Flashback Wild Nights! Wild Nights!

[Philomena]

Content WarningWarning, content of a sexual nature. You should be a grownup, my dears, before reading. And it isn't even particularly exciting, so no point breaking the rules

Spring 70, 487
Zeltiva University
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Qalaya,

I believe I have found a role in the University now - it seems to be my sworn duty to test the mettle of newly entering girls who might wish to share a room. I say this because, this afternoon, I arrived home to, once again, find that the desk and bed on the opposite side of my little garret was stripped bare. This is my ninth roommate, and I confess a certain sour pride. I must believe this is something of a record. It has become so commonplace, I apologize, I did not even write to you about a few of them. One of them only lasted for six days before paying for an individual room. Perhaps I could take up a collection for the sake of future students, to pay the difference to place me in an individual.

I was not confused, but I was disappointed, by this one. I really thought Lucy and I would be fine. She was quiet, and tidy, and did not mind the smell of my food - or never complained about it. We even spoke now and then. That's the kicker with her - I don't know what it is that makes me unpalatable. Most of the girls are not so shy about telling me what drives them from me. I won't pretend that I've been able to change at all, so perhaps this is unprofitable information, but its still somewhat comforting to know that one is in touch with one's own worthlessness as a companion.

She sighed and put her pen down. She wasn't crying. She'd thought that University would be a place one could safely cry, but it had not taken too long to learn that this was not so - if anything, at least in the right settings one could be ignored for crying back home on the streets. Tears, at university, drew sharks faster than blood.

I'm sorry, Mother Qalaya. I should be recording things that are worth reading. The world has more than enough records of wallowing in self-pity, already, I can't justify the precious ink on it, I think. Forgive me, Mother Qalaya.

I probably won't have a roommate now for several weeks, I suppose. The term is nearly over. It will be nice, I guess. I can keep the shutters closed, and protect my books better than the bed sheet I hung over them does.

A voice sharp, and high, and slightly birdy chirped in Minnie's ear, "I had not heard of you. You are a terrible roommate, then? You must be poor, I imagine, since your hair is so coarse."

Minnie started, and turned, smearing the sleeve of her dress with ink, and toppling her ink pot. She fumbled it back in place before it could do anything but leave a smear on the already heavily stained desk. The face perched by her own now stood, with a pointed, confused look. She bore a steamer trunk on a dolly in one hand, the other held a small valise. She had a long, thin, beaky nose, and severe, purple-red lips.

"Well," she nodded with an absent, thoughtful appraisal, "At least we are both ugly girls. I find that pretty roommates expect too much of one."

Minnie frowned, blotting her paper quickly as she spoke. The woman had a clipped, whistling, high-class voice, cold and emotionless, that made Minnie's skin crawl a bit, wild-lipped gutterslut that she was, "What are you doing reading my papers?"

The girl shrugged, and started dragging her bags to her bed, placing them down at very precise, square angles on the floor beside. the frame, "I have learned that it is best to get the nonsense of figuring out who one is to be with out of the way early. And you were busy, so I thought I had best get the work done myself. But you have not written your name, so you will, I hope tell it to me instead. You are a Qalayan?" Most of the speech was delivered as she fished none-too-delicately into the neckline of her desk to pull a heavy iron key out of… somewhere. Her eyes roved about the ceiling thoughtfully as she did so. The last sentence, though, she looked Minnie in the eye with an air of mild, perhaps unsure interest.

"Ms Lefting. I'm a student of literature. Yes, I pray to Qalaya. Generally in private."

The other girl nodded, twirling the key around a long, slender finger thoughtfully, "You do not ask, but I am guessing you wish me to respond in kind. Ms. Capinsal. But, then that won't do. Everyone else will call you Ms Lefting, but if I do, people shall believe we are catting at each other. You will call me Mara."

"I'm… Philomena. Minnie, I… I guess…" she twitched slightly. Her name felt foreign on her tongue.

"I am a Qalayan, as well. Do you have an altar? We can simply share, and not waste space. Qalaya does not ask for too much."

"An altar?"

"You know, for praying."

"Oh… oh, I… well, no one ever taught me."

The beaky nose turned from where the girl was unlocking her trunk, and looked hard at Minnie, "Are you sure you're a Qalayan?"

