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"Hold on."
"I'm trying. But..."
"Look at me. Don't let go. I'll get there. I'll get you. Just hold on." There was desperation in her voice, but soon the dark-haired woman was peering over the ledge and reaching a hand to her smaller friend. "Just a little more. Reach. Don't be afraid. I've got you."
Their fingertips touched. Exquisite contact. Hand firmly clasped and then she was lying by her side, breathing hard, knees and arms atremble. After a few more ragged breaths she was able to prop up on an elbow and gaze into those supernaturally blue eyes. "Thank you, Xena." She rolled over and wrapped herself around the tall warrior. "I love you." And as she moved closer to that inviting smile...
"Jan...Jan. You okay? Wake up."
"Huh? What's happened?! Are we under attack?"
"No. Everything's all right. You were...talking in your sleep. That's all."
"You woke me up to tell me that?" Jan ran a hand through her hair and reached for the bedside table out of habit. No smokes. She'd forgotten. For Mel she was trying to quit. The moonlight was full-strength, white washing the walls, no need to turn on a light. She could read the dial on her watch. "It's three a.m."
"Sorry."
"So? What was I saying?"
Mel was sitting up on the edge of her single bed. "Not really very intelligible...a few words in an ancient Greek dialect."
"Really?" That was a relief. She propped herself up on her pillow and relaxed. A former lover had once told her that she could be pretty damn explicit when she was having...a certain kind of dream, but then she remembered who she was talking with here in the middle of the night. "Uh...you recognize any of it? The words?"
"A little. You were having a regular conversation with....the warrior herself."
"Xena?"
"Yes."
"Hmm. And was it instructive?"
"Very."
"Oh." Around the edges of her mind a few stray tendrils of dream image clung, but they resisted as she reached for them...and then it flooded back. Xena reaching...for her...for Gabrielle and the pure rush of warmth and caring and love...deep, abiding...intimate. But that was nothing they hadn't surmised from the scrolls. "Just wishful thinking."
"Jan--"
"Don't worry. I'm not going to talk about it. I'm used to that. Wouldn't want to offend those sweet, southern sensibilities. You're safe with me."
"I...know that."
She heard Mel swallow.
"Can we get some sleep?"
"The woman wakes me up...and more..,and then expects me to be able to go back to sleep."
"Fine. Next time I'll just put the pillow over my head."
"Hear no evil."
Mel rolled over and faced the wall. Jan sat there in the cool bath of lunar luminescence and a tear, a single traitor of her heart took a sinuous path down her burning cheek as she watched the dark-haired woman sleep.
*******
"Hey, I thought you would wake me up." Mel made her way down the muddy incline. It had rained sometime near dawn.
At least, Jan noted as she glanced up from her work, she was wearing sensible shoes today... and, "Where'd you get the threads?"
"Daddy's."
"Suits you."
"Thank you...I think."
"Sure. Dress against type. Works on you. You look more feminine than ever. Put a dress on me, though, and you'd...live to regret it."
"I love a challenge."
Jan smiled. "You'd lose."
"Don't bet on it."
They worked in the most companionable silence Jan had ever experienced. There was a feeling of completeness about the way they complimented each other. She felt so good she caught herself humming at one point--that insidious Dietrich song. She stopped abruptly, knowing it wasn't lost on her companion.
Companion...she turned the word over in her mind as she would turn an artifact in hand. One word--shades of meaning--try it this way and there's a life-long friendship, turn it around and you have...what? Your heart's desire? Or more complications than you care to contemplate. Why risk it? Again she saw Gabrielle's arms, her arms reaching for Xena.
"Jan?"
"Hmmm...?"
"Where were you? Just now?"
It was Jan's face that reddened for a change. "Nowhere."
"Utopia?"
"Close. Thousands of miles away."
"Or years."
"Yeah."
"You had that look on your face...such longing. You wish you could go back."
"Doesn't every archeologist?"
"Is that why?"
Jan widened her eyes and waited for the other shoe.
Mel obliged. "Nothing more personal?"
"Thought you didn't want me to talk about it."
"That was your interpretation."
