Olivia (22 page)

She shut her mouth.  “I’m sorry.  I know.  Human stories are no better, I know that.  Go on.”

“There were many young born, both male and female.  This pleased the Great Spirit, for he saw that his children would have continuation and a true place in the world he had made for them.  And it pleased Urga…”  He paused, searching her face, but she thought she managed to keep her growing dislike for that particular character from being too obvious.  “…because she found that she was able to bear her own young through these female gullan to be mothered by them, freeing her to return to the sky.             

“Even now, when we go outside, we can see Urga floating above us, with her belly growing fat with the Great Spirit’s son.  When the thunder rolls and the mountains quake, we know that we feel the Great Spirit’s frustration and impatience as he waits for his mate to return to him and brood season to come upon her.  And sometimes, the moon is gone, and we know Urga has come back to couple with him, and bear another son through a mortal gullan.

“Since then, all women have bred according to the days of the moon, each to her own season, but in the same span of time.  And like the Great Spirit, all men are impatient,” he added, reaching over to slide his hand over her belly.  “Pining for their mates, and yearning—”  He leaned over to nip gently at her shoulder.  “—for their season—”  He ran the very tips of his blunt, hard claws over her hips, and then lifted himself over her, smoky-eyed and grinning.  “—to come upon them,” he finished.

The story had put Olivia in a very good mood, making her feel at once welcome and trusted.  She caught his hand and moved it to her sex, rubbing with him, with a faint wistful thought that he might learn something.  He thrummed and stroked her, his eyes drifting out to focus indistinctly at a point above her head.  She could feel his cock stiffening against her thigh, feel his whole body tensing as he coaxed the flow of her musky oils over his hand.

Unexpectedly, startling him and her both, Olivia reached up and caught him by the base of one horn, pulling him down to look at her.  “I am here,” she said firmly.  “I am right here.  Look at me.”

His hand stopped moving immediately.  He stared at her, alarmed and aroused and bewildered all at once.

He didn’t understand and she supposed she’d ought to just let it go, but the thought of another arduous bout of emotionless lovemaking suddenly exhausted her.  Olivia sat up, then stood up, and pointed over at the nearest bench.  His whole body shook once, hard, and the fire of lust in his eyes blazed hot before banking again with caution.  “Sit down,” she said.

“Sit,” he echoed.  He looked at her a long time, but she continued to stand and point.  Slowly, he rose and crossed to the bench and eased himself down to sit.  His cock stood rigid, the head gleaming with readiness.  She imagined she could see it swell as she approached him.

“Hold me,” she began, and his hands came around her hips at once and pulled her down to straddle him.  She caught him by the fur of his shoulders and yanked for balance, harder than she intended, but he only growled and swung her around, setting her with a bruising thump on the bench so that he could push her down.  “Wait!” she cried, shoving at him.  “Wait, no, stop!”

He did, at once, leaning back with a puzzled look.  “What is it?”

And he really didn’t know, that was the misery of it.  She made her hands relax, gave him a little pat on the shoulder, and smiled at him.  “I want you to be gentle, okay?  I want you to hold me and…and be with me.”

His brows rose, then wrinkled.  Plainly, he thought that was what he had been doing.  But he eased his grip on her, let her wriggle back until she could kneel beside him on the bench, and when she was settled, he immediately reached for her again.  She caught his wrist, moved his hand to her breast, and he uttered a ragged, eager thrumm, squeezed her roughly just once, and then tried to push her down again.  Again, she resisted and although he still backed off, he did it with noticeable frustration this time.

“Let me show you,” she said, petting his arm in what she hoped was a placating manner.  “All right?”

He sat back on the bench, giving assent with a curt nod and doing his best not to snarl too overtly.

The lesson in foreplay was just going to have wait for another day, but she was determined not to waste this opportunity or his patience.  Gingerly, she slipped her legs around his waist and eased herself down until his thick glans nudged hard at her sex.  She reached down to take his shaft, hot and throbbing in her hand, sliding him along the lips of her labia.  His breath roughened, but he held her tight and did not move, although she could see his nostrils flaring as her pussy began to throb and slick the head of his teasing cock. 

