by Sabrina York
What could it hurt? One night of paradise to compare all others to. “I hope the activities aren’t over yet.”
Chapter Ten
The garden inside the walled compound grew lush and green. They walked to the center, where the foliage parted and a mosaic floor lay shimmering in the moonlight. A small fountain bubbled nearby, and the night insects chirped and hummed. She only wore her black shirt and tiny undergarment, and he stared at her long legs when she bent to examine a bush.
“It’s gorgeous. So many plants I’ve never seen.” She ran her fingers along the edge of a large leaf. “I love the velvety texture of this one.”
“My father created a garden to rival what he saw in his travels. He couldn’t build hanging gardens here on the banks of the Nile, but he did build the irrigation system so that the plants would thrive.” He set the basket of food on the mosaic. “The palace gardens are spectacular.” Tracing the curve of her ass with his hand, he moaned. “Maybe you’ll get to see them.”
“Did he bring all these plants here?” She backed against him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist.
“In a way, yes. He had his envoys collect native plants wherever they went. Let me show you my favorite flower. Come.”
“Okay.”
He led her to the corner of the garden. “Look.” He pointed to a viney plant that meandered up a tree and spilled out overhead, its underside dripping with violet blooms. The flowers hung low, swaying gently in the breeze.
“It smells divine. What is it?”
“Clematis. From the Orient. We have to replace them after every flood cycle. Only the strongest trees survive.”
“Your father must have been a good man to care so much about living things. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“No.” He pulled down a branch of the flowering vine and plucked off the largest purple blossom. The center petals were streaked with fuchsia and tiny tendrils of bright yellow circled the middle of the flower. “Most are glad he is gone. I am.”
“Why?”
“He was a selfish tyrant. He killed many for his own glorification.”
“I’m sorry. You must have had a terrible childhood.”
He tucked the lush blossom behind her ear. “It is what it is. Don’t spoil the evening with talk of him. Let’s eat.”
She was fortunate not to have crossed paths with his father. Being from a different time had saved her from the king’s wrath. She’ll go home soon. And I’ll be left to rule. Alone.
They ate in silence, side by side. The cool tiles of the mosaic provided both a table and seat for their small feast. The tiled artwork depicted an ocean scene, with fish and other sea creatures on a blue tiled background. Another of my father’s thefts. He rubbed her knee, and she leaned against him. The warm breeze carried the honey almond scent of Clematis through the garden. Her hair brushed his back, and he shuddered.
“I’ve never seen so many stars; even in the bright moonlight they glitter. It’s so clear here.”
She gazed at the heavens, her long hair spilling across the warm tile. A streak of cold shot through his chest. This night cannot end! She was the one for him, he had no doubt. But if she remained in Egypt, her skin color would keep her from being accepted—even if he was king.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“I don’t want to leave, either, but I’m not sure we have a choice.”
“There has to be a way.” He pushed the basket and remaining food to the side. “This is too good to end.”
“We still have time.”
“Not as much as we need. The morning will be here soon.”
“Yes, but we need to enjoy the here and now. Can we walk around the garden?” She stretched. Her body glowed in the moonlight, and his groin heated. Would there be time to bed her again?
They walked along the perimeter of the garden wall and he pointed out and named as many plants as he could remember. She stopped and kissed him.
“I want you,” she said. “Here. Now.”
His cock hardened. No one had ever spoken to him like that. No one had dared.
She pushed him against the wall and knelt. As she undid his garment, she looked up at him. “My turn.”
He wasn’t sure what she meant until her wet mouth closed over him and his knees buckled. Her tongue ran over the underside of his cock and she planted kisses along his length. When she squeezed his balls and took him into her mouth, he moaned. Bliss.
She stroked and sucked until his entire body buzzed and he verged on exploding. By the gods, how much more?
“Yes.” He cradled her head in his hands and pulled her forward again and again. As the pressure built, he leaned his head back, waiting on release. She moved in a hard rhythm, and his balls drew up just before he spilled warmth into her mouth. “Oh.” He collapsed, the wall steadying him.
“Feel good?”
“I didn’t realize such pleasure was possible.” He pulled her to him, his heart thudding against her soft breasts.
“If we only had time, I’d show you more.”
Chapter Eleven
Katharine watched Seti sleep, his dark lashes fluttering as he dreamed. How was this night possible? Did it matter? They had talked for hours and made love again out in the garden before coming inside to rest. The night had been beyond her wildest fantasies. Seti knew how to pleasure her and reach her heart at the same time. Even though she’d met him a few hours before, he fit right into her soul. He completes me.
The open-air skylight above them showed night was almost over. It wasn’t quite dawn, but close enough the sky was beginning to lighten. Whatever was going on, Bast was the key.
Katharine ran her hand along the trail of dark hair between Seti’s navel and his garment. The silky hair was thin, but still showed the path to nirvana. She reached farther down and cupped his cock. It hardened a little, and she squeezed.
He pushed into her hand. “I worried I’d wake up and you’d be gone.”
“I’m not leaving until I have to.”
