The Maidening Ceremony

Chapter Seventeen - Scene 2

He was lying in the center of the cave on a flat rock bed, a drape of silver woven hair covering his chest and tail. "Finley!" Arilya cried.

"Arilya!"

           

"Oh my goodness, Finley!" She dashed to his bed and threw her body on his, embracing him so tightly he had to pry her off.  "Finley, I was so worried!  How could you have stormed off like that?  I thought you were going to be gone forever."

Finley took her face in his hands and kissed her softly, but with intense passion.  "Arilya, I have made a decision."

"What?"

"I never want to be separated from you again."

"Oh, Finley!" She embraced him again, letting her face burrow into the crook of his neck and shoulder.  "You have no idea what it feels like to hear you say that."

"I think I do."

She leaned back.  "How?"

He propped himself up on his elbows and gazed into her eyes.  "I did a lot of thinking when I was gone.  And I realized how important you are to me."

"You are so important to me.  But why did you swim off?  What happened while you were gone to make you realize that?"

"Get closer to me and I will tell you the whole story."  He lifted the edge of the drape and she slid underneath it.  With his arms around her, they laid back and he began: "Back in that cave, what we did, it really freaked me out because everything my Mentor told me about sex made me think it was a bad thing and that I was evil or something if I enjoyed it when it came time for it to happen.  He went on and on about how inappropriate it was, but how we had no choice unless we wanted to become extinct.  In my head, we had done a very bad thing, a very wrong thing.  Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Arilya reluctantly acknowledged.

"I enjoyed it – a lot – so I thought I had done something evil.  And the fact that you did not think it was wrong really worried me.  I thought you must be evil, too."

"How could your Mentor fill your head with such horrible things?  I am so sorry."

He squeezed her lightly.  "Do not be. I was really conflicted because I enjoyed sex and it seemed like you enjoyed it..."

"I did."

He laughed, " and it made me feel really close to you, like we were connected.  Like we were not two individuals anymore or something.  But my Mentor's voice was nagging the back of my mind, telling me how wrong it was."

Arilya nodded.

"I did not know what to do.  You did not understand, which angered me..."

"Hey!"

"I am not saying I was right to get angry, but I was."

"Okay."

"So, I left.  I needed to clear my head and figure out how I really felt about what we had done.  I needed to go somewhere where you were not there, looking all innocent and lovely and where I could block my Mentor's voice out of my head.  I saw my hunting tools at my cave and decided to leave the Community, to get away from all the judgment and rules for once."

"I wish I could do that."

He squeezed her again.  "I wish you could, too, but it is too dangerous for you out there."

"Mills went out.  Her tail is red, too, and she went out.  She is fine, nothing happened to her."

"But did not I hear a shark attacked Joseph and was he not with her?"