Jondalar shook his head in exasperation, and then, he realized, he knew. I never gave her a choice. Ayla didn’t choose Ranec, at least not at first. Maybe the night of the adoption she had a choice … or did she? She was raised by the Clan. No one ever told her she had a choice. And then I pushed her away. Why didn’t I give her a choice before I left? Because she wouldn’t talk to you.
No, because you were afraid she wouldn’t choose you. Stop lying to yourself. After all that time, she finally decided not to talk to you, and you were afraid she wouldn’t choose you, that’s why, Jondalar. So you didn’t give her the chance. Are you any better off now?
Why don’t you go back and give her a choice? At least make the offer? But what will you say to her? She’s getting ready for the big ceremony. What will you offer? What can you offer?
You could offer to stay. You could even offer to co-mate with Ranec. Could you stand that? Could you share her with Ranec? If the only other choice is not having her at all, could you stay here and share her?
Jondalar stood still, closed his eyes, and frowned. Only if he had no other choice. What he wanted most was to take her home, and make it her home. The Mamutoi had accepted her, were the Zelandonii less accepting? Some of them, maybe not all of them, but he couldn’t promise.
Ranec has the Lion Camp, and many other affiliations. You can’t even offer her your people, your affiliations. You don’t know if they will accept her, or you. You don’t have anything to offer, except yourself.
If he could offer her no more than that, what would they do if his people wouldn’t accept them? We could go someplace else. We could even come back here. He frowned. That’s a lot of traveling. Maybe he should just offer to stay, establish himself here. Tarneg said he wanted a flint knapper for his new Camp. What about Ranec? More important, what about Ayla? What if she didn’t want him at all?
Jondalar was so engrossed in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the dull thud of hoofbeats until Wolf suddenly jumped up on him.
“Wolf? What are you doing …” He looked up and stared in disbelief as Ayla slid off Whinney’s back.
She walked toward him, shy now, so afraid he would turn his back on her again. How could she tell him? How could she make him listen? What could she do if he wouldn’t listen to her? Then she recalled those first wordless days, and the way she had learned to ask someone to listen a lifetime ago. She dropped to the ground, gracefully, from long practice, and bowed her head, and waited.
Jondalar gaped at her, didn’t understand for a moment, then remembered. It was her signal. When she wanted to tell him something important, but didn’t have the words, she used that Clan signal. But why was she speaking to him in the language of the Clan now? What did she want to tell him that was so important?
“Get up,” he said. “You don’t have to do that.” Then he remembered the proper response. He tapped her shoulder. When Ayla looked up, she had tears in her eyes. He hunkered down on one knee to wipe them away. “Ayla, why are you doing this? Why are you here?”
“Jondalar, yesterday you tried to tell me something, and I wouldn’t listen to you. Now I want to tell you something. It is difficult to say, but I want you to listen. That’s why I’m asking you this way. Will you listen, and not turn away?”
Hope blazed so hot Jondalar couldn’t speak. He only nodded, and held her hands.
“Once you wanted me to go away with you,” she began, “and I didn’t want to leave the valley.” She stopped to take a deep breath. “Now, I want to go with you, anywhere with you. Once you told me that you loved me, that you wanted me. Now, I think you don’t want to love me, but I still want to go with you.”
“Get up, Ayla, please,” he said, helping her up. “What about Ranec? I thought you wanted him.” His arms were still around her.
“I don’t love Ranec. I love you, Jondalar. I never stopped loving you. I don’t know what I did to make you stop loving me.”
“You love me? You still love me? Oh, Ayla, my Ayla,” Jondalar said, crushing her to him. Then he looked at her as though he was seeing her for the first time, and his eyes filled with his love. She reached up and his mouth found hers. They came together, holding each other, with a hard and tender passion, full of love, full of longing.
Ayla couldn’t believe she was in his arms, that he was holding her, wanting her, loving her, after all this time. Tears filled her eyes, then she tried to stop them, afraid he would misunderstand them again, then she didn’t care and let the tears fall.
