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smackenzie"What do you mean he told you I'd say that?"
"I mentioned this to him first, just to get his opinion. He knows you better than anyone else. He said you'd need to be convinced, but he also thought you'd make a fine father for my baby." She pulls her hair back off her neck and flaps the resultant tail behind her to make the faintest of breezes. "I think you will too."
"Why did you talk to him at all? Isn't this, isn't this between us?"
"Well, yes, but I thought he might be able to tell me the best way to approach you." She twists her mouth in what Brother Peire assumes is frustration. "He didn't." Then she grins. "So I decided the direct approach was best. You think this is really strange, don't you."
"No, I, I think it's wrong. I mean. I'm sorry, that's rude." Jacotte just shrugs, and it occurs to Brother Peire that the heretics are generally unoffended by the potentially offensive things he says. Is he really not as insulting as he thinks he is? Are they just more easygoing where he's concerned? Are they humoring him? He has a feeling that nothing he can say or do (or not do) will sway Jacotte – she wants a baby, and she's going to keep asking until she finds a man willing to father it. "It goes against everything I was taught and, and everything I believe."
"But you think men and women should lie together purely for procreation, don't you? My father was very obedient to the church. He had all its teachings pounded into mine and my siblings' heads. So I know where you come from, and we're not breaking that law – I do want to lie with you just to get a child from you. I want to enjoy it and I want you to enjoy it, but that's not the only reason. I'm not indiscriminate. I just want a baby. The whole community will help me raise it" - she gestures around her, taking in the cloister and all the cells and by extension the dormitories and every place her fellow heretics sleep and work and play - "I'd like it if you help, but you don't have to. I know that lots of good God-fearing men let their wives do all the child-rearing. My father would say he didn't want to interfere, but honestly, he just didn't want to be bothered. But I think you'd care if the baby was raised to be a good person."
"I don't know anything about babies," Brother Peire says helplessly. Is he losing this battle? Will it end with him in her bed, trying to get her with child? The prospect terrifies him.
Jacotte laughs. "You were a friar, of course you don't! Don't worry about that. I told you, the whole community will help." As if to prove her point, two little boys and a little girl run across the courtyard, laughing, followed by Verrine and another grown woman. All of them seem to be having fun. And Brother Peire has seen how people take care of the children during meals and during the services and in some of the free hours between. He couldn't say for certain who birthed or fathered which children, because their parents aren't the only adults who spend time with them and care for them.
"I don't want to tell you no, but I don't, I don't – I don't think I can."
She pats him on the cheek. She's still smiling. She really is pretty, he thinks, and she's unconcerned about his concerns but she's being very nice about it. "Go talk to Rainaut. Think about it. But let me know soon." She leans in and kisses him on the cheek. "I just think you're so cute, Peire. A part of me really wants you."
He can feel himself blushing, but she just grins at him again and walks off. He's not sure where Rainaut went, so he goes back to the cell, just in case, and Rainaut is lying on the bed, eyes closed. But he sits up as soon as Brother Peire shuts the door, indicating that he wasn't really asleep.
"So?" he asks. "Did you say yes?"
"She went to you first," Brother Peire says, accusingly. "You told her you thought it would be a good idea."
"I did. I do. You're a good man. A woman would be honored to bear your child."
"But I'm, I'm - " He can't exactly claim to be celibate. He can only say he's never been with a woman. "I don't think it's right."
"I know. I told her that. She said it was fine, she thought she could convince you anyway. You can't claim that you're still keeping all your vows, because you know you're not. And you'd lie with her just to get her with child, and isn't that what your church teaches? Procreation is the only point."
"But we're not married. She's not married to anyone. And I'm, I'm, I'm not attracted to her."
Rainaut chuckles. "There are a lot of women who end up married to men they don't fancy, and they lie with them anyway out of a sense of duty. They're miserable and their coupling is unsatisfying and even painful. That wife gets nothing good from her relationship with her husband, unless they manage to produce a child who she can love. Jacotte is asking you to help her make a baby that she wants and will love and care for, at a time she's ready to have it. She chose you of her own free will. A freely made child gets a much better start at life than one that was produced out of duty, not desire."
"But I don't desire."
"But she does. And I know you – you'll do your best to help her. You don't want to hurt her or her future child."
"I couldn't tell her no right away. It was, it seemed rude."
"There you go." Rainaut grins and spreads his hands, as if the argument is over.
Brother Peire sits on the bed next to him. "I don't know what to do. It's so strange to me, for women to just walk around asking any man they want to father their children. Jaufre and Felise are – are they even married?"