"Do I wish I had a woman like Xena in my life? Is that what my dream was telling me, Dr. Freud? Do I want to be swept away by passion the way Gabrielle must've been? What do you think....Doctor? You want me to lie down? Isn't that how it's done?" There was a warmly wicked tone in her voice. "Time for a break anyway. Come on."
*******
Jan lay under the little olive tree that afforded the only natural shade to which they had immediate access and broke open the thermos of coffee.
Mel sat, her back against the bark. "You've been thinking about Destiny again," she accused.
"Have I? Well, I don't do it in a vacuum, do I?"
"Jan, just because 'they' loved each other..."
"What? Finish the thought." Mel leaned her head back against the bole and stared at the empty bluer than blue sky. "Alright. I'll say it. Because they were more than 'just' friends--does that mean--ergo,therefore--"
"Stop teasing."
"Mel...Melinda...my beautiful friend...I do think some things are inevitable...does that possibility frighten you? It's so damn ironic. We seem to have changed places through the aeons. I'm the wild one, aggressive and...the way I am and you're the sweet innocent, shy and gentle...and kind."
"And afraid."
"Of what? Me? Love?"
"The...unknown."
"Oh. That. Mel..."
"Now, don't patronize... I've never--"
"I wouldn't expect you had."
"Not with anyone, Jan."
"I thought--"
"I know what you thought."
"Now, you're scaring ME," she smiled when she said it, though, and knelt, sitting back on her heels.
"Oh, don't look so...."
"So?" Jan prompted avidly, really wanting to know how she appeared to Mel at the moment. And then they both laughed. "That bad?" Jan managed with a breathless sigh.
"Sometimes I wish I had Xena's...drive," Mel's eyes were moist from laughter and they glowed with intensity.
"Do you remember what it felt like?"
"A little. Sometimes. I dream too you know."
"Oh? And what would you do? If you had her...drive. What do you do...in your dreams?"
Mel's face reddened.
"That 'good,' huh?"
"Hungry."
"Hmmm?"
"That's how you looked just now. Ecstatic."
"Yes, yes, all of that. Riding on top of the sheer terror. A lot on my shoulders, broad though they may be."
"And strong," she said with a surprising trace of envy.
"Thank you. But what if...you didn't like...it? Then what?" Jan's voice trembled momentarily, but then the ebullience she was feeling overrode the uncertainty. "But I'm a confident chap."
"Cocky, I'd say."
'Oh, I don't have one of those. But I know a little shop where you can buy one--"
Mel swallowed. "Naughty."
"Very. I'd love to show how much."
Mel took a deep breath. "I can quite honestly say I have never had this conversation before in my entire life."
"Well," Jan gave what she hoped was her most seductively ingratiating smile. "Now, we've gotten that out of the way, think what other firsts we can tackle."
"Did you always know?"
"About myself? Always. When I was a kid. At the picture show, wanting to be Richard Barthelmess rescuing Lillian Gish on those ice floes, jumping from one to another before she would go over the falls. The hero got the girl. And that was what I wanted."
"And?"
"Not too much to tell...yet. No matter what you might think."
"First time?" Mel asked softly.
"I allowed one of my professors to seduce me. The older woman theory. Experience. In our case..."
"So, I have a few years of catching up to do. I'm not that much older than you. What if...I disappoint you?"
Jan gave her the most incredulous stare, they had to start laughing again. "Oh, my dear one, there is nothing you could do to disappoint me. Not if you tried."
Mel smiled nervously. "Your expectations are a little high. How could I ever fulfill your...dream image? I'm not like that. That's not me."
"I don't expect or want you to be any more or less than you have it within you to be. I know you're a soft, lovely, feminine woman, darling. I know we're both women, I am supremely aware of that scintillating fact. That's what I love about the situation, that's what gets me purring. We're not playing a theme on heterosexual romance, I am not the man in this relationship, despite the way I dress. Don't expect me to lead--not all the time anyway."
*******
Jan moved against her sensuously. It was a dark little out of the way bistro and they were dancing. There were a few other couples, clinging and moving slowly around the floor, oblivious to their surroundings, besotted on a combination of love or lust and alcohol. Mel had never seen two men dancing together. That just didn't happen in the South. At least she didn't think it did. When she looked back into Jan's face from her brief reverie she was greeted by the most amused and charming grin. "What?"
