Another story retrieved from the binary graveyards! Huzzah!

(C) A.L. Nathan

The darkness was lit by the faint glow of the spring, and the light it cast allowed her to see things shimmering, and glimmering. The rushing sound of the water, bubbling and languid, reached her ears, even as the scent of musk, myrrh and jasmine flowers made the air sultry. The mere sound caused her secret, warm and aching places to pool with desire, as she watched the steam rise from the magical pool before her. Her nipples budded again under gold silk. She quickly removed her silk caftan, moving her long, curvy and deeply tanned form into the water. She sighed, almost purred with pleasure as the water curved around her form, shaping itself to her body like a tender lover. Her large, dark brown nipples, sore and slightly reddish from repeated suckling moved under the healing pressure of the water, aroused, but not painfully so by the movement of water, by the surprising pressure of it on her skin. She sank in deeper, sinking below the surface to let her hair be wet, even as the silky flows of water slid over her skin, and into her mouth. She rose again, feeling the water slide into the caverns of her mouth, swirling in it ardently, hungrily, just like the water that seemed to slowly invade the moist caverns between her thighs, hidden by her thick and curly down. The Woman moved her hands over herself, fingers tangling in her wet curls, her yearning lust an active and palpable thing in the silence of the pool, imagining, wishing she was not alone. The water moved around her, as her busy and callused fingers slowly and insistently worked at her love-bud.

A faint whisper of sound was in the air. Light and steam seemed to come together in the pool, as the pressure of the water grew more insistent. Slowly, slowly, she could feel its healing wash over her, even as a dozen pleasure points in her body erupted in want and need, as the water seemed to shoot out dozens of currents and jets of hungrily lapping tongues at her. She let herself be buoyed by the sensation of pleasure, until she suddenly realized that something was not quite right. The water, that had been such a pleasant sensation between her nether lips, working on that ultimate pleasure-nexus, was now mimicking the suckling of a mouth. It seemed to be shaping itself around one breast like a two well-formed lips and tongue, with a slow and knowing suction driving her wild..and strangely enough, water seemed to be seeping inward, and upward, into her not-so-virginal passage. It felt smooth like water should be , and warm, but was really insistent, pushing upward like a finger, turning to find her secret spots of pleasure until she hissed in surprised, almost affronted pleasure.

It seemed to know exactly where and how she wanted to be touched, and granted it with excess. Then the flow of water grew, longer, harder, firmer and expanded within her. As it grew larger, and more insistent, she could almost feel the membrane inside her heal, only to have that soreness replaced by acute pleasure and need. “Unnnhhhh…” She tried to say, around the force of air that slowly invaded her mouth, to duel insistently with her tongue, even as the water formed like vice-like hands around her pushing her against a stronger, and insistent body of water. Desire and Water, both invaded the woman, as pure pistons of hard liquid slid in and out of her melting front orifice, even as she contracted the mouth of her womb, and keened at the pleasure shooting through her woman parts straight to her brain, impaled uncompromisingly on that lance of pleasure as she was impaled by this surprisingly hard…and hot flow of water.

Her legs were rudely pushed up by the lubricating water, to wrap around what seemed like the muscled hips and thighs of the water-entity who was a demanding lover who pressed his water-formed hands around her waist to span it. Other mouths seemed fixed around different portions of her skin, suckling hungrily at her taut and excited nipples with an insistent pressure that would never let up, even as an insistent flow of suckling water moved around her hips, driving her wild as the thick hard rod of forceful water pounded smoothly into her like an automaton, one that healed even as it drove her to the brink of explosion, before slowly receding, then leaving her wanting for more, as the mouths dragged her beneath the water, with only her head jutting out, with her thighs splayed in a slightly sitting slightly squatting position as though she were sitting astride atop a man, in lotus position.

She felt the water build arms around her to clasp her to its chest, even as, behind her, a different pressure of water built. This one was cooler, much cooler. It made her shiver and grow goosebumps as it curved to her back, even as the cool flow of water cupped around her round, lush buttocks that jutted out, plumping it into its cold and merciless fingered grasp, squeezing till she gasped, before a cold flow of water was inserted in between her cheeks. She moved mindlessly, at the pleasure at the water moving inside her unbreached orifice, remembering the time she had been bathed, when fingers had washed and tickled the entrance, while one soaped finger moved slightly inside.

Now this audacious finger of cold water, washed, tickled and did more. It slowly probed her untested portal, and pressed upwards uncompromisingly, waiting for the tight walls to slowly, reluctantly, give way. Then it darted out again, and morphed into a swirling pressure.

Now the cold flow of water worked like a tongue, circling the small hole, before dipping into it in an audacious gesture that left her gasping. It nudged in deeper, deeper, swirling around, letting another warm flow of water ready her inner walls, pushing yet one flow, then another flow of water in. She felt incredibly stretched, front and back, because as this was happening the warm water-being she was sitting on had moved to adjust her to meet its rude and hungry strokes up and into her warm, wet and waiting channel. She closed her eyes and let it pump into her, feeling as though her mind was torn in so many different directions of pleasure, with the mouths suckling hungrily at her aching nipples and those rude, rude tongues lapping at her pleasure nub and at her unbreached orifice.The phallic flow within her womb moved and expanded, growing bigger and bigger as it filled every inch of her tight love-passage, which was now wet with both the healing and lusty waters of the spring, as well as her own love juices.

A sexy and watery chuckle seemed to meet her ear. The Woman gasped and whimpered at the mindless pleasure, even as she heard it echo around the smoky silence cavern, where it disappeared into the sound of ghostly chuckles, even as the finger-like flows of water slowly tormenting her posterior entrance abruptly disappeared, to be met by a cold, blunt tip of *something* that nudged at her untried passage…pressing deeper and deeper until she wanted to scream her head off at what was about to happened, and yet shuddered at the thought of this forbidden pleasure actually occuring. The solidness of the water was allayed, and aided by the lubricating presence of softer, warmer, flows around it, thus building her acceptance and pleasure at this intrusion to an unacceptable level. A cold, hard, entity of water moved behind her back, and she found herself sandwiched between both the unseen beings, her legs and arms wrapped around the warm flow that was invading and still pumping into her front passage, her breasts spread and flattened against that uncompromising surface, where water met it, and continued spreading, suckling, nibbling.

The other, more sinister body of water pressed its coldness against her back, mimicking the muscled and nippled chest of a man rubbing across her smooth back, even as a teeth, and mouth-like flow latched onto her neck to nibble and suck, applying a clit-tingling pressure on it. She felt her ass-cheeks part beneath the force of the cold-water rod, feeling it move insistently in as she sobbed unbelievingly, filling her completely with a soothing yet agonizing sensation even as it parted her, even as it started pumping into her slowly, and confidently,giving her a pleasure she had never thought to associate with this part of her body. She tensed around it instinctively. Coldness wrapped its arms and muscled legs of water around her and the warm water entity which she was half straddling, half crouched over. She remained trapped between them, feeling a swirling, watery tongue wrap around her mouth, while another mouth assailed her neck, and two others tug at both nipples, swirling around, teasing, and suckling while two pistons of water, one hot, the other cold, moved into her, violating her with inhuman pleasure as she wrapped around one body as tightly as she was wrapped around by the other.

