Chapter 199 - Zenzele, My Love part 18

Gently, I pushed away from her. I stood on my own two feet. My mind was reeling, my body weak and trembling. The taste of Zenzele's blood lingered on my tongue. It lingered in my mouth like her memories lingered in my mind: foreign, alluring. For a moment, I felt as if I were two distinct and separate beings. I was male. I was female. I was Gon. I was Zenzele. It was a maddening sensation. I shook my head, trying to clear it of this disorienting duality.

So this is the Sharing, I thought.

It was terrible and sublime, both at the same time.

I took in my surroundings, feeling as if I'd been cast adrift in time. What strange shores have I been swept upon this time? I wondered, and then the disturbing thought: Is this another memory, and if so, whose?

"Thest?" Zenzele murmured. There was amusement in her voice, but concern, too. "Are you all right?"

"That is not my real name," I said.

Too loud! Why am I shouting?

She was quiet a moment, then asked, "What is your real name?"

It was hard for me to look at her suddenly, she was so beautiful. Is this why men turn their eyes from the faces of their gods?

"The name my father gave me when he delivered me from my mother's womb... is Gon."

I looked at her breasts, the snow drifting silently toward the ground. The trees. The sky. Anything but her face! 

"Gon," she said, as if tasting the word.

"It is my secret name... my true name. I share it with you because I love you." She opened her mouth to protest, and I insisted, "Yes, I love you, Zenzele!"

A shadow passed before her eyes, and because I had lived her life, I knew the fear that cast that shadow.

"I love you without condition," I said, stepping toward her. Careful! Move as if she is a hare and might bolt at any moment! "It is yours to do with as you will."

She regarded me silently for a moment, and then she grinned, her eyeteeth very sharp and white. "I have only shared my blood with you. I have not released you from your vow, beautiful man," she said.

Her bare feet crunched very softly in the snow as she closed the distance between us. She stood on her tiptoes, put her arms around my neck. "You are my bound servant, until I see fit to release you from the bargain we have struck."

"Is not the master also enslaved?" I asked teasingly. "A tether must be fixed at both ends. By knot or by fist."

"Then you wish to be freed?" she asked.

"What if I do not?" I replied. "What if I wish to remain bound to you for all eternity?"

She laughed mockingly, her hands sliding from around my shoulders. Her fingertips trailed down my chest, my stomach, finally to my breeches. She pushed them down my thighs with a brusque motion, took my organ in her hand. "This is the only leash I need to lead a beast like you around."

I laughed, even as she pressed me to the ground.

"Palifver will urge Khronos to destroy you," she said, sinking down upon me. "I'm not certain whose tongue wields more influence with him, my old lover's or mine, but have no doubt: he will try to poison Khronos against you."

"I do not fear Palifver," I said huskily. Through her memories, I had intimate knowledge of the blood drinker. More than I cared to know! Memories of a passionate affair, their constant battle of wills, and in the end, betrayal. Once lovers, now there was only bitterness between them. I hated him, just as venomously as Zenzele did.

"I will destroy him at the first opportunity," I promised her.

"Don't even think it!" she gasped, rising and falling upon me. "You invite condemnation!"

I didn't pursue the matter, thinking to spare her from complicity. I brought my arm up, placed my wrist against her lips.

"I would have you know me," I said. "Experience my life as I have experienced yours."

Her golden eyes sought mine. There was uncertainty, fear, in those gleaming prisms.

"Do it," I urged her. "Please!"

She hesitated, then plunged her fangs into my flesh.