We danced all night at the Duke’s big gala. Her face is still flushed from exertion and from the wine. Now she asks me to take her back to her room. This is hardly an untoward request. After all, Tara del D’myn, Empress of Skarsia, is the wife of Prince Consort Patrick Fitzroy.
She stumbles on her way back to our sumptuous quarters. She’s tipsy. I’ve seen worse. Tara can abuse substances with the best of them. Tara still keeps a poison garden to concoct new substances to abuse. She’s given up Gyre, though, at Lady Madonna’s urging. Everyone around her acts as if it’s a great moral victory. I find it depressing, but I hide my feelings under a smile. I can’t tell her that Gyre is the only hope we have. I can’t tell her that Gyre is the one way she could discover the truth without one of us breaking the Great Silence.
She laughs, and bumps into me, presses close to me, and a joy ten thousand times stronger than Gyre shoots through me, pumps into I and I’s leaves. She laughs again and kisses me. She’s playful. I am her husband. What could be the harm?
She didn’t see the harm in asking me to marry her, either. Politically, it made sense. “Siderian law, Section 23b of the Gender Balance Act. In order to be empress, I have to have a prince consort. Ta’al Erich is pressing me to marry him, but I’ll never do that. CenGov is pressing me to marry Johannon, but I’ll never do that. Clive is pressing me to marry him, which I would consider, except that he’s on the black list of CenGov seditionaries, and it might well provoke a war. But if my marriage looks like anything but a political expediency, Clive won’t forgive it. He’ll probably kill me. Lord Danak would work, but since I have the Blood of the Matriarchs, I’m forbidden to marry Skarsian or Siderian nobility. I need someone with the proper breeding, someone everybody likes, someone not judged a threat. You.”
“I was born and raised on Dolparessa, but I do belong to one of the Siderian great houses.”
“But you’re a festival exchange. You can’t possibly carry the blood, so you don’t count.”
I am in hell. I am horrified for reasons Tara can’t possibly imagine. She must catch the look on my face, for she says, quickly, “Don’t worry. You wouldn’t have to be faithful. I intend to keep Clive as my lover, so why shouldn’t you have one, as long as it’s discreet? Everyone understands about these marital alliances.”
“It isn’t that,” I say. “Are you sure that I’m the right man?”
“Do you have any skeletons in your closet that I don’t know about?”
No skeletons, just a whopping big tree.
She purses her lips. “Come to think of it, I’ve never seen you with a woman. Are you gay? On Volparnu, they’d flay you alive, but on Sideria, no one will care.”
She’s serious. Either she’s totally insensitive, or I should start a second career as an actor. “No, I’m not gay,” I say. It’s hard not to laugh. “It’s more of, well, there is a woman. I grew up with her, in a manner of speaking. I’ve loved her all my life, but she doesn’t really notice me.”
“How tragic. Would it be a problem for you then, our marriage?”
“My lady, I’ve dedicated my life to your service. If this is what you need of me, I’m prepared to do it.”
And so, it is settled. And so I am stretched upon the rack of being married to a woman I desperately love, and pretending not to love her.
I and I is perfectly content, though. It gives him greater access to the focal point of his universe.
It’s not like my life is without happiness. When her hand brushes against mine, offering tea in the morning. When she asks me to help lace her tight and elaborate corset. It almost balances the mood swings, the darkness she falls into when she waits for Clive to come to her, to seduce her and then ask for some untenable political favor.
But in polite society we pretend. Lady Magdelaine Lorma – Lady Madonna – thinks she knows better. She’s been a lady-in-waiting, Tara’s companion since she was a child. “I’ve seen the way he looks at you,” she says. “He’s so handsome, so well-spoken. Everybody loves him. But you insist on that dreadful Clive.” Of course, this speech isn’t intended for my ears, but my hearing is very good, good enough to hear from three rooms away.
Tara ignores her, as she has ignored Lady Madonna’s fussing since the age of six.
“You should give him a chance,” the lady continues. “It’s as easy to love a good man as a bad.”
“Not in the novels I read,” says Tara.
In polite society we pretend, and so we dance together all night. We don’t have to pretend quite so enthusiastically. As Tara said, everyone understands about political marriages. I know why she does it. She does it to piss Clive off. She does it knowing full well that Clive might strangle her in a cold-blooded rage, which would be better than his frosty indifference. Of course, I would never allow it to come to that. I can defend her against Clive, if need be.
