boring into the back of her neck. Jaguar stood and turned to her, and immediately Terez lowered her eyes. Her face flushed and she took a step back.
“Yes,” Jaguar said, “and yes again.” She reached over and ran a hand through her hair, combing the silken tangle with her fingers. It felt like air pouring over her skin.
“Your hair is like moonlight,” she said. “Weightless and piercing.”
Terez made a small sound, almost a sigh of pleasure, almost a whimper of fear.
“Do you know about the moon?” Jaguar asked, running a finger over her cheek. “Her light is so soft, you’d never guess how much she can do just by being there.”
She grasped a handful of Terez’ hair and twisted it around her hand as she spoke. “The moon moves the entire ocean, and pulls a single body toward desire and knowledge. That’s why men fear her, and fear women who worship her. They know real desire gives you a power they can’t control or steal.”
Terez raised large blue eyes to Jaguar and said nothing.
“You’re afraid,” Jaguar noted, “but not afraid that I’ll hurt you.”
She unwrapped Terez’ hair and dropped her hand to her side. “You’re afraid I can’t hurt you enough. That you’ll never be able to pay for what you did, or who you are. You’d like me to run razor blades in pretty little circles around your face, or whip you. But I’m not going to do that.”
Jaguar took a step forward. Terez took a step back.
“What do you want?” Jaguar asked.
Terez hung her head down onto her chest and peered at her own flesh. She touched it, tentatively, feeling the skin as if it was an animal that might bite. Then she pressed her thumb into her sternum, held it there, released it, stared at the imprint of flesh against flesh.
She lifted her hands and held her own face as if it belonged to someone else, groaned into her palms and drew them across her mouth, licking at them, tasting them. Then she squeezed her eyes shut tight and pushed out one word.
“Dance,” she said.
Jaguar laughed. She stretched her lithe body in a line toward the sky and felt the pleasure of her own muscles rippling in the warming of the sun. She swayed in the dappled green shadows of the forest, flesh ambient with light, her motion the motion of trees in the wind, birds that landed in their branches. She caressed the curves of her own body, caressed the curves of the air that held it. Then she reached over and grasped Terez by the hips, moving them in rhythm with hers.
Terez pulled back at first, then ceased struggling and moved into the cadence of her body’s song as she pressed closer to Jaguar.
For too many years Terez lived somebody else’s life, as if she was just visiting her own skin. But under her compliance Jaguar felt the burden of her desire, the heaviness of longing and the bitterness of fear sizzling within it. It was the burden of the moon as its face moved across the face of the earth. An oceanic shifting of waters and the subtle pulsing of the heart’s rhythm toward its own center. She was always trying to get back to herself, as fast as she tried to run away. Jaguar grasped her by the hair, lifted her face and ran a finger across the thirsty lips.
“This,” she whispered into the weightless light of her hair. “You want this.”
Terez groaned and moved more deeply into the dance, into the body that rocked hers toward knowing.
Then, a slight motion in the shadows of the trees caught Jaguar’s attention. She peered over Terez’s shoulder and saw Fiore standing behind a tree, watching them. Her eyes did not disapprove or approve. They just absorbed. When she saw Jaguar see her, she held her gaze for a brief moment, then turned her attention to Terez. As Terez bent her mouth to Jaguar’s neck and ran a tongue across her skin, Fiore stepped out of darkness and moved closer.
“Yes,” Jaguar whispered, “And yes again.”
She pulled Terez’ hands away from her. Terez grappled to retain her hold, but Jaguar jerked her wrists and pushed her back. She moved her hands toward her own belly and pressed them down into the soft flesh.
“This,” she said. “You want this. The erotic source of power. But you won’t find it in me. What you want is in you.”
Terez peered down at her own belly, saw her own hand pressed on top of it, Jaguar’s hand holding her fingers against the flesh.
“See who you are,” Jaguar said. “Be what you see.”
Terez began to tremble lightly, ripples of energy moving through her skin.
“Dance,” Jaguar whispered.
Terez swayed and moaned and held herself close. Jaguar moved back toward the trees as Fiore moved to Terez and put a hand on her shoulder. Terez opened her eyes wide and stopped swaying. Fiore spread her hands and ran them down Terez’ smooth white back, cupped her small hips and danced. Jaguar nodded, and silently faded back into the trees.
Day swallowed the white eye of the moon that led them here, and they continued in their dance.
* * * *
When afternoon transformed into dusty evening, Jaguar returned to the clearing by the stream. She found Fiore and Terez laying on their backs, looking up toward the tops of the trees and to a sky that was quickly emptying itself of light.
“We’d better get back,” she said. Fiore stood and brushed herself off, then walked off into the trees, but Terez remained still.
Jaguar reached over and tapped her shoulder. “Terez,” she said, “look at me.”
When Terez’ wide sky eyes met Jaguar’s, they were clear and focused. Jaguar touched her forehead and felt the return of words, slowly, as if she was a child just learning to use language as a tool.
Good. That was good. That meant her plan was working, and she was on the right track.
Jaguar ran a hand down Terez’ face. “Are you still afraid?” she asked.
Terez frowned. It seemed to take her some time to remember how to respond to a question. After a while she shook her head slowly back and forth, as if the gesture was new to her.
Jaguar nodded. “That’s the gift the moon had for you. An authentic self. And now, you own it.”
Chapter 4
Alex’s workday often finished at odd hours, depending on the assignments under his supervision and his involvement with them. For the next few weeks, he knew, that involvement would be deep, and the hours would be long. He didn’t want this one to get too far out of his sight when it exploded. After reading Rachel’s research, he knew it was a matter of when, not if.
Brendan Farley’s history deepened Alex’s suspicions about his exposure to Artemis. He was an eco-terrorist with a long history of petty vandalism in service of his cause. He focused primarily on pesticides, and had done his share of lawn shredding, independently of any environmental group. Whenever he was charged he claimed self-defense. Pesticides poisoned him and his mother, he said. He had every right to defend himself.
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