My bride stood before me in the great Sairtes hall at Urevi. The face that stared up at me was pale, blank and daubed with human blood. She was fourteen years old, my first wife. Thick sickly-sweet incense smoke formed a pall around us. The Ti-priest was chanting a curse. I saw a red trickle move down her cheek like a tear. The slave who had given up his heart's blood for the ceremony had been one of hers. He lay dead, and disembowelled behind me. I have a strong stomach, but I was glad I did not have to look at him. I gazed at my bride instead.
Last night, I was doing the nuptial fast when Enerkis, my father's purseman came in to me. He had kissed my forehead, perfunctorily, yet with warmth, for although he had come to give me instructions, he had known me well for all the seventeen years of my life, and the old man had a fondness for me.
"Son-of-my-master," he said. "Do you know your duty of marriage?"
"Of course. My father... " I made the ritual gesture of respect, "...needs a grandchild to be his heir."
Enerkis ducked his head gravely in agreement. He wore the red soldier's garb instead of the embroidered clothes of a courtier. "Your bride may not be willing." Enerkis told me bluntly. "As you know, she is being married without her father's consent."
"How does that matter? She is here."
"She may resist you, or try to dissuade you."
I frowned. Surrounded by soldiers and courtiers, her household absorbed into that of my father, what could the girl do? Her consent was not required. Her father, Meying of Tuensa had only the one daughter and long ago, about two months before she was born, all his sons had been strangled. I knew that my father had seized the girl's household, so that he could claim the fealty of Meying and when the moons of his lifetime had waned, and give his grandchild overlordship of Tuensa. The girl's will, and even my will had no place in that.
"You must take her virginity on the wedding night." Enerkis told me. "For another wife I would council that you have no haste in this, and that you take the time to teach her your ways. But not with this bride. Her father is riding from Beurcha. He won his battle. He is taking his fastest horse for home. He may try to annul the marriage."
I scowled but I also nodded. I understood.
"Son-of-my-master, and son of the city of Keiruth, I have stood before you and lain prostrate before you. You are also a virgin, are you not?"
"I am."
"Do you know how to take her virginity?"
"By force, if I must." I grimaced.
"Do you know how the act is done?"
There was a pause. Enerkis was alone with me. My guardsboys were squatting in the hall outside. The room was sealed because I had been bathing before Enerkis was admitted. My robes clung to my damp skin. The smell of bitter omelian herbs from the ritual bath prickled my nostrils. I considered his words, considered what had to be done. "I am not sure." I said.
"Son-of-my-master, a woman is not made by the same pattern as a man. Where he has the root-of-heaven, she has instead the pool-of-all-eternity."
"Yes, yes," I said, impatient with my discomfort at the subject. "I know that the mares are built differently than the stallions."
Enerkis smiled. He knew that he was embarrassing me. "The root swells with the seed of life. You know this. You must force your root-of-heaven into her pool-of-all-eternity, and by friction bring forth the seed."
"I see." This made sense. I was not entirely ignorant, and had already understood that it was my job, by some means to cause my seed to sprout inside my bride. What Enerkis had said had made plain what I had expected. But I had another question. "Enerkis, man- of-fealty How do I find the opening?"
"It will be between her legs, he said. "And it will be difficult at first to conquer. If she fights, subdue her; even bind her if you must. Most probably she will bleed."
"I've heard of that." I said. "Woman blood. Do I have to eat it?"
"You should. But more important is to be certain that the root-of-heaven impales her. Once that is done, the only way the marriage can be annulled is by either your or her death."
In the Sairtes hall, the girl was murmuring her responses to the liturgy. I could not hear her voice, although I stood closer to her than anyone. I did not think she was actually speaking, only mouthing words silently.
Her wedding clothes were delicately embellished with beads. Thousands of them covered her, minute blue specks of turquoise and pale specks of pearl. Her wrists were clamped into gold binders. These, the tokens of ownership, I had fastened onto her wrists myself, over the long tissue sleeves that covered her hands and trailed to the stone flags. She had thick wrists. I could see nothing of her, except the little of her face and dark, heavily made up eyes, ringed with antimony. I could not see her shape or tell anything about her, save that she was a head shorter than I. What mattered was if her hips were wide, not her wrists.
Tonight, I thought, I am going to have to rape this girl, and then I will have a wife who hates me, and loathes the night-of-chamber duty. And it is even probably that her own father will come and kill her, before she can carry my child to lightcoming, so I will have no wife at all.
