by Beth Cohen
*** In the Realm, Zana’s life was released. She was free to be herself without having her gifts stolen from her as they had been in the Wideness. Most days, Zana would rise with the sun and go out to the fields and work the land. Sometimes in the fields, tending the crops, and sometimes into the orchards, tending the fruit trees… Sometimes, especially in the winter months when the crops and trees needed her less, the women would come to her yurt and seek her counsel and healing powers. They would come to her for aches and pains and illnesses of the body and of their souls…While Zana could not always cure the women and their children, she always listened to them as they spoke their full. Then she would comment, sometimes repeating what she heard as they spoke…Often a woman would know the steps she should take but lacked the confidence to move forward without sanction and the agreement of another voice. The women came to Zana for comfort as well as guidance. Zana’s wisdom was of a rare and visionary nature. She knew how to listen — and interpret the words, the motions, the movement, and the demeanor — the whole sense of the woman sitting before her. She could take all that she absorbed from her patient and interpreted what needed to be said or done or taken to alleviate whoever was ailing.
Zana knew that when the women came for their children, they were most vulnerable. Sometimes they would bring their ill children and sometimes they would just come for advice. While Zana had no formal medical education, she had spent her childhood assisting her father in his clinic.
Luckily for Zana and the rest of the women of the Realm, Zana’s father was a women’s doctor and also possessed some strong feelings or instincts that he had attributed to the Powers of All Around. He had helped many women through difficult times both emotionally and physically. He was considered by the women in the Wideness to have been a very special man. It seemed to the women that Zana’s father not only cared about them and their problems but sympathized with them and believed them to be real, legitimate ailments and difficulties. He would actually listen to their complaints and try to find the physical cause…and in doing so, he would often come to the realization that many of these women’s ailments were caused by the pain they were living in the lives they had been given. Indeed, Zana’s father had been a unique man and possessed unique views.
*** Throughout her childhood and on into her teenage years, Zana’s father would discuss with his daughter assistant the cases that would come into his clinic. It puzzled him that these women suffered so. He could not quite understand two basic facts of life for these women in the Wideness. First: Even though they were definitely not equal, he did not understand they were not all treated with dignity and respect by their fathers and their husbands; these women were, after all, the children or the mothers and the chosen partners of these men. Second: That these women were not happy in their positions of being cared for…why would the women not be happy not having to be the provider and the earner…? He was unique but he did wear the blinders of the men raised in the Wideness.
Although these issues puzzled Zana’s father, that did not cause him to care any less. He continued, throughout his life, to seek a treatment and a solution to the pain and illness suffered by these women. Zana spent hours in her father’s clinic and even more hours in his lab…helping to find the answers to the suffering that walked into his clinic on a daily basis. While Zana knew that she was lucky to have been born to a family with such a father, she also knew that those who were able to hear and follow the callings of the Powers of All Around were always required to pay a price.
*** When Zana was older and sent to her husband’s home, she didn’t get to spend as much time with her father in his clinic. She was expected to maintain her new home and bring children into the world. But Zana could not carry a child to a live delivery. Ironically, her womb was not able to carry a life. This angered Zana’s husband and he sent her away…Zana went to live on her own. She became another woman, scorned and thought strange by the men, a woman discarded. There were other women living without men, but these women were of a different spirit then Zana. They sought out the men for their company and sex but had no desire to be owned or wed. Zana was not given to seeking out others nor did she find the men particularly intriguing. She enjoyed being on her own, alone with her thoughts, her meditations and the connection that she felt to the Powers of All Around. Her days were spent in various clinics assisting the doctors with their patient load. She spent her evenings taunted by the men who had heard of her isolation, and had come to haunt her for sexual gratification and their own curiosity. Many of these men would become violent when Zana did not meet their demands…and Zana had wound up, more times than not, raped and beaten. This left Zana’s desire to be alone to grow and her enrapture in the Powers of All Around soon enveloped her. She came to believe that she had a destiny to fill and that destiny was not to be found in the Wideness among the men. Zana dreamt of living a life with the Powers of All Around, surrounded by softness, tears and gentle laughter. She knew that this could not come to be as long as she lived in the Wideness — and at that time, there was no other choice. So Zana remained isolated and detached.
*** When the Women’s Forward Movement decided to leave the Wideness, Zana did not need any convincing. For Zana, the Great Split was her dream, and her dream came true. Her freedom was finally won. The battles fought during the time of the Great Split gave Zana an energized purpose. She ran to the sides of the wounded, administering aid and comfort to the battered women.