"Not officially, but they're as good as. They're very attached to each other. Not every mother here is single. Aude has a child."
"But I thought she was – she wasn't attracted to men."
"Most of the time she isn't. But you know she lay with me." Rainaut grins and Brother Peire makes an annoyed face, not wanting to be reminded. "She wasn't expecting to become pregnant, but she did. She didn't renounce the baby – we don't do that – but she left him to the care of the community and his father. She's much happier, he's much happier, his father is much happier. The boy is getting the exact same love and care as any other child here. He has adults to love him and teach him and hug him and care for him when he gets sick and be proud of him when he does something new. He still knows Aude is his mother, but he has a lot of mothers."
"Are you trying to make me dislike her?"
"I'm only trying to tell you that Jacotte's child will know she loves it and wanted it. It will know that you did a good thing for its mother."
"I don't know how to be a father."
"You don't have to. Most fathers don't, the first time. The child will have a lot of fathers too. We raise our children communally." Rainaut turns to face Brother Peire on the bed and takes his hand. "Why are you so resistant? It can't be your vow of celibacy. If you think about it, you'll realize she isn't planning to do anything unusual. This means she trusts you and thinks highly of you."
"She said she wants me."
"Of course she does." Rainaut grins. "I don't blame her."
"I don't know what to do with her. What do men and, and women do in bed?"
"The same things we do, but a little different. Do you want some lessons?"
Brother Peire must look appalled – he certainly feels so, at the prospect of Rainaut getting another woman to teach him what to do with Jacotte – because Rainaut laughs and kisses him soundly on the mouth and says "I meant do you want me to explain things to you! I would never ask someone to show you physically what to do. Well, unless you wanted me to."
"I don't."
"I didn't think you would." Rainaut sits back. He's still grinning a little. "You'd be doing a great thing. We believe children should be conceived in love and desire, or at least one of those things, and Jacotte clearly desires you. And you feel some affection for the community, don't you?"
"Yes, but not – I don't love her, or desire her."
"But you like her well enough."
"I guess so."
"We also believe – and this is hard for men to understand – but we believe that a woman's desire and pleasure is more important for conceiving a healthy, happy baby. She has to carry the baby, after all, and she has to suffer the agonies of birth, and her mental and physical state is more important for its growth inside her. So it's more important that Jacotte desires you, and takes some pleasure from you, than it is for you to desire her."
"That doesn't seem right."
"To you it doesn't. But it does to us. Of course the best thing is for the man and woman to desire each other equally, like Jaufre and Felise. But even Aude, at the time she lay with Sevin – her baby's father – she wanted him then, or she wouldn't have been with him. So the fact that you're not interested in Jacotte is almost meaningless, because she's interested in you."
"I wish you hadn't told me that. I know, you're trying to help. I like her well enough, and I can see that she's pretty and would make a pretty baby, but I, I don't know. It's not what I know. It goes against so many things I was taught."
"Peire, my brother, you and I go against so many things you were taught, and yet you're still here with me, and I'm going to be arrogant enough to suggest that I make you happy, in body and in mind."
"You do."
"And you return all that pleasure back to me. Willingly. Eagerly, even. And your God hasn't struck you down, and I'm grateful. You can lie with me, but not with Jacotte?"
"But I don't want to lie with her. I, I, I want you."
"Is it just that you don't want her?"
"And God tells me it's wrong."
"Your God told you it was wrong to lie with me, that it was wrong to even want to. And look at us now. That isn't a good reason, friar. To say it's wrong to get Jacotte with child at the same time you think it's just fine to offer me your body so I can bring you pleasure makes you a hypocrite."
"I'm not - "
"You are." Brother Peire glares at him. "Don't look at me like that. Think about it and you'll see I'm right."
Rainaut's voice is stern, as is his face, and Brother Peire is unaccountably annoyed with him. But he has a point, and Brother Peire can't deny Jacotte on the grounds that God and the Mother Church say it's wrong to lie with a woman you're not married to, a woman you never plan to marry.
He can't deny her on the grounds that he's uncomfortable with the physical act of impregnating a woman, either. He was uncomfortable the first time Rainaut kissed him, but that didn't stop them.
But it strikes him as wrong. Is it because he's so unused to the idea of a woman taking such control over her life? Is it because the man is charged by God to control that aspect of her life, because God gave men strength and height and power over women, and for a woman to turn around and run her own life like this goes against natural law?
Believing that doesn't make him a hypocrite, although he's seen how the heretics treat the women in their community, how women lead services and lead the community and make the rules and run the place, how women make their own choices as to what they want to do and with whom and when and how. The women here run their lives the way men do. They're all equal in everything.
