Hope and love grows in a place that lacks both – 03

“I’m worth nearly seven million dollars. When you are willing to put up the kind of money I was and you have the contacts I do, nothing can remain a secret for long. Of course, if you had given me a false name, it would have been far more difficult. Don’t worry. Anyone else who might have been interested in you is now dead.”

“Your brother-in-law?”

“Yes. I told him religion should be kept at a distance, but he gave in to fanaticism and he paid the price for trusting another seeming fanatic.”

“Why did you come here?” Emilia asked, sitting heavily on the bed.

“Why indeed,” she said looking down.

She was silent for so long that Emilia was about to speak, but Zoey began, hesitantly, as if searching for words.

“I told you once, a lifetime ago, that once you start down the road of revenge, only death awaits, did I not?”

“You did.”

“I was wrong. The road to revenge does lead to death, but you are free to get off anytime. It just never seems that way. It takes a revelation to see the exit, and you were my revelation. I looked into the eyes of my most dangerous enemy and found a kindred soul.

Not a slavering monster, intent on killing children, firing rockets into crowds or building colonies on the bones of my countrymen, but a woman, dedicated perhaps to ideals I didn’t believe, but a woman beneath it all. When the time came to kill you, I couldn’t do it. I found my humanity wasn’t dead, just buried deep. In the days afterward, I found a great many things. Life goes on; from the highest high to the deepest low, time continues to march.

Women go to the well, dogs wag their tails and hope for a pat on the head, children laugh, and lovers find a way to meet no matter what obstacles they face. From the depths of my own private darkness I woke to a glorious sunrise, not glorious because it was special, but because it was so mundane. Everyday begins anew with the rising of the sun and it takes no stock of yesterday, but revels in its own time and place.”

Zoey turned suddenly and stared at Emilia, her eyes were keen and piercing.

“I have done great evil in my lifetime, but I see now that answering evil with evil isn’t the answer. God didn’t turn his back on me; I turned my back on Him. And in doing so, I shut out the sun and the promise of the new day. I found my humanity; while I can never atone for my sins, I have repented of them, and in doing so, I found that the sun still rises.

I will never harm anyone if I can help it. I have turned the money given to me to buy death and destruction into alms that buy food, water and education instead. I’ve made peace with the ghosts and I’ve faced my demons; I live now for the sunrise and the new beginning it offers each morning, rather than dwelling on the darkness and horror that besets us all.”

“I am glad for you,” Emilia said after a long pause, “but you still haven’t explained why you sought me out.”

“Haven’t I? In plain words then, it was the love of you that turned me from the dead man’s path. From the moment I looked into your eyes and saw understanding instead of hate, I have loved you. I have, through long nights alone, convinced myself I saw the same love in your eyes, I had to find out if it was so.”

Emilia was silent for a long time. The enigmas and riddles this woman presented had long occupied her mind. It was only now that she realized she did love this woman. With that realization, so many things became clear.

“I feel the same love, though much about you is still a puzzle to me,” Emilia said after a long pause.

Zoey laughed again, and moved to sit next to Emilia on the big bed.

“We have a lifetime of sunrises to solve the puzzles,” she whispered, before leaning over and kissing Emilia.

Their tongues twined and fingers plucked impatiently at clothing. Zoey wore only a long dress and broke the kiss briefly to pull it over her head. Emilia’s white blouse took longer, and she shrugged out of it as Zoey impatiently helped her. The slight woman laid Emilia back on the bed and quickly undid the fly of her hotel-issue black trousers. Emilia raised her hips to make it easier for her lover to pull them down her long legs.

Clad in only her lacy white bra, white bikini briefs, and stay-up stockings, Emilia felt strangely hot and realized she was blushing.

Time paused, as the two women simply drank in one another’s beauty. The tableau held for several beats of Emilia’s heart and then they both moved. Zoey mounted the bed on her knees, swung a leg over Emilia’s chest and reversed herself. She settled onto Emilia’s body, leaving her hips floating above the tall girl’s chin. She felt Zoey’s small hand dig into the leg of her panties and pull them aside, but was only conscious of it in an oblique way. The lion’s share of her attention was focused now on the thick pubes and pouting lips of Zoey’s sex.

Emilia craned her neck upward and inhaled deeply, before pushing her tongue out and tracing the silken lips. Zoey’s tongue was not so gentle, pushing between Emilia’s lips and souring her pussy. Emilia groaned as the sensations began to flow and wrapped her arms around the slight hips, pulling Zoey down to feast on her sweet juices.

Zoey tasted like honey and berries and her aroma filled Emilia’s nostrils. Emilia nibbled on the prominent lips, pulling them away and releasing them, tonguing delicately along the inner part of each. At the same time, she could feel Zoey’s tongue leaving her pussy and sending insistent signals to her brain. As her excitement mounted, she noted Zoey soft moans and occasional pauses as a tremor ran through her body.

It became a race, not to get pleasure, but to give it, and in that selfless mode they found serendipity, as both of them came within seconds of each other. Emilia’s orgasm was beautiful, neither overpowering nor violent. Just tremors of pleasure that seemed to suffuse her being rather than her body.

She was still enjoying the ripples when she felt Zoey slide a finger, then another into her yearning pussy. The slight woman crossed her fingers and began to gently slide them in and out, establishing a languid rhythm and matching it with her tongue. Emilia moaned and renewed her attention, concentrating now on Zoey’s large clit. The sensitive organ was exposed, and Emilia was able to wrap her arms around Zoey’s slight hips and hold her pussy open, using her tongue with a surgeon’s precision.

She feathered her lover’s clit with a flurry of strokes, using only the underside of the tip of her tongue. Zoey moaned, her hips plunged and with a keen wail, her body went wild, sinking down on Emilia’s upturned face. Emilia found it difficult to stay on her target, as Zoey’s motions became wild and irregular. Her own hips were jogging, rising to meet her lover’s fingers, and even as she fought off the orgasm that was coming, she lost contact. Her back arched and an explosion of pleasure in her pussy blotted out the world, as violent waves tore through her.

Even then, they didn’t stop. For an untold time, they stayed locked together and made love. Each coo, sigh and moan seemed part of a life-affirming dance, and neither seemed willing to end it. Eventually, an orgasm of epic proportion rocked Emilia. She was only vaguely aware of Zoey moving, but snuggled into her arms, unconsciously.

It was dark outside; the room was silent except for the occasional tinkling sound of a hard snowflake hitting the window.

Emilia thought of many things as she lay there; of death and life, right and wrong, good and evil. Mostly, she thought of the woman beside her, and the long journey they had both taken down that dead-end road. Zoey credited her with pulling her off that road, and Emilia wondered if Zoey realized that she had done the same for her. Blood and death, ageless hatred, acts they wished undone marked both of their pasts, as surely as they marked relations between both of their peoples. Yet, they had both found a better way to live.

Zoey. The name meant perfectly formed in Arabic. Emilia doubted it had ever been bestowed more appropriately. She drifted off to sleep, pondering the imponderables, certain of only two things. That she loved this woman, and that the sunrise would bring a new day.

THE END