by Jae Vogel
Monique took the couple back to the mansion and gave Eglise a nod of approval as she walked past the office. She explained that Corsin would be with Finn tonight as it was the first evening of his arrival on Earth. She took them to their room and opened the door to let Corsin go inside it.
“I need to speak with you,” she told Finn and then turned to Corsin. “Go ahead and make yourself ready. There is a shower in the room and plenty of things you might need. She’ll be with you in a moment.” Monique shut the door and took Finn to her own room.
“How is everything?” she asked Finn. “You seem to have taken a liking to each other, but I need to hear the words from your mouth.”
Finn gave her a big hug. “I can’t believe how perfect he is for me!” she exclaimed. “This is the man I’ve waited for all my life.”
“Listen,” Monique said to her. “I’ve talked to Eglise and he’s all right with me being in the room with you if it would help. I can do this for you if you want me to. We’ll have to clear it with Corsin, but I think it will be fine.”
“You would do that for me?” Finn said, unable to believe what she heard. “I don’t know how to thank you!”
“Yes I would do it for you,” Monique said and planted a kiss on her lips. “Now let’s go, we don’t want to keep the man you will spend the rest of your life with waiting.” She walked Finn back across the hall and opened the door, closing it behind them as they entered the room.
“Anita has something to tell you,” Monique announced.
“I want Monique to join us tonight,” she explained to Corsin, “If it’s all right with you? Things have been rough for me and it would mean a lot.”
Corsin, who was in the bed, couldn’t believe what Finn had said to him. “I have never heard of such a thing. Is it something you do on the first night on Earth? I have no issue with it.”
“Thank you,” she said as she went to the bed and slid under the covers with him. Monique removed her robe and put it in the closet. In seconds, she was in the bed too, on the other side of Finn.
It was Monique’s plan to assist her and not get in the way of things. She wanted Finn to feel relaxed and not have worry about performance anxiety. By the time she was in bed with the two lovers, Finn was on her side kissing her new lover. All Monique had to do was massage her back and help the tension move out of her body. Finn let out a low moan as she felt the long hands of Monique glide down her back.
Monique stayed at the side, holding Finn’s hand as she laid back and allowed her love to mount her from the top. “It’s a bit hot,” she whispered into Finn’s ear as Corsin entered her. “Don’t worry, you’ll like it.”
“Oh, God, I already do!” Finn cried out as she took him inside her.
Monique was able to stoke her head as Corsin planted kissed all over her face. She could tell by the way her eyes rolled that Finn enjoyed every moment of what he was doing to her. She yelled as the first climax rolled through her. When Corsin climaxed, Monique could see the shock of the heat in her eyes. She arched her back up and gripped on Monique’s hand as she felt it fill her up inside.
The two of them made love for the next three hours with Monique doing what she could to help. She really didn’t need to do much but lay there and encourage them. Monique felt her role was one of a cheerleader more than anything else. She left them sleeping in each other’s arms hours later.
When Monique returned to her room, she found both Eglise and Noosa in bed waiting for her.
“You’ve been busy,” Noosa said to her. “Do you have any love left for us?”
“I always have plenty of love for my Daddies,” Monique said as she rolled between them. “So who gets which end?’
The next day, Corsin and Finn went to the local justice of the peace and had the legal ceremony done. Normally, they liked the couples to wait a few days, but their attraction to each other was so intense there was no question. The piercer, always on short notice, arrived with the diamond labia ring and put it in Finn while Monique stood by and watched. Corsin held Finn’s hand when the piercer put it in.
“Wow,” said the piercer as she watched the two of them embrace for a long time. “I don’t usually see this reaction.”
“First one,” read the picture when Eglise showed it to Monique. He wanted her to see it before putting it in his album.
The picture showed a very happy Anita Finn wearing a loose robe and holding her newborn daughter. She’d shaved her head, something that didn’t surprise Monique given the intensity of the love she had for her new husband of nine months.
