Chapter 9

Ruth tried to hold his breath as he peeked through his barely open door. He had waited for the light under his parents' bedroom door to go out, but it hadn't. Then his mother left their room and went to Nadia's. Now she had returned to her bedroom. He looked over at his bedside clock. It read: 3:06:27.

He wasn't sleepy. What he was, was scared. Like his mother, he assumed Nadia's mother was coming to take her home. He didn't know when that would happen, but he knew it would destroy him when it did. And he knew that his parents would set up some kind of controls to keep the two of them apart until she got there.

So tonight ... this morning ... was the only chance he'd ever have to share in the ultimate that two people who loved each other could share in.

He knew she wanted to wait. He knew she wanted him to get condoms. But if he did either of those, it would be too late. He was sure of that. And so he waited fully fifteen minutes after the light finally went off in his parents' room, and then crept sideways down the wall of the hallway, as if he were on a thin ledge above a deep drop-off, until he reached Nadia's room.

He slipped inside. His heart seized when her reading lamp suddenly went on.

"I was just thinking about you," she whispered softly.

If you have ever received an electric shock from relatively high voltage, at relatively low amperage (meaning, basically, that you survived the shock) then you are aware of how it can feel like your body is covered with closely packed spines like a cactus, and that the tips of each of those spines is acting as a receptor for taking in the overwhelming grandeur of the universe. It can leave you addled, but also amazed at how wonderful something so overpowering can feel.

Ruth was feeling that, as his naked body squirmed on top of Nadia's. Without further words, after he entered her room, they disrobed and she held out her arms to him. As he let his weight down on top of her body, she reached to turn off the light. He sensed that had more to do with the light being visible under her door, than any desire to cloak what they were about to do in darkness.

But the darkness added something to the event, because, as when a blind person's other senses are heightened, so too were theirs, in the impenetrable dark. Each touch communicated more sensation. Their lips feasted on each others, and the tastes, both of the salt on their skin, and the lingering flavor of her body wash, were taken in as if they were fine foods. Their souls drank of each other's through touch, and their bodies spoke a language both were fluent in.

When his lips sought her nipples again, she exulted in tracing the paths of joy that led to where she knew she could not deny him. Her nipples were what released her legs, and they opened for her lover.

He wanted only to bathe in her touch, to be with her forever, for it to never end. His was a mindless sort of approach, at least initially, where just the feel of her skin on his was enough.

His aura swelled, though, as it felt like his body was swelling, and the universe poured down excitement that burned through him like sunburn reddens skin.

And as he lunged and moved, the position of his penis, as he had once noted, was in perfect alignment with her receptacle.

He slid in effortlessly, and she felt no pain whatsoever, her tube had been slippery and ready since shortly after he snuck into her room.

Her "Mmmmmm" accompanied the message to his brain that finally told him where his penis was, and his hips jerked into a dance his body automatically knew.

Quite honestly, for Nadia, what was most important was that the right man's penis had taken her virginity. The right man's penis was inside her. She knew without thinking about it that she would never be sorry for what was happening to her. And that was what opened the floodgates of passion and pleasure for her.

Her orgasm was almost shockingly smooth, more like being knocked over by a warm wave in the ocean than buffeted by violence. Her body, too, knew what was needed, and muscles she didn't know she had, and had never used, rippled, stroking the thing in her.

It was the soft catch of passion in her moan of completion that struck into the center of Ruth's scrotum like an ice pick. He froze at the unbearable pain, which vanished almost instantly as semen rushed to sooth the ache. His hips still thrust, even though he was buried in her body, as his seed was sent lustily on its way.

It was the best thing that had happened to either youth in their lives.

But it couldn't have happened at a worst time.

Within hours, Nadia's egg would be overwhelmed with wriggling sperm cells. They would get caught in the mesh that covered the surface of her egg, and they would burrow frantically, trying to penetrate both mesh and cell wall.

One would succeed.

The upside was that Mama Valovitski would get the first installment of her wish for many strong grandchildren much sooner than she had hoped for.

The next morning started late, around nine thirty. Nadia still hadn't processed what had happened the night before. She had been too exhausted, after their lovemaking, and was asleep almost before Ruth returned to his room. By the time she got to breakfast, she had decided that the world would never be normal again, but that she could pretend it was. To that end she asked a question about something she had always wondered, but hadn't asked about yet.

"Why did you name him Ruth?" she asked, as Molly set a plate before her.

"His father named him," she said. "I had a problem with him. My placenta tore and I lost a lot of blood. They took him C-section, and early, so he was smaller than optimal. They had to work on me while they took care of the baby, so Bob saw him first and just named him in the process."

Bob sat down with his cup of coffee.

"There was a series of books by a woman named Anne McCaffrey. She wrote about a world called Pern, where there were dragons who worked with men to protect the planet from harm. The dragons could breathe fire, and burn the thing that was attacking the planet. Each dragon chose a human at birth to be his or her rider. It was a bond for life. The color of the dragon established where, in the social order, it and it's rider lay."