I bowed to her, inclining my head when the chanting stopped. The girl dropped, lying prone upon her face, with the hissing rustle of her many skirts. Her forehead touched my boots. The exorcists began to play the chi-eri, the shrill, broken music harsh and discordant to drive away the demons that bring infertility and chamber-sickness. I waited until her women raised her again to her feet. The dark eyes under the headdress gleamed like obsidian, stuck gazing up at me.
"She is afraid of me." I thought.
My father stood over our wedding feast. Thirty slaves attended us. I had never tasted wedding feast foods before and I controlled a retch. The wine was flavoured with gall, the bread greatly salted, the herbs bitter. Marriage is a bitter duty. The wedding feast foods remind the partners of this. She ate morsels, tiny dainty fragments and didn't visibly gag.
Her own women put her in the wedding chamber. It was my guardsboys who prepared me. The seized me in the wine hall, and I was buffeted violently, side-to-side in the roaring crowd as my clothes were ripped from me. They tossed me about so hard that I would have stumbled from my feet, if there had not been so many hands pulling on me that I could not fall. I felt the cool air on my naked skin.
I had seen this rite many times before, so while I felt heat in my cheeks it did not alarm me. I kept my lips sealed trying not to curse, greatly embarrassed. I knew that the number of hands groping over me was a mark of not only respect but also affection. I was grabbed up, swung off my feet, pushed up into the air. They roared with laughter, swirling about me. A grunt of pain came out of me as they spread eagled me on the table and the hands wrenching at my limbs pulled hard enough to cause discomfort. Exposed like this, my secret male parts were available for inspection. Hoots and howls filled the drunken room.
"Bull cock! A bull! A bull!" A boy roared.
"Big as a war club!"
"He'll beat her into submission!"
"Noooo!" Some voices mocking, dissented. "He's small!"
"Stallion cock!" Others roared. "His cock is as big as a salmon!"
"Balls like fono roots!"
I gave a great gasp and jerk as a cup of mulled wine was suddenly dashed over my male parts. The wine was hot and came close to scalding me.
"Hairy as a beard!"
"Cock like a bull! Ram that virgin!"
The praisers won over the belittlers. I was dragged off of the table and left a peel of skin from my back behind, scraped clumsily over the table's edge. The forced me, jostling and impeding their own progress, to parade up and down the hall.
"Bull cock! Pound the virgin!"
"Split her yinu open!" The boy who uttered this crudity was slapped down by the others. The word yinu, I had never heard before. It was too gross even for a wedding rite.
The jostling, braying horns and jeering voices went on until there was no doubt that every one in the hall had had a chance to see that I was a man. I was breathless from the pounding that I was getting. They pronounced me man, and fertile. An attempt was made to wrench fistfuls of my hair out, but since I keep it short for my helmet, only a few strands were tugged from my scalp. I knew that I had escaped quite well. Nonetheless I was battered before they kicked the wedding chamber door open and dragged me inside.
The bride was sitting bolt upright, at the edge of the huge square bed, quilts pulled up to her chin. Her women were also cowering. I was flung on the bed.
"Ram her! Ram her! Stallion cock!" Chanting boys ringed the bed. My ankles were caught and my legs wrenched wide. "A bull cock to ram the sow!"
"Crush her flat and pound her!"
The bride's women fled. There were two of them and they had been cowering behind and beside my bride. They ran squealing from the room. The guard's boys lifted me up again and swung me.
"Ram the bride!"
They flung me forward. With my arms caught up, I could not break my fall until the last moment. I barely got my hands in front of me before I impacted, propelled forward by the howling boys. I landed on the bride's legs, felt the bones, felt the flinch. When I dragged myself up and got a look over my shoulder, the boys were leaving. I was sprawled naked on the bed, but released at last. The door boomed as it was slammed shut behind us.
Panting, I got onto hands and knees. My cowering wife was just at the edge of the bed. I was still on top of her feet. I drew back. For the first time I got a look at her when she was not completely muffled in headdress and rail.
For a girl, she was a good size. She had two gleaming black braids. She had skin a subtle pale shade of warm brown. Her lips were frozen agape and her eyes, still thickly rimmed with cosmetics, were gleaming with terror. She was cringing and staring at me with the horror of a slave facing the bloody altar.