He looked down at her beautiful face. “You’re crying, Ayla.”
“It’s only because I love you. I have to cry. It’s been so long, and I love you so much,” she said.
He kissed her eyes, her tears, her mouth, and felt it open to him, gently, firmly.
“Ayla, are you really here?” he said. “I thought I’d lost you, and I knew it was my own fault. I love you, Ayla, I never stopped loving you. You must believe that. I never stopped loving you, even though I know why you thought so.”
“But you didn’t want to love me, did you?”
He closed his eyes and his forehead knotted with the pain of the truth. He nodded. “I was ashamed that I loved someone who came from the Clan, and I hated myself for feeling ashamed of the woman I loved. I’ve never been so happy with anyone as I have with you. I love you, and when it was just the two of us, everything was perfect. But when we were with other people … every time you did something that you learned from the Clan, I was embarrassed. And I was always afraid you’d say something, and then everyone would know that I loved a woman who was … abomination.” He could hardly say the word.
“Everyone used to tell me I could have any woman I wanted. No woman could refuse me, they said, not even the Mother Herself. It seemed to be true. What they didn’t know was that I never knew a woman I really wanted, until I met you. But what would they say if I brought you home? If Jondalar could have anyone, why would he bring home … the mother of a flathead … an abomination? I was afraid they wouldn’t accept you, and turn me away, too, unless … I turned against you. I was afraid I might, if I had to choose between my people and you.”
Ayla was frowning. She looked down. “I didn’t understand. That would be a hard decision for you to make.”
“Ayla,” Jondalar said, turning her face up to look at him. “I love you. Maybe only now do I realize how important that is to me. Not just that you love me, but that I love you. Now I know, for me there is only one choice. You are more important to me than my people, or anyone. I want to be wherever you are.” Her eyes overflowed again, try as she might to stop them. “If you want to stay here and live with the Mamutoi, I will stay and become Mamutoi. If you want me to share you with Ranec … I will do that, too.”
“Is that what you want to do?”
“If it’s what you want …” Jondalar started to say, then remembered Mamuts words. Maybe he ought to give her a choice, tell her his preference. “I want to be with you, that’s most important, believe me. I would be willing to stay here, if that’s what you want, but if you ask me what I want, I want to go home, and take you with me.”
“Take me with you? You aren’t ashamed of me any more? You’re not ashamed of the Clan, and Durc?”
“No. I’m not ashamed of you. I’m proud of you. And I’m not ashamed of the Clan either. You, and Rydag, have taught me something very important, and maybe it’s time to try and teach some others. I’ve learned so many things that I want to take back to my people. I want to show them the spear-thrower, and Wymez’s methods of working (lint, and your firestones, and the thread-puller, and the horses and Wolf With all that, they may even be willing to listen to someone trying to tell them that the people of the Clan are children of the Earth Mother, too.”
“The Cave Lion is your totem, Jondalar,” Ayla said with the finality of absolute knowledge.
“You’ve said that before. What makes you so sure?”
“Remember when I told you powerful totems are hard to live with? The
ir tests are very hard, but their gifts, what you learn from them, make it all worth it. You have been through a hard test, but are you sorry now? This year has been hard for both of us, but I have learned so much, about myself, and about the Others. I am not afraid of them any more. You have learned very much, too, about yourself and about the Clan. I think you feared them, in a different way. Now you have overcome it. The Cave Lion is a Clan totem, and you don’t hate them any more.”
“I think you must be right, and I’m glad a Clan Cave Lion totem has chosen me, if that means I am acceptable to you. I have nothing to offer you, Ayla, except myself. I can’t promise any affiliations, not even my people. I cannot make promises, because I don’t know if the Zelandonii will accept you. If they don’t, we’ll have to find some other place to go. I will become a Mamutoi if you want, but I would rather take you home and have Zelandoni tie the knot for us.”
“Is that like joining?” Ayla asked. “You never asked me to join with you before. You asked me to come with you, but you never asked me to make a hearth with you.”