And now she has kissed me, and I am drunk on all the wine in the universe. I can feel that she likes it, feel it in the way that I know the metal in the bulkhead is stressing badly and the ship needs maintenance. Feel it in the way that I know her arteries are collecting cholesterol again, and I need to dissolve it into plasma.
I can feel the carelessness of the wine in her system allowing the rush of electric moisture between her legs.
There’s nothing else, nothing. My hands are on her breasts, her buttocks, and she doesn’t try to stop it. I feel her pleasure, her desire, and without thinking, do what comes naturally. I increase it. It’s the third priority – make her happy.
I have a chorus of six voices in my head telling me to go for it, and a dreaming tree bursting into bloom.
I waltz her over to the bed, laughing, keeping it light so that she can turn it back into a game. But instead, she pulls me down on top of her. I’m glad I’ve had practice lacing her corsets. My fingers feel enormous and clumsy, like blocks of wood.
She’s unbuttoning, peeling off my shirt. Her hands are burning against my naked skin. I can’t think straight. How did Daniel ever manage this without swooning? Or Whirljack, that time at the Nau’gsh Festival?
It helps me to think about Whirljack. Jack is always so sure of himself. Jack knows what to do.
Whirljack’s branch is enormous, the central trunk of the tree. Whirljack is the reason that “the weird tree hanging off the cliff on Starbright Mountain” started being called “The Atlas Tree.” Whirljack holds up the entire sky.
Jack is a damn good lay, the best Tara ever had, or at least, that’s what she told Tommy. I strive to emulate him in this crucial moment.
But Whirljack is full of force, fire, energy. I am tender and somewhat refined. It’s different, but not unpleasingly so. Different enough that she would never connect the two of us in her mind. Good enough that I go underneath Daniel and Whirljack on her list of “competent lovers,” and not under Merkht, Johannon and Clive on her list of “incompetent lovers.” It’s actually unfair to the latter two, since they lack the advantage of being able to see straight into Tara’s metabolism. And manipulate it. Tara doesn’t realize just how spoiled she is.
Tara is so spoiled that she thinks a mark of competency is the ability to achieve simultaneous orgasm. Tara doesn’t know yet that it’s the only way the Cu’enashti can get off.
The climax is absolutely shattering for me, enough so that Tara is concerned. “Are you all right?” she asks.
“I’m wonderful,” I gasp, as the world starts to come back to me.
“Are you sorry?”
“Are you?” I say in alarm.
“No, not really. Clive had better not find out about it though. But what about your great, unrequited love?”
I have been stripped bare, the bark peeling away from the trembling twigs. I just can’t lie anymore. “It was you,” I confess.
You kinda left out the good parts, mate, says Tommy.
It’s erotic, I defend. I’m writing erotica, not pornography.
I like pornography, says Tommy.
If anyone has suggestions, I’m open.
I get suggestions. That’s the way sex is for us – a team endeavor.
The first time, I was alone, says Daniel. Looking back on it, it seems weird.
My first time, it was just Daniel, Sloane and Evan. And Evan was embarrassed, says Whirljack.
I was not, says Evan, but everyone knows he was. He’s shy like that. He was shy his own first time, too.
They are walking hand-in-hand through the Grand Hub of Eirelantra. Evan’s ears are good enough to hear Admiral Naveeta whispering to her companion, “I’ve never seen that one before.”
“That’s Squire Finlay-Cole. I remember him from when he was a bard at Court Emmere,” replies the Duchess of Verhim, looking up from her luncheon. “I never dreamed that he was a tree.”
While the duchess is distracted, the admiral deftly slips the last of the sucksow sausages to her pocket-puppy. The duchess has the worst cook in all of Eirelantra. She doesn’t notice the admiral’s movement, but Evan does, and he stifles a grin.
It’s strange to him, this elevation in status. As a festival exchange, he was the lowest of noble blood, always deferring to everyone. And now, he’s the Matriarch’s Prince Consort, and everyone bows to him. He has to fight the reflex to return the courtesy.
“I’ll never be arrogant enough for this role,” he says. “Not like Cillian.”
“Judging yourself against Cillian is setting yourself up for failure. You could line up Caesar Nero, Napoleon, Salvador Dali, Liam Gallagher and Baphratzx the Assimilator, and they would look like paragons of humility in comparison.”
“You like arrogant men, though.”
“I like Cillian. I also like sweet men.” Tara tugs his hand and begins to run. He races after her to the imperial complex.
She beats him to the door and ducks inside. When he enters, she pounces on him, pushing him onto the bed. His face turns three shades of scarlet. “Milady…”
“Oh, if you’re being formal, you should really call me Your Eminence now.”