"Yes! Yes, of course, I… I write my… prayers… I guess… that's wrong?"

Mara nodded sagely, "No, that is a clever way. There is no right way. Or, there is. but it depends. I write, but not to Qalaya directly. That is a strange idea. I shall try it. And, you shall try praying aloud, I think, then you will know if it makes you closer to her."

Minnie frowned, blushed, "Alright."

The trunk opened with a creaking groan of metal, and she pulled out a pile of dresses that Minnie's eyes went wide to see the thickness of. She laid them fussily on the bed - more with a sense of order than affection, then nodded to Minnie.

"Alright, then. Come on."

She set a small, gilded picture frame on the open lid-ledge, and two small votives beside it.

"Its day, no need to light them, I think."

Minnie frowned, "Wait… wait, you mean now?"

Mara nodded, "Yes. I keep things done as soon as possible. It leaves one's time defragmented."

Then Mara knelt before the altar, and folded her hands. Minnie turned red, and did not move. Mara did not move either. Minnie blushed and stumbled over kneeling by Mara awkwardly. Mara looked at her and frowned.

"You are uncomfortable."

"A little."

Mara looked irritated, "You are not stupid, clearly, so I do not understand this. Why not be comfortable? You are poor. You are probably not used to being polite about a skirt. Sit how you like, then, I can't imagine Qalaya cares. She remembers much better peeks up a skirt than yours or mine, you know."

Minnie blushed. She was very casual with Qalaya, but she did not make jokes about her. But then, she wasn't sure if it WAS a joke, even. She felt spoken down to, at the same time, and resolved to show up this rich snit with her strange dismissiveness. She slumped off her feet, then, sitting her buttocks on the floor, with her legs just beside her, and looked up at the other girl. She frowned. She looked like a child beside Mara, so tall and thin and regal and longboned.

"Now, Minnie, you go first."

"No, no, you first."

"Then you'll just copy me. I want you finding your own way."

"Why's it matter t' you 'en?" She started, hearing her voice slip into its street cant.

"Because. I shall learn nothing by making a sycophant, and you are poor, and most of the people here think you are stupid for that, I imagine. And we have some things in common, being awkward, unattractive, young, and Qalayan. If I let you, I imagine you'd cling onto me, and just do what I said. And that would be a waste of my time. So, I will be a bit harsh. Say your own prayer, first."

Minnie looked up from under her brow, embarrassed, and a bit humbled. She stared at the picture in silence a moment, then spoke, very quiet, "Alright… hello, Qalaya… I… you probably don't want to hear too much, because… we… were just talking in my book…"

She frowned, feeling nervous and awkward.

//Oh just shut up and go hide in your bed, Minnie Lefting.//

//No, no, Minnie-Wren, listen to me...// the voice in her head was Lanie's voice, and the sheer sudden force of that drove the memory of irrelevancies - of the girl beside her, of the awkwardness of speech - from her mind, in a sudden spasm of emotion, that pierced her brain-pan, letting her heart bubble up, //My sweet, you have things you can say, say them. Qalaya always listens. This is your prayer, speak to Mother Qalaya.//

She poke again, and heard a sob come up, that she barely suppressed. IT warbled her words strangely, "I… Mother Qalaya, I never spoke, I thought that it was cheating, maybe, to speak to you, that you would want things written. Maybe… you will write things?"

She paused at this, and her mind relaxed a little, playing with the idea, thoughtfully.

"Do you have a little book of me, Mother? Where you keep me in? Do you write me down in it? I would not like…" she felt, with surprise, her eyes leaking tears hotly on her cheeks, "I would not like to have a book of me in the Library, I think, like Bethany Edgetower. But if you had one, and you kept it on your shelf… I would open up my breast and be read by you, maybe only once every thousand years, once I am gone, but that once…"

She felt her lips shake slightly, at this, and her eyes flew open. Mara was staring at her. Her cold, blank face had sharpened, her eyes were burning. She did not move, barely breathed. She turned back to the altar, then, and felt the last prayer in her gullet. The cruel-voice of her mind came and railed against it, said that she must keep it in her breast before a stranger, like this. but the gentle Mae-voice washed over it for once, rinsing the muck away and leaving her throat clear and ready.

