Miyani led me into the great mud building where, inside, it was cool and comfortable. Light came from several of those spherical paper lanterns hanging from strings all around. A few women sat beneath the lanterns reading, while an old man had leaned his head back and slept. There was a large open space in the center where several older children were bossing one another around over something. An older girl glanced between Miyani and me and gave off a wry grin, elbowing her friend to point and giggle at us as well.
Miyani ignored them, and I had bigger priorities. It was the perfect amount of light to shimmer off Miyani’s dark skin and gift my eyes with every muscle in her glorious back. And oh, how the cotton flap in the back of her loincloth did bounce over her arse as she walked.
Miyani grabbed a stick from a small basket beneath one of the lanterns. I watched her adorable face, peering up into the lantern to get a flame, and with the shape of her face, the way she smiled with her eyes, my heart fluttered. She peeked at me, then smiled wide, gesturing with her neck to follow her.
There was a dark, narrow corridor beneath a wood frame amid the mud walls with a closed curtain on each side, beyond which was a stone flight of stairs leading up. Everything was dark but for the oiled stick she carried, which cast barely enough light for me to study her sublime silhouette. Her hips, her thighs, God her legs looked delicious. The passageway led us past a few more curtains, and she stopped at one on the right. I came up, and she pressed her hand on my chest. I thought she was about to say something, but instead her fingers meandered down over my stomach and wrapped around my side before sliding down over the curve of my butt. Her face tilted all the way back to look up at me. It was dark, but I could see she was smiling.
I bent down to kiss her.
Her lips pawed at mine, and I was on fire. I couldn’t believe it. This wasn’t happening. I heard a slight moan, and she brought her hand up to grasp at the back of my head and pull me into her. My heart froze. What if I screwed this up? What if I disappointed her?
What even was about to happen, and would I even be ready?
She pushed me into her apartment and pulled a curtain over the entryway. Then she lifted the flame into a white sphere of a lantern, and the whole thing began to glow a muted orange. Then another in the corner beside a thick padding that sufficed for a bed. With that, she blew out the stick and set it down, then came to stand before me.
She giggled, “dowa ɣʊdʊ ʃʌ’asodesa!” and set her hands to meander across my chest and up to my shoulders. I could see her smiling wide.
My heart thudded against my chest. “OK…” I had to think about that one. “dowa. You want something. ɣʊdʊ, you want it really bad.” Miyani gazed up into my eyes as I put the pieces together. “Uh…”
“ʃʌ’aso,” she nodded expectantly, still beaming and looking up into me.
I’d got it. “Wait, I know what that means. You… “oh!”
She giggled and continued to gaze up at me.
“Oh!” I nodded, though I couldn’t help a grin. “I understood that!”
Miyani lowered her eyes, still giggling. “I soly! I respek chaste. OK?” She set her hands in the center of my chest and looked serious at me. “Plomiss. Uh… plomiss I respek chaste at you. Plomiss. OK?”
No girl had ever said that to me before. And I’d had situations… where… let me say it was evident that respect was not there. A part of me was able to relax. I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of it. “So you promise to respect my chastity, do you?”
“Pa… param… paro… yes.” She slid her hands just above my belt and around to my back side, gently dipping the tips of her fingers beneath my belt. “I wan look. Is OK?”
“You want to look?” I said.
“Pliz?” her eyes pleaded with me. “Is OK?”
I couldn’t wait. I undid my belt and wiggled my trousers down past my feet and kicked them away and stood before her naked. Her eyes popped and she smiled, and I stepped up to her. “Can I look, too?”
She nodded and popped her eyebrows, and set her fingers to the front of the scant outfit she wore.
“No,” I said, taking hold of her hands. “Let me.”
With that, I knelt. I set my fingers at the sides of her hips, splayed my thumbs across her thighs, and drunk in the feel of her skin. I memorized the way the top of her loincloth dropped down from her tummy and allowed my fingers a peek at the skin between her thighs, daring them to slide close to her sex. She let out a breath and ran her fingers in my hair, groping locks, pulling them up only to let my hair fall down over my back.
I then passed my hands across her body around to her back side where my fingers slithered up her thighs and along her arse until I could cup her completely and give her roundness a good squeeze. I looked up into her face as she watched me, then kissed her skin at the side of her leg where that loincloth hung down. I sat up a little and kissed her tummy and began to work my fingers beneath her garment and up towards her belt. I felt her fingers trail all through my skin and down behind the back of my head, then along my shoulders. I took hold of her belt and slid it slowly, allowing it to follow my fingers as they dripped down over her succulent arse. I kissed her tummy again. Then again.
She brought her hands in, pulled at the front of her yithi, and undid some kind of fastener. Right away, the whole thing came loose and fell down before my face, hanging from my fingers behind her. Inches from my face, the soft white hair of her pussy glistened in the candlelight.
