Pharaoh's Taboo Gift

"Well, Chris?" she added irritably when he didn't answer. "What's wrong with you, anyway?"

"You..." He waved at her blouse, which was completely unbuttoned. In the gleam of the kerosene lamp, he could see the inner swells of each of her breasts, and her flat, toned stomach. "Are you feeling okay, Mom? Your blouse isn't...you know."

"Chris," she replied wearily. "It's been a long day. I'm still jet-lagged, it's hot, I smell bad, and I'm fucking exhausted. So if I want to feel comfortable when I'm eating my supper, I'd appreciate it if you didn't bug me about it, okay?"

"Sorry," he muttered. "It's just...you never do this at home."

"At home we have air-conditioning," she replied with a shrug. The motion made the gold chain around her neck gleam, and struck hypnotizing sparks from the surface of the medallion, which was cradled between her breasts. The ruby stared at him like an accusing eye, able to read his thoughts. "Hey," she added, and he realized he was staring. "Your sister? The professor?"

"Sorry," he repeated, feeling like an idiot. As his mother listened, he repeated Sabah's information, including that Professor Escobar would be laid up and unable to come to the site for several days, if not weeks.

"Good," she nodded. "The last thing we need is for him to up here. We'd spend more time worrying about him than actually working. Once he's able to travel, I'll browbeat him into going home. He can't do anyone any good from a hotel room. He can sit in his apartment and we'll send him all the information we find." She tapped her chin with her finger, her eyes far away. "In fact, it might just work out for the better. Gonzalo can handle everything on the logistical side of things, and also start applying for permits from the Egyptian government." She grimaced. "Though some of the people in the antiquities department aren't much better than thieves with university degrees."

Chris shrugged as he ate. With sunset had come a respite from the day's baking heat. This time of year, it never actually got cold in the desert. But now, at least, the temperature was tolerable. With the cooler air, his appetite returned, and he found himself eating hungrily. Two sausage and cheese sandwiches, fruit and veggies, and cups of warm juice. It wasn't a gourmet meal, but when he pushed his plate away, his stomach felt comfortingly full.

Zahira, on the other hand, ate slowly, taking long pauses between bites. At times, her eyes went hazy and distant, and Chris knew that she was thinking about tomorrow's schedule.

He tilted his head back, looking up at the night sky. The city haze of Luxor was a mere smudge on the horizon, a soft glitter of winking lights. But above, the sky was perfectly black, lit with stars like jewels. Without the fog of pollution to dim them, they shone hard and clear. Ruby, topaz, sapphire, and amethyst. Far to the east, the moon, only a day or so past full, was rising above the Nile, casting a sheen like quicksilver on the distant thread of the river.

"It's beautiful up here," he said quietly, and surprised himself by meaning it.

His mother glanced at him, a sardonic smile lifting one corner of his mouth. "Don't tell me that you're getting fond of your mother-country, Chris. I won't believe it."

"Well, no," he admitted. "I'm American. I'm from New Yawk," he added, emphasizing his accent. "And this isn't really my country. Any more than it's yours. I mean, you were born in America, too, right?"

"True. Though...I don't know. I feel a connection." She tapped her sternum, between her breasts. "Deep inside. God only knows how long my family had lived in Egypt before your grandparents left. How many generations."

Chris nodded, careful not to stare at his mother's body. All through the meal, her bare flesh had been a constant, tempting presence. Though he knew it was wrong, he had hoped for a sudden breeze to flip the thin layer of cloth aside and reveal Zahira's chest.

And then what, you idiot? What would you do? Nothing, that's what. If you even tried to touch her, there wouldn't be enough of you left to make into fertilizer. Old ladies would scare their kids at night with stories about what mom and Sabah did to you if you tried to seduce your own mother.

Zahira yawned and stretched, the motion accentuating her lovely chest. For a single, heart-stopping second, Chris thought that he could see the twin impress of a pair of erect nipples before they were hidden again by the natural folds of the blouse.

"Well, I'm done for tonight. I'm going to bed." His mother smiled deeply, holding his eyes just a fraction of a second longer than necessary. "Can you clean up?"

He nodded, not trusting his tongue.

