The Touch of a Haremite

Illustrated by Ariel

Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction, written solely love for the works of J R R Tolkien. The characters, settings, places, and situations used in this work are the property of the Tolkien Estate, Tolkien Enterprises. The author receives no money or other remuneration for presenting this work but the pleasure of enjoying the Professor's creations. This work is the intellectual property of the author and may not be copied or redistributed by any means without the explicit written consent of the author.

 

It had been a bad day.

He couldn't get warm. No fire, no throw, no woolen coat or blanket could bring the blood back to his chilled bones. He sat in solitude by the fire in his room, shivering in his dream of cold, until the sun sank into the far west and the room grew dark around him. He wandered into forgetfulness as the winter's chill settled in his mind and he welcomed it as a tired hobbit welcomes a hard earned rest, as a soldier welcomes peace after a long campaign. His thoughts came sluggishly, his breathing slowed. He did not even lift his eyes when the others surrounded him with soft concerned words and gentle touches.

The others. It still felt strange to be sharing his home with so many hobbit lasses. Bilbo had insisted he try the arrangement since Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel had worked so hard to create Bag End West and to bring these fair maidens from across the sea. But Frodo could find no comfort in it. There were about a dozen with him now and Gandalf had warned that others might come later. Frodo wasn't quite sure what they expected of him.

Certainly, he did know what they wanted. Frodo was not quite so innocent as that. They were all astonishingly sweet and fair and they stared at him with open longing and adoration but his heart was yet hollow with the ache of losing all that he had loved and he clung to that pain as a stubborn shield. Did they think their presence would assuage his pain? Did they think that lying with one of them would heal the ache as the airs of Tol Eressea had healed his body? He resented the assumption bitterly and while he was cordial and kind to them all, he held them at a distance and did not open his heart.

He was afraid of what would come out if he did.

They did not come into his rooms normally - his sense of decorum would not permit it - but when they knocked to see if he desired supper, and he couldn't summon the strength to answer, they broached his wall of propriety and entered. Now it felt like he was in a sea of fair, melodious voices, buoyed up by their white arms, carried to his cold bed. He sighed as they laid his head on the pillow and did not protest as they dressed him in his nightgown. He had not the strength nor inclination left in his body. The cold was taking him and he no longer cared where.

The sheets were icy to the touch and he shivered still, even under a mountain of blankets. A warm hand was laid upon his breast and a murmur of concern ran like water over his mind. The hushed voices conferred above him and he could sense desperation in their tone. His body was already too cold to warm the coverings and he was slipping further and further into darkness. It did not trouble him. Coming to Tol Eressea had healed many of his ills but it did not lift the blackness from his heart. He still felt it in the core of his being, untouched and un-cleansed by the curative airs of the Lonely Isle.

Perhaps icy death was the only salvation for him. Sam would be so disappointed, but it was not as if he hadn't tried to heal. Perhaps the aid he had already received was all the elves could offer him. He shivered again and shifted uncomfortably. The cold was becoming painful - a gnawing enemy consuming his body from the extremities inwards. Frodo hoped it would hurry and finish the job so that he could rest. He sighed and slipped further away from the cold, the tender voices and the darkness that still lingered.

~*~

Warm.

It wasn't the warmth of fire though he could hear the flames crackling merrily close by, nor the warmth of hot water swirling about him in a bubbling bath. No, this was a type of warmth that he recognized instinctively, though he had never expected to feel it again in his life.

This was the special warmth of hobbit bodies pressed close against his, cuddled together for the warmth under blankets, as he had used to with the other lads and lasses after stories had been told in the great Hall, as he had with his cousins and Sam on his long quest when the snows of Caradhras threatened to freeze the marrow, as he had long ago when a nightmare would wake him and he would crawl trembling into the warm dark of his parents' bed.

It seemed a very long time since he had felt this kind of warmth.

Unheralded, it seeped into his blood and carried compassion and love with it through every fibre of his being. It was a perfect warmth, neither too hot nor too cold, that reached past his troubled defenses in an sweet campaign he had not been prepared against. His hobbit heart responded to its instinctive solace in a way that his mind could not have yet, and he drank in the comfort.

One lass lay curled up on his side, another laid tight against his other, his arm drawn over her warm shoulders. His head rested in the soft belly of a third and a fourth had crawled between his legs to use his thigh as a pillow for her curly head. He even felt a fifth that had one of his feet pressed close to her warm skin. Blankets were piled over them and the fire crackled merrily on the hearth. He looked around further, trying to move nothing but his eyes. Every one of the ladies was accounted for asleep on the floor of his bedroom. It puzzled but delighted him.

Perhaps these ladies' buxom, curvaceous figures and adoring faces had been too obvious a platitude. His thought had been that he had only just given up all he had known and loved for the evanescent solace of an elvish healing and that his heart was still raw from that aching loss. He had thought he had nothing left to give them. And how could he choose one among so many anyway? They were all as lovely as the dawn and as sweet as bee pollen. Now he saw those arguments for what they were. Excuses. Fortifications. Defenses. Somehow the innocent warmth of their clustered bodies had touched a deeply buried instinct, got past his shield of heartache and put the first crack in his mustered resistance.

This was what they had been waiting for.

He suddenly saw the benign nature of their selflessness and was humbled by it. It was a reflection of the love they felt, nothing more. They expected nothing from him in return. They only asked to be allowed to love him. Yes, it seemed odd that they should feel this way about someone they had never met, but he could no longer deny the glaring truth of it. They loved him wholly and utterly even if he could not fathom why. He breathed a sigh of trembling awe as the realization sank into his warming heart. They loved him and would ask for nothing that he was not ready to give. He let the warmth of their love flow over and penetrate him until he wriggled in childish contentment.

The lass who'd made a pillow of his thigh opened her eyes and looked up at him. She smiled, hopefully, lovingly, and Frodo could not resist smiling back. She beamed with delight and wiggled deeper into the nest she had made, as if there were no better bed in the world that the one she had claimed. Frodo almost laughed. The innocence of her delight enchanted him and he relaxed in the embraces that held him. He hugged the two lasses that were already in his arms and both stirred, sleepily to look into his eyes. As if it had been a signal, the others roused as well, each looking with devoted concern at their precious charge.

"Thank you," he whispered softly, unwilling to disturb the gentle assembly but wanting them to know how much their comfort meant to him. As one they smiled in answer, their faces all showing the same loving generosity towards him. He settled back into the belly that had cradled his head and felt her fingers gently stroking his brow. There was nothing to fear in this cradle of warmth; he saw that now. They had wanted nothing but to please him and at last he felt at ease enough to let them. What had he feared? In these soft arms was comfort and grace, a love that was freely offered. Perhaps this was the cure he had sought the West to find; an elven healing for the wounds of his body and a restorative for his soul from the gentle embrace of his own kind.

End...