The dreamscape was familiar. She knew this place, though she could not remember when she had lived here. Pacific Northwest. Far enough north that there was snow, blushing in the rose-glow of dawn.
She watched the sun peek redly above the horizon. That was her name here, Rising Sun, and she whispered a blessing to her namesake. She walked into the forest, smelling the leaves, the damp cold earth under her moccasins, the odor of pine and cedar.
Cedar was what she sought. It was to her people what the bison was to the people of the plains, the giver of so many things. With the wood, they built their houses, carved canoes, carved the totems that stood outside the longhouse. With the bark, the soft inner strands, they wove baskets and mats and even clothing.
And there was something she needed, of Grandfather Cedar. She drew her knife from its sheath at her hip, and worked bark from the living tree. Careful not to injure the trees beyond repair, she removed as much as she needed.
The scene blurred. It was another day, weeks later. She sat outside her family's longhouse. He was watching her work softened strands of cedar, plaiting them together. His blue eyes, legacy from some distant ancestor beyond the land bridge, flickered over her form. Her hands trembled as she worked. Glancing up, she saw a look of satisfaction on his stern face. She was making a whip of cedar, to give into his hand. It was her people's custom for a maiden to yield the power of pain to her husband.
The final twist. She couldn't deny it, couldn't pretend that more work was necessary. She looked up, trying to read the expression in his eyes. He moved closer.
"When you give me that whip, Rising Sun, I will have your leggings down. I will use it to bite into your bare flesh," he told her. "Then you will know, you are my woman."
She swallowed hard, but at the same time, she felt warm, safe, protected. He would punish her, he would use her, he would treat her as the chattel she was, no more than his horse or the amulet about his neck. But he would never harm her, and the light in his eyes told her more than he might have wanted her to know.
She stood, holding the cedar whip in one clenched fist, and held it out to him. "Do it then," she said. She watched him, her coffee-dark eyes looking into his. He took the whip from her and ran the strands through his closed hand. Her mouth opened as if she would speak, but she could not make a sound. She was his now. He would do as he pleased with her.
"Hold out your hands," he commanded her, and Rising Sun held them out to him. Already her body was shaking. She looked at her own hands, and saw they were dark and coppery, much like his bronzed skin. She was not even in her own body. It was someone else's body, someone else's lifetime, and yet, she belonged here. With him, Eyes of Sky.
He tied her wrists with a strip of rawhide, and led her to his own longhouse. Leading her inside, he brought her to a rack with woven blankets hanging over it. Some of the blankets were woven of the same cedar as the whip, but softer, much softer. He bent her over the rack, with a soft, finely decorated blanket under her. He did not tie her wrists to the rack. She understood that she was not to move or cry out.
She felt him lift the soft leather tunic she wore, and pull her leggings down. Now her bottom was bare to him. Her straight black hair fell forward over her face. He stood to her side, a hand on her lower back, and whispered in her ear the ritual words.
"You will be punished, woman, so that you will learn it is I who am in charge."
Every husband said them, but some meant it and some did not. How could she tell which kind of husband he would be? Would he be hard and cold with her, or warm and gentle and loving, as many husbands became after this first, harrowing ceremony? She wanted to turn her head and study his azure eyes, to look for a clue. However, she did not dare to move, so she missed the tender expression that flickered briefly, before he steeled himself to his task.
"I...I understand," she whispered.
He stepped back and took aim, cracked the whip hard against her bottom. She writhed and bit her lip. Crying out wasn't allowed. She fought with herself to remain quiet, as the whip sang through the air and bit into her tender bottom. The sting was overwhelming. She couldn't believe how much it hurt, when the cedar strands had seemed so soft and innocuous in her hands.
Welts were forming, crisscross over her bottom cheeks. Her lip bled where she'd bitten it to keep silent. He laid the whip down, and walked away. Forgetting herself, Rising Sun glanced back over her shoulder. He was mixing something together in a clay bowl. Sea salt and bear grease. Her legs trembled. It would heal her, but she knew it would burn into every raw spot.
