Tactile Sensations

I've been listening to book 6 in Laurell K. Hamilton's Merry Gentry series. This of course after doing 7, then 5, so I'm a bit out of sorts. Anyway, this early recommendation from a good friend has turned out to be a delight, and I'm glad to see by way of Facebook updates that Ms. Hamilton is at work on the beginnings of the next volume.

So, as I was listening yesterday, something dawned on me that I don't think had ever dawned before. If you're not familiar with the series, please allow me to set the stage so that my dawning will make sense.

Merry is a princess of Faerie, specifically in the Unseelie Court. For reasons that are made clear earlier in the series, she and a number of guards and support staff choose exile from their faerie sithen to escape the cruelty and/or machinations of Merry's aunt (Unseelie queen), cousin (prince), and the mad king of the Seelie.

She works in Los Angeles, as a detective. Neat, huh?

Anyway, Merry has what amounts to a harem or men (and some women), as part of the goal of her exile is to become pregnant and extend the bloodline. Childbirth among the sidhe has been basically nonexistent for centuries. So there's quite a crowd.

Before one gets the wrong idea, it's important to note that, for most of the sidhe, intimacy and physical contact are as natural as shaking hands or having an intense conversation. They almost universally take pleasure and comfort in gentle contact (soft caresses, hair twirling, resting hands or arms on shoulders or backs, etc.), even whilst conducting business in Faerie or in our world. To the uninitiated, it looks quite orgiastic. And it often goes there.

But many times, the physical contact is used more to "buffer" one another from some emotional or physical stress. And while reading the descriptions of how some of Merry's men would stroke an arm or thigh, bury a face in her hair, and so on (all while she was sorting out some new political intrigue and doing much the same to them as well), the Dawning occurred.

Ape and I do pretty much the exact same thing. If we're within arm's reach of each other, one or both of us is holding or pressing something. Hair and feet most often, with arms and backs thrown in. It can be very pleasing while being platonic, and it is indeed *very* comforting and relaxing and reassuring to have the touch of our beloved so close.

Also, as it happens, I play with her hair often while driving. And *that* drives Ape's sister mental. It's quite funny, really!