It's natural for Jacotte to come to him – or to go to anyone – to ask him to father a child on her. But that doesn't mean it's natural for him to say yes.
"It's still, it's not right to me," he explains. "I know it's normal for her, or you, or, or anyone here. But it's not for me. You forget how long I was a friar and, and how hard it is for me to let some of it go."
And that is, paradoxically, one of the things Jacotte finds attractive about him, that he's still committed to his faith, even when it runs counter to hers.
"But you have let some of it go," Rainaut says, his voice gentler this time. He takes Brother Peire's hands in his. "It's a great gift she asked of you, to help her bring life into this world. I know you still believe all life is sacred and that childbirth is one of the ways to honor your God. You can say no to her. You can always say no."
"I don't want to have to."
"Then don't."
"But I can't say yes."
"Then I don't know what to tell you. Pray to your God, I don't know. Ask Him for guidance. Ask someone else for advice."
"I can't talk to anyone about this. It's, it's private."
"I've told you what I think. I think you should do it for her. I think the two of you would make a very pretty baby, and her desire for you would make a very healthy and happy one. Think of all the things you could teach it. Or not, if you don't want. I know it's a big thing – no one ever asked me to father her child – it's a lot to take in at once. You can think about it. But look very carefully at your reasons for saying no, because not all of them are good ones. Did she tell you when she needed to know?"
"Soon."
Rainaut pats Brother Peire's knee. "You can talk to me some more if you want, but I won't tell you anything different. But I can help you come to terms with whatever you decide."
Late that night, after midnight prayers, after Rainaut has fallen asleep, Brother Peire goes to the little chapel to ask God for guidance. He does it the next night as well, and for several nights after that. He tries to keep his heart open to whatever God might be trying to tell him, whether to accept Jacotte's offer or not. He doesn't mention it to Rainaut again, other than to say that yes, he's still thinking about it, and no, he doesn't know what God wants him to do.
A little over a week later he thinks he's made up his mind, and he will do it, because he doesn't want to be a hypocrite and he does want to thank the heretics, in whatever way he can, for taking him in and at least trying to make him feel welcome, and for not pressuring him to convert to every single one of their ways.
All the same, he feels a tiny part of his formerly holy self shrivel up and fall off him as he approaches Jacotte one afternoon and tells her that yes, he'll help her conceive a child. She shrieks with delight and throws her arms around him, making him stagger with her weight and enthusiasm.
"I sleep in the women's dormitory," she tells him. "There's no privacy. Tomorrow night, after dinner, meet me in the guest quarters and we'll use one of the rooms. I'll bring some wine to sanctify our coupling. Don't worry about it, Peire. I'll show you what to do. Every man has a first time some time." She grins at him, kisses his cheek, and goes back to work.
He tells Rainaut that night, and Rainaut kisses him as well and murmurs "You know some ways to please a person. You know how to kiss. You're a quick learner when you want to be. Everything will be fine."
Brother Peire isn't convinced, but the next night, after everyone has dispersed out of the refectory, he goes to the guest quarters, all of which are empty, and picks a room at random that seems to be comfortable enough and which has clean sheets on the bed. He sits on the mattress and offers up a quick prayer to God for strength and obedience to Jacotte's will, and he waits.
He doesn't have to wait long before Jacotte appears with a small pitcher and two cups. Her hair is pinned up and she's wearing a festive shirt with embroidery around the neckline and across the shoulders. She pours them each some wine, offers him a cup, and says "God's blessings upon you, my brother, and upon our coupling." She taps her cup against his and drinks.
"God's blessings upon you as well," he says, because that seems to be the correct thing to say, "and upon our, our, our coupling." He drinks the wine too fast and coughs. His eyes water. Jacotte laughs, puts her cup and the pitcher on a small table, and sits on the bed next to him.
"Thank you," she says, and kisses him.
Kissing a woman is a much different experience than kissing Rainaut. Her face and lips are softer, her mouth smaller, her cheek smoother when he lays his hand against it. But she is just as determined as Rainaut to lead the kiss, to push her tongue into Brother Peire's mouth, to take what she wants from him and to give back what she can.
He can't tell if she's a good kisser, because his experience is so limited, but he can tell that she knows what she's doing.
When they finally pull apart, Jacotte is grinning and Brother Peire is out of breath. She brushes her fingers across his face. "This was a good idea," she murmurs. "I think you'll enjoy it, once you relax. Do you want some more wine? I didn't bring much, but there's another cup or so left in the pitcher."
"Yes," he says, "please."