He spotted her looking and picked up the whip again. "Did I tell you to watch me?" he asked, whipping her with two vicious slashes. She caught herself before she screamed. "No…no...I'm sorry," she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Be silent," he ordered, and began rubbing the oily mixture on her raw and stinging bottom. She twisted and danced but could not avoid the smart. Tears spilled from her eyes and she shuddered, knowing they were forbidden, too. He stepped in front of her and drew his knife.
The knife slashed through the strip of rawhide, and her wrists were free. Eyes of Sky helped her to her feet. Her knees were shaking, but she stepped out of the leggings. He led her to a bearskin on the longhouse floor, and placed her down on it. "Do not move or speak, unless I tell you to," he commanded her. Wordless, she lifted her dark eyes to his. He saw the tears glinting in the firelight, and for a moment, she feared he would punish her for them. But instead, he touched a fingertip to the teardrop on her cheek, and gently brushed it away. She understood he had overlooked her transgression and she was flooded with gratitude.
He left her then, on his fur-covered pallet, a dreamcatcher hanging over her. She lay awake a long time, the stinging in her bottom giving way to a strangely pleasurable feeling. It was over, and she had survived it. Now the whip would hang over their bed, maybe never to be used again, unless she disobeyed him.
In the dawn he came to her, dressed only in his buckskin loincloth. He lifted her into his arms and gave her water from a vessel made of animal hide. She drank eagerly. He put his hand under her chin and raised her face so that his blue eyes bore into hers.
"Now do you understand, what you will feel if you displease me?"
She looked at him, afraid to speak. He remembered then, that he had demanded her silence, and said, "You may speak now. Your lesson is over."
"Thank you," she whispered. "Yes, I understand."
"Good." He lifted the tunic over her head, and his breathing quickened. He was on her so suddenly that she had no time to think, no time to fear what was coming next. Biting her neck, squeezing her nipples, turgid, between his fingers, casting his loincloth aside to thrust himself into her, heedless of her cry as he took her for the first time. His breathing was harsh, ragged. His hands were under her, gripping her sore bottom, and he fucked her with a savage passion that roused her own. Her nails bit into his sinewy back, her head whipped from side to side, her moans drove him on until she arched up under him, taking him in as deep as he could go. He exploded into her then, and they held each other, shaking with the aftershock.
She wept again when he kissed her. Somehow, his tenderness was magnified by all that had gone before. His hands were gentle now, touching her softly, almost the touch of a different person. He crushed her head to his chest and stroked her hair. "I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too," he confessed, kissing the top of her head. She looked at him again. His face had changed. No longer the stern-faced man with feathers in his hair, he had become the man she loved now, in this life. The one whose ferocity was always, always laced with tenderness and loving.
She woke, sticky hot, her hands tangled in her lover's hair. In the night, his hand had crept between her thighs like a kitten seeking warmth. He felt her stir and his eyes opened. Blue, azure blue, like the man in her dream. "Eyes of sky," she whispered, and he smiled.
"Did you have that dream again?" he asked, his fingertips finding the pool of warm nectar in her crotch. She nodded.
"The same one every time?"
"Yes..." her eyes were unfocused, glassy, still gazing over the dreamscape.
"And did you give me the whip?" he whispered in her ear, rubbing her and watching her tremble, her hips arch upwards to his fingers.
"Yes," she moaned.
"Did I thrash your bare bottom?"
She whimpered, his words bringing her closer and closer to release.
"Yes, yes, you did..."
"And did you love it?" he demanded, leaning over her, his finger sliding into her pussy to the knuckle, then back out again.
"It hurt me," she whispered, and his other hand grabbed her chin, turned her head and forced her to look into his blue flame eyes.
"I asked, did you love it?" his finger on her clit now, circling, rubbing the most sensitive spot.
Yes...YES....YESSSSSS!!!" she screamed out, the orgasm shaking her. He held her, his fingers wringing cries and whimpers and moans from her, until she subsided.
She reached up and touched his face. "Eyes of sky," she murmured.
"Do you think...where we are in your dream, do you think that sometimes the women whipped the men?"
She searched his eyes. Blue heat, burning her, full of longing.
"Would you want that?" she asked, tangling her fingers in his hair and tightening her grip.
"Yes, please," he whispered back, and rolled onto his belly, waiting.
Originally published December 2008