by Robin Roseau
“What happens now?” I finally asked.
“I take care of you,” she explained. “If you can’t stand being with me, we can talk to someone else.”
“No!” I said, holding her tightly.
“All right, darling,” she said. “If you change your mind, or if I think you would be better with someone else, we’ll talk about it.”
“No,” I said.
* * * *
It was a week before I could stand any separation at all. It was another week before she began cautiously taking me out in public, and a third week before we decided I was safe to be on my own.
Chapter Thirteen
“Lady Olivia wants you to visit her at Government House this afternoon.”
“Will you take me?”
“No. You’re ready, Allium.”
I looked down but finally said, “All right.” Then I looked up. “Lisolte, I don’t know what to do.”
“We’re not talking about the meeting with Olivia, are we?”
“No.”
“I don’t know everything she wants to discuss with you,” Lisolte replied. “But she’s going to tell you that you may not have your first challenge until you’re fully free of my influence, and she’s going to tell you it’s a very bad idea to have it with me. Of course, you’re under no obligation to ever engage in practice challenges.”
“I don’t think that’s what I’m thinking about, but it’s probably related,” I said. “Why can’t you come with me?”
“Because you are most definitely under my influence, and you will be for several months. You need to make these decisions for yourself, Allium. You won’t really be able to do that if I’m sitting beside you. You probably can’t make them properly, anyway, but it will be worse if I’m there.”
I moved towards her, my hands at my side, but sort of bumped into her. She wrapped arms around me, and I laid my head on her shoulder. “Lisolte, was I a good pleasure slave?”
“The best, my darling,” she said. “You were the best. I wanted you to choose me even though I feared Claary and Olivia were better choices for you. I’m so honored to have had you.” She held me for a minute then said in a gentle tone, “Allium, you need some distance from all of this to make the right decisions.”
“I know,” I whispered. “I have to go home soon. But when will I ever be back?” I pulled way from her. “It’s not just you. It’s not just how good it felt. You know I already knew how I felt about all of you. I’m going to go back to that…” I couldn’t quite bring up the words. “I love my country. I love Flarvor. I really do. I love my job most of the time.”
“I don’t have answers for you, Allium, but understand that I will always be here for you. One question you have to ask yourself, though: do you want to be a slave? Slaves might help build roads, but they don’t lead road crews. A particularly good slave might check the design someone else did, but they don’t do the initial designs. And right now, I bet you can’t really answer that question, can you?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
“Which means you need time to clear your head.” She pushed me away a little, holding me at arm’s length. I refused to look into her eyes, but she ducked down a little, interposing herself in my field of view. She was smiling. “I think you understand. Now, I want you to talk to Olivia. If you’re not satisfied, then ask her to invite both of us to dinner sometime very soon, and to bring your other friends. We can talk through all of it. I have other things I could say, but I don’t want you to hear them from me.”
“Because of your influence.”
“Right.”
I nodded. “All right. Lisolte, do you love me?”
“Absolutely,” she said. She cupped my cheek. “But you’re not the only person I like. You understand we do things differently here.”
“I know,” I replied. I sighed. “I’ll be fine.”
“This part is hard. It’s hard for all of us. It was hard for me, and I was sixteen. It was only two weeks, and I was so excited. My mother helped me pick someone. She was much older than I was.”
“18?”
She laughed. “She is the younger sister of one of my mother’s dear friends. I don’t know exactly, but upper 30s.”
“And?”
“I still love her, Allium. That isn’t universal, but it’s common. And while I admired her when I asked her to accept me, I didn’t have an emotional attachment.”
“You’re going to make me leave you.”
“And a portion of my heart is going to break, but in a way, it’s like a mother feels watching her daughter go out into the world.”
I laughed. “I’m older than you are.”
“A little, yes, but it’s still like that. Here’s the thing, Allium. This isn’t the end of our story. We will be friends for our entire lives. We’re going to be lovers again, too.”
“We are?”
“Absolutely. If it doesn’t work for you to come here, then I’ll come to Barrish. It won’t be right away. But we’re not done with each other. We never will be. But you need other lovers. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
“Okay. So. I think we should go to lunch together, and then you can meet with Olivia.”
“Okay.”
* * * *
Claary and Judge Jessla were waiting with Olivia when I arrived. Olivia smiled and stepped to me, taking me by the hands. “Hello, Allium. Do we have a kissing relationship?”
“I’d like that,” I said.
We exchanged a little kiss and a long hug. And then Claary was there. She and I greeted similarly. I turned to Jessla. She was sitting but stood and stepped to me. “Do I call you Your Honor?”
“Once we sit down,” she said. “But are you comfortable with Jessla?”
“Are we friends, Jessla?”
“I would like that.”
“I hug my Ressaline friends.”
