Chapter Ten – Korr
Chapter Ten
Korr
I’ve read the same line four times, and I still don’t know what it says.
The book is open in my lap, something about mineral deposits in the southern ranges, but I couldn’t summarize a thing I’ve read.
My gaze keeps sliding to the left, past the doorframe, to the living room table where I’ve laid out roses, a piece of cake, and a long velvet box with a diamond bracelet inside.
The roses took me twenty minutes to arrange with my stupid, clumsy fingers.
I moved them three times. The cake is from the bakery in the Narrowhalls.
It has the thick cream frosting that Irrva says humans love.
The velvet box sits next to the plate, angled so she’ll see it when she walks right in. I left a note, too.
I’m an idiot for leaving the earrings at her door.
I set them on the floor, then locked myself in my bedroom, like a coward.
I don’t know if she even opened the box.
I don’t know if she held them up to the light, smiled as she admired them, or tried them on.
The whole reason for giving her things is to see her face when she receives them.
I want to see what she looks like when she finds something I made for her, and I robbed myself of that by being too afraid to wait for her to return from the Narrowhalls.
So, this time I have a plan. The gifts are on the table, my door is open, and I’m sitting in the armchair in my room with my book, pretending to read. When she comes out of her room, I’ll see her. I’ll witness everything.
My fingers tap on the book cover. My knee bounces, and I can’t stop thinking about yesterday morning and how she giggled at the ridiculous stuff I read to her and touched my arm on her way out.
I wonder if she’ll come out of her bedroom wearing the earrings, and my heart starts beating faster.
Seeing her wear something I made would be a blessing.
It’s a daydream, really, and so indulgent.
But it’s not impossible, is it? All women like jewelry.
I close the book, then open it and close it again. It’s so hard to stay still.
I finally hear her door, the scrape of wood on stone, and my whole body goes rigid.
I grip the edges of the book while my eyes stay fixed on the doorway between my room and the living room.
I watch Sorina step out and cross the room, moving with that straight-backed walk of hers, as though she’s decided where she’s going and everything else can get out of the way.
She’s not wearing the earrings.
She stops when she sees the roses, the cake, and the box on the table. She stands there and stares at them, and for one terrible second, I think she’s going to keep walking, just pass right by and out the door.
She doesn’t do that, but she doesn’t smile either.
She frowns instead, her brow drawn tight, and approaches the table carefully, as if the flowers might bite.
She picks up the note with fingers that tremble, reads it, then opens the velvet box and looks at the bracelet inside.
She doesn’t touch it. She just looks, then closes the lid and puts it back on the table.
Is that… fear I see in her eyes? The realization sends a jolt through my chest. Suddenly, nothing makes sense.
Sorina looks up, her eyes find me, and my stomach drops because the look on her face is all wrong. There’s shock and pain, her eyes are wide, and her jaw clenched. Catching me watching her made everything worse.
I get up from the armchair, but before I can take a step she’s already moving.
She walks into my room fast, and I stand there holding my book because she’s never been in here before.
She’s in my personal space for the first time.
She glances at my walls, my bed, my shelves, and then her eyes come to rest on me. She’s furious.
“Why are you giving me gifts? And expensive ones, at that. I never asked you for anything.”
Her voice doesn’t rise. She controls her anger, because underneath it, there is vulnerability that she doesn’t want me to see. I don’t understand where any of this is coming from. I know I’m not an expert when it comes to women, but I’ve never had this reaction before.
“You’re my wife,” I say, and the words stumble coming out.
“I know there’s a distance between us, and I don’t mind that, you can take as much time as you need, but I still want to treat you as my wife.
Gifting you things is my pleasure. You deserve it.
” I’m talking too fast and I can hear myself rambling.
“And it’s not much, really. I make jewelry, it’s a hobby, my workshop is full of pieces, and I’d just love to see you wear some of them. ”
She watches me the whole time I’m talking, but her expression doesn’t warm up. It’s like she’s trying to determine what the catch is.
“Don’t try to trick me,” she says. “I know what it means when men give a woman gifts. A man’s kindness, attention... it’s all a leash. Nothing is for free.”
I understand now. Not the full shape of it, but enough. The trembling hands, the frown, the fear underneath her anger. For her, gifts have never just been gifts. They’ve come with a price, and she’s standing in my bedroom waiting for me to tell her what mine is.
