Early as I was, she’d preceded me for her morning swim. Her fleece was spread over the moss, a towel and warmcomb laid upon it, white shirt and black pants folded neatly beside her boots. I sat down on the fleece to wait for her.
I didn’t wait long. A distance away I saw her cutting through the water, swimming toward shore with strong strokes. When she reached the breakers, she body-surfed almost to the shoreline, then stood and walked from the sea.
Why hadn’t it occurred to me that she would swim nude? Of course she would swim nude, my numbed mind told me.
She saw me, paused but a moment. She walked toward me, her ivory skin, her breasts wetly gleaming in the strong morning light, streams of water coursing over her thighs, water running down her arms and dripping from her elbows as she pushed wet strands of dark hair from her face. She was long lines and slender curving planes, and the dark triangle between her legs was small, delicate, as I’d thought it would be . . . Then our eyes met, and held. She sank down upon the fleece.
I came to her, knelt to her, and wrapped her in the towel; and as I felt her shiver I enveloped her in it, wrapping her hair, turning the towel setting fully up. I took her into my arms. Her arms were pinioned in the towel and she could not have prevented me had she wanted to.
I held her for a long moment, pressing my face into the quickly warming towel that swathed her hair. Then I said softly, “You knew long ago what had to be done about your visitors from Earth, didn’t you.”
“Yes,” she said, still shivering against me.
I tightened my arms, drew her face down to my breasts. “If I had chosen to be with them you would have made the same decision, isn’t that so?”
“Yes.” Her voice was muffled against my breasts; I could feel the warmth of swift breaths through my tunic. “Much as it would have . . .” She did not finish.
“To fully protect this world you would’ve done whatever you had to. Isn’t that so?”
“Yes.” Her shivering had begun to ease. “But that does not make it right.”
“Some lives are more valuable than others.”
“There can be no justification for taking life. The taking of three lives—lives that can never be replaced.”
“Share your pain with all of us. Because all of us agree with what was done. Agree and love you still more as our leader.”
She lifted her head from my breasts and looked at me; her eyes seemed defenseless, as if the events of yesterday and her time alone had broken down a barrier in her. But she tried to extricate herself from me. I further tightened my arms, unwilling to release her.
“Laurel,” she said, and with effort smiled. “You’ll cook me in this towel.”
I had to smile then, had to release her; I’d turned the control up full and it was indeed very warm to my touch. She tossed the towel aside and pulled on her clothes. I watched with only little regret. I knew—simply knew—that we would touch again. That she was vulnerable, open to me now.
I picked up the warmcomb. I dressed her hair efficiently, with none of the caressing delays of before, except that I cupped her face afterward and gazed at her, as before.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice husky.
I released her face and did not reply, only looked at her. We sat still, gazing at each other, her eyes increasingly helpless as we leaned closer, ever closer.
Our lips met. Mine softly pressed hers, so softly . . . her lips more tender than I had dreamed . . . I reached for her, but her hands grasped my arms. Our kiss became hers. Her lips were tenderly possessive of mine, sweetly savoring mine . . . Again I tried to hold her; her grip only tightened. My body sought hers, yearned toward hers, my lips yielding, parting under hers, and I heard the sound in her throat as my seeking tongue met, stroked hers . . . Her hands on my arms were a vise, and I moaned my need to hold her as her tongue thrust and thrust into me . . .
And then her mouth was torn from mine, and her hands, trembling, held me away from her.
She sat with head bowed, hands still clasping my arms. Then she lifted her head and looked at me, her eyes containing so much pain that I couldn’t bear them.
She whispered, “I . . . cannot.”
I stared, struggling for voice.
“I . . . have given my word.”
And she released me and was gone, running over the moss, fleeing from me.
I took longer to recover from the shock of her words than to interpret their meaning. So this was why she’d lived her days and nights in solitude here beside the sea. Why she had resisted, fought her desire.
Only one person possessed sufficient influence to extract such a vow. The one person on this world whom Megan revered, the one person to whom she would have given such a vow.