"If you haven't noticed..and you haven't... you've been moving me around the floor quite nicely for the last ten minutes."
"I have?"
'You have. I know that must shake you to your southern core. But it's been very enjoyable and restful and even instructive for me."
Mel licked her lips, she'd removed her glasses and was wearing her hair loose to her shoulders, she was stunning. And now that it had been pointed out to her she suddenly found herself incapable of continuing to lead in the slow dream shuffle around the dance floor. Jan took control and steered her into an even darker alcove, pressed up against her, moving her hips, her pelvis, breathed into her jet black hair, "I'm going to take you back to our room, undress you slowly, though I'd really like to rip that blouse open and yank your bra off with my teeth, and I'll kiss you everywhere. Everywhere."
Mel felt the most extraordinary sensation as Jan's tongue slipped into the ear she'd been hotly whispering into. A breath that was more a moan was forced form her lips. "I'll make love to you all night long. You'll sit on the bed as I kneel to remove your silk stockings with my trembling fingers and then..." Jan trailed fiery kisses down Mel's supple neck.
"And then?"
"Then I'll kiss the insides of each thigh and I'll find you ready, stir you with my fingers and my tongue," Mel felt the flutterings of pre-orgasmic bliss in the depths of her womb as the wetness welled and began to drip from the lips between her legs. She recognized it for what it was, since puberty she'd wake sometimes from the most exotic dream and feel the fast receding wave of sexual excitement that left her weak and wanting...something more. And now she knew what she wanted.
"Take me," she murmured into Jan's ear.
"Here?" Jan's eyes sparkled, smiled.
"Take me back to our room," her hands moved up Jan's back, pulled her even closer, "and do everything you promised you will. All..." she kissed Jan's forehead, "night..." her throat, "long," her mouth, which opened joyfully to draw in Mel's tongue. The first kiss, deep and lingering and Mel felt everything she had hoped to feel and more.
The tall woman began to swoon against her. "Not until we get back to the hotel. I have a strong back, but I don't think I could carry you. Not all the way."
"All...the way," Mel breathed it like a caress, hot and fervant.
*******
In the taxi Mel surprised her by sitting close, head on her shoulder, hand clasping hers. And in the tiny elevator she stood behind the smaller woman and pulled her back into the corner behind the operator as they ascended to their room, not wanting to break contact for a single moment, she slid her hand under Jan's jacket and around her surprisingly slender waist.
Her hand shook uncontrollably as she fished for the tag in her pocket and tried to open their door. Mel's hand, though trembling as well, somehow steadied hers and turned the key. In the semi darkness with full moonlight falling across the floor they danced again, lips meeting moment to moment as hands worked by touch alone. Jan's leather jacket hit the floor first, her hat sailed across the room as Mel stepped out of her high heels, and they moved closer to the bed. Jan's left hand worked to unzip Mel's skirt as she loosened her own tie. The skirt slipped over voluptuous womanly hips and Mel stepped gracefully aside, her fingers were at Jan's belt, unfastening, drawing it from the loops and then opening the fly as Jan began to unbutton her blouse, refraining, finally, from tearing it off her soon-to-be lover. Jan's shoes were squeezed out of as she stepped from her trousers.
That left Jan in her khaki shirt and Mel in a slip and stockings. They paused in their hunger for a moment and gazed at the quicksilver spectre they each presented in Selene's rays. And just as she'd been promised, Mel sat on the edge of her bed as the slip was pulled over her head and Jan knelt before her.
Mel's trembling fingers struggled with the buttons of Jan's shirt and she was finally rewarded with the sight of bare shoulders emerging in the moonlight. Jan wore no underwear, was completely vulnerable now, naked and tender and beautiful. Carefully, she unhooked the tops of the stockings from the garter belt, leaned in each time to kiss the inner thigh, run her tongue the short length of unbelievably soft flesh above the stockings which she now rolled down the slim smooth legs. Only one thing lay between her now and what she, what they both wanted.
