by Jean Johnson
“Now this is not to scare you off from the pleasures of sex, honey,” Cari added, holding out her palm to caution Alys. “The thing is, a lot of guys hate being taught that most ‘manly’ of arts, which is lovemaking, not just sex. And there is a difference. They think they should know how to do it by sheer instinct . . . but not much more than a man in a thousand has that kind of instinct naturally. Now, here’s lecture number one: Do you know where babies come from, Analia?”
“A man puts his rod in—” she blushed and stumbled before continuing, “—um, in that spot between a woman’s legs, and then, if his seed takes root, just over nine months later, she gives birth,” Alys recited. “Just like with dogs or cats, horses, sheep, or other creatures. Only their pregnancies take shorter or longer because they’re not humans, and it’s different for each kind, but it’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Well, your mother did tell you something, at least. A man’s got to put his manhood in there, in a woman’s womanhood—I’ll use the delicate terms so as to keep your blood flowing through the rest of your flesh and not pooling in your face so much,” Cari teased. “Once he’s done that, he’s got to rub it back and forth, ’til he feels real good, and that makes the seed come out. It sort of looks like thick milk, though it doesn’t taste like milk at all,” she added in an aside that made Alys choke on the thought of tasting it. “But it can plant a baby in your belly if the timing’s right, if you haven’t got an anticonception amulet.
“And you’ll need to remember to replace it every year, ’cause the spell does wear off after about a year and a half.” Cari stuck out her foot briefly in example, and Alys realized there was a pendant braided by a bit of cord around her ankle. “Do you know all about your monthly flow and the timing of when you can get pregnant?”
Alys nodded. “A woman is more likely to get pregnant in the middle of the month, between flows, and when the flow doesn’t come on time, she’s probably pregnant.”
“Good! Your mother did teach you that much, too.”
“I was just beginning my flow, when she died,” Alys admitted, feeling a faint pang from missing her mother. It had been a long time, though. “She explained a lot of things to me, but then I had to go live with my uncle . . .”
Cari studied Alys more closely, a look of concern entering her dark brown eyes. “Analia, honey . . . did your uncle do to you what that man just did to me? Did he try to?”
Alys flushed; the wench seated in front of her was very perceptive. “He . . . he would have me bring something up to him, when he was in bed with one of his serving girls. And he stated that he wanted to have me, too . . . but I convinced him I was worth more as a virgin. He liked the idea of taking his . . . his brother’s daughter . . . but he liked the idea of money and land and other things a lot more.”
When the other woman merely gave her a look of sympathy, not of condemnation, Alys felt free to admit a little more.
“Sometimes . . . he would touch my breasts, but I didn’t let myself react or push him away, because he would have liked that, and my just standing there, ignoring it bored him. He didn’t do anything more. I also held him off from selling me to others that were like him for a long time, too, by telling him that one ‘buyer’ wouldn’t further his ambitions,” she explained. “Or I’d say that another wasn’t offering a high enough price, that a third wasn’t good enough blood-wise to be associated with my uncle through me—”
“Now, that was pretty clever of you,” Cari praised her. “A lot of bastard men—and I don’t mean those born outside the eight altars—have egos much bigger than their p—uh, their manhoods. A smart woman can get around them by playing on their greeds and their weaknesses. So, from what you’ve said, I take it you’re untouched, right? Never did what I just did, with a man?”
Alys nodded, pleased at the other woman’s praise. Morganen had thought she was being pretty clever, too, but it was nice to hear it from someone unbiased. It hadn’t been easy, after all, keeping her uncle from selling her off too soon.
“How untouched is untouched? If you haven’t been breached by a man’s rod, have you ever been kissed where that man kissed me, down at my loins?—I’ll take it from your expression, that’s a definite no.” Cari chuckled as Alys’ eyes widened and her mouth dropped, her escaping curls bouncing with the shaking of her head. “Nor done the other one, where I kissed him at the groin? No? Okay . . . now, have you ever been kissed on the mouth?”