Having determined this, I sat on Megan’s fleece and gazed out to sea, carefully considering what action I should now take.
Of course I could go directly to Mother. Even to this intimidating personage I was certain that I could convincingly plead my case—the strength of my love giving me both courage and conviction. But what if she decided that I was simply a fool, an impertinent upstart new to their world and their Unity who presumed—who dared—to love the great leader of them all? What recourse would I then have?
No, I thought as I folded the fleece and towel and packed them away under Megan’s coral marker. Going to Mother would be my final recourse, not my first act. And there was a person of wisdom and prestige and influence whom I could trust to plead my case with Mother.
I set off over the moss to go to my hovercraft, to go to Vesta.
XII
Personal Journal of Megan
15.1.17
All my privacy shields were up. Despairingly, I sank into my chaise. I knew now that I would require more time—considerably more than I had thought yesterday—to reconstruct my strength and resolve. To regain the solitary peace of my life.
Again I was stabbed by memory of the flash in the evening sky—a shattering of my soul. The flash of death, caused by me.
The pain was great again, so terrible that I assuaged it with forbidden memory of Laurel’s arms. The flowery scent of her skin. The pliant softness of her breasts beneath the silky fabric of her tunic . . . The soft lips parting under the hunger of mine, the tender touching of that delicate tongue to mine . . . My body heated with forbidden memory.
For some time I lay on my chaise, sinking, it seemed to me, ever more deeply into despair.
Then I received a signal on the one non-emergency channel unaffected by any privacy shield. Composing myself, I opened the channel. I said as calmly as I could, “Good morning, Mother.”
Mother did not immediately reply, merely looked at me with shrewd narrowing eyes. “Good afternoon, Megan dear. But it was indeed a lovely morning.”
“I misspoke,” I said quickly, stunned that so much time could pass by me unnoticed.
“Dear one,” she said in the tone that permitted no discussion, “would you come immediately to my house?”
Tiny in her green robe, Mother paced rapidly, a whoofie scampering at her heels in pursuit.
“I’ve asked much of you, Megan. Because I, better than anyone, knew what was required for the Unity to survive. When I came to Earth—misled by fabricated stories, I assure you my dear, entirely unsuspecting what a backwater place it really was—I soon discovered that I had to protect myself and my precious baby daughters with every resource at my command. Every resource,” she emphasized, “never knowing what next to expect from a planet with so irrational a history, so bizarre a culture.”
Mother halted so abruptly that the pursuing whoofie tangled itself in the hem of her robe. She scooped it into her arms and soothed its mournful whoofs with gentle pats as she resumed pacing.
“My responsibility was enormous and terrifying. But it was a blissful Vernal day compared to the fearsome responsibility of your leading our four thousand from Earth—and the perils of assimilation on this new world as forbidding to our presence as Earth was to mine.”
Mother released the whoofie which ran two or three steps, skidded to a halt, leaped back into her arms.
“You’ve done everything I have asked. More than I could ever have asked.” She gazed at me with wise and compassionate eyes. “Perhaps we’ve all used more of your strength than was right.”
Mother sat on the chaise next to me, placing the whoofie gently beside her. “I’ve raised nine precious babies I would have given my life for. I love none of them more than I love you.”
She took my hand, patted my cheek. “The work is not finished, Megan—but the danger is over. We’re safe. Safe, dear one. We’ve carved our foothold, and we’ll soon have carved another in the new colony.”
She drew my face down to her, kissed my forehead “If there is someone now who can give you a happiness you desire, then go to her, dear one. Go to her.”
Vesta’s soft voice was almost inaudible over the hovercraft’s transmission channel: “Megan dear, she said she would be at Damon Point.”
Unobserved, I approached her. She wore her yellow tunic—the one of Anniversary Day—and from a distance she was a bright mote on the vast mossy shore. She sat on my fleece gazing at wheeling crying birds that dipped and swooped and dove into a school of leaping fish just below the horizon.
