Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [47]
There were other stories; worse stories.
I didn't tell them all, but I told enough.
Sidonie listened without saying a word, her face stark with horror, streaked with silent tears. It was the only time I didn't touch her, and I couldn't look at her when I'd finished. "I'm sorry," she whispered. She knelt behind me, wrapping her arms around me, her head on my shoulder. "I'm so sorry.”
I nodded, unable to speak. Neither of us did, not for a very long time. Sidonie held me, so still she might have been keeping a vigil; and mayhap she was. The sun crept across the floor of Amarante's bedchamber and another knot of shame inside me slowly uncoiled.
At length her warm breath stirred my hair. "Does this mean I shouldn't expect you to do wonderful, horrible things to my helpless body?”
A bolt of mortified desire went through me and my mouth went dry. I turned in her arms to look at her in shock. "Are you jesting?”
Her black eyes were bright with a mix of mirth and sorrow. "No.”
"Elua!" I laughed shortly and rubbed my face. "Oh, Sidonie.”
She kissed me, soft and tender; a shower of petals falling. It washed away the last traces of shame, at least for a moment. She cupped my face and regarded me with a deep gaze worthy of Phèdre, then kissed me lightly on the lips. "We'll see.”
No one else had ever reacted that way, with anything less than unalleviated horror and sympathy; not even knowing a tenth of what had befallen me. Until Sidonie did, I hadn't known I'd wanted someone to. Even a year ago, I don't think I would have. But I wasn't the same Imriel who had shorn his own hair in a fit of self-loathing after Mavros took me to Valerian House. In Tiberium, Asclepius' priest had told me to bear my scars with pride. I was learning.
And wrong and doomed though this affair might be, it helped.
I asked Sidonie about it the next time we were together, lying in the afterglow of lovemaking. "All right, then. Tell me. What sort of wonderful, horrible things did you have in mind?”
She smiled, her cheek pillowed on one arm. "Oh, nothing too horrible.”
I traced the neat, sleek curve of her back, imagining the kiss of a flogger, welts arising on her tender skin. "Why?”
"I'm curious," she said simply. "I want to.”
"You're too young." I smacked her nearest buttock lightly.
Sidonie wrinkled her nose in an expression so like her sister's that it did nothing to belie my observation. "You sound like Amarante when she's being instructive." Her voice took on a tone of unearthly calm. "'Sidonie, if you rush too swiftly through all the pleasures Naamah's arts offer, they will lose their savor.'“
I laughed. "Oh, instructive, is it?”
"Well, not as much, now." She smiled again. "It was.”
I ran a lock of her hair through my fingers. It glinted in the light, subtle differences in the hues of gold. "Tell me more about these instructive parts.”
"Give me your hand." Sidonie rolled onto her back. I propped myself on my left arm and she took my right hand, guiding my forefinger to her warm, moist cleft and placing the tip of it on her still-swollen bud. " 'First and foremost, it is important to understand your own pleasure,'" she said in the same imperturbable tone. She rubbed my fingertip against her bud, and moisture gathered and glistened there. " 'Though the pinnacle of pleasure may be gained by many methods, for a woman, its seeds lie always in Naamah's Pearl. This is the ultimate source of your pleasure. That, you must never forget. You see, though I touch you with but the merest tip of one finger, I bring you to—'" Her voice broke and her hand tightened on mine, pressing hard. " 'Ah! There, yes, there.'“
"No!" I was laughing almost too hard to let her finish. "So didactic? Surely not!”
"Not exactly," Sidonie admitted breathlessly.