These are the scroll fragments known as The Blue Scrolls II
THE BLUE SCROLLS II
Her heart was breaking. But it had been
Gabrielle's decision to make. And Xena knew
that she herself, no matter what she may have promised, could
not bear to come back and visit, to see her
happy and contented with Perdicus, a farmer's
wife, nice guy though he certainly was. She wouldn't
be marrying him otherwise. Xena would've seen
to that. She knew Gabrielle needed to
experience this...other side of life. Marriage...'why can't I
have that--with her?'...children. She'll make
a good mother, Xena thought and smiled
through her tears.
Xena supposed Gabrielle
must feel some confusion and fear about the path
their friendship had taken...it was a
natural, a beautiful thing, but Xena had no
right to hold her if she wanted to go. She just hoped she hadn't
frightened her away.
She would always remember with a keen
regret that sweet soft kiss as they said
goodbye. And wonder if Gabrielle would think of her often. As she
would carry Gabrielle in her heart every day.
(())
"It would make a prison of my life
if you became another's wife..."
"The Soul Cages" -- Sting
Swimming Lethe
The night came. Callisto was dead. Xena had
let her die. Gabrielle was back by Xena's
side, in her arms...in her bed. The tears subsided for a
time then began again as Gabrielle would
remember something of Perdicus...and of his
brutal death at Callisto's mad hands.
Gabrielle's mouth quirked in a little smile, Xena felt it against her tear
dampened breast. She stroked the golden hair
beneath a strong, but gentle
hand. "What?" she prompted.
Gabrielle sighed. "Know what we
talked about? On our wedding night?"
"I wouldn't hazard a guess," the warrior replied softly, and swallowed
hard, choking back the emotion.
"You. Of course."
"Why 'of course'?"
"He knew how I felt about you. Even
granted that we would name our daughter after
you. He...understood. And accepted me. As I am. The way you
do. It confirmed what I believed was true
about love--that's what I was telling him
when...when Callisto rode up."
"And what do
you believe...about love?"
The young woman
raised her head, met Xena's crystal blue gaze. "It is
without conditions...or boundaries. Pure
acceptance. Loving me anyway, no
matter what I've done."
'You told him?"
"I told him I'd never been with 'a man'
before."
Xena's hand was still now, tangled in
spun gold. "Did he...did it hurt you?"
"Isn't it supposed to hurt the first
time?" Gabrielle asked, frowning slightly.
"It didn't with us, did it?"
Gabrielle shook her head. 'No, no it
didn't." She rested her head again on Xena's
warm bosom. "But I hurt you, didn't I? Leaving you. I--have no
excuses."
"You don't need any. You wanted...something different. A...new experience.
I could understand that too, you know. What's
best for you is important to me. You know
that. Or you should."
"You don't think I
was...running away?"
"I don't know. You tell
me. That's one reason...I waited...before I ever
dared to touch you. I never wanted to
overwhelm you with the way I felt
about you before you were sure in your own mind what you
wanted."
"I ran," Gabrielle admitted, nodding
vehemently now. 'I'm sorry. I had to
know...if it was because I was afraid of being with a
man."
"You were..." Xena took a breath, "you
were an eager young woman... It
frightened me, it made me smile. I didn't want you to get hurt...by me or
anyone else. You fill me with such joy. The
way you approach the world. Wanting to
know...to taste everything."
"I was at war
with myself. That's something you know about. Half of me
wanting to be like everyone else, not to
disappoint my family, to be married, belong
to someone."
"And we could never marry," Xena
acknowledged sadly.
"In our hearts."
"We are already."
"Yes."
"Then why did you go?"
Gabrielle's forehead pressed against
Xena's breastbone as she struggled
with the question, pressed her lips to the moist valley between Xena's
breasts, brushed lightly along the fine line
of collar bone. "When I was at home in
Potadeia I wanted nothing so much as getting out of that little
town, away from an arranged marriage with
Perdicus, my family that didn't understand
who I was..."
"So you told me the first night
we made camp together."
"You didn't need me."
Xena made a sound to suggest that was far
from the truth.
"You never said--" Gabrielle
continued. "Maybe I'm just destined to be
discontented with whatever I have. In no time I would've been driving him
crazy, talking about you all the time.
Longing for you. The first day I saw you I
knew what I wanted, or thought I did. I didn't think that would
ever change. I get caught up in the
moment...the emotion..."
"Yeah. Tell me about it."
Gabrielle smiled with genuine good humor
now, face aglow in the firelight, glowing
from within, brighter than flame. She sat up, straddled Xena's
lap, kissed the woman hard. "No other woman
will ever take your place in my heart. My
heart isn't big enough for that. It's full to bursting
already. With what I feel for
you."
'Oh, gods, let
this never end,' even Xena was praying, calling on the
gods. 'I'd rather die than live withiout
this.' To Gabrielle, all she could manage was
a succinct, "Don't stop." It went on until they were
drenched with sweat, it ran in rivulets from
their temples, between their breasts, down
their bellies, they were entangled
now, dark and light. Xena never ceased to be
amazed by the passion of this young woman
writhing against her, their limbs entwined, and to Gabrielle
it was a passion only Xena awakened in
her.
Aphrodite, wakened by impassioned pleas
from her slumbering beauty rest, smiled in
anticipation and braced for a major climax as she sent the
simultaneous orgasm their way. "Sometimes ya
get what ya ask for, babes.
Enjoy."
"Although I claim dominion over all I
see.
it means nothing to
me,
there are no
victories
in all our
histories,
without love"
--Ibid
"Sister Golden-Hair Surprise"
Gabrielle lay down beside her and placed a
warm hand on her shoulder. Xena remained
unstirring on her side, back to her friend, and simply said,
"Gabrielle, we should get some sleep. It's
been a long day." She patted the hand on her
shoulder as she would do to a child. It was a reasonable
request. It had been a very long, very trying
day. It had tried both of them--and in their
devotion to each other.
Gabrielle sighed and
lay on her back next to Xena. She doubted she'd get
much sleep. She was more emotionally, than
physically drained. It was Xena
who'd taken such a brutal beating at Najara's hands. How could I have been
so blind? Gabrielle asked herself again. I always do this. You'd
think...Xena should think I would've learned by now. I'll really get her
hurt or...killed some day...
Gabrielle wiped away a tear, wanted so
desperately to touch the woman beside her.
And so she touched herself instead, fondled her own breasts,
rubbing slowly until the nipples were hard
and erect and then her right hand slid
beneath her waistband and into the growing wetness between her
legs. She only thought of the raven haired
woman now, her beauty, her...dark and
dangerous nature. Xena was inside her, would always be a
part of her. Yes, Gabrielle was
frightened...at times...of the power this
passion had over her. She knew she'd do anything...she already
had.
The orgasm eluded her. Maybe if she
thought of Najara--No! she wouldn't be
unfaithful to Xena, not even in her dreams or fantasies. She'd risked and
given far too much for her to ever let go.
She's afraid of hurting me.
Gabrielle turned on her side and gazed lovingly at Xena's back, her long
dark hair, she touched it longingly with her
fingers, smelled its familiar warm fragrance.
But I've hurt her so many times. And yet we go on
together, forgive each other. Gabrielle
drifted off to a fitful uneasy sleep, she was
dangling at the end of that rope again, for real this time,
and Xena was beyond fury, striking at Najara
like a thing possessed. The same jealousy
awakened in her breast that Gabrielle had felt towards
Lao-Ma. A murderous rage that destroyed all
reason and rational thought.
How could she do
that to me? After all I've given....all of myself...all
my love--she knew Xena was voicing the same
emotion, the same sense of personal betrayal.
In danger of tearing them apart. Gabrielle felt the
rope give and was falling into the eternal
night. "Xena!"
"It's all right. Wake up. You're
dreaming."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.
I'll...move over here. I don't want to
disturb you. You need your rest." Xena made no move to dissuade her. And
so she slept alone. For the firist time in...
Gabrielle thought back to the very first time
they'd made love. How they had surprised each
other...the intensity of it. It had been building for a long time. She'd
always known that there was an attraction
between them, a connection of their very
souls...and she knew Xena loved her, loved her dearly...but
when she realized that Xena not only loved
her, but was 'in' love with her...then
everything made sense finally, it all fell into place...but it
opened their deep friendship to pressures and
problems Gabrielle had never dreamt existed.
And it had awakened in her this special ache, this
yearning, the need to be with
her...
They barely spoke the next day. Xena
was more taciturn than usual. Brow wrinkled,
eyes squinting ahead, wanting to put distance between them and
what lay in the past. They stopped when
evening began to darken the far horizon. They
ate in silence.
Gabrielle sat beside her,
rested her head against Xena's knees. "When are
you going to stop punishing me? You haven't
said two words all day. You won't look me in
the eyes."
"Oh, no, Gabrielle, I m sorry. I wasn't
punishing you, but myself. How could I punish
myself any more than by pushing you away, than by not
having you in my arms." She stroked the
golden hair.
"Well," Gabrielle's voice was so soft, "if
you think you could let up on yourself, at
least for tonight, you'd find me very appreciative."
Xena rewarded her with a smile. "How
appreciative?"
"Very."
The fullness of the maternal moon shone
down on an act of such passion that a blush
should have colored her pale face.
Xena reached down with her right hand and clasped Gabrielle's and they
pulled each other to a sitting position face to face, still breathing
hard, damp with exhaustion. Leaning on each other for support, gazing into
clear blue/green eyes, seeing, reading what
each needed to see, needed to know. And they
felt humbled by the knowledge.
Gabrielle lay on her back, Xena on her stomach, propped on her forearms
gazing down at her lover. "You knew she was
falling in love with you?"
Gabrielle looked away, then back to
bravely meet Xena's eyes. "You think I encouraged her."
"Of course you did. But not the way you
think I mean. Knowing you--as I do--how could
she help falling in love with you?"
"I'll have to take your word for it."
"Gabrielle, you get inside a person's
heart and soul. All you have to do is smile
at me the way you do, that way you have and I go weak in the
knees. No one else has ever been able to get
so close. You're part of me. The best
part."
Gabrielle turned her head, said, "I love
you, Xena," with the same passionate fervor
as in Xena's Vision and the warrior's eyes must've
looked very sad suddenly. "You look as though
you don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you, Gabrielle. I just
don't believe I'm worthy of that much
love...and trust from you."
"Of course you are. What a sweet thing,
what a privilege it is to walk beside you in
the world."
"You can still say that--even though it's
changed you like it has?"
"You've stood by me. Even though I've let
you down, disappointed you...hurt you as
much--or more than you think you've done to me. Yes, I
am changed forever. There is no going back.
Innocence is lost...it's the way of the
world. It's not your fault."
"Nor yours. When will I ever be able to
make you believe that? There are
things...forces...we can not control. But Love is the most powerful force
of all. Together--we can do anything." Xena
kissed Gabrielle with such tenderness and
gentle pressure that her mouth opened to receive Xena's
tongue and a hand moved between her legs to
test her receptivity.
She knew she was wet.
She always was when Xena kissed and aroused her like
this. The long middle finger slid into her,
took her softly, for now, stirred and thrust
until she was moaning against Xena's tongue in her
mouth as it mimicked the insistent
insatiability of the finger inside her.
Xena gasped for air, spoke hoarsely, "What do you want from me, name it."
"Everything. All of you. Your life. Your
soul."
"You have that. It's always been yours.
From the beginning. Before we even met.
Before we were born."
"Yes." Gabrielle knew it was true. This
was meant to be. This love. This creation
between them. Powerful and profound--even without the physical
union. But it had to happen. It was the
natural outcome of what they felt for each
other. This bliss. This dancing ecstasy. Now. Here and Hereafter.
Forever. She let go. She held
on.
Xena's eyes locked into hers as the
climactic moment took her, shook them both.
Gabrielle placed her hand over Xena's, kept it pressed hot between
her thighs. She wanted never to move, to stay
here always just like this.
Xena moved inside her and Gabrielle moaned as she moved gingerly
on to her side and slid her hand up Xena's
smooth inner thigh. "Mmm,"
Gabrielle responded to the feel of her as Xena gasped when the small,
delicate hand began stroking her sex.
Two fingers inside of her and Gabrielle's
thumb working against her clitoris,
Gabrielle's sweet mouth on her breast as her tongue danced
around the nipple. The young woman's sex
tightened and opened again around Xena's
finger, exuding moisture as Xena's did the same. It felt so good,
so right.
Xena gave a warrior yell, and Gabrielle savored the victory, slid down
between her lover's legs to taste and scent
and see the effect of what she'd done to her.
Such a juicy, delicious woman, like a pomegranate,
Gabrielle thought as she spread the lips
apart with her thumbs and pressed her face
into the musky heat. Xena gloried in the ultimate sensation of
Gabrielle's tongue entering her, inside her,
moving softly, sweetly. Just as Gabrielle's
spirit lived and breathed and moved inside her heart and
soul. We belong to each other. Nothing will
ever change that. No matter what.
_____________
"When I wake to find the solace of all
we've become
I can't wait to make the promises that I been
leery of
Take me down, let me see, I will wait
I'll be there waiting for you
In the morning when times have changed
I'll be there through the lies and all
I'll be standing like your soldiers
and you hold your secrets
through the days when I need to be alone
I'll be there through the rise and fall"
-- Darius Rucker
THE BLUE SCROLLS II
"No one shall
sleep
and you, O
Princess,
in your lonely
chamber/
you gaze at the
stars
as they
glimmer
with love and
hope.
But my
secret
rests in my
heart/
No one shall
know
my
name/
I will reveal it on your
lips
at break of
day/
And my kiss will
break
the
silence
that makes you
mine/
O night
depart!
Stars, fade
away!
At dawn I shall
win!
I shall
win!
I shall
win!"
--"Nessun
Dorma"
--"Turandot"--Puccini
Inspired By...
(or Babes in The Woods)
They'd had maybe a bit too much to drink.
Joxer was passed out nearby. But if he'd been
wide awake and watching it wouldn't have stopped
her.
"Sweetie," she wheedled, pulling
Gabrielle hard against her where they were
lying on the ground.
"Yes, dearest."
"Just what did that little
waitress say to you?"
"Which little waitress
would that be?" Xena pinched Gabrielle's nipple.
"Ow. Oh, that little
waitress."
"Well?"
"You do mean the one who was giving
you the eye all night?"
"Oh, that's why you
pulled her into your lap?"
"Yes, actually. I
told her you were taken."
"My protectress,"
Xena sighed in mock rapture.
"Were you really
jealous?"
"That's your
department."
"Ouch again. You know how to hurt
a girl... twist her arm, hit below the belt,
take her down, make her pay... Why don't you just act on any of
that, I know you're in the mood. You want me
to keep giving you ideas?"
Xena laughed and slid her hand down Gabrielle's body keeping it pressed
against her belly as she rolled her over onto
her stomach. Her long middle finger found the
girl's sweet little rosebud and Gabrielle squirmed
against her for all the world like a
wriggling eel, her delectible ass moving
against Xena's thighs. She was very excited, very wet, very
close. But Xena extracted her hand with some
difficulty from underneath Gabrielle and
pulled her arms back behind her.
In a moment Gabrielle felt a short length of coarse rope as Xena tied her
wrists together. Oh...fun and games. "I guess
I am your prisoner, Warrior Princess."
"I take no prisoners. Not in this
game. They come as volunteers. Or don't come
at all."
"Your slave, then. What would you
have me do?"
"Oh, that's what I like to
hear."
"You won't...hurt me, will you?
I'm...really very innocent and
inexperienced."
Xena smiled. The Bard could
play this game so well. "Then, no one's ever
touched you like this," Xena cupped Gabrielle's right breast. Scissoring
the nipple between two fingers she gently
squeezed and drew a sweet little gasp and
moan from her captive. "You felt that all the way down here,
didn't you?" and Xena trailed her other hand
down over the soft, firm buttocks and
explored the lush terrain between the girl's legs. "Oh,
ittle girl, I'm going to take you places
you've never been before. I'll carry you away
to my palace and ravish you nightly as you learn to
pleasure me. I'll make you the Queen of my
harem."
"Harem, Xena? You
wish."
"Shh," she pinched Gabrielle's nipple
again. "It's just a fantasy. Don't spoil
it."
"Are you going to do something with that
finger or do I have to lie here and wait
all--oh, yes!" Gabrielle exulted as Xena rammed her finger
home.
"So tight," Xena huskily whispered in
the bard's ear, "just as I'd expect of such
an innocent as yourself, little one. You're simply luscious. You
can't hide your excitement. It's made you
gush like a hot spring. Have you ever made
love to yourself like this? Stroked yourself deep and played in
the wetness? I can't believe how hot you are.
I think my fingers are melting inside you."
Gabrielle, all pretense gone for the moment, thrust
back hard against the jabbing fingers inside
her sex. She was wanton.
"Yes, I think, perhaps, you have done this before." Xena stilled her hand,
maddeningly.
Gabrielle sighed in
disappointment, "Why did you stop?"
Xena's tongue teased Gabrielle's ear, slipped wetly into the tiny orifice.
"Beg for it," she
whispered.
Gabrielle groaned, tried to move
against Xena's hand, but the warrior had a
strong grip and was pressing down with her body covering Gabrielle's.
"Please," the young woman moaned, "take me.
As hard as you like."
"And what do you like?
Tell me." Xena trailed her right arm from
Gabrielle's breast, underneath, located her clit, grasping the young
woman's sex from in front and
behind.
"That. I like that. I like anything
and everything you do to me. Please...my
mistress, my warrior, my beautiful, wrathful goddess, let me
go."
"You mean release you from bondage? Untie your hands?" Xena smiled with
the sweetest cruelty of purpose, prolonging
the passion and the pleasure for them both.
Oh, the anticipation.
"You know what I mean,"
Gabrielle's internal muscles opened and closed, a
sea anemone constricting and releasing with a
fluid delicious movement, around all four of
Xena's fingers buried to the hilt inside her. "I'll do
anything you wish, my princess, but I beg of
you now, thrust hard and deep, rim the
circle, spin me around your fingers, tear me open like a
ripe fig."
Now it was Xena's turn to moan at the words of her Bard. She repositioned
her hands and began taking Gabrielle as she
had just requested, screwing her embedded
fingers in widening little circles.
.
"By the gods, Xena."
Gabrielle, prompted to even
greater wildness bucked against the warrior's hand. Moments from
release, Xena placed the little finger of her
left hand and pressing slowly, steadily,
breaching the too tight muscle, took her lover in that
place as well. She could feel her fingers
pressing against the heated walls inside of
Gabrielle, answering each other, tapping at the door of
her soul as Gabrielle found her release and
came with a shuddering
finality.
Xena was almost as out of breath as
her paramour. She rolled Gabrielle over and
straddled her waist. The Bard could feel Xena's viscous wetness
on her bare flesh and she moaned again in
post-coital satisfaction. Her hands tied
behind her back helped to thrust her already pert breasts at an
upwards angle begging to be suckled. Xena
toyed with them for a moment, gazed and fell
into the clearest aquamarine depths, down, down, till her
lips meshed with Gabrielle's. And then the
warrior kissed her way down the fine, firm
young body, nibbled delightedly at the dark nipples, tipped a
playful tongue into the charming navel and
then to lie between the Bard's thighs and lap
up the cream she found there.
Gabrielle's fingers would've tangled in Xena's hair if they weren't still
fastened behind her back. She arched up into
Xena's beautiful face, knowing she would soon
come again all over that exquisite mouth and strong
chin and beautiful chiseled cheeks. She knew
Xena could keep her suspended like this for
hours, forever, as she walked this tightrope always just
about to fall. It was the sweetest torture
imaginable. Oh, what her warrior could do
with that agile tongue.
"Oh, Xena, I'm going
to come all over again, all
over that beautiful face." She could feel the
muscles in Xena's face quirk as the woman
smiled against her sensitive flesh. The tender muscle moved
within her, drawing sighs and whispers of
love and lust. "I am at your mercy, my
warrior. Take me wih your tongue." She rode against Xena's face,
the dear ravishing tongue never ceasing in
its plunder. "I belong to you, Princess. I am
yours. I give myself freely though my hands are bound."
Xena stroked faster, latched onto the blood
swollen bud sucking and pressing her tongue
hard against it as she thrust again with her fingers
deep inside Gabrielle, conquering her,
setting her free.
Xena wiped her sex annointed
face against the velvet insides of
Gabrielle's thighs and on her flat belly where she finally rested her
head.
"I thought I was supposed to be your
slave, Xena, and all you've done tonight is
give."
"Oh, I thought I was taking pretty
well, wasn't I?"
"Untie my hands." Xena
reached in the hollow at the small of her lover's
back and undid the rope, let it fall beside
them in their bedding. "Now, my darling, if
you'd just get out of those warrior clothes--"
"Gabrielle, my dear," Xena punctuated each adjective with a kiss on a
different bit of anatomy, "sweet, beautiful,
wild, delicate, golden passion
flower--"
"What has gotten into you? Besides
this," and she made an unsuccessful forward
pass with her hand aimed between Xena's legs.