Harder and harder they dueled, two thick, thrusting rods fighting for attention, almost meeting within her voluptuous frame, leaving her unbelievably full, unbelievably panicking, even as her pupils dilated and her breath came out in small, agonized pants. She was moved like a rag doll in between these forces of nature, and she moved in turn clenching her womb walls around one while pulsating around the other, feeling, unbelievingly, vital energy stream into her even as she felt her insides being spread, and pushed, spread and pushed, and unbelievably stretched, again and again. Finally she gasped as both seemed to tighten around her, grasping her with a strength that left her gasping. Chest to chest pressed against her back and chest, with the slight impression of masculine sacs touching her bottom, both back and front. The unbelievable force and friction , and the incredible titillation of the awareness of what was being done to her, exploded around her even as she exploded in an orgasm that left her threshing and screaming and moaning. She felt wave after wave of it hit her form, from her toes to her clit, even as she slowly, gently sank, and floated just beneath the surface of the now warm water, her face pushed up so she could breathe.

She soaked there in a mindless state, feeling tiny pinpricks of pleasure and lassitude work through her, even as watery flows, now mimicking gentle hands, massaged her from head to toe, slowly keeping her afloat as she rested, and regained her senses. Slowly, ever so slowly…she came to herself, even as the watery spirits of the pool discreetly left her alone. She sat up in an abrupt movement, then crashed down as nothing held her up. Her bottom hit the rocky floor of the pool, and she splashed and spluttered upward, gasping. She stood on shaky legs that didn’t seemed to belong to her and stared at the tranquil, glowing and steaming surface of the pool that now swirled around her waist. What had happened here? She felt rejunevated, and at a strange sort of peace, even as she felt her womb contract in remembered pleasure. She was healed, but not sated. The water had shown and taught her unearthly pleasures, but it left her hankering for the comfort of lusty flesh and blood. She shakily came out from the pool and rubbed herself dry, lingering over parts of her body with her own thoughtful, sometimes questing, sometimes curious hands. Then, slipping the gold silk caftan that barely reached her knees over herself, she left the cavern on wobbly legs.

Behind her, she thought she heard a dozen husky voices chuckling and telling her to “Come back soon, dearie”. The Woman shuddered once, and then stumbled into the green light of the woods, still seeking some form of civilized sanctuary from this strange, wild place she had been stranded in.

Retrieved! I found it on a CD I had burned aeons ago!

So, I get to share it now

 Courtly Love, He Said

(c) A. L. Nathan

Courtly Love, he said. Discreet love notes, eyes fondling. Intersecting intellects. Souls touching, never skin. I would be his enshrined Madonna, Beatrice inviolate. His Catholic conscience free from physical adultery, at least.

Fucked me with his words and damned concepts while I yearned for hungry arms encircling, ardent breath on sensitive nape. Naked chests pressed tightly together, flattened nipples. Post-coital weight collapsed upon sated flesh. Poetry and discourse messily entwined with sweaty limbs. So, I married my fuck-buddy instead.

My courtly scholar’s in the weekly obits, today. Untouched, unsoiled by the earthy wetness of my cunt. Damned coward.

Previously published at Eklektika Press

(c) A. L. Nathan

The grass crunched beneath her worn out Japanese sandals. It was near dusk, and this was when pain wrought questions inside her head.

Why wasn’t this enough?

It should be enough. This was what she had longed for: peace, solitude and a garden of her own.

The waves crashed, a sound no longer out of a conch shell but moving through the air to her sensitive ears. It reminded her that her whole life had been geared towards this island retreat she had worked so hard for. Twenty years of giving 150% of herself in her work – the best arbitration lawyer in the business, and for what? Twenty years of diligent work and penny saving for this moment and all she cradled was emptiness.

Her hair remained black thanks to modern hair care. The fine lines of her face were barely discernible thanks to the wonders of cosmetic technology. But when she stared at her eyes in the mirror, they were empty. Soulless, like the people of her acquaintance she had disdained in private. Many years, she had nurtured the smug certainty that beneath it all she was different. The mirror told her something else.

She walked to the steps that led down to the beach and watched the jewel-like colors of an equatorial sunset, soon fading as dusk gave way to night. There had to be more . . . there just had to be! Where was the much anticipated soul completion once she had claimed this reclusive sanctuary? All her life she had worked towards this. A time when she need not talk to anyone for days if she did not want to. A lifetime of legalese had fueled that need.

She sat and watched the tide. A lone jogger moved barefoot across the wet sand and was soon gone. His presence was a visual routine she had grown used to in the months since her early retirement. She watched his back grow smaller and smaller against the vastness of the sands and the darkening of the skies. When she jogged in the mornings and evenings their paths would often cross and she would grunt in acknowledgement to his polite hellos. She never looked him in the face and suspected it was the same for him. It was a compact between people who respected their privacy, a jogger’s truncated conversation as they made their winding tracks along the shore in opposite directions.

It was getting cold now. The chill made pebbles on her dusky skin while the fine hairs at her nape and forearms stood up. Hugging her arms around her body, she reminded herself that it was getting late. She walked quick even steps to the staircase that led up the cliff to the white bungalow that was home. It was just the chill and the lateness of the hour playing on her imagination, she murmured, half-aloud.

Self-enforced solitude had turned her into someone who frequently talked aloud to herself. She stepped into her home, trying to recognize the unease that traveled up and down her spin and over her skin.

***

Hours later, she awoke with a start and with a pounding heart. Jumping out of her bed, she grabbed a favorite windbreaker — a constant from lonely, terrible undergraduate years to the early morning jogs of the present. She left the room and unlocked the door of her house. She peered at her moonlit garden of white hibiscuses, ferns and other herbs. Her eyes looked at the circle of white stones she had impulsively arranged at the east corner of her garden, bordered by rare purple chrysanthemums.

They glowed in the moonlight, but it seemed to be more than light which reflected off their smooth surface.The stones glimmered with something from within. Her heart pounding with fear and excitement, she padded in bare feet down the crazy-paved walk to that corner she had created beyond any logical impetus. She unbraided her long, dyed hair, letting the wind whip it around her face. She dropped the windbreaker, her faded faculty t-shirt, the striped cut-off pajamas. Mother naked, she entered the circle and squatted.

