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I feel like I am moving through a fever dream as I finally reach the front door of my shop. I have to take a moment to lean against the doorframe before I unlock it, trying to make sense of the day’s events.
I have been commissioned by Nadia, the countess of Vesuvia to apprehend her husband’s murderer, but I feel like my role in the Countess’s life is becoming something so much more than that, and very quickly. Nadia: she seems so imposing, like a woman made of iron, but in these last few days she has become warm in my company. Downright flirtatious, in fact. What can it mean? Can it mean anything? I am the humble apprentice of a magician and she is the ruler of Vesuvia.
As I fumble for the keys to the shop I think of the Countess’s servant, Portia. She had seemed so simple and flighty during that first collision in the marketplace – the one where I made her accidentally drop her pomegranates. But she has quickly proven to be not only wise beyond appearances, but also a welcome friend in the palace; a place that is so very strange to me. She might be the Countess’s right hand, but she also feels like someone I can trust, and such a person would be most welcome right now given the current state of things.
Before I can insert the front door key in the lock I hear some kind of argument coming from the alley. A woman’s voice is raised in anger and frustration. Peering around the brick wall and into the alley’s depths I see a tall, broad-shouldered figure striding away in the opposite direction. Could that be Dr. Devorak, the very man the Countess hired me to seek? But then I see the source of the angry words: a small woman, but that tousled, chaotic mass of ginger hair can only belong to one person. Can it really be her?
“Portia?”
She turns abruptly in the direction of my voice and I can tell that she is crying. But her face brightens the second she recognizes me. “Hey!”
She grabs up the trailing shawl around her waist and hastily dabs her eyes. When she lets the cloth fall away again there is no trace of sorrow left in her big blue eyes and she practically bounds to me in happiness.
“Are you alright?” I ask, still trying to glimpse the vanished figure she had been confronting. “Who was—”
“Don’t worry about it,” she hastily deflects. “I was actually here, well, looking for you!”
Do I detect the slightest hesitation in her voice? I think I do but her joy at seeing me seems so sincere. Thus, I play along.
“Me? Whatever for? Am I needed back at the palace?”
“The palace? No. It’s nothing to do with the palace. I’m here because I was wondering… Um…”
She averts her gorgeous blue eyes almost bashfully. She even twists her foot, grinding the toe of her little black shoe into the cobblestones as she quests for the right words to say.
“Well… Since I’m here and you’re here, let’s go on a date!”
That was not what I was expecting. Not even slightly. “A date? Like, like a date date? Portia I’m flattered but we’ve only known each other a few days—”
“So? People who’ve known each other for a few days can’t go to the Rowdy Raven for a pint together? What’s the harm? Everything has been all stress and seriousness at the palace lately. We’re friends, so why can’t we go on a date. A friend-date. A date as friends.”
Outside the palace Portia seems once again like the ditzy girl I first took her for. But I understand what’s happening. She doesn’t want me to know who she was talking to: doesn’t want me to ask questions.
Could it really have been Dr. Devorak? No, surely not. Portia is fiercely loyal to her Countess. She wouldn’t have dealings with the Countess’s mortal enemy. It could have been anyone: an old lover, or suitor who won’t take no for an answer. The kind of person she could be in danger from if I refuse her and leave her alone on the street.
As I look at her I see she is ready to bounce on her toes with anticipation. Whatever her motives, she desperately wants me to say yes. I don’t need my master’s powerful tarot cards to guide me to that conclusion.
“Alright. A friend date it is.”
“Oh yay!” The little redhead slips her arm through mine and practically begins dragging me along. “To the Rowdy Raven we go!”
I fall into step with her and we begin our trek to the other end of the city. I’m a bit nervous, if truth be told. I’ve heard things about the tavern known as the Rowdy Raven. Namely that it isn’t called that for nothing. But Portia seems absolutely fearless at the prospect. And the long walk begins to feel very good, and I find myself not wanting it to end. I find that I enjoy having her at my side. I find that I enjoy walking through the streets with the people we see assuming I am her boyfriend.