"Not tonight."
"But, Xena...I want
to--"
"That is your punishment. And besides
I'm about to pass out. That last ale went
right to my head."
"I noticed."
"So wake me up early if you want to
make it up to me. Now go to sleep.
Sweet dreams."
"Of you," Gabrielle murmured.
"Xena?"
"Mmm?"
"Remember that old tale about the
powerful sorceress who was so enchanted with
a young fair and long-haired maiden that she 'seduced' her away from
her family and held her in bondage, in a high
tower in a dark forest?"
"What about it?" Xena
asked groggily, not really caring.
"I think I just figured out what it really means--you know, the, what
would you call it? The under meaning. Sub
meaning, the Romans might say. Don't you find
that fascinating? I wonder how many more stories might be
open to that insight and interpretation?
Wonder if I could write a
few...?"
"Oh, I'm sure you will. But in the morning. Now go to sleep."
"I figured it
out
I was high and low
and
everything in
between
I was wicked and
wild...
till there was
you
Something went
wrong
I made a deal with the
devil
for an empty
IOU
Been to hell and back
but
an angel was looking
through,
it was
you
It's all because of
you
You are the
reason
I wake up every
day
and sleep through the
night
In the middle of the
night
I'm going down to say
I
want you, I want to touch
you
You came out of my
dream
and you made it
real
I know what I feel--it's
you
It's all because of
you
You are the
reason..."
-- Celine Dion & Carole
King
--"The Reason"
Never
"One chance...one
love
Your chance to let me
know...
Hold me down never let me
go"
--Heart
She was running...uphill. Almost out of
breath. She had to reach her friend...before--
She woke with a start...to
find her friend gone--again. "Where are you?"
she shouted. Becoming frantic, she leaped naked to her feet, yelling her
friend's name.
The young woman rushed back to their
campsite and into the clasping arms of her
imposing friend, now reduced to the rarity of teary eyes and a
voice choked with emotion.
She shook the younger woman's
shoulders, "Where were you?" she demanded.
"It's nothing. Calm down."
Grasping the young
woman tighter still, till both were trembling, her
voice quavered when she swallowed down the
nameless fear and spoke again.
"Promise me...promise you'll never run from me again."
It was her stalwart friend who needed comforting now. The younger woman,
little more than a girl, slid down the long,
compact body to kneel amidst their bedding.
She still held the hand of the dark-haired warrior woman
and gently urged her to her knees, eyes
flickering adoringly over the perfect body as
the firelight also flickered, playfully touching the warm
flesh, creating patterns of darkness and
light as the woman slowly came to the ground
before her.
"I'm sorry," she apologized again
for many things, caressing the woman's
cascade of long dark hair. "You know how I feel about you," she murmured,
"but I'll show you just the same." Pressing
her mouth softly to that of her friend, she
delicately cupped one full breast, gently squeezing as if
to test the ripeness.
The dark-haired woman moaned, lay
back as she was borne down to earth.
Sobbing uncontrollably she released all the pent-up rage and frustration
and sorrow of the past few days.
"Oh...Gabrielle." This strong warrior woman
trembled in her lover's arms. "I was afraid I'd lost
you."
"Never," the younger woman whispered, a
fervent promise. "You know I love you, Xena.
That's the one thing you should never question." Gabrielle
hurriedly removed her negligible attire and
pressed her passion and fire warmed body
against Xena. She kissed her way down the soft skinned, hard
muscled body, finally thrusting with her
golden head between the woman's legs. Drawing
the sweetest music.
Xena gave herself up
completely to the pleasure...and the love being given
her, oh, how she loved this young woman--with
all her being...and her soul. The beloved
golden crown moved slowly, languorously against her
yielding flesh, the pink tongue flicking
sweetly on the swelling bud, calling her
forth as surely as any Siren to convulse with the joy of the
act as Gabrielle's tongue entered her and her
dear face pressed into the heat of the
woman she loved with all her heart.
The coming to completion had become a sacred communion for both of
them.
Xena lovingly rolled Gabrielle onto her
back. Half golden, half ghost as firelight
and moonlight washed over her in equal measure, her hair become
pale, almost white in the gray lunar bath of
Selene's cool beams. "I've never seen
anything more beautiful," Xena whispered with tremulous awe as
she gazed on the effect and spread the young
woman's legs to feast eyes and mouth on the
golden down that covered the girls' delectable garden.
Xena sank into the luscious welcoming
pleasure, reacquainting herself with each
tufted hillock and deep valley, glistening in the half light as she
drew cries of extreme sensate delirium from
the woman she loved.
Not too much now. Her
tender flesh still swollen and sensitive. "My poor
little girl, poor... baby. What they did to
you..."
Both women out of breath, Gabrielle sat back
on her heels, eyes locked on the
extraordinary blue of Xena's gazing up at her with a great love and
always surprising tenderness.
"I love you," her warrior princess said
softly.
"I know," Gabrielle smiled with not a
little pride in the fact.
Xena frowned and
Gabrielle's brows rose in question. The warrior raised a
still trembling hand to the girl's breast,
gently, wonderingly fingered a nipple. A
fluid, golden in the firelight, was leaking from
her.
"You have milk," Xena spoke with hushed
awe.
"Of course," Gabrielle acknowledged
simply as she looked down to confirm the
phenomenon, aching suddenly for her lost child, the daughter her
beloved friend would have...no, not to think
of it ever again. She and Xena were two alone
once more and she sighed mightily with contentment as
she placed one hand on the back of Xena's
dark head and brought the woman's mouth to
her breast, cradling the warrior in her loving arms.
"Why should I be somebody you
fear
When you're asleep and I'm so
near?
Don't even know why I'm in your
dreams
I got control over none of these
things
Morning comes, hard and
bright
And I'm exhausted from running after
you all night
Chasing you into the
light...
Now as the dawn comes over the
night
Watching the stars in the sky disappear
maybe
You'll find a way to let go of your
fright
The sea is deep the world is
wide
Ships are leaving for the other
side...
And in the east clouds are strung out
behind the moon
Chasing her into the
light
Wake
up"
--Jackson Browne
Gabrielle woke to a sound like...well, an
intriguing sound. Almost like someone
wrestling. When she opened her eyes she saw Xena through the fire
astride Marcus, moving in rhythm as he thrust
upwards between her legs, into her body,
impaling herself on his huge ebony cock. Gabrielle's eyes
widened in fascination. She'd never
been...exposed to this before. Though she'd
seen beasts doing...it, of course. Coupling. She couldn't take her
eyes off of Xena, sweat glistened on her
upturned breasts, nipples fully extended, her
eyes closed in some deeply fervent meditation as she gasped
and softly moaned, head lolling on her neck,
face towards the stars. She was
breathtaking.
And Gabrielle became aware of a
heated exciting emotion fluttering in the pit
of her stomach, a wetness growing between her legs. Xena quickened her
movements and Gabrielle felt the oddest
sensation, her breathing had also quickened
rapidly...and she knew it for a fact now. She envied him. Being
able to touch her friend that way. To take
her like that. Fill her. Move inside her, be
so intimately connected to that magnificent creature. At
this moment she'd sell her soul to trade
places with him. This self-knowledge also
fascinated her. But what could she do about it? Then
Xena opened her eyes and looked over at
Gabrielle and directly into her eyes. It
didn't throw her at all. She almost smiled. And then moaned
loudly, sighing, gasping as a tremor shook
her. She kept her eyes locked on Gabrielle
and began moving hard against him as the young woman watched.
They were in a dark and special race...or
dance. And soon Xena's body trembled, tensed
and then relaxed. And this time the girl's hand had
strayed between her own legs and melted into
the moisture there as she whispered Xena's
name.
"Imagine this in one pair of
eyes
and this is my
beloved."
--Kismet
"Rhiannon rings like a bell through the
night
and wouldn't you love to love
her
She rules her life like a bird in
flight
and who will be her
lover...
all your life you've never seen a
woman
taken by the
wind
would you stay if she promised
you
heaven
will you ever win
She is like a cat in the
dark and then
she is the
darkness...
Dreams unwind, love's a state of
mind,
I
know..."
--Stevie
"Jump up behind me my
love--
jump up behind
me
We follow this road
till
we reach the
sea..."
--James Taylor &
Sting
(Hourglass)
Fields of Gold
Ares was gloating as usual. But this time he
had something to revel in.
Gabrielle was
stretched out naked beneath him, her hands tied above her
head.
"I've
always wanted to do this," he said. Xena sat opposite, chained to
the wall, unable to close her eyes, forced to
watch.
His cock, was, of course, of Olympian
proportions and Gabrielle's eyes widened
accordingly, as she gulped at the sight, and fervently hoped the
rest of her anatomy could do likewise.
Straddling her, he pressed the tip to her
lips, attempted to force as much as he could into her
mouth.
'"Oh, I knew that mouth was good for
something." Xena, in fury, strained against
her chains. "Easy, Xena, this is the mouth you should worry
about." He thrust hard with two fingers
between Gabrielle's legs. "Is that
how she likes it, Xena? Or does she prefer your tongue--as
who would not? You must love doing this to
her."
He placed his godhead and pushed against
her, bringing her legs up and back, wide open
so that Xena could see everything. His huge cobraheaded
member painfully breached her sex and
Gabrielle cried out and whimpered as each
successive inexorable inch of his very sizable scepter penetrated
her. Taking her by
force.
"Stop," Xena cried, "you're hurting
her."
"That's the idea." He was in all the way
now. "And wouldn't you like to be in my
place?" he asked with a wily smirk. "You know you'd like to take her
like this." Ares began to thrust harder and
faster with each stroke as if he would split
her in half by the force of it. "Admit it, Xena," he
teased. "You don't have to. I'll let you know
what it feels like, wading to the waist in
Gabrielle. So hot and wet..." And then Xena saw through
his eyes, was inside him, taking her friend
with abandon, felt Gabrielle around his/her
cock embedded so deeply, gliding in and out,
delicious...
"Oh, yes," Xena moaned and
Gabrielle turned her head in surprise and then
understanding as she met Xena's eyes and
began to move beneath him. To writhe and
gyrate. Ares groaned, lost it, came long before he'd wanted to
and Xena was flung back against the wall by
the force of his/her orgasm.
"Well, you
certainly enjoyed that," he noted, looking at Xena,
perspiration running down her face,
glistening between her breasts. "And so did
you, I think," he looked down at Gabrielle then released her hands,
tying them behind her back. He brought her
off the huge bed and forced her down in front
of Xena, spread the warrior's legs and pushed Gabrielle's
head between them, "But this is what you
really love."
Xena came hard against
Gabrielle's pretty face, holding her head against
her open sex, lovingly stroking her golden
hair. "Oh, Gabrielle, ye gods, girl, you sure
can tell a story. That was...well, you know."
Gabrielle withdrew, lay on her side and propped her head on her hand,
elbow supporting her in the soft bed of
barley grass. Almost the color of her hair.
"I know," Gabrielle said proudly. "Now, you tell me a
story."
Xena enwrapped her in the warrior's
powerful embrace. "I'll never have your
talent, but I do possess a few of my own. OK. Once there were two
devoted friends, they travelled the world
together. One day while lying in a golden
field--"
"I think I know this story."
"Just lay your head back on the
ground
and let your hair spill all around
me
offer up your best
defense
this is the
end
this is the end of the
innocence."
--Don Henley
"It was a private
conversation."
--Lovett
Body and Soul
"Please don't leave me here like this!"
Gabrielle wailed, straining against her
bonds.
Xena, in her madness, had just bound
her friend to a tree with the admonition that
she, Xena, could "not be trusted." Something irresistibly
plaintive in her voice must've pricked the
warrior's conscience, gotten through the fog
that laid siege to her wits. She was coming back.
Gabrielle breathed a sigh of
relief.
"You trying me, little
one?"
"Please untie me. You don't want to do
this."
"What...exactly...don't I want to do?"
She punctuated her words by running a finger
over Gabrielle's breast, rimmed the nipple just where the girl's
dark pink aureole would begin.
"No...please, Xena. Not here. Not like
this."
"You wanted me. Now live with it." She
rubbed the nipple to hardness, enjoyed the
sight of it standing up through the coarse material of
Gabrielle's bodice. It made her mouth water.
She had to see. She thought of pulling a
dagger and slittting the laces, but then sanity prevailed for
a moment. She couldn't leave Gabrielle here
like that...what if someone, some man came
along and...touched her like this. She squeezed the heavy
globe. She was so hard to resist as it was.
Altogether delicious. Xena leaned forward,
rested her body against her captive friend, licked a tear
which trickled from the corner of her eye,
ran her tongue across the cheekbone and into
one charming pixie ear.
Gabrielle was
trembling now, but she moaned deep and low in her throat in
spite of herself. Xena whispered, told
Gabrielle what she was going to do to her,
knew the moisture would be growing, exuding between her legs as
she listened, wide-eyed. Forcing her fingers
under the material she pushed Gabrielle's top
up and released the full pretty little breasts. She palmed
each, handled them lovingly as Gabrielle's
mouth opened to her probing
tongue.
Xena's knee worked between the girl's
legs, massaging, provoking excited sharp
breaths. Had she surrendered? Willingly? She had no choice. But she
could never deny me, Xena thought. Breaking
the deep kiss she pulled back to look at
Gabrielle, both of them breathless with excitement. "What
happened to your resistance?'
"You. You always just...sort
of...happen to me, don't you?" Gabrielle
licked her lips, then snaked her tongue out to lick Xena's. "Whatever you
want," she whispered. "Do
it."
Xena drew her sword, could see and hear
Gabrielle's hard swallow. Smiling that
half-smile which could be sly or cruel in turn, she shifted it in her
hand, held it by the haft and touched the
hilt between Gabrielle's legs.
Rubbed it against the mound of Aphrodite, just there where the sexual bud
begins to flower, and swell. Once again she
forced the material covering aside, this time
it tore, and the sword's handpiece slipped into the
wetness, into Gabrielle. She gasped and
moaned, writhing against the tree as Xena
worked it in and out.
The woman dipped her
head from the girl's mouth to suckle at the ripe
little breasts. Gabrielle thrilled to Xena's
hot mouth fastened on her nipple. "You know I
love you," Gabrielle almost sobbed the words. "Love
you," she spoke dreamily, closing her eyes
and resting her head back against the tree's
trunk as her lover slid slowly down her sweet young
body, to kneel, to worship.
Xena withdrew her sword, jabbed it
wickedly into the fertile earth of the forest
floor and replaced it with her greedy fingers. Gabrielle was so
deliciously wet and open. Her legs lifted
onto Xena's shoulders, fingers delved deep
inside, drawing sweet music, low gutteral assents and
affirmations, keening ecstatic peals of
pleasure. She quivered with it as Xena's
tongue touched her there, slid through the furrow of her sex,
stroked her hooded rosebud, entered her, took
her. Owned her. Completely.
"Hold me down to
anything
anything that you
see
I should walk away right
now
I'll be there, so never
mind
I'll be the one to
fall
Waiting for you to look up at
me
Oh I love you the
most
Always giving up the
ghost
In your own private
conversation
You're a sweet
mystery
There is nothing in
between
You and the Mona
Lisa
Nothing in
particular
and everything
between
This is what you mean to
me
Only you and only
me
Climbing in the right
direction
On the way to
everything..."
--Shawn Colvin
Mad About the Girl
She had found the warrior standing naked,
incoherent, an affright to the simple
peasants puzzled by her odd behavior. Speaking to her softly,
trying to reason with her like she would to a
child, Gabrielle managed to lead her back to
their campfire. It broke her heart to see the steadfastly
sound and sane Xena in this state of
madness.
Trying to get the tall woman to lay
down again by the fire, Gabrielle's hands
were forced to touch her smooth, heated flesh and Xena responded to
Gabrielle's touch.
"No, Xena. Try and rest." The younger
woman straddled her middle to keep Xena from
rising again.
"That's a pretty sight," the
warrior assured her. "Are you going to do
that all night?"
Gabrielle looked down at the
truly breathtaking sight of Xena painted in
warm golden tones by the fire. Xena moved beneath
her.
"I can feel how wet you
are."
The young woman tried to swallow. It
hurt. She had no idea how to handle herself,
or Xena, in a situation like this one. Sh couldn't deny the lust
she felt...and at the same time... It
frightened her. She knew if Xena wanted her,
she could easily take her...and she wasn't at all sure she'd
fight it.
"Why, my delicious little bard, don't you take those clothes off and come
play with me? I want you on your hands and
knees, your legs spread over my face."
"Xena," Gabrielle was blushing
furiously from the sudden rush of hot blood
to her lovely features. Xena's hands rose of their own volition to pluck
the moon's silver apples and Gabrielle's
resolve began to melt.
"You know you want to,"
Xena teased, feeling the nipples rise in
delightful bas relief through the cloth of Gabrielle's bodice. A blind
woman could read the signs. "Don't fight me.
You'd lose. Now, do what I say."
Gabrielle allowed Xena to undo her laces
and then the warrior's warm hands were
cupping each breast and Gabrielle was already
whimpering in surrender.
Poised over Xena's
beautiful face, her heart sounding wildly, erratically
at the anticipation of being taken by a
madwoman, Gabrielle trembled.
Xena's fingers
opened her, without mercy, drew a cry from so deep within
it must've emanated from her very soul, and
then the warrior's mouth was kissing the lips
of her vulva, stroking with her tongue, entering her
softly, tasting, sipping, feasting...
Gabrielle moaned and settled lower over her
lover's face as she parted Xena's legs and buried her head
between the strong thighs. If this was
madness, she couldn't fight it. She didn't
want to.
when I
penetrate
the
night
between
your
thighs
and sighs
arise
from
the
depths
of
your eyes
I forget
about
the
lies
I
forget
about
the
lies
I
forget
about
the
lies.
Dark Reflection
"I don't know why I'm so jumpy," Gabrielle
apologized again as Xena sat beside her and
stroked the long blonde hair away from her
face.
"I was too hard on you this afternoon.
Let me make it up to you. It's just nerves,
that's all. I want to make you forget about that now. Let's just
lie down and work it off in a more
pleasurable way."
"I..." was she really about
to turn down the W.P.? she asked herself in
some startlement. "Xena, I'm not in much of a mood right now. I think
I__"
Xena pressed her back onto the ground and
covered her lithe young body with the
warrior's sinewy own. The long practiced fingers began undoing
her bodice stays. Gabrielle attempted to
shift her weight and sit up,
"Xena, really,
I'm not--" She was firmly pushed down and held in place as
Xena's right hand moved under her
skirt.
Gabrielle squirmed and struggled a bit
more and Xena grinned. 'She's enjoying this,'
Gabrielle's mouth opened in wonder and the woman on top of
her took the delighted opportunity to ravish
that mouth with a wicked tongue. She wasn't
going to take no for an answer. Apparently. And any
attempt at struggle was only fueling the
warrior's dark fire.
"Go on, fight me,
Gabrielle. It excites me. It excites you too. Doesn't
it?" The warrior's hands roughly removed her
clothing and then reached to her side and
came away with the long, black whip.
"What are you going to do with that?" Gabrielle's eyes widened in sudden
fear.
"Not to worry. You'll like it. If I know you as well as I think I do.
And...I'm sure I do." The warrior purred
throatily as she touched the thick leather
grip of the whip to her companion's sex winding the dark
tendrils of animal hide around the Bard's
wrists now firmly clasped behind her
back.
And as the woman ravished her savagely
from behind, it was Callisto's wicked smile
that twisted Xena's features as she took the Bard without
mercy.
"So let it
be!
And as the lady bode, did
she.
Her gentle limbs did she
undress,
and lay down in her
loveliness...
She eyes the maid and seeks
delay;
Then suddenly, as one
defied,
collects herself in scorn and
pride,
and lay down by the maiden's
side!--
and in her arms the maid she
took."
--"Christabel"
--Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
*********
"If I had to
run
If I had to
crawl
If I had to
swim
a hundred
rivers
just to
climb
a thousand
walls
Always know
I'd
find a
way
to get to where you
are
There's no place that
far"
--Evans & Gill
The Water is Wide
"Promise me."
"Anything." Xena's sword was still in
hand.
"When the time comes," Gabrielle paused,
"take care of it...of me."
Xena didn't want to
know what she meant, but Gabrielle tipped the blade
towards herself, rested its tip at the hollow
of her throat.
"I couldn't."
"You'd let them take me."
"I'll be dead if it comes to that.
They'll have to go through me to get to
you."
"Then give me your
dagger."
Xena reluctantly removed the sharp
implement from her boot, handed it to
Gabrielle. "You make damn sure I'm dead before you use
this."
