God of aggression, aunera. Yes, I recalled the trials. Yes, I recalled staring at his naked body, bound to the Vines, with a gag in his mouth and ropes around his wrist, torn between revulsion and pity and pride and desire. “Yes.”
“I never moved past them,” he said.
I sat back on my knees. “You seemed whole to us. At least, until near the end.”
He nodded. “It wasn’t that I was incapable of caring for others. Love I could do.” His eyes rested on mine. “I had always loved you. But passion…”
“It was too intense,” I guessed.
“Too much symbolism,” he murmured. “I am susceptible to the power of rituals.”
“We all are,” I pointed out. “It’s just that you underwent one of the empire’s most significant ones. It’s like the esar rite, except six weeks long.”
“Yes,” he said with a sigh.
Far too much melancholy. I couldn’t stand to see it… he’d had enough of melancholy for a dozen Ai-Naidar. I caught his hand and kissed it lightly, drawing him from his memories and prompting a little smile.
Then, because I am wicked, I licked him between the knuckles. Slowly. One by one, dipping into the hollows between them, working my way over the top of his hand until it fisted. When I had dampened the surface of his skin I blew my breath over it, warm, and grinned to see him shudder.
“So,” I said, while he was struggling with his reaction. “Farren found a way to point this out to you.”
“Yes,” he said, after a moment.
I nibbled the edge of his forefinger. “And brought you.”
“Yes,” he said after a much longer moment.
I licked the underside of his finger and said with its point resting on my lip, “And that made you think, maybe it would be nice to do that with someone who wants you in his bed for sex instead of cuddles.”
“Yesss,” he said.
“Not that I don’t like cuddles…,” I said, my lips brushing at his fingertip.
He laughed. “Stop teasing me!”
“No,” I said, impudent, and pulled his finger into my mouth.
I made him climax that way. And since I know very well he can stop himself from reacting sexually to anything, I was pretty pleased with myself about it. I brushed my cheek lightly against his palm as he panted, watching him smugly and proudly. The ‘it hurts’ part was wearing off, and the gleeful ‘he’s mine!’ part was ascendant.
“Bet you didn’t know anyone could do that,” I said, grinning.
“Not… in specific,” he said with a ragged breath.
I drew myself up and over him, until he was lying flat and I was on him so I could brush cheeks with him, kiss the edge of his jaw. “Mmm-hmm. Admit it, there’s an arena where I know more than you do.”
He slid his hands up my sides, up to my shoulders, and laughed, low. “Readily. I am willing to be educated.”
I laughed and nipped his nose. “We’re going to have a very, very good time together.”
And then he grinned… with his eyes, if not his mouth, which still wore one of those little smiles that have driven me crazy from the moment I saw one. “Prove it.”
So, there was sex.
…and it was good.
No, I’m not sharing. Not all of it, anyway. And not because I don’t want to, but because, god, I don’t remember it all. I remember moments, maybe. I remember the press of one of his teeth against my lower lip, sticking because of how dry it had become from gasping. It tore the skin, just enough for me to taste blood. I remember him trying to lick my ear and it twitching away from him so much that—no lie, aunera—he grabbed it and held it fast and then licked it, over and over, and… uh, that’s how I found out that ears can be crazily erotic for me.
I remember his hands… how gentle he was when drawing his palms down my body from collarbone to groin, so gentle I felt it more as heat than pressure…
…and how hard he was when he had my leg up, one hand beneath the knee, digging his fingers into my flesh, forcing it back when he—
Yeah.
Good memory.
So, there was a lot of sex. And it was better than I’d imagined because it was real, just as it was messier and less perfect than I’d imagined, for the same reason. But it’s the imperfections you want, aunera. You can tell a fantasy by how fakely perfect it is. Give me the real, messy thing anytime, over the polished prettiness of Just How You Think You Want It. And we laughed at all the parts that were ridiculous, and worked through the moments it was uncomfortable, and dealt with the logistical issues with either amusement or muttered curses depending on just how aroused we were when we ran into a problem, and it was all real and good.
But there was one moment….
It’s funny. I don’t really understand your attitudes toward sex. Which is fine, because even if you tried to explain them to me I get the feeling I’d get as many different answers as I had aunera to offer them. But from what little I have learned—and observed—you seem to place some great importance on orgasm. As if this is the point of sex? I mean, it’s the moment of physical release, certainly, but you seem to hang the emotional significance of the relationship on it. Our erotic focus seems… different. For us, conceiving a child with someone? That’s emotionally significant. And touching someone? Trusting them with your body? That’s emotionally significant. The… ah… style? Of that trust isn’t as important.
You have to understand: for us, Farren’s relationship with my master—to be ajzelin, to be touchers rather than lovers—is considered just as real and deep a thing as what I was doing with him. Being lovers isn’t more than being ajzelin. It’s just a different expression of the same feeling. Some people cuddle. Other people have sex.
Making family with people… now that’s more than either of those things. A layer on top of an already significant choice.
So, we were lovers now, and that was good, I would have been happy with that if that’s all he’d been willing to give me. I guess in that way I was as fixated as his poor fathrikedi. But then there was that moment. I was on his back, covering him, and that was good, and we were both sore already and it had been hours, wonderful hours but real exertion by then, sweat and breath. I had my hands over his on the bed, I was moving…
