CHAPTER THIRTEEN
XEL
“We should choose some new clothes for you,” Leesha declared, as I ferried the empty plates back to the kitchen counter. “Come into the living room and we can look through the catalogues on the grid.”
“I need to help my master clean the kitchen,” I said, feeling a little awkward about the statement, after our very frank conversation about the fact that he was not, if fact, my master.
I’d taken quite a risk in saying it, but his growing discomfort with his assigned role had been obvious, and somehow, what would have been a huge insult to most masters had been a reassurance to him.
“I’ll clean up,” my master said, already running water into the sink. “You go pick out some clothes. I meant to do that with you this morning, but we got caught up in dealing with Huckleberry.”
I stood frozen in confusion for a moment. My master wanted me to let him clean up? But a dimari’s role was to… Oh, goodness, this was all very confusing. “Yes, sir,” I said finally, allowing Leesha to take my hand and lead me into the living room.
Bribie was still curled up on the rug, and his tail wagged briefly as we came back into the room. “Has he had dinner yet?” I asked Leesha, and she shook her head.
“You want to feed him? There’s a can of dog food in the pantry.” She smirked as she saw the eager smile on my face.
“I would be happy to help,” I said, trying not to sound too eager about it. But Leesha wasn’t fooled for a moment. “Come on, Bribie,” I called to the munsend. “You want some dinner?”
Given that I was speaking Eumadian, Bribie wouldn’t have understood the word ‘dinner’.
But the encouraging tone of my voice seemed to get the message across, and he sat up quickly, his tail thumping eagerly on the floor.
I headed back into the kitchen and fetched the can, making sure to keep out of my master’s way, then emptied it into the bowl that I saw tucked into the corner near the dining table.
I looked sideways at my master as I did so.
He didn’t want Bribie in the house, but he kept a dog bowl in the kitchen specifically for him to be fed?
Unless Leesha stayed the night far more often than he’d suggested, I suspected there was something else going on here that he wasn’t telling me about.
“Good boy, Bribie,” I said, as the munsend enthusiastically started eating. I returned to the living room, eager to find out what sort of clothes I would be allowed to wear.
“Have you spent much time on the grid?” Leesha asked, patting the sofa beside her and activating her comm.
“No,” I said honestly. “I was never allowed to have a comm of my own. I know how to do basic tasks like ordering food, but not much beyond that.”
“Okay, then let’s start by showing you the ordering system that Hon uses.
” She spent the next ten minutes explaining the various online stores, the transport service that delivered packages several times a day, and how to search for various items or services, showing me the various pages on her comm, while I mimicked her actions to bring up the same page on my own comm, so that I could read them in the Eumadian script.
“Okay, now we need to find out what size you are,” she said next.
“Most comms have a scanning function to help people order clothes.” She fiddled with the options on her comm, then gave me a quick once-over.
“The best way to do this is without your shirt on. It gets better readings that way. Stand up just over there and take your shirt off.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. I had no qualms about nudity in general, but I’d got the firm impression that people in this culture were expected to wear clothes in all but a few specific circumstances.
Leesha smirked, seeming to read my mind. “I’m not trying to come onto you. I just need your measurements for the grid sites.”
It was ironic for her to be trying to reassure me by insisting she didn’t want to sleep with me, but I refrained from pointing that out.
Sex in general, and the sexual services of dimari in particular, seemed to be a taboo subject in this culture, and I didn’t want to inadvertently upset anyone.
There was likely an appropriate time for jokes about the subject, but I wasn’t familiar enough with the nuances of the culture to draw a line between what was funny and what was offensive.
Nonetheless, I took my shirt off, tossing it onto the end of the sofa… just in time for my master to walk into the room, having finished tidying up the kitchen.
He stopped in his tracks, mouth falling open, and he looked frantically from me to Leesha and back.
“Oh, put your tongue away,” Leesha scolded him, though she sounded quite amused at the same time.
“I’m just taking his measurements for some new clothes.
Stand up straight, arms slightly out to the sides,” she directed me.
