Page 36 of We Were Eternal Once

He smiles when you flinch at the symbol.

“Our next meeting is on the full moon,” he continues, leaving our home at last. I watch him go with narrowed eyes. Had we the gifts of gods I would wish for fire, so I might incinerate him on the spot. So what if he longs for the same knowledge I do? He was able to pull pieces of you free that I’ve only dreamed of knowing. I turn to you, expecting to see you unspooled and unmoored. You will return to the house and pack, deciding on a land route somewhere else until we can leave Alexandria.

Do I blame you? Do I want to leave? Of the others of our kind I’ve met, I dislike them both. I suspect that’s more due to their gender than them being another like us. How is it that men are named the natural leaders of the world when they fall so short so often?

Part of me wants to answer the siren song of his offer. They cannot all be men, can they? And even if they are, will they have the answers I long for? In a few short moments, Essemteu teased out more of your truths than I ever dared. Is this the way into your secrets? Others?

Jealousy burns in my throat like bile. I swallow it down and study your face.

You want to stay. It’s written along the pout of your lips, the way your gaze tracks his retreating form. You look to me at last.

“What is that look you wear, Melinoë?” As if you don’t know. As if you are not intimately aware of every thought that I cannot hide from you.

How is it that I can read you so well, but you remain a mystery to me?

“Is it time to pack now?” I ask.

You brush your fingers along my cheek, to my hair, your nails digging into my scalp. I lean into you, longing for the soft bite of your love.

“You are intrigued by his guild of intellectuals,” you surmise. “You’ve become quite a scholar yourself.”

Had I? It was an unintended consequence of boredom and the quest to understand what we are. Would I be able to stand amongst the others? What did I know that they did not?

“The invitation was not to me,” I say. “My wants are irrelevant. Do you wish to stay or go?” Your hand stills in my hair, then retreats.

“Have you no opinion?” you ask. My skin heats at the accusation in your words. I have an opinion, I just know better than to voice it if it runs counter to yours.

I kneel before you, my hands pushing your dress up your thighs. I am slow with my movements, pacing my thoughts in time as I consider.

“You are ancient,” I say, the dress to your knees. “You have seen the world as they never have. You have lived what they’ve only read in their silly little books, penned by men they admire.” My lips ghost your inner thigh just above your knee.

“I wonder—who do they revere more? A woman older than any monument”—my teeth skim higher. Your knees fall open to allow me access—“or the dead humans that are little more than food to them?”

I find that delicious vessel along your inner thigh and sink my teeth into it, lapping at the slow flow of your blood. You groan, your hands in my hair once more. Your fingers grip me tightly, trying to guide me higher.

But I am not done.

“Perhaps they will worship you, as you deserve. Perhaps they will dislike when you dispel their illusions of our kind. Perhaps we never go, and instead head south to Cairo. Perhaps we burn their meetinghouse down with them in it.”

I’ve made it to my prize now, and I stroke you with my tongue, just as I know you like. I may not know our history, but I know your body. Perhaps there are secrets I’ll never unravel, but at least I can make you scream my name.

“Do you fear those thoughts?” you ask breathily.

Fear that you will be worshipped? At the time, I thought it was what you deserved. Those simpering creatures will never replace me, they’ll always be last as long as I am around. So what if you crush their ridiculous dreams and notions of our kind?

Leaving to Cairo? I do not fear that, but I do not want it. Not when I am so close to the knowledge I crave. I bring you close, cresting on the wave of your release, when I speak again.

“They should fear us,” I say.

You call out my name and tremble as I bring you to climax.

After, you pull me close, tasting yourself on my lips. You stroke a hand down my face. “One meeting,” you say.

“What’s the harm?” I agree.

These words, as the humans of the current time would say, were famous last ones.

A Meetinghouse in Alexandria