I woke with the first cock crow.
The sky, the world, everything was dark. High above, where the trees breached the city walls, branches swished beneath a cluster of stars like a river through the sky. Crickets sang in the woods nearby.
Her soft exhale.
Her breath on my skin.
Her back conformed to my chest, her arse in my hips, and my arm over her side. She'd clutched my hand and wove our fingers together, holding my arm to her skin. Her body filled me with every inhale.
What if I lost her?
God, what if the war stole her from me this very day? What if this was our final moment together?
I needed the smell of her. The other scent, the coconut-blossom she wore since the day we met, was her own recipe. The one she wore now lingered like summer wildflowers beneath a waterfall in the mountains. It was called Was It Real, and she'd bought it from Talys for two-hundred kren.
I kissed the top of her head.
The sound of her breathing in above the crickets nearby steadied me.
Blue had leaned across my back. He turned and pressed a different side of delightfully cool scales into my skin.
In the darkness, the cock crowed.
The darkness answered with a hiss.
She whispered. "I stole my sister's 'etʊkazu."
"What this?"
Miyani's quiet, high-pitched voice melted me in the darkness. "I grew up with my brother, my sister, my parents, my grandmother, my uncle and his wife, we all lived together. Some of my earliest memories, I would sit on my mother's lap while they brought her places—art classes, sports, 'etʊkazu, special tutoring, and she hated all of it. Then one day, they brought her to the moʃo'i."
"This is what?"
She squeezed our fingers together. "The pairing ground. For days my sister studied a list of rules, and the night before, my mother was talking about how much status it would bring the family if my sister became a sekiwa."
Her thigh lay against mine. We were skin to skin.
Her sweet voice was my leash. I could listen to her for hours, reveling in her adorable voice. "I held my mother's hand and we watched the others play. None of them took to my sister, but a small one came up and chirped at me. He was much younger than the others, and he had a blue stripe down his body. I felt this overwhelming sense that I'd found a friend and I wanted to play with him. My mother held me back at first, then his mother convinced her to let me go. We spent the whole day digging in the dirt or climbing and running after one another with his mother close by to make sure we didn't hurt each other."
"To guard against the bite to take away the hand, yes?"
"Listen," Miyani giggled lightly. "You don't know what kind of damage a human child can do when she grabs his neck at that age!"
"This makes sense!"
With one hand she laced our fingers together and held my palm against her chest. Her other hand traced the muscles in my arm, blanketed over her body.
I raised my palm to her breast, allowing her nipple to settle in my palm. After gently swirling around a few times, she pulled my hand back to her chest and giggled lightly.
I kissed the top of her head. "tʊxo."
"You boy!" She broke into laughter. "I talk, you listen!"
When her laughter had subsided beneath the wind in the trees, she continued. God, how I craved her voice.
"I began my training, and my whole family poured into me. Around the same time, my brother was born, and my sister faded into the shadows. Ironically, it wasn't until then she started practicing the 'etʊkazu and going to her lessons by herself. I used to reach out to her. I wanted to be close to her, but she went off with her friends most of the time. Blue and I tried to hang out with them, but it was… awkward. My father made us read books together and debate over them."
"Who wins?"
"Usually her. Oh, I got her that one time—"
Water trickled down my skin where her eyes rested. She pulled my arm in close.
She sniffled.
I folded my arms around her, and she cried. My heart ached for everything she'd been through, after so much had been taken from her. I was ready to give her my everything. It could never make up for any of it.
She cried through her words. "We held a xɪðiʃa. The question was to continue with the alliance or declare neutrality. My father had a whole plan worked out for neutrality. He said we could enable covert business deals between corrupt officials on both sides of the war. He argued that if we make the right people rich, those people would protect us, and we would get rich in the process. But my sister spoke for the alliance."
"What she says?"
Her sniffle rose above the crickets. "She made this case about a unifying force that, even if we don't agree with it, makes us a cog in a machine strong enough to stand up against the Empire, and that staying was the only way to preserve our identity."
"And now you fight for the Empire?"
"I fight for my people. Anyway, the way my sister spoke, she whipped the crowd into a frenzy. The elders agreed with her, and we stayed in the alliance."
"Is your father was angry?"
"He was proud! He was so proud of the way she expressed herself that he took her to dinner, just the two of them. About two weeks later, a friend told me that Kaxawi was sending an army to wipe us out."
"Because how dare you to ask the question?"
"Basically. I called the village together and told everyone. My sister demanded to know my source. But Caleb, listen. I don't just ride through the forest and shoot arrows; I talk to people. That's probably most of what I do out there. Maintaining those friendships requires trust, which means I don't talk about certain friends. You understand, right?"
"Yes!" I chuckled.
"It was reliable. How big the army, when they would arrive, and at what stage they were in, I didn't know. And because I didn't know, my sister ridiculed me. 'You think because you are a sekiwa now you know everything?' And that was that. I convinced my brother and a small handful of people. We decided that I would bring those who were willing to come with me to Carthia while my brother and father would keep trying to convince my sister and the rest of the village. On my way back, I would try to gain some more intel. That was the plan. When Ahmi and I got back…" She shuddered.
