In the centre of the field, a circle was marked off with stones. Some of the crowd was staking out places around the circle, while the rest were sitting up on the adjacent hill, like it was the bleachers in a ball park. Musicians—drummers, string players, flute players—were laying down a chill groove.
The vibe in general was pretty chill. Instead of going ape when they saw me, everyone was just smiling and saying hi. Kid after kid let their curiosity overcome their fear, and soon I had a junior army around me. Meanwhile, every adult in the crowd wanted me to sample some specialty they pulled from their picnic baskets, and soon I was blissfully stuffed.
The sun was setting behind the Citadel, way up at the top of Cliffside, and it got dark fast. The musicians kicked it up a notch, the beat insistent and funky. Torchstone lanterns were brought out, and a crew in red uniforms fired up a big bonfire in the centre of the circle. The crowd’s excitement grew, more and more of them stamping their feet to the beat and whistling in anticipation.
Suddenly, a quadrana strutted to the front, raising his hands to quiet the crowd. He wasn’t like any mixed being I’d seen. Tiqokh and the other quadranas dressed simply and moved kind of gracelessly. This guy, on the other hand, wore a long green cloak covered with jewels, almost the same colour as his green skin, and on his head was a crazy tall, feathered hat. His movements were all high fashion catwalk, and after every turn or sweep of his hand, he paused for a second, like he was posing for the cameras. Impressive dragon drag.
The brother and sister were standing beside me, and they stared in delight.
“Who is that?” I asked.
“That’s Farkol,” said the girl. “He’s the organizer of the annual dance.”
Her brother added, “He used to live on the Realm of Earth, Copper Guest. Didn’t you ever meet him?”
“Uh, no. Did he always dress like that?”
“Only after his time on Earth,” the girl said. “I heard he got in trouble with the bidahénas last year because he told everyone to call him dahé. Only the Dragon Lords can bestow that honour.”
Farkol-not-dahé swung his arms to the side and shouted, “Let the first competition begin!”
A line of ten women were climbing up the road from farther down the hill, and the crowd opened a path for them to reach the circle. They hopped over the stones and formed their own circle, dancing to the rising beat around the bonfire, facing outward, arms linked.
“What are those costumes?” I asked the brother and sister. The dancers were dressed in light, short dresses, but over these they had strips of fur, elaborate headdresses, and face paint.
“They’re dressed as animals. See? She’s a bear, and she’s a deer.”
The crowd began singing along with the musicians, a wilder and sexier tune than any of the prayer songs I’d heard all day. The dancers stepped forward two at a time, busting out whatever special choreography they’d invented to annihilate the competition. The crowd cheered or booed, and one out of every pair was eliminated. The vanquished animal would then leave the circle in humiliation, fake tail between her legs. With each elimination round, the beat got faster, the dances more athletic, and the crowd went crazier.
I got right into it, the way you do with a reality TV contest, screaming or booing. My favourite dancer, a sinuous and strong mountain lion, made it to the final four, but the spotted rabbit who could practically kick herself in the nose proved unstoppable. The music ended, and sweating and panting, the girl was crowned with a ring of purple Divinity flowers, her brown bunny ears poking out through the middle of the crown.
It was fully dark now, and Farkol the fashion forward quadrana had changed into a purple outfit covered in little glittering stones that caught the light of the bonfire.
He sashayed to the centre of the circle and called out, “Let the second competition commence!” The musicians dropped the beat again, and the male dancers appeared, snaking their way toward us. As they got closer, I could see that they were dressed pretty skimpily under their costume pieces. I was, suffice it to say, even more ready to cheer for this group.
The line of dancers was coming right toward me, revealed one at a time as they jumped into the ring. Decked out in feathered headdresses, I realized they weren’t animals of the ground, they were birds. They had pieces of wings hanging off their backs and fastened to their wrists. When they spread their arms, the wings opened to reveal amazing shapes and patterns woven in the feathers. I got to appreciate each one in turn, older and younger, skinny or muscular. The seventh one in line was Davix.
