Page 39 of The Exquisite Torment of Loving Your Enemy

“Do you want the list in alphabetical order?” came the voice of the critique cricket. “Or chronological? I could also organise it by theme.”

“Do piss off,” said Osric.

“You look like shit,” said the cricket. It almost sounded concerned.

Osric’s eyebags remained unaffected by his expensive French crèmes. In his defence, it was eleven thirty in the morning. How typical of Fairhrim to force him out of bed at this improbable hour. He was to meet her at noon—a poor choice of time for clandestine meetings, but apparently all of the clinics were in use because of the Pox immunisation push across the Tiendoms, and they must take what they could get when they could get it.

He accepted that he would look like shit, but he refused to dress like shit. Osric pulled on formfitting trousers, because he had a bulge to show off, and swept a rich, claret-coloured overcoat over his shoulders. He stepped out of Rosefell Hall and strode towards the waystone looking well-bred, well-endowed, and fiendishly expensive.

The critique cricket’s parting shot was to call him a Carbuncle. He didn’t know what that was, but it seemed an exaggeration.

When he pressed his tacn to the waystone, Osric equipped himself with a Resolution. The Resolution was that he would not seek to touch Fairhrim for the duration of this session. There would be no weaselling about for permissions to kiss hands or other demonstrations of cretinhood. (If she wanted to touch him, that was another affair; he didn’t see why he wouldn’t permit it. This was a question of his dignity, not hers.)

He materialised at the Deceptive Banana to find Fairhrim already there. She was in a fine white cloak today, like some scientific vestal virgin.

Osric opened his mouth to verbalise this observation, but Fairhrim turned and raised her eyes to his, and her hood fell back, and suddenly, the sun’s only purpose was to illuminate her.

Osric’s tongue flopped uselessly back into his tonsils. No words could describe her anyway, just as no words can capture the loveliness of sunlight upon a petal. Fairhrim reached for his hand with a smile. A flock of doves took flight and scattered the light around them into dappled radiance. The breeze blew; an Aeolian harp rang. He desired to yield his soul to her. Her hand closed around his. His heart moved from its normal place to beat in his throat. She tugged him towards her, as though to draw him into an embrace—

But no. The smile was not for him. It was for the family that had just arrived at the waystone behind him. The grasp at his hand was not to pull him towards her, it was to move him out of the way.

Fairhrim said, “Sorry—he’s always underfoot,” and tugged Osric aside.

Osric’s heart returned to its correct location. He withdrew all of his thoughts about radiance. The doves, as it turned out, were pigeons. Also, he would be keeping hold of his soul,thank you.

They walked to the clinic. Osric slapped his feelings into submission. A Flight of Fancy oughtn’t throw one into such a state of botheration.

Fairhrim was deeply absorbed in her own thoughts and strode along as though Osric wasn’t there.

Osric, who liked to exist, inserted himself back into reality by saying, “I heard what happened to the Færwundor.”

This brought him to Fairhrim’s notice. “It’s horrific. The Dreor knew there’d been intruders and decided to obliterate the evidence. They destroyed the entire place.”

“An impressive bit of fuckery.”

“I’ll pay for any information you might hear about it.”

Osric haughtily expressed doubts that she could afford his fees.

This antagonised Fairhrim, whose glare pinned him to the wall. Osric wished to antagonise her into actually pinning him to the wall—he thought it would feel nice—but he remembered his Resolution: he would not seek to touch her today.

“Obscurantist,” said Fairhrim.

“Tribulation,” said Osric.

“Polyp.”

“Anorak.”

Osric expected more, but Fairhrim walked ahead, and continued to be distracted by something that wasn’t him.

She led Osric into a building liberally plastered over with posters of Platt’s Pox victims, featuring a disturbing amount of pus. Osric grew queasy. Fairhrim, who had been sensitised to these hardships since she was an embryo, strode past them, unbothered. The clinic smelled obscurely of socks.

“I’ve a favour to ask you, before we get started,” said Fairhrim.

“The answer is no,” said Osric.

“I haven’t even asked.”