“I expect nothing from you,” I say. “Nothing in return. There are no conditions. I promise you, I have no ulterior motives, and I won’t ask for anything back.”
She frowns and narrows her eyes at me. I can tell she’s trying to fit what I’ve just said into the place where men live in her head, and it doesn’t quite work. She’s not convinced, but she’s not storming out, at least. Not yet.
“All right,” she finally says.
I wait, then ask her, keeping my voice gentle:
“Can I please keep giving you gifts? You don’t have to do anything. It’s just something that gives me pleasure.”
She cocks an eyebrow.
“Fine.”
Then she turns on her heel and walks out of my bedroom, and it’s like the sun walks out with her. The warmth drains from the room, and I follow before I’ve made the decision to, my feet carrying me into the living room because I want to be close to her for a second longer.
Sorina stops at the table and lifts herself on her toes to smell the roses. She breathes them in, and her face softens, just a fraction, only around her eyes and mouth.
“They’re pretty,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Do you want me to take them to your room?”
She looks at me and considers my proposal.
“Yes, please. If it’s not too much trouble.”
I pick up the bouquet, my thick fingers barely closing around the vase, and start the walk to her room.
I’m slow. Every step is a negotiation with my knees, each one catching and releasing with a sound I pretend I don’t hear.
The hallway isn’t long, but it takes me a while to cover it, and I wonder if Sorina is watching me and seeing what I really am – a crumbling golem who can’t carry a bouquet of flowers down a hall without turning it into an ordeal.
I wonder if she thinks I’m old, if the way I move makes her see me as something worn out and used up.
The embarrassment heats me up from the inside, but I push through it because she asked me to do this for her, and if I couldn’t walk, I’d crawl if she asked me to.
I set the roses down on the table in her room, take a breath, then walk back.
When I come around the corner into the living room, I see something that stops me in my track.
Sorina is eating the cake. Her eyes are closed, her lips parted, and she makes a low sound, barely more than a breath, the kind of groan someone releases when they’re tasting something good and doesn’t care who listens.
She doesn’t know I’m here. She didn’t hear me come back, and for two or three seconds, she’s completely unguarded, her face loose, open, and full of pleasure.
My cock stirs. A warm, winding shiver runs through me, and I feel myself getting hard. My body locks with the shock of it. I stand still and try to process it, letting it run through me, enjoying every bit of the thrill it gives me.
This hasn’t happened in months. The calcification took this from me along with everything else, like it took my firm grip, my long stride, and the easy movement of my jaw.
I’d stopped expecting it, stopped even thinking about it, the way you stop thinking about a room you’ve locked and thrown away the key to.
But I’m hard. Right now, standing in my living room, watching my wife eat cake, I’m hard, blood flowing to my cock with urgency. The calcification is losing ground. Whatever is happening to me, whatever she’s doing to me just by being near, it’s pulling me back from the edge.
Sorina opens her eyes and sees me. She smiles, and I realize I need to move, need to act like a normal person, not like a man whose whole world just tilted on its side.
“The cake is good,” she says.
“I’m happy you like it.” After another beat, I ask: “Can I sit with you?”
“Sure.”
I sit across from her and reach for the velvet box. I open it and take out the bracelet.
“May I?”
Sorina extends her hand, palm down, wrist offered.
I place the bracelet underneath and work the tiny clasp with my fingers, bending the metal hook through the loop, and I’m surprised I can do it at all.
My hands have been failing me for months, seizing around tools, dropping stones, and locking mid-task.
But close to her, my fingers aren’t as stiff.
The clasp clicks shut, my fingertips brush her skin, and the contact steadies me the same way it did when I was struggling with the lemonade carafe.
Her warmth reminds the stone in my hands that it used to be alive and flexible.
Sorina pulls her hand back and holds her wrist up, turning it so the diamonds catch the light.
“Pretty,” she says.
“Pretty like you.”
She blushes and looks away. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t brush it off, only turns her face as her cheeks turn a bright red.
We sit together while she finishes the cake, and I don’t talk, don’t move too much, and don’t push for more.
She’s a skittish cat, and any wrong word or sudden shift will send her running.
I can feel how thin this moment is, how easy it would be to break.
So, I keep still and watch her eat, fascinated with the way she breaks off small pieces of cake with her fork and brings them to her mouth, the bracelet glinting on her wrist every time she lifts her hand.
I let myself enjoy this for what it is. A few minutes of her time.
The crumbs she’s giving me. I’m grateful for every single one.