Altar of Anubis (5 page)

“I can offer you only what is mine to give.” Rene touched the fabric of her gown, transforming it at her touch to a loose spray of rose petals that fell to carpet the ground. Head tilted demurely to one side, she watched Selesma’s expression, noticed the rise of real passion at Rene’s unmistakable offer to sexually humble herself before Selesma.

Selesma licked her lips, the thin slash of a mouth seeming to swell in anticipation. “On your knees, then.”

As she knelt on the floor, Rene placed her left palm against the hollow between Selesma’s breasts, felt the rapid knock of her enemy’s heart. Selesma tried to push her hand down but Rene, resisting, looked up and smiled at her.

“It beats -- I was not sure it would.” She ran the knuckle of her right index finger against the line where Selesma’s labia joined. “I thought, if ever you had known passion, you’d forgotten it… were mimicking it.”

“I know passion.” Her voice was ice cold as she reached for Rene’s head.

Rene turned her head, kissing Selesma’s palm as she slid a finger between the folds of Selesma’s sex to stroke the line of her clit. “Only half of it. Let me show you the other.”

She turned her face back toward Selesma’s mound, felt a flutter of fear or passion in her own chest and sought to calm it. There’d been other classes mixed in with her archaeology studies, and she tried to remember whether it had been poet or philosopher who had warned of the eternal play of repetition, how all “must yet meet, attract, repulse, kiss, and corrupt each other yet again.” She set her lips to Selesma’s, tongue following the same line her finger had just stroked, not knowing if it was for the first time or the thousandth she sought to kiss and corrupt her enemy, sensing only that they would find this time and place again.

Selesma wrapped her arms around herself, her stance shifting so that her labia were more open to Rene’s attentions. A murmur ran through the room and Rene could feel lovers slowing as they watched. She opened her mind to them, felt their return embrace.

A shudder ran through Selesma, and she placed a hand on Rene’s shoulder. Rene pulled slightly back, letting her fingers caress the other woman as she studied her face. Her mouth was slack, the lips slightly parted. The eyelids, closed, fluttered softly against her cheek.

Rene gave Imeut a slight nod, her signal that she wished him to join. When he stalked toward them, she rebuked him with her gaze.

“Love her as you would love me, fully and in the moment,” she had told him before leaving their rooms. He had growled something in reply about asking him to swallow a star. But now he reached out a hand, let it trail from the small of Selesma’s back up her spine. Rene watched surprise blossom across Selesma’s face and then dipped her head once again.

She felt the gentle brush of Imeut’s fingers beneath her chin before he guided his erection into Selesma. The woman moaned, the sound wet and torn. Around them, the room waited, breathing when they breathed, sighing when they sighed. Together with Imeut, Rene drew out the other woman’s pleasure until the room began to vibrate with a familiar hum. Selesma, body trembling, stood perched on the balls of her feet. One hand dropped to wrap around the back of Rene’s head while the other twined around Imeut’s shoulder.

Selesma exhaled in surprise, “Music.”

One word, the last Selesma spoke. Later they would say how she had let go of Imeut and Rene in that final second, eyes wide and with her hands searching the air as if trying to catch an invisible butterfly before she herself became a billion dancing particles of gold. But at the moment of Selesma’s passing, the room hung in silence as every soul brushed against the godhead and all but one retreated.

Silence gave way to murmurs of relief, and Imeut sank to his knees in front of Rene. Wrapping his arms around her, he asked, “It still does not seem right, does it… that she should be able to pass over?”

Rene looked at Imeut, her mind harboring the same question but too tired to think on it. Somewhere, perhaps, a tornado had formed or the first drops of a hurricane had gathered as Selesma vanished. It would be centuries or millennia before Rene would once again know the will of The One or the opposing forces she and Selesma occupied within it.

Smiling, she kissed Imeut, pulled him down onto the floor. Hands reached out, touched them with a quiet reverence before receding and leaving them alone in the great hall.

He stroked her cheek, gazed into her eyes. “Reynar.”

“Yes.” This time she wouldn’t correct him.

He smiled and she felt the warmth of a summer sun roll through her body. “And who am I?”

“Imeut.” She caressed his cheek. “My husband, my love.”

Ann Vremont

Ann Vremont is a mother, wife, licensed attorney, technical writer, high school dropout and former Russian linguist for Army SigInt. She’s called Bingo for a living, waitressed at a strip club, scooped ice cream and conducted political surveys -- including for the wrong party. She maintains that, if she hadn’t dropped out of high school, she would probably be a mineralogist or a geophysicist. Ann further maintains that if she had never met her husband of seventeen-plus years or had their son when she did, she would probably be making her living illegally -- or, if unsuccessful, sitting in jail. She has a large collection of minerals and a growing collection of lighthouses. Having been born and partially raised in Arizona, the mineral collection doesn’t surprise her, but she’s still puzzling the source of her lighthouse fetish. You can find her on the web at wwww.annvremont.com.