She held the quilts, her last defence, right under her chin. I could not see how she was made.
For a while I didn't move. When I did move it was to draw back and to smile wryly. The girl was frozen and silent. My retreat did not lessen her fear. Still, I was not about to leap on her and begin digging for her pool-of-all-eternity. It was a duty I had to perform, but I did not face eagerly. We had the entire night ahead. To take a few minutes, even a few hours could make things far easier for us both, and there was no harm in hesitating here, so long as I had despoiled her before the morning horns began blowing.
I moved away from her and pulled at the other end of a quilt. I laid it over my lap, covering myself. She might be my bride and wife, but only my physician had seen me naked before this night since I was an infant. I felt better myself for the covering.
"You are afraid of me." I remarked.
A tremor ran through the girl, like a nod of agreement.
"Your name is Jemilsil? Is that how your women call you?"
"They call me Great Lady." Her voice was hoarse and faint.
"Should I call you that?"
"As... As my husband pleases." she faltered.
Jemilsil, I knew, meant new moon. Our conversation flagged. By rights, if she was formal, she should have been vowing to serve me and to be obedient to the death to me. But the girl made no move to meet me halfway. And how many wives did start out their wedding night by vowing to commit suicide to preserve their husband's family? I certainly did not have the experience to know.
So I sat there and smiled crookedly at Jemilsil. I was recovering myself from the mauling I had gotten at the hands of the delighted guardsboys.
It was Jemilsil, who presently made the next move. "Dear Husband...?" she faltered. "Please when you... if you..." She bit her lips. "Please give me the mercy of being quick."
"You want me to plant the seed now?" I was astonished.
"No!" she recoiled. "I mean... If I make you angry, if when you are angry, I vow I did not want this to happen. Be merciful then." Her husky voice was full of feeling.
"Don't be afraid. I don't think I'll get angry at you..." It occurred to me then that she might have a knife under the quilt. She was completely an unknown quantity, this new wife of mine.
"Why should I get angry?" I asked.
"I... I'm not what you want." said Jemilsil.
"But you are." I encouraged. "You are like a flower in the face, and your concern gives you credit. I have no fear you will disappoint me." How could she? All she had to do was turn my seed into a child.
A tear over flowed her eye, and as it made a grey track down her face, she cursed. "Daita! Pit worms!"
"Have you a knife under there?" I asked.
"No." she responded. "My women would not let me. They said that if I killed you, or even wounded you, I would be a longer time dying and they dying as well."
"Husband-murder would not be an auspicious way to begin your married life." I agreed dryly.
"Dear Husband." She steeled herself to make the request. "As a new wife in favour, I ask you, as gift to me, leave me my virginity this night. Only for a night or two..."
"I am sorry." I said. "I would grant it, but I have been ordered that I must take it tonight."
She swallowed.
"Why are you so afraid of me?" I asked. "If it is because your father..." I made the gesture of respect, since he was now my father-by-marriage "...will be angry, not favouring our contract, I swear by the blood of my prepuce, I will try to protect you and preserve you from his anger. You are of great value to me alive." I continued. "It is true you were taken by arms and without his consent, but he could hardly have contracted a better husband for you. Your child could be overlord over your father's realm, but also over the realm of my father." Again I made the gesture twice. "When he sees this, he will likely be reconciled."
"You will not be, said Jemilsil.
"Are you not a virgin?" I asked conversationally.
"I am." She shrugged as if it did not matter.
It did matter of course, and mattered hugely. If she were pregnant, I would have to arrange to have the child aborted, or killed at birth. It would not obviate our marriage; not even a child by another man could do that. But if she were with child, I would have to keep her guarded and murder her infant. And to take a wife that was not virgin, that was a great disgrace to me.
For now, I took her word for it. It was unlikely that she was pregnant. Her court had not pressed for the marriage but resisted it. She could not possibly be heavily pregnant. True, if she was not a virgin, it was customary that I would have her women killed for failing to preserve her, and I might have Jemilsil's face scarred. But I did not think this was the cause of her fear.
"Then you afraid of the chamber duty?" I asked.
She nodded hard, her eyes fixed on me unwinking.
How much easier it would be, I thought, if she was willing. But I was going to have to hold her down and try to find the hole and then push my root-of-heaven into it. I squinted, trying to guess what her anatomy would be like. Perhaps if I used my hands to search...
"Jemilsil, I do not want to hurt you." I said.