She gets up, refills his cup, and takes off her clothes while he's drinking. He splutters, taken aback by the casual way she gets naked in front of him, and she laughs. "We have until midnight. Am I going too fast for you?"
"I don't know," he admits. "I don't know what to do. I've never, I've never been with a woman."
"But you have been with someone, so you have an idea. It's ok, Peire, I know what I'm doing. You just have to trust me. Do you?"
Do I have a choice? he thinks, but all he says is "Yes", because he does.
"Good. We can go slow. We have time. We can even come back here after the service."
Rainaut said almost the same thing earlier, with the addition that he won't wait up and Brother Peire and Jacotte can take as much time as they need.
She takes the now-empty cup, puts it on the table, and sits back on the bed. "I'm going to kiss you," she says, "and I'm going to keep kissing you until one of us decides to do something else. Don't mind my hands." She cups the back of his head, pulls him close, and kisses him a second time.
He tries to lose himself in her mouth and her touch, but he can't stop comparing her to Rainaut, and he can't stop anticipating what she's going to do next, and how long it will be until he's fully naked and fully erect and fully inside her. His heart is racing with what he thinks might be anxiety and nervousness, far more than desire. But he keeps kissing her, and he touches her face and rests his other hand on her bare waist, and he waits for her to give him more direction.
Eventually she pulls away to tug at his shirt and murmur “Take this off,” so he sits back a little and pulls it over his head and drops it on the floor. She presses her palms to his chest and then pushes him down onto the bed.
"On your back, Peire," she murmurs, smiling, stretching out next to him to kiss his mouth and touch his skin and trail her hand down his chest to the waistband of his breeches. Her hand skims over the fabric to his groin, cupping him through the pants. His breath catches and she chuckles. "This is nothing," she says. "Just wait. It gets better." She squeezes him and he chokes on air, and she laughs softly into his mouth. "Relax. Let me do this. I promise I'll be gentle."
And she is gentle, if insistent, one hand fondling him through his breeches and the other lightly cupping his cheek. He holds her face with both hands, not knowing where else to put them, and when she pulls away to catch her breath, she lets go of him to unpin her hair and shake it out. It falls over her shoulders and into her face and Brother Peire is struck for the first time by an understanding of how men might find her desirable. He still doesn't feel it in his heart, but he can see it from another man's eyes.
She smiles at him, twists her hair around her hand, and lets it fall down her back. "Do you want me yet?" she asks, teasing, and when he doesn't answer, because he can't, she laughs and kisses his nose and says it doesn't matter, he's here of his own volition, and she likes kissing him, and if he ever wants her to stop, he should tell her and she will.
"I want to conceive a child out of desire and affection,” she says. “I don't want you to feel forced."
"I don't," he says.
"Good." She ducks her head to kiss him again.
He doesn't know how long they lie like that, mouths together and her hand kneading him through his breeches, but he does know that he's growing hard and breathless and he can feel some kind of desire growing in him. It isn't desire for her, the way he feels it for Rainaut, but it's a desire for something, for her touch or her heat or even just for his own release. He moans involuntarily and can hear Jacotte's answering breathless laugh.
She laughs a lot, he's noticing. She finds a lot of things amusing. She's cheerful. She's happy. And right now she's aroused.
"I'm ready for you," she murmurs against his mouth. "I'm really, really ready. I think you're ready for me too." She sits up to pull on his breeches, and he takes the hint and lifts his hips so she can pull them off. He is indeed hard, his shaft lifting from his thighs as Jacotte releases it from its fabric prison. "Oh, I'm going to like you," she says. She leans down to drop another kiss on his lips, and then she kneels astride his hips, reaches down to wrap her fingers around his stiff cock, and slowly sinks down onto him.
He has a sudden flash of memory, lying on his back in the grass on Midsummer, Rainaut straddling him, riding him, making him moan with abandon and all-consuming, drunken pleasure. Jacotte is lighter across his hips, and her thighs aren't nearly as strong, but her body is hot and tight and wet and he moans just as he did for Rainaut, unable to stop himself. She looks down at him, smiling almost distractedly, and then she starts to move.
This is an entirely different experience from any of his times with Rainaut. Jacotte's body is different – not just lighter and smaller but she sits astride him in a slightly different position, and he's angled inside her in a slightly different way, and the noises she makes as she rises and falls are softer than either his or Rainaut's. And yet Brother Peire is hard inside her, and his breathing is shallow and heavy and he can feel his pleasure slowly building despite the strangeness of the situation and his lack of active desire.
Jacotte leans down, pushes his hair back with both hands, and says, a little breathlessly, that he's wonderful, he's doing just fine.