“Ayla, Ayla, what’s wrong with me? Why do I take it for granted that you know everything, already? Maybe it’s because you know so much that I don’t know, and you’ve learned so much, so fast, that I forget you’ve just learned it. Maybe I ought to learn a sign for saying things that I don’t have words for.”
Then, with an amused smile of delight, he hunkered down in front of her with one knee to the ground. He wasn’t quite sitting cross-legged, with his head bowed, the way she always did, but he was looking up at her. Ayla was obviously disconcerted, and uncomfortable, which pleased him, because that was always how he felt.
“What are you doing, Jondalar? Men aren’t supposed to do that. They don’t have to ask permission to speak.”
“But I have to ask, Ayla. Will you come back with me, and join with me, and have Zelandoni tie the knot, and make a hearth with me, and make some children for me?”
Ayla started crying again, and felt silly for all the tears she had been shedding. “Jondalar, I never wanted anything else. Yes, to all those things. Now, please, get up.”
He stood up, and took her in his arms, feeling happier than he ever had in his life. He kissed her, then held her to him as though he was afraid to let her go, afraid he might lose her, as he very nearly did before.
He kissed her again, and need for her grew with the wonder of her being there. She felt it, and her body responded and was ready for him. But he wanted no taking of her this time. He wanted her fully, completely. He backed away, and shrugged off the traveling pack he still wore. Then he took out a ground cloth and spread it out. Wolf suddenly came bounding up to him.
“You’re going to have to stay away for a while,” he said, then smiled at Ayla.
She commanded Wolf away, and smiled back at Jondalar. He sat down on the ground cloth and reached his hand up to her. She joined him, already tingling, anticipating, and wanting him so much.
He kissed her then, lightly, and reached for her breast, and savored even the small familiarity of its full, round shape through her light tunic. She remembered, too, and more. Quickly, she pulled the tunic off. He reached for her with both hands, and the next instant, she was on her back, with his mouth firmly on hers. His hand caressed a breast, and found the nipple, and then a warm wet mouth was on her other nipple. She moaned as the drawing sensation sent waves of feeling deep inside to the place that hungered for him. She rubbed his arms, and his broad back, then the back of his neck, and his hair. For just an instant, she was surprised that it wasn’t tightly curled. The thought left as quickly as it came.
He was kissing her again, his tongue gently probing. She took his in, then probed back, remembering that his touch was never too much, or too frenzied, but sensitive and knowing. She delighted in the memory, and in the renewal of it. It was almost like the first time, learning him again, and remembering how well he knew her. How many nights had she longed for him?
He tasted the warmth of her mouth, then the salt of her throat. She felt warm shivers tracing her jaw, then the side of her neck. He kissed her shoulder, nibbled lightly, and suckled, playing with the sensitive places he knew were there. Unexpectedly, he took her nipple again. She gasped at the sudden increase in feeling. Then she sighed, and moaned with pleasure as he played them both.
He sat up then, and looked at her, then closed his eyes as though he wanted to memorize her. She was smiling when he opened them again.
“I love you, Jondalar, and I have wanted you so much.”
“Oh, Ayla, I ached with wanting you, and yet I almost gave you up. How could I, when I love you so much?” He was kissing her again, holding her tight, as though he feared he might lose her yet. She clung to him with the same fervor. And suddenly, there was no waiting. He held both her breasts, and then untied her waistband. She lifted her hips and pushed off her half-length summer pants, while he unfastened his own, pulled off his shirt, yanked off his footwear.
He hugged her around the waist with his head on her stomach, then moved down between her legs, kissed her mound of hair. Then, he stopped for a moment, pushed her legs apart, and with both hands, held her open, and looked at the deep pink folds, like soft moist flower petals. Then like a bee he dipped and tasted. She cried out, and arched to him, while he explored each petal, each fold, each crease, nibbling, suckling, teasing, reveling in giving her Pleasure, as he had wanted to for days without number.
