Discovery

by Radclyffe

  Mercury

  Jennifer Harris

  Mercury is the god of commerce and thievery, the Roman counterpart of the Greek god Hermes: messenger of the gods.

  My first kiss was a dare. I was twelve and can’t remember his name. He had blond hair and wasn’t cute. I remember wanting to kiss him just to prove I wasn’t queer because I hadn’t yet kissed a boy, and because I sat in the front of our class.

  Let me qualify. My dad moved us from Aurora, Ohio, to Laguna Beach, California. I’m talking major culture shock. It was the ’80s and I was all preppy this and that, a gay goody-two-shoes, and SoCal was just Dolfin shorts, Vans, and potheads. Also, I had just had my first fight the week before. Jennifer Cohen started yelling at me at lunch and shoving me around. She was all, let’s fight. Let’s go, let’s go. I said, “We’re fighting now.” I asked, “What do you mean, ‘go fight’? Where?” And the girls on my side were coaching me on how to make a fist. I never did understand what it was about, but she broke my nose.

  So the next week when what’s-his-name’s tongue slid inside my mouth, I just thought of eels in the zoo. The way they glide along the bottom of the tanks, swirling up dirt and muck. He tasted like corn chips. I kept my eyes open. Behind us, my best friend Suzie was making faces. He kissed me in the park behind school; there were eucalyptus trees everywhere and the air stank of it.

  Suzie dared him to do it. I remember him saying sure, sure, no big deal. “It could be worse,” he said. I thought it wouldn’t be so bad.

  But of course, it was Suzie I loved in that pre-teen sort of way. I knew I was queer but wasn’t interested in anyone knowing just yet. It made me feel aloof, like it didn’t matter what those dumb wipes thought.

  It was power, you see?

  Suzie died a few years later. I was sixteen and didn’t go to her funeral. She was shot in L.A.—at a monster truck derby. Some guy stole her purse outside the gates of the Coliseum. It was imitation leather, white, with two bucks and a lipstick inside. Some guy just walked up and grabbed it. Suzie waved down a security guard and they chased him two blocks to an alley. When the guy found himself cornered, he turned around, pulled out a gun, and shot Suzie in the center of her head.

  She used to sleep over a lot because her mom was a nurse and worked the night shift. My mom said it wasn’t right for her to be alone so much, but Suzie was always sneaking out. It sounds strange, but I always knew she wouldn’t make it. It was her eyes. They had this sad thing in them. But back then, we slept together all the time. We would sleep with just our underwear on, arms wrapped around each other.

  Sometimes she would touch me but I knew she didn’t mean it. She was already having sex with boys. I knew with me, she was just bored and wanted to see if I’d object. But I never did. A month after the dare, Suzie’s mom got a job in Huntington Beach, about twenty minutes north, so after a while we lost touch.

  The day I learned Suzie was dead I was with my first girlfriend, Anna, and we were driving to go body surfing at the Wedge, in Newport, near Thirty-first Street and Pacific Coast. We were cruising around, blaring the radio and singing along. Anna pulled into a 7-Eleven off Pacific Coast and right there on the front page of the Metro section of the L.A. Times, was Suzie’s picture. I didn’t notice the photo. I read the whole article not realizing that Suzie was my Suzie; was the Suzie who plotted my first and only boy-kiss.

  Anna grabbed the paper from me, said, “This is Suzie, isn’t it? You and her used to be best friends, didn’t you?”

  I grabbed the paper and stared at her photo. She looked strange. Somehow removed from the memories I had of her. I couldn’t put it together that this dead girl was Suzie Coleman.

  Later at the beach I laid out my towel, put on some Coppertone #4, and walked down to the water. The waves were breaking pretty good that day. A slow curl. Anna and I waded out and floated over the swells.

  The quote from the security guard had read, “There was blood everywhere, she just sort of collapsed. I didn’t know what to do.”

  In that park with all that eucalyptus in the air, I remember the boy turning away from me laughing. Suzie dared me because she’d been fucking around and I guess she thought I should at least kiss someone. I remember her fragile blue eyes. I remember her telling me that I had to open my mouth more; that guys like it when you open your mouth real wide.