“Just take a little time, okay?” she murmured, easing herself down around him. Holding his gaze with hers, still touching the broad curve of his jaw, she began to roll her hips, rocking him gently, reaching around behind them to massage at his heavy balls.  He tried to lower his head, hissing, and she pushed at his chin determinedly and said, “No.  Look at me.”

When he did, she almost wished he wouldn’t, so intense was the lust and heat of his eyes.  “I need…to move you,” he said hoarsely.  His hands on her were shaking, hard and solid as stone. 

“Then move me.  But hold me, look at me.  Stay with me.”

Slowly, with obvious restraint, he pushed and pulled at her, sliding her effortlessly up and down along his shaft as she continued to roll and grind and grip him.  His eyes never left hers.

The throbbing ache in her sex intensified, began to pound in ragged harmony with the sound of his hot breath.  Olivia felt her own eyes rolling back as heat flamed out from her belly into real pleasure.  Her fingers clenched in his fur, her hips quickened until she was pumping down at him with abandon, clawing with single-minded purpose towards a true and honest climax.  Breathy cries of pleasure panted out of her, growing in pitch and power until she was nearly screaming.  She could feel him driving deeper and harder, his whole body shuddering as he neared his release.  Then came an awful moment when Olivia felt nothing at all for a bare instant and had time only to think that he was done and she was out of luck again, and then her entire inner core exploded with the most intense sensation of passion and fire she had ever experienced.

She flung her whole body backwards, arching until her hair slapped at the stone floor, never thinking that she would fall.  He held her pinned easily in space as she convulsed in the ruthless grip of pleasure; she was only beginning to come back to her senses when she felt his seed shoot deep against her womb and she screamed again as it slapped her into another rage of orgasm.

When it finally ebbed, she opened her eyes, gazing at the novelty of the upside-down pit room and marveling at the pleasant little shivers that still crawled through her.  Slowly, with tremendous strain, she put her hands on his arms and pulled herself upright.

“All right?” he asked.  He seemed to be genuinely concerned.

She meant to say something encouraging and yawned instead.

The side of his mouth twitched in a smile.  Without words, he lifted her, carried her to the pit and lay her down.  She tried again to think of something to say to please him, but when his wing came over her and his soft pelt pressed against her, she slept, her body aching but glowing with pleasure.

7

His muffled groans woke her from an agreeable dream in which she had just been crowned Queen and was about to make her first proclamation concerning clambakes while wearing a sequined peephole bra and a pink poodle skirt.  She opened her eyes to see him stretching out his wings to their full span, rocking on his heels as he worked first one, then the other, and finally arched his entire powerful frame with sinew-cracking force.

He saw her watching and snapped back into a normal posture.  He grinned.  “My Olivia,” he said warmly.

“That’s ‘Your Majesty,’ peasant,” she mumbled good-naturedly, and seeing his bewildered face, added in his tongue, “I was dreaming.”

“Yes?”

“I was
tovorak
,” she said.  “I was the tallest in the whole world.”

It took her a few seconds to realize he was staring at her, motionless.  She had to laugh at him.  “It was just a dream!  It didn’t mean anything.”

“All dreams mean something,” he said seriously, but went to fetch a clean loincloth from the box on his side of the pit.

Olivia yawned and rolled onto her back to watch him dress.  “Is it really morning already?  It doesn’t feel like it.”

“Morning, and well into the hours of morning,” he said reluctantly.  “I am usually among my tribe by now.  Someone is surely waiting for me.”

Still in a sleepy, teasing mood, Olivia dropped her eyelids and arched her back suggestively.  “Let them wait,” she purred.  “Come back to me.”

He jerked to a stop while putting on his loincloth, and she saw an agony of indecision on his face.  Finally, he shook his head, but slowly, as though doing so cost him physical distress.  “I wish I could,” he said.  “But I’ll be back for mid-meal.”

“Good,” she murmured.  “Because I feel like working up an appetite.”

He straightened, looking completely dumbfounded, then suspicious.  “You aren’t in season,” he said.  “What is wrong with you?”

“Did it feel wrong last night?”

He had to think about it.

“No,” he said at last, but he was frowning.

“I’m your mate, remember?  Shouldn’t I want to be with my mate and hold him in the pit?”  She rolled onto her hands and knees and crawled towards him, pretending she had a tail to twitch with cat-like intensity behind her.  Vorgullum backed away.  “Shouldn’t I want to push him down and wrap my legs around him and feel him inside me?”