She giggled. I looked up, and she smiled, then giggled some more.
I couldn’t help but laugh as well, “I was getting there!”
I knelt and gazed at her sex, studied the way her skin folded, then leaned in to smell her. “Mmm!” I looked up and smiled wide.
She looked down and gazed at me with loving eyes, still stroking her fingers through my hair.
I leaned in and kissed her in the center of her mound.
“No,” she pushed my head away, then laughed. “I respek chaste, OK?”
I grinned. “I never said I couldn’t go there…”
She smiled further, then looked away for the words. “Eh… OK. If… you, uh… this,” she pointed at her beautiful pussy, “then uh… no respek chaste. ki’i ʃʌkædi.”
That made me laugh. “Oh, we would need to, is that it?”
“Yes,” she nodded with a big smile, “need.”
As she giggled, I stood. My erection was so full I felt like I was about to burst. Just the sensation of moving my cock through the air tickled excited pleasure into my skin. Miyani set her hands out and ushered me towards the wall, then backed off a little. “I wan look, OK?”
We stood, naked, in the dim lamplight of her small, mud apartment, facing each other.
I watched as her eyes meandered all over my body, from my arms and shoulders, down across my chest and over my stomach to my swollen cock, where she cocked her head slightly and bit her lip. She took in a deep breath and scanned up and down my legs, then side to side across my chest and traversed my arms. Her eyes paused briefly at the dark lines of scars about my wrist, where she giggled lightly and shook her head, only to break out laughing.
I started with her tiny breasts, just barely lump enough to discern her womanness and perfectly perky. It felt different. She wore her breasts out normally. Every other woman at Carthia also wore their breasts out, even Ahmi once she got to know you, and I barely noticed anymore, but Miyani, I couldn’t stop stealing glances. She never seemed upset about it, but it still felt like something I ought to have better control over. But this—this was a blank check. This was an invitation. Permission to stop worrying, stressing, and feeling anxious over that and just appreciate her body. No limits.
She had a scar on her belly, at the side just beneath her rib cage. Another line of scar in the shape of a vita’o’s mouth came down from her shoulder on the side opposite where she’d had the white bat’s wing tattoo. And the muscles in those insanely ridiculous thighs.
She held one hand at the center of her tummy and allowed her fingers to cover half of her pubic hair. I watched mesmerized as she pressed in, pulling at the skin close to her clitoris. “I soly,” she stopped. “You wan look?”
I nodded enthusiastically. “No, you do that.”
“Is OK?”
“PLEASE do that!”
She grinned wide. “You like?”
“Yes! I like!”
At that, she sided over to the bed and sat down with her legs spread wide, propping her back against a pillow.
“You,” she gave me a come hither with both hands, so I knelt. “Come.”
I crouched closer to her, still kneeling, and she stopped me when I’d set my knees directly between her feet. Once there, she let her eyes fall all over me again, staring at my cock, she brushed her finger along the crease of her pussy. Gently at first, then she moved a little faster, using two, then three to swirl around at the top of her mound before gliding down once more.
I set one hand on her knee and the other I encircled the crown of my member and gently stroked around it. I’d grown so excited that as soon as I circled my fingers around my shaft and slid them down, I burst. My whole body crescendoed, and I panicked. I tried to cup my hand over the thing to catch the mess in my palm, but a shot of slimy goo sprayed onto her.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I’m sorry!” I said. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!”
Miyani looked at me with her mouth wide, then broke out laughing.
“I’m sorry,” I cried. “I’m so sorry…” That was supposed to last longer. I looked around for something to clean off with.
Miyani then smiled and set her hand on my wrist. “Is OK. Come.”
She directed me to lean over and prop myself up on my left hand while my right still cupped beneath the tip of my cock and was filled with warm slime. “Wait.”
Then she moved my hand aside and wrapped one hand around my cock while stroking herself with the other. She let out a slight moan and closed her eyes, then pushed one finger deeper into her slit, brought it back up, and encircled her clit vigorously. All the while probing the contours of my manhood, sticky cum and all.
It wasn’t even half a minute and she took in a sharp breath while her whole body tensed. She squeezed down hard on my cock which still hadn’t gone down, and then she relaxed, allowing her arms to still. I bent down and kissed her. She lifted her face into mine and pressed hard, massaging my lips with her own while I returned the favor.
Eventually we cleaned up. She had a small washbasin in one corner and some rags, along with a clean sheet to set over the stiff mattress, and we laid down together. Skin to skin, all along the length of our bodies, I felt her pressing into me. I had my arm under her head, she had hers over my side. I kissed her again. My other arm draped over her side and pulled her by the small of her back into me.
“No,” she shook her head with a wicked grin. “I respek chaste!”
We both laughed at that, and she found another sheet to go between us.