Then she held up her comm and it projected a beam of red light over my body, running in a slow sweep from my neck to my waist. “Now turn to the side, same again.” I turned, and once more, the beam scanned my body.
“Perfect,” Leesha said, examining the readout on her screen. “You can put your shirt back on. Then you can take off your…” She stopped suddenly, her brow furrowed. “Forgive me for asking a personal question, but do you have underwear on?”
“I’m going to go check on Rose,” my master declared, spinning on his heel and stalking out of the room. A moment later, I heard the front door open and close.
Leesha waited until the door was shut, then she snorted.
“I think we scared him off,” she said, though from her tone, it seemed that she was trying to make a joke of it.
I wasn’t quite sure I understood why it was funny.
I didn’t like the idea of upsetting my master, and while I didn’t think Leesha was the cruel or inconsiderate type, I failed to see how making my master uncomfortable was appropriate.
“It’s okay,” she said, her expression softening when she saw my confusion.
“He’s not angry. Not with you, at least.” Seeing that I wasn’t satisfied with her explanation, she continued.
“After the fire happened, he can get frustrated about things he can’t control.
Or things that are unexpected. I assumed he’d be listening in from the kitchen about what we were doing, but apparently he missed that bit.
So he just needs a bit of space to deal with his own reaction to it.
Give him fifteen minutes or so, and he’ll be fine. ”
That made a certain amount of sense, but I also felt like I was missing something. Was my master not happy about us choosing new clothes? But he’d already said that we should do so. So was there something else he was upset about?
“Are you wearing underwear?” Leesha prompted me, apparently deciding to simply move on.
“Yes,” I said. I waited for her response, honestly not sure whether that was the right answer or not.
Some masters didn’t like their dimari to be overly encumbered with clothes.
Some masters didn’t like their dimari to wear clothes at all.
So far, my master had given no indication that that was the case here.
“Okay, then take off your pants and I’ll scan your bottom half.”
I made a mental note of that, even as I slid the horrible beige pants down my legs. Apparently, in Alliance culture, wearing underwear was generally considered appropriate. Neither my old master nor Dorral had ever said much on the topic, one way or the other.
Leesha scanned me, then I dressed again and took a seat beside her. She scrolled through the options the program in her comm was recommending. “Do you know much about fashion?” she asked me. “Have any particular preferences?”
“I was never taught much about it,” I admitted. “Be it Alliance fashion or anyone else’s.” What I’d been taught about clothing was largely how to use it to seduce people.
“Okay, then let me be your guide.” Leesha seemed to be in her element, chatting about fabrics, styles, summer versus winter colours, and I nodded along, offering suggestions where I preferred one style over another, and contemplating the various different situations that might required different clothing.
Most of my time was going to be spent at the sanctuary, so loose, comfortable work clothes would be best. But Leesha seemed convinced that I would also need some things for casual social events, and also one or two outfits for special occasions.
We were nearly finished when I heard the front door open again, and I looked up as my master came into the room.
“Rose is almost certainly going to calve tonight,” he said.
“She won’t settle and she wouldn’t eat when I offered her some pellets.
I’ve moved her into her own stall in the barn.
We’ll need to check on her every hour or so, to see when she starts going into labour properly. ”
Leesha nodded. “I’ll set an alarm,” she said, immediately switching functions on her comm. “I won’t be going to bed until about midnight anyway, so I can check her up until then. Then we can figure out where she’s up to by that point. I’d most likely expect she’ll be in labour by then.”
“Is there anything you’d like me to do?” I offered, knowing I wasn’t likely to be much help.
My master shook his head. “I appreciate the offer. But you don’t have enough experience to be able to assess her properly. You can come with me when I go to check on her, though, if you’re interested?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, trying to convey my enthusiasm with the response. Getting up in the middle of the night wasn’t particularly appealing, but seeing a new thumbit be born most certainly was.
“How’s it going with the clothes shopping?” my master asked next. He settled into the corner of the other sofa, though he seemed tenser than he usually was.