She made a chirping kind of sound, and pointed past the roped-off area, where a man in fencing gear and a white sash demonstrated basic moves to a young boy. She chirped again, and held out her hand, offering something. I extended my own palm, and she dumped several Skittles onto it.
“Oh! Uh, thanks,” I said. She gave a regal nod, and I led Dawn in the direction indicated.
Dawn took my free hand. “You don’t have to buy me an instrument,” she said. “I doubt there’ll be anything I need here.”
“Okay,” I replied.
“I’m just saying, I think a renaissance fair is an inspired choice for a date, but—”
“You sure?” I asked, suddenly uncertain. “You’re not disappointed? I was a little worried it wasn’t very, I don’t know, date-ish? I mean, for my one real date as a teenager, my mother drove us to the movies. So I don’t have a lot of experience. And adult dates involve things like dinners and walks on the beach as far as I can tell, but we already eat and walk together all the time, so—”
“Relax!” Dawn said, and laughed. “I love this. And just so you know, I’ve been on plenty of dates, and basically what I’ve learned is a good date is just about having chances for conversation and a bit of fun. With plenty of escape routes in case it sucks, of course. So, you know, if I’m not enjoying myself, you’ll know by the fact that I distractify you with something shiny then disappear all ninja-like, Poof!”
I breathed a little easier, and said, “The only thing distracting me is your smile.”
“Aw, how sweet. And cheesy. Maybe I’ll start calling you my little cheesecake. But seriously, about the instruments, you do know I was joking about being a material girl living in a material world? You don’t have to go trying to buy my heart with gifts.”
“I know. I thought I already won your heart anyway,” I said.
“Well, you certainly had a running start, before you gave up your memories of me.”
I sighed. “I didn’t give them up, I was tricked out of them.”
“Still, ‘I dwell in darkness without you,’ and it went away?!”
“Egads, woman! Do I need to fight a dragon as penance?”
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Dawn replied. She took my hand. “So if you’re not going to buy me an instrument, why go to the instrument booth?”
“You’ll see,” I said. “Just trust me.”
“Okay, fine,” Dawn said, and her expression became serious. “Actually … I’ve been debating whether to say anything, but I might need some major boyfriend support tonight, just to warn you. I’ve been thinking about making tonight my last gig for a bit.”
I sighed. “I kind of thought you might, the way you’ve been talking, but why?”
Dawn shrugged. “I need to get serious about making money for a while. I’ve still got a mountain of debt from when Dad was sick, and, well, it’s been years and I’m still playing the same places for the same faces. Not that I don’t appreciate all the local love, I just think, short term—” She shrugged.
“But you love your music. And you’re really good,” I said. “I’d hate to see you give it up.”
“Great!” she said. “Don’t suppose one of your wizard friends runs Capitol Records and owes you a favor?”
“Uh, no,” I replied.
“Didn’t think so. And I didn’t mean to be a bummer on our date. It might even be a good thing. The ladies at the massage school are still trying to get me to do their program. And—Blah, enough about me. Tell me about your morning.”
I groaned, and explained how I’d rapidly gone from one problem—finding Sal’s soul mate—to also finding a way to protect Pete and Vee from being declared rogue feybloods, and helping Silene’s feybloods to clear their name.
“Not to sound uncaring, but you know these aren’t all your problems to solve, right?” Dawn asked.
*See?*
“I know,” I said a little more sharply than I’d intended. “I’m just doing what I can. And in a way it’s all tied together, anyway.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, I have to help the feybloods free Challa so I can keep my promise to Sal. And doing a good deed might improve the Gramaraye reputation a bit, which can’t hurt.”
*And the Silver Court is the best choice for Pete and Vee if they must needs choose a Demesne—*
We’ve been over that. Drop it.
“Well, you know what you’re doing,” Dawn said. “Probably.”
“Thanks.”
“Uh huh.” Then after a second, she said, “Does this place we’re going have magical instruments? Is that why you’re taking me there?”
