Chapter 21 #3
That didn't make any fucking sense. "But – Okay, if I had fucked someone else knowing it would hurt you, of course that would make me a shitty person. Sorry, aren't abayan relationships usually monogamous? Or, uh, closed at least?"
"Romantic partnerships are, yes," said Araxis carefully.
"Although it is common for there to be more than two people in a relationship.
But it is different, with virra and sinnenthi.
If I am understood to have adequately… tamed you, then you would not need to look elsewhere for satisfaction.
If I am inadequate, that reflects on me, not on you. "
By all the fucking stars, this culture. Apparently virra weren't capable of empathy either, if their partner's feelings weren't ever expected to factor in to their appetites. I huffed out a breath, pacing away and shaking my head.
"I take it that this is quite different from what you had expected?"
"Yeah," I sighed, "It was definitely not that on Seraphim.
" Of course, anyone who'd been caught stepping out would be subject to public punishment, which varied by ward based on each Shepherd's understanding of the litany, but all of it had been awful.
"I guess it doesn't matter anyway," I continued, veering away from where that train of thought was taking me, "since I haven't fucked anyone else.
But it is a problem if people think that, right? "
"We cannot control what people think, or what the media publishes," Araxis said. "It is a fool's errand."
I didn't like that. I hated thinking that other abaya would look at Araxis as not enough. I hated it, but he was right. What else could we do?
"In any case, it should be better in Xitera," Araxis continued. "And I am not bothered, Sashen. Sometimes, it is better to be underestimated. If those around me believe that I am weak, so be it. By the time they see what we have, I will have strengthened my position."
I watched him, the way he'd squared his shoulders, the upright angle of his chin. He hadn't folded his hands behind his back yet, but I bet that was coming. "If you don't care," I said slowly, "then why were you so upset?"
Araxis blinked rapidly, then fluted out a hard breath, ducking his head.
"Ah, well. You are perceptive. I – Vivith sent the article with a very – self-satisfied message.
I was not upset at the content, although of course it crosses boundaries for what is acceptable, and I am furious that they would use your friend's death for tawdry political ends.
It is rather that I am frustrated with Vivith.
And disappointed. And I suppose I am upset with myself for being so…
hurt by the way they are continuing to behave. "
We'd known this might happen. Araxis had been surprised, when we'd stayed up all night talking about Vivith and Nizanin and the Unbound, that Vivith hadn't tried to be in closer contact; he'd been almost hopeful, although tentative about it – like he was desperately afraid to be wrong.
Like if he didn't hope too hard, maybe Vivith really would take their atonement seriously; maybe they would decide to accept their place in the creche and honour Araxis's leadership.
But of course Vivith would reach out if they thought I was increasingly a liability, that I was acting in a way that was hurting Araxis.
I wondered, not for the first time, if a number of Araxis's problems would just vanish if I went away.
I was certainly a cudgel being used against him, even if I felt, at times, like I was also the structure holding him up, keeping him together.
I just wished I could do more than hold him when people used our relationship to demonstrate his supposed weakness; I wished that they could see him the way I did.
Although –
"So if you lose status when it's implied that I'm fucking other people," I said slowly, "does that mean you gain status if I'm – uh, all over you? That Zivanis sinnenthi was impressed that you had me in hand because I'm a lot. So if I were to be particularly virra at you, would that be helpful?"
Something quick flashed across Araxis's features, too fast for me to track, but from the way he silvered, I had a guess. "I have no interest in playacting like that, Sashen," he murmured, turning back to the display and closing several of the hovering messages and articles.
"Right," I said, "So you don't want me to pretend. And if I'm not pretending – if I do think about touching you and fucking you and making you come all of the time, would showing that be… permissible?"
I watched the shape of Araxis's shoulders as he listened, the just-there tension that sat on the edge of interest and concern. He didn't look at me as he said, "I – Could you give me an example?"
I could give him an example. I could give him many examples.
