born with our powers?”
She said nothing.
He shook his head sadly as the wagon bumped down a long slope and shook them like dice in a cup. When they reached the bottom of the hill and were on more hospitable land, he said, “We aren't some new species, nothing as glamorous as that. We're merely tainted creatures, jokes perpetrated by the Ruiner, a sorry lot of —”
Oh, shut up! she 'pathed with particular violence.
Jask rubbed his temples to ease the headache she'd given him, and he didn't attempt to start another conversation.
On the sixth day they parked the wagon under a grove of tall trees that were abundantly thatched with yellow leaves, certain it would be out of sight of anyone lurking in the higher hills, and they bathed in the cool, vital creek that lay a hundred and fifty meters below the ancient roadway. Tedesco, Chaney and Kiera went down the stone path first, soon out of sight, leaving Jask and Melopina to stand watch. It was an uneventful watch; they were not approached by any strangers, villainous or otherwise, and they did not approach each other.
Tedesco and the wolf-people were gone nearly an hour. When they returned, their pelts glistened, bright and healthy and clean. They were laughing as they took over the watch and sent Jask and Melopina away.
The path down the embankment from the grove had been laid centuries ago, by hand. The stones were so closely fitted that no mortar had been necessary, and the years had done only moderate damage to their patterns. At the bottom of the stairs they came out on a paved ledge, which, at its water end, was stepped to feed into the creek. A few hundred meters up the creek a dam forced the water to back up to a depth of three or four meters, creating a pleasant enough swimming pool.
There was so little communication between him and Melopina that, as he undressed, Jask felt no actual embarrassment in being nude before her. It was really almost as if she were not even there. He had made a sort of breechcloth from fragments of his tattered jumpsuit, which was all that he was wearing in that summer heat; he was nude and in the water in short order.
He was treading water in the middle of the pool, looking around to see what had become of the girl, when she suddenly surfaced like a fish, rose part way out of the water, then sliced back into it, diving deep, leaving only a bubbly froth in her wake. When she came up again, she swam on the surface to the small dam, rolled onto her back and returned, smoothly, making very little noise.
“You're a very good swimmer!” he called to her.
Thank you. I sometimes feel my ancestors were born to water and that I should have a set of gills.
She dived.
She rose in a bright splash.
She cartwheeled through the water, swimming first on her stomach, then on her side, her back, her other side, finally returning to her stomach again, going through this routine again and again so that she seemed like the screw of an invisible ship.
“Beautiful!” he called, delighted with her sporting.
She dived.
When she came up, it was in front of him, showering him with water.
Her neck membranes repelled the water and flowed, still, like air-blown silk, a startling contrast to her soaked black hair, which hung straight from her head.
“That was bad manners,” he said, splashing her with his hands.
She laughed, turned and swam off, forcing him to give chase, letting him catch her, then flipping water in his face and whirling out of reach.
Once, by pretending to give up and then launching after her with even greater fervor, he caught her in his arms and tried to draw her toward him. His hands slid over heavy breasts, along slick skin, then lost her.
“Over here!” she shouted.
He turned and saw her at the other side of the pool.
“Slippery eel!” he called.
He went after her.
She dived out of sight.
A moment later she grabbed his feet and pulled him under, let him go when he began to fight back.
He surfaced, spluttering, listening to her delighted laughter.
“You'll pay, “he said.
This time he caught her more easily, drew her in until her hard nipples poked against his chest and her pelvis was glued to his, their legs brushing provocatively beneath the crystal water. Without realizing that he had intended to do this all along, he bent and kissed her, licked her lips and accepted her tongue in return.
Her arms went around him.
He nuzzled her neck membranes, smelled the tangy odor of her flesh, aware that she was tainted, that she was daughter to the Ruiner, but not caring in the least, not at that moment.
“I want you,'' he said. His voice sounded as if it belonged to someone else, throaty and ready to crack. He heard himself say, amazedly, “I think I love you, Mellie.”
Tell me again, she 'pathed.
Suddenly all of their brief conversations flashed through his mind. The countless hours, in only six days, in which they had been together became more than hours, stretched until they seemed like years. This time, without any qualifications, he said, “I love you.”
Her hand strayed between his legs, encircled his erection. She 'pathed, Again, Jask. Tell me again.
“I love you, Melopina.”
Again!
“I love you!”
Tell me with your power. Don't use your voice. Tell me again.
He hesitated and…
… lost her.
She jerked away from him as she sensed his reluctance to make the commitment, rolled onto her back and swam away. At the steps, she pulled herself from the water and stood on the paved patio, squeezing the water out of her hair. Her nipples were dark blue, her pubic bush black. She was the most desirable creature he had ever seen.
He stepped onto the patio and said, “Doesn't it mean anything…? I thought you felt something too, that you—”
She tossed her hair back.
Her neck membranes wavered, shone with droplets of water like tiny spheres of mercury.
She said, ''I can't give my body to you if you won't have my mind as well. I couldn't be half a wife to you.”
“Melopina, I—”
She grabbed her clothes and walked off. At the bottom of the steps she dressed, looked back once, and went back up to the grove and the wagon where the others waited.
As he watched her go, Jask wondered if this erotic encounter had simply grown out of her playful mood and her intense love of the water — or whether it had been carefully staged in order to break down his last defenses. Strangely enough, even if they had plotted against him, he could not be angry. What he had told Melopina was true, and more of a surprise to himself than to her: He loved her. He felt so strong about her, in fact, that the loss of her was like a physical pain as well as a spiritual agony.
He was in love with a tainted creature, the Ruiner's handiwork. If he took her, if he surrendered to her demands that they share completely, his last untainted thoughts would become subject to her influence. He would change. He would be lost without hope. Yet he could not go on long without her. Either way, his situation had become a thousand times more unbearable than ever.
He dressed and went up to the wagon.