Her hands moved over the chrysanthemums, grown lush despite the unbeneficial salt air of the coast. She deftly plucked them, one by one, weaving them into her hair, making circlets for her arms. Was this madness? The rational corner of her brain told her yes, this was so, while the bookworm in her remembered that sad Man of La Mancha. She let her hands roam over her middle-aged but taut form and wondered what it was that she felt. As always, she was an observer of even her own self.

Then she heard it coming, a sullen distant roar that started off from uncharted distances within her self, whirling deep within her womb. It was a roar that then spread from her midriff to her diaphragm, then her lungs. From her throat, it was birthed as a full-throated primal wail of anger, pain and rising passion which had been her shackle for more than two decades.

The roaming of her hands grew frenzied and uncontrolled as she discovered, basked and throbbed with her self, wetting her fingers with secreted desire. None of the men in her half a dozen half-hearted relationships, none of the two women she had dallied with, had been able to satisfy this deep emptiness and hunger in her. None of them had approached her with more than the polite, lukewarm groping and prodding that substituted passion amongst the educated people of her clique.

This was the core, she told herself later as she sprawled within the circle, staring at the full moon. This was the center of her being; this was what she had looked for. This was the only way she could satisfy her need. Then, she saw another. He moved away from the wall, naked, and with her precious chrysanthemums in his hair, eyes gleaming with the same wild light that she knew emanated from hers.

Instinct taking over, she sprang away from the stone circle and started to run towards the safety of her bungalow. A powerful arm hooked around her waist and drew her towards a hard midriff and the erect heat that poked against her back. His hand smoothed against her hair, a tentative gesture that seemed like a question. A nose breathed in her scent, tickling the nape of her neck. Scream, she told herself. Move; kick him where it hurts most. But fear had left her, strangely enough. Still, she remained rigid, with indecision.

His body started to withdraw from hers, and she heard an exhalation of something that sounded like remorse. She half heard a stammering apology before she reacted, grabbing his hands and pulling him back towards her. A reflex action, she justified herself, making a sound of approval as he embraced her and started fondling. She moved one of his palms over her attention-hungry breasts.

The roaming hands went over the territory she had recently covered. They unlaced the curtain of flowers she had just recently woven over her pubic hair, in addled remembrance of Lady Chatterley and Mellors.Fingers dipped past the springy curls to reach the inner petals, then deeper still, poking into the core of that primal, liquid roar, feeling those inner muscles pull at his digits as he brought her fantasy to life.

It was a dream; it must be a dream, she reflected as weakness caused her legs to give way. She collapsed against the warm wall that seemed to be surrounding her universe. This stranger was striding through doors she had newly unlocked, conquering the earth she had primed with unprecedented presumption. Her mind churned out resentful thoughts but her hands clutched at the strong arms around her. He twisted her around, a shadow against the glittering stars, a warm mouth claiming her breath, a neck around which she wrapped her arms, pressing heated breasts against his chest, heaved with shudders and a heart beating too fast.

The roaring that made its way from inside her moved outward, filling her ears and spinning her out of her rational self. It brought her into a universe of chaos and intellect-robbing euphoria, her arms and legs hooking around this unknown upstart conqueror as he rammed into a stronghold newly renovated, lifting her up and onto his waiting, erect cock. The meeting of their bodies caused him to utter a sound of longing.She gasped and wriggled on him as he filled her emptiness, filled her until there didn’t seem to be any space left, or air either. He then walked both of them back to the circle of stones with a stride that lodged him deeper into her need. She groaned, and he made a grunting sound as he dropped to his knees:half-falling, arms secured around her.

Once there, he placed her against the springy grass and serviced her with long, measured strokes, his inarticulate moans and grunts becoming the only sound she heard over the roaring of her blood. She tried to master enough coherence to ask him his name. She gasped and shook with the impact of his maleness inside her, and begged him in a high voice to make it harder, no, to stop, no, to tell her his name. She cursed his trespasses then begged him to love her, to never stop.

Through it all, he answered her only with his guttural onomatopoeia, driving into her again and again until all words were pushed out of her too. Their coitus drove her deeper into the grass, making imprints that would last long after the sun rose, releasing the scent of loam, making her feel that he was going to fuck her straight into the ground until she was buried in earth and him. A moment later she sobbed in release. He dropped against her and kissed her tear-stained cheeks and smoothed his fingers over her hair. Clumsy arms moved her trembling form closer against him.

***

She awoke at dawn, finding chrysanthemums strewn around and across her naked form. She was lying atop crumpled once-white bed sheets.

Her window was wide open and she could taste dew in the air.

Raising herself painfully she looked down at her body, streaked with grass stains and loam. Earth streaked the bed sheets two and two windbreakers lay at the foot of her bed.

She had vague recollections of him placing her on her stomach and driving into her from behind as his hands pulled at her nipples. They had fucked each other more than twice, that much she remembered. Heat plunged her loins into milky remembrance, but her morning self questioned sanity. Was it a dream? Had she finally driven herself over the edge? It couldn’t be real. It was too crazy to be real and she half hoped it wasn’t.

She couldn’t have pleasured herself in the moonlight in front of a stranger, who couldn’t have walked into her precious circle of stones to take her. She couldn’t have been the one begging him to fuck her, again and again, deeper and harder. But her heart ached that it might not have really happened, that it was some sort of advanced somnambulism. She ached at the thought of never tasting his sweat again.

The smell of coffee, thick and inviting made its way from the opened door of her bedroom. Footsteps approached. Eyes widened, hands clenched on earth-stained bed sheets. He entered the room.

THE END

(c) A. L. Nathan

This was previously featured in one of the ERWA’s seasonal galleries.

I blame this horrible fetish on Gerald. Gerald’s that awful bore who instigated this dilemma I’m in. You remember him, don’t you? They seated me beside him during an important seminar for key academics. Gerald seemed to have Stout flowing through his veins that afternoon. Since we weren’t extras in an alcoholic commercial, I had no idea why that should have made me so excited.

We were introduced several days before the seminar, at one of those academic get-togethers. He did not impress me at all. All Gerald could talk about were numbers. I suppose that is pretty normal, since he teaches Calculus, but it really isn’t my idea of scintillating small talk. He also made a lot of lame jokes, fumbling over the punch lines so often that I found myself wincing in both sympathy and exasperation.

Gerald’s hair was mathematically precise – combed from left to right in a straight-as-a-ruler line. He smelt like Brylcream and Old Spice. He also wore thick glasses which he kept cleaning while looking at everything in the room except me. I recall being rather annoyed, suspecting that well-meaning colleagues had been trying to foist yet another loser on me. One who seemed incapable of making eye contact, at that! So, of course I turned him down when he asked me out.

I was not happy to find the man I had turned down seating beside me during the seminar, but he did not seem particularly heartbroken. He ignored me the whole time, staring straight in front of him or joking with the gentleman on his left, who seemed to appreciate his sense of humor. His eyes were glazed, his breathing labored. And he smelled like a walking advertisement for Guinness.

