He remembered the strange garment that had been placed upon him before an earlier awakening and how he had flung it from him. And he realized now that he was not encumbered by a garment of any sort.
He had felt a little embarrassed before, to be even lightly clad in Janice's presence. But he experienced no such embarrassment now. The woman closest to him was whispering soft words in his ear.
"You were very brave. You did not flinch or draw back when the hornet attacked. I adore men who are very strong, as you are, and completely sure of themselves. What a lover you will make! I have claimed you first and the others can wait. There is no need for them to grow impatient. No one woman could hope to exhaust the capacity for love of a man like you. There will be enough love for all. But I have claimed you first and you I shall have. Now. Kiss me, lover! Hold me close!"
She moved in his arms, and it seemed to him that he was clasping not one woman, but a hundred, each different in her knowledge of the dedicatory arts that can be learned only at Eros' shrine, but each a woman passionate and responsive and by the same token eternally the same.
One woman blending with many, her loveliness dissolving and reforming, but her ardor remaining constant, a living flame.
He heard himself whispering: "I am more human than you seem to believe. The struggle was almost too much for me. Without the solace of love I would not have had the strength to endure."
"You have that solace now," she whispered. "Kiss me, lover. And do not be a fool. All men are little boys at heart. At least, there is a little boy in them, buried deep in their nature—the little boy they once were. In moments of stress and torment that little boy lives again. It does not make them less manly, less sure of themselves when they desire a woman as you now desire me. Make love to me."
It was no longer in Loring's power to resist or to care how completely he abandoned himself to the woman in his arms. His desire, in fact, had already surpassed hers and he could find no fault with her ardor.
It came to him then that this was a real woman. The passion of her had stirred him as he had never been stirred before. He was in a whirlpool of passion. His lips were on her breasts that had swollen with desire; warm, soft, round, dazzling, spheres made for man's pleasure.
Caressing them, he remembered as if from some pre-existence that man's first desire was for woman's breasts, to draw the sweet milk of motherhood. The breasts burgeoning under him now, were incomparable.