I wrapped my arms tight around her body and held her. "I know what is happening, you don't need to say more here."
More water trickled down my skin from her eyes. "While I was leaving, I stole her 'etʊkazu. I had the whole conversation ready in my mind. Where's my kazu? It's in Carthia. If you want it, come get it."
"What is thing?"
In the darkness, the cock crowed.
The darkness answered with a string of aggressive clicks and squawks, followed by a hiss.
Her lips pecked my arm. She lifted me from her and crawled away, shuffling through the darkness when suddenly, fingers probed across my lap and gently tickled my member.
"Aww, too soft."
"No, wait, it won't take long—"
Her lips found mine for a fleeting moment before she pulled away and whispered, "tʊxe!"
In two heartbeats, a flush filled my loins, and I was throbbing and engorged.
Somewhere in front of me, fingers slid across a surface. Something thudded. A metal latch clicked.
A scratch. A spark.
An amber glow filled the paper panes of a lantern. Miyani twisted a knob on one side, and it dimmed to a suggestion of light to whet my desire for her.
Only a few select curves came to my covetous eyes, deep shadows with glints of orange light reflecting off her dark skin, a potent hint at her marvelous figure. She'd bent over a large, dark case, and I lunged at her.
"No," she raised a finger. "You sit down!"
I filled my palm with her round arse, splaying my fingers out and stroking up and down her backside. I leaned down to kiss her shoulder.
"I said sit down, boy!" She pushed me back, laughing.
"I neeeeed it!" I groaned.
"Patience!" She kissed my lips. "You asked, so I'm going to show you. Sit down!"
A click from another latch, and a lid lifted up. Her silhouette leaned over to the lamp and turned the knob, adding enough light for me to see her round, beautiful face with bright-yellow eyes beaming back at me.
She sat on a thick, red cushion with her back against a wooden chest with green-bronze rivets. In her lap was a… ball thing with polished-brass levers and knobs along the top, and a long, wooden neck with brass pegs at one end along several fine strings pulled taut over a hole in the center.
I stretched my legs out and leaned back against a padded trunk behind me. "This you steal from your sister?"
"Wait!" After plucking several strings and adjusting them, she flipped open a crank at the bottom and turned it around several times, pushing a grinding noise into the world. When she finished turning, she folded it back and flipped a lever on the bottom.
The thing started playing itself. Tiny, mechanical fingers reached up from within the hole and strummed in a simple one-three-four rhythm. She played a melody over it.
Then she started singing.
The way you look at me
Your voice when you laugh
At my silliest of jokes
Boy, you make me so high!
Keep making me high, baby!
She'd ensnared my attention. I knew she was a soprano; I had no idea how well she could use it.
You got that good stuff, baby
I need another hit
I can't get enough of you
Boy, you make me so high!
Just one more fix, baby!
She flipped a lever, and the chord changed. Her left hand held the neck while her fingers moved around the strings, and her right hand broke into a solo. I was spellbound. Flashes of her with our son in her arms singing him to sleep tickled my fantasies.
I have searched the highest mountains
Crossed the greatest seas
Nobody puts it down like you—
Boy, you make me so high!
I'll never let you go, boy!
With a few more chords, everything stopped, and she gazed at me with a wide, warm smile.
"That was incredible!" I beamed. This. This was my girlfriend. Behind the lethal sekɪwa, behind the fierce protector of what remained of her people, behind the brilliant thinker and strategist, was this. If I could spend a thousand years here with her, it wouldn't be enough time.
"My sister wrote that song."
She may have told me to sit earlier, but I needed to be close to her. When I crept beside her, she looked into my eyes with sadness. Then, "here."
She reached into the case and produced another of those pillow pads, this one shimmery green, for me to sit cross-legged upon.
She gazed lovingly at the instrument. "She used to snap at me whenever I touched her kazu. My mother made her share it with me, which made her even more angry. I couldn't practice nearly as much as she did, but I also didn't have recitals and concerts to go to.
"We got older, and we'd spend hours talking about boys we liked. I told her to write down some of those ideas. This one…" Miyani laughed. "When Mom heard her play this song, she was so livid! She waited until we all came home and started shouting, demanding to know what my sister has been poisoning her womb with and all that. We both swore up and down it was just lyrics."
"Is this truth?"
"Eh…" she bit her lip and looked across the strings, pulling one peg and moving it to a different position. "There were things she hid from me. Here."
She settled the kazu in my lap and guided me to hold the neck and where to place my fingers. There were seven strings in all. Holding one string down with my finger and plucking it, I had no idea what to even try to play, let alone have enough control to make a coherent melody.
Miyani's face fell somber. I thought she was watching my fingers to see how I was doing, but her gaze wasn't in the present. "One year during monsoon season… you probably don't know how that works, but when you're not training or working, there isn't much to do but wait for the waters to go back down. My sister and I sat up late into the night writing songs, harmonizing, and in the spring we did a couple shows. Mom made us include our brother, so we gave him a drum. Then our people joined the war, and of course I was a sekɪwa."
