Joining

There was something about him that didn't seem right. Like the night somehow changed his features, or like she was looking at a brother, and not the man himself. But the dissonance wasn't enough to stop her from leaving the protection of the trees and going to the base of the path up the hill. Fenn turned his head like an owl to follow her on her way. She hesitated again before she stepped onto the path, aware that once was a mistake and twice was a much graver sin. Foolish passion couldn't carry them for three days. In fact that had been exactly the reason Rachel had chosen this day, and this place, so that their decision would be made of their own volition and intent. Though she had lied to them to make their feelings tangible, she couldn't **** them to feel something completely alien without destroying them entirely.

She took the step. And barely any time seemed to pass before she joined Fenn up on the higher plain. The man was awestruck by her, the way she had combed her hair to impress him even under such conditions, and the simple dress she wore. Nonetheless, she seemed to him a beauty like none other. And though she was better able to conceal her feelings, Lila thought just the same of him. He was everything her husband wasn't. Young and quick with his hands. Handsome, with a face carved from a myth. A head full of thick hair to match his beard and the carpet covering his chest. And most of all, desire: not for sex or for satisfaction, but for her.

He took a step closer, and then so did she. What were they to say? "I came as you asked"? No, because they knew they weren't coming to obey another's demand, but out of their own free will. To have more of what each of them shared unknowingly with Rachel days before.

Having seen it through her pool, Rachel threw back her head in relief. It was over. They belonged to her, now and forever, and all because they thought they belonged to each other. Now all that was left was to see it through to the end. She set her hands on either edge of the pedestal and peered back into the world. There was nothing better than the catharsis of seeing your labor bear fruit.

Not knowing what to say, Lila didn't say anything. She went up to Fenn and kissed him. Keeping her hands to herself, the torn heart inside her thought that she could maintain her standing with the gods. If the faith that ruled the outer world were the only one, this would have been preposterous. But by doing so she entered into communion with something older, deeper, and more powerful. Fenn kissed her back. He was clumsier and less confident than he'd been the night she thought had been their first rendezvous, but the feeling of his body against hers was unmistakeable. Carefully and slowly, almost awkwardly, they came together.

The days apart had intensified their lusts. Twice since Lila had been with Rachel in the forest, her husband had initiated sex with her, and both times the act reminded her how much more she'd enjoyed Fenn's body. Fenn, crammed into a hovel with far too many other young men, hadn't had the privacy to relieve himself. They touched each other like virgins, but and with the same enthusiasm of virgins, the sense that they were finally to receive something that had been promised to them long ago. Fenn climbed on top of her and she pulled up her dress to allow him access to her.

He was too embarrassed to look her in the eye as he slid inside her. That was all well and good, because she shut her eyes and lay back on the plain. The actual feeling of fullness was a thousand times better than the memory of it, though this time Fenn was more jittery, and his first thrusts less sure. They writhed together like two sides of one tentacular beast.

The pleasure that shot through them flew far, into Rachel's sanctum and her body, but the lovers were none the lesser for it. Rachel was instead a conduit for their rapture, intensifying it before it passed on to the other soul on the hill. To Lila and Fenn it felt like they understood each other better than any person they'd ever known: the gods had chosen them to be together, and here, and in this moment. In a sense they were right. Rachel touched herself as she looked down on her dolls, intoxicated by promise as much as sensation.

Fenn wasn't strong enough to hold himself back for very long. But when he came, only a few minutes after they'd started, Lila wasn't the slightest bit disappointed. They lay together skin to skin, one body, as humanity had been in the time before time, and knew that they would never truly be parted.