"Good." She stood and leaned down, brushing his cheek with her lips. They were cool and soft, and Chris was wracked by a sudden shudder of longing. "I'll take care of things tomorrow," she whispered in his ear. "It's not right that you have to do all the work, just because I had a silly little fainting spell this afternoon."

"I don't mind," he stammered. Was his mother actually...teasing him? Did she know how the feel of her breath in his ear, soft and hot, made his groin ache with unbearable, taboo lust? Or was she completely oblivious to the way her gorgeous body was making him burn? "You know how men are," he joked feebly. "Strong backs and weak minds."

She hugged him around the shoulders, her breast pressing into his side. "Don't you believe it," Zahira said. "No son of mine is stupid." She ruffled his hair, something she hadn't done since he was a kid, and kissed him again before straightening. "I'll see you tomorrow, all right?"

"Unless a pack of hyenas comes up here and drags me off, I'm not going anywhere."

"Good." A deep smile dimpled her cheeks. "I've got plans for tomorrow."

Chapter 5

~What are you doing?~ Hatshepsut raged as Zahira walked across the camp to her tent. ~He's there. He's right there! If you weren't such a spineless, craven coward, his mouth could be between our legs right now!~

All right, Zahira thought as she entered her tent. The gloves are coming off. No more Miss Nice Archeologist. I'm going Lara Croft on this bitch's ass.

It really was a pity that she didn't have a door to slam. But she made up for it by closing her eyes, fighting with weapons she didn't know she had until Hatshepsut's face floated up in her mind's eye.

You listen to me, my queen, she snapped, as the older woman's eyes went wide with astonishment. And you listen good. Maybe this hasn't occurred to you. But you are a guest in my body. I didn't invite you in. I didn't ask for you. And if you don't start treating me with some respect, I'll take this damn necklace off and toss it in the darkest, deepest hole in the Western Desert I can find.

And this isn't our body. It's mine. You don't get to make the decisions about who I do or do not choose to take to my bed. You can advise. You can suggest. Hell, if you actually have some magic and aren't completely full of shit, you can use it on me. I wouldn't mind having a great set of tits for the rest of my life.

~You...you...~

Oh, Zahira was on a roll now. She hadn't lost it like this since she had kicked Greg out of the apartment. Not even when Sabah had come home from her freshman year of college with a skanky boyfriend, a tattoo, and a B-minus GPA. She hated to lose her temper, hated to shout, hated the shrill, screechy, fishwife sound of her raised voice, like one of her mother's innumerable female friends, who hated the twenty-first century and everything in it. But she would be damned if she would let this refugee from the Bronze Age run her life.

Right. Me. Because no matter how bad-ass you were back when wheels were a shiny new invention, right now you are in charge of Jack and shit. And Jack just left town.

A sense of puzzled confusion. ~I beg your pardon. What?~

What I mean, she snarled, is that any choices about my lovers will be decided by myself. Not you. Though, she added, throwing a sop to the ex-pharaoh, I wouldn't mind some advice, once in a while. But I am not taking Chris to bed tonight.~

~No matter how much you actually agree that your son has a certain...physical charm?~

Zahira snorted laughter. Yes. Even that.

~So what is the problem, my priestess?~ Hatshepsut's spirit seemed honestly confused. ~You want him. He wants you. What could be simpler than letting your desires have their way?~

Because people do not do that. Not anymore. Women do not...copulate...with their sons. If I do, and I am discovered, I will be shunned, cast out, unable to earn a living and care for my children.

~Ah, yes. That is a problem. The solution, it occurs to me, is quite simple.~

Right. Even on short acquaintance, Zahira was fairly sure that any 'simple' solution that Hatshepsut suggested was quite likely to be obscene at best.

The woman was a walking contradiction. At least, she would be, if she had a body. On one side was the calculating intellect of a woman who had seized power from her adopted son and ruled Egypt as its uncontested ruler for the better part of thirty years. On the other was a constantly simmering sexual arousal that reminded her of nothing so much than how she had felt herself when she had thrown off the bonds of her parents' conservative household and left for college. Her body had craved one thing, constantly, and didn't give a damn about anything else.