I felt her.
This was Miyani.
In the darkness, the cock crowed.
The darkness answered with a snapping and gnashing of teeth. A nervous cluck and ruffling of feathers, followed by a hiss.
She rested her chin on my shoulder. Her fingers on my hand, the lamp was behind her, her face eclipsed in shadow.
"So," she returned to the instrument. "These two are your chord strings. Throw this lever, and this third one is now also a chord string. This one switches between chord 1 and 2…"
"tixedeɣa," I told her. My heart thundered.
Silence fell between us. Her body was still but for the rising and sinking of her breath, and I could feel her eyes mapping my face in the lamplight. Her voice smiled. "tixedeɣa."
I leaned in to kiss her.
She lifted herself to me, and we crashed together. Her lips grasped at me, and mine danced to her rhythm.
She pulled away. "pʊxeŋɪɣe!"
My eyes soaked in her body, her delicious dark curves with amber highlights as she turned, sat up, good God those hips, leaned over…
I shot up to take her.
"siya!" She elbowed me away. "Let me put this away, first."
I sat down and begged for her while she carefully put the kazu away and closed its case.
She straddled me.
My hands sloshed over her skin. I started with her belly, felt down across her hips, and bathed my fingers in her round, muscular arse. I was beyond ready.
On her knees, she was high enough to rest her arms on my shoulders, reach behind my head, and pull my lips onto her breast.
I pulled her taut nipple between my lips and sucked her in until my mouth was full of her. I let out a little and twirled her nipple around in my tongue.
"Mmm," she moaned.
I hadn't expected that.
I wanted more.
With her fingers probing through my hair, my hands soaked in her powerful thighs, and I played with her breast in every way that delighted my fancy. And whenever she made that delicious sound for me, I did more of it. I licked her up and down. I went back and forth. I wrapped my lips around her nipples and stroked them up and down.
"Ahh!" she nearly shrieked and pushed me off.
"I'm sorry?"
"No, I like it. Tell me something."
"Anything?"
She spread her legs wider to lower herself onto me, to where she could grab hold of my cock and maneuver her pussy to glide up and down along my shaft. She moved her hips forward until my crown was barely an inch from her entrance and slid back down until I could feel her hair on my thighs. She lifted up again, dangling paradise before me like a toy on a string, only to pull away whenever I got close. "How bad do you want it?"
Immediately I shot up, grappled her body in one arm, and flipped her over onto the shredded coconut-husk bedding.
Blue let out a startled string of chirps; her foot had hit his tail.
"kupade!" she cried.
He shifted his body away from us and went back to sleep.
Her bright-yellow eyes gazed up at me, and her adorable voice smiled. "You were saying?"
I supported myself on one arm, reached down, and guided myself to her entrance. As soon as I could feel her soft lips like angels dancing all over my crown, I pushed hard into her.
No anxiety with her. I felt no hesitation. With her legs wrapped around my hips and her feet glued to my thighs, she pushed me in harder and locked me in place. She'd thrown her arms around my body and hung from me, skin to skin. She held on so strong I couldn't pull out to thrust in again.
She whispered. "Just let me feel you inside me."
So I braced my arms and knees to better support our combined weight and basked in the sensation of her squeezing down on me from everywhere at once. She shifted her feet upward to rest in the nook of my bum and pulled me in deeper. I tried to push in further, driven nearly to madness as her lips engulfed the base of my cock and stayed there.
This was where I wanted to be for the rest of my life. Inside her.
In every way.
If I died during deployment today, my silent vow to Davod was fulfilled. I could grow old, nursing an ailing, wrinkled lizard with a blue stripe down his body and watch a withered, gray-haired Miyani walk around, getting off on her reminding me to drink my thistle-root tea. Lord, what must I do to keep this?
After a moment, she rocked her hips left and right and rolled them around. Buried deep, the sensation of her skin gliding over mine everywhere in all directions at once sent a tsunami of pleasure I was helpless to resist the whole world shifted through a multitude of colors my God. Shockwaves echoed up and down my body.
I toppled over onto my elbows.
She released her arms and dropped down into the soft bedding, still with her feet locking me in place, still with her hips rolling around.
In the darkness, the cock crowed.
The darkness answered with a hiss.
We were still. Her feet had relaxed, but I stayed inside her. I'd propped up on my elbows while her hands caressed my body. Her lips probed my chest.
Above the night, the sound shifted. It was as though some silent signal triggered all the birds in the trees above to wake up and send the night creatures off to bed.
She released her feet and tried to crawl out from beneath me. "I have to go."
"No, you don't." I pulled my elbows in to brace against her shoulders. Anything to keep her.
She laughed. "It's bird hour. I'm meeting someone."
"Please," I begged. "Just one more century together with you?"
She laughed, turned sideways, and wiggled free, bringing her face beneath mine to reach up for a quick kiss. "tixedeɣa."