  Silent Vows - Cate Culpepper

  CATE CULPEPPER is the author of the Tristaine series, four novels about a passionate clan of renegade Amazons. She is a 2005 Golden Crown Literary Society award winner in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy category, and was named one of the recipients of the 2008 Alice B. Readers’ Choice Awards. Cate’s new book, Fireside, set in modern day, will be released in January 2009. Her Tristaine series includes Tristaine: The Clinic, Battle for Tristaine, Tristaine Rises, and Queens of Tristaine. Thanks to Fecky McFeck for the idea.

  Silent Vows

  Cate Culpepper

  Dang, Jesstin!” Dana thumped the door to the sweat lodge with the heel of her boot. “You’re getting pruney in there. Brenna’s not going to marry a raisin.”

  When she got no answer, Dana scowled and rested her head against the lodge’s pinewood frame. The rising moon was already visible through the thick branches of maple and oak that encircled Tristaine. The handfasting began at midnight. As Jess’s second, it was her job to deliver Jess to the village square in time for the ceremony. Bodily, if need be. She heard another hissing rise of steam within the small lodge and rolled her eyes.

  “Come on, how many impurities do you need to cook out, for God’s sake?” Dana yelled. Then her jaw snapped shut as she spotted a slender figure trotting through the high grass, and she felt a silly smile rise on her lips.

  “Well, I’ve lost her,” Kyla announced, waving her arms in agitation. “Two things Shann asks me to do tonight—sing and guard Brenna—and I’ve already blown one of them.” Kyla stopped short and stared at Dana in consternation. “She’s not here, is she?”

  “Who, Brenna?” Dana pulled her gaze from Kyla’s rapidly rising and falling breasts. “No, of course she’s not here. Jess is here, so Brenna can’t be here.” She looked around sharply to be sure. “Shann will scalp us both if we let those two see each other.”

  “Shann’s not really a scalping kind of queen, honey.” Kyla grinned as she rested an elbow against the lodge and caught her breath. “Is Jesstin still gazing at her navel in there?”

  “Still gazing.” Dana thought Kyla looked adorable, but then all Kyla ever had to do to look adorable to Dana was breathe.

  “Jess?” Kyla pressed her ear to the sweating wood, then knocked politely. “It’s me. You need to come out of there, adanin, your hair’s going to go all lank!”

  “Right,” Dana snorted. “You know how to persuade an Amazon warrior. She’ll barrel out of there screaming now.”

  “Well, you’re not doing any better bossing your Amazon around than I am bossing mine.” Kyla puffed an auburn lock of hair out of her eyes and stared into the darkening forest. “Where could she be?”

  Dana shrugged. “Exactly what sort of torments were you all inflicting on Brenna when she slipped your leash?”

  “Just our usual preparations for a handfasting.” Kyla ticked them off on her fingers. “The ritual bath, the gauntlet of caresses, the naked knife-dancing—”

  “Jeeze, Ky, Brenna’s probably run off to marry some guy to escape all that.”

  “No, Dana, it was really beautiful.” Kyla’s eyes sparkled as she clasped Dana’s hand. “I just love the way our clan’s spirits rise toward the moment when two of our sisters join for life.”

  “Okay, but why all this hoopla about keeping Jess and Brenna apart?” Dana couldn’t stop staring at Kyla’s fingers entwined in hers. “They’ve been adonai for years, it’s not like either of them are vir—”

  “Well, Tristaine’s Amazons only marry after they’ve been together for years. That’s where the whole custom of celibacy before the handfasting comes from.” Kyla’s el
fin features took on a dreamy cast. “Aphrodite rewards the lovers for their long seasons of waiting for Her blessing. All that hands-off time makes for some very memorable first-joining nights.”

  “I’m sure.” In spite of her lascivious tone, Dana felt color rising in her cheeks. She jerked her chin toward the sweat lodge. “It’s just tough to picture old brawny-butt in there celibate for two days, much less a month. Sorry, a moon. Jess figures in the sex fantasies of every dang Amazon under ninety in this clan.”

  “Ooh, that she does.” Kyla bounced on her toes, smiling, and Dana allowed herself a brief flare of jealousy.