Once again we lay down, and we both took a deep breath. The dim lamplight made a line across the curves of her face and I watched her eyes pass down to my lips and back.
She brushed a lock of hair from my eyes, and I leaned in to kiss her. A quick peck, and we both gazed and giggled before I sunk in to probe her lips with my tongue. She probed me back, and we found each other twirling our tongues together. Through the sheet I could feel her nipples go erect against my chest.
Then we settled down and just gazed. I didn't know what she had in mind, but I was content to look at her until the candle burnt out.
She spoke softly, “ki’i gæðudesa toto.”
Need, say, I, you, a lot. “There’s a lot you need to tell me?”
“A lot,” she nodded. “Yes. I dun no ha to say. Am a lot.”
“We’ll get there,” I nodded, then kissed her.
----------------------------------------
Morning’s dusk brought with it chill air with the splashing hum of heavy rain outside. I opened my eyes to her gazing at my face. I leaned in to kiss her, but she sat up. I could see the alarm in her eyes, and I sat up hoping to figure out what was wrong.
“pʊ xeŋise,” and she stood.
I wrestled on my trousers while she selected a clean yithi from a wicker basket in the corner, and she led me back out down the corridor. Light crept in from a handful of doors where the curtain had been left open to allow sunlight. She led me to the main hall, where perhaps half a dozen people did morning stuff. Miyani glanced around as if searching for something, then led me over to a large bag chair the size of a bed beneath a paper lantern tucked away in a nook off to the side. There, a woman reclined, sipping at a mug of that wonderful coffee with a book open and turned down in her lap.
Her left arm was shriveled and distorted, and her left leg ended at a stump just below her knee.
“daʃuŋi,” Miyani began. “zɪta kupade ʃa ɣʊdʊ pozowaxe. ʃʊsi zebuwosedu?”
Dashuni shrugged and took a sip from her coffee, but didn’t set it down.
Miyani set her hands at my arms and looked up into my face. “pozowaxe. ʃʊsi veʒodu ya’u’u.”
She then glanced over at Dashuni, who replied, “this is important, please pay attention.”
Miyani nodded and returned her attention to my face. Her eyes pleaded up into me as words cascaded forth. She spoke so fast I could scarcely latch onto one word before I could figure out what it meant.
Dashuni then looked to the side. “OK, so… wow. OK, let me think. So, uh… she’s worried about you because she’s afraid you know too much.”
I looked at Dashuni. “What does that mean?”
“She thinks… uh…” she turned to Miyani. “taye?”
Miyani looked at her and nodded, and returned her gaze to me before looking back to her. “xeŋɪ. Uh…” she scratched her head before looking confidently in my eyes. “ti. taye.”
Dashuni exuded a light chortle of laughter and popped her eyes, shaking her head. She once again spoke to Miyani. “ʒɪ ya’uðeze?”
Miyani shook her head. “waɣa ya’uðeze xeŋeðo. taye.”
Dashuni spoke as Miyani gazed into my eyes with a sprinkle of apprehension. “Um… OK. So, she says that when she hunts you, that’s -wa by the way, plural you, so your group. When she hunts y’all, she looks out for any man who seems to read the forest better than the others and target him first.”
“Oh, wow. OK…”
Another round came forth. “She says that she knows your kind isn’t acclimated to the jungle, so she’s a bit more careless, more aggressive than she normally would be. She has a tactic she calls scare-and-scatter. She shoots one man, usually in the leg. Then about a hundred yards further down, she’ll kill one of them. After another two or three, they panic, and whoever she doesn’t clean up, the jungle claims.”
My eyes bulged. “Ouch.”
“She says her primary targets are the commander and men who look like they can read the jungle. Do you understand what she’s saying to you?”
“Uh, yeah. She’s saying that’s what I need to watch out for.”
Dashuni shook her head and sipped her coffee, then returned her eyes to me. “OK, so you’re lucky Ta’o likes you, but you are a complete idiot. Look. You spend a couple days with her and you think you learned something, but do you actually think you can compete with a scout who’s been doing this her whole life?”
I shrugged, “well…”
Dashuni set her cup down and sat up. “You have a difficult time accepting the idea that a woman can be better than you at something. I understand…”
“What?” I shook my head. Miyani glanced back and forth between us.
Dashuni held up a finger. “I get that you don’t believe it, and that’s OK. You need to hear it first before it sinks in. And this is not an indictment against you—this is a prepared speech by the way so I am working on it—your whole culture is misogynistic. Your attitudes towards women, in general, are disgusting. I can never get over some of the bullshit women have to deal with in your culture. I know that you have no ill intentions, and this is the culture you were raised in. You’re so used to it that it doesn’t even register. It’s embedded in your language. Just listen to the way you people talk. The words you choose as insults are the perfect example of the misogyny hypocrisy you take for granted. If you think about it, you will see. And this is why your society sucks. But as your own scripture says, the way of the wicked is deep darkness; they don’t see what makes them stumble.
