His tone is flippant but his eyes are still sad. I’m trying to think of what to say or do, when he brushes past me and starts walking away.
“Jem!”
He stops and turns back to face me.
“Oh gosh!” I gush. “May I call you Jem?”
He gives me a rueful smile, “Please do, if you call me James, I’ll think I’m in awful trouble.”
I smile back at him. He seems nice. And he clearly needs to feel useful too. I can’t take away his occupation and leave him with nothing to do. That would be beyond cruel.
“Were you formally trained as a vessel?” I blurt.
His eyes cloud with suspicion and I have never seen anyone look more wary, but he nods.
“You have probably heard that I wasn’t.” I stop and blush. “I could do with some tips.”
Guilt niggles at me for betraying my progressive values, but I hate being ignorant. Besides, knowing what Harry expects from me, doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to do it. It merely means I will understand the situation better.
His eyebrows raise in surprise, and he crosses his arms. He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then he finally speaks.
“You want me to teach you how to be a good vessel?” he says, sounding both incredulous and mocking at the same time.
“You’ve been trained,” I answer with a shrug. It really is quite straightforward, I can’t understand his strange reaction to my request.
“I seduced my trainer,” he says slowly and carefully. As if he thinks I am daft.
I gasp in horror. Oh my goodness! That was what got him ostracized from society! This is awful. A thousand thoughts and images crowd my mind as everything clicks into place like a jigsaw puzzle being revealed.
“I know? Very shocking isn’t it?” he says drolly, but I can see the defensiveness in every line of his body.
“No! I mean, yes, but not you!” I hurry to explain. “Your trainer was an adult, it was his profession, and you were what seventeen?” I ask hopefully, but his face is blank. Since vessel training starts on your sixteenth birthday and ends when you are wed at eighteen. I’m really hoping his abuse happened towards the end of his training. “Sixteen?” I add even though I really don’t want to. Jem’s answering flush makes my stomach heave.
“Mr. Richards has never put a foot wrong before or since,” Jem says stonily.
I shudder. I should have guessed it was that horrid man. The look in his eyes when he wanted to teach me how to open myself up, will haunt me forever.
“Mr. Richards is a creep. My cousin Eban had him and I saw how he was changed,” I say, cowardly backing out of sharing my own experience.
Jem looks entirely unconvinced and I’m momentarily distracted by how very pretty he is. We are around the same age but he has a grace and a refinement that I will never achieve. It makes me feel wistful. I shake my head to clear from such shallow thoughts. He is sharing his awful past with me and I’m getting jealous over his looks.
“Anyway, all trainers are creeps.” I continue. “What kind of men choose a career where they move in with a teenager and spend two years teaching them sixty-nine different ways to bend over and take it?” I exclaim in disgust.
I’ve never been more grateful that my parents saw sense and chose not to subject me to that. It’s terrifying to think that Jem’s fate could have so easily been my own.
Jem’s eyes narrow. “Well, I was having so much fun with a dildo, making such filthy noises and arching my back so prettily that he couldn’t resist taking the dildo out and replacing it with the real thing.”
He is trying to shock me. It’s his shield and his weapon. The way he defends himself. But I’m not so easily shocked, not when it comes to matters like this. I’m a healer. I mean, I was a healer. I may have given it up now that I’m married, but my knowledge remains. I may look clueless but I’m not naïve. I know how the world works and I know how cruel dirty old men can be.
“If you stimulate the prostate correctly, anyone who has one is going to become very aroused. It’s biology, not a character flaw,” I announce with determination.
He is staring at me openmouthed now, and my heart is breaking. He has been taught to really, truly believe it was all his fault. And it is so clear that he has taken that lesson to heart and embraced it.
“And I’m willing to bet good money he has done it to lots of his victims, his so-called trainees,” I add ruthlessly. Jem has to be shown the truth. I can’t let him fester in this undeserved guilt anymore, the injustice of it is scalding my soul.
Jem looks incredulous.
Hurriedly I continue my explanation. “I bet he normally withdraws in time. Makes his victim think it was all their fault and graciously agrees to never tell a soul. But with you, he misjudged, and he accidentally tapped you.”