"You are going to kill me," she said.
I paused. From the staring eyes and stiff hunched shoulders, Jemilsil was speaking the truth, as she knew it.
"No." I said. "I need you alive to bear my father..." I gestured, "... a grandchild."
Another tear ran grey down her cheek. "Dear Husband," she essayed a small unhappy smile. "You know that, for me, this marriage is a misfortune? I was brought here against my will. I do not want to be here."
"I am sorry for your misfortune."
"I only want you to know that I did not set up this situation. I had no part in that, and it was never, never intended as an affront to you."
So she isn't a virgin, I thought. In truth, I was surprised. Her father and her women would have fought demons to preserve her chastity. I coloured a little bit.
"Jemilsil, daughter-wife," I said awkwardly. "I do wish to be gentle with you. Can you believe this?"
"Yes."
I had expected a denial. "Can you bring yourself to let me plunder your pool-of-all- eternity?" I asked gently. "I would far sooner that you parted your legs and gave me your consent, than that I use my strength against you. I will plunder it, and I am sorry that it will hurt you."
"I did not think that you would be so amicable."
"You thought I would curse at you and seize you and crush you?" I suggested.
"I did not think you would speak to me."
"Why not? Wives, sometimes become good councillors to their husbands. Would you like to be my councillor some day?"
"You are going to kill me," she said.
Her words were grim but her hands had lowered. I could see her shoulders now, or at least the tissue robe, silver threaded, that she wore. They were small square shoulders. They were set but no longer hunched.
"May I come closer to you?"
She nodded.
I took the quilt with me and came and sat close beside her, so that our legs were touching with the blanketing between us. I reached out and took her plait from her shoulder. It was as thick as three of my fingers, a fine glossy black colour. It smelt very faintly of sweet oil. It was not long, being merely waist length.
I dredged up a memory of a song: I should compliment her. "Daughter-wife, you have very lovely hair." I said.
I was rewarded with another miserable smile.
"You can do as you will to my body," Jemilsil said. "I will not try to stop you. I know I can't."
"Stop being so fearful." I said. "You are my wife. We will be partners for twenty, thirty years. As your husband it is my mandate to protect you."
Jemilsil laughed, a laugh as miserable as her smile. I decided, then at that moment, that I would not let her father kill her, that I would find a way to protect her and that I would guard her, if I needed to with my own sword. I didn't say that.
"Jemilsil, you are a big girl." I said encouragingly. "I think you are as lovely as an iridescent serpent. Let us be companions if we can."
"Teruk," she used my name, a surprising familiarity. "I am sensible of your kindness, but do as you must."
So then I reached out and took her by the shoulders. She went as stiff as a lay figure immediately. I drew the quilt down. I could see something of the colour of her warm milky brown skin through the thin tissue of her robe. I moved slowly. I was thinking of her like a young cre dog, timid from the stones of soldiers, but brave because it is hungry for food and cold for a fire. She was just like that. Kindness might make her settle beside me. Sudden or rough moves might send her leaping away, snapping as the little dog would.
So I stroked my hands lightly over her shoulders. I smiled with a friendly encouraging smile. "Great Lady..." I murmured. To all my caresses she sat still. She had good courage. She was breathing deeply and steadily. I eased my way behind her, pressing my body against her back. This did not push her into resistance. Slowly, slowly... I thought. My breath was on her shoulders. I felt it warm coming back at me. I licked her neck.
"War master?"
"Yes, Great Lady?"
"Is there anything you want me to do? My women did not explain the night-of-chamber duty to me."
"Let me do as I will." I said. "Just let me touch your secret women's parts. Tell me if anything I do causes you pain, or makes you angry."
"I think that it is supposed to hurt," she said.
"Jemilsil, when my body is inside yours, yes, then it will cause you pain, but otherwise only when I bite you."
"My women said a girl's first time, she will often faint with pain." Her tone was conversational.
That would be good, I thought. If she faints, she won't be able to fight. "I will make your pain as little and brief as possible." I said.
I slid the tissue robe down. Her shoulders were small and square. Her hips were not wide at all. I needed to have her growing a human spirit within herself as soon as possible, but I wondered how likely it was that she would die at the time of the child's lightcoming. It seemed to me quite likely. If it appeared impossible for our child to escape her body, my father would, of course, order her to be belly butchered by the midwife. She did not flinch when I drew my face along the back of her naked shoulders.
