seven #3
Nor was it worth attracting the ire of the future Lady Gardiah, should she spurn Mira’s advances.
Because there was something Mira did not wonder about.
She knew Sulim matched her attraction. It was mutual. Magnetic.
The way they gazed at each other from across the dinner table, Sulim often not hearing the other voices asking her something; the conversations that went about two minutes too long before one of them was torn away to do something;
the fearless way Sulim now approached Mira when she needed something from her, not one bit starstruck.
Mira intended to surprise her at her hideaway one foggy morning. Yet when she retraced her steps through the woods and found the barn, she discovered it devoid of life, aside from birds swooping from the rafters. Sulim was either not yet up or had other things to do that morning.
It didn’t stop Mira from helping herself up… after removing her shoes, of course.
Really quite something, isn’t it? Mira sat cross-legged at the table, taking in the sunlight as it attempted to penetrate the fog and fall through the tiny square window in the wall.
She didn’t touch any of Sulim’s things, of course.
Except for one of the books, whose title she glossed over by happening to look to her right.
Ah, there it was. The final proof Mira needed for her biggest hunch.
The Epic of Rollih and Iri didn’t hold a damn thing to some of the greatest julah love stories ever told, but Mira appreciated it for what it was.
Even her mother had a copy of the whole saga in her private office back in the High Temple, and Joiya and Mira were known for debating if the original Basic or Julah translation was more enjoyable,
but Mira never once thought of this homosexual sojourn through pain and passion to be anything but fun.
It reminded her of many of her trysts in the Academy, where she had simultaneously been a heartbreaker and the future wife of half of her classmates.
Even the ones who went on to betroth themselves to men often giggled whenever they saw each other at a party or in the middle of Temple service.
Look at you, Rollih, falling for the fiancée of the governor’s son!
Mira had picked out book four, which was filled with the kind of smut she could get behind.
And there were the dog-eared pages someone had created so she could quickly find the love scenes again.
Forever solidifying the one thing Mira had guessed about Sulim, wife of the heir to Gardiah Estate.
She fancied women, didn’t she?
And what was Mira but a woman?
Chuckling, Mira put the book back where she had found it. When she retreated down the ladder, careful to mind her step, she wished that her sorcery were not suppressed. Because what she would give to offer a proper seduction to the only woman around who deserved it.
“I can’t help it,” Sonall said when he went to bed with his wife that night. “I look at you and think about the things we could be doing together.”
The man blushed when he said it, despite being married for two years—and sleeping with the same woman for as long as they had been engaged. Yet all Sulim felt was sublime nothingness as she was pressured to put down her book and turn off the light.
“But do you think about that even when you are not looking at me?”
she mused, pretending to be reading a rather dry paragraph in this book about julah Houses.
She couldn’t help it. Her curiosity to know more about them had been properly piqued.
Enough so that she ordered a couple of books on the subject, delivered that very day.
He wrapped his arm around her beneath the covers. Despite her sitting up and him halfway to supine, his lock on her was secure, and there was no doubting what he wanted. “You know I do. But… I guess women like hearing it sometimes, huh?”
“Oh, but not too much. We don’t want men sounding desperate.”
“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking or if I should be earnestly taking notes.”
“As if I speak for all women.”
“I don’t care about all women. I care about what you want.”
This time, she was the one blushing. “You know the deal.” As if she had to say that.
“Yes, but, well…” Sonall loosened his grip, allowing her to breathe again. “Is it terrible if it’s my idea sometimes?”
“Must be your time of the month,” she joked.
“What? It’s not yours, is it?”
“No,” she answered. “But I don’t want to get pregnant.”
“You got that procedure before we married.”
“You can call it by name, you know.”
“It’s not a very sexy word when I’m trying to make love to you, for the Void’s sake.”
Sulim pressed her open book on top of her face and folded her hands on her abdomen.
She was acutely aware of Sonall’s presence up against her, the ball completely in her court to do with as she pleased.
