Top of the World

"Your father?" questioned Aiden. "From the look on your face, it must have been him."

Then, seeing the torment in my eyes he crossed to hold me in his arms. "He'll come around, Abby. He loves you. When he knows about the baby..."

"No!" I fairly shouted, startling my lover from his tender mood. "He can't know, and neither can anyone else! It would destroy him to think I'd conceived a child out of wedlock, and the villagers would hold it up to him for the rest of his life. I-I can't do that, Aiden, I can't."

My lover looked on as though I'd lost my senses. "Abby, how exactly do you plan to avoid it? We'll have him perform a ceremony as soon as we can arrange it. It's going to be ok! I told you that you're not alone, and I meant it. Don't worry. I'll take care of everything."

Aiden stroked my hair, as though everything were now made right, but he had no way to know the truth. Things were different here. This was not a place of easy forgiveness, not a place where change was easily accepted. Old grudges and slights lay buried for generations in this place, hiding their heads for the sake of necessity until a sudden affront brought them once more to the fore. The bastard grandchild of a hellfire missionary would have no chance at the Top of the World...and he would have no grandfather.

Slowly I rose from the bed where Aiden and I had lain and given each other so much pleasure, the place where I had become a woman, and began to gather my things.

"What are you doing, Abby? You're leaving?"

I smiled, a smile that should have been brighter and more sincere, and nodded my head. "It must be time for us to become a part of the village now." I whispered in conflicted tones. "My father would not have been here otherwise. It's time I went home and faced what awaits me."

Aiden sat down heavily. "Just like that? And what about me? Was all this just a convenience until you could go home? You mean so much to me Abby. I thought I meant something to you too."

A tear trickled over my cheek. My heart was breaking. I had to try and smooth things over with the good reverend, and I had to do it alone. To bring Aiden home, or stay here with him would have sealed the fate of the child that grew within me. Though the chance to heal this wound was slim at best, I had to try.

"You know better than that!" I snapped, trying to bridge the flow of tears. "But if you care about me...this baby we've created...you'll try to understand why I have to do this. Barrow is small, more a family unit than a village, and our child would be a pariah without my father's acceptance. I have to try and win him over. I have to go home. And, you have to stay here."

There, it was said! I could not fight both Aiden and my father. One must give way, and for my baby's sake it had to be Aiden.

Quickly I gathered my things as Aiden sat sullenly glaring at my scurrying figure. In minutes I had my pack readied and stood before him, a deserter in his time of need.

"Would you kiss me good-bye then?" I pleaded in desperate tones. "I know I can't make you understand, but I hope that you can someday forgive me."

Still he sat, immobile, until finally I turned and left our nest to once more re-enter the world I had known all of my life. Suddenly all about me seemed cold and empty. This place in the frozen north that had always seemed so warm and inviting was no more. Without Aiden it was a frigid wasteland. Within me lay the seed of our love, growing minutely day by day, forever bound to this place on the shores of the Arctic. He would have a life here, he would, even if mine were no longer worth anything.

And so I left the ATV for Aiden's use and trudged the long miles home, carrying my pack on my back as the chill winds whipped about me, freezing the tears to my cheeks. Finally, my journey at an end, I found myself at the door to the mission, frightened of that which was to follow.

Hesitantly, I lifted my hand to knock, not knowing if I could still call this place home. But no sooner had my hand fallen upon the wood than my mother came hurrying out, arms scrambling for purchase, and embraced me full-heartedly.

"You're home!" she sobbed, as though I were Lazarus risen from the dead. "You're home! Oh Abby, you're home!!" she repeated endlessly, as though to convince herself of the truth in it. Then, gathering me closely she hurried me into the warmth beyond and took the burden from my shoulders.

Then, settling me before the stove to warm my bones she began to heat some caribou broth to take away the chill. Nervously I glanced about the room for my father, but found him absent.

"He's not here," my mother supplied. "He's taken to his knees in the chapel. He-he told me what happened..."

"And you still want me here, Mother? Am I not an affront to your eyes as well? How can you still love me so much after what I've done"?

My mother looked on in astonishment, as though I'd lost my mind. "Love...how could I stop loving you! How could you think such a thing? You're my child...you're my child. You have my heart, Abby. Nothing can change that. One day when you hold your own in your arms you'll understand..." Then, with a peculiar glance she repeated herself. "Yes. You'll understand."