“No,” I said.
“You’re no fun,” Dawn said when it was obvious I wasn’t going to give her any clues. But the bounce in her step and her tone said otherwise.
We got more than one odd glance as we walked through the crowds.
The best glances were clearly due to our outfits. Well, okay, due to Dawn’s. It was easy to spot those very few who recognized her as the bard from Bard’s Tale by their enthusiastically geeked-out reactions.
The worst, by contrast, were the obvious “why is he with her?” glances, as if there needed to be some reason to explain why I would be holding her hand—something in my background or character that made me like them black girls, or “settle” for a woman with some extra padding, or such a quirky sense of style.
A few glances may have just been due to the rarity of a black woman at a fantasy event, which I’m sure was one of the reasons it was rare. If people kept looking at me like I was out of place, I’d have a hard time feeling like I belonged.
Dawn noticed the looks as well, and waved jovially in response to them all. The more negative or sidelong the glance, the more animated her reaction.
There were a number of words Dawn insisted were made up, and “subtlety” was one of them. Literally. When I tried to point out “subtlety” in the dictionary, she pointed out that no real word would be that misspelled. “There’s no such thing as a silent ‘b’,” she’d said. “So it’s a completely messed-up word, and since it was designed to make life easier for completely messed-up people, obviously they’re the ones who made it up.”
I knew that she obviously knew that subtlety was, in fact, a real word in our world. But one of the things I’d quickly learned was that there were actually three worlds, not two: the Other Realm, our world, and Dawn’s World; and in Dawn’s World, she defined her own reality.
I completely envied and admired that about her.
We stopped at several jewelry, leather, and clothing booths, and finally reached the booth with the musical instruments, an open-sided tent with mandolins, ukuleles, pan flutes, and regular flutes hanging around the perimeter. Tables were arranged beneath its shade, covered with hand drums, harps, lyres, and other heavier instruments.
A woman sat in a camp chair near the back of the booth, leaning forward over a low folding table as she strung a lute. She wore a layered dress of white and blue cloth, and her hair rested like a braided crown atop her head, woven through with white flowers.
“Elowyn?” I asked.
She looked up and smiled at Dawn and me. Her eyes flicked to my persona ring, and she raised an eyebrow. “I am she. Do you have a question?”
“Actually,” I said, “I wondered if you could listen to Dawn sing a little bit, and maybe give her some advice?” I pulled a small silver mana vial out of my pocket and held it up.
“Wow.” Dawn said. “Uh, excuse us please.” She grabbed my arm. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
She pulled me back to the front of the booth. “What the hell? First of all, what makes you think I want her advice on my singing? And second of all, what makes you think I need it? Not exactly a great date move, insulting my singing.”
I raised my hands. “I’m not trying to insult you. Elowyn, she’s—” I looked around, and lowered my voice. “She’s a muse.”
Dawn blinked. “Wait, you mean, literally a muse?”
“Yeah. Well, not one of the actual muses from the myths, but she’s a euterpe, a feyblood who has an affinity for music.”
Dawn looked back at Elowyn, who smiled serenely. “Is this because I’m thinking about giving up my gigs?”
“Maybe a bit. I love your music, but, well, I know my opinion doesn’t mean much since I’m not a musician or anything. I thought maybe Elowyn’s would.”
“And if she says my music sucks?”
“Then she’s a muse with lousy taste, and I’ll summon up the spirit of any musician you want to tell you so.”
“Any musician?” Dawn arched an eyebrow. “Hmmm. That could make one hell of a reality show. Get Sid Vicious up there insulting the singers—”
“So does that mean you’ll give it a try?” I asked.
Dawn looked at Elowyn, her lips pursing to the side, then shrugged. “Sure. How often do you get to play music for a muse?”
Elowyn had Dawn set up just outside her booth, and loaned her a guitar since Dawn’s best songs were better suited to it than her mandolin.
