The Bitter Fruit of Home

I felt my skirt loosen and pool around my knees. Zhura reached around me and thrust her hand into my loincloth. I was already sopping there, so much so that I heard her fingers spreading my pink petals apart. My shaven cunt was sensitive, and I shook with the sensation.

"Do you want him to rut you?" Zhura asked.

I nodded as I sucked. I wanted it. I missed it.

My eyes slid in the direction of my satchel, where I kept Blossom's summoning stone. I knew the demon would be incensed. It believed it held a claim on my womb.

But Blossom was wrong.

I released Yaro's cock from my mouth with a sucking pop. I stood up and pushed my loincloth to my feet, feeling the moisture trail down the inside of my thigh.

Zhura, already naked and still kneeling, squeezed between us. She attacked Yaro's cock again, her hands roaming over his chest as she took him in her mouth. I watched, fingers knuckle-deep in my cunt, as she pulled off his kitenge. She pressed him gently down to lay on his back.

Zhura gave him one last suck and moved away. I straddled him, and lowered myself until my cunt hovered over his cock. I looked Yaro in the eye again as I stroked him. He gazed back hungrily.

I rubbed his length up and down my nether lips and slid him inside me, sighing as I took him to the root. Yaro groaned as I settled upon him, my hands planted on his chest. Part of me wanted to just set there, and bask in the feeling of fullness. But by instinct, I began to move. Slowly at first, as I adjusted his angle. My hips moved in circles on his. Then I began to raise and lower myself.

Zhura stood straddled over Yaro, facing me. She held my head in her hands. "How does it feel to have your yoni stuffed again?"

I closed my eyes and let her hold me as I rutted Yaro. Soft, slapping noises, and the glutted sound of him sloshing inside me echoed in my ears. I looked again to see him drawing Zhura's hips down until she sat on his face. He growled as she covered him.

Zhura and I kissed as we rocked up and down on the village headman. He grabbed my ass, trying to pull me down on him harder. But I relished the control I had. I wanted to savor this, and savor him.

As I bounced up and down, I saw the hungry look on the herb-witch's face.

"Do you want to try his cock?" I asked.

She nodded eagerly. I raised myself up. His cock slapped wetly on his thigh. I stood before Zhura, grabbed her face, and pulled it against my gaping nether lips. She licked me, then we switched places.

As I squatted over him, I immediately felt his true strength. He held me in place with a grip like iron. I sat flush against his mouth. His tongue speared deep inside my throbbing channel, making me shudder with desire.

Something clicked in my mind. I realized just who, or what, Yaro was.

There was a demon on this side of the stream, and the entire village here was built for its pleasure. For a generation, these people had been eager to rut and be rutted. The ancestral wards were an illusion. It stood to reason that the human leader of the village would be the demon's offspring, a man who looked about the same age as the rumor.

Yaro had the same preternatural strength and the same insatiable hunger as Zhura. Maybe there was an unconscious bond between them. Or maybe they recognized each other for what they were.

I came on Yaro's face, with his tongue buried in me. Zhura rode him hard, her butt slapping against her thighs and her fingers rubbing her pleasure button. She lifted herself slightly and spattered nectar on his belly. Zhura rolled off him and licked him clean.

Yaro's staff still stood proudly. I climbed off of him as well. I planted myself on all fours and looked back at him. "Rut me, please. Fill me."

The headman needed no more encouragement. Soon his hands were on my hips, and his cock sank into my clutching, welcoming hole again.

Yaro began to pound my cunt. I lay my head down on the floor, raising my ass higher, giving more of myself to him. Zhura knelt alongside me. She licked fingers that glistened with her creamy juices. She thrust them in my mouth, and I sucked on them like they dripped with the sweetest nectar. Then she pulled my head up by my hair and kissed me again.

Beyond her, faces peeking past the door hanging at the entrance. Strange men watched me get plowed like a well-turned field. I closed my eyes and shuddered through another orgasm.

I felt Zhura's head on my lower back. "Don't spill your seed in her," she told Yaro.

He grunted. After a few more strokes, he pulled out of me. I heard Zhura gag. Then Yaro's cock plunged to the hilt, his warm, wet hardness filling me again.

Yaro's breaths quickened. I lay my head down again. I recognized the drummer outside the entrance. His cock was in his hand. As waves of pleasure washed through me, I watched him with heavy-lidded eyes and open lips.

