Vision of Love (2 page)

Redbush.

He jumps out of the ferns and lands on the trail, looking at me and laughing.

“Why didn't you get the deer?” I ask.

“Because it was such a gorgeous day, I wanted to just live it.”

I have no idea what he means. I don’t care.

His face is turned up to the sky, alight with joy. He’s in a good mood. Now’s my chance to ask.

“Oh, Redbush,” I say, in what I hope is a coy manner. I untie my dress top. But now I have nothing to say, too shy and shocked by myself. Both breasts are free. I have taken care to wash them every morning, hoping he would see them.

And now he has. He is frozen, a statue, staring. He licks his lips and I feel powerful.

The smile on my face is wide enough I can feel it in my cheekbones. I tone it down a bit and let the dress slip a bit lower.

So daring! My breath races. I feel as though I have sprinted all morning, shaky and trembling and excited and breathless.

Casually, slowly, he leans over with his hand raised and pulls the dress down farther, daring me, seeing how far I’ll go. I don’t know either.

I let it fall off completely. I don’t know what to do now.

I wove a flower into my pubic hair this morning, laughing to myself, not really believing he would see it. But he has.

The rose tickles, the thorns a pleasant graze on my skin.

He plucks it free with a hand. Brings it to his nose.

It has been against the sweat of my belly but he half closes his eyes as though it’s lovely. Fragrant.

I step closer. I can see his breath is also fast, hard, like mine. I can see the pulse in his throat and know I have one pounding just as hard.

His hands on my shoulders are steadying, yet at the same time make me feel as if I’m floating.

Again he touches his lips to mine, so softly. I inhale and smell man, a faint hint of smoke from last night’s fire, dirt and so many things.

I realise, suddenly, that my mouth has travelled to the side of his. He keeps going and nuzzles my ear.

Oh, sweet sensations. Can it get any better than this?
Oh, yes. It can.

He trails his fingers down my stomach and I groan. He touches my pubic hair and I actually flinch. There is warmth and wetness.

“Have you ever touched yourself down there?” he asks me, his voice husky.

“Yes. But not like this.” I raise my arms up wide and wrap them around his neck in a hug.

He crushes me to him, of course, my breasts flattening between us, but his hand—oh, that magnificent hand—is still between us. I move my hips back a bit, trying to give him room. He twists to the side and there is space for his hand, for him to caress in an oh, so good, heady sensation, to move deeper between my sweet thighs.

His fingers part my lower folds and tentatively touch me, my most inner parts.

I bite my lip and tremble. I want to savour every moment, but I also want him to move faster to the next glorious touch.

He lowers me to the path, right there, where we nestle on the soft, mossy ground, and he removes a few rocks from under me as I lie there, enjoying his touch. The ground is blanketed by softness, old pine needles and moss and bits of ferns and stray grass.

Then, he looks down, lying beside me, and touches me again down between my legs, fingers tickling briefly among the pubic hair.

His fingers hold me open. The touch of the cold wind is so strange, but so wonderful.

Then he touches me again, a finger seeking deeper warmth, and it’s even better.

The heat is shocking, unexpected, like a fire growing in my belly. My hips rise of their own accord and I groan softly, feeling nothing but his finger filling me. He seems to delight in my reaction, softly, slowly touching my belly with his other hand, sliding it up to my breast, sending alarming, sweet flickers of delight through me as he moves. The whole time, his finger plunges steadily, touching the entrance of my tingling tunnel, my innermost womanhood eager for his caress.

I close my eyes.

His lips are on my belly, then up to my breasts, and I am aware of every touch, every brush, lick and nibble.

When he slides his tongue across my breast for the first time, my eyes flash open.

It is like lightning, this touch, his mouth. His tongue dances on my sensitive flesh, a gift during this arousing lovemaking, a move only given by the gods, and oh…

His teeth graze either side of my nipple as he bites down so gently.

His fingers are buried deep within me—how did that happen?