Gabrielle nodded and averted her eyes
as a single teardrop betrayed the flood of
emotion she was keeping mostly in check. Xena's warm hand wiped
it away, caressed her cheek. "How much time
have we got?"
"Maybe tonight."
"One night. One night to say all I
want...all I need to say to you."
"Only words."
"There are other ways of telling
you."
"Yes."
The sword and dagger were forgotten, fallen. The soft lips found hers.
Then sweet oblivion in each other's arms.
"Hold me."
"I've got you, I've got you."
"...I can't cross
over
and neither
have
I wings to
fly
Build me a
boat
that can carry
two
and both shall
row
my love and
I
There is a
ship
and she sails the
sea
she's loaded
deep
as deep can
be
but not so
deep
as the love I'm
in
I know not
how
I sink or
swim"
--Traditional
Always
"Hold me, Gabrielle."
"I've got you. I'll never let go."
Gabrielle held her so tenderly, comforting,
her soft lips brushed away the tears. She'd thought for a
moment that perhaps they were past it, they'd
dodged their fate, escaped death once more,
but the more she dwelt upon it...it still refused to let
her go. Even though they'd come to it and now
left the place of crucifixion which Alti had
tormented her with in the Vision. She could see
the criteria that had not been
met...Gabrielle's shorn hair, the soldiers
themselves--Romans, and the season...snow was falling all around them. She
could feel the icy cold of it and shivered,
then Gabrielle's tongue was hot and wet
against her cheek, licking salty tears. She knew she couldn't
share these continuing fears with the young
woman. Not after Gabrielle had laid down the
law like she had.
Najara was right, she chided
herself. It just hurt her. You never
should've told her about it. Gabrielle began undressing her, lay her down
by the fire and then undressed herself as
Xena watched. When had she fallen in love so
deeply with this lovely young woman--was it the first
moment she'd laid eyes on her, so brave,
standing forward fearlessly offering herself
so that others might be saved, was it when she'd thrown
herself between the wounded amazon and a
volley of arrows--or only when she thought
she'd lost her forever and fought desperately to bring her
back from the other side, breathing life into
her, beating on her chest, crying, begging
her not to leave her all alone? No one else had ever had
so profound an effect upon her.
Gabrielle lay beside her, pulling the
cover over them and snuggled close, her head
on Xena's breast. "I'm trying to remember the first time I knew I
was in love with you." Xena almost gasped.
"Was it at first sight? What an amazing
woman, I thought. I'd never seen anything like you. Only in my
dreams. And fantasies. A tall, dark woman
with piercing blue eyes. First meeting...first time you saved my life. And my soul. Or was it when I saw
the jealousy in your eyes when you thought
I'd...with that boy when we fought the Titans
or when you entered my dreams...literally. I loved you
long before you inhabited my body to fight
Valasca. But to feel that sense of loving
warmth...to be surrounded by it...I knew."
Xena sighed. They knew each other so well. Perhaps, it had been that time
when Gabrielle had returned to try and save
her from execution after Xena had
accidentally struck out at her, displaying her great courage and
loyalty and...love. 'Or just the first time
she smiled at me like that--telling me I
wasn't alone...' The hot stab of jealousy when
Gabrielle lied to the Titans about no longer
being a virgin...
"...when I thought I might
lose you forever if you struck the fatal blow
to free Prometheus"-- 'and you begged me not to'--"and I held a dying
Iolaus in my arms and spoke of soul-mates and, attractive as he was,
realizing only later that I identified with him and that it was our
relationship that fit the mold. My other
half. The legend also says that some of the
androgynous pre-humans were a little less or more, not always
half male or female right down the middle, so
the soulmate of someone born female may just
be another woman. And I am a lucky, lucky woman for that.
Or when I went to Athens, went back home and
felt how much I missed you so keenly I had to
find and join you again...just as in the meaning of that
tale. Or when, on my wedding night, all I
could think about...was you."
//Does it matter
when? It seems so hard to pinpoint the exact timing of it
since...it's always been there--waiting for
you...searching for 'you.'//
"So true it is no pleasure is
complete
Grief twines with joy; bitter is
mix't with sweet."
--Ovid
"In silence she
says...'excalibur'
I beg of you
now
What was it that
fell
Was it
Freedom
by
choice
Or baby was it
love
Was it a thorn in your
side
Something that you
hide
Something you don't
touch
because it hurts too
much
Oh and just how
deep
Do you hold that
dream
in your hands each
night
this
time
Oh was it
you
I heard
calling...
Well I know that you are
going
Did I force you to
remember
in the sacred name of
love
to be brave save the
stranger
Sable on
blond
Dark upon
light
Because it hurts too
much
Just how
deep
do you hold that
dream
in your hands each
night
I beg of you
now
What was it that
fell
Well this time I think it
was
You
baby"
--Stevie Nicks
Dreams
"I keep my visions to
myself..."
--Stevie
She couldn't let go. And yet...she had to.
Gabrielle was in her arms, their mouths
pressed hard and hungry. And then...her hand struck with the
dagger. Straight into Gabrielle's true heart.
She was standing before Hades as she had once
before...like this...
"No!" Xena woke,
shaking, sweating profusely.
"What? What is
it?" Gabrielle asked, pulling Xena into her
arms.
"Bad dream...just a bad dream." She
hugged Gabrielle to her, rolled on top, took
each hand in hers and spread their arms wide as the vision hit
her again full-force. "Won't let me
go."
"I won't let you go," Gabrielle whispered
fervently.
Xena kissed the palm of Gabrielle's
hand, in the spot where they would drive in
the nails. No. I won't let it happen.
"Do you
want to tell me? Sometimes if you talk about a dream it loses its
hold on you."
"No. I'm all right now. Nothing to tell.
It's gone. You're here. In my arms."
"And what do you want to do about
that?"
Xena smiled, grounded once again, both
of them safe in each other's arms.
"I'm sure
we'll think of something."
"Why do we crucify
ourselves
every day I crucify
myself
nothing I do is good enough for
you...
my heart is sick of being in
chains
...I've been raising up my
hands
drive another nail
in
got enough guilt to
start
my own
religion."
--Tori Amos
This is not the
end,
my
friend
The Lovers
crucified
side by
side
shall rise and
rise
Find true heaven
in
each other's eyes...
"And pluck till time and tide be done the
silver apples of the moon, the
golden apples
of the sun..." --Yeats
THE BLUE SCROLLS II
Conquest
"Did you tie her hands?"
"Don't worry, I won't let her get
away."
"Don't worry, she doesn't want to get
away from you." Xena held Gabrielle's eyes,
then went to see to Argo.
***
"Don't you care about what happens to me?"
The young blonde woman's eyes were soft,
gentle and appealing.
"Of course I do," Gabrielle averred. "You should know that." She was torn,
completely, by the sight of the crusader, so vulnerable.
"I know," Najara said, caressing
Gabrielle's eyes with her own.
"Then why did you ask?"
"I needed to see it in your
eyes."
The situation was fraught with
possibilities, dangerous, the woman
desirable, begging for, wanting the reassurance of human contact.
Gabrielle could still feel those soft hands
on her face.
"You know how I feel about
you."
"Don't." Gabrielle's eyes misted.
"I'm frightened,
Gabrielle."
"Of Xena? She won't hurt you. I
won't let her hurt you."
"The way she does
you? How much longer can you live that way? Someone like
you...so gentle...caring. I would never hurt
you. Only love you. Protect you. That's a
foolish thing to say, isn't it? With my hands tied. Will you
hold me, Gabrielle? You don't have to untie
me." The woman raised her bound wrists above
her head seductively, "It's better this way, don't you
think?" Her soft blue eyes were guileless,
full of love and trust and Gabrielle, trying
so hard to resist, couldn't anymore, had to know, gave
in and moved toward that inviting mouth. She
was the one in control--for a change. The
kiss was deep and hard...and then she sensed Xena standing
behind her.
"If that's what you really want, Gabrielle, then take it. Go
on."
She felt Xena kneel behind her. "What are
you waiting for? Do it."
"Xena, I--"
Najara was watching closely, carefully,
eyes flicking quickly between Xena and
Gabrielle assessing, redefining the parameters, looking for an edge, a
wedge to drive between them.
"You know what she wants," Xena grasped
Gabrielle's hand and forced her to touch
Najara, "What she's always wanted. You. And she can have you. Just
say the word. I"ll let her go this time... And you can go with her."
"Xena, stop it--please."
"What? You're a big girl now. You
can make your own decisions. What do you
want? What do you really want?"
"What do you want, Xena?" Najara asked. "Do you want to watch? You'd like
that, wouldn't you? You find new ways to hurt
her all the time, don't you, Xena?"
Xena stood, hands pressing momentarily
on Gabrielle's shoulders and then she was
gone. Gabrielle began to stand as Najara
spoke.
"Don't go after her. Gabrielle, where
is your strength?"
The young woman met her
eyes with a flash of anger, reflected back to
herself. "With her. She is my strength. I lost sight of that...for a
moment. I won't forget it again. Thank you
for reminding me of that. Now, I'm going to
remind her. If she'll let me."
Despite being keenly aware of the others catching sight of them and then
attempting to avert their gaze, Gabrielle
caught Xena by the bole of a large tree. The
warrior made to throw her off, but the tenacious bard hung
on.
"Xena,
I'm sorry. Truly. I didn't mean..."
"It's...alright, Gabrielle. I'm used to it...by
now."
Gabrielle's hand increased its pressure
on Xena's arm, tugged the taller woman around
to face her. "I guess I deserve that, huh?" She spoke softly,
sadly. "Suppose I'm still trying to deal with
the jealousy thing."
Gabrielle watched Xena's
lone eyebrow disappear behind her dark bangs. "I
know...you're the one who has more of a right
to feel that way."
"Gabrielle, I don't have my
name..." she let her eyes flick over the young
woman's henna body designs, "...tattooed on
you."
"Maybe...I wish you did." The other
eyebrow joined the first. The youngbard
cleared her throat. "I'm still learning about myself. Surprises me
sometimes."
Xena scratched her ear and smiled slightly, "Yeah, me
too."
"Whenever I feel...neglected, whenever
you're distant...I guess I try to get your
attention."
"My...attention... Gabrielle, I'm
aware of you every waking moment and in my
dreams. Sometimes I wonder how my heart beat at all before I met
you."
Gabrielle's eyes became a little
brighter and she reached out to lovingly
touch Xena's face.
"Gabrielle, they're
watching," Xena pointed with a shoulder.
"I don't care. I want them to see what you mean to me." Gabrielle leaned
in and raised her head, increased her height
and pulled Xena's head down until their lips
touched. She began to draw the warrior behind the tree,
"Don't want to give too much away,
though."
"Gabrielle, they'll hear
us."
"Let them. I intend on making you
whimper."
Xena took a ragged breath. "Oh, you
do, huh?"
"Yeah, anything wrong with
that?"
Xena cleared her throat, "I can't think
of a thing."
Gabrielle slid down the warrior's
body, pressed her back against the body of
the tree and, lifting her skirt, attached her mouth hotly to the
swelling bud of her lover's pleasure.
"Oh, Gabrielle," she gasped, "it's
been so long..." Her fingers wound in the
bard's golden hair, wistfully missing the length of it she'd been so
used to fondle for these past few years. She
regretted having to cut it...her bard was
changing, she knew that, this was just another outward
reminder of that.
But now the warm and wicked green eyes were
bewitching her, staring steadily up at her as
the soft wetness moved oh so sweetly between her
limbs. She knew she would always forgive
Gabrielle--anything.
***
You said you'd
never
leave
me
And that you'd always
stay
but even when you're
sleeping
your dreams take you
away
I know you dream about
her
I see it in your
eyes
The way that they
look
past me
The lies you improvise
You say
it
doesn't
matter
That it's just a
game
Then why am
I
disheartened
Why this awful pain
***
The
battle within
you wage
with
yourself
Every night
it
grips you
by
the
throat
and won't let
go
until you
grapple outright
and drag it
kicking
into the
light
How can I
reach
out, help
you
when the
same
Incubus
rides me
ragged
===================
Like Sisters
Gabrielle's eyes were closed as she probed
the spot with both thumbs.
Xena moaned deep in her throat.
"Oh, yes, right there. You do have the touch." Gabrielle continued the
massage, felt Xena's
tensions melt away.
The past week must've been hellish for her. Thalassa had
offered them
her private chambers and Gabrielle had bathed Xena slowly,
lovingly, ran
some more hot water, and then joined her in the bath. Now, both
of them
naked on the bed, she straddled her best friend, and worked the
kinks
out of her back once again.
The warden of Shark Island prison had
some business to attend to. She
had promised them both she would immediately
begin to institute some
measure of reform here. They could hear the gallows
coming down.
Gabrielle shuddered.
"You cold?" Xena asked.
"No. Just
thinking...I said, finally, here I am, rescuing Xena outright
for once... and
you save my neck, literally, yet again."
"I wouldn't have been able to if you
hadn't brought me my chakram. I
should've known you'd be too stubborn not to
come."
"I thought you'd be ready to leave around now, hoped you'd done
enough
penance. Or, as a last resort, thought you'd have to get me out
of here."
"You did save me. You have saved me. It's what you do every day.
And I love you for it."
The door opened and Thalassa entered. "Oh...sorry,
I'm so used to just
coming in...I should've knocked...I'll--"
"No, no,"
Gabrielle spoke, "It's all right. It's your room. We don't
mind. Come on in."
The young emotionally and physically battered woman did so. It
would have been almost comical that she should seem so nervous in her
own place.
"Don't mind us," Xena assured her.
"Do you need any help?"
Gabrielle offered as she saw the woman struggle
to remove her
prosthesis.
"No, I can manage. I've been doing it for a long time
now."
Gabrielle felt Xena tense again under her fingers. "The fire's
still going under the water tank if you want a bath." Thalassa undressed
and luxuriated in the softly scented water. It was the one pleasure
with which she indulged herself here. Little enough.
Xena rolled over
underneath Gabrielle, stared up questioningly into
those sweet green eyes.
Gabrielle knew that look. She glanced over to
the bath, Thalassa's back was
towards them. Xena reached up and turned
her face back with one hand while
she clasped Gabrielle's and brought it
to her lips. Her eyes were sweetly
pleading, 'you want to?' while
Gabrielle's breathing grew shallow and
labored.
Xena licked the fingertips of Gabrielle's right hand as she ran
her thumb over Gabrielle's lips. She brought the young woman's hand down
to clasp her breast as she caressed the roundness of hip and
thigh...Xena
could feel against her stomach how wet and excited
Gabrielle was. Finally,
the younger woman surrendered completely and
melted into her arms, coming
down to kiss her with a moan and a whimper.
Xena's fingers inside her now,
churning and thrusting. She tried to stay
as quiet about it as possible, but
Xena made it very difficult. Surely,
Gabrielle thought, Thalassa must hear,
must know what we're doing.
Her warrior pulled her down on the bed and spread
her legs. Xena kissed
her way up the inside of Gabrielle's thighs and then...
Gabrielle's
heart stopped, she found herself on the edge of a high precipice,
a deep
chasm, about to jump, about to fall... Xena looked up at her,
wicked
gleam in her eyes, seductive half-smile on her beautiful
mouth.
"Are you going to come? Are you ready? I want you to. Come for me."
And
the lush mouth was on her now, kissing her there, Xena's tongue
stirring
her, slipping wetly, hotly in and out of her sex, around her
hooded,
swollen bud...so lovely to watch her do that...the red tongue
flicking
avidly, hungrily against her open flesh.
"Yes!" she rejoiced as
she exploded with passion against Xena's
beautiful face. "Oh..." she groaned,
coming down slowly, stars dancing
behind her eyes. She'd completley forgotten
about there being another
person in the room for one blinding moment.
She
looked up now to see Thalassa standing near the bed, watching, her
one good hand between her legs. Gabrielle held out her hand to her and
Xena did the
same. They pulled her down gently onto the bed, made her
feel desired and
beautiful once more. And perhaps Xena found some small
measure of forgiveness
and redemption.
=========================
The First Time...
It hurt Xena so much to see her
Gabrielle this way. But not her
Gabrielle. This was the young girl who
would've been sold into slavery
if Xena hadn't been there that fateful day,
the first day she'd set eyes
on the feisty, selfless kid that fearlessly
stepped forward to offer
herself...well, nothing had changed...
Until Xena
had made this thoughtless bargain and changed
everything--including
her...both of them. It broke her heart to look at
Gabrielle now. It had
shocked her deeply, to her soul to see her beloved
friend this way, hardened,
bitter, not a flicker of love or joy...or
recognition in her eyes. I have to
make her see...to reach her...but
I've changed our destinies... Could
anything have been clearer? Whatever
it was that set her toward Gabrielle's
village that day, that had
brought them face to face and instantly taken with
each other...it was
their destiny, their fate, always, to be together. And
now here they
were again--but Xena had let her down, not been there for her
when she needed me, the (ex) warrior thought sadly. How can I get through
all this anger she justly feels?
Now she looked more like herself, the
real self Xena knew...and loved.
Xena had given her one of her mother's
dresses to wear and there was
something akin to life...and hope in her eyes.
But still tough...and wary.
"The way you look at me..." Gabrielle
began.
"I'm sorry. I guess I was staring. You just...you look so...lovely
in that...your eyes are--"
"Why are you doing this? Why am I
here?"
"I...I want to be your friend. That's all."
"Yeah, I've heard about
that kind of friendship."
The pain must've shown in Xena's features at that
rebuff. Gabrielle studied her a moment, then sighed, "Oh, what's the
difference? Probably beats the bastards that have been using me for their
fun," and with a world-weariness Xena thought she'd never live to see in the
normally ebullient young woman, Gabrielle lay down on her back on the bed
and pulled the long skirt up over her thighs, opening her legs. "All
right. I'm bought and paid for. Do what you want. But don't expect me to
feel anything."
Xena's jaw clenched, fists formed involuntarily from her
hands. She swallowed at the undeniably erotic picture Gabrielle presented,
candle light playing over her features, her...glistening... Xena's
mouth watered. She's couldn't help it. And, yet, the unemotional way
Gabrielle lay there, offering herself yet again...in this way...something to
be borne, like any other burden. Xena went to the bed, lay down beside
her, pulled the skirt down to cover her bare legs.
Gabrielle's bright eyes
turned toward her with surprise. "Sorry if you
don't like what you see," she
said with a bit of hurt pride. Amazing
that she had any left to
hurt.
"Gabrielle, has anyone ever made love to you?"
"I know how it's
done."
"No, I mean made 'love.'"
"...for the other...what you want...or
what I thought you wanted...well,
I've watched a few of the other girls...
The ones who need
some...tenderness...they only find it with each
other..."
A tear slid down Xena's cheek and she brushed Gabrielle's with her
lips.
"I'm sorry. This never should've happened to you. I should've been
there for you. I'm so sorry."
Determined to make it better, Xena held the
young woman tenderly in her
arms, reminding herself that, to Gabrielle, this
would be their first
time together.
**
"You said I remind you of
someone."
"Yes...you do. My best friend."
"If a man had used that line on
me--"
"It wasn't a line."
"Then where is she?"
"That's...a long sad
story."
"You miss her?"
"Not so much...now." She hugged the moist, limp
young body in her arms,
both of them sated and secure.
"You must have
loved her a lot."
"Oh, yes. More than life itself. She... was everything to
me."
"I...I don't mind as long as you don't call me by her name
when we're...you know."
Xena smiled warmly, "Oh, don't worry," caressed
the golden hair, "There
won't be any danger of that, believe me," spoke in a
breathy fervid
whisper, "...Gabrielle."
"I did not
believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When
the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the
light of the
stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the
dark night seems endless
Please remember me"
--Loreena
McKennitt
"Dante's Prayer"
Before the Fall
They stood by the ship's
railing. Gabrielle still sadly watching the
waves where the gold ring had
disappeared into the clear blue water of
the sea. Xena could see how the
burden of what Gabrielle had done--what
she had asked Gabrielle to
do--weighed on her friend. Too heavily for
such a young pair of shoulders. If
she could take the pain and regret on
herself she would do it gladly. She
would do anything--anything.
Gabrielle's hand was still warm in hers. They
had just vowed to each
other once again. Using the sacred word--that
word--the one Xena had
always avoided in her relationships, the one that
humbled you in someone
else's eyes, that left your heart unguarded. And now
Gabrielle was in
her arms, her dear golden head resting on Xena's breast.
Surely she must
hear that unguarded heart, beating fast and hard.
"I need
you," Gabrielle breathed.
"I need you too," Xena rejoined reciprocally,
smoothing the golden hair
with a soothing caress.
"No, I mean I 'need'
you. Now. Right now."
Xena gazed down into a pair of hungry eyes. The
intensity of it startled
her. "Oh." Her knees became a little less steady.
Her heart beat faster
still. Xena looked helplessly, for once, around them at
the deck. "A ship doesn't exactly provide a lot of privacy."
