Chapter 9 Checkmate #2
Quin grunted, temper catching. “Why? Because me being bisexual, instead of a lesbian, still caters to the patriarchy somehow?”
Black knight to C6.
“Don’t be childish,” her mother snapped. “You can still eat as much box as you like as a bisexual.”
White pawn to E5.
Smoke huffed from Quin’s nostrils, hoof stamping in offense. “But it’s not true.”
Black pawn to D6.
“No one cares if it’s true, Quin! The truth doesn’t matter; it never has. It’s how you spin the story.”
White bishop to C4.
“It matters to me!” Quin cried.
Black pawn to E5. Pawn captures pawn.
Her mother smiled, a sharp slash across her face. “We all have to make sacrifices.”
White Queen to D8. Queen captures queen.
“Sacrifices?” Quin set her half-drunk tea back on the desk, and the porcelain rattled from her shaking hands, giving her away. “You’re asking me to lie about who I am. And for what? Because men I don’t even know will find me more palatable if they think they have a chance at fucking me?”
Black knight to D8. Knight captures Queen.
“There’s no need to be crude,” her mother sniffed. “I’m just being realistic about the world we live in. A world you have benefitted from your whole life, I might add.”
White knight to E5. Knight captures pawn.
“What if I don’t want to be in this world anymore? What if I want more out of my life?”
Black knight to F6.
“What more could you possibly want, Quin? We have given you everything!” Her mother waved at their surroundings, the lavish furnishings and creature comforts. “The best education, the nicest housing, the most secure financial future. And you still ask for more?”
White knight to C3.
“I just want to be happy,” Quin said, hating how much it sounded like pleading.
Black pawn to E6.
“And happiness comes at a cost!” her mother shouted, raising her voice for the first time. “And I don’t know if you’re willing to pay it. You can’t have it both ways. You don’t get to have everything you want.”
White castles queenside.
“So I have to sacrifice everything instead? How is that fair?” Quin seethed.
Black bishop to B4.
“Don’t be naive. Life isn’t fair, and you know it,” Claryn spat, expelling smoke with every word she spoke.
“Listen to me, and listen carefully. You want to live happily ever after with a woman? Fine! But it will be a woman we approve of. You will break up with Waryn because of infidelity or abuse—take your pick—and you will play the heartbroken, spurned lover until we deem it’s enough. ”
White bishop to B5. Bishop checks king.
“You can’t,” Quin said, even though they could, and panic settled deep in her bones, turning her veins to ice. “I won’t let you ruin him. He’s my friend. He has been nothing but wonderful and understanding, and I won’t let you destroy his life just to get back at me.”
Black king to E7.
Her mother scoffed. “You think too highly of yourself, my dear. It has nothing to do with you and everything to do with our image. You will leave him, not the other way around, and we will give a good reason.”
White pawn to A3.
Quin laughed, though there was nothing humorous about any of this. “Why isn’t my sexuality a good enough reason? Why do we have to destroy his reputation?”
Black bishop to C3. Bishop captures knight.
Her mother smacked a hand on the desk with a loud whack, making Quin jump in her seat.
“Because actions have consequences, Quin. Of all the lessons I have taught you, this was always the most important. You want to be with a woman and ‘live your truth’—or whatever nonsense the woke mob is spouting these days—then you’ll have to live with the price of that privilege. ”
White bishop to C3. Bishop captures bishop.
No, Quin couldn’t do that. She couldn’t ruin Waryn’s life. He was her friend, her ally, her partner. In every way she was capable, she loved him.
“And if I can’t live with it?” she said, voice breaking. “If I won’t?”
Black pawn to A6.
“Then you get the fuck back in line and do your duty,” her mother said, so simply, so casually, like she wasn’t asking Quin die inside.
“You marry Waryn, and, I don’t care if you have to get black-out drunk to stomach it, you will bear his child and give this family an heir.
You still need pussy? Have all you like, but you keep it in the shadows and deities help you if you get caught. ”
She breathed in deeply and picked up her teacup, taking one final, victorious sip. “You toe the line, like all the ones who came before you, and you do it with a smile on your face. Because that is what loyalty costs, my dear.”
White bishop to B4. Bishop checks king.
No, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. But it was. She was trapped, boxed in on all sides, and she was out of moves.
Checkmate.
Her mother waited patiently, hands folded demurely on the desk, a pleasant smile on her face. Tears strangled her, but Quin refused to let them gather in her eyes. She wouldn’t give her mother the satisfaction of making her cry.
