Glade and Ivory Ch. 07

What she didn't expect to see was not only her lover, who was already under the bed furs, but nestled beside her another woman whom Ivory recognised as Oak Leaf: a woman half way in years between Ivory and Glade. And what was even more of a shock was that both she and Glade were naked.

Ivory stood by the tepee entrance in stunned silence apart from the persistent wheezing that was the result of her dash across the steppe. As she struggled to recover her strength, she also struggled to make sense of what she could see. Her lover was in bed with another woman. Ivory could also tell that they were both flushed with the afterglow of sex.

"Glade!" she cried in distress. "What's this? Have you...? Were you...?"

The two women lay on the bed. Oak Leaf pulled the bed furs up to her bosom and looked appropriately guilty. Glade, however, was naked to the waist but didn't seem ashamed at all.

"Yes, I have," Glade said. "Would you like to join us? If, of course," she continued, glancing at her companion, "Oak Leaf is amenable."

"No, I wouldn't!" said Ivory firmly. "How could you? I thought..."

"You thought wrongly," replied Glade. "Why should I abandon the love of my friends? After all, you share the company of the Chief with his wife. Why can't I also enjoy the company of my other lovers?"

"Your other lovers...?"

Glade stood up. A pearl of sweat dripped down from the tip of a bare nipple onto her brown stomach. She put an arm round Ivory's fur-covered shoulders and kissed her on the face, while her apprentice shivered as much from shock as from the rainwater that pasted her eyes and nose.

"Take off your clothes, at least," she said comfortingly.

"My clothes? In front of another woman?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"It's not right. It's not right."

Oak Leaf also stood up, but took care to cover her crotch with a hand while she gathered her furs.

"I'd better leave," she said.

"Are you sure?" asked Glade. "I'm sure that Ivory won't..."

"Let her leave!" said Ivory firmly. "I thought you were my lover. I didn't believe that I'd have to share you..."

"...As I have to share you."

"It's not the same. It's not the same at all."

Oak Leaf made no comment, but ensured she was fully clothed before she left the tepee. She evaded Glade's attempt to kiss her before she pushed aside the hide that kept the torrential rain at bay. She was no more enthusiastic than Ivory about sharing Glade with another woman.

When the two women were alone, Ivory burst into tears and resisted ineffectually as her lover disrobed her.

"You can't keep on these damp clothes," Glade said reassuringly as if she had no part in Ivory's current distress. "You might catch cold and I don't want to have to treat you as a patient."

Ivory slumped naked on the bed with Glade's arms around her bare back and shivered in the chill. "I thought we were lovers. I thought we were as man and wife."

"I am not a man and I am not your wife," said Glade. She stroked Ivory on the back and held up a cloth of elk-hide to Ivory's damp face, where the salty taste of her tears intermingled with the chill cold of the rain.

"But..."

"You thought that because we share the same bed each night and because we make love that I would now foreswear the temptations of other flesh?"

"Yes..."

"You have much yet to learn, my dear," Glade said. "Lie down on your back and I'll lay out your clothes to dry by the fire."

Ivory obeyed, as much from her inability to think of a better course of action as from her acceptance of the wisdom of Glade's advice.

"How can you...?"

"How can I continue to make love to another woman?" Glade hazarded. "Because I see no good reason why I shouldn't. Oak Leaf was one of my lovers before you became my apprentice and it would seem no less wrong to abandon her just because you are in my care."

"But she has a husband and four children."

"Her husband is no more faithful to her than I am to you," Glade said. "Hush. Don't fret. I know it's difficult for you, but as much as I love you, and, yes, my sweetheart, I do love you, I still love other women."

"Couldn't you now...?"

"Why should I deny myself the love of other women while you also enjoy sex with Chief Cave Lion?"

"I didn't choose that. I would gladly never see the Chief again."

"You have no choice, my love. And even if you were never again to make love to the Chief, do you truly believe that I would forego my own pleasures?"

"But... but..."

"Remember that I was once proud to be the most promiscuous girl in my tribe. And the girl I was is still the woman that I am. If you are to love me, you would do well to remember that."