Gabrielle's green eyes were bright with the deepest longing, imploring
her to do something about it. Xena thought her legs could maybe carry
her as far as the
hatch which led to their quarters. How this young
woman could disarm her.
She called to Vercinix. He came to the bottom of the short flight
of stairs. "Could you do us a favor?"
"Of course. Whatever you ask. You
know that. I owe you my life."
Her voice husky, quivering, she said, "Nothing
as drastic as all that,"
thinking, I'll die right here if my heart doesn't
slow down, "Just...see
that we have some privacy...until I call you."
He must've seen something in her eyes, heard it in her voice...he smiled
and assured her, "No one will get by me."
And then she looked over her shoulder
to where Gabrielle was gripping
her hand so tightly...and saw just what he
saw. She swallowed hard.
Gabrielle was the one who could still ambulate and
she drew Xena down
the stairs past him and into the cool darkness below.
A crude wall was created by a blanket that hung over a length of rope
and Gabrielle led her behind it to where their bedding lay. Her back
against the vessel's inner hull she held Xena spellbound, transfixed by
the most carnal expression Xena had ever seen on her lovely face. Is
this the same child I found a few short years ago? Her innocence had
been such a joy...and an
obstacle. How much of this was Xena's
doing...her influence? Would Gabrielle
have ever discovered this...side
of herself if not for...whatever fates
decreed they should be together?
The younger woman had blossomed at her
touch.
The sweet green eyes appeared fevered as Gabrielle brought Xena's
hand to her lips, lightly nibbled each fingertip, sucked the fingers into
her mouth. Xena's breathing became labored, she felt the
earth shift...alright they were on water, that was to be expected. She
closed her eyes momentarily to steady herself against an onrushing wave of
emotion, which dizzied her. In the midst of a tempest, a tidal wave
washing over her, sweeping them both away.
"Do you have any idea how
much I love you?" she murmured throatily,
barely remembering a time when
she'd been unable to completely voice it.
The truth. The whole truth. It sets
you free. She replaced her fingers
with her tongue, mouth on Gabrielle's,
passionate, but tender.
As they gasped for air, Gabrielle turned her head
aside, surprisingly,
withdrew. Xena's heart was thudding so loudly in her
chest she could
barely hear her own shaky voice ask, "What is it?" as
Gabrielle went
down to her knees on their blankets. The deep sorrowing
sadness had
returned to her eyes.
"I don't feel very lovable right now."
The voice sounded up from a well
of experience so dark and deep, the
innocence lost in her, the child
drowned in the ultimate fathom's depths
forever. "I want to
be...ravished. Hurt me, Xena. Make me forget
everything."
Xena warred against the lust induced in her by these words vying with
the tenderness for this lost soul she valued above all others.
Including her own. Breathing ragged, mouth open, breasts rising and
falling rapidly, Xena's eyes locked on Gabrielle's, pellucid blue on
aquamarine,
everything, all the heavens and the earth were contained in
those precious eyes which reflected each to each beloved. No sound, but
the beating of her heart, or was it Gabrielle's?-- Who would blink first
and break the spell, who would dare to move?
Xena launched herself
forward, sprang like a panther bringing her warm,
soft, delectable prey to
ground. The outer skin, their clothes, torn
away piece by piece in a fever to
reach what lay beneath, the naked,
tender flesh, Xena's teeth marking her
fair skin, leaving the trace of
passage as she worked her way down
Gabrielle's body, neck and breasts,
belly and thighs. Her fingers and her
tongue, stroking, penetrating,
feasting. The scent of her driving Xena
wild.
"Oh, by the gods, Xena, yes. Take me. Harder. Harder. Harder."
Gabrielle
sat up, snarling, watched Xena's hand working between her legs,
tasted
herself on Xena's lush and sensuous mouth. Both sets of Gabrielle's
lips
issuing the sweetest sounds. Where all the sacred elements
met--earth
air fire water--in this primal dance. She'd never been so wet and
open.
So willing. No one can hurt you like the one you love, the one
you'd risk and give everything for.
She climaxed with an amazon cry that
Xena thought must've been heard
throughout the vessel and her wooden hull
down to the very bottom of the
sea. And then she wept like the child she
still, in large part,
remained. Xena held her close, whispered in her ear.
For one blessed
ecstatic moment there had been sweet oblivion and pure
bliss--and then
the memories came flooding back--all the pain and Gabrielle
hung on for dear life. So much pain. An agony of anguish, at war between her
better nature, her good heart and what she's...become with me, Xena
knew.
Xena cried freely now too. If she couldn't provide comfort for this
most precious soul entrusted to her care what good was she to Gabrielle?
It's up to her--to let go--or to hold on. Her decision. And if she has to
let go of me as well... then so be it.
*****
Xena woke, Gabrielle
curled into her body, both women lying on their
sides. Gabrielle was
murmuring, talking in her sleep again, that's what
woke her. "I never meant
to hurt you..." The words she'd spoken as she
lay dying from the arrow poison
that almost took her from me, Xena
thought, a tightening lump in her throat.
"...believe me. I only
wanted...to show you...how much...how much...don't
leave
me...please...I'd give my life...Xena...Xena...my life...I love
you..."
As soon as we get home, Xena thought, I'll take her to the temple
of Mnemosyne, all human memory--and misery. She needs to test herself,
her faith--in herself...and in me...and then, hopefully, we'll be
past it...at last.
************
"...and I will never be the
same--
caught in your eyes,
lost in your name..."
--Melissa
=======================
Love Hurts
Gabrielle didn't die as quickly as Xena had
hoped, but lingered for an
hour or more. The warrior would not allow Joxer
(she had him occupied
now with building the...pyre) to pull the weapon from the young woman's
chest. No reason to hurt her more than she'd already
been hurt--mortally--and removing it would hasten the flow of her
precious
blood...the end of her brief life...all too brief. She begged Xena
to pull it out, let her go....the pain seared her with every breath,
but stubbornly the warrior held on to her friend. What if this
time something righted itself and time went forward in its
natural progression of days? What if she'd lost Gabrielle forever?
She cradled the young woman in her arms as best she could. "There's so
much I
want...I need to say to you." A single tear fell to Gabrielle's
parched lips.
"If what you say is true...and you're not just saying it to make
this easier on me...I'll see you in the morning. If not... It's just a
transition--from one state to another. I'll see you again. We'll
be together. Forever."
"Yes," Xena whispered fervently, as she stroked
flaxen hair, caressed
the fevered cheek.
Gabrielle's face, moment to
moment contorted in agony, then would relax
between moments and gaze up at
her in complete love and understanding,
purer in its trusting sweetness than any she'd ever known. "Have we left
anything unsaid?"
Xena shook her
head.
" 'We need not speak the words, my love and I,' " Gabrielle was
reciting
from memory, struggling for breath to enunciate through the pain, "
'we
need not show the world, we know what we know, it is our own and no
one
else's, all that is sacred, all that is wise, we see reflected in
each
other's eyes, my love...and I...' "
Xena swallowed her warring
emotions. "Who wrote that?"
"I did. Never wrote it down. I've carried it in
my heart." With great
difficulty, she reached weakly to touch Xena's face,
dissolving now into
tears. "Kiss me, Xena."
As their lips met one last
time, Gabrielle's final shuddering breath
released itself into Xena's mouth.
The light was gone from her eyes and
Xena bathed her face in agonizing
sorrow. "I Iove you, Gabrielle. I love
you."
The warrior wept for a long
time, until numbness set in from the shock
of loss. She allowed Joxer to
remove the weapon from her friend's body.
She could not bring herself to do
it. But she carried Gabrielle to the
bier and placed her ever so gently upon
it, brushed the hair from her
forehead with a soft caress.
"Come back to
me...in the morning. I pray to the gods for the first time
in my life..come
back to me. Bring her back to me." She watched the fire
catch hold and then
turned away, kneeling on the sand, back to the
flames and began to keen the
dirge till the moon set. Now she knew what
the phrase meant--to sing one's
heart out. Hers was broken utterly,
splintered to shards, razor sharp,
cutting her inside.
She remembered the feel of Gabrielle in her arms, holding
her here on
this spot when this crazy game of roundelay began and it was
Joxer who
had been killed. They had both needed the life-affirming comfort
of sexual union after they'd awakened from a light fitful sleep.
Gabrielle
especially had been so open, so vulnerable. Xena's fingers twitched
with the tactile memory, the sensation of Gabrielle wrapped hotly
around her slow working hand. Never to feel Gabrielle in her arms
again, spinning on the tips of her fingers, under her tongue and
greedy mouth--the thought was unbearable.
She closed her eyes, meditating,
releasing all fear and anxiety, in a
manner that had been taught her many
years ago by another special woman
in her life, and waited for the cock-crow
and the new day.
Deep Inside
"Uh, Gabrielle, there's something I need to
ask you--but you don't have
to answer, ok?"
They were sitting by the
fire, Gabrielle nodded, dreading what might be
coming. "I think I know...
Xena, I thought she was you. I mean, it was
your body."
Callisto's face
clouded with Xena's emotions. "Oh...then you did sleep
with her. I knew
it...dammit...the way she said you were HER 'little
friend' now. I'll kill
her."
"Not before she's out of your body, please. I LOVE that
body."
"Well...?"
"Well what?"
"How was it?"
"Oh, no, please don't
go there."
"Did she...hurt you? Was she...?"
"...Yes, it was...rough sex.
Really, not anything we haven't done
before."
"Oh? And...what did she do
to you?"
"Xena...it's really creeping me out to think Callisto was
touching
me..like that and now you want the explicit details."
"Was
it...good for you? Did you like it?"
Gabrielle stared daggers, "She tied my
hands with her...with your
bullwhip and raped me with the butt end and
then--"
"OK. All right. I don't need to know. You're right. Sorry."
The
woman in Callisto's body moved closer, put an arm around Gabrielle
who
immediately tensed up. Xena sighed, removed her arm. "Sorry. I don't
want to...'creep' you out."
"It's...just, I mean, I know you're in there. But
it's...very hard to
look at Callisto's face, into her eyes and...you know."
"I'm so hungry for you."
"Oh, Xena, don't do this to me."
"What if
I'm stuck in this body? Does that mean I'll never be able to
hold you again,
make love to you?"
"I don't think I could get used to it. And you're a bit
too bony for my
taste. And, besides it would feel like being unfaithful to
you. I...I've
never touched another woman but you before."
"I'll put out
the fire. We'll do it in the dark. You won't have to do a
thing. Just let
me--"
"Stop it! You just want to...reassert your primacy."
"I...what?
Okay, so it's making me crazy. And off base and I need to
feel you wrapped
hot and tight around my fingers--that you're still
there for me,
accessible...my lover...I need you...now...right now...in
the worst way...got
to have you..if I had my whip I'd--"
Gabrielle moaned, went to her knees and
Xena was there holding her in
Callisto's long, thin arms, the blonde head
whispering in Gabrielle's
ear, "It's all right, baby. Close your eyes."
And Xena moved Callisto's hand between Gabrielle's legs
slowly,
methodically with such gentle, though insistent strokes. "Oh, you're
so
wet. I won't hurt you."
Gabrielle gasped as two fingers slid into her
wetness. She knew if she
opened her eyes it was all over. She thought of
Xena's beautiful,
fervant blue eyes, dark hair... "Oh, Xena, yes," she wailed
as she
rocked her hips. The stark image came to her of herself bent over
and
that other Xena, with Callisto inside of her, eyes madly blazing with a
drunken lust, working the thick shaft of leather in and out and
she
imagined the three of them, all three bodies, writhing together, and
she
came as hard as she ever had.
"That's my girl."
===============================
This Precious Ache
They sat together quietly for awhile, Gabrielle with her head on
Xena's
shoulder, until the warrior finally
spoke again. "I've missed you."
There were eons of pain and longing in
that not so simple phrase.
"I lay
there at night all alone and you were always in my dreams,"
Gabrielle said
softly.
"In mine too. So beautiful it broke my heart. And I thought there was
no
way to ever reach you again--in this life. I would have...done
whatever
it took to reach you."
"And what if you had...done that. I'd be
here, all alone
tonight--missing you, my heart broken in two."
Gabrielle
knelt and Xena opened her knees to clasp the young woman close
to her breast.
"I am incomplete without you, Gabrielle."
She took Xena's hands, kissed them
as Xena had done to her earlier when
they'd found each other again, bathed
them in hot tears.
Xena wiped them away with her strong and gentle hands,
lovingly tipped
Gabrielle's face up to meet hers, the full moon silvering her
eyes, her hair. "You were willing to give your life for me. And I thought
you had."
"And I'd do it again--without a second thought."
"That
scares me. I couldn't bear it. Don't ever leave me again."
They stared into
each other's eyes for an eternal moment.
Gabrielle rose and began to draw
Xena toward the house, but the taller
woman hung back. Gabrielle's eyes were
questioning.
"I'm not welcome in there. They think I've...abused you. And
your father
accused me of...'seducing' you."
"He actually used that
word?"
"Yes."
Gabrielle smiled, pulled Xena into her arms. "We can't stay
in the barn.
I'll go in...you come to my window in a little while."
"What
about your sister?"
"She'll do what I ask her to. She can sleep by the
hearth. We always did
that on really cold nights."
Xena waited, heart
pounding, sounding a drumbeat in her ears, as she
studied the pale moon
hanging in the trees. Tangled there by spectral
fingers like the tendrils and
filaments that coiled around and bound her
heart, that bound both their
hearts together. The world had been taken
away from her and now the greatest
gift, the gift of Gabrielle had been
returned to her. Candlelight shone from
Gabrielle's window and Xena
moved toward that light, the light of Gabrielle
in the darkness, the
light that would always lead her home no matter where
that may be.
Gabrielle was waiting for her. She wore a long white nightdress
and Xena
could see the outline of her figure through the filmy material as a
candle by the bed silhouetted her body. The warrior woman was
tantalized
by the sight. She climbed over the sill into Gabrielle's bedroom
and
Gabrielle's arms welcomed her home. They kissed with a hungry
passion
that spoke of the intensity of their longing and then, assuaging it
somewhat for the moment, their lips gave tender solace.
"I spent every
night of my childhood here. Until I met you."
Xena stroked the golden hair,
silky between her fingers. "You've become
such a beautiful woman."
"I've
become whatever you've made me."
"I can't take credit for that...for
this."
She felt Gabrielle's soft, warm breasts against hers, the gentle
rise
and fall. "It comes from within you. It feeds my soul."
Gabrielle
drew her to the bed and Xena sat as Gabrielle knelt to pull
off her boots.
She let the young woman undress her slowly, both of them
breathing in a
quickened unison, trembling outside, quivering inside.
Xena could barely find
her legs as she stood again. She slid the gown
off Gabrielle's shoulders and
let it fall to the floor, pooling at her
feet. Body to body, friend to
friend, soul to soul.
"My love." Xena lay her down on the bed and covered
her body with her
own. They clasped hands against the pillow, stared deeply
into fathomless blue/green depths, held each other there in some
transcendent
sphere, felt the moisture seeping, riding against their thighs.
"You are
my dream, Gabrielle. I saw you shining like the moon, more
beautiful,
pale as a shade, bending down to bathe me in your soft, warm glow.
I was
suspended between Elysium and the dark river. All I ever was or
will
be...all of it changing like the moon, altered by your light. In
your
hands and in your eyes. There is no Xena without Gabrielle. Do you
hear
me? Do you accept it?"
"Yes," the young woman barely exhaled the
word, the emotion throbbing in
her chest and throat, making it difficult to
either breathe or speak.
"I can say I love you, and I do, I can worship at
the altar of your
body--and I will--but we both know our bond goes beyond
that, is so
deep, without boundaries. Fate and destiny intertwined and
inextricable.
In timeless eternity this was...WE were
meant to be.
Together. Always."
Gabrielle tried to find her voice, it quavered as she
began to speak and
she was forced to whisper most of her words. "I always
thought I was the
one who had a way with words. How can I tell you how much I
love you
when the words desert me because they are inadequate to encompass
the fullness and beauty of it, of what I feel for you?"
Xena smiled with
a sad knowing, bittersweet. "How can you tell me? You
already have. When I
saw you fall away from me--forever I thought--and
looked into your eyes for
the final time...believe me I knew how much."
Xena's thumb traced the pretty
mouth of the woman in her arms and she
kissed away the tears. 'I know how
much."
*******
"Come to my window/crawl inside and wait by the light of
the moon/come
to my window/I'll be home soon..." --Melissa
Suspended, dancing
between Elysium
and the dark river
I
struggle to keep my head
above the tide of you
Onrushing, full as the
moon
to drown me
to pull me down
I rise on the dolphin's back
I
plunge to the depths of
your soul
================================
One Good Day, Xena's
Song
You were blazing like the sun,
my love, in
all your splendor
a Valkyrie standing strong
young and unafraid without
me
by your side
Frighteningly beautiful to behold
How I mourn for your
lost innocence
as I celebrate your fearless passion
The moon, she changes,
then is
new again, reclaims her glory
crowns the sky above us as
we
sleep, drowning in our
restless dreams, holding all
the world in each
other's arms
===================================
In the Blood
Gabrielle
knelt behind Xena and brushed her long, dark hair aside to
place a sweet,
gentle kiss on her neck. Just there. In the same
spot...where she had... "Did
I hurt you?" she asked, and shivered
thinking back with a repressed thrill to
the tactile pleasure of her
Bacchae fangs sinking into, connecting with her
friend, the hot rush of
her blood filling Gabrielle's mouth.
Xena
responded to the soft lips brushing against her skin, sighing, then
lay back
on the ground smiling up at Gabrielle. "Most intense orgasm
I've ever
had."
Gabrielle blushed so prettily Xena had to laugh, but then she drew
the young woman down beside her, ran her fingers into the honey-gold
bounty
of her hair, thumb stroking the enchanting elfin curve of
Gabrielle's
ear, "But it's always that way with you."
===================================
The Power...The Passion
"Did
I...hurt you?"
Gabrielle looked up, puzzled. Xena's heart plummeted like
frenzied
feathers falling through the air, a hawk with its razor talons in
the
tender breast of a white dove. It was clear on her face, in her
sweet
green eyes, though she didn't--or wouldn't --voice it.
"When?"
Yes, when?...when there have been so many, many times to choose
from.
Xena rescued her friend once more. "I meant when I tied your
hands..."
"I'm all right. You were a...little enraged...at her. I guess I
kinda
got in the way. As usual. I'm sorry. Again."
"Never apologize for
having a trusting heart, Gabrielle. It's one of the
things I love about you.
One of the many things."
Gabrielle smiled at
that, but darkened again. "Why
did you tell Najara...why did you tell
her that you...hurt me?"
"Because
it's true."
"As if you mean to. When I know you'd take any...risk, any pain
on yourself to spare me."
"Well, it's not all physical...or visible to the
eye, is it?"
"Maybe...sometimes...I want to be hurt, I feel I deserve
it."
"Don't do that kind of penance on my account. Come here." She held
out her hand and Gabrielle came to her.
"Hold me, Xena. I can feel so
lost...but then...I look in your eyes
and...I'm home again. Where I've always
belonged. You are my journey."
"Yes. All roads lead me right back to your
arms. Love...it's so
mysterious...and so simple."
"You sound like
me...musing like that." She placed her hand over Xena's
bare chest.
"There's the heart of a philosopher beating in there."
"Oh, I'm
too...'enraged' for that. I can't calm my mind or heart where
you're concerned. Neither could she luckily. I counted on that. I
could've killed
her. I was so angry. Not out of jealousy or being beaten
by her...not just
that, anyway...but for disappointing you...perhaps
misleading me...she wanted
you so badly. That's something I understand,
at least."
They were standing
by the little lake where Najara and Gabrielle had
walked, watching the wild
swans...who mate for life...and Xena had
watched them from the woods. If
Najara had taken Gabrielle in her arms,
kissed her, if Gabrielle had
accepted...and returned the kiss...she
didn't know what she might've done,
seeing that. As it was, it was
difficult enough just watching Gabrielle ride
off, her arm around the
waist of another woman, another warrior woman...to
see them so
companionable, in joyful converse.
"Do you mind staying here
for the night?" Xena asked. Gabrielle shook
her head. They were lost in their
own thoughts, though intertwined,
resonating with all the emotion from the
past few days. Xena saw to
Argo, while Gabrielle built the fire, settling
both, once again, into
the roles they usually played, the comfortable way of
their relationship. But then Gabrielle surprised her a little by
initiating
for once.
Hair and eyes aglow in the flickering firelight
Gabrielle approached her
boldy, unapologetically, irresistibly...removed her
armor, undid the
straps of her leather bodice...
And then slowly undressed
herself, her flesh golden in the glow, knelt
before her naked goddess to make
her offering.