Countness Nadia feels like a feverish omen I cannot avoid. But Portia, here and now, is soft and real beside me, and I enjoy getting to feel like in this moment, that she is all there is.
***
“I’m gonna fucking kill you!” Growls the huge, angry-looking sailor in front of me. He menaces me with a broken bottle. All around us, other patrons have backed away and formed a circle. Some are cheering, eager to see blood.
This is what I get for insisting that he apologize when he passed by and knocked Portia into me while we were dancing!
My magical studies never prepared me for this! I’m not exactly the kind of mage who can blast my enemies with fire and lightning, at least not yet! He lunges and I twist away from the jagged glass. He lunges again and I twist the other way.
“Stand still!” he roars and some of the spectators cheer at his frustration. My footwork may look fancy, but I can’t keep this up forever
Out of the corner of my eye I see Portia. She grabs the broom from the bar employee who had been sweeping up peanut shells when this all began. She braces it against her foot, wrenches it hard and it snaps off at the base. I have to dodge again: not just the brute but Portia herself. She twirls the makeshift quarterstaff with the ease of a seasoned warrior. She brings it down across the thug’s shoulders before he can recover from his thrust. As he grunts in pain, she sweeps his legs and he crashes to the floor, toppled by a girl less than half his size. He struggles to get back up, frothing hatred marring his grizzled features, but Portia slams the end of the broom handle down across his face, leaving his nose broken and the brute semi-conscious. A cheer goes up around us and Portia bounces to my side, grabbing my hand and raising it in victory like we just won a championship fight together and not a life-or-death melee in some irreputable tavern.
I try to offer the barkeep a coin to replace his broken push broom, but he refuses it with a laugh. Says it was worth it just to see Lugh – that was the brute’s name – finally put in his place. Apparently he’s been making trouble in there for weeks and no one dares stand up to him. They’re hoping that after getting beaten down by a one hundred-pound girl that he’ll be too humiliated to show his face in there again. “If anything,” he says with a laugh, “I ought to be paying the two of you!”
Portia is gleeful at the thought of us getting our drinks on the house in return for our skill at arms. But I refuse to hear of it and pay our tab. After all, it’s what a gentleman does when he’s a date with a lady.
My date is practically dancing circles around me as we walk the abandoned streets. “You were incredible!” she gushes, mimicking the fight. “He was like garr! And you were like, ‘no way!’ Then he was like grr! and you were like ‘nuh-uh, not today, pal!’ You’re amazing!”
“I’m amazing? What about you? Where did you learn to fight like that?”
She shrugs. “I was a pirate.”
I try so hard to articulate my many questions. But all that comes out of my mouth is, “A pirate? A pirate?”
Portia just giggles and leans against me as she takes me by the arm, all the tipsiness and excitement catching up with her. Once again, she feels too good and too real for questions.
***
I had been under the assumption that Portia lived inside the palace. But during our walk I find out that she actually has her own cottage on the palace grounds. Portia gets us into the grounds through a way that only she knows, thus evading the sight of patrolling guards. It is enchanting to walk the grounds with her at night. It is also the first time I have been on the grounds without Nadia’s knowledge, and there is excitement in the forbidden aspect of it. All along the long walk back here Portia has regaled me with clearly-exaggerated tales of pirate battles and high-seas derring-do. I don’t think she deceives me out of malice. But she is drunk, and happy, and clearly wants to impress me, and those things naturally make any story bigger in the telling. One thing she says that I do believe is that she joined up with the pirate crew as part of a search to find her long-lost brother.
Interesting.
Her last tale of ocean-going exploits finishes just as we come in sight of a decidedly earthy-looking little cottage. It is cozy and quaint like something out of a fairy tale, and it seems far more in keeping with the Portia I know than the woman she tells me of who has cracked pirate heads during battles on the sea. Except I just saw her crack a pirate’s head so I know both sides exist in the same woman; like a card of the Arcana that has opposite meanings when reversed but is still the same card governing the same powers no matter what.
If there were one card for Portia, what would it be?
