Chapter 44: Ch. 43 A Long and Short Story

Morning broke and brought on snuggles and kisses and sweet words between wife and wife. However, there wasn’t time for indulgence. “We shouldn’t keep Ma waiting,” Sammy whispered, stroking Julie’s cheek.

“Mm.”

So Sammy rose and put a long coat over her nightwear, went to relieve herself, then returned. The weather warming up and her wife far from cold, sleep brought on a sweat. Thus her routine began with stripping down, sitting on a stool, and wiping herself clean.

Julie watched, had watched so many times before, yet her gaze today was much broader. Though she still adored the look of Sammy’s shoulders, her eyes followed the countless lines that made up Sammy’s body. Beautiful curves. The curves of Sammy’s neck, the curves from armpit to waist, the curves of her calves. And there were curves that made her heart beat that little quicker, warmed her cheeks.

The sparks of desire that would one day consume her.

For now, she had the presence of mind to go over and wash Sammy’s back like she always did these days. However, her hands weren’t so strict, the cloth exploring a little farther than just Sammy’s back.

“Thank you,” Sammy said, smiling to herself.

Julie thought that would be the end of the excitement for the morning, but she was wrong. So very wrong. When Sammy dressed, she didn’t begin with undergarments.

No, she picked up that white ribbon and beckoned Julie over, saying, “We should be fine to wear these now—no beasts to worry about nor seas to swallow them.”

Julie could do nothing but walk over and take it and so very carefully tie it around Sammy’s neck. Once she did, she took a step back and lost her breath. This was still the beautiful back she had looked upon earlier, albeit now standing instead of sitting, but the ribbon… emphasised the nakedness. Emphasised that Sammy chose to only wear this, not just naked out of necessity.

Despite being acutely aware of Sammy’s nudity, Julie could only look at the ribbon. Not because she was too shy to look elsewhere, but because it emphasised one more thing: they were wife and wife.

Glancing behind her, Sammy was treated to the most wonderful sight. How passionate was Julie’s gaze, face flushed, staring so intently at Sammy’s neck. If she didn’t know better, she would think herself about to be prey.

“Shall I help with yours?” Sammy whispered, voice deeper.

Julie shook her head. “I should bathe first,” she said.

So Sammy dressed and waited on the bed, turned away, book in hand. She was rather pleased with how the morning went. Love, it seemed, brought out these countless moments. Ambiguous moments where neither knew what the next second would bring. They had become her favourite, at these times able to see clearly her precious wife’s love. It was no illusion. Certainly, that was not the face of someone fulfilling an obligation.

Nor was that an innocent gaze. Sammy could laugh, so happy. All her life she had felt beautiful and, in her teens, felt what it meant to be desired. But the nauseous leers of men felt nothing like the lustful stare of her wife.

The beautiful, beautiful feeling of being desired by the one she desired. More than Julie could ever know, she had healed Sammy, clearing away the painful doubts that had scarred Sammy’s queerness.

Lost in these deep thoughts, Sammy took a moment to understand when Julie spoke.

“Can you wash my back?”

A smile bloomed upon Sammy’s lips, her reply simply: “Yes.”

Tempted as Sammy was to kiss every bit of Julie’s bare skin, she kept herself respectful. Still, she looked at her wife’s back, felt it through the cloth. Such a beautiful back. Rather firm with bony bumps, tense. Sammy carefully tried to massage out the tension in Julie’s muscles; Julie didn’t tell her to stop, but let out little groans and gasps, setting Sammy’s desires alight, mind full of fantasies.

Of course, Sammy could distinguish between fantasy and reality.

“There you go,” Sammy said, finishing with a kiss upon Julie’s nape.

“Th-thank you,” Julie whispered.

Sammy returned to the bed, giving Julie privacy to dress, waiting with anticipation.

“Can you help with my ribbon?” Julie softly asked.

Sweetly smiling, Sammy turned and said, “Of course.”

It was a very different affair to the earlier ribbon-tying. Julie stood there almost shyly in her uniform, hand pushing up her growing hair to show off that enticing nape. As Sammy looped the ribbon around, her nails grazed Julie’s neck, making Julie shiver. Oh Sammy loved that.

Sammy loved the ribbon too. Such a beautiful colour, matching with Julie’s hair, the little bow adding a feminine touch to the masculine outfit. Sammy finished with a kiss on the bow, Julie recognising the quiet sound even if she couldn’t feel it, a blush warming her cheeks.