"You were my lesson I had to
learn." --The Power of Goodbye
Her heart was breaking. But it had been
Gabrielle's decision to make. And Xena knew
that she herself, no matter what she may have promised, could
not bear to come back and visit, to see her
happy and contented with Perdicus, a farmer's
wife, nice guy though he certainly was. She wouldn't
be marrying him otherwise. Xena would've seen
to that. She knew Gabrielle needed to
experience this...other side of life. Marriage...'why can't I
have that--with her?'...children. She'll make
a good mother, Xena thought and smiled
through her tears.
Xena supposed Gabrielle
must feel some confusion and fear about the path
their friendship had taken...it was a
natural, a beautiful thing, but Xena had no
right to hold her if she wanted to go. She just hoped she hadn't
frightened her away.
She would always remember with a keen
regret that sweet soft kiss as they said
goodbye. And wonder if Gabrielle would think of her often. As she
would carry Gabrielle in her heart every day.
(())
"It would make a prison of my life
if you became another's wife..."
"The Soul Cages" -- Sting
Swimming Lethe
The night came. Callisto was dead. Xena had
let her die. Gabrielle was back by Xena's
side, in her arms...in her bed. The tears subsided for a
time then began again as Gabrielle would
remember something of Perdicus...and of his
brutal death at Callisto's mad hands.
Gabrielle's mouth quirked in a little smile, Xena felt it against her tear
dampened breast. She stroked the golden hair
beneath a strong, but gentle
hand. "What?" she prompted.
Gabrielle sighed. "Know what we
talked about? On our wedding night?"
"I wouldn't hazard a guess," the warrior replied softly, and swallowed
hard, choking back the emotion.
"You. Of course."
"Why 'of course'?"
"He knew how I felt about you. Even
granted that we would name our daughter after
you. He...understood. And accepted me. As I am. The way you
do. It confirmed what I believed was true
about love--that's what I was telling him
when...when Callisto rode up."
"And what do
you believe...about love?"
The young woman
raised her head, met Xena's crystal blue gaze. "It is
without conditions...or boundaries. Pure
acceptance. Loving me anyway, no
matter what I've done."
'You told him?"
"I told him I'd never been with 'a man'
before."
Xena's hand was still now, tangled in
spun gold. "Did he...did it hurt you?"
"Isn't it supposed to hurt the first
time?" Gabrielle asked, frowning slightly.
"It didn't with us, did it?"
Gabrielle shook her head. 'No, no it
didn't." She rested her head again on Xena's
warm bosom. "But I hurt you, didn't I? Leaving you. I--have no
excuses."
"You don't need any. You wanted...something different. A...new experience.
I could understand that too, you know. What's
best for you is important to me. You know
that. Or you should."
"You don't think I
was...running away?"
"I don't know. You tell
me. That's one reason...I waited...before I ever
dared to touch you. I never wanted to
overwhelm you with the way I felt
about you before you were sure in your own mind what you
wanted."
"I ran," Gabrielle admitted, nodding
vehemently now. 'I'm sorry. I had to
know...if it was because I was afraid of being with a
man."
"You were..." Xena took a breath, "you
were an eager young woman... It
frightened me, it made me smile. I didn't want you to get hurt...by me or
anyone else. You fill me with such joy. The
way you approach the world. Wanting to
know...to taste everything."
"I was at war
with myself. That's something you know about. Half of me
wanting to be like everyone else, not to
disappoint my family, to be married, belong
to someone."
"And we could never marry," Xena
acknowledged sadly.
"In our hearts."
"We are already."
"Yes."
"Then why did you go?"
Gabrielle's forehead pressed against
Xena's breastbone as she struggled
with the question, pressed her lips to the moist valley between Xena's
breasts, brushed lightly along the fine line
of collar bone. "When I was at home in
Potadeia I wanted nothing so much as getting out of that little
town, away from an arranged marriage with
Perdicus, my family that didn't understand
who I was..."
"So you told me the first night
we made camp together."
"You didn't need me."
Xena made a sound to suggest that was far
from the truth.
"You never said--" Gabrielle
continued. "Maybe I'm just destined to be
discontented with whatever I have. In no time I would've been driving him
crazy, talking about you all the time.
Longing for you. The first day I saw you I
knew what I wanted, or thought I did. I didn't think that would
ever change. I get caught up in the
moment...the emotion..."
"Yeah. Tell me about it."
Gabrielle smiled with genuine good humor
now, face aglow in the firelight, glowing
from within, brighter than flame. She sat up, straddled Xena's
lap, kissed the woman hard. "No other woman
will ever take your place in my heart. My
heart isn't big enough for that. It's full to bursting
already. With what I feel for
you."
'Oh, gods, let
this never end,' even Xena was praying, calling on the
gods. 'I'd rather die than live withiout
this.' To Gabrielle, all she could manage was
a succinct, "Don't stop." It went on until they were
drenched with sweat, it ran in rivulets from
their temples, between their breasts, down
their bellies, they were entangled
now, dark and light. Xena never ceased to be
amazed by the passion of this young woman
writhing against her, their limbs entwined, and to Gabrielle
it was a passion only Xena awakened in
her.
Aphrodite, wakened by impassioned pleas
from her slumbering beauty rest, smiled in
anticipation and braced for a major climax as she sent the
simultaneous orgasm their way. "Sometimes ya
get what ya ask for, babes.
Enjoy."
"Although I claim dominion over all I
see.
it means nothing to
me,
there are no
victories
in all our
histories,
without love"
--Ibid
"Sister Golden-Hair Surprise"
Gabrielle lay down beside her and placed a
warm hand on her shoulder. Xena remained
unstirring on her side, back to her friend, and simply said,
"Gabrielle, we should get some sleep. It's
been a long day." She patted the hand on her
shoulder as she would do to a child. It was a reasonable
request. It had been a very long, very trying
day. It had tried both of them--and in their
devotion to each other.
Gabrielle sighed and
lay on her back next to Xena. She doubted she'd get
much sleep. She was more emotionally, than
physically drained. It was Xena
who'd taken such a brutal beating at Najara's hands. How could I have been
so blind? Gabrielle asked herself again. I always do this. You'd
think...Xena should think I would've learned by now. I'll really get her
hurt or...killed some day...
Gabrielle wiped away a tear, wanted so
desperately to touch the woman beside her.
And so she touched herself instead, fondled her own breasts,
rubbing slowly until the nipples were hard
and erect and then her right hand slid
beneath her waistband and into the growing wetness between her
legs. She only thought of the raven haired
woman now, her beauty, her...dark and
dangerous nature. Xena was inside her, would always be a
part of her. Yes, Gabrielle was
frightened...at times...of the power this
passion had over her. She knew she'd do anything...she already
had.
The orgasm eluded her. Maybe if she
thought of Najara--No! she wouldn't be
unfaithful to Xena, not even in her dreams or fantasies. She'd risked and
given far too much for her to ever let go.
She's afraid of hurting me.
Gabrielle turned on her side and gazed lovingly at Xena's back, her long
dark hair, she touched it longingly with her
fingers, smelled its familiar warm fragrance.
But I've hurt her so many times. And yet we go on
together, forgive each other. Gabrielle
drifted off to a fitful uneasy sleep, she was
dangling at the end of that rope again, for real this time,
and Xena was beyond fury, striking at Najara
like a thing possessed. The same jealousy
awakened in her breast that Gabrielle had felt towards
Lao-Ma. A murderous rage that destroyed all
reason and rational thought.
How could she do
that to me? After all I've given....all of myself...all
my love--she knew Xena was voicing the same
emotion, the same sense of personal betrayal.
In danger of tearing them apart. Gabrielle felt the
rope give and was falling into the eternal
night. "Xena!"
"It's all right. Wake up. You're
dreaming."
"Sorry. I didn't mean to wake you.
I'll...move over here. I don't want to
disturb you. You need your rest." Xena made no move to dissuade her. And
so she slept alone. For the firist time in...
Gabrielle thought back to the very first time
they'd made love. How they had surprised each
other...the intensity of it. It had been building for a long time. She'd
always known that there was an attraction
between them, a connection of their very
souls...and she knew Xena loved her, loved her dearly...but
when she realized that Xena not only loved
her, but was 'in' love with her...then
everything made sense finally, it all fell into place...but it
opened their deep friendship to pressures and
problems Gabrielle had never dreamt existed.
And it had awakened in her this special ache, this
yearning, the need to be with
her...
They barely spoke the next day. Xena
was more taciturn than usual. Brow wrinkled,
eyes squinting ahead, wanting to put distance between them and
what lay in the past. They stopped when
evening began to darken the far horizon. They
ate in silence.
Gabrielle sat beside her,
rested her head against Xena's knees. "When are
you going to stop punishing me? You haven't
said two words all day. You won't look me in
the eyes."
"Oh, no, Gabrielle, I m sorry. I wasn't
punishing you, but myself. How could I punish
myself any more than by pushing you away, than by not
having you in my arms." She stroked the
golden hair.
"Well," Gabrielle's voice was so soft, "if
you think you could let up on yourself, at
least for tonight, you'd find me very appreciative."
Xena rewarded her with a smile. "How
appreciative?"
"Very."
The fullness of the maternal moon shone
down on an act of such passion that a blush
should have colored her pale face.
Xena reached down with her right hand and clasped Gabrielle's and they
pulled each other to a sitting position face to face, still breathing
hard, damp with exhaustion. Leaning on each other for support, gazing into
clear blue/green eyes, seeing, reading what
each needed to see, needed to know. And they
felt humbled by the knowledge.
Gabrielle lay on her back, Xena on her stomach, propped on her forearms
gazing down at her lover. "You knew she was
falling in love with you?"
Gabrielle looked away, then back to
bravely meet Xena's eyes. "You think I encouraged her."
"Of course you did. But not the way you
think I mean. Knowing you--as I do--how could
she help falling in love with you?"
"I'll have to take your word for it."
"Gabrielle, you get inside a person's
heart and soul. All you have to do is smile
at me the way you do, that way you have and I go weak in the
knees. No one else has ever been able to get
so close. You're part of me. The best
part."
Gabrielle turned her head, said, "I love
you, Xena," with the same passionate fervor
as in Xena's Vision and the warrior's eyes must've
looked very sad suddenly. "You look as though
you don't believe me."
"Oh, I believe you, Gabrielle. I just
don't believe I'm worthy of that much
love...and trust from you."
"Of course you are. What a sweet thing,
what a privilege it is to walk beside you in
the world."
"You can still say that--even though it's
changed you like it has?"
"You've stood by me. Even though I've let
you down, disappointed you...hurt you as
much--or more than you think you've done to me. Yes, I
am changed forever. There is no going back.
Innocence is lost...it's the way of the
world. It's not your fault."
"Nor yours. When will I ever be able to
make you believe that? There are
things...forces...we can not control. But Love is the most powerful force
of all. Together--we can do anything." Xena
kissed Gabrielle with such tenderness and
gentle pressure that her mouth opened to receive Xena's
tongue and a hand moved between her legs to
test her receptivity.
She knew she was wet.
She always was when Xena kissed and aroused her like
this. The long middle finger slid into her,
took her softly, for now, stirred and thrust
until she was moaning against Xena's tongue in her
mouth as it mimicked the insistent
insatiability of the finger inside her.
Xena gasped for air, spoke hoarsely, "What do you want from me, name it."
"Everything. All of you. Your life. Your
soul."
"You have that. It's always been yours.
From the beginning. Before we even met.
Before we were born."
"Yes." Gabrielle knew it was true. This
was meant to be. This love. This creation
between them. Powerful and profound--even without the physical
union. But it had to happen. It was the
natural outcome of what they felt for each
other. This bliss. This dancing ecstasy. Now. Here and Hereafter.
Forever. She let go. She held
on.
Xena's eyes locked into hers as the
climactic moment took her, shook them both.
Gabrielle placed her hand over Xena's, kept it pressed hot between
her thighs. She wanted never to move, to stay
here always just like this.
Xena moved inside her and Gabrielle moaned as she moved gingerly
on to her side and slid her hand up Xena's
smooth inner thigh. "Mmm,"
Gabrielle responded to the feel of her as Xena gasped when the small,
delicate hand began stroking her sex.
Two fingers inside of her and Gabrielle's
thumb working against her clitoris,
Gabrielle's sweet mouth on her breast as her tongue danced
around the nipple. The young woman's sex
tightened and opened again around Xena's
finger, exuding moisture as Xena's did the same. It felt so good,
so right.
Xena gave a warrior yell, and Gabrielle savored the victory, slid down
between her lover's legs to taste and scent
and see the effect of what she'd done to her.
Such a juicy, delicious woman, like a pomegranate,
Gabrielle thought as she spread the lips
apart with her thumbs and pressed her face
into the musky heat. Xena gloried in the ultimate sensation of
Gabrielle's tongue entering her, inside her,
moving softly, sweetly. Just as Gabrielle's
spirit lived and breathed and moved inside her heart and
soul. We belong to each other. Nothing will
ever change that. No matter what.
_____________
"When I wake to find the solace of all
we've become
I can't wait to make the promises that I been
leery of
Take me down, let me see, I will wait
I'll be there waiting for you
In the morning when times have changed
I'll be there through the lies and all
I'll be standing like your soldiers
and you hold your secrets
through the days when I need to be alone
I'll be there through the rise and fall"
-- Darius Rucker
THE BLUE SCROLLS II
"No one shall
sleep
and you, O
Princess,
in your lonely
chamber/
you gaze at the
stars
as they
glimmer
with love and
hope.
But my
secret
rests in my
heart/
No one shall
know
my
name/
I will reveal it on your
lips
at break of
day/
And my kiss will
break
the
silence
that makes you
mine/
O night
depart!
Stars, fade
away!
At dawn I shall
win!
I shall
win!
I shall
win!"
--"Nessun
Dorma"
--"Turandot"--Puccini
Inspired By...
(or Babes in The Woods)
They'd had maybe a bit too much to drink.
Joxer was passed out nearby. But if he'd been
wide awake and watching it wouldn't have stopped
her.
"Sweetie," she wheedled, pulling
Gabrielle hard against her where they were
lying on the ground.
"Yes, dearest."
"Just what did that little
waitress say to you?"
"Which little waitress
would that be?" Xena pinched Gabrielle's nipple.
"Ow. Oh, that little
waitress."
"Well?"
"You do mean the one who was giving
you the eye all night?"
"Oh, that's why you
pulled her into your lap?"
"Yes, actually. I
told her you were taken."
"My protectress,"
Xena sighed in mock rapture.
"Were you really
jealous?"
"That's your
department."
"Ouch again. You know how to hurt
a girl... twist her arm, hit below the belt,
take her down, make her pay... Why don't you just act on any of
that, I know you're in the mood. You want me
to keep giving you ideas?"
Xena laughed and slid her hand down Gabrielle's body keeping it pressed
against her belly as she rolled her over onto
her stomach. Her long middle finger found the
girl's sweet little rosebud and Gabrielle squirmed
against her for all the world like a
wriggling eel, her delectible ass moving
against Xena's thighs. She was very excited, very wet, very
close. But Xena extracted her hand with some
difficulty from underneath Gabrielle and
pulled her arms back behind her.
In a moment Gabrielle felt a short length of coarse rope as Xena tied her
wrists together. Oh...fun and games. "I guess
I am your prisoner, Warrior Princess."
"I take no prisoners. Not in this
game. They come as volunteers. Or don't come
at all."
"Your slave, then. What would you
have me do?"
"Oh, that's what I like to
hear."
"You won't...hurt me, will you?
I'm...really very innocent and
inexperienced."
Xena smiled. The Bard could
play this game so well. "Then, no one's ever
touched you like this," Xena cupped Gabrielle's right breast. Scissoring
the nipple between two fingers she gently
squeezed and drew a sweet little gasp and
moan from her captive. "You felt that all the way down here,
didn't you?" and Xena trailed her other hand
down over the soft, firm buttocks and
explored the lush terrain between the girl's legs. "Oh,
ittle girl, I'm going to take you places
you've never been before. I'll carry you away
to my palace and ravish you nightly as you learn to
pleasure me. I'll make you the Queen of my
harem."
"Harem, Xena? You
wish."
"Shh," she pinched Gabrielle's nipple
again. "It's just a fantasy. Don't spoil
it."
"Are you going to do something with that
finger or do I have to lie here and wait
all--oh, yes!" Gabrielle exulted as Xena rammed her finger
home.
"So tight," Xena huskily whispered in
the bard's ear, "just as I'd expect of such
an innocent as yourself, little one. You're simply luscious. You
can't hide your excitement. It's made you
gush like a hot spring. Have you ever made
love to yourself like this? Stroked yourself deep and played in
the wetness? I can't believe how hot you are.
I think my fingers are melting inside you."
Gabrielle, all pretense gone for the moment, thrust
back hard against the jabbing fingers inside
her sex. She was wanton.
"Yes, I think, perhaps, you have done this before." Xena stilled her hand,
maddeningly.
Gabrielle sighed in
disappointment, "Why did you stop?"
Xena's tongue teased Gabrielle's ear, slipped wetly into the tiny orifice.
"Beg for it," she
whispered.
Gabrielle groaned, tried to move
against Xena's hand, but the warrior had a
strong grip and was pressing down with her body covering Gabrielle's.
"Please," the young woman moaned, "take me.
As hard as you like."
"And what do you like?
Tell me." Xena trailed her right arm from
Gabrielle's breast, underneath, located her clit, grasping the young
woman's sex from in front and
behind.
"That. I like that. I like anything
and everything you do to me. Please...my
mistress, my warrior, my beautiful, wrathful goddess, let me
go."
"You mean release you from bondage? Untie your hands?" Xena smiled with
the sweetest cruelty of purpose, prolonging
the passion and the pleasure for them both.
Oh, the anticipation.
"You know what I mean,"
Gabrielle's internal muscles opened and closed, a
sea anemone constricting and releasing with a
fluid delicious movement, around all four of
Xena's fingers buried to the hilt inside her. "I'll do
anything you wish, my princess, but I beg of
you now, thrust hard and deep, rim the
circle, spin me around your fingers, tear me open like a
ripe fig."
Now it was Xena's turn to moan at the words of her Bard. She repositioned
her hands and began taking Gabrielle as she
had just requested, screwing her embedded
fingers in widening little circles.
.
"By the gods, Xena."
Gabrielle, prompted to even
greater wildness bucked against the warrior's hand. Moments from
release, Xena placed the little finger of her
left hand and pressing slowly, steadily,
breaching the too tight muscle, took her lover in that
place as well. She could feel her fingers
pressing against the heated walls inside of
Gabrielle, answering each other, tapping at the door of
her soul as Gabrielle found her release and
came with a shuddering
finality.
Xena was almost as out of breath as
her paramour. She rolled Gabrielle over and
straddled her waist. The Bard could feel Xena's viscous wetness
on her bare flesh and she moaned again in
post-coital satisfaction. Her hands tied
behind her back helped to thrust her already pert breasts at an
upwards angle begging to be suckled. Xena
toyed with them for a moment, gazed and fell
into the clearest aquamarine depths, down, down, till her
lips meshed with Gabrielle's. And then the
warrior kissed her way down the fine, firm
young body, nibbled delightedly at the dark nipples, tipped a
playful tongue into the charming navel and
then to lie between the Bard's thighs and lap
up the cream she found there.
Gabrielle's fingers would've tangled in Xena's hair if they weren't still
fastened behind her back. She arched up into
Xena's beautiful face, knowing she would soon
come again all over that exquisite mouth and strong
chin and beautiful chiseled cheeks. She knew
Xena could keep her suspended like this for
hours, forever, as she walked this tightrope always just
about to fall. It was the sweetest torture
imaginable. Oh, what her warrior could do
with that agile tongue.
"Oh, Xena, I'm going
to come all over again, all
over that beautiful face." She could feel the
muscles in Xena's face quirk as the woman
smiled against her sensitive flesh. The tender muscle moved
within her, drawing sighs and whispers of
love and lust. "I am at your mercy, my
warrior. Take me wih your tongue." She rode against Xena's face,
the dear ravishing tongue never ceasing in
its plunder. "I belong to you, Princess. I am
yours. I give myself freely though my hands are bound."
Xena stroked faster, latched onto the blood
swollen bud sucking and pressing her tongue
hard against it as she thrust again with her fingers
deep inside Gabrielle, conquering her,
setting her free.
Xena wiped her sex annointed
face against the velvet insides of
Gabrielle's thighs and on her flat belly where she finally rested her
head.
"I thought I was supposed to be your
slave, Xena, and all you've done tonight is
give."
"Oh, I thought I was taking pretty
well, wasn't I?"
"Untie my hands." Xena
reached in the hollow at the small of her lover's
back and undid the rope, let it fall beside
them in their bedding. "Now, my darling, if
you'd just get out of those warrior clothes--"
"Gabrielle, my dear," Xena punctuated each adjective with a kiss on a
different bit of anatomy, "sweet, beautiful,
wild, delicate, golden passion
flower--"
"What has gotten into you? Besides
this," and she made an unsuccessful forward
pass with her hand aimed between Xena's legs.
