sausage and a bottle of wine. It would be enough to feed you both quite well. He spread his cloak beside the little stream and began to set out the food.

“You brought wine?” you gasped coming down the slope to him. “Oh, now THAT was foresight! Or,…: You hesitated, wondering if, despite his assurances to the contrary, you had indeed disturbed his plans. “…Were you expecting someone to be here?”

“No, I was not expecting anyone, as I told you. It is an elvish wine, akin to the miruvor that they brewed in Imladris. It has healing properties, which I… sometimes find helpful when I go off on my own…” This last was said in a softer voice, as if he were something he hesitated to admit. You wrapped his shirt more tightly around yourself; feeling chilled in the sudden shade, and sank to the edge of the outspread cloak. He did not meet your eyes as he continued to lay out the food. You waited, but when he did not explain further, and you cleared your throat meaningfully.

“Helpful?” you prompted him. “In what way? Do your wounds pain you still?”

He finally looked at you and the expression on his face was one of fondness tinged with sorrow. “No, not the physical ones. I am healed in body, but the heart may take a wound from even the noblest of choices.” He gazed off towards the horizon – to the east and the lands you both once called home, and sighed. “I live in the Blessed Realm, amid the loveliest lasses ever to grace Middle Earth.” You blushed but he simply smiled at your embarrassment. “And yet sometimes I miss the land I left behind.”

You both sit in silence for a long moment. At last, you reach for his hand and stroke it very gently. “You miss them, don’t you?” you ask.

Frodo nods, smiling sadly. “It is no reflection on you, my dear, but yes, I do. I miss my cousins, Sam, and the Shire itself. I miss looking upon the fields and rivers I grew to love as a youngster. I miss seeing Sam’s little ones, seeing Merry and Pippin riding proudly along the byways, I miss all the silly, petty nonsense that I once thought I despised in my own people.” He sighed and picked up the bottle, turning it idly in his hands. It’s clear contents bubbled a bit and the tiny white speckles drifted lazily to the stopper. “But it’s too late now. I shall never see my cousins again. Not in this life.” He looked so sad it wrung your heart. You wished there was some way you could comfort him.

“But what about Mr. Gamgee? You said he could come here if he wished. Perhaps it will not be long before he joins us?”

“No.” Frodo’s answer was sure and steady. “I would not want him to come yet. I miss him, perhaps even more than the rest, but I would not wish him to come here before he was ready.” Frodo smiled, wrapped in his memories. “It is a great comfort to my heart to know that Sam has done so well. After all he has endured and for all I have put him through, he deserves to drain the cup of plenty of every drop he can. Knowing he does so gives me more strength than he will ever know.” He sighed and there is a note of melancholy in his voice. “Perhaps we will meet again, someday, but it means more to me that he live a full life.”

You could see the love mirrored on his face as he thought of his friend and mingled with it respect and perhaps a hint of joy. There has always been a part of him that none of you could reach; some need that still remained that only Sam’s coming could fulfill. While Bilbo lived, he had not seemed to miss his friend so much, but as the years stretched on, you knew he longed for the company of one he could share a pipe and a tale with. None of his ladies took offense to this. After all, there were times when you delighted in the company of your sisters – shared jokes and friendly ribbing that bound you tightly together and made you all a family. Frodo didn’t have such luxury. He was now the lone gentlehobbit on the Blessed Isle and you knew that made him feel isolated despite the fair compliment of your sisters. In spite of his pronouncement that he did not want Sam to come before his time, you silently hoped his friend would not long in joining him.

You began your meal in silence. Both of you were wrapped in your own thoughts, but that didn’t trouble your appetites. You left enough for tea and a bit more after if there was need. Frodo found the corkscrew and as he pulled the stopper from the bottle, he gave you a sudden look, his eyes narrowed but sparkling with delight. “You saw Sam before you left, didn’t you?” he asked wonderingly, as if he had not realized it before. “Tell me what you remember about him. What’s he like now?”

You were a bit taken aback by this request, but, as it was ever your wish to please him, you tried to comply. Your memories if the Shire were hazy – this land had that effect – but you tried to think back to those hot summer days when you visited Bag End.