My hands wandered forward when my face was against her back. I found her breastless. She was so young that her chest was smooth and flat. I was disappointed. I had been curious to know what the udder of a woman was like. Instead she was almost the same as myself, lacking only the wisps of new hair that I had. I found her nipples. They were slightly sticky, having been coloured with resin and indigo. My fingertips came back to me blue stained. I peered around her to see the two small rounds on her chest. Seeing them, I had a sudden curious infantile urge to bite them.
Her cosmetics were a nuisance. I knew they were necessary but now they were smearing. Her cheeks had grey blotches from the tears, and now my fingers were leaving dark trails. She gave a great shivering sigh.
"Jemilsil," I asked softly. "How do you like to be touched? How do your women touch you?"
She gave a little laugh and half turned, amazed. "It is your pleasure, not mine, that is my duty!"
"But if I hold you, like your women do when you have taken some hurt, will it not make you less afraid?"
"Teruk, you're a fool!" she exclaimed. "You are being kind to me. Didn't your father..." she made the respect gesture with a quick motion that showed little square fingers, "... order me plundered? How can you sack a city and be kind to its citizens? It makes no sense!"
"I like you, Great Lady." I said awkwardly.
"I wish that we could become friends," she said faintly.
"We can become companions." My fingers were wandering over her chest and even down to her belly as if they were mice seeking amid stubble. Her skin was clasped warm against the front of my body. My root-of-heaven had swollen. I noticed it now.
My first impulse was to fling her forward and start scrabbling urgently for her pool-of- all- eternity. I had ripened, so nothing stood between me and my duty now, unless she could struggle enough to stop me. But if I flung her forward she would fall off of the bed, so we were not in an ideal position for me to mount her. Yet I still wanted to coax her to admit me, and there was another reason that stopped me.
Truth was, I was feeling a little queasy as the sight of closely regarding her secret women's parts. Perhaps there was a demon in the chamber. I was intensely curious to learn what the pool-of-all-eternity looks like, and yet something made me hold back, as if what I wanted to see might be something horrible, like a carcass swollen with maggots.
So it is with secrets. Something that is held out of your reach becomes greater than it really is, with the power to awe and even to frighten.
I took the back of Jemilsil's neck between my teeth and sucked gently. She tasted slightly of salt, a very good taste. I was amazed at how pleasing I found her warm skin in my mouth. "You are such a pretty colour, Great Lady." I told my wife.
When I pulled the robe farther off of her, so that now she was sitting on it, uncovered from its diaphanous protection, she hunched her shoulders. She was still half under the quilts and she had her hands tightly clasped in her lap, as if to restrain herself from clawing at me. I half hoped that she would scratch my face. It would be good to go about, marked with scars that proved what a stallion I was.
Now I needed to get her turned over so that she was presenting her back to me and I could mount her. I was pretty sure of my self here. Get her turned up and then I would have access to her pool-of-all-eternity, just the same as a stallion climbing onto the mare's back. But as I have said, I hesitated to push her forward on account of the place where she was sitting, so instead I wrapped my arms around her collar bones and pulled her down to lie on the bed beside me.
Jemilsil pulled the quilt with her so that it covered her from the navel down. I slithered over so I lay beside her and under the quilt also. I smiled up at her. She was almost glaring at me. I brushed my hand lightly over her belly. I had second thoughts about my slow and easy approach, if it was not working. Animals seem to mate noisily and violently. Perhaps if I had flung myself at her, she would have ripened, the way that a she-cat or a mare does, who fights and yet welcomes the male.
I pushed the quilt aside and ran my hand down to the base of her belly. I stopped short then. Enerkis had said that the pool-of-all-eternity would lie between my bride's legs. He hadn't described anything else, and I hadn't pictured anything else. But below her belly, Jemilsil had a little sparse tuft of hair and then was built otherwise very much the same as myself.
"You have a cock." I said. I forgot myself enough to use coarse language with a woman. I knew from the heat scorching my cheeks that I was blushing. Her cock was quite small. It was much smaller than mine. It was a ridge of floppy flesh that lay above a swelling, which looked just like balls. Jemilsil was whimpering through clenched teeth as I stared down at her. I realised that I had forgotten what I was doing and I was leaning with all my weight on her leg. Being exposed to my eyes had reduced her to trembling rigidity. I was hurting her. I shifted, still mesmerized.