"Not tonight."
"But, Xena...I want
to--"
"That is your punishment. And besides
I'm about to pass out. That last ale went
right to my head."
"I noticed."
"So wake me up early if you want to
make it up to me. Now go to sleep.
Sweet dreams."
"Of you," Gabrielle murmured.
"Xena?"
"Mmm?"
"Remember that old tale about the
powerful sorceress who was so enchanted with
a young fair and long-haired maiden that she 'seduced' her away from
her family and held her in bondage, in a high
tower in a dark forest?"
"What about it?" Xena
asked groggily, not really caring.
"I think I just figured out what it really means--you know, the, what
would you call it? The under meaning. Sub
meaning, the Romans might say. Don't you find
that fascinating? I wonder how many more stories might be
open to that insight and interpretation?
Wonder if I could write a
few...?"
"Oh, I'm sure you will. But in the morning. Now go to sleep."
"I figured it
out
I was high and low
and
everything in
between
I was wicked and
wild...
till there was
you
Something went
wrong
I made a deal with the
devil
for an empty
IOU
Been to hell and back
but
an angel was looking
through,
it was
you
It's all because of
you
You are the
reason
I wake up every
day
and sleep through the
night
In the middle of the
night
I'm going down to say
I
want you, I want to touch
you
You came out of my
dream
and you made it
real
I know what I feel--it's
you
It's all because of
you
You are the
reason..."
-- Celine Dion & Carole
King
--"The Reason"
Never
"One chance...one
love
Your chance to let me
know...
Hold me down never let me
go"
--Heart
She was running...uphill. Almost out of
breath. She had to reach her friend...before--
She woke with a start...to
find her friend gone--again. "Where are you?"
she shouted. Becoming frantic, she leaped naked to her feet, yelling her
friend's name.
The young woman rushed back to their
campsite and into the clasping arms of her
imposing friend, now reduced to the rarity of teary eyes and a
voice choked with emotion.
She shook the younger woman's
shoulders, "Where were you?" she demanded.
"It's nothing. Calm down."
Grasping the young
woman tighter still, till both were trembling, her
voice quavered when she swallowed down the
nameless fear and spoke again.
"Promise me...promise you'll never run from me again."
It was her stalwart friend who needed comforting now. The younger woman,
little more than a girl, slid down the long,
compact body to kneel amidst their bedding.
She still held the hand of the dark-haired warrior woman
and gently urged her to her knees, eyes
flickering adoringly over the perfect body as
the firelight also flickered, playfully touching the warm
flesh, creating patterns of darkness and
light as the woman slowly came to the ground
before her.
"I'm sorry," she apologized again
for many things, caressing the woman's
cascade of long dark hair. "You know how I feel about you," she murmured,
"but I'll show you just the same." Pressing
her mouth softly to that of her friend, she
delicately cupped one full breast, gently squeezing as if
to test the ripeness.
The dark-haired woman moaned, lay
back as she was borne down to earth.
Sobbing uncontrollably she released all the pent-up rage and frustration
and sorrow of the past few days.
"Oh...Gabrielle." This strong warrior woman
trembled in her lover's arms. "I was afraid I'd lost
you."
"Never," the younger woman whispered, a
fervent promise. "You know I love you, Xena.
That's the one thing you should never question." Gabrielle
hurriedly removed her negligible attire and
pressed her passion and fire warmed body
against Xena. She kissed her way down the soft skinned, hard
muscled body, finally thrusting with her
golden head between the woman's legs. Drawing
the sweetest music.
Xena gave herself up
completely to the pleasure...and the love being given
her, oh, how she loved this young woman--with
all her being...and her soul. The beloved
golden crown moved slowly, languorously against her
yielding flesh, the pink tongue flicking
sweetly on the swelling bud, calling her
forth as surely as any Siren to convulse with the joy of the
act as Gabrielle's tongue entered her and her
dear face pressed into the heat of the
woman she loved with all her heart.
The coming to completion had become a sacred communion for both of
them.
Xena lovingly rolled Gabrielle onto her
back. Half golden, half ghost as firelight
and moonlight washed over her in equal measure, her hair become
pale, almost white in the gray lunar bath of
Selene's cool beams. "I've never seen
anything more beautiful," Xena whispered with tremulous awe as
she gazed on the effect and spread the young
woman's legs to feast eyes and mouth on the
golden down that covered the girls' delectable garden.
Xena sank into the luscious welcoming
pleasure, reacquainting herself with each
tufted hillock and deep valley, glistening in the half light as she
drew cries of extreme sensate delirium from
the woman she loved.
Not too much now. Her
tender flesh still swollen and sensitive. "My poor
little girl, poor... baby. What they did to
you..."
Both women out of breath, Gabrielle sat back
on her heels, eyes locked on the
extraordinary blue of Xena's gazing up at her with a great love and
always surprising tenderness.
"I love you," her warrior princess said
softly.
"I know," Gabrielle smiled with not a
little pride in the fact.
Xena frowned and
Gabrielle's brows rose in question. The warrior raised a
still trembling hand to the girl's breast,
gently, wonderingly fingered a nipple. A
fluid, golden in the firelight, was leaking from
her.
"You have milk," Xena spoke with hushed
awe.
"Of course," Gabrielle acknowledged
simply as she looked down to confirm the
phenomenon, aching suddenly for her lost child, the daughter her
beloved friend would have...no, not to think
of it ever again. She and Xena were two alone
once more and she sighed mightily with contentment as
she placed one hand on the back of Xena's
dark head and brought the woman's mouth to
her breast, cradling the warrior in her loving arms.
"Why should I be somebody you
fear
When you're asleep and I'm so
near?
Don't even know why I'm in your
dreams
I got control over none of these
things
Morning comes, hard and
bright
And I'm exhausted from running after
you all night
Chasing you into the
light...
Now as the dawn comes over the
night
Watching the stars in the sky disappear
maybe
You'll find a way to let go of your
fright
The sea is deep the world is
wide
Ships are leaving for the other
side...
And in the east clouds are strung out
behind the moon
Chasing her into the
light
Wake
up"
--Jackson Browne
Gabrielle woke to a sound like...well, an
intriguing sound. Almost like someone
wrestling. When she opened her eyes she saw Xena through the fire
astride Marcus, moving in rhythm as he thrust
upwards between her legs, into her body,
impaling herself on his huge ebony cock. Gabrielle's eyes
widened in fascination. She'd never
been...exposed to this before. Though she'd
seen beasts doing...it, of course. Coupling. She couldn't take her
eyes off of Xena, sweat glistened on her
upturned breasts, nipples fully extended, her
eyes closed in some deeply fervent meditation as she gasped
and softly moaned, head lolling on her neck,
face towards the stars. She was
breathtaking.
And Gabrielle became aware of a
heated exciting emotion fluttering in the pit
of her stomach, a wetness growing between her legs. Xena quickened her
movements and Gabrielle felt the oddest
sensation, her breathing had also quickened
rapidly...and she knew it for a fact now. She envied him. Being
able to touch her friend that way. To take
her like that. Fill her. Move inside her, be
so intimately connected to that magnificent creature. At
this moment she'd sell her soul to trade
places with him. This self-knowledge also
fascinated her. But what could she do about it? Then
Xena opened her eyes and looked over at
Gabrielle and directly into her eyes. It
didn't throw her at all. She almost smiled. And then moaned
loudly, sighing, gasping as a tremor shook
her. She kept her eyes locked on Gabrielle
and began moving hard against him as the young woman watched.
They were in a dark and special race...or
dance. And soon Xena's body trembled, tensed
and then relaxed. And this time the girl's hand had
strayed between her own legs and melted into
the moisture there as she whispered Xena's
name.
"Imagine this in one pair of
eyes
and this is my
beloved."
--Kismet
"Rhiannon rings like a bell through the
night
and wouldn't you love to love
her
She rules her life like a bird in
flight
and who will be her
lover...
all your life you've never seen a
woman
taken by the
wind
would you stay if she promised
you
heaven
will you ever win
She is like a cat in the
dark and then
she is the
darkness...
Dreams unwind, love's a state of
mind,
I
know..."
--Stevie
"Jump up behind me my
love--
jump up behind
me
We follow this road
till
we reach the
sea..."
--James Taylor &
Sting
(Hourglass)
Fields of Gold
Ares was gloating as usual. But this time he
had something to revel in.
Gabrielle was
stretched out naked beneath him, her hands tied above her
head.
"I've
always wanted to do this," he said. Xena sat opposite, chained to
the wall, unable to close her eyes, forced to
watch.
His cock, was, of course, of Olympian
proportions and Gabrielle's eyes widened
accordingly, as she gulped at the sight, and fervently hoped the
rest of her anatomy could do likewise.
Straddling her, he pressed the tip to her
lips, attempted to force as much as he could into her
mouth.
'"Oh, I knew that mouth was good for
something." Xena, in fury, strained against
her chains. "Easy, Xena, this is the mouth you should worry
about." He thrust hard with two fingers
between Gabrielle's legs. "Is that
how she likes it, Xena? Or does she prefer your tongue--as
who would not? You must love doing this to
her."
He placed his godhead and pushed against
her, bringing her legs up and back, wide open
so that Xena could see everything. His huge cobraheaded
member painfully breached her sex and
Gabrielle cried out and whimpered as each
successive inexorable inch of his very sizable scepter penetrated
her. Taking her by
force.
"Stop," Xena cried, "you're hurting
her."
"That's the idea." He was in all the way
now. "And wouldn't you like to be in my
place?" he asked with a wily smirk. "You know you'd like to take her
like this." Ares began to thrust harder and
faster with each stroke as if he would split
her in half by the force of it. "Admit it, Xena," he
teased. "You don't have to. I'll let you know
what it feels like, wading to the waist in
Gabrielle. So hot and wet..." And then Xena saw through
his eyes, was inside him, taking her friend
with abandon, felt Gabrielle around his/her
cock embedded so deeply, gliding in and out,
delicious...
"Oh, yes," Xena moaned and
Gabrielle turned her head in surprise and then
understanding as she met Xena's eyes and
began to move beneath him. To writhe and
gyrate. Ares groaned, lost it, came long before he'd wanted to
and Xena was flung back against the wall by
the force of his/her orgasm.
"Well, you
certainly enjoyed that," he noted, looking at Xena,
perspiration running down her face,
glistening between her breasts. "And so did
you, I think," he looked down at Gabrielle then released her hands,
tying them behind her back. He brought her
off the huge bed and forced her down in front
of Xena, spread the warrior's legs and pushed Gabrielle's
head between them, "But this is what you
really love."
Xena came hard against
Gabrielle's pretty face, holding her head against
her open sex, lovingly stroking her golden
hair. "Oh, Gabrielle, ye gods, girl, you sure
can tell a story. That was...well, you know."
Gabrielle withdrew, lay on her side and propped her head on her hand,
elbow supporting her in the soft bed of
barley grass. Almost the color of her hair.
"I know," Gabrielle said proudly. "Now, you tell me a
story."
Xena enwrapped her in the warrior's
powerful embrace. "I'll never have your
talent, but I do possess a few of my own. OK. Once there were two
devoted friends, they travelled the world
together. One day while lying in a golden
field--"
"I think I know this story."
"Just lay your head back on the
ground
and let your hair spill all around
me
offer up your best
defense
this is the
end
this is the end of the
innocence."
--Don Henley
"It was a private
conversation."
--Lovett
Body and Soul
"Please don't leave me here like this!"
Gabrielle wailed, straining against her
bonds.
Xena, in her madness, had just bound
her friend to a tree with the admonition that
she, Xena, could "not be trusted." Something irresistibly
plaintive in her voice must've pricked the
warrior's conscience, gotten through the fog
that laid siege to her wits. She was coming back.
Gabrielle breathed a sigh of
relief.
"You trying me, little
one?"
"Please untie me. You don't want to do
this."
"What...exactly...don't I want to do?"
She punctuated her words by running a finger
over Gabrielle's breast, rimmed the nipple just where the girl's
dark pink aureole would begin.
"No...please, Xena. Not here. Not like
this."
"You wanted me. Now live with it." She
rubbed the nipple to hardness, enjoyed the
sight of it standing up through the coarse material of
Gabrielle's bodice. It made her mouth water.
She had to see. She thought of pulling a
dagger and slittting the laces, but then sanity prevailed for
a moment. She couldn't leave Gabrielle here
like that...what if someone, some man came
along and...touched her like this. She squeezed the heavy
globe. She was so hard to resist as it was.
Altogether delicious. Xena leaned forward,
rested her body against her captive friend, licked a tear
which trickled from the corner of her eye,
ran her tongue across the cheekbone and into
one charming pixie ear.
Gabrielle was
trembling now, but she moaned deep and low in her throat in
spite of herself. Xena whispered, told
Gabrielle what she was going to do to her,
knew the moisture would be growing, exuding between her legs as
she listened, wide-eyed. Forcing her fingers
under the material she pushed Gabrielle's top
up and released the full pretty little breasts. She palmed
each, handled them lovingly as Gabrielle's
mouth opened to her probing
tongue.
Xena's knee worked between the girl's
legs, massaging, provoking excited sharp
breaths. Had she surrendered? Willingly? She had no choice. But she
could never deny me, Xena thought. Breaking
the deep kiss she pulled back to look at
Gabrielle, both of them breathless with excitement. "What
happened to your resistance?'
"You. You always just...sort
of...happen to me, don't you?" Gabrielle
licked her lips, then snaked her tongue out to lick Xena's. "Whatever you
want," she whispered. "Do
it."
Xena drew her sword, could see and hear
Gabrielle's hard swallow. Smiling that
half-smile which could be sly or cruel in turn, she shifted it in her
hand, held it by the haft and touched the
hilt between Gabrielle's legs.
Rubbed it against the mound of Aphrodite, just there where the sexual bud
begins to flower, and swell. Once again she
forced the material covering aside, this time
it tore, and the sword's handpiece slipped into the
wetness, into Gabrielle. She gasped and
moaned, writhing against the tree as Xena
worked it in and out.
The woman dipped her
head from the girl's mouth to suckle at the ripe
little breasts. Gabrielle thrilled to Xena's
hot mouth fastened on her nipple. "You know I
love you," Gabrielle almost sobbed the words. "Love
you," she spoke dreamily, closing her eyes
and resting her head back against the tree's
trunk as her lover slid slowly down her sweet young
body, to kneel, to worship.
Xena withdrew her sword, jabbed it
wickedly into the fertile earth of the forest
floor and replaced it with her greedy fingers. Gabrielle was so
deliciously wet and open. Her legs lifted
onto Xena's shoulders, fingers delved deep
inside, drawing sweet music, low gutteral assents and
affirmations, keening ecstatic peals of
pleasure. She quivered with it as Xena's
tongue touched her there, slid through the furrow of her sex,
stroked her hooded rosebud, entered her, took
her. Owned her. Completely.
"Hold me down to
anything
anything that you
see
I should walk away right
now
I'll be there, so never
mind
I'll be the one to
fall
Waiting for you to look up at
me
Oh I love you the
most
Always giving up the
ghost
In your own private
conversation
You're a sweet
mystery
There is nothing in
between
You and the Mona
Lisa
Nothing in
particular
and everything
between
This is what you mean to
me
Only you and only
me
Climbing in the right
direction
On the way to
everything..."
--Shawn Colvin
Mad About the Girl
She had found the warrior standing naked,
incoherent, an affright to the simple
peasants puzzled by her odd behavior. Speaking to her softly,
trying to reason with her like she would to a
child, Gabrielle managed to lead her back to
their campfire. It broke her heart to see the steadfastly
sound and sane Xena in this state of
madness.
Trying to get the tall woman to lay
down again by the fire, Gabrielle's hands
were forced to touch her smooth, heated flesh and Xena responded to
Gabrielle's touch.
"No, Xena. Try and rest." The younger
woman straddled her middle to keep Xena from
rising again.
"That's a pretty sight," the
warrior assured her. "Are you going to do
that all night?"
Gabrielle looked down at the
truly breathtaking sight of Xena painted in
warm golden tones by the fire. Xena moved beneath
her.
"I can feel how wet you
are."
The young woman tried to swallow. It
hurt. She had no idea how to handle herself,
or Xena, in a situation like this one. Sh couldn't deny the lust
she felt...and at the same time... It
frightened her. She knew if Xena wanted her,
she could easily take her...and she wasn't at all sure she'd
fight it.
"Why, my delicious little bard, don't you take those clothes off and come
play with me? I want you on your hands and
knees, your legs spread over my face."
"Xena," Gabrielle was blushing
furiously from the sudden rush of hot blood
to her lovely features. Xena's hands rose of their own volition to pluck
the moon's silver apples and Gabrielle's
resolve began to melt.
"You know you want to,"
Xena teased, feeling the nipples rise in
delightful bas relief through the cloth of Gabrielle's bodice. A blind
woman could read the signs. "Don't fight me.
You'd lose. Now, do what I say."
Gabrielle allowed Xena to undo her laces
and then the warrior's warm hands were
cupping each breast and Gabrielle was already
whimpering in surrender.
Poised over Xena's
beautiful face, her heart sounding wildly, erratically
at the anticipation of being taken by a
madwoman, Gabrielle trembled.
Xena's fingers
opened her, without mercy, drew a cry from so deep within
it must've emanated from her very soul, and
then the warrior's mouth was kissing the lips
of her vulva, stroking with her tongue, entering her
softly, tasting, sipping, feasting...
Gabrielle moaned and settled lower over her
lover's face as she parted Xena's legs and buried her head
between the strong thighs. If this was
madness, she couldn't fight it. She didn't
want to.
when I
penetrate
the
night
between
your
thighs
and sighs
arise
from
the
depths
of
your eyes
I forget
about
the
lies
I
forget
about
the
lies
I
forget
about
the
lies.
Dark Reflection
"I don't know why I'm so jumpy," Gabrielle
apologized again as Xena sat beside her and
stroked the long blonde hair away from her
face.
"I was too hard on you this afternoon.
Let me make it up to you. It's just nerves,
that's all. I want to make you forget about that now. Let's just
lie down and work it off in a more
pleasurable way."
"I..." was she really about
to turn down the W.P.? she asked herself in
some startlement. "Xena, I'm not in much of a mood right now. I think
I__"
Xena pressed her back onto the ground and
covered her lithe young body with the
warrior's sinewy own. The long practiced fingers began undoing
her bodice stays. Gabrielle attempted to
shift her weight and sit up,
"Xena, really,
I'm not--" She was firmly pushed down and held in place as
Xena's right hand moved under her
skirt.
Gabrielle squirmed and struggled a bit
more and Xena grinned. 'She's enjoying this,'
Gabrielle's mouth opened in wonder and the woman on top of
her took the delighted opportunity to ravish
that mouth with a wicked tongue. She wasn't
going to take no for an answer. Apparently. And any
attempt at struggle was only fueling the
warrior's dark fire.
"Go on, fight me,
Gabrielle. It excites me. It excites you too. Doesn't
it?" The warrior's hands roughly removed her
clothing and then reached to her side and
came away with the long, black whip.
"What are you going to do with that?" Gabrielle's eyes widened in sudden
fear.
"Not to worry. You'll like it. If I know you as well as I think I do.
And...I'm sure I do." The warrior purred
throatily as she touched the thick leather
grip of the whip to her companion's sex winding the dark
tendrils of animal hide around the Bard's
wrists now firmly clasped behind her
back.
And as the woman ravished her savagely
from behind, it was Callisto's wicked smile
that twisted Xena's features as she took the Bard without
mercy.
"So let it
be!
And as the lady bode, did
she.
Her gentle limbs did she
undress,
and lay down in her
loveliness...
She eyes the maid and seeks
delay;
Then suddenly, as one
defied,
collects herself in scorn and
pride,
and lay down by the maiden's
side!--
and in her arms the maid she
took."
--"Christabel"
--Samuel Taylor
Coleridge
*********
"If I had to
run
If I had to
crawl
If I had to
swim
a hundred
rivers
just to
climb
a thousand
walls
Always know
I'd
find a
way
to get to where you
are
There's no place that
far"
--Evans & Gill
The Water is Wide
"Promise me."
"Anything." Xena's sword was still in
hand.
"When the time comes," Gabrielle paused,
"take care of it...of me."
Xena didn't want to
know what she meant, but Gabrielle tipped the blade
towards herself, rested its tip at the hollow
of her throat.
"I couldn't."
"You'd let them take me."
"I'll be dead if it comes to that.
They'll have to go through me to get to
you."
"Then give me your
dagger."
Xena reluctantly removed the sharp
implement from her boot, handed it to
Gabrielle. "You make damn sure I'm dead before you use
this."
Gabrielle nodded and averted her eyes
as a single teardrop betrayed the flood of
emotion she was keeping mostly in check. Xena's warm hand wiped
it away, caressed her cheek. "How much time
have we got?"