I screamed.
He was clearly a kingsolver, with the familiar black and grey wings and a red headdress. A brief skirt of matching red leather strips hung from a belt at his waist and flew up into the air to reveal his loincloth whenever he turned or jumped. He wasn’t wearing anything else. As he passed me, our eyes met, and he grinned like this was my surprise birthday party and he’d been planning it for a month. The smile was lava that flowed through me, melting my sadness and my doubt.
The kid brother tugged at my shirt to get my attention. “Davix told us to bring you here.”
And his sister added, “He said to tell you he is dancing for you.”
I have never cheered so hard at any competition in my life.
Davix wasn’t really a dancer, okay? I mean, the guy was basically a scholar and a science nerd, but he could jump higher than anyone, and keep on jumping. He held nothing back. And he was the most beautiful, his long limbs glinting gold and red from the bonfire’s flames, his mouth gaping open, his hair shaking loose from his topknot in a black waterfall, his dark nipples rising and falling with his breath. I was mesmerized and turned on.
The crowd was pretty amused at the way I screamed myself hoarse and jumped up and down as if I was in the competition myself. It didn’t even matter when Davix came in second, beaten by a guy who danced with the true grace of a bird in flight. In fact, I felt bad for the winner because, when Davix left the circle and came forward to give me a sweaty hug, no one was paying attention to anything else.
“Come with me,” Davix whispered in my ear. He walked us out of the crowd, moving faster and faster until we were running back through the gates of the city and up its steeply climbing streets.
Here are things I knew: Davix wasn’t following Grav’nan-dahé’s orders. He wasn’t off on a monk’s retreat to avoid me. Davix hadn’t just taken care of me last night out of religious obligation. Davix wanted me. Me. Crispin Haugen. X’risp’hin. Kharis’par’ih’in, the Dragon Groom. And he wanted all of me. Through our sweaty, intertwined hands, I could feel our bodies calling to each other. This primal conversation had started the night before, maybe earlier. And even if I knew dragon tongue better than this new language of the flesh, I still understood. I won’t lie to you. I was scared. But I was buoyant. And ready.
Chapter 32: Take My Hand and Touch You
Seeing as Davix and I had left the dance ahead of everyone, I wasn’t surprised Cliffside was deserted. Most of the torchstones were still baffled, and I had to trust my guide to lead me through the dark. Trusting him felt daring and sexy. In the middle of the dark city, the Comfort House was the only building all lit up, and that’s where we were heading.
Men were on their way in and out of the big doors, and a line of women were going around the corner to their wing. In the lobby, guys of all ages sat on the couches, talking, eating, and laughing. They sprawled across each other in a way that would have been too intimate for just buddies back on Earth.
“I thought everyone was still at the dance,” I said.
“The Comfort House is so popular during Sarensikar, people skip ceremonies to get a room. And you have to reserve your place a quarter cycle in advance.”
“Oh yeah? Then how did you know you were going to need a room?” I eyed Davix with a little pang of jealousy. Who was the guy I was replacing?
He looked abashed. “I, uh, arranged it earlier today. I said the Dragon Groom needed a room. S
everal people offered me their reservations right away. I think you’ll like the one I accepted.” The celebrity thing did have its advantages. Also, this meant he had been counting on us needing a room, a fact I found both thrilling and terrifying.
“Blessings of Sarensikar on you, Dragon Groom,” called a guy seated on cushions in the corner. He was young enough to still be pretty hot, but old enough to be going grey. Another dude had a hand in the guy’s tunic, casually stroking his chest hair, and a third was climbing onto the cushions to join them. I blushed.
“Uh, yeah, blessings.”
We passed many doors, with stuff happening behind every one. I should also say that even though all the rooms were in use, not all the doors were closed. I admit letting my eyes stray a little.
Still, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. “Can we be somewhere alone? Just us?”
He stopped and ran a hand down my cheek. “Of course. That’s what I’ve arranged.” Do that again, I wanted to say, but I was suddenly so shy I almost called the whole thing off. Almost.