Alys started to shake her head. Then blushed. “There was a boy . . . We tried it. Four times. But we were very young.”
“Did he stick his tongue in your mouth? There we go again with that face, young lady,” Cari scolded. “You keep gaping like that, and a fly will buzz right in!”
Alys shut her mouth. The other woman shook her dark-curled head and sighed. Not in a disappointed way, but in a “we have a lot ahead of us” sort of way.
“All right, tell me exactly what you saw when you saw your uncle doing things with women, and how it made you feel to see that, and how you felt when he touched you, and we’ll see how much damage we have to undo.”
With a bit of awkwardness, and many blushes, Alys told Cari in more detail what she had seen and endured. Then added at the end, “—And it revolted me! Even with . . . with that boy I kissed, and I liked kissing him, I can’t imagine doing anything like . . . that . . . ”
“I sense a touch of hesitancy in your voice,” Cari murmured, leaning her chin on her arms. “Did you see that I was enjoying it, and thought a little differently? Just for a moment?”
Blushing, reluctant, Alys nodded slightly.
“Well, what your uncle was doing was sex. What that man in here was doing—and he’s one of the good ones, honey—was lovemaking. So yes, I did enjoy it. This time around. Lovemaking gives both people pleasure, and I felt a lot of pleasure with that client. Sex is messy, uncomfortable, and boring, especially when the fellow doesn’t know what he’s doing,” the prostitute explained to her. “Lovemaking, on the other hand, is incredible; it curls your toes and rolls through you like the good kind of thunderstorm, not the scary kind. It makes your hair want to stand on end, makes you want to jump onto the roof and holler your pleasure to the world, makes you feel like you can fly without even needing magic . . . It’s that kind of good when you hit the climax of your pleasure.
“So here’s lesson number two: I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about lovemaking,” Cari bargained. “That way, when you do find the right man, you’ll not only know what to do, I’m going to tell you what you can teach him to do, to make sure he’s the right kind of lover, as well as the right kind of man for you.
“And just because it’s a pleasure to do, as my womanly duty, something your mother never got to finish doing—and because you’re the kind of young woman who is supposed to marry a good man, not a smelly sixty-eight-year-old kind—if it takes longer than an hour, I won’t charge you.” Cari winked broadly, resembling the image carved on the signboard outside. “That’s ’cause I know a lot about lovemaking, honey, and it might take quite some time to explain it all. So, pay attention, and we’ll see how quickly you can learn the basics, and the many interesting variations that can ‘come’ from them.”
THREE
Alys didn’t feel very innocent anymore. It took nearly two hours of nonstop instruction, learning, and talking, with a frank discussion of the various intimate female parts and how to make them feel good—blessed Kata!—but that was . . . it was . . . she couldn’t—yet it intrigued as well as amazed her—and it ended up requiring a charcoal sketch on a scrap of paper to discuss the various male parts and what to do with them. Plus more discussions on where else on the body were good spots to touch, and how to touch them, and what with . . . and so many positions, her head reeled just trying to keep them all straight.
At least she didn’t feel revolted just thinking about them in general, anymore. She still felt revolted thinking about her uncle—both of her uncles, but mo
stly Uncle Donnock—who was probably long gone by the time her “lessons” were over. But Alys could think about one person and all of the things she had learned. When she did, she could feel that trembling, nervous but not nervous sensation the professional wench had described to her as the leading edge of desire.
Wolfer of Corvis.
Yes; when Alys pictured Wolfer as the male owning the parts sketched on the piece of paper, she definitely felt a twinge of desire.
Now she was eating a plate of lunch for the price of a few copperas in the back kitchen of The Trenching Wench Inn, seated at a small table next to Cari, who was eating, too. Alys shivered at the thought of seeing what Wolfer’s naked body would look like. She had seen him without his shirt, first playing around as a boy, and as a young man on hot days when he had been working at some task . . . but never without trousers. Cari had told her that each man was shaped a little differently, some curved, some straight, some thick, some thin, some long, and some short. Some had a large, tight manly sack, some had a loose-hanging, pendulant one; some loins were very furry, others were more sparse, and if he had dark hair, it would definitely be dark . . .