"Maybe tonight."
"One night. One night to say all I
want...all I need to say to you."
"Only words."
"There are other ways of telling
you."
"Yes."
The sword and dagger were forgotten, fallen. The soft lips found hers.
Then sweet oblivion in each other's arms.
"Hold me."
"I've got you, I've got you."
"...I can't cross
over
and neither
have
I wings to
fly
Build me a
boat
that can carry
two
and both shall
row
my love and
I
There is a
ship
and she sails the
sea
she's loaded
deep
as deep can
be
but not so
deep
as the love I'm
in
I know not
how
I sink or
swim"
--Traditional
Always
"Hold me, Gabrielle."
"I've got you. I'll never let go."
Gabrielle held her so tenderly, comforting,
her soft lips brushed away the tears. She'd thought for a
moment that perhaps they were past it, they'd
dodged their fate, escaped death once more,
but the more she dwelt upon it...it still refused to let
her go. Even though they'd come to it and now
left the place of crucifixion which Alti had
tormented her with in the Vision. She could see
the criteria that had not been
met...Gabrielle's shorn hair, the soldiers
themselves--Romans, and the season...snow was falling all around them. She
could feel the icy cold of it and shivered,
then Gabrielle's tongue was hot and wet
against her cheek, licking salty tears. She knew she couldn't
share these continuing fears with the young
woman. Not after Gabrielle had laid down the
law like she had.
Najara was right, she chided
herself. It just hurt her. You never
should've told her about it. Gabrielle began undressing her, lay her down
by the fire and then undressed herself as
Xena watched. When had she fallen in love so
deeply with this lovely young woman--was it the first
moment she'd laid eyes on her, so brave,
standing forward fearlessly offering herself
so that others might be saved, was it when she'd thrown
herself between the wounded amazon and a
volley of arrows--or only when she thought
she'd lost her forever and fought desperately to bring her
back from the other side, breathing life into
her, beating on her chest, crying, begging
her not to leave her all alone? No one else had ever had
so profound an effect upon her.
Gabrielle lay beside her, pulling the
cover over them and snuggled close, her head
on Xena's breast. "I'm trying to remember the first time I knew I
was in love with you." Xena almost gasped.
"Was it at first sight? What an amazing
woman, I thought. I'd never seen anything like you. Only in my
dreams. And fantasies. A tall, dark woman
with piercing blue eyes. First meeting...first time you saved my life. And my soul. Or was it when I saw
the jealousy in your eyes when you thought
I'd...with that boy when we fought the Titans
or when you entered my dreams...literally. I loved you
long before you inhabited my body to fight
Valasca. But to feel that sense of loving
warmth...to be surrounded by it...I knew."
Xena sighed. They knew each other so well. Perhaps, it had been that time
when Gabrielle had returned to try and save
her from execution after Xena had
accidentally struck out at her, displaying her great courage and
loyalty and...love. 'Or just the first time
she smiled at me like that--telling me I
wasn't alone...' The hot stab of jealousy when
Gabrielle lied to the Titans about no longer
being a virgin...
"...when I thought I might
lose you forever if you struck the fatal blow
to free Prometheus"-- 'and you begged me not to'--"and I held a dying
Iolaus in my arms and spoke of soul-mates and, attractive as he was,
realizing only later that I identified with him and that it was our
relationship that fit the mold. My other
half. The legend also says that some of the
androgynous pre-humans were a little less or more, not always
half male or female right down the middle, so
the soulmate of someone born female may just
be another woman. And I am a lucky, lucky woman for that.
Or when I went to Athens, went back home and
felt how much I missed you so keenly I had to
find and join you again...just as in the meaning of that
tale. Or when, on my wedding night, all I
could think about...was you."
//Does it matter
when? It seems so hard to pinpoint the exact timing of it
since...it's always been there--waiting for
you...searching for 'you.'//
"So true it is no pleasure is
complete
Grief twines with joy; bitter is
mix't with sweet."
--Ovid
"In silence she
says...'excalibur'
I beg of you
now
What was it that
fell
Was it
Freedom
by
choice
Or baby was it
love
Was it a thorn in your
side
Something that you
hide
Something you don't
touch
because it hurts too
much
Oh and just how
deep
Do you hold that
dream
in your hands each
night
this
time
Oh was it
you
I heard
calling...
Well I know that you are
going
Did I force you to
remember
in the sacred name of
love
to be brave save the
stranger
Sable on
blond
Dark upon
light
Because it hurts too
much
Just how
deep
do you hold that
dream
in your hands each
night
I beg of you
now
What was it that
fell
Well this time I think it
was
You
baby"
--Stevie Nicks
Dreams
"I keep my visions to
myself..."
--Stevie
She couldn't let go. And yet...she had to.
Gabrielle was in her arms, their mouths
pressed hard and hungry. And then...her hand struck with the
dagger. Straight into Gabrielle's true heart.
She was standing before Hades as she had once
before...like this...
"No!" Xena woke,
shaking, sweating profusely.
"What? What is
it?" Gabrielle asked, pulling Xena into her
arms.
"Bad dream...just a bad dream." She
hugged Gabrielle to her, rolled on top, took
each hand in hers and spread their arms wide as the vision hit
her again full-force. "Won't let me
go."
"I won't let you go," Gabrielle whispered
fervently.
Xena kissed the palm of Gabrielle's
hand, in the spot where they would drive in
the nails. No. I won't let it happen.
"Do you
want to tell me? Sometimes if you talk about a dream it loses its
hold on you."
"No. I'm all right now. Nothing to tell.
It's gone. You're here. In my arms."
"And what do you want to do about
that?"
Xena smiled, grounded once again, both
of them safe in each other's arms.
"I'm sure
we'll think of something."
"Why do we crucify
ourselves
every day I crucify
myself
nothing I do is good enough for
you...
my heart is sick of being in
chains
...I've been raising up my
hands
drive another nail
in
got enough guilt to
start
my own
religion."
--Tori Amos
This is not the
end,
my
friend
The Lovers
crucified
side by
side
shall rise and
rise
Find true heaven
in
each other's eyes...
"And pluck till time and tide be done the
silver apples of the moon, the
golden apples
of the sun..." --Yeats
THE BLUE SCROLLS II
Conquest
"Did you tie her hands?"
"Don't worry, I won't let her get
away."
"Don't worry, she doesn't want to get
away from you." Xena held Gabrielle's eyes,
then went to see to Argo.
***
"Don't you care about what happens to me?"
The young blonde woman's eyes were soft,
gentle and appealing.
"Of course I do," Gabrielle averred. "You should know that." She was torn,
completely, by the sight of the crusader, so vulnerable.
"I know," Najara said, caressing
Gabrielle's eyes with her own.
"Then why did you ask?"
"I needed to see it in your
eyes."
The situation was fraught with
possibilities, dangerous, the woman
desirable, begging for, wanting the reassurance of human contact.
Gabrielle could still feel those soft hands
on her face.
"You know how I feel about
you."
"Don't." Gabrielle's eyes misted.
"I'm frightened,
Gabrielle."
"Of Xena? She won't hurt you. I
won't let her hurt you."
"The way she does
you? How much longer can you live that way? Someone like
you...so gentle...caring. I would never hurt
you. Only love you. Protect you. That's a
foolish thing to say, isn't it? With my hands tied. Will you
hold me, Gabrielle? You don't have to untie
me." The woman raised her bound wrists above
her head seductively, "It's better this way, don't you
think?" Her soft blue eyes were guileless,
full of love and trust and Gabrielle, trying
so hard to resist, couldn't anymore, had to know, gave
in and moved toward that inviting mouth. She
was the one in control--for a change. The
kiss was deep and hard...and then she sensed Xena standing
behind her.
"If that's what you really want, Gabrielle, then take it. Go
on."
She felt Xena kneel behind her. "What are
you waiting for? Do it."
"Xena, I--"
Najara was watching closely, carefully,
eyes flicking quickly between Xena and
Gabrielle assessing, redefining the parameters, looking for an edge, a
wedge to drive between them.
"You know what she wants," Xena grasped
Gabrielle's hand and forced her to touch
Najara, "What she's always wanted. You. And she can have you. Just
say the word. I"ll let her go this time... And you can go with her."
"Xena, stop it--please."
"What? You're a big girl now. You
can make your own decisions. What do you
want? What do you really want?"
"What do you want, Xena?" Najara asked. "Do you want to watch? You'd like
that, wouldn't you? You find new ways to hurt
her all the time, don't you, Xena?"
Xena stood, hands pressing momentarily
on Gabrielle's shoulders and then she was
gone. Gabrielle began to stand as Najara
spoke.
"Don't go after her. Gabrielle, where
is your strength?"
The young woman met her
eyes with a flash of anger, reflected back to
herself. "With her. She is my strength. I lost sight of that...for a
moment. I won't forget it again. Thank you
for reminding me of that. Now, I'm going to
remind her. If she'll let me."
Despite being keenly aware of the others catching sight of them and then
attempting to avert their gaze, Gabrielle
caught Xena by the bole of a large tree. The
warrior made to throw her off, but the tenacious bard hung
on.
"Xena,
I'm sorry. Truly. I didn't mean..."
"It's...alright, Gabrielle. I'm used to it...by
now."
Gabrielle's hand increased its pressure
on Xena's arm, tugged the taller woman around
to face her. "I guess I deserve that, huh?" She spoke softly,
sadly. "Suppose I'm still trying to deal with
the jealousy thing."
Gabrielle watched Xena's
lone eyebrow disappear behind her dark bangs. "I
know...you're the one who has more of a right
to feel that way."
"Gabrielle, I don't have my
name..." she let her eyes flick over the young
woman's henna body designs, "...tattooed on
you."
"Maybe...I wish you did." The other
eyebrow joined the first. The youngbard
cleared her throat. "I'm still learning about myself. Surprises me
sometimes."
Xena scratched her ear and smiled slightly, "Yeah, me
too."
"Whenever I feel...neglected, whenever
you're distant...I guess I try to get your
attention."
"My...attention... Gabrielle, I'm
aware of you every waking moment and in my
dreams. Sometimes I wonder how my heart beat at all before I met
you."
Gabrielle's eyes became a little
brighter and she reached out to lovingly
touch Xena's face.
"Gabrielle, they're
watching," Xena pointed with a shoulder.
"I don't care. I want them to see what you mean to me." Gabrielle leaned
in and raised her head, increased her height
and pulled Xena's head down until their lips
touched. She began to draw the warrior behind the tree,
"Don't want to give too much away,
though."
"Gabrielle, they'll hear
us."
"Let them. I intend on making you
whimper."
Xena took a ragged breath. "Oh, you
do, huh?"
"Yeah, anything wrong with
that?"
Xena cleared her throat, "I can't think
of a thing."
Gabrielle slid down the warrior's
body, pressed her back against the body of
the tree and, lifting her skirt, attached her mouth hotly to the
swelling bud of her lover's pleasure.
"Oh, Gabrielle," she gasped, "it's
been so long..." Her fingers wound in the
bard's golden hair, wistfully missing the length of it she'd been so
used to fondle for these past few years. She
regretted having to cut it...her bard was
changing, she knew that, this was just another outward
reminder of that.
But now the warm and wicked green eyes were
bewitching her, staring steadily up at her as
the soft wetness moved oh so sweetly between her
limbs. She knew she would always forgive
Gabrielle--anything.
***
You said you'd
never
leave
me
And that you'd always
stay
but even when you're
sleeping
your dreams take you
away
I know you dream about
her
I see it in your
eyes
The way that they
look
past me
The lies you improvise
You say
it
doesn't
matter
That it's just a
game
Then why am
I
disheartened
Why this awful pain
***
The
battle within
you wage
with
yourself
Every night
it
grips you
by
the
throat
and won't let
go
until you
grapple outright
and drag it
kicking
into the
light
How can I
reach
out, help
you
when the
same
Incubus
rides me
ragged
===================
Like Sisters
Gabrielle's eyes were closed as she probed
the spot with both thumbs.
Xena moaned deep in her throat.
"Oh, yes, right there. You do have the touch." Gabrielle continued the
massage, felt Xena's
tensions melt away.
The past week must've been hellish for her. Thalassa had
offered them
her private chambers and Gabrielle had bathed Xena slowly,
lovingly, ran
some more hot water, and then joined her in the bath. Now, both
of them
naked on the bed, she straddled her best friend, and worked the
kinks
out of her back once again.
The warden of Shark Island prison had
some business to attend to. She
had promised them both she would immediately
begin to institute some
measure of reform here. They could hear the gallows
coming down.
Gabrielle shuddered.
"You cold?" Xena asked.
"No. Just
thinking...I said, finally, here I am, rescuing Xena outright
for once... and
you save my neck, literally, yet again."
"I wouldn't have been able to if you
hadn't brought me my chakram. I
should've known you'd be too stubborn not to
come."
"I thought you'd be ready to leave around now, hoped you'd done
enough
penance. Or, as a last resort, thought you'd have to get me out
of here."
"You did save me. You have saved me. It's what you do every day.
And I love you for it."
The door opened and Thalassa entered. "Oh...sorry,
I'm so used to just
coming in...I should've knocked...I'll--"
"No, no,"
Gabrielle spoke, "It's all right. It's your room. We don't
mind. Come on in."
The young emotionally and physically battered woman did so. It
would have been almost comical that she should seem so nervous in her
own place.
"Don't mind us," Xena assured her.
"Do you need any help?"
Gabrielle offered as she saw the woman struggle
to remove her
prosthesis.
"No, I can manage. I've been doing it for a long time
now."
Gabrielle felt Xena tense again under her fingers. "The fire's
still going under the water tank if you want a bath." Thalassa undressed
and luxuriated in the softly scented water. It was the one pleasure
with which she indulged herself here. Little enough.
Xena rolled over
underneath Gabrielle, stared up questioningly into
those sweet green eyes.
Gabrielle knew that look. She glanced over to
the bath, Thalassa's back was
towards them. Xena reached up and turned
her face back with one hand while
she clasped Gabrielle's and brought it
to her lips. Her eyes were sweetly
pleading, 'you want to?' while
Gabrielle's breathing grew shallow and
labored.
Xena licked the fingertips of Gabrielle's right hand as she ran
her thumb over Gabrielle's lips. She brought the young woman's hand down
to clasp her breast as she caressed the roundness of hip and
thigh...Xena
could feel against her stomach how wet and excited
Gabrielle was. Finally,
the younger woman surrendered completely and
melted into her arms, coming
down to kiss her with a moan and a whimper.
Xena's fingers inside her now,
churning and thrusting. She tried to stay
as quiet about it as possible, but
Xena made it very difficult. Surely,
Gabrielle thought, Thalassa must hear,
must know what we're doing.
Her warrior pulled her down on the bed and spread
her legs. Xena kissed
her way up the inside of Gabrielle's thighs and then...
Gabrielle's
heart stopped, she found herself on the edge of a high precipice,
a deep
chasm, about to jump, about to fall... Xena looked up at her,
wicked
gleam in her eyes, seductive half-smile on her beautiful
mouth.
"Are you going to come? Are you ready? I want you to. Come for me."
And
the lush mouth was on her now, kissing her there, Xena's tongue
stirring
her, slipping wetly, hotly in and out of her sex, around her
hooded,
swollen bud...so lovely to watch her do that...the red tongue
flicking
avidly, hungrily against her open flesh.
"Yes!" she rejoiced as
she exploded with passion against Xena's
beautiful face. "Oh..." she groaned,
coming down slowly, stars dancing
behind her eyes. She'd completley forgotten
about there being another
person in the room for one blinding moment.
She
looked up now to see Thalassa standing near the bed, watching, her
one good hand between her legs. Gabrielle held out her hand to her and
Xena did the
same. They pulled her down gently onto the bed, made her
feel desired and
beautiful once more. And perhaps Xena found some small
measure of forgiveness
and redemption.
=========================
The First Time...
It hurt Xena so much to see her
Gabrielle this way. But not her
Gabrielle. This was the young girl who
would've been sold into slavery
if Xena hadn't been there that fateful day,
the first day she'd set eyes
on the feisty, selfless kid that fearlessly
stepped forward to offer
herself...well, nothing had changed...
Until Xena
had made this thoughtless bargain and changed
everything--including
her...both of them. It broke her heart to look at
Gabrielle now. It had
shocked her deeply, to her soul to see her beloved
friend this way, hardened,
bitter, not a flicker of love or joy...or
recognition in her eyes. I have to
make her see...to reach her...but
I've changed our destinies... Could
anything have been clearer? Whatever
it was that set her toward Gabrielle's
village that day, that had
brought them face to face and instantly taken with
each other...it was
their destiny, their fate, always, to be together. And
now here they
were again--but Xena had let her down, not been there for her
when she needed me, the (ex) warrior thought sadly. How can I get through
all this anger she justly feels?
Now she looked more like herself, the
real self Xena knew...and loved.
Xena had given her one of her mother's
dresses to wear and there was
something akin to life...and hope in her eyes.
But still tough...and wary.
"The way you look at me..." Gabrielle
began.
"I'm sorry. I guess I was staring. You just...you look so...lovely
in that...your eyes are--"
"Why are you doing this? Why am I
here?"
"I...I want to be your friend. That's all."
"Yeah, I've heard about
that kind of friendship."
The pain must've shown in Xena's features at that
rebuff. Gabrielle studied her a moment, then sighed, "Oh, what's the
difference? Probably beats the bastards that have been using me for their
fun," and with a world-weariness Xena thought she'd never live to see in the
normally ebullient young woman, Gabrielle lay down on her back on the bed
and pulled the long skirt up over her thighs, opening her legs. "All
right. I'm bought and paid for. Do what you want. But don't expect me to
feel anything."
Xena's jaw clenched, fists formed involuntarily from her
hands. She swallowed at the undeniably erotic picture Gabrielle presented,
candle light playing over her features, her...glistening... Xena's
mouth watered. She's couldn't help it. And, yet, the unemotional way
Gabrielle lay there, offering herself yet again...in this way...something to
be borne, like any other burden. Xena went to the bed, lay down beside
her, pulled the skirt down to cover her bare legs.
Gabrielle's bright eyes
turned toward her with surprise. "Sorry if you
don't like what you see," she
said with a bit of hurt pride. Amazing
that she had any left to
hurt.
"Gabrielle, has anyone ever made love to you?"
"I know how it's
done."
"No, I mean made 'love.'"
"...for the other...what you want...or
what I thought you wanted...well,
I've watched a few of the other girls...
The ones who need
some...tenderness...they only find it with each
other..."
A tear slid down Xena's cheek and she brushed Gabrielle's with her
lips.
"I'm sorry. This never should've happened to you. I should've been
there for you. I'm so sorry."
Determined to make it better, Xena held the
young woman tenderly in her
arms, reminding herself that, to Gabrielle, this
would be their first
time together.
**
"You said I remind you of
someone."
"Yes...you do. My best friend."
"If a man had used that line on
me--"
"It wasn't a line."
"Then where is she?"
"That's...a long sad
story."
"You miss her?"
"Not so much...now." She hugged the moist, limp
young body in her arms,
both of them sated and secure.
"You must have
loved her a lot."
"Oh, yes. More than life itself. She... was everything to
me."
"I...I don't mind as long as you don't call me by her name
when we're...you know."
Xena smiled warmly, "Oh, don't worry," caressed
the golden hair, "There
won't be any danger of that, believe me," spoke in a
breathy fervid
whisper, "...Gabrielle."
"I did not
believe because I could not see
Though you came to me in the night
When
the dawn seemed forever lost
You showed me your love in the
light of the
stars
Cast your eyes on the ocean
Cast your soul to the sea
When the
dark night seems endless
Please remember me"
--Loreena
McKennitt
"Dante's Prayer"
Before the Fall
They stood by the ship's
railing. Gabrielle still sadly watching the
waves where the gold ring had
disappeared into the clear blue water of
the sea. Xena could see how the
burden of what Gabrielle had done--what
she had asked Gabrielle to
do--weighed on her friend. Too heavily for
such a young pair of shoulders. If
she could take the pain and regret on
herself she would do it gladly. She
would do anything--anything.
Gabrielle's hand was still warm in hers. They
had just vowed to each
other once again. Using the sacred word--that
word--the one Xena had
always avoided in her relationships, the one that
humbled you in someone
else's eyes, that left your heart unguarded. And now
Gabrielle was in
her arms, her dear golden head resting on Xena's breast.
Surely she must
hear that unguarded heart, beating fast and hard.
"I need
you," Gabrielle breathed.
"I need you too," Xena rejoined reciprocally,
smoothing the golden hair
with a soothing caress.
"No, I mean I 'need'
you. Now. Right now."
Xena gazed down into a pair of hungry eyes. The
intensity of it startled
her. "Oh." Her knees became a little less steady.
Her heart beat faster
still. Xena looked helplessly, for once, around them at
the deck. "A ship doesn't exactly provide a lot of privacy."