Hand in hand, they walked downstairs and found Ma already eating a table. When Ma turned around, well, seeing the two wives together brought out a smile and they eagerly beckoned the wives over. “Come sit,” they said in Schtish.

Julie felt more conscious of the situation this morning, somewhat embarrassed that this stranger knew she and Sammy were, in their own eyes, married. But it was a strange embarrassment, kind of giddy, a bit awkward. It actually reminded her of the times when she wanted to be more intimate with Sammy, sort of worried that she didn’t know what would happen, yet knew it would be fine.

Indeed, Ma made no attempt to dodge the issue. “Did the wife and wife sleep well?” they asked, eyebrows wiggling.

“Very well,” Sammy said, her pleasant smile and warm tone saying so much, giving away so little.

Ma chuckled, tapping their fingertips together. “Wonderful. Let me be… quick. You have supplies to travel? I eat, then get things for my. You said… the big church?”

“Yes, the holy cathedral,” Sammy said.

Ma’s face scrunched up for a moment, then they said, “You have… neigh-neighs?”

Sammy had to admit it was a very good impression of a horse. “Yes, we have horses.”

“Ah!” Ma said, pointing at Sammy. “Horse. Yes, horse.” Once the excitement of that wore off, they nodded. “I no have horse.”

Thinking this a conversation better had in a language both spoke well, Sammy whispered an apology to Julie, then discussed the matter with Ma in Lapdosian. It didn’t take long to reach a conclusion: “So we shall purchase a horse as deposit, cover expenses, and provide a sum upon arrival at the cathedral and then at the northern port.” The exact sum was undecided, Sammy wanting to see the cost of the horse first.

Ma smiled wryly. “My little sisters are not afraid I will ride off at the first chance?” they asked.

Sammy laughed and she turned to Julie. “You look so happy seeing us, I think you would guide us for free,” she said.

“Then it is a good thing you didn’t ask me that first because I might have agreed,” Ma said.

The difficult part done, Sammy went back to Schtish as she told Julie what agreement they had reached. As always, Julie had no objections, believing Sammy still as capable as always.

So Ma left first to gather their own supplies and they returned a little after Sammy and Julie finished eating to go look at horses. That was a not a simple task, Sammy first looking at the prices for foodstuffs, chatting to the men and women who ran the shops and stalls, then they visited a merchant guild, Sammy having a very thorough conversation with a money changer.

On their way out, Ma said, “You are very… good.”

“We have travelled far and I learn quick,” Sammy said with a smile. “Besides, it is easy when everyone wants Schtish coins.”

“Yes, yes, Schtish good. Foreign girls always happy to wear Schtish clothes and jewellery,” Ma said.

Sammy looked at Julie’s neck. “Mm, I am rather fond of Schtish ribbons.”

That said softly, Ma missed it, but Julie didn’t and she felt a nervous giggle bubble up, managing to keep it in. To settle herself, she looked at Sammy’s ribbon. “Me too.”

Their idle talk lasted until they reached the horse market at the edge of town. At this time, Sammy had to admit she knew little of the Alfen breeds, so left the choice up to Ma. The only input she gave was: “We want to travel far every day.” Ma took their time, but Sammy didn’t rush them, an hour spent choosing better than hours lost to a bad choice. As a princess, that wisdom had been thoroughly instilled into her.

Finally, Ma found one they liked, a rather boisterous stallion with a marked down price, no doubt having scared away many buyers.

“You are sure?” Sammy asked, no worry to her tone.

“I grew up on the farm, horse my sisters. This horse no trouble,” Ma said, nodding the whole time.

Although the price was marked down, it was a high price reduced to a modest price, but Sammy happily paid without haggling and the middle-aged man happily took every coin, clutching the small pile to his chest. Nothing else to keep them, Ma went off with their new horse to wait at the eastern gate while Sammy and Julie went to collect their horses and packs.

A little before midmorning, the group set off.

“Happy with your horse?” Sammy loudly asked, voice carrying over to Ma.

Ma laughed, reigns tightly looped around their hands. They did not quite follow the road, or rather their horse didn’t, meandering on the dirt path trodden out by people. “He is feisty, but I like feisty woman.”

Sammy was happy that Ma wanted to speak in Schtish, but there were certainly moments where she felt like she missed something, this being one of them.

The scenery outside of the city was farmland, fields with fresh stalks and leafy protrusions, lush greens and muddy browns and hints of colour, wildflowers scattered amidst hedges and at the fields’ edges.