An unspoken confirmation passed between us then. She knew. Somehow in the eternal communion of woman to woman, she knew. My child had no father, no grandfather, but his grandmother would welcome him with open arms.

The next month passed slowly, my father keeping to himself, never speaking a word, and my mother attempting tiny breaches in the wall he'd placed between us. Of Aiden there was nothing, save the unplanned glance as he found his way among the villagers, the hurried retreat when we encountered each other by accident on the street. Finally, one evening we found ourselves alone in the dead of the arctic night, admiring the aurora as it whispered far above our desolate shore.

"Have you told them yet?" he demanded without preamble, as though our conversation of so long ago had never ceased. "Have you told them that you're carrying my baby, and that you've abandoned its father?"

I choked at the bitterness in his voice. The passage of time had not softened his mood. In fact, if anything it had curdled him into someone unknown to me.

"No," I replied softly. "My mother sews tiny garments of rabbit fur and hides them in her sewing basket, but my father has no words to share with me. No, I haven't told them."

A frown worried his brow, deepening the lines that life had so cruelly placed there. He hesitated, unsure of what to say next, until finally the dam burst and the words came flowing into the night.

"Abby, you can't believe that he won't know soon, that he won't see eventually. What then? In a few more months even a blind man would be able to tell! You have to let me be there for you...for us. Abby, I'm going crazy over this! I lost one family already. I won't lose another! If you don't tell him, I will!"

I cried out as though he had struck me, and throwing my arms about him I pressed my face close to his and pleaded. "Aiden, no! You don't understand. If you want this child we've made to have any life at all, then you have to trust me. We'll have our child, we'll be a family, just not yet. Please Aiden, promise me...promise me..."

Grimly he nodded his head. "For now," he replied. "But if your father doesn't bent soon..."

I brushed my lips against his to stifle the words that he tried to place between us, and at once he was silent. His warm breath circled the silver fox of my hood and seeped warmly into my ears. Then, breathing heavily he whispered "Oh Abby. I've missed you so. I need..."

"I know, Aiden...I know." And I did, for the time we'd been apart, the long, lonely arctic nights had been torture without my mate, my lover. The thought brought a flush to my cheeks, and a sparkle to my eyes. Then, as though reading my thoughts, I felt his hand insinuating itself beneath my atiki, cupping my breast with urgent determination.

I gasped, the warmth of my breath mingling with his, and immediately I felt the first stirrings of need flow between my thighs.

Had Aiden needed confirmation of my desire, he could have found none better, for as he pressed me back into the shadows of the Cliffside I felt his hand slip downward, across my rounded abdomen to explore the willing flesh that belonged to him alone. My knees shook at his touch, threatening to fail me, but Aiden's body kept me righted until it was his pleasure to do otherwise.

Then, sheltered from the wind, he lay me on the frozen sand and began to stroke deep inside with his fingers, drawing out my sighs with his intimate touch, probing my flesh with persistency until I whimpered my need into the night and flowed into his hand.

He lay against me then, his breath coming in heavy sighs, and cursed lightly. "Damn there clothes," he murmured. "I want to..."

But I pressed my lips to his before he could finish. There were ways, I knew. There were ways. And so I gently lay him beside me, prone in the shelter of the cliff and knelt between his legs. Then, opening his pants I lowered my face between his trembling thighs, covering his exposed flesh with the fur of my hood, and took his swollen member between my lips.

He groaned. Loudly. And at once I tasted the first tiny droplets of his seed upon my tongue. Upward he thrust, driving his manhood into my waiting lips, deep into the warm cavern of my mouth until I felt the need to retreat or suffocate.

But, his need was greater, and as I began to draw away he reached beneath my hood and curled his fingers into my hair, holding me fast as he deepened his overture.

Harder he drove, and deeper yet until there was no place to go, no where to probe that had not been filled. It was then, as though by instinct, that my throat opened and he became fully impaled within me. He growled, as though humanity had been stripped from us, and took what had been offered without hesitation.