Dawn stepped away for a few minutes to do her secret pre-show ritual, then returned to sing “Order Up Your La La La” and “Sticky Sad Saturday” and “Godzilla Shops for Swimsuits Too,” her songs that typically got the best reactions from her regular followers. As she did, a crowd gathered to hear her play. Her music was folksy and playful enough that it fit well with the mood of the fair, enough to be forgiven lines like “I look for your number between my thighs, but you only left teeth marks and sticky lies,” or “So if you see Godzilla in the changing room mirror, remember she has fire and no monsters to fear.”
When she finished and the crowd had offered its applause and moved on, Elowyn led Dawn behind the tent, away from the moving crowds of people.
“So,” Dawn said. “Is this where you tell me I should stick to playing for my friends?”
“No,” Elowyn replied. “I’m not going to tell you anything. You are.” She touched Dawn’s forehead, and Dawn’s eyes widened, then a smile settled on her face.
Dawn experienced what Elowyn had experienced when watching her sing. More than just listening to a recording of herself, Dawn got to experience firsthand what it was like to hear her own songs for the first time.
Fifteen minutes later, Elowyn removed her hand, and Dawn blinked.
Dawn looked at me, a beautiful smile lighting up her face.
“Best date ever,” she said.
“The date’s not over yet,” I said. “Not until you win me a stuffed dragon by beating the crap out of some kids, oh great bard.”
“Ooo, classy.”
“Frakking classy,” I said. “All the way.”
I gave Elowyn the mana vial as payment, and led Dawn by the hand toward the dragon pit.
Dawn grinned as we strode through the crowds. As we cut between two vendor tents, she said, “You know, for someone who doesn’t remember me, you know me pretty damn well.”
“Well, I—”
Dawn stopped, and pulled me into a kiss.
We had kissed before. The first time—the first time I remembered anyway—was a quick, passionate kiss in her car that had helped convince me to not give up or return to exile, to stay and fight my grandfather. That had been like a brief shock to my system.
And we’d kissed since then, but there had always been a kind of uncertainty or self-consciousness about it because of my fears and doubts about myself, or about us.
But this kiss was like rebirth.
I felt in that moment as though Dawn drew my life energy into her, and poured hers back into me. I became acutely aware of the feel of her, the smell of her, the warm enveloping presence of her. Hunger filled me for more of her kiss. I pressed myself into her and pulled her into me.
The kiss ebbed and surged from deep to playfully light and back again, like the swell and crash of ocean waves, or the rise and fall of the voices at the fair. I soon lost all sense of the outside world, focused only on the warm world of Dawn’s lips, the rhythm of her tongue.
Someone blew a screeching note on a horn, returning me abruptly to the fair, to the world of up and down, left and right, inside and out, the world where I existed separate from Dawn. We eased our way out of the kiss, blinked at each other for a second.
I still wasn’t sure what she saw in me. I still had my fears and doubts. But none of that seemed to matter just then.
We both grinned like idiots.
“Hey,” Dawn said, her voice going Jessica Rabbit low. “What say we skip the dragon and go back to my house?”
I grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward her car at a sprint as she laughed.
7
Didn’t We Almost Have It All
Dawn’s house was a simple two-story home built sometime around the seventies, with none of the Victorian stylings of my family home but solidly constructed with heavy wood and plaster throughout. As we stepped inside, she closed the front door and slid up close to me.
“Come into the bedroom in, say, five minutes? And then I’ll make you really comfortable.” She waggled her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”
“I think I know what you mean,” I said.
“Are you sure?” she asked, and headed down the hall toward her bedroom. “Sometimes you can be a bit slow.”
“Yeah, I got it.” I smiled.
“Because I mean sexy time,” she said over her shoulder. “Me and you. All naked and stuff.”
I laughed. “Oh, that! I thought you meant you were going to let me use your zebra snuggie.”
“Nobody touches ZeeZee but me!” Dawn called from the bedroom.
