“I say the more information about birds, the better. My family is a fairly normal size, my mother dead, my father retired back to Devonshire, from where he continues to attempt running the Cambridge physics department and my career, and I have no siblings—but I do have cousins who are aggravating enough to compensate, as well as the usual assortment of grandparents, uncles, and aunts. And yes, I’ve encountered a ghost owl, just once, in the hinterland of Peru. Fabulous bird, gave me hideous nightmares for a week.”
“Interesting. Very well, my answer to your question is yes.”
“Ask me anything, anytime you want,” he said, one finger stroking her belly and electrifying her so much they could have boiled water on her and made tea. “I’m happy to slake your curiosity.”
Beth reddened, for his words seemed as risqué as his behavior. He continued to slide his fingers farther down—then stopped, his progress thwarted by the unrelenting nature of her waistband. Silently cursing women’s fashions, Beth reached behind to unfasten a hook, loosening the band.
“Thank you kindly,” Devon said, and proceeded on course.
As he reached between her legs, Beth inhaled air that tingled with linnet magic, imbuing her senses with an exquisite sensitivity. “Oh my holy hens,” she gasped.
Laughing softly, Devon began exploring her gently through the layers of her fine linen chemise and drawers, tickling and caressing as her ability to remain upright became increasingly imperiled. He soon settled on one location, circling it, flicking softly, as Beth felt her lingerie grow damp. She gasped, unable to bear the sensation; she bucked against his hand, desperate for more. The bird lights spiraled around each other, and her feelings did the same, magic and pleasure weaving and blurring and suddenly cresting in a flare of ecstasy that made her cry out.
Devon held her secure, his voice a deep whisper in her ear, telling her about the wingspan of will-o’-the-wisp linnets, and their preferred habitat, and other defining features of the species, inspiring an extended series of aftershocks that rendered her breathless and giddy. Just when she was feeling almost steady again, everything swooped, and she wondered briefly, wildly, how she had become airborne. Opening her eyes, she realized that Devon had scooped her up and was carrying her back toward their campsite beneath the trees.
“What are you doing?” she asked dazedly.
“I’m taking you to bed, Miss Pickering.”
“But I’m not tired yet.”
“I don’t intend for you to sleep,” he said, and the wicked promise in his smile opened her inner manual of etiquette to a page that had previously been glued shut. “That is,” he added, “if you consent.”
“Consent?” she echoed with the instinctive caution of a teacher who had learned over the years that words could be deceiving (for example: my grandmother’s funeral is on the day of the test and I read every book on the syllabus before writing this essay). Although she was fairly sure she’d agree to anything he wanted, prudence seemed, well, prudent at a moment like this.
“I require specific information before I answer that,” she said.
He sat her down on the bed of greenery, kneeling beside her. “I humbly request to make love to you,” he said, cupping a hand around the side of her neck and using his thumb to gently tilt up her jaw so he could kiss her. The brush of his lips against hers was so ephemeral it could have been a gust of smoke from the campfire, making all her nerves clamor for more. “I ask that you allow me to strip you naked and lay you down so that I may lavish attention on every part of your body.” He kissed the secret, tender place just beneath her ear in demonstration, and while she was shivering at that, he kissed her earlobe, her cheek, her lips again, whispering all the while about what he wanted to do with her. Growing silent at last as the kisses deepened, he began unbuttoning her shirtwaist. Beth pushed the coat from his shoulders, and after he shrugged it off she set to work on his shirt.
There followed a busy moment of unfastening and unbuckling and tugging at clothes until, before Beth knew it, she was bare of all but her stockings and half boots. The latter she levered off with such force, they flung across the campsite, barely missing the fire.
Devon chuckled. “Please give my regrets to your good manners.”
“Never mind them,” Beth answered impatiently, pulling him close to kiss him again. Her skin was flaming with anticipation. Her pulse raced with a beat that sounded like hurry, hurry. “Tell me what I can do for you.”
“Just be here with me,” he said, smiling with what almost looked like shyness. “And enjoy yourself, I hope.”
She answered that with heavy, luxuriant kisses that delved into passion but still felt insufficient. She wished she could get closer to him, even while their naked bodies pressed and slid together with a silky friction and their tongues met in the secret dark.
“So, do you consent?” Devon asked, his lips barely leaving hers to ask it.
“Yes,” she said—and found herself lying back on the grass bed faster than the flight of a peregrine falcon. Reclining over her, Devon abandoned her mouth, instead kissing his way down her throat, over her breasts, all the while reaching fingers once more between her legs. Beth arched, gasping—
Pain shot across her back. “Ow!”
She sat up at the same moment Devon lifted his head in response to her pained cry, and his brow collided with her chin. “Ow!” he said, tumbling over. And then again, “Ow, dammit!”
“Are you all right?” Beth asked anxiously, clutching her jaw.
“There was a rock,” he explained as he wrangled himself up. She tried to turn him so she could investigate his back, but he gathered her in his arms, hugging her close. “Are you all right?”
“A twig scratched me,” she grumbled with mock petulance.
He laughed. “Sex in the outdoors is a romantic idea but suffers from the reality of being in the outdoors.”
But then, as he looked at her, his smile began to dim, and unhappiness slipped across his countenance. Beth felt a familiar chill settle into her heart. She drew hair over her shoulders to cover herself.
“There’s—there’s something I have to tell you about myself,” he said. “I should have done so earlier, but I’m a coward. I knew telling you could change everything…”
As he bit his lip anxiously, a hundred dire possibilities rushed through Beth’s mind. The man was a bird smuggler. He had a wife hidden in an attic somewhere. He believed in grading students on a curve regardless of their actual achievements.
“When I was sixteen, I was bitten by a basilisk owl,” he said. “I escaped petrification, but I—I cannot have children. I don’t mind, I never wanted them, but…”
Beth exhaled with a relief so strong, she felt light-headed. “I’m sorry that happened to you, but can’t see how this changes things between us.”
He lowered his eyes. “More than one of my lovers left when they learned it, not wanting a future with someone who couldn’t offer them children. And fair enough, of course, but…” He fell into a heavy silence that seemed to expect no reply.
“I don’t want children,” Beth said plainly. “Being a parent would disrupt my teaching schedule. How fortunate that we don’t need to worry about contraception!”
Devon looked up at her warily, and she gave him a warm, encouraging smile. “Now I think there is something I can do for you,” she said. And reaching out in a spirit of intellectual inquiry, she took hold of his Magna erectus phallus and gently caressed it as he had caressed her before. Devon made a strangled sound in his throat.
“Professor Pickering!” he gasped. “I just told you my darkest secret and you just smiled and—and—” The word broke apart as she tightened her grip. “Oh my God,” he moaned unscientifically, his eyes rolling back.
“The evidence suggests you are either in a state of pleasure or pain,” Beth said. “Should I stop? I don’t want to hurt you.”
He answered with a kiss that quickly restored them both to mindless passion. “Come here,” he begged, gathering her close. “Please.”
Beth gladly allowed him to pull her onto his lap. But unsure of the etiquette—how and where exactly did one sit when one’s seat was so elaborate?—she rose on her knees, draping her arms over his shoulders. Their gazes meshed, heavy with desire.