Ruminating beneath the printed pages depicting how House Bacquelah made their money, Sulim knew she had to be delicate—both with her husband’s relationship with rejection, and her own half-there desires.
“Start over,” she said, voice muffled by the book.
“What?”
“Try again.”
His body shifted, the covers dipping between them as he remained silent for a few seconds. “That didn’t do it for you, huh?”
“I mean, you’ve got a second chance, don’t you?”
He decided to take it by explaining the exact physiological issue he was having, which would have amused Sulim’s more methodical brain most days… but tonight, that same mind wandered… and didn’t settle on him.
“You make a compelling case,” she said, still muffled. “But not a very romantic one. What’s in it for me?”
“You’re doing this on purpose. Purely to torture me.”
“To be fair…” She snatched the book off her face. “You make it easy.”
She offered him a third chance, and this time, Sonall inhaled a deep breath before trying a more poetic approach, including what he was willing to do for her before she even touched him.
At least he’s not regaling me with promises of how little time it will take or that I don’t have to do anything.
One other man had attempted to seduce her in her life, and that was his argument as to why she should go ahead and sleep with him. Did not work.
Meanwhile, all the women she had been with had to do was be a little aggressive…
Yet when Sulim finally decided to go for it, she already knew that she would rather be doing something else.
And it wasn’t even guilt that pushed her to kiss him, hold him, and stand on the cliff of falling into lovemaking with her own husband.
A large part of her wanted to want him, to want this…
to want a life built together on their own terms and for their own personal gain.
Sulim may have given up her home planet, but she hadn’t been blind to how good it was for her future.
My parents would be relieved to know that I’ve married so well.
Not just in status and fortune, but to a man who loved her.
That should have been enough to placate any part of Sulim that worried she should have followed another path, particularly one of independence.
So, it wasn’t guilt. It was real desire.
But not desire for him, her husband—desire to want this kind of life.
I love him. I really do. If he died tomorrow, Sulim would grieve.
She’d have a hole in her heart. But was it moments like these she’d miss most?
Or when she unexpectedly made him laugh when they passed one another in the hall or watched their favorite show together, only to follow it up with an hour-long conversation about what it meant?
He’s my best friend. I married my best friend. Why don’t I like this more?
That was the rub. She did like it. But in the same way she liked adding fruit to her dessert or taking a moment longer to admire the sunset on a beautiful summer’s evening.
There were other things she enjoyed more. Things she would rather be doing.
“What?” she suddenly asked when he rolled onto his side and gazed at her in the lamplight. Her clothes were barely mussed, but her hair was already stuck up against her pillow. “Something wrong?”
“You’re not into it.”
His accusation took her by surprise. “How would you know?”
“Sulim… the mere fact you said it like that…”
She sighed, gathering the covers around her chest. “Sorry. I have a lot on my mind.”
He didn’t ask what, thank the Void, but he continued to stare at her as if there were things on his mind as well.
In a healthier marriage, they would have talked about what was on their minds, even if they were an entire galaxy apart in meaning. But, deep down, Sulim knew this was not a “healthy” marriage in the traditional sense of the concept.
Which was why it was easy to let him get out of bed without saying anything.
She didn’t track where he went, nor did she care to think about what he was doing.
She merely turned over, facing away from the bathroom door, and turned off her light.
The book was left on her nightstand, right next to her alarm clock and communicator.
It’s like I was never touched at all. She turned off that part of her so easily.
Yet when she closed her eyes, attempting to sleep, her body was suddenly jolted awake when she saw a different image painted on the back of her eyelids.
“Okay, but was she good in bed? / Incredible.”
The montage of all her other lovers played before her in the darkness. Yet nothing kept Sulim awake more than the way Mira often looked at her from across the dinner table.
As if she would eat Sulim for dinner, instead.
Sulim purposely put off sleep, long after her husband returned to bed and started snoring, because she was afraid of what would infiltrate her dreams. More like afraid I’ll enjoy it too much. Some things were not worth upsetting what peace she had achieved in her adult life.
No matter how much fun they sounded.