“Your Eminence, forgive me for this abject breech of protocol…”
“Help me with this corset.”
“What?”
“Unlace it, please.”
Evan’s fingers find the laces. He’s graceful, has a musician’s reflexes, and can sense where the fabric is without looking. Which is helpful, as he turns his head away.
“Evan!”
“Yes, Your Eminence?”
“Evan, look at me. I’m your fucking wife.”
He turns his head, and at that moment, she flings the corset loose, grabs his hands and plants them firmly on her breasts.
His eyes widen, he bites his lip, and in his ears is a roar like twenty drunken men on a ballpark terrace. That’s because there are twenty drunken men screaming in his head, and a score is in sight. Also, there’s Jamey, who silently pumps his fist.
“Evan,” she says, “Don’t you want to kiss me?”
“Is that a trick question?”
She laughs, leans forward, presses her mouth upon his. He has thick, sensuous lips, ivory skin, a meticulously trimmed goatee, fine blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. Lacy sleeves adorn his delicate wrists, accentuate his fine hands. She knows that under all that refinement is the worst libertine ever, if she can just break the skin.
She slips her hand into his trousers. “My lady!” he gasps.
“Your Eminence,” she corrects. “Oh, that’s quite adequate. Tall and thin, like the rest of you.”
It’s so difficult for him to breathe, and he’s trembling. She kisses him again; this time, he kisses back.
I can’t bear this, he says. It’s too much.
I can’t bear this bullshit, says Cillian. Get your dick out of your fucking pants.
You can do it, says Whirljack.
She wants to break you, says Callum. So break.
Evan knows Callum is right. Tara straddles him. He looks into her face and sees that there’s no way he can win this. It’s unfair. But then again, he never wanted to win.
He lets go of it. He’s banging into her, thrusting hard and fast. He’s loose, he’s animal, and he’s completely ashamed. The shame just makes it hotter.
Callum laughs. Everything she does to me, I receive as an honor and a blessing, he says. But the humiliation thing – that’s kinky.
Not nearly as kinky as the thing with Jack and BJ, says Cillian.
Kinky is good, says Tommy. Cillian is kinky, too.
Can’t argue with success, I say.
“Fuck that was good,” says Tara. Cillian has her pinned to the bed; it’s a little uncomfortable, and he’s heavier, more muscular than the others – at least the ones so far. Later, she’ll see that Owen – and of course Lugh – are even larger. She doesn’t mind his weight still against her, his cock still rock hard against her thigh. She’s come to take for granted Ash’s extraordinary staying power. After all, he’s made of wood.
“Of course it’s good. I make it good, baby. I can make it be so good you’ll go crazy for it, never stop begging me.”
Cillian is so crude, and she likes it. She’s glad she didn’t let Ailann get rid of him. She wouldn’t like this always, but every now and then, a brute is refreshing. She squirms a bit, trying to get him back inside of her, but he won’t let her move. To her amusement, she thought she was exhausted, but she finds she’s ready to go again.
She stops up short. “You’re serious,” she says. “You’re playing with me.”
“Sure as hell am, baby. Why the fuck not?”
Of course he is. There’s a reason the people pray to the trees during the Nau’gsh Festival. As often as not, it worked. Miracles happen on Dolparessa; the secret is in the forest. She’s seen Ailann cure a sick child with a touch of his hand. Why couldn’t Cillian make her want him? “Do the others play with me, too?”
Cillian laughs. “Yeah. Most are more subtle about it.”
So that’s why Clive and Johannon seem like such crap lovers in comparison. She draws back a little. “Do you play with my head?”
“Nah. For one, I can’t read your thoughts, baby. I’m not a fucking telepath. For two, even if I could, it’d be against the rules. You have to choose me. It wouldn’t mean compost if I brainwashed you into it. And you also got to be free to go. If it came down to it, I could make you do anything I fucking want. I could make you sleep forever. I could make you crawl on your hands and knees. But I got priorities.”
Tara nods; she’s been told. More than that, she actually half-believes it. Everything that she’s learned about Ash has led her to think that he really does put her well-being before his. She half-believes it because she knows that people just don’t do that. People are selfish. She half-believes it because she knows Ash isn’t human. He’s an angel. A mothman is close enough to an angel.
Cillian is no angel. “How many times have we let you walk away from us?” he asks. “If you want to go, I have to let you go. That doesn’t mean I won’t get revenge.”
She’s desperate now. Her heart is pounding in her chest; the space between her legs is slick with moisture. She’s hungry to be impaled on his enormous cock. Cillian has the largest of all of them; he’s hung like a Tasean wildebeest. Cillian is a big prick.