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"I mentioned this to him first, just to get his opinion. He knows you better than anyone else. He said you'd need to be convinced, but he also thought you'd make a fine father for my baby." She pulls her hair back off her neck and flaps the resultant tail behind her to make the faintest of breezes. "I think you will too."
"Why did you talk to him at all? Isn't this, isn't this between us?"
"Well, yes, but I thought he might be able to tell me the best way to approach you." She twists her mouth in what Brother Peire assumes is frustration. "He didn't." Then she grins. "So I decided the direct approach was best. You think this is really strange, don't you."
"No, I, I think it's wrong. I mean. I'm sorry, that's rude." Jacotte just shrugs, and it occurs to Brother Peire that the heretics are generally unoffended by the potentially offensive things he says. Is he really not as insulting as he thinks he is? Are they just more easygoing where he's concerned? Are they humoring him? He has a feeling that nothing he can say or do (or not do) will sway Jacotte – she wants a baby, and she's going to keep asking until she finds a man willing to father it. "It goes against everything I was taught and, and everything I believe."
"But you think men and women should lie together purely for procreation, don't you? My father was very obedient to the church. He had all its teachings pounded into mine and my siblings' heads. So I know where you come from, and we're not breaking that law – I do want to lie with you just to get a child from you. I want to enjoy it and I want you to enjoy it, but that's not the only reason. I'm not indiscriminate. I just want a baby. The whole community will help me raise it" - she gestures around her, taking in the cloister and all the cells and by extension the dormitories and every place her fellow heretics sleep and work and play - "I'd like it if you help, but you don't have to. I know that lots of good God-fearing men let their wives do all the child-rearing. My father would say he didn't want to interfere, but honestly, he just didn't want to be bothered. But I think you'd care if the baby was raised to be a good person."
"I don't know anything about babies," Brother Peire says helplessly. Is he losing this battle? Will it end with him in her bed, trying to get her with child? The prospect terrifies him.
Jacotte laughs. "You were a friar, of course you don't! Don't worry about that. I told you, the whole community will help." As if to prove her point, two little boys and a little girl run across the courtyard, laughing, followed by Verrine and another grown woman. All of them seem to be having fun. And Brother Peire has seen how people take care of the children during meals and during the services and in some of the free hours between. He couldn't say for certain who birthed or fathered which children, because their parents aren't the only adults who spend time with them and care for them.
"I don't want to tell you no, but I don't, I don't – I don't think I can."
She pats him on the cheek. She's still smiling. She really is pretty, he thinks, and she's unconcerned about his concerns but she's being very nice about it. "Go talk to Rainaut. Think about it. But let me know soon." She leans in and kisses him on the cheek. "I just think you're so cute, Peire. A part of me really wants you."
He can feel himself blushing, but she just grins at him again and walks off. He's not sure where Rainaut went, so he goes back to the cell, just in case, and Rainaut is lying on the bed, eyes closed. But he sits up as soon as Brother Peire shuts the door, indicating that he wasn't really asleep.
"So?" he asks. "Did you say yes?"
"She went to you first," Brother Peire says, accusingly. "You told her you thought it would be a good idea."
"I did. I do. You're a good man. A woman would be honored to bear your child."
"But I'm, I'm - " He can't exactly claim to be celibate. He can only say he's never been with a woman. "I don't think it's right."
"I know. I told her that. She said it was fine, she thought she could convince you anyway. You can't claim that you're still keeping all your vows, because you know you're not. And you'd lie with her just to get her with child, and isn't that what your church teaches? Procreation is the only point."
"But we're not married. She's not married to anyone. And I'm, I'm, I'm not attracted to her."
Rainaut chuckles. "There are a lot of women who end up married to men they don't fancy, and they lie with them anyway out of a sense of duty. They're miserable and their coupling is unsatisfying and even painful. That wife gets nothing good from her relationship with her husband, unless they manage to produce a child who she can love. Jacotte is asking you to help her make a baby that she wants and will love and care for, at a time she's ready to have it. She chose you of her own free will. A freely made child gets a much better start at life than one that was produced out of duty, not desire."
"But I don't desire."
"But she does. And I know you – you'll do your best to help her. You don't want to hurt her or her future child."
"I couldn't tell her no right away. It was, it seemed rude."
"There you go." Rainaut grins and spreads his hands, as if the argument is over.
Brother Peire sits on the bed next to him. "I don't know what to do. It's so strange to me, for women to just walk around asking any man they want to father their children. Jaufre and Felise are – are they even married?"
"Not officially, but they're as good as. They're very attached to each other. Not every mother here is single. Aude has a child."