Now, I’ve been raised in a religious family so we don’t drink. I’ve been warned to shun the demon water and people who imbibe. The lessons stick long after you’ve run away from your hometown, long after you’ve been disowned. But I almost climbed onto Gerald’s lap to drink the fumes from his lips that day. A pretty strange urge, considering the fact that he did nothing for me when he was sober.

I discovered that there could be something sexy about sitting beside a rumpled, inebriated man, even though his attention is not on you at all. I imagined the alcohol working its way through his blood, pulsing at the side of his left thigh which grazed mine. Alcohol jolted me every time we made contact like this during the lecture. It rang my bell in several sharp bursts.

I remember his scent and how it made me feel, how it had puckered my nipples and how it had left me so wet down there. I remember fidgeting on the leather seats in that theatre and how hard it had been for me to take down notes on ISO certification and procedure. I also remember being nervous about the damp imprint I was sure would be on the leather seats when I got up. I was so embarrassed, knowing that the shape of my intimate parts would be displayed on the red leather, something that occurred even in ordinary circumstances, when I was not aroused. Now, of course, it would be three times worst.

I couldn’t wait to get away from him before I did something idiotic. After all, it hadn’t really been him, just the smell of alcohol entering my blood via the air he exhaled. The feelings terrified me. The fear of discovery made it worst. Trembling, I took a cab back home and put an end to my misery in the confines of my bedroom with frantic, guilt-stricken fingers. The whole time I imagined Gerald poised above me, filling me as his stout-laced breath swallowed my tongue. But it wasn’t enough. Like a true addict getting a first whiff of her poison, I was hungry for more.

I’d be giving one of my famous, no-nonsense lectures on ethics in management when suddenly the memory of the scent would linger in the air. I’d stop, breathless, unsure of what to do. I would stare into space with cloudy eyes for a few minutes, before a cough from one of my students would alert me. Then, I’d gather up my senses and continue lecturing. This has occurred more than once. They are rather frightening and unusual aberrations in an otherwise efficient woman. Thank heavens I’ve the intelligence to sort out the reason why I had been so turned on and why a mere memory has such a powerful effect on me. You can’t beat the power of logic and deductive thinking.

I’ve come to realize that I possess a strange sort of smell fetish. The smell of old leather, freshly pressed shirts, talcum powder, after-shave, musk, makes me rub my thighs together. That day I added a new scent to my catalogue – alcohol fumes. Very strange, considering the fact that I had always hated and feared alcoholics. Perhaps it was my childhood nightmare coming back to taunt me in the shape of this strange craving. Or perhaps it was just the prospect of sampling something that had been long forbidden.

I decided to exorcise it by learning how to drink. I started with the odd Shirley Temple for lunch – any true alcoholic will tell you that is hardly a drink. Then, I graduated to the odd margarita or sangria. Not that I ever turned into an alcoholic, mind you. I was just overwhelmed by the fantasy of it all. Of having daiquiris at sunset while sexy Caribbean music played. Of lapping champagne off male nipples, pebbled with arousal. In my fantasies I could see myself arching upwards in orgasmic ecstasy while a bottle of wine cooled in a stainless steel, ice-filled bucket. I replayed in my mind countless alcoholic commercials, with rather NC-17 rated twists. I would be the lead star in each one, engaged in one pornographic act after another while close-ups of beaded, chilled glasses being filled would be superimposed on my bucking body, beaded with sweat.

I took to frequenting pubs on the sly, getting an education in alcohol on trips out of town. In a deserted pub in Scotland, I allowed a local bachelor to take me home. I was relieved of my bothersome virginity that night but I don’t recall much of note apart from the actual tearing event itself. My memories of that much-anticipated first time are of a heavy weight on top of me as well as some clumsy attempts at foreplay on both sides. I also recollect a beery proposal before my would-be suitor fell asleep on top of me. He had smelly armpits and snored like a hog in heat, so my first proposal of marriage didn’t exactly send me over the moon. By sunrise I had sneaked out of town in my rented car, speeding as fast as I could in that old contraption.

The smell of alcohol and a craving for satisfaction then led me to a one-night stand with my married faculty dean, which led to a sordid two-year affair. This almost caused a faculty-wide scandal when a colleague walked in on us. Fortunately for me, I found a place in another university which did not seem to be aware that a certain balding dean had been discovered with his face between my plump thighs, panting as his fat pink tongue worked my clit. Nor did anyone betray a smidgen of knowledge that I had been yowling like the cat in heat I was at the time. Well, at least no one would be calling me a “frigid bitch” again. They’d probably just insert something else before “bitch”, I suppose. Oh well, I never was a popularity queen.

Yesterday, I bumped into Gerald in the hallway leading to the cafeteria. It seems like ages since that moment in the theatre. He still has the pocket protector, the smell of Old Spice and Brylcream. His hair is a bit different though, and he’s dead sober. Not a whiff of alcohol in the air. I can’t make eye contact with him. I blush in remembrance, and feel myself getting very warm. If I were sitting, my thighs would be rubbing together. Instead, I shift the weight of my body from one foot to the other. I’m perspiring. He takes out his neatly ironed handkerchief and wipes a bead of sweat off my forehead. That unexpected intimacy jolts me. I make a silly joke about the weather. Then, I start babbling about management theories when he asks me how I’ve been. He laughs at me and not my jokes. Instead of getting mad at him, I shiver.

This time, when he asks me to have lunch with him, I find myself accepting. My body tingles all the way from the corridor to the mundane cafeteria where he buys me a shepherd’s pie and a glass of milk. He tells me he’s been lecturing, first in Sweden, then in some obscure African nation. I tell him about the anthology I’m editing. When he talks to me about tribal customs, I’m engrossed. When I tell him about the sacred burial grounds I’ve been visiting, he listens with interest.

By dusk, I have him in my flat, first underneath, then on top of me. We stare myopically into each other’s eyes since we’re both terribly short sighted without our glasses. He’s smiling as he enters me, though I can’t really tell with my eyes. I feel like we’re moving in murky water. My senses supply the information that tells me he’s as happy as I am. I kind of feel his smile pressed into my neck as he moves inside me. There is something so comforting about him, even when he is making me scream with his hands and his mouth, something so joyful about this thing we’re doing. There is something so consistent about the rhythm he makes inside me.

We’re both dead sober and his breath is slightly minty as he sucks in my tongue. But oh, how this connection makes me shiver. When he whispers things in my ear, I find myself believing what he says. I think of other hands that have touched me and other penises which have penetrated my wet, clingy entrance. I’m crying now. I don’t understand why it’s so different with him. I don’t understand why I’m so happy. It terrifies me, but I let him hold me close as we fall asleep.

