by Teresa Noelle Roberts
Then a crazy notion popped into Miryea’s head, and she went with it because talking about sex seemed far preferable to letting her mind wander even further down paths of self-doubt, or worrying about the possibility of slavers. “We’re going to be in Thelana for the Spring Equinox rites. Want to see if we can find out what their festival is like?” She felt a shimmer of excitement at the idea of being the newcomer in some insular village--inhabited, since it was her daydream, by unusually handsome, well-endowed single men as randy as the goats they herded, but a great deal cleaner. She didn’t know about Thelana, but in Yareth, it was considered especially good luck to lie with a new acquaintance on the Equinox, a particularly powerful offering to Lady Sun and the Lord of Grain. What a Spring Equinox she and Velari could have, with men lining up to entertain them!
Lady Sun Has Risen.
When you think about spring, you probably think about flowers. Brilliant green grass. Tiny chartreuse leaves unfurling on the trees. Birds on the wing. Newborn lambs gamboling in the field, if you live in an area where you see that kind of thing (or “ORDER YOUR EASTER LAMB TODAY” at the grocery store or butcher shop if you’re in a more urban area).
Easter’s bound to come to mind. For some people, it’s a solemn religious holiday, but for a lot of us, what we associate with Easter are the playful trappings: dyed eggs, bunnies, chocolates and jelly beans, baby chicks whether real or marshmallow.
You know what almost all of that imagery has in common?
Fertility. New life.
And you what leads to new life? You guessed it: sex. In the case of trees and grass and flowers, it’s rather dull sex, windborne sex or sex requiring insect interference, but face it, there’s a lot of fertility being carried on those soft spring breezes. (Or, as I’ve been known to say when my pollen allergies are especially bad, “Someone make those trees stop fucking in my air!”) And granted chocolates and jelly beans don’t have all that much to do with sex, but the chocolates, at this time of year, are shaped like those fertile rabbits, and the jelly beans look like tiny eggs, so the fertility symbolism holds.
In western European pagan traditions, May Day and Midsummer were traditionally connected with a certain amount of sexual license. That tradition, being heaps of fun, lasted long after paganism was officially supplanted by Christianity. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream got its name for a reason.) You don’t hear so much about sex magic on the Spring Equinox, though maybe because in much of western Europe, it can still be cold and nasty in mid-March.
Nothing on where I grew up, though. A village just north of my old hometown had five feet of snow dumped on it on March 1, and I’ve known it to snow in May in my old stomping grounds. Even though I’m now living in a slightly less vicious climate, spring’s still semi-mythical to me, and I’m fascinated with spring flowers, spring folklore—and of course, being me, spring’s sexual side.
Maybe that’s why, when I went to write Lady Sun Has Risen, a novella that involves springtime and sex-magic and pagan rites, I set it in a slightly warmer climate. In my imaginary Soranian Empire, it’s really spring by the vernal equinox. Lady Sun has returned to her partner the Lord of Grain, and as the goddess and god celebrate their reunion, so do mortals.
Basically by shagging anyone who’s agreeable; all rules and restrictions other than “Make sure everyone involved has fun” are set aside for the day. (Sounds better than chocolate bunnies and Easter egg hunts, doesn’t it? Maybe we should start our own religion. We can keep the chocolate bunnies—for energy!)
Miryea, a female physician, thinks her interest in sexy, infuriating half-nomad Adimir is a case of opposites attracting. Nothing serious could come of their attraction, but a fling with Adimir sounds like the perfect way to celebrate Spring Equinox.
Adimir has no problem with this plan, especially since he's already figured out Miryea's just the kind of woman he likes—a strong woman who melts for spanking and rough-and-tumble foreplay.
But the gods have a little more in mind for them than just another Equinox celebration—even if there are a few differences to overcome first.
He pulled her closer to him. “Who’s going to keep you safe from a wicked barbarian Kulchu if you go wandering off in the forest like this?”
