White Hot Holidays 23: First & Last

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  First and Last

  ISBN # 1-4199-0461-2

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  First and Last Copyright© 2005 Suz deMello

  Edited by Raelene Gorlinsky.

  Cover design by Syneca. Photography by Dennis Roliff.

  Electronic book Publication: December 2005

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Warning:

  The following material contains graphic sexual content meant for mature readers. This book has been rated E–rotic by a minimum of three independent reviewers.

  Ellora’s Cave Publishing offers three levels of Romantica™ reading entertainment: S (S-ensuous), E (E-rotic), and X (X-treme).

  S-ensuous love scenes are explicit and leave nothing to the imagination.

  E-rotic love scenes are explicit, leave nothing to the imagination, and are high in volume per the overall word count. In addition, some E-rated titles might contain fantasy material that some readers find objectionable, such as bondage, submission, same sex encounters, forced seductions, and so forth. E-rated titles are the most graphic titles we carry; it is common, for instance, for an author to use words such as “fucking”, “cock”, “pussy”, and such within their work of literature.

  X-treme titles differ from E-rated titles only in plot premise and storyline execution. Unlike E-rated titles, stories designated with the letter X tend to contain controversial subject matter not for the faint of heart.

  FIRST AND LAST

  Suz deMello

  Trademarks Acknowledgement

  The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

  Clue: Hasbro, Inc.

  Glossary

  Bet Din: group of community elders charged with judging issues

  Chanukah: Jewish holiday, eight days long, commemorating an historical event when Jews (again) narrowly escaped destruction; celebrated by a combination of prayer and partying

  cheder: school

  chuppah: traditional Jewish marriage locale, a decorated canopy under which the ceremony takes place. Symbolizes the overarching presence of God.

  dreidel: a four-sided spinning top used at Chanukah

  ema: mother

  goy: non-Jewish person

  kinder: children

  Kosher: food that is Kosher complies with strict Jewish ritual and law as to its content and preparation.

  latkes: potato pancakes, traditional Chanukah food

  maydel: Shayna maydel, a pretty girl

  menorah: nine-branched candelabrum used at Chanukah

  meshugah: crazy

  mishegass: craziness, insanity

  moil: person who performs ritual circumcisions on male Jewish babies at the age of eight days. These days, usually a pediatric urologist

  shaygetz: non-Jewish man

  shidduch: arranged marriage

  shiva: part of the Jewish ritual of mourning, during which mourners gather in the home of the bereaved and remember the departed.

  shtup: to shag

  yenta: busybody

  yeshiva: secondary school

  zaftig: pleasingly plump, voluptuous

  Chapter One

  New Brooklyn, Luna

  Chanukah, 2114

  Thank God it was the end of the evening. Turning her back on her date, Shayna wiped her mouth on her sleeve and closed the sli-door to seal the pod with a disgusted flick of her finger, then stomped into the kitchen, where the mild aroma of hydroponically grown coffee lingered.

  “So what was wrong with this one?” Shayna’s mother asked, cradling a mug.

  Shayna bent to kiss her mother’s cheek, hiding her blush. She wasn’t going to discuss her date’s make-out style with her ema. “He, umm, he hovers.”

  “He vacuums? Shayna, what are you talking about?”

  “Not Hoovers, ema, he hovers. He practically breathed down my neck when I ate my latkes.” Shayna carried her mother’s empty mug to the sonic cleaning unit. Hoovering didn’t begin to describe what her date did with his mouth. Shayna had considered herself lucky to escape him with her tongue, teeth and tonsils still in their proper places. She liked deep kissing, but spraining her tongue at the root was a no-no.

  “Such a nice boy, and a doctor to boot.”

  “He’d make me meshugah.”

  “You’ll have to go to the matchmaker for a shidduch.”

  Shayna’s jaw tightened as she put the mug inside the unit, then tapped a button. The soni-cleaner hummed. “Please, no. I’m capable of finding a husband for myself.”

  “You’ve been dating since you were sixteen. You’ve gone out with every single man in New Brooklyn, most more than once,” her mother said. “I don’t know what you’re looking for.”

  Shayna’s mind flashed on the image of a tall dark man with smiling gray eyes and a demanding kiss.

  Her mother continued, “This one hoovers, that one’s too short…there’s no alternative. If you don’t marry soon, you’ll have to go live on Earth. You know the rules.”

  Shayna cast a fearful look upward. She’d never been to her home planet, and didn’t want to go. Earth consisted of armed enclaves surrounded by post-Apocalyptic mishegass. On Earth, a Jew was safe only in Beverly Hills, Miami, and Israel.

  Those who’d created New Brooklyn had dreamed of completely safe, wholly Jewish outposts on a pristine worldlet. In exchange for their security, stringent rules governed conduct. Skilled personnel were at a premium, forcing the able-bodied to work and produce young to continue this, their great experiment. At twenty-four, Shayna was pushing the age limit.

  “All right.” She sighed. “I’ll try a shidduch.”

