Explicit Defiance

"Time to get you to bed, sweet Farah. You've been such a good girl for me tonight. Now I will take care of you, my beautiful Hakim." Before my mind could return to my body, she had me cleaned up and my robe over my still pulsating body. Then she flew me as a falcon back to the dormitory. She prepared a bath for me; and after she undressed me, she lay me in the warm water, and began to wash me when she got in the tub as well. She gently washed my hair and softly recited the sweetest poetry to me - poetry I had never heard. I sat silently, submitting to her care and listening to her tender words. Before I knew it, I was in my bed next to her. She stroked my hair and never took her eyes off me as I drifted away.

...

The days that followed were a blur of magic, lust, and ecstasy. Layal would visit me often when I was alone, seduce me and make love to me. Sometimes she would come, and we'd simply talk, and debate. Sometimes I would read books to her, and we'd discuss the topics in question. She was as brilliant as she was beautiful, titillating in thoughts as she was passionate in her love. I thought I was falling for her before. Now, I was lost in the tempest of her sensuality.

I was studying late in the archives, deep in a Greek copy of Berossus. I had told the archivist that night to go home. Over the past months, he and I had become quite close, and he trusted me to return things properly and lock up. He'd placed a key, hidden in a safe place for me so I could leave whenever I was ready. I suddenly heard a hissing noise behind me, like steam suddenly being released. I turned, and there was Layal, entirely naked, with her hair braided and coiled up on her crown. She looked lusciously wicked.

"You're working late, dearest. What has you buried in this dusty treasury?" she spoke with a breathy taunt.

"You..." I walked over and pressed my finger playfully to her chest. ".... are not supposed to be here." Layal gave a sinful chuckle.

"Technically, neither are you, my cunning little scholar." She lifted her hand, and with a twist of her wrist, all of my clothing, my wig and beard, all fell to the ground magically.

"Showoff." I muttered as I let my hand trickle down the curves of her side to her hips and leaned in to kiss her. I can't get enough of her - her lips, her tantalizing tongue, her touch, her skin. She is perfection - a goddess over my will. Tonight, she was mine. I grasped her shoulders and guided her to the cedar table forcefully, and bent her, face down, over it. She let out a gleeful squeal as I took control over her body, and used my hand, gripped in the back of her hair, to hold her down while I glided my tongue over the back of her neck. I let my fingers scrape gently against the skin of her round ass and smacked it hard enough to leave the redness of my palm on her bare skin. She whimpered in elation at the pain of my hand, driving me crazy.

I knelt behind her, her cheeks fully exposed to me for whatever I wanted to do with her. Tonight, I was the master, and she would benefit from my instruction. I faintly glided my nose up her left cheek until my lips met her hot skin where my handprint was, and I kissed her. With both of my hands, I spread her cheeks further apart, and took in the sight of her wet vulva from this angle. I stretched out my tongue as far as it would reach, and let it mould to the shape of her labia, so that the tip of it barely touched her clit. I took in her taster, her wetness.... all that I could of her as I glided my tongue back towards her opening. She moaned loudly in gratification. Then I stiffened my tongue and returned it, hard tip guiding, through her folds to her clit. When I returned there, I closed my lips and sucked it, then flicked it over and over with the tip of my tongue. Her hips began to gyrate as she tried to get as much friction as she could against my soft face. I felt like a goddess, subjecting her, helpless, to my every whim. I lifted my head for a moment, and grabbed a brush I had on the table. I picked her up off of the table, and then gently guided her to sit on it, and lay back. I let my fingers glide inside her: first one, then two.... Then three, until my hand was soaked in her ecstasies. I rubbed her nectar all over the handle of the brush, and slowly let in sink into her. Her legs jerked at the new sensation for a moment, but then she relaxed and sank into it. I let it slide in and back again methodically, slowly, while my lips returned to her clitoris.

She began to rock her hips the best she could, begging for more of my sweet mouth against her while I slowly slid the handle inside her, twisting and shifting so it tantalized every side of her core while I played with her clit against my mouth. I was done teasing her now. I wanted her cum. I broke into a methodical rhythm, matching my tongue to the movements of the brush handle inside her. She lifted herself up to a halfway seated position so she could see me, and she grabbed my head.