"But I thought she was – she wasn't attracted to men."
"Most of the time she isn't. But you know she lay with me." Rainaut grins and Brother Peire makes an annoyed face, not wanting to be reminded. "She wasn't expecting to become pregnant, but she did. She didn't renounce the baby – we don't do that – but she left him to the care of the community and his father. She's much happier, he's much happier, his father is much happier. The boy is getting the exact same love and care as any other child here. He has adults to love him and teach him and hug him and care for him when he gets sick and be proud of him when he does something new. He still knows Aude is his mother, but he has a lot of mothers."
"Are you trying to make me dislike her?"
"I'm only trying to tell you that Jacotte's child will know she loves it and wanted it. It will know that you did a good thing for its mother."
"I don't know how to be a father."
"You don't have to. Most fathers don't, the first time. The child will have a lot of fathers too. We raise our children communally." Rainaut turns to face Brother Peire on the bed and takes his hand. "Why are you so resistant? It can't be your vow of celibacy. If you think about it, you'll realize she isn't planning to do anything unusual. This means she trusts you and thinks highly of you."
"She said she wants me."
"Of course she does." Rainaut grins. "I don't blame her."
"I don't know what to do with her. What do men and, and women do in bed?"
"The same things we do, but a little different. Do you want some lessons?"
Brother Peire must look appalled – he certainly feels so, at the prospect of Rainaut getting another woman to teach him what to do with Jacotte – because Rainaut laughs and kisses him soundly on the mouth and says "I meant do you want me to explain things to you! I would never ask someone to show you physically what to do. Well, unless you wanted me to."
"I don't."
"I didn't think you would." Rainaut sits back. He's still grinning a little. "You'd be doing a great thing. We believe children should be conceived in love and desire, or at least one of those things, and Jacotte clearly desires you. And you feel some affection for the community, don't you?"
"Yes, but not – I don't love her, or desire her."
"But you like her well enough."
"I guess so."
"We also believe – and this is hard for men to understand – but we believe that a woman's desire and pleasure is more important for conceiving a healthy, happy baby. She has to carry the baby, after all, and she has to suffer the agonies of birth, and her mental and physical state is more important for its growth inside her. So it's more important that Jacotte desires you, and takes some pleasure from you, than it is for you to desire her."
"That doesn't seem right."
"To you it doesn't. But it does to us. Of course the best thing is for the man and woman to desire each other equally, like Jaufre and Felise. But even Aude, at the time she lay with Sevin – her baby's father – she wanted him then, or she wouldn't have been with him. So the fact that you're not interested in Jacotte is almost meaningless, because she's interested in you."
"I wish you hadn't told me that. I know, you're trying to help. I like her well enough, and I can see that she's pretty and would make a pretty baby, but I, I don't know. It's not what I know. It goes against so many things I was taught."
"Peire, my brother, you and I go against so many things you were taught, and yet you're still here with me, and I'm going to be arrogant enough to suggest that I make you happy, in body and in mind."
"You do."
"And you return all that pleasure back to me. Willingly. Eagerly, even. And your God hasn't struck you down, and I'm grateful. You can lie with me, but not with Jacotte?"
"But I don't want to lie with her. I, I, I want you."
"Is it just that you don't want her?"
"And God tells me it's wrong."
"Your God told you it was wrong to lie with me, that it was wrong to even want to. And look at us now. That isn't a good reason, friar. To say it's wrong to get Jacotte with child at the same time you think it's just fine to offer me your body so I can bring you pleasure makes you a hypocrite."
"I'm not - "
"You are." Brother Peire glares at him. "Don't look at me like that. Think about it and you'll see I'm right."
Rainaut's voice is stern, as is his face, and Brother Peire is unaccountably annoyed with him. But he has a point, and Brother Peire can't deny Jacotte on the grounds that God and the Mother Church say it's wrong to lie with a woman you're not married to, a woman you never plan to marry.
He can't deny her on the grounds that he's uncomfortable with the physical act of impregnating a woman, either. He was uncomfortable the first time Rainaut kissed him, but that didn't stop them.
But it strikes him as wrong. Is it because he's so unused to the idea of a woman taking such control over her life? Is it because the man is charged by God to control that aspect of her life, because God gave men strength and height and power over women, and for a woman to turn around and run her own life like this goes against natural law?
Believing that doesn't make him a hypocrite, although he's seen how the heretics treat the women in their community, how women lead services and lead the community and make the rules and run the place, how women make their own choices as to what they want to do and with whom and when and how. The women here run their lives the way men do. They're all equal in everything.