  * * * * *

  Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Dr. Rivka Markowitz was a valued member of New Brooklyn, not merely because she kept the peace and the laws as a member of the Bet Din ruling council, but she played matchmaker. In a small, tight community, the strength of family bonds was crucial. The young men and women who had to marry and bear children while young had to be assured of appropriate mates. Thus, the value of a skilled matchmaker who could create a successful shidduch, an arranged marriage that would flourish.

  The next morning, Shayna tapped at the sli-door of Rivka’s tiny office. The door opened, revealing Rivka’s podlet, cluttered with bones, skulls and other unnerving detritus of the anthropologist’s calling. She sneezed, the dust from the artifacts tickling her nose.

  Rivka, a diminutive brunette dressed in the same silvery Slicksuit everyone wore, looked up. “Ah, Shayna Goldstein. I’ve been expecting you.”

  Grumpy, Shayna moved a stack of infodiscs and sat in the armchair Rivka indicated. “And which of the gossipy yentas infecting this town tattled?”

  “Your ema phoned ahead. She thought it would be polite.” Rivka smiled. “But I’d expected you long before this day. Couldn’t handle the way Harold Mechlin smells, or how Jim Abrams kisses?”

  Shayna burst out laughing. She bet that Rivka was good at her job. She’d put Shayna at ease in the wink of an eye. “I needed a towel, the way he slobbers. And the sucking! I had to check to make sure my teeth were still in place.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’ll get him married somehow,” Rivka s
aid. “All of the emas think that their sons are such princes that they won’t come to me. But everyone ends up here eventually.”

  “Everyone?”

  “Just about. Very few on Luna entrust their futures to a random selection process based on hormones.” Opening her drawer, Rivka withdrew a carved wooden box. “Sometimes they merely want their choice confirmed. Others, like you, can’t quite make up their minds.” She passed the box to Shayna.

  Shayna lifted the lid, then raised her brows. “Tarot cards?”

  Rivka winked. “Most people don’t know the tarot is based on the Zohar, ancient Jewish mysticism. These cards have been modified to receive the emotional and mental vibrations of the user, and have been previously programmed with the identities of all the single folk on Luna. Go on, take them out.”

  The tarots felt peculiarly heavy and greasy in Shayna’s hands. If they were programmable, that accounted for their weight since each card would contain chips or computers of some sort. Dubious, she flipped them through her fingers. They vibrated gently, perhaps responding to her thought waves, or whatever. Sounded kinda hocus-pocus to feet-on-the-ground Shayna.

  “Divide the deck into three on the desk, here.”

  Shayna followed Rivka’s direction.

  “Turn over the top card on each stack.”

  Shayna obeyed. “Colonel Mustard, in the library, with the candlestick?”

  Rivka frowned as Shayna mocked the old and honored game of Clue. She tapped a finger on the first card, which depicted a dark moon beneath a sky full of stars. The Earth, normally a constant companion in the heavens, was absent.

  “You are to go to Farside,” Rivka said.

  “Farside!” A chill zipped up Shayna’s back despite her Slicksuit, designed to keep body temperature stable.

  Rivka tossed the second card at Shayna. It showed a circle of dancers surrounding a menorah. “The Chanukah party at Farside. You will see your intended there.”

  “How will I know him?”

  Rivka held up a third, last card, which depicted a dark man. A head taller than his companions, he regarded them with an air of authority. Another shiver chased the first up Shayna’s spine. This was her mate, her one true love?

  A dark man. Could it be…?

  “Michael Jordan?” Shayna hid her nerves with a quip about the first African-American president of the now-defunct U.S. republic.

  Rivka glared.

  “Sorry.” Shayna shrank back into her seat. “But there are many dark males here. I’m sure Farside is no exception.”

  “Your intended will know you. Few moon children are redheaded, remember?”

  “But who is he?”

  Rivka smiled. “The only possible mate for you.” She shuffled the tarots together before putting them away.

  “But I don’t want to live on Farside!”

  Rivka’s smile disappeared. “Why not?”

  “I want to stay in New Brooklyn. I was born here. This is my home.” Shayna rose to pace, as best she could, Rivka’s tiny podlet office.

  “Apparently it’s time you left the cocoon.” Rivka tapped the top of the carved box. “The programming in these tarots has a reliability factor of over ninety-nine and forty-four one-hundredths percent. I assure you, your mate is correctly selected.”

  “But why do I have to go?” Shayna wailed.

  “‘Whither thou goest, I shall go.’“

  Shayna’s shoulders slumped as she recognized the ancient words from the book of Ruth.

  “It is time for you to commit to something beyond yourself, Shayna maydel.”

  Chapter Two

  Shayna boarded the ziptrain to Farside with both dread and excitement warring in her soul. A quasi-military outpost, the Farside colony, new and primitive, was populated by many peoples, not only Jews. Shayna, born a moon child in New Brooklyn, had never met a goy. She couldn’t be fated to marry a shaygetz, but what Jew would separate himself from his people? More than a religious enclave, their community held life, culture, laughter and, most of all, freedom. Shayna had seen ancient flix of Old Earth, where her people had nearly been persecuted out of existence by the prejudiced. Why would one wish to live among the hateful?