THE END

(c) A.L. Nathan

For Xylia Sylva, muse, friend and sister-soul, who told me to keep writing erotica despite my bashfulness.

(Previously published in Alchemica Erotica’s only issue)

They lit the fires of the Harvest Festival that night. Seven bonfires circled a raised clearing in the middle of the rice paddies surrounding their estate. The incandescence illuminated the festive ground and the outlines of revelers preparing to take part in a sacred orgy. The festive grounds at the nexus of these roads had once been a hill; denuded and sliced into half before it was consecrated to the Serpent God.

The paddies met the eyes as green oceans during the earlier part of the year, swaying in the breeze, half covered with water. Now, they were gold, fat with grain and reflecting the golden moons. The big silken tents in the clearing took weeks to be prepared – artists from neighboring cities had to be commissioned to paint sacred scenes of orgies of food and copulation. Now the illustrations trembled with the wind, coming alive in the flickering light of the bonfires, heating the blood of revelers and spectators alike.

Yxelta stood at the round window of the Consummation Suite where the shutters had been lifted so she could watch the revelry and feel the breeze upon her pebbled skin. She had never been down to the festival, not before her marriage when she had elected to keep herself virgin for her groom, and not after. Yxelta contemplated her fingers, manicured and lacquered gold, gripping the curved window ledge till she could feel the grain pressed against her skin. Two years had passed since their marriage and the night for which the Consummation Suite had been designed. Her husband was down in the fields celebrating with the revelers and the Second Wife who was in truth, the First Woman of the household.

She shivered a little. Tears slid down her frigid cheeks, glistening like translucent jewels. She knew most of the household was down there, while she was left alone, as always.

The spacious, circular wooden chamber gilded with gold curved around her as she moved towards the conjugal bed. The bed was circular, covered in golden silk. Overhead, iridescent silk tapestries tented it, swooping downward amidst a forest of pearl and jasmine chains which dripped from a ceiling carved like a sunburst. There were ornate etchings of desire on the wooden walls – strangely disproportionate figures mounting each other in tableaus of debauchery – and a round window opening out into the cool wind. This was once the scene of her most vivid fantasies of consummation.

But no consummation had ever arrived and the suite had been neglected for months as she buried herself in grief and bitterness. She could not pin down why she later returned to it or why she had insisted that the jasmines that adorned it during her wedding night be replenished every time they wilted. It became her solitary erotic retreat and the place she received the reports of her spies and fantasized about the way she would trick her husband into taking her maidenhead.

Half-crazed, her obsessions had made her.

Yxelta stared at her hands again. Her husband had no love for her, and so, she had taken to asking her maids to clip her fingernails short, blunt them before they were treated and lacquered. She had no need to keep them long and useless for a man’s desire because she needed them at her clitoris. Grief could have dried her up but instead it kept the honeyed silk of her intimate parts well lubricated and yearning for something she had never experienced.

Tonight, she thought. Tonight she would do it.

“Find a concubine. Find ten if you want!” he had barked at her on their wedding night, as they exchanged words so different from the ones she had imagined.

*
It was not an unfamiliar custom to her. After all she inhabited a nation where marriages were important ties between dynasties. She remembered Uncle Txardi, who had been the Court Accountant before he was chosen to be her mother’s concubine. She had seen more of him than of her own father. It had been Uncle Txardi who had taught her how to write, read, do arithmetic as well as settle accounts. When she was old enough to train her first team of racing Lizards, he had been the one to commission her chariot. She loved Uncle Txardi as much as she loved her mother and her siblings. But her mother had been First Woman in more than one way, and her father had still shared her mother’s bed and had still given her heirs.

“I don’t care how many men or women you sleep with, but I’ll never mate with you!”

Yxelta had known her betrothed since childhood and had sat beside him on many a festive occasion. Although there was a twelve-year gap between their ages he had always been kind to her, and talked to her as an equal. Perhaps that was his mistake, for she had fixated on her first love with stubborn obsession and her hero-worship eventually embarrassed both their families. At his request his family had tried to cancel out the wedding contract and had initiated negotiations to do so. It was not an unknown practice in their world, although often a lot of money and concessions were required in order to nullify any contract.

They would have succeeded too – Yxelta’s father had been swayed by the tributes offered in compensation. Yxelta, however, had responded by blackmailing her father with the secrets that she had gathered about him and his business practices. She had learnt espionage from an early age – Uncle Txardi had many specialized tasks as Court Accountant. He showed her how accounting could take many forms and this knowledge had caused her father to fear and dislike her. He wasn’t the only one. But her spies were her only friends and Yxelta was hooked on discovering the secrets of others. How was she to know that she had been fed those secrets, while others had been withheld from her?

Her husband’s family was not of royal blood like Yxelta’s and though they were rich, they were only half as powerful. Browbeating them into complying with the contract had not been difficult at all. He had been ordered back from his military posting in Shfvtle, a country that their government had recently annexed. She knew he probably had lovers there, but did not care. He loved her – she knew he did even though he was resisting their union like a terrified virgin. She had anticipated their marriage with impatience, sure that her love would be returned and that he would forget the women of Shfvtle after their wedding night, which would be a thing of wonder. She knew that she would have no need for concubines because unlike her mother and grandmother she loved her husband-to-be and was willing to be satisfied by only him. She would follow him everywhere, do anything for him. She would be the perfect wife.

Instead of a lover, she had faced an enemy in the consummation suite, facing her with the angry, hate-laced eyes she had not seen from behind their lavish wedding masks of stiffened, lacquered paper and bright enameled illustrations.

“I did not want this marriage, you know that!” he had spat out,

“I had already wed another in Shfvtle, but my father made me divorce her so you could be First Wife, because *your* family had threatened to raze all of our plantations and to sell off my sisters in retribution,”

“You were married?” she had gasped as she backed away from him in shock. This was the one thing her Spymaster had not been able to find out.

“Don’t pretend innocence, wife. Yes, I was married and tomorrow I shall re-take my vows with Lyxia, for she is First Wife in my heart no matter what our parents demand and mother to my heirs,”

“You can’t do that!”

“Of course I can. You of all people should know that, you little sneak.”

He stared at her in distaste.

“Customs, are made to be broken,” she had answered, sadness evident on her face.

“Exactly. Or bended if all else fails. Look, Yxelta, I’ve known you since you were a baby and you were once a nice girl, but I find your present behavior embarrassing and repulsive. And I’m not the only one. You’re a strange little freak. I don’t love you and I’m not attracted to you. My heart belongs to Lyxia, and I’d still be living in Shfvtle with her and our children if my father had not dragged me back,”

The pain of that piece of information bit into her heart, her lungs and caused a roaring sound to beat about her ears even as he told her she was free to choose her own concubines to pleasure her.