"Harder, Farah. Please, I need you." Something in my brain broke at that. I went wild, and hungrily feasted on her while I steadily increased the rhythm of the brush. She begged me not to stop. Her whole body began to quake, and she jolted forward with a breathy cry. I pulled the brush out from her and let it drop to the floor. She grabbed my hair and rubbed my whole face against her clit as she came all over me. Power coursed through my whole body and down to my core like nothing I'd ever felt before. My legs gave out from under me, and my whole body convulsed as I lay there on the floor, squirting everywhere in an orgasm so powerful I thought I'd lose my mind forever. She came down to the floor next to me and quickly stroked my clit as I gushed, and I....I just didn't stop coming! I thought I would orgasm forever in her arms while she touched me and played with my clitoris like she was hungry for more of me.

Layal crawled up on top of me, growled, laid her pussy on my face and dove into center like a hungry wolf gobbling its prey. I couldn't stop convulsing and screaming in pleasure, and I couldn't get enough of her taste. I matched her starved craze as I devoured her pussy. Soon she was coming again, which only intensified my orgasm further. Before we knew it, we were laying there, head to toe, drenched in our mingled fluids and gasping for air.

I wanted to take her in my arms, carry her to a bath in my room and take care of her the way she always seemed to be taking care of me; but my legs wouldn't let me stand on them. Layal stood up, then moved in a blur of motion, and before I knew it the entire room was clean and in order, and there Layal stood with my clothes draped over her arm. She scooped me up from the cold floor, and next thing I knew, we were in a bath together. The warmth of the hot water soothed my whole being.

"Feeling better, little one?" She asked.

"More like finally coming down from the heavens. How do you do that, Layal?" She looked at me searchingly, and I realized how many things had just happened that could represent my question. "I mean, the things I feel when we're... You know, together. I can't hardly even walk. It's felt like I've been on some kind of otherworld experience."

"Ahh." She returned. "In a sense, you kind of were. Jinn are different from humans, in more ways than one. To make love to a Jinn..." She paused for a second. "We feel things, as you do - but far more intensely. For example, your poets have described love as like a fire--in your hearts. We jinn--we are born in fire. If you think of emotions and even physical sensations in that sense, we burn all the more brightly, in our hearts and in our bodies. We're made to be able to feel and to cope with it. But I'd imagine, for a human to feel that same sort of thing.... I'd imagine it would be overwhelming." She cracked a sultry grin. "Clearly it is for you, darling."

"Like a fire in the heart." I repeated. I looked up to meet Layal's transcendent eyes. "Layal: have you ever been in love like that?" Her face turned serious, almost saddened by my question. She looked distantly at the door.

"Once, a very long time ago. Longer than your histories can remember, sweet Farah." I didn't want to pain her any more than I was sure I had, so I changed the course a bit.

"I've never been. I used to dream of it when I was a little girl. But I wanted to be a scholar. There have been a few women as scholars, certainly: but how hard it is to earn respect when you're the daughter of a simple carpenter. So I put aside my whole life for this; gave up any hope for something like love. I nev...."

"Kierngiyya." Layal blurted out, interrupting me. I looked at her, puzzled. Did my head just addle? What did she say? "You asked me my name when we first met. My name is Kierngiyya. It is from an old language, far beyond the time when humans began to record their words. I've only told one other human before. In the language of her city, it was pronounced Kurngi." I sat there, stunned. I didn't know what to say.

"She was taken from me. I... I got angry and hurt a lot of people - all men. All those who wanted her gone. They were jealous of her power, and they took her. They murdered her." She looked up at me. "I'm not a monster, Farah. But I do hate. I am trying to learn, to grow against such feelings - but like I said, I was born of fire. That night, it consumed me. It has overwhelmed me since, at times." She looked at me, hoping to find some comfort.

"Layal, even for us mere mortals, love can engulf us and cause us to do both beautiful and, when that love is lost, terrible things. You found love and lost her. It reminds me of what I was reading when you came to me tonight. Berossus spoke of a magic creature that came up from the sea - Oannes. He loved someone called Omorka. They were in love. But the Babylonian god Bel killed Omorka. I suppose he too was jealous of her power. I can't imagine what Oannes would have done. But I guess we'll never know." I sighed. As I looked up, Layal had a shocked look on her face. She shook it off when she saw me looking at her, then smiled warmly at me.