Jan stared into the purity of those trusting, lustful eyes. She hooked her fingers under the elastic and pulled the panties and garter belt off together. The first caress would be with her tongue. Mel whimpered and Jan moaned deep, guttural as she burrowed between those lovely limbs. Mel's legs rose and opened of their own accord and Jan held her steady, pulling them over her shoulders, taking the woman with her tongue, relentlessly loving, stroking the bud to full ripeness until it was ready to burst into that paroxysm of pleasure all beings blessed with the carnal urge sought to satisfy.
Mel, reawakened to feelings so long repressed, gave of her body more than willingly, blessed and cursed and praised and damned Jan's name over and over as the pressure built to a crescendo that would shake them both to shards. They would spend the rest of their lives piecing it all together. Their souls' journey continued here and now as they attempted to merge into a single being, to...come...together. Mel surged, riding the breaking wave, almost, almost, trilling, keening, a wild creature knowing only the moment, now, now, now...weeping Jan's name as she came hot and wet against the lovely young face in this ultimate intimacy.
Jan knelt in prayerful solemnity as her blood coursed, pumping hard, racing through her, making her head reel. She crawled onto the bed, straddling , pressing her sex to the dark woman's overheated center, and moving slowly in the slick wetness. Mel didn't think anything could feel as lovely as Jan's tongue on her, in her...but...this... Jan rode against her, all the while studying her face, searching for something in her eyes and when she found it she quickened her motion and shouted her satisfaction, collapsing on Mel's breast and holding on for dear life. All searching ended. She heard the precious heart beating, rapidly, kissed the moist valley, ascended the peaks, began loving the body that housed this beloved soul, her mate, all over again.
She tipped her tongue into every crevice and concavity. Her fingers slowly navigated the delicate terrain where her tongue had known such delicious savors. She propped up on an elbow watching Mel's face at the moment of penetration. "I love you," she whispered.
"Love you too," Mel gasped, the movements of her body in response an ebb and flow as the moon's light bathed them in its tender glow.
*******
The younger woman stirred against her in transit from sleep to waking, nuzzling at her breast, dear blonde head nestled into the hollow of her shoulder. "My dearest one," she whispered into the honey gold hair.
They hadn't spoken much, let their hands and mouths and tongues and fingers converse instead, stirring the passion, swimming the Lethe waters, loving each other, banishing all pain--
"Gabrielle?"
"Mmm?"
"I just love to say your name."
The young woman hugged her. Clung to her. "You didn't lose me. You won't. I will never leave your side."
"I wanted you to outlive me."
Gabrielle sighed, her thumb stroked the side of Xena's breast. "Your story will be told."
"I didn't mean for that reason."
"I know, but it's the only thing that would make me want to go on without you."
But nothing had been solved, fate had not been avoided, Xena went back to sleep and was visited by the vision once again.
*******
Mel tightened her arms around Jan as she woke suddenly, heart pounding so hard her breastbone was vibrating with it, painfully.
"You alright?" Jan asked.
"Dream. Just a dream. So...vivid. Do you think lovers can meet each other in their dreams?" She shivered, or shuddered and Jan pulled her closer. "Sorry, mama used to say, 'somone just walked over my grave.'"
"Serve us right, huh? Occupational hazard."
Mel smiled weakly, still showing the effects of whatever had shaken her in her sleep. She had not been a regular churchgoer since childhood and yet the powerful iconography of a part of this dream that had started so beautifully, peacefully, comfortingly was still ringing throughout her psyche. Clarion and chilling. The name Gabrielle on the tip of her tongue like a mantra.
"You are my dream," Jan said huskily, aroused by the naked nearness of her lover in the middle of the night. She tentatively fingered a nipple and when there was no protest she took the other in her mouth.
Mel's sharp intake of breath as Jan enfolded the soft full breast in her palm quickened something sequestered deep and anciently hiding within her, within them both. There was a flash of colored light behind her lids and some nebulous image of a savage woman in dark leather lost in her own sensuous reverie.
You were my teacher once, Jan thought. Strong and proud. How many times have we changed places?
