Page 71 of The Maiden and Her Monster

Malka fisted her hands in Nimrah’s black doublet. It was warm against her skin. They kissed until it was not enough; until neither of them could bare so many layers of fabric between them.

With a hungry groan, Nimrah swiped her hand across the desk, sending the stationery that had once covered it clattering to the floor. She lifted Malka by her hips and pressed her onto the wood.

Above her, Nimrah’s face was cast in sharp blades of light and pools of shadow. The contrast of them, brutal and severe, accentuated the carved stone which gave shape to her nose, chin, and cheekbone. In that moment— and in all moments hence—it no longer mattered if she were woman or monster.

Malka was desirous for both.

Desperate to bring her closer, Malka wrapped her legs around Nimrah’s hips. But Nimrah caught herself with her hands and put space between them.

“You don’t have to do this… with me. For me, ” Nimrah said hesitantly.

Malka stared at the rawness of her lips, the darkness of the green veins which strained against her neck. She pressed her thumb to Nimrah’s plump bottom lip.

“I know,” she said. “But I want to, Nimrah. I think I’ve wanted to for some time.”

“Since the alleyway?”

Malka considered. “Maybe before that.”

“Since the confessional?”

“I think I have always wanted you. But this is different. Now, I want you the way the Shabhe King wanted his wife, even when he learned of her deceit.”

Nimrah smiled devilishly, for it was the same thing she had said to Malka outside of Chaia’s house, when she conjured black perphona from the ground.

When they laid themselves bare to each other, clothing strewn on the ground, the room had grown dim.

The candles burned low, more wax melted into puddles than left burning.

But it was enough. Enough for Nimrah to trace her stone hand down Malka’s chest and between her legs, where she circled her finger around Malka’s most sensitive part, making her hips buck.

Once she was slick and wanting, Nimrah pressed inside.

Malka could not help the sound that escaped her, fervent and breathy, as Nimrah’s finger curled.

“Tell me then, Shabhe Queen,” Nimrah whispered, her mouth dangerously close to Malka’s thigh. “What do you wish from your king?”

It is okay to want someone, Chaia had said to her. Malka hadn’t believed her then. Perhaps she did now.

Malka wanted her inscrutable golem; her impossible companion with eyes darker than any night, with skin made from the wretched earth. In this moment, Malka seized what she wanted. She curled her fingers in Nimrah’s hair and guided her to the ache between her legs.

The feeling of Nimrah’s mouth sent her reeling.

It was a kind of magic of its own, the way Malka’s words lost to breath as the pressure built inside her.

Her moans a prayer, a desperation. Nimrah’s sighs against her skin.

The cool stone of her chin hard against her softness.

The two of them inexorably linked by something greater than them both, yet wholly intimate.

When Malka tipped over the edge, Nimrah’s name fell from her lips, and magic sparked beneath her palms.

They lay together in Nimrah’s small cot, covers tangled between their legs. Malka traced her finger over the stone curve of Nimrah’s chin. Nimrah clutched her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm.

Malka smiled, then rolled onto her back, staring at the wooden beams which crisscrossed the curved attic ceiling.

“What are you thinking?” Nimrah asked.

“Do you remember when I told the story of Abayda the Mystic in the woods?” When Nimrah nodded, Malka continued. “All Yosef wanted was a wife, but he still betrayed Yohev for power, when love was at the cusp of his grasp.”

A brief silence passed between them, Nimrah considering. “That’s one way to interpret the story.”

Malka propped herself up on her elbow. Nimrah’s breath was hot on her cheek, and she pressed her lips into the curve of Nimrah’s neck. “Your interpretation was different. What was it you said, that Abayda chose to take knowledge as his lover instead?”

“That is the tale the Maharal told me. I see why he viewed it that way, knowing how he let his knowledge cloud his judgment.”

“I’m learning that stories are not merely stories at all. They are justifications. Ones we tell over and over to understand the decisions we make and those we will make.”

Nimrah ran a hand through Malka’s curls. “Let us tell our own story.”

“And what would this story be about?”

“The maiden and her monster,” Nimrah declared. “Whose story began in a flesh-eating forest and ended between the sheets of my bed.”

“That does not sound like the type of story we should tell,” Malka teased.

“We will keep it just for us.” Nimrah grasped Malka’s hip and drew her closer. “A story left to time.”

Malka hummed. What was a myth to her so many weeks ago was now more real than anything she had ever known.

The stories of Tzvidi and Yosef painted in a new light now that she herself had commanded the holy magic.

Stories she once thought meant to deter her from holding holy magic between her fingers.

But perhaps stories did not always have one meaning. Like Nimrah and the Maharal.

Malka wondered what other myths were real. What other stories were given for others to hold close when the world pressed in around them.

But for now, Malka would hold close to her own story, and the myths that were real to her.

“Yes,” Malka agreed. “A story left to time.”