The Sekhmet Bed by L. M. Ironside

the chest, replaced the necklace with great care to hide the steadying breaths she drew. She would be brave. She would be dutiful through the pain. She would ignore the blood. She would make Thutmose love her. She would. Mutnofret could not have all of him. And anything Mutnofret did, Ahmose would make herself do, too. Even this.
    “ Very well, then.” Twosre stood and began stacking the remains of dinner onto her wooden tray. “I’ll just clear this away. Shall I dismiss the musician?”
    “ No. Leave her here. I would like more music while I…while I prepare.”
    Twosre smiled. It was half pity, half affection. “Good luck tonight, Great Lady.”
     
    ***
     
    Ahmose wore the blue and red necklace. She adorned her arms with cuffs of gold and electrum, bracelets of ivory and faience; she found the box of oils in her bathing room and scented her scalp, her neck, her breasts, the place between her legs. She dressed herself in the finest gown she owned. It was not Mutnofret’s enchanting open weave, but the finest bleached linen, white as the moon. She knotted it tightly; so tightly she could only take small steps, so tightly she could barely bend to do up the knots. But when she looked at herself in her big electrum mirror, the fine, tight linen clung to her body, rounded her hips, pushed her small breasts up and out.
    Then, there was nothing to do but wait.
    She sat uneasily on her bed, squeezed by the gown, and concentrated on the harper’s soothing music. The evening glow in her room deepened, reddened; quickly it faded altogether and her chamber was transformed into a temple of dim dusk-purple. She thanked the musician and dismissed her. The calls of roosting birds replaced the plucking of strings; when the birds had gone to sleep and the floor glowed with stripes of moonlight, the hum of night insects began.
    She waited, still, silent, apprehensive. The shadows slanted by degrees. At last Twosre’s muffled clap sounded outside her bed chamber door.
    “ Come.”
    The door creaked open. Twosre’s thin face peeked around its edge. “The Pharaoh is here to see you, Great Lady.”
    “ Send him in.” She was proud that her voice did not shake.
    Thutmose entered, but his hand stayed hesitantly on the door. Ahmose rose from the bed. His eyes traveled her body. They were lit from without by the moon, lit from within by the same hunger she’d seen when he had gazed at Mutnofret’s body on the lake barge. Her heart quickened.
    “ Come in,” she said.
    He did.
    Thutmose reached her in a few steps; it seemed to Ahmose as if he floated, flew across the distance that separated them. His hands reached for her, stopped in doubt. She swallowed and stepped to meet his hands, fit her shoulders between them so he could feel the warmth of her arms, the shape of her.
    His touch was light, careful. “Are you sure, Ahmoset?”
    She nodded, pulled the wig from her head without stepping out of his touch.
    Thutmose’s hand was at the knot of her gown. In a heartbeat it was undone; the fabric fell away with a sound like a bird’s wings. Her body, freed from the gown’s pressure, felt more exposed than she was prepared for. She gasped.
    Thutmose seemed to take it for excitement, or approval. Before she knew what he was doing, his hands were everywhere, light and sure. They ran down her arms, removed her bracelets, dropped each one to the floor atop the gown. They crossed the span of her shoulder blades, traced down her spine, grazed against her buttocks. A curious heat spread through her; her skin was alive, insistent; her palms throbbed with the beat of her heart.
    He scooped her up, easy as lifting a bow, and laid her on the bed. She stretched along her linen sheets, hot with excitement; she arched to look at him. His hands were at his kilt, undoing it, pulling it away. Naked, he climbed onto the bed beside her.
    Something bumped against her leg. It was hard like a knife’s handle, but silky-smooth. She looked down at it.