Page 137 of The Sun He Buried

It comes open.

“Sól—”

“Don’t.”

I go down into the straw.

It’s cold, and it’s stabbing me through my stockings in four places, and there’s a horse eight feet away doing something wet with its mouth. This is not the version I’ve been carrying around.

Because I have been carrying it around. For weeks. Usually while doing something unrelated—once through an entire conversation about grain.

In none of those versions was it directly in front of my face.

Oh.

I have had this inside me. Twice. I am supposed to know something about this.

It doesn’t help. From down here it’s another thing altogether. It’s heavy, and it moves when I stop holding it, which I did not expect and which I make a small noise about, and I would like that noise back.

Baldr says nothing. Baldr has never said less in his life.

There’s a question forming, and the question is: how.

Just—how. It’s not a small thing. My mouth is not a large one. Nobody has ever sat me down and explained how those two are meant to meet.

The plan was that I’d get down here and it would become obvious.

It is not becoming obvious.

“You don’t have to—”

“If you say one more helpful thing I’m going to bite you.”

His breath goes out.

“Noted.”

Okay.

I hold him at the base, because holding on to something is better than not.

Then I lean in and lick him, from my hand all the way up.

His whole body twitches, and the groan that comes out of him starts somewhere under his ribs.

Oh. He liked that.

Okay. Okay, I can do this. This is completely doable.

Doable.

Ha.

I put my mouth on the end of him and take him in.

That’s it. That’s all I do.

Baldr makes a sound I have never heard him make.