“Okay,” she whispered.
“Okay, what?” Claryn Duboi asked, not unkindly.
“Waryn will propose at the party,” Quin replied, every word tasting like despair. “And I will say yes.”
Black king falls.
With a happy sigh, her mother leaned back in her chair. “Excellent. I’m so glad we could come to a compromise.”
If asked what the rest of the conversation that followed was about, Quin wouldn’t have been able to say. She was disconnected from herself, from her body, like she was floating through a dream. Her mother dismissed her at some point, and she left the office.
She spotted the Anura who had brought them the tea standing by the china hutch, inspecting the silverware in the drawers. The moment Quin stepped into view, she shut the drawers and resumed dusting, expression almost challenging, like she was daring Quin to call her out.
“That’s not the real silver,” Quin said, and the Anura narrowed her bulbous eyes. “They keep that locked up. Dorys has the key, though I don’t advise trying to steal it.”
“What’s it to you?” the Anura sneered in a nasally voice.
Quin simply shrugged. “Your funeral, I suppose.”
Sniffing in offense, the Anura spun on her webbed feet and waddled away, grumbling under her breath. Quin didn’t actually care if her parents got robbed—it wasn’t like they couldn’t afford new silver. If anything, she was impressed by the Anura’s gall. Few would risk the wrath of the Dubois.
Not wanting to spend another second in her parents’ home, she closed her eyes and dematerialized in a swirl of smoke and flame, refitting her molecules back together in the study of the home she shared with Waryn. The home she would always share with Waryn, from here on out.
At her sudden appearance, Waryn jolted in his seat, nearly spilling his scotch. He slapped the book he was reading on his lap and scowled at her.
“Really, my dear, do give a man warning. This is a sixty-year single malt, and I don’t want to waste a drop,” he chided lightly, his playful frown sobering into a more genuine expression of worry. “My gods, Quin, what’s happened?”
“I think…” Quin started, breath catching. “I think I’m about to cry.”
An unhinged noise of alarm passed his lips as he hurriedly bookmarked his place and set both the book and the scotch on the side table. “Good gracious, whatever for?”
“I just came out to my mother,” she said, still floating, though she could feel herself coming down, settling back into her body.
Defying color theory, Waryn’s face paled, and he jumped to his feet with another horrified squeak. “Why would you do that?”
Quin moved her mouth wordlessly, and he rushed toward her, cupping her face in his hands. Her sore cheek smarted, and she flinched. Dropping his hands to her shoulders instead, he scrutinized her.
“Your cheek is swollen.”
“She hit me,” she said with about the same inflection she’d use commenting on the weather.
“That absolute witch,” he snarled, smoke billowing out of his nose as his eyes flared with icy flame. “Are you alright?”
“I… I…” She tried several times to say she was fine, but the words strangled her.
He took both her hands in his and led her to the loveseat, guiding her to sit. He handed her his scotch, and she took a burning sip, savoring the heat as it licked down her throat and roared to life in her belly. It sparked feeling back into her extremities, and her hands began to shake.
“Quin?” Gentle fingers cupped her chin and lifted her gaze to his. “Tell me what happened.”
So she did. She told him everything, from the confession of her sexuality to the chamomile tea to the threats against his reputation and social status. By the end, her hands were shaking so severely he had to take away her drink to stop her from spilling it on her slacks.
“I told her we would get engaged at the party,” Quin said, breaths sawing out of her in harsh pants. “Sh-she wants us to marry in the spring. She doesn’t want a drawn-out engagement.”
“Fuck what she wants,” Waryn practically snarled, squeezing her hands just shy of too tight. “She can’t dictate everything. We can have a long engagement if we want. Or we don’t have to get engaged at all.”
Shaking her head in panic, Quin cinched her tail around his forearm. “No, we have to. If we don’t, she will ruin you.”
“I’d love to see her try,” he said flippantly.
“You know what they’re like,” she insisted. “You know what they do. They will shred your credibility and destroy your reputation. You’ll be an outcast.”
The family had done it before. Business rivals, political opponents, officials who refused to be bought off.
No one was safe from the reach of the Dubois.
They would uncover every secret, reveal every skeleton hiding in the closet.
Livelihoods gone up in smoke due to faulty wiring or sketchy tax documents.
Sure, the Dubois didn’t murder in cold blood, but once they finished with you, you’d wish you were dead either way.
“We have to toe the line,” Quin said, every syllable dissolving her tongue like acid. “We don’t have a choice now.”