1.
There’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

Three thousand miles away, B could imagine her older sister’s pout.

“You just don’t understand, B. The project’s overwhelming,” Kerry moaned through the speaker phone.

According to Kerry Stark’s Seismic Crisis Rating System, her own minor calamities ranked higher than anyone else’s genuine disasters.

B rubbed her rounding belly. Twins. What could she possibly have done to deserve twins?

Kerry continued babbling. “Can you believe it? I mean, what kind of moron would finish all the ceiling tiles before wiring in the recessed lights? It’s a total catastrophe. And he can’t understand why I’m angry,” she huffed.

“Maybe you should try learning French,” B suggested dully. They’d been through this many times before.

“I do speak French.”

“No, Kerry. You know a few French words and phrases. It’s not the same as speaking the language.”

“Most of the time I get along fine. How many non-native speakers would know how to say please complete the wiring before plastering the ceiling?”

“Veuillez accomplir le câblage avant de plâtrer le plafond.”

“Of course you would.” Kerry snickered. “But it does seem a bit esoteric don’t you think.”

“Not if you’re being paid to oversee a remodeling project in Brittany.”

B suspected being terse was the only thing short of bursting into tears that might force Kerry to recognize her troubled tone.

“What’s the matter with you?” Kerry asked somewhat resentfully.

“I’m a little overwhelmed myself.”

“Oh, don’t even start. You’re not going to have any trouble finding a tenure track position. If you’re fishing for compliments, try Dad.”

B was silent.

“B?” Kerry prompted, a note of concern edging into her no-nonsense voice.

I’m pregnant. Two simple words. Or at least one word and a contraction. All she had to do was say them. But she couldn’t.

“B?”

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Look,” B replied, doing her best to sound cool and collected. “It’s kinda a long story and it would probably be better if we talked about it in person.” B relished the worried silence emanating from the phone. Stringing Kerry along gave her a perverse thrill.

“I have time right now,” Kerry prompted.

“Yeah, but I still have to grade exams, post the scores and finish packing before my flight this evening.” B sighed inwardly. There really was a lot to do before she whisked back to the UK for a family visit. “Listen, what I need you to do is pick me up, yeah?” (God, she wasn’t even there yet and already the linguistic nuances were creeping back in.)

“Well duh? Did you think we’d just leave you at Terminal 5?”

No British nuance there. Apparently now that Kerry was a bona fide resident of the EU she’d given up on being hopelessly British and embraced her birthright American self.

“No, Kerry I mean you explicitly.” B’s voice was grave. “Not Christian and the girls. Not Martin. And definitely not Mom or Dad. Just you.”

“Absolutely.” Kerry couldn’t hide the curiosity in her voice. “What time do you land?”

“10:05 am.”

“I’ll be there.”

B sighed again. It would take Kerry two hours to drive from Underhill Farm in the Wye Valley to Heathrow—without any tail-backs. (She was doing it again.) And punctuality had never been Kerry’s strong suit. Nor was getting out of bed before eight in the morning. B realized she’d be lucky to see her older sister before noon. Then again maybe not. Kerry’s growing interest was obvious.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kerry asked with a note of concern.

B squeezed her eyes shut to blink back tears her sister couldn’t see anyway. Perhaps tomorrow would be one of those fabulous but fleeting times when Kerry managed to rise to the occasion. “I’m basically fine,” she said, surprised by how convincing her voice sounded. “Talk to you tomorrow.”

“If you’re sure…”

“I am.” Now B felt guilty. “But thanks.”

“Alright, sweety. Have a safe trip.”

B clicked off the phone and sank back into the cool leather of her second-hand sofa and stroked her blossoming belly. It had all happened right there. They hadn’t even made it to the bedroom. Without shifting her position B reached for the mouse and clicked the playlist icon on her laptop. The electronic tinkle gave her a chill, even if the computer’s speakers sucked. She closed her eyes, losing herself in the déjà vu elicited with each note. His fingers on her bare skin. The way his eyes lingered on her lithe figure. An electric pulse as they kissed.

My tired eyes, like lonely stars. Try to find, a little chaos in the order. This is what you do to me.