Because you let it
, a voice whispers. But I shut it off, not wanting to stop what we are doing. Vaguely I remember I was doing this for, uh, something… It’s so hard to think when he rubs his fingers like that. He wiggles his fingers deep inside, stroking.

Spread me open—oh, yeah, make me feel it.

I lean back on my elbows and just breathe, letting him do what he wants with me.

He moves his mouth up to mine, and I notice his loincloth has something very hard under it.

Deciding I should touch him because he is touching me, I feel that leather, rub the hard mound, then slide my hand under the loincloth. His penis is so engorged with blood. It slips free of the loincloth. The head is soft, so soft, with a small cleft, a drop of wetness at the tip. The skin on the long shaft is so smooth, flaring just under the head. He gasps uncontrollably when I run my fingers down it.

He sighs. Quivers.

Quickly, he pushes me down and positions his cock between us.

“Oh, please…” I realise he is whispering, begging.

I don’t want to, but at the same time, I do. This mystery, this part of life I haven’t had yet—I want it, to know everything. A hunger consumes me to know what will happen.

I keep my legs spread.

Will he or won’t he?

He does.

Redbush pushes himself against me with a grunt, but he is too big to fit within my tight flesh at first. His length gets wet, glistens between us with my juices. I slide a hand down his hard body and feel. I’m so wet and his shaft is so thick, the head just barely in between my folds. He pushes again and my intimate lips part as he slides past my fingertips.

His breath is in my ear, his voice telling me to relax, because he has done this before. I lie back down, both hands on his shoulders. He eases in and out, using just that large tip, slowly, stopping sometimes to lick my breasts. Soon I am trembling and tense, begging for more—more sensation, more
something
. I want it so badly, even if I don’t know what
it
is.

He laughs. His chuckle rumbles through his chest, pressed to mine.

He pushes harder and I want it all.

I mumble encouragement, barely aware of asking to know.
Give it to me. I want it. To know more.

He slides in and there’s just a bit of pain. Then he moves in more.

Oh, gods. It feels so good.

Like a stretch when tired, like twirling around and around, like laughing and joy and good things filling up inside me until I can’t contain it all.

He pushes all the way in with a grunt, and I gasp.

So big.

So full.

He stops for a second, and breathes, just breathes, as do I.

He looks at me and I see fear in his eyes, of what we have done. But also joy, and lust, and so many other things.

I nod slightly and he slides out a bit, as though reluctant to leave now that he is buried in the warmth. Then he pushes back in, my tight passage spreading, stretching for him.

For me.

My eyes close as the warmth fills me. I gasp and want more, to know more.

It’s so good, like when I touch myself but a thousand times better. He rubs against my tight ring of flesh, but with a pleasurable tickle, an almost pain that fades as he slides in and out as easily as a fish into water. There is a sensation there, almost lost in the feel of motion and rocking, and that feeling builds, better and better, higher and higher.

It’s growing, I can’t take much more as he thrusts, no longer gentle, as lost to sensation as I am. Words tumble from his lips, like water down a waterfall, as our bodies rock together. Praises of me, sweet, sweet begging for so many things.

He is trembling, or I am. So full, like a sun setting inside me…searing, warm, ah! With my eyes closed, I see starbursts and explode. The building of tension, the explosion, the relaxing, deep and quivering. I see—

Pale people, but death at their touch—like a cloud, I see a sickness waft from them. Far away in the future.
Somehow I pull my mind closer, to the here and to what was and what is soon to be.
I see a deer falling. I see I am a high priestess, and the entire town is bowing before me. The deer are running, leaping, past the falls of high cliffs. A beautiful herd of meat—does and bucks.

I see.

Oh, gods, how I see. The sacrifice has been made, my maidenhood for that glimpse I couldn’t make out earlier. It was like seeing an entire dream in one eye-blink. I saw it, but it was so fast, so little remains.

I gasp as the sensation hits again, whispering silent prayers of thanks that I am feeling it. This time there is no vision, just the orgasm clenching and clenching, repeatedly, each grasp so sweet.

He finishes quivering inside me. Redbush gasps for air on top of me, and I let him. I am too content to move.