Madly he plunged, until I too felt the knot tighten within my belly. Desperately, I stroked between my own thighs, rutting against my fingers much as my lover labored above, until finally with a heroic lunge he filled me, gushing his warm offering into my mouth and beyond. Then, replacing my hand with his own, he quickly delivered me as well.

Trembling, we lay in the darkness, knowing that to be apart was torture beyond belief. There had to be a way for us to be together. There had to be!

"Aiden, what's it like 'outside'"? Are there places where people could...find a life? Or has The Kiss erased all of humanity?

At first he was silent, his mind whirling in conflicted eddies until finally he spoke his thoughts. "I-I don't know," he replied hesitantly. "At first it was terrible, as though nothing could possibly survive. Whole cities decimated, but after a few years, tiny gatherings began to form. People like me, I guess, people The Kiss hadn't touched. Or maybe it just did its damage and evolved into something less lethal, leaving those of us who survived to pick up the pieces. I don't know, Abby...I don't know."

"But there's a chance?" I questioned eagerly. "Do you think there could be a chance that we could..."

"...find a way to live outside?" he finished. "Abby, I can't take that risk! I buried my whole family, and saw millions of others who hadn't had the luxury of burial. I can't lose you, Abby. You're asking too much! Forget it!"

"But you're here, Aiden, and you're alive. There IS a chance! As soon as the spring leads open in the icepack we could take your boat and..."

"Abby! You don't know what you're asking! You..."

Once more I silenced him with a kiss. "Yes...I know Aiden. I'm asking a lot. I'm asking the world, but it's the only way. My father will never accept our child, he can't. He's preached against those who bypassed the bonds of matrimony for over 20 years. Even marrying now would no good. Everyone would know when our child was born early and ridicule his hypocrisy. He can't accept me, ever, and I can't destroy what he's worked for all of his life. To leave would be an answer, Aiden, a solution."

Once more Aiden was silent, the words drifting like icebergs between us. Visions of all that he had seen, all that he had lost scurried behind his furrowed brow.

"But could we do it?" he questioned finally. "I almost died getting this far, how would we make it?"

"You weren't raised here," I smiled. "You didn't know the land or how to survive on it. I do. We can do this, Aiden...we can."

Resigned, but still uneasy, Aiden looked thoughtfully onward, out to the frozen sea. "When would we do this?" he asked. It doesn't look possible any time before you start to show in ways that even your atiki can't cover."

Once more I smiled. I was in my element. "In a month or so," I replied. Already the whaling captains are setting up camps along the thinning leads, waiting for the bowheads to travel northward for the summer. Soon rivers of open water will open far out along the icecap...and by the time the first whales arrive we'll be gone.

Aiden's eyes grew stern then. "I want to be with you until we go!" he asserted. "I can't take another month like this! You have to come back. You have to be with me in the Sugarshack."

Again my father's shame, his ruin crept into my mind. "i-I can't, Aiden. My father..."

"...your father is a pompous ass, Abby. If he had any idea what it really means to love someone, he'd find a way for us to stay here! If I'm to go along with this plan of yours, then I need you beside me!"

I swallowed hard, trying to find a compromise, then finally nodded my head. "Yes...I will, Aiden. But it must be in secret. No one can know. I'll come to you when I can, Aiden. I promise."

At first my lover seemed to reject the alternative, but then he clasped me to his breast once more and acquiesced. "Alright, Abby. If it's the only way, then that's how it'll have to be."

Once more his fingers found my molten core, as if by claiming me once again he would seal our bargain. And when I again yielded breathlessly to his ministrations he whispered huskily "Say it again. Abby. Now, without anything between us. Promise me!"

"I-I'll come to you, Aiden! I swear it! I swear it! I'll come to you."

And I did.

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Chapter 8

The next month passed slowly. Each day brought new fears that my swelling girth would be found out, and each night I found my way through the silent night to my lover's side. It seemed that as the child within me grew, so grew my desperation to join with Aiden. No sooner had I eagerly entered the warmth of the Sugarshack each night before I could feel my belly tensing for the release I craved at his hand. Finally I found myself a wanton, thinking of nothing else, wanting nothing but his flesh in mine.

Aiden seemed to understand, and eagerly fed my hunger with his nightly services. The more aggressive I became, however, the more gently he responded, perhaps out of deference for the life that pressed between us. Finally, one night I could stand it no longer.

