Then she places my fingers over my own mouth. My eyes narrow. I don’t understand this game she is playing.
“Kiss,” she whispers softly. With my palm on her mouth, she makes the sound over and over again. She touches her chest, says her name-sound, does the same to me, then goes back to the snake sound.
I watch her lips as she makes the sound and notice how her lips spread wide, her teeth nearly come together, and I can see her tongue touching the back of her teeth through the little space between them. My mate has very nice, straight teeth. I run my own tongue over the back of my teeth and hiss like a snake.
“Sssss…”
Beh’s eyes widen and she smiles broadly. Then she cries out, startling me. She wraps her arms back around my head and attacks my mouth with hers. Her tongue runs over mine with more gentility than her original motion would imply, and I am glad to find out she does taste like the stew.
She breaks away, and we smile at each other. My muscles tense up in anticipation of her doing it again, but she sits motionless, just watching me. When I lean forward, she leans back and makes the sound.
“Kiss.”
Again, I am a little distracted by her tongue on the back of her teeth and the way she sounds like a snake. Well, almost, but not quite. The first sound is harsher, and her tongue flicks the top of her mouth when that part of the sound comes out. I try to move my mouth and tongue the same way.
“Kzzhh.”
Beh squeals with joy and plants her mouth on mine again. When she breaks away, the sparkle in her eyes is beautiful. She makes a lot more sounds but still ends with the same noise.
“Kiss.”
“Kzzzzzz.”
I am rewarded with her lips and tongue and her hands wrapping into my hair.
“Khzz!”
The warmth of my mate’s mouth covers mine, and it sends tingles of sensation through the rest of my body as her tongue traces over my lower lip. The game that annoyed me in the beginning is now my favorite thing to do. Every time I make the sound, she touches her lips to mine, and I make that sound as often as possible.
At night, I make it over and over again.
Beh pushes my shoulders lightly with her fingers as she breaks away from me with a laugh. She makes more sounds, but none of them are the hissing sound, so I sigh and go back to my work. The spear I used to kill the antelope is still in good shape, but I’m fixing it up anyway. I use a long sliver of flint to slowly shave off flakes of wood to make the point sharper.
Beh sits beside me on a rock near the water, running a stick through her wet hair. The lake water is almost too cold for bathing, but Beh does it anyway. Now she smooths out her hair, and as much as I would like to distract her with placing our mouths together, I love how her hair feels when she’s done. I also hope she will do the same with mine as well. Earlier, I dunked my head under the water and shook out my hair, but it was too cold for me to get in.
Throughout the summer, Beh continues to push me into the lake to wash off, but it isn’t so bad when the water was warm. She uses soaproot to help get the dirt off of my body and out of my hair, though she still never lets me help her. She doesn’t want me to see her without her strange clothing in place, even when the sun beats down and it is hot in the cave.
Now the weather is beginning to cool again, and summer is departing quickly.
I glance at Beh as she continues to work through the snarls in her hair, and I work the flint against the wood. Her arms are raised up above her head, and I like the curve of them, and I think about touching them. Thinking about her arms leads my eyes to look to her shoulders and back and finally to the curve of her backside.
I swallow hard when she drops her stick and has to bend forward to retrieve it. My heart beats faster, and my tongue pops out to moisten my lips.
My hand hurts, and I realize I’ve nearly cut myself open with the flint. Luckily, I haven’t—it’s just scratched. I’ve managed to dig a gash in the upper part of the spear, though. It’s fixable, but it looks strange. The little chunk that came off is an odd shape—almost like two tiny fingers next to each other, but held slightly apart.
Looking up at Beh, I see her running her fingers through her hair, and I wonder if the little piece of wood was bigger, would she be able to use it to untangle her hair?
“Khzz?” I know I am pushing my luck—she just put her mouth on mine when she started on her hair, and she isn’t even done yet. She looks at me sideways and narrows her eyes before she leans over and presses her lips quickly to the side of my mouth. I frown. It’s nice but not what I want.
Beh giggles and makes more mouth sounds.