X-Men: Savage Land Scandal Ch. 04

Despite the distance, Jean was able to keep the team in psychic communication. They all agreed the village was their best bet. Scott, Jean, and Hank arrived to find Logan waiting for them, trying out the local brew.

The village was a bustling metropolis, just in miniature. There were about twenty adobe huts and many people who slept on the ground, for no reason Scott could discern. Some fenced-in enclosures held the local herds, although a few were empty as the shepherds took them for fresh grazing. 'Town square' was a great clearing with the grass stomped flat, surrounding a well. Even now, people were lined up to drop their bucket down and get back their water. Off to the sides, one tribesman had recently sheared his sheep and was now offering woven blankets for trade, while a woman was selling goat milk in earthen jars. There weren't many takers, though. Most of the attention was on Wolverine, in his strange yellow and blue garb, and the adamantium claws he showed off at every opportunity.

"Yeah, happened to save the local big wig's son, so 'his Kaaness' put me up. We're having a feast. You're all invited." Logan took another gulp from his wineskin. "By the way, 'fore I forget..."

Moving fast, he grabbed Scott by the lapels, swung him around over a low fence, and dropped him into the local pigpen. Scott landed on his back in the muck and sank a good few inches. He was up with fists clenched in a second.

"You wanna explain yourself, mister!?"

"Just always held that a good leader should never ask a soldier to do something he wouldn't do himself. Seein' as how I had to hit every tree and branch on the way down 'fore landing with my snout in the dirt, I knew you wouldn't feel right just floating down like a feather thanks to Jeannie. No need ta thank me, slim, just helpin' out."

Scott's hand twitched toward his visor, but Jean stepped between him and Logan. "Alright, that's enough! Logan, if you've got that out of your system, maybe you could ask the Kaaness—"

"Kaa," Logan corrected snidely.

"Kaa, where there's someplace we can bathe. It was a long walk; we're all sweaty and gross."

"Speak for yourself," Kurt said, dropping down into the conversation on his tail just to show off.

***

Storm and Nightcrawler had landed on the opposite side of the village from Jean's detachment, Kurt winded from teleporting and Storm exhausted from carrying him. They sat back on the white boulders they'd landed among, catching their breath. Storm summoned a light shower to cool them off, and Kurt stuck his tongue out to catch the quenching water. When he stopped to wipe at his face, Ororo knew something was off.

"Ororo," he said seriously, "would you like to talk about it?" She said nothing, though he didn't know if she hadn't heard him or was ignoring him. "What happened when you broke free. Scott and Piotr may not know, but the rest of us have caught on. Obviously, none of us are going to gossip or anything—"

"No, I don't want to talk about it." Ororo stood, the rainfall ending.

"Okay. That's fine. But, apropos of nothing, sometimes I feel things, even when it might seem strange or inappropriate. Remember last month, when Mystique had me chained up? I have to admit, part of me found it a little..." He bobbed his head. "What's the harm? It's not like she's my sister or anything." Kurt stopped, frowning. "Actually, my foster sister would be another case in point... whoa, I am weird."

"You're German," Ororo replied.

"That too. My point is—" Kurt paused to wring his tail out. "It's not weird to like something that's outside your comfort zone. It happens to everyone. Maybe, now that it's happened, you can learn something about yourself you didn't know before."

Ororo rubbed the moisture into her skin, thinking. She'd never considered it before—but her costume was rather skimpy. "Thank you, Kurt, I—"

Then she heard Jean's telepathic broadcast and learned of the long walk ahead of her.

***

While Scott tried to think of a way to explain to the Kaa why he was covered in mud, Jean quietly detached herself from the group and walked to the outskirts of town, where Piotr and Shanna had arrived at the treeline. She wondered if Piotr had walked the entire way with his hands cupping his penis.

"You two crazy kids," she said good-naturedly, already enjoying the thought of perusing their memories later. But, as prim, proper Jean Grey, of course she was nice enough to repair Piotr's costume without being asked.

"Thank you, Phoenix." Piotr moved his arms out in a stretch. Apparently he had preserved his modesty from all the voyeuristic trees and rocks on the way there.

"Don't mention it. Who's your friend?" Jean smiled at Shanna, eying the tanned animal skins straining over her chest and curtaining her genitals. "And what's she got in her pouch?"