“Then let’s make the most of our time.”
“Again? Really?”
“Do you doubt a king’s passion?” His dark eyes sparkled with mischief. “Do I need to order you to spread yourself for me?”
Wetness soaked her panties. “Order me.”
She leaned in for a kiss. As her lips met his, there was a rap at the door.
Seti sat up. “What do you want?”
The knocking became banging. “Let us in. You cannot escape this time, brother.”
“Amenmesse! He’ll kill us both. Hide in the garden, quick!”
“I’m not leaving you. Ever.” She clutched his hand. Is this the end?
“Let us in, Seti. You don’t deserve to be king. It should have been my birthright.”
“You can have it.”
Amenmesse laughed and the deepness shook Katharine. The man was bad.
“I have to kill you. Otherwise, I can’t take the throne of Egypt or bed Sebi.” He banged on the door again. “Open up. Face me like a man.”
“I’m scared,” she whispered. Her hands trembled and he took them in his own, larger hands and squeezed them.
“Don’t worry. My guards are out there.”
“Unless his men killed them.”
“Break the door down,” Amenmesse shouted.
She shivered. “They’re coming in. We can’t stop them.”
“Meow?”
“Bastet!” He pointed to the skylight. Katharine saw the cat peering over the edge of the opening.
The animal leapt into the room and morphed into a woman.
“Oh, my goddess!”
“Bast! How? You were the cat that came to my clinic?” Katharine’s head spun. “Help us! Amenmesse will kill us.”
The thudding grew louder and the door creaked.
“It’s time to choose your path,” Bast said. “Will you rule this land?”
“My path is with Katharine.”
She clung to him.
“Do you want to be with me?” Seti held her at arm’s length. She nodded. Terror struck her speechless as the door began to give way. “Bastet, I don’t want to be king. Please tell me you understand.”
The woman smiled. “You two are blessed. The fates have united you on a single path. Take this.” She handed Seti her necklace. The green stone glowed. “Now hold her.”
The door gave way and men rushed into the room, daggers drawn. Katharine closed her eyes, as the world gave way beneath her feet.
“Look.”
She peered between her fingers. Her desk, piled with paperwork, sat in front of her. “Amenmesse?”
“Gone. And we still have each other. I don’t know where we are, but we are together.”
“It’s my office. I’m home.”
Nothing had changed. How long have I been gone? Darkness lay outside the window, and her blanket was piled on the floor.
“Look what I brought.” Seti held up the golden box of condoms.
She laughed. “Fast thinking. But we do have plenty of those here.”
“I wanted to be ready. And we can sell the box. Surely it is worth enough to help you.”
His thoughtfulness touched her heart. Never mind the issues they had yet to face—he was here and they were together. Perhaps they could return to Egypt one day and straighten things out.
He held out the necklace. She fingered the green pendant and wondered when Bast would return. She’d never look at cats the same way again.
Pulling her close, Seti stroked her hair. “We walk the path together now, Katharine.”
~ABOUT THE AUTHOR~
Kerry loves reading and writing about people in fantasy worlds. She teaches college classes and dabbles in every conceivable craft – from chainmail to origami to painting. She works as a professional costumer and loves creating historical costumes and Japanese cosplay. She also tends three kids, five cats, a hamster, a bunny, fish, and a husband. Not always in that order. She wishes she never had to sleep.
You can visit Kerry at:
www.kerryadrienne.com
A Different Class
A 1Night Stand Story
By
Leigh Ellwood
~DEDICATION~
For JM, who cracked the whip.
Chapter One
Glenn Carson checked his phone list and frowned. “Is this right, Beth?” he asked his partner on the reunion committee. “His name is Mumbles?”
Beth Kightly, as bubbly and bright as she had been in senior year, launched her rolling office chair across the room to the table where he had sorted out the paperwork for the big event. She perched her chin on his shoulder and read the list in silence, moving her lips. “Oh dear, good old Mumbles Maloney,” she said. “You ought to put him on speaker when you call. I’ve wondered what happened to him.”
Glenn recalled no such name throughout his high school tenure, and because absent-minded Beth had forgotten her senior yearbook, he had no picture to jar his memory. “I’m assuming his doctor didn’t write ‘Mumbles’ on his birth certificate?” He waved the phone list at her. “His real first name isn’t even here. I can’t call asking for Mumbles. What if he doesn’t go by the nickname anymore?” Worse yet, what if “Mumbles” hated being called such and threatened to tear him a new one?
She shrugged. “Why not use it? He’ll know it’s somebody from school.”
“You know, there has to be some kind of official paperwork, or maybe—”
His friend let out a loud sigh. “Fine. I’ll try the library. I think it’s open today.” The school had allowed them use of an empty office for the day to organize the Class of 2004 reunion. Beth plodded out the door and closed it behind her, leaving him to watch odd shadows slither across the frosted glass as various staff and administrators finished their work on the planning day. After fifteen minutes, during which Glenn managed to contact three other alumni to confirm their reservations, he gave up on Beth and dialed “Mumbles.”
