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I don’t think she does. She’s unconscious of how sumptuous I find her, I think. Of how much restraint I must expend every moment I’m in her presence and what punishment it feels like to have this door between us.
What feels like hours later but is probably only twenty minutes, I hear her feet pad toward the door again.
My breath catches as I step back.
Apparently, not quickly enough because when she opens the door, she gasps in surprise to see me there. “You’re still here. Have you been waiting the whole time?”
I think about disseminating for a moment, then opt for the truth. “Where else would I be?”
She blinks rapidly for several moments, then looks down at the floor. This is when I notice, sadly, that she’s dressed herself as she was yesterday, in the blue pants that outline her legs so deliciously.
I cannot say I am sad about these modern fashions. The pants women wear now leave both so much and so little to the imagination as they detail the entire shape of a woman’s legs. I am entirely entranced by her shapely curves and again must tear my eyes away so I am not caught staring.
“Did you make a list?” I ask.
She notches her chin higher. “I did.” She shoves a piece of paper toward me. I recognize it as the stationary from my desk. The ink is sloppy from my ink pot and not correctly blotted.
I note at the top of the list is modern pens and a journal. Then, a long list of items, everything from a toothbrush and toothpaste to bras and clothing items with numbers and letters beside each that I can only assume delineate sizes but may as well be gibberish to me. I trust that the human fixer will be able to decipher the code.
“Excellent,” I say, waving the paper to help dry the ink before folding it and putting it in my pocket. “Now, shall we take in the grounds?” I hold out my arm to her. My demeanor is calm, but her eyes look behind me, and I realize my damn tail is giving away my happiness at having her so near, whipping back and forth in the air.
Sometimes, it has a mind of its own. With a little concentration, I manage to get control of it. It curls forward, the tip of it settling at the small of Lo-Ren’s back as she takes my arm, urging her forward.
She gasps a little, looking behind her but not pulling away from the touch of my tail. Or my arm. In fact, I might say she tightens her hold of me as we head down the stairs.
We’ve certainly come a long way in a short while.
In no time at all, we’re on the ground floor. I lead her through the large, arched dining room and push open the front of the castle door. I feel pride in leading her across the threshold, which is an unusual feeling for me. Sadistic joy, happiness at the expense of others, nihilistic rage at the pointlessness of life—those are the emotions I’m familiar with.
But this? Pride at having a beautiful woman on my arm who seems to want to spend time with me?
My chest feels weird and squishy, and my throat is a little choked up.
She slept in, and the mid-morning sun is dappled as it streams through the tall trees onto the lake by the castle.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathes out, squeezing my arm a little tighter as she tugs me forward at a quicker pace. I easily keep up with her smaller legs as she hurries toward the lake. It’s summer, but the cool breeze keeps it from being hot.
I’m mesmerized by the feel of her beside me as we head to the edge of the lake.
“The water’s so clear!” she exclaims, looking away from the lake for only a moment to gaze up at me in wonder. Then her eyes are back on the lake. “I didn’t think water could be so clear. Look, you can see the fish swimming!”
I can only stare at her. I’ve seen a thousand fish in my life. But only one of her.
“I never imagined it would be like this,” I say.
Her eyes shoot back to me and get very wide. Searching. “What do you mean?”
I feel my brow furrow. “Taking a consort. I thought I knew all the feelings there were in the world. But you make me feel things that are”—I put a hand to my chest to emphasize the strange sensations she makes me feel there—“new.”
She cocks her head sideways. “Good new or bad new?”
“How can you ask that? You mesmerize me every moment. I never thought a human could bewitch a god, but I am completely under your spell.”
Her eyes search mine, moving back and forth, and for a moment, I swear she’s drawing closer, breathing in and out so deeply that her bosom heaves closer to my chest with her every inhale.
Until she suddenly yanks back and shakes her head.
“I can’t be sure if you’re real. If any of this is real,” she exclaims. “I mean, sometimes it feels so much more real than my old life I left behind. But then you say things like that.”