And still he won’t let her move.
“Beg for it, baby,” he says.
The air is heavy and there’s silence. I and I is dreaming. Or rather, I and I is always dreaming, it’s just that the dreams have surfaced now, drowning out the cacophony of our human thoughts. We’re all dreaming of how Cillian’s every thrust is pushing open another shameless blue flower.
Even Evan, who is flushed scarlet, is enjoying it. Even Ailann, who wanted to destroy Cillian before he had a chance to live. Cillian is an asshole, a violent asshole, and Tara is in love with him. And Cillian is also extremely good at protecting Tara and her interests, swiftly and effectively.
Tara was absolutely right about him. Ash doesn’t make mistakes.
How do you know Cillian has the biggest cock? asks Tommy.
Cuinn told me. Cuinn keeps track.
Cuinn shrugs. Measuring the genitals seems a common practice among human males, he says. I keep all kinds of statistics. For example, Suibhne’s hair is the longest and Cillian’s the shortest. Jamey weighs the least and Lugh and Owen the most. But Whirljack is actually the tallest.
I’m just as tall as him, says Blackjack.
But because you slump, Whirljack appears to be 1.25 centimeters taller, says Cuinn. Posture is important.
Shove it up your ass, four-eyes, says Blackjack.
I feel Callum’s eyes lifting slightly; a smile tugs the corners of his mouth. I know what he wants me to write.
Don’t write that, says Tarlach. Mitigating sexual trauma through the literary device known as “the magic cock” is considered to be highly offensive to many humans.
But I don’t care what Tarlach thinks about it. I care what Ross thinks about it.
It’s all right, says Ross. Write it.
It’s a special day for Callum. He’s having his nipples pierced.
The procedure is under the supervision of a professional. But Callum’s eyes are pleading. “He wants me to do it,” says Tara.
The professional smiles a little condescendingly. “If you’re not absolutely sure with the needle, it can get nasty. You can tear him up pretty bad. You can’t hesitate at all. And a fine, high-born lady such as yourself…”
“How many people have you killed?” asks Tara.
“What?” the professional squeaks. “I’ve never killed anyone. I assure you, my methods are quite…”
“I’ve killed at least several dozen,” says Tara. “I’ve lost count. Give me the goddamn needle.”
By the time the professional leaves, Callum is completely blissed out in subspace. Tara thinks to herself that it’s now or never. She commands him to get on his hands and knees. She shows him the special surprise she has for him. A strap-on.
Callum, who has spent his life imagining the ways in which he could be useful to Tara, has never thought to imagine this. It makes him weak with desire. He finds he’s never wanted anything more.
She takes him brutally. Callum likes to be abused. Tara likes to abuse him. She can be magnanimous, a visionary, fiercely protective, and surprisingly compassionate. She can also be a right bitch, and it was terribly considerate of Ash to provide an emanation she doesn’t feel guilty about hurting. She’ll never say it, but she still hasn’t forgiven us for all the years of lies.
She makes him weep with pain and delight. She uses him until she believes he can stand no more, and then allows him to curl into her arms, soothing him. But she’s basing all this on her knowledge of human Dom-sub relationships. Callum has never reached the limit of what he can stand, but he accepts both pain and comfort with joy, like water and sunlight.
This time, when he is safe in her arms, she asks, “Did Ross come when Panic’s men took him?”
Callum, who is never appalled at anything she says or does, is completely appalled. “Of course not! He couldn’t, none of us could…”
She grabs Callum by the chin and makes him look directly into her eyes. It’s probably the most uncomfortable thing she’s ever done to him. “But you came when I fucked you.” He nods. “You came because it was me.” He nods again.
“Listen to me, Ash. Ross couldn’t help what he was forced to do, but he didn’t enjoy it. He didn’t betray me. He can’t. I fucking own you, Ash. So stop blaming Ross for what happened.”
Callum understands, and feels an enormous sense of relief. Not because Tara doesn’t blame Ross, but because Tara has righted the horrific unbalance which has been a silent source of dread for several years. How could I and I claim that he belonged entirely to Tara when there was something he was incapable of giving to her?
Tara has righted the unbalance by proving she could take it for herself. Callum understands. He understands because he is Ross’ trauma.
She gathers up Callum into her arms. “You’re a good boy,” she says, stroking his hair, wild shocks of blue-green streaked into the mane of brown. He nestles against her chest, but it is she who drops off to sleep. Callum, like the rest of us, never sleeps.