She turns to face me as we reach the door, and everything becomes awkward. I don’t know how to end this little journey we have made to her home. Portia seems to sense my discomfiture.
“Well, this is where I live. Would you like to come inside?”
“I shouldn’t. It’s late, and a it’s long walk back to my shop.”
“Oh. Well that’s fine.” She looks to the ground, twisting the sole of her shoe on the cobble path just as she did upon the street outside my shop. “Well… If you’re not going to come in, though, would you mind kissing your date good night?”
“We’re just friends though. It was a friend date.”
“Friends can kiss,” she suggests, but her eyes are filled with more than friendly longing, and so is my body. It has been since this night began. If I’m being honest, then it has been since the first time I met her in the market: when I made her drop the pomegranates.
But I restrain myself. For the sake of our friendship and whatever is developing between Nadia and myself, I must. I do kiss Portia. But very lightly. On her cheek. She looks patently dissatisfied and it is then that I am reminded that the thing about pirates is they just take what they want. Portia stretches up on tiptoes, throws her arms around my neck and kisses my properly. I resist for perhaps a second, then I let go and melt into it, my tongue finding hers and my hands finding her body. It’s a soft and curvy beneath her loose clothes. But my arousal grows embarrassingly hard and she pulls away giggling as we both realize that I am poking her in the stomach with it.
“Seriously, come inside,” she says, unlocking the door. “I’ve got pomegranates.”
As she opens the door a slim little cat bounces out into the night. It looks over its shoulder at me with a knowing, mischievous look and trills a little ”prrt!” Then runs off in pursuit of whatever nocturnal adventures it is looking for.
“Don’t mind Pepi,” Portia explains. “She’ll be back.”
The little one-room dwelling warms quickly and fills with cheery light as Portia stokes the fire and lights a few lamps. Once the place is bathed in a comforting orange glow she withdraws two pomegranates from the bowl of fresh fruit sitting on the table, takes up a knife and cuts them down the middle. We sit on the bench on one side of the table and she offers me a half. Not standing on ceremony, she plucks a handful of kernels from her own half-pomegranate and pops them into her mouth.
“This is a big table,” I say to make conversation. “Do you have a lot of guests?”
“It came with the cottage, but I should. Goodness knows I tend to have more food on hand than one person can eat.” She then blushes and shrugs, indicating her slightly-heavy frame. “As it probably shows.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of there,” I hurriedly say when I see she’s embarrassed by her weight. “I like your body.”
I immediately pretend to be studying my pomegranate very intently. Idiot! I like your body!? Who says something like that?
But Portia is flattered. “You like my body? Really?”
“Well… Yes. You’re very beautiful.”
She smiles. “But you like the Countess too.”
I reflect for a moment before I answer. “The Countess… Is a force--“
Portia interrupts me with laugh and a companionable squeeze of my leg. “Yes, she certainly is!”
“I don’t know what’s happening with her. I don’t know whether I am just an instrument to her or something more. All I can do is follow the path she has set me on to wherever it leads.”
“Oh that is so true. That is so very, very true. I know exactly what you mean.”
Her hand returns to my leg once again. “But since it’s a path we’re on together, we may as well enjoy each other’s company, right?”
I’ve never quite known what to say around women. I wish I could ask my master for advice. He is so easy with everyone, men and women alike. I realize I am turning the pomegranate around and around in my hands, gazing at it as though it held some kind of divination. But it doesn’t.
“What are you saying, Portia? What do you want?”
She sets her pomegranate on the table, leans forward, and kisses me again. “This is what I want,” she murmurs. “How about you?”
“I… Don’t know,” I say, hesitating between kisses.
“You don’t know.” She pulls away and kicks her shoes off. She then stands up and turns away from me. Before I can say anything, she pulls off her simple tunic and drops it onto the floor. She turns around and I feel my jaw drop at the sight of her soft, pale, bare breasts. Her nipples are an incredibly pale pink and her skin is so fair I can see just the hint of her veins. She sits down before me again and I have to force myself to keep my eyes on her face.
