by Vonna Harper
No one laughed, poking a major hole in his attempt to turn the most embarrassing experience of his life, bar none, into something humorous. Shit, he’d endured several detailed physical exams in order to qualify for a multi-million dollar life insurance policy and had managed to get through them without getting a hard-on. However, this time Maia and not some doctor had hold of him.
“Maia, what is this about?” he ground out.
“We are sorry,” The Lady responded. “You are not from our time. We should have known you could not simply come here and understand our ways. But you will.”
It’ll take a while. “Would-would you like to start?” I’m just not sure I can concentrate because, strange as it may seem to you, this is the first time I’ve had the family jewels on public display.
“Understanding will come,” The Lady said. “But not now, later.”
Chapter Eight
“You want me to what?”
Maia had been lost in the comforting notes of the spring song her clans people had been singing and thus was slow to realize that Taurus didn’t feel the same way. After his seed-maker had met everyone’s approval, she’d covered it with his clothing, and the two of them stood in the place of honor as the Bel-fires were lit.
Because it had rained recently, it had taken awhile for the fires on all the surroundings hills to catch fire, but now, in defiance of the priests’ orders, flames leaped into the sky and turned the night from black to deep red.
Taurus had been content to stay with her through Bel-fire’s opening ceremony, and the longer they sat with their thighs touching, the more eager she’d been to spread her legs for him. In truth, it had been hard to think of anything else, and her breasts ached to feel his hands and mouth on them.
Wondering if her flushed cheeks gave away her thoughts, she looked up at Father Kaylen. As the oldest of the old men, he carried great wisdom from the ancients, and she’d spent much of her childhood listening to him talk about the beginning of their people.
“It is time,” Father Kaylen said. “For Taurus to prepare for his journey by leaping backward through the fire three times followed by three forward jumps.”
Excitement propelled her to her feet. When Taurus remained where he was, she reached down for him. Reluctantly, it seemed, he stood. He continued to hold her hand.
“Look,” he said. “I ran under that damn burning arch when Maia told me to, and granted, I came through that unscathed, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon not tempt fate.”
Hopefully the day would come when she understood her mate’s words. Until then, however, she’d have to be content with the act of mating itself—which she was.
“You must do as our father says,” she explained. “Otherwise, you will not be prepared for your journey.”
“What journey? Look, the only one on my agenda is related to my business. There’s so much at stake there that—”
“Your journey can be a dangerous one,” Father Kaylen interjected. “You will need a great deal of luck.”
“Danger? I don’t need to be told that. Besides, I’m going to need more than luck to keep from burning myself.”
Taurus’ continued reluctance bothered her, but she didn’t know how to get him to explain why he felt that way. Hoping to remind him of what they were to each other, she drew his hand closer to her woman-place.
“Now wait a minute,” he said, and pulled free. “Maia, you know how to get to me, I’ll give you that. But this isn’t a game, all right. Why in the hell should I jump backward over a pile of burning wood? It makes no fucking sense.”
On the brink of trying to reassure him, she became aware of heat at her side. At first she thought her body was responding to his, but then she realized the warmth came from her dagger. Releasing his hand, she pulled the dagger out of its sheath and held it close.
In the red jewel she saw a great, all-encompassing shadow. There seemed to be a small point of light in the middle of it, but she didn’t let that distract her from the truth she knew would emerge.
“What is it?” Taurus asked. “What are you looking at?”
“My future.”
“Your…”
“When I looked in it before, I saw you but nothing more. Now something else is coming.”
Maybe Taurus understood her need to concentrate and maybe she’d gone past the point of being able to think about anything except the jewel’s message. The Lady had said she didn’t know where the dagger had come from, she’d prayed for guidance in protecting her people’s future, and it had been there when she opened her eyes. The thought that it might have always existed and would continue to long after she was dead, caused Maia to regard it with awe. Most unsettling was the conviction that her tomorrows would soon be revealed.
“Maia, you’re shaking,” Taurus whispered.
“I cannot help it.”
He slid his arm around her, and she took comfort from his strength, but even that didn’t distract her from what she had to do. He too peered into the burnished depths. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t see anything.”
She did. Slowly, like a plant when it first breaks through the earth, she made out a female figure draped in white. Because she couldn’t see the woman’s face, she couldn’t be sure it was her. Then even more of the shadow lifted, and the gown was no longer the purest of white. There, at the side, was that blood?
“What is it?” Taurus pressed. “Honey, something’s scaring you?”
“Hold me,” she whispered.
He did, his fingers on the side of her breast, reminding her of the heat and small volcanic eruptions she’d felt in her woman-place when he massaged her breasts before. With less of her mind on what was in the jewel, now that he’d captured part of her attention, she studied the image with a measure of detachment. The woman in the white, blood-stained dress was young. She was having difficulty standing and appeared to be alone.
