“Always he proveth his virtue, but he showeth the lady no faith,” the black knight said. I startled to hear him, for ere that night he spake to me only when I was in the joust.

Gawen and Hildegard discorded over his meaning, and argued til the Witch made them silent.

“Sooth,” she said. “The lady hath proved her trust in thee, but thou givest not of thine own trust.”

“Nay. I trust her.”

“By thy word, not thy deed,” the black knight said. “Many things binden two. Love, fear, a common enemy. Ye two haven not these things. If ye would be bound, it must be with trust.”

“And ye would tell the boy to build trust with fornication?” Hildegard said.

“Trust is built as a tower is built. One stone upon another,” the Witch said. “The lady hath laid her stone. Thou must lay thine atop it.”

“Gentry?” ’Twas Lady Zhorzha, and I knew not how long she said my name and I heard her not. “Are you okay?”

“Yea, my lady.” I laid my stone. “If thou consentest, I would kiss thee.”

“Yes, you can kiss me.”

Many times had I dreamt she might come to be there within my pavilion, under my protection, but I never imagined it thus. She lay upon the bed, waiting to receive me. Where the fire bird touched her not, her legs weren white as cream, and the flesh of her arms was not yet scaled like her mother’s.

“If thou givest thy heart in fire, thou shalt not fail her when the time comes,” the Witch said.

I was drawn tight as a bow when I leant down over Lady Zhorzha and pressed my lips to hers. We kissed us. Soft at first and then with great heat.

“You can touch me,” she said.

“Where?” ’Twas only half in jest, but she laughed.

“Wherever you want.”

Through the fabric of her chemise, her breasts weren round and cool as river rock, but warmed to my hand. I pressed my lips to her throat, where the sun had kissed her before me.

She laid her hand upon my neck, and I retreated, for ’twas always thus with me. My armor stripped away, and my skin with it, til I was raw and atremble.

I braced for her curses, but she said, “It’s okay. You can say stop, if you want to stop. Or wait, if you want to wait.”

She rose upon one elbow, and her other hand made to cover her legs. Quick as the phoenix was hidden, I longed to see it again. I returned to her and lifted her chemise that I might lay my hand upon her bare thigh. When I was not burned, I made my pilgrimage. From her thigh to her broad hip, and from thence to her belly and again to her bosom, drawing alongside her chemise so that she was naked neath my hand. Ere I could falter or quail, I kissed her mouth, her throat, and at last her breast.

She gave a great sigh of surprise but chastened me not.

Soon enough, I lost my armor, and everywhere our skin touched was like fire to me. I drew back that I might gather some maille about me for protection. Tho I set my nails upon my shoulders, ’twas some time ere I lost my unrestfulness. She sat up before me and waited, her hair all fire about her shoulders.

“More?” she said.

From the black knight’s words, I had prepared myself that swiving was akin to fighting. ’Twas not. Never would I ask quarter of another knight, but I asked it of Lady Zhorzha again and again. Each time, she me granted mercy.

CHAPTER 26

Zee

   I thought he was only going to kiss me, so when he touched my breasts, I was about as shocked as he must have been that day in the physical therapy clinic parking lot. There I was thinking we’d go slow and figure things out, but the time from kissing my mouth to kissing my breasts was a minute, tops.

As fast as we got started, it was over. He pushed himself back up on his knees, and I wondered if he was having another discussion with his voices. I sat up in front of him and said, “Can I touch you?”

I thought he was going to say no or where, but he said, “Yea, dear lady.”

I followed the same route he’d taken on me, running my hand up his thigh and over his belly. He was fully dressed, which didn’t seem fair, so I took ahold of the front of his blouse with both hands and untucked it. I leaned in and kissed him, while I ran my hands over his bare chest.

He turned his head to break the kiss and said, “Wait.”

Wait, which was not stop.

I’d promised that was all he had to say, so I took my hands out from under his shirt. For a few seconds he pressed his hands flat on his thighs, and then he put them up to his shoulders and started scratching.

I waited, calm at first and then, when I realized what was going to happen when he finished scratching, kind of excited. I pulled off my nightgown and laid back on the bed. He stopped scratching. He looked at me and squeezed his hand in a fist so tight his knuckles went white.

“Watching you do that gets me a little wet,” I said. I did not know what constituted medieval dirty talk, but that was true. He had great hands.

He leaned down and started kissing me again. It was this weirdly urgent kiss, considering I was lying there naked and he wasn’t even touching me. Part of what made it so good was that I knew it wouldn’t last. In another minute, he was going to pull away like my lips were burning him. Maybe they were. A virtuous Christian knight like him kissing an odious serpent like me.

I knew the clock was running down, so I went at him from two angles. One hand under his shirt, the other one into the gap at the top of his pants. I didn’t even touch bare skin there, because he was wearing boxer shorts. He made a sound that I assumed was wait. Then he was back on his knees next to me, like he was in time-out. His left hand on top of his head. His right hand hovering out in the air. Open, then clenched.

The situation was complicated and frustrating, but Gentry was hairy and sweaty and hard-dicked, and those are my three favorite things about men. Everything else is negotiable.

Once I thought of it as negotiating, it wasn’t complicated. It was really simple. We were on a swing going back and forth. Not enough. Too much. Not enough. Too much. In between: a minute of just right.

When we swung toward not enough, it was this insanely hot high school heavy petting. Like musical chair sex, and I didn’t know when the music would stop.

When we swung toward too much, I couldn’t even touch him.

But the in-between, the just right? Oh my god. An absolute free-for-all.

The next time he kissed me, he didn’t waste time petting my legs. He pushed his hand between my thighs and said, “Sooth, my lady, thy cunt is wet.”

That word coming out of his mouth made me laugh so hard I started crying a little. He took his hands off me and rocked back on his heels with a serious frown on his face.