Already past dawn, there weren’t many traders on the road. However, they gradually encountered more as the morning went, their steady pace enough to catch up to the large carts drawn by draught horses. At such times, Sammy and Julie joined Ma on the dirt to quickly pass.

Midday nearing, Ma’s horse still had plenty of energy—as did Ma. Sammy looked on with much humour as Ma tied up their horse. It rather reminded her of a father playing with his child, the horse perhaps five times heavier than Ma, yet he begrudgingly indulged them, eventually giving in to their tugs and pulls. Then, when they put the fodder in front of him, he became as docile as a lamb.

Julie was rather thankful their horses weren’t so “feisty”.

The place they had stopped at was either a small town or large village, no one quite sure. It existed mostly as an extension of the city and so lacked amenities, little more than housing, inns, and stables. But that suited them well, easy to find what they needed.

Ma was especially pleased. “I eat meat?” she asked, eyes bright.

“Of course—you will need your strength,” Sammy said, keeping back her laughter.

Julie didn’t have an opinion on that, none needed. But she felt annoyed with herself. The way Ma spoke, she kept thinking them stupid even though, well, she knew she must have sounded very stupid speaking Sonlettian. Not to mention it seemed like Ma spoke as many languages as Sammy, not something a stupid person could accomplish even if they tried their best.

So the three ate with very different thoughts in mind. A simple meal of stewed meat and vegetables, bread chunks on the side, and “table water” to drink, as bland as every other small beer Sammy and Julie had drunk. It was somewhat more difficult to add flavour to cheap drinks than cheap foods.

Afterwards, they found a pleasant spot on the outskirts where their horses could graze. They sat under a tree, Sammy and Julie so close their shoulders touched, Ma a little away. The bright sun warmed the breeze, the breeze carried the fresh and too-fresh smells from the fields; there seemed to be some pastures and pens nearby.

On the whole, it was pleasant.

No rush to be anywhere or people to be cautious of, Sammy thought this a good time to speak freely, saying, “Ma?”

“Yes?”

A thought coming to her, Sammy apologised to Julie, then spoke to Ma in Lapdosian. “If I can, can I ask about you… how you like ladies?”

It was not a surprising question to Ma, but not one answered without thought. So they only replied after a minute, beginning with a question: “Would wife and wife kiss for me first?”

Not an unreasonable request, Sammy put it to Julie. And Julie, though shy, had no reason to disagree, especially since they had already done so for Sofia, the writer back in Formadgo. Still, she looked around to check no one else was watching before she brought her lips to their new home.

But knowing Ma was watching, Julie felt her heart race, sing. Like the ribbons, there was something special about freely showing their love.

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Neither a long nor a short kiss, Sammy broke away, sweetly smiling. By the look in her eye, Julie thought Sammy had enjoyed their public display too. “I love you, my precious jewel, my beloved wife, love of my life,” Sammy whispered.

Julie couldn’t hear such sweet words without shyly smiling, tempted to kiss her wife again to stop any more words coming out. “I love you, wife,” she whispered back.

The display was certainly adequate, Sammy turning to find Ma with the biggest grin. And she saw in that grin kindness.

“Do you know the phrase ‘a long and short story’?” Ma asked in Lapdosian.

Sammy frowned, working through flickers of memory, eventually recognising it as a term often used in what was called Royal Alfish—the “common language” spoken by the Alfish nobility. In traditional Aflish oral storytelling, there was a fractal pattern of events that—

“The short of it is that I love women, the long of it that I loved a girl,” Ma said, rendering Sammy’s encyclopaedic knowledge obsolete—it had been a rhetorical question. “I was thirteen and had my first… bleeding?” Ma said, pointing down.

Sammy nodded—she didn’t know the Lapdosian word for it either, menstruation not a commonly taught bit of vocabulary.

“By tradition, my parent”—higher-pitched—“shaved my head. Soon after, a merchant visited the village with their child”—higher-pitched—“and we became friends even though we couldn’t speak. We were both girls, so no one cared that we went off by ourselves. I showed her all the fun things to do around my family farm, took her riding, roasted vegetables on a fire, ate freshly picked fruits,” Ma said, a nostalgic smile coming to them.

Ma carried on. “At night, we watched the stars and I told her our names for the… star patterns. Eventually, we turned and looked at the stars in each other’s eyes. Finally, she kissed me, just a touch of lips.”

Sammy listened attentively, noticed the growing weight on Ma’s shoulders.

“I liked it and kissed her back. Childish kisses, not knowing what to do, but knowing we liked how it made us feel. My whole body wanted to touch her, so I put an arm around her, a leg, then she brought her hands up and touched my chest.”