We were in front of a set of double doors inlaid with red tiles in a spiral pattern. Davix pushed the doors open, and I looked into a tiny paradise. He laughed again when he heard me catch my breath. Woven runners in red and gold criss-crossed the tile floor. Curved beams of cedar wood arced overhead like they were the ribs and we were in the breast of the beast. Steps led down into a wide round tub whose water was steaming in the torchstone light. Beyond the tub stood a huge bed, covered in fabrics and pillows. The heart of the beast, you might say.
“Oh my God, what is this? The Harlequin Suite?”
“Khar’le’gin?” Davix said, perplexed, and no wonder, since khar’le’gin means “meat beginning to spoil.”
“Gross. No. Never mind. I love it.” We entered our little paradise. “I’m kind of nervous. I’ll probably say a lot of dumb things like that.” He put a hand on my shoulder, one finger straying to slide across my neck. I got goosebumps.
“X’risp’hin, I’m nervous, too. But listen, you don’t have to do anything—anything—you don’t want. You could even tell me you’d rather just go for a walk through the city and talk about our lives. That would be fine.”
“But…but you want stuff to happen. Here, I mean, with me. Right?”
“Very much. Yes.”
“Me too.” I had never spoken words like this out loud in my life. It felt like I was breaking the laws of the universe.
“I would like to take a bath. Will you join me?”
My voice got all chokey. “Yeah…”
I watched him walk across to a bench beside the tub. He sat and unlaced his dancing shoes with their red leather tassels. He wiggled his toes on the cool tile while he undid the vest with its beautiful, feathered wings and untied them from his wrists. The hair under his arms was damp with sweat, shiny black against his brown skin. Removing the wings, he looked like an angel transforming into a man. Then he untied the loincloth with no sign of self-consciousness and let it drop to the floor.
Tonight, I was meeting a new Davix. As he danced, as he got naked, he seemed twice as alive. The daily Davix machine that measured itself off by hard rules of the DragonLaw, by the strict tables of weather figures, had become a flowing dance of muscle and flesh. He looked like freedom. Watching him, I could barely breathe.
He saw me staring as he stepped down into the water, and there was clear evidence he liked me watching. He lowered himself until he was sitting on the floor of the tub, the surface of the water cutting those beautiful nipples in half. Seriously, I had never realized a guy’s nipples could occupy so much of my focus. He sighed, and a smile of pure pleasure lit up his face. He looked at me, waiting patiently. So I undressed, not nearly as gracefully or unself-consciously, but with my own arousal metre displaying a similar reading.
I sat on the opposite side of the circular pool, and when I stretched out my legs, our toes touched. I reflexively pulled them back, but then I remembered I wasn’t bumping feet with stern, old Auntie Carmen under the dining room table. I let my toes slide back over his, and we toe wrestled for a few seconds. More smiles. Dumb boy smiles this time that felt a lot safer. I let out a breath. I was doing fine. Then Davix slid around to sit beside me, and my heart started pounding.
He picked up a soft cloth from the edge of the tub, wet it, and handed it to me.
“Would you wash my back, X’risp’hin?” He turned away, pulling his long hair off his neck. I washed his back in slow circles, marvelling at the play of muscle under the smooth skin, and he hummed with pleasure.
“I haven’t danced that hard in half a cycle. I’ll be sore tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, my cloth circling lower, breaking the surface of the water. Through the ripples, I could see the top of his ass crack, but I didn’t let my circles go that low. My face was close to his skin, and I smelled it, like I was a dragon who could figure out hidden secrets that way.
He turned my way and took the cloth. We stared into each other’s eyes until I got shy and lowered my head. Through the distorting lens of water, I could see we were, um, pointing at each other. He began washing the side of my neck, my chest, my stomach, and it was so good for a minute, and then it was too much. I pulled away.
“Sorry, seriously, sorry.” A deep shame ran through me. But when I looked back at Davix, he was calm and smiling.
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. “Your body said you needed some space, and you listened. The body is wise. Keep listening to it.”