Oh, my.
Just thinking about what Wolfer might look like made her breath grow short and her insides feel funny. She thought that might be what Cari had frankly described as the way desire normally felt. First her stomach flopped inside, then she grew hot, and that place between her legs felt like it was growing moist; it even ached a little. Blinking, Alys firmly returned her attention to her bowl of stew.
“Are you going to be all right, honey?” Cari asked her, as Alys finished the mug of water the cook had poured for her. “Is it far to your friend’s house?”
“Not far, thank you. I’m pretty sure my uncle’s gone by now,” she added.
“Well, go out the back door, just to be sure. And use the refreshing room through that little door there. Sometimes the men in this place just grab a wench and go upstairs without asking first if she actually works here,” Cari added with the same straightforward candor that had plowed right through Alys’ cherished former ignorance. Cari stood up, then paused, thoughtful. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to this boy you kissed a long time ago?”
Alys blushed. “I’m, um . . . going to his family’s home, actually.”
“Well, maybe you can kiss him and see if you still like it anymore. Just don’t forget to get yourself an anklet like mine,” Cari added, sticking out her now slippered foot once more. “Glytha’s shop. You go left outside in the alley, to the next cross street, turn right, go to the third shop on the right, and go up the outer stairs. Tell her The Trenching Wench sent you, and she’ll give you high-quality at a discount—but try not to blush,” the other woman added with a wink, “or she won’t believe you.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem, honey. Hope you like kissing that boy when you meet up with him again, and that he likes kissing you. I’ve got to get back to work, now.”
“I, um . . . hope you enjoy your day,” Alys offered boldly.
Cari laughed and walked out the door, hips swaying in the same way she had demonstrated to Alys not that long ago, a way she had said that men liked to see a woman’s hips sway. Lessons in seducing a man had been part and parcel of the instruction, and that was one of them. “I think I just might, honey . . .”
It didn’t take long to find the shop, since it was in the direction of the harbor. Alys looked at the stairs, up at the door at the top, then walked on. Two blocks later, she turned back, stopped again at the bottom of the stairs, stared at them. Finally Alys headed up, firming her expression into the emotionless one she had shown her uncle for so long. The emotional discipline that had saved her for so long in the face of her uncle’s perversions and tyranny would keep her from blushing now.
She was in charge of her life now, and a woman couldn’t be too responsible about not starting a family until she was absolutely ready to, as her briefly found friend had firmly instructed her during their two hours together. There was also more than one reason to avoid pregnancy just yet . . . and no guarantee that the diamond below her throat could completely thwart the most important one. It had been enspelled against that threat, too, but Alys preferred to err on the side of caution, for now.
The tired young mage almost missed the island entirely.
Then again, she had swum for the rest of the day in otter form, given up trying to find it as night had fallen, and drifted on the current while she slept on her back in a form more used to rivers and lakes than oceans, but still useful enough for her purposes. The distant slapping of waves on a shoreline roused her from her sleep. Flipping over, getting saltwater into her mouth and nose, which made her bob and cough, rubbing at her otter-shaped face with otter-shaped paws, she squinted and peered through the predawn gloom.
Curling, fading lines of white. A silhouette of dark ruggedness against the slowly dawning light.
Nightfall Isle.
From the way the current was carrying her past, even at its modest pace, Alys would have to swim hard on an empty stomach to reach its southernmost shore; river otters simply weren’t adapted to eating in salty seas, and she wasn’t comfortable enough with her magic to try for a sea creature shape, or fly such a long distance when she didn’t have a water bird form and would have needed to rest and float at the halfway point, between here and the mainland.