"You look very like me." My voice came out breathless. I reached down and tilted her legs up. On closer scrutiny the swelling appeared even more like balls. I blinked, I was so very confused. I looked at her face. No cues there, only terror and shame like a slave going to the temple. She was quite rigid.
I was too confused to think straight. I had to find her pool-of-all-eternity. I pushed her knees back farther and lifted the limp sac with my hand. I found that the two tight globes of her croup had a cleft. I pulled them wider. There was an opening there, small, wrinkled and pink, but it was just like the opening I had.
I frowned. Enerkis had never told me that women were like fishes or birds with only one opening for everything they do. He could have simply said that and explained much.
"You're very pretty, Great Lady." I said mechanically. "Much prettier than I am." She was as rigid as a dead soldier gone into the grave-stiffening, except that she trembled. I've gone too fast. I've frightened her, I thought. But still I didn't stop staring and touching. I had her in an awkward, uncomfortable position. I couldn't bring myself to let her lower her knees. I was still too baffled by what I had found.
"Jemilsil..." I touched the pink opening. I knew it was an opening, although it was tightly sealed. It was the only thing she had that could be a pool-of-all-eternity. The heat in my face had reached the stage that I felt my ears singeing.
Do something. I ordered myself. I let go of her knees and lay down on her, laying my belly just below her belly. We were almost face-to-face. I tried to wipe the smeared antimony off her cheeks but only succeeded in smearing it worse. "Great Lady." I made myself smile. I got no answering smile. I stroked her shoulders again. I felt my cock as heavy and full as a waterskin, dragging below my belly. Two dark eyes gleamed at me from inches away, as luminous as lanterns. I licked her throat.
Every breath she took made me rise and fall because she was breathing so deeply and I was pressing closely to her ribs. I licked and stroked some more. Do something. I ordered myself. The only thing that I could think of to do was to hold the girl and keep touching her gently so that the suppressed fear would not turn into a bate.
Her breaths started to come shakily. "Teruk... Husband...?" she panted. "Why?"
"Yes, Great Lady?" I asked.
I could not tell if she laughed or sobbed. I nuzzled and licked her. Her breaths just kept on coming up trembling.
"Jemilsil," I said presently. "I know it is hard, but I am going to have to mount you. My father..." I gestured, "...has commanded that I take your virginity this night, so that we are inextricably bound. I am sorry that this grieves you, but you must get up and ready yourself."
I was surprised when she obeyed me. I drew off of her and she sat up and crawled a little way. She got on her knees. Her cock hung down in front of her.
I resolutely kept my eyes off of it. She did not know what to do, how to ready herself, but got into a crouch and stayed uncertain.
"Your... is so big!" she pointed. My eyes dropped to my own swollen root-of-heaven.
I could not reassure her that it was not so big, nor say I was sorry for her again. I had already said it so often that it was becoming meaningless. Instead I approached her. She didn't resist me. I took her by the flanks, came behind her and tilted her so that she presented her croup.
She was not like a horse. Really, she was just like a young man. When I pushed up against her she braced herself. Her naked back and flanks were a lovely shape. My cock pushed warm, stuck, and then pushed downward between her thighs. I felt quite certain that it had not found her opening.
Jemilsil kept her head down and crouched steadily. It was as if, come to the moment of her agony, she had steeled herself. "Very brave..." I murmured. "You are very brave."
"But how...?" Her voice sounded almost like she was going to laugh. I moved back a little, took my cock in my hand and placed it between the cheeks of her croup. I did not know if it was right to use my hands, but Enerkis had said that the only thing that really mattered was that I got my cock inside her. By using my hands, I could guide myself into her.
"I am so sorry," I said, and pushed.
"Uhhhhh!" Jemilsil breathed. Her opening resisted me. I felt it press inward. I sealed my mouth and teeth tightly as I pressed.
"Oh Panaree!" Jemilsil gasped. "Panaree help me! You are never going to put it in there!"
Slowly, as I leaned with all my weight on her, the opening yielded. I forced my cock into the ring of clamped muscle. I could not slam forward quickly or my own tool would have been bent. I changed the angle as I pushed. She was so tight that I felt my skin peeling back, more painful than pleasurable. She turned her head to look behind herself and I saw that her mouth was wide in astonishment at the sensations.
When I was fully set into her she was mine. Now, only her death or mine would break our marriage. I felt my own stomach vibrating with my quick breaths.