He rolls off. Groans. “Oh, what have I done?”

I sit up and see a little bit of blood down there, not much.

“Made a woman of me.”

“Yeah,” is all he says, as he jumps up.

Everything is different, but the same.

The dirt is invigorating beneath me. The air is so clear, the sky the blue it has always been.

I stretch like a cat and smile. I saw the future. I have the power.

He checks his bow as though he doesn’t know what to do.

“When can I see you again?” I ask.

I don’t hear his answer as he runs off. Let him. I know how to get hold of him. For now, my body is full of strange things. My mind has seen the future.

* * * *

For the next few days, I worry about getting pregnant.
I shouldn’t have done that
, says a voice.

The same voice also says,
That vision
. Again, in my mind, I see the deer leaping, poised forever in my head. Grandpa died a few winters ago, so I can’t tell him about my new powers, but I tell Father about the deer.

He leaves with the hunters. Mother worries, I know, about my future and the past and many things, and if her husband will come home. I worry about whether there will be meat this winter. Redbush went with the hunters, but like my father, I know he is strong and capable—I am not worried about them. They will survive. But meat? I don’t know. What if the vision wasn’t real, or I misread the signs? How accurate is this? Is the future already done or can it be changed? I don’t know.

* * * *

In a few nights the hunters return. They are pulling a travois of meat. So much of it. My mouths waters.
Venison. New dresses. Winter boots.
We sing praises to the gods for giving us such a bounty. The entire village works to prepare the food quickly.

The outer parts are cut off for the dogs, since they are already turning. The rest will be sliced thin and smoked, although some of it—a handsome young buck—will be tonight’s feast. My father picked it out.

“This is for my lovely daughter. May the gods bless her as she has blessed me and her mother. Let us thank her for suggesting where to hunt.”

It is glorious. The deer is hoisted onto shoulders and as it passes by I glimpse its eyes. So deep. Dark. Dead. I feel sorrow. Its eyes are the same colour as Redbush’s. But I love meat. It had to be done.

The deer is spitted and roasted, the smell flowing through the village. I spend half the day standing downwind, inhaling. It is so good.

I see Redbush laughing with Dancing Dawn. They’re friends. I don’t care—we have something special together now, him and me. The smell of meat is heady. I lick my lips and realise I am gazing at him as I do so, as though he too is to be devoured.

The look on his face is full of surprise and lust, and something I can’t name.

How odd.

The deer is delicious, and I eat plenty. The meat is juicy, bursting between my teeth, filling my mouth with its savoury taste. I suck the marrow from the bone and think of Redbush, his manhood like a stalk rising, and wonder what it would feel like in my mouth.

We have one skin now, almost enough for a dress. And I want that dress—I want it to make me look beautiful for Redbush, because now I know how much he has come to mean to me. Before, he was just a handsome male I admired from afar. Now, he is the man who has made me a woman. We have shared something, and I am glad to the depths of my soul that, of all the males I could have shared with, it was with Redbush. Maybe this is still lust, or maybe something stronger. I only know I long for him, desire him, can’t wait to sink my tongue into his mouth as he sinks into me.

* * * *

There is venison in the morning, cold and fatty, then stew for supper, thick with chunks of deer. Too soon it is gone, the last of it dried or salted for winter.

I want more. The meaty, satisfying chunks, the long, hard bones, the soft skins.

I want Redbush. I long to feel him between my thighs again, to have him touch my breasts in the way only he knows. I have a bead woven into my pubic hair just for him, and I can feel it when I walk, sometimes, and it brings me to an edge of need and hunger. For Redbush.

Speaking of which… There he goes now.

To the lake.
All right.

I follow slowly, casually. What if I meet someone else? I will have to pretend to be just strolling along, going in this direction, and—oh, is Redbush or anyone here?

I reach the lake, and no—no one is there. It’s flat and empty. The mosquitoes whine over its surface. That’s about it. No fish are even jumping at this time of day.

I turn to head back when someone grabs me from behind. Hot breath in my ear, firm hands on me.