He did not reply.

Olivia waited, trying to smolder, and finally sat up and managed another laugh.  “I guess I must not be doing this right.”

“What,” he asked, very cautiously, “are you attempting to do?”

“Work my wicked way with you.”  Remembering her dream, she straightened her shoulders and pointed imperiously at the pit.  “Your queen commands you!”

His foot twitched, but away from her, not closer.

“Oh fine.  You can go.”  Olivia fell back with a yawn and wrapped herself in one of his furs.  “You’re sending me a lot of mixed signals, you know.”

He tore himself away with a visible effort and the promise to be back early.  When he was gone, Olivia crawled out of the pit and went to the canal in the far passageway.  She gave herself a lengthy washing, relishing the sensation of the biting cold water as it numbed her stiff muscles and flushed skin.

She dressed, and for want of something to do, began to sort through the bedding.  The furs and sleeping bags were fine, but that canvas tent had to go.  Chafe city.  She found a number of small scraps of fabric and fur and removed them as well, dumping the entire pile of undesirable material to one side of the pit.  Good.  Now she felt productive.

Her stomach growled and she stood up, stretching, and went to get her climbing spikes.  Maybe she could find someone in the commons who would feed her.

As her fingers closed around the iron claws, Olivia heard a familiar voice, very welcome on this morning.  “Olivia!  You evil little frog!  Will you make old Murgull squeeze her fat self up that little passage?”

“You don’t have any trouble when you come to slap my head.”

“Oh ho, and should I be slapping it today?  Come down, I say!”

“Coming!” Olivia called, and soon she was spiking her way down the chimney to stand next to the old gulla, who gazed at her with reluctant admiration.

“Cunning things, those,” she said, nodding at the spikes.  “Iron claws for little frog hands.  Your mate gave them to you?”

“Yes,” Olivia said.  “Perhaps if you came to his pit, he will make you a new set of teeth.”

Murgull first gaped, then bellowed out laughter.  She clutched at the wall, wheezing and chortling, then slapped Olivia’s arm playfully.  “Not too old and ugly, me,” she giggled.  “Old Murgull has but one tooth left, but she had a clever tongue in her youth, oh yes!  Come with Murgull.”  She turned and hobbled off down the tunnel, Olivia following comfortably at her side.

“I hadn’t realized you were in the habit of dropping by private chambers,” Olivia prompted.

“Ha, and you know so much of old Murgull?”  The crone winked her withered eye in a knowing manner.  “But old Murgull, she has news for Olivia, concerning other maggots.”  She looked left, then right down the narrow, empty tunnels, listening with ears that were no doubt as keen now as they were in her vanished youth.  She dropped her voice still further, and said, “The little brown maggot awaits a new life.”

Olivia stopped and stared at her.  “I don’t believe it,” she gasped in English.

Murgull blinked, then glared.  “You croak at me, you little frog?!”

“I’m relieved, is all,” Olivia hastened to say.

“Are you?”  Murgull grunted and continued walking.  “It is soon for that, little sister.  No season ever came to brown maggot.  Whose child is in her belly, thinks Murgull.  When brown maggot’s mate asks if his spark is caught, old Murgull is crafty.  Old Murgull says, too soon to tell, too soon.  But Murgull thinks Olivia can speak to this maggot.  Ask her if a human has been between those bald legs.”  Murgull cut Olivia a glance, then frowned.  “Old Murgull sees little thoughts like bats flying around in your head.  Tell Murgull.”

“What happens,” Olivia said slowly, “if the baby is human?  What happens if she was pregnant before she got here?”

Murgull pulled a face, astonishing to see in one so initially ugly.  “What do you think happens, eh?  Think old Murgull chops her up and eats her?  Eh?  Do you think no one here has thought this may all be futile?  Ha!  Futility is all we ever think of,” she grumbled.  “Put your hand on Murgull’s arm.  The ground is dropping away.”

Sure enough, there was a sudden slope to the floor as Murgull headed down a dark tunnel.  Olivia groped for Murgull’s arm and found her crippled wing instead.  “Sorry,” she mumbled, fumbling for Murgull’s arm.