by Fiona Zedde
“So what have you been doing since you’ve had to stay out of trouble without me?”
“Who says I was staying out of trouble?”
“No new scars.” She looked him over with a smile. His pretty face glowed with light sweat from the hotter than normal day, and he wasn’t walking with his shield or spear, just a young man out for a day in town.
“I’m better than you at avoiding getting hit, sister.”
They grinned at each other. Since they were young, their father had sparred with them and taught them more than the basics of fighting and self-defense. Kizo wasn’t the best fighter of the siblings, but he was the one who avoided conflict the best, either through his speed or wily tongue.
“Yes, you are,” Ny laughed into her cup.
They shared the cozy privacy of the balcony, trading mild insults and laughter until a rowdy group stumbled out to claim the two empty tables nearby.
Kizo put aside his empty cup and jerked his chin in her direction. “Are you ready to go?”
“Whenever you are.”
“Good. We have much more interesting things to do with our afternoon.” A wicked grin lit up his face.
She finished her drink in one quick gulp, winced at the burn of the alcohol down her throat and in her belly. “Lead the way.”
It turned out he had his weapon after all. On their way out of the bar, he dipped his hand into a hidden corner and plucked up his spear, clean and recently sharpened. He carried it easily beside him, sharp end up like a walking stick.
“Are you sure you still know how to use that thing?” she teased him.
“Try me and find out. It hasn’t been that many days since we’ve been hunting, has it?”
They left the bar and headed away from the village, walking under the canopy that hovered just below the verandah they just left. Through the wreaths of fern and the wide tree limbs, Ny could see that someone had already taken the table she and Kizo had shared. Two women. They were leaning close and laughing. Something about the way they spoke to each other reminded Ny of Duni. She looked away.
“What’s on your mind so heavy, Ny?” Apparently bored with carrying his spear like a normal person, Kizo began to carelessly twirl his spear in front of him. “Or shouldn’t I ask?” The spear stirred the air with a low whooshing sound.
“It’s the same reason as the last time.”
“Does that mean you’ve at least taken her to bed already?” He asked like he already knew the answer.
Ny made a rude gesture at him with her fist.
It was sad, but everyone knew her exploits were non-existent. She was a good girl, and the only scandal she caused was being related to Hakim and Adli. The twins were good enough in the village but were so very bad elsewhere. They visited the divorced woman who, even though unmarried with no children, managed a household and a herd of goats just from the “patronage” of local men alone.
Hakim and Adli were not the woman’s only visitors but were the most visible, especially since they both visited her at the same time, left her at the same time, and were never shy about entering and leaving her luxurious, if small, hut. Just as everyone knew this, everyone also seemed to know that Ny was a virgin. She just hoped they didn’t also know who she was hoping to lose that cumbersome virginity with.
“I wish I wasn’t so inexperienced,” she said.
“There’s only one way to get experience.” Kizo gave her a laughing look, still twirling his spear. “Get a practice lover. That way, when it’s time to finally enjoy your time with Duni, you’ll know what to do.”
Ny scratched her neck, uncomfortable at the very idea of touching someone else that way. “I’m not sure if I can do that.”
Kizo grinned, all trouble. “Let’s go give it a try.”
Their path through the forest took them the long way around their closest neighbor, Elephant Village where Nitu was to find a wife within the coming season. The drummers of their farther neighbor, Sky Village, were rumored to be the best and, on certain feast days, the sound of their djembes could be heard for miles, joyful and loud. The women were very pretty, and many of them were luscious enough to have entertained the twins a time or two.
“Hakim and Adli have worn out our family’s welcome here in Sky Village.” Kizo laughed.
“But I bet not among the women, or some of the prettier men,” Ny muttered.
It was market day in Sky Village, and the long stretch of road leading into the village gates overflowed with stalls spread out on both sides. Vendors, mostly women, called out to Kizo.
“Come, boy with the pretty skin. Come and see these firm yams you can take home to your iya.”
