A/N: I'm thinking of doing a Disney movie cycle. Eh, eh? :D

A/N: I LOVE TARZAN AND JANE. "Trashin' the Camp" is the best song EVA.

A/N: lyrics from "Dela" by Johnny Clegg

i think i know why the dog howls at the moon

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if i could give a shape to this ache that i have for you

if i could find the face that says the words that capture you

i think i know

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The wild man stalked toward her, his back arched in a dramatic curve, knuckles dragging the jungle floor (like chains? She wondered), eyes trained as if she were prey. And he asked her, in the softest grunts, "Why do you look like me?"

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He was entirely new, like a baby. He did not know facades, he did not know affection, he did not know to hide himself from her. So when she came close and his face opened in a smile, she knew it was genuine.

(But there were moments, brief and tangy, when he pulled her waist close to him, and he wrapped tan, muscled arms around her body, when his eyes were so dark and sensual and his lips so full and alluring, that she forgot that he was new at this. That this was his first time, just like her.

How could you do this to me? How could you guess exactly what I want?

He answered all her desires.)

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She spent hours, days, weeks, whole lifetimes—she spent so much time sketching him. In her brain, in her sketchbook, in her heart.

And in her sketches he was not a fine gentleman like the ones from England; he did not have perfect manners and he did not compose poetry for her. He did not have brushed hair and studied attention. He was strong and heady, his skin was dark and coarse, his body was long and powerful. He could snap her in half. He could ravage her with his eyes. He was honest and full, more creature than man.

(And this creature—not one of bat wings and night vision, but a creature of green and brown and warm, warm sunlight.)

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"What's your name?" she asked, but he looked puzzled.

What do you mean, name? his eyes seemed to ask. Aren't I a part of this world, and of you? I am no separate being. I am us.

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He scooped her into his arms and flew away with her, now on vines, now in the air, now surfing tree limbs in the most natural way. He smiled and he glanced at her, checking always to see that she was pleased with him. And she had big, sloppy grins to throw his way, the kind of grins that greater English society would call "crude," or "informal."

The wild man took her to see parts of the jungle she did not think existed: waterfalls, rivers, sprouts of colorful flowers and birds and leaves every which way—a whole world bursting to the brim with life. She felt her spirit lift in this place. Home fell away from the back of her mind; how homey could it be if it was grey and black? And isn't home where you feel the happiest? She thought of home when he held her to his chest.

What if—I never leave you? Would you want me?

The question did not frighten her.

Oh, my. A world with no fear.

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He infected her dreams.

She saw his shadow behind her curtains, stalking with his chest forward like his ape family. She could almost feel his breath on her cheek, the graze of his hand on hers. Don't you sleep? She giggled, but she doubted he did. He was a wonderful guardian, she felt ultimately safe. More than a mere man or husband. He was a wild man, intimately related to her, and yet incredibly foreign.

She saw him in her dreams.

Like a night-thing, walking around in deep purple and blue, the hazy picture of ancient trees and vines behind him. He looked right there, too—infinitely right, and oh so real. So much more real than any tea-time dandy or intelligentsia snob.

In her dreams, his eyes were a perfect blue. Blue like roaring Caribbean seas and cheerful summer skies, the kind of blues that women pay massive sums to have their gowns dyed. A blue that arrests her, straight at the center of herself, and holds her there, suspended, thinking—this is it, this is it for me, I'm going to die if I don't have you now.

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Sometimes he stretched out next to her on the jungle floor, and while she stared up at the world around her, he watched her face.

Once, he said, "Jane." And when she turned to look at him, he said, so very serious and beautiful, "When you are here, I am happy."

And when she wept for relief and joy, she had to explain to him that tears could be happy too.

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fin.

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