“But don’t you care if I bear children?” she asked in a beaten tone.

“Well, at least you’d have *some* children,” he had said

“I don’t care if you have them, but they are not to be raised in this house, nor are they to bear your name, or mine,”

Yxelta clenched her fists. The long, sharp nails hurt her palms as she made inarticulate sounds of dismay.

“You wanted this Yxelta. My father pressed for a dissolution of the marriage contract when he found out about his grandchildren, but *you* had to have your spoilt little way,”

“No one told me you were already married!”

“Come now, Yxelta. I know all about you and your games of intrigue. The irony is, I’m safer now from you than before we were married. I own your estates, and I have the right to take a second Wife and a right to determine my heirs. You should have respected the fact that I did not want you. If you had, we would not have come to this.”

“But I love you!”

He had laughed in disbelief and walked out of the consummation suite.

*
Delicate chains woven out of gold thread, white and yellow jasmines and seed pearls drizzled from the ceiling, giving the room the look of a fairytale lagoon. She had spent months designing this suite, conferring with various craftsmen and artisans on the building of this new wing attached to the house she had inherited at birth. The new wing also included a study for him, a master bedroom and a network of tunnels inside the walls, all a product of her vivid fantasies of consummation and married life.

She could not have explained why she felt the way she did about the man who despised her, perhaps it was because he had been such an important figure in her life for as long as she could remember. Because he had been so important to her she had imagined she was as essential to him. But she was wrong. Uncle Txardi had cautioned her to be more wary, and had urged her to approve the cancellation of the contract. But she had not listened to him and how could she? She had waited for her wedding night for far too long to give it up.

Outside, harvest singers ululated paeans to the fertile fields and wombs. She knew he would be there, with Lyxia. They would be dancing together, bare chest to bare chest, mask rubbing against mask even as their intimate parts combined in delicate friction, pubic hair messily entwined. They would be in the middle of the circle of gyrating nude revelers giving thanks to the Serpent-God who brought grain to their fields and placed babies in wombs. She knew what they would look like together, and the expression on Lyxia’s face as her husband turned her back towards him, mounting as he kneaded her breasts. She knew the way Lyxia’s mouth hung open as she approached climax and how his penis stood to attention, the exact shade of dark brown, the exact angle of erection, the way he abruptly inserted himself into Lyxia’s waiting warmth.

She had spied on them often enough, watching them as they moved together, envying the grace of their golden skin merging. Sometimes she hungered to be a part of that scene, even though what she watched drove knives of pain into her heart. She longed to lick off the beads of sweat on her husband. She longed to be a participator, noticed, caressed, fondled – even manhandled. Anything, just so she would not be what she was. Invisible, unnoticed, unloved.

She even knew their favorite position against the walls of their bedding chamber: Lyxia’s long legs wrapped around his stocky form as he slammed into her rhythmically. She had watched them from inside the hollow walls many times, even as she came with them, drinking in the moans and whimpers of her rival as though they were her own, weeping later with grief and shame for the obsession that made her watch them again and again.

She had become intimately acquainted with Lyxia’s body through her voyeurism and the woman had made her way into Yxelta’s fantasies. Now she suckled Lyxia’s blood-engorged nipples hungrily as their husband rammed himself into Yxelta from behind. Then, Lyxia’s dainty head would be buried between Yxelta’s fat, intimate lips, mouth working at her throbbing clitoris even as Yxelta’s husband sucked and kneaded her breasts, larger by far than Lyxia’s pert pair.

Yxelta flung herself on her back and stared up into the ceiling designed like a mandala, in spasms as her fingers worked busily. Sweat soaked the bed sheets clinging to her heaving form. Palpitations made her head pound, even as stray spasms occurred at intervals after the first intense orgasm.

When her head cleared she remembered anew what her Spymaster had told her yesterday.

Her husband had lied when he told her that he would never touch any other woman but his second wife. She knew it was a lie because she had been informed of the many times he had coupled with field hands. It happened whenever Lyxia bled or when he had tired her out with his frequent visits, or when his new position as master of her estates took him deep into their lands. Highly sexed, he needed to fuck at least two times a day. But never with her. She gritted her teeth at the insult. He wanted to prove a point. His pride.

She wondered if she should fire her Spymaster for not telling her earlier about her husband’s exploits. These couplings had taken place far away from the house, which was why she had not been able to witness them, her Spymaster had said. She wondered about her husband’s appearance when he mounted someone other than Lyxia. Would he slam them into the tall grass? Would his hands pull at their breasts while he mounted them like a rutting bull, driving their knees into the dirt?

She shivered as she imagined herself as a peasant, grabbed by him as she walked past: balancing a water-pitcher, an action that made her breasts stand out and her hips sway in suggestive rhythm. He would stare at her with his erection poking out of the leggings he wore when he went out into the fields. Then, he would throw her to the ground as she giggled, tearing away her threadbare skirt. She would part her taut thighs willingly and fold them to her chest, the action sandwiching her breasts, pushed between the thighs and poking out as he stuck his long tongue into her musky, unwashed peasant warmth even as he pulled off his leggings. He would move upwards then as he tore her dirty blouse off, licking, then suckling her coarse nipples that pointed at him as he pushed into her clinging passage.

Perhaps she should trick him, disguise herself as a farmhand the next time Lyxia bled?

Yes, that would be one way to do it. Then she would be the participator not the spectator. Then she would bear him the heir he didn’t want and destroy him. But the image made her laugh, even as she rubbed her rear on the bed sheets and dropped her legs. She sucked her index finger; sticky and pungent. Then, Lyxia turned around, letting her taut nipples rub against the golden silk of her marriage bed as she arched upward like a cat getting her rump patted.

It sounded too familiar, like one of the tragedies she had read about in her youth. She couldn’t do that. That was like being trapped inside someone else’s story and she didn’t want that for herself. She was obsessive, not suicidal. Besides, something had changed inside her after she had heard of his bucolic copulations outside of the marital bed. He was no longer her hero now, for he had lied.

But she was still hooked on the perverse image of him, fucking different women, in different positions. Those images remained long after the sting of rejection began to ebb.. It made her wonder what the actual act would be like and tonight, she decided, she would find out. No longer would she be a fool, waiting the night when her husband would claim her maidenhead.

She had waited long enough. No more would she be only a spectator to a love that never belonged to her.

*
Yxelta stood up and ripped away her thin nightshift. She took up the festive mask that she had decorated earlier with the consummation colors of white and gold. Looking at herself in the mirror, she cupped her breasts, large but still bearing youthful firmness, pointed downwards, tipped with dark brown. Downwards her palm moved – over her rounded belly, the womanly swoop of her hips and her plump labia, furred with black, and glistening with ripe secretion.