“He’s not young,” you said as memory stirred sluggishly back. “But he’s hale and hearty enough. He has many children though when I was there, the eldest was not – I believe she was in the service of the queen at the time.” You closed your eyes and remembered the smell of Bag End in the Shire, an underlying scent of dust and books, overlaid by the fragrance of life, good food and many warm and bustling hobbits – the comfortable smell of a beloved home well lived in. “I had come about the stories I had heard and to hear the tale from one who had seen it for himself. I remember him looking at me very searchingly for a long while.” You chuckled and looked down, your cheek pinking under the sunburn. “I remember feeling like a side of beef in the market, but I must have satisfied him for he asked me if I could read and if I wanted to see the tale as it was written, from the Red Book itself. Of course, I said yes! It was an opportunity I had never dreamed I would have. He took me to a small study with a tiny window set deep in the wall. It was sunny and hot outside, but the bright light streaming into the room made it pleasantly warm, not uncomfortable. There was a small desk, neat and tidy and a bookstand near the brick fireplace. It looked like the room was not used much but cherished.”

You closed your eyes, summoning a picture of the comfortable place, its plastered walls reflecting the golden light of morning and giving the room an even, gentle glow. It had been the perfect room in which to read. “I sat there, in that chair for most of the day…” you whispered at last. “I didn’t even notice the passing of time. Mayor Gamgee must have come to check on me, but I was far past noticing… I…I could almost see you in those firmly drawn letters… see your hand writing them, page after page…” You stopped and looked up at him. He was smiling to himself, looking as if his thought were millions of miles away. Your cheeks warmed and you were happy to be able to take him back, if only for a moment, to the land he so loved. “I came back the next morning,” you continued. “And the next… I read each night until my eyes burned and my back was stiff from sitting. On the third day, I finished it and it was like waking from a trance.” You stopped, and it was your turn to lose yourself in reverie. “The emotions… they overwhelmed me. I remember closing the book and it was like the flood gates opened… I wept…” There were tears in your eyes again. Frodo lifted his hand to your cheek and wiped them gently away. .

“Mr. Gamgee must have been watching, because he came in then. He sat me on the chair and lifted the lamp high above his head. It was like he was studying me, looking for… Well, I don’t know what. I remember asking him what happened to you in the end and he said there were a few chapters left to write in the book, and though one day he would pen them, it still pained him too much to remember it. I think he also wondered if people would believe it, and maybe he’s right, but somehow he knew I would. He put the lamp down and then said something very curious.”

“What did he say?” Frodo’s voice was gentle and breathy.

“He said, ‘Well, it’s my birthday after all.’ And then he told me about the Havens, and how to get there. How he knew I would go I cannot guess!”

“I’d say he saw it in your eyes, my dear.” Frodo handed you a glass of the clear wine and took a sip of his own. “He loves me well, and I fancy he could see that feeling mirrored in you. You all had that look, that secret knowledge, that desperate ache that bound you to me, and carried you across the waves.”

“It is a call heard by very few, but for those who do no other life on Middle Earth is bearable. We are well and truly bound to you.” You laughed then, gaily. “Your friend, the mayor, was very perceptive, but how could he be sure the elves would give me passage? Did he arrange it? Was my passage here his birthday gift?”

Frodo grinned and started to shake his head. “Sam could not have guaranteed the elves brought you here. You earned that yourself. Perhaps he was referring to the gift of letting you read…” Suddenly, Frodo froze. He fixed his intense, blue-eyed gaze on you and his whole body stiffened. You couldn’t tell what had caused him to react so but you stared back in wide-eyed wonder. A grin began across his face

Then Frodo threw up his head and laughed, a clear ringing sound that filled the little dell and made you gape in astonishment.

“A birthday present!” he exclaimed at last and sat back grinning from ear to ear. “Why that old rascal! I love him more than ever!”

Although you were still puzzled, you were glad to see his melancholy evaporate.

“A birthday present!” he repeated, obviously expecting you to understand from just those words.

