Choices (5 page)

What do you know of my beauty?
I
asked, wondering what had brought about this sudden escalation of
activity in our visits.

I saw you
, Dominic said, kissing me,
fondling me, miles away and yet in my room, in my bed.
I was
with you in the dressmaker’s shop
. It was the first time I had
been in front of a mirror since coming to La Sapienza. Dominic had
seen me by hiding in my mind and looking at me there, through my
eyes.

I suppose I should have been angry at his
spying or frightened at having my mind invaded unaware. I had none
of these normal reactions. As Dominic continued to touch me, ever
so gently and skillfully, I knew only pleasure. He was my second
self, my complement; our union was essential, inevitable. However
unorthodox the method of our coming together, violation between us
was impossible.

Besides, we were only taking the logical next
step. We had found each other, had recognized our bond, but had not
had a chance to explore this developing sexual attraction. There
had been that one moment, when Dominic had arrived at my apartment
to escort me to ‘Graven Fortress, but it had been early in the
morning, with a trial awaiting me.

Now it was night, a long Eclipsian night,
with moonrise hours away. I luxuriated in Dominic’s lovemaking,
thinking less and less of the bizarre mechanics of it and simply
enjoying the results.
So you love me only for my body
, I
said.

No
, he said, nuzzling my neck,
I
love your body because it is yours
. He ran his hand slowly
upwards along the inside of my leg, against the smooth skin of my
thigh.
And because it is beautiful. But why do you want to look
like a little girl?
He too had noticed the hair growing in
where I had been removing it, was mystified by the idea of a
hairless adult.
You have the body of a woman
, he said, his
fingers tracing the outlines of my curves.

His words reminded me, through the haze of
sensuality that was clouding my brain, why I had been bothered by
the fact that I was small enough to fit into a thirteen-year-old’s
dress. Dominic was tall, taller than the other ‘Graven, more than a
foot taller than me.
I am too small for you
, I said,
gasping the words out between caresses.
You would be better off
with one of those professionals
. I used the same word the girl
Rosalie had used on my first morning here.

Dominic’s wry distaste was evident even at a
distance.
I would not
. He did something with his hand
between my legs that made me moan.
Do you like that?
he
asked, taking my inarticulate sounds, correctly, as a yes.
You
see, we will manage very well
. His voice rumbled deeper with
excitement.

He pushed against me, where his hand had
been. He was erect, I realized. I could feel the thrust of him as I
lifted and spread my legs, wanting him now, the last fragments of
my rational mind quickly slipping away.

A voice in the room cried out, begging
Dominic not to stop,
Please don’t stop
, and I recognized
it as mine although I was unaware of producing these sounds.
Dominic was on top of me and inside me and I was coming, as I had
not, could not, on Terra, not like this, with total intimacy, body
and mind, so that I experienced some of his pleasure along with my
own.

Finally the voice was still. There was the
sound of my breathing, and his, and, incredibly, the smell of him,
sweaty and clean.
Did I please you?
he asked.

You know you did
, I answered. He
knew what I had felt, had shared in it, mind to mind. That was how
he had done it. He knew how to reproduce the physical acts, how to
create the sensations of sexual satisfaction, of orgasm, in the
brain, even when the body was inaccessible.
Why must you
ask?

Only to hear you say it
, he said. He
was a man, after all, with his vanity like any other.

I have never had such pleasure
. I
gave him what he wanted, what he deserved.
My love
. I lay
quietly, allowing my body to regain equilibrium.
I didn’t know
it could be that good
. He kissed me softly, like a feather
against my cheek, acknowledging my sincerity. We had few secrets,
none of this kind.

A little later I opened my eyes in the dark,
unused to lying on my back. I touched myself between my legs, found
only my own natural moisture. However physical it had seemed, it
had happened only in our minds.

When my aide came in to wake me for moonrise,
I moved awkwardly at first, my legs trembling as in the aftermath
of sex. By the time I had climbed the stairs to the roof, I was
strong again, renewed and invigorated by this great release of
passion.

