Her face was broken. She hadn't suffered much for it, a little abuse at the hands of the other women, a great deal of teasing in her early years, but now, as a woman, the tribe simply ignored her. She might have liked it, even enjoyed the freedom her deformity allowed, had it not been for Turan.
She licked her top lip on reflex. The split below her nose set her apart, but it also made her invisible, and ever since Turan had arrived to overthrow Matok and take leadership of their clan, she'd found her quiet freedom less than a benefit. She wanted him, and he'd never once noticed that a wispy woman with a cat's face wandered in the background of the cave's shadows.
She slid along the wall opposite the huge, central fire and listened. Turan's sleeping furs mounded nearest the hearth, and as far as she could tell, he slept. But around her, the sounds of night play filled the cave. The tribe's collective grunts and moaning rose to the stone spires overhead and bounced back down, louder, and more hollow. She'd never cared much about them before.
Since Turan's takeover, however, she'd grown very interested.
She pressed her back against the stone and watched Sumi give pleasure to one of the hunters. The woman's perfect lips pressed around the man's shaft. Her head bobbed forward and back, making small slurping noises while the hunter groaned and presser his hands into her dark hair.
The woman pushed back, and she saw her tongue swirl over the pink tip of the hunter's member. A tiny flare of heat woke between her legs. This was not entirely new. Still, she'd never paid it much attention before.
She slunk further around the wall. No one had claimed Sumi yet. Though the hunter punctuated his groaning with promises along that line. He'd said the same things to Alina the night before.
Further on, she heard Mynas whimpering. The shadow of a larger stalagmite fell across the couple's sleeping corner, and she tucked herself in behind it and listened to Old Bantin's grunting. His breath's hissed in a rhythm in time to Mynas' squeaking. The old hunter had claimed Mynas two moons ago, and now, they only paired together. Mynas was free of pleasuring anyone else, and Old Bantin enjoyed her more fully than he could an unclaimed woman of the clan.
Now they sang their lovemaking to the shadows, and it built in speed and fury. She had to look. The warmth between her legs had spread down to her toes and up into her pouting nipples. Her sex pulsed softly.
She leaned out around the stone spire and watched.
Bantin stood on his knees, his loin cloth pulled aside, and a thick, purple member thrusting away at Mynas' bare bottom. Her cheeks glowed pale white, even in the dim cave, and her back curled and stretched to offer him purchase. Each time the old man pushed, Mynas pushed back and let out her whimpering sex sounds.
Thump. Thump. Mynas' neck stretched and her eyes rolled up to the stone ceiling. Thump, grunt. Bantin sped up, banged against the woman's rump with even more fury.
Her own sex throbbed. She watched hungrily and reached one hand down, sliding it under her leather cloth and exploring her growing want.
The couple built up speed. Bantin's grunts swelled into a panting groan. She stroked herself and watched him grab Mynas' waist and pound away one last time before seizing, arching back and howling like a man possessed.
Her fingers swirled and stroked at her hairy mound. She felt pleasure, something she'd never thought to imagine for herself, and wriggled her hand deeper under her cover. Her lips pressed tight against the urge to make sounds. She rubbed harder and squirmed backwards against the unyielding rock.
As the sensation peaked, she heard a rustle from the hearth, her eyes snapped to the fire and its dance of light and shadow. Her orgasm broke outward, dragging the shivers in her sex out through her limbs, but her pleasure was dimmed by a shock of fear. The shadows, she was sure, hid her movements. Still, Turan's sleeping form had shifted, and their new leader rolled over toward the fire's heat.
Her heart pounded. She froze in the shadows for a hundred breaths. She watched, but no more movement came from the hearth. The night noises dimmed as couples finished their play and drifted back to their respective corners and bundles of fur. Still, she waited, pulse pounding, until the fire itself faltered and shifted to a low glow, before slinking back to her own nest.
*
She woke late the next morning. The fire crackled with new life, but the clan cave echoed each snap, empty but for her. The hunters would have left first, followed closely by the children and the other women who would spend the day on the plains gathering and playing the games she'd never once been a part of.
She stretched and shook out her long, ashy hair before crossing to the fire to warm the cold stone floor from her bones. She turned her back on the flames and let the heat tend to her spine. Her eyes drifted to Turan's furs, rumpled and empty, and she felt the urge to go to them, to curl into his indentation, to commit a major offense.
Before she could act on the desire, a shadow fell across the cave mouth. She swiveled towards the exit, expecting Sumi or some of the children looking for breakfast scraps. Her heart stuttered at the man standing in the gap, outlined against a gray sky and staring directly at her. Turan.
She dropped her eyes to the floor. Not before she caught sight of his broad, bare shoulders, the swept-back, dark hair, the stance that said, I own everything inside this space. She shivered and hunched lower, backing swiftly toward the nearest shadow.
"Stop." He didn't yell, but the command froze her in her tracks. He was clan leader, and his word was law. Still, her bones shook as the attention.
She heard his footfalls as he crossed the space, stepped down the rock ledge and into the cave's center. She watched his shadow stretch closer.
"Who are you?"
Too much. He spoke to her directly, as if she were a person and not a broken thing. She fought the urge to run, cowered only slightly, but her lips failed to form any answer at all.
"Who are you?" He repeated it, stepped around the fire until she could see the furs wrapping his thick legs in her peripheral. "You live in this cave. I've seen you, sulking alone around our edges. This is my clan, and yet, I do not know you."
"My mother," she'd spoken aloud so rarely that her voice crackled like the fire. "My mother never game me a name."
That would tell him enough. He would know then, that she was not whole, that her life was not worth his time. She shuffled her feet and took another step back.
"Stop." His hand came out, neither gently nor rough, and he took her by the shoulders. "Show me," he said.