“Well, yes… I suppose it was,” you answered. “Even if Mr. Gamgee didn’t get me on the ship, he did give me the gift of knowledge – so that I might find you.”

Frodo shook his head, still laughing and merrier than you had ever seen him. “No, my sweet. The gift Sam gave was not to you…” He put down his empty glass and took your race in both his hands. He looked so happy you almost wept for him. “No, this was a gift for me. How could I have not seen it?” He laughed again, giddy with delight. “I cannot guess how he knew, or what powers connived with his hopes to bring you to me, but you, my dearest, are Sam’s gift to me.”

Your face blushed red and you stammered, overcome as much by his soft hands cradling your face as by the revelation. “I never thought of it that way…” you are finally able to say, but you are still trying to understand the import of this view. “But how would he know I would come here?”

“I doubt he did,” Frodo said softly, stroking your cheek with his thumb. “But after hearing that hobbit lasses left for the Grey Havens and were never heard from again, he probably hoped you would. Sam has ever been my wellspring of hope even in the darkest times of my life. He had enough to save my life and free the world from darkness, and maybe enough left over to bring me you.” Frodo pulled you closer till you were kneeling together, inches apart and softly kissed you. You could taste the sweet wine that was still on his lips. “And I must say, if he is going to send me fair company, it is a good thing he has such excellent taste in the ladies!” He was so close to your face you could feel his warm breath on your cheeks.

You blushed, but his nearness was making you bold. You closed your eyes and sighed, succumbing to the warmth that was spreading up your thighs. “And I would say from the size of his family, he’s also got a pretty good idea of what to do with us, too.”

Frodo chuckled hoarsely in your ear, spreading a tickle of delight up your spine. “Well, of course!” he breathed. “But then, so do I. And I would never fail to appreciate so fine a gift, given with such love from a friend I hold so dear.” His soft lips caressed your neck and you gave a little squeak of contentment. The wine glass fell from your fingers and you wrapped your arms around him, delighting in the feel of his warm lips and tongue against the little sensitive place under your ear. He was doing it again. Driving you to distraction with kisses alone. You moaned and rose up on your knees, pressing your barely clothed body against his naked chest.

“Slowly…” he whispered. “I will savor this gift with the reverence and delight I now know it deserves.” He stood and pulled you to your feet. You clung to him, ready to go where ever he wanted for whatever purpose he designed. Frodo pulled you forward and you saw, through lust-misted eyes, a small overhang below the cliff. The roots of a tree above had grown down over it leaving a dark little space barely big enough for two sneak below. In the bottom of the cleft was a pile of old ferns, dry, brown and dead, but their delicate fronds softened the contours of the hollow and made it look like a bed. It WAS a bed, you corrected yourself. “Come,” Frodo said. “Let us gather some new ferns and savor the scent and closeness of the earth.”

And so you picked armfuls of fragrant fern. Their delicate fronds were cool against your skin but soft and inviting, and they smelled sweetly of new mown hay. Frodo took them from you and smiled, laying them in the hollow on top of the thick pad of old layers. When he was done he stood and slipped his shirt off your shoulders. His own trousers followed and he took you, naked, into his arms.

The feel of his lithe body on yours made you shake as much as he was. He was excited and happy, and warmed with a delight that was even more intense than you had ever seen before. It was as if knowing how you had come to him, and that you were there with the blessing of his dearest friend, made him deliriously happy and eager to savor you at once. His excitement was contagious, for you wanted him again even more desperately than you ever had before.

He steered you beneath the roots and squirmed in after, wiggling and thrusting until he lay beside you in the tiny hollow on top of the ferns. There was little room and the cupped earth cradled you together in the tiny space. You lay on your sides, facing each other, held gently in a space of cool, moist darkness and fragrant green. His hand reached for the small of your back and stroked it, much as you had done his, and you sighed with pleasure into his open mouth. His kiss was electric and demanding and you felt the warmth spread both from his searching tongue and his stroking hand. His other hand lay between your face and the pillow of ferns and held you steady while he plunged deeply into your mouth.