Monique put it in the album and returned to her desk. It was July and she would go out on the porch tonight, look at the stars and think about the women she’d helped find off-world husbands. Finn was special to her and made Monique sure of herself when she sent the “I Quit!” message into the agency drop box. She could almost see Mrs. Carpenter tossing her file across the room when receiving the news, wondering if she had to go in there herself to find out what made these women quit the agency?
Monique still didn’t know who the agency plant was inside the mansion, but someday she would learn.
In the meantime, she had two men who satisfied her, and she loved her job. She hoped it would last forever, although nothing ever did.
- THE END -
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NEWSLETTER
Wicked Legacy - An Urban Fantasy
It wasn’t dark. Not yet.
Snow flitted down between Laova’s squinting eyes and the brilliant farewell of the sun. Lumbering snow clouds of purple and gray slung low between the mountains, and had made the short day blank and without color.
Laova was glad—so very glad—that they’d broken just for a moment to let the light through. There had been no such luck, yesterday, and all of her party had feared in silent communion that the long night had started early, that perhaps they’d each already seen their last glimmer of sunlight.
Today was the Short Eve, the briefest day of the year. It was a day of common unease, with the taste of fearful anticipation on the air. No one spoke of it, but every task was made a distraction, every word a changing of subject, on this day. This sunset might be the last. The sun had always returned, every year in living memory, but perhaps it would not. Not this time.
The warmth lay thick on her face for a moment, and Laova basked within it. She was a dark-child, born in the weeks of night when the moon ruled these mountains. Her birth had come early and easily, as if the All-Mother had always intended her to come into a world of night. Few dark-children survived. Laova had. Perhaps she should embrace the darkness, then—thank it for her life.
Laova smiled as the wind lulled, just for a spell, and the full heat of the passing sun shone on her white face and neck. Not this time.
It was still day, maybe for the last, but for at least a few more minutes.
It wasn’t dark. Not yet.
***
They had set camp together seven times before this night, as was custom. Seven nights, seven companions. Tonight, the short tents were constructed, the fire lit, and a small supper was ready to prepare. All of their party sat about the fire, but the attention was upon the Hunt-Leader and the Initiate, the adult-to-be.
Laova loved to hunt, and had known without doubt what she wanted when the time came to choose her future life. On the twentieth dark moon of each life, a man or woman was born, and expected to make a decision. Laova chose to become a hunter; nothing else was possible. Her life would wither without the freedom of the woods and mountains, and the feel of her spear, of her bow, in hand. So she had told the clan Chief, who had bowed her head in approval.
Excited, Laova sat opposite Rell and tried not to fidget.
It was full dark, now, and snow still slanted and sifted down around the oasis of heat that was their little fire. The sky overhead swelled black with sloughing clouds, not a star to be seen, nor the silver-drop face of the moon.
Rell cleared her throat and began the short ritual; the Hunt was beginning.
“Laova,” she pronounced clearly. “Tonight begins the twentieth long night of your life, and a decision is before you. Make it now. Who will you be?”
Of course, the decision had been made months ago. She kept eye contact with Rell, although she nearly let her betraying gaze slip away across the fire, to someone who had only watched her so intently in her fantasies. A flush of heat crept up her back beneath her wools and furs, but Laova replied resolutely.
“Laova, of the Hunters.”
Rell smiled; as always, Laova felt a pang of gentle envy as she did so. Rell the Hunt-Leader was an older woman, this being her thirtieth-something dark moon, but she was beautiful and fierce as a mountain cat. Her smile was not warm but precise, as if the gods had carefully crafted her face for only unexpected loveliness. But more, she was crowned with shining orange tresses that ripped a hole in the dark of the night as if with the coming of dawn. Laova’s own river-bed brown locks looked quite dull in comparison.
But as they shared a smile, Laova’s admiration turned to camaraderie, and she smiled in return.
“Then join us, Laova,” Rell replied; a coy tease between stoic ritual and the thrill of a beginning—something new and alive—thickened in the air. “Be a Hunter with us. Track with us. Fight with us. Live with us. Die with us.”
