The Start of Time

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  Chapter 27 Alexia's Story

  As the sun came up, we stirred in each other’s arms. Alexia looked up and smiled at me.

  “Good morning, my prince,” she said.

  I was astounded at the depth of change in her since the day before. She really was like a woman released from a prison. It was as if a part of her, the part that connected to the world emotionally, had been locked away and was now free. It made me wonder.

  I said, “Alexia, when we met yesterday, you had a very different way of talking. I was struck by it and immediately wanted to get to know you. You know that it’s what made people call you the odd girl. But, you weren’t always odd, were you? Will you tell me about it?”

  She laughed and said, “I like laughing, by the way. And smiling. And shalock! And you! And no, I wasn’t always so odd. When I was a child, I was like other children. When I was a young girl, I was like other young girls. But as I grew taller and as I saw how few men there were in Tranna, and I saw how few girls found mates, I knew that none of the men of Tranna were for me. When the old women began to instruct us in the ways of being women, I quickly saw that my life was not going to be like other girls.

  I had only one choice: become a shrine maiden. But as I prepared to become a shrine maiden, I began to lock away parts of myself and hide them. They weren’t part of who I was going to be. So they were separated from me. And as those parts, laughter and sexuality and love and normal hope and emotions…as they were locked away, what was left was what I became. I didn’t become a shrine maiden in the end because the shrine maidens still had hope and laughter to keep the other parts of them alive, I did not.

  I knew that this was happening to me. It wasn’t hidden from me and it didn’t happen by accident. It was done bit by bit and I saw the changes as they took place. Many people change and don’t even realize it; I knew what was happening to me. I didn’t hate it, it simply was what it was and I was what I was. I was a girl without hope.

  If being a shrine maiden was no longer a choice, I had other choices. I could walk off into the wilderness and hope to be eaten by a great white ape or some other horrible beast. Or I could stay in the village and find work to do. I know that those are extremes: death, or mundane work. I chose mundane work.

  If I was going to stay in the village and find work, I had more choices. I could go about my days not caring, but only doing the amount required, or I could apply myself to a trade and become as good as I could be. Death or become a skilled craftsman? I chose working in wood. I applied to Oshen and he took pity on me and gave me a place in his shop. I worked hard and became strong and kept to myself. I worked for Oshen for almost 50 years. I’m the same age as Aeyli.

  In the last few years, I had begun to be a bit happy with my life. I worked. I made nice things. People thought that I was odd, but they were kind. I started to imagine things. I started to imagine a mate for myself. I worked and thought and sometimes smiled as I imagined different things. What if a great warrior prince came to the village and asked for a special item to be made and his eye caught mine and he loved me and I became his mate? What if the shrine maidens came and reported that one like John Carter had come from the shrine and he was strong and wanted a strong mate like me?

  I knew that it was just imagination, and at the same time I knew that I was being prepared for a change in the wind. I knew that I made it all up and it had no basis, and I knew that it was going to happen and that I should have hope and wait and be ready. It was impossible…and it was certain.

  I didn’t hear about the meeting where you declared for Aeyli, Rani, and Belle. The news hadn’t spread to the shop yet. I saw that some people chattered about something, but I was sure that it had nothing to do with me so I didn’t pay attention. I had seen Aeyli coming toward Tranna while you were still a long way off, but it had nothing to do with me.

  When Oshen called me, I thought that he had a customer and wanted me to see to them. When I saw that it was you, I knew that I would never go back to him. It was simple. It was clear and unquestioned. My warrior prince had come from the shrine. A man like John Carter, and he wanted a special item: and that item was clearly me. I saw it in your eyes. It was like you shouted with joy at the sight of me. And the parts of me that had been hidden shouted at the sight of you.

  I knew that the work that you needed done was simply an excuse to meet me and take me to your house. Aeyli had included me in the vow that she made with Rani and Belle, that when the prince from the shrine came, that if he would have one of them for a mate that he would have all of us. There you were, the prince that I had imagined. There was your declaration of love for me, shouted as I looked into your eyes. There was Aeyli, come to fulfill the vow. In that instant, I removed my belt in my mind.