  The ziptrain passed the remains of a burned-out shell of a hut, which Shayna could see clearly through the thick Plexiplus windows. She winced as she remembered what that hut had been—a storage structure, kept separate from the rest of New Brooklyn by their strict rules. A single spark struck from two banging metal canisters had sent the entire hut, which had contained gas cylinders, up to space in a massive explosion. Four people had been lost, blown to bits, including one of Shayna’s cheder friends. The entire community had sat shiva for days, mourning the deceased, yet comforted by the presence of others.

  What Jew would want to separate himself from his people?

  The desolate moonscape outside the train reflected the chill fear in Shayna’s heart. She loathed uncertainty, and until she met her mate, her future was clouded. But she wanted to marry, and not only because she desired to stay on the moon. The truth was, she was just plain horny. Though she was technically a virgin, she knew married couples, had dated plenty, and fooled around enough to realize she wanted to make love. She needed it. She dreamed of it every night, but wouldn’t give herself to just anyone. She was picky.

  Lulled by the train’s smooth movements, her mind wandered to the first time she’d been kissed—really kissed—by a male.

  When she’d turned thirteen and started at yeshiva, the secondary school she attended after graduating from cheder, she hadn’t a clue about what was going on between the boys and girls. The air was constantly charged with a tension she now understood was born of sexual repression. Flirting and gossip about boys had dominated conversation.

  And the prime topic had been Gideon Landers, even though boy had been the wrong word for him.

  Gideon. Tall and dark, broad-shouldered and handsome, with a deep voice at age eighteen, he’d already matured. A Terran, Gideon and his parents had moved to New Brooklyn when the pogroms had wiped out the Jewish community on most of the Atlantic rim. Who knew what he’d seen and done? The girls whispered about the bulge in his Slicksuit, his burgeoning beard…he already shaved, and everyone wondered if he was still a virgin.

  Shayna had tried to ignore the gossip. She’d claimed that he was arrogant, although her day didn’t seem complete without seeing Gideon’s smile, bright against his tanned skin, at least once. So she’d bantered with him, telling him jokes and anecdotes, just so she could see his smile. Years later she’d realized that she’d had a schoolgirl crush on him.

  He’d graduated and joined the Officers Corps, but had returned to yeshiva to talk with students about joining the Corps. She’d been sixteen, and for the first time she’d seen him as a man, and a very sexy one at that.

  He’d asked her out to coffee. They’d stayed late, closing the place down. When it was deserted, he’d pinned her in a chair with his much larger body and kissed her.

  She remembered the strange sensation of someone else’s tongue caressing her lips. Her mouth had opened in surprise, and he’d pushed his insistent tongue all the way in. Because he’d been straddling her and holding her close, she’d felt his heart pound through their Slicksuits. As his pulse speeded up, it seemed to echo her racing heart.

  Everything in her body, every cell, every vein, seemed to ignite with a fire she’d never before experienced. Electricity zipped along her nerve endings. She’d become hot, her armpits had dampened, and sweat had slid along her skin. Though she knew her Slicksuit would convert the perspiration to usable water, she was still embarrassed. Was she supposed to react this way? She’d kissed boys before and this had never happened. Would he see how she was sweating and be repulsed?

  He stroked her neck and the gentleness of his touch disarmed her completely. She’d grabbed onto his shoulders with shaking hands to anchor herself in the tumult of emotion and pushed her tongue back against his.

  He�
��d taken that as some sort of signal and begun to move his tongue inside her mouth in a mesmerizing dance. She didn’t know the tune, but improvisation seemed to be okay with Gideon. Their tongues played together endlessly, it seemed, and she could have kissed him forever. She reveled in his flavor, his unique scent…was it sandalwood? She didn’t know, but she liked it.

  Desire flamed through Shayna’s body, bringing her back to the present. She tugged at her Slicksuit’s collar, opening it. The ziptrain’s recirculated air, a little stale, cooled her but still she squirmed in the seat, driving her wet pussy against the cushions. She was glad that the train’s car was empty except for her, she could have an orgasm right here and now, and no one would know. And it would be easy. Just the memory of Gideon Landers’ kiss turned her on.

  He’d wanted more, had wanted to go further, and had. He clasped her breast, and she thought she’d go right out of her mind when one of his fingers flicked back and forth across her nipple. Even through her Slicksuit, it was the best thing she’d ever felt.

  He’d eased his mouth away from hers to flutter kisses down her neck…oh heavens, was he going to kiss her breast? That would be too much for her. Would the Slicksuit dry out before she went home? How could she explain a big wet spot to her ema?

  She’d pulled away, and he’d bitten her neck. With a yelp, she’d convulsed, driving a knee up and into him.

  “Shit, Shayna!” Gideon howled.

  “You bit my neck!” She’d been outraged.

  “It’s called a hickey, little girl.” He massaged his crotch.

  Stung, she snapped, “Don’t call me a little girl, and don’t do that in front of me.”

  He shot her a resentful look from beneath dark brows. “I’d like to do a lot more.”

  “You’ll never get the chance.”

  After that awkward interlude, he’d left to continue his career in the Officers Corps. She assumed he’d be stationed very far away.