“Do you also give them little kisses?”
I smiled. And so we also exchanged little kisses and a thorough hug. Then Olivia gestured, and we all took seats, Claary seated on a love seat beside Jessla with Olivia and I in our own seats.
“This time is hard,” Olivia said. “We’ve all been where you are now, some of us much more recently than others. But we all remember.” I inclined my head at that. “You are not the sort of woman to succumb to this.”
“I’m not sure that’s true, Lady Olivia.”
“We have some official business to discuss, Allium, but not quite yet.” I nodded. “It is my judgment that you probably aren’t entirely safe to be unattended in public.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When you return to Barrish, I am going to provide an escort.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“That is probably true, but probably isn’t good enough for me,” she replied. “Are you going to argue with me? I won’t mind at all.”
“She’s serious,” Claary said. “The only reason I’m around is because I argue with her all the time.”
I smiled at that, but Jessla said, “That’s not the only reason, but it is how Claary first came to notice, and that part hasn’t changed. Plus, if you’re able to argue, it means you’re doing better than we suspect.”
“I don’t want to argue with anyone,” I said. “I would appreciate an escort.” I mocked a shiver. “Especially if it involves a heated coach.”
Jessla laughed. “It does, as I’m the escort, and I’m getting too old for winter.”
“You’re going to babysit me?”
“We’re going to come back to that, as it’s part of the official portion of this meeting,” Olivia explained. “Right now, we are three of your friends. I know you are troubled. Even before you knew about all our customs, you were finding our culture intriguing.”
I dropped my gaze but nodded.
“You and Claary have something in common,” she continued. “You both have ways of saying, ‘I am nobody’. She is ‘only a barmaid’. You are �
��only an engineer’. I want to point out that while you may have been partially right, that is no longer true of either of you.” She smiled. “Going to argue?”
“Are you hoping I will?”
“I would love to see that you’re up to arguing, but on this topic? No. But do you agree with me? Perhaps you would like me to explain.” She paused, smiling. “People who are nobody do not attract the attention you’ve attracted. Allium, I don’t know what the future will bring, but I am convinced you are going to be important.”
“The work I do is important, Olivia.”
“It is,” she agreed. “You have the attention of the people in this room. You have a unique relationship with an important trading house of Flarvor. And you have the attention of the king and queen of Flarvor. Maybe that is passing interest, but I don’t believe so, from the things you have said.”
“I like the queen,” I said.
“My time with her was very reserved,” Olivia replied. “I couldn’t really come to any conclusions. That’s a pity.” She grinned. “I’d love if she visited.”
I laughed. “I bet you would. No exceptions?”
“Nope,” she said. “Which means it will never happen. I actually verified that with Queen Lisdee. She will not have someone inside our borders, judging us from a position of ignorance.”
“I guess I don’t blame her one bit for that.”
“It’s not the same decision I would make,” Olivia said. “I am more cautious in these things than she is.”
“It’s rather a bold stance,” I said. “I think, if I were in her position, I wouldn’t have made the same decision, either, but if in yours, I’d fully support the Queen.”
“Sometimes it’s nice to let someone else make the hard decisions,” Olivia said.
“Exactly.”
“But no one in this room is the sort of woman to accept that over her entire life.”
“Is that what this has been about?”
“No. It’s only one point, but I’ve made a variety of others.”
“You have,” I agreed. “You’re giving me a pep talk.”
“I think you need one. Do you know how soon you’ll return to Barrish?”
“Are you kicking me out?”
“No.”
“I’ve tried avoiding asking myself that question,” I said.
“Would you be offended if I suggested a departure in three days?”
“So soon?” I whispered.
“There are two cures to how you’re currently feeling,” she explained. “One is to return to as normal a life as you can. The other is to find casual fun in the arms of another. I recommend both, but you probably need a little more distance before the second is likely to be healthy for you.”
“I don’t know how much of that I’ll find in Barrish,” I said.
“Perhaps more than you realize, if you keep yourself open to possibilities.” She paused. “I know you’re troubled, but right now you need some distance.”
“I know,” I said.
“You have friends here, and you are welcome here. We can also communicate by post. I don’t know that I’ll be back in Barrish with any regularity. But when you want to talk, you have choices. It may not be easy, but you can make it work.”
At that, I nodded.
“All right. Ready for the official conversation?”
“Yes, Lady Olivia.”
“Good. This is a request. We don’t want you to lie about anything that happened here, but at the same time, we’d rather you didn’t offer interviews to the Barrish newspapers.”
I laughed. “I think I understand. No one is going to understand without experiencing it for herself.”
“Correct. What we do here is probably a poorly kept secret. I’m sure it won’t last forever. But if we can make a few allies first, I’d really prefer that.”