  When we came to the house, it was already certain for both of us. You and I both knew what was meant to be, but we took a few minutes to make sure that the other felt the same way. As the moments went on, my belt seemed to get heavier and heavier. It dragged at me and became a lie and a burden. It wanted to be off and I wanted it to be off. When we finally got to where we could admit that we would be mates, even though only a few minutes had passed in reality, when I dropped the unnecessary thing to the floor, it was as if a very heavy weight had dropped.

  As the day went on, my love increased by leaps every minute. Finally, when I couldn’t stand it any longer, I took my vow of silence. I did it because all that was left in me was groaning for release and there were no more words to say. The thought that it might be several days until you declared for me was hard to accept.

  Mark, you are also odd. We both knew it when you first saw me. You wanted me as much as I wanted you. If we had been outside the gates instead of in Oshen’s shop when we met, you would have taken me without a word in that very instant. Yes, I know it’s true! And I love you for it. But you kept your intention to take me that very night a surprise. It’s odd that you were able to do that. You shout your love with your eyes one moment, and keep a delicious secret the next. I don’t know how.

  If you had told me, it might have been even harder for me. When you sat with Belle on your lap and made love to me from across the room, your fingers on her, but your mind on me, it was both wonderful and terrible. You gave me the chance to leave, but I had to stay. At the end, I clutched my thighs and fought the feelings within me. It would have been easy to let you make me climax at that moment, but I wanted to wait until you really touched me.

  When you started to say that you would take another mate in the meeting, and I knew that it was me, I began to boil. I was on fire. It was so hard to wait as every second took forever. If you had told me yesterday afternoon, I would have been incapacitated with anticipation. I’m glad that I didn’t know what was coming. It was easier after your declaration. It was done and I was your mate and waiting a little more, but not much more, was bearable, almost. I was so glad to be at the house when we arrived. But as you saw, I was still so frustrated with my imprisonment that all I could do was go straight to the roof where I knew you would come for me.

  By the way, Sashar is a good woman. I’m happy that you have made her a part of our house.”

  I kissed her on the head and said, “Um, Alexia, you said that Aeyli included you in the vow of the shrine maidens concerning me. Are there more? Was Sashar part of the vow?”

  Alexia said, “No, not Sashar. She is just a very dear friend. She was already a woman when Aeyli and I were little girls. When Aeyli’s parents died, Sashar was like an older sister and a mother to her. She looked out for both of us many times.”

  I asked, “How did Aeyli’s parents die?”

  She said, “A group including she and I and her parents were outside the gates, about a day’s journey, and a Great White Ape had tracked us all night. When it attacked, five people were killed. The other 16 finally killed the beast. Two of those killed were Aeyli’s mother and father. One was my father. She and I watched it happen. When we made it back to the village, Tronuck, D
orel, and Sashar cared for us.”

  I said, “Why didn’t Sashar ever take a mate?”

  Alexia laughed and said, “Mark, Sashar is ‘odd’ in her own way. But mostly because taking a mate is very rare. For every woman who has a mate, two others don’t. You know that already.”

  I said, but with a smile, “What do you mean, Sashar is odd in her own way?”

  Alexia said, “Mark! She is tiny and she bounces around like a Barsoomian squirrel. Did you make love to her last night or not? I swear, it must have been like having a whirlwind scampering around under the furs, if you kept her on the bed at all. Don’t tell me that shalock with Sashar is the same as with me!”

  I laughed and said, “No, she is different…and we had fun, no question about that, but is that odd?”