Maia touched the jewel. She’d no sooner made contact when she felt on the brink of tears—the ones the white-woman was shedding.
Why are you crying? she asked. Is it from sorrow or pain? Maybe, maybe you have been wounded by what you know of my people’s future.
No! She couldn’t allow herself to think like that! Her people couldn’t become like those from Taurus’ time, children playing silly games instead of performing enduring and vital ceremonies.
“I cannot do this!” Not giving herself time to think, she slid the dagger back into its sheath and locked her arms around Taurus’ waist. His seed-maker, swollen with fluid and blood, tried to push itself between her legs. It took all her strength not to lift her gown. “Taurus, please. I will jump with you.”
“Maia, what are you saying?” Father Kaylen demanded. “What did you see in the sacred jewel?”
“Taurus, please.”
“All right, all right,” he said, sounding the way her father had when something with long teeth and fangs crept into her dreams and he’d comforted her. “We’ll do it together.”
“Maia,” Father Kaylen warned. “The act of leaping is for those who face a dangerous journey. Your time will come when—”
“My time is now, Father. Do not deny me this.”
* * * * *
No matter how much she tried to will it to be otherwise, Maia’s legs lacked their usual strength as she and Taurus walked up to the mother-fire from which all the others had been lit. By now the stars and moon were out, and the young children had been put to bed. Already some of the girls who’d been her fellow virgins had linked their arms with young men and wandered off into the night. Just thinking about their taking off their clothes and spreading their legs so seed-makers could enter their women-places made her hungry to feel the same thing. But first she and Taurus had to—
“I’m still not sure of this,” he muttered. “Sane people don’t do this, at least none of the sane ones I’ve ever known.”
“We will go together. It will be all right.” And, please, my journey will b
e made safe.
He pressed his fist into the small of her back, she felt the contact deep inside the place that began between her legs. “I wouldn’t do it for anyone else,” he said. “I want you to know that. I just I wish to hell I understood what this was about.”
She couldn’t tell him that yet, not until the elders had assured her that he would remain beside her, her companion and mate, but soon, soon he would understand his place among her clan.
Buoyed by what was surely the truth, she reluctantly pulled his hand off her. Then, aware of the many eyes on them and what they had to accomplish, she laced her fingers through his. Together they turned their backs on the burning pile that was now no taller than his waist.
“This is insane,” he grumbled. “You know it is.”
Now, before the fire burned down to coals and she finished her role by jumping over it alone, she’d do this with the man the spirits had chosen for her.
Like her, Taurus glanced behind him before readying his muscles. “Insane!”
Propelled by his shout, she sprang backward. He left the ground at the same instant so they leaped as one. She felt heat on the soles of her feet and legs then the sharp sting of the rocks she landed on. She might have lost her balance if his strong arm hadn’t been there.
“That was fun, not!” He gasped. He stared at the fire then over at her. “We really have to do this again?”
“Quickly. All of one movement.”
“Nothing to it. Nothing!”
Going forward was easier, and she took pride in how high and far she went. They’d just completed one circuit when the old men stomped the ground.
“I take it that’s their way of telling us we’ve just gotten started,” Taurus muttered. “Maybe you should hold up your dress. It might catch fire.”
“No, that will not happen.”
“Because some half-demented old farts have convinced you that you’re invulnerable? Not bloody likely.”
This wasn’t the time for convincing Taurus that the ways of her people should never be questioned. She ran her fingers up his forearm to get his attention.
“Now,” she ordered. “While we are strong.”
“Shit. Shit!”
She didn’t lose her balance when she sprang backward the second time and somehow her feet found only smooth earth. Beside her, Taurus’ footwear made a muffled thunk. He squeezed her hand.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.”
As she sprang forward, she looked down. Taurus was right. Her hem dragged through the flames, but it didn’t catch fire. He no sooner landed when he grabbed her skirt. “I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “What’s this thing made out of, some kind of fire-retardant material?”
Before she could think how to answer the question she only half comprehended, the old men started clapping. Taurus grumbled but took her hand again and propelled them backward over the fire once more. When they jumped forward the last time, he kept his gaze on her flowing dress.
“I’ll be damned,” he repeated once they were done. “So is that all we have to do?”
Suddenly, joyously, she wanted to laugh. “Now it is our time,” she told him.
“For what I’m thinking of?”
“Yes. Yes!”
* * * * *
“Wood is taken from many trees so that the fires celebrate apple, alder, elm, oak, rowan, gorse, even thorn. But most important is hawthorn.”
“Why is that?”
She and Taurus were sitting across from each other, naked and alone. She doubted that he cared about what she was telling him, but he needed to know this and many other things. Also, talking about sacred trees was easier than asking him what he wanted her to do to please him.
“On the morning after Bel-fire,” she continued, “when men and women return from the Greenwood, they bring with them great budding boughs of hawthorn, the spring tree, and other spring flowers. Some of those flowers they use to dress themselves. The rest is left at every doorstep they pass along the way.”
