SHORT STORY READING - THE TIME

I gave a short story reading last night at www.internetvoicesradio.comAfter the reading, Rowena asked me where people could find a copy of that short story. Since the magazine it first appeared is long gone and the rights reverted, I figured I could post the story here and later integrate it into the website. So, for those who would like to read my short story, here it is! -- Jade



THE TIME by Jade Lee



Ache.

From shoulder to hip, my back throbbed with pain as I cracked an eye, shaking my antennae to clear the sleep from my sensor hairs.

Black night.

I rolled onto my side, sighing as the weight of my wings fell on my mate.

"Mmmphh." Dretne grumbled in the dark, ineffectively pushing at my wings with a sleepy hand. "Move, Glissa."

"Well, excuse the hell out of me." I took a deep breath, gathering my strength, then pulled my wings up and over so that I could lie on my other side.

"Fold up, will ya? It's the middle of the night." Shivering, he pulled his wings tighter about his body, wrapping himself twice in his soft underwings. "Aren't you cold?"

"I'm wet." Bitterness made me spit the words. Now I knew why my back hurt. I'd been pumping my wings open and closed in my sleep. It's the only way to keep them dry during the Time.

Why did it always come in the middle of the night? I'm too old for this.

Dretne blinked at the moonlight. "You're wet? Really?" A sly grin crept over his face. Looking around our tree home, he saw the spring leaf buds dotting the black branches. "A little early, aren't you?"

"Oh, dry up. Help me spread my wings. They're stuck." I flopped back on my stomach, my wings a thin, wet line straight up in the air.

"With pleasure," he purred. The moon illuminated his form as he unfolded his wings, stretching them almost to the next branch. He flexed his pectoral muscles and tightened his thighs, showing off for me.

His desire was full, already pulsing with eagerness.

"Nevermind." Wincing at the pain, I jerked my wings apart. One wing flapped Dretne in the face, spreading sticky pheromone covered fluid over his sensor hairs.

"Ummmm," he sighed, cleaning his antennae like a cat licking up cream. "I love spring."

"No. No way. Not. Never. NO." I backed away from him, my antennae twitching in defiance.

He froze mid flex, his chest deflating in stunned surprise. "Whadda you mean, `no'?"

"I mean not this time. We've got enough kids. Half the whole forest's related to us. I don't want to."

"Don't what to what?"

I swore under my breath. Pheromones make them so stupid.

"No kids. No staying awake all night to make sure they're on their branches. No middle of the night stomach cramps or baby nightmares. No spinning each cocoon till my jaws burn. Not this summer. Not this year. I want it to be just us."

"No kids?" He blinked, comprehension slipping past the hormone-induced haze.

"No kids."

Dretne fell back onto his sleep perch, dismay making his wings droop in a clumsy fold. "No...," he waved an antennae at my back, "... you know."

"Definitely not." I closed my wings as much as I dared.

Dretne looked around at our neighbors in the nearby trees. I was a signed female whose scent developed for Dretne alone during our first spring. But his signature was not enough to keep the primal urge from other males. Already the wind had carried my scent through the neighborhood, teasing the dreams of sleeping couples. We could see male antennae quivering, their bodies moving restlessly, their wings pumping in the starlight. More than one wife would be mounted tonight, even if it wasn't her Time.

"They'll think something's wrong with me." His voice was plaintive like a child begging for milk.

I backed away further, making sure the wind took the worst of my scent away from him. "I don't care. No kids."

"Okay." He sidled over to me, his antennae reaching for mine. "If that's what you really want." His voice was a low throb in the night, and I felt my body begin to pulse to his rhythm.

"Dretne, please."

"Please what, sweetheart?"

I gasped as the fine hair of his antennae connected with mine. His touch was like liquid heat that burned through my body. He was close enough to trail his hand down my side in a long, luxurious stroke. His fingers paused by my breast, caressing in the most erotic movements.

The pain in my back was forgotten. Suddenly, I wanted more weight, his weight, on top of me. I wanted him in me.

A cold wind blew through the near bare branches, pulling our wings with it, straining my back which sent bolts of agony through my shoulders. Still, I thanked winter's last kiss since it brought enough pain to clear my head.

"NO, DRETNE!" The anger in my voice was enough to stop his hand. I saw his mind clear in the way his eyes widened and his wings compressed.

"I don't understand you, Glissa. What will you do this summer without children?"

