I lifted the hide as narrowly as I could to squeeze into the house without letting too much of the harsh late-afternoon sunlight in. Covered in dew and leaves from the woods and a sharp, musky, sheep smell from the moor where the stones stood, I stripped myself of my wool cloak immediately and made my way over to the hearth to wash, tiptoeing quietly to not disturb Aric, who was a light sleeper, as warriors should be. I was short of breath with excitement, imagining the feel of the warm water and soft cloth on my cold, tight skin. I went straight for the hearth, positioned to the right of the door, and knelt down in front of it bare naked, not at all noticing Aric propped on a pile of hides, sitting up in just his leather tunic, hidden in in the shadows adjacent to the light being cast by the fire.
His deep voice startled me, sending goose bumps down my bare flesh, nearly tipping me into the fire with fright. Luckily, I caught myself on the edge of the stone hearth. Unluckily, I burned my hand and let out an undignified yelp. Aric’s deep rumble of laughter thundered from his chest as he reached out for my injured hand.
“I’m so sorry to have scared you, my love. I was in such a trance, I’m not even sure of what I said.”
“Oh no, it’s my fault.” My voice sounded so high and weak next to his, strange to me. “I was trying to wash after sunrise at the stones because I didn’t want to ruin the bed with my sheep smell and make you think you had gone to bed with a fat ewe.”
His eyes creased into bright triangles of amusement, but instead of matching my smile or laughing at the joke, Aric remained serious, which was unsettling. “Sorry, I was trying to be funny.” I blushed. I felt his eyes on me and looked down at my knees, slightly open where I knelt, the curve of my thighs rising into the secret corners of my hips, from which a strong, straight-back torso, flat stomach, and muscular back rose. I was still cold and covered in goose flesh, but my body always responded to Aric’s presence, as it was now, cold or not. Even when my mind and heart were elsewhere, my body responded to my husband in a strong, undeniable way, and he knew it. But today my mind and heart were here with him.
“You’re funny,” he said without smiling and reached out, lifting my chin so that I could look straight into his eyes, dark and deep, in the low light. “I’m just distracted by how beautiful you are next to the firelight, and the way it casts light and shadows on the curves of your body makes it hard for me to breathe, let alone laugh.” His grip moved from my chin to neck, and I smiled into his face. What I had been afraid was suspicion in his tone was actually lust, perhaps even love at this point. He gripped my neck, like the tender stalk of a mushroom, so fragile in his massive hand. He could break it with a flick of his wrist, but the deep trust I had in him to protect me rather than hurt me, coupled with the adrenaline of fear that he could easily break any part of me, sent a deep burning desire into my heart that I had honestly never felt before.
“You’ve been gone a while this time,” I mentioned, trying to cast off his desire as loneliness or distance-increasing fondness.
He nodded and sipped the tea he had made himself with my herbs. “I was. And I thought of you constantly, imagining your face and arms and legs.”
“And here I am,” I said.
“Yes, there you are, exactly as I remembered you.” I raised my eyebrows at him in a bit of disbelief. “You are so different looking. Unlike anyone else.”
“Are you getting to the compliment?” I asked, washing my underarms, ankles, and feet while he watched.
“People don’t really speak of your beauty,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh. “But you are the most interesting and the most perfectly formed and the most natural and earthly, and that’s what makes you the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You look like you grew out of that oak grove you love so much.”
I waited a moment and then finally had the courage to stare back into his ice-blue gaze. “Should I say thank you?” I asked.
“I think I should,” Aric answered, laughing heartily. He leaned forward. “It’s like lying with a wood nymph, Ailsa. You’re completely of this world and not of this world at the same time.”
I forced my long, pale fingers between his muscular tanned ones, and he squeezed a little too hard. “I want you to be mine, but I fear I can never fully possess you that way, Ailsa.”
I moved his right hand, easily the size of two of mine, to my mouth and slowly, and deliberately, kissed each finger, licking the tips with my tongue, unsure of what possessed me. I honestly felt drunk on the power.
He closed his eyes and moaned helplessly, which made quite the impression coming from such a humongous man. I climbed up onto his lap atop the hides on which he sat in the shadows by the fire and slowly lowered myself onto him, then back up and off again completely, then down once more to join his desire. He sat up straight in his chair, his bright eyes burning, and moved along with me as I rocked my hips in the hypnotic and endless circle motion that entranced us at the stones and was doing so here, in the dark of our own privacy at home. I leaned back, and my long black hair pooled on the floor. He gently gathered my hair up, twisting it on top of my head with one hand while he held my lower back with the other and stood up to his full height as he held me. I moved through midair now, supported only by Aric’s hands at the base of my back and his bulky thighs, squatted slightly to support my weight. He kissed me passionately and laid me down on the soft blanket of pelts in front of the fire, spreading my hair out all around me.
