"Megan." Her hand grasped my hair, lifting my head.

Our bodies pulsing synchrony, I looked at her and fell into an endless depth of transparent blue ... I closed my eyes.

"Megan." Her whisper a command.

She held my hair and forced me to look at her as my body writhed with hers in an ever more fierce fusing; she forced me to look into her eyes as the tide of pleasure crested to its fullest height. . .Then for a moment I saw nothing, as my blood turned to silver...

My body slowly stilled; and only then did she close her . eyes and let go my hair; she held me in her arms and I lay; with my face in her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, wetting them with my tears. .".

When my heart had slowed she asked very softly, tenderness in her voice, "Do you always cry when you receive pleasure?"

I smiled at this question she had asked before. "I don't know," I answered as before, "you are the first to give such pleasure."

She was silent a moment. "The . . . first?"

"The first."

*She took my face in her hands and lifted my head and gazed into my eyes so gravely that I said;, to draw a smile, "Do you always speak so many variations of oh when you receive pleasure?" ; And she did smile. "Only when I receive it from you." Her arms encircled me as her smile deepened. "Is there anything you do not do well?"

Speechless, shy and tongue-tied with pleasure at her question, I buried my face in her hair and murmured, "If there were but one thing I could do well . . ."

She brought my lips to hers. I hearda"felta"the cras.h.i.+ng sounds of the sea as desire rose in me so sudden and sharp that each nerve end seemed to burn with it. I felt all of her tender body with my own, I knew her fingers separately on my skin, the lovely friction of her pafms. I had new perceptions of her that I had been too overcome before to comprehend. As I savored her mouth, I found that I could do other things simultaneously ... I kissed her throat and shoulders as my hands embraced her waist, my palms caressing the curves of her stomach and back; and as I kissed and loved her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, I clasped the smooth curving of her hips, delighting in the rosy hues of her skin. As I kissed her thighs, the blended golds of the place between, my hands explored the shape of her legs and feet, I breathed in the scents of her... inflamed beyond all forbearance, I then did only one thing, needing, wanting only that, feasting on her again, and she uttered many new variations of oh as I gave us both longer pleasure . ..

When her hands in my hair drew my lips away, she whispered, "Hold me."

I had taken her into my arms, I was gazing into b!ue eyes heavy-lidded with contentment when a downpour came. The day had darkened, the clouds had come over us un.o.bserved, and we lay for a moment astonished as the warm rain drenched us. I tried to cover her'body with mine but she laughed and pushed me off her. Then I began to laugh and we wrestled and rolled around on the fleece together like gleeful children as rain pelted our bodies and streamed through our hair.

As I playfully pinned her hands she smiled up into my eyes, her own eyes seductive; then she worked a hand free and pushed dripping locks of hair from my face. "You're so beautiful wet," she murmured, pulling me down to her.

"So are you," I answered against her lips...

The downpour lasted only a few minutes; the clouds blew off toward the horizon and our suns reappeared.

I took my thermal towel from under my marker and knelt to tenderly dry her. She sat up and patted me dry.

Slowly, loving the task, I dressed her hair, watching, feeling it turn to silk in my fingers. She took the warmcomb from me and I sat looking into her face and savoring the warm hand that caressed my face as she tended my hair...

She drew me to her and we knelt together, rocking slowly back and forth; and then our mouths joined in deeper intimacy. As her soft body yielded in my arms I thrust in increasing pa.s.sion, my hands moving over her, feeling her tremors, feeling her arms tighten and her hands flutter on my back. I cupped her sweet moss; her hands - fluttered and fluttered as my tongue stroked in velvet, as my fingers stroked in velvet. . .

*She stiffened, would not allow me to lower her; her arms would not release me to give her greater pleasures.. . and so I discovered her with my fingers as we knelt, her hands on my back becoming ever more frenzied in their fluttering . . . She gasped her ohs next to my ear. .. Her cry was m.u.f.fled against my throat.

She was limp in my arms; I felt her rapid heartbeats.

Gently I lowered her, and gathered her into my arms. Exhaustedly she pushed our towel into a pillow on my shoulder and lay her head on it and curled herself into me and soon breathed the deep even breaths of sleep.

I could not keep all of her warm with my arms, and so I pulled the fleece, dried now of the rain, around us.

To the placid, rhythmic sounds of the sea she slept quietly in my arms, endearingly, breathing deeply, her hair spread over my throat, my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, my arms. As if a tightly wound spring in me had fully released, I too slept, a brief lovely sleep, my awakening euphoric: Laurel, sweetly asleep in my arms.

A freshening breeze had risen when she stirred, and she pressed into me, further seeking my warmth; I tightened my arms and she sank again into sleep, but only a few minutes longer; she stirred again and awakened. She plucked at the fleece around her, gazed at me with sleepy, startled eyes.