He definitely wasn’t on the honors track or ROTC. From freshmen year on, Glenn had shared classes with the same group of fifteen students, give or take a few who had enrolled only in the advanced placement electives like Spanish or art. Having attended a local college then accepted a good teaching position at a private school in town, he had kept in touch with many of the senior class who’d stayed in the area. Yes, he would remember a Mumbles—interesting, too, since the guy had an area code within the state.
After the phone rang a third time, a deep, irritated voice answered. “Maloney.”
Glenn glanced at the wall clock—high noon. “Mr. Maloney? I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“Who is calling?”
The voice—deep and rich, anything but a mumble—intimidated him. Maybe the guy had been a jock, a several-foot-wide football player who helped the school win the championship senior year. He hadn’t attended many games and had skipped homecoming. “Um….” Right, we’re planning a reunion here. “I’m representing the reunion committee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt High School Class of 2004. You can probably guess our big tenth is coming up—”
“You know what? I’m going to save you the sales pitch,” Mumbles Maloney said. “I don’t know who you are, and I don’t give a shit. It’s taken me a long time to get past all the crap I put up with in high school, and if you think I’m going to show up at some rented ballroom all smiles as though the hell you assholes you put me through never happened, forget it.”
What? The man’s anger surged through him and sped up his heartbeat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Fuck you, fuck FDR High, and fuck every last piece-of-shit homophobe in that backwater town. I hope you all get cancer.”
Click.
Beth burst back into the room, waving a thick tome with a scaly blue cover. “Found it,” she chirped.
“Never mind.” Glenn pushed away from his workspace. Mumbles Maloney’s palpable rage lingered in the quiet of the small office, invoking a sense of doom in an otherwise dull place. He doubted he’d forget the voice for a long while. The man had pent-up issues with his former schoolmates, no doubt, yet for all the vitriol burning through the airwaves and sizzling in the veins, Mumbles had sounded…well….
Sexy.
He rumbled like a hot Hollywood movie star on the make. A voice like that—over the phone at three in the morning, demanding somebody spread her legs and wait for him to come—would produce immediate results.
Or his legs? Mumbles had mentioned homophobes. Glenn shivered at the memory of his own such encounters—sneers as he walked past the lockers, on-cue whispered epithets designed to sting. Girly faggot, cocksucker…. He hadn’t given a shit what anyone thought of him, and eventually, the bullies had found a more vulnerable target for their barbs.
It helped, too, that he’d stayed nearby throughout college and his work, becoming a teacher to relatives and children of those who’d hassled him in the past. More than one offender had come forward over the years to express their regrets and seek forgiveness. Time changed hearts and minds, and it pleased him to know he could participate in mending bridges.
Not so with Mumbles, Glenn thought. The nickname seemed less damaging than faggot, but he didn’t know what the mysterious Mr. Maloney had suffered at FDR High.
“We had art class together, and French.” Beth flipped pages until she landed on the French Club spread. The picture she showed him, to his disappointment, jarred nothing in his memory bank. Rod “Mumbles” Maloney had served as the Sergeant-at-Arms, and no wonder. The young man in the black and white shot towered over his classmates, his arms like cannons folded across his broad chest.
Glenn’s cock stirred in his loose slacks. Holy cow. How in the hell had he missed such a hunk of man in high school? Mr. Maloney looked the type to leave the silly, giggling girls and the faint-hearted twink boys wanting to scale him like Everest.
“He always sat in the back with this other guy.” Beth turned back to the senior photos. “Yes
, Derek Sigmund.”
He glanced back at his list. “I don’t have any information for him. He’s not on the MIA list, either.”
“I heard he died after graduation. Not sure how, probably a car crash or something.” Beth sighed and offered an obligatory few seconds of sad expression before snapping back to her cheerful self. “Anyway, he was Mumbles’ best friend, so maybe M— er, Rod knows what happened. You could find out when you call.”
“Yeah, about that….”
***
By five o’clock, Glenn had accounted for almost the entire graduating class of 2004 and had managed to trace some of the dozen or so names on the MIA list. A few, aside from Derek Sigmund, had passed away, and he’d learned through various family members the others were deployed overseas and couldn’t return in time. A healthy majority of alumni expressed their excitement over the coming reunion while the rest sent wistful regrets.
All, of course, save for Rod Maloney, who’d wished them all cancer. Unbidden came the image of the gorgeous brick wall of a teenager, scowling next to the French flag. He’d accused the whole school of homophobia—how could anybody dare to slur such a tough-looking person? Those muscular arms, fueled by enough anger, could have laid a classroom to waste faster than a blood-soaked Carrie White.
The senior once known as Mumbles lingered on Glenn’s mind throughout the evening, invading the quiet time throughout dinner and disrupting his concentration as he watched his favorite TV shows. During commercials, he closed his eyes to bring up the French Club image again. With his steel-trap memory, why could he not place Maloney anywhere at school? Granted, there had been about four hundred people in his senior class, and tripling the number to include the underclassmen made for a crowded place. On top of that, Glenn had taken Latin to satisfy his foreign language requirement, not French.