"He Asked. I Bit Him. I Kissed Him Back."
500 Words
Soria's POV
He took me to town.
No explanation.
No discussion.
Just:
"Today we go to town.
Get dressed."
The particular command of a man who has lived alone long enough that it never occurs to him his instructions require justification.
I got dressed.
Not because I was following an order.
Because the town was part of the plan.
The town meant people.
People meant witnesses to whatever was growing between us.
And witnesses mean the story was becoming real, which meant the mission was accelerating.
That is what I told myself.
We walked into the market and the world rearranged itself.
I have been in the deep my entire existence.
I have sat at the shoreline and watched humans from the dark.
I have studied them through the eyes of Shiatz's spirit friends…
Who came to tutor me in their languages and their customs.
I have understood them intellectually for twenty years.
I was not prepared for what it feels like to walk among them.
The stares came immediately.
Not rude.
Something more unguarded than that.
Men slowing their pace.
Women's eyes moving from me to Grink and back again…
With the specific calculation of people reassessing a man they thought they knew.
Children pointing before their mothers pulled their hands down.
Isn't she beautiful?
The words moved through the crowd in front of us like a wave.
She is like a goddess.
Where did Grink find such a woman?
I kept my eyes forward.
I kept my expression mild.
But I felt him beside me.
Felt the particular quality of his stillness shifting.
Something tightening.
A woman at the clothing stall greeted him with the easy familiarity of someone…
Who has known a man for years and never fully understood him.
"Grink. Is this your new wife?"
He shook his head.
"Soon to be," she added, with the confidence of a woman who reads situations quickly.
He said nothing.
She showed me the clothes.
I tried them.
When I came out of the back room in the first outfit she had selected…
I watched his face.
His eyes changed.
That is the only way I can describe it.
Not the red, that was for violence.
This was something else.
Something quieter and more complicated.
Something that a man who has been alone for fifteen years does…
When he sees a woman wearing something that makes her suddenly, undeniably present.
He paid without asking the price.
He bought more than I expected.
He barely spoke on the walk home.
I watched him from my peripheral vision.
The set of his jaw, the pace of his walking, slightly faster than usual.
As though he needed to get somewhere before he could think about why he was going there.
When we reached the farmhouse he set the packages down.
And then he pounced on me.
One moment he was across the room.
The next his hands were on my arms… and his mouth was on mine.
"I was jealous," he said……
- Writer