“I don’t want to buy any yams at the moment. Can I just get a squeeze?” Kizo flirted back, laughing and flashing his white teeth while the women hung their breasts over abundant piles of yams, cho-chos, and melons.
“Your spear looks like it needs a warm place for the night, young man.” A woman held up a thick melon with a laughing smile. “I have the perfect one for you.”
No one said anything so suggestive to Ny. They called to her, sang out sweetly. “A pretty cloth for a pretty miss.” But nothing nearly as entertaining as the offers Kizo got.
“They never tease me the way they tease you.” She mock-pouted after they left the market women behind.
“But you don’t want them to tease, and your face says so.” Kizo adjusted his waist pouch, making room in it for the mango he’d bought from one particularly persistent woman. “You’re not as unreadable as you think, sister.”
Ny’s father was teaching her to keep her emotions hidden, to become a better diplomat, but it was difficult to learn something that felt like a lie. It is not a lie, her father had tried to reassure her. It is a mask you wear, like in war. Once the battle is over, pull off that mask to reveal your real self once again. Ny still had a long way to go. She had not yet learned to wear a mask.
She and Kizo walked under the wide archway into Sky Village. Crossed spears and the dried head of a lion perched in the village insignia (a circle of clouds broken by twin lightning bolts) warned away those who wished to do the villagers harm.
Sky Village was beautiful with clean and well-swept roads, plentiful animals, and well-maintained houses. On the wide main street, she and Kizo passed girls and women with baskets on their heads and children strapped to their backs, old men sitting beneath shade trees and fanning themselves with wide green leaves. The smell of eucalyptus and ripe fruit played on the breeze.
This was one of the few villages that had asked the Rain Queen for help. Although the queen was primarily a figure of speculation and myth, everyone agreed she was a godling consort of Yemaya, and an old, ugly woman who surrounded herself with beautiful virgins to distract anyone who saw her from her terrible looks. She granted rain to any village who paid the proper respect by sacrificing to her their most beautiful virgin daughter. Sky Village had made its sacrifice and now flourished with rains that pounded its rich dark earth with the regularity of the full moon. It was a lush and green village, the only one for many maili.
“It’s nice here,” Ny said.
A group of women, most around Duni’s age, sauntered gracefully past, heading into the village with water gourds balanced on their heads. They were young and sweet looking, their flesh soft and plump with youth, their white teeth flashing as they laughed and talked together.
One woman, her rounded hips swinging with each step, paused to look at Kizo. Her waist beads were low on her soft belly and her breasts looked inviting beneath the cloth. She adjusted the gourd on her head, lifting her hand to show off the rise of her breasts and the dipping curve of her waist. The other women with her turned sly looks to Kizo and Ny.
“It is,” Kizo said. “Very nice here.”
The women giggled and preened under Kizo’s interested gaze, some even eyed Ny in blatant speculation. A tall and voluptuous woman with the wild beauty of the Serengeti in her face, touched the tip of her tongue to he
r mouth and gave Ny the most intense eye fuck she’d ever experienced. Heat prickled in Ny’s face and down her spine. She couldn’t look away. Her hands hung heavy and awkward at her sides, and she wished suddenly for something to do with them. What was wrong with her? She wanted Duni, not this stranger.
“Relax, sister,” Kizo said with quiet laughter in his voice. “I think she’s just looking.”
Ny backed away.
The girl was nice to look at, a true daughter of Oshun with her burning gaze that promised the sweetest honey between her thighs. But her forwardness was unsettling. Ny was the one used to making the advances. This woman looked like she would happily throw Ny in the street, throw up her skirts, and feast between her legs under the hot sun.
The women kept walking, but their paces were deliberately slow, hips swaying, glances tossed over their shoulders at Ny and Kizo.
“You can practice on her all night if you want.”
Ny almost tripped over her own feet when the girl looked back again and snared Ny with her eyes, slowly drawing a hand down and over her backside. The invitation couldn’t be clearer.