She had prepared herself to join the Harvest Festival this year, and had told her most private servants about her intention to let herself be deflowered in the orgy. Taking a deep breath, she moved away from the image of herself, ready to open the door of the Consummation Suite. The door opened before she reached it and her Spymaster walked in. She moved back, embarrassed despite her resolve, but did not cover herself.

“You sent for me, your Excellence,” he started in apologetic tones, looking straight at her consummation mask and not her bare body.

“Yes, I did, Spymaster, but I specified that the meeting would be tomorrow morning”

He looked away from her in discomfort, and then spoke

“I assumed you wanted to discharge me, for not telling you about…”

“Yes, I did,” she replied, then looked at him in speculation

“Why did you come tonight instead?”

“I came to ask your Excellence to reconsider,” he said.

“And why should I? You deliberately withheld information when you have been paid to deliver it! And that wasn’t the first time,”

“I only did it because…!” he burst out, and then kept quiet, back rigid as he looked at her mask.

“Because…?” she prodded him, as she moved closer to look him over with speculative eyes.

” I didn’t want to upset you,” he muttered.

“Then why did you tell me, at all?” she asked.

“I decided my earlier action was the wrong one. By trying to save you from being hurt, I had allowed your agony to be prolonged, your Excellence,”

“How so?” Yxelta eyed her Spymaster in his gray cotton tunic which was hooked from collarbone to crotch before falling to his knees. His spine remained stiff and his eyes looked away from her naked body. She was not fooled; she had seen the tent in his loose cotton trousers. Curiosity and recklessness drew her forward to dip her moist fingers into his trousers.

“You are too y… young,” he gasped, as her fingers confirmed her suspicions that he was thicker in width than her husband.

“…and too beautiful to remain unconsummated for so long, your Excellence” he then said in a sigh as she removed her fingers from his burning phallus in a sudden movement.

Despite her perverse fantasies, this was the first time she had ever touched one and her fingers tingled at the shock of the heat and the smooth feel of him. She brushed aside his obvious lies about her appearance, and focused on what she knew his intent to be.

“And that’s your excuse, Spymaster? It hardly seems adequate,” she said, grateful for the presence of the mask that covered her face, struggling with both humiliation and desire. She moved backwards as the cool wind that rushed into the suite from the open window played with her engorged nipples and her sensitive genitals. Her Master Spy eyed her now, not hiding the flames in his eyes.

“I suppose you knew my plans for tonight,” she mused

“Yes indeed, your Excellence,”

“And I suppose you’re here to provide me with… an alternative?” she asked.

He blushed a little at her boldness and nodded.

“Lishoun,” she said then in a tone of voice that sounded alien, strange even to her. His head snapped up in shock at the sound of his name on her lips,

“Your Ladyship?”

“I know you’ve been watching me from inside the walls. I know you’ve been doing so every time I spied on my husband and his wife,”

His eyes bulged in shock.

“How?”

“I mused about your strange behavior yesterday, Lishoun. Why did you tell me after so long? Why didn’t you inform me of my husband’s prior marriage? Why did you say that I wouldn’t have known because he committed his acts far away from the mansion? So many questions you left unanswered, Lishoun. I pieced together the things you said, and I went back inside the walls. I found your hidey-hole yesterday, Lishoun. Didn’t your spies tell you?”

Lishoun looked down, unable to answer.

“I know you’re under my husband’s employ, Lishoun. He wanted you to service me tonight, didn’t he?”

“Yes,”

“Won’t you tell me why?”

“He knew, about you in the walls…”

“Because you told him,”

“I’m sorry, your Excellence, but I’m on his payroll now. He didn’t mind really mind you in the walls, though …”

Yxelta stared, reddening at the implication,

“Didn’t he?”

Her Spymaster looked uncomfortable,

“No, he didn’t, in fact he liked the idea of you watching. But you were not quiet enough, your Excellence. The Second Wife heard you two nights ago, and became hysterical. I’m sorry. If I displease you, I will leave,”

Yxelta remained silent. She hadn’t been unnoticed after all, but part of some obscure gratification her husband had derived. Under his power all along – wasn’t that what she had wanted? To be claimed? She shivered as she realized, for the first time in her life how she had allowed these things to trap her, bind her. Humiliation slipped into her goose bumped skin as she recapped all the things she had done to others and to herself when she thought she had not been watched.

She stared at the man who had been chosen to be her husband’s proxy. He was well-built and not unpleasant to look at. She had known him as her Spymaster for many years now, a present from her Uncle Txardi. She gulped in air, cool and healing, and remained silent as the proxy waited. She could walk away from this house right now, walk away from the trap she had woven for herself. But he stood there, patient, and still erect. His eyes were black, and they traveled over her body, burning with heat that promised her something she had never tasted.

Weak-kneed, Yxelta threw herself back onto the round bed where she had pleasured herself so many times. She raised her torso up with her elbows, then with one hand removed her mask, a strange marriage of cowardice and bravado making her stick to the script she had plotted earlier, when planning her revenge,

“How did you like the show I staged for you tonight?” she asked. Lishoun stared at her, caught between shock and desire. Finally, he moved forward and grated out,

“It was exemplary, your Excellence,”

“I’m glad you approve, Lishoun. Now don’t you have a task to fulfill?”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this, your Excellence?”

Yxelta nodded in a sharp downward movement of her head.

“Yes, yes. I’ve suffered long enough…and what else do I have left? I certainly don’t want to be deflowered in a field of strangers. Don’t have the stomach for it, after all,”

Her voice shook a little as she contemplated her body. Lishoun looked at her with something approaching compassion, even as he began to remove his clothing.

“Your Excellence, are you sure?” he asked again, in a softer tone of voice.

“Oh, shut up and service me. And call me Yxelta when I’m at it. Let me imagine you’re in love with me, Lishoun. Let me pretend that at least one person on this planet loves me,”

“That won’t be hard, Yxelta,” he assured her, right before he gave her the first innocent kiss that young girls dreamed about while burying his fingers in her thick, black hair, hanging loose around her face. His hands moved around her waist, stroking her back until she responded to him, slowly, curving her body against his. He kissed her forehead, her cheeks and let his hands roam over her body in reverence. Slipping his tongue into her mouth, he deepened his kiss as she let herself imagine that this was love and that the intimate suction between their mouths; the hands stroking her and spanning her waist meant something more than what it was. She wrapped her arms around his back as he moved above, fingers reverently parting her; mouth covering one of her ripe brown papaya breasts. A long finger tested her entrance as he suckled on both her nipples; pressing her breasts together with one hand. Yxelta gripped at the golden sheets with both hands, arching towards his mouth as little shivers moved her muscles.