“I will,” Laova promised.
“As you are born tonight a Hunter, so you will live, and so you will die.”
“I will,” Laova agreed.
“The clan’s life, and our life. Our life, and your life. Your place is decided, and you must live by it.”
“I will,” Laova breathed, grinning.
A roaring cheer went up between them, a joyful howl like the song of wolves. It echoed briefly through the night, unafraid—just this once—of what might hear. It was a fearful life they lived, aware of the harsh world whose heart they rested within. The cold, bitter, endless winter. The ravaging of bear and wolf and mountain cat. The threat of other tribes, other clans that sometimes grew desperate, dangerous, in the mad grip of the long night…
But here and now, Laova felt again the promise of the sun, and curiously felt in her soul that still, even now, it was not dark. Not yet.
“Time for the story,” Ghal announced gleefully.
All of them groaned. Even solemn Rell rolled her eyes.
“Must we?” Khara teased. She gave Laova a wink across the flames.
“Yes,” Ghal grouched. It was good-natured grouching, however, and good-natured teasing. They all knew the way of things. Each new adulthood must begin with remembering.
Now that attention was off of her, Laova let her eyes wander, let them fall heavily where they’d longed to go.
He was perfect. Nemlach.
This was his twenty-seventh long night, so he was a little older than herself. He’d never married; by some immense luck, few girl-babes had been born in the years near him, so men of the clan had sometimes been left solitary. Some had chosen to leave and marry women of other tribes; Laova was fervently relieved Nemlach had not been one of them.
His hair was black, like the night sky over their campfire. Carved white stones woven into braids were picked out like stars, and Laova had always longed for the opportunity to examine them more closely. His hair was wild compared to his beard, which he kept short and neat. It cupped a long, dusky face, a quiet face, a face Laova had spent much time examining with both her eyes and heart.
She knew she was young to be coveting such a fine man. He was a respected Hunter, and beloved of the Grandmother. It was said that Nemlach had been expected to submit himself to the ways of the spirits when his initiation came; instead, he’d chosen to hunt, and no one except the Grandmother could regret it. The Grandmother was their link with the gods, their shaman, and she accepted few into the House of Spirit.
Laova was also relived at this; the Spirit-speakers could marry, but rarely did. It was unlucky.
Some happenstance of fortune had brought him here, unattached, available, within her grasp tonight. Just the thought sent an excited shiver across her skin. And now that she was an adult, Laova was permitted to act on her feelings. If she dared.
While she’d been gazing with embarrassing frankness at Nemlach, Ghal had situated himself and now cleared his throat.
“We live in the shadow of greatness,” he began.
Without warning, Nemlach’s blue eyes—clear and blue as ice—crossed the fire and met Laova’s. She was so shocked she froze, staring at him, motionless, like a deer locked eyes with a wolf. In her mind, Laova waited in agony for him to smirk or frown. He did neither; to her surprise a tiny, shy, welcome smile turned up one edge of beard, and he gave his attention back to Ghal and the Losing Story once more.
Her heart punched at the inside of her ribcage as Laova did the same.
“Before us, there were the Eldermen,” Ghal was continuing. This role was his because in their group, he was the oldest, at forty-two dark moons. Laova couldn’t imagine. Such years seemed so far away.
Ghal peered at them all, the grays in his hair and beard catching the firelight. “The Eldermen—and women—were not as we are. They were powerful, masters of this world. They could turn even the long night into day. Their houses were mountains, and their villages were thick with more of their people than you could imagine. No sickness was beyond their reach to heal. Even the Summoning God of Death agreed to wait on their will, and their lives stretched outward, endless, like long summer days.
“They understood the turns of the earth, and looked beyond to see other worlds, realms only the gods were meant to know.”