I stood in the entryway, by the stairs leading to the second floor and the opening to the “office” area. Art covered every wall in Dawn’s home, a lot of it pieces she’d accepted from local artists as partial payment for a tarot reading or pet sitting or other service. And between the art pieces were pictures of Dawn, her father and her mother all from before her mother’s death: some from Georgia, some in front of their old house in Seattle’s Central District. Several framed certificates covered the office wall as well, including Dawn’s Jack and Jill community service certificate, and her father’s engineering degree.
I tried not to think of his spirit watching us from the beyond.
When five minutes had passed, I went down the hall to Dawn’s room. The space looked like a clothing bomb had gone off, spraying skirts and shirts across every surface. Beneath were stacked books, a set of bongo drums, an ancient television, and more items whose nature and identity were mysteries to be uncovered by some future archeologist.
I kicked off my shoes, socks, and pants, and crawled into her bed, wearing my boxers and T-shirt.
I shifted nervously beneath the comforter.
Dawn and I hadn’t exactly jumped into the physical side of things, taking it slow as we got to know each other again. I’d had plenty to adjust to, twenty-five years of changes in the world and the people I knew, and the betrayals and troubles of my family, which had slowed our reintroduction process.
There was also the fact that I’d been a virgin until Heather seduced me three months ago, and as wild as that experience had been, it had not left me feeling suddenly a confident and knowledgeable lover. Dawn seemed to have the libido of Captain Kirk in a room full of Orion dancers, and while she made no secret of her ability to please herself, I knew she’d want her boyfriend to be able to do so as well.
And I wanted to do so. Hell, I’d even snuck in and stolen the copy of The Joy of Sex that had still been hidden in the back of my parent’s closet, despite the fact that I wanted so much to remain in denial that my parents had ever been naked in their lives, let alone tried different positions. I’d studied, and rehearsed this moment in my head countless times.
But while there was no question that I wanted to sleep with Dawn—hell, sometimes I wanted to just rip off her clothes—the question was whether I should before we were both certain of our love. Soul mates or not, how many perfect
couples had ended up awkward friends because of poor timing and poor decisions—or a terrible first time in bed?
Dawn entered the room, a towel wrapped around her, her smile hungry as she pulled a shower cap off her hair, unleashing the springy curls. “Prepare to have your mind blown. For starters.”
She let the towel fall to the floor, then slid into the bed next to me, naked.
“What’s this?” she asked, snapping the elastic on my boxers.
“I, uh—” I blushed.
Dawn helped me pull off my remaining clothes. Then we entwined, and devoured each other.
I followed her lead, brushing my lips and tongue across her neck, her throat, her nipples, the soft indented curve that ran from the top of her leg to inside her thigh, and breathed in the scent of her. An animalistic hunger rose in me as I kissed my way upward, and I bit into the ample flesh and smooth skin of her stomach as if to tear off a piece of her, until she squealed and slapped my head to stop. I laughed, and we shifted and turned until I lay behind her, teased my way up her spine with soft and unpredictable kisses, wrapped my hand around her throat, kissed the back of her neck, reached around with my other hand to—
*Take her already!* Alynon shouted in my head.
I pulled back.
“That’s good,” Dawn said, her voice husky, and reached back for me. “Don’t stop.”
“I—Alynon’s spoiling it,” I said, as my … excitement slowly fell.
Damn it. Why couldn’t you have stayed quiet!
“I don’t fucking care,” Dawn said. “He can watch all he wants.”
“That’s because he’s not in your head,” I replied.
*I’ll be quiet, truly,* Alynon said. *I shan’t even watch. Scout’s honor. Go for it.*
Too late. I flopped onto the bed and sighed out my frustration.
Dawn let out a long, slow breath of her own, then snuggled down next to me, holding me close. “It’s okay. We’ll figure this out.”
“Yeah,” I said. One more thing we had to work out.
How long before Dawn decided maybe I wasn’t worth all the work?
I turned toward her, and she followed my movement, turning so that I spooned her.
Bigfootloose and Finn Fancy Free Page 9