“I think she would eat me alive.”
“I think that’s the idea, sister.”
She shivered and slowed her footsteps to put more distance between herself and the sensual woman. “I’m not quite sure I’m ready for that.”
Kizo laughed. “With that attitude, you’ll stay untouched until the day Duni wrestles you to her husband’s sleeping mat.”
She shoved at his shoulder, annoyed at his mention of Duni and her husband. “Don’t be a dick.”
“I am what I am.” Kizo grinned.
He wasn’t wrong. Her brother had always been uniquely himself. His long-legged strides easily caught him up with the women. From where she hung back, Ny watched him silently flirt with them, walking in a way that emphasized the sleek musculature of his body, the thrust of his sex under his loin cloth. He smiled and dipped his head, suggestively gripping his spear until Ny thought she needed to give him some time alone.
“These women would teach you everything you need to know about pleasing your married woman.” He didn’t look away from the women who seemed like they were silently stripping him bare for their feast.
Ny shook her head. “I don’t want that,” she said. “They are not for me.”
Kizo glanced at her, then back at the women. “All right.” He shrugged and abruptly quickened his pace to pass them. Just like that, he was finished. “In that case, I know a guy here who can get you a new, longer blade for your spear. Interested?”
Ny glanced back at the women who were falling farther and farther behind. But Kizo didn’t. If she wasn’t interested in having the women teach her about making love, then he seemed content to dismiss his own desires.
“Yes, I am interested.”
“Good,” he said. “Maybe we can get some sparring in while we’re here. One of my spears might as well get some action.”
Ny rolled her eyes.
Chapter Five
After the day spent with Kizo, Ny swore to find a balance between the life she had and the one she wanted. She didn’t want to lose her family, her brothers, to win Duni’s heart, and she didn’t want to keep living as a child and lose Duni.
When she found time for herself again, she searched for Duni among her sister wives on washday at the river. On the riverbank, she waved at the women she passed, including Duni, calling out and teasing them about the sheer amount of clothes in their baskets, and kept going. The rocky river’s edge where she and Duni met that first night was quiet and empty. There, Ny put aside her small basket of clothes and tied her skirt around her thighs like her mother often did when she was doing her most difficult housework.
Then she walked quickly down the concealed path that ran parallel to the river and was sheltered behind high bushes. Through the bushes, she saw Duni on the riverbank with the youngest sister wife, the basket held between her legs as she sorted through the clothes, head bent beneath the bright light of the sun that kissed her skin the way Ny longed to.
She seemed to be teaching the young one to properly wash the clothes. The little one was younger than Ny, too young to be a wife. But the village elders had allowed the marriage. Only because the child’s parents had little wealth and seemed able to do nothing but sell their child to a lecherous old man. The child’s head, neatly braided and tight around her face, barely came to Duni’s shoulder.
At one point, Ny thought the young wife looked up and saw her. But she must have been wrong because the child looked up at Duni with a blinding smile then quickly dipped her head back to the clothes.
Ny watched them for a long moment before the child moved toward the other wives to tend to the small basket Duni entrusted her with.
Once Duni was alone, Ny whistled softly to get her attention. Her sharp eyes quickly found Ny. After a brief glance around to make sure no one was paying attention to her, she slipped away from the water and crept into the bush.
“What are you doing here?” Duni asked.
“Washing, like you.” But Ny didn’t stop her hand from touching, a light stroke of Duni’s bare side. Duni shivered and swayed toward her, eyes falling closed. Temptation and beauty. Ny ached to touch her even more, to kiss her. But the other girls were too close.
“Come with me.”
Duni bit her lip, looking uncertain, tempted. She peered through the bushes at her sister wives who sat together, laughing and splashing water more than washing clothes, their conversations like separate but complementary songs on the breeze.
“I can’t stay long,” Duni said.
“This is just for a little while, I promise.”