“How about now? Do you know what you want now?”
I do. And I won’t let the nebulous situation that Nadia has embroiled me in stop me. She can wait. Portia won’t. I pull her to me that we may kiss again. Her mouth still tastes of pomegranate and I am sure mine does as well. Trying to be a gentleman, I touch her everywhere but on her breasts. But Portia seizes my wandering hands and squeezes them to the downy-soft flesh of them. She murmurs at the sensation of my hands upon the sensitive tissue, and I squeeze a bit harder in response; a bit more eagerly. After all, it’s not like I haven’t thought about touching them before.
I could spend all night just kissing her. But of course, I want more, and I sense she is getting hungrier too. I am about to suggest moving across the room to the bed when Portia suddenly pushes me down onto my back right there on the bench. “Stay there,” she command, breathily, “and get naked.”
I strip out of my clothing as quickly as I can while not getting up off the bench. Portia stands up and finally removes her sash and lavender pantaloons. She finally lets her tumultuous red hair down as she stands naked before me. She is so beautiful, and the way she looks at me tells me that she finds me attractive too. I’ve never worked to have a particularly nice body, but the lean times that poor magicians sometimes face has left me lean as well and she seems to find it to her liking. A glance between my legs confirms for her that I find her to my liking as well. Not that at this point there could still be any doubt.
Portia, however, is not quite ready to attack me just yet. I watch as she carefully picks up a half-pomegranate and scoops out a handful of seeds. She presses them against her right breast until the delicate kernels begin to pop one by one, leaving her pale mammary thoroughly coated in sweet red juice. She then repeats the process with another wad of kernels upon her left breast. Dripping, she leans over me and slides a juicy finger into my mouth. I obey, cleaning her sweet fingers one by one. Only when her hand is free of stickiness does she grab my chin and pull me back up to a sitting position, my face level with her pomegranate-flavored breasts.
“Suck me,” she commands.
“Suck you where?” I tease, running my hand down her belly toward her ginger-furred mons. “There’s so much of you. I want to taste it all.”
“Where I’m sweetest,” she says with a smile and a tap upon my nose.
“But that’s all of you, from your toes up to your head. You’re sweet everywhere.”
But I can’t be a tease about it. I put my mouth around her literally juicy right nipple and begin to suck as hard as I can. The response is immediate. Portia closes her eyes and lets her hair cascade down as she throws her head back against the intensity of my ungentle ministrations. There is so much juice and she is so sticky, but I leave no trace of juice behind; no inch of her sugary flesh unlicked, and once the only trace of red left upon her right breast is from the force of my mouth, I give her no respite before starting on the left.
I can feel poor Portia quivering against me, like her legs are beginning to buckle. More and more, her hands on my shoulders are necessary to support her own weight. Each hard, sticky kiss upon her unbelievably soft skin elicits praises and obscenities from her lips by turns. But when the juice of the kernels runs out there will still be no recovery for her. I’ve been steadying my right hand against ample left hip while I work. Just when I run out and can find no further trace of the pomegranate’s leavings I slide my hand down across her bush and between her legs. Boldly, I push one finger up between her vaginal lips, and then beyond.
Portia squeals and nearly collapses against me while my finger feels nearly like it is caught in a trap. “Sorry!” she squeaks as she senses my surprise. “My body is really, really tight! If I don’t do kinky things it takes me forever to get ready, and if I’m not ready, it hurts.”
“Oh dear…” But as I try to withdraw my finger she clamps her hand over mine.
“No! Just… Just…”
She can’t articulate but I know what to do. Portia relaxes against me as I began to move my finger in small circles inside her, only penetrating deeper ever so gradually.
“Fuck! You’re so good!” she cries out. Then she just starts squeaking in response to my deepening stimulation. Soon, I find what I am looking for: that soft little mound of flesh inside a woman that turns penetration into delight. When I find it, Portia practically screams.
”You don’t mind that I’m kinky, do you?” she squeals as my fingering settles into a steady rhythm against that special spot. “I haven’t had a lot of luck with men because a lot of them just don’t understand.”
