It had been many centuries since I noticed how young or old, how beautiful or homely a woman was, as long as she was in my arms. Women are women. They all need the same things. They all have the same things to give.
So I’d thought.
As her arms slid around me I realized again that she was everything I’d failed to be—gracious, patient, moderate, kind in victory. All that and still in her twenties. In my twenties I had ruled three kingdoms. Armies of thousands had shouted my name. I shuddered.
In her presence, everybody wanted to fall in love.
And she handled that, too, with grace and consideration for the thousands who worshipped her.
And she tried every day to bring herself to the edge of a heart attack. For practice.
What did she fear that made it necessary for her to practice that?
She stepped into my arms and lifted her tawny face to mine and I stroked her poor ironed-flat hair away from her eyes. “You know,” I said, “there are compensations for becoming divine.”
Her forehead creased. “Name two.”
“Not right now.” I held the hair out of her eyes with my thumbs. “I want you,” I said, “to concentrate a little bit. Not too much. You’re here to have fun.”
“Fun?” She smiled. “What is this alien word?”
“Pretend it’s a performance and all you have to do is have fun.”
She shook her head, turning her cheek against my hand as if she liked the way my hand smelled. “Performances are work.”
“Okay, forget that. At least, can I ask you not to gold plate my Lair? It won’t do the cappuccino machine any good.”
She grinned. “Is your room full of sweat socks?”
“Moderately,” I said, remembering why I don’t bring women to the Lair. “But,” I remembered, “my roommate Veek keeps his room immaculate.”
“Won’t he mind?”
“He’s chasing other game tonight.”
She giggled. “Is he a sex demon, too?”
“Yup. You’ll be impressed.”
“I’d like to see an immaculate room,” she said, “that isn’t a hotel room.”
“Fine. But first,” I said, and bent to kiss her.
I didn’t know how to contain a lover’s magic. Normally I’m working to bring it out.
She tasted like toothpaste. She smelled like some scented shampoo, and musk, and fresh clean sweat. She didn’t know what to do with her tongue. Slowly and carefully, I showed her, feeling her open to me, her slender body pressing closer to mine.
She was catching on fast.
I drew back and she opened her eyes. “Nice,” she said.
“Nice?” I mocked. “That’ll look good on my report to the Regional Office. ‘Subject thought I kissed nice.’”
“Your report? Oh, right. Thirty pieces of silver.” Her eyes fell half shut, laughing at me.
“For you I should get a huge bonus. I’ll show you the form. You can help me fill it in later.”
She snuggled tighter to me, bumping against my dick. “You say the sexiest things,” she said. “Let’s do that again.”
She looked into my eyes and I was stunned, suddenly, to realize I wasn’t lying to her. At all. There were sixty or seventy million things about me she didn’t know, but I wasn’t hiding them, exactly. In fact, I kind of wanted to tell her. I drew in air and my lungs went hot and the air got sweet and sparkly. She made me feel out of control, and yet as solid as a spinning top that can spin forever. Just as long as she held me like this.
We kissed again. This time she had a very good idea what to do. I did something entirely crazy.
I let go control.
When I came back to reality we were locked together, swaying together, twisting. This made every muscle in my body stretch exquisitely. The air still sparkled. She slowed her twisting movement and I opened my eyes.
“I don’t want to move,” I admitted. “There’s five bedrooms out there, and a couple of them are even kind of clean, and I don’t want to let go of you.”
“Well.” She shuffled, and something clicked and clattered at our feet. She looked over her shoulder at the floor. “Oh, no,” she said in a dead voice. “Not again.”
I looked down. We stood up to our ankles in a pile of dull green rocks.
I kissed her forehead, pushed away, bent, and picked one up. “Raw emeralds, I would guess.”
I held it up so she could see. Size of a pigeon’s egg. I wondered how many we could sell before the price of raw emeralds plunged.
“Change of plan,” I announced. “We’re going to my room. I’m prepared to launder Veek’s sheets tomorrow, but this could get messier than that.”
She looked at the emerald with distress. “Should we clean up?”
“Later, babe.” I led her out of there, shuffling raw emeralds away from our feet, and finally swinging her up into my arms and carrying her down the hall to my room.
I felt like a giant. She was in my arms, solid yet weightless, slim but massive like gold, like all the treasures of Babylon.