We prayed to Selene and Artemis, Mani and
Chandra, addressing the reflected sunlight in both female and male
personifications of the moon. I had long since given up my smug
dismissal of the religion as
tripe
. While I will never
accept deities as extant beings, I was beginning to find comfort in
the ritual itself and in the sense of acceptance and community it
brought. Nobody speaks, aloud or in thoughts, at prayers, except
for the words of the ceremony, the sibyl’s calls and our responses.
We are each alone, together.

Dominic stayed with me the entire night, only
retreated a little, to a lower level of consciousness. When I
returned to bed after moonrise prayers and thought for him, his
answer was slightly delayed, as if from a great depth.
I am
here, my love
.

He did not make love to me again. Once was
enough for me, he reasoned, this first time, although I was aware
of his own eagerness for our next session, his thoughts busy with
improvements on so promising a start. Eventually we slept; at least
I did, still sensing him there, a warm, comfortable presence
inhabiting the back of my brain.

At dawn, when I opened my eyes, I looked for
him instinctively. He was gone now, no longer a trace of him
anywhere in my being. But the events of the night were still with
me, coloring my sense of the new day. My body felt different,
retained an impression of the simulated events, as if Dominic had
penetrated my flesh along with my mind. I prayed to Aditi and
Amaterasu, to Helios and Amun-Ra, thanking the female and male sun
deities for their gifts:
crypta
, and also Dominic’s
love.

Later that morning, I lay far too long in the
bath, remembering and reliving, in a trance of first love. By the
time I hurried into breakfast, the entire seminary was nearly
finished eating. People looked away from me, and I could sense,
with my new training, mental shields being put into place.

My high-school ordeal was not yet over.
Drusilla didn’t bother to conceal her thoughts. She leaned close to
her friend Rosalie and addressed her half-eaten bowl of porridge.
“Don’t stop,” she said in a breathless, high-pitched imitation of
my voice. “Oh, please, don’t stop.” The two girls collapsed in a
fit of giggles.

Nobody else said anything or intervened. Even
Matilda was shutting herself away from me. Friendly, easy-going
Tomasz was peeling an apple, sitting slightly turned on the bench,
his back to me. Alicia and Paolo and all the others were so
shielded it was as if they didn’t see me. I could feel the blood
surging into my face, and I wanted more than anything to run out of
the room, out of La Sapienza, back to Eclipsia City. But I couldn’t
do that, not immediately, and I knew I had to face this down.

I stared at Drusilla until she looked up. “Do
you always listen in on adults’ private conversations?” I
asked.

Any shame or, foolishly, apology, I had hoped
to provoke was not forthcoming. “Only when they’re broadcasted
right into my mind while I’m sleeping,” Drusilla said. “ ‘I have
never had such pleasure.’ ” She imitated my voice as before,
smirking at me, then turned to Rosalie who was still shaking with
laughter.

My mind went blank, and worse. In the past
week I had been taught about shields, not just keeping my own
thoughts in, but other people’s thoughts out. Everybody except
Drusilla was dutifully shutting in their own thoughts. I tried to
block hers out, but I was too vulnerable and inexperienced. All I
accomplished was to create a mishmash in my brain, my embarrassment
and anger combining with Drusilla’s spitefulness in a bilious
stew.

Anything I could think to say was idiotic,
less than useless. It seemed that, regardless of my feelings,
Drusilla’s rudeness—more than that, her deliberate cruelty—was no
longer considered wrong. I looked to the others, but they were no
help, ignoring the situation, finishing their breakfast hurriedly
and leaving the room.

I felt much too sick to eat. Breakfast was
over anyway, the kitchen aides removing the uneaten portions from
the sideboard. I turned around, followed the others out the door
and headed in a daze up the stairs to the classroom where I would
be practicing directional thought control. I certainly needed it
more than ever.

On the third-floor landing I collided with a
solid body. Edwige stared down at my bowed head, her face frowning,
her mind, like the others’, shielded. “Amalie,” she said in a
neutral tone of voice, “if you can spare me a few minutes, I must
speak to you.” I knew I was not about to be commended for my
classroom performance.