Yaro cried out. He withdrew from me again, and again I heard Zhura suck. Her leg kicked on the floor as she pulled herself closer, taking him to the root. Yaro groaned as he fed Zhura his boiling seed.

I craned my neck to see them kiss, to see Yaro's tongue plunge greedily between Zhura's lips.

Yes. They are very much alike.

The drummer fisted his cock, his eyes fixed on us. My lust still unquenched, I crooked a finger, beckoning him in. I saw other faces behind him, and smiled.

The drummer came to me. In my position, there was no more place for tentativeness. I shed the propriety, the rules and restraints of my former life as quickly as I'd shed my clothing. In moments, I had the head of his shaft hitting the opening to my throat. I clutched his butt and drew him in deeper as he groaned above me.

From the corner of my eye I saw two more men come in. I was still on all fours, and I wagged my ass at whoever was interested. Someone slid another cock into me, and began to rut me hard. My nose mashed against the drummer's belly. He cradled my head. The two men used me, pounding me from both ends, each one rocking me onto the other's root.

I felt fingers twisting and thumbing one of my nipples. I couldn't tell who it was. I didn't care. I heard Zhura slurping on a cock, but couldn't turn my head to see.

The next orgasm hit me like a charging buffalo. As I shuddered through it, the drummer spurted into my mouth. I gagged on his seed. The indignity only excited me more.

The man rutting me swore upon his Ancestors. I felt warm rain on my back and Zhura's tongue, licking it off. I sprawled like that, ass in the air and head resting on the floor, while she swabbed me clean. Before she had even finished, I moaned as someone grabbed my hips. They plunged another thick cock to the hilt into my needy cunt.

I was well past resisting, or even thinking. I only wanted to feel. The man behind me hammered me, driving my head into the cushioned floor, making me shudder.

When he was done, Zhura pushed me flat, turned me over and dove between my exhausted legs. She plunged her tongue into me and tickled my little pearl until I came again. My essence poured into her mouth. The last thing I remembered was sharing a sloppy kiss with her. Our collected fluids coated the inside of my mouth.

I awoke deliciously sore, with Zhura's arm lying over my breasts. At first, I didn't know where I was or how I got there. Then the events of the night before came rushing back. Yaro lay sleeping near our feet with another woman next to him. Her head was shaven, and like other women I had seen here, she was heavily pregnant. The drummer had stretched out near the entrance. The other two men were gone.

I needed to relieve myself. I searched in the dim morning light before I found my cloak, and then picked up my satchel.

It was strangely light of weight.

I groped inside, past vellum and sealed ink jars. Not immediately feeling what I sought, I used both hands. I dumped everything out of it, onto the floor.

Blossom's summoning stone was missing.

I screamed.

*

"You're missing what?" Yaro asked.

I scanned the chamber, hoping someone had simply used it as a toy and discarded it. "My summoning stone."

At his blank look, Zhura spoke. "A large phallus made of polished wood."

"I'm not missing it. It was stolen."

Yaro rubbed his eyes. "You're certain it was in your satchel when you came to the hut?"

"I always know where it is."

The others were awake now, but looked groggy. The room was heavy with the scent of sex. Two men had left, but anyone could have come and gone during the night.

Yaro's face was grim. "Then it is here, somewhere in the village. And we will find it." He addressed the shaven woman, and the drummer. "Rouse everyone."

We spent the entire morning searching. Yaro did so personally, visiting every hut with Zhura and I, starting with the two men who had come into his hut and left during the night. Most of the villagers were still bleary-eyed and disheveled.

The search turned up nothing but empty-eyed expressions. When we had poked through the last hut, Yaro promised me he would recover it. "Someone knows something," he said. "I swear by all the sleeping Gods that we will find your stone."

We returned to the hut, where Bayati and Ngo shared the last of the rice cakes with us. Zhura pulled the door hanging shut. "I almost believe him."

"He is like you, Zhura," I said. "He is the offspring of demon and human."

Her eyes grew wide. She hadn't known, then.

"Do you think that makes a difference?" Bayati said.

I started to answer, and then paused. The summoning stones were made from sorcery. Thandi witches had created them, and it wasn't clear that all demons had them. Perhaps very few did. It was entirely possible that Yaro had never heard of a summoning stone.

But someone here must have known what the stone was. No one would go through so much trouble to steal and hide a wooden phallus. They wouldn't even have known to go digging through my satchel for it.

