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He took a seat beside the tub, observing me observing the wine. “You may be more inclined to my attentions.”
“But you can make me want you anyway.” And that was the hard truth. So, what did it matter at all?
“Lorieyn, I overreacted.” Elbows to his knees, he leaned closer. “There is so much about this world that you do not understand, and I am unaccustomed to speaking with women in a personal way. The subtleties of female emotional connections contradict the black-and-white of male thinking. In my view, your mother is a woman who gave you away for personal benefit. To you, she was a loving caregiver who did what she thought would be best for a child she had formed an attachment to. Perhaps neither of us are wrong.”
Blinking up at him, I said nothing.
After a sigh, he added, “I want to take you into the city, but I cannot do so….”
Here we go.
This was where he’d tell me I would be locked in his home for a decade. Eyes already welling, my lip shook.
“I cannot risk your safety," he said, starting again, “if you are not aware of the dangers. I am also not foolish enough to assume you won’t try to run. The city is not safe. It is full of humans who would do you harm.”
Perhaps I should drink the wine, inebriate my brain right out of the crushing anxiety. “Run? Where would I go? There is no place for me anywhere.”
The tips of his fingers dancing atop the water, he sighed. “Humans may try to deceive you. Tell you there are ways you could be free of me. Can I trust you not to believe them?”
“You want me to trust you, when you have misled and deceived me my whole life? I don’t know anything about you. I don’t know anything about myself. Right now, I feel very unsafe.” Every last word true, I felt sadness oozing out my pores. “I’m scared.”
“We will take it one day at a time. Maybe even hour by hour.” The general’s thumb came to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Let me earn your trust.”
I wanted to pull away from his touch almost as badly as I wanted to lean into it. Desperate for any form of comfort, even if it came from him, I asked, “How?”
His hand dipped lower, a featherlight touch tracing down my throat. “We mate and get it over with. You will find that the sky is not going to fall and that there is nothing to fear about my body nor yours. The heat will completely subside, and you will feel much better.”
“But for how long?” Because the heat would come back… forever.
Another one of those unusual, careful smiles. “We take it one minute at a time and see.”
“I want to eat first.”
His smile grew warmer. “Of course.”
Already breathing faster, I added, “And I reserve the right to change my mind.”
Standing slowly, he looked at me fondly. “I will leave you to finish your bath. Dinner will be waiting.”
There was no point in lingering in the water after he was gone. If I sat and ruminated, if I ran over all the scary corners of my mental dilemma, I was going to drive myself out of a state of sanity.
Setting the full glass of wine aside so I might face what was coming clearheaded, I climbed out of the warm water, and I dried clinging water droplets from my sizzling skin.
The silky dress, I would not wear again, wrapping myself instead in the large, fluffy towel.
Keeping my hair tied up, a few stray tendrils having escaped near my nape, I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized the frightened, flushed thing staring back at me.
I didn’t like her at all, not when I knew I was so much better than this. Stronger than this.
Smarter.
All could be taken in stride, the inevitable coupling necessary for my health. If I felt better, I would think more clearly. I would feel more inclined toward clear thought if I wasn’t craving something I could not fully name.
To my reflection, I said, “You are not a slave.”
Not to my emotions, not to my fears.
This was a problem no different than the most interesting mathematical equations. One that would require pulling back to stare at the larger picture.
