Estimated reading time: 2 – 4 minutes
She whispers garbled memories. His old name keens.
They both shatter against rock.
***
Enough time passes. The Gods, fickle and sincere as they may be, realized the bones needed to stay buried until forgotten. Resurrect the souls too quickly and the meat puppets end up splattered.
The world evolves into something predictably destructive. The end is beginning again even if the final chapter is too far off to be considered a threat. Primitive roaming stops. Humans swarm like ants—localized and territorial. Stone rise in neat patterns.
He is now a man of wealth and power. The need to acquire rides him. Hardness blunted his limbs from memories he’s buried deep so they can’t ever hurt.
She’s a slave in his sand fortress. Her name is, “You there!” At first it frightened her beyond speech to be addressed by him. His temper ferocious, his power infinite, he had complete dominion over her. Night-black stare followed by curling hair, he is beautiful like a knife.
The first time she came to his bed it wasn’t a bed. He grabbed her by the arm and thrust her to the ground. Her arm throbbed in time to her ragged breath. She wants to speak, to plead for gentleness, but the words die.
They’re reborn into stingy bits of air.
He put his head down between her legs. His tongue rasps down and up. She’s reminded of the furred creatures roaming at will. She’s too afraid to let herself feel. It’s only after he’s withdrawn that she remembers the virgin bliss she’s had in a life too hard to be enjoyed.
He pushes into her, clamping his stone hands around her hips. She doesn’t even realize she’d been sliding away like sand. Afterwards, he tells her to go.
When she cries in asphyxiated silence he looks away as if she’s not there.
Somehow she didn’t expect it of him. Even she knows she deserves a slap for thinking blasphemy.
He never calls on her. She’s not worthy to be one of his perfumed, jeweled concubines. Instead, he pushes into her when there are no eyes to see his preference. Their couplings are rough but not violent.
Like a cut, painful but without the devastation of a missing limb.
He takes her everywhere but in his chamber. She’s not allowed to cross that threshold. He doesn’t speak to her except to tell her, “Turn over. Stand up. Come here. Down on your knees. Up on your knees.”
She likes those commands.
“You there! Get out.”
She doesn’t like those.
It’s the Sun Celebration. He marries a woman from far across the desert. She’s beautiful in the way of exotic.
She looks nothing like her lady.
She cries again but knows there’s no helping it. Such was the way for a girl named, “You there!”
He doesn’t fall upon her for many, many days.
She begins to forget the couplings. She forgets what it was like to clasp muscled arms. She forgets his stolen taste.
Her body can’t forget. It thickens into a small hard ball. She knows what is to come.
I’ve missed Julian & Lily as well. I’m...