Ma mimicked the action on themself, scrunching their top in their hands.

“She felt my softness. I was… aroused, her touch making me feel so special. It didn’t feel like that when I touched there. But she….”

The silence lingering, Sammy said, “Didn’t know you were a girl.”

“She ran away and left in the morning without speaking to me,” Ma said.

This time, Sammy let Ma’s silence be, quietly translating the story to Julie. Once finished, she turned back to Ma. “What happened next in your story?”

Ma broke out of their sentimental expression to grin and said, “One story a day.”

Sammy giggled. Then, speaking in Schtish, she asked, “Was the girl pretty?”

“Yes, yes. She was girl from the west, not so pale”—Ma pointed at Sammy—“but pale. I thought she is sick, but she smiled… health?” Ma stopped there for a moment, rubbing their face. “Sorry, the memory is making my mind jumbled.”

“Take your time,” Sammy said, softly smiling.

Ma chuckled, not often they were reassured by a young beauty. “I like pale faces. You see the blush, and soft. Our faces”—they pointed at themself—“get dry in the sun, but pale faces very soft. Nice to touch.”

Unable to help herself, Sammy said, “If you mix oil and water with beeswax, it makes a lotion to keep skin soft. Boil the water first, and olive oil is easy to get. Ah, now I think of it, cocoa butter might work well….”

Ma sat patiently while Sammy babbled. “I don’t understand,” they said.

Sammy showed an apologetic smile, then said, “When we reach a town, I will show you how to make… medicine for softer skin.”

“Really? Miss Sammy is very clever,” Ma said.

But Ma was quickly corrected: “Mrs Sammy, please.”

“Ah? Ah yes, Mrs Sammy and Mrs Julie,” Ma said, nodding along. Over a few seconds, their good humour faded. “The girl, she was… I thought she was older, but now I saw more girls from the west, she was probably my age. Her voice was very pretty, like bird singing. Her eyes… gleen?”

“Green?” Sammy said, gesturing at the grass.

“Yes, green. I do not know what colour eyes people have. Even close, it is hard to tell. Also, when I am close, there are other things to remember,” Ma said, pausing with a cheeky smile. “But her eyes were green, a bit of… amber. Her eyelashes were long. Not… hmm. They were like Mrs Julie’s.”

Julie didn’t take it personally, knowing her eyelashes weren’t at all thick.

“And her breath was so warm, sweet like her lips. We ate strawberries and her lips covering in juices. They looked so red, so bright. Before we did our kiss, I wanted to kiss her. I did not know the feeling, but now I know it,” Ma said.

“It sounds like you liked her a lot,” Sammy softly said.

Ma grinned. “There is Paschimi saying: love is a moment. That day is very special to me. When I kissed her, I loved her. But now I love that moment. If I see her, I do not care. That moment is what I love.”

Despite holding a somewhat opposite view of love, Sammy found a truth to the saying, thinking of how her love was built from countless moments.

“It really was a beautiful moment,” Sammy said.

“Pardon?” Ma said, frowning.

Sammy thought for a second how best to put it. “If that was Julie and me, I would be happy, and you looked happy talking about it.”

Ma nodded along, smile coming back. “Yes, wife and wife be happy, watch stars and kiss.”

Sammy nodded, glad she communicated what she wanted to.

The rest of their rest passed in idle talk of the countries they would be passing through, often slipping into Lapdosian for the more technical parts. When time to go, Ma excused themself and headed to the nearest inn. Julie, knowing how Sammy preferred to relieve herself, kept watch first, heading inside once Sammy was finished and modest.

Then they continued on their journey. Like earlier, Ma couldn’t keep their steed on the road, but that gave Sammy and Julie some privacy to chat. Like always, Sammy was curious of Julie’s thoughts after coming across another queer person.

“What did you think of the story?” Sammy asked.

Honestly, Julie didn’t think much of it, the casual way it was told not getting across the subtleties of written works. “It’s a bit confusing,” she said.

“Really? Perhaps I can explain,” Sammy said.

Julie’s face scrunched up as she sorted out her thoughts. “Was the girl… embarrassed? Why she ran away—she didn’t mean to touch Ma there?” she asked.

Sammy actually froze in surprise, then tried desperately not to laugh, a giggle still making it out.

“What?” Julie asked, a touch of annoyance to her tone.