“I’ll understand anything you need me to. What kinky thing would you like to do?”
“Like… If you wanna watch me fuck myself with something besides your finger, I will. As long as it’s not too big. I just need to get ready for that big thing right there.”
She nods to my erection, which has been waiting for its chance all this time. But it’s definitely better to give her body what it needs before I give mine what it wants.
“I think I see just the thing,” I tell her, and she plops down on the bench facing me while I reach for the fruit dish on the table and retrieve a ripe, green pear.
Her crimson eyebrows flutter invitingly as she examines the fruit which I hold before her. “Why, that’s shaped like me!”
“Kind of makes it the perfect shape, doesn’t it?” I fall upon her, pulling her hair so she exposes her throat to me and I begin showering the white skin with kisses. As I do so, I move the pear against her pussy and begin to push the narrow end inside her. Her body resists the smooth, curving fruit but I am able to slide it all the way to where its body swells and deeper penetration becomes impossible. Deeper penetration is not needed, though, and perverse delight overcomes Portia as I begin to ram the pear in and out of her with rapid, shallow thrusts.
“Oh yes!” she gasps. ”Fuck me with my fucking food! Yes!”
She leans back from my kisses, but it’s only so she can concentrate. With one arm bracing her against the table she uses her other hand to rub her clitoris in rapid circles while I fuck her with the pear. I’ve never seen or done anything like this before, and I have to massage my cock with my free hand to ease the ache of wild arousa. Portia catches me doing it and she makes me pause in our efforts.
I just now notice that there’s an apple corer laying on the table right next to a small jug labeled maple syrup. She takes both the implement and a big, red apple out of the bowl. I watch as she cuts the core from the apple in an extra wide circle. She then hands me the fruit with its new channel bored through it.
“Here. Now you can have fun too.”
Portia’s right. This is kinky. But I go with it, sliding my thick cock into the hole in the apple that she has cut to perfect size. Its wet, juicy flesh quickly warms to my temperature as I pump it up and down my cock. Portia, meanwhile, takes full control of the fruit I had been using on her. We stay facing each other like that for a long time, watching each other while I masturbate with an apple and she fucks herself with a pear. Soon the little cottage smells like a heady mix of fruit and sex.
“You’re getting so much juice everywhere,” she gasps, looking at my wet balls. “You didn’t cum in it, did you?”
“No,” I respond, raggedly. “I’m saving that for you.”
“Good boy,” she coos, withdrawing the sticky pear and discarding it on the table. “But I can’t waste apple juice. I love it too much. Here.”
The next thing I know, Portia is making me recline on the bench again and she is lowering her pussy toward my face even as she removes the apple and her sweet little mouth encloses my cock in its place. I feel myself hitting the back of Portia’s throat as she cleans the apple juice from my cock and balls, but she never even slows down. All I can do is try to concentrate on eating her pussy so I don’t lose control and cum down her throat. Fortunately, just when the situation appears critical she speaks, giving me a moment to recover.
“You can put your finger in my ass if you want to.”
“Really?”
“Sure, just be careful. Again, tight body.” She gropes for the bottle of syrup, then slides it my way. “You can use this. It works.”
Very well, then. Why not? From the angle I’m at, my thumb will actually be better suited for the task. So while Portia gamely continues sucking my cock I coat my right thumb in maple syrup, and after spending a few minutes, teasing it in circles upon her anus, I just pop it right in.
Portia squeals and I fear I’ve gone too hard, too fast, but she just goes back to sucking me without a complaint. So, I resume eating her pussy while I thumb-fuck her ass. Soon she is rotating her hips, countering my rhythm to make my thumb slide in deeper. She goes faster and faster until she abruptly stops.
“I can’t take it anymore! I need you inside me!”
With the same speed and agility she showed during the bar fight, Portia is suddenly astride me, her eyes wide and mouth gaping as we work together to press my cock into the wet folds of her sex. It takes a bit of doing, but her tight quim accepts me, and my beautiful Portia begins to ride.