When Duni finally nodded, Ny tugged her quietly down the hidden path and to her secluded bathing hole. Although the place was easy to find, there was no one else there, just the sun falling like prayers over the smooth black rocks, the quiet gurgle of the river running faster here than anywhere else near the village, the staccato chattering of birds. The air smelled dry, no more false promise of rain in it. But rain wasn’t what Ny needed now.
“I missed you.” She breathed into Duni’s soft throat, hands sinking into the damp fabric over her hips.
She felt Duni smile against her temple. “You saw me just yesterday.”
“But I didn’t get to touch you.”
It was true that she could see Duni every day. The village was a place of habits and routine. Any day she wanted to find Duni, she knew where to look.
Monday was wash day. On Tuesday, she helped take the goats to pasture. Wednesday was the day the wives did a majority of the housework, and if Ny walked by at the right time, she could see Duni or one of the other wives shaking out the mats just outside her husband’s hut. Thursday was the day Duni helped out at the school. Friday was market day. On Saturday, their family worshipped at the large Shangó shrine at the center of the village, and Sunday was the day they cleaned and prepared most of the meat for the rest of the week. And every night of those days, Duni escaped to her rock for peace and quiet and dreams.
“Can I touch you now?”
Duni pulled back, a smile in her eyes. “Yes, but I have to get back soon.” She tugged Ny down into the soft grass with their backs against the rocks. “I am here now. Why aren’t you touching me?”
She didn’t have to ask twice. Ny stroked her face, caressing the miracle of softness with careful fingertips. Her heart thumped hard in her chest, filling her with warmth and uncontrolled agitation. “You’re so beautiful.” The unfamiliar power of the emotions she felt for Duni made her heart beat faster, her throat a little dryer.
Their mouths met, already parted and wet. Ny shivered. She groaned into the heat of Duni’s lips, hands curving around the slender and sun-warmed shoulders to pull her close and closer. Pleasure and excitement fluttered in her stomach.
There was something in the way Duni fit her hands around Ny’s hips, how she whispered soft words of encouragement when Ny lost he
r shyness and let her own hands wander, that reminded her of the woman from Sky Village, the daughter of Oshun. Her enticing heat and overt sensuality. But instead of making her feel uncomfortable, this heat made Ny want Duni more.
Her fingers sank into Duni’s shoulders and her tongue timidly flickered out. Duni groaned softly and gripped her tighter, sucking on Ny’s tongue and making her gasp. Ny jerked back and slammed her thighs together against the flood of wetness between them.
“Oh!” All of her tingled with astonishment.
“You like that?”
Duni didn’t give her the chance to answer. She licked the corner of Ny’s mouth, startling her lips apart again, and Ny kissed back, eager to experience that sharp stab of pleasure again. Their kiss was longer this time, a breathless moment of sensation, the slick mating of tongues, lips bruising against teeth, shallowing breaths.
Duni pulled back with a wet sound. “I have more for you.”
She took Ny’s hand, watching her face, and slowly guided it between her thighs. Ny shivered when her fingers encountered hot flesh, wet flesh. Duni trembled against her, jerking wordlessly from that single touch. She opened her thighs wider, and Ny explored the slick wet with her fingers.
“Duni, I…” Ny slid her fingers deeper and Duni bit her lip, breathing quickly.
“I know.” Duni moved her hips in slow circles. “Give me more.”
Ny stroked more of the silken flesh, guided by how she touched herself in secret, and firmly caressed the firm bud between Duni’s thighs in tandem with the curling thrust of her fingers. Duni whimpered, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Her head fell forward onto Ny’s shoulder. “Yes…more. Do it like…like that.” Her words were whispered, urgent. Quick. But Ny didn’t want to rush. It felt too incredible. The sun pouring over her shoulders, a slow sweet burn, the light gilding Duni’s skin, the rising musk of her sex between them, her urgent breaths. The soft wetness around her fingers was a blessing she never expected, but now that she had it, she couldn’t get enough. She was wet and aching just from the feel of Duni’s most intimate flesh around hers, from the sounds she was making.