My laugh was tinny with hysteria. "What'll I do? I'll sleep! I'll fly on the summer wind, dance in the flowers, bake my wings in the sun."

My words didn't deter him. In fact, the image of my sleek body glistening in the morning dew produced the opposite effect. I watched his desire grow, and it gave me an idea.

"Dretne, we can make love all summer long. Whenever we want. I won't be too tired. You won't be teaching the children how to fly. We'll be ALONE. ALL SUMMER."

This made an impression. His eyes grew soft as he remembered the days before my first Time when we were young lovers, mature in all ways except fertility. Then a capricious crosswind blew my scent past him, and his eyes clouded with primal desire.

The wind also blew back his wings so that I saw the moisture gathering in the soft fur that covered his chest.

His scent had begun, signature designed for me. And I was downwind.

"I want you now." His voice was thick and low.

"After my Time," I begged, fighting the urge to lick my lips, imagining the taste of his moisture, the feel of his body.

"That's a day away," he cried, slowly inching towards me on the branch.

I inched away, shifting onto a branch that took me out of his wind. "Please, Dretne. I've been a good wife. A good mother. Give me this summer. PLEASE."

Dretne was probably the only male of the Bt'fae that would have heard my cries through the haze the Time produces. I was very lucky to have mated with him.

He sat down, pulling at his bottom wing fob in his sulks. "Oh, all right. Fly away if you don't want me."

I ignored the hurt in his voice. I'd have all summer to soothe his ego.

"Go. Go on!" He turned his back on me, giving me a full view of his wings drooping all the way to the perch.

"You know I can't." The wetness on my wings made them heavy and difficult to move. But even if I could fly, I wouldn't leave. With Dretne nearby, I had some safety against the young, unsigned Bt'fae. They wouldn't approach if the signature male was nearby.

"We won't make it," he warned, reason showing through his fit of peeve.

"We will. Just until tomorrow night, the next dawn at the latest." In my heart, I quailed at the long stretch of time before us. "We'll make it."

"Hrrumph," he grunted. "Just stay downwind."

#

Dawn colored the leaf buds in rose and illuminated the wings of the unsigned males that had come to our tree, their many bodies dotting the branches with brilliant colors. It was early in spring, and there were many more than I expected. More and more every minute.

In a way, I was grateful since they occupied Dretne. While their minds, or what was left of their minds, filled with only me, Dretne remained battle ready, hissing and spitting when one came too close. It was exhausting for him to fight both them and himself, and I wished with all my heart that I could end the nightmare.

By high noon an Elder arrived, carefully placing himself upwind. He spoke to me, knowing that Dretne was too occupied with the young males.

"Glissa, has Dretne suffered some ailment?" His voice was sympathetic, although even he showed signs of strain, his antennae twitching with desire.

"No ailment, Elder. We don't want children this summer."

He almost fell off his perch in surprise. "No children! Sacrilege!"

I arched my back in irritation, but stopped the moment I heard the wave of lust race through the ranks of males. I consciously lowered my back, clenching my fists in determination.

"There is no law against denial, Elder. It's our choice."

"It's against nature. Children continue our species. They're ... They're ... important." My proximity was eating as his focus.

"I hardly think our species is in danger," I snapped, glancing scornfully at the males covering our tree branches. There were so many that I feared for the new leaf buds.

"The Time is a gift ... A gift from ... the gods."

I didn't answer except to spit acid at his feet. Although I'd never do such a thing normally, a woman in her Time was allowed many things. Especially a frustrated woman.

The Elder didn't flinch, even when my spit burned the branch under his feet. His eyes stared at the slow beating of my wings, and I knew that soon he would be lost. Sometimes the widowed males were the first to succumb to the Time lust.

"Elder. ELDER!"

The Elder took a step forward, and Dretne was forced to spit burn his legs. The pain broke the haze long enough for the Elder to pull himself into the air, his wings spread magnificently behind him in the bright sunlight. "You won't last," he sneered. "Do it now before you disrupt the entire forest."

Then he was gone, flying upwind, away from me, away from the shame of coveting a married woman.

#

By late afternoon, we had indeed disrupted the entire Bt'fae community. There was no inch of our tree not covered by males. I no longer feared Dretne. He was too exhausted from fighting.

I prayed that he could hold out. If he fell, I would be crushed under the weight of hundreds of Bt'fae trying to mount me at once.

