“So much fuss about the idea of marriage!” I said, laughing, as we were walking from the theater hall. “To fear marriage to this Paris character, to be forbidden marriage to each other, then to secretly marry? For so much death to be tangled in it? So very strange!”

“Your land doesn’t have marriage?” Benjamin asked, intrigued.

“Perhaps?” I said, shrugging. “I’m not sure. My spell tells me the word has a great deal of meaning, but the meaning is muddled. A ritual of binding between two people, perhaps for love, some connection with religion, and an enormous commitment?”

He smiled at me before turning his gaze back to the sidewalk. We’d taken a less traveled course, as usual of late, so that we could speak freely.

“Here in America, marriages are for love,” he said. “When a man and a woman love each other very much, they commit to each other for the rest of their lives.”

“Commit to each other?” I asked. “An alliance of some sort?”

He laughed and shook his head.

“Nothing like that,” he said. “It’s committing to fidelity, to family, to loyalty, to support, to - well, basically, going through life as partners, rather than going it alone.”

“Most of that is similar to what I am familiar with,” I said. “But what is this ‘fidelity’ you mention? Lou must have some knowledge of the word, though with Slick, less so. But all I’m gathering is a sense of importance, something to do with loyalty, embarrassment, and sexuality.”

He raised an eyebrow. Of all my abilities with magic, he seemed to find the borrowing of language most fascinating. He so loved it when I shared the understanding it lended me.

“It means to be faithful to your spouse,” he said.

“Faithful?” I said. “This context tells me of loyalty and sexuality again. There must be some sort of fundamental understanding that I’ve missed, beyond the direct meaning of the words.”

He looked a little uncomfortable and coughed into his hand.

“It, ah, means that you don’t have relations with someone other than your spouse,” he said.

“Relations?” I said. “Oh, a euphemism for sex. What does having sex with people have to do with loyalty?”

He coughed again, now outright blushing.

“From what you’re saying, I gather that your people are not monogamous,” he said.

The word’s meaning entered my awareness, and the context filled me with a host of meanings.

“Seriously?” I said, giving him a wide eyed stare. “A single sexual partner? For all of your life?”

“Have you had many partners?” he asked, looking suddenly reserved.

I shook my head and blushed. The topic was fine in the abstract, but turning it on me was another matter entirely.

“I’ve never so much as kissed anyone,” I said, and he seemed relieved. “But my mother brought home playthings for her and my father quite often.”

He looked staggered at that.

“What about getting pregnant by one of them?” he asked, sounding flabbergasted. “Or picking up some sort of venereal disease?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Disease? Surely you jest. As far as pregnancy… wait…”

I stopped walking and turned to him in horror.

“Your people,” I said. “You cannot control your fertility?”

“Oh,” he said, giving a wry smile. “I should have realized that wouldn’t be a concern for you.”

He sighed and rubbed at his forehead before continuing.

“We have some means, though they sometimes fail. And if a woman is with a number of men over time, it can’t be known who the father is.”

“I suppose that would be a situation in which monogamy makes sense,” I said, frowning. “Are there other limitations on sexuality that I should be aware of?”

He coughed again.

“For starters, it’s something that is generally never spoken of directly,” he said, still flushing.

“Oh,” I said, looking down. “That is why you seem uncomfortable.”

“I cannot deny that,” he said, a rueful smile looking odd on his red face. “But this is probably important for you to know. Perhaps we’ll continue the conversation in private?”

“As you prefer,” I said.

The rest of the afternoon was lovely, but I was very curious to finish our conversation. He was uneasy, but was vaguely cooperative as I insisted on him coming to my house, and then dragged him into my room.

“Come, sit on the bed,” I said, patting the space beside me.

He flushed again and awkwardly sat on the very edge of the bed.

“So,” I said. “We are in private now. What things should I know of, in regards to sex?”

“Perhaps best not to say that word out loud,” he said, tugging at his collar as though warm.

“Sex?” I said, surprised. “The word itself is not to be spoken?”

“Generally, no,” he said, still unwilling to meet my eyes. “Euphemisms should be used whenever possible.”

“As you did earlier, when you said ‘relations,’” I said.

He nodded, then rubbed at his face.

“I have to admit, this is a very difficult conversation,” he said, sighing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “If you prefer, we could simply not discuss it.”

