Kissing Time

— Taylor —

Taylor DeLanion, variously known as Phillip the Younger, Little Maul, Pasha, His Holiness, and Phillip the Heretic, kissed a short-haired Calique girl beneath a bower of young vines, spots of moonlight dancing over them in the last summer breeze. This was for his own good, or so he'd been told many times by his guards and various other associates whenever he tried to avoid it. They only had his best interests at heart, they told him, and a young man his age should be running around with girls, even when he had a war to plan and a church to build. His personal growth demanded it.

Almost every culture in Tenobre had this odd feature of not just allowing a certain amount of experimentation among their youth but expecting it. A person wasn't considered an adult until they had a sufficient collection of such trysts. What passed for chastity in many cultures would make someone unmarriageable in this one. In South Kravikas, among the Calique, running around meant 'walking out' to the garden with someone during the gathering hour and returning with another garden's color on your lips. For older teens, it could mean riding appalons into the desert and not returning until sunrise.

There were limits, of course. Well understood, thoroughly discussed, and promptly enforced limits. Calique girls compared notes about their dates early and often, and any boy who put his hands where they were told not to would find himself without partners for weeks or months at a time. An entire garden of girls could gang up on a repeat offender and freeze him out of every friendship and social association outside his family.

Conversely, failure to participate could earn the ire and suspicion of the garden. This was especially true if, like Taylor, someone had sent themselves up a leader of all the gardens and the head of a church that aspired to grow continent-wide. Not only was he expected to kiss a lot of girls, he had to kiss them from every garden so none of them felt like he was looking down on them.

Except Dagono, of course. That garden's circle had lied to him and failed to keep their promises, so Dagono girls weren't allowed near him. In Taylor's case, kissing girls was also political.

The current girl's name was Evegine, and she held both his hands in hers, away from her body until only their lips were touching. Her kisses were hard-lipped, but the fact they didn't know each other gave the event a tinge of thrill.

Taylor had first seen her at Darkmaw's grave with a knife, cutting her hair and throwing the loose clumps into the pit, silently weeping. He wanted to ask her who she had lost, if Darkmaw's death had brought her any solace, and did the rebuilt gate in that monstrous image bother her. But Evegine of Emerald Pool hadn't come to the bower with him to talk feelings. She wanted to kiss him, lips only, with his hands held far from her body.

He was curious, too, about her triangular animal ears that broadcast all of her emotions, and the thin line of dark fur that rose from where the cloth was tied around her waist, over her navel, and disappeared again under the cloth that wrapped her breasts. Maybe that was why she held his hands so far away, because the boys before him had been too curious.

She pulled back from him with a pop, recovered her hands, and giggled, the dappled moonlight glancing against her flushed cheeks. The giggle turned into a laugh, and then she fled from him as fast as her sandled feet could carry her. She was the third runner that week. It hurt, but that was the advantage of them not knowing each other. These little trysts weren't to be taken seriously. They were a kind of play, and any acquired bruises would heal quickly.

But it still hurt. He didn't recall doing anything so awful that a girl had to run away or so ridiculous that she should laugh.

"So much for Emerald Pool." The voice behind him was wryly dismissive. It didn't belong to any of his guards because they stood at a discrete distance with their backs turned. It was someone they trusted enough to let through. Taylor turned to find a long-eared girl with gold eyes, wearing Red Tower ruby and gold on her eyes and lips — Dahabia, whose eyes followed Evegine as she disappeared into the trees.

Dahabia, for whom he'd killed fifty Satomen. Dahabia, who had left Pashtuk to join Red Tower to work as a tabla. The same Dahabia who had so scourged the mauls with her tongue they were shamed into accepting Taylor as their Pasha.

Beautiful Dahabia, who was apparently following him around on his date. And she wasn't alone, either. Two more girls, from different gardens, were with her. She sent them off with a glance, and they followed Evegine back to where Emerald Pool and Red Tower were mingling for the gathering hour.

"I didn't realize Evegine had so many chaperones."

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"It's not her we're protecting." She sat on the nearby bench. "There's a rumor going around that you're too free with your hands."

"That's scrap-loaf. Who would spread a rumor like that?"

"I have my eye on a certain girl from Dagono. She's the only one you rejected, and she's the type to turn that into a problem. She's known for spreading rumors." Dahabia patted the spot next to her.

Taylor took the open place and let her arrange them both to her liking, one arm around her shoulders and the other around her waist, under the cloth, skin-to-skin. She leaned into him, almost sitting in his lap.

"And the other girls were witnesses to my good behavior?"