I thought I had come to understand throughout our play just how sexually voracious this former pirate is, but I had no idea. She’s practically screaming with every bounce of her sweaty, sticky body against my own, and she rides me with such needfulness that I could almost believe she thinks I’m the last man she will ever have. It is an intensity I have not experienced before in a woman but one I could see myself getting used to. In this moment, I could forget all about any other woman and any other problems and exist only with her…
Portia’s voraciousness hampers her articulation, however. “Finger…” she begs. “Back in my ass!”
She flails the jug of syrup my way and I make a huge mess as I slop it onto my fingers. But she falls forward on my body to accommodate me as I grope her ample buttocks and seek the tiny portal my hand has already penetrated once before. But she squeaks in happy agony as though I’ve never touched her as I press my middle finger into the resistant iris and work it in as deep as I can, Portia riding my cock valiantly through it all.
“You’re kinky too,” she says through gritted teeth. “You might not admit it, but you are!”
“I can be kinkier.”
“Oh yeah? Show me. I dare you to show me.”
Uh-oh, she dared me. Well in that case…
“What the…” her eyes follow my free hand as it seizes a banana from the trusty fruit bowl on the table. I have to free my finger from her bottom as I pick the jug up off the floor and dowse the banana in a generous portion of syrup.
“Really? Oh surely not. Surely-- URGGHH!”
My fingers have done their work upon her tight little rectum, making it less resistant to penetration. Portia is half-squealling, half-growling as I jam the blunt end of the banana into her ass. And then I push it in a little more. And then a little more…
”Oh my God, DP!” she gasps. “I fucking love DP!” And she starts slathering my face and throat with grateful kisses as I fuck her pussy with my cock while I anally fuck her with the banana.
I can feel that thick, firm, unripe banana pressing against my cock through her thin walls. It feels surprisingly good…
“I’m taking a banana in my ass!” she whimpers in disbelief. “I can’t believe I’m taking a banana in my ass!”
“It’s called being kinky,” I confirm, and I wedge the fruit inside her just a fraction of an inch deeper. I didn’t think it would make such a difference, but Portia throws her head back and screams.
”That’s it!” Portia wails. “I’m going to fucking cum!”
And I can feel it. I feel the muscles in her pussy tightening, spasming. She screams as her entire body tightens, and she clenches so hard that the banana actually pops out of her ass and flies through the air, landing on the floor with a thud. Feeling her body squeeze me, drain me, I give up fighting. Even if I kept fighting, I would lose. It is my body’s turn to tighten and strain, and Portia squeals in passion as she feels the pulse of my orgasm deep inside her.
Portia comes to a rest and I enjoy the weight of her still body on top of me. This bench is growing mighty uncomfortable after everything we’ve done on it. But it’s worth it for the feel of Portia’s body against mine.
“Well I don’t need to have guests over now,” she chuckles. “We went through a lot of food tonight.”
“We used up a lot of fruit, but I did give you a creampie.”
“Haha,” she says with a sarcastic smile. “Very funny.”
The evening must have been more exhausting than I realized, because I don’t remember us getting into her bed. The next thing I know is I’m waking up there with her snoring softly beside me. It is still dark outside, but the reality hits me that her cottage, as wonderful as it is, is on the palace grounds. If anyone sees me leaving her cottage in the morning, there is no way word of it would not reach Nadia, and who knows what that might mean.
My body is sticky with maple syrup and fruit juice, but I get dressed anyway. I hate having to lightly shake her awake. So seems so peaceful and content.
“Portia, I have to leave. I need to go by my shop before I go to the palace in the morning.”
She rolls over and smiles at me before shutting her eyes again. “’Kay.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“’Kay.”
I think she has gone back to sleep, and I creep toward the door. But before I open it I hear her say my name.
“The man you saw me with was my brother,” she whispers as I look back to where she lays. “He’s in trouble. He won’t let me help him. I felt so lost tonight. Thank you for being there for me.”
“Any time,” I say. I want to say so much more.
