Vision of Love (3 page)

“Little maiden. What if I had been an enemy?”
Redbush.
I recognise his voice, his smell, the feel of his touch upon my hot, sweaty skin.

I wiggle around to face him. “Then I would be captured. What would you do to me, oh mighty hunter?” I ask him.

The words are meant to be sarcastic, but there is something in them, a deeper longing for I know not what.

Even the air is still between us. I hear him breathe, so loudly. Or is it me?

I creep my arms up around him, holding him, loving the feel of his neck and hair. I let it run through my fingers. His skin is hot beneath my hands, the muscles so firm.

He leans back slightly, shivering from the intensity of my touch. Soon he will make me shiver too, I know it. I look forward to it.

Instead, he looks out at the lake casually, leaning against the tree.

“Is anything the matter?”

He barks a short laugh. “No. Why should it be? A woman, a girl I barely even know, chases after me and looks adoringly at my body, not at me.”

He may barely know me, but I know him. I have been watching him for a long time, sighing over his body, hot and lean, thinking of him when I wonder about my future. I say nothing, playing with the fringe on my dress. It scratches, but not in a good way. Mother has promised me a new dress, and together we will sew it, but it won’t be ready for days yet.

“I’ve seen you watching me over the last few days,” he says. “I knew if I came out you would follow, and I didn't know if I wanted that.”

“Don’t you want to have sex?” I ask him softly.

“Want? I’m a male.” He takes a deep breath. “I don’t know what I want.” Despite his words, his loincloth is projecting out like a lone pine tree on a cliff.

“I watch you sometimes,” I admit. “All the women do.”

“You’re the first one to offer herself like that,” he says in reply, looking down at himself.

I smile and lie down here, where the moss softens the ground and I can see the lake, yet the bushes grow on either side. They are taller than us and I sit in their shade. It is a good spot. It is a wonderful day, warm, but cooling.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks, as though tormented.

His voice makes me shiver but not in a good way.

“Because I thought… You, me. Sex. Fun,” I stammer out. I don’t tell him how much I think I love him already. I want his hands on me. I long for it. I yearn. I want his touch, so breathless and hot, cascading down me.

The top of my dress is in my lap. I touch my own nipples, already burning with need for him. He watches me from the tree’s side, not moving. I wish we were sitting together in sunlight. It feels so warm when it touches me. My breasts are bare because I like the feel of the wind on them.

Today I couldn’t find any flowers I wanted to braid into my hair, so I rubbed strawberries, tiny and tart, on my breasts. They have made the brown around the nipples so red.
I don't know if I like the colour
, I muse. He moves closer to see, kneeling down next to me.

He touches my bare flesh.

“Don’t you think”—I lean back—“it would be nice to go without clothes?” I stare at the sky, imagining all the warriors naked.
Hmm, wonderful.
He unties his loincloth.

“That’s what you think about?” He mumbles something about me being worse than his brothers.

He leans over me, naked.

“No. I don’t think it would be good to forgo clothing. Did you forget how many elders we have? And Round Bear?”

I laugh as he stops kneeling to sit next to me. “You’re so mean! Just because he’s not as pretty or handsome as you, you don’t want to see him naked?”

Redbush considers the question thoughtfully. “I don’t want to see any men naked, no—not really.”

He reaches out slowly, touches my chest, fingers brushing as lightly as the sun when it kisses them. I barely breathe, wondering how to encourage this.

It's not just the visions I want, I realise. It’s the rushing orgasms, the feeling that shakes me, trembles my limbs and robs me of my breath, makes me a helpless victim, and the release, so sweet at the end, when I just lie there, complete.

A woman.

“I think if the women were naked, very little work would get done,” Redbush continues to muse thoughtfully.

“Am I keeping you from hunting, mighty warrior?” I ask him teasingly.

He touches my nipple, his gaze intent on the round bud under his fingers. He is mesmerised by it.

“Yes, you are,” he says, then lies down by me.

I smile delightedly and shuck out of the rest of my dress. I toss it casually to the side.

He watches.

I toe my moccasins off, then his, knowing my toenails are scratching his shins, but I am so happy.