He’d always been a music aficionado—anything cool or cutting edge, he had it. “Anti Atlas,” he’d told her, “is great music to paint to.” Painting had become his passion. “These tunes get the creative juices flowing.”
That comment turned out to be one huge-fucking understatement.
It’s a shayme…I just thought you should know…

The melancholy voice singing from inside the black box returned B to her memories. His breath in her ear. Her hands pulling him closer. The way she stood in front of him, undoing each button like some shy, first-time stripper…

B sat up. What the hell had she been thinking? (And was that question in reference to the sex or to reliving it time and time again?)
Both needed to be addressed. Actually doing it wasn’t so difficult to explain. It had been a long, long time since B’d had anything remotely resembling a hook-up. And even longer since she’s had a real relationship. Little wonder that when an opportunity presented itself she’d seized it.

But with him? A friend. A real friend. A guy she’d known for years. One who was virtually part of the family? Why couldn’t she have picked up some stranger at a bar like a normal person? (‘Cause that would be too simple.)

“Just pretend it’s simple,” B thought. “They’ll never know the difference.”
****
B stepped onto Heathrow’s tarmac in a comfy pair of charcoal boot-leg stretch pants, a baggy off-white tank and a slimming black oversized Anthropologie cardigan. Thanks to the cool English mist she needed the cardigan, despite the fact that it was late May. Back in Ithaca she’d been living in tank-tops and shorts for the past several weeks, a fact that had made her very familiar with her new bumpy figure. She glanced at herself in the reflected glass of the arrivals corridor. The woman looking back cried stylish, grown-up, simple. Pregnant was definitely not the first thing someone would notice about her. B tossed her long blonde mane over her shoulder, pleased that her choice of outfits hid her swelling baby bump so well and strode toward security.

As she walked she perfected the arguments she’d been practicing throughout the flight. “It was just one of those things,” she heard her most professional voice explaining. “No, mother, there isn’t any way to contact the baby’s father.” B reminded herself to ignore her brother Christian’s gaze when that lie emerged. She could imagine his shock at the idea of his baby sister one-night-standing with some guy so much a stranger that even his last name and cell number were a mystery to her.

And to Martin, the oldest of the Stark children, sitting quietly while he searched her words and expressions for some clue indicating what she truly felt, B would tell the truth — “Don’t worry about me, big bro. I’m really excited to be a mother.”
Simple, she thought as she waited in line at customs. It was a total fiction, but a simple one.

It will not be long now before the waters break. New life moving from belly to breast. When the moment comes, sweet mother-to-be, remember the dance. Embrace desire. Press yourself against your lover, grind your hips to his, pull his fingers to your skin and let them play. Creation is creation. And you have made partners of each other, so dance.

Anyway, something old: Yesterday my story Gravity went live at Camroc Press Review. Barry Basden, Camroc’s editor, very kindly reprinted this one, which originally appeared in Media Virus last March. I kinda like the multiple publication thing!

And something new: or at least newish. One of my favorite recent pieces, Refraction, found a home at The Camel Saloon just before the holidays. As if that wasn’t wonderful enough, it was also chosen as an Editor’s favorite so it’s been republished in The Second Hump Volume II.

Currently I have approximately 4 different pieces open on my computer. (How many different stories can I work on at once? Don’t ask. Really, you don’t want to know.) But one title in particular has captured my imagination: Ode To A Pregnant Woman Dancing In The New Year With Her Lover. Hopefully this one will come together…

So here’s my vow to be better. (Notice the lack of the word “try” in that statement? As the yogi in Mysore says, “There is no try, there is only do.”) For the present I’ll keep the place tidy and up-to-date. And I’ll make a point of writing stuff so that there is something to post. Not everyday. Probably not even every week. But a few times a month. Definitely!! I promise.

A few days ago I decided to send two works off to one of my favorite journals. Sure it’s not new and different, but quality is quality and a home at The Camel Saloon is always an honor. Admittedly I was a bit surprised when Russell (barkeep at the Saloon and poet extraordinaire) replied to my sub by asking if I would mind if he forwarded one of the poems to the editor of a different journal. But I trust Russell. And it only took a quick look to see that poetsdemocracy is the real deal.

Which brings me back to serendipity. As of last evening my poem cold feet found a place alongside amazing poet Zaina Anwar at poets democracy. Thanks to Russell I got my wish of finding a new journal. And many thanks to Christi Kochifos Caceres for liking my work and publishing it!!