He lifted your leg and you draped it over his hip to pull him closer. You could feel his hand in your dark, secret places, caressing you to madness and sending warm blood to engorge the sensitive skin. He was opening you… guiding himself in… arching his hips forward to slip deep inside. You felt his tense muscles against your belly and your thigh, rocking back and forth and with each motion sliding further into your wet depths.

Back and forth he rocked, sliding across your most sensitive areas with each measured, delightful thrust. His hand returned to your back and he pulled himself in deep, and then slowly, out, and, even more slowly, in again. Slower. Your whole world became that moment, and the fire that had grown beneath his hands now filled your body. He rocked and you arched back against the side of fissure, the cool damp of the ferns countering the red-hot wave of intense pleasure you felt. He rocked and you pushed into him against the stones, moving with him to the primal beat of his measured dance. He rocked and you realized that he held you, trapped in delight, at the point just before you would climax. He could rock you indefinitely with his steady, aching strength, keeping you just at the razor’s edge of fulfillment, exploring the vast domain of ecstasy that he was opening up before you.

You could see his face as if in a misted dream. He was sweating but enraptured, and suddenly you knewhe was at the same height you were. You were one, together in an eternity of pleasure, at a level of ecstasy neither of you had ever reached before. His mouth opened and he found your breast. He sucked softly at first and then with almost painful strength, in time with his rocking. He knew what this felt like. You were one. He took your pleasure into himself and gave to you the aching in his heart, and the fire in his loins. You could feel what these gentle strokes were doing to him. You knew to raise your leg, to stroke his side with your thigh and to pull him deep inside at the pinnacle of each thrust. You could feel his rising and held him as close to the razor’s edge as he held you. His wet tongue circled your nipple before taking it whole and entire for an impassioned bite. It almost sent you over the precipice, but his skill was unsurpassed and his control was iron. He would not let you descend without him.

It seemed like hours or days had passed and still you rocked with him. He did not tire, he did not wane but filled you and brought you above and beyond any height you had ever reached. Your head swam, you were losing ground. The plain was still before you, but it was too much, you were too close and it was overwhelming you at last. Frodo knew; he could sense it, and came back from his own brink to take what was his. You were almost limp in his hands as he turned you onto your back on the floor of the hollow. You gasped as the ferns touched your sweating skin, but your swoon was too deep, you could not rouse. All you knew was that he was still within you and the ecstasy had not ended.

On top of you, Frodo paused and with a quick, powerful jerk of his hips, slammed into you deeper than he had yet.

You were at the precipice for so long, that was all it took to drive you over that brink. Your body reacted, arching up against him and the long held climax at last crashed down onto you. You screamed and felt it burying you beneath bright waves of intensity. And Frodo was still with you. He lifted your hips and crushed into you again, writhing and twisting to drive himself inside as deeply as he possibly could. You howled with him at his release in an overwhelming madness of delight and pleasure. It was a moment of bliss, perfected because it was shared with him – together you erupted, spilling life and warmth in a fountain of light and fire.

You were exhausted. Your bodies trembled with fatigue as much as they had with excitement earlier. You were both drenched with sweat and glad of the fern’s cool comfort against your skin. Frodo’s curls were plastered black against his flushed face and his eyelids quivered as he panted, trying to regain his breath. You were back to yourselves, motes of individual fire again, but the memory of what you shared was seared, white hot and aching, into your memories. You wished you knew what to say, but the experience had gone beyond anything you had ever imagined. You were bereft of words but slipped your arms around his wet body so he could feel your joy. You are still wet, and the juices of your love mingle with the tears and sweat on your body. A sticky sweetness in the afterglow of passion.

Frodo opened his eyes and looked at you. Their clear blue shone bright even in the dim of the hollow. He was glowing with warmth and contentment, a calm that eased his soul. He was so at peace here. He moved, coming up to place a tender kiss on your lips and that one touch was more meaningful than any words he could have said. Your heart burst with happiness. He was at home, at last. He had a family, freedom from pain and grief, joy ever lasting and the gifts of the truest friend a hobbit ever had. And he, too, would drain the cup of life of every drop in it.

The End...

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