"I've taken care of everything." She bared her neck for him and pointed, so he kissed the sensitive skin there. The key, he had learned through recent practice, was focus. There was nothing else in the world but the rabbit-eared girl in his arms. When she was sighing happily he offered to kiss the other side and she allowed it, tilting obligingly. He enjoyed the warmth of skin on his lips as he felt her breath quicking under his hand.

Soon enough, when she was practically melting, he had her firmly in his arms, head back, and took his first taste of her golden lips against his amber ones and tasted bright fruit, bitter citrus, with something complicated and herbal underneath, and the barest touch of durian. It was an exquisite flavor, prepared by someone skilled.

There was something in the herbal notes he couldn't place right away, and Taylor drew back in caution. It wasn't from any of the gardens he knew of. It might not be from the desert at all. Wish-me-wells from Gallia, he decided. Probably not poisonous, he thought to himself.

"Excuse me?" Dahabia's eyes went from languidly half-closed to wide open. "Did you just say 'probably not poisonous'?"

"Was that out loud? It wasn't supposed to be."

She was out of his arms and on the far end of their shared bench before he could blink. "You think I'd poison you?"

His brain had to struggle through the hormones to form words, but he finally managed to say, "It's not like I singled you out or anything. I check everything for poison. There was a flavor I didn't recognize right away and I had to think about it. Your lip balm tastes amazing, by the way. Where did you get it?"

"Oh no, you don't get to just change subjects on me. You need to explain this. Properly." Her arms were crossed, which was body language for 'kissing time is over'.

"Have you ever been poisoned?" She shook her head. "It's terrible, and it leaves a mark. And in my case, it came from the hand of someone close to me. A beautiful young woman I thought I could trust. So … now I test everything."

"All the girls you've kissed?"

"All checked for poison."

"Even the communal meals?"

"Even the communal meals."

"Tea with the doyennes?"

Tch. "Of course."

"Jota with Anica?"

Taylor laughed. "Check for poison." She didn't need to know it was Anisca's family who had poisoned him. That would just complicate things between them.

"Milo's tea?" She believed she had found a reasonable exception.

"Someone could tamper with the leaves while he isn't looking. So … "

"You're paranoid." She looked stricken, as if she'd just learned her favorite tree would never give fruit, or an appalon she'd received as a foal was unrideable.

The idea that Dahabia thought he had a serious character flaw bothered Taylor far more than Evegine's laughter. "There have been seven attempts on my life in the last year," he tried to explain. "Those are just the Enclave-related ones. I'd be a fool to think I'm safe in Sand Castle, where complete strangers can come and go as they please. The constant guard isn't a status symbol."

Dahabia relaxed, just a little. Her own experience with the Satomen taught her how quickly a life could be upended by violence. She looked around her, at their little patch of food forest standing at one edge of the far larger ruin of the garden. "Peace can be taken away from us so easily, with just a few weapons and little ill will. It's just an illusion, isn't it?"

"Peace is not an illusion. It's just fragile. This is why we should enjoy moments like this one, with people we like." He patted the space next to him and she slid over — not back into his arms but to where they started. She was going to make him start from the beginning, but Taylor found he didn't mind. His memories might be old, but his body was young. He was learning there was nothing in the world as sweet as having a woman in his arms.

"I'll humor you, but don't use that word. Like is for little sisters and pretty aunts."

Between soft kisses on her neck, he murmured, "Then what words should I use?"

"Say I'm one of your favorites," she breathed into him, while offering her other side.

"Not my favorite?"

"N-o-o!" She giggled, "that's too much like an engagement!" and pulled him to her.

"How about, 'one of my very favorites'?" He had her face to face, and she was melty again and radiant and had one hand buried in his hair.

"That's nice. I'll allow it." Her gold irises matched her lips, except for the smudge of amber he'd left there, mingled with a touch of Emerald Pool blue.

He dipped down to get another taste of her exquisite lips.

"Pasha Phillip! You're wanted in the message center!" The runner who barged into their bower was a Calique child, long-limbed for his age, with claws his family kept filed down for the garden's safety. He was still at the age where he could try his hand at anything, and he was currently running errands for the Pasha's headquarters.

"You're joking," he whispered.

"And you were doing so well, too," Dahabia whispered back.

"Pahsa! Really! They're excited about something and sent me to get you right away!"

Alice, one of Taylor's guards, came up from behind and placed a heavy hand on the boy's shoulder. "You've said too much, too loud. Remember your discretion."

"They said you'd want to know right away," he whispered.

Taylor got to his feet while Dahabia checked her clothes for anything that might have come loose. "Tell them I'll be right there. And don't talk to anyone on the way." The boy vanished along the narrow trail that was the only easy way to the bower.

"Looks like kissing time is over," he joked.

"Speak for yourself," Dahabia said, "there's still a little more gathering time left."