Shanna clutched the hidden dinosaur tooth protectively as Piotr explained "This is Shanna. Honestly, we just met..."

"And already you're comfortable taking long walks in the nude. Scott and I still aren't at that stage. Piotr, you dog you."

Piotr blushed, while Jean turned away to get back to the village. Shanna could wait. Judging from the neurons firing away in her noggin, the prospect she'd entertained upon seeing Jean in skintight spandex wouldn't be dismissed anytime soon.

***

As the Kaa explained it, most of the tribe washed either in the bathhouse, or when that was full, down at the nearby lake. As neither were in use at mid-day, his honored guests would have their privacy. Scott quickly declared that the women would have their choice of them, while he and the other men would bathe in the other location.

Ororo, guessing that she and Jean would be more comfortable bathing out in the open, voted for the lake. Jean agreed with her reasoning. Beast and Nightcrawler declined a soak, not wanting to ruin the feast with the scent of wet dog for hours afterward.

"Then please," the Kaa said, nodding agreeably, "enjoy our bathhouse and river as long as you want. You won't be disturbed, except by the village girls who will bring you clothes to replace those that are dirty or damaged."

The X-Men agreed readily.

***

As soon as she heard of the attack on him, Shanna sought Zar out. She found him in the medicine tent, having the healing woman apply paste to four long scratches down his chest.

"You're alright," she said in a commanding tone, as if she could order him to be so if he wasn't.

Zar waved off her concern. "I'm fine. The stranger fought off the beasts."

Shanna looked to his knife at his belt. It was brown with dried blood. "As did you."

"I only wounded the sabretooths. Logan was the one who killed them. It was a bad business. They were parents. They left a cub behind."

That was when Shanna heard the mewling. She looked to the corner and saw a tiger club no larger than her handspan, licking the gristle off a bone. "You took it with you?"

"I couldn't just leave him! He would've starved!"

Shanna rolled her eyes. The beasts had tried to kill him, now he was feeding one of them. If that was his wish, why didn't he cut out the middleman and simply feed himself to its parents?

She would never understand boys.

Then again—had she been so different? A child of the soldiers' enemies, dangerous, fearsome, and they'd taken her in.

"Where is this 'Logan'? I should thank him."

"He's in the bathhouse," Zar answered. "But if you want to hear about our fight, I could tell you. The healing woman would like to hear it too."

"Later, perhaps." Shanna was already walking by him, out the tent flap. "And you might want to clean up after your cub. He just marked the ceremonial rug."

***

The bathhouse was an expansive wooden building on the edge of the village, built in the shape of a circle. Water flowed in from an aqueduct, split into rings, and continued on its way. With sluice gates, one could fill up a segment of the ring, bathe in the accumulated water, then raise a sluice gate and fill the segment again with fresh, clean water. It was an ingenious system. Scott would've enjoyed its cleverness more if he didn't have to use it with Logan.

Wolverine sat at the opposite end of the building, though the offensive odor of the cigar he was smoking spread all the way to Cyclops's side. He didn't seem to see any need to wash his hair, or use the soaps the Fall People had generously provided. Scott tried to ignore this, but it grated on him.

"Still got your panties in a bunch about lookin' like a feeb in front of your girl?" Logan asked, blowing a smoke ring.

Scott was washing behind his ears. "I'd rather look like a 'feeb' than a tantrum-throwing kindergartener."

"That a height crack, bub?"

"It's whatever you want it to be."

Logan laughed to himself. "Boss-man wants to prove he's in the big chair, one more time. You wanna show off your dick, boy scout, all you gotta do is stand up."

Scott shot him a look. Sometimes, he didn't need the visor to see red. "Sometimes, I think the only reason you're on this team is because we put up with your childish shit-stirring."

"Yeah? That's cuz you need me. All the battle plans and training exercises in the world won't do ya a lick of good when you need a set of claws and someone won't feel guilty usin' 'em."

"The fact I don't feel the need to prove I've got a big dick is why you're still on this team, Logan. I count it as a personal merit that I'm able to dispassionately weigh your benefit to the team against your insubordination. But don't push it."

"Or what? You'll tell your girlfriend to stop making goo-goo eyes at me?"

Scott was considering how he could explain to the Kaa why there was an optic-blast-sized hole in the wall when Shanna walked into the bathhouse. Scott sank lower into his bath. Logan puffed on his cigar.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" Scott asked, trying to be both firm and meek at the same time. "We were told this would be a private bath."