I felt like crying for just a second, but I took a deep breath, and the feeling went away. “Thanks.”
“Have you never mingled with anyone, X’risp’hin?”
“No, I totally have. Of course.”
He looked skeptical. “It’s no shame if you haven’t. There are a few people our age who still don’t feel ready.”
“No, yeah, totally ready. And experienced, yeah. There’s this guy, and since, like, September we’ve been really, you know…going at it.” Shut up. He doesn’t need to know about Altman. He doesn’t even know what a September is!
“That’s good. Do you bring each other a lot of pleasure?”
“Well, he didn’t have any complaints,” I said with a weird sitcom leer that made me want to rip my own face off. “Sorry. I mean, he basically liked it when I gave him a…” And I got hung up on the word. It was one of those times I forgot I wasn’t speaking English, and “blowjob” didn’t produce the usual auto-translation into dragon tongue. Maybe dragons didn’t do oral sex.
“Yes?” Davix asked, raising his eyebrows.
“You know, with my mouth. On his…” Ahhh! Frustration. Dick, cock, and junk produced no effect, so I had to go clinical and think “penis” before I could produce any translation. Why does that word always seem dirtier than any of the alternatives?
“Oh, that’s good,” Davix said, which sounded absurd. “And what did you ask him to do for you?”
“Um, yeah, well we didn’t really get that far. I mean, I’m not complaining…”
Davix knitted his brow. “Wasn’t there anything you wanted him to do? Were you content with being the one to provide—”
“Oh, I wanted stuff. Even just, you know, kissing. I love kissing. There was this other boy, Dražen, and him and me kissed a lot.” Something knotted up in my chest. I felt all the humiliation of both relationships—two boys so wrapped up in themselves, they barely realized I was also a real person. Still, I felt the need to defend Altman. “It’s not his fault. He doesn’t like guys, at least that’s what he says. So, it kind of didn’t come up.”
“But we always owe each other pleasure when we mingle. There is a proverb, ‘You find your own smile in the mirror of your partner’s regard.’ X’risp’hin, you have to feel free to express your own desires. Your needs.”
I sank lower in the water, until it covered my chin. He was waiting for me to say something. Otherwise, I would have sunk until the water closed over my head and I drowned.<
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“I kept hoping, right? I thought if I gave him enough time, maybe he’d want to do more. If I loved him enough…” I didn’t mean to choke up, but I did.
Davix stood, water dripping off him. He climbed from the tub, and I thought for an awful second he was done with me. He dried himself with a big red towel and then picked up a big blue one and held it open for me.
“Come,” he said, the most caressing of commands. So I got up, still hard despite the sadness. He was, too. I stepped onto the tiles and turned backward into the towel. He closed it over me like I was the knight and he was the squire setting my cloak in place. With his arms around me from behind, drying me with the towel, he kissed my neck like he had the night before in bed. My breathing got faster.
Davix led me to the bed, and we sat on its edge, our towels falling off our shoulders. I couldn’t look right at him. It was too bright, like looking at sun. I was in danger of screwing up the whole event, and I would hate myself forever if that happened. Action was required, and I knew what to do. I put a hand on his hip and started to lower my face to his excitement. But Davix stopped me, and I sat up, surprised.
“There’s time for that later. Take my hand,” he said, “and touch me with it.”
I was confused, but I did what he said, holding him by the wrist, placing his hand on his chest, like he was a Southern belle going, “Oh my!”
“Where?” I asked.
“Wherever you like.”
So, I became the puppeteer and he was my puppet, clumsily pleasuring himself. At first it was totally absurd, but then I really got into it, caressing his face with his hand, his neck, his chest, the inside of his thighs. He was watching me, his mouth hanging open, making little noises when I hit a good spot. I put his hand on his hard-on for a second and then took it away, in case that was going too far. I laid his hand on his thigh, giving it a little pat before withdrawing my own hand.
“Who taught you that?”
“A temple priestess. I was as nervous as you my first time.”
The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood Page 21