"It hurts..." Jemilsil said softly.
She did not seem to be fainting from the pain. "Can you bear it, Great Lady?" I asked.
"Yesss." she hissed.
I swallowed. It was really not too bad. The tightness of her muscle clenched around my swollen root-of-heaven had a certain pleasure to it. I could understand now why the guardsboys grumbled that they were long away from their wives. It hurt, and yet I imagined that I would want to do this again. I started to thrust.
I went very slowly, sawing in and out. The sensation in waves throbbed through me. Yes. This was better even than when I made play with myself, using my hand in an idle moment of solitude. The sensation of her warm skin and the tightness made it better. I felt the small hard lumps of her backbone against my belly. I leaned close and rocked slowly with clenched teeth.
"Ohhhh... Teruk." she groaned. She did not sound like she was in terrible pain. "Teruk, I don't understand. You weren't... you aren't angry."
"Great Lady?" I was already buried in her right to the balls, but I wanted to get closer. I leaned against her back and clutched the front of her body, sliding my palms up and down. I found the part of her that seemed to be a cock, the flesh beginning to thicken. I wrapped my hand around it. I licked my palm and wrapped my other hand around it. I began to squeeze and slide my knuckles up and down in the same cadence that I drove the sword of conception into her no longer virgin body.
The cock in my hand responded just as my own would have. It thickened and lengthened and the skin drew back. The smooth head of it was the same shape as my own when it was revealed. I stared at the dark hair where it was pulled into two bunches at the top of her plaits and thrust harder and harder.
"Teruk!"
"Yes." I breathed. "Yes, my wife, daughter-wife. Mine. Boy-wife! Sweet as berry-juice!"
She cried out, a tearing groan. I was battering hard into her. Her cock was fully erect, but my root-of-heaven was thrusting implacably as I rode for the waterfall. I tried to pay attention to her need but I could not. I thrummed her boy cock as if it was my own and as if it was my hands bringing me close to the casting of heaven's waters.
She started to buck, pushing back against me. Her opening was tight, yet it was no longer resisting me. It was a slick, clamping tunnel, crushing me in a blissful grip. Both of our bodies were moist with sweat. I rammed my sword of conception deep into her human sheath.
The surge came into me. I felt my sack lifting. Hot echoes of pleasure made me gasp. I made the waterfall. My foaming white water of conception flowed from me. I cast it into the warm tender recesses of my new wife's body.
We broke apart panting. He clutched his cock, lying on his belly. I rolled onto my back. I forgot modesty. I breathed great lungfuls of air. He whimpered swift breaths. His head was turned to the side so that he could stare at me. He was amazed. "Ohhh.." he breathed. "Ohhh, little ancestors bless my chamber."
As my heaving chest moved more slowly I lay staring at him. I knew that I was stupid, ignorant, an idiot boy, not yet a man. I was a married man. But I was ignorant. Any man with a first wife would have known. I was absurdly stupid. It had taken me so many minutes to realize that my wife was a boy.
A frown puckered my face. It was quite obvious how it had come about. Meying had lost his three sons to the executioner's cord by the command of the High King. He must also have lost his wives at the same time. By that law, which had killed his progeny, it would have been forbidden for him to be married. One wife only, they had not killed because she had been carrying a child. And that child was Jemilsil.
It would have had to be some trickery. The midwife probably had gone into the lightcoming sanctuary, with a newborn girl infant strapped to her legs beneath her skirt. The two infants, one male, the other female had been swapped. The girl child had been held up, warranted a she-child and named. No wonder the name Jemilsil. It could be a name for either woman or man.
But Jemilsil was cringing now. He saw the thoughts and consternation crossing my face like signal flags. "Master-over-my-flocks, please?" he breathed.
I pushed myself up sitting and bent over him. "Jemilsil." My voice sounded strange and stressed to myself instead of soothing. "You are my flower, you are my fairest, fairest flower, truly sweeter than berry-juice." I bent over him, kissing the back of his neck, kissing his smooth shoulders. "You are my brood mare, my best brood mare."
Jemilsil's puzzled face turned up to me.
"Daughter-wife." I let my hands slip over him. I was smiling. My voice was unwieldy but my face let my feelings be revealed. "You will be my companion. You must be my companion. Did I hurt you too much?" I turned him so that he lay on his back. His cock had withered. I took it in both my palms. "Does your secret matter?" I asked him.