“I won’t let you do me in so easily,” he smiled, looking truly happy. Was every warrior’s heart so supple in a woman’s hands? “Now, let me show you my talents, as you’ve shown me yours.” He kissed me delicately on the mouth and moved lower over my chin and my mushroom stalk neck and downward, biting each ridge of my ribs on the left side of my body, which faced away from the fire, exposed to cold. My skin rippled with goose bumps and pleasure all over as he continued. I screamed and laughed with an overwhelming joy, and my spirit seemed to leave my body and float above us. Minutes later I woke from my trance, still by the fire with my husband, both of us in convulsions of pleasure, tangled in a living paradise with one another.
I was startled out of this ecstasy minutes later by Aric’s voice, now distant from across the roundhouse. He must have gotten up, and because I was exhausted, I hardly noticed, I thought. Then I looked over and saw his glorious form bent over the table, looking for the ripest piece of fruit in the earthenware bowl. I liked this view. His massive thighs were tanned and gave way to the most beautiful curve of white, muscular buttocks. His dark hair, gilded with streaks of auburn from endless hours in the sunlight, reached halfway down his back, having come out of his plait. He bit into something and, with his mouth still full of fruit and juice dripping down his chin, spoke again from across the roundhouse. “Come to the doorway. The full moon is magnificent. It looks enormous over the horizon.” He walked to the door and leaned against the doorjamb, pointing upward.
“Wh-what?” I stammered, suddenly coming back fully to my senses as if struck by lightning. I rose immediately from the piles of hides and furs—there were surely benefits to having a great hunter as a husband—and ran over to our doorway naked, covered in beads of sweat that dripped down from my neck, below my breasts, and in between my thighs. Aric was lifting the hide that hung from the stone lintel, and the golden light of a full moon made my damp body sparkle like stones in the riverbeds. He wrapped his arms around my waist, and I felt the coolness of his fruit juice–soaked fingers on my hips.
“I’m sure you’ve seen a full moon or two, but indeed it is glorious, and it’s all the more glorious looking on it with you.”
I was speechless. I had come to my husband’s bed without taking my wild carrot seeds, knowing the moon had been waxing all week until it reached its peak tonight, when I did, which meant I would be as ripe as the fruit Aric had just devoured. I said nothing but laid my head on his shoulder and touched my womb in hesitant manifestation of what was possible now. It had always been possible, but now it was quite likely. We are most fertile when the earth is, after all, under a full moon. “Plant a seed when it has the most light in day and night.” My father used to say. “It’s beautiful,” I finally whispered.
Some time later, in the laconic repose that only lovers can inhabit, with rapturously languid limbs covered in furs, light streaming in through the cracks of the doorway, and the sounds of the day well underway outside for many of the village folk, I opened up my heart, just a crack, like where the sunlight came streaming through the corner of the hide. Within I saw that my husband had come to know the hidden recesses of me, even as I hid them, and what I had confided in Ray was true. I loved him. Not as a wife loves a husband out of duty; I loved him for him, simply.
“I’ve spent my whole life wishing away who I was born to be,” I whispered, running a finger down the solid line and length of Aric’s arm, which was curled around me. I brushed the hair from his eyes and willed myself to keep his gaze. It is hard to look anyone in the face when you’re admitting something so vulnerable. Aric said nothing, but I felt him nod and make an understanding hum in the back of his throat. It was funny: I had seen him do this exact thing before and thought he hadn’t been listening, but now I knew he was not just listening; he was processing deeply and intuitively in his own way. I kissed his brow in silent thanks for this and continued, “It’s madness how much we try to push away who we truly are just because we are…”
I searched for the words, but Aric finished them. “Afraid of our own power?” He had elucidated my own thoughts exactly. His eyes were shiny, and his beard was damp from sweat and kisses, but his face was serious. “It’s terrifying to think that we won’t live up to it all—the expectations, the duty. I’ve felt the same way lately. It’s a paradox, really.”
“What’s the paradox, exactly?” I asked.
“The paradox of thinking that we could ever fail at what we’re born for. It’s impossible.” He said it so simply, yet I felt like I might cry at how much this touched my soul.
“If you’re afraid of being the head Druid, I don’t think you need to worry about it too much, Ailsa. Ray seems to be in good-enough health. I think he’ll stick around for a while to help you learn all you need to.” He kissed and traced the edge of my long, sharp shoulder blade with his fingertip.
I nodded and pulled away a bit. “I didn’t ever want to run away from the duty of being head Druid,” I explained as the realization came to me. “I just wanted to run from the difficulties of being myself: the consuming grief, the personal fears, all the flaws that make me feel like I’m not good enough.”
Aric reached over, placing his large hand over my wrist and hand. “Don’t turn away from yourself, Ailsa. You can’t be anybody else. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
And with that, he rolled over and went to sleep, but I was wide awake.