"And Mother Qalaya, bless my Lanie, wherever she is on the earth. Keep her safe, and help her be a beautiful story, and bring her home to me, so we can tell the end."

She looked at the portrait. It was nothing special, the sort of card one could buy at shops anywhere around the campus. But the blue-deep eyes of it looked into her heart now, and Minnie felt a fullness and queer release she had not felt in a long time. She realized she was breathing very hard, realized her cheeks were wet and swollen.

Mara's voice came then, softly. Minnie would not have thought that sharp chirp could be softened, but it was, as soft as feather-down now.

"Qalaya, Qalaya, Guide my pen. I am come to a new place, guide my pen. There is a girl here I would know well, Qalaya, make her know me back. And guide my pen."

She then nodded, and looked over at Minnie queerly, reaching a slender finger to touch the girl's cheek.

"Tears. Tears. You are crying. Yes."

She nodded, a furrow forming over her brow, and stood, and started to hang her dresses out in the wardrobe. They crowded close, their skirts expanding, brushing tentatively, delicately, at the skirt of Minnie's one other dress, with a sort of curious shyness of cloth on cloth.

----------------

"We are going to eat out, this evening. Hush. I am paying, so you cannot complain on the grounds of money. Your only means of complaint would be social anxiety, and you most learn to overcome that. Now. Put on your better dress, but do not wash your hands."

Minnie and Mara had shared a room now for nearly a year, and Minnie had fallen into a sort of rhythm, growing used to the girl's queer way of asking for things - for she had learned these commands WERE an invitation. One that could be declined quite simply - Mara simply demanded a reasonable explanation of why her original invitation was being rejected. Minnie had none in this case - the bluntness of Mara's lack of etiquette, she had learned, had the upside of being tremendously honest. What she said was true - if she were not reasonably sure of its truth, she would not have ever said it.

"Alright. But not too long. I have work on my project to do."

"Yes. I believe that two and a half bells is more than enough time."

Minnie put on her better dress - she looked idiotic walking with Mara, she knew this, for Mara, if she was as ugly as she claimed, was only so in her affect, not her appearance. Her gown was carefully tailored in brightly dyed blue linen, cut with such force it almost seemed mannish, despite its lightly belled skirt. Her hat was crisp and sharp. Minnie had no hat, and her dress, sickly green, was a cast-off from the wardrobe of a pre-teen girl, so it fit uncomfortably across Minnie's not-inconsiderable bust. Mara, who could sew a bit more than Minnie, had slit the cups and sewn in a gusset of slightly paler green fabric across each. It was functionally more comfortable, but not perfectly fitted, and Minnie's breasts wobbled about in a worrying way, when she walked in it. Besides, she'd never been able to get over the feeling that the gussets made her breasts look like a cat's eyes.

"Where are we going, Minnie?"

"You said… dinner…"

"Yes, but I did not say where, that is your job?"

"Oh… hmmm… the…"

"Petch that - did I say it right? Petch that? Did it sound convincing? You are picking. You are taking me somewhere that is like you."

Minnie blushed, frowned, "Alright…"

"So. Where are we going?"

Minnie thought hard, "You sure?"

Mara looked down her long nose at the other girl, with a queer quirk of her lips, "More so, since you seem unsure of my reaction."

"Alright. Come on."

---------------

MacLinny's wasn't as much a restaurant as a haunt. It was why Minnie, normally, did not haunt it: its were a place one went for beer, nae bread, as the saying went. To say that the two of them had the most ostentatious outfits in the place would be inaccurate: it was a Chattery Day, as the regulars called it, and Chattery always brought in the odd-fish crowd. And Minnie, aside from her diminutive size, was practically invisible in the place - just another forgettable student.

For Mara, though, there is a particular ostentation born of elegant clothes well-made, and in MacLinny's, even the rich dressed poor. It was a sort of mark of membership. So, when the two entered, many of the room's eyes flew to Mara. Mara, oblivious, glided across the room on Minnie's arm. Minnie nosed her way through the thickening crowd. Mara simply stepped, and the crowd parted. Minnie raised a hand to order a supper, and the bartender ignored her. Mara had two barmaids appear like witchcraft simply by touching her own face. They found a table, a noisy, raucous one, near the stage, and ate, Minnie with the fastidious speed of the orphan, Mara with the slow dreamy grace of an ingenue.

