And I really do not know, either, why she did withhold it. When I was a child, the population of Aztlan was so small and close-knit that my illegitimacy had to have been widely known. An ordinary woman of the macehuali class would have been severely censured and probably chastised if she had borne a bastard. But Cuicani, being sister to the then tlatocapili and later the Uey-Tecutli, hardly had to fear gossip and scandal. Still, she kept me in ignorance of my paternity until that horrific day in the City of Mexico. I can only suspect that she must have hoped, during all the intervening years, that that other Mixtli would someday return to Aztlan, and to her embrace, and that he would rejoice in finding that the two of them had a son.
To be honest, I do not even know why I never, in childhood or later, evinced any inquisitiveness about my parentage. Well, Yeyac and Ameyatl had a father but no mother; I had a mother but no father. I must have reasoned that a situation so self-evident could only be normal and commonplace. Why ponder on it?
My mother would occasionally make a motherly proud remark—"I can see, Tenamaxtli, that you will grow up to be a handsome man, strong of features, just like your father." Or, "You are getting very tall for your age, my son. Well, so was your father much taller than most other men." But I paid little heed to such comments; every mother fondly believes that her hatchling will prove an eagle.
Of course, if anyone at all had ever voiced an insinuating hint, I would have been prodded to ask questions about that absent father. But I was the nephew and the son of the lord and the lady occupying Aztlan's palace; no one with good sense would ever have risked Mixtzin's displeasure. Neither was I ever taunted by playmates nor neighbor children. And, at home, Yeyac and Ameyatl and I lived together in amity and harmony, more like half brothers and sister than like cousins. Or so we did, I should say, until a certain day.
What mainly surprised me was that Yeyac entered, quietly, while my back was turned to the room door, so I did not even know he was there until his hand reached under my mantle, between my legs, and—as if weighing them—gently
parts.
"Do not look so indignant, cousin. I was but comparing."
"Doing what?" I said, mystified.
"I daresay mine must have been as puny as yours when I was your age. How would you like, small cousin, to have what I have got now?"
He raised his mantle, unloosed his maxtlatl loincloth, and there emerged—sprang forth, actually—a tepuli like none I had ever seen before. Not that I had seen many, only those in evidence when I and my playmates frolicked naked in the lake. Yeyac's was much longer, thicker, erect, engorged and almost glowing red at its bulbous tip. Well, his full name was Yeyac-Chichiquili, I reminded myself—Long Arrow—so perhaps the name-bestowing old seer had been truly prescient in this case. But Yeyac's tepuli looked so swollen and angry that I asked, sympathetically:
"Is it sore?
He laughed a loud laugh. "Only hungry," he said. "This is the way a man's is
to be, Tenamaxtli. The bigger, the better. Do not you wish you possessed the like?"
"Well," I said hesitantly, "I expect I will. When I am of age. Like you."
"Ah, but you should start exercising it now, cousin, because it improves and enlarges, the more it is employed. That way, you can be
"Employ it how?"
"I will show you," he said. "Take mine in your grasp." And he took my hand and put it there, but I yanked it back again, saying severely:
"You have heard the priest warn that we should not play with those parts of ourselves. You are in the same cleanliness class as I at The Learning Manners House."
(Yeyac was one of those older boys who had had to start, along with us really young ones, at the most elementary school level. And now, though he had worn the maxtlatl for a year or more, he had not yet qualified to go on to a calmecac.)
"Manners!" he snorted scornfully. "You really are an innocent. The priests warn us against pleasuring ourselves, only because they hope that sometime we will pleasure them."
"Pleasure?" I said, more befuddled than ever.
"Of course the tepuli is for pleasure, imbecile! Did you think it was only to make water with?"
"That is all mine has ever done," I said.
Yeyac said impatiently, "I
my
"And you are very awkward," he said, his voice quavery. "Tighter, boy! And faster! And do not interrupt my concentration."
After another while I said, "This is
I complied, and he lay down beside me, but opposite—that is, with his head near my crotch and my head near his.
"Now," he said, still vigorously stroking himself. "Take mine in your mouth—like this." And, to my amazement and incredulity, he did just that with my small thing. But I said vehemently:
"I most certainly will not. I know your japeries, Yeyac. You will make water in my mouth."
He made a noise like "arrgh!" in a rage of frustration, but without releasing my tepuli from his mouth, or breaking the rhythm of his hand stroking his own, close before my face. For a moment, I feared that he might be angry enough to bite my thing right off. But all he did was keep his lips tight about it, and suck at it and wiggle his tongue all over it. I confess that I felt sensations that were not at all unpleasant. It even seemed that he might be right—that my small organ was actually lengthening under these ministrations. But it did not stiffen like his, it merely let itself be played with, and that did not go on for long enough for me to get bored again. Because suddenly Yeyac's whole body convulsed, and he widened his mouth to gobble into it also my sac of ololtin, and sucked hard at all those parts of mine. Then his tepuli gushed a stream of white matter, liquid but thick, like coconut-milk syrup, that splashed all over my head.
Now it was I who bellowed "arrgh!"—in disgust—and frantically wiped at the stickiness befouling my hair, eyebrows, lashes and cheeks. Yeyac rolled away from me and, when he could cease his gasping and catch his breath, said,
That is why numerous slaves offered themselves to the priests, to be sacrificed to any god—the slaves cared not which—believing they would thus be improving their lot. But flagrant gullibility was not limited to the slaves. A young male
Myself, I never felt the least inclination to self-immolation. No doubt influenced by my irreverent Uncle Mixtzin, I never cared much for any god, and cared even less for priests. Those dedicated to the Mexica's new-brought deities, I found especially detestable, because, as a mark of their high calling, they performed various mutilations on their own bodies and, worse, never washed themselves or their garments. For some while after their arrival in Aztlan, they had worn rough work clothes and, like every other worker, cleaned themselves after a day of hard labor. But later, when they were excused from the work teams and donned their priestly gowns, they never so much as took a dip in the lake—let alone enjoyed a really good purification in a steam hut—and very soon were repulsively filthy, the air around them almost visibly mephitic. If I had ever taken the trouble to meditate on my cousin Yeyac's curious sexual tastes, I probably would have done no more than wonder, with a shudder, how he could possibly bring himself to embrace such an abhorrent thing as a priest.
However, as I have said, it was a long time—fully five years—before I again had occasion to think, and then only briefly, of Yeyac's having made advances to me. I was now twelve years old, my voice just beginning to change, alternating between rumble and squeak, and I was looking forward to putting on my own loincloth of manhood before long. And what happened, absurdly enough, happened just as it had the other time.
As I keep remarking, the gods derive their merriest entertainment from putting us mortals in situations that could
"Again?" she said, herself surprised.
It was my other cousin, Ameyatl. If I have not earlier mentioned that she was beautiful, well, she was. At sixteen, she was more fair of face and form than any other girl or woman I had seen in all of Aztlan, and, at that age, probably at her veriest pinnacle of beauty.