This tale is timeless. It’s about truth. And doing the wrong things for the right reasons. I could be you, except that I am a goddess on my mother’s side. My father, Nairi, ruled Penthia; so I am  a princess as well. Apart from that, my story is not so strange. Not cloaked so deeply in the mists of time that those of you who prefer modernism to historical fiction should  snap the book shut here, tossing it in disgust onto a shelf littered with other tales that did not quite meet your criteria—this one moved too slowly, that one requiring too much effort, here too many adverbs, there too many characters.
My father taught me the power of words when I was very young. Not the words of incantations, like those Siran would use throughout her life. Not the words of negotiators and diplomats, that too often legitimize pillaging and theft. Not the words of praise sung to the Divine Ones in their golden mountain halls. Nairi taught me the power of stories. And through his stories I learned that truth flickers and changes like light on moving water. I lived in a palace of gradation and degree while the rest of the world embraced reality as duotone.

Jima stares into the stone wall, his expression impassive “You want me to take the children?”
A single tear leaks from my eye. Jima’s rough finger brushes it away.

“It’s impossible for me to keep them…,” I say turning my face from him.” They would give themselves away. To have them here would be their death sentence. Please…”

I feel his stare . “ They could be yours,” I whisper.

He laughs, cold and aloof, hiding the merest hint of vulnerability. “The girls were conceived in my absence Ani. And Priam is the very likeness of Mithri…”

That leaves Yervent and Hectri. Oldest and youngest. The wind whips my amber hair across my face. If I tell him that either boy is his, he will  believe. He is desperate to hear it. Once again I find myself yearning for this truth. Something to bind us together. One child, as proof through the passage of time that our love existed.

It would be such a simple lie. So easy. So joyous. The words race to my tongue where they turn to ash, making my mouth dry and unpleasant.

“I did not say they were yours,” I reply, meeting his gaze.

A flicker of pain passes across his brow and lips, resting in the set of his jaw, before he is able to speak again.

“Siran will join me? The children think of her as their surrogate mother.”

I  nod. Relief  floods my cheeks with tears.

“And I must take them because Mithri is staying?” he adds, comprehending what I have left unspoken. “It is a terrible risk. If Gomer learns who he really is…”

Jima’s respect for my husband is palpable. He is connected to both of us. I know this. Know that he will take my children to safety as much for Mithri as for me. I despise him for it.

I could not tell you when I first met Jima. We were palace children together; racing up and down hallways, swimming in fountains, studying under the stern direction of the scholars. Somewhere in the far reaches of my memory the image of our first meeting must exist, but like so many everyday occurrences, it cannot be coaxed out.  The same is not true of my first meeting with Mithri.

It is like I met Jima twice. The first occasion means nothing. We met. Through the years we spoke; naturally as cousins and with as much indifference. Thoughts of the other inspired neither delight or disgust. Out of proximity a friendship grew. A friendship that led us one afternoon, away from the reproachful glances of our instructors, to the youthful sanctuary of a deserted amphitheater and the promise of an afternoon staring into the sky and discussing thoughts all our own. There, with my toes tickling the weeds erupting from the cracks in the cobbles, I met him for the first time.

Nairi, my father, was a learned man. In ages past, he would have been venerated for his gentle wisdom and perceptive nature. But by my birth, gentle had fallen victim to abrading, cunning was preferable to wisdom and those that recognized truth, in it’s many iterations, were to be silenced. My mother mistook Nairi’s peaceful nature for weakness; as did many others including the invading Barbors. It’s fitting that my mother should have died battling a people whose ethical decay equaled her own.

My parents had many children. But only two together. Siran and I. The priestess and the goddess—abandoned by Anahita, Lady of the Water, Mother of All Things, our birthmother; who, despising her own mortality played her part as goddess to perfection, leaving her daughters to the tender upbringing of the Good King. By the end of his life that moniker had become one of derision. There was no place for a Good King in the world  in which we lived.

“You were right about Voski. She came to me two nights ago.”

We are both seventeen, with little other than our studies and Penthian night life to occupy our time or minds. Jima twirls a blade of grass between his thumb and forefinger as I turn my face from the sun to look at him. I have heard both sides of this doomed affair before.

I sigh. “And now she thinks you love her again.”

“I’ve told her that I will never love her.”

“Again and again.” I laugh at the absurdity. “First you tell her that you will never love her, and then you offer her a place in your bed—no wonder she is confused, Jima.”

“There is a difference between sex and love.”