"I'm sorry for the interruption," Shanna said, not sounding sorry. "I want..." She faltered, then removed her top. Her loincloth fell away quickly as well. "I wish for your seed. From both of you."

Scott thought his mouth was hanging open, but he wasn't sure.

"Well heck," Logan said, "this is certainly better than the breakfast buffet at Holiday Inn. We should stay here more often."

Shanna turned to Scott. "As you are leader, you may go first."

"I... I'm involved with someone. I'm with Jean."

"Would you like to go get her? I also enjoy women," Shanna said innocently. She took a step toward him, every bit of her jiggling.

"Lord have mercy," Logan mumbled.

"I can't. My seed—I'm only intimate with Jean. We don't do anything with other people."

Shanna's brow furrowed, trying to process this, before she swiveled to Logan. "You are the one who saved Zar. Would you have me, then?"

"Darlin', it'd be my pleasure. But I think we oughta let Slim leave first. Wouldn't wanna give him a complex."

Scott was already grabbing his towel.

***

Not far away from the village, there was a small upland lake. It was a private place, cut off from the Fall People's village by a thick stand of trees. To Storm—having sworn she could feel everyone's eyes on her after her embarrassing display—the setting was perfect. Here, she could regain her sense of self, with only her best friend Jean Grey for company. Only one little chore separated her from the serenity of washing the day's events away—something she'd been meaning to do for weeks now.

"Jean," she said, her voice even clearer and more ordered than usual from her wishing it to be so, "we must talk."

Jean spread her hands, returning her costume to its component molecules. As always, her beauty nearly took Ororo's breath away. Of all who she knew, Ororo thought Jean was the most beautiful—not a beauty that was erotic or sexual, but a purely aesthetic beauty, something of Jean's private charm and good nature wrapped around her nude form. That was one reason it had been so distressing to see her as the Black Queen—those classical good looks and wholesome beauty turned to the most decadent, disaffected effect imaginable. Like the Mona Lisa being turned into a pin-up.

Even with that creature supposedly vanquished, Ororo found her hard to forget—the way Jean stood suggested she knew exactly the effect she could have on people, and her enjoyment of it. While Ororo had never believed in the simple Madonna/whore dichotomy, she did admit that Jean had lost her innocence that day, and replaced it with something else.

"Come on, silly." With a wave of her hand, Jean dissolved Ororo's clothes as well. Ororo resisted the urge to cover herself with her hands. She had no more shame than Jean, though she liked to think there was a measure of dignity in place of exhibitionism.

Still, the water was clear as crystal, fed by streams flowing off the mighty escarpment that walled and protected the Savage Land. As Ororo stepped into it, she thought it the next best thing to heaven. Feeling reborn... feeling alive... it reminded her of how clean her native Kenya was, and how hard it had been and still was to get used to New York, where one had to work hard to avoid feeling like an open sewer was nearby. She luxuriated in the water for a moment, enjoying another of the rare but treasured gifts her membership in the X-Men gave her. For all the hardship and peril, she had gained good friends, chances to help, and now, one more experience she could not imagine anyone else having—even a weather goddess.

Opening her eyes, Ororo reached for the leaf-wrapped soap they'd been given back at the village, only to find the leaf empty. She turned around to see Jean had it. But she wasn't washing herself.

"Turn around," Jean said. "Let me pamper you a little. That way, we can call it even for you saving me from being Emma Frost's sex slave."

A little warily, Ororo turned around. "You truly believe she intended that for you? I thought she merely wanted you to return to the Hellfire Club."

Jean hemmed a little. "Emma's pretty fucked up. She thinks she loves me." Jean let out a little laugh. "Really, she just wants to fuck me. I'm the one person she couldn't top."

Ororo was no virgin, but still, she found herself gaping at Jean's crude talk. Jean laughed louder at her shock. Then she took hold of Ororo's shoulder with one hand, using the other to build up a lather between her shoulder blades.

"This is what I wished to talk to you about," Ororo said. Because of their friendship, she found it easy to both discuss important matters with Jean and enjoy her teammate's massage. She had long wondered about how the Americans could be so vigilant in separating emotional and physical intimacy, so that only certain kinds of friends could touch and only certain kinds could be naked. "Ever since you became the Phoenix, you've been different. You're more physical—more open, and more sexual. These are not bad things. But I wonder what they come of."