Holding back from teasing her wife, Sammy let out a sigh; she hadn’t thought it necessary to explicitly state this in her translation. “The girl thought Ma was a boy. When she realised Ma had a girl’s body, she panicked. I don’t know how else she felt, but it was probably not anything pleasant,” Sammy said, trying to speak neutrally of the matter.

“Oh.”

Given how changed the story now was for Julie, Sammy waited a good while before asking the same question.

Again, Julie gave a surprising answer: “Can you really stop liking someone that quickly?”

Sammy thought it over, surmising that Julie meant that quite literally. One moment, the girl liked Ma enough to kiss them; the next, the girl ran away. That answer was simple. Even though Ma hadn’t lied or misled the girl, the girl felt an implicit betrayal. Maybe she would still have kissed Ma had she known from the start, but, finding out afterwards, it would be easy to think that Ma had tricked her since Ma knew they were both girls and yet kissed her back.

That answer asked a broader question. As much as Sammy liked to think that she could tackle any matter of philosophy, this question rather stumped her, had since the night before.

Ma did not hide their preference nor the gender of body they had. However, Sammy assumed that, if her intuition hadn’t picked up on it, Ma would have kept the latter to themself. At the end of that train of thought was the difficult question: Was Ma immoral for lying about the gender of their body in order to “romance” women?

It would be one thing if Ma felt like they were a man’s soul in a woman’s body, but Sammy had asked if Ma was a man or wished to be referred to as one, and Ma had chosen the latter. And it would be another thing if Ma simply flirted, but Sammy felt like Ma had implied having a rather “romantic” personal life.

Sammy stopped her meandering there, knowing she was avoiding the central argument. The problem was that she felt repulsed by the thought of a man pretending to be a woman to kiss her. That was why she had never pretended to be a boy, even as desperate for a girl’s love as she had been.

Yet she remembered well how painful that life had been. The life that she had been ready to give up on, to retire to the priory and try to fill the void with sisterhood and raising orphans.

Further complicating Sammy’s ability to think reasonably was that she liked Ma and felt the gentle love Ma had for women. That shouldn’t matter, she knew, but there was something appealing about a victimless crime. If the women Ma had been intimate with never found out, wouldn’t their time together be a pleasant memory?

“Sammy?” Julie asked, voice tinged with concern.

Shaking away those thoughts, Sammy smiled at Julie. “My apologies, you asked a question that’s both simple and difficult,” she said.

Julie nodded.

“The simple answer is… think of eating a soft bread and suddenly your teeth crunch something hard? I dare say you may chew bread more carefully for the week after. Unexpected things are supposed to upset us so that we react,” Sammy said.

“I see,” Julie said, the analogy very understandable.

Sammy let out a sigh, sending away her bubbling emotions. The instinctual answer she had last night was still the correct one: this was not her matter to judge. In a perfect world, Ma was doing something immoral, but, if it was a perfect world, Ma would have no need to do immoral things. That simple heuristic told Sammy that this wasn’t a matter to judge, but to understand.

So Sammy hoped to speak a lot with Ma and learn the specifics of their situation. She believed that, if one only learned what they already knew, they never grew. Ma certainly had many new things to teach her and Julie.

While Sammy thought deeply, the horses carried on. Hope and Faith had rested the day before, so they eagerly kept pace through the afternoon, making good time alongside Ma’s stallion. Farmlands continued on for hours, only thinning to forests and meadows by late afternoon. On the cusp of evening, they arrived at a village not so much suited to traders as much as pilgrims, plenty of rooms to stay, but lacking stables.

“The pretty lady says is the farm on other side,” Ma said, pointing ahead. “We horse stay there?”

“Yes,” Sammy said.

So they went and borrowed a barn for the horses, Ma insisting on staying there in case their horse caused trouble. Sammy paid the farmer’s wife, who looked to very much be a farmer herself, to make sure Ma had some meat and alcohol with their dinner.

Thus Sammy and Julie had a rather quiet dinner of their own. But that did not mean nothing happened, Sammy all too happy to caress Julie’s hand and share little smiles and whisper promises of kisses once in their room.

Of course, Sammy made good on her promises. But she made good on her wifely duties too, modest when wiping down Julie’s back, keeping her gaze from wandering too far.

And in bed, she made sure to sweetly whisper, “I love you, wife.”

Julie replied with a kiss, followed by a murmured, “I love you too, wife.”

Who fell asleep first varied by day, this night Julie the first to fall. Sammy indulged in watching her precious wife’s sleeping face for a while. When she finally closed her eyes, she thought over the day and had to admit they had found a rather interesting companion this time.

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