"This is a peculiar place. I hope you did not bring me for the soup, as it is awful."

"What? Oh! No!" Minnie found herself shouting over the din, "It's Chattery Day, I 'aven't been in ages."

"Chattery?"

"Sure."

"Is this a sport?"

"What?"

"I asked it this was a sport?"

"Sort of. Not an organized one, anyway. Once they get a bit tipsy, the lummies start standing up, and making doggerels at each other. Watch, you'll see."

Indeed, just at that moment, a young buck with a woman who, if she wasn't a prostitute was borrowing one's dress, stood up, on foot on the chair and cleared his throat showily. A cheer rose up from the room, as he rubbed his beard in a mock thoughtful gesture. He grinned with an almost lewd self-satisfaction. The crowd quieted, somewhat.

"Chattery, Chattery, Lamick O'Douhl!" he said in something of a shout, looking at a man at the next table, a weedy, smirking faced student with his lips buried in another girl's neck.

The weedy fellow frowned, but he followed the rules of engagement, pulled himself from his girl, and stood up, the same way, with one foot on the stool. His speech had drunk slur that made him sound lascivious, "Chattery, chattery, John Pickinsly!"

John grinned back, as the crowd erupted, and spoke back:

"Tell me, O'Douhly, whats that on your lip?
You look a bit rosy-faced-piqued."

Lamick bowed, and responded, without missing a beat:

"My Pickinsly, why, its the taste of a girl.
I've been lapping 'er up, to wash out the swirl
Of the taste of your mother last week!
I tried her three weekends a row, And I fear,
That my palate got just a bit bored."

The crowd laughed, and John laughed too:

"I can only imagine: she's so inexperienced,
After your mother the whore!"

Lamick frowned, and was silent a moment. And the crowd grew excited at the pause, feet started stomping rhythmically, and the regulars started up a chant.

"Drop the cup! Drop the Cup! Drop the cup!"

Lamick grinned ruefully, took up his mug of kelp-beer, and held it up, then spit in it once, and threw the whole mug back, slamming it down on the table, the crowd cried out in a hoot, and he sat. John grinned, and bowed to his audience. A woman, a dark-eyed girl in sailcloth trousers, stood, then and cried out "I can do better 'en at! Chattery, Chattery, John Pickinsly!"

John turned as the crowd cheered, and fell into an affectionate belly laugh, bowing gallantly, "Chattery, chattery, Luce Jutewhips!"

Lamick was already seated again now, his face buried in the girl's neck, and a hand working fingers under her neckline.

"That's remarkably interesting," said Mara, looking thoughtfully at the defeated Chattery.

"What, that? Nae. I ha' been when a chattery like that can last a quarter bell afore they drop the cup."

"Oh, no, I mean, the sight, there, now. I will confess one does not see such things in my circles, at a restaurant."

She nodded toward where Lamick was now running a tongue behind the girl's ear, and had fingers twiddling at the nipple beneath her linen dress. Minnie frowned to see it.

"Poor girl is probably drunk, honestly."

"It doesn't mean she isn't enjoying the experience. Minnie, do you know you're a prude?"

Minnie looked at Mara. "Excuse me?"

"I'm simply saying, Minnie. You're a prude. Its quite alright. I like it about you. It is convenient. It keeps our room simple. But it is nonetheless true."

Minnie blushed, "Well, as you like to remind me, I'm probably too ugly to expect anything more from the world than 'at, eh?"

"Oh, pish. You're ugly because you choose to be, like me. That's why I lump us together. You could be pretty and buxom in your way. The way your bosom shakes in that strange little frock is actually quite fascinating. Its why I cut the gussets wide at the bottom."

Minnie's eyes went wide, "Mara!"

She shrugged, "You see? A prude."

"Well… I dunny see you bringing any callers home!"

"Oh, I don't bother, anymore. I've performed acts with three gentlemen in my life, taking something of a cross section of muscularity, age, experience, you know. It is a subject in which it is of course impractical to get a truly representative sampling from an autodidactic standpoint, but from what I have tasted, it wasn't something worth pursuing further. No better, really than simply diverting one's self."

