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John eased the blanket up to Sera's shoulders, tucking the edge just under the fall of her hair. The lamplight was low, it felt gentle as honey, and the window breathed a square of moon light onto the floorboards. The Bent Penny creaked its old, fond creaks —the kind that said you're safe for tonight— and the world downstairs was a wash of muffled laughter, the soft clink of cups, the occasional cat remark from the shed roof outside.

When John tried to stand up. Sera's hand found the back of his neck. She grabbed his neck with both hands. Hugging him like a little sloth hugging an older one.

Warmth, sure and careful. A soft press of her palm where his hair met skin, the place where nerves live close to the surface. His breath hitched. She was very bold and John felt awkward.

"Don't go yet, John." she whispered, the words were small and steady, not the clumsy slur of too much wine, but the bright thread of a choice. Her eyes held him in the amber pool of the candle. She looked like a prayer carved into oak: simple lines, quiet strength, no sharp corners unless someone deserved them.

John hovered there, halfway between rising and staying, caught on the hinge of an hour he had never owned before. Someone forbidden is about to happen. John and Sera both weren't in their right mind. They were living in the moment.

"We're both a little—" he began.

"—light in the head," she finished, smiling. "But not lost." Her thumb stroked the edge of his jaw, a tiny path that made his pulse jump. Then it shakes his desire.

"May I kiss you?" Sera asked him. "I really want to kiss you…"

The question and the direct comment was a door he could close if he wished. John looked at her shining skin below her chin. He was her neck and then his eyes moved down seeing her rising and falling chest. It was shining in the moonlight. It looked so beautiful that John could move his eyes for a few moments. It was shaking his will. It was shaking the part between his legs.

It felt right for the moment. He knew that and felt it. He nodded in a positive response. He doesn't want to say no. He also wanted that. He wanted to kiss her and touch her rising and falling chests so badly…

Sera lifted her face from the pillow and came forward for the kiss.

The first lip touch was a wondering thing — the shy brush of mouths learning each other's shape. It lasted only a breath, then another, and then John leaned in. The kiss gathered warm around them. It drew a line around the bed and the lamplight and made the rest of the inn fall away. He felt the slight catch of her lower lip, the soft give when she smiled against him. Honey, apples, the faintest smoke from Ina's kitchen — certain memories carry tastes with them, and he knew this one would.

His hands didn't know where to be. With courage he put them on her belly. His judgement was useless and mind was hopeful, His hand moved from the Belly; then one rose, slow as a leaf climbing a breeze, to the rippled braid that lay over Sera's shoulder. He touched, barely, like a boy reaching for a star and finding it was warm. The braid slid silk-rough over his knuckles. He memorized the feeling the way he memorized lines of a diagram: here is the curve, here the weight, here the place where hair becomes skin and skin becomes someone you do not want to hurt.

Sera's fingers traced the back of his neck, then his cheek. She kissed him once more and rested her forehead to his. "Happy birthday," she murmured, and it felt less like a greeting than a blessing. "If you don't want to go further then we can take it slowly."

"I want to… go further," he said, surprised at his own voice. "Not because of the wine cups."

"Then we won't let the cups choose for us," she said, pleased by his caution. "We will do it." Her smile went small and bright. "And we will check each step. It's very new to me…"

"Same here…" John replied. "I… I never did that. Can I touch your chest!"

Sera's face became red as a tomato, "Yes," She said very softly. "Please be gentle."

John grabbed her chests with both hands. One in each hand. He rubbed it very gently then she started to press it. "It's so soft. I… I really like the feeling."

Sera didn't say anything. She hid her face with her hands. She felt very good too. But she was very shy to say anything. Meanwhile John's stick was getting big and hard.

A few minutes later… John couldn't hold himself anymore. He was done with only touching. He put his mouth on one of her chest and started to suck it.

"O… Ohhh my goddess." Sera finally made a sound. "John… you… Keep doing it…"

After one minute John changed the chest. He moved on to the other one. Doing the same, sucking it. Sera was still hiding her face with her hands. She was making a very happy face under her hands. Her face was still red and shy.

After a while… John took off his clothes. Sera was watching him in between her fingers. She looked at John's chest and slowly looked down to his belly then his legs. The part in between his legs, his stick. It was hard… very hard. The tip looked like, as if it was looking at her. She felt her body temperature rising.

Her pussycat became wet just looking at the stick. She was very nervous. John didn't waste any time after he got naked. He hopped on to the bed. She crossed her legs in shyness and nervousness. John put his hand on her knees.

He says, "May I…?" John didn't finish his sentence. He pulled her knees in the opposite direction. She didn't resist either. Her legs opened for John's stick. John looked at her pussycat. It looked baby pink in colour. It was very cute and hungry. John looked at the pussycat for almost a minute. He didn't see anyone's private part in his life.

"How long will you stare at me?" She asked with a shy face and soft voice. "John put it inside me. I want to feel it. I want to know what it feels like when a man and a woman become one."

John grabbed his stick and took it near her pussycat. He just put the tip inside. —"Ouch! John that hunts."— She said, As soon as it went inside John felt a sealed pressure. It was like he entered a very narrow space. But he kept pushing. The seal was slowly vanishing.

John was feeling something smooth and soft on his stick. He never had a feeling like that. John pulled his stick out and put it inside the pussycat again. He didn't pull the entire thing out, just half. He kept repeating the same movement.

Sera was huffing and puffing. He moans in pain and pleasure. "John… it hurts… but… it feels so good… Jon… Ohhh… Ohhh… Jon… John… John… So… big… Stick… John…"

They sank together onto the movement, she moved her hips to match John, care folded into every motion. The candle drew a long tear of wax and sent the quiet, sweet smell of bees through the room. The curtain breathed in and out. Faint laughter drifted up from below, then thinned, then faded; the house was and the party was out of their minds. They were living in the moment. Both of them never felt anything like that. Both of them were having the greatest pleasure of their life.

They kissed again. Longer now. Not hungry. Searching. Sera's hands cupped his face and his chest then to his back; "Yes. Yes. Yes." She moaned. John learned the rhythm of pushing his stick in and out to her pussycat —each one a soft sound against his mouth, a breath, a hum— yes to this, yes to here, yes because they are both awake and want to share the same breath for a while.

His heart stumbled like a foal learning its legs.

She guided one of his hands to the line of her chest, a map offered and accepted. "Here," she said. "Rub it and press it. Just play with it John. I am feeling a tingle on my chest."

He stroked the fine grain of soft muscle there —it became big from pulling bowstrings and temple chores— and felt an odd wave of tenderness crest over the usual pull of heat. The tip of her chest became hard. John was pinching it with his fingers. She really enjoyed it.

This was Sera, after all — not the crest, not the name, not the story other people told about her family. Sera who lit lamps and folded prayers into bread trays. Sera who had put a letter into his hand when the city was a stranger and said, walk this way.

"Tell me if I'm clumsy," he said. "It's my first time doing it. I don't have any experience."

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