The women were here too. Some of the unsigned females, the unfertile ones, took advantage of the sex starved males, enticing them away, easing their pain, but not their desire. Most just made cat calls and jibes from the nearby trees. They called me a witch and talked about insanity in my family.

I would have my revenge later, I told myself. When they were crippled from the birthing pains or exhausted from nursing the newborns, I would be bathing in the morning dew, dancing in the sun drenched sky, or lying with Dretne in our cool, leafy bower. I held on to those images, trying to ignore the throb of desire whenever Dretne moved nearby. The battle fire in his eyes, the feral growl as he prowled around me, left me burning with need.

My eyes drank in his magnificent torso and breathtaking wingspan. Recent fights had left his body splattered with blood and open wounds. One of his wings was ripped by a too young male without control. And his bristling sensor hairs were now uneven, pieces broken or torn away. But even with these battle scars, he was beautiful. More achingly beautiful than I'd ever seen.

I wanted him so.

We were careful not to touch. He didn't even look at me. He knew the desire burning in my eyes would be too much for him, and we would couple in a frenzy like the lowest beasts, growling in passion, drenched in the wetness the Time produces.

I shook my head to clear it and prayed for a cool breeze to dry my slick body.

#

The sun was setting. Its red fire glinted off the hundreds of desperate eyes that surrounded me, desired me, hungered for me.

My body dripped so that its moisture pooled below me before falling to the earth. Dretne allowed no Bt'fae males on the branches below me. If one were to be touched by my wetness, there would be no stopping him. Dretne would die under the touched one's onslaught, and I would be dangerously injured in the rape that followed.

I wanted to give in. My body pulsed with each breath that rasped through Dretne's lungs. I panted, straining with every muscle to bring him to me, yet unable to move from my sticky perch.

The hunger was so strong, I feared for my sanity.

Yet Dretne stayed outside of reach, taut with battle fire, constantly fighting away the males that encroached a little further with each failing ray of sunlight.

I looked at Dretne's blood as it dripped down his arms.

We wouldn't survive the night.

#

Pain.

The beat of my wings, the throb in my shoulders, the cramp of my legs, all was indistinguishable from another. I was liquid fire.

Pain.

Agony that was itself burning and burned.

Pain.

Would no one save me from this hell?

#

Pit. Pat. Pitter, pit. Pitpatter, pit, pitpit.

The raindrops fell on my wings, cleansing my body, washing my perch. I raised my face to the wetness that was without scent...

And sighed. Clean rain falling faster and faster.

In the hissing torchlight, I saw eyes blink and shake and finally clear.

The rain washed the air, diluting my scent into nothingness. One by one the males that weighed down my tree timidly spread their wings and glided away, both hiding from the rain and seeking out isolated drops to cleanse their sensors and cool their fevered bodies.

One by one they left until there was only Dretne and me. He too relaxed in the rain, letting the water douse his battle fire and clean the taste of acid from his spit.

He looked at me and smiled.

It was almost over.

Almost.

Dretne's smile faded. Without the need to protect me, his desire grew, and his wet scent began to flow again.

How could I reject the man who spent the day risking his life for mine? How could I turn away the lover who fought the haze at my request? We were so close to the end, and yet I'd never wanted him more. In a day tense with suppressed desire and danger, I'd allowed my guard to slip.

He was my friend and my lover.

He was my mate, my signature love.

We touched sensors.

The hairs prickled and sent lightning through my body.

Our antennae entwined.

Even in the rain I could smell his scent.

In the rain, he would slide so easily into my body.

Wait, I begged him silently.

A moment more. A moment more. A moment more.

We stared into each others' eyes, silently begging, straining to touch, but rigid with restraint.

Minutes upon hours upon years upon eons.

We didn't move.

And the rain fell.

And my Time passed.

I felt the eggs die one by one within me.

For a moment, I mourned the children that might have been, the life we chose not to bestow.

Then I remembered the summer to come, the sun-drenched days and moontipped nights.

I smiled.

My body relaxed, and I lazily curled an antennae around Dretne's forehead, my fingers teasing his lips.

"It's over love. Come to me."

His smile rivaled the moon in its brightness. He flexed, then relaxed, stretching forward on our perch to caress my face.

"It was worth it," he whispered, his soft breath stirring the wetness on my wings.

In the dark night just past winter, in the dark night when the leaves had yet to break through their buds, in the dark night of our tree, the summer began.

OUR summer began.