"It's turned very cool," I murmured, s.h.i.+vering as a vagrant breeze chilled me. I drew the fleece more closely around us and stroked her hair.

"What time is it?"

"I don't know," I said, disoriented, glancing helplessly at the sky. "Perhaps .. . four."

"Good." Smiling, she rose onto her elbows and settled her body onto mine.

Sometime later she murmured, her voice a pleased purr, "Did I make you warm?"

I could only smile in answer, and as she still stroked my face, my hair, I asked with a suddenly dry throat, "Would you ... be with me . .." Then, fearful of what I would suffer if she did not reply as I wished, I said merely, ". . . tonight?"

"Yes," she replied, and as this beautiful word reverberated in me she added, "Of course."

I pushed on as bravely as I could, "Would you be with me... after that?"

She gazed at me and again spoke the beautiful word.

"Laurel," I blurted, "I need you so, I love you so mucha""

Tears welled, spilled down her cheeks.

*"Dearest one," I whispered, stricken. "Laurel don't, I love you soa""

She held my face so that she could look into my eyes. "I love you more."

I murmured later, my lips pressed against her hair, "Take whatever time you wish to reflect, but I want Minerva to record Laurel and Megan as Joined."

"Yes." And to this most beautiful of all words she added, "I wish it too, Megan. Now. Right now."

We dressed and returned to the house, where I signaled Minerva in her history chamber. Standing with Laurel, our arms about each other, I informed her of our intention. She seemed surprised, as I had expected, and also somewhat distracted.

"Of course, Megan dear. But you must surely come here in person for so momentous and symbolic an occasion. Could you come in . . . half an hour?"

As Minerva's image faded from the lumiscreen, Laurel said, her face puzzled, "Given your stature, why would she ask you to wait?"

"I don't know," I said, not caring at all, leading her to a chaise where I pulled her down with me. "I only know we have half an hour in which ... to find something to do." I kissed her then, and soon opened her tunic A brief time later she took my mouth from her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and whispered, her words coming between swift breaths, "It's time ... to go to Minerva."

"It can't be," I protested.

"It is," she said. "Never would I stop you for any lesser reason."

And so I joyfully stepped into the hovercraft with the woman I loved with all my being, to whom I would soon be joined.

XIII.

Journal of Laurel 15.1.17 My hand in hers, Megan and I ran into Minerva's history chamber. And stopped in surprise. A solemn group confronted usa"the Inner Circle.

*"Minerva," Megan said reprovingly, her face tensing in displeasure.

"I had no choice but to reveal your plans," Minerva protested. "To have such an occasion as your joining accomplished in commonplace and quiet fas.h.i.+on would have cost me my head."

"At the very least," Hera emphatically-confirmed, Megan walked to the group and confronted them with hands on her hips. "No," she stated.

"Megan dear, only a small celebration," Vesta protested, her eyes coming to mine and beseeching.

"Certain things have already been made ready. Food, winea""

Megan said sternly, "This is ours, and private." She turned to me for support. "Laurel?"

Diana had broken away from the group, had come to me. Before I could speak in agreement, she leaned to me and said in a low voice four wordsa"the same four words she had spoken days ago to first reveal Megan's status on this world: "She is our leader."

I swallowed, and then said, "Please allow them, Megan."

Her green eyes widened. "You want that? You truly do?"

I hesitated, seeing her distress. But Diana had said: She is our leader. "Please allow, them," I repeated.

"Only a small celebration, for this very special day of our Joining."

She said, her eyes softening, "If you wish it." .

"Come with me, dear," Diana said, taking my arm.

As Diana led me off, Megan looked at me yearningly. "Soon," I called, wantinga"as she dida"nothing in this world but to be together in these moments of our unfolding love.

Diana held up several swatches of white fabric and quickly selected lace.. "This, most a.s.suredly," she said.

"It is Megan's color," I objected.

"And now yours as well," She wrapped me in a section of it. "Trust us, Laurel. We love her, we wish only to make you beautiful for her." Head c.o.c.ked to one side, she studied me, lifting my hair from my shoulders.

"Yes, yes," she said distractedly. "I'll be but a few minutes. Venus will dress your hair."

Her blue robe swaying gracefully with her walk, Venus came to me, arms filled with a variety of short-*stemmed blossoms. She smiled perfunctorily and set to work, holding locks of my hair this way and that before beginning to insert and pin flowers. The silence between us was constrained, awkward. I finally said, "I have never... worn my hair in this fas.h.i.+on."

"It becomes you, and will become the dress which is being created for you," she stated in a tone forbidding argument. Then she posed the most extraordinary question I can ever conceive of one person putting to another: "o.r.g.a.s.m with her," she asked, "is it wonderful?"