"Does it not?" His voice was choked.
"It does." I nodded. "But how could I tell anyone? If it were said that the wife of Teruk was something other than a girl, the High King would send his executioner with cords. And then, what would happen to you? You are a girl, nothing but a girl, a fine, big girl." I nodded at him. "You will be a girl for me?
"You are not...going to kill me?"
"What did you do to me?" I asked him. "What should I punish by killing you?"
"My sex."
I shook my head. "I like you, Jemilsil, as you are. You did not make blood sorcery and change your sex to affront me. You are... well, you are not trying to do me ill in this?"
"No, Teruk."
"Pretty Jemilsil." I said. I bent over his belly. His cock was still limp in my hands. "I fear my brood mare will be barren." I suggested. I breathed on his navel and coaxed with my hands.
"How may I do this?" I said. "Like this?" I rubbed his cock, quite gently.
He didn't answer. A tiny smile quirked his lips.
I kept on with my soft rubbing. "If you were a woman," I said. "I would not know how to do this. But this I know."
My new wife's cock was hardening as I rubbed it. He was getting back the erection of earlier. It was a good-sized cock, I thought, for a boy of fourteen, judging by my memories of my own. I smiled at the salmon-coloured sword with the blunt cap. I squeezed rhythmically.
Jemilsil's hands touched the back of my wrist. I looked at his face.
"We will tell no one, is that not so?" I said.
"My father." he said. He made the gesture.
"Yes." I agreed. "He will have to be spoken to, and your women also, I suspect?"
He nodded.
"But to all others you will be a girl."
"I am nothing else." He said.
"Yes." I grinned at the stiff cock that I was strumming. "A girl with a root-of-heaven. But no one needs know of that."
"What of your father?" There was fear on Jemilsil's face.
I thought about that. It was true what my wife said. My father could, if he chose to at any time, come to lie with my wives. I did not know if he would ever do so, since I had never been married before. It was possible that sometime he would do it and if he lay with Jemilsil, the secret would be exposed. I did not think that my father would accept what he was. I frowned.
"I think I can convince him not." I said. "There must be away. There will be. Perhaps I can mention that your secret parts have a savour to them that is foul -some kind of discharge and that will help to disconvince him to take his right of you."
"Would he kill me?
"I do think so." I faced him. "So then we shall find some way to make sure that he never does come to chamber with you."
I leaned forward them, on a sudden impulse and licked that firm boy organ that was in my hand. Jemilsil sighed, shocked by the sudden sensation. His reaction amused me. I licked his cock again.
"Uhhh... Teruk!"
"You like this?"
"Yes." he squirmed.
I licked more, watching him around the cock in my mouth. With his eyes wide, his head tossed from side to side. I grinned and used my hands to help my lips and tongue. The two lovely dark eyes rolled up as my boy-wife moaned in pleasure.
"Teruk." he whispered softly.
"Sweet wife." I breathed.
It was a strange thing to have a cock in my mouth, but not so strange as it was to find a wife that was built the same way I was. I licked, nuzzled and suckled. I was like a piglet at the teat. Jemilsil flopped about with pleasure. His fingers began to dig seeking at his own body. He raked over his own belly and flanks. His visible pleasure incited me to work at him more urgently. His small strong fingers came up and he took a smeared nipple into his grip and pinched it.
I watched entranced without slowing down the cadence of my jerking hand. His writhing made him push his flanks up, right up from the quilts. At the bottom of every stroke, I flattened the little mound of curls at the base of his cock with the side of my hand.
"Panaree!" he gasped. "Midwife-goddess! Oh!"
I saw his lovely pink, fuzz-covered testicles contract. I licked them as they contracted. His fists were clenched on his own belly and nipple as he came to the waterfall. Thick beads of white water of conception spurted from his trembling cock. It landed without sensation on the back of my hand, and seeped like the wax of a candle in white dribbles.
Jemilsil lay with his mouth crooked open staring at me as I crawled up beside him. I wrapped my arms around him and rocked him. His head lay on my shoulder and his warm body lay relaxed against mine.
"Thank you, Teruk. Thank you." He kissed my breast. We were pressed into each other full length, like two fresai, nestled together not yet uncoiled from the pod. My nose was against his smooth black hair, inhaling the perfume. I took his hand in mine and hooked our fingers together. He was warm, he was male, he was mine and I was at peace.