“I know that… but there are a dozen other girls in the palace—ones who are not lovesick at the slightest glance from you—Voski’s heart breaks every time you’re together. She’s convinced your eyes are more honest than your words.”

“This time she knows I do not love her, Ani. I sent her away unrequited. She hates me now.”

His resignation is tinged with relief.

I’m struck, as I peer into those dark mirrors he calls eyes, that Voski is right. Some people are incapable of saying the things that mean the most, as if they think converting their feelings to words will diminish their potency.

It was then I first met him. First endured his passion, as unassailable as the sea. Jima ruled it, this passion that did not batter his soul or fling him from moments of ecstasy to wild fits of melancholy. He embraced it. He used  it like the hash taken by priestesses for clarity, to drive his ambitions and give him strength.

“Why? After all this time, why now?” I ask aloud.

My heart races. I know the answer. I can see it in those eyes.

“Because Voski’s sorrow troubles you,” are the words. But the eyes speak of love beyond reason. I am consumed by it, this love that seizes me without warning. That fills and empties me all at once.

His hand clasped mine and nothing was ever the same again. Nothing.

Siran flings herself across the bottom of the bed, her head rolling off the edge in exasperation.

I disregard her antics. “Nothing you can say will make me change my mind!”

She flings a pillow and it sails past my ear. “Ani, why do you insist on making things so difficult? The fertility rites are Anahita’s most important duty. The priests didn’t chose your partner at random. The signs indicate that this union will benefit all of Penthia, all of your people. “

“I’m a fifteen years old, Siran. I don’t have a people.”

Siran sits up and turns her critical dark eyes on me. “Tell the truth. You’re only opposed to their choice because you dislike Mithri.”

“He’s intolerable.”

“I thought so,” my sister smirks.

“It’s not just me… think of Father. The nobles from Keruish have been undermining him at the council. Forcing me to bed with one of them, it only adds to the humiliation.”

“Mithri is very fond of our father. He came to Penthia to be educated under his instruction. This isn’t about politics, Ani. It’s about fate.”

“I don’t have a fate. I’m a goddess, remember.”

“I’m well aware of what you are. It’s you who needs to accept it.”

“Accept that I’m a goddess? I’m no more divine than the serving girl who brought our wine. And I’m less gifted than you—a healer and seer.  Maybe you’re the goddess.”

“Anahita is the first daughter.”

“Isn’t it convenient that divinity subscribes to matrilineal primogeniture? Just imagine the hassle if after one manifestation of the goddess-on-earth died, the next one had to prove themselves by, oh I don’t know, maybe performing a miracle or something.”

Siran grins in spite of herself, but it passes quickly, dissolving into a far more somber expression. “You will perform miracles, before all is finished, my sister. One will  continue through millennia.”

The later years of my reign were the most opulent.  By then it was difficult to distinguish the Barbors from the rest of us. While the bureaucrats and clergy patted themselves on the back for effectively assimilating the enemy, the Barbors twisted and manipulated our ways until they read like words reflected in a mirror. The Houses of the Lady suffered first.

I waited for my first blood with an unbearable impatience, its absence keeping me from the pleasures I desired most. But desire does not engender reality, and I, goddess or no, could not force the crimson flow. Just before my thirteenth birthday, I retired to my room early one evening, inexplicably tired and with a growing discomfort in my abdomen. By morning, it was clear that I had finally passed from child to woman and a my nursemaid, alight with pride and excitement led me to the Houses of the Lady.

There is no place in all the world like the Houses as they existed in my youth. The gleaming corridors, the flower gardens, the scented bath;, I will miss them far more than the palace halls or hanging gardens.  Woman of every age and class, freed for a time from the obligations of children and husbands, of housework or society; left to their own devices, renewing themselves through song, prayer, sleep and conversation.

“Come here, girl.”
******************

Jima and I stand together on the palace walls, watching dark smoke billowing in the distance.

“I  will not  whore for the Cymeri for long. Once you have led the others to The Hidden City, Mithri and I will follow.” I swallow hard. “If…”

I cannot say the words. Beside me, Jima’s face is set and grim.

“You will escape, Ani. Mithri will never fail.”

He did not. Some six weeks after the Cymeri took my city, six weeks filled with carnage and destruction, Mithri and I slipped down the secret tunnels to our waiting horses and rode across the plains to the mountains, and what was left of our people.