She felt a flash of terror, then saw his smiling face, felt his free hand caress down her spine to cup her bottom. She smelled the heat of his body, slightly sweaty, yet clean, and very male, almost drowning out the earthy, green smells of spring and the bitter, sharp scent of bonestrength. She could practically taste his skin, the salt and musk of it. The only thing in real danger, she reasoned, was her common sense—and that was already a lost cause. Adimir might be imperious, arrogant, condescending—but he was also the most handsome man she’d ever seen, pure walking sex, and if he wanted to kiss her, she wasn’t going to resist.
In fact, she closed her eyes, raised her face, anticipating his lips on hers.
The kiss was all she could have imagined and more. Hot, yet sweet and mouthwatering, like the chili-laced tamarind candy she bought whenever she found it in the marketplace.
She’d been kissed before—before now, she’d have said she’d been kissed fairly competently and thoroughly--but this was beyond anything she’d ever experienced. It shot through her body, pulsing in her nipples, waking butterflies in her belly. Lighting a fire between her legs.
She couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. Would he kiss her until she was melting like butter over the fire, or would he move more quickly, reaching for her aching breasts, her moist, heavy sex? Either would have its merits, although she hoped he didn’t move too fast, leaving her trailing behind him.
What he did next, though, was nothing she could have anticipated.
He pulled his hand back and smacked her ass.
The force of the blow would have made her stagger except for his firm grip on her wrists. She squeaked, more from surprise than pain, tried to squirm away. Shocked, and drunk on sensation from the kiss, she was slow to react, her body sending mixed signals to her brain--was this pain or pleasure?
The second thwack made her knees buckle, and the third was just as forceful. By the third, though, she’d found her voice, if not the coordination to fight back effectively in any other way, and exclaimed, “Stop it!”
“That should teach you to be more sensible,” he snarled, giving her one last thwack, as if carried by momentum.
Like the spankings her grandmother had administered when she was much younger, these smacks were more loud and startling than painful.
But being spanked by a handsome beast of half-Kulchu male was a very different experience.
These swats left more than her bottom throbbing.
Her breasts, her sex, and everything in between, already sparked to life by the kiss, tingled with excitement. Her ass throbbed rhythmically, but it was far more pleasurable than painful. The rhythm of sex, in fact. She felt herself swelling, moistening.
Lady, she’d have to change her salvar at this rate! And it wasn’t even as though he’d been roughhousing with her in a flirtatious way, reverting to that stage of life where boys tormented girls to show their interest. No, the arrogant fool was acting like he was her father and she was a child who needed discipline. He’d even called her “little rabbit,” like her own father had.
And still she wanted him, even though he was treating her like a child. Was she insane?
Maybe, and certainly her self-respect wouldn’t thank her later, but for the moment, all she could think about was impressing upon him that she was no little girl to be teased and scolded and spanked, but a grown woman.
A woman with needs that he’d awakened.
A woman who’d show him what she was made of.
With a barely suppressed moan, she pressed herself against Adimir, moving like a cat in heat so he’d feel her curves, know that he hadn’t been dealing with a child. Then, she figured, once he started to show interest, she’d spurn him, salvage her pride, and make it clear that if he wanted her, he’d have to court her properly, not kiss her and smack her as if he couldn’t decide what he wanted.
Except that he was already showing interest, in the form of a hard cock jutting proudly against her.
A large cock hard and eager enough to let her know that the kiss had excited him as much as it had her, and that he hadn’t been thinking “fatherly” when he’d spanked her, any more than she’d been thinking “daughterly.”
Lady Sun Has Risen is available at Phaze Books. But if you’d like to win some hot springtime spanking and sex-magic to enliven the last weeks of winter, leave a comment below.
Did I mention that Adimir’s people’s version of the Equinox ritual involves spanking and a little dominance and submission? I tell you, we should start a religion! Chocolate bunnies and kinky sex for everyone!
(Flowers and flowering tree courtesy of FreeFoto. Cartoon spanking courtesy of SarahThorne.com.)
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‘Please.’
This time the blow came from the other side. I was startled by it, and instinctively moved away from the source. That was a mistake. The paddle whistled through the air and this time the smack was much harder. It echoed through the basement.
He didn’t give me an opportunity for second thoughts. The Cat ‘O Nine Tails came down on my ass, and this time I cried out. Each little leather strap stung like a bee.
kind of pain. It looked just as benign as Tom usually did.