The mere sight of the island did give her energy, though. Diving and flipping her tail and paws, undulating her body, she surfaced and dove, surfaced and dove, checking her heading and cutting across the current, until she was in the lee of the island, out of the current. That helped her to make a lot better headway.
By the time she came within easy swimming distance, the sun was well above the horizon. Squinting against the light, she skirted the rocky, cliff-riddled southern end and swam around to the eastern shore, to one of the sandy beaches there. Alys was looking for any sign of the brothers’ home. She knew she had the right island, because there was only the one island out here in this semitropical region of the Eastern Ocean. It was just that it was a rather large island.
The beach she chose looked inviting. Waddling out onto the land, panting, she got herself up above the high-tide line, and flopped in the dry, cool sand to rest, until she had the strength to go look for food. At least her uncle hadn’t neglected to feed her, though sometimes he made her go without her food for a day to punish her—never more than one day at a time, though he did often alternate days without food. A starvation-weakened niece was a useless niece to him, after all.
Starvation and beatings had been his two main tools to discipline her, though more the former than the latter, once she had learned how to blank out all expression, all reaction in his presence. Alys had eventually figured out that her eldest uncle only beat her because he enjoyed seeing her cower, seeing her try to cover and protect herself. When he hit her and she simply took it, or went sprawling and did nothing more than just lie there, the pleasure had worn out of it for him. Starvation, however, was a punishment she couldn’t ignore as easily. On those few occasions she had dared to actually defy him, even if only just a little, it had been both starvation and a beating.
Obedience had meant survival, so she had forced herself to obey. Alys had learned many things that way, too, keeping her mouth shut and her demeanor subservient, while keeping her eyes and her ears carefully open. Someday, what I’ve learned . . . somehow, it’ll put an end to my uncle’s evil. Morganen was right, every time he told me that; without my aid, Wolfer and his brothers won’t be able to stand up to him and survive, without the things I learned. Though the price I paid was shameful. Helping him do some of his evil deeds . . .
Guilt and longing fought a longtime war inside of her; living with it was the only way she could deal with it, though it ate away at her heart, deep inside.
When the sun had dried her fur, she finally transformed back into a young woman, stumbled wearily to her feet, and brus
hed off the last grains of sand. Transforming while still wet only got her clothing wet, she had learned in the trial-and-error of her hidden, mostly self-taught lessons. But by transforming when she was dry, not even the brine-salt lingered behind, save as an easily shaken-off dust.
While she was still shaking off her cloak and skirts, she heard a noise. A growl. Whirling and letting out a gasp, Alys confronted the sound, afraid she might have to fight some wild beast. She was ready to transform and take flight if necessary, though she was very tired and hungry, and flying took a lot of energy.
A large wolf—not pookrah sized, but still very large—crouched on the sand before her, his brownish fur fluffed menacingly around his ruff, his teeth bared intimidatingly, his golden tawny eyes narrowed in a fierce glare.
Golden eyes. Brown fur. On Nightfall Isle . . . ?
“Wolfer!” Alys scolded, her fear vanishing in a puff of irritation the instant she made the connection. “You scared me!”
The wolf blinked, whined as he stared at her, then backed up in uncertainty. But it was him; now that her fright wasn’t clouding her senses, she recognized the shapeshifted magic surrounding him.
“Wolfer, it’s me! Alys—remember?”
Wolfer blinked again. The breeze was the wrong direction for him to scent her . . . but she sort of looked like Alys. She had more curves than he could recall, based on what he glimpsed through the folds of that scruffy wool cloak, and her hair was braided, not hanging free . . . but it was the same dark gold, escape-artist curls. The same curls that had been woven into the braid forever knotted around his human wrist.
This woman also had the same soft gray eyes, so different from his twin’s steel, set in a delicate, oval face. She had matured a little more since he had seen her last, but not by that much. The wind shifted a little, curling her distinctive, feminine scent toward him. He couldn’t imagine how he could remember it so clearly after three years of exile . . . but he knew it the moment he sniffed the wind.