In the Realm of the Women’s Forward Movement, Zana was able to spread her wings. She cultivated her own interests and developed her own theories and ways based on all that she had learned in her father’s clinic and laboratory, as well as her very negative experiences with the men who sought her out in her attempted solitude in the Wideness. She took all of these experiences and decided to live on her own in the Realm as well. Zana did not want a permanent structure for her home. She wanted something that she could move and change to satisfy her needs and desires of the moment. Zana decided to build herself a yurt, a home of the ancients. For Zana, the farming lifestyle — cultivating life, crops and animals — suited her spirit. Cultivating herbal and conceptual cures as well helped her care for those in need. Putting these cures into practice, while living her solitary life, was about as perfect as life could get. And her home, her yurt, reflected all that she loved and believed in. Like most yurts in the Realm, Zana’s was made of the local wood. The floors where smooth and soft in that woody way, but the walls were grainy and rough, covered with a beautiful big leaved vine. Zana’s visitors had the habit of weaving flowers and other plants into the vine, sometimes woven dolls and cloth as well. The ceiling was also made of wood, but inside Zana had fastened the long-leafed branches of the palm tree. Walking into Zana’s yurt was a calming experience that awakened the senses of smell and sight. The experience was as near as one could get to entering the Powers of All Around, without actually focusing or trying.
It was perfect for Zana up until the winter months began to set in. Quietly and slowly, a very subtle loneliness began to creep in. The loneliness wasn’t anything too loud…It was more likened to a great deep hum…The calling of the Powers of All Around were still present, so that the feeling did not emerge in such a way that she found limiting or inhibiting. Quite simply, Zana began to think that it would be nice to have someone in her life to talk to in the evenings after a long day in the fields or seeing patients. Zana began to think of that strong and noble woman who would appear in her dreams…her body hard and soft all the same. Her face serious, concerned and kind with eyes that would light up the room…and ideas. The woman in her dreams. Zana felt she knew her well. The woman who set all of her ideas into motion of positive doing, producing, inventing, practicing, concentrating and being…Every evening and all through her dreams, Zana imagined that woman as she would appear in her yurt.
Zana and Jane Double D
Within twenty-four hours of the walking ‘accident’, the entire Upper Stratus knew about J
ane and Zana. Jane’s closest friends, as well as her Judoshii-Juniors, the Judoshiiks, the Templits and most everybody who had ever met Jane, was delighted for Jane and Zana alike. The new couple. The irony of this was that both Zana and Jane had not yet had the time to process this phenomenon they had become. They were completely enamored by each other but they hadn’t processed the meaning of their new
relationship. Zana’s farmer friends and all of those who had sought her counsel were equally pleased. These two women, so different in their ways, had shared a very strong commonality. These two women lived their lives in the Realm to serve the society that they had helped create. They lived to serve the women and to ensure that each of the women, and their children, were able to live their own best lives, in the safest and most complete way possible.
These two vital women shared a shestory and they shared compassion. Zana’s compassion and brilliance made her the leader she was. Jane’s compassion and brilliance made her the Senshii she was. Jane’s Way of Gentleness was an exact fit with Zana’s healing. The gentle movement giving strength to the weary, to those whose fear brought illness and the need to live in isolation or total seclusion. It gave them comfort and a way to feel safe within
themselves. These two women from opposite sides of the Realm had found each other, seemly entirely by chance…For the time being, that is what Jane believed. Zana, who had been dreaming of this woman of her dreams for months prior to the walking ‘accident’, knew that nothing happens by chance and that she and Jane were indeed meant to meet and to be together…
But more than anything else, they cherished each other and they cherished the time they had together. Both women had extremely demanding hours and a great deal of responsibility…Many in the Realm counted on these women daily for their advice…even their presence alone was necessary for the smooth run of society.
*** As a defense force, the Judoshii-Juniors didn’t yet know all the tactics, techniques and
methodologies that were basic and necessary for the defense of the Realm according to the Way of Gentleness. This was a practice that Jane Double D had been developing on paper and just recently began to put into practice with her prodigies. She had not yet trained anyone else in the whole of her theories…Jane Double D had to be there with them every day. It took a great deal of effort for Jane to get up and leave Zana’s yurt, but as the morning sun rose in the sky, Jane got up wordlessly and went with a smile on her face to meet her Juniors.
While Zana could be “replaced” in the fields and orchards, her gifts of healing were hers alone. As the Realm became a more active society — with more and more women in multiple places of work, more children, and more couples coming together — Zana spent more time practicing the art of healing. She spent more and more time in her yurt…Zana’s gifts were needed and her time could not be spared.
The New Couple and Their Unknown Shared Shestory
Zana and Jane managed to get home to each other every evening. Since Zana could not make herself comfortable in any environment that was not amidst the relative open spaces of the fields and the orchard, Jane spent her nights with Zana in the fanciful yurt. Gradually the yurt became Jane’s second home — the first was still with the Judoshii-Juniors.
The second evening that Zana and Jane spent together, Jane came to the yurt after a long day of work. She had spent a great part of the day thinking about Zana and wondering about the upcoming night. When she finally got to the yurt, some of the women who had sought Zana’s healing gifts that day were still sitting, very comfortably, with Zana. As Jane Double D walked in, a silence took over. The women were a bit surprised to see Jane Double D. Some of them had not yet heard about the previous night. Jane Double D was not someone who the women had been accustomed to seeing in the yurt. Jane Double D was well known throughout the Realm. Her name was revered and respected.