  She knew Jess and Kyla loved each other dearly, but platonically—their relationship was the essence of fierce devotion that the Amazons called adanin. That close sisterhood described the warm bond between Dana and Brenna as well.

  But let’s face it, Dana thought. Jesstin is Tristaine’s lead warrior and Shann’s second, she’s built like some female ideal of Adonis, she’s got all that clenched-jaw, broad-shouldered butch thing going—basically, Jess was what some of the younger women called her when Brenna wasn’t around—a walking, vulva-clenching climax.

  Dana shook her head. “And she hasn’t touched Brenna for weeks?”

  “I know.” Kyla snickered. “Those two keeping their hands off each other that long is a miracle of stamina worthy of…”

  Kyla’s voice trailed off and she and Dana looked at each other in dawning horror.

  “Jesstin,” Dana shrieked, and they attacked the door of the sweat lodge in a scrambling fury.

  Billows of steam gushed out at them as the door crashed inward, and there was much sputtering and flailing of arms until it cleared. The dark sweat lodge contained buckets of water and a pit of baking stones, filled with glowing coals and smoking cedar chips. The lodge no longer featured two boards in its back wall. And it no longer contained any Amazon warriors, clench-jawed, broad-shouldered or otherwise.

  “Shann’s gonna scalp me,” Dana moaned.

  *

  Brenna ran faster.

  Jess had taught her the cleansing and calming benefits of speed, and it was beginning to help. She leapt nimbly over a dark bank of bushes and kept going, her stride light and effortless, tracing the inner rim of the vast mesa that housed Tristaine.

  Brenna was fitter than she had ever been, healthy in body and spirit. She could run all night, and was considering doing so. A light wind gusted through the trees, cool and fresh on her heated face, and the rustling leaves spurred her on.

  The laughter and singing of the Amazons had long since faded behind her. Brenna didn’t fear pursuit. She doubted her sisters would even miss her in their boisterous revelry.

  Ordinarily she loved it—the intricate rituals and ceremonies that were the heart of life in Tristaine. Their customs came from a dozen different continents and theologies, weaving a lush cultural tapestry that Brenna revered and usually enjoyed. But she had been unprepared for the emotional intensity of this night.

  She veered around a gnarled maple and headed toward the mesa’s east plain. She craved the solace of her private refuge, a small glen graced by a waterfall that had preserved her sanity on more than one turbulent night. Sweeter comfort could be found only in Jess’s arms, and that friendly warmth had been unavailable far too long. Brenna’s parched heart thirsted for it.

  “Adonai,” she whispered as she ran. It was the Amazons’ word for life-mate, wife, a bond held so sacred in Tristaine that the word itself was a prayer. It described what Jess was to Brenna, what they had been to each other for years. But tonight, they would speak the vows that would join their lives forever in the eyes of their sisters, and the Goddesses who guided their clan. As the sun began to set, the enormity of it had sneaked up on Brenna and smacked her powerfully in the chest. But she was calmin now—she’d find her composure before midnight’s full moon.

  Twigs snapped beneath her feet and she eased from all-out flight into a more relaxed pace. She would cry during the handfasting, she knew this. She minded it only because her throat would tighten, and she had vows to speak. Now she was afraid the words wouldn’t come at all. How could she give voice to the depth of her love for Jess? It was always there, it flowed beneath her every waking moment, but describing that devotion in words was like trying to capture the night wind.

  A sudden, enraged churning shook the tree limbs directly over her head, and Brenna’s heart jagged in her breast. As she flew past the oak, a black shape skulking in its highest branches leapt from its perch and landed in the tree ahead.

  Brenna guessed at once that whatever was chasing her was not Amazon. An Amazon hunted her prey silently, and this eerie stalker made no attempt at stealth. Her pulse rocketed and so did her pace, and the dark demon pursued her, leaping catlike from branch to branch in the closely-packed forest.

  The wind lashed through the trees and her legs pistoned against the soft earth. A deep-throated snarl sounded through the quivering leaves behind her, and Brenna put a hand to the dagger in her belt. She tried to turn west, back toward the village, but the shadowed form jumped onto a low limb almost directly in her path, and she was forced to turn back.

