"Would you stop?" I asked.
"No. I can't."
We laughed together, and rocked slowly, lips and fingers exploring in the dark.
"I see why the Church says it is a sacrament," Jamie said dreamily.
"This?" I said, startled. "Why?"
"Or at least holy," he said. "I feel like God Himself when I'm in you."
I laughed so hard he nearly came out. He stopped and gripped my shoulders to steady me.
"What's so funny?"
"It's hard to imagine God doing this."
Jamie resumed his movements. "Well, if God made man in His own image, I should imagine He's got a cock." He started to laugh as well, losing his rhythm again. "Though ye dinna remind me much of the Blessed Virgin, Sassenach."
We shook in each other's arms, laughing until we came uncoupled and rolled apart.
Recovering, Jamie slapped my hip. "Get on your knees, Sassenach."
"Why?"
"If you'll not let me be spiritual about it, you'll have to put up wi' my baser nature. I'm going to be a beast." He bit my neck. "Do ye want me to be a horse, a bear, or a dog?"
"A hedgehog."
"A hedgehog? And just how does a hedgehog make love?" he demanded.
No, I thought. I won't. I will not. But I did. "Very carefully," I replied, giggling helplessly. So now we know just how old that one is, I thought.
Jamie collapsed in a ball, wheezing with laughter. At last he rolled over and got to his knees, groping for the flint box on the table. He glowed like red amber against the room's darkness as the wick caught and the light swelled behind him.
He flopped back on the foot of the bed, grinning down at me, where I still shook on the pillow with spasms of giggles. He rubbed the back of his hand across his face and assumed a mock-stern expression.
"All right, woman. I see the time has come when I shall have to exert my authority as your husband."
"Oh, you will?"
"Aye." He dived forward, grabbing my thighs and spreading them. I squeaked and tried to wriggle upward.
"No, don't do that!"
"Why not?" He lay full-length between my legs, squinting up at me. He kept a firm hold on my thighs, preventing my struggles to close them.
"Tell me, Sassenach. Why don't ye want me to do that?" He rubbed his cheek against the inside of one thigh, ferocious young beard rasping the tender skin. "Be honest. Why not?" He rasped the other side, making me kick and squirm wildly to get away, to no avail.
I turned my face into the pillow, which felt cool against my flushed cheek. "Well, if you must know," I muttered, "I don't think—well, I'm afraid that it doesn't—I mean, the smell…" My voice faded off into an embarrassed silence. There was a sudden movement between my legs, as Jamie heaved himself up. He put his arms around my hips, laid his cheek on my thigh, and laughed until the tears ran down his cheeks.
"Jesus God, Sassenach,"he said at last, snorting with mirth, "don't ye know what's the first thing you do when you're getting acquainted with a new horse?"
"No," I said, completely baffled.
He raised one arm, displaying a soft tuft of cinnamon-colored hair. "You rub your oxter over the beast's nose a few times, to give him your scent and get him accustomed to you, so he won't be nervous of ye." He raised himself on his elbows, peering up over the slope of belly and breast.
"That's what you should have done wi' me, Sassenach. You should ha' rubbed my face between your legs first thing. Then I wouldn't have been skittish."
"Skittish!"
He lowered his face and rubbed it deliberately back and forth, snorting and blowing in imitation of a nuzzling horse. I writhed and kicked him in the ribs, with exactly as much effect as kicking a brick wall. Finally he pressed my thighs flat again and looked up.
"Now," he said, in a tone that brooked no opposition, "lie still."
I felt exposed, invaded, helpless—and as though I were about to disintegrate. Jamie's breath was alternately warm and cool on my skin.
"Please," I said, not knowing whether I meant "please stop" or "please go on." It didn't matter; he didn't mean to stop.
Consciousness fragmented into a number of small separate sensations: the roughness of the linen pillow, nubbled with embroidered flowers; the oily reek of the lamp, mingled with the fainter scent of roast beef and ale and the still fainter wisps of freshness from the wilting flowers in the glass; the cool timber of the wall against my left foot, the firm hands on my hips. The sensations swirled and coalesced behind my closed eyelids into a glowing sun that swelled and shrank and finally exploded with a soundless pop that left me in a warm and pulsing darkness.