It's natural for Jacotte to come to him – or to go to anyone – to ask him to father a child on her. But that doesn't mean it's natural for him to say yes.
"It's still, it's not right to me," he explains. "I know it's normal for her, or you, or, or anyone here. But it's not for me. You forget how long I was a friar and, and how hard it is for me to let some of it go."
And that is, paradoxically, one of the things Jacotte finds attractive about him, that he's still committed to his faith, even when it runs counter to hers.
"But you have let some of it go," Rainaut says, his voice gentler this time. He takes Brother Peire's hands in his. "It's a great gift she asked of you, to help her bring life into this world. I know you still believe all life is sacred and that childbirth is one of the ways to honor your God. You can say no to her. You can always say no."
"I don't want to have to."
"Then don't."
"But I can't say yes."
"Then I don't know what to tell you. Pray to your God, I don't know. Ask Him for guidance. Ask someone else for advice."
"I can't talk to anyone about this. It's, it's private."
"I've told you what I think. I think you should do it for her. I think the two of you would make a very pretty baby, and her desire for you would make a very healthy and happy one. Think of all the things you could teach it. Or not, if you don't want. I know it's a big thing – no one ever asked me to father her child – it's a lot to take in at once. You can think about it. But look very carefully at your reasons for saying no, because not all of them are good ones. Did she tell you when she needed to know?"
"Soon."
Rainaut pats Brother Peire's knee. "You can talk to me some more if you want, but I won't tell you anything different. But I can help you come to terms with whatever you decide."
Late that night, after midnight prayers, after Rainaut has fallen asleep, Brother Peire goes to the little chapel to ask God for guidance. He does it the next night as well, and for several nights after that. He tries to keep his heart open to whatever God might be trying to tell him, whether to accept Jacotte's offer or not. He doesn't mention it to Rainaut again, other than to say that yes, he's still thinking about it, and no, he doesn't know what God wants him to do.
A little over a week later he thinks he's made up his mind, and he will do it, because he doesn't want to be a hypocrite and he does want to thank the heretics, in whatever way he can, for taking him in and at least trying to make him feel welcome, and for not pressuring him to convert to every single one of their ways.
All the same, he feels a tiny part of his formerly holy self shrivel up and fall off him as he approaches Jacotte one afternoon and tells her that yes, he'll help her conceive a child. She shrieks with delight and throws her arms around him, making him stagger with her weight and enthusiasm.
"I sleep in the women's dormitory," she tells him. "There's no privacy. Tomorrow night, after dinner, meet me in the guest quarters and we'll use one of the rooms. I'll bring some wine to sanctify our coupling. Don't worry about it, Peire. I'll show you what to do. Every man has a first time some time." She grins at him, kisses his cheek, and goes back to work.
He tells Rainaut that night, and Rainaut kisses him as well and murmurs "You know some ways to please a person. You know how to kiss. You're a quick learner when you want to be. Everything will be fine."
Brother Peire isn't convinced, but the next night, after everyone has dispersed out of the refectory, he goes to the guest quarters, all of which are empty, and picks a room at random that seems to be comfortable enough and which has clean sheets on the bed. He sits on the mattress and offers up a quick prayer to God for strength and obedience to Jacotte's will, and he waits.
He doesn't have to wait long before Jacotte appears with a small pitcher and two cups. Her hair is pinned up and she's wearing a festive shirt with embroidery around the neckline and across the shoulders. She pours them each some wine, offers him a cup, and says "God's blessings upon you, my brother, and upon our coupling." She taps her cup against his and drinks.
"God's blessings upon you as well," he says, because that seems to be the correct thing to say, "and upon our, our, our coupling." He drinks the wine too fast and coughs. His eyes water. Jacotte laughs, puts her cup and the pitcher on a small table, and sits on the bed next to him.
"Thank you," she says, and kisses him.
Kissing a woman is a much different experience than kissing Rainaut. Her face and lips are softer, her mouth smaller, her cheek smoother when he lays his hand against it. But she is just as determined as Rainaut to lead the kiss, to push her tongue into Brother Peire's mouth, to take what she wants from him and to give back what she can.
He can't tell if she's a good kisser, because his experience is so limited, but he can tell that she knows what she's doing.
When they finally pull apart, Jacotte is grinning and Brother Peire is out of breath. She brushes her fingers across his face. "This was a good idea," she murmurs. "I think you'll enjoy it, once you relax. Do you want some more wine? I didn't bring much, but there's another cup or so left in the pitcher."
"Yes," he says, "please."