Sex, sex, sex, sex,
chants a bit of my brain.

He watches. Finally, his penis so stiff with need that it’s like wood, he sighs deeply and stares at my breasts.

Stare away. They’re for you
.

He tastes one, and it’s exquisite pleasure. I suck my breath in at the sensation.

“Hmm. Strawberries,” he says, as though confirming a suspicion.

I make an
ah
sound, my mouth open. He kisses harder, almost biting, but I want it, so badly.

I bury my fingers in his hair, encouraging him, touching him as his mouth works on first one taut nipple, then the other.

He licks a long trail to my stomach.

I almost flinch at the feeling. So strong. Nothing else is like this. Not water from the lake when it runs in drops down me, not even an ember could feel like this—hot and cold and sweet, his tongue dancing as he seeks more strawberry taste. Then he comes back up, bypasses both breasts and goes right for my neck.

He buries his hand between my legs and exclaims in surprise at how wet I am.

It’s his mouth on my neck—I had no idea it was so sensitive until he bit so gently.

He laughs, his chuckle like thunder deep in the hollow of my shoulder.

“I want to make you feel just this good,” I whisper.

“Your pussy does that,” he says. “I don’t need anything else right at this moment. Just you. Your sighs. Your wetness.”

He pulls his hand back and I can see it glisten.

I want to look at his need. I told him I wanted to make him happy, and I do. It’s not just for my little game of sacrifice for shamanic powers—it’s for him, too.

I stare at his engorged manhood, then wrap my fingers around it.

He too is wet, just a drop of pearl at the end. I lean in close to him and smell—pine and male and earth. I lick, tentatively at first, then more enthusiastically as I realise I like his taste.

Salty.

He groans.

Wonderful.

I lick some more, until my tongue is sore. His pants fill my ears, his smell fills my senses. I hesitate at his manhood, the stalk so thick and strong, like an upright tree, the head flaring like a mushroom. I lean up over him and lower my mouth around his hard manhood, my tongue touching it wonderingly, finding it as sweet a feeling as when it is down below. Then I wrap my mouth around it, remembering what his lips felt like around my nipple. I hear him groan again and want to laugh, dance, weep.

I like the feel of him sliding into my mouth, over my lips. I love the way he gasps for air when I do it. I sit back.

 I straddle him, with that magnificent organ pressing into my stomach.

I could ride him all day.

He guides me up with his hands on my hips, biting his lip in anticipation. I sink down onto him. Instantly, his penis nestles between my thighs, deep, deeper, arrowing in as if it’s on the hunt. It fills my womanhood, nestled deep within, feeling so large, and I want the moment to last forever and to quickly be over with so I can experience the next moment.

So much wanting. So much friction.

I lower myself fully.

The look on his face… He tilts his head back slightly, and now his eyes are like liquid night, staring into mine. His lips are parted, wet, glistening, as though struck apart by what he feels.

I grip him with my thighs, feel muscles deep within me grip him. I rock back and forth until he growls impatiently and rolls me over.

Now this, I like. So manly!

His weight presses me down, down into the earth as he grunts and drives into me.

I wrap my legs around him, my knees bucking up, down, the feel of each position so different.

He groans more. “Stop that. Just hold still, while I…uh…”

I grasp him with my legs. “Not yet,” I beg.

“Yes,” he demands. “If I want it, warrior maiden. I can’t fight you—you feel too good. I want you too much.”

He sucks hard on my nipple, lips clamped on tight, knowing how much it pleases me.

Not content with that, he lets his fingers play with my breasts, working the nipples . He watches me, entranced by how he makes me squirm for him, the touch of his fingers bringing feelings flooding over me.

He bites. Tastes my breasts, works up to my neck and back. Lower.

Too soon, he leans back, leaving my skin still yearning for the feel of him. He stares for a moment, clearly enjoying the view, then he kisses my stomach, then licks my breasts and their hard nipples.

He sinks in to the hilt, all of him deep within me. I cry out in pure, ecstatic joy.

This is a gift from the gods, this rutting like deer.

He moves fast, growling, one hand on my breast, the other on my back.