No one present had heard this tale any less than a thousand times. It was told at this coming-of-age rite, and also at the naming of children, at the deathbed of elders, in times of crisis and times of joy. The words were worn and rehearsed, but at this part, there was always a coil of something slippery and cold in Laova’s gut. They all felt it; it betrayed them each in the stiffness of their smiles, the down-casting of their eyes.
“They say the gods turned against them,” Ghal murmured, shaking his head. “They say the tides of sea and winds of storm came crashing down on their great cities. They say the earth opened her mouth in a war cry and swallowed their world. I dare not ask the gods for the truth.
“But we remember always the lost Eldermen,” Ghal recited the beginning of the end of the short, terrifying tale. “We remember than they climbed too high, and forgot that they were not gods.”
Silence fell. The fire crackled low, and Bamet added a few branches of deadwood. The flames exulted and raised praising arms upward, lively in the midst of a sudden stillness.
On her left still sat Rell; on her other side, Taren turned to Laova and grinned.
“Well, you’re an adult now. Before you know it, it’ll be your turn to tell that old story.”
Laova shoved him playfully. “You expecting to die, soon? You’d better pay attention and start practicing.”
This seemed almost absurd; Taren was only one year older than she, and to imagine either of them as old as Ghal was like imagining herself to be as tall as a tree. There was something impossible and odd about it. Something… uncomfortable.
“Hey!” Bamet tossed a stick at Nemlach. “Give us a song, you badger!”
Nemlach smiled and muttered something about tomorrow’s early start.
As one, all of them protested and insisted and pleaded. It didn’t take long to convince him, and Nemlach sighed dramatically and stared into the fire, thinking.
Laova held her breath.
His first notes rumbled out wordlessly like summer thunder. Full and rich and sweet, Laova had nothing to compare it to. There was nothing in her life so wonderful, except, perhaps, Nemlach himself. His voice as it rung out was better than the bonfires of feast days. Better than the smell of the pine trees, or the glittering light of stars. It was as if the All-Mother had rolled together the warmth
of her parents’ arms, the familiarity of the common-house hearth, and the unmeasured majesty of the sweeping mountains and given it to Nemlach to sing with.
The opening tones became words, long, drawn syllables in mournful cadence. Laova’s chest squeezed as she watched him, and she wanted him. If he would have her, she wanted him.
His mournful, hopeful melody strung outward into the dark night and wrapped them in a magic, and Laova forgot to stop staring, forgot to worry that he might catch her open gaze again. This did not happen; Nemlach’s eyes were fixed on the fire as he sang, concentrating, or perhaps fighting his own stubborn instinct to avoid attention. Either way, Laova was free to gaze, and dream, and wish.
Nemlach’s song tonight was a story, as many of their clan’s songs were. It was the tale of the Bear and the Summer-Woman, of love that died with the cold breath of winter. But, if only the sun agreed to return after the long night, there was hope, at least. Hope that the two could meet again in the spring.
It ended in a gentle fade of heart-rending beats, and Laova wished he could only continue, endlessly…
“It time for you to rest, Laova,” Rell told her with another small smile. She patted Laova’s arm. “You take no watch this first night. Go, and sleep. When we have rested, the Hunt will begin.”
Laova nodded. Her fellow hunters were not ready to sleep, so alone she crossed to one of two low hide tents lashed between the gnarled fir trees and crawled inside. Of all they carried, the warm hides that formed the tent walls were among the most important. It was not unheard of that a hunter might freeze in their sleep if they slept exposed. Another hide was laid out over the packed snow, and Laova settled down to rest, to sleep, to prepare for the sunless morning that waited.
Sleep was playing coy tonight, however. Laova sighed and loosed her scarf from her neck. In the small space, her heavy winter skins were too hot for thinking of Nemlach. But think of him she did, imagining him there with her. No one saw much more than hands and faces during winter, but she’d seen him take off his shirt in the summer… Her hands twitched, thinking of all that muscle, the rippling, dark skin that spent most of the year beneath his layers of warm clothing. She longed to see the rest, to have her imagination satisfied.