Berne looked between the two women. If it were him, he’d be swatting the ground with his paws in defense. He was nearly ready to do so for Sirin. He acknowledged he was already popping his jaw, which Gunna noticed, and shot him a quelling look. He lowered his head into his shoulders in deference. He’d stood up to Gunna a great deal over the last few days, and it seemed she wasn’t going to stand for more.
Berne looked to Sirin, who was watching the exchange with a puzzled look. It occurred to him his new wife wasn’t used to people communicating in postures like this. He’d need to show her. She squeezed his hand and turned back to Gunna.
“Sounds lovely. I look forward to learning the curriculum and seeing the space. I have at least one individual interested in assisting in my research. Please let me know if you think of anyone else. Further, I have a bit of money in the currency of the Compact; is there any way of changing that over? Iwouldlike to be able to pay the individuals working for me, thank you!“ Sirin said sweetly.
Gunna blinked and Berne suppressed a chuckle. No, his wife didn’t need his help at all, it seemed. Gunna cleared her throat. “Actually, we use the same currency. Our Lady established it across Timonde prior to her slumber, so the value may be different than what yeh expect, but it should work fine. Our outrunners have spent ours with little trouble at outposts in the past.” Gunna straightened her shoulders and cocked her head. “I do believe that will be all, thank yeh Mr. and Mrs. Brodersen-Agbuya. Good day.” Gunna nodded curtly and strode away from them.
Berne turned to Sirin, wide-eyed. She’d handled Gunna better than heeverhad, though she’d never been caught pilfering from Gunna’s berry bushes.
Sirin smiled up at him, her joy spread across her face. After a moment, she widened her eyes in surprise and bit her lip. Dear Lady, she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
That one small motion shot straight through him, reminding him of private nibbles and her looking up at him through her lashes. He breathed in through his nose. The middle of town, right next to one of the most heavily traveled canals, wasnotthe place to get a hard-on. No matter how gorgeous or sexy she was when she was demanding.
Sirin went onto her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “You know, you can use lunula to deal with that, Mr. Brodersen-Agbuya,” she whispered as she grasped his cock through his pants. Berne could feel a blush color his cheeks and he let out some sort of ridiculous sound as she squeezed. “It’s like you people spend so much of your energy and lunula on shifting that you forget everything else you can do with it.”
Berne nodded, like the idiot he was. He wasn’t practiced at using lunula in such ways, or consciously at all. So much of how he used lunula was instinctual that he almost never thought to use it consciously. Berne’s shoulders tensed, and he looked around to see if anyone was watching them. They were in public, but it seemed for the moment no one wasstaringat them, at him. He closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath when he saw they were completely alone, her hand stroking his arm.
“There,” she whispered. “Imagine your body is a river, the whole thing connected to the Spine. Each vein is a tributary connecting you to the magic that runs through you. Visualize it,feelit coursing through you. All over your body, it’s working to make changes, to keep you healthy. I want you to follow the branch that leads to your penis.”
For a moment, the clinical use of the word startled Berne; he almost never called it that. But, he could see she used it intentionally, clinically, so he could focus.
When she spoke again, he could feel the smile in her voice. “Have you found it?” He nodded as he located it. He had never before thought of it in this way; it had always been part of who he was, but picturing it this way was smooth, easy.
“I want you to direct some of that stream to leave. You should be able to tell the amount,” she whispered. And sure enough, he couldfeelthe amount of blood he needed for normal functioning, and the extra blood that engorged him. He wasn’t sure, at first, how he should “direct” it, but like so much of how he currently used it, the lunula seemed to respond to his gentlesuggestionto move that amount of blood out of his cock.
“That’s so, so good,” Sirin said, and he couldswearshe was trying to be sexy. Her voice was lowered, only for him, and there was a rasp to it he had only heard in the bedroom. A second later, she grabbed at his cock again and the blood tried to rush back. “Ah, ah, ah. Keep it out of there. You can do this, just shunt it somewhere else, it doesn’t need to be there right now.”
She punctuated her phrases with tugs, making stemming the flow of blood back into his cock damn near impossible.
“Lass,” he grunted, “I don’t ken how yeh think I am gonna manage it with yeh yanking on the thing like you’re trying to harvest a damn carrot.”
Sirin giggled but gave him a firm tug, milking a grunt out of him before releasing him. He didn’t know if he felt grateful or disappointed, but surely it was both. She gave him one last pat, andfinallyhe felt like he was able to return things to normal.This woman is going to kill me, but I just might die happily.3
Berne cleared his throat and tried not to blush even further when he looked down at Sirin’s smug face. He grabbed her hand before she could accost him again and started leading her toward Seam Square. He couldfeelthe glee radiating off of her, the infernal woman.
“C’mon,” he said, “there’s lots more to see and do, first we need to get your measurements on file with the clothiers, then we should see about getting yeh a chair.”
“Clothes and chairs are very nice, but what I’d really like is a glass blower,” Sirin said.
“A glass blower?” Berne asked. “Why would yeh need one of them?”
“To set up my laboratory. I have a whole list of glassware I will need. Plus I suppose I need to find out if what I have on hand for money will be enough. If not, I might need to give you a letter of withdrawal for my account for the next time you go into Pershing. I’ll also need cleaning products and some specific chemicals. Oh damn, I am not sure you are going to have iodine on hand. Do you all have iodine?” Sirin said.
Adorable, Berne decided. Adorable was the perfect word for her. “Of course, if that’s what yeh need, we’ll see it done. Gunna might be showing a hard face, but the council knows we need your research. We don’t think of lunula in the same way yeh do. We don’t use it the same, not like you. We start so young, it’s not something we think about really, we jus’ do it.”
“I noticed,” she said. “When do you all start? On average, I mean.”
“Honestly, I’m not sure. I’m fair certain the girls have been for a while now. They had a bit, a month or so ago, where they kept cutting their hair to grow it back out.” He scratched his beard. He knew they must do it other times, but honestly couldn’t think of anything. “Often, it’s just we’re especially healthy, so it’s hard to notice. Learning to shift is a long process, but none of it is explained in your type of scientific terms. It’s all meditation and communing and the like.”
“Interesting. Well, we’ll work on your control yet,” Sirin said with a sly smile, her hand justhappeningto graze the front of his trousers. “You know,” she continued with a thoughtful look, “a cage might help you with that. We could look into it.”
Berne gulped. “A cage? What do yeh mean a cage?”
“For your cock. I think it would help you learn to manually control your blood flow if you had tactile feedback,” she said as if suggesting they buy him a new shirt.
Berne felt the blood drain from his face. That soundedhorrible. Why would she even suggest such—
“Mmmm, I see,” Sirin said. “Looks like that’s probably a hard limit then!” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him. “No worries! I don’t want to torture you into learning! I have some other ideas anyhow! Now how about those measurements? And do we need to pick up anything for this cake? I want to get to the glassmith as quickly as we can! I have a list here in my notebook, but can they read common?”