  She said, “Mark, girls are five-foot-four-inches tall. And Men are five-foot-eight by the way. Sashar is the smallest woman in the village. Girls are serious and they go about their business and they always hope that they will find a mate. Sashar sells fruit. She is all about fruit. Everything that she ever says is compared to fruit. She is a fruit weirdo. A tiny, bouncy fruit weirdo! I love her just like all of us love each other here in the House of Mark, but since you fall for the ‘odd girls’, you have chosen well with Sashar. Before it’s over, you will take Myndee or Manya or both. There is also Trinla and Foteen, but I think that Manya will be next. I think that now the time has started again, that Trinla and Foteen will be spoken for soon enough. It will be interesting to see what happens to Tranna while we’re gone. Shall we have breakfast?”

  Alexia jumped out of the bed and ran to the hatch and bent down and yelled, “Hey, shrine maidens and odd girls of the house of Mark! Are you down there? Bring some breakfast and let’s eat on the roof! OK, but hurry! Our prince is in bed and he wants his breakfast! And so does his giant! We want breakfast and a bed full of boobies. Yes, I said boobies! I think that we will need at least ten in total, but if you find more, bring them as well. And hurry!”

  The girl ran back to the bed and jumped on top of me and said, we need a table and chairs. Get up and help me! And hurry!”

  She pulled me out of bed and handed me my end of the rope and pushed me toward the wall overlooking the garden.

  I said, “No, you stay here and I’ll go down,” and I ran down the hatch.

  I told the girls to bring spare chairs to the garden, not ones from the dining room, and to grab a smaller table and bring all of it to me in the garden.

  I went to the garden and Alexia lowered the rope to me. One of the girls appeared with a chair and I took it from her and said to Alexia, “I am going to throw it to you. Catch it.”

  Alexia looked dubious. It was about 30 feet straight up. I smiled and tossed the thing so that it rose to just the height of the wall and gently sailed over. The lower gravity meant that not only did the thing weigh less to me, but it accelerated and decelerated at one sixth the speed. When falling, an object dropped on Barsoom fell at just one sixth the speed that it would on Earth.

  Alexia caught the first chair with surprise and I watched how it moved to gauge the motion and momentum better for the next.

  I called up, “Move out of the way for a moment,” and I waved her to the left.

  I took the next chair, felt the weight, and then lofted it into the air. It went over the wall, clearing it by about a foot and landed on the roof. Because it was only five feet off the roof as it went over the wall, the impact was about the same as having dropped it from ten inches. I was pleased with my performance and repeated it with the remaining four chairs. When it came to the table, I could have thrown that as well, but it might have been damaged if I did. I tied the rope to it and Alexia started to haul it up. I leapt straight up, caught hold of the top of the wall and hoisted myself over and stood beside Alexia and said, “Here, can I help you with that?”

  She looked surprised, but said, “No, I can manage. Um, On second thought, get behind me, real close and make sure I am doing it right,” and she wiggled her butt suggestively. It was a nice offer.

  The rest of the girls arrived through the hatch carrying fruit and water and some bread and a few things that I hadn’t seen before. We placed the chairs around the table, it was just about right for six people, and laid out the food.

  Aside from Alexia suggesting that I get ‘behind her behind’, there wasn’t much talk about sex. Everyone seemed satisfied for the moment with the activities from the previous night as each one took a turn with me on the roof.

  We ate and had a cheery time and eventually Belle said, “You know, after Mark was with Alexia, he had Sashar with him, and then, he had a time with me as well.”

  Rani said, “Belle, before he was with you, he had me with him on the roof too.”

  Aeyli said, “Girls, before Rani, he had me…twice.”

  They all looked at me and I said, “What kind of man doesn’t satisfy all of his mates at least once or twice, all in the same night? If a man can’t do that, maybe he shouldn’t have so many mates!”

  Belle said, “And if he can? What then?”

  I said, “Then, he should do it. Several times every month. Once a week at least.”

  Chapter 28 Preparing for the Wilderness

  We ate our breakfast and I said, “Girls, Alexia has asked if we can take a trip into the wilderness together. I have told her that we will, but I want to hear from all of you. Sashar agreed, but she might not have been thinking straight at the time because she was, well, anyway, she may not have been thinking straight.”