“Siran’s  prophecies state that the city will stay hidden for centuries before rising to greatness under a wise and ancient king. You, Jima, are to be that king.” I smile and lean forward to kiss him, half hoping that the familiar electricity of his touch will be gone. Our skin tingles as he jerks away.

“Do you have greater faith in me than in Mithri—that you choose me as king over him. Or do you love me less.”

They are words flung like stones, condemning me in either case.

He turns from me and strides across the babbling brook toward the cave’s mouth. Holding my golden ring on the palm of his hand he chants words Siran has taught him; words that will preserve them from the ensuing chaos of an ending world.

Only Anahita, Immaculate One, Lady of Water,  can cross this line. Moving forward I grasp his hands, taken aback once again at the instant desire his touch awakens. I long to fall into his arms one last time,  but know I can not ask that of him.

“I’ve wished that I could stop loving you. That I did not want to love you. I’ve emptied many glasses  in the effort to forget. I’ve dreamed of children that might have been and convinced myself that your thoughts of me amount to nothing more than lust…”

Jima’s hand twitches in mine, but he remains wordless.

“I do not expect you to understand. But I  have yearned for you to love me. Caught in the stream of my desire, half believing that you do, half terrified that I loved alone; I waited for you to utter the words, because for me words are reality.”

He kisses me.  An abrupt embrace, stopping both  words and breath; as if that last kiss can fill him with enough of me to endure the eternity we will spend apart.

“That will never happen again,” his voice is pinched and fierce.

“My love for you is not less,” I say  pulling away , backing across the crystal clear water, leaving the magical circle.  “But I stand committed to a love that came before you and the fact that I adore you , is but one of my truths. These words are yours.”

****

“I hope stopping by won’t cause you any further hassle,” she says softly, as if lower volume on her part will improve the situation. She stares past him, out the window at crisp white fields glinting in stark winter sun.

“No,” he says. “I’m glad you did.”

She can hear the smile on his lips and exhales in relief.  A little faith restored, Reyna looks at him.

“Well,” she begins, feeling calmer, “I’ve been thinking about what you said—about May reading our emails, then checking your phone and assuming the worst.”

He lets out a long sigh. “Yeah…”

“Even though we’ve never said or done anything…” She weighs various words before settling. “Inappropriate.”

“No we haven’t,” Gwinn agrees. “And I told May that.”

“But what I’ve been wondering.” Reyna pauses again before deciding to charge artlessly forward. “What I want to know is why.”

“Why we haven’t ever done anything,” his voice snags, “inappropriate?”

She giggles and they exchange a grin. Reyna wants to know that too, but it can wait. “No, what made May decided to check up on you.”

Silence, followed by his thoughtful voice. “I don’t know. Maybe she always has, but this is the first time she found anything suspicious, so she’s never had a reason to confront me before.”

“Could she have gotten away with that kind of spying without you noticing?”

He doesn’t answer.

Reyna continues. “I don’t think your wife usually reads your email or regularly swipes your phone to check your texting.”

“No?”

“No. And that suggests…” She stops, unsure if she really wants to know what comes next.

“May says she looked because I’ve been acting differently.”

Gwinn stares at Reyna, but fails to elucidate further. His quiet roars in her ears.

Waiting seems unbearable. “Have you?” she asks.

“You are nearly always on my mind.”

Reyna gazes at Gwinn, allowing herself to see what’s been there all along, perhaps from the first moment they met.

“So you have been acting differently, thinking of me.” She fails to disguise her pleasure at this revelation. “And that’s what made May suspicious. But what does that mean… about…us. Our friendship?”

Gwinn shrugs; a huge boyish smile brings the laugh lines around his eyes to life. Reyna focuses on them trying to ignore the hazel flecked wells where a fierce desire, not at all boyish, burns.

“I should probably go—that’s a dangerous look in your eyes,” she says intending to step away. But she remains motionless, captivated.

“I’m sure it is.”

His grin widens. He moves closer. Reyna feels an electric thrill run through her.  She searches for something light or playful to say or do, anything to break the force pulling them past the clear boundaries of platonic interest they’ve been clinging to. She finds nothing.

She laughs. “Seems I’m having trouble doing the sensible thing.” The sound is sensual and childlike all at once.

Gwinn nods. “Me to.”

And then he’s kissing her.

~Tom Stoppard