The Plains of Passage - Jean M. Auel [212]
With both hands, he held her folds apart, admired the beautiful pink flower of her feminine self and, unable to restrain himself, warmed the cooling petals with his wet tongue, savoring the taste of her. She felt the warmth, then the cold, and quivered in response. This was a new feeling, not something he had done before. He was using the very air of the mountaintop as a means to bring her Pleasure, and at some inner level she marveled.
But as he continued, the air was forgotten. With stronger pressure and the familiar provocation of his mouth and hands, stimulating, encouraging, inciting her senses to respond, she lost all sense of where she was. She felt only his mouth sucking, his tongue licking and prodding her place of Pleasure, his knowing fingers reaching inside, and then only the rising tide within her reaching a crest, and washing over her, while she reached for his manhood and guided it to her well. She pushed up as he filled it.
He sunk his shaft deeply, closing his eyes as he felt her warm, moist embrace. He waited a moment, then pulled back and felt the caress of her deep tunnel, and pushed in again. He plunged in, retracted, each stroke bringing him closer, the pressure inside him building. He heard her moan, felt her rise to him, and then he was there, and he exploded with the release of wave after wave of Pleasure.
In the silence, only the wind spoke. The horses had waited patiently; the wolf had watched with interest, but had learned to contain his more active curiosity. Finally Jondalar lifted himself, rested on his arms, and looked down at the woman he loved.
“Ayla, what if we started a baby?” he asked.
“Don’t worry, Jondalar. I don’t think we did.” She was grateful she had found more of her contraceptive plants, and she was tempted to tell him, as she had told Tholie. But Tholie had been so shocked at first, even though she was a woman, that Ayla didn’t dare mention it. “I’m not certain, but I don’t think this would be a time when I could get pregnant,” she said, and it was true she wasn’t absolutely certain.
Iza did have a daughter, eventually, even though she had taken the contraceptive tea for years. Perhaps the special plants lost their effectiveness after long use, Ayla thought, or maybe Iza forgot to take it, though that was unlikely. Ayla wondered what would happen if she stopped drinking her morning tea.
Jondalar hoped she was right, although a small part of him wished she wasn’t. He wondered if there would ever be a child at his hearth, a child born of his spirit, or perhaps, of his own essence.
It was a few days before they reached the next ridge, which was lower, not much above the timberline, but from it they had their first sight of the broad western steppes. It was a crisp clear day, though it had snowed earlier, and in the far distance they glimpsed another, higher range of ice-encrusted mountains. On the plains below they saw a river flowing south into what appeared to be a great swollen lake.
“Is that the Great Mother River?” Ayla asked.
“No. That’s the Sister, and we have to cross her. I’m afraid it will be the hardest crossing of our whole Journey,” Jondalar explained. “See over there, toward the south? Where the water is all spread out so that it looks like a lake? That’s the Mother, or rather where the Sister joins her—or tries to. She backs up and overflows, and the currents are treacherous. We won’t try our crossing there, but Carlono said she’s a turbulent river even upstream.”
As it turned out, the day they looked down toward the west from the second ridge was the last clear day. They woke the following morning to a brooding, overcast sky that dropped so low it merged with fog rising from depressions and hollows. Mist hung palpably in the air and gathered into miniature droplets on hair and