Taurus cocked his head. Although they were so close that their bent knees touched, he kept his arms by his side. “They dress themselves in flowers and hawthorn boughs?” he asked. “That’s all they wear?”
“Most. They have spent the night mating and nourishing the ground. They want their families and neighbors to know what they have been doing.”
He whistled. “No getting around it, your people are uninhibited. No hang-ups?”
“Hang-ups?”
“Never mind. I’m not interested in an English lesson, and unless I miss my guess, neither are you. So now that we’re down and naked, what next?”
“We mate.”
“Just like that.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes then looked down at his limp seed-maker. “Hm. We have a problem here. Nothing that can’t be remedied, but I’d like to make it more than fitting tab A into slot A if you don’t mind.”
She frowned.
“All right.” He sighed, and she wondered if he was embarrassed. “Look, I just said I didn’t want to get sidetracked by the differences in how we express ourselves, but that might be just as good a way to start as any.”
This time she nodded. If she put her hands on his seed-maker, it should spring to life, but she didn’t think that was what he was talking about.
He pointed at himself. “What do you call it, a seed-maker?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that is what it is, what it does.”
“Hmm. No argument there.” He indicated the space between her legs. “And your sex organ, what label does it go by?”
Label? “That is my woman-place.”
“That it is, all right. However, where I come from, the woman-place is called other things. Would you like to learn them?”
“Yes.” Strange how having him point at the dark hairs and what they partly hid made her feel as if her woman-place was being walked on by tiny, soft-footed creatures.
“Good enough. All right, I guess I can be just as uninhibited as you’ve been. Lean back and spread your legs. It’s Sex 101 time.”
After a momentary hesitancy, she placed her arms behind her and braced her weight on them. Then she unfolded her legs. He crawled close and squatted between her legs.
“Hmmm.” He leaned so near that she felt his breath on the sheltering hairs. The sensation of warm moisture on warm skin made her squirm. “All right,” he continued. “We’ll start conservatively. These—” He took the protective pieces of skin over her opening between his thumb and forefinger. “These go by a number of names, some pretty crude, but a gynecologist is going to call them labial lips.”
“Labia…” Why was it hard to talk?
He chuckled and ran a nail over the inside of the loose skin. “Close enough. And while we’re at it, that’s your pubic hair. Can you say pubic hair?”
“Pu-bic.”
“Close enough, young lady, close enough.”
Still holding on to what he said were her lips, he ran his other hand through the curly hair he’d been talking about. She squirmed again, and it was all she could do not to close her legs so he’d stop tickling her—only it didn’t really feel like tickling.
“Having trouble concentrating already, are you?” he asked. “Would you like to conclude the lesson and get on to recess?”
How could they speak the same language and yet not? “What—what is recess?”
“Oh, you’ll like that, believe me, you will. However, I’d be remiss as a teacher—probably get myself fired—if we quit so soon.” Once again he ran his nail over flesh so sensitive she thought she’d cry out with the wonder of it. “You’re concentrating, aren’t you?”
“I…” She didn’t want to look down at herself, that would make it worse. But was meeting his laughing eyes any easier? “I want—to learn.”
“I bet you do. And so do I.” Tipping his head to one side, he continued his study of her woman-place. “Good thing the moon’s out toni
ght,” he observed. “Otherwise, I’d really be hunting in the dark, not that I’d mind.”
“Pubic hairs,” she whispered, proud of herself.
“Yep, you’ve got that right.” He blew on her woman-place. “There,” he said as her hips of their own will bucked off the ground. “That was your reward. At least your first one. Would you like another?”
She wanted anything he chose to give her and told him so by scooting forward so she was even more exposed.
“Boy, do I love you and your people’s uninhibited ways.” He sounded a little breathless. “All right, where were we? Oh, that’s right. Labial lips. But that’s just the teaser, at least as far as a cock is concerned.”
“Cock?”
“That’s right, you don’t know. Where I come from, seed-makers are called cocks. Sometimes penis. It depends on who’s doing the talking and in what context.”
“What—what do you want me to call it?”
He blew on her tender place again. When, once more, her hips refused to stay on the ground, he released what he called her labial lips and cupped his hand over her opening, pressing. She started to back away.
“No, no,” he warned. “You don’t want to do that. Believe me, you don’t.”
Beyond concentrating on anything but her body, she willed herself to stay where she was. The more he pressed on her there, the hotter and hungrier she felt up inside.
“Remember that gynecologist I told you about?” he asked.
She didn’t but muttered, “Yes.”
“Good.” He began running a fingertip up and down, up and down against the opening to her woman-place. Her mouth parted, and she breathed through it.
“Good,” he repeated. “Now pay attention. You are paying attention, aren’t you? At least you’re zeroed in on your body. This whole area I’ve got my hand on, not just my forefinger, but everything there—the medical term for it is clitoris.”