“Of course, Lady Olivia. I believe, other than the king and queen, I will simply say I enjoyed my visit and am very much looking forward to the next opportunity to visit my friends. What would you like me to do if asked direct questions?”
“Don’t lie, and perhaps suggest we have some customs most people will find surprising, but suggest judging from ignorance is foolish.”
I nodded. “If I’m even asked.”
“Thank you. Judge Jessla isn’t traveling with you to baby sit you, as you put it. I’d like you to arrange a meeting with the king. Do you think you can do that?”
“I imagine she doesn’t need me,” I said. “I can do my best.”
“Thank you. Also, she is not going as my representative; she carries a dispatch from Queen Lisdee.”
“I have a hard time believing the king will deny an audience,” I said. I looked at the judge and smiled. “I’ll take care of you.”
* * * *
With me bundled against the cold, Lisolte and I walked the streets of Charth. I was astonished to feel so safe. I commented on that.
“Intellectually, I understand,” she said. “But this is how I grew up. Claary has mentioned it, though.”
“I want to thank you,” I told her.
“It has been my pleasure, Allium.” She bumped me. “You were my slave. Perhaps you remember.”
“I remember.”
“You were my first first.”
“You treated me very well.” I laughed. “Maybe next time, you can be my slave.”
“Sure,” she said. “You only have to win a challenge.”
“I didn’t make you win any challenges,” I pointed out.
I did my best to keep a straight face. Lisolte looked over at me as we walked; I could feel her eyes on me. “True,” she said eventually. “You should bring this suggestion to the queen. Tell her you think that after giving yourself to someone for your first, she should give herself back.”
I laughed again. “Is that as bad an idea as I think it might be?”
“She might laugh,” Lisolte said. She didn’t sound at all confident.
I clasped her arm and laid my head on her shoulder as we slowly walked. “I wish I could have it all. My job in Flarvor and a life here. Not even considering the opportunities for fabulous sex, life here feels so liberating.”
“That’s something else I can’t truly appreciate,” she replied. “At some level, I understand intellectually. But I’ve never lived in a fashion I felt repressed.”
“That’s never been a word I’ve really used,” I replied. “It’s just been the way of things.” I thought for a minute. “I shouldn’t complain. I do enjoy my job. I wonder if the queen was serious when she introduced me as her friend.”
“I suppose you’ll find out in a week or so.”
“I suppose I will. Lisolte, could we go home and spend the rest of the evening making love?”
“I’d like nothing more, Allium.”
* * * *
Later, she held me. “You were my first woman,” I said. “And my first owner.”
“And I am so honored.”
“I was your first first,” I said. Then I giggled lightly. “And I believe I was your first Flarvorian.”
She laughed. “You are.”
“Do we taste any different?”
She laughed again. “Entirely. Much spicier.”
“We’re not watered down by snow and ice.”
“That must be it.”
“Lisolte, I love you, and I’ll never forget what you’ve done for me.”
“Allium, I love you, and I will forever cherish the time we spent together.”
* * * *
In the morning, Judge Jessla collected me. I tried very, very hard not to cry.
I failed.
Allium’s story continues in Ressaline: Diplomat
About the Author
A writer by avocation, Robin has a renaissance interest in many areas. A bit of a gypsy, Robin has called a few places home and has traveled widely. A love of the outdoors, animals in general and experimenting with world cuisines, Robin and partner share their home with a menage
rie of pets and guests, although sometimes it is difficult to discern who is whom.
Robin can be reached via email as [email protected]. Robin's web site is http://www.robin-roseau.com.
Works by Robin Roseau
The Madison Wolves Series
Fox Run
Fox Play
Fox Mate
Fox Afield
Fox Revenge
Fox Dish
Fox Lost
Wolf Watch
Wolf Ways
Wolf Women
Fox Fate
Jaguar
Omega Born
Omega Life
Omega Choice (coming soon)
Fox Short Stories
Hunting Pups
Fox in the Water
Fox Rematch (set after Fox Mate and Fox Afield)
Fox Opponent
A Foxy Valentine
Other Books in the Madison Wolves Universe
Familiar
Kitty Cat
Poor Little Witch Girl
Seer
Seer: Thrall
Seer: Guardian
The Selected Series
Collected
Taken
Volunteer
Candidate
Recruited
Galatea
Beginnings
Lottery
Selected Roommate
The Games People Play Series
Stories that ask a simple question: do you want to play a game?
Do You Want to Play a Game?
My Soul to Play
My Soul to Lose
The Five Kingdoms
Privateer
Searching the High Seas
The Pawn Series
Pawn
Bishop
Rook
Queen (Coming Soon)
Ressaline
Encircled (Claary)
Delegation (Allium)
Ambassador
Princess