“Uh.” She looked down at the jamdildos. She did not look pleased by them. She looked… Confused, perhaps? Certainly underwhelmed.
Curse you, Warden.
“What is wrong with them?” I snatched the top garment back, inspecting the seams with a merciless eye. The stitches were as precise as my sutures. Which was to say that they were flawless.
“Is the dildo in here somewhere?” she asked, sifting through the silkiness of the trousers she held. “Is this the wrapping?”
“It is not wrapping!” I informed her. How could she not appreciate the perfection of the jamdildos I had sewn for her? “Tell me,” I said, irritation sawing through the edges of my words, “precisely what is wrong with the jamdildos. So that I may correct it.”
“I just…” She shook the trousers, sending the shiny fabric fluttering back and forth. “Is that it?
“Do you require more clothing to sleep in?” I asked. “I can make more if that is what you mean.”
“Hold on. Clothing to sleep in?” She regarded the trousers, then the top in my hand, as if with new perspective. “Are you talking about pyjamas?”
“No,” I said testily. “I am talking about jamdildos.”
She made a horrible sound, and I felt my whole body sink at the realization that she was going to cry again. The jamdildos I had made her were so bad that they were bringing my bride to tears!Empire help me. Help us both.
But she did not cry. Shelaughed.
It was not a sweet or melodic sound. It was hoarse and loud and every few breaths, she snorted loudly through her nose. She showed all her teeth as she did it, something few good Zabrian females of decent standing would do. Perhaps she knew this, or somehow sensed it, because she slapped a hand over her mouth, covering half her face and muffling the noise. Cycles ago, I would have approved of such a thing. Of the way she hid her mirth. It was only proper.
Not now. Now, I merely wanted her to show herself to me. Fully, and without barrier.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“Do what?” she asked from behind her hand, her shoulders shaking.
“Hide yourself from me.”
Her laughter ceased at once. She let her hand fall.
“Well, neither do you,” she said on a whisper. “You kind of dropped a bomb on me before and then just… ran away.”
“A bomb?”
“Like, a truth bomb.” She put her fists together, then sent them flying away from each other, all while making a dramatickrrrrrsound through her teeth.
Truth bomb.
I actually liked it. Many human phrases – like jamdildos – were stupid. But this one seemed incredibly apt. Sometimes the truth did have the power to explode like a bomb. Leaving us with ringing in our ears and shrapnel in our lungs as we stumbled through the wreckage.
“Well, I am sorry if it was atruth bomb,” I muttered, putting the jamdildos top on the table beside the plate she’d prepared me. “But I could not let you go on under your misapprehension any longer.”
“I understand.” She put the trousers down, too. “I’m sorry I came here without doing enough research. Getting your hopes up about a marriage and then freaking out on you. You didn’t do anything wrong. I actually think it was brave of you to tell me as soon as you did. I ended up talking with the other girls for a really long time. Cherry told me that Silar kept his conviction from her forweeks.”
“Seems to have worked out well enough for him,” I replied sourly, crossing my arms over my bandaged chest. “If I had been a less decent male, then I, too, could have let you believe I was nothing but a normal rancher. Let you begin to build your life with me, let you become attached to me, before I told you the truth.” Something bitter burned. “But I could not.”
So maybe I was not the paragon of Zabrian decency. But at least I tried. Perhaps to my own detriment.
“No. I like it better this way,” Jolene said, her eyes so clear and blue. “I don’t want to start to love someone who’s lying to me.”
Love someone.
Truth bomb. Or at least some kind of bomb went off inside me at her words. Left me reeling, the tentacles of emotions I could not name and had long since tried to bury spilling invisibly out of me. A monster that could end me.
“I’m going to eat,” I choked out, flopping myself so hard into a chair it was a wonder the wood didn’t crack. “You should put those on for bed. It’s late.”