"What they come of?" Jean asked, moving the soap lower and massaging it into Ororo's skin with her other hand. "Ororo, I died. What else could teach me how valuable life is? Before, I let opportunities pass me by... chances to make the kind of memories I didn't have in my first life. Because do you know what I saw when my life flashed before my eyes in that shuttle? A scared little girl, playing second-fiddle in a third-rate team. I don't want to be that. I want to be big. I want to be loud. I want everything I can get from life, good and bad." Cupping some water in her hand, she washed away the lather from Ororo's spine, then kissed the back of her neck. Ororo was taken aback by the simple pleasure of it. "Maybe I want you too."

"Jean!" Ororo cried, as shocked as she had ever been.

Jean laughed as Ororo fled into the shallow water, a sound that Ororo was beginning to find most unlike the Marvel Girl she had known. Still smiling widely, Jean backstroked into the deep waters, where she floated with her red hair unspooling around her like a slow flame.

"Don't tell me you haven't thought about it," Jean said, making a show of washing her arm. Her slender fingers. "Remember when you paraded around naked in front of me, because you were so unfamiliar with our 'strange Western customs'? C'mon. You knew what you were showing off. You wanted me to see it. Maybe I didn't appreciate it then, but I sure do now."

Ororo was frowning, almost entirely out of the water. She didn't like the feeling of fleeing—of judging Jean Grey because her sexual mores had changed. But she also didn't like the thought of her friend out of control. "What about Scott?"

Jean pouted, almost... mockingly. "I love Scott. I do, I do! But let's be honest. He's been loving the new me. And I think with just a little push, he'll be loving everyone else too. You thought about it. Him and me, me and him, while you were getting off to escape that deliciously naughty Emma Frost mousetrap. Was it really the first time? You came so hard, Ororo—it might've been. Now imagine both of us. And you. It'd be like an Oreo in reverse. Two bits of cream, and one delicious cookie in the middle."

Ororo grabbed for the towel on the shore. Her new clothes hadn't arrived yet, but there was a difference between being nude on the way back to the village and being nude while Jean spewed this... filth!

"I'm leaving," she informed Jean archly. "I think I'm clean enough."

"Oh yes, you are," Jean agreed readily. "Time to get dirty."

Ororo left in a huff, Jean watching her go, wishing her well. After all, as Ororo wasn't a telepath, she had no way of knowing that Karl Lykos was waiting for her. It'd been a long time since his other half had tasted mutant power. It'd been an even longer time since he'd known the touch of a woman.

Jean watched as Ororo tried to secure the skimpy towel around her body, with its curves that defied easy covering. It was a pointless struggle. Karl Lykos was waiting in the reeds ahead. Jean followed suit, sinking into the dark water of the lake up to her nose, only her eyes and a wet coiling of red hair staying above the surface to watch as Karl attacked.

The years had not been kind. Where once he was well-fed, with a full head of hair, a hermit's life had made him emaciated; straggly hair and ragged clothes. Still, desperation gave him strength. He clung to Ororo with his bony arms like a barnacle on a ship. Jean sensed mutant power flowing from her to him, crackling under Ororo's skin like lightning within a thundercloud. She could hear Karl's thoughts, weak and meager—he was sorry to cause Ororo pain, he just wanted a little taste to sustain him, he was even embarrassed of becoming half-hard at the sight of Ororo undressed. And, most importantly, he would let go almost immediately.

Jean didn't let him. She urged him on telepathically, emphasizing how good her power would feel, drowning out his remorse. By the time he realized how much power Ororo really had, what it would do to him... it was too late. Just as Jean wanted.

She had been wrong about a great many things in her life. The Professor had shown her that, and a long line of new 'teachers' had shown her more. The latest of them was Emma, who aside from being a heinous bitch, had shown Jean the meaning of 'happiness in slavery.' At the time, being suborned to the Hellfire Club had seemed frightening. It was scary being powerless, and no matter how much pleasure Emma had brought her, she still remained unsure that Emma could be trusted with her helplessness. But as time passed, nostalgia set in. As much unpleasantness as there had been, she had greatly enjoyed for once not being a mutant poster child, or the X-Men's token female, or Scott's devoted girlfriend. She had liked being a whore, if perhaps not Emma's...