Spring Equinox Read Free Page B

itself."
     
    Then she had met Julie, and run into the Prof again.  Later she found that this new lover could touch her special spot in other positions as well; but the time had passed for asking: "And what is your name?"  Strangely, Prof wasn't sure when she had asked him.
     
    Despite the other men she had enjoyed in those days, and she had enjoyed quite a few, this one was her special "castle lover."  But she had forgotten all about the castle and the island from the instant that she had stepped on the boat to go back.
     
    The memories were arousing, but not satisfying.  The hay was scratchy; it was time to clean up.  Susan found a trough with intake and outlet pipes in the lower part of the barn.  It didn't match the castle's bidets and cartons of bottled douches, but she didn't give sloppy seconds.
     
    When she felt the chilly water, that resolution wavered.  But she knew the cure for that. Draping her clothes over the gate to a stall, she dropped all the way down.  The first splash against her still-sensitive vulva was piercing as a knife, but numbness soon followed.  She gave the slow flow a minute or two to clean her off, then clambered out.
     
    "You're braver than I am, or part polar bear."  The comment frightened her, although neither words nor tone sounded hostile.  She clutched her clothes to her front and looked towards the sound.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.  Want help drying off?  My name's Mat."  A man naked from the waist up came towards her.  He was carrying a shirt and an undershirt in his hand. He started drying her back with the shirt and handed the undershirt to her. 
 
    "Thanks Mat," she said.  "My name's Susan.  My clothes are mostly wool."  His cotton clothes felt much smoother on her skin.
     
    "You came here with Uther," Mat asked, "didn't you?  Does he claim to be several centuries old back home?"
     
    "He's seventy, and about to be professor emeritus.  The University makes teachers retire at that age.  I was at his retirement party, and none of us could believe that he was even that old. Centuries don't come into it."
     
    "How did he get those pigstickers through the Mundane part of the route?  And could he really use them?  The way he grabbed them looked authentic."
     
    "We weren't dressed like that until we had almost reached the guards.  I expected all of you to be transformed as well.  As for the weapons, he can use a sword.  At his retirement party, I learned that he had been faculty adviser for the fencing club.  A past president of the club said that they would still have an intervarsity team if advisors had been permitted to compete; as it was, they didn't have a decent saber.  I don't know about the spear."
 
    "The two of you certainly made a dramatic entrance.  And then you wandered off with Mark.  That man can really write."
     
    "Wander" sounded like a euphemism for their rushed exit.   Mat certainly had known what they intended to do.  Susan felt the beginnings of a blush and wondered why.  This had been billed as an orgy after all; she had performed in the same bed (or on the same floor) with others often enough.  But the name caught her attention.
     
    "Mark?" she asked.  "Do you know his last name?"
     
    "I'm not sure that I know his first name.  Mark Aster writes wonderful stories in the first person about his life with Pat and Julie.  Now, the person you were with is the hero of the stories; he is the narrator of the stories.  But the narrator's name is never mentioned in the stories.  Is he the author of the stories?"
     
    "You could ask."
     
    "I did ask Mark, and he evaded.  You could have asked for yourself."
     
    "There never seemed to be a time to ask, and now is much too late."
     
    "You're in love with him?"  She blushed, but his voice dropped when he continued, "Just as I am with Julie."
     
    "Oh," she said.  "I'm sorry if I interrupted anything."
     
    "I wish you had.  As far as I know, three men have Julie