“We should, I think,” he said, and swallowed nervously. “I think it’s a good thing to have understanding between us.”

I nodded.

“I suppose the key issue is just that our people take that subject seriously, compared to yours,” he said. “The belief is that such activities should only be done inside of a marriage.”

“All such activities?” I asked. “Such as with the hands or mouth, too?”

He flushed bright red and looked away.

“If you’ve never… I mean… how do you even know about that sort of thing?” he asked, sounding incredibly flustered.

“My parents did not wish me to be taken advantage of in any way, including sexually,” I said with a shrug. “My mother was exceedingly clear on establishing expectations for relationships of many kinds. Friendships, alliances, sexual trysts, power games, and so forth.”

“Was that really such a concern?” he asked.

I nodded.

“You spoke of ‘my people,’ but in a very real sense, I do not have a people,” I said. “Lesser spellcasters must obey laws and strictures of society, but powerful spellcasters cannot be coerced or bound by most any means. Forceful ones, anyway. Nor are things like national borders of any concern. Only subtle measures, such as a manipulative friendship, can force their hand.”

I smiled at him, which vaguely softened the growing unease on his face.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of nations where sexuality is restricted, in my world,” I said with a shrug. “But such would never apply to me, mostly due to my parentage. No one would dare force me into anything, but my heart is as vulnerable as any.”

“So in a way, you are somewhat like a princess,” he said.

I laughed. “I suppose, though nothing so trivial as mere royalty.”

“Trivial,” he repeated, and laughed in a strange way. “While I didn’t think I’d want to go back to our previous topic, I’m actually afraid that I don’t think I can handle any more of this one.”

He brushed aside my confused expression.

“But, um, I will admit, while our society is generally reserved on the subject, there are differences of opinion,” he said. “Such as your, ah, mouth comment. Some people think every activity should be kept for marriage. Others have more relaxed standards.”

“Where do you stand on the subject?” I asked.

He turned bright red again and shifted awkwardly. It took him a few tries to get words out into the open, and once, he even made a strange sort of strangled squeaking noise.

“I am... less attached to society’s expectations,” he said, almost sounding choked. “Like with my music. I just focus on what the song needs, and things like how I look, or whether I get tired, doesn’t matter, if that makes sense.”

I nodded.

“So, in a relationship, it would depend on the woman you’re with?” I said, and he nodded in a jerky way. “If you were with someone who was reserved, you would act accordingly. And if you were with someone with, as you said, more relaxed standards?”

He was quiet for a long moment. He kept glancing in my direction, but never seemed to gain the courage to meet my eyes.

“A bit of a disadvantage to our different cultures is that expectations might be a bit different,” he said, sounding like he was choosing his words with extreme care. “An example is that, if someone in this culture were to, for instance, see the way we’ve been spending time together, they would believe that we were in that sort of relationship.”

“I’d… I’d just meant it hypothetically,” I said, flushing. “More to understand what you believe. But that means…”

I hesitated and looked down at my hands, nervously biting my lip.

“Does that mean that you wish to do such things with me?” I asked.

I’d not thought that he could get more red, but he achieved a new height of color. He looked incredibly tense, and was sweating. I’d never seen him so uneasy.

He seemed to need a long moment to simply handle existing, before he made a small, jerky motion.

A nod.

Pleasure swept through me at his confession of desire. I’d not really thought of engaging in such things with him, even with the conversation we’d had. I passingly wondered why it hadn’t occurred to me, but that didn’t matter. This was something I needed to think about immediately.

He felt incredibly safe to me. He was gentle, sweet, and kind. He wasn’t particularly handsome, or significant, but he was good to me.

For my first time knowing such pleasures, having someone who felt warm and safe seemed like the best option. I’d been too afraid to even imagine pursuing it before.

Still, the topic seemed to be incredibly difficult to talk about, now that it wasn’t theoretical anymore. The idea of actually doing something...

Heat swept through me in a decidedly more specific way at that thought.

But I needed to speak to him. It was entirely unfair of me to simply be too nervous to speak, when he looked like he might pass out from his own nerves.

I took a breath and steadied myself.

“That does not seem objectionable,” I said.

That didn’t seem to make his nervousness go away, but he did have a strange type of happiness on his face. For the first time in quite a few minutes, he met my eyes.