She gets up, refills his cup, and takes off her clothes while he's drinking. He splutters, taken aback by the casual way she gets naked in front of him, and she laughs. "We have until midnight. Am I going too fast for you?"
"I don't know," he admits. "I don't know what to do. I've never, I've never been with a woman."
"But you have been with someone, so you have an idea. It's ok, Peire, I know what I'm doing. You just have to trust me. Do you?"
Do I have a choice? he thinks, but all he says is "Yes", because he does.
"Good. We can go slow. We have time. We can even come back here after the service."
Rainaut said almost the same thing earlier, with the addition that he won't wait up and Brother Peire and Jacotte can take as much time as they need.
She takes the now-empty cup, puts it on the table, and sits back on the bed. "I'm going to kiss you," she says, "and I'm going to keep kissing you until one of us decides to do something else. Don't mind my hands." She cups the back of his head, pulls him close, and kisses him a second time.
He tries to lose himself in her mouth and her touch, but he can't stop comparing her to Rainaut, and he can't stop anticipating what she's going to do next, and how long it will be until he's fully naked and fully erect and fully inside her. His heart is racing with what he thinks might be anxiety and nervousness, far more than desire. But he keeps kissing her, and he touches her face and rests his other hand on her bare waist, and he waits for her to give him more direction.
Eventually she pulls away to tug at his shirt and murmur “Take this off,” so he sits back a little and pulls it over his head and drops it on the floor. She presses her palms to his chest and then pushes him down onto the bed.
"On your back, Peire," she murmurs, smiling, stretching out next to him to kiss his mouth and touch his skin and trail her hand down his chest to the waistband of his breeches. Her hand skims over the fabric to his groin, cupping him through the pants. His breath catches and she chuckles. "This is nothing," she says. "Just wait. It gets better." She squeezes him and he chokes on air, and she laughs softly into his mouth. "Relax. Let me do this. I promise I'll be gentle."
And she is gentle, if insistent, one hand fondling him through his breeches and the other lightly cupping his cheek. He holds her face with both hands, not knowing where else to put them, and when she pulls away to catch her breath, she lets go of him to unpin her hair and shake it out. It falls over her shoulders and into her face and Brother Peire is struck for the first time by an understanding of how men might find her desirable. He still doesn't feel it in his heart, but he can see it from another man's eyes.
She smiles at him, twists her hair around her hand, and lets it fall down her back. "Do you want me yet?" she asks, teasing, and when he doesn't answer, because he can't, she laughs and kisses his nose and says it doesn't matter, he's here of his own volition, and she likes kissing him, and if he ever wants her to stop, he should tell her and she will.
"I want to conceive a child out of desire and affection,” she says. “I don't want you to feel forced."
"I don't," he says.
"Good." She ducks her head to kiss him again.
He doesn't know how long they lie like that, mouths together and her hand kneading him through his breeches, but he does know that he's growing hard and breathless and he can feel some kind of desire growing in him. It isn't desire for her, the way he feels it for Rainaut, but it's a desire for something, for her touch or her heat or even just for his own release. He moans involuntarily and can hear Jacotte's answering breathless laugh.
She laughs a lot, he's noticing. She finds a lot of things amusing. She's cheerful. She's happy. And right now she's aroused.
"I'm ready for you," she murmurs against his mouth. "I'm really, really ready. I think you're ready for me too." She sits up to pull on his breeches, and he takes the hint and lifts his hips so she can pull them off. He is indeed hard, his shaft lifting from his thighs as Jacotte releases it from its fabric prison. "Oh, I'm going to like you," she says. She leans down to drop another kiss on his lips, and then she kneels astride his hips, reaches down to wrap her fingers around his stiff cock, and slowly sinks down onto him.
He has a sudden flash of memory, lying on his back in the grass on Midsummer, Rainaut straddling him, riding him, making him moan with abandon and all-consuming, drunken pleasure. Jacotte is lighter across his hips, and her thighs aren't nearly as strong, but her body is hot and tight and wet and he moans just as he did for Rainaut, unable to stop himself. She looks down at him, smiling almost distractedly, and then she starts to move.
This is an entirely different experience from any of his times with Rainaut. Jacotte's body is different – not just lighter and smaller but she sits astride him in a slightly different position, and he's angled inside her in a slightly different way, and the noises she makes as she rises and falls are softer than either his or Rainaut's. And yet Brother Peire is hard inside her, and his breathing is shallow and heavy and he can feel his pleasure slowly building despite the strangeness of the situation and his lack of active desire.
Jacotte leans down, pushes his hair back with both hands, and says, a little breathlessly, that he's wonderful, he's doing just fine.
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