Once we were alone in her study, Edwige
dropped her shield, although she conducted the entire mostly
one-sided conversation in speech, not thoughts. “That was most
entertaining,” she said, the corners of her mouth bowing in an
angry, upside-down smile. “We were all grateful to have such an
interesting little drama to relieve the tedium of our daily life.”
There was no doubt what she was referring to, and no doubt that
everyone, not just Drusilla, had heard every detail of last night’s
lovemaking.

I wanted to cry, but was too proud to break
down in front of her. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Edwige said. “But he
knew, that arrogant Margrave Aranyi of yours. He had no right to do
what he did. He thinks he can do whatever he likes, because no one
ever says no to him.” Edwige worked herself up into a frenzy, if
such a placid, self-assured person could reach that state. She was
furious at Dominic, resentful as only the powerful can be when they
find themselves in an uncontrollable situation.

All the remnants of my new confidence were
knocked out of me.
He couldn’t have
, I thought. I could
just manage to bear it if what had happened was an unfortunate
accident, the result of living in a situation where intimate
thoughts and words could be overheard by mistake. But if Dominic
had known we were being observed, that my cries and my responses
were being shared by the inhabitants of La Sapienza, and had gone
ahead anyway—if he had shamed me like that it would mean my lover
was not my lover at all, but my enemy.

I felt faint and sat down quickly, hanging my
head between my knees. Edwige’s anger dissipated at my collapse.
Rising and coming around from behind her desk, she made a slight
movement of her head, switching off the full force of her
crypta
so that we could touch without disturbing our
respective electric fields. She put her arms around me, rocking me
like a mother with an injured child. The simple comfort melted away
any remaining self-discipline I possessed, and I broke into loud
sobs, crying a torrent of tears onto Edwige’s large bosom while she
stroked my hair and murmured soothing sounds. “All the Aranyis are
depraved,” she said. “That one, Dominic, is the worst. I knew he
would be trouble from the beginning.”

I remembered the strange scene after my
crypta
test, when Edwige and Dominic had faced each other
like combatants squaring off for a duel. Edwige had told Dominic
then not to visit me. I had thought she meant a literal visit,
Dominic traveling to La Sapienza to see me. But perhaps she had
suspected all along that he might “visit” me as he had last
night.

“Yes,” Edwige said in answer to my unspoken
question. “That’s exactly what I thought. I should have stopped it
after that first time.” It was yet another shock, that Edwige had
known of all those nocturnal conversations. “But I saw how it gave
you confidence,” she defended herself, before pronouncing her own
grim sentence. “I was a fool.”

Eventually I stopped crying. I sniffed and
wiped my face on my sleeve, while Edwige rolled her eyes and sat
back down at her desk. “It’s not as bad as all that,” she said,
probably sorry to have unloosed this storm by her unthinking
sympathy. “If he tries it again, just use your shields to block him
out. You see,” she added, “these lessons do have practical
applications.”

But I love him
, I thought.
I
can’t block that out of me
.

“Love!” Edwige exploded as she read this
thought. “Don’t be such an idiot!” She stood up and came around the
desk again to confront me. It was as if what she had read in my
mind was so ridiculous that she didn’t trust even her powerful gift
to cope, and had to put her face a few inches from mine to get
through to me. “You don’t like being in high school. Then don’t act
like a high-school girl. You’re thirty-five. Act your age.”

My emotions were unbelievable to Edwige. For
me to be experiencing the intensity of first love as a mature
adult, what people usually feel at fifteen or so, seemed
preposterous. She could not fully comprehend how my mental
abilities had isolated me on Terra, where nobody else was gifted.
Paradoxically, I had been cut off from all real intimacy, as I
received the unfiltered, candid thoughts of other people.

Since they cannot read other peoples’
thoughts, the ungifted have no reason to believe others can read
theirs, and consider any unkind thoughts to be concealed if they
are unspoken. But at fifteen, it had been devastating for me to
discover what my girlfriends had felt about me, or what my
sixteen-year-old boyfriend had been thinking as we kissed. And this
problem had persisted, preventing any honest, equal relationship
from developing, denying me love and the support of close
friends.