She was atop this glorious woman now. Her thigh moving against Mel's sex, drawing divine moisture, feeling her own wetness beginning to drip from her lips as she moved against the woman's firm, soft thigh. The cool blue eyes had become warm and inviting, never left hers as they writhed in this sinuous dance.
"Oh...my... Ah could just let go now and never come down again."
"Not yet," Jan urged. "This is very nice, but we're just beginning." She kissed the dark-haired woman tenderly, time for passion later. Her tongue opened the beautiful pink mouth and Mel sobbed deep in her throat and accepted another tongue in her mouth, fencing with it delightedly, moaning low. Gasping for air, they reluctantly broke the embrace and Jan smiled, sliding down to nibble on a nipple as she lightly pinched the other between thumb and forefinger. She seemed to do this forever until the woman was almost too heated to handle. The younger woman's small, strong hand parted her legs and stroked her there, opening the lips, slowly penetrating. Mel's head flailed, she thrashed in unbearable excitation.
"Fingers are very good, but tongues are better," Jan promised as she continued to move her hand between those luscious thighs. Jan seemed to take her to the edge, but always let up just as she was about to fall over. And then, salvation, the dear blonde head was between her thighs, pressed tight against her open sex.
Mel sat up on her elbows compelled to watch as the glistening tongue slid into her body. This was heaven. Bliss. No one else had ever made her feel this way. That sweet mouth on her swollen bud, fingers filling her, two, three at a time and the woman's tongue inside her, moving as she came explosively against that lovely face. The release was glorious. She wanted to shout. And did. A strange ululating cry torn from her very soul. She never would've thought herself capable of making such a sound as that under any circumstances. She wanted to let go. And cry. But stopped herself. She didn't want to discomfort Jan with a weeping female. Not now. Not just yet. She would be strong for her. Would show her she could handle the emotion afterall. Her breathing slowed by degrees and she stroked lovingly the long blonde hair fanned across her stomach.
"You've almost worn me out."
Jan kissed the woman's navel, replied dreamily, "You don't have to do anything you're not ready for."
"I said 'almost.'"
Mel's mouth was pressing hard against the smaller woman beneath her now. Undeniable passion and promise. Jan broke away, breathing deep, then shallow. Voice deserting her. "Good," Mel almost gloated at the effect. "It takes a lot for me to be so...forward. It's not in my nature--at least, I didn't think it was. Your brashness must be wearing off on me. I suppose we're destined to learn from each other--whether in this lifetime or another. Jan, when I said 'I can't' I meant I couldn't breathe. There was too much emotion. I've never felt this before. Not with anyone. It's new to me. I always thought I was...well, 'destined' to be cool and somewhat aloof, you know, like a proper little Southern girl. I'd flutter my lashes and pretend to swoon whenever a man paid attention. It's ingrained. Second nature. But...maybe there's a deeper nature. I was never fully aware of. Until now. I didn't mean to hurt you then. I'm just so...filled with the emotion of it that I'm afraid I'll..." Mel propped up on an elbow, gazed at the woman beside her in the silver moonlight. "You are quite...adorable, you know."
No one had ever called her that. Feisty. Flinty. That was what she usually heard. But there was an undeniable blush of feeling as she heard the growing affection in it and felt the full impact of the fresh loving gaze. She was glad Mel couldn't see her redden in this light. She had a reputation to protect--but...with this woman she instinctively knew that was unnecessary, that they could always allow each other to be vulnerable, could always let down any guard and be completely open and honest with each other.
"I'll never lie to you," she found herself stating before she'd even thought the words, before they'd even formed in her mind.
Mel smiled, hovering above her like some beneficent goddess who deigned to reach down from on high and touch this mortal. The long fingers traced the young woman's ear. "Really quite enchanting...charming." The goddess bent down to run a tongue over the fine pale curve of an ear. Jan's skin rippled, electric, each gold hair on her arms stood erect. Mel's thumb stroked cross her mouth, the woman whispered, "Mine," and kissed the corner of that sweet, soft mouth. "When you smile there's this irresistible thing that happens, right here," her tongue licked the spot, "and your eyes sparkle with mischief. Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? I'll bet you have no idea."