"He may be telling the truth," I said. "But someone here is not."

Ngo rubbed his temples. "What do we do now?"

"There is one thing I can do," I said. "I can ask Mama Nyah and Papa Yaz."

"You can call on them?" Zhura asked.

"I can try. I've never done it before, but I know the preparations for a divination. It may help that we have such a strong link to Nyah and Yaz. But it also might not work. It might anger them. Neither was fond of Blossom, as you will recall."

"We will stay as long as we need to," Zhura said. "We should also ask on the north side of the stream. Someone might try to sell the stone there."

Ngo nodded. "Kitu is the bridge between this village and the outside world. If the stone doesn't pass through Kitu, it's probably still here."

Bayati looked at the floor. "There is another path."

"What?" I prodded.

"If Yaro is sincere, he will give us something else to make us whole. More food, supplies. Even coin. Something we need."

The others looked to me.

"What do we need Blossom for anyway?" Bayati asked. "We've come this far without the demon."

That was a simple thing for her to say. Without Blossom, I never would have escaped my former life. Without Blossom, I would still be frightened and alone. The demon would sire my child and bear my brother's -- a blameless child that no one would love but me.

I swallowed. I turned to Zhura, and saw my pain reflected in her expression. "I'm not leaving here without that stone," I said.

Zhura nodded. "Then we're decided. We stay and find it."

Bayati said nothing. Her eyebrows arched in a tiny act of triumph. I remembered her questions from the day before.

What is more important to you?

She was thinking that she had been right about me all along.

*

The village midday meal was quiet, with all the tension of jute cord pulled to its limits. The herders shared smoked meat and flatbread with us, and we ate in front of the huts in relative silence, the overhang shielding us from a steady drizzle. Somehow the muddy clearing looked like a different place than it had the night before, when it was strewn with discarded clothes and drunken lovers.

Before eating, Zhura and Bayati went to tend to those with fever. The herb-witch returned to report the sick looked to be improving.

Most -- perhaps all -- of these people were blameless. I had arrived at their home, barely even showing my face. They had shared their meals and their men. I'd turned around and accused them of stealing an item they'd never seen or heard of. To make matters worse, Yaro had disappeared, and no one would say where he'd gone.

There was an important part of this village that we hadn't yet seen. Someone had reason and opportunity to take Blossom's stone. Maybe it was the demon who'd sired Yaro. Maybe it was something more. Whatever it was, it explained where the headman had gone.

I stared out into the clearing, watching women make ugali under a thatch-roofed stall. Behind me, I heard Bayati speaking in a low voice with the other two inside our hut.

She was a likely culprit, of course. She had every reason to steal the summoning stone -- either to prove my divided loyalty or to convince Zhura to leave me behind. But I couldn't figure out how she could have taken it without being seen, and where she could have hidden it. Ngo had confirmed that he and Bayati had spent the night with several of the herders. Apart from trips to the bush for relief, they'd been together. We'd gone through all of our baskets. If Bayati had hidden it somewhere, it likely would have been found by now.

The sad-looking village reflected my own misery. I'd escaped the gilded cage of House Oko only by chaining myself to Blossom. Those shackles had now been stretched to their limits.

Sacred Ancestors, help me walk the path.

The women working in the clearing stopped, as did the children playing in the rain. They all looked up to see Yaro enter the clearing with a woman. She was as tall as him, in an indigo gown that left her shoulders and arms bare. Her hair was long and braided, streaked with gray. Her lips crooked into an imperious curl as she spotted me sitting on the lintel.

"You are Keya," the woman said, stopping before me. "I am Irri, Mother of this village. You will come with me."

A small group of onlookers was gathering in the rain, murmuring, "Mama Irri." From behind me, Zhura and the others stepped out of the hut.

"What is this?" the herb-witch demanded.

Yaro appeared visibly uncomfortable. "This is my most revered mother," he said. "Keya is to go with her. She will not be harmed."

As I stood, I felt the hairs rising on my skin. Had someone found out who I was? "I want my summoning stone back. That's all."

"All will be explained to you," Irri said. Though she spoke Kan, her accent was Nubic. She was from the Hill Kingdoms, then. "But you must come alone."

"She's not going alone," said Zhura. "We all are."

"Zhura, I promise she will not be harmed," Yaro insisted.

"That's not good enough."

