“I know. It’s just...” His eyes shine, less like black holes, more like molten pools of gold from the reflected light. “It finally feels like we’re progressing as a couple. Doesn’t it?”
“I no longer want to hit you with a poker from the fireplace, if that’s what you mean,” I say, suddenly scared of the implications. Scared of this growing well of warmth within me, combating the former coldness. The distance between us is smaller, somehow, the rooms no longer so big. I’d been mentally preparing myself for eventually going for the sexual part of marriage. I know men can’t shut away their urges as easily as women can. I’ve known that he masturbates facing away from me at nights, because he can’t quite control the rate of his breathing, even if he doesn’t let any cries slip. The sheets also move a little. Each time he’s done that, I wonder, if I was a braver person, if I could help him. Reach over and do something about that arousal. Reach over and let him touch my body at last.
There can be lust and no love. There can be duty, as my body is a duty unto itself. A duty to produce children. Eyes are on us for that, because if I start producing children, then it helps to further bridge the gap. It’s the start of a future none of us thought might happen, because we were so hell bent on hurting each other.
“I used to feel horror. Disgust and shame,” he says softly, stepping closer to me, boots pressing over the blue carpet. Black boots, black pants – they contrast with his bareness. Like a worker stripping down in the sunlight because of the heat. “But how can I be ashamed of someone who gave everything up? How can I be ashamed of someone who tries?”
The words dig deep into my soul, making me inhale sharply. He’s closer now. I shiver in anticipation. He looks as if he wants to say something else, but he stops it completely when he’s close enough to grab me, and I haven’t moved. His eyes roam carefully over my body, and something darkens in his expression.
Before I have time to doubt, to hesitate, I step right up to him, heart pounding. Fighting to stay in the moment, to reach for him, and let him scoop me up in turn, to kiss. It’s not graceful, what we do. It’s born out of hunger. Our lips mash together, and our hands claw for purchase on each other’s clothing. Heat sears a path of lust within me, and my hands plunge down his pants, groping along his dick, wriggling past all of the offending materials covering it. He growls low in his throat, pushing me away from that touch, instead gripping my arms and pinning them above my head, against the wall. My back thuds into it, but the pain is barely noticeable as he works at my lips, pressing his aroused body against mine.
Fuck. How is it possible to want someone, to want something so bad? I strain against his arms, but my strength is nothing compared to his. That sets off a primal need to test him, somehow, to push against this man until I break, or he breaks. His knee digs between mine, wedged up against my crotch, and I let out a small whimper of need.
Thumping resonates through the room. “Desmond? Desmond! Your father wants you!”
Desmond groans against my neck, before withdrawing and shouting, “Just a minute!”
A pause. “You better hurry! He wants you to take Pearl with you as well!” Bobby’s voice comes back as a squeak, followed by rapidly departing footsteps.
“I’m going to murder him,” Desmond grumbles, though I know he’s not. He attempts to kiss me again, but the mood’s killed by now, and he breaks off with the seduction. “Right. We better get ready and see what the hell my father wants.”
9
Desmond
A last minute feast is what he wants. Some distant allied clan has trooped into our territory, and they can’t quite believe that we have a Hartson in our midst, and that she even isn’t a prisoner of war or dead. It’s been a long time since we’ve captured a Hartson. Prisoners tend to be the vassals, and the same goes for the enemy against us. I wanted nothing more than to get right back to fucking my wife, but that mood gradually vanished as again, I’m reminded of what sorrows have been inflicted upon our people.
I do note that my wife’s wardrobe is scarce with clothes, when women usually have them everywhere. My mother’s own selection takes up half the master chambers. I’ve never cared for the fancy things the women wear – they could turn up in rags for all that mattered, but I am aware enough of their petty catfighting to understand that this is a snub against her. Since the servants are supposed to stock her up with better clothes. I ask my mother (in front of father, of course) if I can borrow some of her clothes for my wife. My mother swells up like a bullfrog, about ready to throw a fit, but my father, as anticipated, knocks her opinion away.
“Take as much as you need. Goodness knows the wife’s got too much anyway.”
“I don’t want a – they’re mine,” mother says, though we all know she was about to hiss out Hartson, while Pearl watches from the sidelines, clearly interested in how this little exchange works out. “Just buy clothes of your own.”
“The servants haven’t bothered to provide any,” I say between gritted teeth, “and my wife has nothing suitable to be wrangled up in time for the feast. It would look shameful to us if she ends up at this feast wearing the same outfit as before. People might think we were depriving her.”
“Just take,” father says wearily. I’ll handle your mother, his eyes seem to say, because my mother’s almost apoplectic at this point. “I’ll talk to the servants later to make sure they don’t slip up like this again.”
Leaving the study library, Pearl following behind, I say, “That went well.”
“It did?”
“Yeah. I had to make sure they were both together, or we’d have my mother saying no, then I’d go to my father, he’d say yes, then we get dragged into an hour long argument between them.”
“We don’t have to take your mother’s clothes though,” Pearl says. “I’m already hated. Next thing you know, she’s going to start burning her outfits so I can’t have them.”
“She’ll get over it. You two are similar heights and sizes, and the servants have been neglecting you.” Entering my parent’s room after explaining to the guards what’s up, I let Pearl select the clothes she wants. I stand awkwardly by the door. I haven’t been in my parent’s room for a long, long time.
“I don’t want to get us into trouble because of it,” Pearl hisses. “Danny and Morgan are fairly lax as Graves guards go, but what if someone decides to kill all of us because people aren’t giving me clothes?”
Shit. I hadn’t thought of that. No wonder Pearl kept herself so quiet on the matter. Nothing like the executioner’s axe hanging over your head to compel you to silence or confession. “I doubt they’d commit to a massacre because of some passive aggressive shit,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as her. “It’ll be for something more solid. Like I’m beating you up or you’re being outright abused and tortured.”
“That’s reassuring,” Pearl says, and I sense some sarcasm in her voice.
“Living is reassuring,” I say, which evokes a snort of laughter from her.