Jan felt something moving on her temple and realized in shock that a tear must have trickled somehow from her own eye. No one had ever moved her to tears. Yesterday she would've prided herself on that. The goddess was praising her.
"And this," Mel touched her breast, rubbed the nipple tinglingly erect. "I want this," her mouth closed on the hard candy bud. "And this," she enumerated as her graceful long fingers moved down the silken flesh to hip and belly, crisply golden pubis, and silky soft inner thigh.
"Yours, all yours," Jan whispered, barely breathing. With utmost delicacy the deceptive fingers, strong and gentle, melted into her and Mel gasped at the sensation. It was fire and the wettest wet, the warmest warmth, wound so tight around her exquisitely sensitive fingers and she thought she'd come again just from the sheer delicious sensation of touching another woman like this, especially someone she knew she was destined to love.
"Oh, yes," Jan whispered hotly, fervently, moving her hips with the hand. Her climax was right there in those piercing blue eyes and she reached for it. And Mel sensing that--really, why had she thought she wouldn't know, quite naturally, what to do with another woman, this was knowledge older than time--spreading the limbs, diving in to the sweet honeyed welcoming womanness of her.
It was like coming home. Familiar territory, not terra incognita at all as the Romans say...said. The taste of her, the scent equal parts sea and spring rain and mulled wine...sugar and spice, indeed, Mel thought as she snaked her greedy tongue through every cunningly made crevice, the prominences and the deep valleys. Oh, she loved it. She could do this all night.
Finally, an exhausted Jan had to restrain her after coming an unprecedented third time in a row. "I never thought I'd say it, but please stop--for now. You'll wear it out. And yourself. Can't have that. I want to wake up in the morning and take you like a demon."
The woman moaned in anticipation and curled up in her arms. "Do you think they spent the rest of their lives together?"
"Xena and Gabrielle?" Jan asked, though she knew. "I know they did." Not just their lives, but ours. An eternity. Together. Always. And forever. Amen.
"I think they died together, Jan." That dream was still with her. "They vowed...to each other...always...there was no other way. Not with how much they loved each other."
"These are dangerous times. I hope you know I would never leave you. Love IS what survives," she kissed the spot over Mel's heart. "It's the old yin-yang. Isn't it? Reversed polarities. Gabrielle civilized Xena and you have that effect--or try to--on me. You're the writer, the thoughtful one, I'm the doer, the woman of action. You're feminine and demure--"
"Demure? You really think so?"
"And I'm...well, look at me--"
"You are the warmest," Mel kissed the palm of her hand, "the softest," a breast was gently engulfed, "beautiful woman," the lips taken in a sweet kiss, "oh, yes, just look at you." Mel pulled the blanket with her as she worked her way down, further enumerating Jan's charms.
"Mmm...I was working on a theory...or something...here and you're...you are distracting me."
"I should think so."
"Isn't it fascinating, though? Wouldn't you expect our...souls...who we are deep down--"
"Yes...deep..." Mel's tongue was in her navel, moving lower, "down," stroking her thighs.
Jan went valiantly on, "--to remain pretty much the same? And, yet, they, we, seem to change places, become more like each other."
Mel paused and Jan stroked her dark hair. "We've become one, we share a soul, the yin and yang as you said, one circle, each side incorporates a seed of its opposite, its other half. We learn from each other, we reflect the one we love. This act of pleasure, this...coming together...this urge..." Mel's fingers played with the curly blonde hairs, "What attracts people to each other in the first place? I look in your eyes, Jan, and I'm home."
"They vowed to each other. It was a marriage."
"Yes." Mel clasped Jan's hand, their fingers entwined, held fast. "It's already been said."
"Yes."
"Despite everything they--we found each other again. Fate conspired to tear them apart...but nothing ever could," she said. "Is there a reason?" Mel rubbed her soft cheek against Jan's smooth belly, "do you think?"
"You mean why? Why...us? Love doesn't need a reason. Maybe I'm here for no better reason than to hold you...like this. Is that enough?"
"That's..." Mel's voice was choked with emotion, "everything," and she slid between Jan's legs to lose and find herself in the body of the woman she loved.
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