Minnie frowned, said nothing, trying to figure what precisely diverting one's self meant. Sipped her mug of tea.

Lamick's exploration of the girls bodice was such now that Mara was placidly watching the appearance and disappearance of the corner of the girl's aureola with the mashing, drunken rotations of his palm.

"Minnie, how much homework do you have?" Mara asked rather suddenly.

"Why?"

"Because," she said, "I know we set a schedule, but I think we should make love."

Minnie was lifting her teacup when the woman said this, and she put it back down. Her eyes went wide.

"What… you mean now?"

Mara didn't meet her eyes, simply continued to appraise the gasping girl at the other table with a cold, thoughtful stare, "Oh, no. I don't think you would enjoy that. Or me. We tend to like things tidy and well organized, don't you think? But this evening, I think. Otherwise, you shall be all tense worrying about it until the thing is done."

"Mara, what the --"

"Oh hush. You're going to give me reasons now, and they will all be wrong. Lets be perfectly frank, Minnie. You are one of the smartest women I've known, but you don't know a damn thing about yourself."

"Mara, I dunny think I'd feel--"

"Posh. Enough. You're not about to go find someone to diddle on your own. And you haven't a lot of other options. We aren't going to be married, and its not as if I'm in love with you or anything. I don't think I'm even capable of that. So when it's done, it's done. I'm obviously your perfect candidate."

"I dunny like being your charity student, Mara, that's disgusting."

Mara shrugs, "Have I ever done anything simply for your benefit, Minnie? You are unlike my other experiments in the area. I might learn something interesting."

----------------

The walk home, Mara seemed entirely at ease. Minnie was a wreck. Her stomach groaned peculiarly, and her hands shook, and jaw shivered as if she were walking through a bone snapper. The stairs were terrible. Mara walked slowly, neither amused nor impatient. Minnie tried to unlock their door, and Mara, matter-of-factly, took the key from her shaking hand and did it for her.

Once the door shut behind them, it all grew much worse.

"Very well, then, Minnie? Your bed or mine? Or somewhere else?"

"I don't… I don't…"

Mara turned. She had unpinned her hat and laid it precisely on the shelf, the pins laid over the brim in a fussy row of black lines, "Hmmm… no that's wrong isn't it? You would not like to take charge, I think, perhaps. Very well. I shall command, and you shall do."

This sentence, and the flat, cold tone accompanying it sent a peculiar shiver into Minnie's stomach. She felt her breath catch in her throat, "Alright… I… that's fine, I guess."

Mara was now undoing a long line of wooden buttons on the back of her dress. They lived in the same room, it was not, Minnie reflected, as if she'd never happened to see Mara undressing, though neither of them made much of a show of it. This was strange and different. Minnie felt ill, watching one well-formed vertebrae after another appear beneath her roommate's fingers.

"Minnie, don't take the green dress off. I do like what it does to your breasts. But, take off your boots and stockings. You'll be clumsy, I imagine, I wouldn't want a kick from those great heavy things."

Minnie crouched down on her haunches and began unlacing her boots. It was difficult, her hands were moving too much. Mara dropped her dress to the ground, leaving only the thin wrappings around her lower bust and a pair of real cotton bloomers. Minnie's hands grew distracted. She found herself wondering how much a pair of real cotton bloomers might cost. Her own were coarse wool - practical, durable, and maddeningly irritating if she sat too long, particularly as one grew closer to washing day.

"Minnie, I do not hear you working. It's quite cool in here, if you aren't going to obey, then--"

"Sorry... Sorry, Mara."

Minnie concentrated hard, forcing her eyes to her laces, and managed to loose her boots. Se glanced up, and Mara stood above her, so terribly tall, and entirely naked. Her breasts ended nearly as sharply as her nose, the nipples peering out thoughtfully from the tips. The hair in her armpits and between her legs was trimmed to a fastidious shortness. She smelled peculiar: warm and rich and sour, in a heavenly way that made Minnie think of wilted bouquets.

"Yes," Mara said, "Yes I quite do like you in that dress. Yes." Her voice was strange, a little rough and husky. Minnie blushed at her, then started to pull at her stockings.