"She would have liked you, Farah. She was a scholar, like you. And she was a teacher, too, with the heart of a poet." Layal sighed. "I told her my name after we first made love. But she... She used to call me Ninshu-hiligu-e in her subjects' language - 'My lady wrapped in beauty.' I only wanted to be wrapped in her: her love, her body, her soul. She was everything to me. I would have seen oblivion with her delicate hand in mine. I wanted nothing but her." Layal was beginning to tear up. I crossed the tub to her and rested my back against her chest, wrapping her warm arms around me.

"You're a good woman, Layal. I'm glad she was blessed to know your love. Everyone deserves to be loved so." I held back tears as I basked in the affections of this goddess in whose embrace I was sinking. "Everyone."

After a while, Layal unwrapped me, and we got out of the tub, drying ourselves with towels. We crawled into bed, and I turned to face the wall away from her. It wasn't long before I felt her arms enfolding around me again, gently squeezing.

"Kierngiyya... What if I'm falling in love with you?" She didn't say a word. She only gripped tighter around me and laid her head against the back of my neck. I felt a sudden burst of sensation coming from my neck and the chill of the night air, as though it were wet with a small droplet of water - and I felt something. Something intense. Something indescribably potent, powerful - even overwhelming. Sadness, excitement, fear, warmth, and.... deep pain and deep intimacy. It inundated my whole being, and before I could speak, I drifted off.

...

The next morning, I awoke alone, as usual when Layal stayed a night with me. She had to leave early, or she might be caught with me in the dormitory - and that would get me expelled, or worse. I dressed myself for the day, putting on my masculine attire and gathering my things.

The day went on as usual. Hakim Ma'shar was in a mood. He could get testy when things weren't going quite the way they ought to in his mind. He was a kind and gentle, even funny man most of the time. But he could get rather dramatic when he was pouting.

"Azhar! Where did you put my notes from yesterday's translations? I can't find the one about the earth revolving around the center, along with several bodies. The one about the eclipses. What did you do with it, Azhar? I swear to the Prophet himself, peace be upon him, I..." He was silenced as he turned to find a small, worn-out scrapped scroll with various scribblings all over it in my hands as I held it out to him.

"You left it next to your cup of tea on your desk last night, Hakim. I almost spilled it trying to clean up after you went to bed." I said with an amused look on my face. "Next time, maybe Aristotle himself will come from the grave to keep it from being ruined." He looked at me like I was a rebellious child who had just outsmarted him.

"Yes, well.... Don't be so cocky. Let's see how well the late nights treat you when you get old." I smiled and returned to preparing his desk for his day's work.

"I don't plan on getting old, Hakim. I will leave that job to you. That's why I don't go to the Souq with the other young men. Women and parties - they make a man grow old." Hakim Ma'shar gazed at me from the corner of his eye and chuckled. I cringed inside when I said it; but it's good to reinforce that I'm a man and not a woman in disguise - for my own reminder, if not for the men I worked with. And men do like to demean women in their joking with each other. I was brought out of my head by the Hakim's voice.

"You know, a little merriment would do you well, young man. You work much too hard for someone your age." I rolled my eyes at him as I brought him his new scrolls so he could rewrite the translation he improved on his scrap scroll last night.

"Too much to do, Master. I have a demanding, but kind employer. I'd hate to disappoint such a grand tribute to this institution." Hakim Ma'shar melted when I touched his shoulder at these words. He then straightened himself to his desk, declared that it was time to get started as if it were an official proclamation, and together we began our labors.

...

It was a little after the sun fell when Layal came back to me. I was working late again - still translating from Berossus. But tonight, the archives were being kept by a man I didn't know so well; so I had decided to spend a portion of the copying the text onto a scrap scroll so I could bring it to my room to study. I looked up, and Layal was suddenly there at my door, hands on her hips, wearing barely enough cloth to cover her most intimate parts. Her garment - whatever one may call it - was a red strip of silk that loosely wrapped around her neck, her breasts, and her hips. It was partially translucent - so it really didn't cover even those areas well.

"You said you loved me." She uttered softly. I was caught off guard for everything that just stood before me - especially her words.