She glimpsed me long before I reached her, and I dropped onto the fleece gratefully; my knees had weakened from her gaze as I had walked to her. Clumsy in this unimagined freedom to give, speak my love, I groped for words, and found that capacity for speech had vanished. Helplessly, I took her hands and looked into her eyes. A word came to me then, the only word I now knew. “Laurel,” I whispered.
Never had I known such gentleness as Laurel’s soft arms winding around my shoulders, my neck. And as she took the too-brief sweetness of her lips from mine to kiss my eyes, never had I heard such a breathing of my name.
I trembled; again she had breathed my name as my arms enclosed her. Then her tender lips were warm, warm against mine, parting under mine; and my tongue met her delicate one . . .
My fingers touched her throat; of themselves and unbidden my hands opened her tunic, caressed satin shoulders, cupped the full breasts that had haunted my thoughts . . .
She gazed at me; she traced my face, brushing back strands of my hair. She caressed my throat, she opened my shirt . . .
I slid the tunic from her shoulders. Then my body was angles and simplicity against the richly curving nakedness everywhere under my hands . . .
She sat touching me, again stroking my face with tender fingertips, smoothing my hair, running her hands across my shoulders. She circled my breasts with those fingertips, created fiery trails down my body, over my thighs. Gasping, I reached for her.
There was the flowery scent of her skin amid the sharp salt fragrance of the moss; I do not know if I drew her down or if she lowered me. Her hair was spreading silk over my throat, my shoulders, her body was curved over mine as again she kissed my eyes. Again a breathing of my name and more: “So beautiful, beautiful Megan . . .”
Then softness, the soft curves of her body everywhere melting into the angles of my own, her mouth melding with mine.
I took her silken hair into my hands, filling my hands with it as I kissed her face . . . My fingers, my lips explored the velvet of her throat . . . my lips returned to hers . . .
Her arms were warm around me, she held me close into her as we kissed; but as I took my lips from hers to kiss her face, her throat, she caressed me, slowly stroked her soft hands over the planes of my back and down over my hips; and as my mouth came back to hers I felt her arms again slide around me to gather me closely into her . . .
She kissed my body, pouring waves of her hair over me, sighing as I gasped my pleasure. . . She covered my breasts with her warm hands; and then I writhed as my nipples hardened and tingled to the brushing of her hair, as they ached and throbbed in her mouth . . .
Irresistibly, I took her breasts into my hands and kissed them, my tongue stroking and loving each taut jewel . . . I reveled in her breasts, fed on them, endlessly kissed them . . .
My hands on her were hungry . . . careful, gentle, but hungry . . . Her body arched in my hands and she breathed Megan against my throat, but my hands were awkward . . . and soon I would touch her tender places only with my lips . . .
I feasted. A long slow feasting . . . When her soft thighs opened to me I brushed the golden softness between with my lips, the most delicate softness of all, softer than the moss covering the earth beneath us, her moss damp to my most gently stroking fingertips; within the moss the moist velvet flower of her . . .
The sweetest feasting of all . . . Passionate feasting; her sounds, her quivering shaping and feeding my passion . . .
Her cry blended with the cries of the wheeling birds, and her quivering ceased . . . but I bathed my face, all of my warm face in her . . .
She dried her wetness from my face with her hair. Then she put me under her and began sensuous loving of me, her lips tender and warm, her hands a feathery caressing. She sighed her own pleasure as she stroked my thighs . . . Soon she parted them gently and her fingers began another feathery stroking that turned my breath to gasping.
Soon I could not breathe from her fingers and I took them away, groaning. Blindly I pressed the throbbing center of me into the still-wet moss of her. She clasped my hips and pressed up into me, undulating, her legs enclosing me, and I groaned again, my sensations escalating as my body moved in involuntary rhythm with hers. Pleasure became urgency, and I buried my face in her shoulder, moaning as pleasure swiftly rose and sharpened . . .
“Megan.” Her hand grasped my hair, lifting my head.
Our bodies pulsing synchrony, I looked at her and fell into an endless depth of transparent blue . . . I closed my eyes.