"No, no... I've changed my mind, Minnie. I think stockings can wait. Now let me see, one moment..."

Minnie returned to her knees, slouching just slightly, because sitting up straight out her in the rather intimidating position of being eye to eye with Mara's pelvic bone. She quite liked the girls thighs. They were very fair, and firm, and smelled crisp and mild, almost like rolls of white blotter paper.

Mara bent over now to reach behind Minnie's back. The woman's breasts brushed over Minnie's hair, and she felt the fingers pry loose the uppermost two clasps of her dress. The clasps were set tight together, so this made just the slightest slackness of the fabric around her bust. Mara stood up again. Minnie looked up at her face, and felt the movement of cloth, quivering through her breasts, felt the queer feeling of air circulating about them inside her bodice. She wondered if Mara could see down to the bottoms of them. She felt cold and awkward.

Mara smiled. It was a queer, unsettling face, and it made Minnie feel strange and thrilled all at once, as if she had been thrown into a pool of cold water while sleeping.

"Oh, yes. That looks well. Now. Let's see, I shall go first. You are a bit tense, now, I think you will be better relaxing first. Kiss my legs a bit why don't you, then?"

Minnie brow wrinkled. This was the first instruction she had received which she did not quite now how to answer. She held her hands together in her lap, almost like a praying child, and leaned forward, kissing her friend chastely, first above one knee, then the other.

/Perhaps… up towards the erogenous zones?/

The thought was entirely theoretical to her. The concept behind it was abstract and mechanical. With a sort of precise regularity she placed a row of shy, confused pecks up the front of one of the thighs.

"No, that's entirely wrong, Minnie. You are too self-conscious. You are thinking of it, and trying to do what you ought. This isn't a class. You are supposed to play."

Minnie sat back on her haunches, "Well, I'm not good at playing."

"Obviously. It is a learned skill, playing. You will have to learn it. You did not have toys as a girl?"

"No, not really."

"Hmmm… but you like pretty things. I have pretty thighs, I believe, when I wish them to be. And I do so wish them, at the moment."

"Yes, Mara, they are very pretty." Minnie really did think they were lovely. She was struck with an odd sense that this was all being gone about the wrong way, but she certainly had no better suggestions.

"Very well. Play with them. Like… a very good book. Your little white gloves, go put them on, and pretend I am a book."

Minnie looked up and laughed.

"No, no. I'm entirely serious. Your books. You love them, you stroke them, you have a healthy respect for them. I will buy you new gloves. Go and get them, and try."

Minnie frowned, but nodded, standing. As she bent, she felt her breasts pouring out to try to escape the loose bust of her dress, and clutched them back in quickly, instinctually. Then, she went to the desk, and opened the drawer, and took out her reading gloves. She went and knelt again, and put her gloves on.

"Now. Close your eyes. Like when you pray."

She did. And she leaned forward, smelling the clean, crisp smell,and just a hint of sweat, and the strange, fresh scent of the heart of the woman. She reached forward, then, eyes still shut and touched the skin, tentatively through the soft cotton. Mara, as usual, was right. This was much easier. She could imagine, almost, the paper of a book feeling like this, smooth and yielding, and warm through her gloves. She ran her fingers softly back and forth, the way she had felt the subtle layering of paint in a fine illumination. She breathed out warm hot air, and felt the muscles beneath her hands shiver slightly. It was a strange feeling, and it made Minnie feel peculiar, a certain tightness in the back of her throat drawing her heart up closer to the breastbone. Her fingers flowed softly over the skin, like turning a page, then, remembered her ears, and heard above her, the shivering breath of Mara. It was a pretty sound. It reminded her of the Red Shoe, or of a woman dying in an opera.

"Now… the same, Minnie, but with your lips."

This, still, felt unnatural and strange. But she kept her eyes shut, and leaning forward slowly set her lips to skin. The result was strange and unpredictable, she had thought perhaps it would simply be an intensification of that which she had already felt. It was more intense than that - the lips are tremendously sensitive surfaces, and the nose and tongue were so close to flesh. There was a peculiar, comforting sort of intimacy to it, now, with her eyes shut, a sort of instinctual rooting pulling her mouth along. Her lips meandered in a wandering line towards the interior of the thigh, then back, in a slow zigzag. The way the thin layer of fat grew thicker and warmer in the interior, and thinner and more muscular on the outside, the way the downy hairs changed their direction as her lips moved, traced subtle nerve signals through her lips and into her sensation-drunk brain.