"So earlier, when we were in that meeting," I murmured, stepping in close behind him, letting one of my hands fall to his hip, "when you were in the middle of all of those niceties, I just kept thinking about how you taste and how I couldn't wait for that creche to leave so I could take you back to bed.
To be clear, that was a fantasy: obviously I had to do language lessons instead.
But if I'm thinking like that, would it be bad if I were to move in a little closer?
Press myself right up against you?" I slid myself in tighter to his side, Araxis's chin tipped down as he blinked rapidly, eyelashes fluttering.
"Or if I kissed you like this –" I let my mouth drift across the soft skin of his cheek, "or if I took your hand and pulled it toward me –"
I took his hand in mine and slid his palm toward my rapidly hardening cock. I spared a brief look at the time on the display, did some rapid calculations, and figured we were okay.
"Sashen," Araxis said, his voice hoarse as he allowed me to move his hand against the bulge in my pants.
"I'm just saying that I've been trying to be very polite and well-mannered," I continued, pressing a kiss against his skin as he shivered next to me.
"But I am, by nature and by training, a bit of a show-off.
And I would be happy to make it clear to every arkathi we meet just how badly I want you, and what it is you do to me.
What you do for me." Then, because I wanted to and because I thought it would make him blush and most of all, because I wanted him to think of us together whenever we were in a meeting with other abaya who were making stupid implications, I murmured, "Can I eat you out in the meeting room? Please?"
Araxis set the datapad down with a clatter, turning his body into mine, his mouth slick and needy against my own as his hand stroked at the outline of my cock through my pants. "You," he said between hard kisses as he nudged me back toward the meeting room door, "are insatiable."
I grinned as he pushed me back against the wall, one of his hands fumbling with the sliding door. "And I'm sure you're just indulging me, huh?"
"Hm." He slid his mouth down the length of my throat, holding me there by the doorway for another moment as he slipped his fingers below my waistband and wrapped them, cool and certain, around the length of my cock.
My hips jerked against him, a breathy moan caught in my throat.
"I would never," Araxis murmured against me.
"But I will take what I want." And then he shoved me into the meeting room and latched the door behind us as I tried not to shiver too much as the rumble of those words caught deep in my belly.
He studied me, there in the meeting room where we'd spent endless hours, and I could see him hesitate, hovering against the sliding door with its opaque squares and its auditory dampeners. As if worried he'd gone too far.
Which was cute. He'd have to work a lot harder than that to startle me.
I smirked, prowling in a little closer. "Is it taking if I'm offering?
" I asked, reaching for the front of his expensive shirt, fisting it in my hand – some part of my brain that was new and that I hated cringed a little at wrinkling it, so I tightened my grip even more – as I tugged him towards me.
I kissed him, his hands falling to my waist and pulling me hard against him as I worked frantically at the ties of his pants.
"Is the door locked?" I muttered with a quick glance at the second door that opened into the hallway.
"It doesn't lock," said Araxis as I yanked down his pants and he stepped out of them, hasty and a little clumsy – uncharacteristic.
"And –" I set my mouth against his neck, wanting to hear him make that same sound – heated and startled in equal measure – that he had in the kitchen; he obliged as I curled one hand around the back of his neck, the other plunging down to trace his wet slit as he stuttered against me, gasping – all heat.
"And is that okay? Does that worry you?"
His breath was ragged in my ear as I slid my fingers up his wet length, his hips pulsing against mine as I worked him. "I am not worried," he breathed. "The – hn, the children are at school. Our creche-mates would knock."
"Speaking of –" I slid my hand up his abdomen, feeling the muscles twitch beneath my fingertips, so that I could take him by the waist and manoeuvre him back toward the table.
"I've got like… thirty minutes before I've got to be at the school.
You can walk with me." I pushed him, jerking my chin toward the table; Araxis obliged, sitting on the edge and I fell to my knees before him, shoving his thighs apart.
"So I guess I'd better make you come quickly. "