  Then Brenna knew who it was, even before she raced into the glen and reached the waterfall, and whirled to confront the creature who hunted her. The pounding fear in her heart was real, but so was the tingling of her senses, the sure recognition of her soul reflected in another—Brenna’s very blood sang her name. Trembling and pulling for breath, she waited.

  Jess dropped soundlessly from the trees, her knees dipping slightly to catch her weight on the mossy ground. She was dressed in a simple tunic and leggings; her thick hair was a wildness around her shoulders, scattered with twigs and leaves, giving her the aspect of a vengeful woodland goddess. Her step toward Brenna was slow and deliberate, her muscled arms relaxed at her sides, but the piercing, predatory cobalt of her eyes held Brenna motionless.

  Brenna stood silhouetted by the rising moon, her diaphanous white robes waving softly around her still body, and Jess saw the high color in her cheeks as clearly as if the sun rode the sky. Her young lover’s hands were clenched, and her full breasts rose and fell in hypnotic rhythm. Jess drank in the sight, filled the hollows of her bones with it. Her low brogue emerged as a guttural growl.

  “No power will keep us apart.”

  Fear glinted again in Brenna’s eyes. She looked up to hold Jess’s searing gaze as she reached her. “Don’t tempt the fates, Jesstin.”

  Jess lifted her hand, and her long, cold fingers closed gently around Brenna’s slender throat. “No power,” she murmured again, “will keep us apart.”

  Brenna swallowed and closed her eyes, Jess’s animal heat spilling over her skin.

  “I pledge all my days to your protection and happiness, Brenna.” Jess felt Brenna’s dove-swift pulse flutter against her rough palm. She slid her hand downward and brushed two knuckles across her wife’s stiffening nipples. “I’ll cry your name in the night, all my nights.”

  Ravenous beyond bearing, Jess tripped Brenna and caught her in a single motion, and lowered her slowly into the thick grass. Her shaking hands made short work of the slight robes, and when Brenna lay naked before her, her full curves pale in the moonlight, Jess lifted her face to the star-filled heavens and hissed thanks to her Goddess. She twined her hands in Brenna’s lush hair, but then felt slender fingers wrap firmly around her own throat. She looked down at Brenna, dazed. The emerald green of Brenna’s eyes was clear and shining, and held nothing of submission.

  Brenna waited until the fire in Jess’s austere features banked enough to allow her to hear her words.

  “You’ve given me a family of sisters I never dreamed of, and a love I never dared hope for.” These were not the vows Brenna had written, she didn’t need them, she was just talking to Jess and telling her the truth. “You’ve saved my life a dozen times, in a dozen ways. I cherish you with every breath.” A healer to her core, Brenna shuddered with the knowledge. “Jesst
in, I would kill or die for you.”

  The carnal greed in Jess’s expression changed, tempered into a saner, wondering look. In that moment, she was still Brenna’s lover, but she became again all else she was to Brenna—her closest friend and fierce protector. Her playmate, her hero. The arms that held Brenna now had lifted her high in celebration and had cradled her as they both wept for Tristaine’s lost sisters.

  Jess studied the beautiful woman beneath her with something like awe, seeing at first the tormented young medic Brenna had been when they first met. Then her delicate features shifted, changing swiftly through the years into the face of the strong and loving Amazon Jess held tonight. The part of Jess’s mind that was still capable of rational thought wondered what she could have done to merit such precious reward.

  “What in the world did I do to deserve you?” Brenna whispered.

  Jess smiled. Her lips feathered across Brenna’s fuller ones, the lightest of tastes after too many nights’ fasting.

  After that it was pretty much about the sex.

  *

  The low, musical chanting of five hundred Amazon voices was about to rattle Dana’s teeth out of her head. Not that the song was loud, it was just so expectant. They were nearing the time in the ceremony when Jess and Brenna must appear. Dana could hear the creaking of her ankle tendons even over the singing as she bounced up and down on her toes, that’s how tense she was.

  Even she had to admit the handfasting had been pitch-perfect so far, though. Beautiful summer night, starry skies, huge turnout, roaring bonfire, teary-eyed testimonials. The queen was, with all respect, a knockout in those silky robes, and Dana hadn’t seen such sheer happiness in Shann’s eyes for entire seasons.