*** All knew that Jane Double D was their greatest protector and one of the strongest and most consistent advocates of women’s safety, even before the Great Split, in the Wideness. One of Jane’s many
struggles in the Wideness had been the lack of protection of women’s health. Since women belonged to their men, they were considered a form of property. Most of the women could no more make decisions for themselves than the cattle in the fields. If they wanted to do anything to change their bodies, undergo surgery, need medication, they needed their man’s permission. And terminating a pregnancy??? The men had decided long ago, before most could remember that this was the worst thing she could do. A pregnant woman, whether pregnant by her father, brother, uncle or husband, was still considered to be carrying the property of her man. The termination of any kind of pregnancy was banned. This level of ownership, which extended beyond the ownership of the women herself, reached through to her womb, to the egg and the sperm inside — it was an evil beyond most of the women’s ability to deal with. It was beyond all of the other laws and cultural restraints. The women were willing to live with it. In the Wideness, the word for rape did not exist. The women simply had no rights. Since their bodies belonged to the men, the men were free to use their force, to shove and devastate at will. The more enlightened of the women, mostly those who had managed to either live alone or to work within the men’s world, felt this slavery; and isn’t the ownership of another slavery? It gnawed at their collective souls. Jane being Jane could not tolerate this vile and contemptible fact of their lives.
Years before the Split, Jane helped as many women as she could — victims turned survivors, thanks to Jane. Jane, the champion of women’s safety, now coupled with Zana, was a new concept to most of these women — a new and joyous concept. Jane had found a woman learned in the ancient, as well as more modern, ways of healing — Zana.
Although both women were unaware, their paths had indeed crossed before the Split. Jane had linked many a woman with the anonymous freer of a slaved pregnancy. Zana knew how to help these women and understood their enslavement. Zana removed the cells from the womb before their male owners could even know of their existence. It would be years before either put this old connection together.
*** Back to Jane’s entrance — Jane Double D walked into Zana’s yurt. After the initial silence, the women rose to greet her, bid goodbye and took leave of the yurt. The intense emotion, or more precise, the intense passion that was felt in the air between Zana and Jane could not be mistaken. The women, those who had known Zana as their healer and adviser, were glad that the extraordinary Zana had found her match. This was a match that could not have been planned by anyone. This was not a match that could have been predicted or anticipated. Yet, this match was so logical, so fitting. The women saw greatness in this match. There was a silence that surrounded them — not a word was uttered by anyone who might endanger the comfort of this new couple.
*** As soon as the last woman left and pulled the flaps of the yurt tightly closed, Jane found herself once again wrapped in the long arms of Zana. Their passion was still a surprise to Jane. Jane had heard the other women engaging in impassioned talk, sharing their stories of sex and pleasure. She had never really understood her friends’ pleasure — but here she was, unable to take her eyes and hands off of Zana. The pleasure derived from Zana was new to Jane. She could not believe the sensation, the experience — her desire was unbounded.
As Zana unbuttoned Jane’s shirt, she reached in and cupped her soft, yielding breasts. Jane moaned with wanting…Zana bent over and took one nipple in her mouth and the other between her middle finger and thumb. She rolled her tongue around the areole as she sucked Jane’s nipple. Jane’s moan became a hoarse husky gasp. Her legs buckled under her and Zana lifted her up and carried her to the mat where she pulled her pants off, all the while her tongue exploring. Both were compelled to touch, to feel, to explore, acting with a fierce intensity in an attempt to satiate their burning desire. Jane came several times — was it the anticipation of what would come next, or Zana’s talented tongue? Zana, whose daily garb was a loose gown that wrapped ar
ound her body, held closed with rope, had come open and she pressed her wooly mound to Jane’s wet, wet mound. The two of them could not get enough of one another. Their hands, their fingers, explored every soft wet crevice. Jane’s strong Judoshii hands, as gentle as they were, frantically felt their way around Zana’s rising, hot clitoris. Her clitoris grew hotter and more and more swollen with each stroke of Jane's masterful hands…. She moaned and cried out over and over again as Jane touched her and made her come more times than she could count….
The women made love through most of the night, taking breaks to down some water and rest briefly in each other’s arms. These breaks were never long — their passion was fierce and like the flames of a fire, needed immediate attention. They both felt ecstasy, bliss. They knew this came from their bond of womanhood and a trust they had never been able to have with the men in their pasts. Those first few days brought with it very little sleep, but great release and joy…And it was a joy that was reflected in every move that both Jane and Zana made, both in the yurt and while busy at their respective tasks and responsibilities.
Jane had never considered herself a passionate woman. She loved her friends fiercely — but nothing she had ever felt compared to what she was feeling for and with Zana… And nobody was more surprised by all of this than Jane herself…
Their lovemaking was a destiny shared — and fulfilled over and over again. Throughout their respective days, both women did their best to remain focused on their work. Both Jane and Zana were determined not to be distracted. Jane had her own way of coping. Her whole life and work had been based on discipline and self-control. She was able to keep her thoughts at bay — for the most part. During her practices with the Judoshiists, she found that she could channel her desire for Zana into a force of strength and resolve on the mat.
