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“Well, I’d better get dressed,” she said lightly, pulling her arm away. “Uh, are there any night clothes for us in the ‘magic’ dresser Brother Jonash pointed out? You know—the one that’s supposed to whisk our dirty clothes away to be cleaned and provide us with fresh ones in their place?”
“Don’t know.” Sev shrugged, his broad shoulders rolling. “Why don’t you check and find out?”
“I will.”
He went into the bathroom and Mia went back to the bedroom.
It occurred to her as she surveyed the room with its large white bed, that she and Sev were going to have to sleep together. They wouldn’t actuallydoanything of course, but it would look awfully suspicious to the Elders if they were watching the camera footage and saw Mia sleeping on the loveseat while her supposed husband took the bed for himself.
Maybe we could pass it off as a form of punishment—getting banished from the bedroom or something,Mia thought, but she rejected the idea almost at once. After hearing the Rules of Conduct, she had the feeling that women were expected to always be in the bedroom, ready and waiting for whatever their husband wanted.
The thought made her shiver again and she couldn’t help remembering the way sex had been with Michael—who was the one and only sexual partner she’d ever had. According to the rules of their sect, any position but Missionary was wrong and shameful, so she’d always been forced to be on the bottom with him on top of her.
There had never been any buildup—their sect didn’t believe in foreplay. According to them, sex was just for making babies, not any kind of sexual pleasure. A woman wasn’t supposed to enjoy it—just submit to it.
Which was exactly what Mia had done—for years and years—as long as she was married to Michael. It had felt so mechanical—so devoid of any emotion. He’d gotten on top of her, pushed himself inside her, shoved in and out a few times, grunted, and then rolled off, rolled over and gone to sleep.
There was no petting or kissing or cuddling before and no pillow talk afterwards. Sex was a bodily function—like eating or drinking or using the bathroom. Mia had always wondered why the secular world made such a big deal out of it.
Then she and Michael had left the sect—(well, he’dsaidthat he left anyway— though she had found out he never really had afterwards.) Mia thought that maybe he had believed their sex life would be different after they left—well, after hepretendedto leave—because it was about that time that he started accusing her of being “frigid.”
“You justlaythere,” he complained. “You don’t even let me know you’re enjoying it.”
“Because I’mnotenjoying it—how could I?” Mia had snapped, stung at his criticism. “It’s notsupposedto be enjoyable—remember? That’s how we were taught.”
“We’re not in the sect now,” Michael had pointed out. “We left them behind—you could at leasttryto make an effort.”
“I don’t see why,” Mia had returned coolly. “You haven’t changed your technique one bit—why do you expect me to change how I react to it?”
Michael’s face had twisted into a snarl and he’d spat, “Frigid bitch!” before stalking off to nurse his hurt ego.
Cursing was another thing that was prohibited by their sect, but both of them had picked it right up after they finally got out.
Too bad we couldn’t pick up the habit of good sex too—if there is such a thing,Mia thought to herself. But she kind of doubted it. What was so exciting about laying there, letting some man pump inside you for a minute or two, and then cleaning up afterwards while he snored on his half of the bed?
Youusedto be excited about it,whispered a little voice in her head.Back before—
But Mia didn’t want to think about that. She pushed the memory out of her head and decided to look for the night clothes they’d been promised by Brother Jonash. She really didn’t want to sleep in her pantsuit—it wasn’t that comfortable, even to wear to work.
She only dressed like she did to try and appear less cute and girly—it was the same reason she braided her hair away from her face and tried to use makeup to cover her freckles and never wore lipstick. Anything to look less like a helpless girl and more like the adult, competent police detective that she actually was.
She opened the drawer Brother Jonash had pointed to and found a pile of limp white clothing. But when she took it out and shook out the pieces, it turned out to be just one set of pajamas and it was sized for Sev, not her. The bottoms were way too long for her and the top would fall nearly to her knees, she guessed. Though she dug around in the other drawers, hoping to find something for herself, there was nothing else.
“Hey, find anything?” Sev’s voice rumbled from behind her.
Mia turned and saw her partner standing there with just a towel wrapped around his lean, muscular hips. It occurred to her that she had never seen his bare chest before and it was absolutelymouthwatering.
He was built like a weightlifter—but not in that gross, over-muscular, veiny way that professional bodybuilders get. He looked more like one of the Marvel superheroes with their shirt off, except his skin was dark red and beaded with droplets of water from the shower.
Mia had a sudden mental image of herself walking over and lapping those beads of water off his six-pack abs…then she pushed the thought away. Where the hell hadthatcome from?
“Did you find any night clothes?” Sev repeated, and she realized she’d never answered because she’d been standing there staring at her half-naked partner, probably drooling like some kind of horny idiot.
“Oh, uh, no—sorry,” she said, finally dragging her eyes away from his incredible body. “Or at least, I found some for you but not for me.”
She showed him the set of limp white nightclothes and Sev frowned.
“Well, that sucks—wonder why they didn’t send any for you?”