I felt as if I were slipping. Trapped inside a hole so deep I could barely see the sky above. No matter how far I had tried to climb, my will was faltering. Soon I would fall. I couldn't ask Zhura and the others to fight, just so that I could keep Blossom's stone. Bayati was right. No one needed the demon but me.

"Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"To speak with the leaders of the village, Keya," Yaro said. "Everything you see here was founded by them."

"You are being honored, girl," said Irri.

"Will you bring her back?" asked Ngo.

"She may not wish to come back," Irri replied.

Zhura's eyes narrowed. She seemed to swell with determination as she faced the headman and his mother. "Your sick are recovering. Yaro promised us food for our journey. Give us what we bargained for." The herb-witch turned to Ngo and Bayati. "Pack up our things. Do what you feel you must. You know where to look for us if we don't come back. I'm going with Keya. We aren't negotiating that."

Irri's eyes flashed irritation. But she turned on her heel and started back the way she'd come. "Come, girl," she called to me.

Zhura grabbed her staff.

"I will gather your meat," Yaro said.

No doubt he was anxious to see us all leave.

Ngo laid a hand on Bayati's shoulder. "We'll start packing."

We followed Irri south, out of the village and into the bush. The trees drooped in the drizzling rain. A boy tending a herd of cattle waved us as we passed, water dripping from his headscarf down his cheeks.

I loved Zhura. I knew that. But I had loved Jinai. Love was not always enough.

Irri walked well ahead of us, not even bothering to see that we followed. Her dress was like a burst of twilight against the drab greens and browns of the rainy season woodland.

"She's taking you to the demon, isn't she?" Zhura asked, in a low voice.

"I think so."

"But why, Keya? Why does it want you?"

It was a demon. It wanted to mate. It might be more complex than that, but it cooked down to that. The difficult question was the one Zhura had asked. What made me special to this creature? The only thing that would set me apart was the summoning stone...

"It's Blossom," I said. "They've summoned Blossom."

The bush was becoming denser. Irri ducked through spaces between thorn trees and thicket that only she could spot, and we followed.

"Keya, do you need Blossom?" Zhura said, as she turned sideways to slip past a tangle of spiky plants. "It seems that you and it are in a constant struggle."

"I do," I said. "And I am."

I'd told her that Blossom was pregnant by Zahar. It had been two weeks since I had first coupled with the infernal. Soon I would know if I too was with child.

We emerged on a narrow path that cut through the dense brush, disappearing around a bend ahead. Irri marched on. We hurried to catch up.

"Zhura, I..." I turned to her. "I love you. But I can't ask you to do this. Blossom is my burden to bear. It is not fair to you or the others."

The herb-witch stopped. "You... what?" Her eyes slid past me to Irri.

The older woman was approaching us again. "This is your only warning, Zhura. You are unwanted here. Turn back now."

Before Zhura could respond, there was a crash in the brush, and grunting. From something big.

"We are not negotiating," Irri mocked.

Behind Zhura on the trail, bramble and brush gave way. A gray rhino lumbered onto the path. The behemoth turned towards us and lowered its head. The vicious spike of its horn pointed at us.

"Keya, run!" the herb-witch faced the beast as it began to move.

"Come, girl," Irri said calmly. "It is time."

The rhino charged, its level gait deceptively fast. The muddy path seemed to shake with its bulk. Zhura was trapped between myself and Irri behind me, and the thickets to the side.

"Blessed Ancestors," I prayed. "Lend your aid to Zhura in her time of need..."

Zhura ran towards the rhino.

Just before the rhino slammed into her, she vaulted over it, planting a hand on its back and landing behind it. She thwacked it on the rear with her staff. The beast slowed and shook its head. It swiveled its huge body around, tearing through thicket as if it were cobwebs.

Further down the trail, past Zhura, a second rhino emerged from the brush.

"...guide her and show her the path-" A hand fell upon my shoulder. I thought it was Irri. "Leave me alone, woman!"

An arm bigger than my leg swept me off my feet like a sheaf of grain. In a whirl, I was slung over a furred brown back. I screamed, out of shock and anger more than fear.

My captor was humanoid, as I could see from the powerful legs and massive flat feet. Its scent was earthy, pungent. In great strides, I was bundled off down the path.

As I craned my neck, I could see the rhino charging the herb-witch again. I could only glimpse Zhura and the second rhino beyond it. Then I was around the bend, and she was gone.