“I am very, very glad to hear that, Aera,” he said.

I leaned in closer, curiosity and desire emboldening me.

“Does that mean I’m allowed to...?” I started to ask, but couldn’t make myself finish the sentence, and looked down awkwardly.

That bright red color returned to his face and he laughed.

“Perhaps, for the sake of not giving me a heart attack, we should take things slowly,” he said. “But…”

He hesitated, looking entranced. I simply waited.

A moment passed, then another. He turned to the side and put his hand on my cheek again. I warmed at his touch, my smile broadening. He leaned forward and gently pulled my face towards his.

Our lips touched. He was warm, and soft, and the taste was electric. Desire pulsed through me, desire to learn all the pleasures of the flesh. He made a sound and my heart skipped a beat.

My hands reached for his face and neck, pulling him closer into the kiss. He trembled and lowered his hand to my shoulder. After a delicious moment, he pulled away. The look he gave me made my nipples tighten against my shirt.

“Are you certain you wish to go slow?” I asked, impulsively.

He closed his eyes and exhaled carefully.

“If I stay in this room, I suspect I will end up doing absolutely anything you suggest,” he said, sounding hoarse. “Which would be ungentlemanly of me.”

“It would be generous,” I said, biting my lip and looking down.

A sound came from the back of his throat, making me squirm.

“I… Aera, I believe I need to take a little bit of time to clear my head,” he said.

“Perhaps another kiss first?” I asked, still looking down at my hands.

“If I kiss you again, I don’t think I could trust myself to stop,” he said, his voice scarcely audible.

“Is that so terrible?” I asked.

“I have no idea,” he said, laughing wryly. “I am not thinking clearly.”

“Then I suppose it’s wrong of me to ask for more right now,” I said. “I don’t want you to regret anything.”

He shook his head disbelievingly.

“Normally, here, it’s the woman who focuses on protecting her virtue,” he said. “It’s the man who has to worry about not making the woman do something she’ll regret.”

“Because it’s the woman who must endure the pregnancy, I imagine,” I said. “But I have no such concerns. If you were to… not stop, there would be no consequences.”

He took a careful, shaking breath at that. Then another. He looked at me and I trembled at the heat in his gaze.

“I have to leave,” he said, sounding pained. “Now. Else, I’ll…”

“Very well,” I said, and stood up.

I felt a desire to try to persuade him to stay, but that seemed unkind. And quite greedy.

He was slow to stand up, and a bit awkward in his positioning. I was confused for a moment, and then remembered details of male anatomy. I flushed again as I realized he was trying to move in such a way that I couldn’t see the evidence of his desire.

We both stood next to the door, but were still closed within the room together. He hesitated, seeming loathe to actually open it and leave.

“You really want to be… with me…” he said hoarsely.

I nodded.

“Right now,” he said.

That made me look away and flush again. But…

I nodded again.

Strange how easy it was to reveal, when he so obviously desired me. He closed his eyes and trembled again.

“And you… you really wouldn’t… there’d be no regrets… even though it’s your first time…?” he said, haltingly.

“You are gentle and kind,” I said. “I feel safe with you.”

I want you to be my first time. But I was too cowardly to say those words out loud.

He took another shaky breath and looked at me.

“I should leave,” he said, but made no movement.

“I should let you go,” I said.

“Aera…” he said, groaning and closing his eyes. “I… I don’t know if I should say this, but…”

“Tell me,” I said, taking a minute step closer to him.

“This last year,” he said. “This time with you… I… oh, Aera.”

He lowered his head for a moment, then looked at me with a determined expression. He touched my cheek gently, and I leaned into the touch.

“I love you,” he said.

“Love?” I repeated, startled.

Warmth was in my heart, but I didn’t know its name. Was it love? It was nothing like the way my mother looked at my father, or vice versa. It wasn’t like the love of family, but neither did it quite seem like just a friend. Lou, Slick, Alice, Dorothy… they were dear to me. But this was different.

“I cannot know for sure if I even know what love is,” I said, looking away. “For myself, I mean. But I do know some things.”

I looked back up at his face.

“I care for you dearly,” I said. “You mean a great deal to me. You have been good to me. And I want…”

I hesitated again.

“Do you believe you could ever love someone like me?” he asked, a catch in his voice.