Then, she felt fingers on the back of her head, guiding her inward, gently, but insistently.

The most striking thing - for the motion was intriguing, pleasant, but not bewildering - was the strange taste of the core of Mara. Minnies lips and tongue moved slowly, almost pensively across the slickery-wet flesh. It was a powerful, strange flavor, unlike anything she'd tasted before, animal, vegetable and mineral all at once. She rolled it absently around her mouth, and thought.

//I could almost imagine this as a sauce for shellfish.//

The thought tickled her so humorously, she started to giggle uncontrollably, the movement and rush of breath sending a low gasp, and a stumble from Mara, who grabbed onto her shoulder. The motion was fascinating and delicious when one was buried in the heart of it, the bones and skin of Minnie's face feeling each undulation of muscle, each tensing of a joint. She grew distracted thinking of the strangeness of it. It was something like holding a frightened bird in one's hand, but inside out.

She recalled herself, as she felt the urgent fingers at the back of her head again. She managed to draw back enough for a deep breath, returned to her labors, and soon felt the muscles begin to quiver and shake all around her face, a tension she could feel extending from the top of Mara's head to her toes. It lasted, perhaps, fifteen seconds. Then Mara slumped, and stumbled down to her knees.

Mara lurched over to lean on the bed, resting on her nude haunch, catching her breath wildly. Minnie looked at her with a quiet, sleepy sort of face, and went to lie on the bed beside her.

Mara looked at her, her face thoughtful. Minnie wiped her own face, . Mara looked lovely, now, her hair a little loose, her eyes a little sharp, her cheeks flush and living with effort, "Hmm. Yes. That was. Interesting."

Minnie smiled, "You look lovely. That was very interesting."

Mara nodded, thoughtfully, "Well. Let me see what I can do, then, now."

Minnie wrinkled her brow. She had forgotten, in the rush of things, that there was another side to this whole exchange. She felt… like sleeping. Perhaps with someone else, yes, but just sleeping, just resting. She would have liked perhaps to curl up with Mara, perhaps discuss the whole thing a bit, and then doze quietly against her breast.

Mara sat up and put a hand on Minnie's thigh. The thigh tensed, involuntarily, and Minnie blushed.

"You do not… want anything else."

Minnie frowned, "No… no I dunny think so. I feel quite done, honestly."

"You don't… feel anything?"

"No… not… not like that, really. Not that tis… its you… you are… very beautiful. I can't imagine you prettier. Like a bird."

Mara was silent a moment, wrinkling her brow. then she shrugged, and stood, slowly, "That is… very interesting. Strange. Unfortunate, perhaps, I quite enjoyed that."

Minnie blushed. Her mind whirled, softly, and left her consciousness, words welling up without her bidding them. Then stuttered out, "Ink. And a… a paintbrush. Could you… if I asked you to… do something…"

Mara turned, "Ink?"

"Your… your skin… when it was a book… I… will you write on my skin?"

Mara frowned, thoughtfully, "You are a very surprising woman, Minnie."

But Mara nodded, and went to her own desk, drew up an ink pot, and a brush, soft rabbit hair. Minnie blushed, undid her dress, and pulled it to her waist. She sat up straight, facing the wall, exposing her scarred back. Minnie felt a finger, slow and pensive trace some of the scars. It made Minnie sigh, a little embarrassed, after the smooth beautiful skin of Mara.

Mara spoke, softly, very soft. It was a voice Minnie had heard only when her roommate prayed.

"Minnie… your back is beautiful. I would like you to know that."

Minnie blushed hard, and ducked her head. Very softly she said, "Evalin."

"Hmm?"

"On my back. Between the shoulder blades. Can you… write it very beautifully?"

Mara breathed out slowly, her breath across Minnie's bare back. She was silent a moment, then Minnie felt the cold, wet tip of a brush swipe slowly, steadily across one of her scars.

"Spell it for me. So I do it correctly, Minnie."