As I walk out the door Pepi the cat comes trotting back inside, greeting me with a happy chirrup.
***
Daylight comes and it finds me bathed and ready for all that the Countess requires. We talk of her late husband, her untrustworthy courtiers, the upcoming masquerade, and her plan to capture Julian Dvorak. We walk. She holds my hand. We flirt. But I can’t stop thinking of Portia.
But when I see the Countess’s foremost servant several times throughout the day, it’s like she’s become timid and doesn’t want to know me. If she catches me looking at her, she quickly looks away. She is as warm with Nadia as ever, but it is like I am not even there.
Does she regret what we have done? Was it too much? Is it hard to face me in the daylight knowing that I know how kinky her needs truly are? All I can do is try not to let my worry show before the Countess.
Nadia is formidably observant, but she does not seem to know that anything is wrong. And she is very good at making me remember that Portia is not the only woman in the world. After we suffer through another interminable dinner with Nadia’s court, I am quite relieved and ready when she cozies up beside me and suggests that we meet in my chamber for some refreshments.
Nadia mentions that she is going to change into evening wear and I understand that with the ornate garments she favors, that takes a while. I am dozing pleasantly in my chamber when a knock on the door awakens me. Portia edges the door open with a curvy hip as she carries a tray filled with fruit and a decanter of the Countess’s favorite white wine.
“It’s Portia with the refreshments,” she announces. I keep awkwardly silent as she glides in and sets the tray down on the table beside my bed.
“There you go. The Countess will be along shortly.”
She turns to leave again, and I cannot help myself. I reach out and tug on the hem of her billowy sleeve. “Portia…”
She looks down at me where I sit, and I plead with my eyes, not knowing what to say. Portia nods to the tray of fruit and I realize that nestled among the pomegranates and grapes there is a big, fat, yellow banana. “Don’t worry. That’s not the same banana from last night.”
I’m flabbergasted, but then Portia starts to laugh. As tension eases away between us, I start to laugh to.
“Portia…” I begin again, standing up. But words just won’t do. The next thing I know, she is in my arms again and we are kissing.
“I haven’t known what to say,” she says in between breaths. “I’ve wanted to say so much…”
“Everything’s fine,” I gush, relieved. “You don’t have to say anything.”
We are so carried away with the joy of our kissing that we never hear the door open. We don’t know that Nadia is standing there until we hear her clear her throat.
Portia and I pull away, abashed. The Countess’s face is unreadable. I say the first stupid thing that comes to my stupid mind.
“We’re, uh… We’re friends.”
Have I mentioned that I’m not good at knowing what to say to women? But Portia doesn’t seem much better.
“Yeah,” she supplies, reverting to her bashful habit of twisting her toe upon the floor. “We’re friends.”
“Oh really?” Nadia says coolly as she glides toward us: the imperious ruler and we the two betrayers awaiting judgment. But to my surprise, she shrugs off her robe. It falls to the floor, exposing her bare, dark shoulders and cleavage to the soft moonlight that cascades through my window. “Well in that case…”
Her right hand comes to rest upon my chest, over my racing heart. Her left upon the soft curve of Portia’s freckled cheek.
“…May I be friends with you both as well?”
She spares me the strain of having to answer as she leans over to Portia and gently kisses the smaller woman upon the lips, leaving Portia blushing; startstruck.
And that’s when it hits me: the answer to the question I pondered last night. Portia’s card in the Arcana is the Star.
But Nadia is looking at me again now. Her purple eyebrow lifts in demand of an answer. “Well?”
I may not know what to say with women, but sometimes I know what to do. Taking her hand which still rests upon my chest, I raise her long, beautiful fingers to my lips and kiss them. I cast a gaze over to my partner in crime, who blushes still. “Portia, is this okay?”
“Yes, Portia,” Nadia asks, languidly. “Is it?”
Portia ducks away. When she turns back to us she is grinning. “Okay, but I must warn you, my Lady. You are about to see things happen to these refreshments that you are not going to believe.
In one hand she holds a pomegranate. In the other, the banana.