Chapter Thirty-One: Kumbricia on Love, Sex and Adultery

Elphaba wiggled contentedly in Fiyero's arms. "Yero my hero, I don't remember it being that good."

He looked at her against the rising sun and smiled. "We've been up all night."

"We have, haven't we?" She grinned and nuzzled her head against his chest, pulling the blanket up to cover them. "You know what I like most about when we make love, Fiyero?"

"All of it?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I do enjoy all of it. But some parts are more enjoyable than others."

"I think I could've guessed that, based on how you cry out more at certain times."

"Not that! Well, yes, that. But not that, completely. On nights like this, when it's been a long time, or we're just really energetic…"

"It's been a very long time, Fae. And it would've been longer had you not touched me."

"I've been walking for a while, now. What makes you think sex is going to kill me?"

"I just… I needed to be sure. I'm going to be very careful with you, Fae. I can't lose you. I was watching you closely the entire time."

"You what? Even when we were kissing? You kept your eyes open?" Elphaba sat up and glared at him, horrified.

"Well, I…" Fiyero flushed darker than usual. "Just go back to what you were saying about what you like the most."

Elphaba rolled her eyes but leaned back down and rested her head on his chest. "I like it when it's over after the first time that night, and we almost know we're going to do it again, but we're waiting until we've gotten our energy back and all, and I'm lying here, and you're kissing me, and touching me, still. You never expect me to pleasure you in between, but you always do things for me."

"You've been raised in a world where a woman's pleasure doesn't matter. It's not like that so much out here. The only thing missing out here, for most couples, isn't good sex, it's love. I'm always going to hold and kiss you afterwards. Always. Whether we do it again that night or not, which, as we get a bit more mature about things, will most likely be not. That doesn't mean I'm just going to take you, roll over, ignore you and fall asleep."

"We're not like most couples out here, are we?" She knew the answer.

"No. It's different, because I love you and you love me. We chose each other. That happens out here, too, but not as often. There aren't many people to choose from."

"Why not mate with other tribes?" Elphaba propped her head up and glanced at him.

"Well, for a long time, we were constantly at war with other tribes. Recently, our relations with them have been a bit better. There are friendships between them, never marriages."

"Do you think that could change?"

"Maybe. Are you planning on doing something about it?"

"Well, if I'm going to teach people to accept Animals, I may as well teach them to accept each other."

"What does Kumbricia say about accepting people?"

"I don't know. There's only one book, the Kumbricia bible. It says to accept all people, I guess. It doesn't say not to."

"What does it say about having sex without the intention of having children?" Fiyero knew that, in Lurlinist religion, women were never supposed to have taken any method of birth control. It was frowned upon in Unionism, too.

"Actually," Elphaba would not make eye contact, "it's fairly odd. Fornication isn't even frowned upon."

"I wish you'd found this religion before we married."

"Fiyero!" She poked him fiercely in the rib. "It was better this way, at least for us. Why don't you ask me what Kumbricia says about adultery?"

"Why?" Fiyero narrowed his eyes. Of course, he knew she had done nothing, for he'd spent every moment awake with her.

"Because I'm being spiteful."

"What does it say?"

"There's actually quite a lot about sex. Adultery is fine as long as you love the person and they love you and you don't really love your spouse. But that won't be a problem, here. Because I love you."

"And I love you. I don't know about you, especially considering what you just said, but nothing will ever make me unfaithful to you."

"And the same with me, Fiyero. How could you second guess my love for you like that?" She sighed and kissed his chin. "You are… everything to me. I do hate to admit it, but I'd have come out here and married you even if I'd be sitting around being a housewife day after day, because I loved you that much."

This genuinely surprised him. "Really?"

"I don't know, truly. But I know I would, now. After the way you took care of me before, Fiyero, I don't know how I couldn't love you. If it is possible for me to love you more than I did when I married you, I do."

She'd never been this gentle, this honest about feelings that could in some way make her vulnerable, and he loved her all the more for it. "Fae, I… I don't know. I've said I love you, I've said it so many times, but it's more than that, it's… I don't know. You can't even imagine how I feel about you, sometimes… no, all the time. When I thought you might die, I considered suicide…"

"You did not!" Elphaba's eyes widened.

"I did."

"Kumbricia religion is against suicide, I'll have you know." She scolded.

"I don't care what anyone says! I cannot live, sanely, without you." He pulled her close. "I can't. The thought of it scares me beyond belief. Life without you… I'd never handle it, Fae. Never."

"You really love me like that?" She shuddered in his arms and stared in wonder.

"Yes, I do. Of course I do. Why?"

"How? How can anyone love me like that? I understand that you love me. But loving me to the point of… that… to allowing yourself to need me so much you'd die for me, that's not the way I ever thought someone would love me."

"It's why I married you." He couldn't understand how love could be anything else. "Isn't that the way you feel about me?"

She bit her lip. "Fiyero… the way I feel about you… if I were to have to chose my life or yours, I'd chose yours. I'd rather die than go on living without you. But one of us is going to die before the other, aren't we? It happens all the time. If this feeling is what love is, why doesn't every person kill his or herself when their love dies?"

"Because they don't know they've never had it. They may care for someone, Fae, but some people don't love with the strength we do."

"I thought only I loved like that."

"I do, too."

"It's a scary feeling, isn't it?"

He nodded. "You don't know how bad it is. If I ever got that close to dying, maybe you'd know. But you can never know the anguish…"

"Oh, Yero my hero," she curled herself up in a ball and began to cry.

"Fae! Don't do that! What on earth are you crying for?"

She laughed through her tears pathetically. "Because I love you."