Utter astonishment bludgeoned voice from me. Then memory ambushed me. Most vivid and intimate memory . . .

Venus had been scrutinizing me, "A reply is unnecessary," she said softly. She pinned one additional blossom and then walked from me. "Make her happy," she said in a manner that made her words not a wish and much stronger than a command.'

Vesta came in. I embraced her, kissed her cheek. "Thank you," I said fervently to this benefactor who had so successfully pleaded my case with Mother.

"Make her happy," Vesta said, the same words Venus had spoken, but this a tender wish given lovingly.

"Vesta," I said uncertainly, "now that our Joining has acquired some formality, is there behaviora"are there customs the women of Maternasa""

"Not really, Laurei dear. Most often the two exchange a gift of symbolic or sentimental value, but even that is not a formality."

"Thank you," I said, knowing that I had something of both symbolic and sentimental value to give to Megan.

Diana dressed me. A knee-length white lace dress fitted closely over my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, opening at my throat; lace sleeves clung tightly to my arms, flaring open at my wrists into a delicate nebulous fabric that reached to my fingers.

"It is time," Diana said, fitting sandals to my feet as I stared at my reflection, the reflection of someone who seemed very young and more than a little frightened.

They took me to Cybele's main square. Flaming torches lighted the early evening sky. The platform used for the ballet on Anniversary Day had again been erected, and held flower-banked banquet tables and musiciansa"and also Mother, resplendent in her green cape. All around me on the balconies and bridges of Cybele were the women of Maternas. Diana led mea"so stunned I could scarcely walka"to the platform, to Mother.

"It was to be ... a small ceremony," I stammered to Mother.

Mother waved a hand. "Phosh. if there must be ceremony what does it matter whether large or small?" She indicated a place on her chaise. "Sit down and talk to me, my dear. Megan will be right along."

*Obediently I sat, but it was soon clear that it was Mother who wished to talk. "Of those I have loved in my long life," she told me, "I love Megan more than any. You will make her happy, won't you?"

"I'll try with all my heart, Mother."

Mother patted my hand. "It would annoy me greatly , if you didn't, my dear. And when I become annoyeda""

There was a rising murmur from around us and I glimpsed Megan and quickly stood. I knew that Diana had indeed dressed me well when I saw. Megan's eyes come to me ...

Her white s.h.i.+rt was of brocade, with a high collar, her boots of sculptured design, rising just above the ankle; close-fitted l.u.s.tervel. pants, tied with a white sash, burnished her long legs as she walked to me.

"You're so beautiful," she said, taking my hands and drawing me to her; but there was a tumult of sound from all around us, and only then did she become aware of the preparations that had been made, the women gathered on the heights and tiers of Cybele.

"Be as gracious as you can, Megan dear," Mother said serenely, as Megan's face tensed and her eyes narrowed in displeasure. "Be grateful you don't have to endure what I did." Minerva had come up to us and Mother said to her, "Did I ever relate the story of when I married your father?"

"Yes Mother," Minerva answered, "and it is time toa""

"I married him in the pleasure capital of Vega," Mother continued inexorably, "and nothing but the best would do... Which consisted of the ceremony taking place in a cavernous monstrosity of gilt rococco stuffed with grotesque statuary and lined with fifty incompetent musicians, who played an appalling ditty which I was told was Earth's traditional wedding march."

"Mother," Minerva said with a gesture signifying that everything was in readiness.

"A moron swathed in white from head to foot for Geezerak knows what reason chanted words over us, accompanied by a lachrymose violin and deafening drums, cymbals, and tambourines," Mother said. "Then he threw a switch that released a collection of terrified doves that swooped down on us, and another switch that sent a torrent of flowers hurtling down at our heads, and still another that unfurled a roil of red carpet over which I fled to the door, closely followed by your father."

Megan and I were laughing heartily, and Mother said to Minerva, "What are you waiting for, my dear? Let's get on with it."

Mother rose from her chaise and took my hand and Megan's, escorted us before a table with a high slanted top. As Minerva took her place behind it, lumiscreens around us glowed to life. She opened the book of records I had first seen in the library on Anniversary Day.

I watched Minerva's hand form words with a writing instrument I had never seen, the words appearing on *the lumiscreens for the women of Maternas to see as she inscribed them: Laurel and Megan Joined in their Love 15.1.17.

As she finished, the lumiscreens extinguished; and Mother joined my hand with Megan's. Through my tears I could see nothing, not even Megan. I could only hear the thunderous sound from all around us.

Blinking my tears away, unable to speak, I released Megan's hand to take the emerald ring from my finger.

Then I took her hand again and slid the ring onto her finger, forming it to fit. "I love you," I whispered.