Gabrielle's green eyes were bright with the deepest longing, imploring
her to do something about it. Xena thought her legs could maybe carry
her as far as the
hatch which led to their quarters. How this young
woman could disarm her.
She called to Vercinix. He came to the bottom of the short flight
of stairs. "Could you do us a favor?"
"Of course. Whatever you ask. You
know that. I owe you my life."
Her voice husky, quivering, she said, "Nothing
as drastic as all that,"
thinking, I'll die right here if my heart doesn't
slow down, "Just...see
that we have some privacy...until I call you."
He must've seen something in her eyes, heard it in her voice...he smiled
and assured her, "No one will get by me."
And then she looked over her shoulder
to where Gabrielle was gripping
her hand so tightly...and saw just what he
saw. She swallowed hard.
Gabrielle was the one who could still ambulate and
she drew Xena down
the stairs past him and into the cool darkness below.
A crude wall was created by a blanket that hung over a length of rope
and Gabrielle led her behind it to where their bedding lay. Her back
against the vessel's inner hull she held Xena spellbound, transfixed by
the most carnal expression Xena had ever seen on her lovely face. Is
this the same child I found a few short years ago? Her innocence had
been such a joy...and an
obstacle. How much of this was Xena's
doing...her influence? Would Gabrielle
have ever discovered this...side
of herself if not for...whatever fates
decreed they should be together?
The younger woman had blossomed at her
touch.
The sweet green eyes appeared fevered as Gabrielle brought Xena's
hand to her lips, lightly nibbled each fingertip, sucked the fingers into
her mouth. Xena's breathing became labored, she felt the
earth shift...alright they were on water, that was to be expected. She
closed her eyes momentarily to steady herself against an onrushing wave of
emotion, which dizzied her. In the midst of a tempest, a tidal wave
washing over her, sweeping them both away.
"Do you have any idea how
much I love you?" she murmured throatily,
barely remembering a time when
she'd been unable to completely voice it.
The truth. The whole truth. It sets
you free. She replaced her fingers
with her tongue, mouth on Gabrielle's,
passionate, but tender.
As they gasped for air, Gabrielle turned her head
aside, surprisingly,
withdrew. Xena's heart was thudding so loudly in her
chest she could
barely hear her own shaky voice ask, "What is it?" as
Gabrielle went
down to her knees on their blankets. The deep sorrowing
sadness had
returned to her eyes.
"I don't feel very lovable right now."
The voice sounded up from a well
of experience so dark and deep, the
innocence lost in her, the child
drowned in the ultimate fathom's depths
forever. "I want to
be...ravished. Hurt me, Xena. Make me forget
everything."
Xena warred against the lust induced in her by these words vying with
the tenderness for this lost soul she valued above all others.
Including her own. Breathing ragged, mouth open, breasts rising and
falling rapidly, Xena's eyes locked on Gabrielle's, pellucid blue on
aquamarine,
everything, all the heavens and the earth were contained in
those precious eyes which reflected each to each beloved. No sound, but
the beating of her heart, or was it Gabrielle's?-- Who would blink first
and break the spell, who would dare to move?
Xena launched herself
forward, sprang like a panther bringing her warm,
soft, delectable prey to
ground. The outer skin, their clothes, torn
away piece by piece in a fever to
reach what lay beneath, the naked,
tender flesh, Xena's teeth marking her
fair skin, leaving the trace of
passage as she worked her way down
Gabrielle's body, neck and breasts,
belly and thighs. Her fingers and her
tongue, stroking, penetrating,
feasting. The scent of her driving Xena
wild.
"Oh, by the gods, Xena, yes. Take me. Harder. Harder. Harder."
Gabrielle
sat up, snarling, watched Xena's hand working between her legs,
tasted
herself on Xena's lush and sensuous mouth. Both sets of Gabrielle's
lips
issuing the sweetest sounds. Where all the sacred elements
met--earth
air fire water--in this primal dance. She'd never been so wet and
open.
So willing. No one can hurt you like the one you love, the one
you'd risk and give everything for.
She climaxed with an amazon cry that
Xena thought must've been heard
throughout the vessel and her wooden hull
down to the very bottom of the
sea. And then she wept like the child she
still, in large part,
remained. Xena held her close, whispered in her ear.
For one blessed
ecstatic moment there had been sweet oblivion and pure
bliss--and then
the memories came flooding back--all the pain and Gabrielle
hung on for dear life. So much pain. An agony of anguish, at war between her
better nature, her good heart and what she's...become with me, Xena
knew.
Xena cried freely now too. If she couldn't provide comfort for this
most precious soul entrusted to her care what good was she to Gabrielle?
It's up to her--to let go--or to hold on. Her decision. And if she has to
let go of me as well... then so be it.
*****
Xena woke, Gabrielle
curled into her body, both women lying on their
sides. Gabrielle was
murmuring, talking in her sleep again, that's what
woke her. "I never meant
to hurt you..." The words she'd spoken as she
lay dying from the arrow poison
that almost took her from me, Xena
thought, a tightening lump in her throat.
"...believe me. I only
wanted...to show you...how much...how much...don't
leave
me...please...I'd give my life...Xena...Xena...my life...I love
you..."
As soon as we get home, Xena thought, I'll take her to the temple
of Mnemosyne, all human memory--and misery. She needs to test herself,
her faith--in herself...and in me...and then, hopefully, we'll be
past it...at last.
************
"...and I will never be the
same--
caught in your eyes,
lost in your name..."
--Melissa
=======================
Love Hurts
Gabrielle didn't die as quickly as Xena had
hoped, but lingered for an
hour or more. The warrior would not allow Joxer
(she had him occupied
now with building the...pyre) to pull the weapon from the young woman's
chest. No reason to hurt her more than she'd already
been hurt--mortally--and removing it would hasten the flow of her
precious
blood...the end of her brief life...all too brief. She begged Xena
to pull it out, let her go....the pain seared her with every breath,
but stubbornly the warrior held on to her friend. What if this
time something righted itself and time went forward in its
natural progression of days? What if she'd lost Gabrielle forever?
She cradled the young woman in her arms as best she could. "There's so
much I
want...I need to say to you." A single tear fell to Gabrielle's
parched lips.
"If what you say is true...and you're not just saying it to make
this easier on me...I'll see you in the morning. If not... It's just a
transition--from one state to another. I'll see you again. We'll
be together. Forever."
"Yes," Xena whispered fervently, as she stroked
flaxen hair, caressed
the fevered cheek.
Gabrielle's face, moment to
moment contorted in agony, then would relax
between moments and gaze up at
her in complete love and understanding,
purer in its trusting sweetness than any she'd ever known. "Have we left
anything unsaid?"
Xena shook her
head.
" 'We need not speak the words, my love and I,' " Gabrielle was
reciting
from memory, struggling for breath to enunciate through the pain, "
'we
need not show the world, we know what we know, it is our own and no
one
else's, all that is sacred, all that is wise, we see reflected in
each
other's eyes, my love...and I...' "
Xena swallowed her warring
emotions. "Who wrote that?"
"I did. Never wrote it down. I've carried it in
my heart." With great
difficulty, she reached weakly to touch Xena's face,
dissolving now into
tears. "Kiss me, Xena."
As their lips met one last
time, Gabrielle's final shuddering breath
released itself into Xena's mouth.
The light was gone from her eyes and
Xena bathed her face in agonizing
sorrow. "I Iove you, Gabrielle. I love
you."
The warrior wept for a long
time, until numbness set in from the shock
of loss. She allowed Joxer to
remove the weapon from her friend's body.
She could not bring herself to do
it. But she carried Gabrielle to the
bier and placed her ever so gently upon
it, brushed the hair from her
forehead with a soft caress.
"Come back to
me...in the morning. I pray to the gods for the first time
in my life..come
back to me. Bring her back to me." She watched the fire
catch hold and then
turned away, kneeling on the sand, back to the
flames and began to keen the
dirge till the moon set. Now she knew what
the phrase meant--to sing one's
heart out. Hers was broken utterly,
splintered to shards, razor sharp,
cutting her inside.
She remembered the feel of Gabrielle in her arms, holding
her here on
this spot when this crazy game of roundelay began and it was
Joxer who
had been killed. They had both needed the life-affirming comfort
of sexual union after they'd awakened from a light fitful sleep.
Gabrielle
especially had been so open, so vulnerable. Xena's fingers twitched
with the tactile memory, the sensation of Gabrielle wrapped hotly
around her slow working hand. Never to feel Gabrielle in her arms
again, spinning on the tips of her fingers, under her tongue and
greedy mouth--the thought was unbearable.
She closed her eyes, meditating,
releasing all fear and anxiety, in a
manner that had been taught her many
years ago by another special woman
in her life, and waited for the cock-crow
and the new day.
Deep Inside
"Uh, Gabrielle, there's something I need to
ask you--but you don't have
to answer, ok?"
They were sitting by the
fire, Gabrielle nodded, dreading what might be
coming. "I think I know...
Xena, I thought she was you. I mean, it was
your body."
Callisto's face
clouded with Xena's emotions. "Oh...then you did sleep
with her. I knew
it...dammit...the way she said you were HER 'little
friend' now. I'll kill
her."
"Not before she's out of your body, please. I LOVE that
body."
"Well...?"
"Well what?"
"How was it?"
"Oh, no, please don't
go there."
"Did she...hurt you? Was she...?"
"...Yes, it was...rough sex.
Really, not anything we haven't done
before."
"Oh? And...what did she do
to you?"
"Xena...it's really creeping me out to think Callisto was
touching
me..like that and now you want the explicit details."
"Was
it...good for you? Did you like it?"
Gabrielle stared daggers, "She tied my
hands with her...with your
bullwhip and raped me with the butt end and
then--"
"OK. All right. I don't need to know. You're right. Sorry."
The
woman in Callisto's body moved closer, put an arm around Gabrielle
who
immediately tensed up. Xena sighed, removed her arm. "Sorry. I don't
want to...'creep' you out."
"It's...just, I mean, I know you're in there. But
it's...very hard to
look at Callisto's face, into her eyes and...you know."
"I'm so hungry for you."
"Oh, Xena, don't do this to me."
"What if
I'm stuck in this body? Does that mean I'll never be able to
hold you again,
make love to you?"
"I don't think I could get used to it. And you're a bit
too bony for my
taste. And, besides it would feel like being unfaithful to
you. I...I've
never touched another woman but you before."
"I'll put out
the fire. We'll do it in the dark. You won't have to do a
thing. Just let
me--"
"Stop it! You just want to...reassert your primacy."
"I...what?
Okay, so it's making me crazy. And off base and I need to
feel you wrapped
hot and tight around my fingers--that you're still
there for me,
accessible...my lover...I need you...now...right now...in
the worst way...got
to have you..if I had my whip I'd--"
Gabrielle moaned, went to her knees and
Xena was there holding her in
Callisto's long, thin arms, the blonde head
whispering in Gabrielle's
ear, "It's all right, baby. Close your eyes."
And Xena moved Callisto's hand between Gabrielle's legs
slowly,
methodically with such gentle, though insistent strokes. "Oh, you're
so
wet. I won't hurt you."
Gabrielle gasped as two fingers slid into her
wetness. She knew if she
opened her eyes it was all over. She thought of
Xena's beautiful,
fervant blue eyes, dark hair... "Oh, Xena, yes," she wailed
as she
rocked her hips. The stark image came to her of herself bent over
and
that other Xena, with Callisto inside of her, eyes madly blazing with a
drunken lust, working the thick shaft of leather in and out and
she
imagined the three of them, all three bodies, writhing together, and
she
came as hard as she ever had.
"That's my girl."
===============================
This Precious Ache
They sat together quietly for awhile, Gabrielle with her head on
Xena's
shoulder, until the warrior finally
spoke again. "I've missed you."
There were eons of pain and longing in
that not so simple phrase.
"I lay
there at night all alone and you were always in my dreams,"
Gabrielle said
softly.
"In mine too. So beautiful it broke my heart. And I thought there was
no
way to ever reach you again--in this life. I would have...done
whatever
it took to reach you."
"And what if you had...done that. I'd be
here, all alone
tonight--missing you, my heart broken in two."
Gabrielle
knelt and Xena opened her knees to clasp the young woman close
to her breast.
"I am incomplete without you, Gabrielle."
She took Xena's hands, kissed them
as Xena had done to her earlier when
they'd found each other again, bathed
them in hot tears.
Xena wiped them away with her strong and gentle hands,
lovingly tipped
Gabrielle's face up to meet hers, the full moon silvering her
eyes, her hair. "You were willing to give your life for me. And I thought
you had."
"And I'd do it again--without a second thought."
"That
scares me. I couldn't bear it. Don't ever leave me again."
They stared into
each other's eyes for an eternal moment.
Gabrielle rose and began to draw
Xena toward the house, but the taller
woman hung back. Gabrielle's eyes were
questioning.
"I'm not welcome in there. They think I've...abused you. And
your father
accused me of...'seducing' you."
"He actually used that
word?"
"Yes."
Gabrielle smiled, pulled Xena into her arms. "We can't stay
in the barn.
I'll go in...you come to my window in a little while."
"What
about your sister?"
"She'll do what I ask her to. She can sleep by the
hearth. We always did
that on really cold nights."
Xena waited, heart
pounding, sounding a drumbeat in her ears, as she
studied the pale moon
hanging in the trees. Tangled there by spectral
fingers like the tendrils and
filaments that coiled around and bound her
heart, that bound both their
hearts together. The world had been taken
away from her and now the greatest
gift, the gift of Gabrielle had been
returned to her. Candlelight shone from
Gabrielle's window and Xena
moved toward that light, the light of Gabrielle
in the darkness, the
light that would always lead her home no matter where
that may be.
Gabrielle was waiting for her. She wore a long white nightdress
and Xena
could see the outline of her figure through the filmy material as a
candle by the bed silhouetted her body. The warrior woman was
tantalized
by the sight. She climbed over the sill into Gabrielle's bedroom
and
Gabrielle's arms welcomed her home. They kissed with a hungry
passion
that spoke of the intensity of their longing and then, assuaging it
somewhat for the moment, their lips gave tender solace.
"I spent every
night of my childhood here. Until I met you."
Xena stroked the golden hair,
silky between her fingers. "You've become
such a beautiful woman."
"I've
become whatever you've made me."
"I can't take credit for that...for
this."
She felt Gabrielle's soft, warm breasts against hers, the gentle
rise
and fall. "It comes from within you. It feeds my soul."
Gabrielle
drew her to the bed and Xena sat as Gabrielle knelt to pull
off her boots.
She let the young woman undress her slowly, both of them
breathing in a
quickened unison, trembling outside, quivering inside.
Xena could barely find
her legs as she stood again. She slid the gown
off Gabrielle's shoulders and
let it fall to the floor, pooling at her
feet. Body to body, friend to
friend, soul to soul.
"My love." Xena lay her down on the bed and covered
her body with her
own. They clasped hands against the pillow, stared deeply
into fathomless blue/green depths, held each other there in some
transcendent
sphere, felt the moisture seeping, riding against their thighs.
"You are
my dream, Gabrielle. I saw you shining like the moon, more
beautiful,
pale as a shade, bending down to bathe me in your soft, warm glow.
I was
suspended between Elysium and the dark river. All I ever was or
will
be...all of it changing like the moon, altered by your light. In
your
hands and in your eyes. There is no Xena without Gabrielle. Do you
hear
me? Do you accept it?"
"Yes," the young woman barely exhaled the
word, the emotion throbbing in
her chest and throat, making it difficult to
either breathe or speak.
"I can say I love you, and I do, I can worship at
the altar of your
body--and I will--but we both know our bond goes beyond
that, is so
deep, without boundaries. Fate and destiny intertwined and
inextricable.
In timeless eternity this was...WE were
meant to be.
Together. Always."
Gabrielle tried to find her voice, it quavered as she
began to speak and
she was forced to whisper most of her words. "I always
thought I was the
one who had a way with words. How can I tell you how much I
love you
when the words desert me because they are inadequate to encompass
the fullness and beauty of it, of what I feel for you?"
Xena smiled with
a sad knowing, bittersweet. "How can you tell me? You
already have. When I
saw you fall away from me--forever I thought--and
looked into your eyes for
the final time...believe me I knew how much."
Xena's thumb traced the pretty
mouth of the woman in her arms and she
kissed away the tears. 'I know how
much."
*******
"Come to my window/crawl inside and wait by the light of
the moon/come
to my window/I'll be home soon..." --Melissa
Suspended, dancing
between Elysium
and the dark river
I
struggle to keep my head
above the tide of you
Onrushing, full as the
moon
to drown me
to pull me down
I rise on the dolphin's back
I
plunge to the depths of
your soul
================================
One Good Day, Xena's
Song
You were blazing like the sun,
my love, in
all your splendor
a Valkyrie standing strong
young and unafraid without
me
by your side
Frighteningly beautiful to behold
How I mourn for your
lost innocence
as I celebrate your fearless passion
The moon, she changes,
then is
new again, reclaims her glory
crowns the sky above us as
we
sleep, drowning in our
restless dreams, holding all
the world in each
other's arms
===================================
In the Blood
Gabrielle
knelt behind Xena and brushed her long, dark hair aside to
place a sweet,
gentle kiss on her neck. Just there. In the same
spot...where she had... "Did
I hurt you?" she asked, and shivered
thinking back with a repressed thrill to
the tactile pleasure of her
Bacchae fangs sinking into, connecting with her
friend, the hot rush of
her blood filling Gabrielle's mouth.
Xena
responded to the soft lips brushing against her skin, sighing, then
lay back
on the ground smiling up at Gabrielle. "Most intense orgasm
I've ever
had."
Gabrielle blushed so prettily Xena had to laugh, but then she drew
the young woman down beside her, ran her fingers into the honey-gold
bounty
of her hair, thumb stroking the enchanting elfin curve of
Gabrielle's
ear, "But it's always that way with you."
===================================
The Power...The Passion
"Did
I...hurt you?"
Gabrielle looked up, puzzled. Xena's heart plummeted like
frenzied
feathers falling through the air, a hawk with its razor talons in
the
tender breast of a white dove. It was clear on her face, in her
sweet
green eyes, though she didn't--or wouldn't --voice it.
"When?"
Yes, when?...when there have been so many, many times to choose
from.
Xena rescued her friend once more. "I meant when I tied your
hands..."
"I'm all right. You were a...little enraged...at her. I guess I
kinda
got in the way. As usual. I'm sorry. Again."
"Never apologize for
having a trusting heart, Gabrielle. It's one of the
things I love about you.
One of the many things."
Gabrielle smiled at
that, but darkened again. "Why
did you tell Najara...why did you tell
her that you...hurt me?"
"Because
it's true."
"As if you mean to. When I know you'd take any...risk, any pain
on yourself to spare me."
"Well, it's not all physical...or visible to the
eye, is it?"
"Maybe...sometimes...I want to be hurt, I feel I deserve
it."
"Don't do that kind of penance on my account. Come here." She held
out her hand and Gabrielle came to her.
"Hold me, Xena. I can feel so
lost...but then...I look in your eyes
and...I'm home again. Where I've always
belonged. You are my journey."
"Yes. All roads lead me right back to your
arms. Love...it's so
mysterious...and so simple."
"You sound like
me...musing like that." She placed her hand over Xena's
bare chest.
"There's the heart of a philosopher beating in there."
"Oh, I'm
too...'enraged' for that. I can't calm my mind or heart where
you're concerned. Neither could she luckily. I counted on that. I
could've killed
her. I was so angry. Not out of jealousy or being beaten
by her...not just
that, anyway...but for disappointing you...perhaps
misleading me...she wanted
you so badly. That's something I understand,
at least."
They were standing
by the little lake where Najara and Gabrielle had
walked, watching the wild
swans...who mate for life...and Xena had
watched them from the woods. If
Najara had taken Gabrielle in her arms,
kissed her, if Gabrielle had
accepted...and returned the kiss...she
didn't know what she might've done,
seeing that. As it was, it was
difficult enough just watching Gabrielle ride
off, her arm around the
waist of another woman, another warrior woman...to
see them so
companionable, in joyful converse.
"Do you mind staying here
for the night?" Xena asked. Gabrielle shook
her head. They were lost in their
own thoughts, though intertwined,
resonating with all the emotion from the
past few days. Xena saw to
Argo, while Gabrielle built the fire, settling
both, once again, into
the roles they usually played, the comfortable way of
their relationship. But then Gabrielle surprised her a little by
initiating
for once.
Hair and eyes aglow in the flickering firelight
Gabrielle approached her
boldy, unapologetically, irresistibly...removed her
armor, undid the
straps of her leather bodice...
And then slowly undressed
herself, her flesh golden in the glow, knelt
before her naked goddess to make
her offering.
"You were my lesson I had to
learn." --The Power of Goodbye