This was Ayla. This was his Ayla. This was her taste, her honey, and his own member was so full, and so eager. He wanted to wait, wanted this to last, but suddenly she could not. She was breathing hard, and fast, panting, gasping, calling out to him. She reached for him, pulled him up, then reached down to guide him to her warm deep well.
As he slid in, he breathed a deep sigh, and let his full shaft glide in and in, until she enfolded him fully. This was his Ayla. This was the woman he fit, the one who fit him, who held him all. He stayed for a moment, luxuriating in her full embrace. It had been like this with her from the first time, and every time. How could he have dreamed of giving her up? The Mother must have made Ayla just for him, so they could honor Her in full measure, so they could please Her with their Pleasures, as She meant them to.
He pulled back, and felt her thrust to him as he thrust to her. He pulled back again, and pushed, and back and in again. Then suddenly, he was ready, and she was crying out, and they pulled back and in once more, and the wave rolled up and reached the peak, and broke over them in a release of shuddering spent delight.
The resting was part of the Pleasure. She loved the feel of his weight on her then. He was never heavy. Usually he got up first, before she was ready for him to. She could smell herself on him, and it made her smile, reminding her of the Pleasures they had just shared. She never felt quite so complete as then, when they were through, and he was still there, inside her.
He loved the feel of her full body under his, and it had been so long, so stupidly long. But she loved him. How could she still love him after all that? How could he be so lucky? Never, ever again would he let her go.
Finally, he pulled out, rolled over, and smiled at her.
“Jondalar?” Avla said, after a while.
“Yes.”
“Let’s go swimming. The river isn’t far. Let’s go swimming like we used to in the valley, before we go back to Wolf Camp.”
He sat up beside her, and smiled. “Let’s go!” he said, was up in an instant, then helped her up. Wolf stood up, too, and wagged his tail.
“Yes, you can come with us,” Ayla said, as they picked up their things and headed for the river. Wolf leaped after them eagerly.
After they swam and bathed and played with Wolf in the river, and the horses had rolled, and grazed, and relaxed, away from the crowd, Ayla and Jondalar dressed, feeling refreshed, and hungry.
“Jondalar?” Avla said, standing by the horses.
“Yes.”
“Let’s ride double on Whinney. I want to feel you c
lose to me.”
All the way back, Ayla thought about how she was going to tell Ranec. She was not looking forward to it. When they arrived, he was waiting for her, and was obviously not happy. He had been looking for her. Everyone else had been getting ready for the Matrimonial that evening, either to attend or to participate. Nor did it please him to see them riding double on Whinney, with Racer tagging behind.
“Where have you been? You should be dressed by now.”
“I have to talk to you, Ranec.”
“We don’t have time to talk,” he said, with a frantic look in his eye.
“I’m sorry, Ranec. We have to talk. Someplace where we can be alone.”
He could only acquiesce. Ayla went into the tent first, and took something from her pack. They walked down the slope toward the river, and then along its bank. Finally, Ayla stopped, reached inside her tunic, and pulled out the carving of a woman transcending into her spiritual bird form, the muta Ranec had carved for her.
“I have to give this back to you, Ranec, Ayla said, holding it out to him.
Ranec jumped back, as though he had been burned. “What do you mean? You can’t give that back! You need it to make a hearth. You need it for our Matrimonial,” he said, an edge of panic creeping into his voice.
“That’s why I have to give it back. I can’t make a hearth with you. I’m leaving.”
“Leaving? You can’t leave, Ayla. You Promised. Everything’s arranged. The Matrimonial is tonight. You said you would join with me. I love you, Ayla. Don’t you understand? I love you.” The panic rose in Ranec’s voice with each statement.
“I know,” Ayla said softly. The shock and pain in his eyes hurt her. “I Promised, and everything is arranged. But I have to leave.”
“But why? Why now, all of a sudden?” Ranec said, his voice high-pitched, almost strangled.
“Because I have to leave now. It’s the best time to travel, and we have a long way to go. I’m going with Jondalar. I love him. I never stopped loving him. I thought he didn’t love me.…”