As I entered the dimly lit surroundings of the shack, I could see my lover waiting beneath the fur coverlet for my arrival. He was naked, as was his way, and I knew the first stirrings of his manhood had already begun.

I would tantalize him, I thought. I would use the wiles he himself had taught me to drive him to forget what he considered my "delicate condition" and join us mightily as two beasts in heat. I would have my way this night...

And so, as he reached for me this time I backed away, coyly denying him the easy conquest to which he had become accustomed. Instead, I stood before him in the flickering firelight and began to remove my clothing, piece by piece, dropping it on the floor at my feet.

First, I slowly lifted my atiki over my head, baring my full breasts and turgid nipples, swollen enormously now with the prospect of motherhood. Then, cupping them with my hands, I offered them to my lover, raising them until his eyes gleamed in the firelight. But, as he reached for his prize, I once more backed away, and lifting a nipple to my mouth I licked it with my own tongue, leaving it glistening before him.

His mouth hung slack at the sight, and he attempted to rise.

"No," I commanded. "Not yet. I'm not ready!"

And so once more he reclined on the mattress, a tiny 'tent' forming beneath the covers. Then, I untied the string of my pants and allowed them to pool about my ankles. He smiled appreciatively, noting the wetness of my panties, and opened the blankets for my arrival. But once more I spurned his advances, sliding my undergarment southward and stroking my rounded body with my hands, slipping my fingers between my thighs in a parody of that which he so desired. He moaned.

"Not yet, Aiden. Not until I say so."

And so I continued, my fingers parting the petals of my sex until his eyes grew smoky at the sight of the slippery, pink wetness that lay just beyond his reach. Then, taking a bit of carved driftwood, smooth and rigid, I placed one foot on the edge of the bed and slipped it deep inside.

He gasped, the tiny tent now rising to alarming proportions! In and out I plunged my wooden companion until my juices coated it and my thighs were slick with the excess.

Aiden captured my wrist now, with determination, and attempted to draw me to him, but once more I denied him access.

"NO!" I reiterated. "You have to wait!"

With a huge sigh, Aiden fell back beneath the covers, his right hand exploring his need beneath the thick furs of his bed. It was then I turned my back to him, and bending low over the chair I spread wide my thighs until the puckered, pink bud of my nether portal glistened in the flickering light.

Aiden wet his lower lip, his tongue slowly peeking out between his quivering lips. Then, as he watched, I took my rigid, wooden tool and placed the rounded tip at the very portal he had once used so long ago. A little pressure...a little more and I felt myself begin to stretch to accommodate its girth.

Aiden was not to be denied by now, and rising from his bed he flung the wooden carving across the room, replacing it with his own bursting staff. Deeply he drove, long and hard, until his rounded orbs smacked against my slit in frantic staccato. Over and over again he penetrated me, making massive thrusts that caused me to cry out in sensuous abandon. One hand then captured my hair, holding me firm, as the other circled my swollen belly and fondled the erect nub between my thighs.

I screamed! Had it not been for the aid of the chair, I would have fallen upon the floor. Over and over they came, waves of ecstasy that shook me to the very core, blind, animal appeasement that I had craved for so long. To Aiden I was no longer his timid mate, but the source of all being, the epicenter of all that he was as a man.

And so he took me. In the dim insanity of lust he took me, filling me over and over until we were both weak and lost within each other, our fluids running thickly between us, filling the room with the smell of sex.

Finally, he laid me atop the coverlet, and wrapped me in his arms. In his eyes I could see the satisfaction that I myself felt in every fiber of my being. Then, when he could once more find his voice he turned to me.

"Why, Abby? I've been trying to hold back, to be so careful, gentle..."

"That's why." I replied. "I want more, and so do you." I blushed at my confession. "Aiden, I'm pregnant, not made of glass. Maybe later on we'll have to find new...methods, but not now. Now, I want you, need you in every way possible. I want to feel you inside of me, to taste you, to know that you're strong for me. Don't hold back, my Love. Please. Don't hold back."

And so we spent the night in intimate congress until we were finally awakened, sated, by the boom of the ice cracking far out to sea, and the sound of snow machines racing to explore the leads that were sure to have opened. Swallowing hard I turned to my lover.