~Well, of course. You are of the bloodline of my priestesses, after all. And they would have hardly chosen to pledge their service to me if they didn't agree to the tenets of my worship.~

Spare me. All through supper, Hatshepsut had been torn between avid curiosity and a terror that was almost palpable. Every morsel of food was closely inspected. Zahira had never thought that she would have to explain the concept of a sandwich to anyone, let alone the origins of carrots or apples. The only items which had been met with unqualified acceptance were bread, cheese, and surprisingly, radishes. Hatshepsut's spirit had been impressed with the quality of the thick brown bread, but had been bitterly disappointed when told they had neither beer nor wine, thinking juice a very poor substitute.

~Barely better than water,~ she sniped. ~And fit only for peasants.~

Still, she had to admit that if she had found herself transported forward in time, she might have fared little better. It was almost as if she were living in an episode of 'Futurama,' and Hatshepsut was a latter-day Philip J. Fry, at once astounded and terrified by the world she found herself in.

And the one thing that she can control is sex. Well, that helps things make sense.

What was more disturbing, at least for Zahira's own peace of mind, was the way Hatshepsut's attitude seemed to be...infecting her. During the meal, she saw Chris through another pair of eyes. A pair of eyes that saw her son not as the baby that he had been, nor the child she had nursed through a dozen illnesses, or even the gawky, clumsy, gangling teenager with whom she had shared triumphs and disasters alike - everything from high-school breakups to his college acceptance letters.

Hatshepsut saw Chris as a man. And now, so did Zahira. A man with an attractive body and a pleasant, easy-going attitude which was almost instinctively comforting. Almost against her will, she found herself undressing him during the meal, her loins wet and nipples tingling, even though his body held no mysteries for her, who had known him since the minute of his birth.

Well, almost no mysteries, she amended, while Hatshepsut snickered. Zahira wasn't a sexual prude, unlike her mother. Knowing that bitter old woman, sometimes she wondered how she and her brothers had even been conceived. But she had never been the sort of person who was comfortable with casual nudity, either. She probably hadn't seen her son naked since he was seven or eight years old.

~A wasted opportunity, to be sure,~ the pharaoh sniffed.

Enough, she decided. This decision will be mine. You don't like it, you go in the dumpster.

~The what?~ But Hatshepsut quailed when Zahira formed the image of a rusty, stinking dumpster in her head, the lid gaping like a hungry mouth. ~Very well,~ she conceded, her mind-voice grudging. ~It's your choice. But if you fall and break your neck tomorrow without having tasted that lovely boy's cock, I hope you feel like a fool!~

Chris woke early the next morning, clawing his way out of an uneasy sleep plagued by dreams where his mother, dressed in her skin and nothing else, had invited him into her tent, which by some benign, mysterious magic, had been transformed into something that resembled a harem as imagined by a Hollywood script-writer on acid.

After shaking out his shoes to make sure no murderous insects had crept in during the night, he gathered up a precious roll of toilet paper and visited the latrine. The flap of Zahira's tent was still closed when he came back, though there were some stirring noises coming from inside.

My turn again, I guess. He washed his hands carefully, the routine drilled into his head by the time he was nine years old, then began to get breakfast ready. When his mother emerged from the tent, heavy-lidded and yawning like a cavern, he already had one of the portable stoves lit and water ready to boil.

"What would you like, Mom?" he asked. "Juice? Tea? Coffee?"

She pointed at the trench, well downwind of their tents. "The bathroom."

"Here." He tossed her the roll of toilet paper. "It's the good stuff," he grinned. "Two-ply."

"Oh, bless you." Zahira rubbed her eyes. "Back when your father and I were doing work at Tanis, I would have gotten into a knife-fight just so I could wipe my ass with something nice and soft."

"Ooo-kay."

His mother blushed, her skin darkening even in the early morning shadows. "I'll have something ready when you get back," Chris said, trying to save her from embarrassment. "Would you like coffee or tea?"

"Tea," she said, then walked quickly away. "Oh," she added, looking over her shoulder. "If you hear from your sister, could you ask her to bring some things with her? Food, mostly. Dates, figs, that sort of thing? And I would love to have some good Egyptian honey. That would be nice on the bread in the morning."

Chris blinked. "Sure."