I clutch at him, helpless, as he rides me. My breath is a loud sob, gasped out as he moves, my body tingling all over and subject to his whim. I ride a wave of delight, surrendering to this need. Each time he sinks in fully, each time his testicles touch me, I want to weep with joy. He moves so quickly, as lost to sensation as I am, each thrust blending into the next one to make one long, overwhelming moment.

The orgasms hits. For a moment I had forgotten it was a goal, so swept away was I.

The feeling makes me hum like a bowstring, every muscle clenching tight, then the slam of the orgasm, and the deep deep relaxing, letting go, spaces in my mind opening.

I see deer and fire and pain and joy and birth and death. Grab something of this vision, and hold. I see the village burning. I see the storm chasing life before it, thunder crashing like—

It’s gone. I can breathe again.

Redbush looks at me, wondering, and I wipe fresh tear tracks off my face. That sense of loss, of so many dying. I must do anything to prevent it.

He looks concerned, though—too concerned to let me concentrate. “Are you all right?” he asks worriedly.

I reassure him, but he insists on walking me back to the village. He won’t leave my side and chatters a lot. How can I think with him talking? But I see I hurt his feelings when I snap at him, so I let him be. We arrive at the village together and the familiarity wraps around me like an old soft hide. Everything is fine. For now.

I stay in my father’s teepee all day. Mother thinks I have ‘women’s problems’ and brews me tea for cramps. I just had my period a few days ago, but oh, well—I like the taste of the tea. And it does seem to help clear my mind.

* * * *

That night I can’t sleep, thinking of Redbush and the vision. Death. Fire. Ashes, hot and bitter. Morning dawns cool but not cold, not yet.

“Feeling better?” Father asks cheerfully as I emerge from the tent.

I want to nod, to crawl onto his lap the way I used to when I was a child. Instead, I tell him ‘no’.

“The gods have given me a vision. We must move camp,” I tell him.

It’s not a good day.

No one wants to believe me. I tell my father I had a dream of the thunder hitting the mountain, starting the fire—of the animals fleeing, the lake boiling. He doesn't want to talk to the chief, but he does. For me. He takes me to the chief’s teepee and Redbush is there, listening. We don’t act as if we know each other so intimately. I want to tell the gods, ‘There, see what I have sacrificed for you? My maidenhood, my innocence. They are yours.’

It is an odd moment, like the deer leaping in my mind’s eye. I see us forever frozen, him leaning casually against a pole, yet unable to keep his gaze off me. I keep my head down, but peek at him occasionally. Dancing Dawn glares at me. She and her mother are favourites of the chief’s wife and the two fathers often hunt together.

The chief listens to the tale. He reassures me. It is all right, I can come to him with anything. He is the chief—our concerns are his. But he will not move the village on the word of a girl. I almost ask, ‘If I had a penis, would it be different? Should I ask the gods to grow me one?’ But it’s not important, my gender. I tell him about the lightning, how it struck and where.

“I will watch for it, little maiden, every storm.”

We leave soon after.

* * * *

I hunt down Redbush twice more, though the second time I think he is hunting me. Our sex is fast and furious, churning the ground and filled with more grunting than endearments. My blood burns hot for him, though, like a fire beneath my skin, but one giving my womanhood the most delectable sensations. Sex with him is like running along a mountain trail. There are little peaks, little delights, the ease of the downhill, my breath hot in my throat, legs shaky. Recovering, then again going up, urging, so close to the top, over, a rushing sensation of completeness, down. The feeling at the end, all sweaty but relaxed. It feels so good, so damn good.

The visions are alluring, addictive, like a peace pipe with the devil’s weed.

I see the future, the past, the in between and the over there. Where there were girlish thoughts in my head, now there are vast universes. Sometimes I turn from Redbush and just stare at things, thoughts like flowers blooming across my life.

I swim in the sea of powers. I float on the wings of spirits.

A few days later a storm comes and I see the chief in front of his teepee, watching the lightning, talking to Dancing Dawn’s father. I am proud to be a member of his people. He does want to keep us safe.

Mother finishes my new dress. Together we will weave and sew decorations on it, perhaps this winter.