Carnal Rites by Ines Johnson (learn to read books .TXT) 📕

"You're playing with male ejaculate. That's disgusting, Merlyn."

"No, it’s fascinating. We previously believed that all sperm went straight for the egg to be the first to fertilize it. But I've discovered that line of thinking is wrong. There are sperm that have evolved as fighters. Their sole purpose is to block foreign sperm from getting to the egg first."

"What you're telling me is that men are mindless, violent brutes all the way down to their little swimmers."

"Well... perhaps. But I believe there are female spermatozoa."

"You've seen female swimmers?"

She likely had, but she couldn't yet identify them. "We believe that the female spermatozoa are what make the fetus female, just as a male spermatozoa would make the fetus male."

"The Goddess makes the fetus female," said Alyss. "Really Merlyn, this treads the line of blasphemy. Most other Physics are focused on herbal remedies, healthy diet, and physical fitness; all things the Goddess provides for our well-being. There's even a Physic, a Psychologist, who's doing an interesting study on color therapy, believing that it can calm boys with attention disorders. The same Physic just introduced a new theory on arts therapy using music. I believe Cousin Chanyn's bondmate, Lord Khial, is involved."

"Art is not my area of expertise, Alyss. Perhaps you should join the Physic's research team."

Alyss made a sound like a cat choking on a hairball. "I would never do such a thing." Alyss shoved away from Merlyn's desk. "I'm just noting that it is a far more acceptable trade then watching the sex wars of rodent sperm."

And with those final words, Alyss stormed out of the lab.

Merlyn reached for her personal notebook where she recorded her thoughts instead of clinical notations. The details of her time with Jaspir were fading fast. His tongue had been smooth, like velvet. She'd felt the rapid thuds of his pulse when his wrist pressed against her cheek.

Movement caught Merlyn's eye and she looked up. A petal of her failing plant fell to the floor. Merlyn watched its descent. The plant seemed to slouch as though it had given up. The posture of the plant made her think of Jaspir's posture when he declined to see her again. That visual memory brought to mind the look of Alyss before she stormed out of the lab.

Merlyn set down the pen and rose from the table.

She went over to the closet and peered inside. She hadn't been in the closet in years. Inside were new paintings. A still wet canvas of colors of the most impossible combination. Merlyn had no eye for art, but the beauty of the painting took her breath.

It was clear that Alyss loved her colors and her artwork. A passion that had been snuffed by her Mother and Grand Mother. Alyss had a way with people, just like she did with colors. They sought her opinion and she was able to sway them to her line of thinking. In all but this. Her artwork she kept secret, hidden in this small corner of their large house. It could never thrive in the closet.

Merlyn turned from the closet and walked back to her work table. She gathered the plant to her. The drooping starburst rested against her breasts, one lone leaf tickled her neck. She took the plant over to the closet and placed it on the shelf with Alyss' brushes and blank canvases. With one final look, Merlyn shut the door of the closet, casting the paints and plant in the darkness.

Going back to her worktable, she closed her personal journal. She opened the journal with her scientific notations, and got to work.

8

Jaspir ran his fingers over the leather binder at his desk. He opened the binder and flipped through pages. He had clients scheduled for months in advanced, most of them his regular customers: women who sought pleasure outside their martial bed, and a few moneyed men who sought his skilled touch.

His scheduled appointments went on into the New Year. It, the pleasure service, wasn't grueling work by any stretch. Jaspir didn't do it against his will. He had choices, poor choices. He could work in a merchant's shop, for example. But the thought of being indentured to another being, human or god, chafed. At Stallions, he was free to choose his clientele, set his own hours, and when he finally left this place, this life, it would be on his own terms and on his own feet, instead of being asked to leave or being thrown out on his ass.

Jaspir looked up at the man who paced the floors of his bedroom. Liam's copper hair glinted in the candlelight, his jaw tight. Jaspir was sure that was a sign the other male was calculating. He'd seen the same expression on Liam's face when he was a child, a child who caught Jaspir with his hands on the girl he was to bond with. As a child, Liam's jaw had clenched in that same calculating manner. He'd said no words to indicate what he saw that day or if he planned to do anything about it. The next morning, Jaspir had been kicked out of his bed and into the streets.

Now, Jaspir ground his jaw as well. Ground it at the thought of Liam putting those soft, slender fingers on Merlyn's body. He'd learned from his time at the Pleasure Hound's temple that women didn't like men's hands to be delicate and soft. They liked the hands of a man who'd worked, a man whose hands were rough and calloused. They needed that friction on their skin.

Merlyn needed that friction on her skin. She needed a man who would rub his coarse hands along the planes of her body. A man to make her feel and not think. A man she could lose herself in, not document every experience. This soft-handed man would never satisfy her. In five or ten years she'd be in an establishment just like this searching for—

The idea of Merlyn coming into a room like this, a