"Cool." She shifted her weight, and smiled. "Back in a few."

He filled a pot with water and set it on the stove to boil. By the time his mother got back, wiping her hands on a clean towel, the tea was ready. He poured it into a pair of mugs, then set out bread and fruit for breakfast.

"It's crazy," Zahira said, cradling the mug in her hands and taking a deep sip, "how I probably eat healthier out here than I do at home. No cruddy microwave meals, no junk food."

"No dorm food," Chris nodded, though he had already signed a lease with two friends to move into an apartment when the next school year started. "So what's the plan for today?" he asked.

"Ugh. I can't think yet. Let me get some caffeine into my bloodstream, okay Chris?" she begged.

"Fine." He recalled, with amusement, that his mother had never been remotely what might be called a morning person, to the point that when she signed her new contract with NYU, one of the provisions was that she not be required to teach any courses before ten AM. "I guess there's no one watching to make sure we're working." He popped a grape into his mouth. "We can just laze around here in the sun all day and cash a check at five, right?"

"Chris." Zahira pushed back her hair, fixing him with an irritated stare. "You're my son and I love you. But could you please shut up for a few minutes?"

He grinned back at her, undismayed. "All right."

For a few minutes, silence reigned, broken only by the soft sigh of the breeze rippling the fabric of the tents, and the occasional harsh cry of a hawk high overhead. It was a little cooler today, Chris thought, though he was sure it would be unbearable later. He turned on his phone, making a mental note to keep track of the battery and charge it up with the car-adapter later. Sabah had sent him a text, he discovered, and he shook his head and chuckled when it turned out to be as a picture of her, wrapped in a bathrobe, with wet hair and the gleaming expanse of a hotel bathroom behind her.

"What's funny?" Zahirah asked.

"Your horrible daughter was taunting me with a picture of a bathroom, and reminding me that she was living in civilization with running water and air conditioning." He mimed a sniff at his armpit, and shuddered. "Meanwhile, pretty soon I'm going to smell so bad that I'll be able to knock over a hippo at thirty feet."

His mother cocked her head to one side. "There's no reason we can't have a bath." She sighed. "And I know what you mean. I would love to feel clean."

"A bath? Seriously? How? Did the professor get us one of those collapsible canvas tubs?" He frowned. "We probably don't have enough water to spare, though."

"Not up here. Down in the temple. Didn't you see the pool down there yesterday?"

He shrugged. "I was more worried about you. And would it be...right...for us to take a bath there? I mean, it's a temple, right? I'm not going to go into the Vatican and drink out of the baptismal font. And I bet that the professor would pitch a fit if he found it that we were doing this sort of thing."

"The professor isn't here. And right now, I'm making the rules. And I'm hot and smelly and filthy and I want to be clean."

She stood up, her mug in her hand. "That settles it. We're taking baths first thing. That spring is a gift. We'd be silly to waste it."

She drank down her tea and strode away to the supply tent. In only a couple of minutes she was back, towels draped over one arm and a small cloth bag in her other hand. "Well," she asked, frowning at him impatiently. "Let's go!"

Chris blinked. "Together?" He tried to keep his voice from rising in a startled squeak.

"Well, of course together," Zahira replied in a voice that strove for reason. "What happens if there's still bad air down there and I pass out again? I could drown. We need to be there to watch over each other."

There seemed to be something wrong with that logic, but Chris wasn't brave enough to say so. He followed his mother over to the gaping hole in the ground, took a grip on the rope, and slithered down the passage behind her.

There was something oddly...sexual...about the entrance, he thought. Notwithstanding the erotic carvings to be found below, he wondered if it had occurred to his mother that the journey into the temple, by this route at least, almost resembled the path of a sperm into the womb.

Yes. Good way to convince her you're not a pervert, he thought. Can you imagine saying that out loud?

Once down into the temple itself, his mother quickly busied herself providing light to push away the clammy black darkness. Fat white candles were set out and lit around the rectangular pool, bathing the area in a warm yellow glow.

"Where do you suppose the water comes from?" Chris asked, squatting down to examine it. The water seemed higher than it had been the day before, trickling down stone channels and off into the darkness. "And where does it go?"