“A mundane, you mean?” I asked.

“I know what you think of ‘mundanes,’” he said. “I know you are so much more than I could ever be. I know that even with all that you can do, you seem to think it’s meaningless, and compared to that, we must be like ants. I know that I’m not important, or good looking, or rich, or able to offer almost anything to someone like you.”

He took a breath.

“But it’s a question that has plagued me for months now,” he said and looked down. “Wondering what the future holds. Wondering if you would ever care for me as I care for you.”

“I don’t know what the future holds,” I said with a little sigh. “To be honest, I have been doing my utmost to avoid even contemplating the matter. I still… I… I’m afraid, Benjamin. I’m afraid to even think of it.”

I ran my hand through my hair, and glanced up at his face.

“All I have, all that I can offer, is simply this moment,” I said. “This, and each moment that follows. I suppose if I am nothing, then you are less than nothing, but I don’t care. My mother told me that it is very hard for a mundane and a spellcaster to be together, but I know it’s not impossible. Perhaps I do love you… perhaps I can love you as you love me… but I simply don’t know. There are truths that matter - you are kind. You are dear to me. I want to continue to spend time with you. And here… now… I don’t want you to go.”

He let out a breath and leaned in closer. His forehead pressed against mine, and we stood like that for a long minute. The very air seemed tense, uncertain, and… vulnerable.

“One day at a time,” he said. “For now, for you… I can accept that.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, he put his hand on my cheek again and pulled my face towards him. I wondered if I was supposed to resist, but I couldn’t bring myself to try.

My lips touched his, and a moan escaped us both. His other hand gripped at my shoulder, and I pressed against his chest.

Heat. Such heat I felt, against my body.

“Aera…” he whispered into my ear.

His heat was all around me as he gently guided me back to the bed.

-----

The tone of our relationship changed after that night. There was a warmth, a seriousness, and a tenderness to our company that hadn’t been there before.

I also came to the delightful conclusion that I rather enjoyed sex. To my surprise, however, I had to teach Benjamin some of the basics of it! Apparently, their people had either forgotten or chosen to willfully ignore the fact that women were able to experience sexual pleasure.

I’d never imagined actually appreciating those incredibly awkward and excessively illustrated lessons on the topic my mother had given me. She’d merely wanted to ensure my needs wouldn’t be neglected, and had gone over the top, as usual. But, despite my bright red objections, I had learned the relevant details - and even knew some details of how to give pleasure to men that Benjamin wasn’t aware of.

Benjamin had found it strange, but fortunately had been entirely willing to cooperate with fulfilling my desires.

A realization that had come with it, though, was that Dorothy, Alice, and Lou must have been deprived of this knowledge, too. Dorothy felt like a commander, of sorts, so I entreated her for aid. She’d actually known about masturbation - not that she’d fully realized that’s what it was - but hadn’t known how to get pleasure from being with a man.

Or another woman. Though that was apparently not the correct thing to point out.

In any case, after her surprise passed, she was perfectly happy to go with me and tell the others the very basics. While I most certainly did not have the nerve to educate them anywhere near as thoroughly as I had been, with Dorothy’s prompting, I managed to stammer my way through the absolute basics.

Sadly, the belief was so thoroughly ingrained in them that I had to reassure them that I’d examined their biologies well enough to be absolutely certain this was true for them, and not just my own people.

Since it was relevant to the topic at hand, I also offered a standard treatment my father had trained me in. It was one of the most common magical requests in all of the world. While there were a few ways of going about it, the method I’d learned to control fertility was to simply halt the cycle for women, and to fuse a little tube thing in men. For women, this had the effect of making them unable to get pregnant, and also to prevent menstruation.

I advised them that the procedure was entirely reversible, and they eagerly accepted. Even Lou, who was often uncomfortable with magic, was slowly coming around. This seemed to particularly warm her up to the skill, as she’d apparently had exceptionally uncomfortable menstrual cycles to date.

Alice confided in me, as well, that she was delighted they didn’t have to use the condom anymore. When she’d described it to me, I’d been appalled. Who would want to have sex with lamb skin?

Despite the awkward pseudo drama of that revelation, and the intensification of my relationship with Benjamin, life continued on.

Though I missed my family, I could not deny that this place, and these people, were increasingly close to my heart.