“Anyway, we are willing to work with you. If you are willing to learn, we will work with you, but that kind of attitude will get you killed around here, directly and indirectly.”
I had no idea what I’d just been smacked with.
Miyani held up her hands and pleaded at Dashuni who answered with a big smile, “te’a’eze.” He understands. I actually understood that.
At that, Miyani threw her arms about me and squeezed tight. I set my hands around her, and she held on even tighter. So, I lifted her up. She jumped up and wrapped her legs around my body, draping her arms over my shoulders, and I spun her around. She laughed at first, then leaned in close to kiss my lips.
“OK,” Dashuni waved us off, “thank you. Bye-bye now.”
By then, morning broke. The people who lived in Miyani’s building had set out boiled eggs sliced in half with the yolks whipped together and topped with tiny little fish eggs and a leaf of some herb atop. Beside this was an iron pot that was cold somehow. It held a thick cream that smelt strong like sweet liquor, and sat aside a tray of assorted fruits laid out with several of those trident forks. They also had a coffee pot that anyone could take from; Miyani helped herself to a cup, then took the ladle from the pot and poured in a generous amount of that sweet-liquor-cream, and urged me to do the same. “You like!”
As for how it tasted, I have no words for that. Sorry.
Bread was pucks of dark brown like mud and mildly sweet with a heavy, hidden deliciousness that nearly sent my head to spin. Miyani smiled up at me and urged me to take a few more, even found a small cloth bag to stuff full of the things.
Outside by the practice yard, Davod stood with Jezi while the rest of the men were still eating the usual gruel. Faren limped out from the barracks and hurried across the grass towards the mess.
Davod barked at him, “you’re just getting up?”
Faren said nothing and went into the mess.
Miyani stood beside another scout who'd led her vita’o up to Jezi and leaned in to kiss him on the lips. She then sat up and glanced at me before turning to Miyani with a smile. “ʒɪ fæ ʃʌkæwe”
Miyani blushed and looked down for a moment with a smile, and brushed her fingers through her hair.
The other scout’s eyes perked up and she smiled wide. “ti?”
Miyani looked back at her. “ŋuve ʒɪ ya’uðese yo sekɪwaʒu?”
The other scout smirked. “ti ‘o vʌ?”
At that Miyani scowled at her, and the other scout giggled. Jezi then answered, ‘it’s Yumi.”
While Dayumi gave him a string of what felt like profanity, Jezi laughed and kissed her. She returned that, and Davod turned to Miyani. “Yumi’s good, yeah?”
“Yes,” Miyani smiled. “Yumi’s good-yeah. Um…” she shook her hand as shuffling through pages in her mind. “Yumi’s good-yeah.”
Davod shrugged and took a deep breath as he looked down. “It’s fine. You say she's good, I’ll take that.”
I went to the barracks to put that armor on and grabbed my things. When I came out, most of our unit had gathered. Ales was there; he had a chain shirt just like mine, and sheathed his cutlass at his side. Malchuk had a steel plate to cover his chest and back with chain rings down his arms and legs. His Imperial-army longbow slung on his back, and he held a tall spear in one hand with an evil-looking tip. Jezi carried his native bow in his hand and wore nothing but his loincloth and a sling with a generous amount of arrows over his back. Rock and Northstar each had those massive shields with swords at their sides, and carried the native bow in a sling over their backs. Jame had simple clothes, with a short sword at one side and his eupin longbow with etchings of Orca’s Struggle slung on his back. Renou wore simple clothes and also carried a native short bow with a quiver slung over one shoulder. Borel wore a silk loincloth with his boots, himself with a strap over one shoulder carrying the native short bow, and on one shoulder was a fresh tattoo of Orca that he didn’t have the day before. Like Davod’s, his hair was now braided into dark-green cornrows that trailed down his back.
Faren and Gino were still in the mess, but they joined us shortly, while Geraln stood with his eupin longbow in hand while Chirpy still rode on his shoulder.
Blue stepped towards me and rubbed his face in my cheek. Then again on the other side. He squawked, then rubbed his face in my cheek again, so I stroked beneath his chin. At that, he rested his neck on my shoulder and allowed his head to drop, so I stroked along his neck. He then stepped away and squawked at Chirpy, who slowly rose up, calculated the angle while steadying her feet on Geraln's shoulder, then leaped onto Blue's back.
Miyani held my hand as Davod then stood before all of us and took a deep breath, “long-winded speech number four. Let’s go.”
As we walked, I stepped with him. “That was a good speech.”
Jame echoed, “it was wonderful.”
Davod chuckled, then feigned acceptance of our praise. “Aww, you really think so?”
Malchuk tapped his shoulder and smiled wide, “that was the best speech I've ever heard. I'm not even joking—you have no idea!”