"I believe it was more of a question - what if?" I tried to hide behind my vulnerability with the statement. She strolled over to my bed and sat beside me.

"Farah, I'm serious. Did you mean it? I... Would you take that ridiculous thing off your face first? I can't have this conversation with you like this." She waved at my beard with disapproval. I looked towards the door. "Everyone's in bed, little one. You can be yourself again." I slowly removed my beard and released my head from my headwear.

"Yes, I meant it. I can't help it. I know I can't replace the woman you loved, and I wouldn't dare try; but I can't ignore this.... this connection between us. I've never felt anything like this for someone, and you deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved, like your scholar and poet. I kept imagining what it must have felt like to be cherished so. And then you held me in your arms, and cried, Kierngiyya. You cried, and I felt everything. You gave me the most intimate and painful parts of you. And I want all of it. I want you." Layal sat there, speechless for a moment. I could see fear in her eyes, and then she looked at me. Her eyes were misty, and her face was pinkish-red and puffy from her deepest sensitivities.

"Then you should see me as I truly am, Farah - before you decide to give me your heart." With that, she stood up. Her silk cloth melted into her skin. Her skin itself turned a dark shade of blue and gray. Her eyes turned black as tar, and her legs - at her knees she grew black feathers, and her feet disappeared and became like a great falcon's talons. She spoke with a soft but powerful voice that was accompanied with a sort of hissing sound. It was beautiful. She was even more beautiful than ever.

"Could you love this creature, Farah? Could you be embraced in these arms?" I sat there for a moment, dead silent. I gently rose and curled my arms around her waist before I stood on my toes, took her soft cheek in my hand, and kissed her deeply. Kissing Layal was a different sort of magic. Kissing her while these passions were coursing and surging between us - it was beyond knowledge, magic, power or divinity. Together, we were something new entirely. She was transforming me, and I was her. We were molding, building an entire new paradigm. We were rewriting a new arrangement of the world - a fresh cosmology, and nothing in this realm would be the same. All this in a kiss.

I knew nothing but that I loved her, wanted her. I was a pilgrim in a new, alien world. I knew the world I had built around me, filled with books and scrolls, dust and words that would remain the ages when all that I knew would join the dust on these shelves. But I knew not love - this strange, magical, power of divinity and demon, symmetry and pandemonium. I was terrified, not of my sweet Layal, this deific Kierngiyaa. I was afraid of what I might become; of where this new path and paradigm would me. But in her arms, I would be safe, real, and beloved. Beloved, insha'Allah! Forever I will be beloved.

We kissed; our lips pressed as our hearts stretching for each other to be closer. Layal's hand streamed up my tunic until she could pull it and my undergarment off my shaking body. Her fingers trailed down my cheek to my neck, and followed my collar bone, as she teased my skin towards my bared breast. She kissed frantically down my jaw until she reached the side of my neck. She kissed and sucked and nibbled on my neck while her fingers skimmed across my nipple. I caressed the skin of her hip and around her thigh, moaning from the sensitivity of her mouth to my neckline. Slowly we rocked and stumbled our way to my bed, and she gently guided me to my back on the bed. When my bed rested against the sheets, she stopped, and looked at me deep in the eyes.

"I do love you, my Farah. I've tried so hard to fight it; but I can't suppress this in myself. I love you." I was in tears at hearing the words. Beloved. I melted at the word. I raised up enough to kiss her as my hand grasped her head and streamed through her hair to her shoulder. My lips found their way following my caress of her shoulder, then down to her tender breast. She moans as my lips curled around her nipple and my hand gliding along her thigh. I circled her tip with the tilt of my tongue, my lips circled around the ring of her bosom. Her back arched and her legs stirred, and her hand skimmed my warm stomach. She crouched down, and then flipped me on top of her. Her hands glided up my thighs, now wrapped around her waist, and made their way to the round of my ass. With a strong but gentle push, she guided me up until my core was hovering over her face. She pulled me down a little by the hips, until I could feel the brush of her lips against my vulva. She slid the flat of her tongue against my pussy, and I had to brace myself, hand to the wall, to keep myself from falling, face-down to the bed. Her wet tongue licked every bit of my wetness, and still I flooded more for her to take. I began to gyrate my hips against her mouth to get more friction. I needed more, more friction. More touch. More of her love against my core.