  Sashar said, “Oh, I was thinking straight, just not about that! Straight and hard and big and stiff and lovely!” and she laughed. “But yes, I’m game. With ‘Mark who kills great apes with a stick’ and ‘Alexia the giantess’, what danger can there be?” Then she noticed Aeyli and Alexia and quickly said, “Oh, my loves, forgive me, I didn’t think!” referring to the deaths of the girls’ parents that Alexia had told me about.

  Aeyli said, “Sashar, don’t worry about that. It was long ago and I have traveled back and forth to the shrine hundreds of times by myself. Tell us what you’re thinking.”

  I said, “Alexia has asked that just like in my story from last night, that we go away for a time together so that when we come back, the memories that people in the village have of her will have faded a bit, and they’ll get to know us fresh. All of our lives have changed in the past few days and we are still changing. If we go away, we’ll have more freedom to become who we are now, rather than who we have been all of this time.”

  Aeyli said, “Hm, I see the wisdom in that. Rani, Belle, and I were shrine maidens and people thought about us in a particular way.”

  Belle said, “As the odd girls who serve at the shrine.”

  Aeyli continued, “Yes. If we all go away, when we come back, we will be the Princesses of the House of Mark. They’ll think of us differently than they did. The shrine maidens will go away and the girls of ‘-ah-Mark’ will return.”

  Alexia said, “And I was the odd girl who was too tall and too quiet. But I’m not that girl anymore! Listen to me! I talk like a real girl. I don’t even remember yesterday.”

  Belle grinned and said, “You’re still very tall.”

  Alexia said, “You think so? Maybe. But Alexia the odd girl was so tall that she would never have a mate. Alexia-ah-Mark is so tall that when she walks beside Mark Jensen, she looks like an exotic warrior princess. Hey, if you think I am boasting, I don’t care. I was worth more than ten furs! Trust me, I know who I am and that I’m no better than others, but I also know that Mark thinks that I’m as beautiful as all of you, and frankly, we had all better get used to being a bit regal, if you know what I mean.”

  Aeyli said, “That’s true. We will sit at the head of the council one day. Alexia, this is a good plan. ‘Alexia the odd girl’ won’t be on the council, but ‘Alexia-ah-Mark, the Ten Fur Princess’ will. I like it! Sashar, are you really ready to go into the wilderness for a while? You and Alexia have ne
ver been outside the gates; not since our parents were killed.”

  Sashar said, “Inside or outside, what difference does it make. I’m no longer ‘Sashar the girl who sells fruit’, I am ‘Sashar-ah-Mark, the girl who is fruit!’. Where my prince goes, I go. There are no dangers or beasts or men or women or village or wilderness; as far as I see, there is only Mark and the four of you. We’ll go together and find happiness there. I’ll turn my stand over to some other girl until we come back.”

  I said, “So, is it settled? What do we need to do? Last night, Sashar said that she would leave in the middle of shalock as long as I planned to carry her.”

  Belle said, “I had a really good time too.”

  Aeyli said, “OK. Let’s make a plan. I need to talk to Tronuck and Dorel. I can do that by myself. Alexia needs to finalize things with Narhu and Oshen. We’ll need to take some food and water with us.”

  Rani said, “Can we take a cart and a Calot to pull it?” She referred to the Barsoomian watchdog that was sometimes used as draft animal as well.

  Aeyli said, “That’s a great idea. Even pulling a cart, it will run as fast as we do. And we need to visit one other place. I have a token gift for Mark. It should be ready now, but we all need to go together. We should do that first. I think that we can either leave tomorrow morning, or by midday today if we want to.”

  I said, “I’d like to go as soon as we can, but let’s see how long our errands take and then decide.”

  We cleared the meal away and went down stairs. Once again, I had to remind the girls to put on belts before we left the house. It was a habit that they had worn them every day of their lives, but now the need escaped them. They said that since they’d never really been without them, they now never thought about them.

  Aeyli said that we should all follow her to see the surprise gift that she had for me and the six of us took to the street.

  We walked through the village toward the shops and market district and Aeyli suddenly brought us to a halt.