“Megan.” Her whisper a command.
She held my hair and forced me to look at her as my body writhed with hers in an ever more fierce fusing; she forced me to look into her eyes as the tide of pleasure crested to its fullest height . . . Then for a moment I saw nothing, as my blood turned to silver . . .
My body slowly stilled; and only then did she close her eyes and let go my hair; she held me in her arms and I lay with my face in her breasts, wetting them with my tears . . .
When my heart had slowed she asked very softly, tenderness in her voice, “Do you always cry when you receive pleasure?”
I smiled at this question she had asked before. “I don’t know,” I answered as before, “you are the first to give such pleasure.”
She was silent a moment. “The . . . first?”
“The first.”
She took my face in her hands and lifted my head and gazed into my eyes so gravely that I said, to draw a smile, “Do you always speak so many variations of oh when you receive pleasure?”
And she did smile. “Only when I receive it from you.” Her arms encircled me as her smile deepened. “Is there anything you do not do well?”
Speechless, shy and tongue-tied with pleasure at her question, I buried my face in her hair and murmured, “If there were but one thing I could do well . . .”
She brought my lips to hers. I heard—felt—the crashing sounds of the sea as desire rose in me so sudden and sharp that each nerve end seemed to burn with it. I felt all of her tender body with my own, I knew her fingers separately on my skin, the lovely friction of her palms. I had new perceptions of her that I had been too overcome before to comprehend. As I savored her mouth, I found that I could do other things simultaneously . . . I kissed her throat and shoulders as my hands embraced her waist, my palms caressing the curves of her stomach and back; and as I kissed and loved her breasts, I clasped the smooth curving of her hips, delighting in the rosy hues of her skin. As I kissed her thighs, the blended golds of the place between, my hands explored the shape of her legs and feet, I breathed in the scents of her. . . Inflamed beyond all forbearance, I then did only one thing, needing, wanting only that, feasting on her again, and she uttered
many new variations of oh as I gave us both longer pleasure . . .
When her hands in my hair drew my lips away, she whispered, “Hold me.”
I had taken her into my arms, I was gazing into blue eyes heavy-lidded with contentment when a downpour came. The day had darkened, the clouds had come over us unobserved, and we lay for a moment astonished as the warm rain drenched us. I tried to cover her body with mine but she laughed and pushed me off her. Then I began to laugh and we wrestled and rolled around on the fleece together like gleeful children as rain pelted our bodies and streamed through our hair.
As I playfully pinned her hands she smiled up into my eyes, her own eyes seductive; then she worked a hand free and pushed dripping locks of hair from my face. “You’re so beautiful wet,” she murmured, pulling me down to her.
“So are you,” I answered against her lips . . .
The downpour lasted only a few minutes; the clouds blew off toward the horizon and our suns reappeared. I took my thermal towel from under my marker and knelt to tenderly dry her. She sat up and patted me dry.
Slowly, loving the task, I dressed her hair, watching, feeling it turn to silk in my fingers. She took the warm-comb from me and I sat looking into her face and savoring the warm hand that caressed my face as she tended my hair . . .
She drew me to her and we knelt together, rocking slowly back and forth; and then our mouths joined in deeper intimacy. As her soft body yielded in my arms I thrust in increasing passion, my hands moving over her, feeling her tremors, feeling her arms tighten and her hands flutter on my back. I cupped her sweet moss; her hands fluttered and fluttered as my tongue stroked in velvet, as my fingers stroked in velvet . . . She stiffened, would not allow me to lower her; her arms would not release me to give her greater pleasures . . . and so I discovered her with my fingers as we knelt, her hands on my back becoming ever more frenzied in their fluttering . . . She gasped her ohs next to my ear . . . Her cry was muffled against my throat.
She was limp in my arms; I felt her rapid heartbeats. Gently I lowered her, and gathered her into my arms. Exhaustedly she pushed our towel into a pillow on my shoulder and lay her head on it and curled herself into me and soon breathed the deep even breaths of sleep.
Daughters of a Coral Dawn Page 19