Her moans coalesced into a small shriek as he recreated her fantasy, folding her thighs upwards the way she had done earlier, pressing them against the sides of her chest; exposing her to the cool breezes and his intrepid tongue. He licked around her vulnerability in elaborate swirls before nipping at the sides of her labia with his small teeth. Yxelta closed her eyes as he utilized all the skills she never knew he had, to bring her pleasure. This should be enough, she thought, even as her body shuddered and she wailed at the different textures assailing her womanhood, not knowing that what he did to her was even possible.

Later, he moved upwards to push her thighs further back against the sides of both her breasts, pushing at the sides so they stood out even further, causing her thighs to spasm at the strain. She moved her head from side to side as tension and pleasure contorted her body. His lips and tongue moved her nipples upwards, nudging the breasts further between her two thighs, slapping the sides to watch them jiggle. Yxelta watch his eyes, watching her body contorted in this obscene way for him, a flesh-and-blood interpretation of the woodcarvings that encircled them. He was drinking in the sight of her body with a look of satisfaction mixed with something harder, and colder. When he caught her looking at him the expression changed and he reached down to kiss her till she forgot that look, and allowed herself to be fondled till she no longer cared.

Much later, the feel of Lishoun sliding in and out with his timed penetrations became the only world she knew. Despite the cool wind blowing from outside she felt like she was bathing in heat, on her skin and inside her well-lubricated sheath as her muscles pulled at his member, reluctant to let it go as it moved in, out and against her tightness. The pulsing seemed all around her as he panted, whispered words of love and rained kisses on her face even as he drove deeper and deeper into her until she dissolved into liquid, and became a woman who felt that this was enough, this was all anyone should ever expect.

*
The harvest-singers ululated in counterpoint as the orgies grew more feverish, and more convoluted outside the Consummation Suite. The sound drowned out the crickets and the praying mantises – a usual accompaniment to moonlit assignations. The orgies in the field continued until dawn when the more privileged revelers collapsed in a drowsy tangle of arms and legs inside a silk tent padded with divans and painted with erotic tableaus on the inside and outside. A year had passed since the night Yxelta had allowed Lishoun to do his master’s bidding.

Stroking his damp hair, she cradled him against her chest. He whispered endearments to her nightly, and was her companion during the day; following her everywhere, making her feel less lonely even as he kept a watchful eye on her like the watchdog that he was. She had given up her forays in espionage, which had been revealed as a farce, and now helped the Second wife run the household during the day, handling the accounts, working at tapestry and needlework in her free time. It should be enough, but she had something now, something that was stronger than anything she had ever felt for him growing inside her. It had been four months since she stopped bleeding, and she knew that soon it would be beginning to show. She remembered her husband’s words on that now-distant wedding night,
“I don’t care if you have them, but they are not to be raised in this house, nor are there to bear your name, or mine,”

She knew now he was much more ruthless than his words on that night had shown, for he wasn’t the hero she had grown up worshipping. She knew now the potential of what he could do to her offspring. She had to take steps, to make the decision she had not been strong enough to make last Harvest Festival.

“Lishoun?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“If I was no longer your Excellence would you still love me?”

Lishoun was silent for several moments before answering with careful words

“Always, love,”

“Prove it then. Let’s leave this trap of a household. Run away with me to Shfvtle. Perhaps if we work hard enough we can make a respectable living together. I’m smart, and I’m not afraid of hard work,”

Lishoun went still.

“We can’t run away, Yxelta. I can’t do that.”

Yxelta’s eyes closed. Even though this answer was predictable, a familiar feeling of disappointment, long unfelt, returned to her like a friend. She had somehow nurtured the hope that he would respond in a different way. It would have made everything so much easier if he wasn’t the man she knew he was.

“And why not?”

“You’re a lady of the Royal House – it would not be fitting for you to debase yourself that way. Think of the dishonor!”

Yxelta jerked away from Lishoun.

“And you’re too comfortable with this lifestyle, aren’t you, Lishoun? My husband pays you too well,”

Lishoun looked away.

“You’re a coward, Lishoun, and a money-hungry sycophant.”

She climbed out of the hollow they had made in the bed with their vigorous exertions that night. She walked away to look out of the window where dawn began to lighten the sky, and color the rice paddies around the raised ground where the festival was held.

“Yxelta, I’m sorry, truly. But I do care for you, and I’ve enjoyed satisfying you, giving you pleasure. I do love you, you know,”
She shut her ears against his smooth words. Lies, she had known they were lies from the beginning, but she allowed him to play her body and her mind, because she needed the lie. Not anymore.

“That’s so kind of you, Spymaster. Love in your own limited fashion? That’s not enough. That was never enough for me. Couldn’t either of you bastards see? That could never be enough,”

“Yxelta,”

She stiffened her shoulders and allowed authority to slip into her voice,

“You are no longer granted leave to call my name. Leave me! You’ve done your job. Now leave me alone.”

He stood beside her for a while. She allowed sobs to rock her body, fueled more by the coals of her changing form than any sense of his betrayal. He tried to rub her shoulders, but she jerked away. After long moments, he left. She stared at the many-colored stars in a golden sky and wondered if she had the bravery required for what she had planned.

*
By the time the revelers from the harvest festival straggled into the mansion, Yxelta had left the Consummation Suite for good. Behind her was an outstanding inferno that burnt the bed, the furnishings, jasmine flowers and the pearls that hung in graceful chains from the mandala ceiling. The fire consumed that entire wing of the mansion, inclusive of the master bedroom she had spied on for so many months.
A full year later, the man who had been her Spymaster was appointed Lyxia’s Head Concubine. Her husband had been offered the daughter of a business partner. The girl was now about to become the Second Wife, First in the Household. They rebuilt the destroyed wing but everyone agreed that the household would be much better without the Consummation Suite, result of the deranged former First Wife’s fancy. No one was saddened by her demise. After another year, the memory of Yxelta was submerged beneath the flurry of renovations and parties held year-round by the current First Wife because her husband no longer had the time for her. The number of wives grew to five and Lishoun was appointed Head Concubine, a respectable position that required his screening and selecting of new concubines to service the Master’s growing household.

*
Somewhere in the mountains where the moons look more silver than gold, no Harvest Festivals are celebrated. There, a stoic group of goatherds lived in stone cottages with conical roofs. A few years ago, a single, soot-faced traveler had knocked on the door of the village midwife. She stayed with them, learning all they had to teach her, and entertaining them with tales of the unbelievable lives of the nobility down where the weather was less cruel but where hearts grew wicked. They doted upon her daughter, who charmed everyone with her smile and her intelligent eyes, and missed both of them when the mother decided to travel over the pass to the Other Country. The rich gifts she had given them had helped them through many a harsh winter, but they loved her for the stories of her experience and the things of value she had taught them in return for their gift of knowledge. I know this story is true because I was one of those villagers, listening as she told me the story of her life. And I will listen to her advice, Arhan. I will never settle for something that isn’t enough.

And that is why I’m leaving you.

That is why I can’t marry you.

THE END